Page 31 - A Life - my Live - my path
P. 31
Herding goats and sheep in Italy
So what do you do when you've only got bread and you still
want to enjoy yourself?
You take a piece of bread in your left hand and another
piece of bread in your right. To eat, you bite into the bread
in your left hand, while for the bread in your right hand,
you imitate a baby feeding itself. The impression is
brilliant!
At this point, people who were a little sensitive were on the
brink of tears. I was quick to explain that this story was pure
fiction. My parents weren't rich, but we never lacked for
anything. Nothing unnecessary, just the essentials. They
managed the situation well.
At dinner parties, one of my friends , who had clearly
21
understood the emotional impact of my story, encouraged
me to often tell it.
This early childhood was also filled with memories of
simplicity. My mother always said I was a quiet child. She
would put me between the legs of two chairs that had been
overturned, and I would play quietly with blades of grass and
small pieces of wood. I remember the bricklayers used to
make me a hat in the shape of a boat from the slightly
hardened paper of cement bags, and that they knew how to
make a frame of a small car from the thin stems of a plant I
can't remember the name of. I loved it!
21 Pierre MERCIER
19