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Human barbarity in the past employed 

 the rack to force a prisoner to speak. Am 

 I anything but a torturer when I interro- 

 gate my insects and put them to the rack to 

 wrest some secret from them? Let Anna 

 get such pleasure as she can out of her pris- 

 oners, for I am meditating something 

 worse. The Cetonia has things to reveal 

 to us, things that will interest us, beyond a 

 doubt. Let us try to obtain these revela- 

 tions. We cannot, of course, do so without 

 serious inconvenience to the insect. So be 

 it; and now let us proceed: we will silence 

 our kindly scruples for the sake of the story. 



Among the guests at the festival of the 

 lilacs the Cetonia deserves to be most hon- 

 ourably mentioned. He is of a good size, 

 which lends itself to observation. Though 

 deficient in elegance with his massive, square- 

 cut build, he has splendour in his favour: 

 the gleam of copper, the flash of gold, or 

 the austere magnificence of bronze as it 

 leaves the brass-founder's burnisher. He is 

 a regular frequenter of my enclosure, a 

 neighbour, and will therefore spare me the 

 trips which are beginning to tell upon me. 

 Lastly and this is an excellent quality 

 when one wishes to be understood by all 

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