He who chanced to be next Simon suddenly put his tongue out at him with a waggish air and shouted at him: 

“No papa!  No papa!”

Simon seized him by the hair with both hands and set to work to demolish his legs with kicks, while he bit his cheek ferociously.  A tremendous struggle ensued between the two combatants, and Simon found himself beaten, torn, bruised, rolled on the ground in the middle of the ring of applauding vagabonds.  As he arose mechanically brushing his little blouse all covered with dust with his hand, some one shouted at him: 

“Go and tell your Papa.”

He then felt a great sinking in his heart.  They were stronger than he was, they had beaten him and he had no answer to give them, for he knew well that it was true that he had no Papa.  Full of pride he attempted for some moments to struggle against the tears which were suffocating him.  He had a choking fit, and then without cries he commenced to weep with great sobs which shook him incessantly.  Then a ferocious joy broke out among his enemies, and, naturally, just as with savages in their fearful festivals, they took each other by the hand and set about dancing in a circle about him as they repeated as a refrain: 

“No Papa!  No Papa!”

But Simon quite suddenly ceased sobbing.  Frenzy overtook him.  There were stones under his feet, he picked them up and with all his strength hurled them at his tormentors.  Two or three were struck and rushed off yelling, and so formidable did he appear that the rest became panic stricken.  Cowards, as a crowd always is in the presence of an exasperated man, they broke up and fled.  Left alone, the little thing without a father set off running towards the fields, for a recollection had been awakened which brought his soul to a great determination.  He made up his mind to drown himself in the river.

He remembered, in fact, that eight days before a poor devil who begged for his livelihood, had thrown himself into the water because he had no more money.  Simon had been there when they had fished him out again; and the sight of the fellow, who usually seemed to him so miserable, and ugly, had then struck him—­his pale cheeks, his long drenched beard and his open eyes being full of calm.  The bystanders had said: 

“He is dead.”

And someone had said: 

“He is quite happy now.”

And Simon wished to drown himself also because he had no father, just like the wretched being who had no money.

He reached the neighborhood of the water and watched it flowing.  Some fishes were sporting briskly in the clear stream and occasionally made a little bound and caught the flies flying on the surface.  He stopped crying in order to watch them, for their housewifery interested him vastly.  But, at intervals, as in the changes of a tempest, altering suddenly from tremendous gusts of wind, which snap off the trees and then lose themselves in the horizon, this thought would return to him with intense pain: