Note 4 — Chapter XV · THE HERMIT OF SÉRIGNAN (CONTINUED)

I did not know my maternal grandfather. This venerable ancestor was, I have been told, a process-server in one of the poorest parishes of the Rouergue.4 He used to engross on stamped paper in a primitive spelling. With his well-filled pen-case and ink-horn, he went drawing out deeds up hill and down dale, from one insolvent wretch to another more insolvent still. Amid his atmosphere of pettifoggery, this rudimentary scholar, waging battle on life’s acerbities, certainly paid no attention to the insect; at most, if he met it, he would crush it under foot. The unknown animal, suspected of evil-doing, deserved no further inquiry. Grandmother, on her side, apart from her house-keeping and her beads, knew still less about anything. She looked on the alphabet as a set of hieroglyphics only fit to spoil your sight for nothing, unless you were scribbling on paper bearing the government stamp. Who in the world, in her day among the small folk, dreamt of knowing how to read and write? That luxury was reserved for the attorney, who himself made but a sparing use of it. The insect, I need hardly say, was the least of her cares. If sometimes, when rinsing her salad at the tap, she found a Caterpillar on the lettuce-leaves, with a start of fright she would fling the loathsome thing away, thus cutting short relations reputed dangerous. In brief, to both my maternal grandparents the insect was a creature of no interest whatever and almost always a repulsive object, which one dared not touch with the tip of one’s finger. Beyond a doubt, my taste for animals was not derived from them. Nor from either of my own parents. My mother, who was quite illiterate, having known no teacher but the bitter experience of a harassed life, was the exact opposite of what my tastes required for their development. My peculiarity must seek its origin elsewhere; that I will swear.