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diff --git a/old/18214-h.htm b/old/18214-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01e73c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/18214-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,990 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Our Friend the Dog, by Maurice Maeterlinck + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; + padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; + font-size: 90%} + ins {text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + hr.full {width:100%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.major {width:75%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + hr.minor {width:30%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: x-small; text-align: right; } + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Friend the Dog, by Maurice Maeterlinck + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Our Friend the Dog + +Author: Maurice Maeterlinck + +Illustrator: Cecil Alden + +Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos + +Release Date: April 20, 2006 [EBook #18214] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR FRIEND THE DOG *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<img src="images/illus-002.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<table width="400" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Title Page" border="1"> + <col style="width:80%;" /> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <p style="margin-top: 5em"></p> + <span style="font-size: 200%">OUR FRIEND<br />THE DOG</span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 90%;">BY</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 110%;">MAURICE MAETERLINCK</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 70%; font-variant: small-caps;"> + Author of "THE LIFE OF THE BEE," etc. + </span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 80%; font-variant: small-caps;"> + Translated by<br />ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTTOS + </span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 70%; font-variant: small-caps;"> + Illustrated by<br />CECIL ALDEN + </span> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + <span style="text-align:center; font-size: 100%;"> + NEW YORK<br />DODD, MEAD & COMPANY<br />1913 + </span> + <br /><br /><br /> + </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<p style="text-align: center; font-size: 85%; font-variant: small-caps"> +Copyright, 1903, by<br /> +The Century Co.<br /> +<br /> +Copyright, 1904, by<br /> +Dodd, Mead & Company<br /> +<br /> +Published, October, 1913 +</p> + +<hr class="major" /> + +<div> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +<h2>OUR FRIEND THE DOG</h2> +</div> + +<h3><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h3> + +<p>I have lost, within these last few days, a little bull-dog. He had just +completed the sixth month of his brief existence. He had no history. His +intelligent eyes opened to look out upon the world, to love mankind, +then closed again on the cruel secrets of death.</p> + +<p>The friend who presented me with him had given him, perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> by +antiphrasis, the startling name of Pelléas. Why rechristen him? For how +can a poor dog, loving, devoted, faithful, disgrace the name of a man or +an imaginary hero?</p> + +<p>Pelléas had a great bulging, powerful forehead, like that of Socrates or +Verlaine; and, under a little black nose, blunt as a churlish assent, a +pair of large hanging and symmetrical chops, which made his head a sort +of massive, obstinate, pensive and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> three-cornered menace. He was +beautiful after the manner of a beautiful, natural monster that has +complied strictly with the laws of its species. And what a smile of +attentive obligingness, of incorruptible innocence, of affectionate +submission, of boundless gratitude and total self-abandonment lit up, at +the least caress, that adorable mask of ugliness! Whence exactly did +that smile emanate? From the ingenuous and melting eyes? From the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> ears +pricked up to catch the words of man? From the forehead that unwrinkled +to appreciate and love, or from the stump of a tail that wriggled at the +other end to testify to the intimate and impassioned joy that filled his +small being, happy once more to encounter the hand or the glance of the +god to whom he surrendered himself?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<img src="images/illus-010.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Pelléas was born in Paris, and I had taken him to the country. His bonny +fat paws, shapeless <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>and not yet stiffened, carried slackly through the +unexplored pathways of his new existence his huge and serious head, +flat-nosed and, as it were, rendered heavy with thought.</p> + +<p>For this thankless and rather sad head, like that of an overworked +child, was beginning the overwhelming work that oppresses every brain at +the start of life. He had, in less than five or six weeks, to get into +his mind, taking shape within it, an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> image and a satisfactory +conception of the universe. Man, aided by all the knowledge of his own +elders and his brothers, takes thirty or forty years to outline that +conception, but the humble dog has to unravel it for himself in a few +days: and yet, in the eyes of a god, who should know all things, would +it not have the same weight and the same value as our own?