The crew to construct the road of Tadara Peak are reflected on the surface of Donden Pond

PARLIAMENTARY IDYLLS 4: FLORA AND ZEPHYR (DE LA MEURTHE.): Lightly he balances himself / On a foot barely skimming the water's surface:/ Flora who admires him in silence / Says to herself. / Ah! God damn it all, how beautiful he is! (Translated from Anacreon by Ratapoil, retired police colonel, member of Châlons sur Marne society of literature and of the society of the Tenth-of-December in Paris)

JOURNEY TO CHINA 9: A CHINESE DANCE.One is greatly mistaken if one believes the Chinese people to be giddy, joyful and the friend of pleasure: they are on the contrary serious and morose, since their greatest amusement consists in a type of lugubrious walking in which the men and women walk one in front of the other, or one beside the other, and seem to be saying among themselves: brother we should die! In order also to point to the philosophical intention behind this ceremony, the opposite of dancing, they call it: Counter-dancing

THE TEMPTATION OF THE NEW St. ANTHONY: In that particular time, a great and fat sinner named Véron felt himself touched by grace: having reflected that the Press was a priesthood, he became a hermit and retired to a wild place in the midst of the steepest mountains of Montmartre. There, he spent his days and nights in prayer, and as a means of mortification, imposed upon himself as a penitence the continual re-reading of the list of subscribers to the Constitutionnel. －For his only food, Véron took at long intervals a light fragment of Regnauld pâté. －The Devil, irritated by this edifying yet unexpected conversion employed different strategies to make St. Véron succumb to his temptations, but our noble coenobite knew how to resist those things which until recently had held so many charms for him: Satan, who had taken the form of the Constitutionnel in order come in person to tempt St. Véron, returned to the road for Paris, furious. －The anchorite of Montmartre has, since this time, been placed in the rank of the greatest saints which Parisian journalism honours, and is especially supplicated by the unfortunates who have a head cold

Parisian Freebooters 12: The Crocodile: This has to do with a variety of species of Crocodile, which was known to the ancients under the name of Tantalus and which a Gymnasium naturalist of our time has called the Gastronome without money. This voracious whale-like creature is most commonly found in the localities of Merchants of Eatables. His teeth are pointed and very long from lack of exercise, since he uses only his eyes to devour. When he has had the perseverance to remain for a whole day static in front of his prey he sometimes ends up by having the luck to catch... a crick in the neck. He feeds himself only on desires and vain hopes, he is also remarkably thin. Very different from other fish of his species that swim in open water, this type of Crocodile is always in the dry

(Left) The little village on the far mountainside was already out of sight, and spring was coming around again. The grape trees were like large ailing snakes creeping under the coping stones of the wall. A brown light moved about in the tepid air. The void created by the selfsame every day is likely to chop down even the young trees that were left behind. In this everyday life, a thicket of trees protrudes like a boulder. (Right) The village I lived in has never been thought of as so small. The sun showed itself. The tall poplar forest looks like a beach being blown about by the wind. I grow dizzy just watching that seamless succession. If I can manage to get drunk on this succession of unchanging days, I can also grow to feel like I have taken down an elephant or snake. He differentiated things in this way, like a fluttering butterfly