The celebrated Pré-aux-Clercs, now known as the Marché Saint Germain, is, as everybody knows, on Sundays, the Bird Market of Paris. The place has more than one claim on our curiosity. It is a vast menagerie, frequently renewed—a shifting, strange museum of French ornithology.
On the other hand, such an auction of living beings, of captives many of whom feel their captivity, of slaves whom the auctioneer exposes, sells, and values more or less adroitly, indirectly reminds one, after all, of the markets of the East, the auctions of human slaves. The winged slaves, without understanding our languages, do not the less vividly express the thought of servitude; some, born in this condition, are resigned to it; others, sombre and silent, dream ever of freedom. Not a few appear to address themselves to you, seem desirous of arresting the passer-by's attention, and ask only for a good master. How often have we seen an intelligent goldfinch, an amiable robin, regarding us with a mournful gaze, but a gaze by no means doubtful in its meaning, for it said: "Buy me!"
One Sunday in summer we paid a visit to this mart, which we shall never forget. It was not well stocked, still less harmonious; the season of moulting and of silence had begun. We were not the less keenly attracted by and interested in the naïve attitude of a few individuals. Ordinarily their song and their plumage, the bird's two principal attributes, preoccupy us, and prevent us from observing their lively and original pantomime. One bird, the American mocking-bird, has a comedian's genius, distinguishing all his songs by a mimicry strictly appropriate to their character, and often very ironical. Our birds do not possess this singular art; but, without skill, and unknown to themselves, they express, by significant and frequently pathetic movements, the thoughts which traverse their brain.
On this particular day, the queen of the market was a black-capped warbler, an artist-bird of great value, set apart in the display from the other birds, like a peerless jewel. She fluttered,svelteand charming all in her was grace. Accustomed to captivity by a long training, she seemed to regret nothing, and could only communicate to the soul happy and gentle impressions. She was plainly a being of perfect geniality, and of such harmony of song and movement, that in seeing her move I thought I heard her sing.
Lower, very much lower, in a narrow cage, a bird somewhat larger in size, very inhumanly confined, gave me a curious and quite opposite impression. This was a chaffinch, and the first which I had seen blind. No spectacle could be more painful. The man who would purchase by such a deed of cruelty this victim's song, must have a nature alien to all harmony, a barbarous soul. His attitude of labour and torture rendered his song very painful to me. The worst of it is that it was human; it reminded one of the turns of the head and the ungracious motions of the shoulders which short-sighted persons, or men become blind, indulge in. Such is never the case with those born blind. With a violent but continual effort, grown habitual, the head inclined to the right, with empty eyes he sought the light. The neck was outstretched, to sink again between the shoulders, and swelled out to gain new strength—the neck short, the shouldersbent. This unhappy virtuoso, whose song, like himself, was dissembled and deformed, had been a mean image of the ugliness of the slave-artist, if not ennobled by that indomitable effort to pursue the light, seeking it always on high, and ever centering his song in the invisible sun which he had treasured up in his soul.
Moderately capable of profiting by instruction, this bird repeats, with a marvellous metallictimbre, the song of his native wood, and preserves the particular accent of the country in which he was born; there being as many dialects of chaffinches as there are different districts. He remains faithful to his own; he sings only his cradle-song, and that with an uniform rate, but with a wild passion and an extraordinary emulation. Set opposite a rival, he will repeat it eight hundred successive times; occasionally he dies of it. I am not astonished that the Belgians enthusiastically celebrate the combats of this hero of the national song, the chorister of their forest of Ardennes, decreeing prizes, crowns, even triumphal arches, to those acts of supreme devotion in which life is yielded for victory.
Still lower down than the chaffinch, and in a very small and wretched cage, peopled pell-mell with half-a-dozen birds of very different sizes, I was shown a prisoner which I had not distinguished, a young nightingalecaught that very morning. The fowler, by a skilful Machiavelism, had placed the little captive in a world of very joyous slaves, quite accustomed to their confinement. These were young troglodytes, recently born in a cage; he had rightly calculated that the sight of the sports of innocent infancy sometimes beguiles great grief.
