Preface xi 



blissful eminence and, pushing it with all the 

 energy that a bad conscience gives, strives to 

 gain the offing. But the other, who is rather 

 distrustful, interrupts his laborious excavations, 

 looks overboard, sees the sacrilegious rape and 

 leaps out of the hole. Caught in the act, the 

 shameless and dishonest partner makes untold 

 efforts to play upon the other's credulity, turns 

 round and round the inestimable orb and, 

 embracing it and propping himself against it, 

 with fraudulent heroic exertions pretends to 

 be frantically supporting it on a non-existent 

 slope. The two expostulate with each other 

 in silence, gesticulate wildly with their mandibles 

 and tarsi and then, with one accord, bring back 

 the ball to the burrow. 



It is pronounced sufficiently spacious and 

 comfortable. They introduce the treasure, they 

 close the entrance to the corridor ; and now, 

 in the propitious darkness and the warm damp, 

 where the magnificent stercoral globe alone 

 holds sway, the two reconciled messmates sit 

 down face to face. Then, far from the light 

 and the cares of day and in the great silence 

 of the hypogeous shade, solemnly commences 



