gnized you immediately."

He seemed so pleased, so happy at seeing me, that in an outburst of
friendly selfishness, I shook both the hands of my former school-fellow
heartily, and felt very pleased at meeting him thus.

For four years Tremoulin had been one of the best and most intimate
school friends, one of those whom we are too apt to forget as soon as we
leave. In those days he had been a tall, thin fellow, whose head seemed
to be too heavy for his body; it was a large, round head, and hung
sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, onto his chest.
Tremoulin was very clever, however, and had a marvelous aptitude for
learning, and had an instinctive intuition for all literary studies, and
gained nearly all the prizes in our class.

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