The Hunting Wasps 



tion. At sunset, the same pickers pass again, 

 carrying their full baskets on their heads. 

 The man is still there, sitting on the same 

 stone, with his eyes fixed on the same place. 

 My motionless attitude, my long persistency 

 in remaining at that deserted spot, must have 

 impressed them deeply. As they passed by 

 me, I saw one of them tap her forehead and 

 heard her whisper to the others: 



" Un paoure inoucent, pecaire! " 



And all three made the sign of the Cross. 



An innocent, she had said, un inoucent, an 

 idiot, a poor creature, quite harmless, but 

 half-witted; and they had all made the sign 

 of the Cross, an idiot being to them one with 

 God's seal stamped upon him. 



" How now ! " thought I. " What a cruel 

 mockery of fate! You, who are so labori- 

 ously seeking to discover what is instinct in 

 the animal and what is reason, you yourself 

 do not even possess your reason in these good 

 women's eyes! What a humiliating reflec- 

 tion!" 



No matter: pecaire, that expression of su- 

 preme compassion, in the Provencal dialect, 

 peca'ire, coming from the bottom of the heart, 

 soon made me forget inoucent. 



It is in this ravine with its three grape- 

 144 



