MY FIRST COMMUNION

In the thirties and until soon before the War of the Pacific (1941-1945), the highly solemn ceremony of First Communion used to take place every year on the first Sunday in December. It was held in the Cathedral and it brought together all the first communicants of every parish, nearly one hundred, or even more, boys and girls all dressed up in full rig, the boys wearing black or white, with the indispensable ribbon tired in a bow around the sleeve, the girls always in white, looking like sweet little birds with their long dresses and veils.

I shall never forget my First Communion, on the 5th December 1934, I was eleven years old. Surely so many details have vanished out of my memory, but what remains is enough to justify this narrative.

It all started around the end of September or the beginning of October of that same year. My Grandmother the Countess eventually found out with shock that neither my elder brother - who was then twelve and went to secondary school - nor I had yet taken Communion, the custom of the time being for seven-year--old children to be ready for the event.

She set the house in an uproar-a traditional Catholic family careless of their duties towards God. My parents were embarrassed and had to admit that the boys didn't even attend Sunday school - a pious devotion equally very dear to Macanese tradition - and were practically ignorant of the cathecism.

Moved by the recriminations and shaken by a guilty conscience, my father promised to solve the problem. And he was drastic. No more postponements until the following year, for we would then be like giants among the rest of the children, which would have been extremely embarrassing.

After much pondering and as soon as he could, my father went to see the old friend who had known him as a boy, the dear Father António Maria de Morais Sarmento, one of the most typical characters of his time in Macau and a man of much knowledge, may his soul rest in peace.

My brother and I were both present when my father told Father Sarmento how we had got in such an awkward situation. The good priest crossed his hands against his chest, hardly able to keep the balance of the umbrella and the newspaper which he always kept under his arm, and he looked up to Heaven, in an attitude so peculiarly his, as his reddish cheeks trembled.

I cannot remember whether he was shocked by the enormity. But I am sure that his hoarse, slow voice reproached the carelessness which caused two little boys to walk about in sin. My father, who was always a very touchy person, humbly submitted to the evangelic admonition and entreated the good reverend to try and devise a favourable outcome.

Father Sarmento frowned, argumented that it was already too late for us to start going to Sunday school, but then he stood there for a moment, looking at us. He would have to find a way to lead us, my brother and myself, to the sheepfold of the elected. And, after all, he was a good friend of my father's and he had never ever failed to forgive him his faults.

- Send the boys to me tomorrow afternoon at three. We'll see what we can do.

And so it happened. The following day punctually at three in the afternoon, after crossing a small garden, we were ringing his bell on the Avenida Conselheiro Ferreira de Almeida. I must confess that I was apprehensive, I was even frightened. To my own littleness, Father Sarmento looked very big, his harsh face without even a hint of gentleness. But then, what were we to do - we just had to go on ahead - back home, our parents and grandmother would inevitably ask us questions...

I do not recall who it was that opened the door and led us in to a room on the ground-floor - surely his study and library - where we were kept waiting for the priest to finish his afternoon sleep.

Apparently there wasn't a place for us to sit anywhere. The books were all heaped up in a mess, scattered all over the writing-table, the bookcases, the chairs, and even the floor, most of them covered by a fine film of dust. There was a smell of mould and of old things. The windows, shut, with the blinds only slightly opened, did not scare the sad, severe darkness away. Oh, but the heaps of knowledge inside those books half-eaten by the worms, by neglect, untidiness and carelessness! Father Sarmento was famous for his wisdom and there I was, planted in the spring of his immense knowledge, represented by all those thick, impressively facund volumes with intricate titles, many of which in Latin, French, or in other languages.

Very few words were exchanged between my brother and myself, both rendered mute by the atmosphere. And our reverential fear grew greater with the endless wait.

His eyes still showed some last vestiges of sleep when he finally arrived. He was a stout, chunky man and he was bursting with health, smelling of health - a strong smell of garlic arising from him and his soiled cassock which wanted washing. Every time he shook his grey, unkempt hair, a fine sprinkle of dandruff would fall on his shoulders.

He greeted us and sat heavily upon a chair after removing the pile of books which sat upon his writing-table and even on his chair, having us sit down on a couple of worn-out, rickety chairs, for which purpose we too had to remove some books.

After a last yawn, he repeated the same reproaches of the day before and said that we were somewhat late. But he was going to do his best. But then we could not expect to learn everything, he was just going to teach us the basic things so that we could be ready to receive God's grace. He absent-mindedly examined our brand-new cathecism books and did not seem to be impressed. And then he started off by saying:

- Cathecism is not meant to be learnt by heart, it must be felt and understood.

