As has been seen, fortune made ceaseless sport of me. She jerked me like a marionette--first towards calm, and then towards trouble. This time she used a trivial cause to upset my mind. Had I been feeling more at ease, I should not have interpreted what was perhaps only a freak of nature, as so great a mystery, but marvels were in the air. I felt them everywhere, and this phrase was always sounding in my ears: “_Since the night of my arrival, there were certain things outside which should not have been there._” Those that I saw in the park that day--and which I insist would not have astounded any ordinary person as they did me--seemed to me to fill up a gap in my evidence with regard to the Lerne question. It brought that study, so to speak, to a close. It was very indistinct. I caught a glimpse of a solution of all the problems--an abominable one--but my ideas were not precise enough to express it to myself. For the space of a second, however, they were of unimaginable violence, and if I shrugged my shoulders after the little scene which inspired them, I must admit that they caused me agony. This is what it was: Intending to spend my ten minutes in having a look at the old shoe, I was going down an avenue where the evening dew was already moistening the high grass. The night was beginning to fill the underwood. One heard the chirping of sparrows growing less and less frequent. I think it was about half-past six. The bull bellowed. As I rounded the paddock I could only count four animals there--Pasiphaë was no longer walking about there in the half-mourning of her pied robe, but that is a matter of no interest. I was walking slowly on, when a tornado of whistling, mingled with little cries--a mass of shrill squeakings, if I may so say, made me pause. The grass was stirring. I approached noiselessly, stretching out my neck. A duel was going on there: one of those countless combats which make each cart-rut an abyss of death, in order that one of the combatants may feed on the other. It was a little bird and a serpent. The serpent was a rather imposing viper, whose triangular head was marked with a white stigma of the same shape. The bird looked like a black-headed wren, with this essential difference, however, that its head was white. A variety, doubtless, from the aviary, which I should be able to describe less awkwardly if I were better versed in natural history. The two combatants were face to face--one approaching the other. Imagine my bewilderment! It was the wren which was forcing the serpent to recoil! It advanced in little quick jumps, without a quiver of its wings, and as if hypnotizing its enemy. Its fixed eye had the magnetic gleam of a dog’s when it points, and the helpless viper was recoiling before it, fascinated by its implacable looks, whilst terror was wringing half-suppressed whistlings from its throat. “Deuce take it,” I said to myself, “is the world upside down, or is my mind topsy-turvy?”