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A Bildungsroman, Vie de Samuel Belet (1913) is written in the first person. The narrator, Samuel, in his sixties, tells his own story, tracing a lifetime of trials and disappointments. Born in 1840 in the Vaudois countryside, he worked as a farm boy, a clerk in a notary’s office, a carpenter in Savoy and a laborer in Paris, before returning to Switzerland, where he married and returned to his home village after the death of his wife and her son. After many failures and bereavements, Samuel eventually finds a certain contentment living by the lake, stemming from a decision to privilege the quality of being and a serene relationship with the world and with others over material possessions, in which he has never found happiness. Part of the community, at peace with his life, he humbly looks back on his journey and seeks the words to share it, convinced of the revealing power of writing, which brings him a fresh, honest look at his life, his actions and his feelings.