# Balaoo/3/2

CHAPTER II: BALAOO'S SADNESS
Balaoo found Gertrude in his bedroom, putting out his evening-clothes and his dress-boots:
"Go away," he said, roughly. "I'm not going out."
"No one will know," Gertrude answered, with a sigh, "and it will do you good to take a little air. Look, here's twenty francs to enjoy yourself with. I'll run down and serve the coffee and I'll come back again. Get your things on."
She went downstairs and returned in five minutes.
Balaoo was lying on the rug by the bedside. He had not changed his clothes and he was crying. Gertrude was terribly upset:
"What's the matter with you? What's the matter?"
"You know what's the matter well enough!" replied Balaoo, pressing his clenched fists to his mouth to check his despair. "What did he come back for?"
"One can't prevent his coming to Paris. He's the master's nephew. He's here on business."
"Oh, I know that, sooner or later, he's bound to come and take Madeleine away. It is man's law, but it will be my death." Craftily he continued, "You may as well tell me if it's for to-day or to-morrow. I swear I won't hurt him. I promised Patti Palang Raing. Man is man; and I have shoe-hands instead of feet. I shall be quite good. I shall go straight to the Seine and drown myself without a word."
"And what will become of me?" sobbed Gertrude.
"That's not what I was asking. Is it for to-day or to-morrow?"
"But I assure you there's no question of that!"
"Then tell me, you old vixen, why they wanted to send Zoé and me to the man's house at Saint-Martin-des-Bois? It was the Bank of France to a handful of nuts that I agreed. They knew what they were doing and that I should love to see the Big Beech at Pierrefeu and the table-rock at Mahon and the orchard of my youth. . . . But I suspected. something . . . and, true enough, 'he' came! . . . Give me your word that you were not expecting him. . . . You daren't give me your word, eh? . . . Filth!"
At that moment, there was a tap-tap-tap at the door. Gertrude, flooding her handkerchief with her tears, went and opened it; and General Captain walked in:
"Hullo, Polly!" he said.
"Here's this dirty rotter," growled Balaoo. "What do you want, General Captain?"
General Captain gave vent to a whole array of guttural and cackling sounds, that came from his throat as quickly as the words of any old woman in a rage.
"What's he saying?" asked Gertrude.
"He says that he can't understand why we haven't started. I promised to take him to Pierrefeu."
"Pierrefeu! Pierrefeu! Pierrefeu! Pierrefeu!" cried General Captain.
"He's deafening me," said Balaoo, turning over on his rug. "Go and fasten him to his perch, in the kitchen."
"Let's start! Let's start! Let's start!" yelled General Captain, flapping his wings.
"Oh, that's enough of it!" said the pithecanthrope, catching him a tremendous box on the ear.
Gertrude, still weeping, put General Captain out of the room. They heard him, for a moment, on the landing, indulging in a torrent of bad language. Then he went downstairs very carefully, counting every step to the kitchen, where he climbed up on his perch near the door and pretended to go to sleep. As a matter of fact, he observed all that happened, for he was more inquisitive than any man-porter. It was not long before he saw Gertrude and Balaoo come down to the hall, taking endless precautions lest they should be heard.
Balaoo was dressed up to the nines. His light overcoat was open and gave a glimpse of his gleaming shirt-front and the silk lapels of his dinner-jacket. His patent leather boots shone like two black stars on the white flags of the hall.
"He's off on the spree again," thought General Captain. "And the old girl'll kill herself sitting up for him!"
Balaoo allowed Gertrude to kiss him, before he started, and to slip some small change into his hand:
"Ah," he said, with a sigh, "if I had not promised to fetch Gabriel, I should certainly have stayed at home!"
Gertrude pushed him gently out on the pavement and closed the heavy hall-door more gently still. Then she returned to the kitchen and settled down to spend the best part of the night dozing with her head on the table. She rejoiced at having persuaded Balaoo to go out:
"It's a change for him," she thought.
And she congratulated herself on having laid out his things on the bed: his dress-shirt, with the glittering front and the beautiful cuffs, as stiff as steel; his tall stand-up collar: things which no pithecanthrope can resist.
"Good night, ma'am," said General Captain, in French.
"Good night, General Captain," said Gertrude, politely.
This politeness was too good to last. General Captain felt a need also to treat old Gertrude as "filth!" But he learnt to his cost that what was permissible in a Balaoo was not always permitted in a General Captain. He got a beating with the tongs and raised such an outcry that Madeleine came running downstairs:
"What's the matter?" she asked Gertrude, in an anxious voice. "Have you been crying again?"
"Yes."
"Is it about Balaoo? Does he suspect anything?"
"Of course he suspects. . . . It'll be terrible!"
"Terrible!" repeated Madeleine, pensively.
Meanwhile, the melancholy Balaoo, with his hands dug into the pockets of his overcoat, his stick under his arm, his shoulders bent, his eyes fixed on the ground, was gliding like a shadow through the deserted streets, wrapped in his own thoughts.
