Moreover, the other animals were happy here also.

The cats, mysterious and delicate, did not even obey the _Bon Dieu_
who smiled upon them. They played with the end of a string patting
it lightly with an important air, out of which they made a sort of
mystery.

The good mother-dogs spent their time nursing their little ones. The
fish swam about without fear of the fisherman. The birds flew without
dread of the hunter. And everything was like this.

There were no men in this Paradise.




OF CHARITY TOWARD BEASTS


There is in the look of beasts a profound light and gentle sorrow,
which fills me with such understanding that my soul opens like a
hospice to all the sorrows of animals.

They are forever in my heart, as when I see a tired horse, his nose
drooping to the ground, asleep in the nocturnal rain, before a café;
or the agony of a cat crushed beneath a carriage; or a wounded sparrow
who has found refuge in a hole in a wall. Were it not for the feeling
that it is undignified for a man, I would kneel before such patience
and such torments, for I seem to see a halo around the heads of these