IN THE PADDOCK
During the eight days of my convalescence in the laboratory, nursed
and kept quiet, and treated with drugs, I underwent the alternation of
great sorrows; fits of despair each followed by a collapse. Every time
I slept I thought I had dreamt this calamity.
Now, it must be observed that the sensations at my awakening confirmed
me in this error, which was, however, immediately dissipated.
It is well known that those who have had a limb amputated, suffer a
great deal, and refer their suffering to the extreme periphery of the
severed nerves, that is to say, to the limb which they have lost, and
which they think they still possess.
The severed limb, or arm, hurts them. If one reflects that I had had
my whole body cut off, one will understand that I suffered in all its
parts--in my distant hands, in my human feet; and that this pain seemed
proof positive of the possession of that of which I had been deprived.
This phenomenon grew gradually less distinct, and finally disappeared.
Grief went from me less quickly. Those who have entertained others
with the recital of tricks of this sort--Homer, Ovid, Apuleius, and
Perrault, did not know what tragedies their fictions would become, once
they became realities.
What a drama there is really in Lucian’s “Ass”! What a martyrdom for me
this week of dieting and enforced inaction!
Dead to humanity, I awaited with terror the tortures of vivisection, or
the premature old age which would be the end of everything, before five
years were out.
In spite of my despair, I got well. Lerne having ascertained this, I
was turned out into the paddock.
Europa, Athor, and Io gamboled in front of me. Many long days were to
pass before I could make them accustomed to me. Long days, and all a
man’s cunning employed in the task.
A good bout of kicking finally subjugated them.
This incident would be a fit theme for deep philosophizing, and I
should succumb to the temptation to hold forth, were it not that such
dissertations are an awkward interruption of the course of a story.
For the time being, annoyed at the welcome with which the three horned
ladies received me, and only desiring their favors with the ardor of a
valetudinarian, I began peacefully to browse on the grass of the meadow.
Here begins the most interesting period--that of my observations on my
new condition. They occupied me so completely, that I began to consider
the bull’s body as a moveable dwelling--an exile’s home, no doubt,
but an unexplored, bewildering place, full of surprises, from which
chance would perhaps deliver me--for as soon as a place is merely not
unpleasing, one immediately feels the risk of being driven from it.
As long as this accommodation of my man’s mind to the organs of the
beast lasted, I was really fairly happy.
The fact was that a new world was just being revealed to me, together
with the taste of the simple herbs on which I was feeding. Just as
my eyes, my ears and my muzzle sent to my brain visions, sounds, and
smells hitherto unimagined, my tongue with its strange _papillæ_ was
bound to afford me very original sensations of taste.
Simple herbs gave a savor of which human palates have no idea. The
_cuisine_ of the epicure cannot possibly give them as much pleasure
with twelve courses, as a bull gets in a small meadow.
I could not refrain from comparing the taste of my fodder with that
of my former food. There is more difference between lucern and clover
than between a fried sole and a rib of venison with _sauce chasseud_.
Plants have all sorts of tastes for the mouth of a graminivorous animal.
The buttercup is rather insipid, the thistle rather peppery, but
nothing equals fragrant and many-flavored hay. Pastures are a
continually spread feast to which hunger impels their denizens to
devote themselves.
The water of the trough changed in taste, according to the time and the
weather. At one time acidulous--at another time salt or sweet. Light in
the morning, and syrupy in the evening.
I cannot describe the delight of drinking it, and I think that the
lamented Olympians, in their vindictive and jocular testimentary
disposition, leaving men only the power of laughter, left as a legacy
to other animals the tasting of ambrosia in the grass of the lawns and
the drinking of nectar at every fountain.
I was initiated into the delights of chewing the cud, and I understood
the placid moods of those grave epicures, the oxen, during the activity
of their four stomachs, when, with the scents of the fields, a whole
pastoral symphony fills their nostrils.
By dint of experimenting with my senses, and testing my faculties,
I obtained strange impressions. The best memory that remains to me
is that of my muzzle--that tactile center--that invaluable and
subtle touchstone of good and bad grains--that warner of an enemy’s
approach--that pilot and councilor--that sort of authoritative and
dogmatic consciousness--that oracle of yes and no, which never fails,
and is always obeyed.
It is a question if the god Jupiter, when he put on the form of a bull,
for the benefit of the Princess Europa, was not more charmed by his
muzzle, than with all the rest of that scandalous escapade.
