away and did not look at me... She was weeping in silence. I went mad with pain and took her face between my hands, crying out without knowing what I did: 'Why do you not look at my face and say, “God bless you, my son,” as you say to my brothers when they come to you with their coins? I love you as they love you — no, more! Why do you not look at this hand of mine that draws, as you look at their hands that work and write? This hand will bring you coins one day — gold, even! So I implore you by God, mother, not to shake your head in pain every time I show you a drawing...' Then my father sprang up threatening, so I let my hand fall and drew away, crawling to my corner; and he followed me and sat down beside me, looking at me, bewildered, anguished...

“'Forgive me, father, I will not shout like that again.' He put his arm around my shoul-der, saying: 'We love you as we love your brothers, but you do not try to win our approval as they do... You do not study, and you do not try to learn as they do... They help me when they find the time, while you sit apart with a wandering gaze, drawing absurdities like these, unaware of our existence...

“'Why are you like this, my son — so different from your brothers?'

“I did not answer him, and I waited until he despaired of my answer and left me. Then I stole away to my bed in the other room, listening for the fall of my mother's footsteps coming to talk to me — and she did not come... So I said: she is weeping her disappointment in me, the sluggish dullard, the youngest of her children and the most trying of them all... Do I trouble you with this bitter talk of mine?”

“No, not at all! You do not trouble me, and you never have... I love you more than any human being in this existence... Do you want me to turn on the light for you?”

“No, I want to talk slowly like this, in the dark”...

“Talk — talk to me; I am all heart and eyes and ears”...

The wind and the silence of the night pricked up their ears.

“The days swept us along with them, and I remained as I was — indeed I grew more skillful at drawing and fonder of it, while they grew more despairing at the failure of my life, more hopeless...

“I would bend over my pictures for long hours alone, wresting from the weariness of my soul flashes of hope and snatches of optimism,