The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories

by Horacio Quiroga

  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. What should she do? The cub—soft and affectionate as he played at her breast—was now her own son.

  So these were the circumstances when one rainy night a man running by the woman’s house heard the gruff wail that startles a human being even when it comes from a newly born beast. The man stopped abruptly and knocked on the door while he groped for his revolver. The mother had heard the steps, and, wild with anxiety, she ran to hide the little tiger in the garden. But such was her good fortune that, as she tried to open the back door, she found herself standing before a gentle, wise old serpent who was barring her way. The hapless woman was about to scream with terror when the serpent spoke.

  “Do not fear, woman,” it said to her. “Your mother’s heart led you to save a life from the Universe where all lives have the same value. But men will not understand you, and they will wish to kill your new son. Never fear; go in peace. From this moment your son will have human form; he will never be recognized as a beast. Shape his heart; teach him to be good, as you are, and he will never know he is not a man. Unless . . . unless a mother among men shall accuse him; unless a mother demands that he pay with his blood what you have given to him, your son will always be worthy of you. Go in peace, mother, and hurry; the man is breaking down your door.”

  And the woman believed the serpent, because in all man’s religions the serpent knows the mysteries of the lives of those who people the world. So she ran to open the door, and the enraged man with a revolver in his hand entered and searched through the house without finding anything. When he left, the mother tremblingly opened her rebozo where she had hidden the little tiger in her bosom, and in the place of the cub she saw a baby boy sleeping peacefully. Overcome with happiness, she cried silently a long while over her savage son suddenly become a human, tears of gratitude that twelve years later the same boy would repay in blood on her grave.

  Time passed. The new boy needed a name: she called him Juan Darién. He needed food, clothes, and shoes: she worked night and day to provide for all his needs. She was still very young, and she could have married again if she had wished, but her son’s deep love sufficed, a love she returned with all her heart.

  Juan Darién was truly worthy of being loved; he was noble, good, and generous like no other. For his mother, particularly, he had profound veneration. He never lied. (Perhaps because at heart he was a wild being? It is possible, since it is still not known what effect purity of soul imbibed at the breast of a saintly woman may have on a newly born animal.)

  This was Juan Darién. And he went to school with children of his age who often teased him because of his shyness and his coarse hair. Juan Darién was not extremely intelligent, but he compensated for this by his great love for study.

  So things went, but, when the child was not quite ten years old, his mother died. Juan Darién suffered more than can be told, until time finally softened his pain. But from that time forward he was a sad child whose only desire was to instruct himself.

  Now there is something we must confess: Juan Darién was not loved in the village. People in isolated jungle villages do not like boys who are too generous and who study with all their hearts. He was, besides, the best pupil in the school. And this situation precipitated the denouement of our story with an event that confirmed the serpent’s prophecy.

  The village was preparing to celebrate a great festival, and the people had ordered fireworks from a distant city. Since an inspector was coming to observe the classes, the school children were being given a general review. When the inspector arrived, the schoolmaster had him question the best pupil of all: Juan Darién. Juan was the student who always excelled, but in the emotion of the moment, he stammered and a strange sound tied his tongue.

  The inspector observed the pupil a long while, then spoke in a low voice to the schoolmaster.

  “Who is that boy? Where did he come from?”

  “His name is Juan Darién,” the schoolmaster replied, “and he was raised by a woman who is dead now, but no one knows where he came from.”

  “Very strange, very strange,” the inspector murmured, observing the coarse hair and the greenish reflection in Juan Darién’s eyes when he stood in the shadows.

  The inspector knew that there are stranger things in the world than any man can invent, and at the same time he knew that simply by asking Juan Darién questions he would never be able to find out if the pupil had once been what he feared: a wild animal. But as there are men who in special states remember things that have happened to their grandfathers, it was also possible that under hypnotic suggestion Juan Darién might remember his life as a savage beast. And children who read this and don’t know what that means can ask some grown-up persons about it.

  For this purpose, then, the inspector stepped upon the platform and spoke as follows: “Well, children. Now I want one of you to describe the jungle for us. You have been brought up almost in the jungle and you know it well. What is the jungle like? What happens in it? This is what I want to know. Let’s see, you,” he added, pointing at random to a pupil. “Come up to the platform and tell us what you have seen.”

  The child went up, and, although he was frightened, he talked for a while. He said that there are gigantic trees in the forest and climbing vines and little flowers. When he concluded, another child went to the platform, and then another. And, although they all knew the jungle very well, they responded in the same way, because children, and many adults, do not tell what they have seen but what they have read about what they have seen. And finally the inspector said, “Now it’s Juan Darién’s turn.”

  Juan Darién said more or less what the others had said. But the inspector, placing his hand on his shoulder, exclaimed, “No, no. I want you to remember exactly what you have seen. Close your eyes.”

  Juan Darién closed his eyes.

  “Good,” the inspector continued. “Tell me what you see in the jungle.”

  Juan Darién, his eyes still closed, hesitated a moment before answering.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said finally.