Great evidently, nay, overpowering, was his, and more impressive than any of those sorrows which we express by tears. A dumb agony, pent up within himself, and longing for the darkness. He had withdrawn into the shade as far as might be, to the bottom of the cage, half hidden in a small eating-trough, making himself large and swollen with his slightly-bristling feathers, closing his eyes, never opening them even when he was disturbed, shaken by the frolicsome and careless pastimes of the young turbulents, which frequently drove one another against him. Plainly he would neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor console himself. These self-imposed shadows were, as I clearly saw, an effort, in his cruel suffering,not to be, an intentional suicide. With his mind he embraced death, and died, so far as he was able, by the suspension of his senses and of all external activity.
Observe that, in this attitude, there was no indication of malicious, bitter, or choleric feeling, nothing to remind one of his neighbour, the morose chaffinch, with his attitude of violent and torturing exertion. Even the indiscretion of the young birdlings which, without care or respect, occasionally threw themselves upon him, could call forth no mark of impatience. He said, obviously: "What matters it to one who is no more?" Although his eyes were closed, I did not the less easily read him. I perceived an artist's soul, all tenderness and all light, without rancour and without harshness against the barbarity of the world and the ferocity of fate. And it was through this that he lived, through this that he could not die, because he found within himself, in his great sorrow, the all-powerful cordial inherent in his nature:internal light, song. In the language of nightingales, these two words convey the same meaning.
I comprehended that he did not die, because even then, despite himself, despite his keen desire of death, he could not do otherwisethan sing. His heart chanted a voiceless strain, which I heard perfectly well:—
"Lascia che io pianga!La Libertà."Liberty!-Suffer me to weep!
"Lascia che io pianga!La Libertà."
Liberty!-Suffer me to weep!
I had not expected to find here once more that song which, in the old time, and by another mouth (a mouth which shall never again be opened), had already pierced my heart, and left a wound which no time shall efface.
I demanded of his custodian if he were for sale. The shrewd fellow replied that he was too young to be sold, that as yet he did not eat alone; a statement evidently untrue, for he was not that year's bird; but the man wished to keep him for disposal in the winter, when, his voice returning, he would fetch a higher price.
Such a nightingale, born in freedom, which alone is the true nightingale, bears a very different value to one born in a cage: he sings quite differently, having known liberty and nature, and regretting both. The better part of the great artist's genius is suffering.
Artist!I have said the word, and I will not unsay it. This is not an analogy, a comparison of things having a resemblance: no, it is the thing itself.
The nightingale, in my opinion, is not the chief, but the only one, of the winged people to which this name can be justly given.
And why? He alone is a creator; he alone varies, enriches, amplifies his song, and augments it by new strains. He alone is fertile and diverse in himself; other birds are so by instruction and imitation. He alone resumes, contains almost all; each of them, of the most brilliant, suggests a couplet to the nightingale.
Only one other bird, like him, attains sublime results in the bold and simple—I mean the lark, the daughter of the sun. And the nightingale also is inspired by the light; so that, when in captivity, alone, and deprived of love, it suffices to unloose his song. Confined for a while in darkness, then suddenly restored to the day, he runs riot with enthusiasm, he bursts into hymns of joy. Thisdifference, nevertheless, exists between the two birds: the lark never sings in the night; hers is not the nocturnal melody, the hidden meaning of the grand effects of evening, the deep poesy of the shadows, the solemnity of midnight, the aspirations before dawn—in a word, that infinitely varied poem which translates and reveals to us, in all its changes, a great heart brimful of tenderness. The lark's is the lyrical genius; the nightingale's, the epic, the drama, the inner struggle,—from thence, a light apart. In deep darkness, it looks into its soul, into love; soaring at times, it would seem, beyond the individual love into the ocean of love infinite.
And will you not call him an artist? He has the artist's temperament, and exalted to a degree which man himself rarely attains. All which belongs to it—all its merits, all its defects—in him are superabundant. He is mild and timid, mistrustful, but not at all cunning. He takes no heed to his safety, and travels alone. He is burningly jealous, equalling the chaffinch in fiery emulation. "He will break his heart to sing," says one of his historians.[27]He listens; he takes up his abode, especially where an echo exists, to listen and reply. Nervous to an excess, one sees him in captivity sometimes sleeping long through the day with perturbing dreams; sometimesstruggling, starting up, and wildly battling. He is subject to nervous attacks and epilepsy.
