Free Planus by Blaise Cendrars

remain of his daughter to rest in the Ricordi family vault, the photographer went to the paddock on the Vomero, replaced the plan" that Pasquale had wrenched off, and sealed up the old door b hammering another board across it (one he had actually paid for), and stretching two or three coils of barbed wire over th entrance . . . and after that, none of us ever went back to Virgil' Tomb.
     
    Nevertheless, here I was, almost by chance, in hiding, and, after a week, peace still eluded me; I tossed and turned, evoking in m insomnia the unforgettable past with its illusory, fallacious an, distorted vision, which is also miraculous since it is not only th memory which reawakens and begins to function automatically, but also the very eyes of childhood, eyes which open and, for the firs time, see everything in a harsh light which throws it all into relief and, when one possesses this unholy vision of one's own life, i truth, one no longer hopes for anything. Everything turns to ashes and sand and slips through one's fingers, unlike the mystics who possess God and are in turn possessed by Him.
    It comes back to me how, a month after Elena's death, a frightful smell began to spread through the house. It was a smell of decaying flesh. The house was washed, soaped, scrubbed, scoured, disinfected but in vain; then workmen were sent for to take up the parquet flooring and hunt for dead rats, but there was none, and the horrible stench, far from abating, intensified to the point where, one fine da~ it led straight to Elena's bedroom, the unmistakable source of th pollution. They searched everywhere, tapping the walls, and at la found a concealed closet in a partition-wall which was filled from top to bottom with boxes and cartons, every kind of container Elena ha managed to lay hands on or filch from her sisters — hat-boxes, shoe boxes, biscuit-tins — filled with hundreds and thousands of snail carefully assorted and classified according to their size, shape an colour, which had died of hunger because of Elena's death. Nobody knew what this weird, abominably stinking collection meant, and my heart sick with joy and my soul poisoned at this discovery, kept the secret to myself. I breathed not a word. ...
    My mother entrusted me to a tutor with whom I was to go camp ing in Sicily. My sister was about to be married. My brother was getting ready to leave for Basle, where he was to study Law. My father was talking about moving again. Exasperated, my mother announced that she was going to settle in the house in Florence, with Lily as her companion. The Ricordis had moved to another home, and so our large house was once more up for sale. There was already a notice on the gate and Ernest was looking for another position. Only the Zia would be left behind, under Benjamin's watchful eye. I do not know what became of old Maria, she had Ieft of her own accord, and we had lost touch with her.
    For three months my tutor and I walked through Sicily, pushing Vert-de-Gris, a donkey who carried our tent and all our camping impedimenta, in front of us, and, when I came back from this trip a place was waiting for me at Dr Pluss's establishment, the Scuola Internazionale.
    My tutor was an Englishman, and today, when I meet a day- dreamer, I remember this tall, indolent young man, with his freckles and mop of unruly hair, who, on the pretext of inculcating the first rudiments of Latin and Greek into me, indulged in long, mythological discussions of which, I fear, I understood very little. But Adrian Peake, Bachelor of Arts, and holder of a scholarship at the Academy, charged with the task of improving my mind whilst walking me through Sicily, was above all a past-master in the art of boozing. It was he who taught me to drink. Moreover, it is thanks to him that I know how to survive and take care of myself in the wilds of nature, and how to sleep out comfortably under the stars, no matter where I may be.

NAPLES
    When I returned to Naples to attend the school