I was born in Switzerland, in the town of Geneva. My parents loved each other very much, and I learnt from the example of their love. I learnt that to love and to be patient are the most important things in the world.

My mother hoped to have a daughter after I was born, but for five years I was the only child. And then my mother found a sister for me. She was helping a family in which there were five children. They were very poor, and the children were thin and hungry. One of the children was a little girl, with golden hair and blue eyes Her name was Elizabeth. My mother took the little girl into our family, and Elizabeth became the daughter that my mother had always wanted. As I grew older, my love for Elizabeth became stronger all the time.

Later my mother had two other sons, Ernest and William. A young woman called Justine came to live in the house to help my mother with the children. We loved her as much as she loved us.

The years passed happily, and we had everything that we needed. At school I met another very fine person. His name was Henry Clerval, and he was very clever. My family also liked him very much, so he was a welcome visitor to our house.

I studied very hard at school. I wanted to know the secrets of life, and, most of all, I wanted to know how to make living things. I read all the books that I could find. One day, something happened that added a new idea to the ideas that I already had. I was fifteen at the time, and we were on holiday in the mountains. There was a wild storm, and with it came the most frightening thunder and lightning that I had ever seen in my life. About twenty metres in front of our house was a great tree. Suddenly a huge fork of lightning hit the tree. After a few seconds, there was nothing left of it except a black piece of wood two metres high. The lightning had destroyed it.

I saw how strong electricity was. I began to read all the books that I could find about electricity and its terrible power.