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

air of astonishment.

 

“But,” 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 heroic 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 me the

mystery, I should be vastly obliged.’

 

“After a few minutes, during which we made acquaintance, we went to

dine at the first restauranteur’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 saw

that he was right when he exclaimed, ‘Well known.’ “

 

When she got home, she teased me to that extent, was so charming, and

made so many promises, that I consented to communicate to her the

confidences of the old soldier. Next day she received the following

episode of an epic which one might call “The French in Egypt.”

 

During the expedition in Upper Egypt under General Desaix, a Provencal

soldier fell into the hands of the Maugrabins, 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 Maugrabins made forced marches, and only halted when

night was upon them. 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 Provencal saw that his enemies were no longer watching

him, he made use of his teeth to steal a scimiter, fixed the blade

between his knees, and cut the cords which prevented him from using

his hands; in a moment he was free. He at once seized a rifle and a

dagger, then taking the precautions to provide himself with a sack of

dried dates, oats, and powder and shot, and to fasten a scimiter to

his waist, he leaped on to 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 Maugrabins, whose nomadic life

seemed to smile upon him now that he was far 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 adversely 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 eyes 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

further than eye could reach in every direction, and glittered like

steel struck with bright light. It might have been a sea of looking-glass, or lakes melted together in a mirror. A fiery vapor carried up

in surging waves 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 Provencal threw his arms round 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 Provencal 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.

 

Viewing alternately the dark expanse of the desert and the blue

expanse of the sky, 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 comrades, 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 undulated above the wide

expanse of the desert. Realizing 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 Maugrabins, 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

were 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 further 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 sigh

in the solitude; the soldier shuddered as though he had heard some

voice predicting woe.

 

But like an heir who does not long bewail a deceased relative, 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 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 shadow two faint yellow lights. At first he

attributed these lights to the reflections 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 Provencal was not sufficiently educated 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 all 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, more profound,—so to speak,—

filled the cave, and when the Provencal became sensible of this, his

terror reached its height, for he could no longer doubt the proximity

of a terrible companion, whose royal dwelling served him for a

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 an hotel; its eyes

opened for a moment and closed again; its face was turned towards 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