Hardly unwrapped, still dusty from the strenuous labour of deliverance, "the female of the Scolia is seized by the male, who does not even give her time to wash her eyes." Having slept over a year underground, the Sitares, barely rid of their mummy-cases, taste, in the sunlight, a few minutes of love, on the very site of their re-birth; then they die. Life surges, burns, flares, sparkles, rushes "in a perpetual tide," a brief radiance between two nights.
A world of a myriad fairies fills the rustling forest: day and night it unfolds a thousand marvellous pictures; about the root of a bramble, in the shadow of an old wall, on a slope of loose soil, or in the dense thickets.
"The insect is transfigured for the nuptial ceremony; and each hopes, in its ritual, to declare its passion." Fabre had some thought of writing the Golden Book of their bridals and their wedding festivals [(13/4.)]; the Kamasutra of their feasts and rules of love; and with what art, at once frank and reserved, has he here and there handled this wonderful theme! In the radiant garden of delight, where no detail of truth is omitted, but where nothing shocks us, Fabre reveals himself as he is in his conversation; evading the subject where it takes a licentious turn; fundamentally chaste and extremely reserved.
At the foot of the rocks the Psyche "appears in the balcony of her boudoir, in the rays of the caressing sun; lying on the cloudy softness of an incomparable eider-down." She awaits the visit of the spouse, "the gentle Bombyx," who, for the ceremony, "has donned his feathery plumes and his mantle of black velvet." "If he is late in coming, the female grows impatient; then she herself makes the advances, and sets forth in search of her mate."
Drawn by the same voluptuous and overwhelming force, the cricket ventures to leave his burrow. Adorned "in his fairest attire, black jacket, more beauteous than satin, with a stripe of carmine on the thigh," he wanders through the wild herbage, "by the discreet glimmer of twilight," until he reaches the distant lodging of the beloved. There at last he arrives "upon the sanded walk, the court of honour that precedes the entry." But already the place is occupied by another aspirant. Then the two rivals fall upon one another, biting one another's heads, "until it ends by the retreat of the weaker, whom the victor insults by a bravura cry." The happy champion bridles, assuming a proud air, as of one who knows himself a handsome fellow, before the fair one, who feigns to hide herself behind her tuft of aphyllantus, all covered with azure flowers. "With a gesture of a fore-limb he passes one of his antennae through his mandibles as though to curl it; with his long-spurred, red-striped legs he shuffles with impatience; he kicks the empty air; but emotion renders him mute." [(13/5.)]
In the foliage of the ash-tree the lover of the female Cantharis thrashes his companion, who makes herself as small as she can, hiding her head in her bosom; he bangs her with his fists, buffets her with his abdomen, "subjects her to an erotic storm, a rain of blows"; then, with his arms crossed, he remains a moment motionless and trembling; finally, seizing both antennae of the desired one, he forces her to raise her head "like a cavalier proudly seated on horse and holding the reins in his hands."
The Osmiae "reply by a click of the jaws to the advances of their lovers, who recoil, and then, doubtless to make themselves more valiant, they also execute a ferocious mandibular grimace. With this byplay of the jaws and their menacing gestures of the head in the empty air the lovers have the air of intending to eat one another." Thus they preface their bridals by displays of gallantry, recalling the ancient betrothal customs of which Rabelais speaks; the pretenders were cuffed and derided and threatened with a hearty pummelling. [(13/6.)]
On the arid hillsides, where the doubtful rays of the moon pierce the storm-clouds and illumine the sultry atmosphere, the pale scorpions, with short-sighted eyes, hideous monsters with misshapen heads, "display their strange faces, and two by two, hand in hand, stalk in measured paces amid the tufts of lavender. How tell their joys, their ecstasies, that no human language can express...!" [(13/7.)]
However, the glow-worm, to guide the lover, lights its beacon "like a spark fallen from the full moon"; but "presently the light grows feebler, and fades to a discreet nightlight, while all around the host of nocturnal creatures, delayed in their affairs, murmur the general epithalamium." [(13/8.)]
But their happy time is soon over; tragedy is about to follow idyll.