I break more stones. Oh, what a queer thing has just come loose, all in one piece! It is turned spiral-wise, like certain flat Snails that come out of the cracks of old walls in rainy weather. With its gnarled sides, it looks like a little ram’s-horn. Shell or horn, it is very curious. How do things like that find their way into the stone? Treasures and curiosities make my pockets bulge with pebbles. It is late, and the little ducklings have had all they want to eat. Come along, youngsters, let’s go home. My blistered heel is forgotten in my excitement. The walk back is a delight. A voice sings in my ear, an untranslatable voice, softer than any language and bewildering as a dream. It speaks to me for the first time of the mysteries of the pond; it glorifies the heavenly insect which I hear moving in the empty snail-shell, its temporary cage; it whispers the secrets of the rock, the gold-filings, the faceted jewels, the ram’s-horn turned to stone. Poor simpleton, smother your joy! I arrive. My parents catch sight of my bulging pockets, with their disgraceful load of stones. The cloth has given way under the rough and heavy burden. “You rascal!” says father, at sight of the damage. “I send you to mind the ducks and you amuse yourself picking up stones, as though there weren’t enough of them all round the house! Make haste and throw them away!” Broken-hearted, I obey. Diamonds, gold-dust, petrified ram’s-horn, heavenly Beetle are all flung on a rubbish-heap outside the door. Mother bewails her lot: “A nice thing, bringing up children to see them turn out so badly! You’ll bring me to my grave. Green stuff I don’t mind: it does for the rabbits. But stones, which ruin your pockets; poisonous animals, which’ll sting your hand: what good are they to you, silly? There’s no doubt about it: some one has thrown a spell over you!” Yes, my poor mother, you were right, in your simplicity: a spell had been cast upon me; I admit it to-day. When it is hard enough to earn one’s bit of bread, does not improving one’s mind but render one more meet for suffering? Of what avail is the torment of learning to the derelicts of life? A deal better off am I, at this late hour, dogged by poverty and knowing that the diamonds of the duck-pool were rock-crystal, the gold-dust mica, the stone horn an Ammonite, and the sky-blue Beetle a Hoplia! We poor men would do better to mistrust the joys of knowledge: let us dig our furrow in the field of the commonplace, flee the temptations of the pond, mind our ducks and leave to others, more favoured by fortune, the job of explaining the world’s mechanism, if the spirit moves them.