sit
hidden and wait, only wait, even if it is for weeks, until a bee
comes, in whose yellow and black down they can hide. And did I not
know their hateful skill just when the little cell-builder has
filled a room with honey and on its surface laid the egg from which
the rightful owner of the cell and the honey will come forth, just
then to creep down on the egg and with careful balancing sit on it
as on a boat; for if they should come down into the honey; they
would drown. And while the bee covers the thimble-like cell with a
green roof and carefully shuts in its young one, the yellow larva
tears open n the egg with its sharp jaws and devours its contents,
while the egg-shell has still to serve as craft on the dangerous
honey-sea.

But gradually the little yellow larva grows flat and big and can
swim by itself on the honey acid drink of it, and in the course
of time a fat, black beetle comes out of the bee-cell. It is
certain that this is not what the little bee wished to effect by
its work, and however cunningly and cleverly the beetle may
have behaved, it is nevertheless nothing but a lazy parasite,
who deserves no sympathy.

And my bee, my own little, industrious bee, bad flown about with
such a yellow hanger-on in its down. But while the spider had spun
round with it, the larva had loosened and fallen down on the
spider-web, and now the big, orange spider came and gave it a bite
and transformed it in a second into a skeleton without life or
substance.

When the little bee came again, its humming was like a hymn to
life.

"Oh, thou beauteous life," it said. "I thank thee that happy work
among roses and sunshine has fallen to my lot. I thank thee that I
can enjoy thee without anxiety or fear.

"Well I know that spiders lie in wait and beetles steal, but happy
work is mine, and brave freedom from care. Oh, thou beauteous life,
thou glorious existence!"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Invisible Links, by Selma Lagerlof

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