The City Jungle Read online

  To be sure, there was more room to move in. Her limbs, which she had not used for months, were stiff and ached a little. Movement did them good. But there was not a tree, not a bush here, no hiding-place, no opportunity to be alone.

  Oh, the joy of being alone! Of being alone and untrammeled! Oh, the undisturbed watching and hunting and seizing! The live prey trying to escape! Talla had forgotten no detail of her former happiness.

  She rushed at the bars. Growing wilder she dashed along the semi-circle a dozen times or more, always close to the bars. She bit at the thick iron rods, she scratched at the floor, so unyielding that it did not even show the imprint of her sharp claws. Concrete.

  She sat down, panting, her tongue lolling out.

  Everything seemed to whirl about her. She wanted time to reflect. Had her misfortune become greater or less? A rage that was really despair blazed up within her. No! No!! No!! was the burden of her short hoarse whining yelps.

  Then the young wolf spoke to her. “It’s all in vain, my dear, all, all in vain!”

  Talla whisked around. “What did you say?”

  Hallo approached confidentially. “I’ve tried it,” he continued. “I tormented myself for many days and many nights. You can’t escape. Impossible!” He was happy to be able at last to open his heart to someone. “We have to be patient and wait, my dear. That’s all. Later perhaps. . . . Perhaps, some opportunity will come . . . sometime . . . perhaps. . . . But who knows,” he asked, after a pause, in another tone of voice, “who knows what would happen to us if we did get out? Do you know what it’s like out there? No? Well, I know, and I tell you, it’s worse than it is in here. . . .”

  Talla had got to her feet and walked up to Hallo. He wagged his tail amicably and advanced to meet her. “It’s out there that danger really begins. . . .”

  Talla pricked up her ears. Her tail began to wag gently. Danger enticed her, lured her. In here there was only torment. But Talla was thinking of the dangers of the forest. And Hallo was thinking of the mysterious incomprehensible dangers of a great city.

  “We are too far away,” he said, “much too far away! How could we ever find our way home?”

  Talla was standing beside him. She snuffed him. For a few seconds only. It was as if she were listening with a marvelously acute sense of hearing.

  Hallo stood, all unsuspecting, wagging his tail with joy, and went on speaking.

  Then she sprang at him.

  The hair bristled along her spine, her lips drew back in an angry snarl, her eyes blazed with fury.

  “Coward!” she cried. “Dog! Dog!”

  Hallo could not resist the fury of her attack. ­Startled out of his wits, he fell over and rolled on the floor.

  “Where would you ever find a home?” he heard Talla in a furious whisper above him. “Where, I say, you traitor, you disgrace to the name of wolf!”

  “Let me alone,” pleaded Hallo. “Please, let me alone! Oh! Oh!”

  He cried piteously, for Talla’s teeth were sinking into his shoulder. “What did I do to you?” he whined before she could seize him a second time. “I don’t understand you!”

  “You don’t understand me?” cried Talla threateningly and snapped at him, but a quick movement saved him this time from her murderous teeth. “You don’t understand me?”

  “No, I don’t,” whimpered Hallo. “You’ve hurt me. . . .”

  “Do you know the forest, you miserable creature?” Talla raged. She was beside herself. “Do you know what freedom is, you hideous beast? Freedom! Answer me or I’ll kill you. Do you know what freedom is?”

  “No,” howled Hallo, “no! What is freedom?”

  Talla leaped at him again, seizing him by the throat. Hallo shrank away and left a tuft of hair in Talla’s teeth. She followed him up furiously. “I can smell Him on you, our enemy, the murderous terror! He who tortures us! He with whom there can be no peace because He knows no peace and wants no peace! He who steals the forest from us, who persecutes and destroys us! He whom we hate, whom we despise, whom we fear. Now do you understand me?”

  Cautiously, slowly, Hallo crept a little farther away. “No,” he groaned.

  Again Talla was standing over him. “I smell Him on you. He has made a dog of you, a common dog. . . .”

  “He is good!” Hallo sprang up, crying passionately. “He is great and He loves me!”

