Part 1

Chapter 14,129 wordsPublic domain

A MAN IN THE ZOO

DAVID GARNETT

Illustrated with wood engravings by R. A. GARNETT

TORONTO THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED

1924

_SPECIAL EDITION FOR SALE ONLY IN CANADA_

_PRINTED IN ENGLAND ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_

TO HENRIETTA BINGHAM AND MINA KIRSTEIN

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I have to thank Mr. Arthur Waley for permission to quote from his translation of a poem by Wang Yen-shou, which appears in “The Temple and other Poems,” published by Messrs. Allen & Unwin.

I also wish to say that the Royal Zoological Society has always been the object of my respect and admiration, and that in this story, neither explicitly nor implicitly, is anything intended that could be regarded as derogatory to the Society in any sense.

A MAN IN THE ZOO

John Cromartie and Josephine Lackett gave up their green tickets at the turnstile, and entered the Zoological Society’s Gardens by the South Gate.

It was a warm day at the end of February, and Sunday morning. In the air there was a smell of spring, mixed with the odours of different animals--yaks, wolves, and musk-oxen, but the two visitors did not notice it. They were lovers, and were having a quarrel.

They came soon to the Wolves and Foxes, and stood still opposite a cage containing an animal very like a dog.

“Other people, other people! You are always considering the feelings of other people,” said Mr. Cromartie. His companion did not answer him, so he went on:

“You say somebody feels this, or that somebody else may feel the other. You never talk to me about anything except what other people are feeling, or may be going to feel. I wish you could forget about other people and talk about yourself, but I suppose you have to talk of other people’s feelings because you haven’t any of your own.”

The beast opposite them was bored. He looked at them for a moment and forgot them at once. He lived in a small space, and had forgotten the outside world where creatures very like himself raced in circles.

“If that is the reason,” said Cromartie, “I do not see why you should not say so. It would be honest if you were to tell me you felt nothing for me. It is not honest to say first that you love me, and then that you are a Christian and love everybody equally.”

“Nonsense,” said the girl, “you know that is nonsense. It is not Christianity, it is because I love several people very much.”

“You do not love several people very much,” said Cromartie, interrupting her. “You cannot possibly love people like your aunts. Nobody could. No, you do not really love anybody. You imagine that you do because you have not got the courage to stand alone.”

“I know whom I love, and whom I do not,” said Josephine. “And if you should drive me to choose between you and everybody else, I should be a fool to give myself to you.”

“Poor little Dingo,” said Cromartie. “They do shut up creatures here on the thinnest pretexts. He is only the familiar dog.”

The Dingo whined, and wagged his tail. He knew that he was being spoken of.

Josephine turned from her lover to the Dingo, and her face softened as she looked at it.

“I suppose they have got to have everything here, every single kind of beast there is, even if it turns out to be nothing but an ordinary dog.”

They left the Dingo, walked to the next cage, and stood side by side looking at the creature in it.

“The slender dog,” said Josephine, reading the label. She laughed, and the slender dog got up and walked away.

“So that is a wolf,” said Cromartie, as they stopped six feet further on. “Another dog in a cage.... Give yourself to me, Josephine, that sounds to me as if you were crazy. But it shows anyway that you are not in love with me. If you are in love it is all or nothing. You cannot be in love with several people at once. I know because I am in love with you, and other people are all my enemies, necessarily my enemies.”

“What nonsense!” said Josephine.

“If I am in love with you,” Cromartie went on, “and you with me, it means that you are the only person who is not my enemy, and I am the only person who is not yours. A fool to give yourself to me! Yes, you are a fool if you fancy you are in love when you are not, and I should be a fool to believe it. You do not give yourself to the person with whom you are in love, you are yourself instead of being dressed up in armoured plate.”

“Has this place got nothing in it besides tame dogs?” asked Josephine.

They walked together towards the lion house, and Josephine took John’s arm in hers. “Armoured plate. It doesn’t seem to me to make sense. I cannot bear to hurt the people I love, and so I am not going to live with you, or do anything that they would mind if they found out.”

John said nothing to this, only shrugged his shoulders, screwed up his eyes, and rubbed his nose. In the lion house they walked slowly from cage to cage until they came to a tiger which walked up and down, up and down, up and down, turning his great painted head with intolerable familiarity, and with his whiskers just brushing the brick wall.

“They pay for their beauty, poor beasts,” said John, after a pause. “And you know it proves what I’ve been saying. Mankind want to catch anything beautiful and shut it up, and then come in thousands to watch it die by inches. That’s why one hides what one is and lives behind a mask in secret.”

