Chapter xviii
THE HAIRY AMMOPHILA
One day in May I was walking up and down, on the look-out for anything fresh that might be taking place in the harmas[1] laboratory. Favier was not far off, at work in the kitchen-garden. Who is Favier? I may as well say a few words about him at once, for we shall be hearing of him again.
Favier is an old soldier. He has pitched his hut of clay and branches under the African carob-trees; he has eaten Sea-urchins at Constantinople; he has shot Starlings in the Crimea, during a lull in the firing. He has seen much and remembered much. In winter, when work in the fields ends at four o’clock and the evenings are long, he puts away rake, fork, and barrow and comes and sits on the hearth-stone of the kitchen fireplace, where the billets of ilex-wood blaze merrily. He [[324]]fetches out his pipe, fills it methodically with a moistened thumb and smokes it solemnly. He has been thinking of it for many a long hour; but he has abstained, for tobacco is expensive. The privation has doubled the charm; and not a puff, recurring at regular intervals, is wasted.
Meanwhile, we start talking. Favier is, in his fashion, one of those bards of old who were given the best seat at the hearth, for the sake of their tales; only, my story-teller was formed in the barrack-room. No matter: the whole household, large and small, listen to him with interest; though his speech is full of vivid images, it is always decent. It would be a great disappointment to us if he did not come, when his work was done, to take his ease in the chimney-corner.
What does he talk about to make him so popular? He tells us what he saw of the coup d’État to which we owe the hated Empire; he talks of the brandy served out and of the firing into the mob. He—so he assures me—always aimed at the wall; and I accept his word for it, so distressed does he appear to me and so ashamed of having taken a hand, however innocent, in that felon’s game.
He tells us of his watches in the trenches before Sebastopol; he speaks of his sudden terror when, at night, all alone on outpost [[325]]duty, squatting in the snow, he saw fall beside him what he calls a flower-pot. It blazed and flared and shone and lit up everything around. The infernal machine threatened to burst at every second; and our man gave himself up for lost. But nothing happened: the flower-pot went out quietly. It was a star-shell, an illuminating contrivance fired to reconnoitre the assailant’s outworks in the dark.
The tragedy of the battle-field is followed by the comedy of the barracks. He lets us into the mysteries of the stew-pan, the secrets of the mess, the humorous hardships of the cells. And, as his stock of anecdotes, seasoned with racy expressions, is inexhaustible, the supper-hour arrives before any of us has had time to remark how long the evening is.
Favier first attracted my notice by a master-stroke. One of my friends had sent me from Marseilles a pair of enormous Crabs, the Maia, the Sea-spider or Spider-crab of the fishermen. I was unpacking the captives when the workmen returned from their dinner: painters, stone-masons, plasterers engaged in repairing the house which had been empty so long. At the sight of those strange animals, studded with spikes all over the carapace and perched on long legs that give them a certain resemblance to a monstrous Spider, the onlookers gave a [[326]]cry of surprise, almost of alarm. Favier, for his part, remained unmoved; and, as he skilfully seized the terrible Spider struggling to get away, he said