CHAPTER IV.

OUR DOGS.

We have sometimes been accused of disliking dogs. This at first sight does not seem to be a very grave charge, still, we feel bound to justify ourselves, since the accusation carries with it a certain amount of disgrace. People who prefer cats to dogs, pass in the eyes of most persons as necessarily false, voluptuous and cruel; while dog-lovers are supposed to be invariably pure, loyal, open characters, gifted, in short, with all the attributes which are popularly ascribed to the canine race. We could in no wise detract from the merits of Medor, Turc, Merot, and other equally amiable beasts, and we are quite ready to agree with the maxim formulated by Charlet: “The best thing which a man possesses is his dog.” We have owned many, we still own some; and if our calumniators will kindly call at our residence they will be greeted by the shrill and furious barking of a small Cuban lap-dog, and by a large greyhound who will take much pleasure in biting their ankles.

Still, we will not deny that our liking for dogs has a strong admixture of fear. These animals, excellent, faithful, devoted as they are, may at any moment run mad, and in that condition they are as dangerous and deadly as the viper, the asp, the bell-serpent, or the cobra di capello. This thought somewhat moderates our raptures over them. But, apart from this, dogs somehow produce a disquieting effect upon us. Their eyes are so deep, so intense; they place themselves before us with such an interrogative air that it is almost embarrassing. Goethe did not like, any more than ourselves, this gaze which seems to assimilate a man’s most secret thoughts. He would drive the poor animals away, and say to them “You have done your best: you shall not devour my identity.”

The Pharamond of our canine dynasty was named Luther. He was a large white pointer with red spots, and handsome brown ears, who, having lost his master, and searched after him vainly for a long time, domesticated himself in the house of our parents, who then lived at Passy. Having no partridges to hunt he gave himself up to the pursuit of rats, in which pursuit he became as proficient as a Scotch terrier. At that time we were living in a room in that blind alley of Doyenné, no longer in existence, where Gérard de Nerval, Arsène Houssaye, and Camille Rogier had established themselves as the centres of a picturesque little Bohemian circle of artists and literary men, whose freaks and eccentricities have been too often described elsewhere to need further mention now. There, in the very midst of the Carrousel, we lived a life as free and as lonely as if in some desert isle of the ocean,—among nettles and blocks of stone, under the shadow of the Louvre, and close to the ruins of an old church, whose crumbling arches presented the most picturesque effects by moonlight. Luther, with whom we had always been on friendly terms, seeing us thus take our final flight from the family nest, assumed the task of making us a daily visit. He left Passy each morning at some time unknown, and, following the Quai de Billy and the Cours-la-Reine, arrived about eight o’clock, just as we were waking up. Scratching at the door, which was always opened for him, he threw himself upon us with a joyous yelping, put his fore-paws on our knees, received with great simplicity and modesty the caresses which his good conduct had earned, made a rapid inspection of the room, and then set out on his homeward journey. Arrived at Passy, he would at once run to our mother, wagging his tail and uttering little barks which said as plainly as words, “Do not be anxious, I have seen the young master, and he is well.” Having thus given a report of his self-imposed mission he would lap a bowl full of water, eat his porridge, and, stretching himself near the easy chair of mamma, for whom he had a particular affection, would refresh himself by an hour or two of sleep after the long journey that he had taken.

Those who hold that animals do not think and are incapable of putting two ideas together, may explain as best they can this daily visit which kept up the family relations, and gave to the old birds in the nest regular news of their recently escaped fledgling.

Poor Luther! he had a melancholy end. He gradually became silent and morose, and one day fled from the house, apparently because he felt himself attacked by hydrophobia and feared that he might be led to bite his master. We have every reason to suppose that he was killed as a mad dog. At all events we never saw him again.