And so he began. The room we were in was the most inadequate place for a classroom for its evident lack of comfort. And the teacher's hoarse voice was a foreboding of dull dissertations which would certainly go in at one ear and out at the other and nothing would remain inside. Fortunately, however, I was wrong. Father Sarmento knew exactly what he wanted and he soon showed his mastery in the art of communicating.

From this half-a-century distance in time, I cannot tell the method he used. But this I do know, he used a plain language which could be easily understood by children our age and we followed his lessons with the utmost attention, both on that first day and during the ones that followed. Aware of the interest of his pupils, he became enthusiastic about it and, I'm sure, what had started as a friend's indulgent favour eventually became a pleasure for him. And we were the ones to benefit from it. With each eloquent gesture, the dandruff snow would fall, the chair would squeak under the weight of his heavy body, and a light dust would arise from the books.

I remember, however, some of the subjects he taught. He explained the Ten Commandments, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, he took time with prayers, describing the meaning of each sentence, as, for instance, in the 'Pater Noster he also talked about mortal sins and gave other examples. Only very perfunctorily did he mention the sin of lust, and he did it rather superficially too, not going into much detail.

I can recall that, exactly because he did not explain it and I did not know the real meaning of the word - so I took it to be a synonym of luxury, this ignorance later leading me to make a slip.

While he taught us, he also offered each of us a copy of the Bible written for adolescents, illustrated with xylographic prints, easy and stimulating to read - an edition which is now out of print and, for me, the best Bible ever to have been edited in Portuguese for the youth, having the further advantage of not being an expensive edition.

Through it, the names of biblical places and characters became familiar, Jericho, Tiberiades, Samaria, and Galilee still give me a sort of nostalgia, although I've never been there. I have lived the story of David and Goliah, Esther and Ruth, Samson and Delilah, I was better able to understand Solomon's justice, I vibrated with Daniel among the lions and I was truly vexed by Babylon's seventy years of captivity. Later, with the New Testament, Christ's parables, the myracles, the crucifixion - about all that I read, as eagerly as if I were reading a novel.

Father Sarmento was unexceedable in the parables, for he taught both through intelligence and through the heart. I was deeply moved by the drama of the Good Thief. I remember Father Sarmento's voice when he himself was moved, breaking the usual single-toned voice. And his hands also, now closed with only the forefinger sticking out, now open and flattened - or even weaving invisible arabesques in the air.

Towards the end, when we got to the crucial subject of Confession, he insisted upon the worth and the importance of the examination of one's conscience, the culminating point for us to deserve Communion. I then asked him, timidly:

- What is going to happen if I forget the words of the Act of Contrition as I have learnt in the book?

- In that case, you should pray in your own words, asking God to forgive your sins and showing a sincere repentance. The important thing is the intention of your words and of your feelings.

On the last day, he was smiling and had lost his habitual sternness. He had managed to get us accepted for First Communion, he had done his best to make us ready for it and was quite happy with the work. He gave us endless advice, told us about the ways of Good and of Evil, and finished off by wishing us happiness. After that, he went back to his old circumspection and all intimacies were over.

I have kept an indelible and affectionate memory of Father Sarmento's lessons. And I am sorry that they did not last longer - they lasted a mere two months. Never again did I have the opportunity of being his pupil again. I certainly would have learned a lot.

He did not seem to remember me after that, a fact which really hurt me. When we met on the street he would simply answer my greeting and would never stop and ask me anything. And in my reverential fear and timidity, I wouldn't dare to interrupt his thoughts.

I can still see him, fat and chunky, walking in his heavy, slow steps, his black felt hat plunged into his head, his eternal umbrella under the arm and the newspaper which he always kept open, day or night, a habit which marked a singularly characteristic image, for everybody wondered how he could possibly be reading in the dark.

The three days of compulsory Retreat preceeding First Communion were spent, as customarily, at the Canossian Sisters' Charity Home in the Largo de Camões, the huge building which was also a school and a convent and which was later to disappear overnight, under the destructive hammer of progress, shocking everybody in the neighbourhood and generally the Portuguese population of Macau

There were four of us - my two younger sisters were also taking their First Communion with us - leaving home early in the morning, by car, after having listened to our parents' last advice, moved by the gravity of the occasion.

