FROM THE BLACK NOTEBOOK
199
affection and with pain because these moments were so seldom. And
across the kneeling boys Maryrose watched us, with envy and pain.
She was seeing a happy couple and feeling shut out. I could not bear
it, and I went to Maryrose, abandoning Willi. Maryrose and I bent
over the backs of Paul and Jimmy and watched.
"Now," said Paul. Again he lifted
his
monster off the small insect.
But Jimmy was clumsy and failed, and before he could try again
Paul's big insect was back in position. "Oh, you idiot," said Paul,
irritated. It was an irritation he usually suppressed, because he knew
Jimmy adored him. Jimmy dropped the grass-stem and laughed
painfully; tried to cover up his hurt-but by now Paul had grasped
the two stems, had levered the two covering insects, large and small,
off the two others, large and small, and now they were two well–
matched couples, two big insects together and two small ones.
"There," said Paul. "That's the scientific approach. How neat.
How easy. How satisfactory."
There we all stood, the five of us, surveying the triumph of
commonsense. And we all began to laugh again, helplessly, even
Willi; because of the utter absurdity of it. Meanwhile all around us
thousands and thousands of painted grasshoppers were getting on
With the work of propagating their kind without any assistance from
us. And even our small triumph was soon over, because the large
insect that had been on top of the other large insect, fell off, and
immediately the one which had been underneath mounted him or her.
"Obscene," said Paul gravely.
"There is no ·evidence," said Jimmy, trying to match his friend's
light grave tone, but failing, since his voice was always breathless, or
shrill, or too facetious: "There is no evidence that in what we refer
to as nature things are any better-ordered than they are with us.
What evidence have we that all these-miniature troglodites are
nicely sorted out male above female? Or even-" he added daringly,
on
his
fatally wrong note "-male with female at all? For all we
know, this is a riot of debauchery, males with males, females with
females ..." He petered out in a gasp of laughter. And looking at
his
heated, embarrassed, intelligent face, we all knew that he was
wondering why it was that nothing he ever said, or could say,
sounded easy, as when Paul said it. For if Paul had made that speech,
as he might very well have done, we would all have been laughing.
