Jean wept bitterly, but he still admired beautiful things, and still blessed his life.  Sometimes he thought that the frailty of what is beautiful and the brevity of what is good adds value to the beauty and goodness of all things.

II

One day he learned by chance that the red earth of his field was an excellent clay.  He took a little of it in his hand, moistened it with water from his well, and fashioned a simple vase, while he thought of those beautiful girls who are like the ancient Greek jars, at once round and slender.

The earth in his field was, indeed, excellent clay.

* * * * *

He built himself a potter’s wheel.  With his own hands, and with his clay, he built a furnace against the wall of his house, and he set himself to making little pots to hold raspberries.

He became skilful at this work, and all the gardeners round about came to him to provide themselves with these light, porous pots, of a beautiful red hue, round and slender, wherein the raspberries could be heaped without crushing them, and where they slept under the shelter of a green leaf.

The leaf, the pot, the raspberries, these enchanted everybody by their form and color; and the buyers in the city market would have no berries save those which were sold in Jean the potter’s round and slender pots.

Now more than ever the beautiful girls visited Jean’s field.

Now they brought baskets of woven reeds in which they piled the empty pots, red and fresh.  But now Jean observed them without desire.  His heart was forevermore far away beyond the sea.

Still, as he deepened and broadened the ditch in his field, from which he took the clay, he saw that his pots to hold the raspberries were variously colored, tinted sometimes with rose, sometimes with blue or violet, sometimes with black or green.

These shades of the clay reminded him of the loveliest things which had gladdened his eyes:  plants, flowers, ocean, sky.

Then he set himself to choose, in making his vases, shades of clay, which he mingled delicately.  And these colors, produced by centuries of alternating lights and shadows, obeyed his will, changed in a moment according to his desire.

Each day he modelled hundreds of these raspberry pots, moulding them upon the wheel which turned like a sun beneath the pressure of his agile foot.  The mass of shapeless clay, turning on the center of the disk, under the touch of his finger, suddenly raised itself like the petals of a lily, lengthened, broadened, swelled or shrank, submissive to his will.

The creative potter loved the clay.

III

As he still dreamed of the things which he had most admired, his thought, his remembrance, his will, descended into his fingers, where—­without his knowing how—­they communicated to the clay that mysterious principle of life which the wisest man is unable to define.  The humble works of Jean the potter had marvellous graces.  In such a curve, in such a tint, he put some memory of youth, or of an opening blossom, or the very color of the weather, and of joy or sorrow.