Camille Lemonnier

“ Certainly their dun-coloured plumage was not of the sort to let them flaunt in the sunlight like other birds; after spending a luxurious morning dozing side by side, they would wake just when the linnets, goldfinches, and chaffinches were going to bed. A great silence brooded over nature; for the giddy-pates who had been playing truant all the day, and had left a feather or two of their plumage to dance in every sunbeam, it would have seemed as dull as death; but they thought otherwise, and for them the night was filled with infinite music. ”

“ If Jack was a-cold—and he was always shivering, blow the wind from what quarter it might—quick he would slip between Murph’s paws and cuddle against his breast in the warm, cosy place. Murph was Jack’s special providence.
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Thus they had been living for nearly half-a-dozen years. Never a cloud had dimmed their good accord; never an angry snap of the teeth—never a pettish fit; mankind might have taken a lesson in the art of friendship from them. ”

“ Nothing ever distracted him from his part. Wags would amuse themselves sometimes by offering him a lump of sugar, or even pitch a sausage or a cake right between his paws; but Murph was adamant against such temptations. How the crowd cheered and clapped hands and stamped feet when he went bounding from hoop to hoop, so supple and nimble and self-possessed, never losing step or missing a spring, striking the paper with his head fair and square in the middle every time, crashing through and landing again on his feet, gravely and yet so elegantly. ”

“ You are grown up now, and the time is come when we must part. The nest would be too small to hold both you and those who will come after you. Moreover, no owl is ever happy save as head of a household. All sorts of trials and tribulations await us; men feel nothing but anger and contempt for our race. No matter for the watch and ward we keep over the orchards, the war of extermination we wage on the prolific broods that devastate the wheat, for all our well-meant efforts to aid the harvests to grow and the fruit-trees to bloom, our only guerdon is to be shot at with guns. ”

“ Claire had resumed the cruel slavery of the workroom.
Every morning, at seven o’clock, she set out, a meagre hunch of bread in her basket, and along the sleeping streets where the yawning passers-by were few and far between, half dozing herself, but brave and thinking of Monsieur Friquet, she would make her way to the dismal room where she was to be kept prisoner all day. ”

“ Silent and awe-struck, the two outcasts felt the kindly beneficence of nature moving on the face of the world. At times louder sounds would mingle with the whisperings of the night, telling them of the fawns pushing through the matted undergrowth, of companies of woodland creatures sallying out to feed, lovers like themselves of the darkness—badgers, polecats, wild-cats, weasels, and rabbits, of a vast stir of life and activity down in the dim, intricate forest tracks. ”

“ Every ten minutes—the same regular interval has been observed in all owls questing for food—he would bring fresh provender to the nest. The darkest night was no hindrance; his shining eyes, with their widely dilated pupils, pierced the blackest shadows as if they were transparent, and there was no hole or corner where the little night prowlers did not go in terror of their lives. ”

“ Murph had never seen an ape more alert and clever, more intelligent and active than Jack; he would gladly have stood for hours watching him performing his tricks, clinging to the cords with his delicate, dry little hands, then hurling himself into space to alight again on his feet, or else holding on by his tail and swinging from earth to heaven on the trapeze. ”

“ But it was not the sort of jaunt the sparrows indulge in, sailing away into the blue, so high, so high they seem as if they would never come back again; they lighted sedately on the bough of an old oak, and, finding it a good place, stopped there for good. Besides, the oak, being decrepit with years, had not, as a younger tree would, a whole host of impudent little cock-sparrows for its denizens; a blackbird lodged on the first floor, and a magpie had selected the trunk as his residence, and though both were great chatterers, the owls did not find their company disagreeable. ”

“ We well know we are no sweet-voiced choristers, and when the nightingale sings, we have never dreamt of posing as his rivals. There are, so the migrants have told us, in the far-off cities of other lands, men who proclaim the hour from the tall minarets in the silence of the night. We do not announce the time—the cuckoo alone has this office to perform during daylight—but we instruct the swallows on the point of winging away, we inform the cricket, the bee, the ant, the ploughman, all to whom rain and sunshine are not matters of indifference, if they may count or not on a favourable morrow. ”

