the big back grinder.

Had they talked to me about the man in the moon, I could not have
been more startled. I made up for it with my animals, which I was
far from forgetting amid this phantasmagoria of heroes and
demigods. While honoring the exploits of Cadmus and Cynoegirus, I
hardly ever failed, on Sundays and Thursdays [the weekly half-
holiday in French schools], to go and see if the cowslip or the
yellow daffodil was making its appearance in the meadows, if the
Linnet was hatching on the juniper bushes, if the Cockchafers were
plopping down from the wind shaken poplars. Thus was the sacred
spark kept aglow, ever brighter than before.

By easy stages, I came to Virgil and was very much smitten with
Meliboeus, Corydon, Menalcas, Damoetas and the rest of them. The
scandals of the ancient shepherds fortunately passed unnoticed; and
within the frame in which the characters moved were exquisite
details concerning the bee, the cicada, the turtle dove, the crow,
the nanny goat and the golden broom. A veritable delight were
these stories of the fields, sung in sonorous verse; and the Latin
poet left a lasting impression on my classical recollections.

Then, suddenly, goodbye to my studies, goodbye to Tityrus and
Menalcas. Ill luck is swooping down on us, relentlessly. Hunger
threatens us at home. And now, boy, put your trust in God; run
about and earn your penn'orth of potatoes as best you can. Life is
about to become a hideous inferno. Let us pass quickly over this
phase.
Amid this lamentable chaos, my love for the insect ought to have
gone under. Not at all. It would have survived the raft of the