A Passion in the Desert
By Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
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Classical short Stories
Approximate Word Count: 5565
The whole show is dreadful," she cried, coming
out of the menagerie of M. Martin. She had just been looking at that daring
speculator "working with his hyena"--to speak in the style of the
program.
"By what means," she continued, "can he
have tamed these animals to such a point as to be certain of their affection
for----."
"What seems to you a problem," said I,
interrupting, "is really quite natural."
"Oh!" she cried, letting an incredulous
smile wander over her lips.
"You think that beasts are wholly without
passions?" I asked her. "Quite the reverse; we can communicate to
them all the vices arising in our own state of civilization."
She looked at me with an air of astonishment.
"Nevertheless," I continued, "the first
time I saw M. Martin, I admit, like you, I did give vent to an exclamation of
surprise. I found myself next to an old soldier with the right leg amputated,
who had come in with me. His face had struck me. He had one of those intrepid
heads, stamped with the seal of warfare, and on which the battles of Napoleon
are written. Besides, he had that frank good-humored expression which always
impresses me favorably. He was without doubt one of those troopers who are
surprised at nothing, who find matter for laughter in the contortions of a
dying comrade, who bury or plunder him quite lightheartedly, who stand
intrepidly in the way of bullets; in fact, one of those men who waste no time
in deliberation, and would not hesitate to make friends with the devil himself.
After looking very attentively at the proprietor of the menagerie getting out
of his box, my companion pursed up his lips with an air of mockery and
contempt, with that peculiar and expressive twist which superior people assume
to show they are not taken in. Then when I was expatiating on the courage of M.
Martin, he smiled, shook his head knowingly, and said, `Well known.'
"How `well known'? I said. `If you would only
explain to me the mystery I should be vastly obliged.'
"After a few minutes, during which we made
acquaintance, we went to dine at the first restaurateur's whose shop caught our
eye. At dessert a bottle of champagne completely refreshed and brightened up
the memories of this odd old soldier. He told me his story, and I said he had
every reason to exclaim, `Well known.'"
When she got home, she teased me to that extent and
made so many promises that I consented to communicate to her the old soldier's
confidences. Next day she received the following episode of an epic which one
might call "The Frenchman in Egypt."
During the expedition in Upper Egypt under General
Desaix, a Provençal soldier fell into the hands of the Mangrabins, and was
taken by these Arabs into the deserts beyond the falls of the Nile.
In order to place a sufficient distance between
themselves and the French army, the Mangrabins made forced marches, and only
rested during the night. They camped round a well overshadowed by palm trees
under which they had previously concealed a store of provisions. Not surmising
that the notion of flight would occur to their prisoner, they contented
themselves with binding his hands, and after eating a few dates, and giving
provender to their horses, went to sleep.
When the brave Provençal saw that his enemies were no
longer watching him, he made use of his teeth to steal a scimitar, fixed the
blade between his knees, and cut the cords which prevented using his hands; in
a moment he was free. He at once seized a rifle and dagger, then taking the
precaution to provide himself with a sack of dried dates, oats, and powder and
shot, and to fasten a scimitar to his waist he leaped onto a horse, and spurred
on vigorously in the direction where he thought to find the French army. So
impatient was he to see a bivouac again that he pressed on the already-tired
courser at such speed that its flanks were lacerated with his spurs, and at
last the poor animal died, leaving the Frenchman alone in the desert. After
walking some time in the sand with all the courage of an escaped convict, the
soldier was obliged to stop, as the day had already ended. In spite of the
beauty of an Oriental sky at night, he felt he had not strength enough to go
on. Fortunately he had been able to find a small hill, on the summit of which a
few palm trees shot up into the air; it was their verdure seen from afar which
had brought hope and consolation to his heart. His fatigue was so great that he
lay down upon a rock of granite, capriciously cut out like a camp bed; there he
fell asleep without taking any precaution to defend himself while he slept. He
had made the sacrifice of his life. His last thought was one of regret. He
repented having left the mangrabins, whose nomad life seemed to smile on him
now that he was afar from them and without help. He was awakened by the sun,
whose pitiless rays fell with all their force on the granite and produced an
intolerable heat for he had had the stupidity to place himself inversely to the
shadow thrown by the verdant majestic heads of the palm trees. He looked at the
solitary trees and shuddered--they reminded him of the graceful shafts crowned
with foliage which characterize the Saracen columns in the cathedral of Arles.
