As it turned out, however, this wasn't true. He had not only plenty of time, but in my opinion, too much. He lived to be over ninety and he wrote and he wrote and he wrote: he wrote more about insects than any one man or woman can read. I consider it lucky that he didn't begin until sixty.
Insects, as every one knows, are the worst foes of man. Fabre not only studied these implacable beings but loved them. There was something unnatural about it; something disloyal to the whole human race. It is probable that Fabre was not really human at all. He may have been found in some human cradle, but he was a changeling. You can see he has insect blood in him, if you look at his photograph. He is leathery, agile, dried up. And his grandmother was waspish. He himself always felt strangely close to wasps, and so did wasps to him. I dare say that in addition to Fabre's "Life of the Wasp," there exists, if we could only get at it, a wasp's Life of Fabre.
If the wasp wrote as Fabre does, he would describe Fabre's birth, death, and matings, but tell us hardly anything else about Fabre's real life. He would dwell chiefly on Fabre's small daily habits and his reactions to the wasp's interference.
"Desirous of ascertaining what the old Fabre would do if stung," writes the wasp, "I repeatedly stuck my sting in his leg—but without any effect. I afterward discovered however I had been stinging his boots. This was one of my difficulties, to tell boots and Fabre apart, each having a tough wizened quality and a powdery taste.
"The old Fabre went into his wooden nest or house after this, and presently sat down to eat one of his so-called meals. I couldn't see an atom of dung on the table however, and though there were some fairly edible flowers he never once sucked them. He had only an immense brown root called a potato, and a 'chop' of some cow. Seizing a prong in his claws, the old Fabre quickly harpooned this 'chop' and proceeded to rend it, working his curious mandibles with sounds of delight, and making a sort of low barking talk to his mate. Their marriage, to me, seemed unnatural. Although I watched closely for a week this mate laid no eggs for him: and instead of saving food for their larvæ they ate it all up themselves. How strange that these humans should differ so much from us wasps!"
Another life of Fabre that we ought to have is one by his family. They were not devoted to insects; they probably loathed them; and yet they had to get up every morning and spend the whole day nursing bugs. I picture them, yawning and snarling over the tedious experiments, and listening desperately to Fabre's coleopterous chatter. The members of every famous man's family ought to give us their side of it. I want more about Tolstoy by Mrs. Tolstoy. And a Life of Milton by his daughters. That picture of those unfortunate daughters, looking so sweet and devoted, taking the blind poet's dictation, is—must be—deceptive. They were probably wanting to go off upstairs, all the time, and try new ways of doing their hair; or go out and talk their heads off with other girls, or look in shop windows: anything but take down old Mr. Milton's poetry all day. They didn't know their papa was a classic: they just thought that he was the longest-winded papa in their street. I have no warrant for saying this, I may add. Except that it's human nature....
Fabre has his good points. He is imaginative and dramatic, and yet has a passion for truth. He is a philosopher, an artist. And above all he is not sentimental. He is fond of his insects, but he never is foolishly fond. And sometimes the good old soul is as callous as can be toward caterpillars. He shows no more bowels towards caterpillars than do his own wasps. Take, for instance, that experiment when he kept some on the march for eight days, watching them interestedly as they died of exhaustion. Or his delight at the way caterpillars are eaten by the Eumenes wasp.
This wasp shuts its egg up in a large, prison-like cell, with a pile of live caterpillars beside it, to serve as its food, first half-paralyzing these victims so they will keep still. Alive but unable to move, the caterpillars lie there till the grub hatches out. (Dead caterpillars wouldn't do because this little grub loves fresh meat.)
The grub, hanging by a thread from the ceiling, now begins having dinner. "Head downward it is digging into the limp belly of one of the caterpillars," says Fabre. "The caterpillars grow restless," he adds. (There's a fine brutal touch!) The grub thereupon, to Fabre's delight, climbs back up its thread. It is only a baby; it's tender; and when those wretched caterpillars get to thrashing around, they might hurt the sweet infant. Not till "peace" is restored, Fabre adds, does Baby dare to come down again. Hideous infantile epicure! It takes another good juicy bite.
And if its dinner moans again, or wriggles, it again climbs back up.