“I recall the thing as though it were yesterday.  It was a very stormy day.  The whole line of trees bent under the pressure of the wind, groaned, and seemed to utter cries—­cries, though dull, yet deep, that the whole forest rang under the tempest.

“Evening came on.  It was dark in the thickets.  The agitation of the wind and the branches excited me, made me bound about like an idiot, and howl in imitation of the wolves.

“As soon as I perceived my parents, I crept furtively towards them, under the branches, in order to surprise them, as though I had been a veritable rodent.  But becoming seized with fear, I stopped a few paces from them.  My father, a prey to the most ferocious passion, cried: 

“’Your mother is a fool; moreover, it is not your mother that is the question, it is you.  I tell you that I want money, and I will make you sign this.’

“My mother responded in a firm voice: 

“’I will not sign it.  It is Jean’s fortune, I shall guard it for him and I will not allow you to devour it with strange women, as you have your own heritage.’

“Then my father, full of rage, wheeled round and seized his wife by the throat, and began to slash her full in the face with the disengaged hand.

“My mother’s hat fell off, her hair became all disheveled and spread over her back; she essayed to parry the blows, but she could not escape from them.  And my father, like a madman, banged and banged.  My mother rolled over on the ground, covering her face in both her hands.  Then he turned her over on her back in order to batter her still more, pulling away her hands which were covering her face.

“As for me, my friend, it seemed as though the world had come to an end, that the eternal laws had changed.  I experienced the overwhelming dread that one has in presence of things supernatural, in presence of irreparable disasters.  My boyish head whirled round, floated.  I began to cry with all my might, without knowing why, a prey to terror, to grief, to a dreadful bewilderment.  My father heard me, turned round, and, on seeing me, made as though he would rush towards me.  I believed that he wanted to kill me, and I fled like a haunted animal, running straight in front of me in the woods.

“I ran perhaps for an hour, perhaps for two, I know not.  Darkness had set in, I tumbled over some thick herb, exhausted, and I lay there lost, devoured by terror, eaten up by a sorrow capable of breaking for ever the heart of a poor infant.  I became cold, I became hungry.  At length day broke.  I dared neither get up, walk, return home, nor save myself, fearing to encounter my father whom I did not wish to see again.

“I should probably have died of misery and of hunger at the foot of a tree, if the guard had not discovered me and led me away by force.

“I found my parents wearing their ordinary aspect.  My mother alone spoke to me: 

“’How you have frightened me, you naughty boy; I have been the whole night sleepless.’