If you only knew how one sometimes hungers and thirsts for certainty--ay, even to the point of agony. III When I asked my mother to tell me all about the awful event, she said that my father had been seized with a fit in a hackney carriage, and that as no papers were found upon him, he had not been recognised for two days. Grownup people are too ready to think it is equally easy to tell lies to all children. Now, I was a child who pondered long in my thoughts over things that were said to me, and by means of putting a number of small facts together, I came to the conviction that I did not know the whole truth. If my father's death had occurred in the manner stated to me, why should the man-servant have asked me, one day when he took me out to walk, what had been said to me about it? And when I answered him, why did he say no more, and, being a very talkative person, why had he kept silence ever since? Why, too, did I feel the same silence all around me, sitting on every lip, hidden in every look? Why was the subject of conversation constantly changed whenever I drew near? I guessed this by many trifling signs. Why was not a single newspaper left lying about, whereas, during my father's lifetime, the three journals to which we subscribed were always to be found on a table in the salon? Above all, why did both the masters and my schoolfellows look at me so curiously, when I went back to school early in October, four months after our great misfortune? Alas! it was their curiosity which revealed the full extent of the catastrophe to me. It was only a fortnight after the reopening of the school, when I happened to be playing one morning with two new boys; I remember their names, Rastonaix and Servoin, now, and I can see the fat cheeks of Rastonaix and the ferret face of Servoin. Although we were outdoor pupils, we were allowed a quarter of an hour's recreation indoors, between the Latin and English lessons. The two boys had engaged me on the previous days for a game of ninepins, and when it was over, they came close to me, and looking at each other to keep up their courage, they put to me the following questions, point-blank: "Is it true that the murderer of your father has been arrested?" "And that he is to be guillotined?" This occurred sixteen years ago, but I cannot now recall the beating of my heart at those words without horror. I must have turned pale, for the two boys, who had struck me this blow with the carelessness of their age--of our age--stood there disconcerted. A blind fury seized upon me, urging me to command them to be silent, and to hit them if they spoke again; but at the same time I felt a wild impulse of curiosity--what if this were the explanation of the silence by which I felt myself surrounded?--and also a pang of fear, the fear of the unknown. The blood rushed into my face, and I stammered out: "I do not know."