The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



he has eaten sea-urchins at Constantinople; he has 

 shot starlings in the Crimea, during a lull in the 

 firing. He has seen much and remembered much. 

 In winter, when work in the fields ends at four 

 o'clock and the evenings are long, he puts away 

 rake, fork, and barrow, and comes and sits on the 

 hearth-stone of the kitchen fireplace, where the 

 billets of ilex-wood blaze merrily. He fetches out 

 his pipe, fills it methodically with a moistened 

 thumb and smokes it solemnly. He has been think- 

 ing of it for many a long hour; but he has ab- 

 stained, for tobacco is expensive. The privation 

 has doubled the charm ; and not one of the pufEs re- 

 curring at regular intervals is wasted. 



Meanwhile, we start talking. Favier is, in his 

 fashion, one of those bards of old who were given 

 the best seat at the hearth, for the sake of their 

 tales; only my story-teller was formed in the bar- 

 rack-room. No matter: the whole household, large 

 and small, listen to him with interest; though his 

 speech is full of vivid images, it is always decent. 

 It would be a great disappointment to us if he did 

 not come, when his work was done, to take his 

 ease in the chimney-corner. 



What does he talk about to make him so popu- 

 lar? He tells us what he saw of the coup d'Etat 

 to which we owe the hated Empire ; he talks of the 

 brandy served out and of the firing into the mob. 

 He — so he assures me — always aimed at the wall; 

 and I accept his word for it, so distressed does he 

 appear to me and so ashamed of having taken a 

 hand, however innocent, in th^t felon's game. 

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