The Life of the Bee 
filling, expand her body, and proclaim her 
the bride of space. Thereupon she re- 
turns to the hive, and waits yet one week 
more; and then, with her sisters born 
the same day as herself, she will for the 
first time set forth to visit the flowers. 
A special emotion now will lay hold of 
her; one that French apiarists term the 
“soleil artifice,’ but which might more 
rightly perhaps be called the “sun of dis- 
quiet.” For it is evident that the bees 
are afraid, that these daughters of the 
crowd, of secluded darkness, shrink from 
the vault of blue, from the infinite loneli- 
ness of the light; and their joy is halting, 
and woven of terror. They cross the 
threshold and pause; they depart, they 
return, twenty times. They hover aloft 
in the air, their head persistently turned 
to the home; they describe great soaring 
circles that suddenly sink beneath the 
weight of regret; and their thirteen thou- 
238 
