as actual people. I had that experience with a teddy bear when I was a kid. Patoche, his name was. He was ugly as sin, one eye had been sewn back on and most of his fur had come off. But he was my teddy. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep without him, I would have felt like a brotherless orphan.
Sometimes I think that maybe it’s the same for Annette. That I’m her teddy and she doesn’t see me with her eyes, she sees me with her heart.
Anyway, all I could think about was this Opinel, with the rounded handle and the rotating safety catch. I knew straight off what I could use it for. If I had it, I’d be able to take it fishing, for example. A knife can be very useful when you’re fishing. You can use it to cut back reeds, to look less of an idiot when you’re eating, to fight off snakes. And while you’re at it, you could use it to gut trout. But no matter how many times I counted the money in my piggybank, I knew I’d never have enough to buy it. But as the Good Lord said(or maybe it was one of His apostles): God helps those who help themselves!
So one morning I swiped it from the case when I went in to buy my mother’s cigarettes. I helped myself. Why should it always be other people and not me?
Those display cases have locks a two-year-old could pick. If I was a shopkeeper I wouldn’t trust them.
I had it for nearly ten years, that knife. I stupidly lost it one morning, in fact when I was going fishing. I would have been better off staying home. They say: be sure your sins will find you while you’re out. And, incidentally, if that’s true, there are people out there who should be really worried.
Actually, I think the reason I like whittling is because it keeps my hands busy.
I ’ VE BEEN THINKING about the word uncultivated—land that has not been tilled; see also: fallow ground —which popped into my head one day while I was talking to Margueritte. And about how the cultivation in books relates to the cultivation of artichokes. Just because land isn’t cultivated doesn’t mean it’s not good for potatoes and other things. Make no mistake: tilling doesn’t make the soil better, it just prepares it to better accommodate the seedlings. It aerates it. Because if the soil is too acidic, too chalky or too poor, nothing will take root.
I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say: What about fertilizer?
Let me tell you something about fertilizer: you can dump a truckload on the land, but if the soil was bad to begin with, it’ll still be bad. OK, maybe with a lot of sweat, you might get three or four potatoes out of it. Spuds the size of marbles. Whereas if you have rich, black soil with thick clods that don’t crumble between your fingers, then with or without fertilizer, it will produce something. Then you have to factor in the know-how of whoever’s doing the gardening. And the weather, which depends on the Good Lord, who makes it rain whenever it suits Him. And the phases of the moon, because you’d have to be a complete idiot to plant during the young moon if you want roots—carrots, beetroot, onions—or during the old moon if it’s leaves—lettuce, spinach, cabbage—but I’m not telling you anythingyou don’t already know. Then there’s the tricks you never tell anyone, except on your deathbed, such as the best places to find mushrooms—even just saying that, I crossed my fingers. May the Good Lord keep me hale and hearty and equal to the task.
All this leads me to the conclusion that with people, it’s just the same: just because you’re uncultivated doesn’t mean you’re not cultivable. You just need to stumble on the right gardener. Find the wrong one, one with no experience, and you’re a botched job.
And I’m not just saying that about that bastard Monsieur Bayle who obviously didn’t know how to sow by the moon, if I can be metaphorical— see also: symbolic .
Anyway, these are just a couple of ideas that popped into my head without me
Sometimes I think that maybe it’s the same for Annette. That I’m her teddy and she doesn’t see me with her eyes, she sees me with her heart.
Anyway, all I could think about was this Opinel, with the rounded handle and the rotating safety catch. I knew straight off what I could use it for. If I had it, I’d be able to take it fishing, for example. A knife can be very useful when you’re fishing. You can use it to cut back reeds, to look less of an idiot when you’re eating, to fight off snakes. And while you’re at it, you could use it to gut trout. But no matter how many times I counted the money in my piggybank, I knew I’d never have enough to buy it. But as the Good Lord said(or maybe it was one of His apostles): God helps those who help themselves!
So one morning I swiped it from the case when I went in to buy my mother’s cigarettes. I helped myself. Why should it always be other people and not me?
Those display cases have locks a two-year-old could pick. If I was a shopkeeper I wouldn’t trust them.
I had it for nearly ten years, that knife. I stupidly lost it one morning, in fact when I was going fishing. I would have been better off staying home. They say: be sure your sins will find you while you’re out. And, incidentally, if that’s true, there are people out there who should be really worried.
Actually, I think the reason I like whittling is because it keeps my hands busy.
I ’ VE BEEN THINKING about the word uncultivated—land that has not been tilled; see also: fallow ground —which popped into my head one day while I was talking to Margueritte. And about how the cultivation in books relates to the cultivation of artichokes. Just because land isn’t cultivated doesn’t mean it’s not good for potatoes and other things. Make no mistake: tilling doesn’t make the soil better, it just prepares it to better accommodate the seedlings. It aerates it. Because if the soil is too acidic, too chalky or too poor, nothing will take root.
I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say: What about fertilizer?
Let me tell you something about fertilizer: you can dump a truckload on the land, but if the soil was bad to begin with, it’ll still be bad. OK, maybe with a lot of sweat, you might get three or four potatoes out of it. Spuds the size of marbles. Whereas if you have rich, black soil with thick clods that don’t crumble between your fingers, then with or without fertilizer, it will produce something. Then you have to factor in the know-how of whoever’s doing the gardening. And the weather, which depends on the Good Lord, who makes it rain whenever it suits Him. And the phases of the moon, because you’d have to be a complete idiot to plant during the young moon if you want roots—carrots, beetroot, onions—or during the old moon if it’s leaves—lettuce, spinach, cabbage—but I’m not telling you anythingyou don’t already know. Then there’s the tricks you never tell anyone, except on your deathbed, such as the best places to find mushrooms—even just saying that, I crossed my fingers. May the Good Lord keep me hale and hearty and equal to the task.
All this leads me to the conclusion that with people, it’s just the same: just because you’re uncultivated doesn’t mean you’re not cultivable. You just need to stumble on the right gardener. Find the wrong one, one with no experience, and you’re a botched job.
And I’m not just saying that about that bastard Monsieur Bayle who obviously didn’t know how to sow by the moon, if I can be metaphorical— see also: symbolic .
Anyway, these are just a couple of ideas that popped into my head without me
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