would make a detour to Rue St. Denis to look at the prostitutes standing in the street.
25. Tell how I always dreamt of becoming a great adventurer. An explorer. Or else a stowaway on a pirate ship. I also dreamt of being able to fly.
26. Tell how once my mother bought me un éclair au chocolat for my birthday.
27. Tell how I liked to go to the open market with my mother to do the food shopping.
28. Describe how the man who delivered the coal for the building where we lived dropped it from his truck in the street, and how my uncle Leon would make me carry it to the cellar with a big pail.
29. Describe how I would sneak into the Montrouge cinema, Place de la République, to see the Charlie Chaplin movies.
30. Describe how Yvette, the pretty young woman who lived on the same floor we did, one day asked me, when I was only eight years old, to come to her place to show me how to make myself feel good.
31. Tell about the stolen spoon.
32. Describe how my father used to take me with him to Place de la Bastille to demonstrate with the Communists against the government, and how we all sang the International, and how one day the police dispersed us by striking us with their sticks, and how my father got hit on the head and was bleeding, and how he wiped the blood with my handkerchief, and how my mother screamed when she saw the blood on my handkerchief, and how she told my father that he should never take me again, that he was trying to have me killed, and how I loved those demonstrations.
33. Describe how one day my father packed his little Polish suitcase and said he was going to Spain to fight with the republicans against Franco, and when my mother started crying and screaming my father screamed even louder than her, and how we the children were so scared because they were screaming so loud, we hid in the kitchen, and how when my aunt Marie heard the screaming she came up to our apartment to see what was going on, and when my mother explained while still sobbing that my father wanted to go to Spain to fight against Franco, my aunt Marie started screaming at my father that he was a salopard, that he had no right to abandon his wife and children, that he was a stupid Communist, and that he would die before reaching Spain because of his tuberculosis, and how my father threw his little Polish suitcase against the wall and walked out of our apartment slamming the door and cursing aunt Marie, and we even heard him arguing with my uncle Leon in the staircase, and how my father finally came home three days later, and nobody ever talked about that scene again.
Well, good enough. Iâll stop this list here. Iâm sure thereâll be other scenes to describe. But perhaps Iâve already said enough about some of these, I wonât have to say more.
Federman, that would be a good place for you to tell the story of the savings account booklet.
Yes, why not, even though the funny part happened after my childhood.
At the end of each school year prizes were distributed. I donât recall how old I was, but one year I won the first prize. I donât know if it was because of the good work I had done or if it was just for my good behavior. In class, I always conducted myself well. I didnât talk with the other boys, I listened to the teacher attentively when she gave us dictations. I always turned my homework in on time. And above all I learned by heart all the poems we had to recite in class. I loved poetry.
I still remember some of these poems I had to memorize in school. Sometimes I recite to myself these crumbs of poetry.
There was one poem that I particularly liked, and that I still recite sometimes. Well, the few lines that I remember. Itâs a poem by Victor Hugo called âOceano Nox.â
I liked the title even though I didnât know what it meant before the teacher explained it to the class.
Here are some of the lines I remember. I quote them in French since I memorized them in French.
Oh!
25. Tell how I always dreamt of becoming a great adventurer. An explorer. Or else a stowaway on a pirate ship. I also dreamt of being able to fly.
26. Tell how once my mother bought me un éclair au chocolat for my birthday.
27. Tell how I liked to go to the open market with my mother to do the food shopping.
28. Describe how the man who delivered the coal for the building where we lived dropped it from his truck in the street, and how my uncle Leon would make me carry it to the cellar with a big pail.
29. Describe how I would sneak into the Montrouge cinema, Place de la République, to see the Charlie Chaplin movies.
30. Describe how Yvette, the pretty young woman who lived on the same floor we did, one day asked me, when I was only eight years old, to come to her place to show me how to make myself feel good.
31. Tell about the stolen spoon.
32. Describe how my father used to take me with him to Place de la Bastille to demonstrate with the Communists against the government, and how we all sang the International, and how one day the police dispersed us by striking us with their sticks, and how my father got hit on the head and was bleeding, and how he wiped the blood with my handkerchief, and how my mother screamed when she saw the blood on my handkerchief, and how she told my father that he should never take me again, that he was trying to have me killed, and how I loved those demonstrations.
33. Describe how one day my father packed his little Polish suitcase and said he was going to Spain to fight with the republicans against Franco, and when my mother started crying and screaming my father screamed even louder than her, and how we the children were so scared because they were screaming so loud, we hid in the kitchen, and how when my aunt Marie heard the screaming she came up to our apartment to see what was going on, and when my mother explained while still sobbing that my father wanted to go to Spain to fight against Franco, my aunt Marie started screaming at my father that he was a salopard, that he had no right to abandon his wife and children, that he was a stupid Communist, and that he would die before reaching Spain because of his tuberculosis, and how my father threw his little Polish suitcase against the wall and walked out of our apartment slamming the door and cursing aunt Marie, and we even heard him arguing with my uncle Leon in the staircase, and how my father finally came home three days later, and nobody ever talked about that scene again.
Well, good enough. Iâll stop this list here. Iâm sure thereâll be other scenes to describe. But perhaps Iâve already said enough about some of these, I wonât have to say more.
Federman, that would be a good place for you to tell the story of the savings account booklet.
Yes, why not, even though the funny part happened after my childhood.
At the end of each school year prizes were distributed. I donât recall how old I was, but one year I won the first prize. I donât know if it was because of the good work I had done or if it was just for my good behavior. In class, I always conducted myself well. I didnât talk with the other boys, I listened to the teacher attentively when she gave us dictations. I always turned my homework in on time. And above all I learned by heart all the poems we had to recite in class. I loved poetry.
I still remember some of these poems I had to memorize in school. Sometimes I recite to myself these crumbs of poetry.
There was one poem that I particularly liked, and that I still recite sometimes. Well, the few lines that I remember. Itâs a poem by Victor Hugo called âOceano Nox.â
I liked the title even though I didnât know what it meant before the teacher explained it to the class.
Here are some of the lines I remember. I quote them in French since I memorized them in French.
Oh!
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