What Animates the Heart of a Chameleon
I
In one of the most picturesque niches of the old wall dwelt a Chameleon, one of the handsomest, most distinguished, and most amiable creatures in the world. His figure was slight, his tail slender, his nails curved artistically, his teeth white and pearly, and his eyes quick and animated. His changing colours were all of them most agreeable to behold, indeed the whole aspect of this charming creature was delicate and bewitching.
When he ascended the wall, twisting his body into a thousand elegant forms, or when running through the flowering grass, one never tired of looking at him. Besides no one could be more simple or unaffected than this king of Lizards. He had no experience of the world, at least he only once had occasion to go into society, into the little world of Lizards, which is a hundred times less-corrupt than the world of Snakes, or of men. Yet he determined never to return to it, as the single day which he spent from home seemed to him a century. His contact with the world had left no taint, he lost nothing of that natural candour born of the freedom of the fields, where one sees the budding flowers opening to their fullest, to court the scrutiny of the midday light.
II
In vain did a crested Jay assure him of his descent from the famous Crocodiles of the Nile, and that his ancestors were thirty-four feet in length. Finding himself so small, and feeling assured that the greatest of his ancestors had not been able to add a single line to his tail, he never troubled himself about his origin. It was sufficient for him to know that he had been brought into the world somehow, and to feel thankful for it. He was alike devoid of aristocratic weaknesses and vulgar vices. The most singular phase of his character was complete indifference to the sentiment of love. The most attractive female Lizards knowing this, had disposed of their hearts and affections to others.
III
The truth was he had given his heart away, unknown to his friends. Love had stolen upon him without he himself knowing how—it is thus that the passion makes the heart captive. Love had so taken possession of him, that he could not get rid of it if he would. This is how one loves well and wisely.
He loved the sun. When it was out, he was in it, and could think of nothing else. He slept while yet awake, realising the sweetness of noonday dreams.
IV
Our hero held that Lizard-love was a sentiment unknown, yet beneath the stone on which he sunned himself, a pair of bright eyes feasted upon his every look and action, and a little heart throbbed for him alone. This romantic worshipper feeling that she might just as well lavish her love upon a stone, that her adoration was unobserved, and her passion unrequited, sank into a state of despondency. Haunted by dark doubts, she at last thought of death as the end of her sorrows.
In her extremity, she inquired of an old Rat, whether it was better to live and suffer, or to die and be done with dreams and delusions?
“Die, of course,” said the Rat, “if you cannot make yourself agreeable.”
“I will die!” she exclaimed; “but he shall know the reason, he shall know all!”
Such is the force of a noble resolution, that the little Lizard who had never till now dared to look her loved one in the face, came forward. But her approaches were met by the gradual retreat of our hero, for he was naturally timid in the presence of females.
“Stay,” cried the little one in a tone of despair. “I love you, and you do not even know that I exist. I must die.”
“Don’t die, my dear,” he kindly replied; “that would be highly improper. What do you mean by saying you love me? I am a stranger to you, yet a joke comes well from those pretty lips.”
He instantly perceived, for he was an honest fellow, that his cold doubts wounded her sensitive nature, and a light warmer and brighter than the sun flashed from her eyes and took possession of him. He was conquered—he proposed, and they were married.
It always happens so with bachelors. It is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, in love as in life.
Our hero still glories in the sunshine, and takes his ease stretched out before his own doorway.