  But Talla sprang at him again with redoubled fury, and drove him into the little sleeping compartment. There she stopped.

  “Dog!” she growled. “Don’t dare come out! Do you hear?”

  “Yes!” Hallo’s voice trembled.

  “You will die,” she growled, “if you dare come anywhere near me. I’ll kill you!”

  Creeping into the farthest corner of the sleeping compartment, Hallo lay flat on the floor, his nose pointed toward the semi-circle of the cage. Intently he watched his companion.

  Another spectator had also watched this scene. Vasta the mouse.

  She was a friend of gentle Hallo. From the very first day of his arrival she had been his confidante and comforter. She loved this kind, good-natured, playful companion, who was as gentle with all creatures as a dog. She liked to pass the time with Hallo and he never dreamed of harming her.

  He always watched with friendly interest when she drank what was left of the milk, the few drops that sufficed to satisfy her.

  She had observed and heard everything, and sat worried, watching her mistreated friend. At last she crept up close to him, and sitting beside his head, which he kept pressed to the floor in fear, she whispered in his ear, “I’ll come back and see you later.”

  Hallo did not venture a reply. He merely blinked understanding.

  Vasta ran away. She was so accustomed to the cage that she ran right across the semi-circle. But Talla had no sooner spied Vasta than she sprang after her, striking out with her forepaw.

  Only a desperate leap saved Vasta’s life. She felt ­Talla’s hot breath on her body. She nearly fainted with sudden fear of death. But she rushed on and escaped.

  Outside in safety she had to stop in the middle of the white gravel path. Her pulse was throbbing even in her eyes. For a long time she was paralyzed with terror.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Leashed

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON. THE ELEPHANT was returning from his walk through the zoo. He had been carrying children on his back, seizing them carefully with his trunk, and lifting them on.

  At command he would bend his knee and wait patiently until grown-ups scaled his mountainous body. He had carried his keeper on his tusk, lifting him over his head and seating him on his neck.

  But the colored saddle-cloth and tower had been unbuckled and he was permitted to leave the cage for a while and wander in the open.

  The little white goat that never left his side accompanied him as usual on his tour of the garden and now stood expectantly in the cage beside him.

  He received all sorts of gifts from the throngs of people who crowded about the cage. He always gave them all to the little goat, eating only what she spurned.

  Close by stood the zoo’s two giraffes, silent, patient, slightly sneering.

  “You and your goat,” whispered Babina, one of the giraffes, to the elephant.

  And Zoprinana, the other one, added, “Positively ridiculous.”

  “Be quiet,” trumpeted the elephant. “I like her.”

  Zoprinana turned her lofty little head. “That’s just it. That’s just what makes it so ridiculous.”

  Babina did not trouble to turn her head as she said, “She’s no person for you. Such a stupid little thing.”

  “She’s certainly not stupid,” the elephant objected. He stroked the goat’s back lovingly. “No, she’s not stupid. Talk to her.”

  But the goat bleated, “I don’t want to talk to you, you two long-necked troub
le-makers. Besides, why should I worry my head about you? And I don’t worry my head about you! Leave us in peace!”

  “I am absolutely alone,” the elephant said as if by way of deprecatory explanation. “Of course, it’s difficult for you to understand that. You are happy, you are together.”

  “Happy?” sneered Babina.

  “My dear, we’re dying of boredom,” sighed Zoprinana.

  “Perishing of homesickness,” Babina complained.

  “Don’t talk about homesickness,” the elephant cut her short. “Don’t talk about it. Let’s not speak of it. I’ll go mad if anybody reminds me of it.”

  He seized sand and small gravel and flung it at the people outside the cage. Everybody laughed.

  “You have a splendid time of it,” said Babina, “you’re permitted to go out, to move. Who knows all the places you go to?”

  “Yes,” continued Zoprinana, “who knows all that you get to see? With us it’s ten paces—twenty all around—and you’re done!”

  Babina grew passionate. “Consider this tiny cage. Impossible to run, impossible to move as we are accustomed to moving. Our legs are becoming stiff, our joints are hardening. Horrible, the way we are compelled to live here.”

