246 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



of the improvement of wine by heating. Suddenly 

 changing the conversation : 



" Show me your cellar," he said. 



I ! I show my cellar, my private cellar, poor I, who, 

 in those days, with my pitiful teacher's salary, could 

 not indulge in the luxury of a little wine and brewed 

 myself a sort of small cider by setting a handful of moist 

 sugar and some apples already steeped in spoilt cider to 

 ferment in a cask ! My cellar ! Show my cellar ! Why 

 not my barrels, my cobwebbed bottles, each labelled with 

 its age and vintage ! My cellar ! 



Full of confusion, I avoided the request and tried to 

 turn the conversation. But he persisted : 



" Show me your cellar, please." 



There was no resisting such firmness. I pointed with 

 my finger to a corner in the kitchen where stood a chair 

 with no seat to it ; and, on that chair, a demi-john con- 

 taining two or three gallons : 



" That's my cellar, sir." 



" Is that your cellar ?" 



" I have no other." 



" Is that all ?" 



" Yes, that is all, alas !" 



" Really !" 



Not a word more ; nothing further from the savant. 

 Pasteur, that was evident, had never tasted the highly- 

 spiced dish which the vulgar call la vache enragee. Though 

 my cellar the dilapidated chair and the more than half- 

 empty demi-john said nothing about the fermentation 

 to be combated by heating, it spoke eloquently of another 

 thing which my illustrious visitor seemed not to under- 

 stand. A microbe escaped from it and a very terrible 

 microbe : that of ill-fortune strangling good-will. 



