and ornamented with a large, burnished, copper fountain, for
it was the coolest place during the heated period of the day. Here
it was almost dark, for everything was closed; two or three rays of
sunshine, in whose light the flies danced, filtered in through the
cracks of the massive Louis XIII door. In the silent village no one
was astir, and one heard there only the everlasting clucking of the
hens,--all other living creatures seemed asleep.

I, however, did not remain long in the cool vestibule. The bright
sunshine lured me out; and, too, scarcely had I installed myself there
in the circle before I heard a knocking at the street door: the three
little Peyrals had come to fetch me, and to apprise me of their presence
they lifted the old iron knocker that was hot enough to burn their
fingers.

Then with hats pulled over our eyes and equipped with hammers, staffs
and butterfly-nets we would start out in search of new adventures. First
we passed through the narrow gothic streets paved with pebbles, then we
struck into the paths that lay just beyond the village, paths that were
always covered with wheat-chaff that got into our shoes, and into which
we sank ankle deep; finally we reached the open country, the vineyards,
and the roads that led to the woods, or better still those that brought
us to the river which we forded by means of the flower-covered islets.

This wild liberty was a complete avengement for the monotony of my
cribbed and cabined home life, ever the same all the year through; but I
still lacked the companionship of little boys of my own age, I needed to
clash with them,--and, too, this freedom lasted only a couple of months.

CHAPTER LXX.

One day I had a great desire, wherefore I do not know, unless out of
pure bravado and the spirit of perversity, to do something unseemly.
After having searched all of one morning for this something I found it.

It is well known that the swarms of flies which one finds in the south
during the summer, and which contaminate everything are a veritable
plague. I knew that there was a trap set for them in the middle of my
uncle's kitchen. It was a treacherous pipe of a special shape, at
the bottom of which, in the soapy pan of water there, the flies were
invariably drowned. Now on the particular day in which I felt so
devilish I bethought me of that disgusting blackish mass at the bottom
of the vessel, made up of the thousands of flies drowned during the past
t