He went down to the Seine by the back streets and turned up stream. On his right were the gloomy buildings of the Halle aux Vins.
What was his dinner-jacket doing in that evil-looking desert?
Well, Balaoo's dinner-jacket was on its way to the Jardin des Plantes!
Coriolis had thought himself very clever in removing Balaoo from the bad influence of the forest and transferring the pithecanthrope's abode to the heart of the capital; but he had committed a gross imprudence in taking a house only a few steps from the bears' pit, the monkey-house and the lions' and tigers' cages. A man can't think of everything!
And it was always in this direction, towards his brother-animals, that Balaoo's, dreams led him, almost unconsciously, when his heart was heavy because of men.
On reaching the corner of the Pont d' Austerlitz, Balaoo leant over the parapet and gazed at the rippling water and the shimmering reflections of the gas-jets.
He heaved a deep sigh and felt a touch on his shoulder: he turned round.
"Move on!"
It was an anxious policeman, suspecting a coming tragedy.
"Tchsschwopp!" said Balaoo.
"Eh? What did you say?"
Balaoo shrugged his shoulders and moved away in the darkness.
"A foreigner," thought. the policeman. "A Russian prince, perhaps. . . ."
Tchsschwopp is east-monkey for something like, "Why can't they leave one in peace?"
Balaoo had slanted towards the right and was now near the omnibus-office. He quickened his pace, following the railings, in search of solitude.
He found it. Then he pressed his forehead against the railings, the railings round the Jardin des Plantes, that huge cage in which men had shut up his brothers, the animals. Tired and shaking with sorrow as he was, the cold of the bars did him good; and he stood for a long time in that position, with his head against the rails, while his eyes, from which dropped two tears, round and heavy as marbles, glanced down his whole person to the black stars that were his patent-leather boots. That was where the mystery lay, the mystery of his infinite unhappiness, which turned him into something worse than a pariah among men, something like a tamed animal, that is to say, the lowest thing on earth. For the lion is still somebody in his cage, in which timorous men have buried him alive; but Balaoo, what was he, in his patent-leather shoes? A man's plaything, neither more nor less! . . .
Facing him, beyond the dark clumps of the trees, were the railed dens occupied by the great cats, whose heavy, alkaline scent reached him where he stood. He pictured them, calm, fateful and quiet, with their heads on their paws, sleeping peacefully in their houses. The crocodiles, stretched in their coffin-shaped compartments made no more noise than if they had been stuffed. Near them, under the blankets in which they wrapped their digestive dreams, were the reptiles: the noble families of snakes and Cleopatra's asps, silly little animals, whose fame did not keep them from sleeping. For all these creatures were asleep. The very monkeys, who are never still during the day, were snoring, now that night had come, like brutes: like brutes, thought Balaoo, picturing to himself all that animal population slumbering while he sobbed out his pithecanthrope anguish against the railings.
Even in their captivity, he envied those others behind their bars.
It hurt him dreadfully.
What bliss not to know! . . . To be ignorant of the "difference!" . . . Oh, the difference was not so great: it was contained within those patent-leather boots of his; and the passers-by who met that fine young man in dinner-dress would never have guessed what he carried about with him, inside his patent-leather boots! . . . But he, he, he thought of nothing but that, but the difference. . . and it spoilt all his evenings. Everywhere, at the café, at the, Conférence Bottier, even when he went on to the theatre, his mind was obsessed by the horrible thought of the difference. . . . And his despair led him constantly to the cages of the animal people. . . . There were evenings when he felt so unhappy that he could have longed to have the hard hoofs of the cab-horses in the place of his shoehands! . . . Yes, he would rather have nothing inside his shoes, like a cab-horse, than hide that disgrace there. . . .
One day also, when Coriolis had taken him to see the great pictures at the Louvre, he had come home quite upset. He escaped at the first opportunity and ran to "his" Jardin des Plantes and there spent hours looking at the horny little digits of the stags and hinds and gazelles. There were men with feet like that! . . . Yes, he had seen them in the pictures of men: men with little horny shoes and two horns on their heads, two pretty horns peeping through their hair; men who played music and made the ladies dance in the forest: beautiful, laughing ladies, in airy dresses. . . . He asked Coriolis if he could not have little horny shoes like those put to his feet, instead of his shoe-fingers; and Coriolis explained that that had not been done since the remote days of antiquity. Coriolis had made fun of him again, of course. Yes, Balaoo was, really and truly, nothing but a plaything for men, for Coriolis, for. . . for Madeleine!
There was nothing human about Balaoo's sighs that evening; and he had best take care: he had already attracted a policeman's attention; and here came a keeper, on the other side of the railings, going his rounds. The man stopped, without seeing him, and listened to hear where those extraordinary gasps came from. Was it the hippopotamus moaning in his sleep? The elephant trumpeting? The panther bored to death? . . . No, keeper, resume your rounds: it is Balaoo weeping. And Balaoo has nothing to do with you!