After rather a long interval, a new dog was installed at the house—a dog called Zamore. He was half mongrel, half spaniel, small in size, and with a black coat, excepting for a few spots of flame color beneath his eyebrows and some tones of fawn color on the belly. He was, in short, insignificant in appearance and rather ugly than pretty, but so far as moral qualities are concerned he was really a remarkable dog. For women he had an absolute contempt; he would neither follow nor obey them, and our mother and our sisters tried in vain to win from him the least evidence of friendship or respect. He would loftily accept their attentions and their tit-bits, but he never deigned to give them a word of thanks in return. No barking for them, no drumming of his tail against the floor, none of those endearments of which dogs are so prodigal. Toward these he maintained always an attitude impassive and impassible, crouching in the position of a sphinx, like some serious and dignified personage who disdains to mix in a frivolous conversation.

The master he elected to serve was our father whom he recognized in the head of the family and a man of weight and character. Zamore’s tenderness, even for him, was of an austere and stoical sort, and never expressed by merriment, or antics, or lickings of the tongue. But his eyes were forever fixed on his master, his head turned to watch each slightest movement, and everywhere he followed him, his nose close to his master’s heel, never permitting himself to play the smallest prank, or paying the least attention to any dog whom they met. This dear and lamented father of ours was a great fisher before the Lord. The barbels caught by him must have out-numbered the antelopes caught by Nimrod. It could never be said of his fishing-rod that it was an instrument with a hook at one end and a fool at the other, for he was a man full of wit and intelligence, which, however, did not hinder his filling his fish-basket every day. Zamore always accompanied him on these excursions, and during those long nocturnal watchings, which are necessary for the capture of such fish as only bite when the line touches bottom, he would place himself close to the water’s edge and seem to explore the darksome depths with his eyes, as if searching for the prey. Though he now and then pricked up his ears at those numberless vague and distant sounds which are audible even in the deepest silence of the night, he never uttered a bark, for he perfectly understood that it is indispensable for a fisherman’s dog to be dumb. Diana might lift her alabaster brow above the horizon and the river give back the reflection; it was all in vain; not even at the moon would Zamore bark, though such midnight bayings are among the chief pleasures of animals of his species. Only when the bell on the fishing-line tinkled did he indulge in a yelp, for then he knew that the prey was secured, and he took intense interest in those after manœuvres which are requisite for landing a barbel of three or four pounds weight.

Who could have guessed that under this calm and self-contained exterior, so philosophical, so far removed from all frivolity, lurked one imperious and extravagant passion, in utter contradiction to the apparent character, moral and physical, of this animal so serious and so thoughtful that one would have almost called him sad?

What, you say, has this admirable Zamore then some hidden vice? No. Was he a thief, a libertine? No. Had he a taste for brandy-cherries? No. Did he bite? Ten thousand times, no! Zamore’s passion was for dancing. In him, a true Terpsichorean artist was lost to the world.

This vocation was discovered in the following manner. One day there appeared in the public square at Passy a grayish ass, one of those luckless donkeys belonging to a juggler, which Decamps and Fouquet have so successfully painted. Two panniers, balanced across his galled back, held a troop of trained dogs, costumed according to sex as marquises, troubadours, Turks, Swiss shepherds, and queens of Golconda. The show-man lifted out the dogs, cracked his whip, and instantly all the actors exchanged the horizontal position for the perpendicular, and transformed themselves from quadrupeds into bipeds. A fife and a tambourine sounded, and the ballet began.

Zamore, who was strolling gravely past, stopped short, astonished at the spectacle. These gayly caparisoned dogs, with laced seams and clinking ornaments, plumed hats and turbans on their heads, and such an odd resemblance to men and women, seemed to him supernatural beings. Their measured steps, their courtesies, their _pirouettes_ enchanted but did not discourage him. Like Correggio before the pictures of Raphael, he cried in the canine language, “Anch’io son pittore,” “I also am a painter,” and, seized with noble emulation as the troop defiled before him in a ladies’ chain, he raised himself on his hind legs which visibly shook, and, to the vociferous delight of the bystanders, made a movement to join them. But the show-man was not so much charmed as the bystanders. He gave Zamore a sharp cut of his whip and drove him from the circle, just as one might expel from the door of a theatre a spectator who, during the progress of the play, took it into his head to climb on to the stage and join in the ballet.

