it will not fatigue me." Forced to loosen his burden, the ant opened
his jaws full of formidable teeth, and advanced upon Piccolissima,
walking on his hind legs; the two others stretched out in front, as
well as his antennae, in sign of defiance; his body all bent,
exhaling an odor of vinegar so pungent that Piccolissima, letting go
the little stick, ran away as fast as she could, sneezing violently,
and shutting her eyes. When she opened them and returned, thinking
the ant was at her heels, she found her terrible adversary had again
seized his big stick by one end, and had slid it over the lump of
earth by means of a stone, which served him as a point of support.
She saw him sometimes push it before him, and sometimes drag it
after him, walking backwards till he reached the flat ground, when
he pursued his way very fast.

Piccolissima, who did not forget that her mother had recommended
discretion to her, followed at a distance. As she went on carefully,
she saw long trains of ants resembling her enemy; each one of them
was charged with a burden more or less heavy. All of them took their
way towards a mountain shaped like a cone, full of little openings
which, from a distance, appeared to be semicircular vaults; Roman
architecture Piccolissima would have thought if the multiplicity of
details of little architectural ornaments, all of wood work, had not
given her the idea of an old Gothic fortress. The rapid and violent
motions of the wild mountaineers did not frighten her; she walked up
slowly, hardly touching her feet to the earth, holding her breath,
observing every thing, and she was soon convinced that this little,
busy people took no notice of her. She came nearer and nearer to the
place where two great roads, covered with ants, terminated. She
heard a confused noise, like the hum of a great city, or as the
sound of the rain among the leaves.