The keeper moved away; and Balaoo, under his breath, murmured the following plaint, which was rather a complaint and which he always carried with him, deep down in his sad heart:
"Patti Palang Kaing! Patti Palang Kaing! Could not the God of Christian man Say that these fingers bound should be, The toes on the shoe-hands of me?
"Patti Palang Kaing! Patti Palang Kaing! Why did the God of Christian man Alter the language of my song From my native Forest of Bandong And teach me to weep at right or wrong, If He could not also bring His mind The toes of my shoe-hands to bind?
"Patti Palang Raing! Patti Palang Kaing! Appeal to the God of Christian man To restore the language of my song From my native Forest of Bandong! And give me back my mangrove-trees, With my hands that were not as these!"
Poor Balaoo! Luckily, he had Gabriel left to console him, Gabriel, who was waiting for him now.
But it would not do to attempt anything before the time for the keeper to finish his round. The clock struck. Balaoo wiped his wet eyes with his handkerchief, spat in his hands — a thing he never used to do before he saw the acrobats at the music-halls — and, with a very careful movement of his loins, so as not to crease his shirt-front, jumped inside the gardens.
Balaoo feared nothing on earth but dogs. He no longer dreaded the man's rounds, the hour of which had passed; but he was afraid lest the dogs, who could feel him coming even in their sleep, should wake. Fortunately, they were tied up in the little yard near the lion house. Nevertheless, there was the question of the scent to be grappled with. But Balaoo had a capital trick, which always succeeded when he went to visit his friends, at night. He used first to call on the polecats, in the rotunda by the entrance, and would come out simply reeking of pole-cat. Then he was able to walk about anywhere and to go as near as he pleased to the buildings watched by the dags. The smell of polecat does not make them bark: it is a natural smell in the Jardin des Plantes; whereas the smell of man and the smell of pithecanthrope — "The same thing," thought Balaoo — always makes dogs bark.
Balaoo knew where the keys of his friends' houses hung, in the man's house, near a little fanlight which you had only to push open. Then you just put in your hand. There was no danger.
He made no noise walking. He had learnt to walk silently even in his patent-leather boots. Besides, no feathered animal on his road, sleeping on one leg, would have been silly enough, even if wakened with a start, to cry murder. It would have known at once that friend Balaoo was passing. No animal wauld give the alarm: he could be easy, quite easy, as long as the dogs smelt the scent of pole-cat.
The Abyssinian goats, in their sheds, bade him good evening with a little beat of understanding which he alone took in and which he answered by just breathing through his nostrils, without stopping in his walk. The great waders, the tall herons played him a stealthy little tune on the castanets of their long beaks.
But he would not go near the horrible tribe of low-class monkeys, otherwise known as the monkeys with prehensile tails, who were the scum and the disgrace of the animal world. Every race has its scandals. Among the members of the Human Race are disreputable troglodytes, who live in stone caves, squatting on their hams, with hair coming down to their heels, even as there are astounding Esquimaux, with sealskin legs and thighs, and niggers, niggers who absolutely dare to wear white shirt-collars. If Balaoo ever rose to any sort of position among the members of the Race, if he woke up one morning with proper shoe-feet, he would give lectures all over the world in favour of forbidding niggers to wear other than black collars.
But the low-class monkeys with the prehensile tails were the greatest disgrace of all! A pithecanthrape can mix with all creation, from the highest to the lowest, without losing caste; but not with those! . . . If he, a pithecanthrope from the Forest of Bandang, were to do such a thing as that, no oriental anthropoid would ever forgive him; and Gabriel, if he came to hear of would spit in his face. . . flatly!
Balaoo, after calling on the pole-cats, exploring the surroundings and parading his pole-cat scent, returned to the lion-house. The inmates knew that it was he, by the way in which he turned the key in the lock. And there was a general commotion in the cages even before he set foot in the corridor. However, if they expected, that evening, to have a good old palaver with Balaoo, who always told them such extraordinary man-stories, they were mistaken. His visit was brief. They had hardly time to say how-do-you-do and good-bye. Balaoo walked out again, leading by the hand a companion of almost his own size.
It was Gabriel, the great Asiatic ape.
At first there was not a word exchanged between them. Gabriel could judge by Balaoo's attitude and silence that his friend was full of sorrow. He squeezed Balaoo's hand gently, to convey to him that, without knowing the cause, he felt for him in his grief. As they turned by the sea-lions' pond, Gabriel tried to ask a question; but Balaoo closed his mouth with a curt and impatient "Woop!" which means, "Please, I beg of you!" And Gabriel, seeing his friend so upset, squeezed his hand once more, harder this time.
"Tourôô! 'Tis good to feel the grasp of a friend's hand," thought Balaoo.
