My Schooling 



when he led the Magnificat at vespers. Our 

 master wound up and regulated the village- 

 clock. This was his proudest function. Giv- 

 ing a glance at the sun, to ascertain the time 

 more or less nearly, he would climb to the top 

 of the steeple, open a huge cage of rafters and 

 find himself in a maze of wheels and springs 

 whereof the secret was known to him alone. 



With such a school and such a master and 

 such examples, what will become of my em- 

 bryo tastes, as yet so imperceptible? In that 

 environment, they seem bound to perish, 

 stifled for ever. Yet no, the germ has life; it 

 works in my veins, never to leave them again. 

 It finds nourishment everywhere, down to the 

 cover of my penny alphabet, embellished with 

 a crude picture of a pigeon which I study and 

 contemplate much more zealously than the 

 A. B.C. Its round eye, with its circlet of dots, 

 seems to smile upon me. Its wing, of which I 

 count the feathers one by one, tells me of 

 flights on high, among the beautiful clouds; 

 it carries me to the beeches raising their smooth 

 trunks above a mossy carpet studded with white 

 mushrooms that look like eggs dropped by 

 some vagrant hen ; it takes me to the snow-clad 

 peaks where the birds leave the starry print of 

 their red feet. He is a fine fellow, my pigeon- 



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