</p> + +<p>It was a question, then, of studying the ground, which can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> be scratched +and dug up and which sometimes reveals surprising things; of casting at +the sky, which is uninteresting, for there is nothing there to eat, one +glance that does away with it for good and all; of discovering the +grass, the admirable and green grass, the springy and cool grass, a +field for races and sports, a friendly and boundless bed, in which lies +hidden the good and wholesome couch-grass. It was a question, also, of +taking promiscuously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> a thousand urgent and curious observations. It was +necessary, for instance, with no other guide than pain, to learn to +calculate the height of objects from the top of which you can jump into +space; to convince yourself that it is vain to pursue birds who fly away +and that you are unable to clamber up trees after the cats who defy you +there; to distinguish between the sunny spots where it is delicious to +sleep and the patches of shade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> in which you shiver; to remark with +stupefaction that the rain does not fall inside the houses, that water +is cold, uninhabitable and dangerous, while fire is beneficent at a +distance, but terrible when you come too near; to observe that the +meadows, the farm-yards and sometimes the roads are haunted by giant +creatures with threatening horns, creatures good-natured, perhaps, and, +at any rate, silent, creatures who allow you to sniff at them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> a little +curiously without taking offence, but who keep their real thoughts to +themselves. It was necessary to learn, as the result of painful and +humiliating experiment, that you are not at liberty to obey all nature's +laws without distinction in the dwelling of the gods; to recognize that +the kitchen is the privileged and most agreeable spot in that divine +dwelling, although you are hardly allowed to abide in it because of the +cook, who is a considerable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> but jealous power; to learn that doors are +important and capricious volitions, which sometimes lead to felicity, +but which most often, hermetically closed, mute and stern, haughty and +heartless, remain deaf to all entreaties; to admit, once and for all, +that the essential good things of life, the indisputable blessings, +generally imprisoned in pots and stewpans, are almost always +inaccessible; to know how to look at them with laboriously-acquired +indifference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> and to practise to take no notice of them, saying to +yourself that here are objects which are probably sacred, since merely +to skim them with the tip of a respectful tongue is enough to let loose +the unanimous anger of all the gods of the house.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<img src="images/illus-019.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>And then, what is one to think of the table on which so many things +happen that cannot be guessed; of the derisive chairs on which one is +forbidden to sleep; of the plates and dishes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>that are empty by the +time that one can get at them; of the lamp that drives away the dark?... +How many orders, dangers, prohibitions, problems, enigmas has one not to +classify in one's overburdened memory!... And how to reconcile all this +with other laws, other enigmas, wider and more imperious, which one +bears within one's self, within one's instinct, which spring up and +develop from one hour to the other, which come from the depths of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> time +and the race, invade the blood, the muscles and the nerves and suddenly +assert themselves more irresistibly and more powerfully than pain, the +word of the master himself, or the fear of death?</p> + +<p>Thus, for instance, to quote only one example, when the hour of sleep +has struck for men, you have retired to your hole, surrounded by the +darkness, the silence and the formidable solitude of the night. All is +sleep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> in the master's house. You feel yourself very small and weak in +the presence of the mystery. You know that the gloom is peopled with +foes who hover and lie in wait. You suspect the trees, the passing wind +and the moonbeams. You would like to hide, to suppress yourself by +holding your breath. But still the watch must be kept; you must, at the +least sound, issue from your retreat, face the invisible and bluntly +disturb the imposing silence of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> earth, at the risk of bringing down +the whispering evil or crime upon yourself alone. Whoever the enemy be, +even if he be man, that is to say, the very brother of the god whom it +is your business to defend, you must attack him blindly, fly at his +throat, fasten your perhaps sacrilegious teeth into human flesh, +disregard the spell of a hand and voice similar to those of your master, +never be silent, never attempt to escape, never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> allow yourself to be +tempted or bribed and, lost in the night without help, prolong the +heroic alarm to your last breath.</p> + +<p>There is the great ancestral duty, the essential duty, stronger than +death, which not even man's will and anger are able to check. All our +humble history, linked with that of the dog in our first struggles +against every breathing thing, tends to prevent his forgetting it. And +when, in our safer dwelling-places of to-day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> we happen to punish him +for his untimely zeal, he throws us a glance of astonished reproach, as +though to point out to us that we are in the wrong and that, if we lose +sight of the main clause in the treaty of alliance which he made with us +at the time when we lived in caves, forests and fens, he continues +faithful to it in spite of us and remains nearer to the eternal truth of +life, which is full of snares and hostile forces.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<p>But how much care and study are needed to succeed in fulfilling this +duty! And how complicated it has become since the days of the silent +caverns and the great deserted lakes! It was all so simple, then, so +easy and so clear. The lonely hollow opened upon the side of the hill, +and all that approached, all that moved on the horizon of the plains or +woods, was the unmistakable enemy.... But to-day you can no longer +tell....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> You have to acquaint yourself with a civilization of which you +disapprove, to appear to understand a thousand incomprehensible +things.... Thus, it seems evident that henceforth the whole world no +longer belongs to the master, that his property conforms to +unintelligible limits.... It becomes necessary, therefore, first of all +to know exactly where the sacred domain begins and ends. Whom are you to +suffer, whom to stop?... There is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> the road by which every one, even the +poor, has the right to pass. Why? You do not know; it is a fact which +you deplore, but which you are bound to accept. Fortunately, on the +other hand, here is the fair path which none may tread. This path is +faithful to the sound traditions; it is not to be lost sight of; for by +it enter into your daily existence the difficult problems of life.</p> + +<p>Would you have an example? You are sleeping peacefully in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> a ray of the +sun that covers the threshold of the kitchen with pearls. The +earthenware pots are amusing themselves by elbowing and nudging one +another on the edge of the shelves trimmed with paper lace-work. The +copper stewpans play at scattering spots of light over the smooth white +walls. The motherly stove hums a soft tune and dandles three saucepans +blissfully dancing; and, from the little hole that lights up its inside, +defies the good dog<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> who cannot approach, by constantly putting out at +him its fiery tongue. The clock, bored in its oak case, before striking +the august hour of meal time, swings its great gilt navel to and fro; +and the cunning flies tease your ears. On the glittering table lie a +chicken, a hare, three partridges, besides other things which are called +fruits—peaches, melons, grapes—and which are all good for nothing. The +cook guts a big silver fish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> and throws the entrails (instead of giving +them to you!) into the dust-bin. Ah, the dust-bin! Inexhaustible +treasury, receptacle of windfalls, the jewel of the house! You shall +have your share of it, an exquisite and surreptitious share; but it does +not do to seem to know where it is. You are strictly forbidden to +rummage in it. Man in this way prohibits many pleasant things, and life +would be dull indeed and your days empty if you had to obey all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> the +orders of the pantry, the cellar and the dining-room. Luckily, he is +absent-minded and does not long remember the instructions which he +lavishes. He is easily deceived. You achieve your ends and do as you +please, provided you have the patience to await the hour. You are +subject to man, and he is the one god; but you none the less have your +own personal, exact and imperturbable morality, which proclaims aloud +that illicit acts become most lawful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> through the very fact that they +are performed without the master's knowledge. Therefore, let us close +the watchful eye that has seen. Let us pretend to sleep and to dream of +the moon....</p> + +<p>Hark! A gentle tapping at the blue window that looks out on the garden! +What is it? Nothing; a bough of hawthorn that has come to see what we +are doing in the cool kitchen. Trees are inquisitive and often excited; +but they do not count, one has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> nothing to say to them, they are +irresponsible, they obey the wind, which has no principles.... But what +is that? I hear steps!... Up, ears open; nose on the alert!... It is the +baker coming up to the rails, while the postman is opening a little gate +in the hedge of lime-trees. They are friends; it is well; they bring +something: you can greet them and wag your tail discreetly twice or +thrice, with a patronizing smile....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another alarm! What is it now? A carriage pulls up in front of the +steps. The problem is a complex one. Before all, it is of consequence to +heap copious insults on the horses, great, proud beasts, who make no +reply. Meantime, you examine out of the corner of your eye the persons +alighting. They are well-clad and seem full of confidence. They are +probably going to sit at the table of the gods. The proper thing is to +bark without acrimony, with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> shade of respect, so as to show that you +are doing your duty, but that you are doing it with intelligence. +Nevertheless, you cherish a lurking suspicion and, behind the guests' +backs, stealthily, you sniff the air persistently and in a knowing way, +in order to discern any hidden intentions.</p> + +<p>But halting footsteps resound outside the kitchen. This time it is the +poor man dragging his crutch, the unmistakable enemy, the hereditary +enemy, the direct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> descendant of him who roamed outside the bone-cramped +cave which you suddenly see again in your racial memory. Drunk with +indignation, your bark broken, your teeth multiplied with hatred and +rage, you are about to seize their reconcilable adversary by the +breeches, when the cook, armed with her broom, the ancillary and +forsworn sceptre, comes to protect the traitor, and you are obliged to +go back to your hole, where, with eyes filled with impotent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> and +slanting flames, you growl out frightful, but futile curses, thinking +within yourself that this is the end of all things, and that the human +species has lost its notion of justice and injustice....