The Little Girl with the Dark Eyes (1921)

Summary

They are three, they are friends, they are twenty years old. We are at the beginning of this century and Marseille was then – and still is – one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The first is called Louis-Irénée Peluque: he is a keeper at the zoological garden. The second is called Félix-Antoine Grasset: he is a poet and a philosopher, that is to say, he takes a long drag on his pipe and does nothing. The third, who has found a rough job with a publisher, is called Jacques Panier.

This story is his story, that of Jacques Panier’s first loves. Is love a trap set for us by the genius of the species, for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself? This is what Peluque and Grasset think. It is also the idea of Jacques Panier, who swore that he would not be caught. But the most beautiful ideas do not weigh much against nature, and how to remain philosophical when one sees passing every day, at the same hour, discreet, silent and shy, a small girl with dark eyes?