The Hunting Wasps 



was beginning to wake in my young brain, 

 made a very pleasant change from the unin- 

 spiring alexandrine. The problem of life 

 and that other one, with its dark terrors, the 

 problem of death, at times passed through 

 my mind. It was a fleeting obsession, soon 

 forgotten by the mercurial spirits of youth. 

 Nevertheless, the tremendous question would 

 recur, brought to mind by this incident or 

 that. 



Passing one day by a slaughter-house, I 

 saw an Ox driven in by the butcher. I have 

 always had an insurmountable horror of 

 blood; when I was a boy, the sight of an open 

 wound affected me so much that I would fall 

 into a swoon, which on more than one occa- 

 sion nearly cost me my life. How did I 

 screw up courage to set foot in those sham- 

 bles? No doubt, the dread problem of 

 death urged me on. At any rate, I entered, 

 close on the heels of the Ox. 



With a stout rope round its horns, wet- 

 muzzled, meek-eyed, the animal moves along 

 as though making for the crib in its stable. 

 The man walks ahead, holding the rope. 

 We enter the hall of death, amid the sicken- 

 ing stench thrown up by the entrails scattered 

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