When we got to the 'Charity Home', my sisters and us, the boys, immediately followed different ways. They had their rooms, which they shared with other girls, so that we only got together when we went to the convent's Chapel, where the sexes sat in separate wings.

I cannot describe what happened during those three days in a chronological order. Time is relentless and memory is bound to fail. However, some living sketches have remained, which I shall now tell.

Our Retreat directors were Father João Clímaco, an illustrious Macanese, and Father José António Monteiro, a huge, bearded, awe-commanding man from Freixo de Espada à Cinta; but he was - or so was my impression of him - intrinsically such a kind, candid soul that he treated all the boys as little babies, levelling their age.

My brother and I were among the oldest. What we saw at the Retreat was a bunch of little primary school beginners, some of them too young to have even the faintest notion of what they were doing there. I cannot bear to think how it would have been like if we had waited yet another year! At first, we felt out of place in that society, but we then ended up by joining the older boys, who looked just as embarrassed as ourselves. It was all so different from Father Sarmento's ground-floor.

The rooms where the Retreat took place were cold and bare, big and dark. I can hardly remember the long corridors along which shadows dressed up as nuns used to glide in silence and contemplation. On our way from one room to another, we sometimes could see from the inside windows the cloister and the yard where the pupils of the 'Charity Home' used to play - poor forsaken girls, most of them exposed children rescued and supported by the 'Asilo da Santa Infância' (the Orphanage of the Holy Childhood), under the care and the responsability of the same Canossian Sisters. We could see those girls in their ungraceful grey uniforms. Nevertheless, many of them looked happy, running or playing the 'tapa-avião' or the 'tapa-simples', typically Macaese children's games which no longer exist.

Lunch was brought from home - and I can't forget the delicious kidneys in saffron sauce which Cook used to make - and it was real pandemonium both during meal-time and in the breaks. It was obviously difficult to restrain such restless children burning with young, lively blood. The Sisters who watched us shouted themselves hoarse, for we would not quiet down until the priests came, especially Father Clímaco. He was not as strongly built as father Monteiro, but he was a very stern man and he demanded the strictest discipline.

His little, short-sighted eyes flashed like guns behind his glasses and when he preached, his hands looked like darts. When he talked about sin and about the evil ways that lead to it, as well as about its terrible consequences, a freezing silence descended upon the room. When he evoked Hell, he painted it in such realistic colours that his listeners would feel a chill run through their spine. Our imagination was set to work, putting before us images of huge cauldrons with bubbling pitch, the bodies of condemned souls writhing in pain, the groans, the howls, the wailings. I shall never forget his words, uttered from the pulpit of the convent's Chapel as he pointed his raging forefinger:

- In Hell there are black flames, of a black more black even than my cassock's black.

I tried to imagine what black more black even than the priest's cassock would be like. Father Sarmento had never told us such things. And I could not make it out. Father Clímaco used a method which Father Sarmento did not use. His intentions were good, he meant to make God--fearing creatures out of us boys, earthly angels. And, on that very moment, I'm pretty sure we all were.

Father Monteiro had yet another way of doing things. He used to tell us stories from the Bible which I already knew, miracles performed by Saints which he transformed into wonders, in a tone of voice as though he were addressing little children. Later, he went over all those narratives again when he taught me 'Religion and Morals' in my 5th Form, with exactly the same simplicity, unaware of the fact that he was now addressing big boys.

In the afternoon of the second day, we learned how to take the Host As it was not consecrated and this was only a rehearsal, we were all perfectly at ease. But the terrible warning was soon to come.

We could not bite it once it had been consecrated, for it then represented the Body of Christ. If we happened to do it, either through carelessness or by accident, we would suffer lethal bleeding, blood flowing off from the mouth, the nose, the ears and the pores. We were not to forget that. And horrifying examples were given.

During the rehearsals, I swallowed two hosts which just slipped down my throat, no problem at all. I felt like trying some more, but I could not bring myself to ask the Sister who saw the host-box being emptied of its contents by other hands, more daring and less cerimonious, which carried hosts to the mouth as if they were biscuits.

The afternoon of the second day was dedicated to Confession, the first I had ever went to, humbly kneeling before the confessor. During the examination of my conscience, I had made a list of all the sins I had committed, and I often went through it over and over again, for fear that some sin might have escaped me. I was shaking when I knelt before Father Ramiro Branco, who already knew me, for he too was a friend of my father's. Pale and skinny, he had an encouraging look which had a soothing effect upon me. And everything went just like I had learned it would.

