r away in the distance the
mountains pierced the cloudless blue of the heavens with their sunny
heights.

I read Telemaque in very small doses; two or three pages a day was
generally enough to satisfy my curiosity and to ease my conscience
for the day; that task over, I went down hurriedly to find my little
friends, and we would set out on a trip to the woods and vineyards.

My uncle's garden, my other place of retreat, was not attached to the
house, but was situated, as were all the other ones in the village,
beyond the ramparts of the town. It was surrounded by very high walls,
and one had entrance to it through an old arched gate that was unlocked
with an enormous key. Upon certain days, armed with my Telemaque and my
butterfly-net, I isolated myself there.

In the garden there were several plum trees, and from them there fell,
onto the warm earth, over-ripe plums of the same variety as those drying
on the ancient roofs. The old arbor was trellised with grape vines, and
legions of flies and bees feasted upon the musky, fragrant grapes. The
extreme end of the garden, for it was a very large one, was overgrown
like an ordinary field with alfalfa.

The charm of this old orchard lay in the feeling it gave one of being
greatly secluded, of being absolutely alone in a wilderness of space and
silence.

I must not forget to speak of the old arbor that two summers later was
the scene of the most momentous act of my childhood. It backed against
the surrounding wall, and its lattice-work was overspread with muscadine
vines that the sun scorched and withered.

In this garden, for some inexplicable reason, I had the impression of
being in the tropics, in the colonies of my fancy. And in truth the
tropical gardens that I saw later were filled with the same heavy
fragrance and had much the same appearance. From time to time rare
butterflies, such as are not often seen elsewhere, flitted through
the garden. From a front view they looked like common yellow and black
butterflies, but a side view showed them to be as glistening and as
beautiful a blue as the exotic ones from Guinea that I had seen under
glass in my uncle's museum. They were very wary and difficult to
ensnare, for they rested only for a second at a time upon the fragrant
muscadel grapes before fluttering away over the wall. Sometimes I would
place my foot in a crevice of the stone wall, and scramble up to the top
to look after them as they flew across the hot and