My mother told me that somebody had sent me this soul-stirring present from the country, and I dare say I was made to sit down and write a letter of thanks.  But I’m ashamed to own I can’t remember who the giver was.  I have a vague notion that it was a lady, an elderly maiden-lady—­Mademoiselle ... something that began with P—­who lived near Tours, and who used to come to Paris once or twice a year, and always brought me a box of prunes.

Alexandre carried the cage into my playroom, and set it up against the wall.  I stationed myself in front of it, and remained there all the rest of the afternoon, gazing in, entranced.  To watch their antics, their comings and goings, their labours and amusements, to study their shrewd, alert physiognomies, to wonder about their feelings, thoughts, intentions, to try to divine the meaning of their busy twittering language—­it was such keen, deep delight.  Of course I was an anthropomorphist, and read a great deal of human nature into them; otherwise it wouldn’t have been such fun.  I dragged myself reluctantly away when I was called to dinner.  It was hard that evening to apply myself to my school-books.  Before I went to bed I paid them a parting visit; they were huddled together in their nest of cotton-wool, sleeping soundly.  And I was up at an unheard-of hour next morning, to have a bout with them before going to school.  I found Alexandre, in his nightcap and long white apron, occupied with the soins de proprete, as he said.  He cleaned out the cage, put in fresh food and water, and then, pointing to the fat old couple, the grandparents, who stopped lazily a-bed, sitting up and rubbing their noses together, whilst their juniors scampered merrily about their affairs, ’Tiens!  On dirait Monsieur et Madame Denis,’ he cried.  I felt the appositeness of his allusion; and the old couple were forthwith officially denominated Monsieur and Madame Denis, for their resemblance to the hero and heroine of the song—­though which was Monsieur, and which Madame, I’m not sure that I ever clearly knew.

It was a little after this that I was taken for the first time in my life to the play.  I fancy the theatre must have been the Porte St. Martin; at any rate, it was a theatre in the Boulevard, and towards the East, for I remember the long drive we had to reach it And the piece was The Count of Monte Cristo.  In my memory the adventure shines, of course, as a vague blur of light and joy; a child’s first visit to the play, and that play The Count of Monte Cristo!  It was all the breath-taking pleasantness of romance made visible, audible, actual.  A vague blur of light and joy, from which only two details separate themselves.  First, the prison scene, and an aged man, with a long white beard, moving a great stone from the wall; then—­the figure of Mercedes.  I went home terribly in love with Mercedes.  Surely there are no such grandes passions in maturer life as those helpless, inarticulate ones we burn in secret with, before our teens; surely we never love again so violently, desperately, consumedly.  Anyhow, I went home terribly in love with Mercedes.  And—­do all children lack humour?—­I picked out the prettiest young ladyish-looking mouse in my collection, cut off her moustaches, adopted her as my especial pet, and called her by the name of my dea certe.