It was wise of me to establish these facts straight away, for soon,
as my health failed, I lost the calm, without which accuracy of
observation is impossible, as well as the desire to continue them. I
suffered from attacks of headache, colds, toothache--the whole sequence
of indispositions which citizens of the twentieth century are heirs to.
I grew thin. Dismal ideas haunted me.
The cause of it was, first, the predominance of the soul over the
body, which my uncle had mentioned, and secondly, two incidents which
immediately aggravated my malady.
After a disappearance, due, I presume to an illness following on her
great fright, I saw Emma again.
Without feeling any emotion, I saw her at the windows of her room,
then at those of the ground floor, and finally outside. She came out
every day, leaning on the servant’s arm, and went round the park,
avoiding the laboratory, where Lerne and his assistants were steadily
working.
I had expected features less drawn, and eyes less red.
She walked along slowly--pale, and with fixed eyes--displaying to the
sun her moonlight complexion, and eyes like those one opens on the
night.
A pathetic widow, she let one see, with a certain nobility, the revolt
of her love in its mourning, and the keenness of her regrets.
So, she still loved me, and not seeing me any more, supposed my fate
to have been that which she imagined for Klotz, and not the destiny of
Macbeth (which, however, she had misapprehended). In her thought, I
could only be dead, or a fugitive. The real truth escaped her.
Each day, with greater affection, I followed her on her walks, as long
as I could. Separated from her by barbed wire, I attempted mimicry
and words, but Emma was afraid of the bull--its little leaps, and its
lowing. She understood nothing, any more than I had understood about
Donovan from the capers of the dog.
Sometimes, when in my attempts to make too human a gesture I stumbled
in my quadrupedal way, the girl was amused at it, and I found myself
stumbling intentionally, in order to see her smile.
Thus love by degrees resumed its torturing sway.
It could not return unaccompanied by jealousy, and the latter also
hastened the progress of my languor.
It was jealousy, but attended with an extraordinary sentiment!
There stood between the paddock and the pond that hexagonal summerhouse
which had been the Giant Briareus.
Lerne inflicted on me the annoyance of lodging my former body in it.
I saw his assistants bring in some elementary furniture, and then
the creature itself--and ever since that day, there he was, with his
forehead glued to the windows, and stupidly watching me.
His hair was growing again. His beard was sprouting. Now heavy and
chubby, his person was bursting through his clothes.
His eye--that almond eye, of which I had been so proud--was now
becoming a round ox’s eye.
The man with the bull’s brain was assuming the expression which I had
remarked in Donovan, but more bestial still, and less good-natured.
My poor body had reserved the habit of certain familiar gestures. An
incorrigible trick made it shrug its shoulders now and then, so that
the wretched creature seemed to be laughing at me from the windows of
the summerhouse.
He often would shout out in the dusk of evening.
My beautiful baritone voice was distorted into discordant clamors--into
the yells of a gorilla.
Then, in the laboratory, Macbeth would howl, with his poor canine
throat, and the irresistible need of making my own lamentations heard,
filled the valley of Fonval with the sounds of a monstrous trio.
* * * * *
Emma perceived that the summerhouse was inhabited. That day she and
Barbe were walking round the paddock. I had, as usual, accompanied them
to a certain little wood which was crossed by the road, and I awaited
them at the entrance of that avenue where the doves were cooing.
They came out of it and then they suddenly paused.
Emma was transfigured. She had taken on that animated expression which
I knew of old--quivering nostrils--eyes half shut, and her bosom
heaving. She pressed Barbe’s arm.
“Nicolas,” she murmured, “Nicolas. There, there! Do you see nothing?”
And whilst amongst the leafage the turtle-doves faintly cooed, Emma
pointed out to Barbe the creature in the summerhouse, behind his
window.
Having assured herself that she was not seen from the laboratory, Emma
made some signals, and flung kisses. The creature had excellent reasons
for not understanding anything, but opened his round eyes, dropped his
jaw, and turned my former integument which I now so greatly regretted
into a type of perfect imbecility.
“Mad,” said Emma, “he, too! Lerne has made him mad, like Macbeth.”
Then the kind-hearted girl sobbed with all her heart, and I felt anger
rising in me.
“Now, remember,” said the servant, “above all things, do not go near
that summerhouse, it is overlooked on all sides.”
The other shook her beautiful locks, dried her tears, and lying down
on the grass in the attitude of a sphinx, with her head in her hands,
and her body curved, she gazed, for a long time affectionately, on that
young figure whom she had loved so much.
The brute beast seemed to take more interest in this pose than in her
former gestures.
A scene like this went beyond the bounds of the grotesque and horrible.
