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

which allowed

him time to think of some means of escape.

 

Twice he placed his hand on his scimiter, intending to cut off the

head of his enemy; but the difficulty of cutting the 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 burnished gold, very lissome and

soft, had the characteristic blotches in 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 blood-stained 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 Provencal 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 to

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, the awakening of his enemy.

 

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 maitresse,” 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 Maugrabins.

 

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 towards 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 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 neck 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 poniard 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 Provencal 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 in 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 convulsive 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 saw-like 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 backwards, 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