I can tell you neither the name of the country, nor the name of the man. It was a long,
long way from here on a fertile and burning shore. We had been walking since the
morning along the coast, with the blue sea bathed in sunlight on one side of us, and the
shore covered with crops on the other. Flowers were growing quite close to the waves,
those light, gentle, lulling waves. It was very warm, a soft warmth permeated with the
odor of the rich, damp, fertile soil. One fancied one was inhaling germs.
I had been told, that evening, that I should meet with hospitality at the house of a
Frenchman who lived in an orange grove at the end of a promontory. Who was he? I did
not know. He had come there one morning ten years before, and had bought land which
he planted with vines and sowed with grain. He had worked, this man, with passionate
energy, with fury. Then as he went on from month to month, year to year, enlarging his
boundaries, cultivating incessantly the strong virgin soil, he accumulated a fortune by his
indefatigable labor.
But he kept on working, they said. Rising at daybreak, he would remain in the fields till
evening, superintending everything without ceasing, tormented by one fixed idea, the
insatiable desire for money, which nothing can quiet, nothing satisfy. He now appeared to
be very rich. The sun was setting as I reached his house. It was situated as described, at
the end of a promontory in the midst of a grove of orange trees. It was a large square
house, quite plain, and overlooked the sea. As I approached, a man wearing a long beard
appeared in the doorway. Having greeted him, I asked if he would give me shelter for the
night. He held out his hand and said, smiling:
"Come in, monsieur, consider yourself at home."
He led me into a room, and put a man servant at my disposal with the perfect ease and
familiar graciousness of a man-of-the-world. Then he left me saying:
"We will dine as soon as you are ready to come downstairs."
We took dinner, sitting opposite each other, on a terrace facing the sea. I began to talk
about this rich, distant, unknown land. He smiled, as he replied carelessly:
"Yes, this country is beautiful. But no country satisfies one when they are far from the
one they love."
"Why do you not go back?"
