Chapter XVI: The Hermit of Sérignan (continued)

Oh, if you could now observe at your ease, in the quiet of your
study, with nothing to distract your mind from your subject, far
from the profane wayfarer who, seeing you so busily occupied at a
spot where he sees nothing, will stop, overwhelm you with queries,
take you for some water-diviner, or—a graver suspicion this—regard
you as some questionable character searching for buried treasure
and discovering by means of incantations where the old pots full of
coin lie hidden! Should you still wear a Christian aspect in his
eyes, he will approach you, look to see what you are looking at,
and smile in a manner that leaves no doubt as to his poor opinion
of people who spend their time in watching Flies. You will be lucky
indeed if the troublesome visitor, with his tongue in his cheek,
walks off at last without disturbing things and without repeating
in his innocence the disaster brought about by my two conscripts’
boots.

Should your inexplicable doings not puzzle the passer-by, they will
be sure to puzzle the village keeper, that uncompromising
representative of the law in the ploughed acres. He has long had
his eye on you. He has so often seen you wandering about, like a
lost soul, for no appreciable reason; he has so often caught you
rooting in the ground, or, with infinite precautions, knocking down
some strip of wall in a sunken road, that in the end he has come to
look upon you with dark suspicion. You are nothing to him but a
gipsy, a tramp, poultry-thief, a shady person, or, at the best, a
madman. Should you be carrying your botanising-case, it will
represent to him the poacher’s ferret-cage; and you would never get
it out of his head that, regardless of the game-laws and the rights
of landlords, you are clearing the neighbouring warrens of their
rabbits. Take care. However thirsty you may be, do not lay a finger
on the nearest bunch of grapes: the man with the municipal badge
will be there, delighted to have a case at last and so to receive
an explanation of your highly perplexing behaviour.

I have never, I can safely say, committed any such misdemeanour;
and yet, one day, lying on the sand, absorbed in the details of a
Bembex’s household, I suddenly heard beside me:

“In the name of the law, I arrest you! You come along with me!”

It was the keeper of Les Angles, who, after vainly waiting for an
opportunity to catch me at fault and being daily more anxious for
an answer to the riddle that was worrying him, at last resolved
upon the brutal expedient of a summons. I had to explain things.
The poor man seemed anything but convinced:

“Pooh!” he said. “Pooh! You will never make me believe that you
come here and roast in the sun just to watch Flies. I shall keep an
eye on you, mark you! And, the first time I...! However, that’ll do
for the present.” [106]

We must recall these adventures and tribulations of his early days, and others of a like kind which we have already recorded, before we can understand the ease and the delight experienced by Fabre when he was able to take refuge within the walls of his hermitage. There, at least, no one would upset his plans, or distract him from his researches and observations. He could station himself where he pleased; he had room to turn round. He had leisure to await the opportunity and seize upon it when it occurred. He had nothing to think of now but himself and his insects, and the latter always ended by yielding to him and complying with all his wishes. They surrendered themselves to him as he to them. The days were over when he had to divide himself, as it were; when they kept him on the rack, maliciously waiting to make overtures or intimate disclosures to him just as he had to leave them, just as the class-bell rang or his holiday was over. Now there was nothing like that. He was theirs from morning to night, from night to morning. He was always watching, always listening; his mind was always on the alert where they were concerned. And the veils were lifted, secrets were revealed, confidences followed confidences, and a light was shed upon points which had so far remained impenetrable for a space of twenty or thirty years.

In the laboratory of the harmas the day begins early; as soon as nature awakens with the first rays of sunlight, directly our hermit hears the call of his vigilant life-companions. This appeal is sometimes very early, when, for example, he pushes complaisance to the length of permitting the swallow to nest in his study.

The room is closed for the night. The father lies outside; the
mother does the same when the fledglings are a certain size. Then,
from the earliest dawn, they are at the windows, greatly troubled
by the glass barricade. In order to open the window to the
afflicted parents, I have to rise hurriedly with my eyelids still
heavy with sleep.

But here is something to repay the valiant naturalist for his early sacrifice: the delights of “prayer in the chapel of the lilacs.”

