Spideress

What shrieks and groans of widow spideresses and orphaned spiderets must haunt his guilty slumbers!

In one crotch of the old peach-tree, just by the wall, sat a second cousin of the little eight-eyed fellow we had left up stairs, with her web spread on the most geometric model, and a young and promising family of spiders and spideresses practising gymnastics in the fairy rigging; […]

Those cauliflower-heads increase the liquor-longing of the parched wayfarer; and in the quietest corners of these everywhere almost-noiseless thoroughfares there are most private little “publics” that seem expressly made for thirsty souls too modest or too moral to dive into crowded bars: snug little bars, with unslopped metal counters gleaming like silver, and engine-handles as white as an old maid’s just-washed best china, that it would be a shame to suffer to continue customless; and behind those bars comfortable-looking middle-aged human she-spiders, or, peradventure, pretty young spideresses, that wake up from their naps and resume their netting as the bashfully arid human bluebottle buzzes by, and invite him with irresistible smiles of welcome to walk into their parlours, or, at any rate, to do a little Cooper out of those mirror-like pewters, standing.

There were numerous attractions. There was the great American cobweb, with the Misses Spickett and Ellman as spideresses.

The suitor of the commonest of all the Aranea, Meta segmentata, is wise but certainly not dashing. He does not drum on the web or advertise his presence at all; he hides at the edge and waits until he sees the object of his desire engaged in killing some prey and then comes up behind her and attempts union. It is a far-sighted plan, for not only is she busy at the time but she also has by her something to kill and eat and is not likely to go to the trouble of killing additional prey just then. Moreover Meta is one of the few “frigid” spideresses and it probably would be impossible to excite her in any case.

This cup of concentrated bane is lifted to the thesis that the female of the species is more deadly than the male, and molded on the dramatic genius of Nora Kaye. She imparts an air of unholy ritual to the act of crushing her admirers, while the queen (Yvonne Mounsey) and her swarm of spideresses circle round on flashing points, arms raised in attitudes of anathema—like unlovely caricatures of Myrtha and the Wilis in “Giselle.”

He had written her out of his life except as the daughter of the spider, and here she was, a new and unwanted responsibility, and a sparrow instead of a spideress.

They too sported costumes. April Thornleigh – scowling as usual – had come as a spideress. She wore a swirling black-and-yellow cloak, heavy make-up, gold web earrings and a crawling nest of plastic tarantulas in her puffy blonde hair.