Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

Chapter 659 Inside the Cage, Outside the Cage

"With animals? What kind of animals?" I asked.

Before Pi could answer, old DuPont started snoring. He leaned back in his chair, head tilted to one side, mouth open, fast asleep.

Pi glanced at him, and I said to Pi, "Ignore him, continue."

Pi said yes.

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The cage was made of iron and was about as long as my father's outstretched arms. The gaps between the iron bars were just big enough for me to stretch out my arms, but I couldn't squeeze through.

In the cage, I was the only one who could stand up straight; my father and mother could only sit hunched over.

Our cages were piled up with the animal cages, without a roof or any shelter.

The circus people said the animals don't need those. I understand, "animals" here includes us.

My father was the chief of the Hupa tribe. But in the cage, he was nothing. After being locked up, he didn't say a word.

My mother huddled in a corner of the cage, remaining silent, only occasionally singing softly. But I couldn't fully understand what she was singing.

To our left was a hyena cage, to our right was an orangutan cage, and opposite us was a huge grizzly bear.

Further on, there were bison, mountain lions, and two elephants.

Some of these animals I knew before, and some I only saw after I arrived.

Every animal has a name. The elephants are called "Jewel" and "Princess," the grizzly bear is called "Old Bill," the mountain lion is called "Lightning," and the orangutan is called "Orange Juice."

I've forgotten the name of the first zebra. After it died, it was taken away, and the cage was empty for a few days before a new zebra was put in.

Aside from our family, only the hyena didn't have a name, probably because everyone in the circus hated it.

Every time I approach it, it stops, sticks its head into the gap in the cage, grins, reveals its teeth, and drool drips down.

It always tries to stick its mouth out, always trying to bite something off.

The gaps in the cage weren't big enough for its mouth to fit, but it kept trying. Even when its nose was squeezed out of shape, it kept trying.

Orange Juice, the orangutan, is no longer young; the fur on his face is turning grayish-white, just like his father's.

It always sits with its back against the cage, its two long arms resting on its knees.

The first time I saw it, it reached out its hand through the gap in the cage and pointed to what I was holding.

I have a piece of black bread in my hand. The circus people bring me food twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.

The food was always the same: a piece of black bread and a bowl of water. Sometimes the bread was too hard to bite, and sometimes the water had a strange taste.

I broke the bread in half and handed it to it. It took the bread, chewed it a few times, and then immediately spat it out.

Then it looked at me, as if it pitied me for eating such awful food.

Two elephants, "Jewel" and "Princess," are at the very edge of the enclosure.

They were huge, so huge that I was stunned for a long time when I first saw them. There were no animals that big in the mountains and forests surrounding the tribe.

Deer aren't that big, and bears aren't that big either. Only mountains are that big.

But the mountains don't move; they do. They slowly shake their heads, slowly flick their noses, and slowly move their feet.

They are slow at everything they do, but quick at playing tricks on people.

Once, "Treasure" picked up a stone with its nose and threw it into the circus worker's bucket, splashing water all over the worker.

The handyman jumped up, cursed a few times, and then picked up the stone and threw it back.

As soon as "Treasure" turned to leave, it stuck its nose into the bucket, filled it with water, and sprayed it over him, soaking him from head to toe.

At this moment, the "princess" in the cage next to them started to cry, her voice ten times louder than the conch shell.

The surrounding animals joined in the commotion; grizzly bears and mountain lions roared, while hyenas shrieked and laughed.

Time spent in the cage is hard to pass; a day there feels longer than ten days in the tribe. Such fun isn't something you can experience every day.

The rest of the time will be up to each of us to figure out how to get through it.

Grizzly bear "Old Bill" sleeps all day. Mountain lion "Lightning" paces back and forth in his cage without stopping. Zebra only thinks about one thing: eating.

The bison stood in the middle of its cage. The circus performers brought it hay, but it glanced at it and didn't touch it. They brought it water, but it smelled it and didn't drink it.

The tiger's cage was at the very back, placed alone, far away from all the other animals. The circus people called it Richard Parker.

It has a long body and yellow fur with black stripes. When the weather is nice and the sunlight shines on it, its fur will shimmer.