With fervorous zeal, I enumerated all the sins I had committed until I was eleven. I admitted to having committed all of the mortal sins, except one. That of lust. As I have said before, Father Sarmento had not cleared it up for me and I mistook it for 'luxury'.

Well, I had never lived in luxury, nor had I ever boasted of living in luxury. My school-fellows, the best, were even the poorest. I was not going to confess something which was not true, but I nevertheless got the impression that I had not really managed to convince Father Ramiro. I was also puzzled by the fact that he had only prescribed a few Hail Mary's and the same small amount of 'Pater Noster's' as penitence, as I was really expecting to have to go through endless beads after I had told him my long rosary of sins. In that bewildered state of mind, when I tried to say the Act of Contrition all the words simply vanished into thin air. I was left to follow Father Sarmento's advice and asked for forgiveness in my own words, vehemently and with sincere repentance.

But I was not yet satisfied sitting there. The impression that I had not been really able to convince Father Ramiro still lingered on my mind. I had been told the day before that if we should happen to forget to confess something, we could approach the confessor for a second time. I stood up and walked to the confessional again. Father Ramiro frowned, I can still see him, a kind, wondering smile on his lips. I hastily whispered as I knelt down:

- I was not lying when I said that I didn't commit the sin of lust. I have never lived in 'luxury'.

- I know you did not commit it. You don't even know what it is - he replied, bestowing a broader smile upon me.

I went back to my seat extremely happy and surprised that Father Ramiro knew so much about my life. I said my penitential prayers in compunction. But later, when I found out the difference between the two words, I could not but blush with shame.

- The brute you were!

And for a long time, whenever I met Father Ramiro I was seized by painful embarrassment. Naturally, he forgot all about the episode - but I could never forget it!

There are pictures which are forever kept in one's memory. As I took leave of the Sisters who had so patiently put up with us during the three days of the-Retreat, I felt a sensation of lightness, of something ineffable and soothing taking hold of my soul. As neither our sisters nor our car were, for some reason, waiting for us outside, my brother and I walked back home in seraphical silence.

We crossed the Largo de Camões where the first street venders of the evening announced their goods in nostalgic cries, we walked through the Street of S. Paulo where the big two - and three-storey meditated, in the quiet evening, under the lulling whisper of the fruit trees in the back yards. Towards the east, the red flashes of twilight set the Lomba da Lapa ablaze. Down below, we cross the Rua da Palha, by the bazaar which is not very busy at that hour, we turn left of the Rua da S. Domingos and are soon walking by the 'Capitol' the best and the most elegant cinema house in Macau.

As we had constantly been told that the cinema was one of the vile springs of sin, we didn't even dare to look at its façade. But I knew what film was then on: "Twenty Million Sweethearts", with Dick Powell and Nancy Carroll, a musical comedy everybody was talking about, with beautiful songs which everybody was singing and would remain popular until well after the following year's Carnival balls and parties. I was going to miss the film and the truth is, I never again had the opportunity of seeing it. But in that solemn moment, I was ready to sacrifice my old preference for the movies for the sake of being in peace with God and exempt from heinous sin.

With the 'Capitol' behind us, we crossed the Travessa dos Anjos and arrived at the quiet Rua de Santa Clara, where house-maids were returning from their afternoon walks with the children. It was not cold, for that year's Indian summer was making a longer stay than usual. We then went up the slope of the Jardim de S. Francisco, passed beside the barracks and there we were, home, on the Estrada de S. Francisco.

As we went in, the smell of delicacies, cakes and puddings, a delicious mixture which pleased our stomachs and delighted our mouths in antecipation, was everywhere. But because I was feeling so thoroughly angelical I was able to resist the habit, which I still have, of entering the kitchen to pilfer bits of meat.

I went up straight to my room and lay down on the bed. With the purity I felt inside my heart I could not fall into the temptation of greed, on the very eve of my First Communion and after a Confession in which I had laid my soul bare, exhibiting all the faults it had ever committed.

But the sweet perfume of all the magnificent things that were being prepared in the kitchen was a torture to me. It crawled up the stairs, it hovered in the walls and the clothes, it stuck to your nose. I decided to take refuge in the roof-terrace on top of the house and crouched in my favourite corner, by the cistern.

Another torment for me was the fact that I must not sing. I had been told that I would have to behave like a grave, decent, quiet young man for the rest of the day, meditating upon the great act I was going to perform the following day. I could not allow myself to be diverted by unimportant things, for it would not please God. And I did want to please Him.