This public humiliation, however, did not deter Zamore from following his vocation. He ran back to the house with his tail between his legs and an air of deep thought. All that day he was more silent, pre-occupied and morose than usual. That night our two little sisters were roused from their sleep by a low, mysterious noise which seemed to come from an unoccupied chamber next to their own, where Zamore was in the habit of passing the night on an old arm-chair. The sound was a sort of rhythmic stamping, which in the quiet of the night sounded louder than it really was. At first the children thought that it must be the mice giving a ball, but the steps and the jumps were too loud and heavy for mice. At last the bravest of the two crept out of bed, half opened the door, and peeped in. What did she see by the light of a struggling moonbeam but Zamore, erect on his hind legs, beating time with his fore-paws, and practising as in a dancing class the steps which he had so much admired that morning in the street. Monsieur was studying his lesson!

This was not, as might be supposed, a random fancy, pursued for one night only. Zamore persisted in his Terpsichorean aspirations, and in time became an admirable dancer. Every day, as soon as the fife and the tambourine began to sound, he ran to the square, glided between the legs of the spectators, and with the deepest attention watched the trained dogs going through with their exercises. Mindful, however, of that cut of the whip, he never again tried to join in the dance, but, noting carefully each step, each movement, each graceful attitude, rehearsed it at night in the privacy of his own room,—while by day he maintained his usual austerity of demeanor. After a time, to imitate no longer sufficed him; he began to invent, to compose new steps, and we are bound to say that few dogs have ever surpassed him in this noble accomplishment.

We ourselves, concealed behind the half-open door, have often watched him at his practice. He put so much energy and fire into his exercise that, morning after morning, the huge bowl of water set for his refreshment in the corner of the room the night before would be found drained of every drop.

At length the day came when, all his difficulties conquered, he felt himself the equal of any four-legged dancer in creation, and now it seemed only proper to remove the bushel which had hitherto obscured his candle, and give the world the benefit of his talents.

The courtyard of the house was closed on one side by a grating which had openings wide enough to allow of the passage of dogs of an ordinary size. One morning fifteen or twenty such friends of Zamore’s—connoisseurs, without doubt, to whom he had sent cards of invitation for his debut in the choregraphic art—were noticed assembling round a level square of earth (which the artist seemed to have swept clean with his tail), and the performances commenced. The audience was enthusiastic, and manifested its approbation with bow-wows which sounded extremely like the “Bravos!” of opera-goers. With the exception of one old water-spaniel of a muddy and degraded appearance, who seemed an adverse critic, and yelped out something about “sound traditions ignored and forgotten,” all united in pronouncing Zamore the Vestris of dogs and the true genius of the dance. A minuet, a jig, and a waltz _à deux temps_ were included in the programme. Quite a number of two-legged spectators joined the four-legged ones before the entertainment was concluded, and Zamore had the honor and satisfaction of being applauded by the clapping of human hands.

After this his habits became so entirely those of the dancer that, when paying casual attentions to his lady-loves, he stood always on his hind legs, making courteous little bows and turning out his toes like a gallant marquis of the _ancien régime_; nothing was lacking but the plumed opera-hat under the arm.

Except for these occasional interludes Zamore’s character was as splenetic as that of other comic actors, and he took no share whatever in the ordinary life of the house. He never stirred except when he saw his master take his hat and cane, and he died finally of brain fever, caused, as we supposed, by the over-exertion and excitement of learning the _Schottische_, which just then came into fashion. From his grave Zamore might say, like the Greek dancer in the epitaph, “Lie on me lightly, earth, for I have very lightly weighed on thee.”

