Medusa. I still remember a certain pine cockchafer met for the
first time. The plumes on her antennae, her pretty pattern of
white spots on a dark brown ground were as a ray of sunshine in the
gloomy wretchedness of the day.

To cut a long story short: good fortune, which never abandons the
brave, brought me to the primary normal school at Vaucluse where I
was assured food: dried chestnuts and chickpeas. The principal, a
man of broad views, soon came to trust his new assistant. He left
me practically a free hand, so long as I satisfied the school
curriculum, which was very modest in those days. Possessing a
smattering of Latin and grammar, I was a little ahead of my fellow
pupils. I took advantage of this to get some order into my vague
knowledge of plants and animals. While a dictation lesson was
being corrected around me, with generous assistance from the
dictionary, I would examine, in the recesses of my desk, the
oleander's fruit, the snapdragon's seed vessel, the wasp's sting
and the ground beetle's wing-case.

With this foretaste of natural science, picked up haphazard and by
stealth, I left school more deeply in love than ever with insects
and flowers. And yet I had to give it all up. That wider
education, which would have to be my source of livelihood in the
future, demanded this imperiously. What was I to take in hand to
raise me above the primary school, whose staff could barely earn
their bread in those days? Natural history could not bring me
anywhere. The educational system of the time kept it at a
distance, as unworthy of association with Latin and Greek.
Mathematics remained, with its very simple equipment: a blackboard,
a bit of chalk and a few books.