  “Stunted in mind and body. What is left for us?” cried Zoprinana angrily.

  Babina drew herself up. She looked noble, exotic, haughty. But her helpless height, her impotent strength looked somehow silly. Yet she did not sound altogether silly as she said, “What disgusting creatures these must be that come and gape at us every day. What malicious creatures, too, to shut us up this way.”

  “What sort of mysterious power do they have? You are strong, Pardinos, and yet they captured you. It was not so long ago that you killed one of those hateful creatures. Why don’t you kill them all?”

  “You could free yourself and all of us,” Babina urged, “why don’t you do it?”

  “There are lions, tigers and panthers here,” cried Zoprinana, “we know it although we cannot see them. But we can smell their scent and hear them. You aren’t the only one who would be strong enough. . . .”

  The elephant smiled. “You two have nothing to fear from me—but lions, tigers and panthers? Would you really like them? Now you are in safety. . . .”

  “That is why we hesitated,” cried Babina.

  “Ho, how brave we are!” laughed the elephant.

  “I don’t know whether we are exactly brave,” replied Zoprinana.

  “Bravery is no concern of ours,” said Babina, turning her beautiful neck with noble arrogance.

  “So there you are,” smiled the elephant.

  Babina lowered her long neck horizontally in her bitterness. “Do you suppose that those miserable creatures have cooped us up here in order to protect us? Do you really believe that?”

  “Bravery or cowardice—it’s all one,” murmured Zoprinana and drew herself up very erect. “It’s all one, I tell you! We would rather have danger and be free. We long to flee when we scent the lion and the leopard in the distance. To flee, our hearts pounding, and conquer our foes by swiftness, then be calm again and watchful. To save ourselves anew every hour, to enjoy our rescued trembling existences tenfold with every hour—that is life, that is what it means to live!”

  “Run . . . run . . . run!” Babina was stamping. “That is what it means to live!”

  “But to have to stand still here,” said Zoprinana quietly, “to have to smell the scent of the lion, to hear him and know that it means nothing—what a terrible fate!”

  “Well,” said the elephant, rocking back and forth, “we have to compromise. I just as much as the rest of you. . . .”

  “You?” Zoprinana regarded him from on high. “You have a good time of it.”

  “I?” The elephant raised his trunk. “Because they lead me through the garden? What is that little strip of path for limbs like mine? I would like to wander for days and days. With the herd, with my brothers and sisters. I’d like to test my strength on the trees I uprooted, on the tough vines I tore down.” He drew a deep gurgling breath. “Do you really suppose that it gives me any pleasure to be led for a brief hour through this horrible garden? Past all those captives pining behind their bars? But I’ve compromised, otherwise I’d go mad.”

  “You could fell them with one blow, those crippled creatures with their two legs,” breathed the immobile Zoprinana in a tone that was at once provocative and envious.

  “I can do nothing!” said the elephant with melancholy decision. “Nothing! They are mightier than we. I don’t know why. I don’t know by what means. But I do know that resistance is useless.”

  A blackbird was sitting, a tiny black speck, on the beams that divided one cage from the other. Her ­little tail seesawed back and forth, her shrewd little eyes shone like black pearls, her head peeped elegantly now over one side, now over the other.

  “Wrong,” she twittered, “wrong! Those two-legged boobies have no power over me. Not the slightest! They don’t mean a thing. There’s not a thing they can do to me! Not a thing!”

  She spread her wings and flew with a twittering cry to the nearest tree. The giraffes followed her with melancholy eyes.

  “Silly creature,” muttered the elephant. “Who pays any attention to her kind?”

  At a little distance the gnu was trampling about madly in his yard. His head was lowered and he was kicking with his hindlegs, shaking his sparse mane, bucking in one place so that first his head and shoulders, then his loins and haunches were up in the air. Presently he would stand tense and still, waiting, as if plunged in profound thought.

