He will come back, they tell themselves. The games of Europe will never satisfy him—garrison bridge, promotion, women, and the rest. Haunted by his lost honor he will come back to this land where each step makes the heart beat faster like a step towards love or towards death. He had imagined that the Sahara was a mere adventure and that what was essential in life lay in Europe; but he will discover with disgust that it was here in the desert he possessed his veritable treasures—this prestige of the sand, the night, the silence, this homeland of wind and stars.