“Well, I climbed it that March morning, ostensibly to admire the scenery. As I approached the top I did indeed see walls, and, sitting on a stone, a man. He was hardly more than forty-five years old, although his hair was quite white; but his beard was still almost black. He was stroking a cat that curled on his knees, and he appeared to take no interest in me. I explored the ruins; a corner of them, roofed over, enclosed behind a construction of branches, straw, grass, and stones, formed his dwelling-place; then I returned and stood beside him.
“The view from the hill is splendid. On the right the Esterel hills lift their strange truncated peaks; beyond them the rimless sea stretches to the far-off Italian coast with its innumerable headlands, and over against Cannes the flat green islands of Lérins seem to float on the water, the farther of them thrusting into the open sea a massive great castle, ancient and battlemented, its walls rising from the waves.
“Then the Alps, their heads still hooded in the snows, rear their great bulk and dominate the green coast with its string of villas and white tree-fast towns that at this distance look like innumerable eggs laid on the edge of the shore.
“I murmured: ‘Gad, what a view!’
“The man lifted his head and said: ‘Yes, but when you see it every day and all day, it gets monotonous.’
“So he could speak, my recluse, he could talk and he was bored. I had him.
“I did not stay very long that day, and I did not try to do more than find out the form his misanthropy took. The impression he made on me was that of a man utterly weary of his fellow creatures, tired of everything, hopelessly disillusioned, and disgusted with himself and with the rest of mankind.
“I left him after half an hour’s conversation. But I came back a week later, and once again the following week, and then every week; so that long before the end of two months we were friends.
“Then, one evening in late May, I decided that the moment had come, and I carried up some food to have dinner with him on the Hill of Serpents.
“It was one of those southern evenings heavy with the mingled perfume of flowers that this countryside grows as the north grows corn, to make almost all the scents that women use for their bodies and their clothes: an evening when old men’s senses stir and swoon in dreams of love born of the fragrance of innumerable orange-trees filling the gardens and all the folds of the valley.
“My recluse greeted me with obvious pleasure, and willingly consented to share my dinner.
“I made him drink a little wine, to which he had long been unused; it exhilarated him and he began to talk of his past life. I got the impression that he had always lived in Paris, and the life of a gay bachelor.
“I asked him abruptly: ‘What mad impulse made you come and perch on this hilltop?’
“He answered readily: ‘Oh, because I had the severest blow a man could have. But why should I hide my unhappy fate from you? It might make you pity me, perhaps. And besides … I have never told anyone … never … and I should like to know … just once … how it struck another person … what he thought of it.
“ ‘I was born in Paris, educated in Paris, and I grew up and lived in that city. My parents had left me a few thousand francs’ income, and I had enough influence to get a quiet subordinate post which made me well off, for a bachelor.
“ ‘Since early youth I had led the life of a bachelor. You know what that’s like. Free, with no family ties, determined never to burden myself with a wife, I spent now three months with one woman, now six months with another, then a companionless year, sipping honey among the multitude of girls on offer or on sale.
“ ‘This easygoing manner of life, call it commonplace if you like, suited me well enough, and satisfied my natural love of change and novelty. I lived on the boulevard, in theatres and cafés, always out, almost homeless, although I had a comfortable house. I was one of the thousands of people who let themselves drift through life, like corks, for whom the walls of Paris are the walls of the world, who trouble themselves for nothing, since there is nothing they ardently desire. I was what you call a good sort, with no outstanding virtues and no vices. There you have me. And I’ve a quite accurate knowledge of myself.
“ ‘So, from the time I was twenty to my fortieth year, my life ran on, slow or fast, with nothing to disturb its even flow. They go so quickly, those uneventful Parisian years when nothing ever happens that the mind remembers as a turning-point, those long crowded years, gay trivial years when you eat and drink and laugh without knowing why, and desiring nothing, yet touch your lips to all the savour of life and every kiss that offers. You were young; and then you are old without having done any of the things that other men do, without any ties, any roots, any place in life, almost without friends, without parents, without wives, without children.
“ ‘Well, I reached the fortieth year of my easy pleasant life; and to celebrate this anniversary I invited myself to a good dinner in one of the best restaurants. I was alone in the world; it pleased my sense of what was fitting to celebrate the day alone.
“ ‘Dinner over, I could not decide what to do next. I rather wanted to go to a theatre; and then I was struck with the idea of making a pilgrimage to the Quartier Latin where I studied law. So I made my way across Paris
