evocations of childhood

It has taken me a while to pick up my copy of Le Grand Meaulnes. The story of the book is simple and myth-like, set in the bleak Sologne, in central France, around the turn of the last century. I'm glad I finally got around to it. It's a book that casts a spell, even in the late days of summer. It is a powerful evocation of childhood, particularly the magical nature of some of our experiences in that period. I've often thought that these experiences color our entire lives with a sweet feeling of nostalgia. Here is a passage:

The whole morning is mine, to explore the outskirts of the wood, the coolest, most hidden places thereabouts, while my big brother is on a journey of discovery. It is like a dried-up riverbed. I am walking beneath the low branches of trees that I do not know by name; they must be elms...

Sometimes, for a few steps, my feet are resting on a bank of fine sand. And in the silence, I can hear a bird; I think it's a nightingale, but I must be wrong because they only sing in the evenings... This bird relentlessly repeating the same phrase; voice of the morning, a recital in the shade, a delicious invitation to a journey between the elms. Invisible and obstinate, it seems to be accompanying me through the leaves.

For the first time, I too am on the road to adventure... I am looking for the passage that they write about in books, the one with the entrance that the prince, weary from travelling, cannot find. This is the one you find at the remotest hour of morning, long after you have forgotten that eleven o'clock is coming, or midday. And suddenly, as you part the branches in the dense undergrowth, with that hesitant movement of the hands, held unevenly at face height, you see something like a long, dark avenue leading to a tiny circle of light...

image found here