Bosco, a French/Italian writer, was nominated for the Nobel Prize four times. He wrote this novella in 1945 in Morocco, shortly before his return to France. It is beautifully written, a pastorale so to speak, with definite undertones of Huckleberry Finn. Pascalet, a young boy, runs away from his caretaker to the forbidden river, upon which he finds an old weathered boat. Only meaning to rest in it, he finds himself adrift, and then after a brief but frightening squall, ends up becoming grounded on a small island.
It is here that he meets his companion-to-be, a Gypsy lad cast out by his own people, Gatzo. Fortunately, the older boy is more knowledgeable about boats and rivers, and so off they go. Eventually everything sorts itself out, but the tale is not about the ending, but more about the being.
Mostly it is the writing that is just so lovely. Here is Pascalet’s first morning awakening on the boat drifting through the backwaters, the “time of still waters”.
[The] day was dawning. At first I saw the sky. Just the sky. It was gray and violet, with just a little pink high upon a thread of cloud. Still higher, the wind was weaving other threads through a light lattice of mists. In the East, a pale gold fog was slowly rising above the river. A bird called out; it might have been a warbler. Its sharp restive cry awakened a frog’s discreet croaks. Then a flight of wet wings ruffled the tufts of reeds, and all around our boat the confused murmur of as yet unseen water creatures arose. . . . I was listening.