A Man in the Zoo

by David Garnett

Yet he could not help asking himself what did his surroundings matter to him? He was in love with Josephine, and now he had parted from her for ever. Would the pain he felt on that account ever die away? And if it did, as he supposed it would, how long would it take to do so?

In the evening he was let out, and walked round the Gardens alone. He tried to make friends with one or two of the creatures, but they would not take notice of him. The evening was cool and fresh, and he was glad to be out of the stuffy Ape-house. He felt it very strange to be alone in the Zoo at that hour, and strange to have to go back to his cage. The next day, just after breakfast, a crowd began pushing into the house, which was soon packed full. The crowd was noisy, some persons in it calling out to him very persistently.

It was easy enough for Cromartie to ignore them, and never let his eyes wander through the wire-netting, but he could not prevent himself from knowing that they were there. By eleven o’clock his keeper had to fetch four policemen, two standing at each door to keep the crowd back. The people were made to stand in a queue, and to keep moving all the time.

This went on all day, and in fact there were thousands waiting to see “The Man” who had to be turned away before they could get a sight of him. Collins said it was worse than any bank-holiday.

Cromartie did not betray any uneasiness; he ate his lunch, smoked a cigar, and played several games of Patience, but by tea-time he was exhausted, and would have liked to go and lie down in his bedroom, but it seemed to him that to do so would be to confess weakness. What made it worse, because more ridiculous, was that the Chimpanzee and the Orang-outang next door, each came to the partition walls and spent the whole day staring at him too. No doubt they were only imitating the public in doing so, but they added a great deal to poor Mr. Cromartie’s unhappiness. At last the long day was over, the crowds departed, the Gardens were closed, and then came another surprise—for his two neighbours did not go away. No, they clung to the wire partitions and began to chatter and show their teeth at him. Cromartie was too tired to stay in the cage, and went and lay down in his bedroom. When he came back after an hour the Chimpanzee and the Orang were still there, and greeted him with angry snarls. There was no doubt about it—they were threatening him.

Cromartie did not understand why this should be until Collins, who had come past, explained it to him.

“They are wild with jealousy,” he said, “that you should have drawn such a large crowd.” And he warned Mr. Cromartie to be very careful not to go within reach of their fingers. They would tear his hair out and kill him if they could get at him.

At first Mr. Cromartie found this very hard to credit, but afterwards, when he got to know the characters of his fellow captives better, it became the most ordinary commonplace. He learnt that all the monkeys, the elephants, and the bears felt jealous in this way. It was natural enough that the creatures that were fed by the public should feel resentment if they were passed over, for they are all insatiably greedy, and the worse they digest the food given them the more anxious they are to glut themselves with it. The wolves felt a different jealousy, for they were constantly forming attachments to particular persons among the crowd, and if the chosen person neglected them for a neighbour they became jealous. Only the larger cats, lions, and panthers seemed free from this degrading passion.

During his stay Mr. Cromartie gradually came to know all the beasts in the Gardens pretty well, since he was allowed out every evening after closing-time, and very often was allowed to go into other cages. Nothing struck him more forcibly than the distinction which most of the different creatures very soon drew between him and the keepers. When a keeper came past every animal would pay some attention, whereas few of them would even look round for Mr. Cromartie. He was treated by the vast majority with indifference. As time went on he saw that they treated him as they treated each other, and it struck him that they had somehow learnt that he was being exhibited as they were themselves. This impression was so forcible that Mr. Cromartie believed it without question, though it is not easy to prove that it was so, and still more difficult to explain how such a piece of knowledge could have spread among so heterogeneous a collection of creatures. Yet the attitude of the animals to each other was so marked, that Mr. Cromartie not only observed it in them, but very soon came to feel it in himself for them. He could not describe it better than by calling it firstly “cynical indifference,” and then adding that it was perfectly good-natured. It was expressed usually by total indifference, but sometimes by something between a yawn of contempt and a grin of cynical appreciation. It was just in these slight shades of manner that Mr. Cromartie found the animals interesting. Naturally they had nothing to say to him, and in such artificial surroundings their natural habits were difficult to ascertain, only those living in families or colonies ever seeming perfectly at their ease, but they all did seem to reveal something of themselves in their attitude to each other. To man they showed quite different behaviour, but in their eyes Mr. Cromartie was not a man. He might smell like one, but they saw at once that he had come out of a cage.