oak round which an ivy twined. And God said unto Francis:

"I know what brings thee hither. It shall never be said that there was any one, whether maggot or rabbit, who was unable to find his Paradise here. Go therefore to thy fleet-footed friend, and ask him what it is that he desires. And as soon as he has told thee, I shall grant him his wish. If he did not understand how to die and to renounce the world like the others, it was surely because his heart clove too much to my Earth which, indeed, I love well. Because, Oh Francis, like this creature of the long ears I love the earth with a profound love. I love the earth of men, of beasts, of plants, and of stones. Oh Francis, go and find Rabbit, and tell him that I am his friend."

* * * * *

And Francis set out toward the Paradise of beasts where none of the children of man except young girls had ever set their foot. There he met Rabbit who was disconsolately wandering about. But when Rabbit saw his old master approaching he experienced such joy that he crouched down with more fright in his eye than ever and with his nostrils quivering almost imperceptibly.

"Greeting, my brother," said Francis, "I heard the sufferings of your heart, and I have come here to learn the reason for your sadness. Have you eaten too many bitter kernels of grain? Why have you not found the peace of the doves, and of the lambs which are also white…? Oh harvester of the second crop, for what do you search so restlessly here where there is no more restlessness, and where never more will you feel the hunting-dogs' breath on your poor skin?"

"Oh my friend," answered he, "what am I seeking? I am seeking my
God. As long as you were my God on earth I felt at peace. But in this
Paradise where I have lost my way, because your presence is no longer
with me, Oh divine brother of the beast, my soul feels suffocated for
I do not find my God."

"Do you think, then," said Francis, "that God abandons rabbits, and that they alone of the whole world have no title to Paradise?"

"No," Rabbit replied, "I have given no thought to such things. I would have followed you because I came to know you as intimately as the earthly hedge on which the lambs hung the warm flakes of snow with which I used to line and keep warm my nest. Vainly I have sought throughout these heavenly meadows this God of whom you are speaking. But while my companions discovered Him at once and found their Paradise, I lost my way. From the day when you left us and from the instant that I gained Heaven, my childish and untamed heart has beaten with homesickness for the earth.

"Oh Francis, Oh my friend, Oh you in whom alone I have faith, give back to me my earth. I feel that I am not at home here. Give back to me my furrows full of mud, give back to me my clayey paths. Give back to me my native valley where the horns of the hunters make the mists stir. Give back to me the wagon-track on the roadway from which I heard sound the packs of hounds with their hanging ears, like an angelus. Give back to me my timidity. Give back to me my fright. Give back to me the agitation that I felt when suddenly a shot swept the fragrant mint beneath my bounds, or when amid the bushes of wild quince my nose touched the cold copper of a snare. Give back to me the dawn upon the waters from which the skillful fisherman withdraws his lines heavy with eels. Give back to me the blue gleaning under the moon, and my timid and clandestine loves amid the wild sorrel, where I could no longer distinguish the rosy tongue of my beloved from the dew-laden petal of the eglantine which had fallen upon the grass. Give back to me my weakness, oh thou, my dear heart. And go, and say unto God, that I can no longer live with Him."

"Oh Rabbit," Francis answered, "my friend, gentle and suspicious like a peasant, Oh Rabbit of little faith, you blaspheme. If you have not known how to find your God it is because in order to find this God, you would have had to die like your companions."

"But if I die, what will become of me?" cried he with the hide of the color of stubble.

And Francis said:

"If you die you will become your Paradise."

* * * * *

Thus talking they reached the edge of the Paradise of beasts. There the Paradise of men began. Rabbit turned his head, and read at the top of a sign-post on a plate of blue cast-iron where an arrow indicated the direction

Castétis to Balansun—5 M.

The day was so hot that the letters of the inscription seemed to quiver in the dull light of summer. In the distance, on the road, there were clouds of dust, as in Blue Beard when Sister Anne is asked: "Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anything coming?" This pale dryness, how magnificent it was, and how filled it was with the bitter fragrance of mint.

And Rabbit saw a horse and a covered cart approaching.

It was a sorry nag and dragged a two-wheeled cart and was unable to move except in a jerky sort of gallop. Every leap made its disjointed skeleton quiver and jolted its harness and made its earth-colored mane fly in the air, shiny and greenish, like the beard of an ancient mariner. Wearily as though they were paving-stones the animal lifted its hoofs which were swollen like tumors….

Then a doubt, stronger than all the doubts which hitherto had assailed the soul of Rabbit, pierced him.

* * * * *

This doubt was a leaden grain of shot which had just passed through the nape of his neck behind his long ears into his brain. A veil of blood more beautiful than the glowing autumn floated before his eyes in which the shadows of eternity rose. He cried out. The fingers of a huntsman pinioned his throat, strangled him, suffocated him. His heart-beat grew weaker and weaker; this heart which used to flutter like the pale wild rose in the wind dissolving at the morning hour when the hedge softly caresses the lambs. An instant he remained motionless, hollow-flanked and drawn-out like Death itself in the grasp of his murderer. Then poor old Rabbit leaped up. He clawed in vain for the ground which he could no longer reach because the man did not let go of him. Rabbit passed away drop by drop.

Suddenly his hair stood erect, and he became like unto the stubble of summer where he formerly dwelled beside his sister, the quail, and the poppy, his brother; and like unto the clayey earth which had wetted his beggar's paws; and like unto the gray-brown color with which September days clothe the hill whose shape he had assumed; like unto the rough cloth of Francis; like unto the wagon-track on the roadway from which he heard the packs of hounds with hanging ears, singing like the angelus; like unto the barren rock which the wild thyme loves. In his look where now floated a mist of bluish night there was something like unto the blessed meadow where the heart of his beloved awaited him at the heart of the wild sorrel. The tears which he shed were like unto the fountain of the seraphs at which sat the old fisher of eels repairing his lines. He was like unto life, like unto death, like unto himself, like unto his Paradise.

END OF THE ROMANCE OF THE RABBIT