Ah! the luckless Heraclius, who undaunted could face the formidable shrugs of the Dean’s shoulders and the terrible chaff of the Warden, was far from being as brave before the outbursts of his servant Honorine. But why should the Doctor have been so afraid of this freshfaced, pleasant little woman who seemed so brisk and so devoted to her master’s interests? Ask why Hercules dallied at the feet of Omphale, and why Samson allowed Delilah to rob him of his strength and his courage, which, as the Bible tells us, were in his hair.
One day, alas! when the Doctor was walking in the fields, nursing his despair over a great passion wherein he had been betrayed (for it was not without cause that the Dean and the Warden were so much amused on their way home on a certain evening) he met at a hedge corner a little girl tending sheep. The learned man, who had not always and exclusively been searching for philosophic truth and who, besides, did not at that time suspect the great mystery of metempsychosis, instead of paying attention to the sheep, as he certainly would have done, if he had known facts of which he was then ignorant, began, alas! to chat with her who tended them. Soon after he took her into his service and this first act of weakness led to further ones. He became one of his shepherdess’ sheep himself after a little while, and it was whispered that although this rustic Delilah, like the one in the Bible, had cut off the hair of the poor unsuspecting man, she had not on that account deprived his forehead of all ornament?
Alas! what he had foreseen came to pass and even exceeded his expectations. At the very sight of the inhabitant of the woods in his wire cage, Honorine abandoned herself to an outburst of unbecoming fury and having overwhelmed her master with a shower of most ill-sounding epithets, turned to let her anger fall upon her unexpected guest.
But the latter, doubtless because he had not the same reason as had the Doctor to humour such an ill-mannered house keeper, began to cry and howl and stamp and gnash his teeth: he clung to the bars of his cage in so furious a manner, and accompanied his action with gestures so entirely indiscreet in the presence of a person whom he was meeting for the first time that Honorine was forced to withdraw like a defeated warrior and shut herself up in her kitchen.
And so, master of the field and delighted with the unexpected help with which his intelligent companion had furnished him, Heraclius carried off his prize to his study and installed the cage and its occupant in front of the desk in a corner by the fire.
XII
Which Explains How Doctor and Animal Tamer Are in No Way Synonymous
When began an exchange of significant glances between the two individuals who found themselves together, and each day for a whole week the Doctor passed long hours in conversing by means of his eyes (so, at least, he thought) with the interesting subject which he had acquired. But that was not enough. What Heraclius wanted was to study the animal at liberty, to surprise its secrets, its desires, its thoughts, to allow it to come and go at will, and through the daily companionship of a life of intimacy, to watch it recover forgotten habits and thus to identify by unmistakable signs the memory of a former life. But for this his guest would have to be free, that is to say, the cage would have to be opened. Now this undertaking was simply a matter of putting his fear aside. In vain the Doctor tried the influence of personal magnetism, and then that of cakes and nuts. The monkey started playing tricks which made him nervous every time he came close to the bars of the cage. But one day he was no longer able to resist the desire which tormented him and he went brusquely forward, turned the key in the padlock, opened the door wide, and, trembling with emotion, stood back a little way awaiting the upshot, which be it said, was not long in coming.
The astonished monkey hesitated at first and then in one bound was outside his cage and in another on the table. In a second he had upset all the papers and books; then a third jump took him into the arms of the Doctor and the evidence of his affection was so violent that if Heraclius had not worn a wig, his last hairs would undoubtedly have remained between the fingers of his redoubtable brother. But if the monkey was agile, the Doctor was not less so. He sprang first to the right, then to the left, slipped like an eel under the table, cleared the sofa like a hare and, still hotly pursued, gained the door and shut it quickly behind him. Then, panting like a horse at the finish of a race, he leant against the wall to save himself from collapsing.
Heraclius Gloss was prostrate for the rest of the day. He felt thoroughly upset, but what principally concerned him was that he had absolutely no idea how he and his thoughtless guest would be enabled to leave their respective positions. He brought a chair up to the door, fortunately impassable, and used the keyhole as an observatory. Then he saw O prodigy! O unhoped-for happiness! the fortunate conqueror stretched on the sofa warming his feet at the fire. In his first transport of joy the Doctor almost went back into the room, but reflection checked him; and, as though guided by a sudden light, he told himself that starvation would no doubt succeed where kindness had failed. This time he was proved right and the
