Letters from England/The Pilgrim Sees Animals and Famous People
The Pilgrim Sees Animals and Famous People
I SHOULD be ashamed if I had not been in the Zoo and Kew Gardens, for you are to know everything. So I saw the elephants bathing and the leopards warming their supple bellies in the evening sun; I took a peep at the terrible mouth of the hippopotamus, like gigantic ox-lungs; I looked at the giraffes, which smile in a delicate and reserved manner like elderly spinsters; I watched the lion asleep, the monkeys embracing, and the orang-outang putting a basket on his head as we human beings don a hat; the Indian peacock opened its tail for me and turned itself about, scraping challengingly with its claw; the fish in the aquarium shimmered in all the colours of the rainbow; and the rhinoceros seemed to be fastened inside a skin which had been sewn on to a still larger beast. Enough now, I have enumerated enough of this; I wish to see nothing more.
But as on that occasion I was unable to draw stags from memory, I hastened into Richmond Park where there are whole herds of them. 
They come up close to people, without the least fuss, and they show a preference for vegetarians. Though it is quite a difficult task to catch stags, I succeeded in drawing a whole flock. Behind them a courting couple were lingering in the grass; I did not include them in my picture, for what they were doing is done by lovers in our country also, but not publicly.
I got covered with sweat in the tropic greenhouses at Kew amongst palms, lianes and everything that rankly sprouts from a foolish earth; I went to look at the soldier who, in a huge sheep-skin cap and a red coat, runs up and down in front of the Tower and at every turn stamps his feet in such an odd way, as when a dog scrapes in the sand with his hind legs; I do not know to what historical event this peculiar custom refers.
Then I was at Madame Tussaud’s. Madame Tussaud’s is a museum of famous people, or rather of their wax-effigies. The Royal Family is there (also King Alphonso, somewhat moth-eaten). Mr. MacDonald’s Ministry, French Presidents, Dickens and Kipling, marshals, Mademoiselle Lenglen, famous murderers of last century and souvenirs of Napoleon, such as his socks, belt and hat; then in a place of dishonour Kaiser Wilhelm and Franz Josef, still looking spruce for his age. Before one particularly effective effigy of a gentleman in a top-hat I stopped and looked into the catalogue to see who it was; suddenly the gentleman with the top-hat moved and walked away; it was awful. After a while two young ladies looked into the catalogue to see whom I represented. At Madame Tussaud’s I made a somewhat unpleasant discovery: either I am quite incapable of reading human faces, or else physiognomies are deceptive. So for example I was at first sight attracted by a seated gentleman with a goatee beard, No. 12. In the catalogue I found: “12. Thomas Neill Cream, hanged in 1892. Poisoned Matilda Glover with strychnine. He was also found guilty of murdering three other women.” Really, his face is very suspicious. No. 13. Franz Müller, murdered Mr. Briggs in the train. H’m. No. 20, a clean-shaven gentleman, of almost worthy appearance: Arthur Devereux, hanged 1905, known as the “trunk murderer,” because he hid the corpses of his victims in trunks. Horrid. No. 21—no, this worthy priest cannot be “Mrs. Dyer, the Reading baby murderess.” I now perceive that I have confused the pages of the catalogue, and I am compelled to correct my impressions: the seated gentleman, No. 12, is merely Bernard Shaw; No. 13 is Louis Blériot, and No. 20 is simply Guglielmo Marconi.
Never again will I judge people by their faces.