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“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf
MOTHS
that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that
pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy–blossom which the commonest
yellow–underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in
us. They are hybrid creatures, neither gay like butterflies nor sombre like
their own species. Nevertheless the present specimen, with his narrow hay–coloured
wings, fringed with a tassel of the same colour, seemed to be content with
life. It was a pleasant morning, mid–September, mild, benignant, yet with a
keener breath than that of the summer months. The plough was already scoring
the field opposite the window, and where the share had been, the earth was
pressed flat and gleamed with moisture. Such vigour came rolling in from the
fields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly
turned upon the book. The rooks too were keeping one of their annual
festivities; soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net
with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air; which,
after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed
to have a knot at the end of it. Then, suddenly, the net would be thrown
into the air again in a wider circle this time, with the utmost clamour and
vociferation, as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down
upon the tree tops were a tremendously exciting experience.
The same energy which
inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, and even, it seemed, the lean
bare–backed downs, sent the moth fluttering from side to side of his square
of the window–pane. One could not help watching him. One was, indeed,
conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him. The possibilities of pleasure
seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s
part in life, and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest
in enjoying his meagre opportunities to the full, pathetic. He flew
vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a
second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a
third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do, in spite of the
size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far–off smoke of houses, and
the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do
he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the
enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive
body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital
light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.
Yet, because he was so
small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open
window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in
my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something
marvellous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a
tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and
feathers, had set it dancing and zig–zagging to show us the true nature of
life. Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it. One is
apt to forget all about life, seeing it humped and bossed and garnished and
cumbered so that it has to move with the greatest circumspection and
dignity. Again, the thought of all that life might have been had he been
born in any other shape caused one to view his simple activities with a kind
of pity.
After a time, tired by
his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge in the sun, and, the
queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then, looking up, my
eye was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed
either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of
the window–pane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent
on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without
thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits
for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without
considering the reason of its failure. After perhaps a seventh attempt he
slipped from the wooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings, on to his back
on the window sill. The helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed
upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his
legs struggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him
to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the
approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.
The legs agitated themselves once more. I looked as if for the enemy against
which he struggled. I looked out of doors. What had happened there?
Presumably it was midday, and work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and
quiet had replaced the previous animation. The birds had taken themselves
off to feed in the brooks. The horses stood still. Yet the power was there
all the same, massed outside indifferent, impersonal, not attending to
anything in particular. Somehow it was opposed to the little hay–coloured
moth. It was useless to try to do anything. One could only watch the
extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom which
could, had it chosen, have submerged an entire city, not merely a city, but
masses of human beings; nothing, I knew, had any chance against death.
Nevertheless after a pause of exhaustion the legs fluttered again. It was
superb this last protest, and so frantic that he succeeded at last in
righting himself. One’s sympathies, of course, were all on the side of life.
Also, when there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the
part of an insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to
retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely.
Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again,
useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable
tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew
stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew
death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great
a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had
been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange. The moth
having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O
yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am. |