Montaigne invites us into another world of thought and sensibility. With Montaigne, we are gently soothed by a feeling of reconciliation between mankind and animals. Mankind has not yet been torn from the community of living things. Chapter XII of the second book of the Essays, ‘Apology for Raymond Sebond’, teems with examples, each one as extraordinary as the next and often taken from ancient authors like Plutarch. This is one that I especially like because behind the image of the two dogs—that of King Lysimachus and that of ‘one named Pyrrhus’—I see that of Mélodie, so friendly and faithful and full of gratitude . . .
As for friendship they (the beasts) have it, without comparison, more vital and more constant than men do. Hyrcanus, the dog of King Lysimachus, his master dead, remained obstinately on his bed refusing to eat or drink; and, the day that they burned his body, he ran and jumped into the fire, where he was burned. As too did the dog of one named Pyrrhus, as he did not move from the bed of his master after he died, and when he was taken away, he let himself be removed as well, and finally threw himself on to the pyre on which his master’s body was burning. There are certain inclinations of affection that sometimes arise in us without the counsel of reason, which come from a chance temerity that others call sympathy: like us the beasts are capable of it.
To read Montaigne, even though it requires some effort to tackle his writing because of its language, which predates the radical break brought about by the rationality of classicism, is like finding a magical balm that soothes the numberless ills inflicted on the animals that are forgotten, left, neglected, abandoned, eliminated, killed, slaughtered massively and industrially, here, there and everywhere, the world over. The French language, which I have embraced and made my own over a long apprenticeship, has come out of the age of Descartes. In a sense it carries within it the trace of this fundamental divide from which it becomes possible to assign the non-human living things to the category of machines to exploit. It is sad to note that my habitual post-Cartesian language somewhat clouds my vision when I contemplate Montaigne’s animal world: so abundant, so generous, so benevolent.
15
PUNISHMENTS
THE DAILY WALK constitutes a vital activity for a dog. It is a form of exercise, an expenditure of physical energy essential to the maintenance and continuance of a healthy life. We used to have two walks a day: in the morning before breakfast, or after, if I didn’t go off to work, and in the evening, mostly after dinner.
But to go for a walk with a dog is to introduce it into the world of humans where a social civility prevails, to expose it to their sometimes pitiless stare and judgement. It was therefore necessary to teach Mélodie a minimum of rules of behaviour: to walk beside her master at the pace he set, to relieve herself in the gutter, to wait for the green light before crossing the street, not to bark needlessly when she met another dog … As amazing, as incredible as it seems, she didn’t need repeated training to internalise the rules and prohibitions. I don’t remember there being difficult or painful moments in socialising her. The pedagogical satisfaction of this teacher was greater with her than it was with some frankly lazy students who lacked the desire to progress. Twice, however, only twice, did I scold her and hit her mercilessly; I had to force myself to harden my heart, make it impervious to any cry of despair, with a devil’s heart.
The first time was right at the beginning. The protection offered by the vaccine had not yet taken effect and she was not able to go out and play in the street. With the stress of this mounting, every day at nightfall, as I’ve already mentioned, she would suddenly be overcome by the desire to run frantically through the apartment; she would bark her head off, but I was unable to attribute any meaning to the explosion of yelps. The obsessive running around the house would cease, I thought, once we took her out regularly morning and evening. As for her habit of continual yelping, we had to act quickly to nip it in the bud. If not, we imagined that neighbourly good relations would suffer. So I hit the poor creature a number of times on her rump with a sixty-centimetre bamboo ruler that had belonged to my 88-year-old mother and was now part of the sewing kit of my French wife. No doubt Mélodie was astounded to see the mood of her always kindly master suddenly transformed into this incomprehensible satanic rage. But the cruelty of the master’s heart of stone made him twist the knife in the wound. He took the dog’s tail and lifted up the weight of ten or so kilos, shaking it and inflicting resounding whacks with the ruler as he did so.
