I + 

I was sitting on the breakwater of the little harbour of Obernon, near the small town of la Salis, watching Antibes in the setting sun. I have never seen anything so startling or so lovely. + 

The little town, shut within the heavy ramparts built by M. de Vauban, thrusts out into the sea, in the centre of the wide bay of Nice. The great waves of the open sea run in and break at its feet, wreathing her with flowers of foam; and above the ramparts, the houses climb on each other’s shoulders up to the two towers lifting to the sky like the two horns of an old helmet. And these two towers are sharply outlined on the milky whiteness of the Alps, on the vast and far-off wall of snow that bars the whole horizon. + 

Between the white foam below the walls and the white snow on the rim of the sky the little town stands like a brilliant flower against the deep blue of the nearest hills, and lifts to the rays of the setting sun a pyramid of red-roofed houses whose white walls are yet all so different that they seem to hold every subtle shade. + 

And the sky above the Alps is an almost white blue itself, as if the snow had coloured off on to it; a few silver clouds float just above the pale peaks; and at the other side of the bay, Nice, lying at the edge of the water, stretches like a white thread between sea and mountain. Two large three-cornered sails, driven before a strong breeze, seemed to run over the waves. Filled with wonder; I looked at it all. + 

It was a sight so fair, so divine, so rare that it made itself a place in your heart, as unforgettable as remembered joys. It is through the eyes that we live and think and suffer and are moved. The man who can feel through his eyes enjoys, in the contemplation of things and human beings, the same deep, sharp, subtle joy as the man whose heart is ravished by the music striking on a delicate sensitive ear. + 

I said to my companion, M. Martini, a true Southerner: + 

“That is really one of the rarest sights it has ever been my good fortune to admire. + 

“I have seen the monstrous granite jewel of Mont Saint-Michel rise from its sands at dawn. + 

“I have seen in the Sahara the lake of Raïanechergui, fifty miles long, gleaming under a moon as brilliant as our suns, with a white wraith of mist like a milky vapour rising from it to the moon. + 

“I have seen, in the Lipari Islands, the fantastic sulphur crater of Volcanello, a giant flower that smokes and flames, a monstrous yellow flower blossoming in the middle of the sea, with a volcano for a stem. + 

“And after all I’ve seen nothing more marvellous than Antibes outlined against the Alps at sunset. + 

“I don’t know why my mind is haunted by echoes of old tales: lines of Homer are ringing in my head: it’s an old Eastern town, a town from the Odyssey, it’s Troy, although Troy was not on the sea.” + 

M. Martini drew his Sarty guide from his pocket and read: + 

“The town had its beginnings in a colony founded by the Phoenicians from Marseilles, towards 340 BC. They gave it the Greek name of Antipolis, that is to say, ‘Against-town,’ a town facing another, because it did actually face Nice, another Marseilles colony. + 

“After the conquest of Gaul the Romans made Antibes a city; its inhabitants enjoyed the rights of Roman citizenship. + 

“We know, by one of Martial’s epigrams, that in his time⁠ ⁠…” + 

He was going on. I interrupted him: “I don’t care what it was. I tell you that I am looking down at a town from the Odyssey. Asiatic or European coast, the coasts of both are alike; and the coast on the other side of the Mediterranean is not the one that stirs in me, as this one does, a dream of old heroic days.” + 

A sound made me turn round; a woman, a tall, dark-skinned woman, was walking along the road that runs beside the sea towards the headland. + 

M. Martini murmured, sounding the final sibilants of the name: “That’s Mme. Parisse, you know.” + 

No, I didn’t know, but the chance sound of this name, the name of the Trojan shepherd, deepened my illusion. + 

“Who is this Mme. Parisse?” I asked, however. + 

He seemed amazed that I did not know the story. + 

I swore that I didn’t know it; and I looked at the woman who walked dreamily past without seeing us, walking gravely and slowly as the women of the old world must have walked. She must have been about thirty-five years old and she was still beautiful, very beautiful, although a little stout. + 

And this is the story that M. Martini told me. + 