Ramen

Armyworms enter the novel as a force of sheer numbers: individually unremarkable, they become an invasive presence that disrupts Delphine and Cyprian’s camp and culminates in a frightening encounter with Roy. The episode makes the landscape an active pressure on daily life, while the response to the infestation reveals the practical care binding the three characters together.

Arrival at the River Camp

Around three in the morning, a slight breeze comes off the dwindling river and Cyprian adjusts the tent flaps to catch it. The breeze also carries the insects’ presence into the camp. Delphine and Cyprian try to rest while their surroundings become increasingly difficult to manage; the armyworms soon follow the earlier mosquito nuisance, shifting the problem from a persistent sound to a physical invasion of their temporary shelter.

The account distinguishes the appearance of a single worm from the effect of a multitude. One is olive-brown, marked with a band of blue dots; in large numbers, the worms cover trees so densely that the bark seems to move. They cross the tent roof and find their way onto the ground cloth and into the blankets, despite the couple’s efforts to peg down the tent. The infestation is not a brief interruption but a continuing condition of camp life.

A Plague Measured in Numbers

The couple’s attempts to cope show how the infestation accumulates rather than resolving at once. After buying mosquito netting to sleep beneath, they had also obtained cotton wax from a pharmacist to block the insects’ noise. The armyworms bring a different difficulty: their sheer abundance makes exclusion impossible. Delphine becomes accustomed to walking over them on the way into the shop, leaving the traces of the encounter behind her.

The episode contrasts Delphine and Cyprian’s vulnerable tent with Roy’s unusual indifference to the insects. He spends some nights partly in the river or asleep on the grassy bank, and the bugs leave him alone. Delphine attributes this, wryly, to his blood being eighty proof. The joke briefly turns Roy’s drinking into a kind of protection, but it also sets up the distinction between his exposed riverside habits and the couple’s more carefully maintained shelter.

Roy Is Found

That apparent immunity does not last. Roy’s hollering interrupts the couple’s sleep, and Delphine and Cyprian leave their nets to follow a rutted path toward his drinking camp. Delphine carries a small kerosene lamp, and its pool of light reveals why Roy is panicking: armyworms have settled over him while he slept through a long drinking spell. The episode’s earlier image of worms covering trees is now concentrated on one person, making their scale suddenly intimate and alarming.

Delphine’s voice calms Roy. She tells him to stand still and begins knocking the worms from his arms and shoulders before guiding him forward. Cyprian joins her, removing worms from Roy’s clothing and hair and gently picking them from his ears. Their actions turn the scene from a spectacle of infestation into a coordinated act of care: Delphine steadies her father, while Cyprian helps clear the insects away.

Narrative Significance

The armyworms are not given a human motive or symbolic explanation; their narrative force comes from their numbers and their capacity to intrude on ordinary routines. They spread from trees to tent, bedding, and Roy’s sleeping place, making the environment more than background. For Delphine and Cyprian, the infestation means disturbed rest and daily inconvenience; for Roy, it becomes a frightening interruption during a vulnerable night.

The episode also joins environmental disruption to family and chosen-family care without making the insects themselves a moral force. Roy’s drinking leaves him asleep and unable to respond to the situation until Delphine and Cyprian arrive. Their presence, lamp, reassurance, and practical help transform a frightening encounter into a moment of dependence and support. The armyworms thus recur in the story as a concrete pressure on the characters’ lives and as the circumstance that brings their care for Roy into view.