The Man Who Planted Trees

On the narrator’s first journey to the forest after World War II, he comes across one of the many villages that seem to have sprouted up as organically as any of the trees Bouffier planted. There, he sees two incredibly moving symbols of the region’s extensive rebirth. The first is a decorative fountain like one might see in a public park. The fact that this formerly dry and desolate landscape now has ample water to support a fountain serving only aesthetic purposes is remarkable to him. Even more remarkable is the sturdy and thriving lime tree next to it, which he calls “an indisputable symbol of resurrection” (27). Aside from the sacred symbolism attached to lime trees across numerous ancient European mythologies, the lime tree symbolizes a more secular form of resurrection, in that it generally thrives in wet, tropical climates that are completely unlike the wasteland this area was before Bouffier reclaimed it.

The charcoal burners, whom the narrator describes as “seeth[ing] with conflicting egoisms” (9), represent the broader state of humanity in the wake of World War I. Suicide and homicide are rampant among this lot, as “all they had to look forward to was death” (27). These individuals moreover represent the suffocating forces of industrialization, which exists at the nexus of war, environmental destruction, and spiritual poverty.

Yet by the time Bouffier’s forest ecosystem is in full bloom, the charcoal burners are a thing of the past, having returned to subsistence farming as a vocation. To the narrator, this represents a vast moral improvement over their previous situation, which he calls not “propitious to virtue” (27). Of the charcoal burners, the narrator says they are “unrecognisable since their life became more agreeable” (30). Thus, this group represents the most dramatic human turnaround made possible by Bouffier’s efforts and a shining example of nature’s power to heal.