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the municipal grammar school. As they got older, the children lost their fear of him, and like their parents, started to make fun of him, laughing and making faces as they followed at his heels. Personally, I did not enjoy playing with the others, preferring to contemplate insects and look at books. I had passed this man in the street several times and had been surprised by his face, which radiated great kindness, and by the mischievous smile he wore whenever he looked at me. I did not know why, but he did not scare me, and I did not see anything laughable about him. Also I did not understand why the other children made fun of him. One afternoon I followed him, curious about where he was going, and saw him go into his house, leaving open the door that led into a small, very dark kitchen. I went closer and could see him sitting on a stool with the mischievous smile on his face, as if he were expecting me. He motioned for me to come nearer. I went inside the house and He laid his hand on my head, and I felt a strange sensation. At the same time, he looked up in the air and uttered some words that I did not understand. After a few minutes had passed, he let me go, still without saying a word, and still smiling the same mysterious smile. All this had me puzzled at the time, but I very quickly forgot about it. It was only in the summer of 1974, when reading a book that my mother had lent me about the mysteries of Auvergne, that I learned that Father Dissard, the old man in question, was the last Dissard - that is, the last living “Pope” of the Druids - and that he had been dead for several years. Then I recalled the scene from my childhood, and thought again of the mysterious smile that the old man used to give me each time I passed him in the street - which was every day, since we had been virtually neighbors. I now know exactly who he was addressing when he looked up in the air and uttered those mysterious phrases, just as I know exactly what the silent, luminous machine was that my grandmother had seen. 125 My Lire UNTIL THE First ENCOUNTER - THE Pore Or THE DruIDs knew how he could afford to live in the minuscule house in front of moved towards him.