But when, after counting the palm trees, he cast his
eye around him, the most horrible despair was infused into his soul. Before him
stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread farther
than sight could reach in every direction, and glittered like steel struck with
a bright light. It might have been a sea of looking glass, or lakes melted
together in a mirror. A fiery vapor carried up in streaks made a perpetual
whirlwind over the quivering land. The sky was lit with an Oriental splendor of
insupportable purity, leaving naught for the imagination to desire. Heaven and
earth were on fire.
The silence was awful in its wild and terrible
majesty. Infinity, immensity, closed in upon the soul from every side. Not a
cloud in the sky, not a breath in the air, not a flaw on the bosom of the sand,
ever moving in diminutive waves; the horizon ended as at sea on a clear day,
with one line of light, definite as the cut of a sword.
The Provençal threw his arms around the trunk of one
of the palm trees, as though it were the body of a friend, and then in the
shelter of the thin straight shadow that the palm cast upon the granite, he
wept. Then sitting down he remained as he was, contemplating with profound
sadness the implacable scene, which was all he had to look upon. He cried
aloud, to measure the solitude. His voice, lost in the hollows of the hill,
sounded faintly, and aroused no echo--the echo was in his own heart. The
Provençal was twenty-two years old; he loaded his carbine.
"There'll be time enough," he said to
himself, laying on the ground the weapon which alone could bring him
deliverance.
Looking by turns at the black expanse and the blue
expanse, the soldier dreamed of France--he smelled with delight the gutters of
Paris--he remembered the towns through which he had passed, the faces of his
fellow soldiers, the most minute details of his life. His southern fancy soon
showed him the stones of his beloved Provence, in the play of the heat which
waved over the spread sheet of the desert. Fearing the danger of this cruel
mirage, he went down the opposite side of the hill to that by which he had come
up the day before. The remains of a rug showed that this place of refuge had at
one time been inhabited; at a short distance he saw some palm trees full of
dates. Then the instinct which binds us to life awoke again in his heart. He
hoped to live long enough to await the passing of some Arabs, or perhaps he
might hear the sound of cannon, for at this time Bonaparte was traversing
Egypt.
This thought gave him new life. The palm tree seemed
to bend with the weight of the ripe fruit. He shook some of it down. When he
tasted this unhoped-for manna, he felt sure that the palms had been cultivated
by a former inhabitant--the savory, fresh meat of the dates was proof of the
care of his predecessor. He passed suddenly from dark despair to an almost
insane joy. He went up again to the top of the hill, and spent the rest of the
day in cutting down one of the sterile palm trees, which the night before had
served him for shelter. A vague memory made him think of the animals of the
desert; and in case they might come to drink at the spring, visible from the
base of the rocks but lost farther down, he resolved to guard himself from
their visits by placing a barrier at the entrance of his hermitage.
In spite of his diligence, and the strength which the
fear of being devoured asleep gave him, he was unable to cut the palm in
pieces, though he succeeded in cutting it down. At eventide the king of the
desert fell; the sound of its fall resounded far and wide, like a sign the
solitude; the soldier shuddered as though he had heard some voice predicting
woe.
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But like an heir who does not long bewail a deceased
parent, he tore off from this beautiful tree the tall broad green leaves which
are its poetic adornment, and used them to mend the mat on which he was to
sleep.
Fatigued by the heat and his work, he fell asleep
under the red curtains of his wet cave.
In the middle of the night his sleep was troubled by
an extraordinary noise; he sat up, and the deep silence around him allowed him
to distinguish the alternative accents of a respiration whose savage energy
could not belong to a human creature.
A profound terror, increased still further by the
darkness, the silence, and his waking images, froze his heart within him. He
almost felt his hair stand on end, when by straining his eyes to their utmost
he perceived through the shadows two faint yellow lights. At first he
attributed these lights to the reflection of his own pupils, but soon the vivid
brilliance of the night aided him gradually to distinguish the objects around
him in the cave, and he beheld a huge animal lying but two steps from him. Was
it a lion, a tiger, or a crocodile?