Balaoo had no friends, no chums, among men. He dreaded familiarity as the greatest danger that threatened him. He hid his shame under an uncompromising pride.
Latterly, especially during the last two months, it had seemed to him as though the time which he spent with Madeleine was being measured out to him grudgingly.
When he was not with Coriolis, who was his master, with Gertrude, who was his servant, or with Zoé, who was his little slave, he was all alone. . . all alone with the thought of Madeleine and his own shame.
The nights were terribly hard. Once, when he had been finding consolation in the company of the great cats in the lion-house, Gabriel, a new-comer behind the bars of civilization, had lent a flattering ear to all that Balaoo said; and the thought occurred to Balaoo to make a friend and comrade of the ape. He got on well with him, had much less difficulty than with the others in translating what he called his man-thoughts into animal language. They had common turns of speech, common idioms that delighted them and brought them within a mile of their Forest of Bandong. Java, their wild and mysterious mother, had sent the same blood flowing through their veins.
Another thing that attracted Balaoo was that the pithecanthrope realized, at the first glance, all that could be made of an ape, properly dressed by a smart tailor. To begin with, there is a closer resemblance between your anthropoid ape, with his straight nose and his long, oval face, and a Western man than between a Chinese, for instance, and a gentleman from Tunis. But this particular ape is found only in the Far East, near the Forest of Bandong, and is a cousin of the pithecanthrope.
Of course, the pithecanthrope is his superior, for he unites within himself the three greatest qualities in the world: the dexterity of the Java ape, the strength of the gorilla and the intelligence of man.
"The pithecanthrope is as handy as the Java ape and as powerful as the African gorilla, but not as clever as man," thought Balaoo, quite rightly. "But he is cleverer than the Java ape."
Gabriel believed everything that Balaoo told him and accepted his lead without question. This, moreover, was the only condition on which Balaoo consented, occasionally, to take Gabriel out, in the night of men, to amuse him. And Gabriel was not to growl when he got, back. Once, when Gabriel did growl on returning to his cage, Balaoo gave him a good shaking and swore that he should not see him again for two months.
Balaoo did not want to have any bothers. He could not take Gabriel to Coriolis', could he? And Gabriel, once outside his cage, was helpless without Balaoo. So no nonsense! Settled, once and for all. Tourôô! All right!
Balaoo was still holding Gabriel by the hand. Together they stole to the dead-butterfly-house. The two of them had spent hours here chatting, sure of remaining undisturbed. It was here that Balaoo, before venturing to let Gabriel take his first steps in the night of men, gave him his final instructions and imparted his last lessons in behaviour before a pier-glass that dated back to Mme. de Pompadour. And it was in an old wall-cupboard, in which Cuvier, as likely as not, had kept his things, that Balaoo hung up the very smart suit of clothes with which he had presented Gabriel and in which Gabriel proudly arrayed himself before their escapades.
They made their way in by methods of their own, methods connected with windows and gutter-pipes. And they came out again without soiling their clothes. Balaoo was no longer the scapegrace of the Big Beech at Pierrefeu, who used to return to the man's house with the seat of his trousers torn. His trousers, whatever the exercise in which he indulged, never had any other crease than that which they were meant to have. And Balaoo was anxious that Gabriel should take the same care of his things that he did.
They both wore the little soft, black-felt hats that were then the fashion. Lastly, Balaoo had made Gabriel a present of a magnificent pair of spectacles. The one with his eye-glass and the other with his spectacles could go where they pleased, without fear of molestation. But they must mind the dogs.
Balaoo and Gabriel, dressed like smart man-youths, waited behind the entrance at the corner of the Rue de Jussieu, without hurrying, for there was no smell of keeper.
Suddenly:
"Now!" said Balaoo.
One, two, three and over the railings! But they did not loiter in the Rue de Jussieu. Three bounds brought them to the Rue Lacépède, where they stopped to take breath. And, staidly and sedately, they turned up the well-lighted pavement of the Rue Monge.
They walked along very nicely, still holding each other by the hand, and nothing particular happened until they reached the Rue des Écoles. Here Balaoo said:
"Listen, Gabriel, I shall let go your hand now, because we are coming to a swagger part where people of our age don't walk hand-in-hand. But be very careful. Don't leave me. Do everything that I do; and none of your tricks, mind!"
These injunctions were superfluous at the time when they first went out together. Gabriel, trembling all over with anxiety, was then content to imitate all Balaoo's movements; in fact this caused them to be noticed one evening and taken for larking foreigners. But Gabriel was beginning to acquire a certain freedom from restraint; and Balaoo dreaded his impulses:
"None of your tricks!" he repeated. "And mind the dogs!"