Its eyes were golden, the same color as the sun. It glanced at me through the crack in the cage, then lay back down and continued sleeping.

It looked somewhat like "Lightning," but it was much larger and had many more teeth. Lightning didn't even have the courage to look back at it.

When other animals make noise, it doesn't move; when other animals are noisy, it doesn't move either. My father says it's the biggest chief here, and it has its own pride.

Only when the circus performers come to feed it, throwing in a large piece of raw meat, will it slowly stand up, walk over, eat it, and then lie down again.

It seems like it doesn't care about anything.

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I paused here and asked Pi, "What was the name of that tiger you mentioned?"

Richard Parker.

“This is a person’s name, with a surname, not a code name like ‘Orange Juice’ or ‘Treasure’.”

"Yes."

"A circus giving a tiger a human name?"

"I don't know why. I just know that's what it's called."

Old DuPont woke up, rubbed his eyes, and looked out the window: "It's almost dark. Haven't you finished talking yet?"

I said, "It'll be soon."

Old DuPont stood up: "Then hurry up. I'm going outside for a smoke."

Then he went outside.

I turned to Pi again: "Go on. You've talked a lot about circus animals, but you haven't said why you're on the boat yet."

"Sir, because we're being transported to Europe together. The white people there also want to see our performance. Should I start from when we board the ship?"

"No need, just say what you want to say." "Yes, sir."

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The animals in the circus are very simple. They eat when they're hungry, sleep when they're tired, hide when they're scared, and roar when they're angry.

People in circuses are different. They are complex and strange.

A woman with two heads, a man with four legs, a man taller than a tree, a woman shorter than a chair, a man covered in hair...

I've never seen people from a tribe look like this before. My father said these people are cursed.

But these cursed people don't have to live in cages; they have their own tents and can walk around in front of us.

One night, the four-legged man and the two-headed woman came to our cage.

Then the four-legged man placed two of his legs on the waists of the two-headed woman, and they began to act like a male and female deer in spring.

There were many eyes watching them—including mine—but they didn't care at all.

Horowitz, a circus animal trainer, would whip the animals when he was drunk.

He would curse as he whipped the iron bars of the cage, making a loud cracking sound.

At this time, the hyena will shrink into the corner of the cage, tuck its tail between its legs, and whimper; Orange Juice will curl up into a ball, hug its head with both arms, and cry like a child.

Even Richard Parker would move deeper into the cage at this point, even though the whips wouldn't actually fall on him.

Horowitz wasn't the worst person in the circus. The worst was Dupré.

He decides how much an animal eats and drinks each day, how much it's worth when it dies, and how much money it can earn while alive.

He checks on the animals in their cages every day. He checks by poking them with his spiked cane; if they can get up, they're considered healthy.

If he can't get up, he'll wave his hand, and the cage will be pulled away quickly, then pulled back empty.

He told us on our first day that our family was worth two hundred dollars each, cheaper than "Lightning" but more expensive than a hyena.

If we die, our scalps are worth only $50 each in Arizona, but $100 in New Mexico.

So we can eat two meals a day, and before each exhibition we can eat two slices of bacon. Dupree said we can't die too early.

I love touring. Not only because I get to eat meat, but also because I get to live in a bigger cage where I can stand up and walk around.

Emil from the circus would put a feathered headdress on my father, paint red rouge on my mother's face, and have me hold a spear.

However, none of these belong to the Hupa tribe.

Our chiefs don't wear feathered headdresses; we wear deer antlers or cow horns, the bigger the better.

We smear our faces with black charcoal, and only men do it when they go out hunting; women are not allowed to do it.
We stopped using spears a long time ago; we use guns, just like the white people. I know how to use a gun.

But Emil told Dupree that only by dressing us like this would anyone be willing to pay 5 cents to come in and take a look at us.

He also tried to teach us to make some strange sounds, saying that this was the kind of tribal sound that white people wanted to hear.

My father and mother kept their mouths tightly shut. I wanted to imitate their sounds, but I didn't dare.

I also think those clothes are quite nice.

Although the feathered headdress on my father's head was a mess, the red, blue, yellow, and green colors mixed together shimmered in the sunlight.

