OF CHARITY TOWARD BEASTS
There is in the look of beasts a profound light and gentle sorrow, which fills me with such understanding that my soul opens like a hospice to all the sorrows of animals.
They are forever in my heart, as when I see a tired horse, his nose drooping to the ground, asleep in the nocturnal rain, before a café; or the agony of a cat crushed beneath a carriage; or a wounded sparrow who has found refuge in a hole in a wall. Were it not for the feeling that it is undignified for a man, I would kneel before such patience and such torments, for I seem to see a halo around the heads of these mournful creatures, a real halo, as large as the universe, placed there by God Himself.
Yesterday I was at a fair, and watched the merry-go-round. There was an ass among the wooden animals. The sight of it almost made me weep, because I was reminded of those living martyrs, its brothers.
I wanted to pray, and to say to it: "Little ass, you are my brother. They say that you are stupid, because you are incapable of doing evil. You go your slow pace, and seem to think as you walk: 'See! I cannot go any faster…The poor make use of me, because they need not give me much to eat.' Little ass, the goad pricks you. Then you go a little faster, but not a great deal. You cannot go very fast…Sometimes you fall. Then they beat you, and pull at the rein fastened to the bit in your mouth. They pull so hard that your lips are drawn back showing your poor, yellow teeth which browse on miseries."
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At the same fair I heard the shrilling of a bagpipe. F. asked me: "Doesn't it remind you of African music?"—"Yes," I answered, "at Touggart the bagpipes have the same nasal note. It must be an Arab who is playing."—"Let us go into the booth," he said…Dromedaries were on exhibition there.
A dozen little camels, crowded like sardines in a can, were stupidly going round and round in a sort of trench. These creatures which I have seen in the Sahara undulant like waves with only God and Death surrounding them, I now saw here, Oh sorrow of my heart! They went round and round again in that narrow space. The anguish which passed from them to me filled me as with nausea toward man. They went on and on, always on, proud as poor swans, hallowed as it were by their desolation. They were covered with grotesque trappings, and the butt of dancing women. They raised their poor verminous necks toward God, and toward the miraculous leaves of some imaginary oasis.
Ah! what a prostitution of God's creatures. Farther along there were rabbits in a cage. Then came goldfish, that were offered as prizes of a lottery. They swam about in blown glass bowls, the necks of which were so narrow that F. said to me: "How did they get in?"—"By squeezing them a little," I answered. Still farther on were living chickens, also lottery prizes, spun around in a whirligig. In the center a Tittle milk-fed pig, mad with fear, was crouching flat on his stomach.
Hens and pullets, overcome by vertigo, squawked and pecked frantically at one another. My companion called my attention to dead, plucked chickens hanging beside their living sisters.
My heart swells at these memories. An infinite pity overcomes me.
Oh poet, receive these poor suffering beasts into your soul. Let them warm themselves, and live there in eternal joy.
Preach the simple word which bestows kindness on the ignorant.