Did he really have even one serious reason to be worried? No. Nothing unnatural had happened. No threat weighed upon him. It was ridiculous to lose his composure, and he knew it so well that even here, in the midst of the festive evening, he was trying to react.
Moreover, it was not a worry in the absolute sense of the word, and he would be unable to say at what exact moment he had been seized by this anxiety, this malaise, results of a subtle imbalance. Certainly not when he left Europe. Joseph Timar had left voluntarily, filled with excitement and enthusiasm.
Perhaps the moment he disembarked in Libreville, during his first encounter with Gabon? Libreville and Gabon, the old days. From the first pages, the scene emerges crystal clear. You can even discern the smell of the sorrowful decay of the vegetation, the numbing heat of the café where some Europeans are playing cards while drinking Pernod.
Joseph Timar has only been in Gabon for a few weeks since arriving from France, yet culture is already a memory. When he learns that a black servant, a 'boy', was murdered just steps from Adele's hotel, he does not ponder too much. Because Adele, not so young but obsessively sensual, joins Timar every night beneath the tulle of the mosquito net. She is the one who killed, Timar is certain.
In this country, however, no one ever says that the Whites kill the Blacks... A novel about degradation and madness, it is one of the most beautiful works of Georges Simenon.
