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

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 Provencal, 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

Provencal 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 in its 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 his 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 had not got 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 carcase 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 can’t 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.’ “

 

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