My hermitage contains an alley of lilacs, long and wide. When May
is here, when the two rows of bushes, yielding beneath the burden
of the heads of blossom, bow themselves, forming pointed arches,
this walk becomes a chapel, in which the most beautiful festival of
the year is celebrated in the enchanting morning sunlight; a quiet
festival, without flags flapping at the windows, without the
burning of gunpowder, without quarrels after drinking; the festival
of the simple, disturbed neither by the raucous brass band of the
dancers, nor by the shouts of the crowd.... Vulgar delights of
maroons and libations, how far removed are you from this solemnity!

I am one of the faithful in the chapel of the lilacs. My prayer is
not such as can be translated by words; it is an intimate emotion
that stirs in me gently. Devoutly I make my stations from one
pillar of verdure to the next; step by step I tell my observer’s
rosary. [107]

His “prayer is an Oh! of admiration,” addressed to that creative Power who, in His works, is always the geometer, according to Plato’s sublime saying: which is, that He everywhere sheds order, light, and harmony. Ἀεὶ ὀ Θεος γεωμετρεῖ. [108]

The contemplation of the living world that is stirring all about him gives him yet further cause to marvel at the wisdom of Him “who has made the plans on which life is working.” [109] It is easy to understand that, for Fabre, the harmas assumed the colours and the charms of Eden, and that his solitary life therein was like a perpetual ecstasy.

For the rest, the scene changes as well as the protagonists. After the harmas with its breeding-cages and its customary inhabitants, the Sérignan country-side with its fortuitous encounters. When the weather is propitious the whole household sets out in a party. But the heat is torrid and the time of day unsuitable for walking. The naturalist sets out none the less. Bull alone dares to brave with his master the blazing heat of the sun. But even he will not hold out to the end! The goal is reached; but the most difficult thing is not to walk the distance to the post of observation; it is to settle down and remain there, under the scorching sun, waiting for an opportunity that is often slow to occur.

Ah, how long the hours seem, spent motionless, under a burning sun,
at the foot of a declivity which sends the heat of an oven beating
down upon you! Bull, my inseparable companion, has retired some
distance into the shade, under a clump of evergreen oaks. He has
found a layer of sand whose depths still retain some traces of the
last shower. He digs himself a bed; and in the cool furrow the
sybarite stretches himself flat upon his belly. Lolling his tongue
and thrashing the boughs with his tail, he keeps his soft, deep
gaze fixed upon me:

“What are you doing over there, you booby, baking in the heat? Come
here, under the foliage; see how comfortable I am!

“That is what I seem to read in my companion’s eyes.

“Oh, my Dog, my friend,” I should answer, if you could only
understand, “man is tormented by a desire for knowledge, whereas
your torments are confined to a desire for bones and, from time to
time, a desire for your sweetheart! This, notwithstanding our
devoted friendship, creates a certain difference between us, even
though people nowadays say that we are more or less related, almost
cousins. I feel the need to know things and am content to bake in
the heat; you feel no such need and retire into the cool shade.”

Yes, the hours drag when you lie waiting for an insect that does
not come. [110]

Yet from his expeditions into the countryside, he almost always brings back some new pensioner who serves to enrich his collection of intimates admitted to the familiarities of cohabitation. For not only the harmas but his work-room becomes, by such chance means, an entomological museum, in which Flies, Scorpions, Caterpillars, Spiders, and I know not what else live side by side and in succession.

And when their turn is over, when the first comers have to make room for new arrivals, the master parts from his children with regret, dismissing them with the most kindly speeches, embellished by the most salutary advice. Here, for example, is the little speech which he makes to the Sphex:

You pretty Sphex-wasps hatched before my eyes, brought up by my
hand, ration by ration, on a bed of sand in an old quill-box; you
whose transformations I have followed step by step, starting up
from my sleep in alarm lest I should have missed the moment when
the nymph is bursting its swaddling-bands or the wing leaving its
case; you who have taught me so much and learned nothing
yourselves: O my pretty Sphex-wasps, fly away without fear of my
tubes, my boxes, my bottles, or any of my receptacles, through this
warm sunlight beloved of the Cicadæ; go, but beware of the Praying
Mantis, who is plotting your ruin on the flowering heads of the
thistles, and mind the Lizard, who is lying in wait for you on the
sunny slopes; go in peace, dig your burrows, stab your Crickets
scientifically and continue your kind, to procure one day for
others what you have given me: the few moments of happiness in my
life! [111]

One of the great joys of the Sérignan hermit is, after supper, to isolate himself in the restful quietude of the harmas, and there to lend an attentive ear to the least vibrations of sound from that little living world which he can no longer see but can still hear. Nothing will succeed in distracting him from this entomological concert, which is one of his delights. It makes him forget even the rejoicings of the national festival which is being celebrated close at hand, and the splendours of the starry sky that glitters above his head.

