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O'Coonassa is my surname in Gaelic, my first name is Bonaparte and Ireland is my little native land. I cannot truly remember either the day I was born or the first six months I spent here in the world. Doubtless, however, I was alive at that time although I have no memory of it, because I should not exist now if I were not there then and to the human being, as well as to every other living creature, sense comes gradually.

The night before I was born. it happened that my father and Martin O'Bannassa were sitting on top of the hen-house, gazing at the sky to judge the weather and also chatting honestly and quietly about the difficulties of life.

- Well, now. Martin, said my father, the wind is from the north and there's a forbidding look about the White Bens; before the morning there'll be ram and we'll get a dirty tempestuous night of it that will knock a shake out of us even if we're in the very bed. And look here! Martin, isn't it the bad sign that the ducks are in the nettles? Horror and misfortune will come on the world tonight; the evil thing and sea-cat will be a-foot in the darkness and, if ’tis true for me, no good destiny is ever in store for either of us again.

- Well, indeed, Michelangelo, said Martin O'Bannassa, 'tis no little thing you've said there now and if you're right, you've told nary a lie but the truth itself.

I was born in the middle of the night in the end of the house. My father never expected me because he was a quiet fellow and did not understand very accurately the ways of life. My little bald skull so astounded him that he almost departed from this life the moment I entered it and, indeed. it was a misfortune and harmful thing for him that he did not, because after that night he never had anything but misery and was destroyed and rent by the world and bereft of his health as long as he lived. The people said that my mother was not expecting me either and it is a fact that the whisper went around that I was not born of my mother at all but of another woman. All that, nevertheless, is only the neighbours' talk and cannot be checked now because the neighbours are all dead and their likes will not be there again. I never laid eyes on my father until I was grown up but that is another story and I shall mention it at another time in this document.

I was born in the West of Ireland on that awful winter's night—may we all be healthy and safe!—in the place called Corkadoragha and in the townland named Lisnabrawshkeen. I was very young at the time I was born and had not aged even a single day; for half a year I did not perceive anything about me and did not know one person from the other. Wisdom and understanding, nevertheless, come steadily, solidly and stealthily into the mind of every human being and I spent that year on the broad of my back, my darting here and there at my environment. I noticed my mother in the house before me, a decent, hefty, big-boned woman; a silent, cross, big-breasted woman. She seldom spoke to me and often struck me when I screamed in the end of the house. The beating was of little use in stopping the tumult because the second tumult was worse than the first one and, if I received a further beating, the third tumult was worse than the second one. However, my mother was sensible, level-headed and well-fed; her like will not be there again. She spent her life cleaning out the house, sweeping cow-dung and pig-dung from in front of the door, churning butter and milking cows, weaving and carding wool and working the spinning-wheel, praying, cursing and setting big fires to boil a houseful of potatoes to stave off the day of famine.

There was another person in the house in front of me—an old crooked, stooped fellow with a stick, half of whose face and all of whose chest were invisible because there was a wild, wool-grey beard blocking the view. The hairless part of his face was brown, tough and wrinkled like leather and two sharp shrewd eyes looked out from it at the world with a needle's sharpness. I never heard him called anything but the Old-Grey-Fellow. He lived in our house and very often my mother and he were not of the same mind and, bedad, it was an incredible thing the amount of potatoes he consumed, the volume of speech which issued from him and what little work he performed around the house. At first in my youth I thought he was my father. I remember sitting in his company one night, both of us gazing peacefully into the great red mass of the fire where my mother had placed a pot of potatoes as big as a barrel a-boiling for the pigs—she herself was quiet in the end of the house. It happened that the heat of the fire was roasting me but I was not able to walk at that time and had no means of escape from the heat on my own. The Old-Grey-Fellow cocked an eye at me and announced:

- 'Tis hot, son!

- There's an awful lot of heat in that fire truly, I replied, but look, sir, you called me son for the first time. It may be that you're my father and that I'm your child. God bless and save us and far from us be the evil thing! - ’Tisn’t true for you, Bonaparte, said he, for I'm your grandfather. Your father is far from home at the present but his name and surname in his present habitation are Michelangelo O'Coonassa.

- And where is he?

- He's in the jug! said the Old-Grey-Fellow.

At that time I was only about in the tenth month of my life but when I had the opportunity 1 looked into the jug. There was nothing in it but sour milk and it was a long time until I understood the Old-Grey-Fellow's remark, but that is another story and I shall mention it in another place in this document.