I have never, I can safely say, committed any such misdemeanour; and yet, one day, lying on the sand, absorbed in the details of a Bembex’s household, I suddenly heard beside me: “In the name of the law, I arrest you! You come along with me!” It was the keeper of Les Angles, who, after vainly waiting for an opportunity to catch me at fault and being daily more anxious for an answer to the riddle that was worrying him, at last resolved upon the brutal expedient of a summons. I had to explain things. The poor man seemed anything but convinced: “Pooh!” he said. “Pooh! You will never make me believe that you come here and roast in the sun just to watch Flies. I shall keep an eye on you, mark you! And, the first time I...! However, that’ll do for the present.” [106] We must recall these adventures and tribulations of his early days, and others of a like kind which we have already recorded, before we can understand the ease and the delight experienced by Fabre when he was able to take refuge within the walls of his hermitage. There, at least, no one would upset his plans, or distract him from his researches and observations. He could station himself where he pleased; he had room to turn round. He had leisure to await the opportunity and seize upon it when it occurred. He had nothing to think of now but himself and his insects, and the latter always ended by yielding to him and complying with all his wishes. They surrendered themselves to him as he to them. The days were over when he had to divide himself, as it were; when they kept him on the rack, maliciously waiting to make overtures or intimate disclosures to him just as he had to leave them, just as the class-bell rang or his holiday was over. Now there was nothing like that. He was theirs from morning to night, from night to morning. He was always watching, always listening; his mind was always on the alert where they were concerned. And the veils were lifted, secrets were revealed, confidences followed confidences, and a light was shed upon points which had so far remained impenetrable for a space of twenty or thirty years. In the laboratory of the harmas the day begins early; as soon as nature awakens with the first rays of sunlight, directly our hermit hears the call of his vigilant life-companions. This appeal is sometimes very early, when, for example, he pushes complaisance to the length of permitting the swallow to nest in his study. The room is closed for the night. The father lies outside; the mother does the same when the fledglings are a certain size. Then, from the earliest dawn, they are at the windows, greatly troubled by the glass barricade. In order to open the window to the afflicted parents, I have to rise hurriedly with my eyelids still heavy with sleep. But here is something to repay the valiant naturalist for his early sacrifice: the delights of “prayer in the chapel of the lilacs.”