The Urchin of Malaval 



When we had done talking about the horrid wolf, 

 the dragon, and the serpent, and when the resinous 

 splinters had given out their last gleams, we went 

 to sleep the sweet sleep that toil gives. As the 

 youngest of the household, I had a right to the 

 mattress, a sack stuffed with oat-chaff. The others 

 had to be content with straw. 



I owe a great deal to you, dear grandmother: 

 it was in your lap that I found consolation for my 

 first sorrows. You have handed down to me, per- 

 haps, a little of your physical vigour, a little of 

 your love of work; but certainly you were no more 

 accountable than grandfather for my passion for 

 insects. 



And yet in me, the observer, the inquirer into 

 things, began to take shape almost in infancy. Why 

 should I not describe my first discoveries? They 

 are ingenuous in the extreme, but will serve not- 

 withstanding to tell us something of the way in 

 which tendencies first show themselves. 



I was five or six years old. That the poor 

 household might have one mouth less to feed, I 

 had been placed in grandmother's care. Here, in 

 solitude, my first gleams of intelligence were awak- 

 ened amidst the geese, the calves, and the sheep. 

 Everything before that is impenetrable darkness. 

 My real birth was at the moment when the dawn 

 of personality rises, dispersing the mists of uncon- 

 sciousness and leaving a lasting memory. I can 

 see myself plainly, clad in a soiled frieze frock 

 flapping against my bare heels; I remember the 

 handkerchief hanging from my waist by a bit pf 

 19 



