She had never seen one before, except for a drawing in a book, and that was no preparation for the reality. To begin with, a picture gave no idea of the sheer size of it. She had been supposing a large creature, the size of a big dog, perhaps; but the tiger was huge. If it had stood upright like a man, it would have been as tall as a man, but much, much more massive.
Then there was its beauty: the strong, fantastic markings, the wide, delicate, wild face, the luminous green-gold eyes. Round its neck it wore a collar of strong gold, studded with the fabulous emeralds, and their colour might have been just that instant created by God to complement the fawns and golds and browns of its coat: they glimmered amongst the deep fur as the beast padded back and forth in its cage, twitching the black tip of its striped tail at every turn.
The air was thick with the prickly, caged-animal smell Anne had caught before, which hung about the Prince, and which she had thought was – which might still be – his own smell. The musky smell of the tiger’s body, the rank carnivorous reek of its breath, the power and danger of it: there was death in those paws and those teeth, the knowledge of power in the unwinking eyes. The Prince stood and stared at the tiger reflectively, and the tiger stared back balefully, hating its captivity, hating its captor. Anne could not believe that it would feed from his hand, and said so.
‘But all things have their price,’ the Prince said, and he sounded sad that it should be so. ‘She is my captive, and I feed her. So she must eat at my pleasure and according to my whim. Yet every time I go into the cage, I know that she has never surrendered, and that this time she may rise up and strike me down. I am unarmed, and she has her nails and her teeth. My flesh would rend easily. She knows it, and I know it.’
‘Then why do you do it?’ Anne asked, surprised, and a little disgusted.
He didn’t answer for a long time, continuing to gaze into the tiger’s eyes, almost as if in a dream. ‘I am a prince from a long line of princes. I have ridden to war since I was eight years old. I have killed thousands of men: hundreds with my own hands. I kill them, and then I have their women, and burn their villages, and take their children to be my serfs. Men go in fear of me. Servants bow to my every caprice. I can have whatever I want. I have only to speak the word, and whatever I wish done will be done, whatever I wish to possess will be brought to me.’
He said these things not precisely with pride, but with satisfaction, which made Anne think what a barbarian he was. And then he put out his hand and moved it through the air, as though he were caressing the tiger’s head; a small movement, repeated over and over.
‘But her I can never possess. Yes, I know what you will say – that I do possess her, that I have her in a cage from which she can never escape; from which she will never escape until her dying day. And yet she is not mine. That part inside her, which animals have instead of a soul, is hers, and does not yield to me. And every day I go into her cage and feed her from my hand with the knowledge that this time she may kill me. She is free inside herself, and proud, and unconquerable. That is why I love her and respect her as I have never done any human being.’
Anne stared at him, appalled. ‘If you love and respect her, why don’t you let her go? For pity’s sake–’
‘Pity? There is no pity in her – she does not wish pity from me. No, she will never be allowed to go free. If she kills me, I have left orders that she is to be destroyed instantly. If I die naturally, or in battle, the same will be the case. She will die in that cage. But that is the price, and all things have a price. If she were not caged, where would be the merit in her pride? Anything that walks free can be proud; and anything that is caged can submit.’
Anne clenched her fists in frustration at his twisted reasoning. ‘But it’s monstrous! How can you talk of merit? Such a test can mean nothing to her. She didn’t ask to be captured.’
He merely shrugged. ‘Did we ask to be born?’ He made the caressing movement again, and the tiger lifted her lips a little over her teeth. ‘We are all captives. She is mine, but I am hers – I cannot let her go, and it breaks my heart.’
Then abruptly his mood seemed to change. His expression hardened, and he took Anne’s arm and turned her towards the door. ‘You must go. I wish to be alone with her. Go through the door, and the servant will conduct you to your friends.’
Anne left, deeply distressed, and yet not knowing precisely why, or for whom. Even as the servant conducted her back to the others, she wondered whether this might be the day when the tiger finally struck back. Perhaps the Prince would never emerge from that room again. It was monstrous that he should have left orders for the tiger to be killed on his death – poor, pitiful caged thing. It would serve him right if he were killed. But of course she must hope he wouldn’t be, or where were their chances of finding Natasha? When she rejoined the others, they looked at her pallor and evident distress, and clustered round her, demanding to know what that devil had done to her.
But ‘Nothing, nothing,’ she said. She could not explain to them; she could hardly have explained to herself. ‘I didn’t like to see the poor creature in a cage, that’s all.’
She returned from her memories of the tiger to the present. It was necessary to get up, and find where she was, and where the others were. At the feast, the rest of the Kiriakov party had been like distant figures in a fever dream, moving on the edge of vision, eating, drinking, watching the dancing just as she was, and yet as separate from her as if they were in another universe – parallel perhaps, but not touching. She had no memory of how the evening had ended, or indeed of how she had finally got to bed. At what point had she parted from the Prince, from the rest of the company? And where, indeed, were they?
There had been a woman at some stage, helping her to undress – an old woman in a black robe, who smelt; presumably a servant told to take care of her. Perhaps if she shouted, someone would come. Anne sat up, and a pain which had been lying loose in her head jolted into place and made her close her eyes in momentary agony. Too much wine, and too little air, she thought. She ran her tongue across her teeth, and it was hard to tell which was the more furry.
She groaned; and almost immediately the old woman appeared beside her bed, said something incomprehensible, bared her gums and cackled. The shrill sound hurt her head, and Anne groaned again, and the old woman nodded and touched her own forehead and said something in which the word ‘kumiss’ was distinguishable.
‘I’m sure you find it very amusing,’ Anne said distantly, ‘but I must get up.’
The old woman bustled away, disappearing behind a coarse, striped blanket hung on the wall, which Anne realised now must conceal the doorway. She pushed back the bedclothes and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her pulse seemed to be beating in different rhythms all over her body, a most unpleasant sensation. Now the old woman reappeared carrying a jug in one hand, and a cup in the other. She put down the jug and preferred the cup, and Anne took it suspiciously, but it proved to contain only strong, hot coffee, which she sipped gratefully.
The old woman nodded, and took the jug over to a chest in the corner, where she set it down beside a large earthenware bowl. Then she began moving about the room, tidying things, talking all the while, though her dialect was so strange and her accent so strong, Anne could understand only the occasional word of what she said. The coffee finished, Anne got up and washed herself, drying herself on the cloth the old woman held out. The sanitary arrangements, as she had anticipated, were of the most primitive sort, and to her distress, she found that the old woman expected to remain present while she used them. Through sheer vehemence, Anne managed to make herself understood, but had to resort to stamping her foot and making threatening gestures before her attendant would even go to the other end of the room and turn her back. She evidently found Anne’s modesty highly diverting, and stood with hands on hips, cackling and shaking her head in amused disbelief, looking back over her shoulder from time to time for the sole purpose, it seemed, of refuelling her mirth.