He is kindly—he is ferocious. Let me explain myself. His heart is full of tenderness for the weak and little. Give him orphans to watch over, he will take charge of them, and clasp them to his heart; a male, and aged, he nourishes and tends them as carefully as any mother-bird. On the other hand, he is exceedingly cruel towards his prey, is greedy and voracious; the flame which burns inly, and keeps him almost always thin, makes him constantly feel the need of recruitment, and it is also one of the reasons that he is so easily ensnared. It is enough to set your bait in the morning; especially in April and May, when he exhausts himself by singing throughout the night. In the morning, weakened, frail, avid, he pounces blindly on the snare. Moreover, he is very curious, and, in order to examine a novel object, will expose himself to be caught.
Once captured, if you do not take the precaution to tie his wings, or rather to cover the interior and pad the upper part of the cage, he will kill himself by the frantic fury of his movements.
This violence is on the surface. At bottom, he is gentle and docile: it is these qualities which raise him so high, and make him in truth an artist. He is not only the most inspired, but the most tractable, the most "civilizable," the most laborious of birds.
It is a charming sight to see the fledglings gathered round their father, listening to him attentively, and profiting by his lessons to form the voice, to correct their faults, to soften their novice-like roughness, to render their young organs supple.
But how much more curious it is to see him training himself, judging, perfecting himself, paying especial attention when he ventures on new themes! This steadfast perseverance, which springs from his reverence for his art and from a kind of inward religion, is the morality of the artist, his divine consecration, which seals him as one apart—distinguishes him from the vain improvisatore, whose unconscientious babble is a simple echo of nature.
Thus love and light are undoubtedly his point of departure; butart itself, the love of the beautiful, confusedly seen in glimpses, and very keenly felt, are a second aliment, which sustains his soul, and supplies it with a new inspiration. And this is boundless—a day opened on the infinite.
The true greatness of the artist consists in overshooting his mark, in doing more than he willed; and, moreover, in passing far beyond the goal, in crossing the limits of the possible, and looking beyond—beyond.
Hence arise great sorrows, an inexhaustible source of melancholy; hence the sublime folly of weeping over misfortunes which he has never experienced. Other birds are astonished, and occasionally inquire of him what is the cause of his grief, what does he regret. When free and joyous in his forest-home, he does not the less vouchsafe for his reply the strain which my captive chanted in his silence:
"Lascia che io pianga!"Suffer me, suffer me to weep!
"Lascia che io pianga!"
Suffer me, suffer me to weep!
THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE NIGHTINGALE.
THE NIGHTINGALE.
The hours of silence are not barren for the nightingale. He gathers his ideas and reflects; he broods over the songs which he has heard or has himself attempted; he modifies and improves them with perfect tact and taste. For the false notes of an ignorant master he substitutes ingenious and harmonious variations. The imperfect strain which he has learned, but has not repeated, he then reproduces; but made indeed his own, appropriated by his own genius, and converted into a nightingale's melody.
"Do not be discouraged," says a quaint old writer, "if the young bird be not willing to repeat your lesson, and continue to warble; soon he will show you that he has not forgotten the lessons received in autumn and winter—a fit season for meditation, owing to the length of the nights; he will repeat them in the spring-time."
It is very interesting to follow, during the winter, the nightingale'sthoughts, in his darkened cage, wrapped round with a green cloth, which partially deceives his gaze, and reminds him of his forest. In December he begins to dream aloud, to descant, to describe in pathetic notes the things passing before his mind—the loved and absent objects. Mayhap he then forgets that migration has been forbidden him, and thinks he has arrived in Africa or in Syria, in lands lighted by a more generous sun. It may be that he sees this sun; sees the rose reblossom, and recommences for her, as say the Persian poets, his hymn of impossible love,—"O sun! O sea! O rose!"—(Rückert.)
For myself, I believe simply that this noble and pathetic hymn, with its lofty accent, is nought else but himself, his life of love and combat, his nightingale's drama. He beholds the woods, the beloved object which transfigures them. He sees her tender vivacity, and the thousand graces of the winged life which we are unable to perceive. He speaks to her; she answers him. He takes upon himself two characters, and, to the full, sonorous voice of the male, replies in soft, brief utterances. What then? I doubt not that already the rapturousness of his life breaks upon him—the tender intimacy of the nest, the little lowly dwelling which would have been his Eden. He believes in it; he shuts his eyes, and completes the illusion. The egg is hatched; his Yule-tide miracle disclosed; his son issues forth—the future nightingale, even at its birth sublimely melodious. He listens ecstatically, in the night of his gloomy cage, to the future song of his offspring.
