eager cabin-boy of the family vessel, i would rush off, my sabots clattering, thrilled if, from the depths of that hissing turmoil of white and blue-black, a flash of lightning and a brief mutter of thunder, children of february and the west wind, together filled one of the abysses of the sky. i would try then to shudder and believe that the end of the world had come.

it was the reflected glow of your blazing line along the terrace, O geraniums, and yours, O foxgloves, springing up amidst the coppice, that gave my childish cheeks their rosy warmth.

i came back when the bell rang for the first mass. but not before i had eaten my fill, not before i had described a great circle in the woods, like a dog out hunting on its own, and tasted the water of the two hidden springs which i worshiped. (...) the mere mention of them makes me hope that their savour my fill my mouth when my time comes, and that i may carry hence with me that imagined drought.

did her voice strike the bird on the weathercock, the hovering honey-buzzard, the last leaf on the walnut-tree or the dormer window which, at the first light, swallowed up the barn owls?

as she spoke her face, alight with faith and an all-embracing curiosity, was hidden by another, older face, resigned and gentle. she knew that i should not be able to resist, any more than she could, the desire to know, and that like herself i should ferret in the earth of that flower pot until i had given up its secrets. i never thought of our resemblance, but she knew i was her own daughter and that, child though i was, i was already seeking for that sense of shock, the quickened heart-beat, and the sudden stoppage of the breath - symptoms of the private ecstasy of the treasure-seeker. a treasure is not merely something hidden under the earth, or the rocks, or the sea. the vision of gold and gems is but a blurred mirage. to me the important thing is to lay bare and bring to light something that no human eye before mine has gazed upon.