André Maurois, a classic of 20th-century French literature—a novelist and essayist, an astonishingly erudite writer—author of famous “novelized biographies” of Dumas, Balzac, Hugo, Byron, Turgenev, Chopin, and many others, is considered a true master of psychological prose. His late novel, “September Roses,” in which the author again explores the subtlest shades of human passions, is in no way inferior to the “Letters to a Stranger” and “The Caprices of Love” so beloved by Russian readers. The hero of “September Roses” is not very young, but extremely successful writer Guillaume Fontaine, whose books have captivated all of France. In his life—so carefully arranged by a caring and jealous wife—everything runs its course, yet something is missing: the miracle of love, thanks to which autumn will become spring again and in September the roses will bloom…