I am aware that there should be some effective ending to my story. The truth is that I know nothing beyond what I have told. The maker of wooden shoes and the bullfinch have remained very much alive in my memory--the end of the episode has escaped it. Did I go there one day and not find them? Or is it not more likely that I ceased to go there? It was all so long ago!
I am certain that whichever of them went first was not long survived by the other. At least, I like to think so, for if the shoemaker had replaced Mignon by another bullfinch, or if Mignon had found it in his heart to dance the polka for Brossard, the nailer, who used to make such a racket on the other side of the street, I should lose a supreme illusion concerning the heart of man and bird. If we lose our faith in man, whom experience may lead us to suspect of selfishness, let us retain our respectful esteem for animals.
Children are always interested in nests--thrilled by the mystery of them, filled with admiring wonder at the cunning of the little feathered creature in concealing its brood from the enemy, whether it be man or hawk, crow or magpie. The impulse to appropriate any living thing (an instinct inherited from his carnivorous ancestors), indeed, a whole collection of irresistible impulses direct the murderous sporting instinct of the future lord of creation toward the delicate feathery structure. Sympathy is as yet non-existent in the child man, for he has never suffered. He is carried away by delight in the unknown, his eyes widen with wonder, his hands reach out, and at the first touch irretrievable harm is done.
But no sooner has the nest been torn from the branch, and no sooner are the little ones, hideous in their grotesque nudity, scattered on the ground, than he is filled with dismay, like the school boy with all the parts of his watch spread on the table before him. Having looked at everything, analyzed it, touched it, he could go his way with a light heart if only he were able to fit the pieces together again, and reconstruct a whole. But it is too late. Our first impulse is a death-dealing one. A sense of the uselessness of destruction is necessary to awaken pity in us for whatever has life. I have sometimes seen those very school boys who massacre birds for fun, go back, ashamed of the stupid wrong committed, and awkwardly try to put the nest in its place, with the little ones in it, then go away, looking over their shoulder to witness the gratitude due to them from the despairing family for their generous effort. On the following day the boys return to look, and find a graveyard.