Nothing else mattered except him. She had missed none of the finery, the costly materials, the elegance, the comfortable chairs, the fragrant warmth of the tapestry-hung bedrooms, the restful, welcoming softness of the bedding. She had never needed anything apart from him. He was all she wanted. As long as he was there she was happy. Early on she had given up the life she was used to and the people who had brought her up and loved her. She had come on her own with him to this wild ravine. He had been everything to her; all that she desired, all she dreamed of, all she always wished and ever hoped for. He had filled her life to the brim with happiness. She could not have been more content.

All night long I heard the harsh breathing of the old soldier on his pallet with, beside him, the woman who had followed him so far. I thought what a strange yet simple adventure it must have been to create such complete happiness with so little.

I left at dawn having shaken hands with the old married couple.’

The man telling the story had come to the end of his tale. One woman said, ‘It’s quite obvious she had no standards, this woman. She had very simple, basic needs, easily met. She must have been an idiot.’

Another said slowly, ‘What does it matter? She was happy, that’s what counts!’

And now on the far distant horizon the vast shadow faded into the night, sliding gently into the sea, and with it Corsica, which had appeared as if to tell in person the story of the two simple lovers welcomed to her shores.

A BIT OF THE OTHER

Before their marriage they were a pair of chaste, starry-eyed lovers who had met by happy chance at a seaside resort. Against the background of the ocean’s vast horizon he had noticed passing him this delightful girl with the pink and white complexion, in her cool-looking dresses and shaded by her gay parasol. He had fallen in love with her, framed as she was then by blue waves and huge skies. The tender expansiveness which this girl on the threshold of womanhood awakened within him was closely associated in his mind with the vague but powerful feeling aroused in his soul, his heart and in his veins by the clear, salt air and the huge sunlit seascape upon which he gazed.