little bird became quite exhausted, and finally stuck
half in and half out with his head at a very reproachful
angle.

Then Anfos began to murmur strange names,
strange endearing names of his own invention ; then
he started to whistle the soft double note wherewith he
had used to attract the wild birds when he lived in
that village high up in the mountains; then he kissed
the cuckoo's minute pointed beak: 'Talk, talk to me —
talk again!5 he entreated.

But the cuckoo answered never a word, for the
fragile spring of his life had been broken.

And so joy was miserably turned to tears —large
tears trickled down the half-wit's thin cheeks and
mingled with the straggling hairs of his beard as he
stood there and gazed at his own destruction. And
knowing that any emotion was harmful, Marie
coaxed him gently upstairs to his bedroom, and
undressed him, and put on his coarse linen nightshirt.
Then she promised to bring him a tisane de rnenthe —
a tisane de menthe made excessively sweet like the
one which had once helped to comfort Christophe —
but this only if Anfos would be a good child, get into
his bed, and try to stop weeping.

251