</p> + +<p>Is that all? Not yet; for the smallest life is made up of innumerous +duties, and it is a long work to organize a happy existence upon the +borderland of two such different worlds as the world of beasts and the +world of men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> How should we fare if we had to serve, while remaining +within our own sphere, a divinity, not an imaginary one, like to +ourselves, because the offspring of our own brain, but a god actually +visible, ever present, ever active and as foreign, as superior to our +being as we are to the dog?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<img src="images/illus-040.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>We now, to return to Pelléas, know pretty well what to do and how to +behave on the master's premises. But the world does not end at the +house-door, and, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>beyond the walls and beyond the hedge, there is a +universe of which one has not the custody, where one is no longer at +home, where relations are changed. How are we to stand in the street, in +the fields, in the market-place, in the shops? In consequence of +difficult and delicate observations, we understand that we must take no +notice of passers-by; obey no calls but the master's; be polite, with +indifference, to strangers who pet us. Next, we must conscientiously +fulfil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> certain obligations of mysterious courtesy toward our brothers +the other dogs; respect chickens and ducks; not appear to remark the +cakes at the pastry-cook's, which spread themselves insolently within +reach of the tongue; show to the cats, who, on the steps of the houses, +provoke us by hideous grimaces, a silent contempt, but one that will not +forget; and remember that it is lawful and even commendable to chase and +strangle mice, rats, wild rabbits and, generally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> speaking, all animals +(we learn to know them by secret marks) that have not yet made their +peace with mankind.</p> + +<p>All this and so much more!... Was it surprising that Pelléas often +appeared pensive in the face of those numberless problems, and that his +humble and gentle look was often so profound and grave, laden with cares +and full of unreadable questions?</p> + +<p>Alas, he did not have time to finish the long and heavy task<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> which +nature lays upon the instinct that rises in order to approach a brighter +region.... An ill of a mysterious character, which seems specially to +punish the only animal that succeeds in leaving the circle in which it +is born; an indefinite ill that carries off hundreds of intelligent +little dogs, came to put an end to the destiny and the happy education +of Pelléas. And now all those efforts to achieve a little more light; +all that ardour in loving, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>that courage in understanding; all that +affectionate gaiety and innocent fawning; all those kind and devoted +looks, which turned to man to ask for his assistance against unjust +death; all those flickering gleams which came from the profound abyss of +a world that is no longer ours; all those nearly human little habits lie +sadly in the cold ground, under a flowering elder-tree, in a corner of +the garden.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +<img src="images/illus-045.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<p>Man loves the dog, but how much more ought he to love it if he +considered, in the inflexible harmony of the laws of nature, the sole +exception, which is that love of a being that succeeds in piercing, in +order to draw closer to us, the partitions, every elsewhere impermeable, +that separate the species! We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance +planet; and amid all the forms of life that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> surround us, not one, +excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us. A few creatures fear +us, most are unaware of us, and not one loves us. In the world of +plants, we have dumb and motionless slaves; but they serve us in spite +of themselves. They simply endure our laws and our yoke. They are +impotent prisoners, victims incapable of escaping, but silently +rebellious; and, so soon as we lose sight of them, they hasten to betray +us and return<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> to their former wild and mischievous liberty. The rose +and the corn, had they wings, would fly at our approach like the birds.</p> + +<p>Among the animals, we number a few servants who have submitted only +through indifference, cowardice or stupidity: the uncertain and craven +horse, who responds only to pain and is attached to nothing; the passive +and dejected ass, who stays with us only because he knows not what to do +nor where to go,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> but who nevertheless, under the cudgel and the +pack-saddle, retains the idea that lurks behind his ears; the cow and +the ox, happy so long as they are eating, and docile because, for +centuries, they have not had a thought of their own; the affrighted +sheep, who knows no other master than terror; the hen, who is faithful +to the poultry-yard because she finds more maize and wheat there than in +the neighbouring forest. I do not speak of the cat, to whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> we are +nothing more than a too large and uneatable prey: the ferocious cat, +whose sidelong contempt tolerates us only as encumbering parasites in +our own homes. She, at least, curses us in her mysterious heart; but all +the others live beside us as they might live beside a rock or a tree. +They do not love us, do not know us, scarcely notice us. They are +unaware of our life, our death, our departure, our return, our sadness, +our joy, our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> smile. They do not even hear the sound of our voice, so +soon as it no longer threatens them; and, when they look at us, it is +with the distrustful bewilderment of the horse, in whose eye still +hovers the infatuation of the elk or gazelle that sees us for the first +time, or with the dull stupor of the ruminants, who look upon us as a +momentary and useless accident of the pasture.