Vous pensez = Vous pouvez vous imaginer

5, 1. J’enjambai le banc. In the old-fashioned schools, as many as eight children are seated side by side on a long bench running along a sloping desk of the same length, with a spécial compartment in which pupils put their books and stationery.

5. jours d’inspection. There are inspectors of different grades visiting the schools now and then. Cf. the American School

NOTES

Superintendents. — ou de distribution de prix. At the end of each school year, the best students get prizes which generally consist of books. Cf. the American Commencement Day.

7. quelque chose d’extraordinaire . . . Notice (1) that quel que chose , quelqu'un, rien , quoi , ce que , are followed by de when preceding an adjcctive or an advcrb; (2) quelque chose , used as a pronoun, is masculine although the word chose is féminine.

12. l’ancien . . . The French mayor and postman had already been replaced by Germans.

19. sa chaire, a kind of a raised platform on which a chair and a desk are placed.

6, 4. Comme je m’en voulais ... du temps perdu . . . =

Comme je me reprochais le temps perdu . . .

6, la Saar (in French la Sarre) is a tributary of the Moselle River which in its turn flows into the Rhine.

9. qui me feraient ... à quitter, an awkward construction for qu'il me ferait (impersonal) beaucoup de peine de quitter. See peine in Vocabulary.

10. C’est comme M. Kamel, “ I was experiencing the same feeling towards Mr. Hamel.”