The Old Weevils 



of a piece of paste-board. In so doing we 

 are examining a volume taken from the li- 

 brary of the mountains; we are turning the 

 pages of a magnificently illustrated book. It 

 is a manuscript of nature, far superior to any 

 Egyptian papyrus. On almost every page 

 are diagrams, nay better, realities converted 

 into pictures. 



Here is a page of fish, grouped at random. 

 One might take them for a dish fried in oil. 

 Backbone, fins, vertebral column, the little 

 bones of the head, the crystalline lens turned 

 into a black globule : all is there, in its natural 

 arrangement. One thing alone is absent: 

 the flesh. No matter: our dish of gudgeons 

 looks so good that we feel tempted to scratch 

 a bit off with our finger and taste this super- 

 secular preserve. Let us indulge our fancy 

 and put between our teeth a morsel of this 

 mineral fry seasoned with petroleum. 



There is no inscription to the picture. 

 Reflection makes good the deficiency. It 

 tells us: 



"These fish lived here, in large numbers, 

 in peaceful waters. Suddenly a spate came, 

 asphyxiating them in its mud-thickened tor- 

 rent. Buried forthwith in the mire and thus 

 13 



