came to the abode of the beasts, who had attained eternal bliss. It was the first Paradise, that of the dogs.

For some time already they had heard barking. Bending down toward the trunk of a decayed oak they saw a mastiff sitting in a hollow as in a niche. His disdainful and yet placid glance told them that his mind was disordered. It was the dog of Diogenes, to whom God had accorded solitude in this tub, hollowed out of a very tree itself. With indifference he watched the dogs with the spiked collars pass by. Then to their great astonishment he left his moss-grown kennel for a moment, and, since his leash had become undone, tied himself fast again using his mouth as aid. He reëntered his den of wood, and said:

"Here each one takes his pleasure where he finds it."

And, in fact, Rabbit and his companions saw dogs in quest of imaginary travelers who had lost their way. They dared descent into deep abysses to find those who had met with accident, bearing to them the bouillon, meat, and brandy contained in the small casks hanging from their collars.

Others flung themselves into icy waters, always hoping, but always in vain, that they might rescue a shipwrecked sailor. When they regained the shore they were shivering, stunned, yet happy in their futile devotion, and ready to fling themselves in again.

Others persistently begged for a couple of old bones at the thresholds of deserted cottages along the road, waiting for kicks, and their eyes were filled with an inexpressible melancholy.

There was also a scissors-grinder's dog, who with tongue hanging out, was joyfully turning the wheel-work which made the stone revolve, even though no knife was held against it in the process of sharpening. But his eyes shone with the unquestioning faith in a duty fulfilled; he ceased not to labor except to catch his breath, and then he labored again.

Then there was a sheep-dog, who, ever faithful, sought to bring back to a fold ewes that were evermore straying. He was pursuing them on the bank of a brook which gleamed on the edge of a grassy hill.

From this green hill and from out of the under-woods a pack of hounds broke forth. They had hunted the hinds and gazelles of their dreams all the day long. Their baying which lingered about the ancient scents sounded like the happy bells on a flowery Easter morning.

Not far from here the sheep-dogs and the little spaniel established their home. But when the latter wished to bid Rabbit a tender farewell she saw that Long-Ear had slipped away on hearing the dogs of the chase.

And it was without him that the hawks, the owl, the doves, the wolf, and the ewes had to continue their flight or their progress. They understood very well that he, a rabbit of little faith, would not know how to die like them. Instead of being saved by God, he preferred to save himself.

* * * * *

The second Paradise was that of the birds. It lay in a fresh grove, and their songs flooded the leaves of the alders and made them tremble. And from the alders the songs flowed onward into the river which became so imbued with music that it played on the rushes.

At a distance a hill stretched out; it was all covered with springtime and shade. Its sides were of incomparable softness. It was fragrant with solitude. The odor of nocturnal lilacs mingled with that which came from the heart of dark roses whence the hot white sun quenches its thirst.

Now, suddenly, at intervals, the song of the nightingale was heard expanding; it was as if stars of crystal had fallen upon the waves and broken there. There was no other sound but the song of the nightingale. Over the whole expanse of the silent hill nothing was heard but the song of the nightingale. Night was merely the sobbing of the nightingale.

Then in the groves dawn appeared, all rose-red because it was naked amid the choirs of birds who still sang from a full throat for their wings were heavy with love and morning dew. The quails in the grain were not yet calling. The tom-tits with their black heads made a noise in the thicket of fig-trees like the sound of pebbles moved by water. A wood-pecker rent the azure with its cry, and then flew toward the old, white-flowered apple-trees. It had almost the appearance of a handful of grass torn from the golden meadows with a clover-flower as its head.

The three hawks and the owl entered into these places abounding in flowers, and not a single redbreast and not a single gold-finch and not a single linnet was frightened by them. The birds of prey sat on their perches with an arrogant and sad air, and kept their eyes fixed on the sun; now and then they beat their steely wings against their mottled, keel-like breasts.

The owl sought out the shadows of the hill, so that hidden in some solitary cavern and happy in its darkness and wisdom, it might listen to the plaint of the nightingale.

But the most wonderful shelter of all was that chosen by the doves. They sat among the olive-trees, that were stirred by the evening breeze. In this garden young girls dwelled, who were permitted to enter here because of their animal-like grace. They included all the young girls who sighed and were like to honey-suckle; all the young girls who languish with all the doves that weep. And all the doves were included here, those from Venice, whose wings were like cooling fans to the boredom of the wives of the doges, as well as those of Iberia whose lips had the orange and tobacco-yellow color of fisherwomen and their provocative allurement. Here were all the doves of dreams, and all the dreaming doves: the dove that drew Beatrice heavenward and to which Dante gave a grain of corn; and the one which the disenchanted Quitteria heard in the night. Here was the dove which sobbed on Virginia's shoulder, when during the night she sought in vain to calm the fires of her love in the spring underneath a cocoanut-palm. And here too was the dove to which the heavy-hearted maiden at the waning of summer, in the orchard among the ripening peaches, confides passionate messages that it may bear them along in its flight into the unknown.

And there were the doves of old parsonages shrouded in roses, and those which Jocelyn with his incense-fragrant hand fed as he dreamed of Laurence. And there was the dove which is given to the dying little girl, and that which in certain regions is placed upon the burning brow of the sick, and the blinded dove whose voice is so filled with pain that it lures the flight of its passing sisters toward the huntsman's ambush, and the dove, the gentlest of all, who brings comfort to the forgotten old poet in his garret.

* * * * *

The third paradise was that of the sheep.

It lay in the heart of an emerald valley watered by streams, and beneath their sun-bathed crystal the grass was of a marvelous green. And nearby was a lake, iridescent like mother-of-pearl and the feathers of a peacock; it was azure and glistened like mica, and seemed to be the breast of humming-birds and the wing of butterflies. Here after they had licked the pure white salt from the golden-grained granite, the sheep dreamed their long dream, and their tufts of thick wool overlapped like the leaves of great branches covered with snow.

This landscape was so pure and of such dreamlike clarity that it had whitened the eye-lashes of the lambs, and had entered into their eyes of gold. And the atmosphere was so transparent that it seemed one could see in the depth of the water clearly revealed the outlines of the yellow-striped summits of limestone. Flowers of frost, of sky, and of blood were woven into the carpets of the forests of beech and fir. After having passed over