CHAPTER XII.
Royal happiness troubled by a rent.—I am more and more adored by my subjects.—A cloud in the sky.—Sinister preoccupation.—My kingdom for a pair of trousers!—Supreme joy of being an animal.—My happiness again troubled.—A fatal tear.
One day, on the occasion of a grand military review, when I was cutting solemn capers before my subjects by way of saluting them, the mandrill’s skin, in which, as a matter of course, I was always clad, unfortunately cracked!—it cracked, too, as a matter of course, at the part where it fitted me tightest, and where it was certainly a little worn—in other words, at the part on which the mandrill during his lifetime had been accustomed to seat himself. An unusual chill followed this deplorable rent. It was like the mask falling off in the middle of the ball. I felt that I was lost—that the man was recognised beneath the skin of the ape, and that my reign, my greatness, and my life were at an end.
Alas! I had not foreseen how short a time even the most illustrious skins last! What imprudence! or rather what a misfortune! Had my subjects already perceived my accident, and what did they think of it if they had perceived it? It was a most grave situation. I no longer dared to make a single military movement during the continuance of the review, which appeared, indeed, endless to me, I was suffering so much from anxiety and fear. No one can imagine the ruses to which I was compelled to have recourse so as to pass in front of the ranks, and at the same time conceal from my troops the misfortune which had befallen me, and the discovery of which would have been the signal for my death. I hid my disaster as well as I could, I dodged about in a nervous way, and finally I gained the verandah, where I arrived more dead than alive.
I passed a most horrible night; I passed it in endeavoring, by all manner of ingenious contrivances, to repair the rent in my skin. Oh! how I applied myself to my task! but I was consoled by the reflection that it was for my reign that I was labouring. I succeeded in repairing the damage in a fashion which, to the eye of a casual observer, would have looked all that could be desired, but I saw perfectly well that the reparation would not hold out long against the strain which would necessarily be upon it whenever I had occasion either to walk or sit down. It was certain that I could not always remain standing during the entire length of my reign. Human misery mounts in some degree to the summit of the highest of human dignities. Fancy a government, a state, a reign having to depend upon the strength of the stitches in a cracked pair of breeches.
At length the night ended, and at daybreak my subjects, who had believed me indisposed during the review of the previous day, pressed under the balcony to have news of my health. Their anxiety was such that it was absolutely necessary for me to show myself. I accordingly appeared in the balcony, when, oh horror! I was obliged to go through salute after salute with the risk of dislocating my limbs, and the more dangerous risk of disarranging my nether clothing in order to prove to them the greatness of my affection, somersault after somersault that I might ravish them with admiration. I was, moreover, obliged, in response to the enthusiasm of my subjects, to descend into their midst, by means of a rope slung for this purpose between the balcony and the ground. With what prudence I performed this descent, a prudence which will appear the reverse of royal to very many people! How I guarded against the least tension of the muscles! How I waited till I was nearly to the ground before I darted among my people!
Everything passed off very well, thank Heaven! although certain over-zealous sapajous from time to time poked forth their heads and pointed muzzles as though to assure themselves that they must have seen but indifferently the evening before. This was indeed a perilous inspection.
At length escaping the caresses of my subjects, I thanked Heaven for the success of my reparation, but I was not the less convinced that my reign depended upon this skin of mine; that the duration of the one depended upon that of the other; and that this skin, a symbol of my destiny, would grow thinner every day, and become, sooner or later, my ruin.
The wisdom of ages has proclaimed that “There is no perfect happiness in this world.” I could have been as happy as a man has the right to be in a position so strange as mine if it had not been that this skin was constantly threatening to give way. In all other respects, tranquil in my undisputed sovereignty, I felt almost the joy of a released captive in my close association with Nature in her most primitive form—an association for which mankind are designed, and for which, when sated with an artificial state of existence, they are always longing in order that they may grow young again.
Civilised life, of whose doubtful advantages we boast with more pride than reflection, is, in my opinion, not an advance, but a deviation. That pure and lusty air which I was breathing, becoming absorbed into my entire system, gave me other tastes. My desires grew purer. That beautiful fruit and limpid water became sufficient for my appetite when I found myself freed from the excitement and irritation which is frequently the result of immoderate exercise.
By degrees I felt a kind of horror at the notion of feeding oneself on the flesh of animals. It is to civilisation alone, I said, that we owe those abominable appetites which require the flesh of animals to satisfy them. When the cannibal eats his enemy it is more from vengeance than mere gluttony, whereas the reason we do not eat one another arises, not from any particular respect for our kind, but rather from an unmistakable distaste for human flesh, and, above all, from a fear, into which we are reciprocally forced, that if we ate our kind, our kind would, in all probability, retaliate by eating us. The savage, therefore, is simply a stupid to eat his enemy.