  “Soon you will see. Let’s pretend it’s three o’clock in the morning, a little before dawn. We have just eaten, let’s say. We are in the jungle . . . in the dark. . . . In front of us there is a small stream. What do you see?”

  For a moment Juan Darién was silent. And in the classroom and in the nearby jungle there was also a great silence. Suddenly Juan Darién shivered, and in a slow voice, as if he were dreaming, he said, “I see rocks going by, and bending branches. . . . And the ground. . . . And I see dry leaves flattened on the rocks. . . .”

  “One moment!” the inspector interrupted him. “The rocks and the leaves going by, how high are they?”

  The inspector asked this because if Juan Darién were truly “seeing” what he had been doing in the jungle as a wild animal going to drink after eating, he would also see that a crouching tiger or panther, as he approaches the river, sees the rocks at eye level. And he repeated, “How high are the rocks?”

  And Juan Darién, still with his eyes closed, replied, “They are on the ground. . . . They graze your ears. . . . And the loose leaves move with your breath. . . . And I feel the dampness of mud on my . . .”

  Juan Darién’s voice stopped short.

  “Where?” the inspector asked in a firm voice. “Where do you feel the dampness?”

  “On my whiskers,” Juan Darién said in a hoarse voice
, opening his eyes, frightened.

  Dusk was falling, and through the window one could see nearby the already gloomy jungle. The students didn’t understand how terrible that revelation had been, but neither did they laugh about the extraordinary whiskers of Juan Darién, who had no whiskers at all. They didn’t laugh, because the child’s face was pale and anxious.

  Class was over. The inspector was not an evil man, but, like all men who live very close to the jungle, he had a blind hatred of tigers, which was why he confided to the schoolmaster in a low voice:

  “Juan Darién must be killed. He is a beast of the jungle, possibly a tiger. We must kill him because if we don’t, sooner or later he will kill all of us. Up till now his beast’s wickedness has not been awakened, but it will explode some day, and then he will devour us all if we allow him to live among us. We must, then, kill him. The difficulty is that we can’t do it as long as he has human form, because we cannot prove that he is a tiger. He looks like a man, and with men one must proceed with caution. I know there is a wild animal tamer in the city. Let us send for him, and he will find a way to make Juan Darién return to his tiger’s body. And even if he can’t convert him into a tiger, people will believe us and cast him into the jungle. Let us send for the tamer immediately before Juan Darién escapes.”

  But the last thing Juan Darién was thinking of was escape, because he was not aware that anything was happening at all. How could he doubt he was a man when he had never felt anything but love for other people and didn’t even hate harmful animals?

  But the word was spreading from mouth to mouth and Juan Darién began to suffer its effect. People didn’t answer when he spoke to them; they withdrew hastily at his approach; and at night they followed him at a distance.

  “What’s the matter with me? Why do they treat me this way?” Juan Darién asked himself.

  And not only did they flee from him, but also small boys shouted at him, “Get out of here. Go back where you came from! Go away!”

  Grownups and elder people were no less hostile than the young boys. Who knows what would have happened if on the very afternoon of the festival the eagerly awaited animal tamer had not at last arrived. Juan Darién was in his house preparing the meager soup he had for supper when he heard the shouting of people rushing toward his house. Scarcely had he time to go out to see what it was before they seized him and dragged him to the animal tamer.

  “Here he is!” they shouted, shaking him. “This is the one! He’s a tiger! We don’t want to know anything about tigers! Strip away his man-form and we’ll kill him!”

  And the boys, the fellow pupils whom he most loved, and even the old people, shouted, “He’s a tiger! Juan Darién will devour us! Kill Juan Darién!”

  Juan Darién—he was only a child of twelve—wept and protested as the blows rained down upon him. But at this moment the crowd parted and the animal tamer in his red jacket and his high patent leather boots, with his whip in his hand, appeared before Juan Darién. The tamer stared at him and firmly grasped the handle of his whip.

  “Aha!” he exclaimed. “I recognized you all right! You can fool everyone except me! I see you, son of a tiger. Beneath your shirt I see the tiger stripes! Take off your shirt! Bring the hunting dogs! We’ll soon see whether the dogs recognize you as a man or as a tiger!”

  In a second they had torn off all Juan Darién’s clothes and thrown him into a cage for wild beasts.

  “Loose the dogs. Now!” the animal tamer said. “And commend yourself to your jungle gods, Juan Darién!”

  And four ferocious dogs trained for hunting tigers were flung into the cage.

  The animal tamer did this because dogs always recognize the scent of a tiger. He knew that their hunting dogs’ eyes would see the tiger stripes hidden beneath the man-skin and, as soon as they smelled Juan Darién without his man’s clothes, they would tear him to pieces.

  But the only thing the dogs saw in Juan Darién was the good boy who loved even harmful animals. And they wagged their tails gently when they smelled him.

  “Devour him! He’s a tiger. Go! Go!” they shouted to the dogs. And the dogs barked madly and leaped around the cage, not knowing what to attack.

  The test had not produced any results.

