The Life of the Spider 



that had lost its course and died demented in 

 space. In vain does it seize upon life with an 

 authority, a fecundity unequalled here below; 

 we cannot accustom ourselves to the idea that 

 it is a thought of that nature of whom we 

 fondly believe ourselves to be the privileged 

 children and probably the ideal to which all 

 the earth's efforts tend. Only the infinitely 

 small disconcerts us still more greatly; but 

 what, in reality, is the infinitely small other 

 than an insect which our eyes do not see? 

 There is, no doubt, in this astonishment and 

 lack of understanding a certain instinctive 

 and profound uneasiness inspired by those 

 existences incomparably better-armed, better- 

 equipped than our own, by those creatures 

 made up of a sort of compressed energy and 

 activity in whom we suspect our most myste- 

 rious adversaries, our ultimate rivals and, 

 perhaps, our successors. 



But it is time, under the conduct of an ad- 

 mirable guide, to penetrate behind the scenes 

 of our fairy play and to study at close quarters 

 the actors and supernumeraries, loathsome or 



10 



