Some days passed in this manner.This companionship permitted the Provencal to appreciate the sublime beauty of the desert;now that he had a living thing to think about,alternations of fear and quiet,and plenty to eat,his mind became filled with contrast and his life began to be diversified.
Solitude revealed to him all her secrets,and enveloped him in her delights.He discovered in the rising and setting of the sun sights unknown to the world.He knew what it was to tremble when he heard over his head the hiss of a bird's wing,so rarely did they pass,or when he saw the clouds,changing and many colored travelers,melt one into another.He studied in the night time the effect of the moon upon the ocean of sand,where the simoom made waves swift of movement and rapid in their change.He lived the life of the Eastern day,marveling at its wonderful pomp;then,after having reveled in the sight of a hurricane over the plain where the whirling sands made red,dry mists and death-bearing clouds,he would welcome the night with joy,for then fell the healthful freshness of the stars,and he listened to imaginary music in the skies.Then solitude taught him to unroll the treasures of dreams.He passed whole hours in remembering mere nothings,and comparing his present life with his past.
At last he grew passionately fond of the panther;for some sort of affection was a necessity.
Whether it was that his will powerfully projected had modified the character of his companion,or whether,because she found abundant food in her predatory excursions in the desert,she respected the man's life,he began to fear for it no longer,seeing her so well tamed.
He devoted the greater part of his time to sleep,but he was obliged to watch like a spider in its web that the moment of his deliverance might not escape him,if anyone should pass the line marked by the horizon.He had sacrificed his shirt to make a flag with,which he hung at the top of a palm tree,whose foliage he had torn off.Taught by necessity,he found the means of keeping it spread out,by fastening it with little sticks;for the wind might not be blowing at the moment when the passing traveler was looking through the desert.
It was during the long hours,when he had abandoned hope,that he amused himself with the panther.He had come to learn the different inflections of her voice,the expressions of her eyes;he had studied the capricious patterns of all the rosettes which marked the gold of her robe.Mignonne was not even angry when he took hold of the tuft at the end of her tail to count her rings,those graceful ornaments which glittered in the sun like jewelry.It gave him pleasure to contemplate the supple,fine outlines of her form,the whiteness of her belly,the graceful pose of her head.But it was especially when she was playing that he felt most pleasure in looking at her;the agility and youthful lightness of her movements were a continual surprise to him;he wondered at the supple way in which she jumped and climbed,washed herself and arranged her fur,crouched down and prepared to spring.
However rapid her spring might be,however slippery the stone she was on,she would always stop short at the word "Mignonne."
One day,in a bright midday sun,an enormous bird coursed through the air.The man left his panther to look at his new guest;but after waiting a moment the deserted sultana growled deeply.
"My goodness!I do believe she's jealous,"he cried,seeing her eyes become hard again;"the soul of Virginie has passed into her body;that's certain."
The eagle disappeared into the air,while the soldier admired the curved contour of the panther.
But there was such youth and grace in her form!she was beautiful as a woman!the blond fur of her robe mingled well with the delicate tints of faint white which marked her flanks.
The profuse light cast down by the sun made this living gold,these russet markings,to burn in a way to give them an indefinable attraction.
The man and the panther looked at one another with a look full of meaning;the coquette quivered when she felt her friend stroke her head;her eyes flashed like lightning--then she shut them tightly.
"She has a soul,"he said,looking at the stillness of this queen of the sands,golden like them,white like them,solitary and burning like them.
"Well,"she said,"I have read your plea in favor of beasts;but how did two so well adapted to understand each other end?"
"Ah,well!you see,they ended as all great passions do end--by a misunderstanding.For some reason ONE suspects the other of treason;they don't come to an explanation through pride,and quarrel and part from sheer obstinacy."
"Yet sometimes at the best moments a single word or a look is enough--but anyhow go on with your story."
"It's horribly difficult,but you will understand,after what the old villain told me over his champagne.He said--'I don't know if I hurt her,but she turned round,as if enraged,and with her sharp teeth caught hold of my leg--gently,I daresay;but I,thinking she would devour me,plunged my dagger into her throat.She rolled over,giving a cry that froze my heart;and I saw her dying,still looking at me without anger.I would have given all the world--my cross even,which I had not got then--to have brought her to life again.It was as though I had murdered a real person;and the soldiers who had seen my flag,and were come to my assistance,found me in tears.
"'Well sir,'he said,after a moment of silence,'since then I have been in war in Germany,in Spain,in Russia,in France;I've certainly carried my carcase about a good deal,but never have I seen anything like the desert.Ah!yes,it is very beautiful!"
"What did you feel there?"I asked him.
Oh!that can't be described,young man!Besides,I am not always regretting my palm trees and my panther.I should have to be very melancholy for that.In the desert,you see,there is everything and nothing.
"Yes,but explain----"
"Well,"he said,with an impatient gesture,"it is God without mankind."