Conchita welcomed me back. She was alone. CharIot was at the mine-so when I left for work he'd be coming back. Conchita was full of fun and kindness; she gave me a pair of slippers so I could rest my feet after the heavy boots.

"Your friend's asleep. He ate well and I've sent off a letter asking them to take him into the hospital at Tumereno, a little town not far off, bigger than this."

I thanked her and ate the hot meal that was waiting for me. This welcome, so homely, simple and happy, made me relax; it gave me the peace of mind I needed after the temptation of that ton of gold. The door opened.

"Good evening, everybody." Two girls came into the room, just as if they were at home.

"Good evening," Conchita said. "Here are two friends of mine, Papillon."

One was dark, tall and slim; she was called Graciela and was very much the gypsy type, her father being a Spaniard. The other girl's name was Mercedes. Her grandfather was a German, which explained her fair skin and very fine blond hair. Graciela had black Andalusian eyes with a touch of tropical fire; Mercedes' were green and suddenly reminded me of Lali, the Goajira Indian. Lali… Lali and her sister Zoralma: what had become of them? It was 1946 now, and twelve years had gone by, but in spite of all those years I felt a pain in my heart when I remembered those two lovely creatures. Since those days they must have made themselves a fresh life with men of their own race, and honestly I had no right to disturb their new existence.

"Your friends are terrific, Conchità! Thank you very much for introducing me to them."

I gathered they were both free and neither had a fiancé. In such good company the evening went by in a flash. Conchita and I walked them back to the edge of the village, and it seemed to me they leaned very heavily on my arms. On the way back Conchita told me both the girls liked me, the one as much as the other, "Which do you like best?" she asked.

"They are both charming, Conchita; but I don't want any complications."

"You call making love complications? Love, it's the same as eating and drinking. You think you can live without eating and drinking? When I don't make love I feel really ill, although I'm already twenty-two. They are only sixteen and seventeen, so just think what it must be for them. If they don't take pleasure in their bodies, they'll die."

"And what about their parents?"

She told me, just as José had done, that the daughters of the ordinary people loved just to be loved. They gave themselves to the man they liked spontaneously, wholly, without asking anything in exchange except the thrill.

"I understand you, poppet. I'm willing as the next man to make love for love's sake. Only you tell your friends that an affair doesn't bind me in any way at all. Once they're warned, it's another matter."

Dear Lord above! It wasn't going to be easy to get away from an atmosphere like this. Charlot, Simon, Alexandre and no doubt a good many others had been positively bewitched. I saw why they were so thoroughly happy among these cheerful people, so different from ours. I went to bed.

"Get up, Papi! It's ten o'clock. And there's someone to see you."

"Good morning, Monsieur." A graying man of about fifty; no hat; candid eyes; bushy eyebrows. He held out his hand. "I'm Dr. Bougrat. * [* The hero of a well-known criminal affair in Marseille during the twenties. A dead man was found in a cupboard in his consulting room. Bougrat pleaded professional error in the amount of an injection. The court said it was murder. They gave him a life sentence, but he soon escaped from Devil's Island and made himself a new life in Venezuela.] I came because they told me one of you is sick. I've had a look at your friend, and there's nothing to be done unless he goes into the hospital at Caracas. It'll be a tough job to cure him."

"You'll have supper with us, Doctor?" Charlot asked.

"I'd like to. Thanks."

Anisette was poured out, and as he drank Bougrat said to me, "Well, Papillon, and how are you getting along?"

"As a matter of fact, Doctor, I'm taking my first steps in life. I feel as if I'd just been born. Or rather as if I'd lost my way like a boy. I can't make out the road I ought to follow."

"The road's clear enough. Look around and you'll see. Except for one or two exceptions, all our old companions have gone straight. I've been in Venezuela since 1928. Not one of the convicts I've known has committed a crime since being in this country. They are almost all married, with children, and they live honestly, accepted by the community. They've forgotten the past so completely that some of them couldn't tell you the details of the job that sent them down. It's all very far away, buried in a misty past that doesn't matter."

"Maybe it's different for me, Doctor. I have a pretty long bill to present to the people who sent me down against all justice-. fourteen years of struggle and suffering. To see the bill is paid, I have to go back to France; and for that I need a lot of money. It's not by working as a laborer that I'm going to save up enough for the voyage out and back-if there is any return."

"And do you think you're the only one of us with an account to settle? Just you listen to the story of a boy I know. George Dubois is his name. A kid from the slums of La Villette- alcoholic father, often locked up with the dt's, the mother with six children: she was so poor she went around the North African bars looking for customers. Jojo, they called him; and he'd been going from one reformatory to the next since he was eight. He started by knocking off fruit outside shops-did it several times. First a few terms in the Abbé Rollet's homes, then, when he was twelve, he got a tough stretch in a really hard reformatory. I don't have to tell you that the fourteen-year-old Jojo, surrounded by young fellows of eighteen, had to look out for his ass. He was a puny kid, so there was only one way of defending himself-a knife. One of these perverted little thugs got a stab in the belly, and the authorities sent Jojo to Esse, the toughest reformatory of the lot, the one for hopeless cases. Until the age of twenty-one. Then they gave him his marching orders for the African disciplinary battalions, because with a past like his, he wasn't allowed into the ordinary army. They handed him the few francs he had earned and farewell, adieu! The trouble was that this boy had a heart. Maybe it had hardened, but it still had some sensitive corners. At the station he saw a train destined for Paris. It was as if a switch had been triggered inside him. He jumped in double quick, and there he was in Paris. It was raining when he walked out of the station. He stood under a shelter, figuring out how he would get to La Villette. Under this same shelter there was a girl who was also keeping out of the rain. She gave him a pleasant sort of look. All he knew about women was the chief warden's fat wife at Esse and what the bigger boys at the reformatory had told him-more or less true. No one had ever looked at him like this girl. They began to talk.

"'Where do you come from?'

"'The country.'

"'I like you, boy. Why don't we go to a hotel? I'll be nice to you and we'll be warm.'

"Jojo was all stirred up. To him this chick seemed something wonderful-and what's more her gentle hand touched his. Discovering love was a fantastic, shattering experience for him. The girl was young and very amorous. When they had made love until they could no more, they sat on the bed to smoke, and the chick said to him, 'Is this the first time you've been to bed with a girl?'

"'Yes,' he confessed.

"'Why did you wait so long?'

"'I was in a reformatory.'

"'A long time?'

"'Very long.'

"'I was in one too. I escaped.'

"'How old are you?' Jojo asked.