“I have kept it, grandfather!” Sasha cried.
“It’s a man, a brave-looking man,” said Gregor; “but he has the boy’s voice—and I know the boy’s hand is on my heart.”
Sasha could no longer restrain himself. “And the boy is a free man, grandfather!” he exclaimed; “we are all free; here is the Baron’s deed, which says so, with the seal of the Empire upon it. Look, grandfather!—do you understand?—you are free!”
Gregor was lifted to his feet, as if by an unseen hand. At that moment Sasha’s parents and brothers entered the house. The old man did not heed their cries of astonishment; clasping the parchment to his breast, he looked upward and exclaimed in a piercing voice: “Free at last,—all free! I’ll carry the news to God!” Then, with a single gasp, he reeled, and, before any one could reach him, fell at full length on the floor, dead.
I have always had a great respect for animals, and have endeavored to treat them with the consideration which I think they deserve. They have quick perceptions and know when to be confiding or reticent. I have learned no better way to gain their confidence than to ask myself, “If I were such or such an animal, how should I wish to be treated by man?” and to act upon that suggestion. The finest and deepest parts of their natures can be reached only by an intercourse which is purely kind and sympathetic.
In the first place, animals have much more capacity to understand human speech than is generally supposed. The Hindoos invariably talk to their elephants, and it is amazing how much the latter comprehend. The Arabs govern their camels with a few cries, and my associates in the African desert were always amused whenever I addressed a remark to the big dromedary who was my property for two months; yet, at the end of that time, the beast evidently knew the meaning of a number of simple sentences. Some years ago, seeing the hippopotamus in Barnum’s Museum looking very stolid and dejected, I spoke to him in English, but he did not even move his eyes. Then I went to the opposite corner of the cage, and said in Arabic, “I know you; come here to me!” He instantly turned his head towards me; I repeated the words, and thereupon he came to the corner where I was standing, pressed his huge, ungainly head against the bars of the cage, and looked in my face with a touching delight while I stroked his muzzle. I have two or three times found a lion who recognized the same language, and the expression of his eyes, for an instant, seemed positively human.