A Passion in the Desert

by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Ernest Dowson

"The whole show is dreadful," she cried coming out of the menagerie of
M. Martin. She had just been looking at that daring speculator

"working with his hyena,"--to speak in the style of the programme.
"By what means," she continued, "can he have tamed these animals to

such a point as to be certain of their affection for----"
"What seems to you a problem," said I, interrupting, "is really quite

natural."
"Oh!" she cried, letting an incredulous smile wander over her lips.

"You think that beasts are wholly without passions?" I asked her.
"Quite the reverse; we can communicate to them all the vices arising

in our own state of civilization."
She looked at me with an air of astonishment.

"But," I continued, "the first time I saw M. Martin, I admit, like
you, I did give vent to an exclamation of surprise. I found myself

next to an old soldier with the right leg amputated, who had come in
with me. His face had struck me. He had one of those heroic heads,

stamped with the seal of warfare, and on which the battles of Napoleon
are written. Besides, he had that frank, good-humored expression which

always impresses me favorably. He was without doubt one of those
troopers who are surprised at nothing, who find matter for laughter in

the contortions of a dying comrade, who bury or plunder him quite
light-heartedly, who stand intrepidly in the way of bullets;--in fact,

one of those men who waste no time in deliberation, and would not
hesitate to make friends with the devil himself. After looking very

attentively at the proprietor of the menagerie getting out of his box,
my companion pursed up his lips with an air of mockery and contempt,

with that peculiar and expressive twist which superior people assume
to show they are not taken in. Then, when I was expatiating on the

courage of M. Martin, he smiled, shook his head knowingly, and said,
'Well known.'

" 'How "well known"?' I said. 'If you would only explain me the
mystery, I should be vastly obliged.'

"After a few minutes, during which we made acquaintance, we went to
dine at the first restauranteur's whose shop caught our eye. At

dessert a bottle of champagne completely refreshed and brightened up
the memories of this odd old soldier. He told me his story, and I saw

that he was right when he exclaimed, 'Well known.' "
When she got home, she teased me to that extent, was so charming, and

made so many promises, that I consented to communicate to her the
confidences of the old soldier. Next day she received the following

episode of an epic which one might call "The French in Egypt."
During the expedition in Upper Egypt under General Desaix, a Provencal

soldier fell into the hands of the Maugrabins, and was taken by these
Arabs into the deserts beyond the falls of the Nile.

In order to place a sufficient distance between themselves and the
French army, the Maugrabins made forced marches, and only halted when

night was upon them. They camped round a well overshadowed by palm
trees under which they had previously concealed a store of provisions.

Not surmising that the notion of flight would occur to their prisoner,
they contented themselves with binding his hands, and after eating a

few dates, and giving provender to their horses, went to sleep.
When the brave Provencal saw that his enemies were no longer watching

him, he made use of his teeth to steal a scimiter, fixed the blade
between his knees, and cut the cords which prevented him from using

his hands; in a moment he was free. He at once seized a rifle and a
dagger, then taking the precautions to provide himself with a sack of

dried dates, oats, and powder and shot, and to fasten a scimiter to
his waist, he leaped on to a horse, and spurred on vigorously in the

direction where he thought to find the French army. So impatient was
he to see a bivouac again that he pressed on the already tired courser

at such speed, that its flanks were lacerated with his spurs, and at
last the poor animal died, leaving the Frenchman alone in the desert.

After walking some time in the sand with all the courage of an escaped
convict, the soldier was obliged to stop, as the day had already

ended. In spite of the beauty of an Oriental sky at night, he felt he
had not strength enough to go on. Fortunately he had been able to find

a small hill, on the summit of which a few palm trees shot up into the
air; it was their verdure seen from afar which had brought hope and

consolation to his heart. His fatigue was so great that he lay down
upon a rock of granite, capriciously cut out like a camp-bed; there he

fell asleep without taking any precaution to defend himself while he
slept. He had made the sacrifice of his life. His last thought was one

of regret. He repented having left the Maugrabins, whose nomadic life
seemed to smile upon him now that he was far from them and without

help. He was awakened by the sun, whose pitiless rays fell with all
their force on the granite and produced an intolerable heat--for he

had had the stupidity to place himself adversely to the shadow thrown
by the verdant majestic heads of the palm trees. He looked at the

solitary trees and shuddered--they reminded him of the graceful shafts
crowned with foliage which characterize the Saracen columns in the

cathedral of Arles.
But when, after counting the palm trees, he cast his eyes around him,

the most horribledespair was infused into his soul. Before him
stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread

further than eye could reach in every direction, and glittered like
steel struck with bright light. It might have been a sea of looking-

glass, or lakes melted together in a mirror. A fiery vapor carried up
in surging waves made a perpetualwhirlwind over the quivering land.

The sky was lit with an Oriental splendor of insupportable purity,
leaving naught for the imagination to desire. Heaven and earth were on

fire.
The silence was awful in its wild and terrible majesty. Infinity,

immensity, closed in upon the soul from every side. Not a cloud in the
sky, not a breath in the air, not a flaw on the bosom of the sand,

ever moving in diminutive waves; the horizon ended as at sea on a
clear day, with one line of light, definite as the cut of a sword.

The Provencal threw his arms round the trunk of one of the palm trees,
as though it were the body of a friend, and then, in the shelter of

the thin, straight shadow that the palm cast upon the granite, he
wept. Then sitting down he remained as he was, contemplating with

profoundsadness the implacable scene, which was all he had to look
upon. He cried aloud, to measure the solitude. His voice, lost in the

hollows of the hill, sounded faintly, and aroused no echo--the echo
was in his own heart. The Provencal was twenty-two years old:--he

loaded his carbine.
"There'll be time enough," he said to himself, laying on the ground

the weapon which alone could bring him deliverance.
Viewing alternately the dark expanse of the desert and the blue

expanse of the sky, the soldier dreamed of France--he smelled with
delight the gutters of Paris--he remembered the towns through which he

had passed, the faces of his comrades, the most minute details of his
life. His Southern fancy soon showed him the stones of his beloved

Provence, in the play of the heat which undulated above the wide
expanse of the desert. Realizing the danger of this cruel mirage, he

went down the opposite side of the hill to that by which he had come
up the day before. The remains of a rug showed that this place of

refuge had at one time been inhabited; at a short distance he saw some
palm trees full of dates. Then the instinct which binds us to life

awoke again in his heart. He hoped to live long enough to await the
passing of some Maugrabins, or perhaps he might hear the sound of

cannon; for at this time Bonaparte was traversing Egypt.
This thought gave him new life. The palm tree seemed to bend with the

weight of the ripe fruit. He shook some of it down. When he tasted
this unhoped-for manna, he felt sure that the palms had been

cultivated by a former inhabitant--the savory, fresh meat of the dates
were proof of the care of his predecessor. He passed suddenly from

dark despair to an almost insane joy. He went up again to the top of
the hill, and spent the rest of the day in cutting down one of the

sterile palm trees, which the night before had served him for shelter.
A vague memory made him think of the animals of the desert; and in

case they might come to drink at the spring, visible from the base of
the rocks but lost further down, he resolved to guard himself from

their visits by placing a barrier at the entrance of his hermitage.
In spite of his diligence, and the strength which the fear of being

devoured asleep gave him, he was unable to cut the palm in pieces,