The Dedalus Book of Decadence: (Moral Ruins) (16 page)

THE PANTHER

by Rachilde

(A story designed to be read aloud to an audience)

From the subterranean regions beneath the circus the cage slowly climbed, bringing with it what seemed at first to be a fragment of the night incarnate.

A grille slid aside.

Released from her captivity into the resplendent light of day, the beast within came out on to the sand of the arena, glorying in the warmth and brightness as she passed before the cloth of gold, tasselled with purple.

The creature was young, handsomely clad in that regal mourning-dress which all black panthers wear.
She carried herself very precisely on her long, lithe limbs.
The gaze of her eyes, which were like enormous topazes, passed over those whom she did not care to contemplate, as though to stare at further horizons.
Her great paws, powerful though seemingly gentle, made no sound as they fell.

Three smooth bounds took her to the middle of the arena; there she set herself down, and rolled herself over, all other matters apparently having become unimportant.
There, under the curious examination of the people in the imperial box, she licked her private parts.

Close to her, the Christians who had as yet been spared were gathered beneath a high cross reddened with blood.
The grey mass of a dead elephant lay before her like a colossal wall, blocking out a corner of the extraordinarily blue sky.
In the far distance, arrayed
upon the circular ranks of the stadium, was a blur of pale forms, from which arose a murmurous, intoxicated clamour.

The beast, having completed her toilet, paused a moment to puzzle over these furious noises, which were entirely new to her.
She could not possibly have understood the reason for all the excitement; her way of killing was cold and methodical, quite devoid of all emotion, whether angry or lustful.
The roar of the crowd was utterly unimportant to her – no more than the sound which a rainstorm made as it rattled the branches of the forest trees.
She condescended to emit a few derisory mewling sounds in response to the uproar; then, without hurrying too much, she came to her feet.

Her instinct drew her automatically to the body of the stricken elephant, and that was where she went, utterly disdainful of the human offerings nearby.
She dipped her tongue into the warm red liquid which was streaming from the monstrous cadaver, and then she tore away an ample strip of flesh from the wound.

Having secured her meal she camped down on top of the strip of flesh.
Carefully, she licked it.

Two days before she had been brought to perform in the arena, while she waited in the darkness of her prison, they had given her vile meat seasoned with cumin and powdered saffron, intending to stir up a fierce fire in her belly; but her sense of smell had warned her to abstain.
She had gone without food before, and knew that the world was full of dangerous temptations.
Ignorant she might be, and virginal, but she knew the burning midday heat of her own land, where the melancholy crying of the birds sighed for the rain which rarely came; she knew the poisonous plants of the great impenetrable forests which snakes distilled into their venom; she knew the extremities of drought, and the ridiculous thinness of
whatever victims were then to be found, and the anxious waiting beneath the baleful eye of the moon before she launched herself forth in pursuit of some fleeting shadow.

The legacy of all her unsuccessful chases was a cunning wisdom which bade her always to conserve her strength, and that same careful judgement she now employed in this other – and seemingly delightful – world where carnivorous beasts were welcomed by men as brothers and invited to their solemn feasts.
She took her own portion without undue avidity, only desirous that she should be fit company for those whose appetities were less natural than her own.

A Christian, naked and armed in derisory fashion with a crude club topped by a ball of iron, came towards her over the hindquarters of the elephant, pushed forward by attendants which she could not see.
He slipped in the sticky blood and fell, dropping the club.
He picked himself up, recovering his weapon with a taut smile on his pale lips.
He had not the slightest wish to be forced into combat against the beast which would eventually eat him, but he moved towards her nevertheless, his staring eyes fixed upon his adversary.

She favoured him with a playful gesture of the paw, which said: “I am satisfied!…” Then she stretched herself out, her eyes half-closed, lazily switching her tail in perplexity as the other continued to approach.
While their gazes interlocked the Christian discovered, in spite of the fact that he had already abandoned any hope of continued life, that he now seemed to possess the secret of subduing wild beasts by the imposition of his will.

The beast, meanwhile, exercised her own power of fascination over him.

They were awakened from their curious reverie by the increasing clamour of the crowd.
The two of them had now become the central attraction of the festival of
bloodshed, and the audience was avid for the kind of entertainment which they had come to see.
Angered by the lack of action, the spectators called out to the mounted soldiers to make something happen.

Face to face, the unwilling adversaries continued to survey one another.
The Christian had no heart for a fight; the panther, who neither knew nor cared about matters of courage, was no longer hungry.
One of the soldiers galloped towards the pair, waving his sword.

With a graceful bound the animal avoided the blow, and the Christian simply stood there, smiling in a melancholy fashion.
Then the anger of the crowd was unleashed in its full fury.
The storm burst in fearful fashion, urging the soldiers on.

The horsemen rushed forward against the beast, who stubbornly refused to be moved to action by their threats.
The horsemen went back to heat the heads of their spears in braziers, or to dip them in boiling oil.
Then they came at her again, waving flaming torches, accompanied by dogs which had been trained to nip the heels of recalcitrant bulls.

All the hatred of the crowd was directed against the panther who would not play her allotted part in their carnival.

The panther, sorely annoyed by these provocations, beat her flanks with her tail as she retreated, uncertain what to do.
The soldiers, insistent that she should prepare herself for the battle which she was supposed to fight, continued to harry her, shooting arrows after her fleeing form.
They rode at her with their fearful goads, and she retreated more hastily, leaping over the dead bodies of men and animals which were strewn all around.

