THE CRICKET 



rosemary bushes of my harmas, to listen to the delightful 

 concert I 



The Italian Cricket swarms in my enclosure. Every 

 tuft of red-flowering rock-rose has its chorister; so has 

 every clump of lavender. The bushy arbutus-shrubs, 

 the turpentine-trees, all become orchestras. And in its 

 clear voice, so full of charm, the whole of this little 

 world, from every shrub and every branch, sings of the 

 gladness of life. 



High up above my head the Swan stretches its great 

 cross along the Milky Way: below, all round me, the 

 insect's symphony rises and falls. Infinitesimal life 

 telling its joys makes me forget the pageant of the stars. 

 Those celestial eyes look down upon me, placid and cold, 

 but do not stir a fibre within me. Why? They lack 

 the great secret — life. Our reason tells us, it is true, 

 that those suns warm worlds like ours; but when all is 

 said, this belief is no more than a guess, it is not a 

 certainty. 



In your company, on the contrary, O my Cricket, I 

 feel the throbbing of life, which is the soul of our lump 

 of clay; and that is why, under my rosemary-hedge, I 

 give but an absent glance at the constellation of the 

 Swan and devote all my attention to your serenade I A 

 living speck — the merest dab of life — capable of 

 pleasure and pain, is far more interesting to me than all 

 the immensities of mere matter. 



[197] 