“I hate you, John, and all your ideas. I love my fellow creatures--or most of them--and I can’t help it if you are a tiger and not a human being. I’m not mad; I can trust people with every feeling I have got, and I shall never have any feelings that I shouldn’t like to share with everybody. I don’t mind if I am a Christian--it’s better than suffering from persecution mania, and browbeating me because I’m fond of my father and Aunt Eily.”

But Miss Lackett did not look very browbeaten as she said this. On the contrary her eyes sparkled, her colour was high and her looks imperious, and she kept tapping the toe of her pointed shoe on the stone floor. Mr. Cromartie was irritated by this tapping, so he said something in a low voice on purpose so that Josephine should not be able to hear it; the only word audible was “browbeating.”

She asked him very savagely what he had said. John laughed. “What’s the use of my talking to you at all if you fly into a rage before you have even heard what I have got to say?” he asked her.

Josephine turned pale with self-control; she glared at a placid lion with such fury that, after a moment or two, the beast got up and walked into the den behind his cage.

“Josephine, please be reasonable. Either you are in love with me or else you are not. If you are in love with me it can’t cost you much to sacrifice other people to me. Since you won’t do that it follows that you are not in love with me, and in that case you only keep me hanging round you because it pleases your vanity. I wish you would choose someone else for that sort of thing. I don’t like it, and any of your father’s old friends would do better than me.”

“How dare you talk to me about my father’s old friends?” said Josephine. They were silent. Presently Cromartie said, “For the last time, Josephine, will you marry me, and be damned to your relations?”

“No! You silly savage!” said Josephine. “No, you wild beast. Can’t you understand that one doesn’t treat people like that? It is simply wasting my breath to talk. I’ve explained a hundred times I am not going to make father miserable. I am not going to be cut off with a shilling and become _dependent_ on you when you haven’t enough money to live on yourself, to satisfy your vanity. My _vanity_, do you think having you in love with me pleases my _vanity_? I might as well have a baboon or a bear. You are Tarzan of the Apes; you ought to be shut up in the Zoo. The collection here is incomplete without you. You are a survival--atavism at its worst. Don’t ask me why I fell in love with you--I did, but I cannot marry Tarzan of the Apes, I’m not romantic enough. I see, too, that you do believe what you have been saying. You do think mankind is your enemy. I can assure you that if mankind thinks of you, it thinks you are the missing link. You ought to be shut up and exhibited here in the Zoo--I’ve told you once and now I tell you again--with the gorilla on one side and the chimpanzee on the other. Science would gain a lot.”

“Well, I will be. I am sure you are quite right. I’ll make arrangements to be exhibited,” said Cromartie. “I’m very grateful to you for having told me the truth about myself.” Then he took off his hat and said “Good-bye,” and giving a quick little nod he walked away.

“Miserable baboon,” muttered Josephine, and she hurried out through the swing doors.

They were both of them in a rage, but John Cromartie was in such a desperate rage that he did not know he was angry, he only thought that he was very miserable and unhappy. Josephine, on the other hand, was elated. She would have enjoyed slashing at Cromartie with a whip.

That evening Cromartie could not keep still. When the chairs presumed to stand in his path he knocked them over, but he soon found that merely upsetting furniture was not enough to restore his peace of mind. It was then that Mr. Cromartie made a singular determination--one which you may swear no other man in like circumstances would ever have arrived at.

It was somehow or other to get himself exhibited in the Zoo, as if he were part of the menagerie.

It may be that a strange predilection which he had for keeping his word is enough to account for this. But it will always be found that many impulses are entirely whimsical and not to be accounted for by reason. And this man was both proud and obstinate, so that when he had decided upon a thing in passion he would brave it out so far that he could no longer withdraw from it.

At the time he said to himself that he would do it to humiliate Josephine. If she loved him it would make her suffer, and if she did not love him it would not matter to him where he was.

“And perhaps she is right,” he said to himself with a smile. “Perhaps I am the missing link, and the Zoo is the best place for me.”

He took his pen and a sheet of paper and sat down to write a letter, though he knew that if he achieved his object he would be bound to suffer. For some little while he thought over all the agonies of being in a cage and held up to the derision of the gaping populace.

And then he reflected that it was harder for some of the animals than it would be for himself. The tigers were prouder than he was, they loved their liberty more than he did his, they had no amusements or resources, and the climate did not suit them.

In his case there were no such added difficulties. He told himself that he was humble of heart, and that he resigned his liberty of his own free will. Even if books were not allowed him, he could at all events watch the spectators with as much interest as that with which they watched him.

