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 embryo 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 friend: he consoles me for the woes hidden behind the cover
of my book. Thanks to him, I sit quietly on my bench and wait more
or less till school is over.

School out of doors has other charms. When the master takes us to
kill the snails in the box borders, I do not always scrupulously
fulfil my office as an exterminator. My heel sometimes hesitates
before coming down upon the handful which I have gathered. They
are so pretty! Just think, there are yellow ones and pink, white
ones and brown, all with dark spiral streaks. I fill my pockets
with the handsomest, so as to feast my eyes on them at my leisure.