"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.'
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