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separated from her and did practically no work - so much so that the next year I found myself back in a boarding school in the small village of Cunlhat, which is about thirty kilometers from Ambert. It was even worse there than it had been at Puy-en-Velay. We were all crammed into a tiny dormitory that was barely heated. and worst of all, there was virtually no discipline. So the biggest and strongest boys enforced their own law. I think that is where I developed such a hatred of violence. One day, fed up with being bullied by boys against whom no disciplinary measures were ever taken, I took to the road on foot, determined to cover the thirty kilometers that separated me from my maternal home. Nobody noticed my departure, and when the school principal caught up with me in his car, I had already walked nearly ten kilometers. To my great delight, I was kicked out of the school and sent back to the Catholic brethren at Ambert in the middle of the school year as a day boy. What joy! I could now see Brigitte every day in the street. By then she was twelve, her small bosom was budding deliciously, and to me she was more beautiful than ever. I grew less and less interested in my studies and began to taste the joys of playing truant, mainly because I did not like finding myself back among the priests, who had quickly advised my mother to have me baptized. Fortunately, she preferred to wait until I was old enough to understand, so that she could ask my opinion. What I would have liked at that time was to become a garage mechanic because I had learned that this was a useful skill for racing drivers. My mother, who hoped I would become an engineer, wanted me at all costs to continue with my studies, so she would not allow me to become apprenticed to a garage. This new harassment gave me the desire to write poems again, and I started pacing about in the country with a notebook in my hand instead of attending classes. At fourteen I found myself back in boarding school once more, this time in Mont-Dore, at a grammar school where they take children not wanted by any of the other schools in the region. 129 My Lire UNTIL THE First ENCOUNTER - POETRY