After that day the disruptive yelping stopped altogether. The animal never barked again unless she had to tell us something, to deliver an urgent message to us.
The second occasion involving punishment came about in Philosophy Park, which was, in effect, the meeting place for the dogs of our district. Towards six o’clock in the evening, winter and summer, at a time when the passers-by were thinning out, from around and about there came to play a number of dogs of different sizes and ages who had got to know each other. Among them there was a young Labrador called Tom who was an indefatigable chaser of balls. His master would throw the ball as far into the distance as he could and Tom, never tiring, would retrieve it. As for Mélodie, this game, so universal and typically canine had never interested her. But, that day, impressed perhaps by Tom’s ardour, she clearly wanted to have fun with her companion’s round yellow plaything. The two masters agreed to get them to compete against each other. Tom’s master threw the ball a few times in a row. The two animals charged off at once as if the little spherical object, transformed into a magical whirlwind, was drawing them up with extraordinary power. Tom, who read the slightest movement made by his master and therefore guessed the direction of the flying object in a split second, succeeded in catching it before his newly arrived competitor. Tom’s master suggested that I now have a turn at throwing the tennis ball. I accepted. But it made no difference; Tom was more skilful and better trained for the task than my dog. It seemed to me that Mélodie ran faster than her rival, but she didn’t manage to get herself into the best position in relation to the ball to snatch it up deftly.
Even so, after several attempts, she finally succeeded in grabbing hold of it by fending off the advances of her male adversary, while the latter, disappointed by his failure, became angry and wanted to get possession of the coveted object. The winner would not back down. As a result the scene suddenly turned to one of hostility, which neither I nor Tom’s master was expecting. The female dog yelped violently, showing her fangs. Tom did the same. And the two animals began to fight unrestrainedly. I was gripped by a growing sense of terror. Without giving it any thought, I was impelled to intervene in this brawl, which had every chance or mischance of degenerating on both sides into a sad and costly visit to the vet. I forcefully separated my dog from Tom, whipping her with all my strength with the rope leash the colour of blood. Tom, perhaps frightened by my sudden appearance, had taken off like a little rascal. His master was trying to catch him but he had given him the slip and was now running around the water point. As for the conqueror of the yellow ball, her whole body was trembling before her kind protector who had suddenly turned into a cruel and implacable overlord. He didn’t weaken, however. The stinging lashes with the leash continued. He didn’t let up. He only stopped when she’d abandoned her booty. Piercing cries of pain could be heard. Beneath the assumed mask of a twisted tyrant, Mélodie’s master hated himself and wept. He begged a thousand pardons of his non-human friend for whipping and torturing her like that.
Finally the ball fell and rolled to the ground.
The instrument of torture was abandoned.
I crouched down and removed my mask. I brought my face close to hers, stroking it over and over again, arrested in this attitude of reconciliation. Palpating her as if I were a master magician, I kept repeating the words ‘gomen ne, gomen ne, gomen ne … (forgive me, forgive me, forgive me …)’, infantile words which sounded like the refrain of a prayer. Like an open wound, the feeling of the red leash, suddenly transformed into a whip, and striking
Mélodie’s back, has stayed with me, a scar that has never healed.
16
WALKS
MÉLODIE HAD INTERNALISED the rules of behaviour through the education I’d given her, the only possible way for the canine species to live in harmony with humans. It’s not part of my thinking that dogs must be left to go free … Natural and absolute freedom for animals, as for humans, would lead to the law of the strongest, to anarchy, to a state of permanent war, latent or real: in short, to the very impossibility of life. The theory and the fiction of the social pact as Rousseau conceives of and elaborates them start from an acknowledgement of this fact.