This evening in the village they are celebrating the National
Festival. [112] While the little boys and girls are hopping around
a bonfire whose gleams are reflected upon the church-steeple, while
the drum is banged to mark the ascent of each rocket, I am sitting
alone in a dark corner, in the comparative coolness that prevails
at nine o’clock, harking to the concert of the festival of the
fields, the festival of the harvest, grander by far than that
which, at this moment, is being celebrated in the village square
with gunpowder, lighted torches, Chinese lanterns, and, above all,
strong drink. It has the simplicity of beauty and the repose of
strength.

It is late; and the Cicadæ are silent. Glutted with light and heat,
they have indulged in symphonies all the livelong day. It is now
the time of the nocturnal performers. Hard by the place of
slaughter, in the green bushes, a delicate ear perceives the hum of
the Grasshoppers. It is the sort of noise that a spinning-wheel
makes, a very unobtrusive sound, a vague rustle of dry membranes
rubbed together. Above this dull bass there rises, at intervals, a
hurried, very shrill, almost metallic clicking. There you have the
air and the recitative, interspersed with pauses. The rest is the
accompaniment.

Despite the assistance of a bass, it is a poor concert, very poor
indeed, though there are about ten executants in my immediate
vicinity. The tone lacks intensity. My old tympanum is not always
capable of perceiving these subtleties of sound. The little that
reaches me is extremely sweet and most appropriate to the calm of
twilight. Just a little more breadth in your bow-stroke, my dear
Green Grasshopper, and your technique would be better than the
hoarse Cicada’s, whose name and reputation you have been made to
usurp in the countries of the north.

Still, you will never equal your neighbour, the little bell-ringing
Toad, who goes tinkling all around, at the foot of the plane-trees,
while you click up above. He is the smallest of my batrachian folk
and the most venturesome in his expeditions.

How often, at nightfall, by the last glimmers of daylight, have I
not come upon him as I wandered through my garden, hunting for
ideas! Something runs away, rolling over and over in front of me.
Is it a dead leaf blown along by the wind? No, it is the pretty
little Toad disturbed in the midst of his pilgrimage. He hurriedly
takes shelter under a stone, a clod of earth, a tuft of grass,
recovers from his excitement and loses no time in picking up his
liquid note.

On this evening of national merry-making there are nearly a dozen
of him tinkling one against the other around me. Most of them are
squatting among the rows of flower-pots that form a sort of lobby
outside my house. Each has his own note, always the same, lower in
one case, higher in another, a short, clear note, melodious and of
exquisite purity.

With their slow, rhythmical cadence, they seem to be intoning
litanies. Cluck, says one; click, responds another, on a finer
note; clock, adds a third, the tenor of the band. And this is
repeated indefinitely, like the bells of the village pealing on a
holiday: cluck, click, clock! cluck, click, clock!

As a song this litany has neither head nor tail to it; as a
collection of pure sounds, it is delicious. [113]

“A little animated clay, capable of pleasure and pain.” To the scrutiny of this miracle, with its infinity of forms, Fabre devotes himself with touching sympathy and indefatigable activity. He dedicates his day to it; and at night he is still working. And in this work, which seems to admit of no relaxation, he appears to know nothing of fatigue. The love of his task upholds him and inspires him. When night has fallen, the observer has still one resource left; he can listen for the rustle or the song of the insect that has so far escaped him in its coming and going. We might, perhaps, have discovered the insect, but he discovers something very different. He makes a series of observations by the light of a lantern in the brushwood or before the apparatus in the harmas.

During the two hottest months, when the darkness is profound and a
little coolness follows the furnace of the day, it is easy for me,
with a lantern in my hand, to watch that magnificent Spider, the
Epeira, in the manufacture of her web. She has established herself
at a height convenient for observation, between a row of
cypress-trees and a thicket of laurels, at the entrance of a path
frequented by nocturnal moths. The situation, it seems, is a good
one, for the Epeira does not change it all the season, although she
renews her net almost every night.