“ The nightingales lulled him to sleep with the melody of their concerts, the cock woke him with the shrill clarion-call of his crowing; all the day long he flitted and flew amid the endless twittering and warbling of linnets, tomtits, bullfinches, sparrows, and chaffinches, taking his part too in the orchestra, and near bursting his little throat to produce his finest notes, with that vanity that makes us one, and believe Nature has implanted in us the soul of an artist—a great, mysterious, unappreciated artist. ”

“ Think of the horrid carnage there will be in the woods every night! Not one of you will be safe in his nest any more. From time immemorial the owl tribe has been the scourge of the whole bird nation. Their heads are full of nothing but wile and wickedness, and the better to shed blood, they go to work like murderers in the dark! ”

“ Life was slowly dying down in the old body. He would lie torpid for hours and doze away the time in dark corners, under tables, where nothing would wake him, neither the yapping of the other dogs nor the chattering of the monkeys, neither the noise of footsteps coming and going nor the shrill trumpetings of the clown’s cornet-à-piston playing “Malbrouck s’en va-t-en guerre!” ”

“ But he was a wise and far-seeing parent, who dreaded what their fate would be, should he and his mate one day meet the doom all owls are liable to. Perhaps one morning a yokel would climb to their hiding-hole and carry them off to kill them. True, the good Curé, whose house sheltered them, had forbidden their being molested; but he was an old man now, and nobody cared much what he said; then, with a ladder, it was so easy to reach the nest! The old owl always spoke like a philosopher; the future did not terrify him, and he seemed quite resigned to the cruel lot men mete out to his species. ”

“ A wild spasm of merriment seized the vast concourse at sight of the grotesque creature, and tomtits, linnets, birds of every sort and kind, broke into a frantic peal of mirth.
“Silence in the Court!” shrieked the magpie.
But laughter is infectious. Quickly it extended to the lower ledges of the rock, where the spectators sat half hidden from each other in the semi-darkness, and the mighty cliff shook as if lashed by a hurricane. ”

“ From the very first Jack had taken a fancy to the big woolly-coated dog, as woolly as a sheep, who never barked or growled or grumbled or showed his teeth—so unlike the other dogs in the menagerie; in the same way Murph, the big dog, had formed an affection for the well-behaved, sad-faced little ape, who never pulled his tail and never tried to scratch out his eyes. ”

“ He preferred to lurk alone in dark corners, where he would spend long hours, squatted on his tail, almost motionless, dreaming sadly of some mysterious, unattainable future. But, for all his unlikeness to his colleagues and their comicality, his queer little crumpled, wrinkled face never failed to produce its effect on the spectators. Jack was perfectly irresistible; no one could look at him for any length of time without bursting out laughing. ”

“ It burst like a rocket, then spread from row to row of the spectators, till it ended in a tempest of merriment that from the audience extended to the stage, and burst on the dying comedian who stood there.
Suddenly the dog’s legs gave way beneath him, and Murph fell over on his side. His supreme effort had killed him; he had succumbed, as great men sometimes will, at the very moment of their greatness. ”

“ Sometimes the two bushy tufts on his forehead dropped right over his eyes and further confused his vision. But Jack would put them back lightly with the tips of his delicate fingers. Indeed he never left his side, tickling his ears to amuse him, tapping and stroking him, ever on the watch, a tender-hearted nurse of inexhaustible care and foresight.
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This lowly being had learnt to love like a mother; his little dim soul had emerged from its darkness to answer his dying comrade’s need, and now, shining bright in the light of day, was working deeds of charity. ”

“ A second thread made it possible for him to haul to the edge of the platform a miniature car running on an inclined plane outside the cage; this held his bird-seed. What a struggle it was to drag it up! At each snap of the beak the car would ascend, but oh! so slowly. By successive jerks, never tiring, never stopping, with straining neck, working with the adroitness of a galley-slave, and clapping his foot on the cord after each pull, he had to drag up the accursed car, which would sometimes elude him and dash down the incline again, spilling the seed and mocking all his laborious efforts! ”

