Alain-Fournier

“ Because, when I want to recall that distant memory of lingering in the courtyard of our home at Saint-Agathe on the first evening, there are now other times when I remember waiting - my two hands grasping the bars of the gate - I see myself anxiously looking down the street, waiting for someone to appear. And again, if I try to imagine the first night that I passed in my bedroom, in the middle of the attics of the top floor, there are other nights now that come to mind; I am no longer alone in this room; a wonderful presence excites me with a reassuring shadow moving to and fro on the walls. ”

“ As for me, worried that I would be home late, I followed the wall of the great courtyard that separated the village from our house, and arrived at the little iron gateway.
It was half open and I could see immediately that something out of the ordinary was happening.
At the door of the dining-room – the nearest of the five glazed doors opening on to the courtyard – a grey haired woman was leaning forward and trying to peer through the curtains. She was slight and wearing an old-fashioned black velvet bonnet. She had a fine, lean face, which was disturbed with worry. ”

“ My memory of this peaceful landscape with the school, Old Martin's field, with its three walnut trees and garden which was always filled every day after four o'clock by visiting women, has been disturbed and is transformed forever by the person that invaded my adolescence and whose final absence even then did not give me peace. ”