Stick insects

Futh’s stick insects are more than an incidental household detail: they are pets he misses while away from home, and their vivarium has a distinctive smell that he remembers alongside the creatures themselves. Their care becomes part of his separation from Angela, who will keep them because he is not allowed pets at the flat.

Keeping and Care

Futh keeps the stick insects in a vivarium and is attached not only to the pets but also to the smell of their enclosure. The novel gives no further account of their species, number, or day-to-day behavior; their significance rests instead on their place in Futh’s ordinary life and on his concern for their care.

That care is uncertain after the separation. Angela will keep the insects, although she has never liked them and finds them creepy, regarding them as the sort of thing a schoolboy keeps. Futh worries that she will not look after them properly and may forget to feed them. The practical question of feeding makes the change in their arrangement concrete: he cannot take them with him, and their well-being now depends on someone who does not share his attachment.

Absence During the Walk

While staying at a hotel during his Rhine walk, Futh realizes that he misses his stick insects and the smell of their vivarium. The thought comes among other absences: he has missed his father’s Sunday roast, has not eaten since breakfast, and has arrived too late for dinner. The insects belong to this inventory of what is missing, but their inclusion is especially intimate; he is separated not just from a place or a meal, but from small creatures whose care had formed part of his home life.

His worry about Angela’s attention to them also carries the separation beyond his own discomfort. Even while away, he remains mentally responsible for the pets, imagining the possibility that they may be forgotten or unfed. The text does not resolve whether Angela does neglect them; it presents the concern as Futh’s fear, not as a confirmed outcome.

Smell and Memory

The remembered smell of the vivarium gives the insects a sensory presence even when they are absent. Elsewhere, smell repeatedly brings the past into Futh’s immediate experience: his mother’s perfume leaves the scent of violets with memories of her departure, while the smell of camphor recalls the dark interior of her wardrobe. In the hotel, the vivarium’s smell has a more domestic scale, tied to pets and routines rather than to the decisive loss of his mother, but it likewise makes an absent part of life vividly present.

The stick insects therefore register the modest, material costs of Futh’s separation from Angela. He cannot keep them at the flat, misses the enclosure as well as its occupants, and is left worrying about their care from a distance. Their brief appearance gives his longing a precise object: not an abstract wish for home, but a remembered smell and the lives he fears may be overlooked.