Chapter I · III

The Bengal tigress, her sleek pelt dappled at intervals, is blithe and gallant, in full array. She leaps from the steep slopes of an embankment to the dense canebrake of a bamboo grove; thence to the rock that rears at the entrance of her cave. There she unleashes a roar, lashes about like one possessed, and bristle with ecstasy her shaggy skin.

The virgin beast is in love. It is the month of passion. The ground seems live embers; and in the heavens the sun an immense blaze. Through the dark boughs the kangaroo bounds in flight. The boa swells, sleeps, warms itself in the torrid glare; the bird settles down to rest upon the verdant crest.

Furnace vapors are felt; and the Indian jungle, upon the wings of the sultry heat, under the serene sky, breathes forth a gust of its essence. The haughty tigress inhales with full lungs, and beholding herself fair, haughty, sovereign, her heart throbs, her breast heaves.

She contemplates her mighty paw, therein the talons of ivory; then touches the edge of a rock, testing and scratching it. Then she views her flank which she lashes with her pointed tail of black and white, supple and velvety; then her belly. Directly she parts her wide jaws, haughty as a queen demanding fealty; then sniffs, seeks, prowls. The wild beast exhales something akin to a savage sigh. A hushed roar she caught. With speed she turned her gaze from side to side. And her dilated green eye sparkled when she beheld the head of a tiger surge above the crest of a hillock. The tiger was drawing near.

He was wondrously fair. Gigantic in stature, sleek in coat, tight of flank, robust of neck, he was a feline Don Juan in the forest. He strides with stealthy tramps; sees the tigress restless, alone, and shows her his white fangs; and then carries his tail erect with swaggering grace. As he paced, his body swayed with poise and gallant prowess. Swollen muscles were seen beneath the pelt. And one would have termed that wild beast a rough gladiator of the mountain. The bristling hairs of his lip he licked. As he walked, with his weight he trampled the green and yielding turf; and the sound of his breath resembled the snorting of a forge-bellows. He it is, he is the king. No golden sceptre, but the broad paw that sinks deep into the bull’s crown and tears the flesh. The enormous black eagle, with pupils of fire and curved, glittering beak, hath the North Wind; the billows and tranquil waters, the great cayman; the elephant, the glen and the steppe; the viper, the reeds through which it glides; and its warm nest hanging from the bough, the sweet, tender bird that loves the first light. He hath the cave.

They envy neither the lion his mane, nor the rough steed his hoof, nor the brawny hippopotamus his burly back, who beneath the boughs of a spreading baobab roars to the wind.

Thus the proud beast advances, draws near, flatters; the tigress who awaits him responds, and with caresses repays his caresses in her savage heat, the slaughterer.

Thereafter, the mysterious touch, the impulsive powers that sweep away with wondrous might; and oh great Pan! the monstrous idyll beneath the vast, primeval jungles. Not that of the muses of gentle hours, soft and expressive, the smiling dawns and the azure pensive nights; but that which kindles, animates, exalts all things— pollen, sap, warmth, nerve, bark— and in torrents of life surges and leaps from the bosom of grand Nature.