CHAPTER VII.
Bell-ringing by the monkeys.—Disorder in Monkey Villas.—Hungry, I discover stores.—His Majesty in a jar of quinces.—Scrambling for nuts.—Monkeys tipsy.—Fear of their intoxicated revels.—Night falls as I am in the midst of a terrible uproar.—I discover candles and lucifer matches.—The monkeys find them also.—Candle-dance by the apes.
The fourth day of this singular penitential ordeal I was startled at hearing a bell ring, and immediately fancied myself saved, for I could attribute only to one of my own species the faculty of employing this method of signalling. Flinging down my pen I abandoned my cruel labour, and ran at the top of my speed towards the place whence I supposed the sound proceeded. I decided to die rather than remain any longer in the place where I had been kept by constraint and blows for three days and nights. My guards did not dare to hold me back. I arrived without halting at the foot of the post above which the bell was hung, when my disappointment was complete at finding that it was not a man but an ape who was pulling the rope.
The post of the bell was fixed at the corner of a large courtyard, the four sides of which were composed of ranges of elegant apartments. This courtyard received both air and light through an immense awning of rose-coloured cloth, filled out by the wind, and enjoyed a perpetual freshness arising from a natural basin of water which was situated in the very centre of the square. Luxuriant turf, with beds of shrubs and flowers, formed a border to this refreshing pool. Tied together in bouquets by a kind of weed, a tropical hair-like plant, bamboos grew with their delicate trunks and glossy foliage to a height of sixty feet. In India this cool part of a house, where one really manages to breathe, is called the verandah. Did India take the idea of verandahs from the Moors, or did the Moors borrow verandahs from the Hindoos to introduce them into Spain and Portugal? I cannot say. All I know is that the inhabitants dine in these places during the heat of the day, walk in them of an evening, and often make them their sleeping apartment for the night. Divans from Cabul, carpets from Bagdad, mats from Ceylon, and Manilla hammocks are the ordinary furniture of these verandahs.
Karabouffi, who had taken possession without ceremony of the finest house of all, had the wit to choose the verandah for himself and court to reside in. Profiting by the long tables laid out for the officers of the station, he and his suite occasionally took their meals there, though to be sure without ever thinking of changing the tablecloth.
On entering this verandah I found myself in the midst of the most distressing disorder that one can possibly imagine. There were plates scattered about in all directions, silver dishes lying here and there, broken china, smashed decanters, forks stuck by the prongs into the table, bottles lying on their sides, and glasses piled up one within the other.
The bell which I had heard was to announce dinner.
Karabouffi strutted into the room and took a place in the very middle of the table, between a soup-plate and cruet-stand; his favourites seated themselves around—some on the table, others underneath.
I acknowledge that, owing to the hunger which I endured, I felt indisposed to criticise the behaviour of the guests and the postures in which they placed themselves too closely. Besides, I could not but remember that among the nations of the world the etiquette of the dinner-table has not yet been reduced to anything like a system of uniformity. For instance, the English commonly dine without napkins; the French invariably with; the Chinese eat with little ivory sticks; Orientals with their hands instead of forks; the Thibetans eat standing up; the Romans ate reclining; the American Indians eat with fish-bones shaped like needles. Why, then, should I find fault with these creatures, who simply ate as instinct taught them?
Only it was necessary to have something to eat. The vegetables which my table companions eagerly devoured, and which they occasionally sought to thrust into my mouth, were neither palatable nor satisfying. I was suffering the most cruel hunger. Whilst casting my sad and haggard eyes round the verandah, almost every window of which indicated a distinct room, and thinking of the many capital repasts which the English officers had here partaken of, an inscription over a window a little way off met my sight. It consisted of these words, in black letters on a white ground:—“Kitchens of the officers of the staff.” I rushed in the direction far quicker than I had done to the sound of the bell. Kitchens! a plurality of kitchens! There were of course several kitchens, then! It is needless to say that I was followed in my impetuous rush by Karabouffi’s staff, who were at this moment a curious rather than a hostile crowd. This general curiosity was in fact my great protection against the habitual perversity of my quadrumanous tyrants.
In my impetuosity I penetrated into a large and handsome apartment of the verandah, evidently the reception-room, and which had been by no means so badly treated as other parts of the building. The arm-chairs appeared to be only half stripped of their coverings; the chandelier and ormolu brackets of several branches still decorated the ceiling and walls. Various articles of furniture, the use of which the ravagers had no doubt been unable to divine, were left intact. These were a piano, an accordion, and a guitar. I judged from these various signs that the recollection of the beatings which they must have frequently received at the hands of the cooks, their natural enemies, whom they are always robbing, had induced the apes to keep clear of the kitchens.
From the reception-room I passed into the dining-hall, situated at the back of the verandah, and from the dining-hall into the kitchen. Alas! weeks, months, perhaps, had elapsed since the English settlers had disappeared, and I ought not to have expected to have seen haunches of venison, turkeys, pheasants, and hares roasting on the spit. The kitchen fire was extinguished, and all was cold and desolate. My apes had evidently passed through here. But, apes as they were, and will always be, they had not found out how to open the cupboards. The claws of the depredators had left their traces behind them, written in long furrows across the doors—that was all. I opened one cupboard after another. Providence had evidently guided me, for I found them filled with cases of pâté-de-foie gras, and all kinds of preserved meats, poultry, fish, and vegetables, with boxes of sardines and pots of jams, and jars of fruits and sweetmeats. Guess if I didn’t seize with avidity on these treasures.
