A Child's Gaze ('Incidental Memoirs')

“I hear it being repeated—farther away, long and drawn out—I can’t remember it. I’m seven years old, or thereabouts, but, constantly being around adults, I’m interested in what they do; I try to figure out the meaning of their actions and the flow of events. From experience, I already know that the many and disorderly questions addressed to any adult at all are useless; I have some elusive system of questioning that’s definite, though it’s not clear to my own mind…”