CHAPTER VI 



MY SCHOOLING 



T AM back In the village, in my father's 

 -*■ house. I am now seven years old ; and it 

 is high time that I went to school. Nothing 

 could have turned out better: the master is 

 my godfather. What shall I call the room in 

 which I was to become acquainted with the 

 alphabet ? It would be difficult to find the exact 

 word, because the room served for every pur- 

 pose. It was at once a school, a kitchen, a bed- 

 room, a dining-room and, at times, a chicken- 

 house and a piggery. Palatial schools were 

 not dreamt of in those days; any wretched 

 hovel was thought good enough. 



A broad fixed ladder led to the floor above. 

 Under the ladder stood a big bed in a boarded 

 recess. What was there upstairs? I never 

 quite knew. I would see the master sometimes 

 bring down an armful of hay for the ass, some- 

 times a basket of potatoes which the housewife 

 emptied into the pot in which the little porkers' 

 food was cooked. It must have been a loft of 

 sorts, a storehouse of provisions for man and 

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