The Collaborators 



full; no one had identified himself, as did 

 Fabre, with the creatures that he studied. 



" The insect is no longer, for him, the low- 

 est of creatures, disdained by all; you would 

 think it was a person, a friend, whose 

 thoughts and emotions he divines, in whose 

 joys and sorrows he shares; he speaks to it, 

 reassures it, consoles it, advises it by voice 

 and gesture, and even helps it in its labours 

 when it seems at the end of its resources. 

 Of all these shared feelings, these anxieties 

 experienced in common, he retains a vivid 

 memory, and his ready, sympathetic, vibrant 

 pen runs across the page, halts, starts off 

 again, scratching the paper, uttering cries of 

 joy, or weeping, as it records the drama all 

 of whose vicissitudes he has experienced." 



Not in vain are the insects " the children 

 of summer," and not in vain has he contem- 

 plated them " in the blessed season " under 

 the brilliance and the ardours of noon. " All 

 the sunshine of Provence is reflected by his 

 picturesque style; and it seems as though a 

 miraculous fairyland is unfolded before us, 

 whose scenery is all of the mother-of-pearl, 

 the gold, and the rainbow hues that Nature 

 has spread upon the aerial oars of the 

 Dragon-flies and the Bees, on the cuirass of 

 the Scarabael, on the blazing fans that the 



2^? 



