chocolate or vanilla cake with candles, as well as the presents that my parents had bought them.

So it was a day of celebration, but my mother's heart was heavy. With me, who'd come to mess up her plans, on the scene, she found herself thrown back to square one, once again confined to the small world that she so much wanted to leave. I was forcing her to put off her dream of a new life, a dream she'd thought she was about to realize.

I imagine that despite herself, at the bottom of her heart, she held my being born against me a bit. But I also know that she didn't waste much time feeling sorry for herself. That's simply not her way. My mother is happy to take care of everybody, but she's never had much sympathy for complainers and crybabies.

I don't know how it happened, but, in some way, and despite myself, I succeeded in making my presence felt. I must have found a way to make peace with the mother who hadn't really wanted me at first. Somehow I must have won her over. But I can't take too much credit for it. My mother was always crazy about babies—hers and other people's. And what's more, I seem to have been a good baby. I didn't cry too much and I quickly began sleeping nights. Of course, I had fifteen people at my beck and call.

I spent the first days, weeks, or maybe months of my life in the arms of my mother or father, or one of my thirteen older brothers and sisters. I was the focus of interest for these fifteen people, without a doubt the most attentive and indulgent audience I've ever had. They watched me, pampered me, worshiped me. In the evening they argued about whose bed I'd sleep in.

My sister Ghislaine, who was almost ten, made a surprising dis­covery at the time. Every time she softly sang my name in a tiny, very high falsetto, I would begin to cry—as if on cue. Quite naturally, she inferred from this that I didn't like my name. My mother had chosen

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it because, during her pregnancy, the Hugues Aufray song "Celine" was an enormous success in Quebec and France. "Celine" tells the story of the oldest of many children, the mother of whom dies while giving birth to the last child. The eldest has sacrificed her youth to her brothers and sisters. And the years have gone by without her hav­ing known love.

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