And all this, to be sure, passes before him in a poetical confusion, where obstacles and strife break up and disturb love's festival. No happiness here below is pure. Athirdintervenes. The captive in his solitude grows irritated and eager; he struggles visibly against his unseen adversary—that other, the unworthy rival which is present to his mind.
The scene is developed before him, just as it would have transpired in spring, when the male birds returning, towards March or April, and before the re-appearance of the hens, resolve to decide among themselvestheir great duel of jealousy. For when the latter arrive, all must be calm and peaceful; there should prevail nothing but love, tranquillity, and tenderness. The battle endures some fifteen days; and if the female birds return sooner, the effort grows deadly. The story of Roland is literally realized; he sounded his ivory horn, even to the extinction of strength and life. These, too, sing until their last breath—until death: they will triumph or die.
If it be true, as we are assured, that the lovers are two or three times more numerous than the lady-loves, you may conceive the violence of this burning emulousness, in which, perhaps, lurks the first spark and the secret of their genius.
The fate of the vanquished is terrible—worse than death. He is constrained to fly; to quit the province, the country; to sink into the comrade of the lower races of birds; while his song is degraded into apatois. He forgets and disgraces himself; becomes vulgarized among this vulgar people; little by little growing ignorant of his own tongue, of theirs, of any tongue. We sometimes discover among these exiles birds which preserve only the external likeness of the nightingale.
Though the rival is expelled, nothing as yet is done. The victor must please, must subdue her. Oh! bright moment, soft inspiration of the new song which shall touch that little proud Wild-heart, and compel it to abandon liberty for love! The test imposed by the hen-bird in other species is assistance in building or excavating the nest; that the male may show he is skilful, and will take his offspring to his heart. The effect is sometimes admirable. The woodpecker, as we have seen, is elevated from a workman into an artist, and from a carpenter into a sculptor. But, alas! the nightingale does not possess this talent; he knows not how to do anything. The least among the small birds is a hundred times more adroit with his bill, his wing, his claw. He has only his voice which he can make use of; there his power breaks forth, there he will be irresistible. Others may display their works, but his work is himself; he shows, he reveals himself, and he appears sublime and grand.
I have never heard him at this solemn moment without thinking that not only should he touch her heart, but transform, ennoble, and exalt her, inspire her with a lofty ideal, with the enchanted dream of a glorious nightingale which shall be hereafter the offspring of their love.
Let us resume. So far, we have particularized three songs.
The drama of the battle-song, with its alternations of envy, pride, bravado, stern and jealous fury.
The song of solicitation, of soft and tender entreaty, but mingled with haughty movements of an almost imperious impatience, wherein genius is visibly astonished that it still remains unrecognized, is irritated at the delay, and laments it; returning quickly, however, to its tone of reverent pleading.
Finally comes the song of triumph: "I am the conqueror, I am loved, the king, the divinity, and the creator." In this last word lies all the intensity of life and love; for it is she, above all, that creates, mirroring and reflecting his genius, and so transforming herself that henceforth there is not in her a movement, a breath, a flutter of the wings, which does not owe its melodiousness to him, rendered visible in this enchanted grace.
Thence spring the nest, the egg, the infant. All these are an embodied and living song. And this is the reason that he does not stir from her for a moment, during the sacred labour of incubation. He does not remain in the nest, but on a neighbouring branch, slightly elevated above it. He knows marvellously well that his voice is most potent at a distance. From this exalted position, the all-powerful magician continues to fascinate and fertilize the nest; he co-operates in the great mystery, and still inspires with song, and heart, and breath, and will, and tenderness.
This is the time that you should hear him, should hear him in his native woods, should participate in the emotions of this powerful fecundity, the most proper perhaps to reveal, to enable us to comprehend here below the great hidden Deity which eludes us. He recedes before us at every step, and science does no more than puta little further back the veil wherein he conceals himself. "Behold," said Moses, "behold him who passes, I have seen him by the skirts." "Is it not he," said Linné, "who passes? I have seen him in outline." And for myself, I close my eyes; I perceive him with an agitated heart, I feel him stirring within me on a night enchanted by the voice of the nightingale.
