The Life of the Fly 



the care with which I record your actions. 

 Your evidence Is unanimous: yes, my pages, 

 though they bristle not with hollow formulas 

 nor learned smatterings, are the exact narra- 

 tive of facts observed, neither more nor less; 

 and whoso cares to question you In his turn 

 will obtain the same replies. 



And then, my dear insects. If you cannot 

 convince those good people, because you do 

 not carry the weight of tedium, I, in my turn, 

 will say to them : 



'You rip up the animal and I study It alive; 

 you turn It Into an object of horror and pity, 

 whereas I cause It to be loved; you labour In 

 a torture-chamber and dissecting-room, I make 

 my observations under the blue sky to the song 

 of the Cicadas,^ you subject cell and proto- 

 plasm to chemical tests, I study instinct in Its 

 loftiest manifestations; you pry Into death, I 

 pry into life. And why should I not complete 

 my thought : the boars have muddied the clear 

 stream; natural history, youth's glorious study, 

 has, by dint of cellular improvements, become 

 a hateful and repulsive thing. Well, If I write 

 for men of learning, for philosophers, who, 



^The Cicada is the Cigale, an insect akin to the Grass- 

 hopper and found more particularly in the south of 

 France. Cf. Social Life in the Insect World, by J. H. 

 Fabre, translated by Bernard Miall: chaps, i to iv,-— 

 Translator's Note. 



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