Note 3 — Chapter X · THE PROFESSOR: AVIGNON (1852–1870)

Another day it was once again the strange mud-worker which attracted his attention, not in his own house this time but in the kitchen of Roberty, one of the chief farmhouses on the outskirts of Avignon. Returning to dinner from their work in the fields, the farm hands had hung, on pegs driven into the wall, one his blouse and another his hat. While they were devoting their attention to the soup, the guest had his eyes fixed upon the Pelopæi which came prowling about the men’s clothes and found them so well adapted to their needs that they began to build their nests upon them. Unfortunately for the builders and the spectator, the men soon rose from the table and shook their belongings, dislodging masses of mud already as large as an acorn. Ah! If he had been the owner of those garments, how gladly he would have allowed the Pelopæi to work their will, in order to learn the fate of a nest built upon the shifting surface of a smock-frock.3