Ulysse was my grandfather, one whom I suppose everyone would wish to call “grand-papa”. His origin was Swiss-Italian. His father, a sculptor, came to the French-speaking part of Switzerland in search of work, which he found in a small town where my own grand-father was born. As far as I remember, my souvenirs of Ulysse were those of a kind, patient, humorous and  sociable person. He used to sit for hours in his “grand-father’s armchair”, his very thick glasses on his nose, reading, oblivious of everything happening around him. Lost in his own world. He read whole bookcases. Mainly  history books. They were about the history of the canton he was born in (Valais), of the people who inhabited it. He collected ancient books too and, when money permitted it, had  some of them bound by a good friend of his, a  bookbinder who loved books and treated them with the same respect  as Ulysse did.  This soft,  scented leather  enchanted me whenever Ulysse showed me his recent discoveries.

Beside giving me plenty of books before he left for celestial readings… he gave me something so precious : the love of books, of reading and writing. I was lucky to receive his old armchair too. When I sit there, a book in my hands, not a day passes without thinking of my grandfather. With such gratitude and happiness that our paths crossed.