Oh! You just reminded me! The light that attracts my poor little friends and allows me to study them also attracts bats—horrible beasts who prowl around all night long, mouths open, swallowing everything they run into. Come, the ball is over, let’s put out the lamp. I’ll light my lantern, since the moon has set, and I’ll take you back to the house.”
As they walked down the front steps of the summerhouse, Miss Barbara added, “I warned you, Elsie. You have been disappointed in your expectations, you only imperfectly saw my little night fairies and their fantastic dance around my flowers. With a magnifying glass you can only see one object at a time, and when the object is alive, you only see it at rest. But I see my whole, dear little world at once; none of its elegance and extravagance escapes me. I showed you very little of it today. It was too cool this evening and the wind wasn’t coming from the right direction. On stormy nights, I see thousands of millions take refuge in my home, or I pay them a surprise visit in their shelters of foliage or flowers. I have told you the names of a few of them, but there are vast numbers of others, which, depending on the season, are born to a short existence of ecstasy, finery, and celebration. We don’t know all of them, even though some very patient and knowledgeable people study them carefully and have published huge volumes where they are wonderfully portrayed—and enlarged for people with weak eyes. But these books are incomplete, and every gifted and well-intentioned person can add to the scientific catalog through new discoveries and observations. As for me, I’ve found a large number that have not yet had their names or their pictures published, and I’m trying hard to make up for the ingratitude and disdain that science has shown them. It is true they are so very, very small, that few people bother to look at them.”
“Are there any smaller than the ones you have shown me?” asked Elsie, who, seeing that Miss Barbara had stopped on the steps, leaned on the handrail.
Even though Elsie had stayed up later than usual, she hadn’t had quite the surprise and good time that she had expected, and she had begun to feel sleepy.
“There are infinitely small beings, which should not be treated disrespectfully,” replied Miss Barbara, who didn’t notice her pupil’s sleepiness. “There are some that can’t be seen by humans even when they are enlarged as much as possible by instruments. At least that is what I presume and believe, and I see more than most people can see. Who can say at what size, visible to us, the life of the universe stops? Who can prove that fleas don’t have fleas, which in turn nurture fleas which nurture others, and so on into infinity? As far as moths are concerned, since the smallest we can perceive are unquestionably more beautiful than the large ones, there is no reason a throng of others doesn’t exist, still more beautiful and smaller, which scientists would never suspect.”
Miss Barbara got this far in her argument without realizing that Elsie, who had slipped down to the steps of the summerhouse, was sound asleep. Suddenly an unexpected bump knocked the little lantern from the governess’s hands, making it fall into Elsie’s lap. She woke with a start.
“A bat! A bat!” cried Miss Barbara, beside herself as she tried to gather up the smashed, extinguished lantern.
Elsie jumped up, not knowing where she was.
“There! There!” screamed Miss Barbara. “On your skirt. The horrible beast fell too, I saw it fall, it’s on you!”
Elsie wasn’t afraid of bats, but she knew that a slight impact can make them dizzy, and they have sharp little teeth to bite you if you try to touch them. Noticing a black spot on her dress, she grabbed it with her handkerchief, saying, “I’ve got it. Calm down, Miss Barbara, I’ve got it all right.”
“Kill it! Smother it, Elsie! Squeeze very hard and smother that horrible spirit, that miserable tutor who’s plaguing me!”
Elsie didn’t understand her governess’s hysteria. She didn’t like to kill, and she thought bats very useful, since they destroy a multitude of mosquitoes and harmful insects. She shook her handkerchief instinctively to let the poor animal escape—but what a surprise, and how frightened she was, to see Mr. Bat escape from the handkerchief and rush at Miss Barbara, as if he wanted to devour her!
Elsie fled across the flower beds, chased by an insurmountable terror. But, after a few minutes, she had second thoughts and went back to help her unfortunate governess. Miss Barbara had disappeared and the bat was flying in circles around the summerhouse.
“My goodness!” cried Elsie hopelessly, “that cruel beast has swallowed my poor fairy! Oh! If only I’d known, I’d have saved her life.”
The bat disappeared and Mr. Bat appeared in front of Elsie.
“My dear child,” he said to her, “it is all well and good to save the lives of the poor persecuted people. Don’t regret a good deed. Miss Barbara is quite all right. Hearing her cry out, I ran over here, thinking one or the other of you was in grave danger. Your governess took refuge in the house and barricaded the door, while showering me with abuse I don’t deserve. Since she abandoned you to what she considers great danger, would you like me to take you to your maid, if you won’t be afraid of me?”
“Really, I’ve never been afraid of you, Mr. Bat,” answered Elsie. “You’re not wicked, but you are very peculiar.”
“Me? Peculiar? Who would make you think I have any kind of peculiarity?”
“But . . . I held you in my handkerchief a minute ago, Mr. Bat, and let me tell you that you risk your life too easily, because, if I had listened to Miss Barbara, it would have been the end of you!”
“Dear Miss Elsie,” answered the tutor, laughing, “I now understand what happened, and I bless you for having saved me from the hatred of that poor fairy, who isn’t wicked either, but who is very much more peculiar than I am!”
After Elsie had had a good night’s sleep, she thought it very unlikely that Mr. Bat had the power to change from man to beast at will. At lunch, she noticed that he gobbled down rare slices of beef with sheer delight, while Miss Barbara had only some tea. She decided the tutor wasn’t the type to treat himself to microscopic insects, and that the governess’s diet was likely to cause hallucinations.
Once upon a time in the forest of Cernas, in central France, there was a big, old oak tree, which could very well have been five hundred years old. Lightning had struck it several times, and it had had to grow a new crown, a little flattened, but thick and green.
This oak tree had had a bad reputation for a long time. The oldest people in the neighboring village were still saying that in their youth this oak would talk—and would threaten those who wanted to rest in its shade. They told the story of two travelers who had been struck by lightning when they were looking for shelter. One of them had died immediately; the other had escaped in time and was only stunned because he had been warned by a voice that had cried out to him, “Get away, quickly!”
The story was so old that people hardly believed it anymore, and even though the tree still bore the name “Talking Oak,” young shepherds would come near it quite fearlessly. After Emmi’s adventure, however, it developed a reputation of being bewitched more than ever.
Emmi was a poor little swineherd, orphaned and very unhappy, partly because he was poorly housed, poorly fed, and poorly dressed, but even more because he hated the pigs that poverty forced him to care for. He was afraid of them, and the pigs, who are more shrewd than they seem, could sense that he wasn’t in control. He went out in the morning, leading them in search of acorns in the forest. In the evening he would bring them back to the farm. How pitiful it was to see him, covered in dirty rags, his head bare, his hair standing on end from the wind, his poor little face pale, thin, dirty, sad, afraid, and suffering, chasing his herd of squealing beasts, who looked at him with sidelong glances, heads lowered and always threatening. To see him run after them on the dark moors, in the red mist of early dusk, you would