“Shut your mouth,” said the pilot.
“For the last time, will you obey or will you not—?”
“Sit down and keep quiet, back there ... damn it all, what do you mean by it—?”
“You won’t obey—?”
“What the hell....”
A young girl, turning the hay in a wide, undulating field, by the last light of the setting sun, had sighted the rushing bird above her, in the evening sky and was watching it with eyes heated by work and tired by the summer.
How strangely the aeroplane was rising and falling! It was making jumps like a horse that wants to shake off its rider. Now it was racing towards the sun, now it was turning its back upon it. The young girl had never seen so wild and unruly a creature in the air before. Now it had swung westwards and was dashing in long, spurting bounds along the sky. Something freed itself from it; a broad, silver-grey cloth, which swelled itself out.
Drifted hither and thither by the wind, the silver-grey cloth fluttered down to earth—in the webs of which a gigantic, black spider seemed to be hanging.
Screaming, the young girl began to run. The great, black spider spun itself lower and lower on the thin cords. Now it was already like a human being. A white, death-like face bent earthwards. The earth curved itself gently towards the sinking creature. The man left go of the cord and leaped. And fell. Picked himself up again. And fell once more.
Like a snow-cloud, gentle and shimmering, the silver-grey cloth sank over him, quite covering him.