A Passion in the Desert, Honoré de Balzac [novels to read txt] 📗

The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Passion in the Desert by Balzac

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A Passion in the Desert

 

by Honore de Balzac

 

Translated by Ernest Dowson

 

December, 1998 [Etext #1555]

 

The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Passion in the Desert by Balzac

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Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com

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A PASSION IN THE DESERT

 

by HONORE DE BALZAC

 

Translated By

Ernest Dowson

 

“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 programme.

 

“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