The Clotho Spider 



Take a careful look at the habitation. The 

 arches that gird the roof with a balustrade 

 and bear the weight of the edifice are fixed to 

 the slab by their extremities. Moreover, 

 from each point of contact, there issues 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 inches long. These 

 are so many cables; they represent the ropes 

 and pegs that hold the Arab's tent in position. 

 With such supports as these, so numerous 

 and so methodically arranged, the hammock 

 cannot be torn from its bearings save by the 

 intervention of brutal methods with which the 

 Spider need not concern herself, so seldom do 

 they occur. 



Another detail attracts our attention: 

 whereas the interior 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: 

 the exterior of the tent becomes a charnel- 

 house. Here, hung up or embedded, are the 

 dry carcasses of Opatra, Asidae and other 

 Tenebrionidae 1 that favour underrock shelters; 



1 One of the largest families of Beetles, darkish in 

 colour and shunning the light.— Translator's Note. 



365 



