‘I'll take your word for it,' Henri said. When you were with Dubreuilh, a stroll along the quays became as exciting as an expedition to the North Pole; Henri and Anne would often laugh together over this. The thing was that he didn't distinguish between seeing and discovering; no eye before his had ever seen a waterfall, no one knew what water was, what black and white were. By himself, Henri certainly would never have noticed all the details of that play of mist and foam, the shape-shifting, the ghostly apparitions, the tiny whirlpools which Dubreuilh scrutinized so closely, as if he were trying to determine the destiny of each drop of water. 'You can get annoyed at him,' Henri thought, looking at Dubreuilh affectionately, 'but you can't get along without him.' When you were with him, everything seemed important, living became a great privilege — and you lived twice as much. He transformed that leisurely trip across the French countryside into a voyage of discovery.

'You'd really surprise your readers,' Henri said, smiling at Dubreuilh who, completely absorbed, was contemplating the last rays of the sun.

'Why?' Dubreuilh asked in that shocked voice he always affected whenever someone spoke to him about himself.

'You get the impression from your books that only people interest you and that nature counts hardly at all.’

‘People live in nature, don't they?'