The regions traversed by Rabbit and his companions were ravishing and filled them with ecstasy. This was all the more the case because contrary to man, they had never suspected the beauties of the sky; they had been able to look only sidewise and not upward, this being the exclusive right of the king of animals.
So it came that Short-tail, the Wolf, the Ewe, the Lamb, the Birds, the Sheep-Dogs, the Spaniel, discovered that the sky was as beautiful as the earth. And all except Rabbit, who was sometimes troubled by the problems of direction, enjoyed an unalloyed pleasure in this pilgrimage toward God. In place of the heavenly fields, which only a short while ago seemed inaccessible above their heads, the earth now became in its turn slowly inaccessible beneath their feet. And as they moved further and further away from it, this earth became a new heavenly canopy for them. The blue of the oceans formed their clouds of foam, and the candles of the shops sprinkled like stars the expanse of the night.
Gradually they approached the regions which Francis had promised them. Already the rose-red clovers of the setting suns and the luminous fruits of the darkness which were their food grew larger and fuller and melted in their souls into the sweets of paradise.
The leaves and ardent pulp of the fruits filled their blood with some strange summer-like power, a palpitating joy which made their hearts beat faster as they came nearer and nearer the marvels that were to be theirs.
* * * * *
At last they 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.