“Now that we can procure radium in sufficient quantities, science possesses incomparable means of analysis; even at present we get glimpses, within what are called simple bodies, of extremely diversified complex ones, and we discover energies in matter which seem to increase even by reason of its tenuity.” As they talked, they threw bits of bread to the birds, and some children played around them. Passing from one subject to another: “This hill, in the quaternary epoch,” said Clair, “was inhabited by wild horses. Last year, as they were tunnelling for the water mains, they found a layer of the bones of primeval horses.” She was anxious to know whether, at that distant epoch, man had yet appeared. He told her that man used to hunt the primeval horse long before he tried to domesticate him. “Man,” he added, “was at first a hunter, then he became a shepherd, a cultivator, a manufacturer . . . and these diverse civilizations succeeded each other at intervals of time that the mind cannot conceive.” He took out his watch. Caroline asked if it was already time to go back to the office. He said it was not, that it was scarcely half-past twelve. A little girl was making mud pies at the foot of their bench; a little boy of seven or eight years was playing in front of them. Whilst his mother was sewing on an adjoining bench, he played all alone at being a run-away horse, and with that power of illusion, of which children are capable, he imagined that he was at the same time the horse, and those who ran after him, and those who fled in terror before him. He kept struggling with himself and shouting: “Stop him, Hi! Hi! This is an awful horse, he has got the bit between his teeth.” Caroline asked the question: “Do you think that men were happy formerly?” Her companion answered: “They suffered less when they were younger. They acted like that little boy: they played; they played at arts, at virtues, at vices, at heroism, at beliefs, at pleasures; they had illusions which entertained them; they made a noise; they amused themselves. But now. . . .” He interrupted himself, and looked again at his watch. The child, who was running, struck his foot against the little girl’s pail, and fell his full length on the gravel. He remained a moment stretched out motionless, then raised himself up on the palms of his hands. His forehead puckered, his mouth opened, and he burst into tears. His mother ran up, but Caroline had lifted him from the ground and was wiping his eyes and mouth with her handkerchief. The child kept on sobbing and Clair took him in his arms. “Come, don’t cry, my little man! I am going to tell you a story. “A fisherman once threw his net into the sea and drew out a little, sealed, copper pot, which he opened with his knife. Smoke came out of it, and as it mounted up to the clouds the smoke grew thicker and thicker and became a giant who gave such a terrible yawn that the whole world was blown to dust....”