ed not give
me much to eat.' Little ass, the goad pricks you. Then you go a little
faster, but not a great deal. You cannot go very fast...Sometimes
you fall. Then they beat you, and pull at the rein fastened to the bit
in your mouth. They pull so hard that your lips are drawn back showing
your poor, yellow teeth which browse on miseries."

* * * * *

At the same fair I heard the shrilling of a bagpipe. F. asked me:
"Doesn't it remind you of African music?"--"Yes," I answered, "at
Touggart the bagpipes have the same nasal note. It must be an Arab
who is playing."--"Let us go into the booth," he said...Dromedaries
were on exhibition there.

A dozen little camels, crowded like sardines in a can, were stupidly
going round and round in a sort of trench. These creatures which I
have seen in the Sahara undulant like waves with only God and Death
surrounding them, I now saw here, Oh sorrow of my heart! They went
round and round again in that narrow space. The anguish which passed
from them to me filled me as with nausea toward man. They went on
and on, always on, proud as poor swans, hallowed as it were by their
desolation. They were covered with grotesque trappings, and the butt
of dancing women. They raised their poor verminous necks toward God,
and toward the miraculous leaves of some imaginary oasis.

Ah! what a prostitution of God's creatures. Farther along there were
rabbits in a cage. Then came goldfish, that were offered as prizes of
a lottery. They swam about in blown glass bowls, the necks of which
were so narrow that F. said to me: "How did they get in?"--"By
squeezing them a little," I answered. Still farther on were living
chickens, also lottery prizes, spun around in a whirligig. In the
center a Tittle milk-fed pig, mad with fear, was crouching flat on his
stomach.

Hens and pullets, overcome by vertigo, squawked and pecked frantically
at one another. My companion called my attention to dead, plucked
chickens hanging beside their living sisters.

My heart swells at these memories. An infinite pity overcomes me.

Oh poet, receive these poor suffering beasts into your soul. Let them
warm themselves, and live there in eternal joy.

Preach the simple word which bestows kindness on the ignorant.

OF THINGS*

*Some of the instances here are purely imaginary. I invented them so
that I might more deeply penetrate into the heart of these things.

I enter a great square