Rabbit took refuge in a marl-pit over which mulberries arched, and there he stayed crouching with his eyes wide-open until evening. Here he sat like a king beneath the ogive of the branches; a shower of rain had adorned them with pale-blue pearls. There he finally fell asleep. But his dream was unquiet, not like that which should come from the calm sleep of the sultry summer's afternoon. His was not the profound sleep of the lizard which hardly stirs when dreaming the dream of ancient walls; his was not the comfortable noonday sleep of the badger who sits in his dark earthen burrow and enjoys the coolness. The slightest sound spoke to him of danger, the danger that lies in all things whether they move or fall or strike. A shadow moved unexpectedly. Was it an enemy approaching? He knew that happiness can be found in a place of refuge only when everything remains exactly the same this moment, as it was the moment before. Hence came his love of order, that is to say his immobility. Why should a leaf stir on the eglantine in the blue calm of an idle day? When the shadows of a copse move so slowly, that it seems they are trying to stop the passage of the hours, why should they suddenly stir? Why was there this crowd of men who, not far from his retreat, were gathering the ears of maize in which the sun threaded pale beads of light? His eyelids had no lashes, and so could not bear the palpitating and dazzling light of noondays. And this alone was sufficient reason why he knew that danger lurked if he should approach those who unblinded could look into the white flames of husbandry. There was nothing outside to lure him before the time came when he would go out of his own accord. His wisdom was in harmony with things. His life was a work of music to him, and each discordant note warned him to be cautious. He did not confuse the voice of the pack of hounds with the distant sound of bells, or the gesture of a man with that of a waving tree, or the detonation of a gun with a clap of thunder, or the latter with the rumbling of carts, or the cry of the hawk with the steam-whistle of threshing-machines. Thus there was an entire language, whose words he knew to be his enemies. Who can say from what source Rabbit obtained this prudence and this wisdom? No one can explain these things, or tell whence or how they have come to him. Their origin is lost in the night of time where everything is all confused and one. Did he, perhaps, come out of Noah's ark on Mount Ararat at the time when the dove, which retains the sound of great waters in its cooing, brought the olive-branch, the sign that the great wave was subsiding? Or had he been created, such as he is, with his short tail, his stubbly hide, his cleft lip, his floppy ear, and his trodden-down heel? Did God, the Eternal, set him all ready-made beneath the laurels of Paradise?