Although the face paint on my mother's face was too red, once it was spread evenly, her whole face shone like the sun.

During the performance, we were led to a stage surrounded by a low railing. The audience was just outside the railing, and the seats were full.

Men, women, the elderly, children... all kinds of people were there; curiosity, excitement, fear, ridicule, sympathy... you could see all kinds of expressions.

Durand stood by the platform and introduced us as "warriors from the Hopa tribe along the Pacific coast," "maintaining the most primitive tribal traditions," and "never having contact with the civilized world."

I thought of Mr. McNeill, the Bible, Noah's Ark, Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus walking on water...

The first installment of the novel ended here, and American readers felt an unprecedented sense of unease.

They were used to reading heroic stories about westward expansion in newspapers or watching performances like "Buffalo Bill" that romanticized and spectacle the West.

In these narratives, white settlers are the representatives of civilization, while Native Americans are obstacles that need to be "tamed" or "civilized," and symbols of backwardness and barbarity.

This mentality can certainly be simply attributed to racial prejudice, but in essence, it provides a moral justification for the act of seizing land and resources.

They are not human beings, at least not "civilized" people like us, so our actions are not so immoral, and can even be said to be "for their own good".

However, Lionel cleverly uses an Indian boy as the first-person narrator and portrays the boy as sensitive and observant.

Through Pi's eyes, readers are forced to re-examine the world they thought they knew from the perspective of the "observer."

Cages, whips, alcoholic animal trainers, cold-hearted managers, adulterous couples... these scenes are not unusual in themselves.

But it becomes somewhat poignant when the observer of all this is an Indian child locked in a cage and exhibited like an animal.

What made some American readers even more uneasy was the Pi family's attitude toward animals.

The mindset of viewing animals as equal beings stands in stark contrast to the brutal treatment of animals and Pi's family by the white circus performers.

Who is more "civilized"? Who is more "barbaric"? This question has pierced the hearts of many readers like a thorn.

A reader of the New York Evening Post complained in the letter-to-letter section:
Couldn't Mr. Sorel write some interesting or romantic stories? Like his previous works like "The Sinking of the Titan" or "Pirates of the Caribbean"?
We already have enough troubles every day, why do we have to read such depressing things? The situation of Native Americans was indeed unfortunate, but that's the course of history, isn't it?

Another woman from Boston told her friend at the salon, "He writes as if we white people are all as cruel as that drunken animal trainer."

But there were also many kind white people helping the Native Americans! Just like Reverend McNeill in the story. Why did Sorel only show the unfortunate side?

There was also more direct anger, according to a Los Angeles newspaper commentary:
What does this Frenchman know about America? He's using his French sense of superiority to tarnish our epic history of frontier expansion!

Why can't Native Americans be exhibited in circuses? What's wrong with letting the public see these "children of nature"?
This is much better than letting them fight each other in the wilderness and attack our settlements!
If Sorel liked Native Americans so much, why didn't he write a story about a hero like 'Sitting Bull' or 'Crazy Horse' who led the tribe to defeat the whites?

That would at least have some masculinity and tragic beauty! Instead of this sarcastic and cynical way of exposing so-called 'white savagery'—

It's important to understand that the savagery on this land existed long before he began writing, and it didn't just originate from white people!

"Leon, did you come up with this story after you met the chief known as 'Sitting Bull'?" Sophie asked softly, holding a manuscript in her hand, as the sea breeze blew by.

As Lionel gazed at the vast Atlantic Ocean and felt the Perel bobbing on the waves beneath his feet, the idea of ​​writing this story came to mind.

"When I first told this story three years ago in the recreation room of the Perel, 'Pi' was actually an 'Indian boy'—the 'India' under British rule."

But after seeing the 'Sitting Cow,' my opinion changed, and I decided to 'dedicate' this story to America. However, from a spelling perspective, it's essentially the same as not changing it at all.

Hearing this answer, Sophie smiled and didn't ask any further questions. She simply stayed with Lionel, watching the sunset slowly descend over the sea, the evening glow painting the sky crimson.

(Finally finished writing it, please vote with monthly tickets.)
(End of this chapter)