That woman in love with my form--the form in which I no longer lived!
That woman whom I adored, in love with a beast! How to accept such a
thing with equanimity?
My anger exploded. This was the first time that I experienced the
domination of my ardent bodily constitution. Mad with rage, blowing and
snorting and foaming, I dashed over the meadow in all directions, and
tore at the ground with my horns and hoofs, in the wild desire to kill
somebody no matter whom.
From that time on, hatred poisoned my daydreams--ferocious hatred
against this supernatural brute--this ridiculous Minotaur who turned
all the forest of Brocéliande with its forest labyrinth into a comical
Crete.
I cursed that body which had been stolen from me. I was jealous of it,
and often when Jupiter--I and I--Jupiter looked at one another, both
victims of our cast-off bodies, fury seized me once more. I charged
about wildly, bellowing like a bull in the ring, with my tail in the
air--my nostrils smoking--my head down, ready for murder, and desiring
it as one longs for love in the springtime.
The cows warded me off as best they could. All the beasts feared the
mad bull. One day, Lerne, passing that way, took to his heels.
Life weighed heavily on me. I had exhausted all the pleasures of
observation, and my new dwelling-place only occasioned me distress and
repugnance.
I got thinner and thinner. The pasturage lost its savor. The spring
was tasteless, and the company of the heifers became odious to me.
On the other hand, old desires imposed themselves on me like morbid
whims--a desire to eat meat, and quaintest of all, the craving to smoke!
But other considerations were not so laughable. Fear of the laboratory
made me tremble every time that an assistant came near the paddock, and
I could not sleep for fear lest I should be bound during the night.
And that was not all! I was haunted by the conviction that my ox’s
brain would go mad. My attacks of uncontrollable wrath might bring on
madness, and they became more frequent, for the conduct of Emma was not
calculated to mitigate them.
Can the face of a savage murderer be the face of love, and can one
be astonished that so many sweethearts close their eyes when the god
kisses them?
So Emma looked with pleasure at the hideous Minotaur, and did not
perceive Lerne, who was on the watch, laughing in his sleeves at her
mistake.
Yes, laughing, but in the philosophical way, in order not to weep! My
uncle was obviously suffering. He seemed to have grasped that Emma
would never love him, and the Professor took his disillusionment ill.
He was growing old, and killing himself with work.
On the terrace of the laboratory and on the roof of the _château_, some
machines had been installed whose handling interested me very much.
They were surmounted with characteristic _antennæ_, and as electric
bells were continually ringing in the recesses of the two buildings, my
opinion was that they had been transformed into wireless telegraphy and
telephone stations.
One morning Lerne made a little boat dart about on the pond--a toy
torpedo-boat. He directed it from the shore with the help of an
apparatus, which also was fitted with feelers.
Tele-mechanics--it was certain! The Professor was studying how to make
communications at a distance without any tangible intermediary. Was
this a new method for the introversion of personalities? Perhaps it was.
I lost interest in the matter. A happy issue out of my afflictions now
seemed to me an impossible miracle. I should never learn this future
discovery, nor all the secrets which were a blot on the past of my
uncle and his companions.
It was, however, by meditating on those last mysteries, that I beguiled
the torturing insomnia of my nights, and my idleness by day, but I
could make nothing of it. It may be the case, indeed, that my mind was
dulled, for there were, amongst the daily occurrences which I have
just narrated, some that it could not retain--to which some confidences
on Lerne’s part gave capital significance, and the rational examination
of which would have made me hope for deliverance.
And so, about mid-September, this deliverance was brought about without
my having guessed anything, and in the following circumstances:
For some time past the friendship of the Minotaur and Emma had grown
stronger. The monster, now accustomed to my body, began to make
gestures.
One afternoon, while I was endeavoring to see my mistress through the
bushes where she was watching the false Nicolas, there was a sudden
noise of smashed and falling glass.
The Minotaur had dashed through the window of the summerhouse! Without
in the least heeding my unfortunate body, he dashed up, cut, slashed,
and bleeding, with roars of fury.
Emma shrieked, and tried to make off, but the creature had disappeared
into the little wood.
I then heard behind me the noise of people running. At the sound of
the broken windows, Lerne and his assistants had come out of the
laboratory. They had seen the escape, and were making at full speed for
the fatal wood.
Unfortunately, the assistants were afraid of my proximity, and the
_détour_ which they were making to avoid me, outside the paddock,
would delay them.
