[5] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xiii.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
CHAPTER XIV
THE GREEN GRASSHOPPER
We are in the middle of July. The astronomical dog-days are just beginning; but in reality the torrid season has anticipated the calendar and for some weeks past the heat has been overpowering.
This evening in the village they are celebrating the National Festival.[1] While the little boys and girls are hopping around a bonfire whose gleams are reflected upon the church-steeple, while the drum is pounded to mark the ascent of each rocket, I am sitting alone in a dark corner, in the comparative coolness that prevails at nine o’clock, harking to the concert of the festival of the fields, the festival of the harvest, grander by far than that which, at this moment, is being celebrated in the village square with gun-powder, lighted torches, Chinese lanterns [[276]]and, above all, strong drink. It has the simplicity of beauty and the repose of strength.
It is late; and the Cicadæ are silent. Glutted with light and heat, they have indulged in symphonies all the livelong day. The advent of the night means rest for them, but a rest frequently disturbed. In the dense branches of the plane-trees, a sudden sound rings out like a cry of anguish, strident and short. It is the desperate wail of the Cicada, surprised in his quietude by the Green Grasshopper, that ardent nocturnal huntress, who springs upon him, grips him in the side, opens and ransacks his abdomen. An orgy of music, followed by butchery.
I have never seen and never shall see that supreme expression of our national revelry, the military review at Longchamp; nor do I much regret it. The newspapers tell me as much about it as I want to know. They give me a sketch of the site. I see, installed here and there amid the trees, the ominous Red Cross, with the legend, “Military Ambulance; Civil Ambulance.” There will be bones broken, apparently; cases of sunstroke; regrettable deaths, perhaps. It is all provided for and all in the programme.
Even here, in my village, usually so peaceable, [[277]]the festival will not end, I am ready to wager, without the exchange of a few blows, that compulsory seasoning of a day of merry-making. No pleasure, it appears, can be fully relished without an added condiment of pain.
Let us listen and meditate far from the tumult. While the disembowelled Cicada utters his protest, the festival up there in the plane-trees is continued with a change of orchestra. It is now the time of the nocturnal performers. Hard by the place of slaughter, in the green bushes, a delicate ear perceives the hum of the Grasshoppers. It is the sort of noise that a spinning-wheel makes, a very unobtrusive sound, a vague rustle of dry membranes rubbed together. Above this dull bass there rises, at intervals, a hurried, very shrill, almost metallic clicking. There you have the air and the recitative, intersected by pauses. The rest is the accompaniment.