Page:The Life of the Spider.djvu/32

The Life of the Spider his arms crossed and quivering, he remains long in ecstasy. The newly-wedded Osmiæ clap their mandibles terribly, as though it were a matter rather of devouring each other; on the other hand, the largest of our moths, the Great Peacock, who is the size of a bat, when drunk with love finds his mouth so completely atrophied that it becomes no more than a vague shadow. But nothing equals the marriage of the Green Grasshopper, of which I cannot speak here, for it is doubtful whether even the Latin language possesses the words needed to describe it as it should be described.

All said, the marriage customs are dreadful and, contrary to that which happens in every other world, here it is the female of the pair that stands for strength and intelligence and also for cruelty and tyranny, which appear to be their inevitable consequence. Almost every wedding ends in the violent and immediate death of the husband. Often, the bride begins by eating a certain number of suitors. The archetype of these fantastic unions could be supplied by the Languedocian Scorpions, who, as we know, carry lobster-claws and a long tail supplied with a 28