When twilight is over, we punctually set out to pay her a family
visit. Old and young alike are amazed by her gyrations in the midst
of her quivering cordage, and we marvel at her impeccable geometry
as her web takes shape. Gleaming in the rays of the lantern, the
fabric becomes a fairy rose-window which seems to be woven of
moon-beams.

What a pity that we cannot wait for the completion of a task so artistically begun! But the hour is late, and we have still to pay a visit to the Languedocian Scorpion, a lover of darkness who has his own hours for going abroad and rarely shows himself save at night. Accordingly, it has taken time to secure the last word of his history.

Rearing the Scorpion in a breeding-cage will perhaps give better results, and in any case will facilitate nocturnal observations which alone may shed a little light on the obscure habits of this unsociable hermit.

Interrogated by lantern-light, the Arachnoid will indeed tell us more during a few seconds of stealthy inspection than during days and weeks of diurnal hunting. His operations are, as a matter of fact, such as call for closed doors, and would rightly shrink from displaying themselves in broad daylight.

I have prepared beforehand the great glass cage, peopled with
twenty-five inhabitants, each with his tile. Every night, from the
middle of April, as darkness falls, there is great animation in the
glass palace. By day seemingly to be deserted, it becomes a
cheerful scene. Hardly is supper finished when the whole household
hastens thither. A lantern hung upon the glazed window enables us
to follow what happens. This is our distraction after the bustle of
the day; it is like a visit to the theatre. And in this theatre the
plays are so interesting that, as soon as the lantern is lit, all
of us, old and young, come to take our places in the stalls; even
down to Tom, the house-dog. Indifferent to the affairs of the
Scorpions, like the true philosopher that he is, Tom lies at our
feet and sleeps, but only with one eye, the other being always open
upon his friends, the children.

Close to the glass panes, in the region discreetly lit by the
lantern, a numerous assembly has presently gathered together. Some
come from a distance; they solemnly emerge from the shadow, and
then, suddenly, with a swift easy rush like a slide, they join the
crowd in the light. They investigate their surroundings, fleeing
precipitately at a touch as though they had burned each other.
Others, having mixed with their comrades a little, suddenly make
off distractedly; they recover themselves in the darkness and
return. At moments there is a violent tumult; a confused mass of
swarming legs, snapping pincers and coiling, clashing tails,
threatening or caressing, one does not quite know which. All take
part in the scuffle, large and small; you would think it a deadly
battle, a general massacre, but it is only a crazy game, like a
scrimmage of kittens. Presently the group disperses; they retire
for a little in all directions, without any sign of a wound,
without a sprain. [114]

What do you think of the saraband of these horrible creatures, so full of mirth and playfulness? Certainly it has its fascinating side; but it is not equal to the scenes of betrothal and espousal.

Now the fugitives are once more assembled beneath the lantern. They
pass to and fro, coming and going, often meeting face to face. The
one in the greatest hurry walks over the other’s back, who allows
him to do so without other protest than a movement of the rump. The
time has not come for squabbling; at the most those encountering
exchange the equivalent of a punch on the head: that is, a thump of
the tail.

We have something better here than entangled legs and brandished
tails; these are pauses of great originality. Face to face, the
claws drawn back, two combatants proceed to stand on their heads:
that is, supporting themselves only on the fore part of the body,
they raise the hinder part in the air, so high that the thorax
reveals the eight white breathing-pockets. The tails, stretched out
in a straight line and raised into a vertical position, rub
together, slipping over each other, while their extremities are
bent into a hook and gently, over and over again, knot themselves
together and release themselves. Suddenly the amicable pyramid
falls to the ground and each scuttles off without further ceremony.

What did these two wrestlers intend by their original posture? Was
it the grappling of two rivals? It would seem not, so pacific was
the encounter. Subsequent observations tell me that these are the
allurements of the betrothal. To declare his passion, the Scorpion
stands on his head. [115]

This reconnaissance and these first advances are followed by a sentimental promenade.

Two Scorpions are face to face, their claws outstretched, their
hands clasped. Their tails curved in graceful spirals, the couple
wander with measured steps the length of the window. The male goes
first, walking backwards, smoothly, encountering no resistance. The
female follows obediently, held by the tips of her claws, face to
face with her leader.

The promenade is interrupted by halts which do not in any way
modify the method of conjunction; it is resumed, now in this
direction, now in that, from one end of the enclosure to the other.
Nothing indicates the goal for which the strollers are making. They
loiter, musing and assuredly exchanging glances. Thus in my
village, on Sunday, after vespers, the young people stroll along by
the hedges, two by two.

