At the College of Rodez 



tered life of the little Rodez schoolboy, who 

 was to leave the town somewhat as he left 

 the slaughter-house, bewildered by the catas- 

 trophe of which he had just been the witness 

 and was soon to be the victim. At this point 

 of his narrative his eyes are dim with tears 

 and his voice is choked by a half-suppressed 

 sob. 



Then, suddenly, good-bye to my studies, good- 

 bye to Tityrus and Menalcas! Ill-luck is swooping 

 down on us, relentlessly. Hunger threatens us at 

 home. And now, boy, put your trust in God; 

 run about and earn your penn'orth of potatoes as 

 best you can. Life is about to become a hideous 

 inferno. Let us pass quickly over this phase. 



Amid that lamentable chaos my love for the in- 

 sect ought to have gone under. Not at all. It 

 would have survived the raft of the Medusa. I 

 still remember a certain Pine Cockchafer met for 

 the first time. The plumes on her antennae, her 

 pretty pattern of white spots on a dark-brown 

 ground were as a ray of sunshine in the gloomy 

 wretchedness of the day. 1 



1 Souvenirs, vi., p. 61. The Life of the Fly, chap, vi., 

 "My Schooling." 



73 



