The Schoolboy: Saint-Leons 



sion Cul-blanc, which is also a picturesque term, 

 suggesting the patch on the bird's rump which 

 spreads out like a white butterfly flitting over the 

 fields. 



Thus did the vocabulary come into being that 

 would one day allow me to greet by their real 

 names the thousand actors on the stage of the 

 fields, the thousand little flowers that smile at us 

 from the wayside. The word which the curate 

 had spoken without attaching the least importance 

 to it revealed a world to me, the world of plants 

 and animals designated by their real names. To 

 the future must belong the task of deciphering some 

 pages of the immense lexicon ; for to-day I will con- 

 tent myself with remembering the Saxicola, or 

 Wheat-ear. 



On the west, my village crumbles into an ava- 

 lanche of garden-patches, in which plums and ap- 

 ples ripen. Low, bulging walls, blackened with 

 the stains of lichens and mosses, support the ter- 

 races. The brook runs at the foot of the slope. 

 It can be cleared almost everywhere at a bound. 

 In the wider parts, flat stones standing out of the 

 water serve as a foot-bridge. There is no such 

 thing as a whirlpool, the terror of mothers when 

 the children are away; it is nowhere more than 

 knee-deep. Dear little brook, so tranquil, cool, and 

 clear, I have seen majestic rivers since, I have seen 

 the boundless seas; but nothing in my memories 

 equals your modest falls. About you clings all the 

 hallowed pleasure of my first impressions. 



A miller has bethought him of putting the brook, 



57 



