“Suddenly Bidel fell, having caught himself in his blunt two-pronged iron spear, and in some way tripped over it. Every one present uttered a brief cry. Then, a deadly silence fell upon the huge tent—a silence so intense that the hissing of the gas-lights could be heard.
“I shall never forget the man’s face at the moment he lost his balance. I still see his starting eyes, the white balls vividly contrasting with his features, congested by gout and by his previous efforts. It was the expression of one who feels that he is lost, who is sinking into an abyss. Now the tamer was lying upon the floor of the cage like an inert mass, without a gesture or a cry for help. He never attempted to raise himself, probably through some tactic dictated by his experience, but apparently he had the time to do it in, for the lion still remained crouched a few yards away.
“Perhaps, my dear Le Roux, you have some wish that I should define the nature of the emotion which seizes an eye-witness under these circumstances? This emotion is certainly multiform. Thus, for my own part, you may feel sure that I was distressed, horrified—that I regretted being present on that fatal evening. . . . On the other hand, if you do not object, I will tell you that I was accompanied by a friend, a kind of inseparable, who is very curious about rare sensations.
“Now this friend has since confessed to me that whilst the lion remained immovable he was conscious of one idea . . . . how can I express it? . . . . In short, it was like a ferocious wish that something unexpected should happen, like a monstrous impatience. . . . .
“And, in excuse for my friend, I try to convince myself that he was not alone in feeling an abominable and vague desire; to me it seemed to have imprinted a fugitive expression upon all the blanched faces that rise before me even now: for instance, that of a small, freckled, red-haired woman [p154] clinging to her husband’s arm, who gnawed her lower lip and mercilessly climbed upon my feet—mercilessly, at all events, for my feet.
“At last the lion raised himself upon his four paws, and without advancing, gazed at his inert master with extreme distrust of the mass armed with a whip, ‘who was saying nothing worth hearing.’ One second passed in this way, or one century, I could not be sure which. Then Sultan made, towards what he began to consider a possible prey, two small furtive steps . . . . two cat-like steps, prudent and stealthy . . . . and again, two little steps. Then he laid one of his heavy paws upon his tamer’s shoulder, still not maliciously, rather as a caution, as we should place one hand upon a sheet of paper in danger of blowing away.
“In thus interpreting the ideas passing ‘through the darkness a lion has for soul,’ to quote a line from Victor Hugo, I have at least the satisfaction of knowing that my impressions harmonize with the picture that Edouard Detaille seized with the eye of a great painter.
“But oh, my dear Hugues Le Roux, no pencil of the illustrious artist can depict, all the resources of the pen are powerless to describe, the frightful tumult which, in the hitherto silent theatre, greeted this first act after the gloomy prologue—an infernal din, the noise of falling chairs, of shouts, of screams! . . . .