The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



To know the habits of those creatures charged 

 with the disappearance of corpses, to see them busy 

 at their work of disintegration, to follow in detail 

 the process of transmutation that makes the ruins of 

 what has lived return apace into life's treasure- 

 house: these are things that long haunted my mind. 

 I regretfully left the Mole lying in the dust of 

 the road. I had to go, after a glance at the corpse 

 and its harvesters. It was not the place for philos- 

 ophising over a stench. What would people say 

 who passed and saw me! 



I am now in a position to realise my second wish. 

 I have space, air, and quiet in the solitude of the 

 harmas. None will come here to trouble me, to 

 smile or to be shocked at my investigations. So 

 far, so good; but observe the irony of things: now 

 that I am rid of passers-by, I have to fear my 

 cats, those assiduous prowlers, who, finding my 

 preparations, will not fail to spoil and scatter them. 

 In anticipation of their misdeeds, I establish work- 

 shops in mid-air, whither none but genuine corrup- 

 tion-agents can come, flying on their wings. At 

 different points in the enclosure, I plant reeds, three 

 by three, which, tied at their free ends, form a 

 stable tripod. From each of these supports I hang, 

 at a man's height, an earthenware pan filled with 

 fine sand and pierced at the bottom with a hole 

 to allow the water to escape, if it should rain. I 

 garnish my apparatus with dead bodies. The Snake, 

 the Lizard, the Toad receive the preference, be- 

 cause of their bare skins, which enable me better 

 to follow the first attack and the work of the in- 



220 



