“Bah!” said the ant and spat on the ground. “It is simply disgusting to listen to such balderdash. Dreams? Suspicions? No, there’s a thing that’s called the family and the ant-hill: that’s what I stick to. Good-bye, you stupid caterpillar.”
Then she ran off, but stopped a little farther away and once more said:
“Bah!”
And the sun blazed and the caterpillar basked in its rays while he ate the green cabbage.
2
It was now past mid-day and the nightingale in the syringa-bush could not bear to sing in so great a heat. So he stopped and took an afternoon nap. The swallow flew up aloft to get a breath of fresh air, the ant carried her little white eggs up into the sun and the gardener sat under the big walnut-tree and had his dinner with his wife and children.
But the caterpillar went on eating indefatigably.
Suddenly a multitude of small black dots appeared in the air over the kitchen-garden. They danced up and down and up and down. At last, they hung low down, just above the caterpillar, and he could see that they were nice little animals, with fine, bright wings.
“Who are you? What do you want?” asked the caterpillar.
“We are mothers,” replied the little animals, “and we have come out to look for a place for our children.”