Part 31

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 of locale and 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 when I 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 call inferior.

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 shall ourselves 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.

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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 the storks, 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.

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