taught that to
deceive is to lower oneself. Even in his infancy he was already as proud
as any personage. His early years were protected by the gentle and
delicate care of his mother and his two sisters, who hung adoringly over
him and were fascinated by his strange black eyes. What was to become of
a child whose gaze was difficult to endure, and whose health was so
fragile, for when only a few months old he had almost died of infantile
enteritis. His parents had been obliged to carry him hastily to
Switzerland, and then to Hyeres, and to keep him in an atmosphere like
that of a hothouse. Petted and spoiled, tended by women, like Achilles
at Scyros among the daughters of Lycomedes, would he not bear all his
life the stamp of too softening an education? Too pretty and too frail,
with his curls and his dainty little frock, he had an _air de
princesse_. His father felt that a mistake was being made, and that this
excess of tenderness must be promptly ended. He took the child on his
knees; a scene as trifling as it was decisive was about to be enacted:

"I almost feel like taking you with me, where I am going."

"Where are you going, father?"

"There, where I am going, there are only men."

"I want to go with you."

The father seemed to hesitate, and then to decide:

"After all, too early is better than too late. Put on your hat. I shall
take you." He took him to the hairdresser.

"I am going to have my hair cut. How do you feel about it?"

"I want to do like men."

The child was set upon a stool where, in the white combing-cloth, with
his curly hair, he resembled an angel done by an Italian Primitive. For
an instant the father thought himself a barbarian, and the barber
hesitated, scissors in air, as before a crime. They exchanged glances;
then the father stiffened and gave the order. The beautiful curls fell.

But now it became necessary to return home; and when his mother saw him,
she wept.

"I am a man," the child announced, peremptorily.

He was indeed to be a man, but he was to remain for a long time also a
mischievous boy--nearly, in fact, until the end.

When he was six or seven years old he began to study with the teacher of
his sisters, which was convenient and agreeable, but meant the addition
of another petticoat. The fineness of his feelings, his fear of having
wounded any comrade, which were later to inspire him in so many touching
actions, were the result of this feminine education. His walks