Summary

Midhat, the novel’s Palestinian Arab protagonist, was on a ship travelling to Marseille to study medicine at the University of Montpellier, coming from Nablus in Palestine. Onboard, he met another Arab, Faruq al-Azmeh, who was returning to Paris from Damascus to resume his teaching position at the Sorbonne University. During a conversation with Faruq, Midhat reflected on his past in a French school in Constantinople, where Arabic and French blended together but each retained their own separate domains in his mind. Later that day, Faruq brought Midhat a French novel—The Three Musketeers—and the two began to practice French while Faruq gave his best advice on life in France to his new acquaintance. Midhat spent the remainder of the journey to Marseille reading the poetry, lost in his daydreams, of which he focused in on three. In the first...