</p> + +<p>For thousands of years, they have been living at our side, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> foreign +to our thoughts, our affections, our habits as though the least +fraternal of the stars had dropped them but yesterday on our globe. In +the boundless interval that separates man from all the other creatures, +we have succeeded only, by dint of patience, in making them take two or +three illusory steps. And if, to-morrow, leaving their feelings toward +us untouched, nature were to give them the intelligence and the weapons +wherewith to conquer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> us, I confess that I should distrust the hasty +vengeance of the horse, the obstinate reprisals of the ass and the +maddened meekness of the sheep. I should shun the cat as I should shun +the tiger; and even the good cow, solemn and somnolent, would inspire me +with but a wary confidence. As for the hen, with her round, quick eye, +as when discovering a slug or a worm, I am sure that she would devour me +without a thought.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h3> + +<p>Now, in this indifference and this total want of comprehension in which +everything that surrounds us lives; in this incommunicable world, where +everything has its object hermetically contained within itself, where +every destiny is self-circumscribed, where there exist among the +creatures no other relations than those of executioners and victims, +eaters and eaten, where nothing is able to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> leave its steel-bound +sphere, where death alone establishes cruel relations of cause and +effect between neighbouring lives, where not the smallest sympathy has +ever made a conscious leap from one species to another, one animal +alone, among all that breathes upon the earth, has succeeded in breaking +through the prophetic circle, in escaping from itself to come bounding +toward us, definitely to cross the enormous zone of darkness, ice and +silence that isolates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> each category of existence in nature's +unintelligible plan. This animal, our good familiar dog, simple and +unsurprising as may to-day appear to us what he has done, in thus +perceptibly drawing nearer to a world in which he was not born and for +which he was not destined, has nevertheless performed one of the most +unusual and improbable acts that we can find in the general history of +life. When was this recognition of man by beast, this extraordinary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +passage from darkness to light, effected? Did we seek out the poodle, +the collie, or the mastiff from among the wolves and the jackals, or did +he come spontaneously to us? We cannot tell. So far as our human annals +stretch, he is at our side, as at present; but what are human annals in +comparison with the times of which we have no witness? The fact remains +that he is there in our houses, as ancient, as rightly placed, as +perfectly adapted to our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>habits as though he had appeared on this +earth, such as he now is, at the same time as ourselves. We have not to +gain his confidence or his friendship: he is born our friend; while his +eyes are still closed, already he believes in us: even before his birth, +he has given himself to man. But the word "friend" does not exactly +depict his affectionate worship. He loves us and reveres us as though we +had drawn him out of nothing. He is, before all, our creature full<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> of +gratitude and more devoted than the apple of our eye. He is our intimate +and impassioned slave, whom nothing discourages, whom nothing repels, +whose ardent trust and love nothing can impair. He has solved, in an +admirable and touching manner, the terrifying problem which human wisdom +would have to solve if a divine race came to occupy our globe. He has +loyally, religiously, irrevocably recognized man's superiority and has +surrendered himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> to him body and soul, without after-thought, +without any intention to go back, reserving of his independence, his +instinct and his character only the small part indispensable to the +continuation of the life prescribed by nature. With an unquestioning +certainty, an unconstraint and a simplicity that surprise us a little, +deeming us better and more powerful than all that exists, he betrays, +for our benefit, the whole of the animal kingdom to which he belongs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +and, without scruple, denies his race, his kin, his mother and his +young.