In that bay, which they call the Opal Bay, the golden sands appear more charming still from being fastened, like fair Andromeda, to those terrible rocks of the surrounding coast, to that funereal shore, famed for the number of its wrecks, where every winter many a brave vessel falls a victim to the perils of the sea. Balbec! the oldest bone in the geological skeleton that underlies our soil, the true Armor, the sea, the land’s end, the accursed region which Anatole France⁠—an enchanter whose works our young friend ought to read⁠—has so well depicted, beneath its eternal fogs, as though it were indeed the land of the Cimmerians in the Odyssey. Balbec; yes, they are building hotels there now, superimposing them upon its ancient and charming soil, which they are powerless to alter; how delightful it is, down there, to be able to step out at once into regions so primitive and so entrancing.”

“Indeed! And do you know anyone at Balbec?” inquired my father. “This young man is just going to spend a couple of months there with his grandmother, and my wife too, perhaps.”