Often they turn to one side. It is always the male who decides the
fresh direction to be followed. Without releasing his companion’s
hands he gracefully turns about, placing himself side by side with
his companion. Then, for a moment, with his tail lying flat, he
caresses her back. The other does not stir; she remains impassive.
Sometimes the two heads touch, bending a little to right and left
as if whispering into each other’s ears. What are they saying? How
translate into words their silent epithalamium?

Sometimes, too, their foreheads touch and the two mouths meet with
tender effusiveness. To describe these caresses the word “kisses”
occurs to the mind. One dare not employ it; for here is neither
head, face, lips, or cheeks. Truncated as though by a stroke of the
shears, the animal has not even a snout. Where we should look for a
face, are two hideous jaws like a wall. And this for the Scorpion
is the height of beauty! With his fore legs, more delicate and
agile than the rest, he softly pats the dreadful mask, to his eyes
an exquisite face; voluptuously he nibbles at it, tickles with his
jaws the face touching his, as hideous as his own. His tenderness
and naïveté are superb. The dove, they say, invented the kiss. I
know of a precursor: the Scorpion....

For a good hour I watch, unwearied, these interminable wanderings
to and fro. Part of the household lends me the assistance of its
eyes. Despite the lateness of the hour, our combined attention
allows nothing essential to escape us. We admire the curious yoking
of the couples which our presence does not disturb in the least. We
find it almost graceful, and the expression is not exaggerated.
Semi-translucid and gleaming in the light of the lantern, the happy
pair seem carved from a block of yellow amber. With arms
outstretched and tails coiled into graceful spirals, they gently
stroll about with measured paces.

At last, about ten o’clock, a separation takes place. The male has
come across a potsherd whose shelter appears to him suitable. He
releases one of his consort’s hands, but only one, and still
holding her firmly by the other he scratches with his legs and
sweeps with his tail. A grotto opens. He enters it, and gradually,
without violence, he draws the patient female into it. Presently
both have disappeared. A little bank of sand closes their dwelling.
The couple are at home.

To disturb them would be a blunder; I should intervene too soon, at
an inopportune moment, if I attempted to see at once what is
happening down there. The preliminaries will possibly last the
greater part of the night, and long vigils are beginning to tell
upon my eighty years. My legs give way and sand trickles into my
eyes. Let us go to bed.

All night I dream of Scorpions. They run under my blankets, they
pass over my face, and I am not greatly disturbed thereby, such
remarkable things do I see in my imagination! [116]

Incidentally we may remark that it is not only in his imagination that insects frequent his bed-clothes and caress his bare skin. Here we come to an episode of the entomologist’s private life.

When wearing his last costume, the Pine Processionary caterpillar
is very disagreeable to handle, or even to observe at close
quarters. I happened, quite unexpectedly, to learn this more
thoroughly than I wished.

After unsuspectingly passing a whole morning with my insects,
stooping over them, magnifying-glass in hand, to examine the
working of their slits, I found my forehead and eyelids suffering
with redness for twenty-four hours, and afflicted with an itching
even more painful and persistent than that produced by the sting of
a nettle. On seeing me come down to dinner in this sad plight, with
my eyes reddened and swollen and my face unrecognisable, the family
anxiously inquired what had happened to me, and were not reassured
until I told them of my mishap.

I unhesitatingly attribute my painful experience to the red hairs
ground to powder and collected into flakes. My breath sought them
out in the open pockets and carried them to my face, which was very
near. The unthinking intervention of my hands, which now and again
sought to ease the discomfort, merely aggravated the ill by
spreading the irritating dust. [117]

What would to another have been merely an annoying accident without other bearing than a commonplace lesson of prudence, became for him the starting-point of a whole series of instructive experiments.

Whatever his retirement has cost him, a man so passionately devoted to animals must bless the solitude of his village which enables him to pass all his time in observing and describing them. He congratulates himself, indeed, upon his premature retirement, which is dooming him to obscurity and impecuniosity for the rest of his days, at the same time allowing him wholly to give himself up to entomology.

Ah, beloved village, so poor, so rustic, what a happy inspiration
was mine when I came to you to demand of you a hermit’s retreat,
where I could live in company with my dear insects and thus trace
in a worthy manner a few chapters of their marvellous history!
[118]