Men are free and equal in the state of nature. They enjoy natural and absolute freedom, natural law if one prefers, because there is no power that transcends them, that is placed above them. However, in this state, sooner or later, ‘the obstacles that are harmful to their preservation’ finish by overcoming ‘the forces that each individual can employ’ to remain in it. So, says Rousseau, ‘this primitive state can no longer persist, and the human species would perish if it did not change its way of being’. The state of nature, the reign of natural law, is fragile in itself and necessarily ends in a generalised fratricidal war. Hence the necessity of adopting another way of living, radically different, through this artefact that is the social pact. The state of nature is a state without law, or rather a state in which natural law only prevails as a potentiality because of the absence of any public force outside of individuals capable of giving it effect. Society, constructed by men brought together by means of a social contract, sets out to actualise natural law or, in other words, to produce a common space in which men find their liberty at the higher level of civil life.
The freedom regained in civil life resides, then, in learning the limits imposed on each individual, since it is this individual training that is the very basis of the coexistence of multiple freedoms. Hence the fundamental role of education, which is, according to Henri Peña-Ruiz, a ‘process by which a being is led along, conducted (from the Latin ducere) towards a pre-determined point, starting from an initial condition from which it is necessary to emerge (ex-ducere).’
The education that I gave Mélodie had no purpose other than that of allowing her to enjoy the greatest freedom in the life that was hers, as seen from the perspective of her relationships with me, with my family and with the human society around her. Giving her strict rules was the only way to make her free.
The morning walk was a true moment of happiness for me. I would like to think that it was the same for her. It was the time I could take pleasure in walking with her as my companion, feel the delight of a season in the subtle variations of temperature as well as in the light perfume carried on the breeze, stop and admire what was there to be admired: the cherry trees in flower in springtime, the maple leaves turning red in autumn, in winter the distinct outline of Fuji-san in the distance against the remarkably limpid sky. As for her, she busied herself intently with making a reading, a decoding, of the world by sensory means whose intricacies I was clearly unable to imagine. Often off the leash, she was perfectly aware of when, or in what situation, she could take the liberty of going away from her master, letting herself be led by her sense of smell. She would come back when I called her. She stopped and sat on her behind when I waited for the green light to cross the street. At the approach of a small specimen of her own kind that, on seeing her, began to emit a series of shrill little yaps, she showed an impassive serenity, supremely imperturbable in her composure.
The morning walks were sometimes reduced to the shortest distance for purely human, work-related reasons. Even so, the morning walk was generally longer than the evening one. The strolls tended to lengthen noticeably when it was fine and, especially, when I was accompanied by Michèle and/or Julia-Madoka.
One winter Sunday, in a glorious excess of luminosity—the light having the brightness of jewels glinting in the sun as often happens in Tokyo in winter—I left early in the morning with Mélodie to follow a route of middling length. We were planning to make a family visit to my mother’s, and the walk had therefore to be cut short. On leaving the house we made our way as usual towards Nakano Avenue, a big boulevard in our neighbourhood. Needing to relieve herself, she went into a corner partly hidden by azaleas. I had a canvas bag containing a big bottle of water and a dozen advertising liftouts from the morning’s paper. I took out the bottle and poured out half of it to wash away the yellow liquid. After some dozens of yards she stopped to relieve herself again. I put an advertisement for Uniqlo between her two back legs. No longer constrained, she sat down next to me, giving me time to pick up her faeces and wrap them carefully in two or three sheets of glossy paper. ‘Come on! Let’s go!’
