It is so hard to put on paper relative memories about someone who used to be very close; you know the person so well that even his or her most characteristic features, be it even genius, appear as natural, and you take them for granted, without further research. However, life is nothing but a succession of images and impressions racing before one's mind, when one wishes to evoke the past; from these, some come out strongly, unforgettable, though they may not have been the most significant, but because they hold a crystallized moment of life encapsulated within. It was winter. We, the children, five in number, had gathered around the lamp hanging from the ceiling and casting its light over the round table in the middle of the library. We were doing our homework. My dad was pacing leisurely through all the rooms, whose doors stood open for his unending walks from one end of the house to the other, his head bowed, engrossed in thought. Attracted by the light, a butterfly was droning around. "Where are the figs?" we suddenly hear our father. Figs? Yes, we ate figs a long time ago. There are a few left on the bottom of a vase in the cupboard. Why? Catching between his nimble fingers the small butterfly that had fallen on the table, dad says, "From Asia Minor! This species does not live here. How would it have gotten here, if not in a fig?" And dad laughed at our amazement when, indeed, he took out of a fig the dry coat from which the insect had emerged. My father loved animals very much and always had endearments for them. I cannot forget a wild goose that, a whole year, tailed him whenever he got out of the house. When it saw him from a distance, it would run to him. He had found it wounded in late autumn in the field, and had put it up in a winter apartment with a bathroom, up in the attic.
by Marcelle C. Karadja
