They are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor somberlike their own species.Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay-colored wings, fringed with a tassel of the same color, seemed to be contentwith life .
It was a pleasant morning, mid-September, mild, benignant, yetwith a keener breath than that of the summer months.The plough was alreadyscoring the field opposite the window, and where the share had been, the earthwas pressed flat and gleamed with moisture .Such vigor came rolling in from thefields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turnedupon the book .
The rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities;soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands ofblack knots in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sankslowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end ofit .
Then, suddenly, the net would be thrown into the air again in a widercircle this time, with the utmost clamor and vociferation , as though to bethrown into the air and settle slowly down upon the tree tops were atremendously exciting experience .
The same energy which inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, andeven, it seemed, the lean bare-backed downs, sent the moth fluttering fromside to side of his square of the window-pane .
One could not help watchinghim.One was, indeed , conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him.Thepossibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that tohave only a moth s part in life, and a day moth s at that, appeared a hard fate,and his zest in enjoying his meager opportunities to the full, pathetic .
Heflew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there asecond , flew across to the other.What remained for him but to fly to a thirdcorner and then to a fourth ?That was all he could do, in spite of the size of thedowns, the width of the sky, the far-off smoke of houses, and the romanticvoice, now and then , of a steamer out at sea.What he could do he did .
Watching him, it seemed as if a fiber, very thin but pure, of the enormousenergy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body.As oftenas he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible .
He was little or nothing but life .
Yet , because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that wasrolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow andintricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, therewas something marvelous as well as pathetic about him .
It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with downand feathers, had set it dancing and zigzagging to show us the true nature oflife .
Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it.One is apt toforget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished andcumberedso that it has to move with the greatest circumspection and dignity .
Again, the thought of all that life might have been had he been born in anyother shape caused one to view his simple activities with a kind of pity .
After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the windowledge in the sun, and, the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him .
Then , looking up, my eye was caught by him.He was trying to resume hisdancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter tothe bottom of the window-pane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed .
Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time withoutthinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight , as one waits for amachine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering thereason of its failure .
After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from thewooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings, on to his back on the window sill .
The helplessness of his attitude roused me.It flashed upon me that he was indifficulties;he could no longer raise himself; his legs struggled vainly.But ,as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came overme that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death.I laid thepencil down again .
The legs agitated themselves once more.I looked as if for the enemyagainst which he struggled.I looked out of doors.What had happened there ?
Presumably it was midday, and work in the fields had stopped.Stillness andquiet had replaced the previous animation.The birds had taken themselves offto feed in the brooks.The horses stood still.Yet the power was there all thesame, massed outside indifferent, impersonal, not attending to anything inparticular .
Somehow it was opposed to the little hay-colored moth.It wasuseless to try to do anything.One could only watch the extraordinary effortsmade by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which could, had it chosen ,have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but masses of human beings;nothing, I knew, had any chance against death.Nevertheless after a pause ofexhaustion the legs fluttered again.It was superb this last protest , and so frantic that he succeeded at last in righting himself.One s sympathies, ofcourse, were all on the side of life.Also, when there was nobody to care or toknow, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant little moth, against apower of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep ,moved one strangely .
Again , somehow, one saw life, a pure bead.I liftedthe pencil again, useless though I knew it to be.But even as I did so, theunmistakable tokens of death showed themselves.The body relaxed, andinstantly grew stiff.The struggle was over .The insignificant little creature nowknew death.As I looked at the dead moth , this minute wayside triumph of sogreat a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder .
Just as lifehad been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange.The mothhaving righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed.Oyes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am .
Ⅰ.About the author