Some may ask why, with such remarkable talents, Zamore was not engaged as one of the troupe of M. Corvi. Even then we had sufficient influence as a critic to negotiate such an arrangement had it been desirable. But Zamore would not leave his master; he sacrificed his self-love to his love,—a devotion which one cannot hope very often to find among men.

Our dancer was replaced by a singer named Kobold,—a King Charles spaniel of the purest breed, brought from the famous kennels of Lord Lauder. Nothing earthly was ever so like a chimera as this droll little creature, with his enormous, bulging forehead, his prominent eyes, his nose which seemed broken off at the base, and his long ears which swept the ground. Carried over to France, Kobold, who spoke only English, seemed at first to be half-stupefied. The orders given were perfectly unintelligible to him. Trained to obey “Go on,” “Come here,” he stood motionless and perplexed at the sound of “Va” and “Va-t’en.”

It took him a year to learn the language of his new country well enough to be able to join in conversation. Kobold was very sensitive to music, and sang several little songs himself, though with a strong English accent. The key-note was given him on the piano, he caught the exact tone, and in a flute-like and sighing voice warbled passages which were really musical, and bore no relation whatever to barkings or yelpings.

When we wanted him to begin again it was only necessary to say, “Sing a little more,” and he at once recommenced the cadence. For a creature brought up in the most delicate luxury, and with all the care which one would naturally give to a tenor and a gentleman of distinction, Kobold had the most singular tastes. He devoured earth like a Digger Indian; and this habit, of which he could not be cured, brought on a disease of which he died. He had a strong turn for grooms, horses, and stables in general, and our ponies had no comrade more devoted than he. In fact, he may be said to have divided his time between the box-stalls and the piano.

From Kobold, the King Charles, we pass to Myrza, a small Cuban lap-dog, who at one time had the honor to belong to Giula Grisi, from whom we received her as a present. She is white as snow, especially when freshly washed, and before she has had time to roll in the dust,—a mania which some dogs share with a certain kind of dusty-winged birds. She is the gentlest of animals, very demonstrative, and guileless as a dove. Nothing can be droller than her shaggy head, her face composed of two eyes as glittering as furniture nails, and a little nose which might easily be mistaken for a Piedmont truffle. Long locks of hair, as curly as Astrakan wool, fly about this nose in picturesque confusion, sometimes getting into one eye, sometimes into the other,—the whole making up the most whimsical countenance imaginable, as odd and as unreal as the face of a chameleon.

In Myrza’s case nature has imitated art with such perfection that any one would be ready to swear that she came straight from the show-case of a toy-shop. With her blue collar, silver bell, and her hair of the regulation frizz, she looks exactly like a pasteboard dog; and when she barks, one instinctively examines her feet to see if there is not a tiny squeaking-machine fastened under the paws.

Myrza, who spends three quarters of the day in sleep, so that life would seem pretty much the same to her if she were in reality stuffed, and who under ordinary circumstances is anything but bright, nevertheless gave one day a proof of intelligence such as we have never known in any other dog. Bonnegrace, who painted those portraits of Tchoumakoff and of M. E. H.,—which were so much talked about when exhibited, had brought a portrait for us to look at, painted after the style of Pagnest, which is so full of vivid color and lifelike light and shadow. Although we have always lived in such intimate relations with animals, and could cite hundreds of instances in which cats, dogs, and birds have proved themselves wise, philosophical, and ingenious, we are forced to admit that the taste for art is totally lacking among them. We have never seen an animal who took the slightest notice of a picture, and the story of the birds who pecked at the grapes painted by Apelles has always appeared to us a pure invention. The one essential distinction between man and beast seems to be just this sense of art and feeling for decoration. A dog would be as likely to put on earrings, as to waste time over pictures.

