One Evening
The steamer Kleber had stopped and I looked with pleasure at the beautiful Gulf of Bougie that spread out ahead of us. The Kabyle forests covered the high mountains; in the distance the yellow sand edged the blue sea with powdered gold, while the sun fell in torrents of fire over the white houses of the small town.
The warm African breeze wafted the delightful odour of the desert to my nostrils, the odour of that great mysterious continent into which men from the North rarely penetrate. For three months I had been wandering on the borders of that great unknown world, on the outskirts of that strange land of the ostrich, camel, gazelle, hippopotamus, gorilla, elephant and Negro. I had seen the Arab galloping in the wind, like a waving standard. I had slept under the brown tents, in the shifting homes of these white birds of the desert. I was drunk with light, with magic, and with wide horizons.
But now after this final excursion I had to leave, go back to France, to Paris, that city of futile gossip, of commonplace preoccupations, and of continual handshaking. I must reluctantly say farewell to the things I loved, to things so new to me and of which I had barely caught a glimpse.
A fleet of small boats surrounded the steamer. I jumped into one belonging to a young Negro, and was soon on the quay near the old Saracen gate, whose grey ruins at the entrance of the Kabyle town looked like an old family coat of arms.
As I was standing beside my suitcase, looking at the big vessel at anchor in the roads, and filled with admiration at the beauty of the coast, the circle of mountains bathed by blue waters more exquisite than those of Naples, as beautiful as those of Ajaccio and Porto in Corsica, I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.
I turned to find a tall man with a long beard, a straw hat on his head and wearing flannels, by my side, staring at me with blue eyes.
“Are you not my old schoolmate?” he said.
“Possibly. What is your name?”
“Trémoulin.”
“By Jove! You were in my class.”
“Ah! Old chap, I recognised you at once.”
And his long beard was rubbed against my cheeks.
He seemed so glad, so jolly, so happy to see me that in an outburst of friendliness I squeezed both hands of my former schoolfellow and felt very pleased to meet him again.
For four years Trémoulin had been my greatest friend at school. In those days his tall, thin body seemed to carry an over-heavy head, a large, round head that bent his neck first to the right, then to the left, and crushed the narrow chest of the long-legged schoolboy.
Trémoulin was the great prize-winner of our class: he was very intelligent, gifted with marvellous facility, a rare suppleness of mind and an instinctive leaning towards literature. We were quite convinced at college that he would turn out a celebrated man, a poet no doubt, for he wrote poetry and was full of ingeniously sentimental ideas. His father, who was a chemist in the Panthéon district, was not considered well off.
As soon as he had taken his Bachelor’s degree I lost sight of him.
“What are you doing here?” I exclaimed.
He replied, smiling: “I am a settler.”
“Bah! You are busy growing things?”
“I gather in the crops, too.”
“Of what?”
“Of grapes, from which I make wine.”
“You are successful?”
“Very.”
“So much the better, old chap.”
“Were you going to an hotel?”
“Of course.”
“Well, then, you must come home with me instead.”
“But …”
“That’s settled.”
And he said to the young Negro who was watching us: “Home, Ali.”
Ali replied: “Yes, sir,” and started running with my suitcase on his shoulder, raising the dust with his black feet.
Trémoulin caught hold of my arm and led me off. First he asked questions about my journey, my impressions, and seemed to like me better than ever for my enthusiastic reply. His home was an old Moorish house with an inner courtyard, having no windows on the street and dominated by a terrace which, in its turn, dominated those of the neighbouring houses, the gulf, the forests, the mountains, and the sea.
I exclaimed: “Ah! That’s the real thing, the East casts its spell over me in this spot. What a lucky dog you are to live here! What nights you must spend on the terrace! Do you sleep there?”
“Yes, in summer. We will go up this evening. Do you like fishing?”
“What kind?”
“Fishing by torchlight.”
“Yes. I love it.”
“Well, we’ll go after dinner, then come back and have cool drinks on the roof.”
After I had had a bath, he took me to see the captivating Kabyle town, a real cascade of
