Everybody dies, didn't they?

Everybody come back.

Isn't that so?

You tried to get into the locked drawer today, didn't you?

How do the dead come back, mother?

What's the secret? The Owl by Anatole-Bras.

In those days, I mean during the era of King Louis-Philippe, I made wooden shoes for a living.

Our work team camped in the Gurun-Hoel mountain range, on a slope leading into town.

Surrounding us was a magnificent forest of

beech trees which have since been turned into shoes. Between all of us cousins, as we were

accustomed to call ourselves, we comprised a sort of village of five or six huts. Mine stood

next to the ruins of an old chapel, and here I lived with my wife, God bless her,

and our four children, who are now scattered about the world.

The only sections of the chapel still standing are a portion of wall, a dilapidated altar

overrun with brambles, and here and there the bases of columns buried beneath a thick layer of moss, weeds and dead leaves.

But towards the eastern side, and behind the altar, was one great window through which light fell on the choir,

standing nearly intact at the end of a passageway, a frame for the old stones and ancient glass. Here in the evenings after work, I love to come and sit

peacefully on the edge of this stone sculpture and smoke my pipe and think remote from the women's

chatter and the gleeful noise of the children. There were nests of owls amongst the ruins,

and late one afternoon, I don't

remember how, as I was hoisting myself up to my usual seat, I startled

I startled creatures. As it fled its whole, it made such a strange sound that one

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