“ How much better to sit soft and warm over a good feed of bird-seed, to sleep away his afternoons in slothful ease, never to soil his feathers scratching for doles in a dungheap, but to live like a gentleman on his means, among his own belongings, without even a thought of work or worry!
Monsieur Friquet, you see, was a philosopher of an accommodating temper.
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Thank God! everybody does not think alike; for what would become of the sky and the woodland if all the race of sparrows forsook them like him for cosy quarters and a free table? ”

“ For hours they will trot, with a humble, gentle, deprecating gait, at the heels of a casual passer-by, a shadow among shadows, dogging his steps to the last, hoping against hope. It is a friend they are fain to run to earth; but alas! the chase is one that is repeated night after night—and it is almost always unsuccessful. More often than not, the pursued has no inkling even of the dumb escort that attends him through the night. ”

“ One morning the young birds deserted the nest.
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Then, alone once more, they resumed their former existence in the dark hollow of the old oak, so solitary and silent now; they bore their children’s departure as only another of nature’s inevitable necessities. They seldom stirred from home now, seeing hardly a soul except a couple of old friends sometimes on Sabbath days; as of old, they held long, long talks of nights with the moon. Perched side by side on the eaves, their dark shapes threw long black shadows across the roof ”

“ Why, had he not, like the lion, a mane about his neck, a tuft to his tail, and bracelets of hair about his ankles? Had he not likewise his Olympian look and superb carriage? By dint of a little imagination, Murph had come to believe the lion a degenerated type of poodle dog.
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But let us pass lightly over his foibles; every one has his little weaknesses. Time, moreover, that damps the foolish ardour of mankind and dogkind, had tamed our friend’s ambitions. ”

“ There is no villainy they do not impute to us, no crime they do not charge us with, and when we have the misfortune to show ourselves, the howl of hate rises as high about us as a tower. But are we criminals? Do we lurk in the woods to rob our fellow-birds by night or day? ”

“ Then the dogs were dressed, the seats given a last wipe-down—and suddenly boom! boom! the big drum, furiously beaten, rolled out its deep-toned summons. Instantly a perfect hurricane of discordant, ear-splitting noises was let loose in front of the show-tent. Answering the deafening rumble of the big drum, the fifes and ophicleide awoke, the kettledrum began its rub-a-dub, the cymbals clashed, and the whole booth shivered and shook from floor to roof-tree. ”

“ Scarce was evening fallen ere he had taken post on the roof, heedless now of the mysterious splendours of the night, the furtive comings and goings of his prey occupying all his thoughts; the music of the spheres was henceforth confined for him to the rustling of the field-mice climbing the espaliers and the house-mice scuttling along the walls ”

“ Behind his back the dog treads noiselessly, with paws of velvet and nose to earth, checking his pace when the stranger slackens his, stopping when he stops, bit by bit learning his walk and ways. At last, when he has journeyed far through the dark streets, when his legs ache with pursuing under the wayfarer’s form a dream that is never to come true, a door will interpose, a ponderous, an impassable barrier between him and his fond hopes. ”

“ As long as they had no children, they enjoyed these hours of contemplation like true artists who grudge to miss one note of harmony or one gleam of beauty; they would never stir till dawn, hardly troubling themselves even to go in search of food. ”

“ Everybody has his own way of being happy in this world of ours, and for all it was different from the general fashion, this was good enough for them. To begin with, dwelling by themselves, they knew nothing of envy, and no thought of ambition vexed them; their only wish was to live as long as possible, pariahs and outcasts as they were, and grow old together. ”

“ The louder the merriment he excited, the more serious Jack became. On show days, while the audience was convulsed with mirth, the gravity of his mien, the careworn look in his eyes, over which the lids dropped mechanically at regular intervals, as if weighed down with their load of melancholy, reached the acme of fantastic absurdity.
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Alas! men cannot tell what monkeys are thinking of. If they knew, they would not always laugh. Jack was dreaming of the sun, the vast green forests, the friends he had left behind ”

“ Then their keen ear, an instrument of extraordinary delicacy, being very large, and forming, as every bird-lover knows, a double spiral of enormous dimensions, and admirably adapted to catch the faintest sounds, noted from afar light rustlings and soft sighs, and a confused murmur of music, wherein the wind seemed, turn and turn about, to pipe through clarinet and oboe. ”