ears had passed, and little Amedee had grown a trifle. At that
time a child born in the centre of Paris--for example, in the labyrinth
of infected streets about the Halles--would have grown up without having
any idea of the change of seasons other than by the state of the
temperature and the narrow strip of sky which he could see by raising his
head. Even today certain poor children--the poor never budge from their
hiding-places--learn of the arrival of winter only by the odor of roasted
chestnuts; of spring, by the boxes of gilly-flowers in the fruiterer's
stall; of summer, by the water-carts passing, and of autumn, by the heaps
of oyster-shells at the doors of wine-shops. The broad sky, with its
confused shapes of cloud architecture, the burning gold of the setting
sun behind the masses of trees, the enchanting stillness of moonlight
upon the river, all these grand and magnificent spectacles are for the
delight of those who live in suburban quarters, or play there sometimes.
The sons of people who work in buttons and jet spend their infancy
playing on staircases that smell of lead, or in courts that resemble
wells, and do not suspect that nature exists. At the outside they suspect
that nature may exist when they see the horses on Palm Sunday decorated
with bits of boxwood behind each ear. What matters it, after all, if the
child has imagination? A star reflected in a gutter will reveal to him an
immense nocturnal poem; and he will breathe all the intoxication of
summer in the full-blown rose which the grisette from the next house lets
fall from her hair.

Amedee had had the good fortune of being born in that delicious and
melancholy suburb of Paris which had not yet become "Haussmannized," and
was full of wild and charming nooks.

His father, the widower, could not be consoled, and tried to wear out his
grief in long promenades, going out on clear evenings, holding his little
boy by the hand, toward the more solitary places. They followed those
fine boulevards, formerly in the suburbs, where there were giant elms,
planted in the time of Louis XIV, ditches full of grass, ruined
palisades, showing through their opening market-gardens where melons
glistened in the rays of the setting sun. Both were silent; the father
lost in reveries, Amedee absorbed in the confused dreams of a child. They
went long distances, passing the Barriere d'Enfer, reaching unknown
parts, which produced the same effect upon an inhabitant of Rue