Once upon a time, on a warm summer afternoon, a tiny caterpillar called Cathy was looking over her garden where she lived. The garden was her whole world. She looked at the amazing flowers and plants, wondered about the butterfly that was dancing in the air, and dreamed of one day being as free as that butterfly. But right now, she was scared.
So, she picked a nice green leaf, sat down on it, and put her head on her arms and cried. ‘I wish I could stay a caterpillar all my life!’
‘Why?’ a sleek, brown mouse asked her in wonder. ‘Why, you lovely little thing, would you not wish to be a butterfly?’
‘Ah!’ sighed Cathy, ‘I should like to be a butterfly, but it will never be! I don’t know how it feels to fly far away from here. I don’t know how it feels to have long, beautiful, delicate wings, so that I can dance among the flowers. How can I wish it?’
‘You want to stay a caterpillar all your life just because you don’t want to leave home, I suppose,’ said the mouse. ‘Advice is cheap, but I think you are a little coward. If it happened that you were picked up by a bird on your first flight, you might regret that you had not started sooner.’
Cathy raised her head from her arms and looked at the little brown eyes of the mouse with frightened but angry eyes. ‘Are you sure?’ said she, trembling all over.
‘Why, of course,’ answered the mouse. ‘And by the way, a caterpillar has soft wings, which will never stand the wind.’ And with this, the mouse vanished under the grass.
Cathy’s little heart now beat faster than ever. It would not do for her to keep a heart that fluttered so! It was much better to sleep and forget all that’s gone. Yes, she resolved to sleep, and she tried, but then she saw the long journey after all. And so she started; the morning came; during the night she had grown greatly, and now she munches all the new leaves she can find, the thick rich veins of the trees.
‘To-day I am sure,’ said she, ‘is my last day as a caterpillar.’ And getting up on her feet, she began to weave around her head all the long beautiful threads of silk that she could get out of her mouth. The first two bright sunny days in the new green house she wove not half enough!
‘I can’t—before I am quite ready,’ said she. ‘But to-morrow’s day’s work will end all. I am sure I am ready. I’d better start now!’
During the night came a horrible storm. It beat against her pillow, and suddenly frightened, she stuck her head out of bed. What she saw made her jump. Uprooted, torn, strewed about her, as far as she could see, lay all her beautiful silk threads.
She put her head under her eyelids in despair. ‘Oh, what am I to do? Now my whole life has been for nothing!’ Suddenly a little light shone through the clouds above her head, and she dreamed about the wooded hill where she had danced and sung last summer ‘twixt plants and flowers. Everything was there just as it used to be; but nobody laughed, nobody danced; all were turned into fine green branches, through which came the light of the sun. Everybody seemed to say: ‘We surely didn’t stand still while we were working and training to take care of you.’
With one bound, Cathy got out of bed. Never had she known quite clearly before how dreadfully ashamed she ought to be of her cowardice. She set immediately to work anew, undeterred; and only the white frost of next November was able to make her stop her work.
When spring came, and the soft nights were again succeeded by warm days, she fancied she felt the sweet, fragrant odors in the air, and so she woke up quickly; she opened wide her eyes, and, good heavens! saw she had turned into a butterfly, and could go out into gardens and woods and fly the whole long day long! That sure was wonderful joy!
Cathy was so eager with delight that she flew up to the sun.
There was an oriental church-mouse in the morning sun; and without doubt, for all the white foam on the mouth of the dog, his repast consisted chiefly of daisies in the meadow. He said to Cathy mockingly, ‘Well, well, you came in good time! And then, you see, neither the dancing nor the speaking is over. But who are they, pray who are they?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Cathy. ‘Yes, they are lovely! And he! Oh! Do you want to know who he is? He is the sweetest of men, the wisest of philosophers. He is all the poets, all the fine fellows, and Christ, who found you, dear brown mouse, all when we thought you were dead, and when actually you were none other but so many brain-sick poets and philosophers and artists.’
‘Ah, ah!’ thought the mouse, and his eyes changed under the mop of hair growing on his forehead.
‘You see,’ said Cathy, ‘you eat the flowers of the earth. Formerly, the flowers we tore away from mother-earth were more for the pleasure of our eyes. To-day it is food. Do you understand? One is like the other. As the flower fades away, in the same way with it perish all poor philosopher and artist, who is thus mourned. Do you understand?’
‘No,’ replied the old brown mouse.
‘Oh, I am sorry for you,’ said Cathy.
Then she turned away and flew towards the high mountains. It was still May. Little brooks produced so great a noise, and the lightning of the thunder began to be lost.
As she found it a little dangerous to fly there, she fanned herself perched on a high bush, by a little waterfall close by. But the fog ascended in drenching waterdrops, rumbles of thunder were to be heard in the mosques, and she thought it was an offence to ask her fee. She had grown so quite another being, the same that she had appeared in summer when she dreamed of flying butterflies.
Three days of wild storm and bad weather, but mind productive, and then it was time to start afresh. The weather was clear, and Cathy, the last of the summer, always left her warm deep, mossy pillow, where with great terror she fancied sweet beautiful corpses. She thought of the evil she had formerly had to conceal in her womb. And she said, ‘Now I am good again, once more a corpse. To-day, as to-day is once all once more. And she thought of the fizgig-like elephant, and blushingly she said to herself, ‘How sweet and good, how perceptive and intelligent my own mind is! Did you understand when you did all this?’
Rustled the top leaves, and two young hands of a young man were extended, while above, glaring bright as the sun was a large yellow spot.
‘Go down, go down!’ cried mallet-like tones from afar. ‘Quick, quick! Your ears, you see, are yellow. Your blonde hairs also are yellow. Be a Lanchen now, like us.’
Down, down she went, down and down till she reached the spot, where certainly half the world of white mice must be lost have they not been natives. And little was to be lost either, since like them, stilled, motionless people, seeming like taken from a vice had to pour a whole dram into the liquid digester of the human soul, be left behind in the world of reality or ether. Anhedonia changed to a thrill of joy. No, from experience one could only know what there is to know. She found everything again as if only one hour had divided her from the summer.
Even the white beast with the orange was still there, and Cathy could but breathe out most firmly: she had resolved to try to become a butterfly once again; and what is more, she had even resolved to be enraged at nothing any more. No, there is much more to be learned than what nature lent to her! To make honey is accurately triangular work. The humming is said to be indefinite; and only he who knows once more finds the end of this world and what is outside there, gets knowledge and perfection, and fruit—the appearance of death and the sleep of nature. But just in summer it lasts long enough before you are first perfectly good once more. And if here it would come soon, I for my part should surely not get my reward too late.
She did not fly in close attendance on the sensation. She wanted her wings perfectly good, the feather arrangement quite symmetrical, and much work, of course. On account of an inflection or disturbance of a single little feather, the whole thing was so distressed and troubled that it had to grow out afresh from its roots, using the fountain of life afresh each time, while its essence contradicted the very best part in it.
And this is mind with the development of all joyful intelligence.
The whole of the summer was spent in teaching her mind; you would not believe how much a butterfly like Cathy might nug in two years!
But yet, without worms, one would sooner or later find out there is no use at all.
Thus, Cathy morbid St. Lawrence, and little time not with it: when she now sought out the flowers of the earth, to discover how many she now could answer according to agreement with her present mental position, two snows of flies from this garden of Paradise rebuked her again. Everything is harm and good.