ter. In certain parts of my rivulet, I have even lessened the depth that they may bathe 

 ■without danger. 



And how richly have all these cares been repaid ! In Avintcr, the redbreasts come and 

 live in my greenhouse, and familiarly hop about in other parts of my dwelling. In sum- 

 mor, the linnets make their nests in the bushes, and the wrens in the angles of the walls. 

 All allow themselves to be approached and to be seen; all seem to fly around me without 

 Hying away, and all fill my garden with enchanting music. 



Instead of being seated, crammed into a theatre without fresh air, to liear for the 

 hundredth time the same tenor, with the same apricot-coloured tunic and the same 

 chocolate boots, sing the same air, accompanied by the same cries of admiration of peo- 

 ple who wish to make part of the spectacle, I had three operas a day. 



In the morning, at the break of day, the chaffinch warbled upon the highest branches 

 of the trees, whilst the flowers open their corollas, whilst the rising sun tinted the heavens 

 with rose and saffron. 



Amidst the ardour of noontide heat, the male linnet, concealed beneath the shade of 

 the linden-tree, raised his melodious voice, whilst his mate sat upon her eggs in her little 

 nest of hair and grass. 



But in the evening, when everything slept — when the stars sparkled in the heavens, 

 when the moombeams played through the trees, when the evening-primroses with their 

 yellow cups exhaled a sweet perfume, when the glowworms twinked in the grass, the 

 nightingale raised its full and solemn voice, and sang throughout the night its religious 

 and loving hymns! 



And this Edmond comes with his gun to alarm, perhaps to send away all my musi- 

 cians, to falsify my long and careful hospitality, which is now nothing more or less than 

 treachery, since without it perhaps, without the confidence it had inspired, my poor 

 blackbird would not have allowed any one to come near enough to him to make him so 

 easy a victim. 



What would I not have given to make all my birds, all my melodious guests, under- 

 stand that it was not I who had made that report, it was not I that had committed that 

 murder ! to make them understand that they might come back, that I am not a traitor, 

 that they will find peace and shade here again, that they may come in the winter without 

 mistrust to feast upon the berries of my trees. 



How is this all to be repaired ? 



That chaffinch, which yesterday came to my very window, will never come again ; he 

 will depart from me and from my house ; next year he will not again build his nest in 

 that great elm, in which he has been accustomed to built it every year. 



I got as quickly to Edmond as I could, and entreated him to suspend his sport, and he 

 laughed at me. I was obliged to say that I insisted upon having no guns fired in my 

 garden. Edmond replied that I abused the circumstance of its being my garden. It 

 appeared to me that the abuse was on his part. Nevertheless, his reproach hurt me. I 

 left him in the garden, and shut myself up in my study. I then questioned myself 

 whether he really was in the wrong ; if hospitality did not impose duties, difficult, it is 

 true, but sacred, and if I had fulfilled them ? I inquired of myself what are the duties 

 of hospitality. After serious examination, I did myself this justice, that, with the ex- 

 ception of washing his feet, as the ancient Hebrews did, I had performed, with respect 

 to him, and in the most scrupulous manner, all the laws of hospitality. But still that 

 reproach wounded me ; he is in the wrong, but he believes that I abuse the circumstance 

 being my garden ; I have a great mind to go and ask his pardon! 



