It was about this time that I installed myself in my aunt Claire's room for the purpose of study, and there too I busied myself manufacturing wonders for the “Donkey's Skin.” I took possession of the place as entirely as an army occupies a conquered country—I would not admit the possibility of being in the way.
My aunt Claire was the person who petted me most. And it was she who was always so careful of my little things. She always looked after my finery or anything uncommonly fragile, things that the least breath of air would have blown away—such exquisitely delicate trifles, for example, as the wings of a butterfly, or the bright scale of a beetle, intended for the costumes of our nymphs and fairies—when I said to her: “Will you please take care of this, dear auntie?” I felt that I could be easy about it, for I knew that no one would be allowed to touch it.
One of the great attractions in her room was a bear that was used for holding burnt-almonds; and I often visited the place for the sole purpose of paying my respects to this animal. He was made of china and he sat upon his hind legs in the corner of the mantelpiece. According to a compact that I had with my aunt, every time that his head was turned to the side (and I found it so several times during a day) it meant that there was an almond or some other kind of candy for me. When I had eaten this I straightened his head to indicate that I had been there, and then I departed.
Aunt Claire enjoyed helping us with the “Donkey's Skin”; she worked enthusiastically over the costumes and each day I gave her some task. She was especially skilful in devising hair for the fairies and nymphs; she managed to fix upon their tiny heads, about as big as the end of a little finger, blond wigs made of light silk thread, this thread she twined upon the finest wires and thus she was able to twist it into beautiful ringlets.
Then when it became absolutely necessary for me to study my lessons, in the feverish haste of the last half hour that I reserved for my task, after having wasted my time in idleness of every sort, it was aunt Claire who came to my rescue; she would open the large dictionary and hunt up for me the unfamiliar words in the exercises and lessons. She also took up the study of Greek in order to assist me with my lessons in that language. When I studied my Greek I always led my aunt Claire to the stairway and I sprawled there upon the steps, my feet higher than my head; for two or three years that was the classic pose I took for the study of the Iliad, or Xenophon's Cyropedia.
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