nothing but an incandescent mist? Had he already lived in the heart
of the porphyries? Had he, incombustible, escaped from their boiling
lava, in order to inhabit each in turn the cell of granite and of
the alga before he dared show his nose to the world? Did he owe his
pitch-black eyes to the molten jet, his fur to the clayey ooze, his
soft ears to the sea-wrack, his ardent blood to the liquid fire?

...His origins mattered little to him at this moment; he was resting
peacefully in his marl-pit. It was in a sultry August toward the end
of a heavy afternoon. The sky was of the deep-blue color of a plum,
puffed out here and there, as if ready to burst upon the plain.

Soon the rain began to patter on the leaves of the brake. Faster and
faster came the drumming of the long rods of rain. But Rabbit was not
afraid, because the rain fell in accordance with a rhythm which was
very familiar to him. And besides the rain did not strike him for it
had not yet been able to pierce the thick vault of green above him. A
single drop only fell to the bottom of the marl-pit, and splashed and
always fell again at the same place.

So there was nothing in this concert to trouble the heart of Rabbit.
He was quite familiar with the song in which the tears of the rain
form the strophes, and he knew that neither dog, nor man, nor fox, nor
hawk had any part in it. The sky was like a harp on which the silver
strings of the streaming rain were strung from above down to the
earth. And down here below every single thing made this harp resound
in its own peculiar fashion, and in turn it again took up its own
melody. Under the green fingers of the leaves the crystal strings
sounded faint and hollow. It was as though it were the voice of the
soul of the mists.