He then entered the cage in a familiar way, and as the lion was asleep, he pulled it by the ears. When the beast, who at first grumbled a little, was sitting up and seemed composed again, my companion called to me:
“Come in, now!”
I went in cautiously at the back, taking two steps forward, so that I might still be nearer to the door than to the lion. I must own that the desert king did not honour me by even turning his head. He was talking to his tamer. The two gentlemen left me standing, and I looked rather like a bootmaker waiting for orders from a nobleman. [p149]
Man is a coward. The lion’s contempt gave me courage. I advanced a step so that I could touch the leg of the beast.
“Oh!” I said, “how silky it is!”
It was not silky at all, it was abominably harsh.
Since then I have reflected upon the feeling which could have induced me to utter this falsehood, and the result of this self-examination is so humiliating that I will confide it [p150] to you as a penance. In fact “how silky it is” was prompted by an instinct of base flattery—a courtier’s compliment—the toadyism of a coward who felt himself nearer to the lion than to the door.
The boldest individuals, who put their heads two or three times a day into the lion’s mouth, have told me that the best way to withdraw it from the gulf is, first of all, not to open the acquaintanceship with this experiment; and, secondly, to perform it with great nerve.
Nerve, that is the great secret of the lion-tamer, the sole cause of his authority over his beasts. When he has studied a subject for some time, endeavouring to master its character—and amongst the higher animals the character is very individual, very accentuated—one morning the man quietly walks into the cage. He must astonish the beast and over-awe him at once. As to the training, it consists—and here I quote the words of an expert in such matters—in commanding the lion to perform the exercises which please him; that is to say, to make him execute from fear of the whip those leaps which he would naturally take in his wild state.