The uncomprehending panther was now seized by a superstitious terror; surely this was the end of the world!
As she was chased around the arena the spectators
rose in their seats, their anger increased by her foolish reluctance to amuse them.
From every side there fell upon the hapless beast a rain of missiles: stones, rotten fruits, any weapon which came to hand.
Patricians hurled ornaments which whistled as they flew through the air; and the emperor, standing up in his box, joined in by hurling silver coins.

With one last desperate bound, the panther – crazed by fear of the flames which surrounded her and tormented by arrows which had struck into her flesh – took refuge in the open cage from which she had come.

It was over.
The grille slid back into place, and the mysterious mechanism drew the cage down once again into the underworld beneath the circus.

For the panther, the days and nights which followed were agonized and terrible.
Time and time again she lamented her fate, mewling her desperate appeals to the sun which she might never be allowed to see again.
But in the eyes of those who patronized the circus, she deserved all the pain which had been inflicted upon her.
She was cowardly, they said; she had refused to take part in combat, and was no longer entitled to lay claim to the rank of a noble animal.

The keeper who looked after the captive beasts was an ancient slave, who had no pity at all for her, and did not care that she could not eat properly because her mouth had been ripped open by the blade of a sword which she had bitten.
He did not feed her proper meat, but only threw her bones which had already been gnawed, leftovers from the neighbouring cages, and rotten pieces of infected meat.
These foul remains were not cleared away, but were heaped up all around her, as though her cage was some kind of sewer.

Her fur was scarred by burns, and covered with sores; a group of young boys, in order to mock her, pinned
her tail to the ground with a nail – where it remained secured until, by means of a very painful effort, she contrived to tear it out.
The old slave, amused by his apparent bravery, would offer to her an empty hand, while in the other, out of reach, he would hold up some tempting morsel.
Once he scorched her ear with the crackling fire of a torch.
Deprived of air, deprived of light, her injured mouth always full of her own leaking blood, she howled out her lamentations, battering the bars of her cage with her head and tearing the floor with her claws, hopelessly seeking release.
Some mysterious illness began to torment her guts.

Because she growled in such a very sinister fashion the order was given out that she should be left to die of hunger; such worthy deaths as the thrust of a spear into her heart were not for the likes of her.
She was simply neglected, and the old keeper ceased to pass before her with his torch.

The panther understood that she was to die, and she arranged herself in a proud position, wrapping her injured tail around her and crossing her gangrenous paws so that she might rest her head upon them.
Closing her eyes of fire, she lost herself in dreams.

As she awaited the end of her agony she dreamed of the forests which rattled beneath the beat of the rain storm; of the sun high in the sky; of the moon when it was the colour of roses; of the birds sighing for the rain; of the limitless greenery; of the freshwater springs; of young and easy prey; of great rivers where the stooping wild beasts might see themselves mirrored with haloes of stars…

Little by little, the thoughts of the panther decayed into incoherence, and her mind was possessed by ancient memories of happiness and freedom.
But one single moment of mad despair recalled her to the sadness of her
fate, and she saw again the cloth of gold, tasselled with purple, the sand of the arena, the grey mass of the fallen elephant, the smile on the Christian’s face – and, finally, the furious cries of the mounted soldiers, and the tortures…all the tortures…

With her head lowered on to her crossed paws, she lay quite still; she only slept, but it was as if she were already dead.

Then, suddenly the darkness of her prison was dispelled.
A trapdoor in the roof of the cage slid aside and there appeared the slender white form of a young girl, who descended from above into that private hell where the damned beast crouched.
In a flap of her tunic she carried a piece of soft leather, and balanced on her right shoulder, supported by her arms, was a jug, full to the brim.

The panther slowly raised herself up.
This wonderful white-skinned child, with her blonde hair catching the light as it streamed behind her, must surely have come from the Eden of the wild beasts!

“Beast,” said the marvellous girl, “I feel sorry for you.
You should not be left to die like this.”

Detaching the chain which held it, the little girl pushed aside the grille which secured the cage.
On to the threshold, she let fall the piece of soft leather, and then she calmly lowered the vessel from her shoulder.

The panther flexed her supple haunches, and lowered her head to make herself small, so as not to frighten the child, hiding the glare of her phosphorescent eyes.

Then, with one bound, the predator surged upon her prey, seized the child by the throat, and made a meal of her.

**********

SPLEEN

by Charles Baudelaire

Had I lived a thousand years I could not remember more.

An enormous chest of drawers could not hold in store,

Despite that it be crammed with love-letters, verses, tales,

Hanks of hair and records of obsolete entails,

More secrets than I harbour in my wretched mind.

It is a pyramid, a space by stone confined,

Where the bodies of the dead are vilely pressed.

– I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed

Where graveworms carry the slime of dim remorses

Relentlessly into the heart of cherished corpses.

I am an ancient bedroom decked with faded blooms,

Scattered with outdated gowns and tattered plumes,

Where only faded prints and painted faces,

Remain to breathe the perfumed airs and graces.

Nothing is as tedious as the limping days,

When snowdrifts yearly cover all the ways,

And ennui, sour fruit of incurious gloom,

Assumes control of fate’s immortal loom.

– Henceforth, my living flesh, thou art no more,

Than a shroud of unease about a stony core,

Listlessly sunk beneath the desert sand;

A sphinx forgotten by the innocent and bland,

Banished from the map that she might gaze

Silently upon the setting sun’s last rays.

**********