The author travels from Paris - where he faces the fatal illness of his friend and publisher - to crisis-stricken Greece - where he meets people broken by economic hardship.

Between the warmth of the days and the sadness of absence; between Paris and Athens; between the mother tongue and writing, unexpectedly arises the question: Why do we forget?

- Is there something that is never erased from our memory? you asked me.
You didn't have to think much.
- The sea, you said. One can forget the mountains, the valleys, the forests, the rivers, even the waterfalls despite the noise they make, but not the sea. It encompasses all mysteries and knows all games, it is ancient and incredibly new. No other landscape resembles life so much, that's why we can't forget it, because it remembers the childhood of the world. We must respect it as much as life and gaze at it standing. The holidaymakers who lie on the sand make me furious, I want to kick them to force them to get up, we all have to stand on the shores.