  “Alone!” the gnu would grumble. “Alone! And yet not alone! And yet alone! But the herd is coming! It will be here any time now! Why do they keep me waiting? I’ve waited so long! So long! But there’s a lion!” The gnu would crouch, leap up, trampling, lowering his head, beating the earth like a drum with his hindlegs. “One lion? Two lions!”

  Then he would stop again, triumphant. “At last I’ve driven them off! One must defend one’s self!”

  The gnu gave himself up completely to his daydreams. In this fashion he passed the time.

  An axis-deer sauntered by. Small, compact, with very slender legs. A figure of most elegant plumpness. He sauntered to and fro almost solemnly.

  When one of the visitors held out a crumb of white bread to him, he would approach the bars reluctantly, as if suspicious or with nicely moderated hauteur, would sniff the crumb, munch it or disdain it according to his humor.

  “Why the excitement?” he asked, shaking his head and glancing at the gnu. “Why the excitement? It really doesn’t help. Really we get along here quite splendidly.”

  “Don’t we, though?” brayed the gnu. “We wait, we trample a lion or two that attacks us.”

  “Stop,” laughed the axis-deer, “nobody’s ever attacked you.” He stood with his slender legs spread while his fat cylindrical body quaked with suppressed laughter.

  “I agree with you entirely,” shouted the gnu, disregarding the remark, “I am quite of your opinion. Everything is splendid here.”

  A slender gazelle raised its delicate spear-shaped antlers. “One never is attacked here,” she chimed in, “and that’s a wonderfully comforting feeling.”

  The axis-deer nodded politely.

  At a little distance in the enclosure next to the gazelle lived a roebuck and two does. “What are you discussing?” he asked, coming to the fence.

  “We are discussing,” said the gazelle, “what a good time we have of it here.”

  “Yes,” he said, “it’s very nice.”

  “And so marvelously secure,” she continued, “no attacks. . . .”

  “Yes,” he agreed heartily, “and no hunting. . . .”

  “Hunting?” asked the gazelle. “What is that?”

  The roebuck was astonished. “You don’t k
now what hunting is? Say, you,” he called to the axis-deer, “don’t you know what hunting is either?”

  “No, I don’t know either,” replied the axis-deer, “is it very bad?”

  “Dreadful!” The roebuck grew serious. “When He comes into the forest . . . you don’t hear Him, you don’t smell Him, you don’t see Him. Suddenly he throws his fire-hand at you. It sounds like thunder and leaves you lying in your blood.”

  “A sensational story,” said the gazelle mildly, “but unfortunately not true.”

  “I don’t believe a word you say,” declared the axis-deer emphatically.

  “Indeed!” The roebuck was offended. “And how did you get here, pray?”

  “Not through any fire-hand,” replied the gazelle.

  “Or any thunderclaps,” added the axis-deer.

  “And you weren’t hunted?”

  “I fell into a pit,” the gazelle explained, “and He took me out. I remember to this day how I trembled and how frightened I was! But He was friendly to me, and stroked me and gave me something to eat. But the wooden box I was shut in so long was small.”

  “Yes,” declared the axis-deer, “I found the wooden box quite dreadful, too. But otherwise, if what you say is true, why don’t they throw their fire-hands around here? Where’s the thunder? He would have an easy time of it here.”

  “How did you get into the wooden box then?” asked the roebuck.

  “Oh,” said the axis-deer, “I had a misfortune. To this day I don’t know how it happened. I became entangled in a net in some vegetation I had never seen before. It must have grown up over night, for there it was suddenly in the middle of the jungle, right on the track that I used every day, and had passed over but a few hours previous. A horrible tangling growth of some kind. I got in deeper and deeper. I could never have freed myself, and I was becoming famished. But He freed me.”

  The roebuck said nothing for a while. “I’m telling you the truth,” he said at last. “I’ve been through hunts many, many times.”

  “Did you ever lie in your own blood?” the gazelle interrupted.

  “No,” replied the roebuck, “but my father did. Before my very eyes, and my mother’s. I saw Him pick up my dead father and carry him away. Afterwards I often heard His thunder crash, and have seen my cousins and uncles fall as if they had been struck by lightning.”