2
When the sun set in the evening, the dragon-fly grub lay very still on the stalk with her legs drawn up under her. She had eaten a heap of insects and was so fat that she felt as though she would burst. And yet she was not glad: she pondered on what the water-lily had said and could not sleep all night for restless thinking. And all that reflecting made her head ache, for it was a labour to which she was not used. And she felt pains in her back too and in her chest. It was as though she were going to be pulled to pieces and die on the spot.
When morning began to break, she could bear it no longer:
“I don’t know what it is,” she cried in despair. “These pains hurt so that I can’t think what is to become of me. Perhaps the water-lily is right and I shall never be more than a poor, wretched grub. But the thought of that is too terrible! I should so love to turn into a dragon-fly and fly about in the sun. Oh, my back, my back! I must be dying!”
Again she felt as if her back was bursting and she screamed for pain. At the same moment, the reeds on the bank began to rustle.
“That is the morning-wind,” thought the grub. “At least, let me see the sun once more before I die.”
And, with a great effort, she crawled to one of the leaves of the water-lily, stretched out her legs and prepared for death.
But, when the sun had risen and stood red and motionless in the east, suddenly there came an opening right in the middle of the grub’s back, accompanied by a frightful itching. Oh, the pain of it, the anguish! It was a terrible feeling. Almost swooning, she closed her eyes, but the agony and the itching grew no less. And then, suddenly, she perceived that the pain was gone; and, when she opened her eyes, she was hovering through the air on stiff, glittering wings, a brilliant dragon-fly! Beneath her, on the leaf of the water-lily, lay the ugly gray covering which she had worn as a grub.
“Hurrah!” cried the new dragon-fly. “Now the wish of my heart is fulfilled.”
And she flew through the air as swiftly as though she meant to fly to the end of the earth.
“The hussy has got her way after all!” thought the water-lily. “Now we shall see if she is more contented than before.”