The Life of the Grasshopper 



violin is smashed to bits. Outside my cells, 

 in the open fields, the hen-pecked husband 

 is able to take to flight; and that indeed is 

 what he appears to do, not without good 

 reason. 



This ferocious aversion of the mother for 

 the father, even among the most peaceable, 

 gives food for thought. The sweetheart of 

 but nov/, if he come within reach of the 

 lady's teeth, is eaten more or less; he does 

 not escape from the final interviews without 

 leaving a leg or two and some shreds 

 of wing-cases behind him. Locusts and 

 Crickets, those lingering representatives of 

 a bygone world, tell us that the male, a mere 

 secondary wheel in life's original mechan- 

 ism, has to disappear at short notice and 

 make room for the real propagator, the real 

 worker, the mother. 



Later, in the higher order of creation, 

 sometimes even among insects, he is awarded 

 a task as a collaborator; and nothing better 

 could be desired: the family must needs gain 

 by it. But the Cricket, faithful to the old 

 traditions, has not yet got so far. There- 

 fore the object of yesterday's longing be- 

 comes to-day an object of hatred, ill-treated, 

 disembowelled and eaten up. 



342 



