Over a number of days, Peter had been considering a recently recalled incident from his childhood. Perhaps not so much an incident, but more of a scene. In the course of being revisited, the memory had begun to take on a troubling quality. In the scene stand Peter, his mother, and a third person, an unfamiliar man with coldly appraising eyes. The man speaks. He says that Peter has a delightful face. ‘But his legs,’ the man says, staring at the boy’s scabbed shins.