Honore De Balzac

A Passion in the Desert Honore De Balzac

"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...