Reflections: Various Variations on Old Themes

vich: he is a figure from the legends of the Reformation, from the time of Puritanism in all its purity. And Bouchot was a good man, just as a horse is a "good beast" by instinct, and yet, like a horse, not everyone would venture to approach him closer than the length of his legs and hooves. He had left Paris at the very height of the revolution, and, recalling his words and face now, I imagine that citoyen Bouchot citizen Bouchot was not idle or lazy during either the storming of the Bastille or the 10th of August; he spoke of everything with disdain, except for Metz and the cathedral church there; he almost never spoke of the revolution, but would remain silent about it, smiling in a somehow menacing way. A bachelor, serious and grave, he did not waste words with me; he conjugated verbs, dictated from les Incas de Marmontel a historical novel by Jean-François Marmontel, arranged commas after the accent grave and aigu, noted in the margin how many errors I had made, scolded me, and walked away, leaning on a huge, knobby stick; no one ever struck him.

Despite the interest of my pedagogues, I was bored; I had nowhere to put my energy, my urge to play, my need to share impressions and games with other children. I had one companion, one female friend—Berta, half-spitz and half of my father's Spanish dog. I spent much time with her; I used to harness her, ride her like a horse, tease her, and on winter days I would sit with her by the stove: I would sing songs, and she would sleep—and time would pass unnoticed. Back then, she was already very old, but she still flirted and wore long ears with shaggy brown fur. I was not the only one who loved Berta: our footman, Yakov Ignatyevich, could not survive her; he simply died of grief and drink a week after her death. Besides Berta, I had another resource: the cook's children, who never wiped their noses and were forever wallowing somewhere in the filth in the yard. But I was strictly forbidden to play with them, and, overcoming various dangers, I could barely slip into the yard for a few minutes to chop ice around the kitchen in winter or get covered in mud in summer. Moreover, I barely knew how to play with others: the slightest opposition infuriated me because my toys never contradicted me in anything; and children in general are great democrats and do not tolerate a companion who gains the upper hand over them.