Un Souvenir d'Événements

I often think back to the day I first met him. The boy who was said to be the eighth wonder of the world. A magician, master mason, illusionist, musician; simply a genius.
I felt so incredibly sorry for him. The burdens of all these titles resting so heavily on his shoulders at such a young age. He couldn't have been much older than me at the time, around nine or ten. My mother took me to see him when they came to Persia. It was utterly incredible. I saw things I had not the imagine to conceive; men who could breathe fire, swallow swords and even a woman who they claimed was a real life witch. And I felt inclined to believe them, for she made all sorts of potions and magical things that no mortal could have done. Ah, but how ignorant I was. I was not to know that it was no more than an understanding of alchemy pieced together with a little sideshow magic.
He was no trick though. He was as real as the air I breathe and the earth I walk upon. He was known to me only as the 'Devil's Child' and it was clear how he'd earned the name. Oh the poor boy. By the God's , if I saw, yet again, a sight such as the one I did on that day, I fear I would never sleep again. But he was not the one to cause my fear. Although the initial shock of seeing him startled me somewhat, it was what they did to him that truly scarred me. But as I write to you from 1881, all that is in the past now, and I think I speak for both of us when I say we will happily forget those dark times. Ah, but that is only a very small portion of the tale as a whole. So, on this account I will make an exception. I'm writing this so that others will come to understand the tale.