"Life belongs to the living," say the wise. Whoever survives, must be
prepared for changes; and there is no misfortune so great that a
person of sense cannot draw some benefit from it. That is true at
times of bears, as well as of men. For the surviving bear in this
instance, the sad death of her companion was not without a pleasant
result. She was delivered from her chain, and rejoiced in her liberty,
like a suffragette. That is why the story of her life is
interesting--and short. Incidentally, it might be a lesson and a
warning to her sister-mortals in petticoats and running loose; but, to
be perfectly candid, that is not why it is written. I do not wish to
claim any merit, undeserved. I tell her story just because I liked it.
It is often a pleasure to remember sorrows past, as Æneas reminded his
shipwrecked companions, by way of comforting them. But it may be
doubted whether our heroine ever took much pleasure in the
recollection of the breakfast at Ye-U.
Three officers came to breakfast with her master; and her usual place
at table being filled, she moved about, like a privileged child at a
party, suspecting no harm and intending none to any living creature,
when one of the men at table gave her the end of a cigarette. She ate
it. Whatever else she scrutinised, she had always eaten without
hesitation whatever was offered by the hand of man. So she swallowed
the end of the cigarette, and became very unhappy.
There may have been moral as well as physical nausea. Who can read
what passes in the brain of a bear? Or feel what is in her heart? She
may have felt, in a dumb, instinctive way, what Schiller has
articulated--
"Oh, she _deserves_ to find herself deceived,
Who seeks a heart in the unthinking man!"
She went and lay near the wall of the dining-room, with unconscious
dignity averting her eyes from the merry party, and making them laugh
by her look of patient helplessness, as she rubbed her stomach with
her two forepaws.
A pony was the next performer that morning. The dining-room was on the
level of the ground, and the pony, running loose, came to the table as
usual for a tit-bit. "Send the beast away," was the impatient wish of
a guest--let us hope he was the hero of the cigarette. The host, who
might otherwise have gradually given some bits of fruit, handed the
happy quadruped a whole pineapple, and bade him go away, intending
thus to please his guest and yet not disappoint his pony. Pineapples
are cheap in Burma. They are likewise very juicy and good. The lucky
pet, who also had the easy confidence of a privileged person, began to
roll the big pineapple in his mouth, and was in no haste to depart.
The mischief-maker, if it was he, as we hope, made a gesture to
quicken him; and the obedient animal in turning raised his nose above
the head of the impatient man; and then there flowed down upon the man
a torrent of mingled froth and pineapple juice, all churned together
into a sticky milk. He howled, and tried to dodge it, but was unlucky
in his movements. The only result was that he received the torrent in
two directions. While one stream ran down his face, and anointed
whatever took the place of a beard, the other ran down the back of his
head and neck, even to the uttermost skirts of his garments.
Then the bear was forgotten; and the other men began to laugh at the
man who sat under the pony. They laughed the more when he lost his
temper. Even the host did laugh; and let us, who can congratulate
ourselves that we have never been guilty of such a breach of courtesy,
be candid enough to consider--did we ever encounter such temptation?
What enhanced the fun, and his affliction, was that instead of frankly
facing the situation and going to a bathroom, he tried to clean
himself at table. After exhausting the resources of civilisation in
the shape of handkerchiefs and napkins and finger-bowls, he used
towels--big bathroom towels; and still he found purification as
difficult as ever did Macbeth.--
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."
But it was not a troubled conscience that dimmed his eyes. His bodily
eyes saw perfectly. The trouble was the real adhesiveness of the
mixture saturating his garments and his skin. The language of Macbeth,
too, was refined in comparison to his; for, as he glared at the
laughers around him, he said ... what I would not repeat, not even in
an affidavit.
Our heroine said nothing. _She_ did not join in the laughing. She was
generally fond of fun; but on this particular occasion, she seemed to
be completely self-absorbed, as sufferers are apt to be. There are
times when one craves to be alone. She turned her face to the wall and
her back to the company.