It is the story of a man reaching Mareb in disguise and leaving with rubbings of ancient inscriptions and a hermaphrodite donkey; of his adventures among the Arabs as a disguised freak-showman and a candle salesman; of his return, after ten months of blindness, to France—Arnaud subsequently to be sent on several archaeological missions, the donkey to be exhibited at the Jar-din des Plantes; of a later return to France when Arnaud found a nation so impoverished by the 1848 Revolution that it could not afford to buy his collections; of Arnaud's decline into poverty in Algeria, and of the donkey's starvation in the Jardin des Plantes. “I should like to have known Arnaud,” says Malraux.

Includes index.

The walnut trees of Altenburg -- Antimemoirs -- The temptation of the West -- The Royal way -- La condition humaine.