Short Stories

The little spider that wanted everything, everything, everything

Like all spiders, Matilde, Countess of Milbocados, knit excellently. With his very thin paws he knitted several beautiful and solid webs in one night! All spiders like to have multiple houses, but Matilde was too ambitious. She had spread her webs a little everywhere: over a hazel, in the attic, in the kitchen. But it still lacked six, eight, twelve houses, not counting the castle!

In the main web, Matilde kept the food: bits of autumn leaves, bits of wool collected from scarves, twigs caught off the floor, not to mention the provisions of flies and mosquitoes that had lodged in her pantry without knowing what awaited them. Matilde could have fifty pickled. Which is nonetheless excessive for a tiny spider stomach like his own.

“Why does she need so many things?” Cousins ​​wondered.

Matilde’s thirst for acquisition had no rest. When a neighbor caught a bit of mosquito, the countess turned green with anger. In fact, whenever something moved in the air, Matilde extended her eager paws. He recorded all his treasures in a large book, but used transparent ink so no one could read it.

It is not certain why Matilde was like this. It was known that the parents had been vacuumed by a Torpedo brand vacuum cleaner on a spring cleaning day. He is said not to have even cried. He went elsewhere and began to store useless things in the web. From time to time she would organize parties for her cousins, but she would do so only for those present. He put a plate of mosquitoes and aphids on the table and swallowed the gifts with gluttony.

After a while she found herself alone. Who would want to visit her? Matilde was so sad that she began to weave black webs. They were sinister webs. Since no one gave her love or affection, she began to store even more flies, mosquitoes, bits of wool and twigs. At night, she even stole baubles from neighboring houses. He knew his behavior was wrong, but he was stronger than she. What she wanted was love, but no one gave it to her.

On a day of great sadness, Matilde caught the Earl of Myqueridus in her web, a delicious, velvet-eyed spider who was overjoyed to have been robbed. He himself didn’t know what to do with his paws. Our lovers had a lot of spider babies and built a six-story web that was not meant to hold mosquitoes but to accommodate all babies. Radiant Matilde began to knit pink and blue webs. He distributed everything he had stored in the pantry, tore the pages of the transparent ink book, and made paper stickers for all his children. He loved and was loved. What more could she want?
   Sophie Carquain Cent histoires du soir Paris, Ed. Marabout, 2000

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