The inquiry lasted five months. Nothing was discovered. Not a single piece of mine was recovered and not the slightest trace of robbers ever found. My God! Imagine if I’d said what I knew! If I’d said a word about that, it would have been myself rather than any robbers who would have been locked up for believing such a thing! Oh yes, I kept my mouth shut all right! But I never refurnished the house. That would have been pointless. The whole business would have started up again. I wished never to return there. I stayed away therefore and never saw the place again.

I came and lived in a hotel in Paris where I consulted doctors about the state of my nerves which had been giving me a lot of trouble ever since that appalling night. They recommended that I do some travelling and I followed their advice.

II

I started with a trip to Italy, where the sun did me good. For six months I wandered about between Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. Then I toured through Sicily admiring its wildlife and the monuments left by the Greeks and others. I went on to Africa and made a leisurely crossing of the great, calm, yellow desert. Here I saw camels roam, as well as gazelles and Arab vagabonds, and on its light, transparent air no trace of animosity ever seems to be felt, either by day or by night.

I returned to France via Marseille where, despite traditional Provençal gaiety, the relative diminution in light cast a tinge of sadness over me. Returning to this continent I felt strangely like an invalid who, though allegedly cured of his illness, knows from the dull ache that he feels that it is merely dormant within him.

Then I came back to Paris. After a month I was bored with it. It was autumn, and before winter set in I wanted to make a tour of Normandy, then still unfamiliar territory to me. I started in Rouen, of course, and for a week wandered around enthusiastically, finding fresh delights in the medieval city of Gothic monuments which is such an astonishing and wonderful museum in itself.