70 
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE. 
brutally disturbed the sweet harmony of Spring, and spoiled the 
universal idyl. 
While revolving all these thoughts, I glanced occasionally from my 
bed towards the window, and watched if the drone did not stir a little, 
if he were really dead. Unhappily he gave not a sign: his immobility 
was complete. 
This lasted for half-an-hour, or about three-quarters; then suddenly 
—without, so far as I could see, the slightest preliminary movement— 
my drone arose with a strong and steady flight, and without the 
slightest hesitancy, as if nothing had befallen him. He passed out into 
the garden, which by that time was thoroughly warmed and filled with 
sunshine. 
I confess that I found in his escape a happiness and a relief; but as 
for my drone, he had never lost heart. I perceived that he had thought 
in his tiny prudence that if, by the least sign, he had betrayed his 
returning vitality, his executioner would have finished him. Accord¬ 
ingly, he imitated death with wonderful fidelity, waiting until he had 
quite recovered his strength and breath,—until his wings, dry and 
warm, were fully ready to carry him away; and then, at one leap, he 
was off, without saying adieu. 
It was during a journey in Switzerland,—in the land of the Hallers, 
the Huberts, and the Bonnets,—that we began to study seriously; no 
longer contenting ourselves with collections which onty displayed the 
exterior, but determined on examining the inner organs with microscope 
and scalpel. Then also we committed our first crimes. 
I have no need to say that this preoccupation, this emotion—far 
more dramatic than one would have supposed—interfered with our 
journey. The sublime, enchanting, and solemn scenes of Switzerland 
lost, no doubt, their due power over us. But life—suffering life (and 
we were compelled to make it suffer)—diverted our thoughts. The 
hymn or eternal epopea of these infinitely great could scarcely vie with 
the drama of our infinitely little organisms. A fly hid from us the 
Alps; the agony of a beetle, which was ten days dying, veiled Mont 
Blanc from our gaze; in the anatomy of an ant we forgot the Jungfrau. 