I remained thus hunched up and quiet, in spite of the cold breeze, until the night fell completely, fighting against a growing appetite and against the wish to sing, to jump and to play with my brother in our usual boyish entertainments.

I don't quite remember exactly what time the ceremony started in the Cathedral. I keep a vivid memory, though, of a replete church, filled with people, parents, relatives, and guests. In the front rows, the First Communion boys and girls sat gravely.

The then Bishop of the diocese, D. José da Costa Nunes, presided over the ceremony with his ascetic, grave countenance. There were many priests assisting him, the organ was playing, and the choir of the Chapel of Santa Cecília of the Seminário de S. Jose were singing. The atmosphere was colourful, highly religious and moving. In his sermon, D. Jose, who was a most eloquent preacher, exhorted the communicants to follow the paths of Faith, insisting on the meaning of the occasion. And then the supreme moment of Communion finally came.

When I joined the queue, I was deeply nervous. My heart was pounding fast. I looked at the boy in front of me, his neck and abundant hair, to be honest, not to look either sidewards or backwards, to find out where my brother was. The multiple faces around me were but moving blotches looking at us, and I could not recognize any of them.

I was going to receive the Body of Christ inside me given by the hands of the Bishop and I was worried about the outcome: would I be able to do it properly, or would I fail most disgrace-fully? For some reason, I felt sick. If it was due either to nervousness or to the compulsory fasting since the day before, I could never ascertain, for I was getting closer and closer to His Reverence the Bishop.

Would I be able to swallow the Host adequately, or would I give it a bite, either by accident or through Satan's malign intervention? And I could picture myself bleeding all over, lying on the cold floor of the church, lost and condemned forever, under the consternated look of my family and of everybody else.

It was, however, too late to go back, now that the boy behind me was pressing me forward and the one in front was already sticking his neck out towards the Bishop. One second more, and it would be my turn. I did not fail. I received the holy Host with the humility I had been taught and went back to my place, my head bent, my eyes looking down, my hands raised at the level of my chest.

Nonetheless, my mind would not concentrate on it. To my consternation, the Host had stubbornly stuck to my palate and I could think of no way of making it slide naturally down my throat. I manouvered my tongue in a silent and heroic effort to remove it. The thought of a hemorrhage, blood bursting out of my nose, my mouth and my eyes would not let go of me. Finally, the Host dissolved, but after that fight, a piece of the Divine Body had ended up by getting stuck between two of my molar teeth.

Fresh terror. This time there was no escaping the tenebrous outcome. I was in panick, but I could not cry for help, it was a problem I would have to face and solve alone. Maybe that was the first time I tasted the painful, bitter taste of solitude. Those who looked at me then might have thought I was in some kinds of devout transe. If they could know what was really happening, their conclusion would certainly be more prosaic. The fight that went on inside my mouth seemed to be lasting forever - on one side, the tip of the tongue attacking relentlessly, on the other, the hostile teeth defending the possession of the divine bit.

At last, God's intervention won, in His infinite mercy. And why should it not win, if I was a good boy and had observed all due precepts with conviction and sincerity? With the little bit of the Host now free and finally going down my throat, the Devil and his perfidious tricks had been driven away forever. I then felt immensely happy. Thank you God, that I did not have an hemorrhage!

After it was all over, I just enjoyed the pleasure of being an important person, everybody around us greeting me and my brother and sisters. We were leaving when someone told us that the Church was offering a "small cup of tea" to the communicants, with the assistance of their parents, in an adjoining room. There we went. A "small cup of tea" in Macau in the thirties was, of couse, a big tea-party. There were large quantities of pies and cookies, meat balls, sandwiches, and other sweetmeats the look of which made those fasting children even hungrier.

As soon as we were told to start, the children literally devastated every dish and tray with patent voracity, forgetting all the previous good-behaviour. I myself plunged into the curry pies, which were really delicious. My mother's eyes followed me and she would have scolded me, had I not been under a state of Grace. Half an hour later, we went home.

Following a habit of the thirties, after we had taken a short rest at home, we went to our Grandparents' to get their blessing. First of all, our paternal Grandmother, the Countess, by whose intervention we had taken Communion, and then to our maternal Grandparents.

In each of the homes, we were greeted with words adequate to the occasion, exhorting us to be good boys and good girls, respectively. I do miss those words, for it then seemed so easy to be a good boy.