We set off on our route. First we took the little street that rises to lead into the street on which the Araiyakushi station is situated. Coming to the little intersection from which three laneways branch off, we took the narrowest of the three, barely two metres wide. We followed the path edged by little wooden houses with tiny gardens crammed with little pots of bonsai. On the Katayama footbridge, which straddles Nakano Avenue, she stopped to sniff the overhanging branches of the cherry trees. They already had some buds. We continued, passing beneath the huge walnut tree planted in the raised garden of Mr M’s house. At the end of the lane we took the street that connects Nakano Avenue and the Miyoshoji Canal at right angles, a street that was much wider but as quiet as the laneway we’d just left. Having passed in front of the very old house in the style of a bygone era that belonged to Mrs K, and that faces a big, modern, upmarket building of three levels, we finally arrived at the canal. I chose to walk along it instead of following the path by the Hyakkannon memorial garden of Numabukuro, which would have made the walk too long. We had to get home quite quickly in order to be able to leave before nine o’clock to take advantage of the uncongested Sunday traffic. The path by the canal with its hedge of assorted bushes had no patches of shade. We headed into the sun; I was dazzled, in fact blinded, by the ricochets of silver light. A couple of dog walkers were coming along on the other side of the street, but I could barely make them out through my half-closed eyes. Leaving the canal behind us, we made our way along a street in the shade of the houses and buildings. We returned at last to our starting point. A red light prevented us from crossing Nakano Avenue. Not a car in sight. But I waited for the light to turn green, standing beside my companion, who did the same, immobile in her sitting position.
At home they were waiting for me to return, so that we could leave. I had to explain to Mélodie the reason for our being away for the day. She looked me in the eye, unflinching. Our things were in the hallway; under my arm I had the little bag containing my driver’s licence—she was perfectly aware that we were going in the car. As I was telling her that we wouldn’t be away for very long and that we’d try to get back in the afternoon before sunset, she jumped up on me, standing on her back legs for as long as she could manage, pinioning me with all her strength. I let Michèle and Julia-Madoka leave, and I said to her several times over, ‘See you soon. There’s really no need to worry, we’ll be back again very quickly.’ Before closing the front door completely I held it ajar for a few seconds as I tried to fathom the look she kept fixed on me. It said, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’
My mother lives an hour and a half from us, at Machida, on the Odakyu train line, with my brother and his family. The lunch we shared brought together the whole household, and we spent the beginning of the afternoon together. The conversation was intense and high-spirited—it centred on the crisis of transmission, which, all over the world, afflicts schools and educational systems. But, really, I was miles away. I was thinking about the one who was waiting for us at home or, rather, waiting for me, who did nothing but wait for me. No doubt she’d be in the hall, in exactly the same spot I’d left her as we went off. She’d be lying down with her head on her front paws, dozing. Low sighs would accompany her soaring dreams, and from time to time she
’d be making heart-rending moans.
I said to my mother that I wanted to go home sooner than expected. I explained why. She replied that she understood. Then she recalled a stray dog that I had picked up, one rainy day, on the way home from school.
It was raining torrents that day. In a laneway that followed the contours of a bamboo grove and led down to the street in front of our house I met a dog, like Tintin’s Snowy, lost and soaked to the bone. Instead of a collar it had a long rope of rice straw tied around its neck. It was skinny. Our eyes met despite the little child’s umbrella sheltering me and that no doubt hid me a little. I approached it and asked it if it was by itself, if there was no adult with it … I headed towards the house. When I’d taken twenty steps I turned around. It was still looking at me. I took pity on it. I retraced my steps and took hold of the rope, to which it made no objection. I led it along the private walkway, next to our house, which was used by the tenants of a shack belonging to my parents. I tied the wet dog to the tree that stood right in the middle of the walkway. I told it to wait for me … As I opened the sliding door of the back entrance (which was only for the everyday use of the family, and for permitted merchants when they called), I shouted out, ‘Tadaima! (I’m home now!)’. I didn’t conceal anything from my mother. She wanted to see the dog. She opened a big black umbrella, I ducked out. The ground, not yet bitumened over (that didn’t happen until the 1970s), was muddy. The heavy rain, mixing with the black mud, spattered the poor dog. It was just like in the magnificent final combat scene of Seven Samurai, which has always reminded me of that day of driving rain. It was there, still dripping with rain. I asked my mother for a little food for the dog, which was all alone, tired, soaking wet, hungry and thirsty … My mother listened to me and let me have my way. She put some white rice in a big bowl and poured miso soup over it. As she held out this improvised meal she said finally, ‘But you must part with it. We can’t keep it. Do you understand?’
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