The Story of a Child

between the ages of five and six, dressed in short trousers with white pinafores over them, as was the fashion of the time. After having played wild

n. With some difficulty (trusting me meantime) he followed the fantastic movements of my pencil whose intention I took care to explain to him at some leng

e marriage of my now-very-old grandmother, who still occupied it, and who this evening was seate

ter this time; but as I will never again, in the course of this recital, have

er son at the shipwreck of the Medusa, she went resolutely to work to educate her younger son, my father, until such time as he should be able to support himself. At about her eightieth year (which was not f

"my good neighbor" or "my dear neighbor." It was also her mania to sing with a most excessive ardor the Marseillaise, the Pari

ducation. For that reason it seems the more singular that from her disordered mind, just about as it was to take its journey

sweet. Her abundant hair was silver-gray, and upon her cheeks there was a color similar to that of a faded rose leaf, a color which the old people of that generation often retained into extreme old age. I remember that she

nd the walls were painted an ochre yellow; and upon them in gilt frames, slightly tarnished, were hung water colors representing vases of flowers. I very soon discovered that this room was furnished in a very simple and old-fashioned way, a

ictures of those two ducks, occupying such diffe

a tiny house, and near the duck himself there was a large, kind

ters showed through in grayish flecks and gave the curious impression as of clouds in the sky. And that little drawing, with less form than a school-boy's blackboard scrawl, was completely transfigured by those gray spots, and because of them it took on for me a deep and dreadful significance. Aided by the dim

it!" I covered the picture with my hands, but nevertheless I peeped at it very often; and it was so vividly impressed upon my mind that I can still recall it as it appeared to me transfigured: a glea

I was to know later in the course of my sailor life. I seemed to have a presentiment of those stormy December evenings when my boat was to enter, to take shelter until the morning, one of those uninhabited bays upon the coast of Brittany; more particular

he evening. My grandmother was singing, and I was again a tiny being who had seen nothing of the large wor

ch more than do the able and correct drawing of adults. For although theirs are incomplete they add to them a thousand things of their own seeing and imag