Skin And Skeleton
Do you know the Momordica? It is a humble Cucurbitacea, common enough along the Mediterranean coast. Its prickly fruit, which resembles a small cucumber, is endowed with inexplicable vitality and energy. You have but to touch it, at the moment of its maturity, and it suddenly quits its peduncle by means of a convulsive contraction and shoots through the hole produced by the wrench, mingled with numerous seeds, a mucilaginous stream of such wonderful intensity that it carries the seed to four or five yards’ distance from the natal plant. The action is as extraordinary, in proportion, as though we were to succeed in emptying ourselves with a single spasmodic movement and in precipitating all our organs, our viscera and our blood to a distance of half a mile from our skin and skeleton.