jean had inherited from his father a little field close beside the sea. round this field the branches of the pine trees murmured a response to the plashing of the waves. beneath the pines the soil was red, and the crimson shade of the earth mingling with the blue waves of the bay gave them a pensive violet hue, most of all in the quiet evening hours dear to reveries and dreams.

in this field grew roses and raspberries. the pretty girls of the neighborhood came to jean’s home to buy these fruits and flowers, so like their own lips and cheeks. the roses, the lips, and the berries had all the same youth, had all the same beauty.

jean lived happily beside the sea, at the foot of the hills, beneath an olive tree planted near his door, which in all seasons threw a lance-like blue shadow upon his white wall.

near the olive tree was a well, the water of which was so cold and pure that the girls of the region, with their cheeks like roses and their lips like raspberries, came thither night and morning with their jugs. upon their heads, covered with pads, they carried their jugs, round and slender as themselves, supporting them with their beautiful bare arms, raised aloft like living handles.

jean observed all these things, and admired them, and blessed his life.

as he was only twenty years old, he fondly loved one of the charming girls who drew water from his well, who ate his raspberries and breathed the fragrance of his roses.

he told this younger girl that she was as pure and fresh as the water, as delicious as the raspberries and as sweet as the roses.

then the young girl smiled.

he told it her again, and she made a face at him.

he sang her the same song, and she married a sailor who carried her far away beyond the sea.

jean wept bitterly, but he still admired beautiful things, and still blessed his life. sometimes he thought that the frailty of what is beautiful and the brevity of what is good adds value to the beauty and goodness of all things.