CHAPTER VII.

THE PHOENIX.

The drama is complete. From the gray or blackish mummy which just now lay before you dried and shrivelled, you see the new creature, the resuscitated, the phoenix, blithely escaping, to shine resplendent in all the glory of youth.

The very reverse of _our_ destiny: commencing with bright and butterfly days, in later life we crawl and languish; while the insect commences with years of gloom, and from a long life of obscurity emerges into the youth in which it dies glorified.

Let us be present at this departure. The warm breath of spring has awakened the plants; its banquet is prepared. More than one flower, awaiting it, secretes its honey. It delays, because to-day that impenetrable envelope which ensured its safety becomes for a moment its obstacle. Enfeebled and fatigued by so great a transformation, how shall it break through the too solid cradle which threatens to suffocate it?

Some species--as, for example, the ants--experience so great a difficulty, that the captive, probably, would never effect its release but for the opportune assistance of some power which, from without, hastens to extricate it, to deliver it (so to speak), and separate it from the trammels of its swaddling-clothes. Fortunate difficulty! which creates the bond between the two ages, attaches the liberator to the child she has delivered, and herself begins its education and society!

But, for the majority of insects, the liberator is no other than Nature. This mother, inexhaustible in tenderness and invention, gives to the little one the key which will open the barrier, pierce the prison, and introduce it to daylight and liberty.

"What key?--and how?" say you. "How can this soft and fluid being contrive to seize upon a firm, compact tissue, frequently doubled and immured by the alluvial accumulation of a protracted winter?"

The circumstance embarrasses _us_ greatly, but Nature is not troubled. Means of the utmost simplicity suffice her; she eludes, and sports with, the difficulty. The butterfly of the silkworm, for instance, at the critical moment finds a file--where?--in its eye! This eye, with numerous facets, has a fine diamond point, which files through and severs the silken prison.

Another, the cockchafer, shut up underground, suddenly discovers that it is a perfect mechanician. Of its whole body it makes a lever. Its posterior extremity furnishes it with a strong-pointed auger. It sinks solidly, anchors, and makes fast. From this _point d'appui_ it derives an enormous force, and with its robust shoulders uplifts the heavy clod, enlarges the aperture, finds at length the light, extends its unwieldy apparatus of wings and wing-cases, and flies as a gnat.

Another deformed (or shapeless) miner, the mole-cricket, would never reach the surface if, to reascend from the depth of the earth, it had not two enormous hands, or rather two powerful rakes, which open up its way. Though hideous, it is not the less sensitive to the influence of spring, but it takes the precaution of never exposing its strange figure save to the doubtful rays of the moon. Its plaintive cry singularly affects the female; she yields to it, and makes her appearance, but to return again into the night and confide to the protecting shade the hope of her posterity.

A frail aquatic insect, the gnat, on this important day assumes the daring mission of the navigator. It makes fresh use of its demitted envelope, and turns it into a bark. In this it stands upright, extends its new wings for sails, glides along the wave, and very frequently without shipwreck reaches the shore; where, when dried, the same wings will bear it off to the chase and the pursuit of pleasure. In an hour it appears a complete master of all these novel arts. It is the peculiarity of love to know without having been taught.

Love is winged. Mythology is perfectly in the right. This is verified in the proper sense and without metaphor. In one brief moment, Nature displays a restless anxiety to fly towards the beloved object. All creatures rise above their own level, all mount towards the light, on the pinions of desire. The internal fire is also revealed in glowing colours. Every one decorates his person, every one wishes to please.

The butterfly apparently looks upon you with the great velvety eyes which adorn its wings. Beetles of every species, like mobile stones, astonish by their brilliant reflexes, their burning vivacities. Finally, from the bosom of the shadows bursts the flame of love, naked and unveiled, in flashing stars!

At such a moment it accomplishes the strangest transformations, and from the humblest masks issue, in violent contrast, the superbest individuals.

A dull larva of the morass, which lives only by stratagem, becomes the brilliant amazon, the agile winged warrior, called Demoiselle (_libellula_). It is the only creature of its tribe which expresses the complete liberty of flight, holding the same rank among insects as the swallow among birds. Who has not followed with attentive gaze its thousand varied movements, its turns, and returns, and the infinite circles which it makes with azure and emerald wings on the meadow or over the waters? A flight apparently capricious; but not really so, for it is a chase, a rapid and elegant extermination of myriads of insects. What seems to you a pastime, is the greedy absorption with which this brilliant creature of war feeds its season of love.

Do not believe that these riches are simply the gifts of genial climates; that these glittering festal garments which they assume to love and die in are only the sheen of the sun, the all-powerful, decorator, which with its rays intensifies the enamel and gems we admire upon their wings. Another sun--a sun which shines for the whole earth, even for the ice-regions of the pole--profits them far more considerably. It exalts in them the inner life, evokes all their powers, and, on the given day, calls forth the supreme flower. Yonder scintillating colours are their visible energies which become speaking and eloquent. It is the pride of a complete life, which, having attained its climax, displays its energy in triumph, wishes to expand and diffuse; it is the tradition of desire, the imperious prayer and urgent appeal to the beloved objects.

In pale and temperate climates, you will meet with those brilliant liveries which one would think belonged to the tropics. Who, under our gloomy and variable sky, has not seen the sparkling Spanish fly? Even in the fatal deserts where summer beams but for an instant, as if in despite of the sun,--in despite of the poor and naked earth,--love supports some beings of a sumptuous splendour, of opulent raiment and rich decoration. Miserable Siberia sees the princes and great lords of the Insect World simultaneously displaying their grandeur. The tyrannical Russian climate cannot prevent enormous beetles, pitiless hunters, fiercer than Ivan the Terrible, from appearing in green, black, violet, or deep blue morocco, shaded with purple sapphires. While some, usurping the ancient copes consecrated to the czars and the porphyrogeniti, stalk to and fro in robes of purple, broidered with Byzantine gold.

In our neighbouring Siberias, I mean our lofty mountains,--under the hailstorms, for instance, of the Pyrenean glaciers,--without being discouraged by their rude blows, fly noble insects, of exquisite appearance, the rosalia in a mantle of pearl-gray satin, spotted with black velvet.

Among the lofty Alps, at the Grindelwald,--the formidable descent where that glacier comes to us, and you may touch its _aiguilles_, and its keen breath freezes you--I once admired a timid but touching protestation of love. Among some miserable birches, martyr trees, which undergo an eternal chastisement, a poor little plant, elegant and delicate, persists in flowering, with a rose-hued blossom, but a violet rose, not unworthy of the mournful region. The brother of this tragical rose is a very tiny insect which, all feeble as it is, mounts higher than any other species, and is found shivering among the lofty snows of Mont Blanc. There, above you, is only the heaven, and, beneath, the vast shroud of ice. The poetic creature has assumed exactly two tints: the celestial blue of its wings, incredibly delicate, seems lightly kindled with the white powder of the hoar-frost. The storms and avalanches which overthrow the rocks awaken in it no sensations of terror. Under the breath of the terrible giant, in his ice-bristling beard and formidable frown, it, the little one, flies daringly, as if conscious that this king of the everlasting winters would hesitate to destroy the last winged flower of love which, in his realm of death, preserves for him a reflection of heaven.

Book the Second.

MISSION AND ARTS OF THE INSECT.