Leaving a menagerie, a woman asks how a tamer can win a wild animal’s affection; her companion answers with an old soldier’s tale. Separated from Napoleon’s army in Egypt and escaping his captors, a Provençal soldier shelters in a desert cave and wakes beside a panther, beginning a wary, tender and unsettling relationship.
One of Balzac’s most famous short stories, in Ernest Dowson’s translation. Download the free EPUB.