The Life of the Fly 



ous pile of spikes, but difficult to steer through 

 the tangle of aquatic plants. 



Sooner or later, the worm forsakes this 

 kind of caltrop which catches on to every- 

 thing. It was a basket-maker, it now turns 

 carpenter; it builds with little beams and 

 joists — that is to say, with round bits of wood, 

 browned by the water, often as wide as a 

 thick straw and a finger's-breadth long, more 

 or less — taking them as chance supplies them. 



For the rest, there is something of every- 

 thing in this rag-bag: bits of stubble, fag- 

 ends of rushes, scraps of plants, fragments of 

 some tiny twig or other, chips of wood, shreds 

 of bark, largish grains, especially the seeds of 

 the yellow iris, which were red when they fell 

 from their capsules and are now black as jet. 



The heterogeneous collection is piled up 

 anyhow. Some pieces are fixed lengthwise, 

 others across, others aslant. There are angles 

 in this direction and angles in the other, re- 

 sulting in sharp little turns and twists; the big 

 is mixed with the little, the correct rubs shoul- 

 ders with the shapeless. It is not an edifice, 

 it is a frenzied conglomeration. Sometimes, 

 a fine disorder is an effect of art. This is not 

 so here : the work of the Caddis-worm is not 

 a masterpiece worth signing. 



184 



