The Glass Bees

  Although it was pleasant to walk in the soft, golden-yellow sand, out here it was different. After I had taken two or three steps, my footprints vanished. I noticed a small eddy, as if an animal, burrowed in the sand, had shaken itself. Then the path stretched out smoothly as before. But even apart from this, I felt at once that time ran faster here, and that it was necessary to be more on guard. In the good old days one sometimes came upon places which “smelled of powder.” Now a threat is more anonymous, more atmospheric; but it can be sensed. One enters “zones.”

  The road was tempting; it invited dreams. In places the brook ran so close that it formed a border. Yellow iris bloomed at its edge and there was butterbur on the sandy banks. Kingfishers flew so low over the water that their breast-feathers became wet.

  The ponds in which the monks had bred carp were over-grown with a green mat, and framed with clear borders. There yellow duckweed floated, and pond mussels and spiral snail shells lay whitening. It smelled of mud, of mint, and of the bark of elder trees—like a damp, muggy swamp. I remembered sultry summer days in my childhood when we used to fish with little nets in similar ponds. We had a hard time pulling our legs out of the sucking marsh, and the same rank smell had risen from our footprints.

  Soon I arrived at the boundary wall. The brook continued its course through a grating. At the left a thatched roof emerged, resting on red pillars without connecting walls between and topping an arbor rather than a pavilion. It seemed designed to give shelter against sun or rain, but not wind and cold. Part of the roof jutted out like a visor. Under it stood wicker chairs and a green garden table. Here I was to await my destiny.

  Very rich people love simplicity, and it was easy to see that my host felt at ease here. Implements, leaning against or hanging from the pillars, indicated agreeable pastimes: fishing rods, nets, eel baskets, crayfish catchers, tins for bait, bull’s-eye lanterns—in short, the inventory of the inland fisherman who fishes by day and night. Hanging from one of the pillars was a fowling piece next to a beekeeper’s mask; on another, a golf bag filled with clubs. A pair of field glasses lay on the table. I could not help being impressed by this idyllic sight, though I was still aware of a “zone” amidst the array of still life. Around the pavilion grew a border of tiger lilies.

  The field which the peasant had been plowing was now quite close but empty; he had finished his work. It was high noon; he had plowed during the classical morning. Bordering this field was a meadow, so tenderly green that it might have been imported from Devonshire. A path led to it over a slender bridge. This was undoubtedly the golf course. I took up the field glasses to examine the lawnlike expanse, clipped short like velvet. Apart from the holes, not a bare patch or the smallest weed could be seen.

  The glasses, incidentally, were excellent; they sharpened the sight surprisingly well. I was able to judge because the testing of optical instruments had been part of my duties during the years when I was with the Panzers. These field glasses, like opera glasses, were constructed for sighting within a restricted periphery, and they not only brought distant and semi-distant objects closer, but magnified them at the same time.

  On this side of the brook the meadow continued but was not yet mown. The grass stood high and was gay with flowers which, to amuse myself, I brought into my line of vision. The dandelion already bore its globes of silken down; I could see each minute hair of the tiny parachutes. Here and there the ground was boggy with stagnant water. Around these water holes rushes grew, still bearing last year’s spikes. I tested the precision of the glasses by focusing them on places where the woolly fibers appeared. It brought the finest fibrils into view. On the peaty edge of the water hole, a sundew plant, true to its name, showed tiny dewdrops sparkling in the noonday light. One of its small leaves had caught a fly, entrapping it with red tentacles. These were magnificent glasses.

  Close behind me, the wall, overgrown with ivy, shut off my field of vision. It looked as if it would be easy to scale, but of course, Zapparoni didn’t need a wall—or locked iron gates or ferocious dogs either, since everyone within the area kept to the permitted roads, as they well might.

  The beehives stood within the deep shadows cast by the wall. Although I had no intention of moving from the spot where I was sitting in the warm sun, I remembered Zapparoni’s warning. Do bees rest at noon? In any case, only a few were to be seen.

