Piccolissima | Page 7

candy moist? thought she; but she did not dare again to ask questions
which excited such a rude buzzing in reply. So she rested her two little
elbows on her knees, and her small head upon one of her hands, and
continued to examine the fly. "Is it his nose?" said she, in a low voice,
(for, having very rarely any one to talk with, she had a habit of talking
to herself,) "is it his nose that he stretches out thus upon my sugar? I
have heard papa say that there are animals, much larger than he, and
which they call elephants, I think, who take up with their noses all the
food they put in their mouths, and that they call this nose a trunk.
Perhaps this is a little person of the family of elephants."
Piccolissima had hardly uttered these words, when the fly, whose
antennae were longer than usual, and were turned towards the little
prattler, gave such a leap that Mademoiselle Tom Thumb trembled. The
wings of the insect fluttered, and made a little sharp noise, which,
however, had nothing terrible in it, and Piccolissima perceived that her

companion was laughing. It was evident that the fly must laugh with
his wings, because he could not laugh in any other way. It was with his
antennae that he had listened; they evidently served him as ears; and,
when he recovered his gravity, he flew on the little girl's hand, and
began to talk with her; then Piccolissima observed him more
intelligently.
"It appears to me, little pet," said the fly, "thou must be very green to
compare my delicate trunk, this instrument so nicely made, with the
enormous and coarse cylinder upon which, in hot weather, I have often
travelled. How can any one suppose that I have any relationship to the
deformed and gigantic monster of which you have just now spoken?"
Piccolissima thought that the little person was not wanting in vanity,
and, while the fly was taking breath, observed that the trunk had
disappeared, and that there was no possibility of discovering what the
insect had done with it. The look, gloomy, and a little sullen, of the fly,
recalled somewhat the funny mask of a harlequin, and Piccolissima was
on the point of showing how one laughs with the lips, by laughing in
the fly's face, when the latter forced air slightly through the breathing
holes which open under the wings; the two little double scales, the
winglets, which unfold at birth, began to vibrate; and Piccolissima, who
just now remarked that this was the method that her new acquaintance
took to emit sounds, was eager to listen to what he might say; so she
made an effort to command herself, and became serious.
"Do you not see, with your dull human intelligence, that my trunk is a
pump, a hollow tube, an instrument for sucking which I stretch out and
draw in at my pleasure?"
While speaking thus, the fly thrust half way out from the cavity in the
middle of his head, just under his eyes, a trunk with two or three joints
in it; at the end was an opening like two black lips, folded over, with
grooves or little hollows. The fly, thus urged to show the use of his
trunk, or, more probably, forgetting the sequel of a discourse upon
which he had entered in such a pompous style, flew upon the sugar, and
set himself again to sucking it.
Piccolissima again observed the little drops fall which she had noticed
before. It seems that the fly, being only able to take up liquids through
his trunk, wetted and dissolved the sugar that he might suck it up. It
was a pleasant thing to see his lips swell out, and press, handle, and

knead, as it were, the amber surface of the sugar in order to make it
melt sooner, and enable him to draw it up faster. After having
examined all these proceedings for some time, with great amusement,
the little apprentice naturalist cried out, "Well, my little guest has a
remarkable talent for eating barley sugar."
The other fly, timid, wet, and with his wings folded, so that he seemed
naked, remained behind upon the frame of the window. "Come, poor
little wet chicken as thou art," cried the elder fly; "thou wast
complaining just now of having found in life only discomfort and cold;
dost thou not see these rays of the sun? dost thou not perceive the
perfume of this delicious food?" The young, inexperienced fly was
disposed to take Piccolissima, the dictionary, and the barley sugar for a
chain of mountains. However, when the little girl turned her gentle,
child-like face towards him, the insect felt the pleasant warmth of her
breath; it