Surprised and Fulfilled

(This tale is extracted from the Famous Causes)

Towards six years, I was surprised to notice that I existed. Later, I tried to know myself.
The emotion that had made me one day the sight of a donkey beaten by his master, I burst into tears, left me long believe (and to others) that I was good. Yet, it happened to me to watch long, in front of the railway bridge, a derailment that seemed to me probable, I do not know according to what calculations.
One told me then: "You do like the cows". I thought: "Perhaps the cows do like me?" All in all, the accident that I hoped passed in horror a beaten donkey. My own sorrows neither were not altogether disagreeable to me.
Another day, I was struck to see to my little friends hairs of different colors. I decided at once that the browns were worth more than the blonds. What relief, when I looked at myself in a mirror! I was blond. I even said to myself: red (I exaggerated).
It is a trait that I have kept until today. I like to enter into a category, were it the least esteemed.
But, at other moments, I would not resemble anyone. I recall a prize distribution where my comrades, as soon as their books received, made a reverence to the Directress. That seemed to me puerile. When came my turn, I made the military salute. There was around me a burst of laughter that did not embarrass me much. I felt strong, by what right?
If I like gifts, I do not like much that one makes me some: it is too meddling with me. Being thus made, one sees well that assent nor blame, love nor hate, cannot quite content me. Who gives me wrong, attracts me. Who gives me right, I imagine that he has not understood me well; I do not take my party willingly. As if I waited, to be satisfied, to be at once the others and myself.
When I saw that I persisted in taking myself for God, I renounced once for all to know myself.