  That Zapparoni had cautioned me against the bees, spoke well for him—it was a kindly remark. Bees are peaceful creatures; one need not be afraid of them, unless one deliberately provokes them.

  There are, to be sure, exceptions. When we were stationed in East Prussia, a country where riders and horses feel their ease and where there is a good deal of beekeeping, we had to be cautious during the time of swarming. Then bees are irritable and sensitive to various odors: to the smell of horses sweating after a long ride, for instance, or to men who have been drinking heavily.

  One day we breakfasted in an orchard. It must have been a festive occasion, perhaps a birthday, since wine and goldwasser stood on the table. A state of intoxication in the early morning has its special attraction. We had just come from a ride and were soon in high spirits. Wittgrewe was also present. The air was delicious, filled with the fragrance of innumerable blossoms. Bees were busily humming back and forth. We soon noted that they were less peaceful than usual and that every so often one of us was stung.

  At that age anything can become an occasion for a joke. We’d wait for someone to become King of the Bees: whoever got the greatest number of stings would have to stand treat. Since there was enough to drink on the table, we now sat as motionless as dolls and raised our glasses very slowly to our lips. But the bees continued to attack. Now one of us was stung on the forehead by an insect which had got itself entangled in his hair, now another ran his hand into his collar and a third scored a fiery red ear. We gave up and left, after a stout, red-haired quartermaster, already sweating profusely, had gotten twelve stings and was almost unrecognizable. His head looked like an orange-yellow pumpkin—almost frightening.

  “You should never become a beekeeper,” the proprietor of the inn told him. Since all the others were stung only once, twice, or not at all, it’s reasonable to conclude that bees are selective. I myself was never stung.

  Remembering this scene was like hearing an anecdote from the days of our forefathers, and it put me in a gay mood. We were stationed close to the frontier then; on the other side of the boundary a regiment of Cossacks was encamped. Visits and invitations to races or hunts were frequently exchanged. On these occasions horsemen came together in a way we’re not likely to see again.

  How was it possible that the times darkened so quickly—more quickly than the brief span of a lifetime, of a single generation? It often seems to me that only yesterday we sat together in a beautiful hall, laughing and chatting; then, one crossed a suite of three or four rooms and everything became ghastly. Who would have dreamed when we were carousing with the hetmans that death stood so close behind almost all of us. Though we later fought on apparently different sides, one and the same machine mowed us down. Where are they now, all those young men who, then, had still been trained to fight with lances and sabers, and where are their Arab and Trakehnen horses and the little Cossack ponies from the steppes which so gracefully and yet untiringly carried their masters? Perhaps all this was only a dream.

  Zapparoni kept me waiting for some time. My thoughts went back to Our talk on the terrace, and my good mood left me. Two questions, three questions—and he had unveiled that side of my character which was important to him! He had led me into my own field, the field where I was competent, and in scarcely a quarter of an hour he had found my weak point, my defeatism—the characteristic which explained why I was not an important man like Fillmor, but a discharged captain without prospects. As for Fillmor, he had never shed a tear over the disappearance of horses. Although, as I remembered, he had cut a good figure on horseback, he had always remained one of those attitudinizing g
entlemen we find in paintings by Kobell. The great, the godlike union with the animal he had never experienced.

  It takes one a long time to realize one’s faults, and some people never recognize them. My fault was that I deviated from the generally accepted codes. In my judgments and, often, even in my actions I differed from those around me; this had been conspicuous in the circle of my family and it continued to be so throughout my life. Even long ago, as a child, I had not liked to eat what was set before me.

  We approve of people who have firm convictions, but we do so only partially. Actually, our approval is limited to the manner in which the convictions are expressed. When a great man like Fillmor speaks, he generally expresses platitudes. But he pronounces them with great precision and authority. Hearing him, everyone thinks: “There’s something I could have said.” In this lies his power.

