Cloux
February 11
Outside, as I write, a girl is singing, in the chilly, windy afternoon:
Châtaignes piquantes!
Châtaignes chatouillantes!
Que chatouillent la cuisse,
Mais qui piquent la poche!
Now I hear another child—an Italian, a boy of six or seven, way back in time, singing, as he runs an errand.
When I was a boy...it’s true...I was happy: Mother made me happy: hand in hand we walked, at sunset time...she liked to sing as she worked in her kitchen...we sometimes sang together, “bread songs,” she called them.
I made drawings for her, little gifts, on scraps of paper, a flowering geranium, a lizard, the figure of a clay dog...