FROM THE BLACK NOTEBOOK
197
Maryrose wore blue dungarees and a rose-colored shirt. I wore
dungarees and a white shirt.
As
soon as we turned off the main road on to the sand track we
had to walk slowly and carefully, because this morning after the heavy
rain there was a festival of insects. Everything seemed to riot and
crawl. Over the low grasses
a:
million white butterflies with greenish
white wings hovered and lurched. They were all white, but of
different sizes. That morning a single species had hatched or sprung
or crawled from their crysallises, and were celebrating their freedom.
And on the grass itself, and allover the road were a certain species
of brightly-colored grasshopper, in couples. There were millions of
them too.
"And one grasshopper jumped on the other grasshopper's back,"
observed Paul's light but grave voice, just ahead. He stopped.
Jimmy, beside
him,
obediently stopped too. We came to a standstill
behind them both. "Strange," said Paul, "but I've never understood
the inner or concrete meaning of that song before." It was grotesque,
and we were
all
not so much embarrassed, as awed. We stood laugh–
ing, but our laughter was too loud. In every direction, all around us,
were the insects, coupling. One insect, its legs firmly planted on the
sand, stood still; while another, apparently identical, was clamped
firmly on top of it, so that the one underneath could not move.
Or an insect would be trying to climb on top of another, while
the one underneath remained still, apparently trying to aid the
climber whose earnest or frantic heaves threatened to jerk both over
sideways. Or a couple, badly-matched, would topple over, and the
one that had been underneath would right itself and stand waiting
while the other fought to resume its position, or another insect,
apparently identical, ousted it. But the happy or well-mated insects
stood all around us, one above the other, with their bright round
idiotic black eyes staring. Jimmy went off into fits of laughter, and
Paul thumped him on the back. "These extremely vulgar insects
do not merit our attention," observed Paul. He was right. One of
these insects, or half a dozen, or
a:
hundred would have seemed
attractive, with their bright paint-box colors, half-submerged in
thin emerald grasses. But in thousands, crude green and crude red,
with the black blank eyes staring-they were absurd, obscene, and
above all, the very emblem of stupidity. "Much better watch the
