Bramble-bees and Others 



the thrust of the land. It is the garden of 

 monsieur le notaire. 



There are beds with box-borders in that 

 garden; there are pear-trees reputed to give 

 pears, real pears, more or less good to eat 

 when they have ripened on the straw all 

 through the late autumn. In our imagination, 

 it is a spot of perpetual deHght, a paradise, 

 but a paradise seen the wrong way up : instead 

 of contemplating it from below, we gaze at it 

 from above. How happy they must be with 

 so much space and all those pears ! 



We look at the hives, around which the 

 hovering Bees make a sort of russet smoke. 

 They stand under the shelter of a great hazel. 

 The tree has sprung up all of itself in a fis- 

 sure of the wall, almost on the level of our 

 currant-bushes. While it spreads its mighty 

 branches over the notary's hives, its roots, at 

 least, are on our land. It belongs to us. The 

 trouble is to gather the nuts. 



I creep along astride the strong branches 

 projecting horizontally into space. If I slip 

 or if the support breaks, I shall come to grief 

 in the midst of the angry Bees. I do not slip 

 and the support does not break. With the 

 bent switch which my brother hands me, I 



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