The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories by Horacio Quiroga

Author:Horacio Quiroga
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: University of Texas Press

Juan Darién

Herein is told the tale of a tiger who was raised and educated among men and whose name was Juan Darién. Dressed in pants and a shirt he attended school for four years, and he did his lessons correctly even though he was a tiger from the jungle; this was possible because his body was that of a human being, in accordance with what is told in the following lines.

Once upon a time, at the beginning of autumn, a plague of smallpox that killed many people was visited upon a small village in a distant land. Brothers lost their little sisters, and infants who were just learning to walk were left with neither father nor mother. Mothers in turn lost their children, and one poor young widow woman herself carried her baby boy to be buried, the only thing she had in the world. When she returned to her home, she sat thinking about her child. And she murmured, “God should have had more compassion for me, but he has taken away my son. There may be angels in heaven, but my son doesn’t know them. My poor little baby! I’m the only person he ever knew.”

Since she was sitting behind her house, facing a little gate, she could see the jungle as she gazed into the distance.

Well now, in that jungle there were many ferocious animals that roared at nightfall and at dawn. And the poor woman, still sitting there, chanced to see in the darkness a tiny, hesitant creature coming through her gate, something that looked like a little cat with scarcely strength to walk. The woman bent down and picked up a little tiger, only a few days old, its eyes still unopened. And when the miserable little cub felt the touch of her hands, it purred with contentment because it was no longer alone. The woman held the little enemy of man at arm’s length for a long while, the small defenseless beast she could so easily have destroyed. But she stood pensively considering the helpless cub that had come from heaven knows where and whose mother was surely dead. Without thinking what she was doing she held the cub to her bosom and encircled him with her large hands. And the little tiger, feeling the warmth, sought a comfortable position, purred tranquilly, and fell asleep with his head pressed fast against the maternal breast.

The woman, still pensive, entered the house. And for the remainder of the night, hearing the cub’s whimpers of hunger and seeing his unopened eyes and how he sought her breast, she felt in her aching heart that in the supreme law of the Universe one life equals another. . . .

And so she suckled the little tiger.

The cub was saved, and the mother had found enormous consolation. So great was this consolation that she considered with terror the moment when he would be taken from her forcibly, because if it came to be known in the village that she was suckling a wild thing they would surely kill the little creature.

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