  When the rest of us have a personal opinion about a legend such as the white flags, we’d do better to keep it to ourselves, particularly if strong feelings are involved. Most likely I had roused in Zapparoni a suspicion that, in engaging me, he would only get one more contentious person. Meanwhile Teresa was sitting at home—waiting.

  XII

  The birds grew silent and I again heard the murmuring sound of the brook in the sultry meadowland. Then I came awake. I had been walking about since early morning with the restlessness of a man running after his daily bread. In such a state, sleep surprises us like a thief.

  It must have been a light sleep because the sun had scarcely moved. Sleeping under the midday glare had dazed me and I had trouble in reorienting myself: the place was unfriendly.

  The bees seemed to have finished their siesta; the air was filled with their humming. They were searching for food in the meadow, sweeping in clouds over the foaming flood of whiteness which stood high over the grass, or dipping into its colorful depth. They hung in clusters on the white jasmine which bordered the path; and out of the blossoming maple beside the pavilion their swarming sounded as if it came from the interior of some huge bell which reverberates for a long time after its midday peal. There was no lack of blossoms; it was one of those years when beekeepers say that “the fenceposts give honey.”

  And yet there was something strange in these peaceful activities. With the exception of horses and wild game, I know few animals, never having found a teacher who inspired me with an enthusiasm for them. It was different with plants, since we had a passionate teacher of botany who frequently took us with him on field trips. How much our full development depends on such early contacts. If I had to list the animals I know, I wouldn’t need more than a small slip of paper. As for vermin, whose number is legion, this would be especially true.

  In any case, I do know more or less how a bee or a wasp or even a hornet looks. As I sat there, watching the swarms, I sometimes saw creatures flying past which seemed to differ in an odd way from the usual types. I can rely on my eyesight: I have tested it—and not only when hunting game birds. Now, it wasn’t difficult for me to follow one of these creatures until it descended upon a flower. Then I saw, with the help of my field glasses, that I had not been deceived.

  Although, as I said before, I know only a few insects, I at once had the impression of something undreamed-of, something extremely bizarre—the impression, let us say, of an insect from the moon. A demiurge from a distant realm, who had once heard of bees, might have created it.

  I had plenty of time to examine this creature, and similar ones were now arriving from all directions like workmen at the gate of a factory when a siren blows. At first I was struck by the large size of these bees. Although they were not as big as those which Gulliver met in Brobdingnag—he defended himself against them with his little sword—they were considerably larger than a normal bee or even a hornet. They were about the size of a walnut still encased in its green shell. The wings were not movable like the wings of birds or insects, but were arranged around their bodies in a rigid band, and acted as stabilizing and supporting surfaces.

  Their large size was less striking than one might think, since they were completely transparent. Indeed, my idea of them was derived mainly from the glitter of their movements as seen in the sunlight. When the creature I now watched hovered before the blossom of a convolvulus whose calyx it tapped with a tongue shaped like a glass probe, it was almost invisible.

  This sight fascinated me to such a degree that I forgot time and place. We are gripped by a similar astonishment when we see a machine which reveals a new concept in form and function. Suppose that a person from the early nineteenth century could be transported magically to one of our traffic intersections: for a moment the confusion and hurry would fill him with bewilderment, but after a short interval of perplexity, a certain understanding—some vague notion of the principles involved—would dawn upon him. He would see, for example, the difference between motorcycles, passenger cars, and trucks.

  In the same way I grasped the fact that what I saw was not a new species but a new mechanism. Zapparoni, that devilish fellow, had once again trespassed on nature, or rather, had contrived to improve nature’s imperfections by shortening and accelerating its working methods. Eagerly I moved my field glasses this way and that to follow his creatures whizzing through space like diamonds projected by strong catapults. I also heard their fine whistling break off abruptly when they came to the blossoms and stopped short. Behind me, however, in front of the hives, which now stood in full sunlight, these sounds gathered into one high continuous whistle. It must have taken subtle deliberation to avoid collisions when the swarms of automatons were massed before they sluiced into the hives.

