The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



one day for others what you have given me: the 

 few moments of happiness in my life ! ^ 



One of the great joys of the Serignan her- 

 mit is, after supper, to isolate himself in the 

 restful quietude of the harmas, and there to 

 lend an attentive ear to the least vibrations 

 of sound from that little living world which 

 he can no longer see but can still hear. Noth- 

 ing will succeed in distracting him from this 

 entomological concert, which is one of his 

 delights. It makes him forget even the re- 

 joicings of the national festival which is be- 

 ing celebrated close at hand, and the splen- 

 dours of the starry sky that glitters above 

 his head. 



This evening in the village they are celebrat- 

 ing the National Festival.^ While the little boys 

 and girls are hopping around a bonfire whose 

 gleams are reflected upon the church-steeple, while 

 the drum is banged to mark the ascent of each 

 rocket, I am sitting alone in a dark corner, in the 

 comparative coolness that prevails at nine o'clock, 

 harking to the concert of the festival of the fields, 

 the festival of the harvest, grander by far than 

 that which, at this moment, is being celebrated 



^Souvenirs, i., p. 115. The Hunting Wasps, chap, vi., 

 "The Larva and the Nymph." 



2 The 14th of July, the anniversary of the fall of the 

 Bastille.— A. T. dr M. 



240 



