He stole into the woods in a great fear, dropping his sack and leaving his animals behind. He had come across an unnatural thing; a moving, fleshy contraption, black and devilish in aspect. It was the most unnatural thing Monsieur Hacquelebacq had ever seen, but he is less hurried now. He has been here a little while.

The woods gurgle with insect life, and a tickle on his back reminds him he has long been infested with lice. He wishes he knew the names of all the insects he sees, but some creatures are so strange even names can’t contain them, and those that are given don’t even penetrate the outer limits of their most blatant essence. I am lost, he thinks, and, worse, I have left my little ark of animals behind me; perhaps they have fled.

There are occasional isolated pools of golden light in the forest and when he makes his way to them, he looks up through the gap in the trees but the sun is directly above his head, so he cannot follow it. He wanders around, knowing he is making something of a circle with his steps, until he finally hears a knocking sound. At first, it is barely perceptible through the cacophony of birdsong above his head.

Perhaps I am near that deformed woman’s tree, he thinks; the sound is familiar. He would prefer to avoid her, but if he could find where she was, he could follow the edge of the woods back to his animals, and from there go into Nobber. He walks towards the sound.

At the midpoint between two enormous oak trees, so old that some of their lower limbs have melded together, an elderly man with a long beard is digging in the earth. He stands in a hole so deep Hacquelebacq cannot see his knees. Next to him, a young green-eyed fox sits, its bushy tail held high, almost above his head. The man must have been digging since early morning to have accomplished a hole so deep and wide, but he is not sweating; his movements are slow, careful. His spade clashes against a rock and he leans over and plucks it out, leaving it on the pile of dirt that stretches up to his waist.

He steps out of the hole and leans his spade against one of the oak trees; and the fox stays still, undisturbed by any of his movements. Hacquelebacq watches the old man from behind a tree as he gets down on his knees and prays, his eyes closed and his joined hands stretched above his head; he notices the elderly man has very fine leather boots with thick laces running up their sides.