San Francisco appears as the setting of Romain Gary’s home and his defiant daily artistic practice. From a house on a hill above the city, he steps into the sunlight each morning to juggle three oranges—the furthest his skill has reached—and insists on continuing. The location gives a concrete setting to a larger reflection on artistic striving: achievement may remain limited, but the act of trying retains its dignity.

Setting and Appearance

The city is established through a precise, elevated image rather than a broad description: Gary’s house stands on a hill above San Francisco. Each morning he leaves it and juggles outdoors in bright sunlight, facing the sky. No further landmarks or account of the city’s streets, neighborhoods, or public life are provided; San Francisco’s significance here lies in its relation to this private routine.

A Daily Practice

Gary’s juggling has a defined limit: he can manage three oranges, and no more. He nevertheless describes the practice as both defiant and accomplished, refusing to treat that limit as a reason to stop. The repeated morning effort makes the hillside home a point of departure for an activity sustained through practice rather than measured by professional success.

The surrounding reflection sets this small performance against the grand promise of artistic achievement. Recognition, money, and applause cannot guarantee an artist the feeling of having fully realized the work; even the greatest artists may feel that what they have made amounts to very little. Against that discouraging measure, the three oranges offer a modest but tangible counter-image: a skill still being exercised, in the open air, without any claim that it has reached perfection.

Dignity and the Meaning of Place

Gary explicitly frames his continued juggling as an affirmation of human dignity, not an expression of arrogance. San Francisco’s role is therefore concrete and thematic at once: it is where the morning practice takes place, and the backdrop against which persistence becomes visible as an answer to artistic frustration. The city is not presented as the source of his ambition or as a scene of public acclaim; the emphasis falls on an individual returning to the same effort and refusing to abandon it.

The passage also cautions against reading the reflective sadness surrounding artistic failure as proof that Gary was unhappy. His account of small, intense pleasures elsewhere in his life—including eating pickled cucumbers in the sun—broadens that distinction between dissatisfaction with art’s limits and the capacity for happiness. Those pleasures are not specifically located in San Francisco, but they sharpen the contrast: the city’s morning scene embodies an unresolved artistic striving, while his wider recollections affirm that such striving coexists with moments of uncomplicated bliss.