Lerne had boldly taken a short cut, climbed over the wire, and was
hurrying to the middle of the enclosure, with his coat torn by the
artificial thorns.
Alas! he was old and slow! They would arrive--all of them, too late!
I dashed at the frail barrier, broke it down, and smashed and crashed
through it, in spite of the little _chevaux de frise_ which lacerated
my skin.
I was over the wall of greenery in a moment, at a jump. The sun,
through the vault of leaves, was dappling the underwood with its
rays, and there, on the edge of the forest road I saw Emma lying--the
Minotaur gloating over her.
I had no leisure for a longer look. In a moment, all my maddened blood
was in my head, and goaded by an indomitable wrath I dashed ahead with
my horns down.
I struck something which fell. I trod it under my four hoofs, and with
my back to my victim, I kicked, and kicked, and kicked!
Suddenly the voice of my uncle, gasped:
“Hallo! hallo! hallo! you are killing _yourself_!”
My madness vanished--the stars went out, and everything reappeared.
The beautiful girl, awaking, blinked her eyes, without understanding
anything.
The assistants watched me, each behind a tree, and Lerne, leaning over
my form, which was inert and dislocated, raised its head, in which a
large hole was bleeding, and it was I! I! who had committed the mad act
of injuring _myself_!
The Professor, who was feeling the victim all over, gave us his
diagnosis:
“One arm dislocated, three ribs broken, fracture of the left clavicle
and _tibia_. One recovers from that, but the kick on the head--Ah!
that’s more serious. Hm! the brain is beaten to a pulp--it is
destroyed--all will be over in half-an-hour. _Finita la Commedia!_”
I had to put my shoulder up against a tree, to save myself from
falling. So my body, my country of countries, was going to die! It
was all over! Now, for ever banished from my ruined dwelling. I had
destroyed the first condition of my deliverance. It was all over. Lerne
himself could do nothing; he had admitted as much. In half an hour _all
would be over_!
But this brain! Perhaps he could.... Yes, he could do anything! Yes!
I drew near him. It was my last chance.
My uncle, who had turned to the girl, was speaking with grief in his
voice.
“How you must have loved him, to love him still in his pitiable
condition. My dear Emma, am I so little lovable, that you prefer such a
wreck to me?”
Emma was weeping in her hands. How she must love him, looking turn by
turn at the Professor, the dying creature and at me. How she must love
him!
For the last few moments I had been dancing about with a sort of little
steps, and more or less musical sounds, which were meant to translate
my thought. My uncle pursued the train of his.
Without remarking that his cloudy brow must be hiding some stormy
conflict of interests and passions, and dominated by the imminence of a
catastrophe which he alone could ward off, I redoubled entreaties.
“Yes, I understand your desire, Nicolas,” said my uncle. “You want to
give back your brain to its former envelope, which would thus be saved,
since you have made Jupiter’s brain an impossibility. Well, so be it!”
“Oh, save him, save him,” cried Emma, who had only grasped that one
word. “Save him! I swear to you, Frédéric, I swear never to see him
again.”
“Enough, enough,” said Lerne. “On the contrary you must love him with
all your strength. I no longer wish to grieve you. Why struggle against
destiny?”
He summoned his assistants, and gave them some brief orders. Karl and
Wilhelm seized the Minotaur, who was moaning.
Johann had set off to make preparations, as hard as he could.
“Schnell, schnell!” said the Professor, and he added, “Quick, Nicolas,
follow us!”
I obeyed, my mind half filled with the joy at recovering my body, and
half filled with fear lest it should die before the operation.
* * * * *
_The operation was a great success._
However, deprived of the attentions which should have preceded the
administration of the anesthetic, and which the urgency of the case did
not allow them to give us, I lived an instructive but painful dream
under the influence of ether.
It lasted, perhaps a quarter of a second--just enough to let me feel
the tooth of some scratchy saw, or the edge of some badly sharpened
lancet.
The sunset was filling the wash-house with a rosy half-light. Through
my lowered eyelids I perceived my mustache.
_This was the resurrection of Nicolas Vermont._
It was also the end of Jupiter. They were carving up, at the end of the
room, that black mass in which I had sojourned.
In the courtyard the dogs were quarreling for the first bits that
Johann had flung to them. My bones were aching.
Lerne was watching by my side. He was quite joyful, as well he might
be. Was he not at peace with his conscience? Had he not atoned for his
wrongs to me? How could I feel rancor towards him? It even seemed to me
that I owed him a certain debt of gratitude.
So true is it, that nothing seems so great a benefit as the reparation
of a wrong done.