To hell with that sort of friend! It was fine weather, but certainly not walking weather; too much sun and too much mistral, a typical Provencal day to be sure. By the time this damned letter arrived, I had already decided on my bolt-hole for the day. It was to be in the shelter of two rocks, and I was looking forward to basking like a lizard and soaking up the Provencal light as I listened to the pines singing. Oh well, there was nothing else for it, I grumbled as I locked up the windmill, and put the key under the cat-flap. Cane, pipe, and I was on my way. I arrived at Eyguières at about two o'clock. The village was deserted; everybody was out in the fields. In the white dust-covered elms in the courtyard, the cicadas were singing their hearts out, just like they do in the Crau plain. An ass was sunning itself in the town hall square, and a flock of pigeons were in the church fountain, but there nobody to direct me to the orphanage. Luckily, I came across an old fairy squatting and spinning her thread in a corner of her doorway; I told her what I was looking for, and, so powerful was she, that as she raised her distaff, the Convent of the Orphans appeared, as if by magic, before me.... It was a big, black, bleak house, proudly boasting an old red sandstone cross with a short Latin inscription above its pointed door arch. I spotted a smaller house next door with grey shutters, and a back-garden.... I recognised it immediately and went in without knocking. The long, cool, quiet entrance hall made a life-long impression on me; with its pink painted wall, and faded flowers and violins on the panelling. I saw a small garden shaking about in the wind beyond a light coloured awning. I seemed to have come to the home of some sort of antediluvian bailiff.... At the end of the corridor on the left, the ticking of a large clock could be heard through a half opened door, and the voice of a school-age child, reading each syllable carefully. Th ... en ... Saint ... I ... re ... naeus ... cri ... ed ... I ... am ... the ... wh ... eat ... of ... the ... Lord ... I ... mu ... st ... be ... gro ... und ... by ... the ... tee ... th ... of ... th ... ese ... a ... ni ... mals.... I went gently over to the door and looked in.