George Hérelle's multi-layered relationship with Gabriele D’Annunzio began in 1891 and continued until the early 1930s. For a period of almost twenty years starting in 1892, Hérelle translated two or three of D’Annunzio's works per year (novels, short stories, poetry, theatre). The novels and short stories usually appeared first in Paris newspapers and periodicals, such as Le temps, La Revue de Paris, Revue des deux mondes, La Revue européenne and then later as volumes with Éditions Calmann-Lévy. While some aspects of Hérelle and D’Annunzio's personal and professional interactions have been documented and discussed at considerable length, there are still many questions that remain unanswered. Hérelle claimed insistently that his discovery of D’Annunzio's novels was purely ‘an accident’ and that his subsequent interest in the Italian writer was based on his admiration for his style. The ‘accident’ in question took place in 1891. While on vacation in Naples, Hérelle decided to learn Italian by reading the local press and took a particular liking to Il Corriere di Napoli. Back to France, he subscribed to the newspaper, and it is here that he came across D’Annunzio's novel, L’Innocente, published in serial form. In Comment je suis devenu traducteur, a memoire he wrote in the 1920s, Hérelle reports that without knowing anything about D’Annunzio, just to amuse himself, he began to translate the novel. This memoire contains what we propose to call Hérelle's idealised version of his first encounter with D’Annunzio's writings. Hérelle seeks to present a certain image of himself, that of the scholar whose interests are primarily intellectual. A close examination of his 1895 and 1898 travel diaries reveals, however, another side of the story, one in which he describes quite candidly his ambivalent reactions toward D’Annunzio's personality. His reactions include both a certain admiration and homoerotic tensions. What are we to make of Hérelle's ambivalence and his seemingly simplistic explanation of how he discovered D’Annunzio's novel?