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(page two of)
THE FLY
by Katherine Mansfield
Six years ago, six years.... How quickly time passed! It
might have happened yesterday. The boss took his hands from his face; he was puzzled.
Something seemed to be wrong with him. He wasn't feeling as he wanted to feel. He decided
to get up and have a look at the boy's photograph. But it wasn't a favourite photograph of
his; the expression was unnatural. It was cold, even stern-looking. The boy had never
looked like that.
At that moment the boss noticed that a fly had fallen into
his broad inkpot, and was trying feebly but desperately to clamber out again. Help! Help!
said those struggling legs. But the sides of the inkpot were wet and slippery; it fell
back again and began to swim. The boss took up a pen, picked the fly out of the ink, and
shook it on to a piece of blotting-paper. For a fraction of a second it lay still on the
dark patch that oozed round it. Then the front legs waved, took hold, and, pulling its
small, sodden body up, it began the immense task of cleaning the ink from its wings. Over
and under, over and under, went a leg along a wing as the stone goes over and under the
scythe. Then there was a pause, while the fly, seeming to stand on the tips of its toes,
tried to expand first one wing and then the other. It succeeded at last, and, sitting
down, it began, like a minute cat, to clean its face. Now one could Imagine that the
little front legs rubbed against each other lightly, joyfully. The horrible danger was
over; it had escaped; it was ready for life again.
But just then the boss had an idea. He plunged his pen back
into the ink, leaned his thick wrist on the blotting-paper, and as the fly tried its wings
down came a great heavy blot. What would it make of that! What indeed! The little beggar
seemed absolutely cowed, stunned, and afraid to move because of what would happen next.
But then, as if painfully, it dragged itself forward. The front legs waved, caught hold,
and, more slowly this time, the task began from the beginning.
He's a plucky little devil, thought the boss, and he felt a
real admiration for the fly's courage. That was the way to tackle things; that was the
right spirit. Never say die; it was only a question of... But the fly had again finished
its laborious task, and the boss had just time to refill his pen, to shake fair and square
on the new-cleaned body yet another dark drop. What about it this time? A painful moment
of suspense followed. But behold, the front legs were again waving; the boss felt a rush
of relief. He leaned over the fly and said to it tenderly, 'You artful little b...' And he
actually had the brilliant notion of breathing on it to help the drying process. All the
same, there was something timid and weak about its efforts now, and the boss decided that
this time should be the last, as he dipped the pen deep into the inkpot.
It was. The last blot fell on the soaked blotting-paper,
and the draggled fly lay in it and did not stir. The back legs were stuck to the body; the
front legs were not to be seen.
'Come on,' said the boss.'Look sharp!' And he stirred it
with his pen--in vain. Nothing happened or was likely to happen. The fly was dead.
The boss lifted the corpse on the end of the paper-knife
and flung it into the waste-paper basket. But such a grinding feeling of wretchedness
seized him that he felt positively frightened. He started forward and pressed the bell for
Macey.
'Bring me some fresh blotting-paper,' he said sternly,'and
look sharp about it.' And while the old dog padded away he fell to wondering what it was
he had been thinking about before. What was it? It was ... He took out his handkerchief
and passed it inside his collar. For the life of him he could not remember.
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