The Life of the Bee 
whispering of the leaves? It is made up 
of abuse and insult; and when laughter 
bursts forth it is due to an obscene remark 
some man or woman has made, to a jest 
at the expense of the weaker: of the hunch- 
back unable to lift his load, the cripple they 
have knocked over, or the idiot whom they 
make their butt. 
“T have studied these people for many 
years. We are in Normandy; the soil is 
rich and easily tilled. Around this stack 
of corn there is rather more comfort than 
one would usually associate with a scene of 
this kind. The result is that most of the 
men, and many of the women, are alcoholic. 
Another poison also, which I need not name, 
corrodes the race. To that, to the alcohol, 
are due the children whom you see there: 
the dwarf, the one with the hare-lip, the 
others who are knock-kneed, scrofulous, 
imbecile. All of them, men and women, 
young and old, have the ordinary vices of 
the peasant. They are brutal, suspicious, 
grasping, and envious; hypocrites, liars, and 
slanderers; inclined to petty, illicit profits, 
mean interpretations, and coarse flattery of 
272 
