THE PARADISE OF BEASTS
Once on a rainy midnight a poor old horse, harnessed to a cab, was drowsing in front of a dingy restaurant from whence came the laughter of women and young people.
And the poor spiritless animal with drooping head and shaking limbs made a sorry spectacle, as he stood there waiting the pleasure of the roisterers, that would at last permit him to go home to his reeking stable.
Half asleep, the horse heard the coarse jokes of these men and women. He had long since grown painfully accustomed to it. His poor brain understood that there was no difference between the monotonous unchanging screech of a turning wheel and the shrill voice of a prostitute.
And this evening he dreamed vaguely of the time when he had been a little colt that had gamboled on a smooth field, quite pink amid the green grass, and how his mother had given him to suck.
Suddenly he fell stone dead on the slippery pavement.
He reached the gate of heaven. A great scholar, who was waiting for
St. Peter to come and open the gate, said to the horse:
"What are you doing here? You have no right to enter heaven. I have the right because I was born of a woman."
And the poor horse answered:
"My mother was a gentle mare. She died in her old age with her blood sucked out by leeches. I have come to ask the Bon Dieu if she is here."
Then the gate of Heaven was opened to the two who knocked upon it, and the Paradise of animals appeared.
And the old horse recognized his mother, and she recognized him.
She greeted him by neighing. And when they were both in the great heavenly meadow the horse was filled with joy in finding again his old companions in misery and in seeing them happy forever.
There were some who had drawn stones along the slippery pavements of cities, and they had been beaten with whips, and had finally fallen under the weight of the wagons. There were some who with bandaged eyes had turned the merry-go-rounds ten hours a day. There were mares killed in bullfights before the eyes of young girls, who, rosy with joy, watched the intestines of these unhappy beasts sweep the hot sand of the arena. There were many more, and then still more.
And they all grazed eternally in the great plain of divine tranquillity.
Moreover, the other animals were happy here also.
The cats, mysterious and delicate, did not even obey the Bon Dieu who smiled upon them. They played with the end of a string patting it lightly with an important air, out of which they made a sort of mystery.
The good mother-dogs spent their time nursing their little ones. The fish swam about without fear of the fisherman. The birds flew without dread of the hunter. And everything was like this.
There were no men in this Paradise.