nister mentioned our
names and the nature of our occupations. He showed a fair amount of
information as he changed his subject from the ice floes of Spitzbergen
to the dunes of Gascony, from a Carlovingian charter to the flora of
the Sahara, from the progress in beetroot growing to Caesar's
trenches before Alesia. When my turn came, he questioned me upon the
hypermetamorphosis of the Meloidae [a beetle family including the oil
beetle and the Spanish fly], my last essay in entomology. I answered as
best I could, floundering a little in the proper mode of address, mixing
up the everyday monsieur with sire, a word whose use was so entirely new
to me. I passed through the dread straits and others succeeded me. My
five minutes' conversation with an imperial majesty was, they tell me, a
most distinguished honor. I am quite ready to believe them, but I never
had a desire to repeat it.

The reception came to an end, bows were exchanged and we were dismissed.
A luncheon awaited us at the minister's house. I sat on his right, not
a little embarrassed by the privilege; on his left was a physiologist
of great renown. Like the others, I spoke of all manner of things,
including even Avignon Bridge. Duruy's son, sitting opposite me, chaffed
me pleasantly about the famous bridge on which everybody dances; he
smiled at my impatience to get back to the thyme-scented hills and the
gray olive yards rich in Grasshoppers.

'What!' said his father. 'Won't you visit our museums, our collections?
There are some very interesting things there.'

'I know, monsieur le ministre, but I shall find better things, things
more to my taste, in the incomparable museum of the fields.'

'Then what do you propose to do?'

'I propose to go back tomorrow.

I did go back, I had had enough of Paris: never had I felt such tortures
of loneliness as in that immense whirl of humanity. To get away, to get
away was my one idea.

Once home among my family, I felt a mighty load off my mind and a great
joy in my heart, where rang a peal of bells proclaiming the delights of
my approaching emancipation. Little by little, the factory that was to
set me free rose skywards, full of promises. Yes, I should possess the
modest income which would crown my ambition by allowing me to descant on
animals and plants in a university chair.

'Well, no,' said Fate, 'you shall not acquire the freedman's peculium;
you shall remain a slave, dragging your chain behind you; your peal