As to the third member of our force, it was essential never to lose sight of him for a minute, because of his fixed determination to hang himself. He had made several attempts that had ended in failure. We used to watch him in relays. Mariette would refuse him the slightest bit of cord, however pressing his need of it, and he was carefully assigned to work where the uncovered spaces were largest. In early days he used to be called Dante, but his name was really Beatrix. His nickname was given him by the keeper of our departmental archives, a man of wit. His face was long and woe-begone, and he was so possessed with the desire to hie him to the lower regions that it was continually necessary to cut his rope. By degrees he came to be called Le Pendu, or the Hanged, and was known by no other name. Very few were willing to employ him because of the police force requisite to ward off his catastrophes. Mother was his providence. The heavy jobs were intrusted to him, but he generally gave them over to Aunt Deen, who was strong, active, and capable of moving even the heavy casks, while he looked on with admiration, open-mouthed and with swinging arms. His mouth contained only two teeth, which by marvellous good luck were precisely one above the other, so that when one met the other you might suppose that it was one tooth uniting the two jaws. You can understand to what a degree our garden was neglected. Should I have loved it more, blooming with flowers and fruits, than in this lamentable condition, in which it seemed to me immense and measureless and mysterious? Dear old garden, with your crazy weeds, always a little too damp and much too shady because of branches left to their own will, where I have played so much and invented so many games, where I have known the glory of combat, the wonders of exploration, the pride of conquest, the intoxication of freedom; not to mention the friendship of trees and the pleasantness of fruit gathered in secret! Who would recognise you to-day? Raked, reduced to order, pruned, watered, your alleys sanded, your turf cut close around the flower urns, never flatter yourself that you can dazzle me with your beauty! When I walk in my garden I still go as I please, trampling down the borders, treading underfoot the grass plots, endangering the flowers, until the new gardener--who by himself alone only too ably replaces Tem Bossette, Mimi Pachoux, and the Hanged--cries out in a voice of consternation: “Do take care, sir!” I must excuse him. He does not know that I am walking in my garden of long ago. To complete this portrait of the house, there still is lacking--oh, almost nothing! Almost nothing yet almost everything, two things indeed, a shadow and a footstep.