. THE GREEN GRASSHOPPER.

We are in the middle of July. The astronomical dog-days are just
beginning; but in reality the torrid season has anticipated the
calendar and for some weeks past the heat has been overpowering.

This evening in the village they are celebrating the National Festival.
(The 14th of July, the anniversary of the fall of the
Bastille.--Translator's Note.) While the little boys and girls are
hopping round a bonfire whose gleams are reflected upon the
church-steeple, while the drum is pounded to mark the ascent of each
rocket, I am sitting alone in a dark corner, in the comparative
coolness that prevails at nine o'clock, harking to the concert of the
festival of the fields, the festival of the harvest, grander by far
than that which, at this moment, is being celebrated in the village
square with gunpowder, lighted torches, Chinese lanterns and, above
all, strong drink. It has the simplicity of beauty and the repose of
strength.

It is late; and the Cicadae are silent. Glutted with light and heat,
they have indulged in symphonies all the livelong day. The advent of
the night means rest for them, but a rest frequently disturbed. In the
dense branches of the plane-trees a sudden sound rings out like a cry
of anguish, strident and short. It is the desperate wail of the Cicada,
surprised in his quietude by the Green Grasshopper, that ardent
nocturnal huntress, who springs upon him, grips him in the side, opens
and ransacks his abdomen. An orgy of music, followed by butchery.

I have never seen and never shall see that supreme expression of our
national revelry, the military review at Longchamp; nor do I much
regret it. The newspapers tell me as much about it as I want to know.
They give me a sketch of the site. I see, installed here and there amid
the trees, the ominous Red Cross, with the legend, "Military Ambulance;
Civil Ambulance." There will be bones broken, apparently; cases of
sunstroke; regrettable deaths, perhaps. It is all provided for and all
in the programme.

Even here, in my village, usually so peaceable, the festival will not
end, I am ready to wager, without the exchange of a few blows, that
compulsory seasoning of a day of merry-making. No pleasure, it appears,
can be fully relished without an added condiment of pain.

Let us listen and meditate far from the tumult. While the disembowelled
Cicada utters his protest, the festival up there in the plane-trees is
continued with a change