CHAPTER XIX 



THE CARP AND THE STICKLEBACK IN THE OLD POND 



I like the melancholy air that pervades an abandoned 

 stretch of water. Nobody goes there; nobody bothers 

 about the place. Only the children sometimes come to 

 play on its shores. Walkers avoid such places. They 

 are given striking names: the Fairies' Pool, the Witch's 

 Cauldron, and the like. Tragic legends are related 

 about them, stones of rights, of murder and drowning. 

 It is said that their quiet waters cover buried houses and 

 palaces, and, in actual fact, some of them are the great 

 moats of fortified buildings whose ruins may occasionally 

 be seen not far away. Others are hollows formed by an 

 accidental sinking of the ground, or ponds once created 

 by the hand of man, which have gradually come to be 

 disused. Their banks, covered with moss and brush- 

 wood, are sometimes beautified by fine large trees with 

 glorious foliage, which stretch over them their branches as 

 if to cover and protect them. Tufts of reeds, little green 

 islets, emerge in one place and another. An abundant 

 vegetation rises from the bottom to the surface and 

 forms broad stretches of dark green. The light is soft 

 and even, pierced here and there by the golden shafts 

 of a sunbeam striking each separate object. The wind, 

 tempered by the surrounding woods, does not cause a 

 single ripple. Everything is calm and still. 



So, on a burning summer's day, I find it pleasant to 

 sit down under the canopy of trees, and in that light and 

 shade delicately sketched by the green of the leaves and 

 their reflection on the water, to enjoy the delicious cool- 

 ness which one finds only in such a place. In the neigh- 

 bouring countryside everything is asleep, overcome by 

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