The Sacred Beetle and Others 



of the creature's weakness and the thinness 

 of the wall. As its protection, therefore, 

 the grub has, in its own way, the primal 

 inspiration without which none would be 

 able to live; it obeys the imperious voice of 

 instinct, which says: 



" There shalt thou bite and no elsewhere." 

 And, respecting all the rest, however 

 tempting, it bites at the prescribed spot; it 

 eats into the pear at the bottom of the neck. 

 In a few days, it has worked its way deep 

 down into the mass, where it waxes big and 

 fat, transforming the filthy material into a 

 plump larva, gleaming with health, ivory- 

 white with slate-coloured reflections and 

 without a speck of dirt upon it. The matter 

 which has disappeared, or rather which has 

 been remelted in life's crucible, leaves empty 

 a round cell into which the grub fits itself, 

 curving its back under the spherical dome 

 and bending double. 



The time has come for a sight stranger 

 than any yet displayed to me by the industrial 

 prowess of an insect. Anxious to observe 

 the grub in the intimacy of its home, I open 

 In the belly of the pear a little peep-hole half 

 a centimetre ^ square. The head of the 

 recluse at once appears in the opening, to 



^ .19 inch. — Translator's Note. 

 122 



