Romance of the Rabbit | Page 5

wool had been left by the thickets.
Two doves accompanied him. They flitted from branch to branch in the
sweetness of the night. The tender beat of their wings was like the

fallen petals of a flower, and as if these were striving to re-unite again
and expand once more into a blossom.
Three poor dogs that wore spiked collars and wagged their tails
preceded the man, and an ancient wolf was licking the hem of his
garment. A ewe and her lamb, bleating, uncertain, and enraptured,
pressed forward amid the crocuses and trod upon their emerald, while
three hawks began to play with the two doves. A timid night-bird
whistled with joy amid the acorns. Then it spread its wings and
overtook the hawks and the doves, the lamb and the ewe, the dogs, the
wolf, and the man.
And the man approached Rabbit and said to him:
"I am Francis. I love thee and I greet thee, Oh thou, my brother. I greet
thee in the name of the sky which mirrors the waters and the sparkling
stones, in the name of the wild sorrel, the bark of the trees and the seeds
which are thy sustenance. Come with these sinless ones who
accompany me and cling to my foot-steps with the faith of the ivy
which clasps the tree without considering that soon, perhaps, the
woodcutter will come. Oh Rabbit, I bring to thee the Faith which we
share one in another, the Faith which is life itself, all that of which we
are ignorant, but in which we nevertheless believe. Oh dear and kindly
Rabbit, thou gentle wanderer, wilt thou follow our Faith?"
And while Francis was speaking the beasts remained quite silent; they
lay flat on the ground or perched in the twigs, and had complete faith in
these words which they did not understand.
Rabbit alone, his eyes wide-open, now seemed uneasy because of the
sound of this voice. He stood with one ear forward and the other back
as if uncertain whether to take flight or whether to stay.
When Francis saw this he gathered a handful of grass from the meadow,
and held it out to Rabbit, and now he followed him.
* * * * *
From that night they remained together.
No one could harm them, because their Faith protected them.
Whenever Francis and his friends stopped in a village square where
people were dancing to the drone of a bagpipe at the evening hour
when the young elms were softly shading into the night and the girls
were gaily raising their glasses to the evening wind at the dark tables
before the inns, a circle formed about them. And the young men with

their bows or cross-bows never dreamed of killing Rabbit. His tranquil
manner so astounded them, that they would have deemed it a barbarous
deed had they abused the faith of this poor creature, which he so
trustfully placed beneath their very feet. They thought Francis was a
man skilled in the taming of animals, and sometimes they opened their
barns to him for the night, and gave him alms with which he bought
food for his creatures, for each one that which it liked best.
And besides they easily found enough to live on, for the autumn
through which they were wending was generous and the granaries were
bulging. They were allowed to glean in the fields of maize and to have
a share in the vintage and the songs which rose in the setting sun.
Fair-haired girls held the grapes against their luminous breasts. Their
raised elbows gleamed. Above the blue shadows of the chestnut trees
shooting stars glided peacefully. The velvet of the heather was growing
thicker. The sighing of dresses could be heard in the depth of the
avenues.
They saw the sea before them, hung in space, and the sloping sails, and
white sands flecked by the shadows of tamarisks, strawberry-trees, and
pines. They passed through laughing meadows, where the mountain
torrent, born of the pure whiteness of the snows, had become a brook,
but still glistened, filled with memories of the shimmering antimony
and glaciers.
Even when the hunting-horn sounded Rabbit remained quite without
fear among his companions. They watched over him and he watched
over them. One day a pack of hounds drew near to him, but fled again
when they saw the wolf. Another time a cat crept close to the doves,
but took flight before the three dogs with their spiked collars, and a
ferret who lay in wait for the lamb had to seek a hiding-place from the
birds of prey. Rabbit, himself, frightened away the swallows who
attacked the owl.
* * * * *
Rabbit became specially attached to one of the three dogs with spiked
collars.