For, once mere, Balaoo feared nothing on earth but dogs. The word fear is not strong enough: he was terrified of them. When he saw one, he would turn pale and fly, jump into a tram, or fling himself into a passing cab and tell the driver to go to the first address that came into his head: Bandong, for instance! He lost all his presence of mind. The moment a dog saw him, the first thing it did was to look at Balaoo's feet. One would think that it knew, that it guessed what was inside Balaoo's boots; and, however much that dog might respect the boots of anybody else, it knew no peace, unless Balaoo was clever enough to retreat in time, until it had tried its longing teeth on Balaoo's shoe leather.
"The fear of dogs," Balaoo explained to Gabriel, in quick and comprehensive monkey-language, accompanied by a facial and manual pantomime which means as much to monkeys as to men, who themselves emphasize their words with gestures and grimaces, "the fear of dogs is the first stage of wisdom. Patti Palang Kaing classes men and dogs together. He says, in his book of the forest, 'Do not trust their animal appearance, their hanging tongues, their arched tails, their whole air of being out for their own enjoyment, sniffing the good smell of the earth. They work for men without seeming to, like the traitors that they are, and they will dig their fangs into your throat, straight away, for a mere "Thank-you" from man.' "
"Patti Palang Kaing speaks of the big sporting-dogs, not of the little dogs you meet in the cafés," said Gabriel, scratching the tip of his nose.
"Don't do that!" said Balaoo, hitting him with his stick. "The little dogs in the cafés, on the ladies' laps, are very troublesome too. They never stop barking while one's in the room. I never sit down without first looking round to see if there's a little dog about."
Just then, as they were passing the Brasserie Amédée, a little dog, on the lap of a lady sitting outside in the street, began to yelp like mad.
"Come away!" said Balaoo.
And he took Gabriel's hand to drag him to the opposite pavement.
But the little dog was too quick for them and, leaping from the lady's lap, fastened its teeth in the calf of Gabriel's leg. Gabriel, in his irritation, gave it a kick on the jaw and killed it.
The thing happened so rapidly that Balaoo had no time to interfere:
"And that's not the end of it!" he thought, as he realized the damage done. "A pretty business, this is!"
A crowd gathered round them in a moment, while the lady uttered heart-rending cries and stirred up the whole neighbourhood against them.
The customers outside the café had risen as one man and were abusing them for wild beasts and savages. The girls on the students' arms broke their sunshades and umbrellas over the two friends' backs. A gentleman tried to hand Gabriel his card.
Balaoo did not let go of Gabriel's hand. Gabriel stood trembling and chattering his teeth. He was especially terrified at the eyes of the gentleman who was holding out his card.
"The dirty aliens!" cried somebody.
"Don't answer," said Balaoo, who seemed to have some experience of this sort of riot, having no doubt more than once, quite unintentionally, provoked the anger of the populace in the course of his nocturnal escapades. "Don't answer. Fall back." He fell back step by step, dragging Gabriel with him. "Fall back, without a word; and, whatever you do, don't touch them."
But the crowd followed their retreat. And the gentleman with the card hung on to them and persisted in thrusting his pasteboard under Gabriel's nose. Gabriel could not help breathing on the card, which tickled him — breathing through his nose — and then there was the devil to pay. The gentleman shouted that that villain, that murderer, that coward who refused to fight had spat in his face!
The arrival of a number of students, marching down the Rue Champollion in single file, added to the uproar and confusion. Balaoo, still retreating — for he knew where he was going — and still dragging Gabriel him, had the happy thought of taking the lunatic's and telling him that he would hear from their seconds in the morning: he had seen this done at the theatre in a play by M. Georges Ohnet. Still yielding before the impact of the crowd, they soon found themselves with their backs against the Musée de Cluny. This was was what Balaoo was waiting for:
"Hop!" he said. "Hop!"
"Hop" means "jump" in monkey- as well as man-language. Gabriel understood. An ivy creeper hung from a gargoyle. Balaoo and the anthropoid ape were in the museum garden before the others knew what had become of them. When they understood, they redoubled their din. A window of the museum opened and a poet, M. Haracourt, put out his head to declare that they were making it impossible for him to work.
The people explained that there were two ruffians in his garden. Thereupon he woke all the attendants, but no one was found hiding behind the stone relics of Julian the Apostate; and the crowd, emitting a variety of opinions on the event, went back to the Brasserie Amedée for more drinks.
Meanwhile, Balaoo and Gabriel were far away, sitting outside a café at the corner of the Avenue Victoria and the Place du Châtelet, ensconced in a dark corner where you can drink at your ease, that is to say, with your fingers. And Balaoo said to Gabriel:
"You see what dogs can bring you to. I had a system with them at Saint-Martindes-Bois. To save bother, I hanged them all. The people believed in an epidemic of dogs; no one in the neighbourhood ever kept a dog again; and I was left in peace. But there are too many of them in Paris!"
"Last time we went out, you promised to take me to Maxim's. Are there any dogs there?"
"No, but you won't be able to drink with your fingers."
