The Woman in the Dunes - Machi Abe [2]
The road began to rise more and more abruptly; more and more it became just sand.
But, curiously enough, the areas where houses stood were not the slightest bit higher. The road alone rose, while the hamlet itself continued to remain level. No, it was not only the road; the areas between the buildings were rising at the same rate. In a sense, then, the whole village seemed to have become a rising slope with only the buildings left on their original level. This impression became more striking as he went along. At length, all the houses seemed to be sunk into hollows scooped in the sand. The surface of the sand stood higher than the rooftops. The successive rows of houses sank deeper and deeper into the depressions.
The slope suddenly steepened. It must have been at least sixty-five feet down to the tops of the houses. What in heaven’s name could it be like to live there? he thought in amazement, peering down into one of the holes. As he circled around the edge he was suddenly struck by a biting wind that choked his breath in his throat. The view abruptly opened up, and the turbid, foaming sea licked at the shore below. He was standing on the crest of the dunes that had been his objective!
The side of the dunes that faced the sea and received the monsoon winds rose abruptly, but straggling clumps of scrub grass grew in places where the incline was not as steep. The man looked back over his shoulder at the village, and he could see that the great holes, which grew deeper as they approached the crest of the ridge, extended in several ranks toward the center. The village, resembling the cross-section of a beehive, lay sprawled over the dunes. Or rather the dunes lay sprawled over the village. Either way, it was a disturbing and unsettling landscape.
But it was enough that he had reached his destination, the dunes. The man drank some water from his canteen and filled his lungs with air—and the air which had seemed so clear felt rough in his throat.
The man intended to collect insects that lived in the dunes.
Of course, dune insects are small and soberly colored. But he was a dedicated collector, and his eye was not tempted by anything like butterflies or dragonflies. Such collectors do not aspire to decking out their specimen boxes with gaudy samples, nor are they particularly interested in classification or in raw materials for Chinese medicines. The true entomologist’s pleasure is much simpler, more direct: that of discovering a new type. When this happens, the discover’s name appears in the illustrated encyclopedias of entomology appended to the technical Latin name of the newly found insect; and there, perhaps, it is preserved for something less than eternity. His efforts are crowned with success if his name is perpetuated in the memory of his fellow men by being associated with an insect.
The smaller, unobtrusive insects, with their innumerable strains, offer many opportunities for new discoveries. For a long time the man had also been on the lookout for double-winged flies, especially common house flies, which people find so repulsive. Of course, the various types of flies are unbelievably numerous, and since all entomologists seem to think pretty much alike, they have pursued their investigations into the eighth rare mutant found in Japan almost to completion. Perhaps mutants are so abundant because the fly’s environment is too close to man’s.
He had best begin by observing environment. That there were many environmental variations simply indicated a high degree of adaptability among flies, didn’t it? At this discovery he jumped with joy. His concept might not be altogether bad. The fact that the fly showed great adaptability meant that it could be at home even in unfavorable environments in which other insects could not live—for example,