If we would make the acquaintance of the Clotho Spider we must go up the rocky slopes in the olive-land, scorched and blistered by the sun, turn over the flat stones, those of a fair size, search, above all, the piles which the shepherds set up for a seat from which to watch the sheep browsing amongst the lavender below. Do not be too easily disheartened if you do not find her at first. The Clotho is rare; not every spot suits her. If we are lucky, we shall see, clinging to the lower surface of the stone which we have lifted, a queer-looking thing, shaped like the dome of a building turned upside down, and about half the size of a tangerine orange. The outside is hung with small shells, bits of earth, and, especially, dried insects.
The edge of the dome is scalloped into a dozen pointed scallops, the points of which spread and are fixed to the stone. A flat roof closes the top of the dwelling.
Where is the entrance? All the arches of the edge open upon the roof; not one leads inside. Yet the owner of the house must go out from time to time, if only in search of food; on returning from her expedition, she must go in again. How does she make her exits and her entrances? A straw will tell us the secret.
Pass it over the threshold of the various arches. It finds them all carefully closed, apparently. But one of the scallops, if cleverly coaxed, opens at the edge into two lips and stands slightly ajar. This is the door, which at once shuts again of its own elasticity. Nor is this all: the Spider, when she returns home, often bolts herself in; that is to say, she joins and fastens the two leaves of the door with a little silk.
The Clotho, when in danger, runs quickly home; she opens the chink with a touch of her claw, enters and disappears. The door closes of itself and is supplied, in case of need, with a lock consisting of a few threads. No burglar, on the outside of so many arches, one and all alike, will ever discover under which one the fugitive vanished so suddenly.
Let us open the Spider’s cabin. What luxury! We have read how the Princess in the fairy-tale was unable to rest, if there was a crumpled rose-leaf in her bed. The Clotho is quite as fastidious. Her couch is more delicate than swan’s-down and whiter than the fleece of clouds where brood the summer storms. It is the ideal blanket. Above is a canopy or tester of equal softness. Between the two nestles the Spider, short-legged, clad in somber garments, with five yellow favors on her back.
Rest in this exquisite retreat demands that it be perfectly steady, especially on gusty days, when sharp draughts creep under the stone dwelling. By taking a careful look at her we can see how the Spider manages this. The arches that bear the weight of the building are fastened to the stone at each end. Moreover, where they touch, you may see a cluster of diverging threads that creep along the stone and cling to it throughout their length, which spreads afar. I have measured some that were fully nine feet long. These are so many cables; they are like the ropes and pegs that hold the Arab’s tent in position.
Another detail attracts our attention: whereas the inside of the house is exquisitely clean, the outside is covered with dirt, bits of earth, chips of rotten wood, little pieces of gravel. Often there are worse things still: hung up or embedded are the dry carcasses of Beetles that favor under-rock shelters; parts of Thousand-legged Worms, bleached by the sun; snail-shells, chosen from among the smallest.
These relics are plainly, for the most part, table-leavings, broken victuals. Unskilled in laying traps, the Clotho lives upon the insects who wander from one stone to another. Whoever ventures under the slab at night is strangled by the hostess; and the dried-up carcass, instead of being flung to a distance, is hung to the silken wall, as though the Spider wished to make a bogey-house of her home. But this cannot be her aim. To act like the ogre who hangs his victim from the castle battlements is the worst way to disarm suspicion in the passers-by whom you are lying in wait to capture.