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CHILDHOOD, BOYHOOD, YOUTH
15

feeling of love and tenderness, and I liked the play very much.

"The secret of the 'Ants' Brotherhood' had been disclosed to us; but the great secret—how to banish all unhappiness from life, all disputes and anger, and to make people happy for ever—this secret, as he told us, he had written on a green stick, and the green stick was buried near the road along the hollow by the old wood. As my body must find somewhere a resting-place, I beg that I may be buried on that spot in memory of my brother Nicolas.

"Besides this stick there was somewhere a 'Fanfaron Hill,' to which he might lead us if we could fulfil certain conditions. These conditions were: First, to stand in a corner and not to think of a white bear; (I remember how I stood in the corner, and tried hard not to think of that white bear, but without success; (second, to walk along a straight line without stumbling; and third—which was easy—during a whole year not to see a hare, whether dead, alive, or roasted. At the end of all to swear not to disclose these secrets to anyone.

"The ideal of the ant brethren clinging lovingly together, not under two chairs covered by handkerchiefs, but under the wide, blue vault