Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/119

 not only closed my mouth but made me burst into another fit of convulsions.

Their words: "This is yours, come and suck it," and: "You have bought it with this," were constantly ringing in my ears for days afterwards: I even heard them at night in my dreams. For the first time, at about four or five years of age, I found that life was not worth living, and death just then would have been a relief; nay, such was my morbid sensitiveness that I found it a hard task to bear my shame.

When my aunt came home, she inquired what was the matter with me, and she was told that I must have been terrified by some stray poodle.

She brought me the little boots she had promised me. I remember them after a lapse of more than twenty years, the tops were of brown yellowish kid and the lower part of patent leather.

As my nurse tried them on, I saw—in my imagination—the elder boy, standing in front of me, shaking his tool menacingly. I at once burst into another fit of convulsive sobbing.