ds, bespeaking the dawn, floated over the
blue expanse that was softened and paled by the gauze hanging in
front of it. And the chariot of a silken-haired fairy, drawn by two
butterflies and suspended on invisible threads, advanced towards the
centre of the scene.

But in spite of our efforts our work was never finished, for we took
no account of limitations; every day we had new ideas and ever more and
more wonderful projects, and the great comprehensive representation was
deferred from day to day, was postponed to a future that never came.

Every undertaking of my life will be, or has already been, left
unfinished and incomplete as was that little play of the "Donkey's
Skin."

CHAPTER LII.

Among those professors who seemed, during my school-days, so severe, and
indeed almost cruel to me, the most terrible without any exception were
the "Bull of Apis" and the "Big Black Ape" (I had nicknames for all
of them). I hope should they read this they will understand that I am
writing from the child's view-point. Should I meet them to-day I would,
in all probability, humbly tender them my hand and ask their pardon for
having been such an unmanageable pupil.

Oh! the Big Ape especially, how I hated him! When from the height of his
desk these words fell upon my ear: "You will do a hundred lines; I
mean you, you little sap-head!" I could have flown at his face like an
enraged cat. He was the first to arouse in me those sudden and violent
outbursts of rage that characterized me as a man, outbreaks which
could scarcely have been foreseen in a child of my sweet and patient
disposition.

I would be doing myself a great injustice in saying that I was
altogether a bad scholar, I was, rather, an unequal and erratic one; one
day at the head of my class, the next day at the foot; but on the whole
I maintained a fair average, and at the end of the year I received the
prize for translation--I won no others however. It surprised me that
every one in the class did not receive the prize that I had won without
great effort, for translation was extraordinarily easy for me. On the
other hand I found composition very difficult, and narration still more
so.

Little by little I deserted my own work-desk, and in my aunt Claire's
room, near the china bon-bon bear, I underwent with as much resignation
as possible, the torture that the preparing of my tasks imposed. On the
wainscoting of the wall, in a hidden recess of the room, there