FROM THE BLACK NOTEBOOK
207
Jimmy, in a trembling, angry voice. His full carved mouth, the lips
he referred to with pride as "decadent" visibly shook.
"Yes, I know," said Paul. "I know it. The Gods favor me. Be–
cause I'll admit to you, dear Jimmy, that I could not have brought
myself to wring this pigeon's neck."
Jimmy turned away, suffering, to his observation of the ant–
eaters' pits. While his attention had been with Paul, a very tiny ant,
as light as a bit of fluff, had fallen over the edge of a pit and was at
this moment bent double in the jaws of the monster. This drama of
death was on such a small scale that the pit, the ant-eater and the
ant could have been accommodated comfortably on a small finger–
nail- Maryrose's pink little finger-nail for instance.
The tiny ant vanished under a film of white sand, and in a
moment the jaws appeared, clean and ready for further use.
Paul ejected the case from his rifle and inserted a bullet with a
sharp snap of the bolt. "We have two more to get before we satisfy
Ma Boothby'S minimum needs," he remarked. But the trees were
empty, standing full and silent in the hot sun, all their green boughs
light and graceful, very slightly moving. The butterflies were now
noticeably fewer; a few dozen only danced on in the sizzling heat. The
heat-waves rose like oil off the grass, the sand patches, and were
strong and think over the rocks that protruded from the grass.
"Nothing," said Paul. "Nothing happens. What tedium."
Time passed. We smoked. We waited. Maryrose lay flat, eyes
closed, delectable as honey. Willi read, doggedly improving himself.
He was reading
Stalin on the Colonial Question.
"Here's another ant," said Jimmy excited. A larger ant, almost
the size of the ant-eater, was hurrying in irregular dashes this way and
that between grass stems. It moved in the irregular apparently
spasmodic way that a hunting dog does when scenting. It fell straight
over the edge of the pit, and now we were in time to see the brown
shining jaws reach up and snap the ant across the middle, almost
breaking it in two. A struggle. White drifts of sand down the sides
of the pit. Under the sand they fought. Then stillness.
"There is something about this country," said Paul, "that will
have marked me for life. When you think of the sheltered upbringing
nice boys like Jimmy and I have had- our nice homes and public