Balaoo, at the beginning, had intended to take Gabriel's education thoroughly in hand; but this was only a momentary good-natured impulse. And, whenever they were certain that they were alone, in the shade outside a cafe, with their hats over their eyes, they would straightway, both of them, drink their lager-beer with their fingers: you dip your fingers into the glass and suck.
This relieved Balaoo of no little constraint. His excuse was that he thought that no one saw him. And, before throwing a stone at him, we should first make sure that we know a single member of the Race who never, in the seclusion of his bachelor dining-room, thinking himself unobserved, eats his fried potatoes with his fingers or rests his elbows on the table. And we have all read how M. de Vigny used to take his meals in private, so as to eat more at his ease.
All went well on the Place du Châtelet until the man with the pea-nuts arrived, when Balaoo had the mortification of seeing Gabriel leap at that worthy merchant and rob him of his wares in the twinkling of an eye.
The pea-nut vendor, mad with terror and thinking that his last hour had struck, contented himself with picking himself out of the gutter into which he had rolled and running away at full speed in search of a policeman. He found one and brought him stalking to the café where the tragedy had been enacted.
The scared and peaceable customers told the man that his assailant had gone away with a gentleman who said that he would "make himself responsible." They had tried to keep them back, so that they might offer some explanation, but in vain. The brutal lover of pea-nuts had left without a word, on the pretext that he did not speak French. Paris is full of foreigners who consider that they can safely take any liberty.
Some members of the audience at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, who had come out during the interval for a drink and witnessed the attack, had ventured under the emotions aroused by Angelo Tyrant of Padua, to express the opinion that "it is not necessary to go to the theatre to see dishonest people." Whereupon the gentleman who was with the lover of pea-nuts and who had "made himself responsible" declared that "it is not dishonest when you pay for things" and, before departing with his friend, laid a penny on the table.
Then, as they had not settled for their bocks, the manager and the waiter had run after them; but the one carrying the basket of pea-nuts under his arm turned and showed two such formidable and threatening rows of white teeth, under his spectacles — you saw nothing but teeth and spectacles in his face — that the two men stopped, feeling sure that that indelicate customer had meant to bite them.
While the policeman was taking notes in his little book and asking the people to "speak in turns" and while the plaintiff was mourning the goods which he would never see again, Balaoo and Gabriel had long been "moving on," in the familiar phrase of the minions of the law. Seated on the top of the tram-car that runs from Montrouge to the Gare de l'Est, they enjoyed the mildness of the weather, the beauty of the young leaves on the trees along the boulevard, the charm of that spring evening and the excellence of the pea-nuts.
Balaoo waited to "remonstrate" with Gabriel until the basket was empty, which was when they reached the Saint-Lazare prison. Gabriel was proposing to get down and walk along the cafés in search of more pea-nut vendors; and Balaoo felt that the time had come to enlarge upon the danger of his conduct. He put on his severe voice to tell Gabriel that, if he went on stealing pea-nuts, he would go to prison. And, pointing to the walls opposite, he explained to him what a man's prison was.
Gabriel could not help shuddering at the sight of that horrible building. He thought of his bright and airy cage in the Jardin des Plantes, among the trees and the flowers, where he was visited daily by man-children's nurses and by scarlet-legged warriors. He promised Balaoo anything and everything, if Balaoo would only take him to Maxim's. Balaoo had told him that it was the best cafe in Paris for pine-apples and bananas, only you must behave properly there and keep quiet, because it is visited by the best people. Balaoo himself had been there two or three times, having heard it well spoken of, between the positive and the negative, at the Conférence Bottier.
"I don't mind taking you to Maxim's," said Balaoo, "but you understand that, if you go for the bananas and pine-apples as you went for the pea-nuts, we shall be in for trouble. You must wait to be served and not imagine that every dish that passes before your eyes is meant for you."
Gabriel swore by Patti Palang Kaing that he would keep his hands in his pockets.
Half an hour later, they drove up in a taxi-cab and walked into Maxim's. As the driver of the taxi had not been paid, he waited for them, as in duty bound, outside the door.
Balaoo and Gabriel felt a little shy and had not the courage to disturb all the fine people who blocked up the middle passage between the tables. Moreover, Balaoo had his own little favourite corner, on the left, as you go in, behind the door. You attract less notice there and can eat your pine-apples and bananas in peace and comfort.
"Oh, here's the Hindu professor!" said Henry, the manager, as Balaoo and his friend entered the restaurant. "Baptiste, take a pine-apple to the Hindu professor. And some bananas."
In first-class establishments, a customer has but to visit the place twice for the waiters to remember all his tastes and little ways. Baptiste went to execute the order and returned almost at once:
"The Hindu professor wants to speak to you," he said. "I can't make out what he's saying."
"But he speaks French."
"Yes, only he's asking for raw rice. I can't serve him with raw rice!"
"Raw rice?"
The manager walked to the table at which Balaoo and Gabriel were seated and bowed:
"Have you given your order, gentlemen?"
