Grief went from me less quickly. Those who have entertained others with the recital of tricks of this sort—Homer, Ovid, Apuleius, and Perrault, did not know what tragedies their fictions would become, once they became realities.
What a drama there is really in Lucian’s “Ass”! What a martyrdom for me this week of dieting and enforced inaction!
Dead to humanity, I awaited with terror the tortures of vivisection, or the premature old age which would be the end of everything, before five years were out.
In spite of my despair, I got well. Lerne having ascertained this, I was turned out into the paddock.
Europa, Athor, and Io gamboled in front of me. Many long days were to pass before I could make them accustomed to me. Long days, and all a man’s cunning employed in the task.
A good bout of kicking finally subjugated them.
This incident would be a fit theme for deep philosophizing, and I should succumb to the temptation to hold forth, were it not that such dissertations are an awkward interruption of the course of a story.
For the time being, annoyed at the welcome with which the three horned ladies received me, and only desiring their favors with the ardor of a valetudinarian, I began peacefully to browse on the grass of the meadow.
Here begins the most interesting period—that of my observations on my new condition. They occupied me so completely, that I began to consider the bull’s body as a moveable dwelling—an exile’s home, no doubt, but an unexplored, bewildering place, full of surprises, from which chance would perhaps deliver me—for as soon as a place is merely not unpleasing, one immediately feels the risk of being driven from it.
As long as this accommodation of my man’s mind to the organs of the beast lasted, I was really fairly happy.