A COMBAT A OUTRANCE. 
327 
mother especially,—“giddy” as they call her,—has her fancies for 
return, and twice—nay, thrice—persists in going back, carrying with 
her the too devoted colony. 
What would befall if, in these home-visits, she found herself face to 
face with the new queen whom the non-emigrating people have substi¬ 
tuted in her place ? There would be a combat. And this, too, happens 
without emigration, when, spite of all the efforts that are made to 
prevent her, a young mother, having forced her way through the wall 
of her apartment, reveals to the old queen the detested object of her 
jealousy. A duel then infallibly takes place. However, as each knows 
the other to be armed with a mortal dart, their natural cowardice would 
moderate their fury, and limit the struggle to a few harmless shocks, 
and an innocent wrestle, like the pugilistic display of paid athletes. 
But the people who gather round and look on from a near point of 
view are very grave, and mean the affair to be so. Division in the 
community would be the greatest of all evils. Moreover, they are so 
economical and temperate for themselves, so parsimonious for others, 
that they take into consideration, I am sure, the enormous cost that 
would result from the establishment of a couple of queens. Each one 
of them, royally nourished as they are, is a serious trouble to the 
republic. The State would be ruined if it had to pay a double budget. 
Therefore one of them must die. And hence arises a strange spectacle, 
completely characteristic of the singular spirit of this people: the 
object of adoration, recently gorged, and brushed, and caressed,—if she 
recoil, is led back to the combat, is impelled and driven into it, until 
one of the two antagonists contrives to leap upon the other, and from 
its bended and superjacent abdomen plunges into the latter’s entrails 
the irremissible poignard. 
Unity is thus secured. The survivor, who, if conquered, would have 
been flung aside without regret, now that she is victorious becomes the 
idol and living deitv of the commonwealth; but let her remember, on 
the express condition of perpetuating the people and proving continu¬ 
ously prolific. 
Let us suppose a deplorable misfortune,—that every mother has 
perished. What then becomes of the orphaned world ? Does it fall, 
