It has come! tardily, it is true, but it has come. Ah! could one but observe now, in the peace of one’s study, isolated, absorbed, thinking only of what one is studying, far from the profane passer-by who will stop, seeing you so preoccupied where he sees nothing, will overwhelm you with questions and take you for a diviner of springs with the magic hazel wand, or worse, as a doubtful character, seeking by incantations old pots full of money hidden underground. Even if you seem to him to have the look of a Christian, he will come near, look at what you are looking at, and smile in a fashion which leaves no possible doubt as to his humble opinion of people who spend their time in watching flies. You would only be too happy if this annoying visitor would depart, laughing in his sleeve, but without disturbing everything and repeating the disaster caused by the soles of my two conscripts. Or if it is not the passer-by who is perplexed by your unaccountable proceedings, it will be the garde-champêtre, that inexorable representative of the law amid the fallow fields. Long has he had his eye upon you. He has so often seen you wandering like a troubled ghost for no reason that he can perceive; has so often caught you seeking something in the ground, or knocking down some bit of wall in some hollow way with infinite precaution that he begins to look on you as a suspicious character, a vagabond, a gipsy, a tramp, or, at all events, a maniac. If you have a botanical tin, to him it is the ferret-cage of the poacher, and it will be impossible to convince him that you are not destroying all the rabbits in the neighbouring warrens, regardless of the laws of the chase and the rights of the owner. Beware! However thirsty you may be, lay no finger on a cluster in the vineyard hard by; the man of the municipal livery would be there, delighted to bear witness and get at last an explanation of your exasperatingly perplexing conduct.