nows as well the
appalling extent of the appetites among all creatures, down to the
very lowest. Well, if that just and mighty one held the earth under his
thumb, would he hesitate whether he ought to crush it?

He would not hesitate...He would let things take their course. He would
say to himself:

'The old belief is right; the earth is a rotten apple, gnawed by the
vermin of evil. It is a first crude attempt, a step towards a kindlier
destiny. Let it be: order and justice are waiting at the end.'

CHAPTER 13. THE HALICTI: THE PORTRESS.

Leaving our village is no very serious matter when we are children. We
even look on it as a sort of holiday. We are going to see something new,
those magic pictures of our dreams. With age come regrets; and the close
of life is spent in stirring up old memories. Then the beloved village
reappears, in the biograph of the mind, embellished, transfigured by the
glow of those first impressions; and the mental image, superior to the
reality, stands out in amazingly clear relief. The past, the far-off
past, was only yesterday; we see it, we touch it.

For my part, after three-quarters of a century, I could walk with my
eyes closed straight to the flat stone where I first heard the soft
chiming note of the Midwife Toad; yes, I should find it to a certainty,
if time, which devastates all things, even the homes of Toads, has not
moved it or perhaps left it in ruins.

I see, on the margin of the brook, the exact position of the alder-trees
whose tangled roots, deep under the water, were a refuge for the
Crayfish. I should say:

'It is just at the foot of that tree that I had the unutterable bliss of
catching a beauty. She had horns so long...and enormous claws, full of
meat, for I got her just at the right time.'

I should go without faltering to the ash under whose shade my heart
beat so loudly one sunny spring morning. I had caught sight of a sort of
white, cottony ball among the branches. Peeping from the depths of
the wadding was an anxious little head with a red hood to it. O what
unparalleled luck! It was a Goldfinch, sitting on her eggs.

Compared with a find like this, lesser events do not count. Let us leave
them. In any case, they pale before the memory of the paternal garden,
a tiny hanging garden of some thirty paces by ten, situated right at
the top of the village. The only spot that overlooks it is a little
esplanade on which stands the old castle (The Chateau de Sa