Love Between the French Soldier
and the Panther
An emotion of strong affection and personal attachment is called love. "A Passion in the Desert" by Honore De Balzac is a wonderful love fantasy. It describes a strange type of love between a human and a beast. The male lover is an escaped French soldier while the female lover is a panther. Their encounter in a den of desert gradually develops into a love affair between the two.
On the morning of second day of his escape, the soldier dares to caress the panther. Love begets love. The panther wags her tail voluptuously. Soon they become friends. The soldier calls her with loving names. However, being apprehensive of her ferocity, he once tries to flee but falls in a quicksand. The panther comes to his rescue. She seizes him by the collar and pulls him up.
After this incident, the love between the two grows strong. The soldier says to the panther, "We're bound together for life and death." From that time the desert seems inhabited to him. On the other hand, the panther becomes jealous in love. Once when the soldier shows interest in an eagle, she shows her jealously by growling and hopping about.
Love takes a trial. The soldier again tries to desert the panther. She clutches his leg in her jaws to keep him back. He misunderstands that the panther is going to devour him. So he stabs her with his digger. In her moribundity, she looks at the wild soldier without any anger or enmity. She dies there and then but wins in the trial of love.
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