Let us draw near; it is a lover: yet keep you distant, for it is a god. The melody, now vibrating with a glowing appeal to the senses, anon grows sublime and amplified by the effects of the wind; it is a strain of sacred harmony which swells through all the forest. Near at hand, it is occupied with the nest, their love, the son which will be born; but afar, another is the beloved, another is the son: it is Nature, mother and daughter, eternal love, which hymns and glorifies itself; it is the infinite of love which loves in all things and sings in all; these are the tendernesses, the canticles, the songs of gratitude, which go up from earth to heaven.
"Child, I have felt this in our southern fields, during the beautiful starry nights, near my father's house. At a later time, I felt it more keenly, especially in thevicinity of Nantes, in the lonesome vineyard of which I have spoken in a preceding page. The nights, less sparkling, were lightly veiled with a warm haze, through which the stars discreetly sent their tender glances. A nightingale nestled on the ground, in a spot but half concealed, under my cedar tree, and among the periwinkle-flowers. He began towards midnight, and continued until dawn; happily, manifestly proud, in his solitary vigil, and filling the majestic silence with his voice. No one interrupted him except, near morning, the cock, a creature of a different world, a stranger to the songs of the spirit, but a punctual sentinel, who felt himself conscientiously compelled to indicate the hour and warn the workman.
"The other persisted for some time in his strain, seeming to say, like Juliet to Romeo: 'No, it is not the day.'
"His stationing himself near us showed that he feared nothing, that he knew how profound a security he might enjoy by the side of two hermits of work, very busy, very benevolent, and not less occupied than the winged solitary in their song and their dream. We could watch him at our ease, either fluttering abouten famille, or maintaining a rivalry in song with a haughty neighbour who sometimes came to brave him. In course of time we became, I think, rather agreeable to him, as assiduous auditors, amateurs, perhaps connoisseurs. The nightingale feels the want of appreciation and applause; he plainly has a great regard for man's attentive ear, and fully comprehends his admiration.
"Once more I can see him, at some ten or fifteen paces distant, hopping forward in accordance with my movements, preserving the same interval between us, so as to keep always out of reach, but at the same time to be heard and admired.
"The attire in which you are clothed is by no means a matter of indifference to him. I have observed that birds in general do not like black, and that they are afraid of it. I was dressed quite to his fancy, in white shaded with lilac, with a straw hat ornamented with a few blossoms. Every minute I could see him fix upon me his black eye, of a singular vivacity, wild and gentle, sometimes a little proud,which said plainly, 'I am free, and I have wings; against me thou canst do nothing. But I am very willing to sing for thee.'
"We had a succession of severe storms at breeding-time, and on one occasion the thunder rolled near us. No scene can be more affecting than the approach of these moments: the air fails; fish rise to the surface in order to breathe a little; the flower bends languidly; everything suffers, and tears flow unbidden. I could see clearly that his feelings were in unison with the general distress. From his bosom, oppressed like mine, broke a kind of hoarse sob, like a wild cry.
"But the wind, which had suddenly risen, now plunged into our woods; the loftiest trees, even the cedar, bent. Torrents of rain dashed headlong, all was afloat. What became of the poor little nest, exposed on the ground, with no other shelter than the periwinkle's leaf? It escaped; for when the sun reappeared, I saw my bird flying in the purified air, gayer than ever, with his heart full of song. All the world of wings then hymned the light; but he more loudly than any. His clarion voice had returned. I saw him beneath my window, his eye on fire and his breast swollen, intoxicatinghimself with the same happiness that made my heart palpitate.
"Tender alliance of souls! Why does it not everywhere exist, between us and our winged brothers, between man and the universal living nature?"
CONCLUSION.
CONCLUSION.
CONCLUSION.
At the very moment that I am about to pen the conclusion of this book, our illustrious master arrives from his great autumnal sport. Toussenel brings me a nightingale.
I had requested him to assist me with his advice, to guide me in choosing a singing nightingale. He does not write, but he comes; he does not advise, he looks about, finds, gives, realizes my dream. This, of a truth, is friendship.
Be welcome, bird, both for the sake of the cherished hand which brings thee, and for thy own, for thy hallowed muse, the genius which dwells within thee!
Wilt thou sing readily for me, and, by thy puissance of love and calm, shed harmony on a heart troubled by the cruel history of men?