The Provençal was not educated enough to know under
what species his enemy ought to be classed; but his fright was all the greater,
as his ignorance led him to imagine an terrors at once; he endured a cruel
torture, noting every variation of the breathing close to him without daring to
make the slightest movement. An odor, pungent like that of a fox, but more
penetrating, profounder--so to speak--filled the cave, and when the Provençal
became sensible of this, his terror reached its height, for he could not longer
doubt the proximity of a terrible companion, whose royal dwelling served him
for shelter.
Presently the reflection of the moon, descending on
the horizon, lit up the den, rendering gradually visible and resplendent the
spotted skin of a panther.
This lion of Egypt slept, curled up like a big dog,
the peaceful possessor of a sumptuous niche at the gate of a hotel; its eyes
opened for a moment and closed again; its face was turned toward the man. A
thousand confused thoughts passed through the Frenchman's mind first he thought
of killing it with a bullet from his gun, but he saw there was not enough
distance between them for him to take proper aim--the shot would miss the mark.
And if it were to wake!--the thought made his limbs rigid. He listened to his
own heart beating in the midst of' the silence, and cursed the too violent
pulsations which the flow of blood brought on, fearing to disturb that sleep
which allowed him time to think of some means of escape.
Twice he placed his hand on his scimitar, intending to
cut off the head of his enemy; but the difficulty of cutting stiff, short hair
compelled him to abandon this daring project. To miss would be to die for
certain, he thought; he preferred the chances of fair fight, and made up his
mind to wait till morning; the morning did not leave him long to wait.
He could now examine the panther at ease; its muzzle
was smeared with blood.
"She's had a good dinner," he thought,
without troubling himself as to whether her feast might have been on human
flesh "She won't be hungry when she gets up."
It was a female. The fur on her belly and flanks was
glistening white; many small marks like velvet formed beautiful bracelets round
her feet; her sinuous tail was also white, ending with black rings; the
overpart of her dress, yellow like unburnished gold, very lissome and soft, had
the characteristic blotches the form of rosettes which distinguish the panther
from every other feline species.
This tranquil and formidable hostess snored in an attitude
as graceful as that of a cat lying on a cushion. Her bloodstained paws, nervous
and well armed, were stretched out before her face, which rested upon them, and
from which radiated her straight, slender whiskers, like threads of silver.
If she had been like that in a cage, the Provençal
would doubtless have admired the grace of the animal, and the vigorous
contrasts of vivid color which gave her robe an imperial splendor; but just
then his sight was troubled by her sinister appearance.
The presence of the panther, even asleep, could not
fail to produce the effect which the magnetic eyes of the serpent are said to
have on the nightingale.
For a moment the courage of the soldier began to fail
before this danger, though no doubt it would have risen at the mouth of a
cannon charged with shell. Nevertheless, a bold thought brought daylight in his
soul and sealed up the source of the cold sweat which sprang forth on his brow.
Like men driven to bay who defy death and offer their body to the smiter, so
he, seeing in this merely a tragic episode, resolved to play his part with
honor to the last.
"The day before yesterday the Arabs would have
killed me perhaps," he said; so considering himself as good as dead
already, he waited bravely, with excited curiosity his enemy's awakening.
When the sun appeared, the panther suddenly opened her
eyes; then she put out her paws with energy, as if to stretch them and get rid
of cramp. At last she yawned, showing the formidable apparatus of her teeth and
pointed tongue, rough as a file.
"A regular petite maîtresse," thought the
Frenchman, seeing her roll herself about so softly and coquettishly. She licked
off the blood which stained her paws and muzzle, and scratched her head with
reiterated gestures full of prettiness. "All right, make a little
toilet," the Frenchman said to himself, beginning to recover his gaiety
with his courage; "we'll say good morning to each other presently,"
and he seized the small, short dagger which he had taken from the Mangrabins. At
this moment the panther turned her head toward the man and looked at him
fixedly without moving.
