Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/266

254 of white paper that lay among my books. Its two forelegs were raised toward me, and I felt that it was scrutinizing me with its mysterious eyes. It sat in motionless concentration and above it, reaching up to the ceiling, intermittently glittered the silken strand down which it came. Its stern look and upraised feelers reminded me of an ill-tempered teacher scolding a pupil and involuntarily made me laugh outright at the changed being. At this turn of affairs my preceptor, clumsily managing its heavy body, backed away a few steps and transformed itself into the most agile of acrobats, as it reascended its silken path. In a few minutes it was back in the middle of its net, quite evidently calm and pleased, and foretold fair weather. I at once went out and caught it some flies as a reward for diverting me from my sad and burdening thoughts. Apparently wishing to prove that it was well bred and not of a greedy turn of mind, it did not touch any of them for quite a time.

Impressions and observations of this character seem to me now, as I ponder over them, peculiar and almost limited to individuals who live for long months, or even years, quite outside the bournes of ordinary life. There in this desert region, every small thing attracts and holds the attention of the solitary individual, who understands and feels it all through his over-sensitized soul, nerves and mind and who is distracted by nothing, troubled by nothing and fired by nothing.