free winging birds, and the moist soughing of the wind. Through the window
smiles a patch of blue sky; a sunbeam slips through the curtains to the
bed. The little world known to the eyes of the child, all that he can see
from his bed every morning as he awakes, all that with so much effort he is
beginning to recognize and classify, so that he may be master of it--his
kingdom is lit up. There is the table where people eat, the cupboard where
he hides to play, the tiled floor along which he crawls, and the wall-paper
which in its antic shapes holds for him so many humorous or terrifying
stories, and the clock which chatters and stammers so many words which he
alone can understand. How many things there are in this room! He does not
know them all. Every day he sets out on a voyage of exploration in this
universe which is his. Everything is his. Nothing is immaterial; everything
has its worth, man or fly, Everything lives--the cat, the fire, the table,
the grains of dust which dance in a sunbeam. The room is a country, a day
is a lifetime. How is a creature to know himself in the midst of these vast
spaces? The world is so large! A creature is lost in it. And the faces, the
actions, the movement, the noise, which make round about him an unending
turmoil!... He is weary; his eyes close; he goes to sleep. That sweet deep
sleep that overcomes him suddenly at any time, and wherever he may be--on
his mother's lap, or under the table, where he loves to hide!... It is
good. All is good....

These first days come buzzing up in his mind like a field of corn or a wood
stirred by the wind, and cast in shadow by the great fleeting clouds....

* * * * *

The shadows pass; the sun penetrates the forest. Jean-Christophe begins to
find his way through the labyrinth of the day.