</p> + +<p>But he loves us not only in his consciousness and his intelligence: the +very instinct of his race, the entire unconsciousness of his species, it +appears, think only of us, dream only of being useful to us. To serve us +better, to adapt himself better to our different needs, he has adopted +every shape and been able infinitely to vary the faculties, the +aptitudes which he places at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> our disposal. Is he to aid us in the +pursuit of game in the plains? His legs lengthen inordinately, his +muzzle tapers, his lungs widen, he becomes swifter than the deer. Does +our prey hide under wood? The docile genius of the species, forestalling +our desires, presents us with the basset, a sort of almost footless +serpent, which steals into the closest thickets. Do we ask that he +should drive our flocks? The same compliant genius grants him the +requisite size, intelligence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> energy and vigilance. Do we intend him to +watch and defend our house? His head becomes round and monstrous, in +order that his jaws may be more powerful, more formidable and more +tenacious. Are we taking him to the south? His hair grows shorter and +lighter, so that he may faithfully accompany us under the rays of a +hotter sun. Are we going up to the north? His feet grow larger, the +better to tread the snow; his fur thickens, in order that the cold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> may +not compel him to abandon us. Is he intended only for us to play with, +to amuse the leisure of our eyes, to adorn or enliven the home? He +clothes himself in a sovereign grace and elegance, he makes himself +smaller than a doll to sleep on our knees by the fireside, or even +consents, should our fancy demand it, to appear a little ridiculous to +please us.</p> + +<p>You shall not find, in nature's immense crucible, a single living being +that has shown a like suppleness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> a similar abundance of forms, the +same prodigious faculty of accommodation to our wishes. This is because, +in the world which we know, among the different and primitive geniuses +that preside over the evolution of the several species, there exists not +one, excepting that of the dog, that ever gave a thought to the presence +of man.</p> + +<p>It will, perhaps, be said that we have been able to transform almost as +profoundly some of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> domestic animals: our hens, our pigeons, our +ducks, our cats, our horses, our rabbits, for instance. Yes, perhaps; +although such transformations are not comparable with those undergone by +the dog and although the kind of service which these animals render us +remains, so to speak, invariable. In any case, whether this impression +be purely imaginary or correspond with a reality, it does not appear +that we feel in these transformations the same unfailing and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> preventing +good will, the same sagacious and exclusive love. For the rest, it is +quite possible that the dog, or rather the inaccessible genius of his +race, troubles scarcely at all about us and that we have merely known +how to make use of various aptitudes offered by the abundant chances of +life. It matters not: as we know nothing of the substance of things, we +must needs cling to appearances; and it is sweet to establish that, at +least in appearance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> there is on the planet where, like unacknowledged +kings, we live in solitary state, a being that loves us.</p> + +<p>However the case may stand with these appearances, it is none the less +certain that, in the aggregate of intelligent creatures that have +rights, duties, a mission and a destiny, the dog is a really privileged +animal. He occupies in this world a pre-eminent position enviable among +all. He is the only living being that has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> found and recognizes an +indubitable, tangible, unexceptionable and definite god. He knows to +what to devote the best part of himself. He knows to whom above him to +give himself. He has not to seek for a perfect, superior and infinite +power in the darkness, amid successive lies, hypotheses and dreams. That +power is there, before him, and he moves in its light. He knows the +supreme duties which we all do not know. He has a morality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> which +surpasses all that he is able to discover in himself and which he can +practise without scruple and without fear. He possesses truth in its +fulness. He has a certain and infinite ideal.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +<img src="images/illus-059.jpg" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> +<h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h3> + +<p>And it was thus that, the other day, before his illness, I saw my little +Pelléas sitting at the foot of my writing-table, his tail carefully +folded under his paws, his head a little on one side, the better to +question me, at once attentive and tranquil, as a saint should be in the +presence of God. He was happy with the happiness which we, perhaps, +shall never know, since it sprang from the smile and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> approval of a +life incomparably higher than his own. He was there, studying, drinking +in all my looks; and he replied to them gravely, as from equal to equal, +to inform me, no doubt, that, at least through the eyes the most +immaterial organ that transformed into affectionate intelligence the +light which we enjoyed, he knew that he was saying to me all that love +should say. And, when I saw him thus, young, ardent and believing, +bringing me, in some wise, from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> the depths of unwearied nature, quite +fresh news of life and trusting and wonderstruck, as though he had been +the first of his race that came to inaugurate the earth and as though we +were still in the first days of the world's existence, I envied the +gladness of his certainty, compared it with the destiny of man, still +plunging on every side into darkness, and said to myself that the dog +who meets with a good master is the happier of the two.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Our Friend the Dog, by Maurice Maeterlinck + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR FRIEND THE DOG *** + +***** This file should be named 18214-h.htm or 18214-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/1/18214/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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