She was brought into a warm house where she lived alone.

When the moment came for her to leave the small cage and enter the large one, she hesitated for a long while. Then she felt that the spaciousness and the mocking picture of the bare trees with the strong bare branches would be a pleasant relief. She moved about a bit, but rarely except at night. During the day she would sit with her face close to the whitewashed wall of her new prison. All day long she would rub the flakey lime from the wall with the knuckle of her middle finger.

To the people who pressed curiously about her cage, it looked as if Yppa were tracing mystic symbols and characters on the wall. Several thought that the orangu­tan had gone insane. And as she continued day in and day out, hesitantly but perseveringly, slowly as if under some sorrowful compulsion, to rub her knuckle (one would almost venture to say, to write) in the lime, the curator of the zoo himself inclined to the opinion that Yppa was suffering from melancholia.

She paid not the slightest attention to the human herd. She did not heed the keeper’s gentle call or the tender enticements of the curator who used to come to her when she was alone, bringing her oranges, grapes and bananas, courting her as a lover his bride.

Yppa never stirred from her seat, never for one moment ceased writing with her finger. It was uncanny.

A young man who frequently visited the zoological garden was standing beside the curator in front of the cage.

“Dreadful!” he said. “Dreadful!”

The curator smiled. “The animals are well treated in my zoo. . . .”

“No doubt,” Dr. Wollet agreed. “You are a kind-hearted man, curator. And most of your colleagues are kind-hearted, amiable men. That is just what makes it so incomprehensible.”

“Lily,” the curator coaxed and wheedled. “Come, Lily, be a nice girl and I’ll give you the nice banana.”

“She’ll die,” said Dr. Wollet, “she’ll die of a broken heart.”

“What do you come here for anyway?” The curator turned on him suddenly. “What brings you here again and again?”

“Pity,” said Dr. Wollet simply.

Then something unexpected happened.

Yppa rose, grasping the bare tree. A supple swing of her body and she was close to the bars. She stood erect, powerful—an elemental force. With absolute ­indifference and the vacuous expression of a sleep-walker she gazed past the two men, but seized the banana. Regal—a ­conqueror receiving an empty tribute. Indifferently she peeled the banana, and ate it neatly, but listlessly. It took scarcely three seconds. Then she again turned her back with its long red shaggy hair. One hand seized the branch. With another marvelously light swing Yppa was seated before the wall, tracing on it again with her finger.

“I’ll pull her through!” the curator exulted. “I’m going to pull her through. Patience is all that is needed.”

“If you stopped to think,” said Dr.