200
DORIS LESSING
Instead of which we were uncomfortable, and were conscious that
we were hemmed in by these ugly scrambling insects.
Suddenly Paul sprang over and trod deliberately, first on the
monster couple, whose mating he had organised, and then on the
small couple.
"Paul," said Maryrose, shaken, looking at the crushed mess of
colored wings, eyes, white smear.
"A typical response of a sentimentalist," said Paul, deliberately
parodying Willi-who smiled, acknowledging that he knew he was
being mocked. But now Paul said seriously: "Dear Maryrose, by
tonight, or to stretch a point, by tomorrow night, nearly all these
things will be dead-just like your butterflies."
"Oh no," said Maryrose, looking at the dancing clouds of butter–
flies with anguish, but ignoring the grasshoppers. "But why?"
"Because there are too many of them. What would happen
if
they
all
lived? It would be an invasion. The Mashopi Hotel would
vanish under a crawling mass of grasshoppers, it would
be
crushed to
the earth, while inconceivably ominous swarms of butterflies danced
a victory dance over the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Boothby and their
marriageable daughter."
Maryrose, offended and pale, looked away from Paul. We
all
knew she was thinking about her dead brother. At such moments
she WOre a look of total isolation, so that we all longed to put our
arms around her.
Yet Paul continued, and now he began by parodying Stalin: "It
is self-evident, it goes without saying-and in fact there is no need
at all to say it, so why should I
go
to the trouble?-However,
whether there is any need to say a thing or not is clearly besides the
point.
As
is well-known, I say, nature is prodigal. Before many hours
are out, these insects will have killed each other by fighting, biting,
deliberate homicide, suicide, Or by clumsy copulation. Or they
will
have been eaten by birds which even at this moment are waiting for
us to remove ourselves so that they can begin their feast. When we
return to this delightful pleasure resort next week-end, or,
if
our
political duties forbid, the week-end after, we shall take Our well–
regulated walks along this road and see perhaps one or two of these
delightful red and green insects at their sport in the grass, and
think,
how pretty they are! And little will we reck of the million corpses