The rigidity of her metallic eyes and their
insupportable luster made him shudder, especially when the animal walked toward
him. But he looked at her caressingly, staring into her eyes in order to
magnetize her, and let her come quite close to him; then with a movement both
gentle and amorous, as though he were caressing the most beautiful of women, he
passed his hand over her whole body, from the head to the tail, scratching the
flexible vertebrae which divided the panther's yellow back. The animal waved
her tail voluptuously, and her eyes grew gentle; and when for the third time
the Frenchman accomplished this interesting flattery, she gave forth one of
those purrings by which our cats express their pleasure; but this murmur issued
from a throat so powerful and so deep that it resounded through the cave like
the last vibrations of an organ in a church. The man, understanding the
importance of his caresses, redoubled them in such a way as to surprise and
stupefy his imperious courtesan. When he felt sure of having extinguished the
ferocity of his capricious companion, whose hunger had so fortunately been
satisfied the day before, he got up to go out of the cave; the panther let him
go out, but when he had reached the summit of the hill she sprang with the
lightness of a sparrow hopping from twig to twig, and rubbed herself against
his legs, putting up her back after the manner of all the race of cats. Then
regarding her guest with eyes whose glare had softened a little, she gave vent
to that wild cry which naturalists compare to the grating of a saw.
"She is exacting," said the Frenchman,
smilingly.
He was bold enough to play with her ears; he caressed
her belly and scratched her head as hard as he could.
When he saw that he was successful, he tickled her
skull with the point of his dagger, watching for the right moment to kill her,
but the hardness of her bones made him tremble for his success.
The sultana of the desert showed herself gracious to
her slave; she lifted her head, stretched out her and manifested her delight by
- the tranquility of her attitude. It suddenly occurred to the soldier that to
kill this savage princess with one blow he must poignard her in the throat.
He raised the blade, when the panther, satisfied no
doubt, laid herself gracefully at his feet, and cast up at him glances in
which, in spite of their natural fierceness, was mingled confusedly a kind of
good will. The poor Provençal ate his dates, leaning against one of the palm
trees, and casting his eyes alternately on the desert in quest of some
liberator and on his terrible companion to watch her uncertain clemency.
The panther looked at the place where the date stones
fell, and every time that he threw one down her eyes expressed an incredible
mistrust.
She examined the man with an almost commercial
prudence. However, this examination was favorable to him, for when he had
finished his meager meal she licked his boots with her powerful rough tongue,
brushing off with marvelous skill the dust gathered in the creases.
"Ah, but when she's really hungry!" thought
the Frenchman. In spite of the shudder this thought caused him, the soldier
began to measure curiously the proportions of the panther, certainly one of the
most splendid specimens of its race. She was three feet high and four feet long
without counting her tail; this powerful weapon, rounded like a cudgel, was
nearly three feet long. The head, large as that of a lioness, was distinguished
by a rare expression of refinement. The cold cruelty of a tiger was dominant,
it was true, but there was also a vague resemblance to the face of a sensual
woman. Indeed, the face of this solitary queen had something of the gaiety of a
drunken Nero: she had satiated herself with blood, and she wanted to play.
The soldier tried if he might walk up and down, and
the panther left him free, contenting herself with following him with her eyes,
less like a faithful dog than a big Angora cat, observing everything and every
movement of her master.
When he looked around, he saw, by the spring, the
remains of his horse; the panther had dragged the carcass all that way; about
two thirds of it had been devoured already. The sight reassured him.
It was easy to explain the panther's absence, and the
respect she had had for him while he slept. The first piece of good luck
emboldened him to tempt the future, and he conceived the wild hope of
continuing on good terms with the panther during the entire day, neglecting no
means of taming her, and remaining her good graces.
He returned to her, and had the unspeakable joy of
seeing her wag her tail with an almost imperceptible movement at his approach.
He sat down then, without fear, by her side, and they began to play together;
he took her paws and muzzle, pulled her ears, rolled her over on her back,
stroked her warm, delicate flanks. She let him do what ever he liked, and when
he began to stroke the hair on her feet she drew her claws in carefully.
