"Prom'nons nous dans les bois
Pendant que le loup n'y est pas...."
"Prom'nons nous dans les bois
Pendant que le loup n'y est pas...."
That's the first song I ever heard. Céline used to sing it, my nurse—who was very lovely, though she had a cast in her eye and wore a black cap, and cotton in her ears, and was pitted with the smallpox. It was in Burgundy, which was rich in forests, with plenty of wolves in them, and wild‑boars too—and that was only a hundred years ago, when that I was a little tiny boy. It's just an old nursery rhyme to lull children to sleep with, or set them dancing—pas aut' chose—but there's a deal of Old France in it!
There I go again—digressing as usual and quoting poetry and trying to be literary and all that! C'est plus fort que moi....
One beautiful evening after dinner we went, the whole lot of us, fishing for crayfish in the meadows beyond the home farm.
As we set about waiting for the crayfish to assemble round the bits of dead frog that served for bait and were tied to the wire scales (which were left in the water), a procession of cows came past us from the farm. One of them had a wound in her flank—a large tumor.
"It's the bull who did that," said Marie. "Il est très méchant!"
Presently the bull appeared, following the herd in sulky dignity. We all got up and crossed the stream on a narrow plank—all but Josselin, who remained sitting on a camp‑stool.
"Josselin! Josselin! venez donc! il est très mauvais, le taureau!"
Barty didn't move.