Our Friend the Dog | Page 4

enemy, the hereditary

enemy, the direct 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 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....
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. 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?
[Illustration]
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, 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 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 speaking, all animals
(we learn to know them by secret marks) that have not yet made their
peace with mankind.
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?
[Illustration]
Alas, he did not have time to finish the long and heavy task 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, 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.

II
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 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 to their former wild and mischievous liberty. The rose
and the corn, had they wings, would fly