The Insect — A Closer Reading

[Footnote F: This fragment of a domestic journal was originally intended for insertion in "The Bird." [It is from the pen of Madame Michelet.]]

"Winter, summer, and nearly all the fine days of the year, had passed since the departure of my father for Louisiana, from which he was not fated to return. Our country-house had remained deserted. My mother, full of sad presentiments, and fearing herself to revisit it, sent me there, one afternoon, with my brothers, to gather some fruit.

"And I went,--cherishing, I must own, a kind of illusion, and almost believing I should be received on the paternal threshold by the beloved arms.

"Deeply agitated, I crossed the approach to the domain, and with a spring arrived opposite the door which my father had so often opened with that ineffable smile I still can see.

"A child, and yet already a young girl, at that age of the imagination when dreams are so powerful, I opposed the obstinate need of my heart to the certain fact. I waited a moment on the threshold with a strange anxiety; the strength of my faith would fain have conquered the sad reality. But the door remained closed.

"Then, with a trembling hand, I opened it myself to find at least his shadow within. But that, too, had disappeared. An obscure world, hostile to the light, had glided into that asylum, and I was, so to speak, enveloped in it.

"His little black table--a poor family relic--and the shelves of his bookcase creaked at intervals beneath the teeth of the worm. The chamber had already put on an air of antiquity. Great motionless spiders,--guardians, as it were, of the place,--had threaded and tapestried the empty alcove. Woodlice and millipeds ran and clambered hither and thither, seeking a refuge under the panelings.

"The strange and unforeseen physiognomy of the place afflicted me so keenly that I fell back upon myself, and exclaimed, as the tears flowed down my cheeks,--'O my father! where are you?'

"From that moment I could perceive nothing but the desolateness of the scene; and everywhere, in the court, in the garden, I found the new and silent guests who had taken possession of our places.

"Already the gathering mist of evening mingled with the last rays of the sun, and the slugs, tempted by the warm damp air, emerged in crowds from the leaves which strewed the garden-walks. They fared forth, slowly but surely, to feast on the fallen fruit. Clouds of wasps revelled in audacious pillage, tearing to pieces with their keen teeth our finest peaches and most luscious grapes.

"Our apple-trees, formerly so productive, were covered with network woven by the caterpillars, and offered us nothing but yellow foliage. In less than a year they had grown aged.

"I had never before been brought in contact with a world like this. My father's vigilance, and still more successfully, the assistance of the little birds, had preserved us from it. So, in my experience, and with a heart overcome by the spectacle of so much ruin, I cursed those whom one ought not to curse, because all creatures are from God.

"Later in life, but much later, I understood the designs of Providence. When man is absent the insect ought to take his place, so that everything may pass through the great crucible, to be renewed or purified."

Such is the fear, such the instinctive repugnance of the child. But we are all children, and even Philosophy, despite its longing after universal sympathy, cannot guard against similar impressions. The apparatus of fantastic weapons with which the insect is usually armed seems to it a menace against man.

Living in a world of strife, it is imperative that the insect should be born in mail of proof, and the insects of the Tropics are frequently terrible to the eye.

Yet a considerable number of these terrifying weapons, pincers, hooks, saws, pikes, augers, screws, rollers, and dentilated teeth,--the formidable arsenal which gives them the appearance of veterans setting out for the battle-field,--prove, if we examine them rightly, to be the pacific tools with which they gain their livelihood, the implements with which they do their regular work. Here the artisan carries his workshop with him. He is at once the workman and the manufacturer. What should we say of our human operatives, if they marched ever bristling with the steel and old iron they make use of in their labours? They would appear to us very strange and monstrous, and would even fill our minds with fear.