That’s why one can truthfully say that James is neither big nor little; that he is both big and little. It is as God wishes it to be. He is the last reed of all in our living Pan Pipes.

But what are his two comrades doing? They are gazing off into space, all three of them. At what? At something which has disappeared below the horizon, something which they can’t see any more but still see in their mind’s eye, and which still dazzles them. Little John has forgotten his eel-skin whip with which just now he incessantly beat up his wooden shoes in the dusty road. Peter and James, their hands behind their backs, gaze stolidly.

What they saw, all three, was the wagon of a travelling peddler, a wagon drawn by his own arms, which had stopped in the village street.

The peddler pulled back the oilcloth that covered his wagon, and in a minute any quantity of knives, scissors, little guns, puppets, soldiers of wood and lead, cologne bottles, cakes of soap, pictures, a thousand dazzling things were exposed to the admiring view of all the men, women and children in the town. The servants from the farm and the mill were pale with longing; Peter and James were red with joy. Little John lost his tongue. Everything in the wagon seemed beautiful and precious to them. But the most desirable things of all were the unknown articles of which they could not guess either use or reason: as for example the bowls polished like mirrors that reflected your face comically deformed; paintings of Epinol, covered with faces more lively than reality; needle cases and mysterious boxes that contained unimaginable things.