CHAPTER LXX.
One day I had a great desire, wherefore I do not know, unless out of
pure bravado and the spirit of perversity, to do something unseemly.
After having searched all of one morning for this something I found
it.
It is well known that the swarms of flies which one finds in the south
during the summer, and which contaminate everything are a veritable
plague. I knew that there was a trap set for them in the middle of my
uncle's kitchen. It was a treacherous pipe of a special shape, at the
bottom of which, in the soapy pan of water there, the flies were
invariably drowned. Now on the particular day in which I felt so
devilish I bethought me of that disgusting blackish mass at the bottom
of the vessel, made up of the thousands of flies drowned during the
past two or three days, and I wondered what sort of toothsome dish I
should make of it, a pancake, perhaps, or better still, an omelette.
Quickly and nervously, and with a loathing that almost made me vomit,
I poured the pasty black mass into a plate and carried it to the house
of old Madame Jeanne, the only one in the world willing to do anything
and everything for me.
"A fly omelette! To be sure! Why not! That is very simple!" she
exclaimed. She went immediately to the fire with a frying pan and some
eggs. She gave the unclean mess a good preliminary beating, and then
she placed it on her high and ancient fireplace. As I watched her
procedure I was dismayed and surprised at myself.
But the three little Peyrals, whom I had met unexpectedly, went into
such ecstasies over my idea, a thing they always did, that I was
fortified; and when the omelette, at just the right time, was turned
out hot upon a plate we started forth triumphantly to carry the
exhibit home to show to our families. We formed a procession in the
order of our respective heights, and as we marched we sang, "The Star
of Night" in voices loud and hoarse enough to summon the devil to
earth.