Well, Myrza, catching sight of Bonnegrace’s portrait set up against the wall, jumped from the stool where she was lying rolled up like a ball, rushed to the canvas, and began to bark furiously, trying to bite the intrusive stranger who had entered the room. Her surprise was extreme when she recognized the fact that she had a flat surface to deal with, on which her teeth made no impression, and which was only a deceitful show. She smelt the picture, tried in vain to get behind the frame, looked at us both with a questioning expression in her eyes, and then went back to the stool and resumed her nap, taking no further trouble about the gentleman in oil-colors. Her own countenance, meanwhile, will not be lost to posterity, for a beautiful portrait of her is in existence, painted by M. Victor Madarasz, an Hungarian artist.

We will conclude our chapter on dogs with the history of Dash. One day a rag-and-bottle man stopped at our door in search of scraps of broken glass and old bottles. In his cart was a puppy some three or four months old, which he had been told to drown,—an order which troubled the honest fellow, at whom the puppy was casting tender and supplicating looks, as if he understood the situation of affairs. The reason of the severe sentence passed on the poor brute was that one of his fore-paws was broken.

Pity stirred in our heart, and we adopted the condemned victim on the spot. A veterinary surgeon was sent for, who set the leg and put it in splints; but Dash persisted in gnawing off the bandages, so that the bones did not unite, and the paw remained dangling uselessly, like the sleeve of a man who has lost his arm. This infirmity, however, did not hinder Dash from being one of the gayest, liveliest, and most alert of dogs; and he ran on three legs quite as fast as was desirable.

He was the commonest of street dogs, a veritable mongrel, on whose breed Buffon himself would have been embarrassed to decide. He was ugliness personified, but possessed an expressive face, which sparkled with intelligence. Everything that was said to him he understood,—his expression changing according as the words, spoken in the same tone of voice, were flattering or abusive. He rolled his eyes, turned up his chops, abandoned himself to unrestrained, nervous wriggles, or laughed, showing a row of white teeth; and, in short, produced the most comical effect, of which he was quite conscious. Very often he tried to speak. With paws placed upon our knee, he would eye us with an intense look, and begin a series of murmurs, sighs, and growls, so varied in intonation that it was easy to see that they were parts of a regular language. Now and then, in the midst of this conversation, Dash would interject a sudden and noisy yelp. Then we would look severely at him, and say: “That is barking, not talking. Can it be that after all you are only an animal?” Whereupon Dash, much humiliated by the insinuation, would recommence his vocalization, throwing into it a still more pathetic expression. No one could doubt that at these times he was giving an account of his misfortunes.

Dash adored sugar. He always came in with the coffee after dessert, and went round the table begging a lump of sugar from each person with an urgency which seldom failed of success. In the end he grew to consider these benevolent gifts in the light of a regular tax, which he rigorously exacted. This cur, in the body of a Thersites, carried the soul of an Achilles. Disabled as he was, he constantly attacked, with the frenzy of an heroic courage, dogs ten times as big as himself, and was frightfully beaten. Like Don Quixote, the brave knight of La Mancha, he set out in triumph, and came back in most piteous plight. Alas, he fell a victim to this mistaken courage. He was brought home, a few months since, torn to pieces by an amiable brute of a Newfoundland, who the very next day broke the backbone of a greyhound.

The death of Dash was followed by all sorts of catastrophes. The mistress of the house in which he had received his deathblow was burned to death in her bed a few days after; and her husband, in trying to save her, met with the same fate. It was not an expiation, it was only a fatal coincidence,—for they were the best people in the world, loving animals like Brahmins, and not in the least to blame for the sad fate of our poor Dash.

We have now another dog, who is called Nero, but he is too recent an acquisition to have a history.

In the next chapter we propose to give a chronicle of the different chameleons, lizards, magpies, and other small creatures who have made part of our household of pets.

N. B. Alas, Nero is dead! He was poisoned a day or two since as thoroughly as if he had supped with the Borgias, and the first chapter of his life begins and ends with an epitaph.