So she got it into her head that if she ever had sons of her own, the first should be a musician, the second a painter, and the third a sculptor.

As a result, when I came home from the nurse, she was not greatly surprised that I began to listen to every noise and to every sound; that I made the doors creak, and would plant myself in front of the clocks to hear them strike.

My special delight was the music of the tea-kettle--a large one which was hung before the fire in the drawing-room every morning.

Seated nearby on a small stool, I used to wait with a lively curiosity for the first murmurs of its gentle and variegated _crescendo_, and the appearance of a microscopic oboe which gradually increased its song until it was silenced by the kettle boiling.

Berlioz must have heard that oboe as well as I, for I rediscovered it in the "Ride to Hell" in his _La Damnation de Faust_.
At the same time I was learning to read.