Part 1, Chapters 5, 6 and 7 Summary

After being at the hotel for about four months, Michel and Marceline make the decision to leave to avoid the coming harsh winter weather. On the couple's last night in Biskra, Michel walks the streets in the middle of the night and feels so alive that everything and everyone in the town seems dead to him not merely asleep. Returning to his hotel room, Michel is unable to sleep and reads a random passage from a Bible on the desk and reads Christ's words to Peter saying that when a man is young he binds himself and walks where he should but when he is old he should stretch out his hands.

Michel and Marceline leave the hotel at dawn the next morning and travel to Malta then to Syracuse where Michel tries to begin his studies again but...