When we went back home, there was bustle all around the house - everything was being prepared for the "chá gordo" (a big tea-party). My mother's voice could be constantly heard, now in the kitchen, now in the rooms. Maids and servants were busy and hurrying about. Noises of cutlery, pots, pans and tableware could be heard. The smell of floor wax was mixed with other odours. My younger brothers were told not to come downstairs to avoid being in the way and making a mess of what their elders had been cleaning and tidying up.

The first guests arrived at six in the evening. First, our numerous relatives, then the closer friends and after them, those who are usually invited on such important occasions only. Streams of presents were flowing into our hands. We put them, obediently, upon a table and saw the heap grow bigger, secretly joyful and anxious to learn what was hidden inside all those magic multicoloured parcels.

I can still remember the huge table set diagonally across our large dining-room. It was covered with victuals and delicacies, typical Macanese courses cooked by my mother and her friends. The strong emanations of the "serrabulho" (a stew made of curdled hog blood) - a speciality of my mother's - were stronger than all the other fragrances put together and are still stuck to my nose and to my memory. Cold meats had also been ordered from Hong--Kong's Dairy Farm.

Pies, cookies, sweetmeats and puddings also occupied a proeminent place upon the table. There were the inevitable specialities of my mother's recipes, "encantos de massa leve", 'golden prunes' all smeared with sugar, 'russians', etc. Little glasses of 'cow hand gelly', made by my Grandmother Luísa were among the most demanded ones. I was able to filch two of them without anyone noticing, to have the pleasure of eating them later on, by myself, leisurely, in my favourite corner on the terrace.

The temperature that month of December was mild, and the food invited strong drinks of which there was plenty: table wine, whisky and beer were among the favourite. There was also punch, which was served out of a huge punch-bowl used only on very special days.

Male servants with long robes and maids with white tunics and black pants, their hair well combed in shiny tress with wood oil, waited on the guests, silent and polite. There was the laughter of young people, entwined with the graver voices of the grown-ups. The children played in the garden and they kept coming back to the table to get new supplies. The guests were coming and going, because there were tea-parties all over Macau that day and one could not miss any of them, or the hosts would certainly be offended. To be present was a strict duty of politeness. That was why some of the guests left as others knocked on the door, in a continuous coming and going. And always there was plenty of food and drink! Oh, the good old days!

When the party reached its highest point, my sisters, my brother, and myself, holding silver trays, distributed holy pictures among the guests - yet another tradition in Macau -- commemorating our First Communion. The ladies kissed us and the gentlemen kissed our sisters. As for us, the boys, they would shake our hand. And, for the first time, we felt like men, our boyhood suddenly looking very distant...

The liveliest memory I have kept from that detail was when I got close to a group of elderly ladies. They all said words of circumstance, but they uttered them with motherly smiles, without hypocrisy. One of them exclaimed, meaning my bow:

- 'Qui bonitéza!'

Those words mean, in the sweet local prattle, "how nice, how polite".

My mother tripped from guest to guest, making herself interested in their comfort, offering another drink, asking wheather they would care for anything else - another piece of almond cake, maybe... My father was in the best of moods, he laughed, said nice things, and was feeling so very happy on that distant day which will never come back.

When the number of guests grew smaller, a poker table was set in my father's office. I was not allowed to go in, but I could peep in through the open door. My mother was eating something at last, in the dining room. The ladies were talking, all sitting in a wide circle. The younger ones were listening to the latest 'hits' on the heavy gramophone, a piece of furniture which my father was particularly proud of. Some of the boldest couples danced.

It must have been quite late when the last guest, or relative, went home. We were all exhausted, but happy, for there and been nothing to cast a shadow upon the day. It had been a nice party.

Back in our bedroom, my brother and I opened our presents, my sisters doing the same in the next room. My favourite present was a photoghraphic camera. I had also got some books by Jules Verne, the Countess of Segur, a book by Virginia de Castro Osório, and also a nicely-bound volume, "Luz e Calor", by Manuel Bernardes which was later to disappear most mysteriously.

Broken down with fatigue and overpowered by the emotions of the day, I let myself slide under the cotton blanket. Before sleep took hold of me, I made the balance of the day which would be forever tenderly kept in my memory.

The day of my First Communion... One of the happiest days of my life!•

(from the book, in preparation, MONG - HÁ.)

Illustrations by Carlos Marreiros ^© Copyright