A Passion in the Desert by Honoré de Balzac (10 ebook reader TXT) 📖
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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
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