  I must admit that the whole process filled me with pleasure—the kind which technical solutions evoke: At the same time, this pleasure was an acknowledgment between initiates of the triumph of a kindred spirit, for my pleasure was heightened when I noticed that Zapparoni worked with several systems. I distinguished diverse models—almost colonies—of automatons which combed the surrounding fields and shrubs. Creatures of especially strong structure bore a whole set of proboscises which they dipped into umbels and flower clusters. Others were equipped with tentacles that closed around the tufts of the blossoms like delicate pincers, squeezing out the nectar. Still others remained a puzzle to me. In any case, Zapparoni had made this corner a testing ground for brilliant inspirations.

  Time passed quickly while I feasted my eyes on this spectacle. Little by little I began to grasp the construction of the system. The beehives were placed in one long row along the wall. Some of them showed the customary shape; others were transparent and apparently made from the same material as the bees. The old hives were inhabited by natural bees, which served perhaps as a measure of the magnitude of Zapparoni’s triumph over nature. He had certainly seen to it that calculations were made of the quantity of nectar which one colony of bees gathered per day, hour, and second. Then he had installed this colony next to the automatons.

  I had the impression that he had upset these little natural bees with their antediluvian economic system, because I frequently saw one of them approach a blossom which had been previously touched by a competitor of glass and immediately fly away. If, on the other hand, a true bee had sucked first from the calyx, at least a dessert remained. It would seem, then, that Zapparoni’s creatures proceeded more economically; that is, they drained the flower more thoroughly. Or, could it be that the vital force of the flowers was exhausted after they had been touched by the glass probe?

  In any case, to all appearances here was another of Zapparoni’s fantastic inventions. I now saw that the comings and goings near the glass hives betrayed a high degree of methodical planning. It has taken centuries, I believe, to discover the secret of the bees. But I gained a definite notion of Zapparoni’s invention after having watched it from my chair for scarcely an hour.

  At first glance, the glass hives were distinguished from the old pattern by a larger number of entrances. They resembled less a hive than an automatic telephone exchange. But the
entrances were not real; the bees never entered the structure. I could not see where they rested or parked—or had their garage, as it were—certainly they couldn’t always be at work. Whatever the situation, the glass bees had nothing to do within the hive.

  The entrances functioned rather like the apertures in a slot machine or the holes in a switchboard. The bees, magnetically attracted, inserted their tongues and emptied their glass bellies which were filled with the nectar. After that they were ejected with a force that almost resembled the discharge of a firearm. Given the flying speed, the fact that no collisions occurred during these flights back and forth was a masterly feat. Although scores of units were involved, the whole process was conducted with perfect precision; no doubt, some central control or principle regulated it.

  It was evident that the natural procedure had been simplified, cut short, and standardized. For instance, everything that had to do with the production of wax had been eliminated. There were neither small nor large cells or any arrangements related to the differentiation of sexes; indeed, the whole establishment radiated a flawless but entirely unerotic perfection. There were no eggs or cradles for the pupae, and neither drones nor a queen. If one insisted on pursuing an analogy, Zapparoni approved only of sexless workers and had solved this problem brilliantly. Even here he had simplified nature which, as we know, has already attempted a certain economical approach in the “slaughtering” of the drones. From the very beginning he had included in his plan neither males nor females, neither mothers nor nurses.

  If I remember the natural process rightly, the nectar which bees suck from the blossoms is worked up in their stomachs where it undergoes various changes. Zapparoni had saved his own creatures this trouble as well, by substituting a centralized chemical process. I saw how the colorless nectar, spurted into the connecting channels, accumulated in a system of glass tubes where it gradually changed color. Having first turned cloudy with a tinge of yellow, it became straw-colored and reached the bottom of the tube in the superb yellow of honey.