The man, keeping the dagger in one hand, thought to
plunge it into the belly of the too-confiding panther, but he was afraid that
he would be immediately strangled in her last conclusive struggle; besides, he
felt in his heart a sort of remorse which bid him respect a creature that had
done him no harm. He seemed to have found a friend, in a boundless desert; half
unconsciously he thought of his first sweetheart, whom he had nicknamed
"Mignonne" by way of contrast, because she was so atrociously jealous
that all the time of their love he was in fear of the knife with which she had
always threatened him.
This memory of his early days suggested to him the
idea of making the young panther answer to this name, now that he began to
admire with less terror her swiftness, suppleness, and softness. Toward the end
of the day he had familiarized himself with his perilous position; he now
almost liked the painfulness of it. At last his companion had got into the
habit of looking up at him whenever he cried in a falsetto voice,
"Mignonne."
At the setting of the sun Mignonne gave, several times
running, a profound melancholy cry. "She's been well brought up,"
said the lighthearted soldier; "she says her prayers." But this
mental joke only occurred to him when he noticed what a pacific attitude his
companion remained in. "Come, ma petite blonde, I'll let you go to bed
first," he said to her, counting on the activity of his own legs to run
away as quickly as possible, directly she was asleep, and seek another shelter
for the night.
The soldier waited with impatience the hour of his
flight, and when it had arrived he walked vigorously in the direction of the
Nile; but hardly had he made a quarter of a league in the sand when he heard
the panther bounding after him, crying with that sawlike cry more dreadful even
than the sound of her leaping.
"Ah!" he said, "then she's taken a
fancy to me, she has never met anyone before, and it is really quite flattering
to have her first love."
That instant the man fell into one, of those movable
quicksands so terrible to travelers and from which it is impossible to save
oneself. Feeling himself caught, he gave a shriek of alarm; the panther seized
him with her teeth by the collar, and, springing vigorously backward, drew him
as if by magic out of the whirling sand.
"Ah, Mignonne!" cried the soldier, caressing
her enthusiastically; "we're bound together for life and death but no
jokes, mind!" and he retraced his steps.
From that time the desert seemed inhabited. It
contained a being to whom the man could talk, and whose ferocity was rendered
gentle by him, though he could not explain to himself the reason for their
strange friendship. Great as was the soldier's desire to stay upon guard, he
slept.
On awakening he could not find Mignonne; he mounted
the hill, and in the distance saw her springing toward him after the habit of
these animals, who cannot run on account of the extreme flexibility of the
vertebral column. Mignonne arrived, her jaws covered with blood; she received
the wonted caress of her companion, showing with much purring how happy it made
her. Her eyes, full of languor, turned still more gently than the day before
toward the Provençal who talked to her as one would to a tame animal.
"Ah! Mademoiselle, you are a nice girl, aren't
you? Just look at that! So we like to be made much of, don't we? Aren't you
ashamed of yourself? So you have been eating some Arab or other, have you? That
doesn't matter. They're animals just the same as you are; but don't you take to
eating Frenchmen, or I shan't like you any longer."
She played like a dog with its master, letting herself
be rolled over, knocked about, and stroked, alternately; sometimes she herself
would provoke the soldier, putting up her paw with a soliciting gesture.
Some days passed in this manner. This companionship
permitted the Provençal to appreciate the sublime beauty of the desert; now
that he had a living thing to think about, alternations of fear and quiet, and
plenty to eat, his mind became filled with contrast and his life began to be
diversified.
Solitude revealed to him all her secrets, and
enveloped him in her delights. He discovered in the rising and setting of the
sun sights unknown to the world. He knew what it was to tremble when he heard
over his head the hiss of a bird's wing, so rarely did they pass, or when he
saw the clouds, changing and many-colored travelers, melt one into another. He
studied in the night time the effect of the moon upon the ocean of sand, where
the simoom made waves swift of movement and rapid in their change. He lived the
life of the Eastern day, marveling at its wonderful pomp; then, after having
reveled in the sight of a hurricane over the plain where the whirling sands
made red, dry mists and death-bearing clouds, he would welcome the night with joy,
for then fell the healthful freshness of the stars, and he listened to
imaginary music in the skies. Then solitude taught him to unroll the treasures
of dreams. He passed whole hours in remembering mere nothings, and comparing
his present life with his past.
