This was the acme of Guinevere's change, the pinnacle of her
development. Thereafter her transformations were rhythmical,
alternating with the day and night. Through the nights of activity she
was garbed in rich, warm brown. With the coming of dawn, as she
climbed slowly upward, her color shifted through chestnut to maroon;
this maroon then died out on the mid-back to a delicate, dull
violet-blue, which in turn became obscured in the sunlight by
turquoise, which crept slowly along the sides. Carefully and
laboriously she clambered up, up to the topmost frond, and there
performed her little toilet, scraping head and face with her hands,
passing the hinder limbs over her back to brush off every grain of
sand. The eyes had meanwhile lost their black-flecked, golden,
nocturnal iridescence, and had gradually paled to a clear silvery
blue, while the great pupil of darkness narrowed to a slit.
Little by little her limbs and digits were drawn in out of sight, and
the tiny jeweled being crouched low, hoping for a day of comfortable
clouds, a little moisture, and a swift passage of time to the next
period of darkness, when it was fitting and right for Guineveres to
seek their small meed of sustenance, to grow to frog's full estate,
and to fulfil as well as might be what destiny the jungle offered. To
unravel the meaning of it all is beyond even attempting. The breath of
mist ever clouds the mirror, and only as regards a tiny segment of the
life-history of Guinevere can I say, "There is no need to wipe the
mirror."
VII
A JUNGLE LABOR-UNION
Pterodactyl Pups led me to the wonderful Attas--the most astounding of
the jungle labor-unions. We were all sitting on the Mazaruni bank, the
night before the full moon, immediately in front of my British Guiana
laboratory. All the jungle was silent in the white light, with now and
then the splash of a big river fish. On the end of the bench was the
monosyllabic Scot, who ceased the exquisite painting of mora
buttresses and jungle shadows only for the equal fascination of
searching bats for parasites. Then the great physician, who had come
six thousand miles to peer into the eyes of birds and lizards in my
dark-room, working with a gentle hypnotic manner that made the little
beings seem to enjoy the experience. On my right sat an army captain,
who had given more thought to the possible secrets of French
chaffinches than to the approaching barrage. There was also the
artist, who could draw a lizard's head like a Japanese print, but
preferred to depict impressionistic Laocoön roots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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