'Yes, yes, He sends His vultures to the
corpses.'

"I had had enough of this. I opened the door and ran away."

THE DISPENSER OF HOLY WATER

We lived formerly in a little house beside the high road outside the
village. He had set up in business as a wheelwright, after marrying
the daughter of a farmer of the neighborhood, and as they were both
industrious, they managed to save up a nice little fortune. But they had
no children, and this caused them great sorrow. Finally a son was born,
whom they named Jean. They both loved and petted him, enfolding him with
their affection, and were unwilling to let him be out of their sight.

When he was five years old some mountebanks passed through the country
and set up their tent in the town hall square.

Jean, who had seen them pass by, made his escape from the house, and
after his father had made a long search for him, he found him among the
learned goats and trick dogs, uttering shouts of laughter and sitting on
the knees of an old clown.

Three days later, just as they were sitting down to dinner, the
wheelwright and his wife noticed that their son was not in the house.
They looked for him in the garden, and as they did not find him, his
father went out into the road and shouted at the top of his voice,
"Jean!"

Night came on. A brown vapor arose making distant objects look still
farther away and giving them a dismal, weird appearance. Three tall
pines, close at hand, seemed to be weeping. Still there was no reply,
but the air appeared to be full of indistinct sighing. The father
listened for some time, thinking he heard a sound first in one
direction, then in another, and, almost beside himself, he ran, out into
the night, calling incessantly "Jean! Jean!"

He ran along thus until daybreak, filling the darkness with his shouts,
terrifying stray animals, torn by a terrible anguish and fearing that he
was losing his mind. His wife, seated on the stone step of their home,
sobbed until morning.

They did not find their son. They both aged rapidly in their
inconsolable sorrow. Finally they sold their house and set out to search
together.

They inquired of the shepherds on the hillsides, of the tradesmen
passing by, of the peasants in the villages and of the authorities
in the towns. But their boy had been lost a long time and no one knew
anything about him. He had probably forgotten his own name by this
time and also the name of his village, and his parents wept