"It's like this," said Balaoo, cutting up a pine-apple for Gabriel. "I've brought a friend with me. My friend would like a little rice. Can you give us some rice?"
"Certainly, sir," said Henry, with his usual perfect manner, which never betrayed the least astonishment.
"How would you like it served? With milk? Or in a soup? Or rice-croquettes or cakes? Would you care for gravy-rice?"
"We should like it raw," said Balaoo, giving one half of the pine-apple to Gabriel, whose head was hidden under his soft felt hat.
"Quite raw?"
"Yes, quite raw, in a salad-bowl. It's very easy: you take a large salad-bowl and, fill it with rice. You bring it to us; and we pour in some champagne."
"Ah, I see," said Henry, "an Indian dish! It ought to be delicious."
And he hurried off to give the order.
"Try and eat decently," said Balaoo to Gabriel, "They're staring at us. It's not difficult to eat a pine-apple decently.""There are no dogs here," said Gabriel, speaking with his mouth full, "but lots of ladies."
"Be careful with the ladies," said Balaoo. "They're almost as big a nuisance as the dogs. If they speak to you, don't kick them; leave it to me to answer them."
Gabriel, who had finished his pine-apple, started eating the tooth-picks, unseen by Balaoo:
"Tourôô!" he said. "Rely on me!"
At that moment, a "lady" passed and said: "Hullo, there's the Hindu professor! He's brought his monkey with him!"
Balaoo turned white with rage:
"Goek!" he said, following her with his eyes. "She smells of buffalo-hump."
But the sight of that brazen woman who smelt so strong carried his thoughts back, by a fatal contrast, to a young man-woman who smelt like the spring when the violets sprouted among the mossy roots of the Big Beech at Pierrefeu. In vain he tried to divert his mind with the incident of the pea-nuts, the dead dog and all the comical situations caused by Gabriel's inexperience and charming innocence: the sad and anxious thought of Madeleine seared his inmost heart, even as his inside was scorched when he ate a whole jar of pickles by himself.
Meanwhile, Gabriel had finished not only the pine-apple, but all the bananas and all the tooth-picks:
"Is there nothing more to eat?" he asked.
"I'm out on the spree to-night," said Balaoo. "I'm standing you a bowl of rice-and-champagne.
It's coming." To the wine-waiter, "Bring a bottle of champagne. A very light wine, please," he added, pointing to Gabriel, "because of my young friend here."
"Is champagne nice?" asked Gabriel, who was now eating the matches.
"It pricks your nose and makes you walk crooked," said Balaoo, gloomily.
"How sad you are, Balaoo!" said Gabriel, finishing the matches and beginning to eat the box.
"The man from Saint-Martin is back!" said Balaoo, ominously.
"Phoh! Phoh!" said Gabriel, sympathetically.
Balaoo discreetly wiped his eye with a corner of his napkin:
"Wonoup! Wonoup!"
Gabriel, with lightning rapidity, seized upon the swizzle-sticks which the waiter brought to free the champagne of its superfluous gas:
"I could see that you were sad," he said. "Phoh! Phoh!"
"Sweet is the warmth of your hand," said Balaoo, ready to burst into tears."Tourôô! Tourôô! I am very unhappy, Gabriel. . . . What are you eating?"
"Nothing," said Gabriel, turning pale.
"Show me!" said Balaoo, opening Gabriel's mouth and closing it again. "Oh, those swizzle-sticks! You're quite right. They're no good with champagne, they take away all the prickly feeling in the nose. It's better to eat them by themselves."
"Look at the things on that lady's hat," said Gabriel. "Are they good to eat?"
"You must learn to exercise a little self-control," said Balaoo. "I used to eat hats myself when I was a youngster: all Madeleine's summer-hats; for winter hats are no good. And then I grew up and left her hats alone. . . . I used to wait until she fed me out of her hand. . . . Wonoup! . . . Where are the days when I ate out of Madeleine's hand, the days when I saw her enter the orchard of my youth, looking like a rose-bud? She was also like the partridge running to her brood; but the partridge has not so shapely a figure, nor so light a gait. Her voice was as sweet as the Bengal warbler's song."
"I don't understand all you say," said Gabriel, "but my heart is in your breast."
"Tourôô! Thank you!" said Balaoo, pressing his hand under the table. "What have you in your hand? . . . Where did you get those cigars?"
"Out of the box, when the gentleman wasn't looking."
The waiter had taken the box and was walking away, discreetly counting the cigars.
"What do you mean to do with them?"
"Eat them."
"Yes, for dessert. You must give me half. Ah, here comes our rice-and-champagne!"
Henry had made a point of bringing the salad-bowl himself:
"I've done as you wished, gentlemen," he said. "It's raw."
"That's right, Henry," said Balaoo. "Stir it as you would a salad, while I pour in the wine."