At last he grew passionately fond of the panther; for
some sort of affection was a necessity.
Whether it was that his will powerfully projected had
modified the character of his companion, or whether, because she found abundant
food in her predatory excursions in the desert, she respected the man's life,
he began to fear for it no longer, seeing her so well tamed.
He devoted the greater part of his time to sleep, but
he was obliged to watch like a spider knits web that the moment of his
deliverance might not escape him, if anyone should pass the line marked by the
horizon. He had sacrificed his shirt to make a flag with, which he hung at the
top of a palm tree, whose foliage he had torn off. Taught by necessity, he
found the means of keeping it spread out, by fastening it with little sticks;
for the wind might not be blowing at the moment when the passing traveler was
looking through the desert.
It was during the long hours, when he had abandoned
hope, that he amused himself with the panther. He had come to learn the
different inflections of her voice, the expressions of her eyes; he had studied
the capricious patterns of all the rosettes which marked the gold of her robe.
Mignonne was not even angry when he took hold of the tuft at the end of her tail
to count her rings, those graceful ornaments which glittered in the sun like
jewelry. It gave him pleasure to contemplate the supple, fine outlines of her
form, the whiteness of her belly, the graceful pose of her head. But it was
especially when she was playing that he felt most pleasure in looking at her;
the agility and youthful lightness of her movements were a continual surprise
to him; he wondered at the supple way in which she jumped and climbed, washed
herself and arranged her fur, crouched down and prepared to spring. However
rapid her spring might be, however slippery the stone she was on, she would
always stop short at the word "Mignonne."
One day, in a bright midday sun, an enormous bird
coursed through the air. The man left his panther to look at this new guest;
but after waiting a moment the deserted sultana growled deeply.
"My goodness! I do believe she's jealous,"
he cried, seeing her eyes become hard again; "the soul of Virginie has
passed into her body; that's certain."
The eagle disappeared into the air, while the soldier
admired the curved contour of the panther.
But there was such youth and grace in her form! she
was beautiful as a woman! The blond fur of her robe mingled well with the
delicate tints of faint white which marked her flanks.
The profuse light cast down by the sun made this
living gold, these russet markings, to burn in a way to give them an
indefinable attraction.
The man and the panther looked at one another with a
look full of meaning; the coquette quivered when she felt her friend stroke her
head; her eyes flashed like lightning--then she shut them tightly.
"She has a soul," he said, looking at the
stillness of this queen of the sands, golden like them, white like them,
solitary and burning like them.
. . .
"Well," she said, "I have read your
plea in favor of beasts; but how did two so well adapted to understand each
other end?"
"Ah, well! you see, they ended as all great
passions do end--by a misunderstanding. For some reason one suspects the other
of treason; they don't come to an explanation through pride, and quarrel and
part from sheer obstinacy."
"Yet sometimes at the best moments a single word
or a look is enough--but anyhow go on with your story."
"It's horribly difficult, but you will
understand, after what the old villain told me over his champagne.
"He said--`I don't know if I hurt her, but she
turned round, as if enraged, and with her sharp teeth caught hold of my
leg--gently, I daresay; but I, thinking she would devour me, plunged my dagger
into her throat. She rolled over, giving a cry that froze my heart; and I saw
her dying, still looking at me without anger. I would have given all the
world--my cross even, which I lied not then--to have brought her to life again.
It was as though I had murdered a real person; and the soldiers who had seen my
flag, and were come to my assistance, found me in tears.'
"`Well sir,' he said, after a moment of silence,
`since then I have been in war in Germany, in Spain, in Russia, in France; I've
certainly carried my carcass about a good deal, but never have I seen anything
like the desert. Ah! yes, it is very beautiful!'
" 'What did you feel there?' I asked him.
"'Oh! That cannot be described, young man.
Besides, I am not always regretting my palm trees and my panther. I should have
to be very melancholy for that. In the desert, you see, there is everything and
nothing.'
Yes, but explain----'
"'Well,' he said, with an impatient gesture, 'it
is God without mankind.'"
With affection,
Ruben
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