In this manner he encouraged himself, and the thought of how terrible it was for the tigers touched his heart so much that his own fate seemed to him easier to contemplate.

After all, he reflected, he was so unhappy at that moment that nothing could be worse whatever he did. He had lost Josephine, and it would be easier to bear that loss in the discipline of a prison. Strengthened by these considerations, he shook his pen and wrote as follows:--

DEAR SIR,

I write to lay before your Society a proposal which I hope you will recommend to them for their earnest consideration. May I say first that I know the Society’s Gardens well, and much admire them? The grounds are spacious, and the arrangement of the houses is at the same time practical and convenient. In them there are specimens of practically the whole fauna of the terrestrial globe, only one mammalian of real importance being unrepresented. But the more I have thought over this omission, the more extraordinary has it appeared to me. To leave out man from a collection of the earth’s fauna is to play Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. It may seem unimportant at first sight, since the collection is formed for man to look at, and study. I admit that human beings are to be seen frequently enough walking about in the Gardens, but I believe that there are convincing reasons why the Society should have a specimen of the human race on exhibition.

Firstly, it would complete the collection, and, secondly, it would impress upon the mind of the visitor a comparison which he is not always quick to make for himself. If placed in a cage between the Orang-outang and the Chimpanzee, an ordinary member of the human race would arrest the attention of everyone who entered the Large Ape-house. In such a position he would lead to a thousand interesting comparisons being made by visitors for whose education the Gardens do in a large measure exist. Every child would grow up imbued with the outlook of a Darwin, and would become aware not only of his own exact place in the animal kingdom, but also in what he resembled, and in what he differed from the Apes. I would suggest that such a specimen be shown as far as possible in his natural surroundings as he exists at the present time, that is to say in ordinary costume, and employed in some ordinary pursuit. Thus his cage should be furnished with chairs and a table and with bookcases. A small bedroom and a bathroom at the back would enable him to retire when necessary from the public gaze. The expense to the Society need not be great.

To show my good faith I beg to offer myself for exhibition, subject to certain reservations which will not be found of an unreasonable nature.

The following particulars of my person may be of assistance:--

Race: Scottish. Height: 5 feet 11 inches. Weight: 11 stone. Hair: Dark. Eyes: Blue. Nose: Aquiline. Age: 27 years.

I shall be happy to furnish any further information which the Society may require.

I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, JOHN CROMARTIE.

When he had gone out and posted this letter Mr. Cromartie felt at peace, and he prepared for the reply with much less anxiety than most young men would have felt in such a situation.

It would be tedious to describe at any length how this letter was received by a deputy in the absence of the secretary, and how it was by him communicated to the working committee on the following Wednesday. It may, however, be of interest to note that Mr. Cromartie’s offer would in all probability have been rejected had it not been for Mr. Wollop. He was a gentleman of advanced years who was not popular with his fellow members. Mr. Cromartie’s letter, for some reason, threw him into a paroxysm of rage.

This was a deliberate insult, he declared. This was no laughing matter. It was a matter which must and should and should and must, without question, be wiped out by legal proceedings. It would expose the Society to ridicule if they took it lying down. This and much more in the same strain gave the rest of the committee time to turn the thing over in their minds.

One or two first took the opposite view from Mr. Wollop from mere habit; the Chairman observed that the presence of such an interesting correspondent as Mr. Cromartie could not fail to be a great attraction and would increase the gate-money; it was not, however, until Mr. Wollop threatened to resign that the thing was done.

Mr. Wollop withdrew, and a letter was drafted to Cromartie informing him that the committee were inclined to accept his proposal, and asking for a personal interview.

This interview took place the following Saturday, by which time the committee had become convinced that a specimen of _Homo sapiens_ ought certainly to be acquired, though it was not convinced that Mr. Cromartie was the right man, and Mr. Wollop had retired to Wollop Bottom, his rustic seat.

The personal interview was entirely satisfactory to both sides, and Mr. Cromartie’s reservations were accepted without demur. These dealt with food and drink, clothing, medical attention, and one or two luxuries which he was to receive. Thus he was to be allowed to order his own meals, see his own tailor, be visited by his own doctor, dentist, and legal advisers. He was to be allowed to administer his own income, which amounted to about £300 a year, neither was objection to be raised to his having a library in his cage, and writing materials.

The Zoological Society on their side stipulated that he should not contribute to the daily or weekly press; that he should not entertain visitors while the Gardens were open to the public; and that he should be subject to the usual discipline, as though he were one of the ordinary creatures.