This very mandrill’s skin, of which, for the first few days, I was thoroughly ashamed, eventually appeared to me a thousand times preferable to those odious shells of cloth, those coats of mail, which do not allow us the free use of our limbs, adopted and rejected in turn by the idiotcy of fashion. Under this soft and elastic skin, supple, thin, and warm, all at the same time, it was as pleasant as it was easy to bend the body—to swing from bough to bough, to drop down on to the turf, and bound up again; to run, to glide through the bushes, climb up the bamboos, leave the land and plunge into the water, quit the water to climb up a rock, and seat oneself on its summit.
Unfortunately, however, I was not permitted to go through these movements with perfect freedom of mind. The reader knows well enough what was the obstacle that prevented me. One day this obstacle, through some terrible accident, assumed proportions so large that the world contained neither needles nor tailors capable of effecting a restoration.
This is how the accident in question happened:—
I was accustomed, the reader should know, to sleep in my mandrill’s skin, for to have thrown it off, even during the hours of sleep, would have been extremely imprudent. Well, one night I had an extraordinary dream; in this dream, inspired by an instinct of ambition, for which I can in no wise account, I caused myself to be crowned King of Kouparou by the Archbishop of Goa. I to have had myself crowned! What an aberration of mind! I, above all, who reigned only in virtue of a deceit, only because creatures of weak intellect believed that they saw in me an old King of Kouparou, whereas it was merely his skin which they recognized, and which I had made use of. Mind, it was only a dream up to this point—but I will finish the narration.
Surrounded by his clergy, in their most magnificent vestments and resplendent with diamonds, Monseigneur de Goa, after performing all the ceremonies used at the coronations of kings, took a crown of gold and emeralds in his hand, and walked solemnly towards me to place it on my head. This was the moment of the catastrophe. As the archbishop, who stood on the haut pas, was raised above me, I was obliged, in order to receive the crown which he offered me, to stretch out my arms, in order to assist him in placing the crown on my head. Well, in leaning towards the archbishop I fancy I must have stretched the mandrill’s skin a trifle too much. There was a sudden rending, and this time the fatal slit extended right down from the neck to the very end of the back. The noise caused by this accident was so loud that it awoke me.
And what an awakening! That compactly-fitting garment was now nothing but a floating paletôt, open behind instead of before. I rose up alarmed, dismayed, and desperate. I wished to doubt my senses, but my misfortune was, alas! only too real, and what an irreparable misfortune it was, since instruments and means which were not at my disposal were necessary to reunite the shreds of my royal purple. My reign was at an end, and what was more, my life would soon follow the example of my reign, and all in consequence of this hateful rent. So certain did I feel of the fate which awaited me that I barricaded myself that very instant, and set to work to fortify my position behind the verandah walls just as I had done when I was once before obliged to transform this pretty dwelling of Admiral Campbell’s into a fortress.
The next day when my subjects did not see me come forth they assembled in large numbers under my windows, and I had to undergo the sorrow of witnessing their truly touching solicitude without daring to show myself so as to reassure them. The following day they again assembled in great numbers; the third day the entire population of the island thronged around the verandah.
Then the affection of my devoted subjects, which up to this point had been manifested by silent expressions of their grief, broke forth in noisy whines, deafening bursts of sympathy, and groans that were meant to be expressive of tenderness. My ears were afflicted even more than my heart. My subjects wished for me, called me, demanded me at any price.
At this moment I saw distinctly enough how animals the most deficient in moral courage are not ashamed of the feelings of gratitude which they owed their sovereign. They do not, like beings of a higher order of intelligence, forget in a single day the benefits which he has been the means of showering down upon them, the equal justice which he has dispensed to them, the order and happiness with which he has surrounded them at the expense of his own ease and pleasure, in order to throw themselves at the feet of a new master whose wisdom and virtue have not yet been tried—cowardly slaves of novelty, ready and willing to treat the august chief of their community like children treat their playthings, who always think the last the prettiest, and that the preceding one deserves only to be broken violently against the wall.
Truth wills that I should add that this love of my subjects took a somewhat strange turn after five days of patient waiting without result. Intending to come to me, as I would not come to them, they commenced a new siege of the verandah and with the same weapons of attack—namely, sticks and stones—arms which had formerly proved so successful in their hands. And this time, actuated as they were by a noble sentiment, they showed themselves incomparably more obstinate in their determination to overthrow the walls behind which I sought to escape their too demonstrative affection.
How was I to remain insensible to these marks of interest? I do not deny that I should have been better pleased to have seen this intense interest show itself under less redoubtable forms. Still, I should have considered it a crime to have repulsed them this time with guns and muskets. I offered, therefore, no resistance. On the contrary, I wept with joy and pride when I heard the walls, roofs, windows, balconies, doors, and framework of the verandah crackling under the weight of the enormous stones which they kept throwing against them. I confess that I was moved by this devotion of theirs, the end of which was infallibly my death, since what a discovery awaited them in a very few minutes! They counted on finding themselves in the presence of a mandrill behind the walls which they had well-nigh overthrown, and instead of this they would place their hands on a light-haired man, although a Portuguese, identical in every respect, more’s the pity, with all that is well-formed and most agreeable in man.
