small roof standing above the ground. This is the entrance to the clay
pit. A big perpendicular hole is sunk for twenty metres underground and
ends in a series of long subterranean tunnels.

Once a year they go down into the quarry at the time they fertilize the
ground. The rest of the year it serves as a cemetery for condemned dogs,
and as one passed by this hole plaintive howls, furious or despairing
barks and lamentable appeals reach one's ear.

Sportsmen's dogs and sheep dogs flee in terror from this mournful place,
and when one leans over it one perceives a disgusting odor of
putrefaction.

Frightful dramas are enacted in the darkness.

When an animal has suffered down there for ten or twelve days, nourished
on the foul remains of his predecessors, another animal, larger and more
vigorous, is thrown into the hole. There they are, alone, starving, with
glittering eyes. They watch each other, follow each other, hesitate in
doubt. But hunger impels them; they attack each other, fight desperately
for some time, and the stronger eats the weaker, devours him alive.

When it was decided to make Pierrot "piquer du mas" they looked round for
an executioner. The laborer who mended the road demanded six sous to take
the dog there. That seemed wildly exorbitant to Mme. Lefevre. The
neighbor's hired boy wanted five sous; that was still too much. So Rose
having observed that they had better carry it there themselves, as in
that way it would not be brutally treated on the way and made to suspect
its fate, they resolved to go together at twilight.