It was an event in our family, and we established the poor artist-prisoner in a window-niche, but enveloped with a curtain; in such wise that, being both in solitude and yet in society, he might gradually accustom himself to his new hosts, reconnoitre the locality, and assure himself that he was under a safe, a peaceful, and benevolent roof.
No other bird lived in this saloon. Unfortunately, my familiar robin, which flies freely about my study, penetrated into the apartment.We had troubled ourselves the less about him, because he saw daily, without any emotion, canaries, bullfinches, nightingales; but the sight of the nightingale threw him into an incredible transport of fury. Passionate and intrepid, without heeding that the object of his hate was twice his own size, he pounced on the cage with bill and claws; he would fain have killed its inmate. The nightingale, however, uttered cries of alarm, and called for help with a hoarse and pitiful voice. The other, checked by the bars, but clinging with his claws to the frame of an adjacent picture, raged, hissed,crackled(the popular wordpetillaitalone expresses his short, sharp cry), piercing him with his glances. He said, in effect:—
"King of song, what dost thou here? Is it not enough that in the woods thy imperious and absorbing voice should silence all our lays, hush our strains into whispers, and singly fill the desert? Yet thou comest hither to deprive me of the new existence which I have found for myself, of this artificial grove where I perch all the winter, a grove whose branches are the shelves of a library, whose leaves are books! Thou comest to share, to usurp the attention of which I was the object, the reverie of my master, and my mistress's smile! Woe to thee! Iwasloved!"
The robin does, in reality, attain to a very high degree of familiarity with man. The experience of a long winter proves to me that he much prefers human society to that of his own kind. In our absence he shares in the small talk of the birds of the aviary; but assoon as we arrive, he abandons them, and comes curiously to place himself before us, remains with us, seems to say, "You are here, then! But where have you been? And why have you absented yourself so long from home?"
The invasion of the robin, which we soon forgot, was not forgotten, it appears, by his timorous victim. The unfortunate nightingale fluttered about ever afterwards with an air of alarm, and nothing could reassure him.
Care was taken, however, that no one should approach him. His mistress had charged herself with the necessary attentions. The peculiar mixture which alone can nourish this ardent centre of life (blood, hemp, and poppy), was conscientiously prepared. Blood and flesh, these are the substance; hemp is the herb of intoxication; but the poppy neutralizes it. The nightingale is the only creature which it is necessary to feed incessantly with sleep and dreams.
But all was in vain. Two or three days passed in a violent agitation, and in abstinence through despair. I was melancholy, and filled with remorse. I, a friend of freedom, had nevertheless a prisoner, and a prisoner who would not be consoled! It was not without some scruples that I had formed the idea of procuring a nightingale; for the mere sake of pleasure, I should never have come to such a decision. I knew well that the very spectacle of such a captive, deeply sensible of its captivity, was a permanent source of sorrow. But how should I set him free? Of all questions, that of slavery is the most difficult; the tyrant is punished by the impossibility of finding a remedy for it. My captive, before coming into my possession, had been two years in a cage, and had neither wings nor the impulse of industry to seek his own food; but had it been otherwise, he could return no more to the free birds. In their proud commonwealth, whoever has been a slave, whoever has languished in a cage and not died of grief, is pitilessly condemned and put to death.
We should not easily have escaped from this dilemma, if song had not come to our assistance. A soft, almost monotonous strain,sung at a distance, especially just before evening, appeared to influence and win upon him. If we did but look at him, he listened less attentively, and grew disturbed; but if we turned aside our gaze, he came to the brink of the cage, stretched out his long, fawn-like neck (of a charming mouse-like gray), raised every now and then his head, his body remaining motionless, with a keen inquiring eye. With evident avidity, he tasted and enjoyed this unexpected pleasure, with grateful recollection, and delicate and sensitive attention.
This same avidity he felt a minute afterwards for his food. He was fain to live, he devoured the poppy, forgetfulness.
A woman's songs, Toussenel had told me, are those which affect them most; not the vivacious aria of a wayward damsel, but a soft, sad melody. Schubert's "Serenade" had a peculiar influence upon our nightingale. He seemed to feel and recognize himself in that German soul, as tender as it was profound.
