ne
of them into the cushion on which she was seated, intending thus to
mark every hundred that she counted; but she had not counted thus
half a thousand, before she found that breath and knowledge failed
her; in truth, she did not know enough of arithmetic to count the
eyes of a fly. In the very first group which she undertook to count,
that on the right side of the fly, she had not counted a sixteenth
part. Piccolissima, from her education, resembled the flies a little
too much to boast of her perseverance. So she gave up her project.

While bending her small head over these eyes, she distinguished, at
the bottom of these crystals, a moving dark spot, and thousands of
little Piccolissimas, one after the other, smiled upon her from
these little mirrors. O, wonderful! these thousands of crystal
groups on each side of the head were not all; a triangle of three
diamonds crowned the forehead of the fly. Piccolissima did not know
the name they give to these small eyes, nor that a writer on the
subject had said, that the diadem of the fly outshines that of
queens, but she could not refrain from saying aloud, "O, my little
friend, pray tell me what you do with so many eyes?"

"What do I do with them, indeed! why, I look," answered the fly, a
little vexed at being disturbed in his repast. "Are there not
fingers, nails, pins, pincers, jaws, claws, beaks, which menace me
on every side? Do I not want eyes to see at a distance, and eyes to
see near? And do you not know that my head is better put on than
yours, which cannot turn to all points of the compass?"

"What! can you look behind you without turning your head?" replied
Piccolissima, with an air which probably appeared to the fly not
very sensible; for, shrugging up his right wing disdainfully, he
returned to his sugar candy.

After a little reflection, she looked down again, and perceived, to
her great astonishment, upon the stick of candy, which was of an
amber color, a drop of water. She was sure, however, that she had
done the civil thing to the flies, and given it to them first. How,
then, was the candy moist? thought she; but she did not dare again
to ask questions which excited such a rude buzzing in reply. So she
rested her two little elbows on her knees, and her small head upon
one of her hands, and continued to examine the fly. "Is it his
nose?" said she, in a low voice, (for, having very rarely any one to
talk with, she had a habit of talking to herself,) "is i