Here is a place of pushcarts and stalls and four-story buildings with stone stoops. Old people and children mingle, and merchants sell their wares. 'Good fruit, good fruit. Bargains!'"" After that flat-footed opening--accompanied by a melange of color planes, abstracted figures, and signboards--it's hard to imagine the child who'd want to hear more; but for the record this is the narrator's (i.e., author-artist's) evocation of the scenes of my ""tenement"" childhood, ""the beginnings""--she tells us at the end--""of everything that I am."" But why inflict these narcissistic impulses on kids?