MOTHER ETIENNE’S DREAM
Mother Etienne was very restless again
that night, haunted, not by a dreadful nightmare as
before, but by a troublesome dream. Everything
she had just seen at Sir Booum’s appeared before
her, the tiniest incidents, the least important details.
All the explanations, concerning the
creatures in the menagerie given her by the trainer,
came back to her, like an object lesson in a curious
dream.
The principal person in it was Yollande.
Yollande as Barnum, Yollande as trainer, Yollande
holding in one hairy wing a stout whip, in the other
the pitchfork as a protection against claws and teeth.
“You see here,” said Yollande
in a loud voice, “you see here the wild ox from
Madagascar, which takes the place of the horse.
In that country he is harnessed to small, light vehicles
which he draws along rapidly. This other is a
buffalo from Caffraria. He is a Jack-of-all-trades,
sometimes ridden, sometimes driven, sometimes laden,
sometimes yoked to the plough. Those big striped
animals you see yonder are giraffes. Their long
necks permit them, without having recourse to a ladder,
to eat the young shoots of the mimosa, of which they
are very fond, as well as the fresh dates which usually
grow at the tops of the palm-trees.”
In this kind of dream a strange idea
was at work in the brain of the sleeper. With
these object lessons were mingled strange, quaint
asides.
“If children had long necks
like that, one couldn’t keep the jam-pots out
of their way by putting them on the top shelves of
the cupboard.”
“There,” went on Yollande,
“are the elephants. They are used for all
sorts of tasks. Their trunks, a continuation of
their nostrils, serve both for breathing and holding.
It is, as it were, an extremely sensitive and powerful
hand.”
“Great goodness me,” cried
Mother Etienne; “imagine having a hand at the
end of your nose! Would it have a glove on it
and rings on its fingers?”
All sorts of ridiculous ideas like
that came into her head. The little beaver, who
builds his houses all along the Canadian streams,
appeared trowel in hand, mortar-board on his head,
and Mother Etienne felt most anxious to have his valuable
assistance in repairing her barns and mills.
Dear little marabout, how useful you would be
in the village, sweeping the streets, cleaning up the
refuse, advance-guard of the street-cleaner with his,
“Now then, everything into the gutter.”
“The antelopes are very silly,
coquettish creatures to wear such long boas round
their necks in this warm country. But, after all,
perhaps they are wise enough, for they have chosen
a kind which, unlike our make of furs, is cold to
the touch.”
Yollande, in her rôle of trainer,
went on and on like a brook.
“Here, now, is a dromedary.
He has a hump on his back, a fatty exerescence which
enables him to bear much fatigue, without eating or
drinking for several days. It is owing to this
fat, rather like a box of provisions on his back,
that he can traverse hot and sandy deserts where it
would be difficult to find a single blade of grass
to eat.”
Then through the farm bedroom passed
long caravans of camels, led by carnival Arabs, their
humps changed into gigantic larders in which rattled
all sorts of canned things. Canned salmon, Russian
caviare, dried biscuits, smoked meats, tongues, sardines,
canned peas, foies-gras, lobsters, and fruits, in
fact all those things which Mother Etienne had seen
piled up in many-coloured pyramids at the best grocery
stores. Really it was too ridiculous. Miss
Booum must have been making fun of her visitor. That
couldn’t really be the best food for camels.
It was still worse when it came to
the turn of the hippopotami. A thousand ill-digested
memories from the illustrated papers were in her mind,
all mixed up. Where did the Nile and the Zanzibar
flow? Which was it that separated Egypt from
Senegal? And the gigantic hippopotamus, looking
perfectly huge and out-of-place in a gondola fit for
a sultana, appeared to her, floating down the calm
stream, a red fez with a golden star on his head,
puffing away at a peculiar double-bowled pipe, the
pride of the collection of a retired police-officer
in the village, who had it from the real cousin of
a sea-captain from Marseilles.
“Do you see those little lumps
there enclosed between four boards? It is a nest
of land-tortoises. The largest, called the Giant
tortoise, easily supports on its back a weight of two
hundred pounds. This shell which weighs so heavily
is its house. At the least alarm, it retreats
into its house and stays there, till all danger is
past.” This plan of walking about with your
house on your back seemed rather a good one to Mother
Etienne. You could go out on rainy days without
getting wet, and on cold days it would keep your back
nice and warm.
“Near at hand is a collection
of mammals, the kangaroo family. The kangaroo
is the largest mammal of Australia. It is generally
a peace-loving animal, but bites, scratches, and claws
if it is teased. Its best defence however is
flight.” All these technical details left
the good woman cold. What she remembered best
were the practical qualities of the creatures.
The kangaroo has one very great peculiarity, the female
has a pouch, a sort of bag, in which she hides her
young if danger appears, just as the soldier has his
knapsack.
For the first time in her life Mother
Etienne was much struck By certain resemblances between
animals and human beings, finding in them actions,
looks, and habits which reminded her irresistibly
of many of her acquaintances. It was amongst the
monkeys that it was the most marked. Two chimpanzees,
with pensive faces garbed in black, seemed to be mourning
some beloved relative. It was as though their
sad but shining eyes, gazing at the straw which half-covered
them, were seeking something hidden, intangible.
A family of big African monkeys, by
their challenging, crafty air, reminded her unpleasantly
of a band of good-for-nothings who for months had
spread terror and desolation throughout the country.
The chief or the one who appeared to be
the chief the biggest and strongest, hurled
himself at the bars and shook them in his clenched
hands. He would certainly have enjoyed strangling
Mother Etienne, had he been able to do so. Since
he was not able to, he displayed in a huge yawn, a
terrifying set of teeth, worthy of a wild beast.
They were horrid animals, I assure you, not the kind
you would like to meet loose on a lonely road.
Fortunately some pretty little witsits,
with black faces, no bigger than your fist, and white
and grey ruffles, whistling like blackbirds, by their
pretty tricks did away with the bad impression made
by these sinister neighbours.
This one was a regular little mother,
that one had just been sweeping out the yard, another
was the living image of the Count’s servant
when he followed his master on his walks, carrying
under his arm a shawl or a sunshade. An orang-outang,
an elderly peasant, whose four big hands were clasped,
suggested to her how useful it would be to have a
helper like that to milk the cows. It would go
twice as fast with four hands. What a lot of precious
time it would save.
And many other queer things came into
her head. That yowling dog, that sharp-faced
rabbit, are the type who come on fair-days to cry
their papers, sell their toys, etc. a
noisy, rough crew. Goodness gracious! Where
was Mother Etienne’s absurd dream leading her?
She, whose life was always so calm, and who, to tell
the truth, with Germaine, were rather like the two
little monkeys at the corner of the fire-place, hands
clasped under their aprons, feet on foot-warmers,
and little pointed handkerchiefs on their heads.
At this personal picture everything
turned as though by enchantment into one huge, vast
medley, which ended in a general cake-walk of the
whole menagerie, passing before the tired eyes of
Mother Etienne, roaring, bellowing, mewing, whistling,
howling, whinnying, and braying. Poor Mother
Etienne was thoroughly exhausted.