Conversion stories abound in the Voyage en Orient, where they punctuate each of the major stages of Gérard’s journey to the East and leave their mark on the various ways that Nerval looks at the Orient, notably shifting the story from the realm of existential projections towards that of historical and ethical meditation. This mixture of issues and the complexity of the devices put to use quite clearly illustrate the subtlety of Nerval’s writing on the East.
