We were fully convinced at school, that he would turn out a celebrated man, a poet, no doubt, for he wrote verses, and was full of ingeniously sentimental ideas.  His father, who kept a chemist’s shop near the Pantheon, was not supposed to be very well off, and I had lost sight of him as soon as he had taken his bachelor’s degree, and now I naturally asked him what he was doing there.

“I am a planter,” he replied.

“Bah!  You really plant?”

“And I have my harvest.”

“What is it?”

“Grapes, from which I make wine.”

“Is your wine-growing a success?”

“A great success.”

“So much the better, old fellow.”

“Were you going to the hotel?”

“Of course I was.”

“Well, then, you must just come home with me, instead!”

“But! ...”

“The matter is settled.”

And he said to the young negro who was watching our movements:  “Take that home, Al.”

And the lad put my portmanteau on his shoulder, and set off, raising the dust with his black feet, while Tremoulin took my arm and led me off.  First of all, he asked me about my journey, and what impressions it had had on me, and seeing how enthusiastic I was about it, he seemed to like me better than ever.  He lived in an old Moorish house, with an interior courtyard, without any windows looking into the street, and commanded by a terrace, which, in its turn, commanded those of the neighboring houses, as well as the bay, and the forests, the hill, and the open sea, and I could not help exclaiming: 

“Ah!  That is what I like; the whole of the East lays hold of me in this place.  You are indeed lucky to be living here!  What nights you must spend upon that terrace!  Do you sleep there?”

“Yes, in the summer.  We will go onto it this evening.  Are you fond of fishing?”

“What kind of fishing?”

“Fishing by torchlight.”

“Yes, I am particularly fond of it.”

“Very well, then, we will go after dinner, and we will come back and drink sherbet on my roof.”

After I had had a bath, he took me to see the charming Kabyle town, a veritable cascade of white houses toppling down to the sea, and then, when it was getting dusk, we went in, and after an excellent dinner, we went down to the quay, and we saw nothing except the fires and the stars, those large, bright, scintillating African stars.  A boat was waiting for us, and as soon as we had got in, a man whose face I could not distinguish, began to row, while my friend was getting ready the brazier which he would light later, and he said to me:  “You know I have a mania for a fish-spear, and nobody can handle it better than I can.”

“Allow me to compliment you on your skill.”  We had rowed round a kind of mole, and now we were in a small bay full of high rocks, whose shadows looked like towers built in the water, and I suddenly perceived that the sea was phosphorescent, and as the oars moved gently, they seemed to light up moving flames, that followed in our wake, and then died out, and I leant over the side of the boat and watched it, as we glided over that glimmer in the darkness.