128 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



composed of myriad phials containing the souls of men 

 about to be born. For we are in the abode of life that 

 goes before life. On all sides, asleep in their closely sealed 

 cradles, in this infinite superposition of marvellous six-sided 

 cells, lie thousands of nymphs, whiter than milk, who with 

 folded arms and head bent forward await the hour or 

 awakening. In their uniform tombs that, isolated, become 

 nearly transparent, they seem almost like hoary gnomes 

 lost in deep thought, or legions of virgins whom the folds 

 of the shroud have contorted, who are buried in hexagonal 

 prisms that some inflexible geometrician has multiplied to the 

 verge of delirium. 



Over the entire area that the vertical walls enclose, and in 

 the midst of this growing world that so soon shall transform 

 itself, that shall four or five times in succession assume fresh 

 vestments, and then spin its own winding-sheet in the shadow, 

 hundreds of workers are dancing, and flapping their wings. 

 They appear thus to generate the necessary heat, and ac 

 complish some other object besides that is still more obscure ; 

 for this dance of theirs contains some extraordinary move- 

 ments, so methodically conceived, that they must infallibly 

 answer some purpose which no observer has as yet, I believe, 

 been able to divine. 



A few days more, and the lids of these myriad urns — 

 whereof a considerable hive will contain from sixty to eighty 

 thousand — will break, and two large and earnest black eyes will 

 appear, surmounted by antenna that already are groping at life, 

 while active jaws are busily engaged in enlarging the opening 

 from within. The nurses at once come running ; they help 

 the young bee to emerge from her prison, they clean her and 



