The story Passion in the Desert
by Honore De Balzac is a short piece on a friendship shared between a man and a
panther in the Egyptian desert. Its primary theme is that of the beauty and
simultaneous callousness of nature, and also explores the emotions generated
when love and distrust mingle.
The story begins with a man
talking to a woman who has just seen a man (M. Martin) working with a hyena.
While she is convinced that M. Martin must have used some vile means to
domesticate the creature to such an extent, the man insists that animals too,
can be swayed by the same vices as men. In justification, the man begins to
recount his first encounter with M. Martin. The first time they met, they went
out to lunch where M. Martin recounted the story of when he was lost in the
desert.
During the Nile war, a French
soldier had been captured by an Arab regiment and made their prisoner. When
provided with a suitable opportunity, the man escaped, only to find himself
hopelessly lost in the scorching desert. He camps out near a well, where he
finds a small cave in which to rest and shelter him from the sun’s rays. At
night however, he wakes up to find that a giant Black Panther is sleeping
beside him. Too afraid to move, the man sits, paralyzed in fear, waiting for
the morning. In the morning, the panther wakes up, yet strangely makes no move
to attack him, its appetite already sated by its meal from the other night.
For a while (the duration of time
is not explicitly mentioned in the story) the man and panther live at peace
together. They provide each other with a source of companionship. Despite the
panther now allowing him to pet her, the soldier still acts warily around the
panther. She eventually responds to his call, and he becomes passionately fond
of her.
Eventually however, the distrust
reaches a climax when, in a moment of fear, the man stabs the panther, owing to
the latter biting his leg. He is found by soldiers of his regiment weeping over
the lifeless panther.
The beauty of nature is dwelled
on extensively in the piece as can be noted through the extremely descriptive
language used by the author when speaking on the desert. He compares it to “An
endless sea of black grains” and in the very end of the story, “God without
mankind.”
The intensely clashing emotions
of inexplicable love and logical mistrust are used to draw out the complex
emotions that humans can feel only when love and distrust mingle. While such a
concept could be likened to many surrealistic and interpretive notions (life,
death, relationships, morality, etc.) it
is wiser not to introduce any such comparisons as the story seems to be written
to exist in a very realistic scope. The author was well known for being one
of the first to introduce realism to the European literature scene. In his stories,
the human characteristics of his characters serve to convey much more to the
reader than a metaphorical analysis of their actions would.
The story is titled aptly as the
passion of the relationship between the man and the panther is described accurately
and in depth through the thoughts of the man and the actions of the panther.
The idea of human insecurity is dealt with extensively in the story as the man
continually suspects the panther of wanting to eat him, despite having only
experienced love and warmth from the creature. The endless fear of what could
happen and what logically should happen, eventually overpower the flickering
beacon of optimism in the relationship of the man and the beast. This could be
a means of the author implying that we should be less cynical in life, that we
should enjoy things as they are, simple and beautiful, and not be overly
suspicious, insecure, and distrustful of others.
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