A few days served to prepare the cage for his reception. It was in the Ape-house, behind which a larger room was furnished for his bedroom, with a bath and lavatory fixed behind a wooden partition. He was admitted on the following Sunday afternoon, and introduced to his keeper Collins, who also looked after the Orang-outang, the Gibbon, and the Chimpanzee.

Collins shook hands and said that he would do all he could to make him comfortable, but it was obvious that he was embarrassed, and strangely enough this embarrassment did not diminish as time went on. His relations with Cromartie always remained formal, and were characterised by the most absolute politeness, which, needless to say, Cromartie scrupulously returned.

The cage had been thoroughly cleansed and disinfected, a plain carpet had been laid down, and it was furnished with a table where Cromartie had his meals, an upright chair, an armchair, and at the back of the cage a bookcase. Nothing but the wire-netting front and sides separating him from the Chimpanzee on one side, and the Orang-outang on the other, distinguished it from a gentleman’s study. Greater magnificence characterised the furniture of his bedroom, where he found that he had been provided with every possible comfort. A French bed, a wardrobe, a cheval glass, a dressing-table with mirrors in gilt and satinwood, combined to make him feel at home.

John Cromartie employed Sunday evening in unpacking his belongings, including his books, as he wished to appear an established institution by the time visitors arrived on the Monday. For this purpose he was given an oil lamp, as the electric wiring had not been completed for the cage.

When he had been busy for a short time he looked about and found something very strange in his situation. In the dimly-lit cage on his right the Chimpanzee moved uneasily; on the other side he could not see the Orang-outang, which must have been hiding in some corner. Outside, the passage was in darkness. He was locked in. At intervals he could hear the cries of different beasts, though he could rarely tell which it was from the cry. Several times he made out the howl of a wolf, and once the roar of a lion. Later the screaming and howling of wild animals became louder and almost incessant.

Long after he had arranged all his books in the shelves and had gone to bed, he lay awake listening to the strange noises. The clamour died away, but he lay waiting for the occasional laugh of the hyæna or the roar of the hippopotamus.

In the morning he was woken early by Collins, who came to ask him what he would have for breakfast and during the day, and added that workmen had come to fix a board at the front of his cage. Cromartie asked if he might see it, and Collins brought it in.

On it was written:--

When Cromartie had had breakfast there was very little to do; he made his bed and began reading “The Golden Bough.”

Nobody came into the Ape-house until twelve o’clock, when two little girls came in; they looked into his cage, and the younger of them said to her sister:

“What monkey’s that? Where is it?”

“I don’t know,” said the elder girl. Then she said: “I believe the man is there to be looked at.”

“Why he’s just like Uncle Bernard,” said the little girl.

They looked at Cromartie with an offended stare, and then went on at once to the Orang-outang, who was an old friend. The grown-up people who came in during the afternoon read the notice in a puzzled way, sometimes aloud, and more than once after a hurried glance they went out of the house. They were all embarrassed except a jaunty little man who came in just before closing time. He laughed, and laughed again, and finally he had to sit down on a seat, where he sat choking for three or four minutes, after which he took off his hat to Cromartie and went out of the house saying aloud: “Splendid! Wonderful! Bravo!”

The next day there were rather more people, but not a great crowd. One or two men came and took photographs, but Mr. Cromartie had already learnt a trick that was to serve him well in his new situation--that of not looking through the bars, so that often he would not know whether there were people watching him or not. Everything was made very comfortable for him, and on that score he was glad enough that he had come.

Yet he could not help asking himself what did his surroundings matter to him? He was in love with Josephine, and now he had parted from her for ever. Would the pain he felt on that account ever die away? And if it did, as he supposed it would, how long would it take to do so?

In the evening he was let out, and walked round the Gardens alone. He tried to make friends with one or two of the creatures, but they would not take notice of him. The evening was cool and fresh, and he was glad to be out of the stuffy Ape-house. He felt it very strange to be alone in the Zoo at that hour, and strange to have to go back to his cage. The next day, just after breakfast, a crowd began pushing into the house, which was soon packed full. The crowd was noisy, some persons in it calling out to him very persistently.

It was easy enough for Cromartie to ignore them, and never let his eyes wander through the wire-netting, but he could not prevent himself from knowing that they were there. By eleven o’clock his keeper had to fetch four policemen, two standing at each door to keep the crowd back. The people were made to stand in a queue, and to keep moving all the time.

This went on all day, and in fact there were thousands waiting to see “The Man” who had to be turned away before they could get a sight of him. Collins said it was worse than any bank-holiday.