Part 33

She used to travel about with her master, when he went on tour. Being unable to ride a pony, she sat in a cart. The ideal method would have been for her to sit in a box or basket on such occasions, and journey as Gulliver did in Brobdingnag; but it was useless to argue with her. She could burst any wickerwork, as easily as Samson burst his bonds, and she saw no need for anything but a convenient seat. She liked to joke with the driver, like a passenger on an old-fashioned bus or coach; but gradually it came to her master's knowledge that, only too often, the driver and anybody else in the cart had to jump down to avoid her--she was so rough in her horseplay. There was a rumour that she once knocked down a driver; but he made no complaint and it was probably an accident. I was once nearly knocked down by a bear that cannoned against me by inadvertence, hurrying to greet me in a friendly way.

When left alone in the cart, she never attempted to touch the reins. She gazed at them and the bullocks, serenely unconcerned, as the passengers in a steamer look at the machinery. When the driver went to the bullocks' heads and stopped them, and gathered up the reins and climbed back into the cart, she seemed to consider his behaviour a matter of course, and looked as if anything else would have surprised her. Nevertheless, when these transporting adventures became known, her master insisted on leaving her at home.

9. ALL THE REST

It was not altogether disagreeable to the bear to be left alone in the house, with only a servant or two, and nobody to correct her; but she made herself unpleasant to other people. Her master found her, after every absence, "more and more savage" upon his return. These are his own words; and yet, and yet, however imperious to others or contemptuous of humanity, she was always amenable to him, and to him she was always dear.

At this point, as is common in biographies, the historian who would be faithful must face a divided duty. In order to please the friends and relatives, one has to heed nothing but what they choose to tell; and if one does that, then the biography is merely an unreadable fiction. As a satirist cynically puts it,--

Facts inane the volume fill, Keep the secret secret still; Here and there may truth be guessed From what can be seen--suppressed!

One of the things that make this biography worth writing is the freedom from conventional restraints. So readers shall have the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The bear's master has long been a friend of mine, and I hope will so continue, but truth is dearer than anybody. So I will not suppress the remarks of the honest lawyer at Kyauktan, who is also an old friend, and has read the first draft of this work. He sent me a letter on the subject, containing the excruciating words that the bear at Kyauktan had become "a nuisance." The expression is his. My responsibility is limited to quoting it. I desire to express no opinion of my own.

What her own master could not help seeing was the contrast between her behaviour and that of a very respectable bear at Syriam, a place at the other end of the ridge, nearly a day's walk from Kyauktan, just across the river from Rangoon. The bear living there belonged to Mr Brand of the Burma Oil Company, and he and our heroine's master often compared notes, and discussed the problem of her higher education. Mr Brand seemed to think she had good natural gifts, but had come to a difficult age when she needed daily supervision. He never went on tour himself, and was willing to take charge of her. She would be sure to benefit by the company of an older and well-behaved bear, and the two together would be happier at Syriam than either was alone. At last her owner was persuaded, and, when every preliminary had been settled, our heroine set out for her new home (A.D. 1900).

She went in a slow cart, and the day was hot. It is not so well known as it should be that bears and elephants and tigers, too, are almost as sensitive to the sunshine as white men. In this instance, though every possible precaution was taken, the bear was decidedly unhappy on the way. We have to remember that she was an adolescent female and a fully emancipated one, who had lived exclusively for her own amusement, and never had anything particular to do or to suffer in this world. Her sensations, therefore, must have been remarkably like those of the American family, immortalised in Ruskin's letter to Norton of 1869.

"I ... was fated to come from Venice to Verona with an American family, father and mother and two girls--presumably rich--girls 15 and 18. I never before conceived the misery of wretches who had spent all their lives in trying to gratify themselves. It was a little warm--warmer than was entirely luxurious--but nothing in the least harmful. They moaned and fidgeted and frowned and puffed and stretched and fanned, and ate lemons, and smelt bottles, and covered their faces, and tore the cover off again, and had no one thought or feeling, during five hours of travelling in the most noble part of all the world, except what four poor beasts would have had in their den in a menagerie, being dragged about on a hot day...." (Letters of John Ruskin to C.E. Norton, I, pp. 218 and 219.)

The longest road has an end, and Syriam was reached at last. The cart stopped, and the bear came down from it with every sensation smothered in one irresistible craving for coolness "Anything to be cool!" A pleasant-looking tank of water was near, and into it she plunged.

The details of what followed are variously reported. Eyes she had and ears of the best; but she used them to avoid people. It was only after a long time that it pleased her to emerge, quite shivering now, cool enough at last.

Fever came on and pneumonia; and, next day she died, and that is the end of the story. When you think of it, that is how every story would end if it went on long enough.

10. HER EPITAPH

It is now 1910: and already Mr Brand himself is dead; and, spinning in the official whirligig, "like the wind's blast, never resting, homeless," the bear's old master has long ago left Kyauktan, and been in many places. So it is natural that no monument has been put up to her memory; and, maybe, none ever will be. But the things of the spirit are so wonderfully made that words on paper may endure longer than marble or brass; wherefore, though it has not been engraved, let her epitaph be printed. If it is remembered till there is another as long and equally free from falsehood, it may endure for centuries; and, in the far forward dark abysms of time, this little bear may be associated with the constellation of that name, the constellation containing the Polar star. Far stranger things have happened in this wonderful world.

HER EPITAPH

"Here sleeps a bear emancipated, Who died here young, and died unmated, Because obedience was not taught her, And so she stayed too long in water, When once she wanted to be cool, And did not know she was a fool: Her every wish she gratified, And so she had a chill, and died.

In vain are others' love and care; The others can't be everywhere. For sins no neighbours can atone; We suffer, and we die, alone. For fine sleek hair and sparkling eyes Are useless, if you aren't wise; And things outside you have their laws, Far stronger than the strongest paws.

So sister-mortals, learn from me! Take warning if you'd happy be, To hate the darkness, love the light, And don't do nothing but what's right; And listen sometimes now and then, To what is yelled at you by men; And so enjoy your lives, instead Of being, prematurely, dead."

XXXII

A CHINESE HUNTER (740 B.C.)

A strange and vivid glimpse by firelight into distant darkness is given by two Chinese songs, Odes i, vii, 3 and 4, in Legge's Chinese Classics, IV, pp. 127 to 131. I have versified Mr Legge's prose. The date was certainly more than 500, and probably 740 B.C., and the locality northern China, probably Honan. Shuh means "younger brother," so that, except to those who believe the commentators, which I cannot, the hero, like the poet, is anonymous,--"The younger brother."

Both translations may be sung to the same air, "Scots Wha Ha'e," which was a traditional hunting tune in the south of Scotland.

N.B.--"Ribbons" for reins is a literal translation. That familiar metaphor is over 2600 years old.

I. SHUH HAS OUT A-HUNTING GONE

Shuh has out a-hunting gone; Men enough are still in town; But it seems to me there's none, While I look for you! People feast and people drive; Streets are thronged with men alive; But they're blank till Shuh arrive, None there are like Shuh!

II. SHUH UPON HIS CHARIOT STANDS

Shuh upon his chariot stands; Takes the ribbons in his hands; Four bay horses feel commands, Stepping to and fro. Regular, like dancers high, Or the wild geese in the sky, Insides lead, and outsides nigh, Like their shoulders, go!