Prudence suggested to me not to be ungrateful. I therefore offered a colossal jar of preserved quinces to his Majesty King Karabouffi, who forthwith thrust his head into it right up to the shoulders; but his subjects, envious and jealous at this proceeding, immediately commenced to draw him out by the legs and tail. Karabouffi, however, held tight, and he and the jar resisted their efforts with success. Nevertheless, I am quite of the opinion that a prudent sovereign ought not to indulge too freely in sweetmeats in the presence of his subjects. The strife continued; the jar at length began to give way. A revolution was inevitably about to spring from this trivial, this insignificant incident.
Now, for my part, I considered that a revolution at this particular moment would in all probability not turn out to my advantage. One Karabouffi dead, twenty other Karabouffis would spring up to succeed him. This was easily to be perceived, and what was equally certain was that the last Karabouffi would be sure to be worse than his predecessors; so for the purpose of preventing such a catastrophe, this is what I did: I emptied a bag of nuts on the ground. Suddenly courtiers and subjects, leaving their lord and master to partake of the preserved quinces to his heart’s content, rushed after the nuts, for which they scrambled like a parcel of schoolboys. It is not a bad plan—indeed, it is rather a method of sound policy—to throw from time to time a few handfuls of nuts among people who are quarrelling.
In presence of the nuts the general discontent vanished. I profited by this circumstance to taste a few of those delicious preserves which had fallen into my hands. I was obliged while eating them to hold the cupboard door only partially open, for fear that the spies by whom I was surrounded should desire to share these dainties with me. Had I given them the chance, they would have whipped everything off in the twinkling of an eye. But I was only taking half measures of protection, as I am now about to show. After having eaten my fill, I took a bottle of wine from a hamper, broke the neck off it, and commenced to drink. I drank with satisfaction, with pleasure—indeed, I may say with ecstasy. But in my ecstasy I forgot myself, and left the cupboard door wide open. Whilst I was counting the stars, after the manner of Sancho Panza, my companions insinuated themselves into the cupboard, fell on to the hampers of wine, seized the bottles as they had seen me do: the reader can divine the rest.
Once intoxicated, they called one another names in ape’s language, which was enough to make any one tremble; they sent plates flying at one another’s heads, and somehow or other never missed their aim; they struck one another on the back with the empty bottles until they shivered them into fragments. “Ah,” said I to myself, “Nature has done well to indicate to man the constant moderation which he ought to bring, and which he really does bring, to the gratification of his desires. As a matter of course he never falls into those scandalous excesses in which I saw these miserable imitations of our species so readily indulge.”
I felt proud at this new proof of our superiority over the monkey tribe.
It has been said, I know, that men have occasionally forgotten themselves at dessert, and behaved with less politeness than they ordinarily do. People will cite, for instance, the cases of Alexander, who killed Clytus after a drinking bout; and of Charles XII., who boxed his mother’s ears on leaving table; and of King Christian of Denmark. But see how rare the examples are! One is obliged to search history to its lowest depths for them. I am aware it has been pretended that our most painful diseases result from the too great fondness which we are said to have for the pleasures of the table, and from our partiality for alcoholic drinks. This proves, however, absolutely nothing, for these are at best but mere suppositions. Tell me, if you please, where I shall look for a counterpart of the frightful reality I have just described, and which I saw passing before my eyes.
I might have hit upon even still more flattering comparisons for my own species, but night was coming on, and I watched it approach with an inexpressible fear; for I had no longer the resource of hiding myself in the woods and escaping my enemies. They were all present, they were all more or less intoxicated, and I was hemmed in by them on all sides.
It may be supposed that my position was anything but an agreeable one in the midst of this maddened pandemonium, giving itself up in the darkness of the night to the most frightful eccentricities. As this darkness increased so did my fear. Every means of flight were cut off from me. I expected to be strangled, choked, or torn in pieces on the spot. Not a single avenue of escape was open to me—no, not one!
In the excess of my alarm the idea suddenly occurred to me of hiding myself away in one of the cupboards, and by this means escaping the fate which threatened me. It was while seeking to put in execution this impossible project, considering the narrow space into which I should have been obliged to squeeze myself, that I displaced the lid of a chest, and found my hand in contact with some solid substance. I pass my hand carefully over it, I examine it so far as a doubtful light permits me, when judge of my delight at discovering that it was a packet of wax candles. The chest was evidently filled with them. I immediately drew my box of lucifers from my pocket and lighted one. Delivered from the horror of darkness in the unhappy condition in which I was, I trembled all over with emotion. What a delicious surprise! What joy! Unfortunately I did not remark, when closing the cupboard that my spies might not play me the same trick as they had done with the wine, that I had locked one of them in. He uttered a cry of alarm, on hearing which I instantly opened the door, or it might have turned out badly for me. All was over. My captive, once free, placed himself in the opening of the door so that I could not shut it without crushing him. The others, profiting by this accident, immediately made a rush for the cupboard, and pillaged the chest in the twinkling of an eye. Behold them all lighting their candles at mine and waving them over their heads, dancing about with delight at the continued repetition of these fantastic flames, with which their little Satanic eyes were at once dazzled and fascinated. Alas! I only fell from one state of fright into another. Now I stood a chance of being burnt like a faggot, for they carried their lighted tapers so recklessly that they had already commenced to singe the skins of each other. A happy inspiration, drawn from the new danger which I had myself called down, at this moment took possession of me.
