The Insect
by
Translated From The Russian
By Isabel Hapgood
I dreamed that a score of us were sitting in a large room with open windows.
Among us were women, children, old men…. We were all talking about some very unfamiliar subject–talking noisily and unintelligibly.
Suddenly, with a harsh clatter, a huge insect, about three inches and a half long, flew into the room … flew in, circled about and alighted on the wall.
It resembled a fly or a wasp.–Its body was of a dirty hue; its flat, hard wings were of the same colour; it had extended, shaggy claws and a big, angular head, like that of a dragon-fly; and that head and the claws were bright red, as though bloody.
This strange insect kept incessantly turning its head downward, upward, to the right, to the left, and moving its claws about … then suddenly it wrested itself from the wall, flew clattering through the room,–and again alighted, again began to move in terrifying and repulsive manner, without stirring from the spot. It evoked in all of us disgust, alarm, even terror…. None of us had ever seen anything of the sort; we all cried: “Expel that monster!” We all flourished our handkerchiefs at it from a distance … for no one could bring himself to approach it … and when the insect had flown in we had all involuntarily got out of the way.
Only one of our interlocutors, a pale-faced man who was still young, surveyed us all with surprise.–He shrugged his shoulders, he smiled, he positively could not understand what had happened to us and why we were so agitated. He had seen no insect, he had not heard the ominous clatter of its wings.
Suddenly the insect seemed to rivet its attention on him, soared into the air, and swooping down upon his head, stung him on the brow, a little above the eyes…. The young man emitted a faint cry and fell dead.
The dreadful fly immediately flew away…. Only then did we divine what sort of a visitor we had had.
May, 1878.