[1] 3 to 3½ inches.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
CHAPTER XVIII
THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE FAMILY
Book-knowledge is a poor resource in the problems of life; assiduous converse with facts is preferable here to the best-stocked library. In many cases, ignorance is a good thing: the mind retains its freedom of investigation and does not stray along roads that lead nowhither, suggested by one’s reading. I have experienced this once again.
An anatomical monograph—the work, indeed, of a master—had told me that the Languedocian Scorpion is big with young in September. Oh, how much better should I have done not to consult it! The thing happens much earlier, at least in my part of the country; and, as the rearing does not last long, I should have seen nothing, had I tarried for September. A third year of observation, tiresome to wait for, would have become necessary, in order at last to witness a sight which I foresaw to be of the highest interest. But for exceptional circumstances, I should have allowed the fleeting opportunity to pass, lost a year and perhaps even abandoned the subject.
Yes, ignorance can have its advantages; the new is found far from the beaten track. One of our most illustrious masters, little suspecting the lesson he was giving me, taught me that some time since. One fine day, Pasteur rang unexpectedly at my front-door: the same [[244]]who was soon to acquire such world-wide celebrity. His name was familiar to me. I had read the scholar’s fine work on the dissymmetry of tartaric acid; I had followed with the greatest interest his researches on the generation of Infusoria.
Each period has its scientific crotchet: to-day, we have transformism; at that time, they had spontaneous generation. With his balloons made sterile or fecund at will, with his experiments so magnificent in their severity and simplicity, Pasteur gave the death-blow to the lunacy which pretended to see life springing from a chemical conflict in the seat of putrefaction.
In the midst of this contest so victoriously elucidated, I welcomed my distinguished visitor as best I could. The savant came to me first of all for certain particulars. I owed this signal honour to my standing as his colleague in physics and chemistry. Oh, such a poor, obscure colleague!
Pasteur’s tour through the Avignon region had sericiculture for its object. For some years, the silk-worm nurseries had been in confusion, ravaged by unknown plagues. The worms, for no appreciable reason, were falling into a putrid deliquescence, hardening, so to speak, into plaster sugar-plums. The downcast peasant saw one of his chief crops disappearing; after much care and trouble, he had to fling his nurseries on the dung-heap.