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.