Altogether the future of the family now demanded much reflection and many decisions. Grandfather and I remained quite apart from it all. Once beyond the gate we never looked back, except when my companion, laughing derisively, would say: “And as to you, boy; what is being cooked up for you? Are you still inclined to enter the school of adversity?” There had been much pleasantry over that incident, and I found it by no means amusing. I had given up all my fine plans, and had no thought of commanding some brilliant situation like my brothers. I was content with the sort of property which one enjoys without ever taking trouble, after grandfather’s fashion,--the lake, the forest, the mountain; not to speak of the stars and those fine July nights. I am not even sure that I did not prefer to them all the red benches of the Café of the Navigators, when I had the feeling of being a man, admitted to hear utterances concerning painting, music and politics. Yet I never ceased to feel my mother’s gaze resting upon me. By way of not acknowledging it I began to put on airs of independence. Like the “Scenes in Animal Life,” I would work up offensive resemblances for all the people with whom we were familiar; turning men and things to ridicule and even affecting when with my brothers and sisters an incurious air, as if I had formed my views of life and had nothing more to learn. By a singular phenomenon, as I now see clearly, the more deeply I was initiated into the simplicity of rural life and the benevolence of nature the more complicated I became. And always, through all my newly assumed ways, that gaze followed me, as if it were seeking my heart. Grandfather and I had a fright one day when we came upon my mother in the street. She was going to church for benediction and we to the café for our pleasure. She so rarely left the house that we had never thought of meeting her. Noses in air, already inhaling the special odour of tobacco and anise which awaited us, we paid no attention to the woman who was approaching, so modest, so grave that no one thought of looking at her, and we were much surprised when she accosted us, asking, “Where are you going?” What would grandfather say? I wondered. We had so loudly proclaimed our disdain of the town which we were now lightheartedly crossing. Would he betray the secret which I had kept so well? Without the least embarrassment in the world he replied: “To buy a paper, daughter.” Then he would not own up about our visits to the Café of the Navigators, either. Mother let us go on our way. When she had turned to the left, in the direction of the church, grandfather chuckled over the fine trick he had played her, but she had not wished to appear to doubt the truth of his reply: it had not deceived her. I knew it, for I had seen her blush at our falsehood.