And he stretched out his hand for the bottle of champagne which the wine waiter was uncorking. Unfortunanately, the man was put out by Gabriel's grimaces and allowed the cork to pop and strike the ceiling with a noise like a gun. Gabriel, in his terror; leapt at one bound across the space between the table where he was sitting and the bar opposite and hid himself behind the bar, yelling:
"Brout! Brout! Wonoup! Brout!"
"What's happened? What's happened?" cried a chorus of customers.
"Why, it's the monkey from the Folies Bergère!" said a lady.
"It's very like him," said different voices.
The lady went up to take a better look at Gabriel, whereupon the excited ape suddenly snatched off her magnificent hat and, obeying his instincts, began to devour it upon the spot. Seeing that masterpiece of the Rue de la Paix disappearing between Gabriel's teeth, the lady, the lady's friend and the waiter uttered piercing yells. But Balaoo shouted the war-cry, the rallying-cry of the Forest of Bandong. One more bound; and Gabriel joined him. The two were outside on the pavement when Maxim's best customer arrived, just in time to calm the bewildered staff:
"It's the Maharajah of Kalpurthagra," he said, "out for the night with his monkey!"
Meanwhile, the taxi which had brought them was carrying them away. The driver, who had hardly seen the faces of his fares, considered them a bit "on."
On reaching the gate of the Jardin des Plantes, Balaoo made it clear to the driver that the Maharajah of Kalpurthagra had painted the town so very red that night that he had hardly a sou left in his pocket. The driver was quite satisfied. He declared himself the maharajah's humble servant, said he would call for his orders at eleven o'clock in the morning and disappeared, after taking off his cap to his highness.
Had Balaoo been really merry that evening, he would not have failed to shout after the driver:
"Ask for M. Gabriel! Third cage on the left!"
But Balaoo was not really merry. . . .
After climbing the railings with Gabriel, he walked with downcast head, sadder than ever, in spite of their great evening. They came to the sea-lions' pond at the moment when the dawn was beginning to dispel the darkness of the night. Gabriel, who was afraid of being scolded, said nothing. But Balaoo was not thinking of rating Gabriel. He made him sit on the ground beside him, took his hand and shivered and sighed. And he spoke men's words which Gabriel did not understand. But he spoke them so sadly that the tears came to Gabriel's eyes:
"Listen, Gabriel," he said. "In the spring, I brought her the first flowering branches. Then she looked at me and said, 'My poor Balaoo!' And that was all. Yes, indeed, poor Balaoo!" And Balaoo began to weep. "Balaoo is the most to be pitied of all Patti Palang Kaing's creatures."
"Woop!" said Gabriel.
"There is none on earth that understands me but you," said Balaoo, pressing Gabriel's hand. "I will tell you a thing, Gabriel, that I have never told to any one, not even to her. But we weep together, you and I. Thus do the feeblest plants entwine to resist the storm."
"Wonoup! Wonoup!" sighed Gabriel.
"It's a song which I have written. Listen. Put your ear closer. It is a song in man-language. But you will understand it, merely by the beauty of the words,"
"Wonoup! Wonoup!" said Gabriel. And Balaoo whispered into Gabriel's ear:
Patti Palang Kaing! Patti Palang Kaing! Hear how my sorrows flow! I roamed through the garden of man Like one of the race in woe. Not one of them saw my tears: Not she whom I love the best, Though she heard how I beat my breast In a grief that none can know. To the other, who strolled with his nose on high, She said, 'It is thunder passing by.'
"Patti Palang Kaing! Patti Palang Kaing! Hear how my sorrows flow! If only there were bands To the toes of my shoe-hands, I should say, in accents low, To Patti Palang Kaing: "Keep Thou, across the seas, Thy plantains, mangroves, mango-trees, Since Thou hast put me bands To the toes of my shoe-hands! Patti Palang Kaing! Balaoo knows no pang!
"And I should say to Madeleine, In the softest voice of men: 'Madeleine, my fair, I fain would kiss thy hair! If only there were bands To the toes of my shoe-hands! '
"Alas, did not the other say: 'I would kiss her hair to-day!' Silent I watch and stand, Waiting to kiss her hand!'
"Poor Balaoo! Poor Balaoo!" said Gabriel, wiping away Balaoo's tears.
* ↑ Negroes also are mad on well-starched white linen. — Author's Note.
* ↑ The Paris Botanical and Zoological Gardens on the south side of the Seine. — Translator's Note.
* ↑ For the translation of these and the other verses in the present volume I am indebted to the willing assistance of Miss D. Eardley Wilmot — Translator's Note
* ↑ Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), the famous French nautralist — Translator's Note
* ↑ Comte Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863), the author of Oinq-Mars. He spent the last twenty years of his life in retirement. — Translator's Note.
* ↑ "Alas! Alas! " — Author's Note.
* ↑ In the secondary sense of "Thank you!" — Author's Note.
* ↑ "Mercy! Mercy! Alas! Mercy!" — Author's Note.
* ↑ In the sense of "Please, please, calm yourself!" — Author's Note