re than walk on. I counted as a unit; and that was about all, for I
was never certain when to ring the bell or move the missal. I was all
of a tremble when we gathered two on this side and two on that, with
genuflection's, in the middle of the sanctuary, to intone the Domine,
salvum fac regern at the end of mass. Let me make a confession:
tongue-tied with shyness, I used to leave it to the others.

Nevertheless, I was well thought of, for, in the school, I cut a good
figure in composition and translation. In that classical atmosphere,
there was talk of Procas, King of Alba, and of his two sons, Numitor and
Amulius. We heard of Cynoegirus, the strong jawed man, who, having
lost his two hands in battle, seized and held a Persian galley with
his teeth, and of Cadmus the Phoenician, who sowed a dragon's teeth as
though they were beans and gathered his harvest in the shape of a host
of armed men, who killed one another as they rose up from the ground.
The only one who survived the slaughter was one as tough as leather,
presumably the son of the big back grinder.

Had they talked to me about the man in the moon, I could not have been
more startled. I made up for it with my animals, which I was far from
forgetting amid this phantasmagoria of heroes and demigods. While
honoring the exploits of Cadmus and Cynoegirus, I hardly ever failed, on
Sundays and Thursdays [the weekly half-holiday in French schools], to go
and see if the cowslip or the yellow daffodil was making its appearance
in the meadows, if the Linnet was hatching on the juniper bushes, if the
Cockchafers were plopping down from the wind shaken poplars. Thus was
the sacred spark kept aglow, ever brighter than before.

By easy stages, I came to Virgil and was very much smitten with
Meliboeus, Corydon, Menalcas, Damoetas and the rest of them. The
scandals of the ancient shepherds fortunately passed unnoticed; and
within the frame in which the characters moved were exquisite details
concerning the bee, the cicada, the turtle dove, the crow, the nanny
goat and the golden broom. A veritable delight were these stories of
the fields, sung in sonorous verse; and the Latin poet left a lasting
impression on my classical recollections.

Then, suddenly, goodbye to my studies, goodbye to Tityrus and Menalcas.
Ill luck is swooping down on us, relentlessly. Hunger threatens us
at home. And now, boy, put your trust in God; run about and earn your
penn'orth of potatoes as best you