Little French Masterpieces

"She has been well brought up," thought the light-hearted soldier, "she is saying her prayers."

But that unspoken jest only came into his mind when he noticed the peaceful attitude which his companion maintained.

"Come, my pretty blonde, I will let you go to bed first," he said, relying upon the agility of his legs to escape as soon as she slept, and trusting to find another resting-place for the night.

He waited impatiently for the right moment for his flight; and when it came, he walked rapidly towards the Nile; but he had travelled barely a quarter of a league through the sand, when he heard the panther bounding after him, and uttering at intervals that sawlike cry, which was even more alarming than the heavy thud of her bounds.

"Well, well!" he said, "she has really taken a fancy to me! It may be that this young panther has never met a man before; it is flattering to possess her first love!"

At that moment he stepped into one of those quicksands which are so perilous to travellers, and from which it is impossible to extricate one's self. Feeling that he was caught, he uttered a cry of alarm; the panther seized him by the collar with her teeth, and with a powerful backward leap rescued him from death as if by magic.

"Ah!" cried the soldier, caressing her enthusiastically, "it's a matter of life or death between us now, Mignonne! – But no tricks!"

Then he retraced his steps.

From that moment the desert was, as it were, peopled for him. It contained a living creature to whom the Frenchman could talk, and whose ferocity was moderated for him, without any comprehension on his part of the reasons for that extraordinary friendship. However desirous the soldier was to remain up and on his guard, he fell asleep. When he awoke he saw nothing of Mignonne; he ascended the hill, and saw her in the far distance, bounding along according to the custom of these animals, which are prevented from running by the extreme flexibility of their spinal column. Mignonne arrived with bloody chops; she received her companion's proffered caresses, manifesting her delight by reiterated and deep purrs. Her eyes, full of languor, rested with even more mildness than before on the Provençal, who spoke to her as to a domestic animal:

"Aha! mademoiselle – for you are a good girl, aren't you? Upon my word! how we like to be patted! Aren't you ashamed! Have you been eating up some Arab? Never mind! they're animals like yourself. But don't go eating Frenchmen, at all events. If you do, I shall not love you any more!"

She played as a huge puppy plays with its master, allowing him to roll her over and pat her by turns, and sometimes she challenged him, by putting her paw upon him, with an appealing gesture.

Several days passed thus. That companionship enabled the Provençal to admire the sublime beauties of the desert. From the moment that he found there moments of dread and of security, food to eat, and a creature of whom he could think, his mind was excited by contrasts. It was a life full of opposing sensations. Solitude made manifest all its secrets to him, enveloped him in all its charm. He discovered spectacles unknown to the world, in the rising and setting of the sun. He started when he heard above his head the soft whirring of the wings of a bird – rare visitant! – or when he watched the clouds melt together – ever-changing, many-tinted voyagers! During the night he studied the effects of the moon on the ocean of sand, where the simoom produced waves and undulations and swift changes. He lived in the gorgeous light of the Orient, he admired its wonderful splendours; and often, after enjoying the awful spectacle of a storm on that plain, where the sand rose in a dry, red mist, in death-dealing clouds, he rejoiced at the approach of night, for then the delicious coolness of the stars fell upon the earth. He listened to imaginary music in the skies. Solitude taught him, too, to seek the treasures of reverie. He passed whole hours recalling trifles, comparing his past life with his present one. Lastly, he conceived a warm regard for his panther, for affection was a necessity to him.

Whether it was that his will, magnetically strong, had changed his companion's disposition, or that she found abundant food, because of the constant battles which were taking place in those deserts, she spared the Frenchman's life, and he finally ceased to distrust her when he found that she had become so tame. He employed most of his time in sleeping; but he was obliged to watch at times, like a spider in the midst of its web, in order not to allow the moment of his deliverance to escape, if any human being should pass through the circle described by the horizon. He had sacrificed his shirt to make a flag, which he had hoisted to the top of a leafless palm-tree. Advised by necessity, he invented a way to keep it unfolded by the use of sticks, for the wind might not have stirred it at the moment when the expected traveller should look across the desert.

But it was during the long hours when hope abandoned him that he played with the panther. He had ended by learning the different inflections of her voice, the different expressions of her eyes; he had studied all the gradations of colour of her golden coat. Mignonne no longer even growled when he seized the tuft of hair at the end of her redoubtable tail, to count the black and white rings – a graceful ornament, which shone in the sunlight like precious stones. He took pleasure in gazing at the graceful and voluptuous lines of her figure, and the whiteness of her stomach, as well as the shapeliness of her head. But it was especially when she was playing that he delighted in watching her, and the youthful agility of her movements always surprised him. He admired her suppleness when she bounded, crept, glided, crouched, clung, rolled over and over, darted hither and thither. However swift her bound, however slippery the bowlder, she always stopped short at the word "Mignonne."

One day, in the dazzling sunlight, an enormous bird hovered in the sky. The Provençal left his panther to scrutinise that new guest; but after waiting a moment, his neglected sultana uttered a low growl.

"God forgive me, I believe that she is jealous!" he cried, seeing that her eyes had become steely once more. "Surely Virginie's soul has passed into that body!"

The eagle disappeared while the soldier was admiring the panther's rounded flank. There was so much youthful grace in her outlines! She was as pretty as a woman. The light fur of her coat blended by delicate shades with the dead-white of her thighs. The vivid sunshine caused that living gold, those brown spots, to gleam in such wise as to make them indescribably charming. The Provençal and his panther gazed at each other with an air of comprehension; the coquette started when she felt her friend's nails scratching her head; her eyes shone like flashes of lightning, then she closed them tight.

"She has a soul!" he cried, as he studied the tranquil repose of that queen of the sands, white as their pulsing light, solitary and burning as they.

"Well," she said to me, "I have read your argument in favour of wild beasts; but how did two persons so well fitted to understand each other finally come out?"

"Ah! there you are! It ended as all great passions do, by a misunderstanding. Each believes in some treachery; one refrains from explaining from pride, the other quarrels from obstinacy."

"And sometimes, at the happiest moment," she said; "a glance, an exclamation is enough – well, finish your story."

"It is very difficult, but you will understand what the old veteran had already confided to me, when, as he finished his bottle of champagne, he exclaimed:

"'I don't know how I hurt her, but she turned as if she had gone mad, and wounded my thigh with her sharp teeth – a slight wound. I, thinking that she meant to devour me, plunged my dagger into her throat. She rolled over with a cry which tore my soul; I saw her struggle, gazing at me without a trace of anger. I would have given anything in the world, even my cross, which I had not then earned, to restore her to life again. It was as if I had murdered a human being; and the soldiers who had seen my flag and who hurried to my rescue found me weeping. Well, monsieur,' he continued, after a moment's silence, 'since then I have fought in Germany, Spain, Russia, and France; I have marched my poor old bones about, but I have seen nothing comparable to the desert. Ah, that is magnificent, I tell you!'

"'What were your feelings there?' I asked.

"'Oh, they cannot be told, young man. Besides, I do not always regret my panther and my palm-tree oasis: I must be very sad for that. But I will tell you this: in the desert there is all – and yet nothing.'

"'Stay! – explain that.'

"'Well, then,' he said, with a gesture of impatience, 'God is there, and man is not.'"

1830.

notes

1

According to Lovenjoul, A Seashore Drama was first published in the fourth edition of the Philosophic Studies, in 1835. But this fact in no wise lessens the force of M. Brunetière's argument. – Ed.