His voice, however, he did not regain. When transported to my house, he had begun his December songs. The emotions of the journey, the change oflocaleand of persons, the inquietude which he had experienced in his new condition, and, above all, the ferocious welcome, the robin's assault, had too deeply moved him. He grew tranquil, asked no more of us; but the muse, so rudely interrupted, was thenceforth silent, and did not awake until spring.
Meanwhile, he certainly knew that the person who sang afar off wished him no evil; he apparently supposed her to be a nightingale of another form. She might without difficulty approach, and even put her hand in his cage. He regarded intently what she did, but did not stir.
It became a curious question to me, who had not contracted with him this musical alliance, to know if he would also accept me. I showed no indiscreet eagerness, knowing that even a look, at certain moments, vexes him. For many days, therefore, I kept my attention fixed on the old books or papers of the fourteenth century, without observing him. But he, he would examine me very curiously whenI was alone. Be it understood, however, that when his mistress was present, he entirely forgot me, I was annulled!
Thus he grew accustomed to see me daily without any uneasiness, as an inoffensive, pacific being, with little of movement or noise about me. The fire in the grate, and near the fire this peaceable reader, were, during the absences of the preferred individual, in the still and almost solitary hours, his objects of contemplation.
I ventured yesterday, being alone, to approach him, to speak to him as I do to the robin, and he did not grow agitated, he did not appear disturbed; he listened quietly, with an eye full of softness. I saw that peace was concluded, and that I was accepted.
This morning I have with my own hand placed the poppy seed in the cage, and he is not the least alarmed. You will say: "Who gives is welcome." But I assert that our treaty was signed yesterday, before I had given him anything, and was perfectly disinterested.
See, then, in less than a month, the most nervous of artists, the most timid and mistrustful of beings, grows reconciled with the human species.
A curious proof of the natural union, of the pre-existent alliance which prevails between us and these creatures of instinct, which we callinferior.
This alliance, this eternal fact, which our brutality and our ferocious intelligences have not yet been able to rend asunder, to which these poor little ones so readily return, to which we shallourselves return, when we shall be truly men, is exactly the conclusion this book has aimed at, and which I was about to write, when the nightingale entered, and the father with the nightingale.
The bird himself has been, in that facile amnesty which he has granted to us, his tyrants, my living conclusion.
Those travellers who have been the first to penetrate into lands hitherto untrodden by man, unanimously report that all animals, mammals, amphibians, birds, do not shun them, but, on the contrary, rather approach to regard them with an air of benevolent curiosity, to which they have responded with musket-shots.
Even to-day, after man has treated them so cruelly, animals, in their times of peril, never hesitate to draw near him.
The bird's ancient and natural foe is the serpent; the enemy of quadrupeds is the tiger. And their protector is man.
From the furthest distance that the wild dog smells the scent of the tiger or the lion, he comes to press close to us.
And so, too, the bird, in the horror which the serpent inspires, especially when it threatens his callow brood, finds a language of the most forcible character to implore man's help, and to thank him if he kills his enemy.
For this reason the humming-bird loves to nestle near man. And it is probably from the same motive that the swallows and thestorks, in times fertile in reptiles, have acquired the habit of dwelling among us.
Here an observation becomes essential. We often construe as a sign of mistrust the bird's flight and his fear of the human hand. This fear is only too well founded. But even if it did not exist, the bird is an infinitely nervous and delicate creature, which suffers if simply touched.
My robin, which belongs to a very robust and friendly race of birds, which continually draws near us, as near as possible, and which assuredly has no fear of his mistress, trembles to fall into her hand. The rustling of his plumes, the derangement of his down, all bristling when he has been handled, he keenly dislikes. The sight, above all, of the outstretched hand about to seize him, makes him recoil instinctively.
When he lingers about in the evening, and does not return into his cage, he does not refuse to be replaced within it; but sooner than see himself caught, he turns his back, hides in a crease or fold of the gown where he well knows he must infallibly be taken.
All this is not mistrust.
The art of domestication will make no progress if it occupies itself only with the services which tamed animals may render to man.
It ought to proceed in the main from the consideration of the service which man may render the animals;
Of his duty to initiate all the tenants of this world into a gentler, more peaceable, and superior society.
In the barbarism in which we are still plunged, we know of only two conditions for the animal, absolute liberty or absolute slavery;but there are many forms of demi-servitude which the animals themselves would willingly accept.
