f the nymphosis. We shall soon see other
instances of this.

Motionless though it be, the Chalicodoma grub is none the less alive.
The primrose tint and the glossy skin are unequivocal signs of health:
Were it really dead, it would, in less than twenty-four hours, turn a
dirty brown and, soon after, decompose into a fluid putrescence. Now
here is the marvelous thing: during the fortnight, roughly, that the
Anthrax' meal lasts, the butter color of the larva, an unfailing symptom
of the presence of life, continues unaltered and does not change into
brown, the sign of putrefaction, until hardly anything remains; and even
then the brown hue is often absent. As a rule, the look of live flesh is
preserved until the final pellet, formed of the skin, the sole residue,
makes its appearance. This pellet is white, with not a speck of tainted
matter, proving that life persists until the body is reduced to nothing.

We here witness the transfusion of one animal into another, the change
of Chalicodoma substance into Anthrax substance; and, as long as the
transfusion is not complete, as long as the eaten has not disappeared
altogether and become the eater, the ruined organism fights against
destruction. What manner of life is this, which may be compared with
the life of a night light whose extinction is not accomplished until
the last drop of oil has burnt away? How is any creature able to fight
against the final tragedy of corruption up to the last moment in which a
nucleus of matter remains as the seat of vital energy? The forces of the
living creature are here dissipated not through any disturbance of
the equilibrium of those forces, but for the want of any point of
application for them: the larva dies because materially there is no more
of it.

Can we be in the presence of the diffusive life of the plant, a life
which persists in a fragment? By no means: the grub is a more delicate
organic structure. There is unity between the several parts; and none of
them can be jeopardized without involving the ruin of the others. If I
myself give the larva a wound, if I bruise it, the whole body very soon
turns brown and begins to rot. It dies and decomposes by the mere prick
of a needle; it keeps alive, or at least preserves the freshness of
the live tissues, so long as it is not entirely emptied by the Anthrax'
sucker. A nothing kills it; an atrocious wasting does not. No, I fail to
understand the problem; and I bequeath it to others.