My Schooling 



slopes are little houses with their garden- 

 patches in terraces banked up by tottering 

 walls, which bulge under the thrust of the 

 earth. Here and there are very steep lanes, 

 with the dents of the rock forming a natural 

 pavement. The mule, sure-footed though he 

 be, would hesitate to enter these dangerous 

 passes with his load of branches. 



Further on, beyond the village, half-way up 

 the hills, stood the great ever-so-old lime-tree, 

 the Tel^ as we used to call it, whose sides, hol- 

 lowed out by the ages, were the favourite hid- 

 ing-places of us children at play. On fair- 

 days, its immense, spreading foliage cast a 

 wide shadow over the herds of oxen and sheep. 

 Those solemn days, which only came once a 

 year, brought me a few ideas from without: 

 I iearnt that the world did not end with my 

 amphitheatre of hills. I saw the inn-keeper's 

 wine arrive on mule-back and in goat-skin 

 bottles. I hung about the market-place and 

 watched the opening of jars full of stewed 

 pears, the setting-out of baskets of grapes, an 

 almost unknown fruit, the object of eager 

 covetousness. I stood and gazed in admira- 

 tion at the roulette-board on which, for a sou, 

 according to the spot at which its needle 

 stopped on a circular row of nails, you won a 

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