  “Very well,” the tamer exclaimed then. “These are bastard dogs, tiger-breed. They don’t recognize him. But I recognize you, Juan Darién, and now we’ll see.”

  And saying this, he entered the cage and raised his whip.

  “Tiger!” he cried. “You’re a tiger, but you’re facing a man now. I can see your tiger stripes under that man-skin you’ve stolen! Show your stripes!”

  And he struck Juan Darién’s body with a ferocious blow from his whip. The poor naked creature howled with pain, while the crowd, inflamed, echoed, “Show your tiger stripes!”

  The cruel torture proceeded for a while, but I don’t want the children listening to me to see any being tortured this way.

  “Please! I’m dying,” shouted Juan Darién.

  “Show your stripes,” they replied.

  “No, no! I’m a man! Ahh, Mama!” the unhappy child sobbed.

  “Show your stripes,” they replied.

  Finally the torture ended. In a corner in the back of the cage, devastated, lay the little bleeding body of the child who had been Juan Darién. He was still alive, and he could still walk when they pulled him out, but he was suffering more than anyone will ever know.

  They pulled him from the cage, and, pushing him down the middle of the street, they drove him from the town. He was falling at every step, and behind him, pushing him, came children, women, and grown-up men.

  “Get out of here, Juan Darién! Go back to the jungle, son of a tiger. Heart of a tiger. Get out, Juan Darién!”

  And those who were at a distance and could not strike him threw rocks at him.

  Juan Darién collapsed, finally, his poor child’s hands outstretched in appeal. And cruel destiny had it that a woman standing in the doorway of her home and holding an innocent babe in her arms misunderstood his gesture of supplication.

  “He tried to steal my baby!” the woman cried. “He stretched out his hands to kill him! He’s a tiger! Let’s kill him now, before he kills our children!”

  Thus spoke the woman. And in this way the serpent’s prophecy was fulfilled: Juan Darién would die when a mother among men exacted the life and the man’s heart that another mother had given him at her breast.

  No further accusation was necessary; the infuriated crowd was decided. Twenty hands holding stones were raised to crush Juan Darién when, from the rear, the tamer’s hoarse voice ordered, “Let’s brand him with stripes of fire! Let’s burn him along with the fireworks.”

  It was already late, and by the time they arrived at the plaza the darkness had settled. In the plaza they had erected a huge fireworks display with wheels and crowns and Bengal lights. They tied Juan Darién to the top and set a match to one edge. A fiery thread raced up and down, lighting the entire display. And on high, amidst the fixed stars and the gigantic many-colored wheels, one could see the sacrifice of Juan Darién.

  “This is your last day as a man, Juan Darién!” they all clamored. “Show your stripes!”

  “Forgive me, forgive me!” the creature cried, writhing among the sparks and the clouds of smoke. The yellow, red, and green wheels whirled dizzily, some to the right and some to the left. Jets of flames at the edges of the display outlined its great circumference, and Juan Darién writhed in the center, burned by the streams of sparks shooting across his body.

  “Show your stripes,” they continued to roar below.

  “No! Forgive me! I am a man!” the miserable creature still had time to cry out. After a new wave of fire one could see that his body was shaking convulsively; his moans were taking on a deeper, harsher timbre, and little by little his body was changing form.

  With a savage yell of triumph the crowd finally could see the parallel, black, and fatal stripes of the tiger appearing be
neath the human skin.

  The atrocious act of cruelty was finished; they had achieved what they desired. On high, instead of a creature innocent of all blame, there was only the body of a tiger roaring in his death agony.

  The Bengal lights were also fading. One last shower of sparks from a dying wheel reached the rope which bound the wrists (no: the paws of the tiger, for Juan Darién was no more), and the body fell heavily to the ground. The crowd dragged it to the edge of the jungle, abandoning it there for the jackals to devour the body and its beast’s heart.

  But the tiger had not died. With the cool of the night it revived, and in the grip of horrible torment it dragged itself deep into the jungle. For a whole month it kept to its refuge in the darkest part of the jungle, waiting with a beast’s somber patience for its wounds to heal. Finally they all closed except one that would not heal, a deep burn in its side that the tiger covered with large leaves.

  For from his previous existence the tiger had retained three things: a vivid memory of the past, the ability to use its hands (which it used like a man), and a language. But in every other way, it was absolutely and totally a beast, completely indistinguishable from other tigers.

  When at last it felt cured, it spread the word to the other tigers in the jungle to meet that very night at the edge of the great canebrake that bordered the cultivated lands of the villagers. As night fell it set out silently for the village. On the outskirts the tiger climbed a tree and for a long time waited motionless. It saw pass beneath him, without even bothering to look, pitiful women and exhausted laborers of miserable aspect, until finally it saw a man in high boots and a red jacket coming down the road.

  As the tiger gathered itself to spring, not a single branch moved. It leaped upon the animal tamer; with one slap of its paw it knocked the man unconscious; grasping his belt in its teeth, the tiger carried him unharmed to the great canebrake.