The City Jungle by Felix Salten Page B

you capture all these creatures, these innocent unsuspecting helpless creatures. Then you make them suffer the torture of transportation. Then you subject them to the torture of being caged. And after all that, you begin to be kind to them.” He laughed, a short sharp laugh. “Oh, this garden, this garden . . .”
    Eliza stared at him bewilderedly. “Good heavens, you mean that this garden should not exist?”
    â€œOh yes, this garden has to exist! Too many ­people demand it, declare that it is useful, instructive, a cultural necessity, a joy to young and old! Too many ­people maintain that! But not I, not I! As for me, I have not even dared say that there never will be any true culture until people no longer find joy in caged animals, there will be no true culture until people no longer think of this garden as a place of enjoyment, but as a place of horror. . . .”
    Eliza shrank back. The strange gentle old man, who really did not seem strange to her at all, Rainer’s father, seemed to be insane.
    He seemed, too, to read this feeling on her face. “No, Eliza,” he said, “I am not insane. I did not know the truth about this garden until I wandered through it with my son’s farewell letter and recalled his words, which are verified so terribly at every turn.”
    â€œA farewell letter?” Eliza trembled.
    Rainer’s father nodded silently.
    â€œDid he know then . . . ?” she asked, and began to tremble so violently that she had to support herself against the bars of the cage.
    Rainer’s father bowed his head and was silent for a long time. His head still bowed, he began to speak at last in an infinitely weary voice.
    â€œâ€˜Man is tormented and torments the animals.’ That is what he wrote in his letter. I know it by heart, I’ve read it here so many times every day. Oh yes, the letter came, but it was all over by then. . . .” He could not go on.
    â€œTerrible,” murmured Eliza.
    â€œYes indeed!” He raised his voice a little. “’Tis true ’tis terrible, and terrible ’tis true.” Then he added the incomprehensible word “Polonius.”
    â€œHe also wrote: ‘Can I say as other men say— What do I care? No, it’s impossible!’ And he wrote: ‘I feel all the sufferings of God’s creatures, but all their sufferings are too much for me!’ Too much, poor boy, poor dear boy!” His father was weeping with quiet, strangely dry sobs, that shook his body and forced a kind of twittering whistle from his breast. But presently he recovered his composure. Simply, like a man who has no part in what he relates, though his face was ashen-gray, he continued. “‘If none of the beasts of prey will take me,’ he wrote, ‘and the beasts of prey are unhappy and broken, if none of them will take me, I will go to the elephant. He has a little pet that he protects, and can be made very angry. He is strong.’ Yes, those are his words. ‘I will give myself to him as a sacrifice, an atonement for everything, for all. . . .’”
    â€œNo!” cried Eliza.
    â€œâ€˜For everything, for all,’” repeated Rainer’s father. He laughed, a soft laugh. “A fool!” nodding emphatically as if in affirmation of his judgment. “Yes, indeed, a fool! A fool whom God has punished! Everybody will say so! That is why the letter must remain secret! Shh! Shh!” He laid his index finger on his pale thin lips. “I’d laugh myself,” he tittered, “even I, if he weren’t my son.” His titter twisted into a stifled sob. “My only son, who made me what I am. . . .”
    Without another word he departed.

Chapter Twelve
    Father and Son
    T HE EARLY MORNING SUN ILLUMINATED the orangutan’s house. The bright May sun. Strong, warm, bursting buds.
    Yppa sat holding Tikki, her baby,