The small Chili falcon (cernicula), for example, loves to dwell with his master. He goes alone on his hunting expeditions, and faithfully returns every evening with what he has captured, to eat iten famille. He feels the want of being praised by the father, flattered by the dame, and, above all, caressed by the children.
Man, formerly protected by the animals, while he was indifferently armed, has gradually risen into a position to become their protector, especially since he has had powder, and enjoyed the possibility of shooting down from a distance the most formidable creatures. He has rendered birds the essential service of infinitely diminishing the number of the robbers of the air.
He may render them another, and not a less important one—that of sheltering at night the innocent species. Night! sleep! complete abandonment to the most frightful chances! Oh! harshness of Nature! But she is justified, inasmuch as she has planted here below the far-seeing and industrious being who shall more and more become for all others a second providence.
"I know a house on the Indre," says Toussenel, "where the greenhouses, open at even, receive every honest bird which seeks an asylum against the dangers of the night, where he who has delayed till late knocks with his bill in confidence. Content to be immuredduring the night, secure in the loyalty of their host, they fly away happy in the morning, and repay him for his hospitality with the spectacle of their joy and their unrestricted strains."
I shall exercise great caution in speaking of their domestication, since my friend, M. Isidore Geoffrey Saint Hilaire, reopens in so praiseworthy a manner this long-forgotten question.
An allusion will suffice. Antiquity in this special branch has bequeathed us the admirable patrimony which has supported the human race: the domestication of the dog, the horse, and the ass; of the camel, the elephant, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and poultry.
What progress has been made in the last two thousand years? What new acquisition?
Two only, and these unquestionably trivial: the importation of the turkey and the China pheasant.
No direct effort of man has accomplished so much for the welfare of the globe as the humble toil of the modest auxiliaries of human life.
To descend to that which we so foolishly despise, to the poultry-yard, when one sees the millions of eggs which the ovens of Egypt hatch, or with which our Normandy loads the ships and fleets that every year traverse the Channel, one learns to appreciate how the small agencies of domestic economy produce the greatest results.
If France did not possess the horse, and some person introduced it, such a conquest would be of greater benefit to her than the conquest of the Rhine, of Belgium, of Savoy; the horse alone would be worth three kingdoms.
But here now is an animal which represents in itself the horse, the ass, the cow, the goat; which combines all their useful qualities, and which yields moreover an incomparable wool; a hardy, robust animal, enduring cold with wonderful vigour. You understand, of course, that I refer to the lama, which M. Isidore Geoffrey Saint Hilaire exerts himself, with so laudable a perseverance, to naturalize in France. Everything seems leagued in his despite: the fine flock at Versailles has perished through malice; that of the Jardin des Plantes will perish through the confined area and dampness of the locality.
The conquest of the lama is ten times more important than the conquest of the Crimea.
But again, this species of transplantation needs a generosity of means, a combination of precautions, let us say a tenderness of education, which are rarely found united.
One word here—one small fact—whose bearing is not small.
A great writer, who was not a man of science, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, had remarked that we should never succeed in transplanting the animal unless we imported along with him the plant to which he was especially partial. This observation fell to the ground, like so many other theories which excite the philosophical smile, and which men of science namepoetry.
But it has not been made in vain, for an enlightened amateur had formed here, in Paris, a collection of living birds. However constant his attentions, a very rare she-parrot which he had obtained remained obstinately barren. He ascertained in what kind of plant she made her nest, and commissioned a person to procure it for him.It could not be got alive; he received it leafless and branchless; a simple dead trunk. It mattered not; the bird, in this hollow trunk discovered her accustomed place, and did not fail to make therein her nest. She laid eggs, she hatched them, and now her owner has a colony of young ones.
To re-create all the conditions of abode, food, vegetable environment, the harmonies of every kind which shall deceive the exile into a forgetfulness of his country, is not only a scientific question, but a task of ingenious invention.
To determine the limit of slavery, of freedom, of alliance and collaboration with ourselves, proper for each individual creature, is one of the gravest subjects which can occupy us.
A new art is this; nor shall you succeed in it without a moral gravity, a refinement, a delicacy of appreciation which as yet are scarcely understood, and shall only exist perhaps when Woman undertakes those scientific studies from which she has hitherto been excluded.
This art supposes a tenderness unlimited in justice and wisdom.