Part One
Childhood (1860-1872)
His first instinct was to stretch out his hands to the sky.
The white clouds seemed so near to him, surely they were easy to hold and to caress, strange-moving things belonging to the wide blue space of heaven.
They floated just above his head, they almost brushed his eyelids as they passed, and he had only to grasp the long curling fringe of them with his fingers and they would belong to him instead, becoming part of him for ever. Something within him whispered that he must clutch at the clouds and bring them down from the sky. So he held out his hands to them and they did not come. He cried out to them and they did not come. They passed away from him as though they had never been, indifferent and aloof; like wreaths of white smoke they were carried away by the wind, born of nothing, dissolving into nothing, a momentary breath that vanished in the air.
Nor yet did he understand, for a queer puzzled look crept into his eyes, and he would frown his ancient baby frown of an old man; while from the innermost part of his being came the long-drawn pitiful wail that can never be explained, the plaintive cry of a child born into the world who knows not what he wants, the eternal question of the earth to the skies - Who am I? Where from? Where to? The first cry and the last. The sigh of the baby, the sigh of the old man.
The white clouds had gone, and now others appeared over the rim of the world, coming into his little sphere of sight; so that the frown went from his face and the look of longing came upon it once more, and again he must stretch out his hands and call to them, the lesson unlearnt, the question in his eyes. A child newly born and he must know the answer - continuing from this first moment until the last for ever seeking, a bright spark rising in the cold air.
Julius Lévy was born in Puteaux, at that time little more than a village on the banks of the Seine. The street and the house in which he lived - now demolished and built over by large factories, their tall chimneys belching smoke into the air - was in his childhood the Rue Jean-Jacques, a long twisting cobbled street leading downhill from the village towards the high road to Paris. The houses were grey-coloured and drab, leaning forward, nearly touching, the air coming with difficulty to the dark rooms.
The last house in the street, cramped and unhealthy like the rest, possessing two rooms and another space scarcely more than a cupboard, was owned by Jean Blançard, the grandfather of Julius. Here he lived with his daughter Louise and his son-in-law Paul Lévy. Beyond the house were rough uncultivated plots of ground, as yet unbuilt upon, where the people of the quarter threw their waste and rubbish. This waste was never removed, and here dogs and cats came to scavenge; lean, wretched animals who would prowl at night and disturb those who slept with their thin hungry cries.
In the daytime children played on the rubbish heap; squatting on their behind they delved amongst the filth and sewage for hidden treasure, and often they would find odds and ends of food, half an apple thrown away or a crust of bread, cheese rind and peelings, and these they would thrust in their mouths with squeals of delight, relishing the joy of forbidden food.
Once he was able to walk, Julius found his way here too, and he would batter open the lids of old tins and thrust his little nose inside, working with his tongue round the edges to catch the last lingering taste of what had been, and then, scratching his body with one hand, he would glance slyly out of the corner of one eye to find the whereabouts of the nearest child, who might, if he were not careful, snatch the tin from his grasp.
Gradually and naturally from the timid shrinking bundle of flesh and nerves that was a baby, Julius grew to be a child, possessing feelings and intelligence, who used his senses, who began to realise that the faces about him were those of his relatives, that the house and the street and Puteaux were his home.
Supper would be ready, and they would sit to the table, Julius with a napkin tied around his throat, his black eyes opening wide as Mère placed before him the bowl of steaming soup. After his soup Julius ate pieces of garlic sausage off the end of Grandpère’s fork, and he would taste a lump of cheese from the finger of Mère, and to finish off he would drink his fill from the glass of red wine handed him by Grandpère, the old man rocking the whole table with his laughter as the child’s head nodded foolishly, and his eyes rolled; and to Julius this would seem the essence of peace and plenty, to sit there at the table, his body fully nourished with food and drink, already swaying in his chair as he longed for sleep, and half-consciously he would be aware of the food smell, the drink and tobacco smell, the voices of Mère and Grandpère jabbering through a haze, these people who were part of him and part of each other.