Page 414 - Christian Maas Full Book

for him, to blossom. But the road is a long one, he knew not himself as an artist yet. At most, he had

the feeling of a power driving him, even as a child, to monopolize reality, inventory it and appreci-

ate its beauty. But it is a long way from the cup to the lips, and, as no one encouraged him during the
holidays in Haute-Loire, no one would understand his first attempts at home. Like the mask he cre-
ated with scrapped materials (Belphegor’s one, TV-series in those days that he used to watch through

the windows of a TV store at the street’s corner, without any sound of course); his mother would

throw it, his work, to the nettles. Sunday strolls allowed him to salvage the most heteroclite objects!
They would often end into the garbage, for then again his ever-watchful mother did not understand of
what use those filthy things could be. In the house, hygiene and cleanliness were imperative, and there

was not much room left for the joyful disorder to which any child aspires. Each thing is desperately where

it belongs in the humble apartment. Whatever, such frustration would become strength; it would allow
him, as an adult, to divert the purpose of mundane objects purposes in order to let them achieve the
artwork status.

Besides, hadn’t he not learnt patience in his prime childhood? Hours spent in his playpen,
waiting for his mother busy serving the hostel’s customers; profitable hours since they would al-
low him to learn how to walk almost on his own. Therefore, he was ahead of schedule, or perhaps

he wasn’t, since the rest of his life will forever appear to be too short to catch up on the lost time.

So is partially explains his continued feverishness and his tendency toward multiples! Off you go!
One collection then another, then another one and... off you go! One creation, then two, then three; a
first wife, then after her a second one, then a third..., but that is another story... Nevertheless, with the

end of childhood, it was a whole world that was ending; with the loss of his father, a whole universe was

collapsing. The time of happiness seemed so far away at that moment. There, they are both alone, his
mother and himself, in a hostile life since he knew almost nobody. He had to give up his pals from the
elementary school, with whom he used to play at guessing who would be the best in class; to go on to

discover alone junior high school all by himself.

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