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ERB’S GREAT IMPOSTERS: FLORA HAWKES AND ESTEBAN MIRANDA IN TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION https://www.erbzine.com/mag4/0495.html A Commentary By Woodrow Edgar Nichols, Jr. |
Well, I went and lost her
To the great imposter...
Does she know he’s on a stage
It’s not real, it’s just a play
And he’s playing a part
That is soon to break her heart...– The Fleetwoods, “The Great Imposter.”Like amnesia, which he handled so adroitly in Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (number 5 in the series), the role of imposters was likewise a popular subject matter in pulp fiction, especially with ERB. It is certainly the subject matter in Tarzan and the Golden Lion. This is the 9th book in the Tarzan series so it would be wise to review a brief background of the series to refresh our memories as to the time and place in which this book appears.Tarzan, aka John Clayton/Lord Greystoke, is legally married to Jane Porter, now Jane Clayton, and they have a son named Jack. Jack Clayton had run off with Paulvitch, the evil Russian coconspirator with Nicholas Rokoff in The Return of Tarzan (number 2 of the series) and The Beasts of Tarzan (number 3 in the series), in a book solely devoted to him, appropriately titled The Son of Tarzan (number 4 in the series). Also with them is Akut, the loveable Great Ape and ex-member of Tarzan’s Animal Army.
Though Jack’s exploits uncannily mirror the early exploits of Tarzan, it is amusing and a good read, and Paulvitch gets his just rewards when Akut kills him when Paulvitch attacks Jack in an African port. Jack and Akut run off into the jungle afraid of the consequences over Paulvitch’s death, and, because Akut cannot pronounce Jack very well, he calls Jack “Korak”, which means Killer. At the end, Akut becomes King of a Great Ape tribe. Jack returns to England and marries the young girl he saved and taught how to live in the jungle.
By the way, Tarzan of the Apes (number 1 in the series), tells the foundation story of Tarzan and Jane, while Jungle Tales of Tarzan (number 6 in the series) is a group of short stories elegated to Tarzan’s early life. Tarzan and Jane travel back and forth to London, where he is Lord Greystoke, and Africa, where he Lord of the Jungle and has a vast estate which he rules with an iron fist.
Korak never really becomes a character again until the end of Tarzan the Terrible (number 8 in the series), where he saves Tarzan, who had been searching for the captive Jane, whom Tarzan believed killed by Germans in Tarzan the Untamed (number 7 in the series), in the bizarre land of Pal-ul-don. Thus, our story picks up as the three return to the African estate, where they discover a lion cub on the way, whom Tarzan adopts and names Jad-bal-jar, which means Golden Lion.
Okay, so much for the background. In this commentary, I will use as my text the recently published ERB Inc. hardback authorized edition, but will supplement it with the alternate version that appears in the Australian Gutenberg online novels, which is the original unexpurgated version.
Later ERB, showing sensitivity to the plight of German Jews, would change certain portions to remove what could be perceived as a racial and/or stereotypical bias. Jerry L. Schneider has listed the variations in Tarzan the Censored, a booklet I received at the 2012 Centennial Dum-Dum. To quote from this handy booklet:
“Throughout the text, references to Bluber as a German Jew have been removed and he has become just a German. ‘Jewish’ words have become German words. Because these changes appeared in a Grosset & Dunlap edition prior to Burroughs’ death, it is most likely that Burroughs made the changes in the text, probably due to sympathy for the German Jews after World War II. Not to be outdone, Ballantine edited one sentence, removing ‘h’s’ from Peebles dialect.”This can be understood, but the original versions are more historical, which is why I will include them. For example, I can’t imagine Mark Twain removing the word “nigger” from Huckleberry Finn, because that would remove the brilliance of this magnificent anti-slavery novel because that’s how people really spoke at the time. I know that it is stuff like this that gives some support to the insanity known as Critical Race Theory that alleges that all white people are racists from the founding of America to the present, but I will never buy into that Marxist bullshit. And I’m sure the fact that Hollywood was controlled by ex-German Jews at the time had nothing to do with the decision.
And, oh yeah, the new ERB Inc. version is packed with extras. Not only is there a “Foreword” by Christopher Paul Carey, and an “Afterward” by Henry G. Franke III, there is also archival material at the end. And the “feel” of the book is fantastic once you remove the dust jacket. I don’t know what kind of material it’s made of, but its user friendly and reminds you that you have a real book in your hands.
This novel has always fascinated me in that it’s the third book in a row that I believe was influenced by ERB’s relationship with Ashton Dearholt, the movie actor/producer/director, and his wife Florence Gilbert, a struggling silent film Hollywood actress. First there was Gahan of Gathol, the Hollywood of Mars, and Tara of Helium in The Chessmen of Mars; then there was Wilson Crumb, the sleazy Hollywood actor/producer/director who ruined Shannon Burke/Gaza de Lure with cocaine in The Girl from Hollywood. Last we have Esteban Miranda and Flora Hawkes in this novel. A big hint: Esteban Miranda is an actor and the name “Flora” by strange coincidence is closely related to “Flo” Gilbert, his future wife: The Girl from Hollywood.
I’m sure that nothing ERB wrote is more erotic than the scene in Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar – which he wrote in 1915 – where La attempts to seduce Tarzan while he is bound to a pole in one of the nastiest pole dances in fiction, but all three of these novels, written one after the other, are very erotic and I have thus labeled them in my mind as ERB’s “Erotic Trilogy”. Read them in that order and you will see what I mean.
I understand that ERB didn’t officially meet Ashton and Flo until a few years afterwards, but to me they are still the main influences behind these characters. Emma Burroughs, ERB’s first wife, edited most of his works and I believe became seriously suspicious after reading The Girl from Hollywood, because of the eerie similarities between the novel and real life at Rancho Tarzana. Two years after he completed this trilogy in 1922, Emma wouldn’t let ERB touch her again. That’s evidence enough for me.
So, without delay, let us go on safari with Tarzan, Jane, and Korak once again.
Chapter One: The Golden Lion
Sabor, the lioness, suckled her young – a single fuzzy ball, spotted like Sheeta, the leopard. She lay in the warm sunshine before the rocky cavern that was her lair, stretched out upon her side with half-closed eyes, yet Sabor was alert. There had been three of these little, fuzzy balls at first – two daughters and a son – and Sabor and Numa, their sire, had been proud of them; proud and happy. But kills had not been plentiful, and Sabor, undernourished, had been unable to produce sufficient milk to nourish properly three lusty cubs, and then a cold rain had come, and the little ones had sickened. Only the strongest survived – the two daughters had died.Sabor had mourned, pacing to and fro beside the pitiful bits of bedraggled fur, whining and moaning. Now and again she would awaken them from the long sleep that knows no waking. At last, however, she abandoned her efforts, and now her whole savage heart was filled with concern for the little male cub that remained to her. That was why Sabor was more alert than usual.
Numa, the lion, was away. Two nights before he had made a kill and dragged it to their lair and last night he had fared forth again, but he had not returned. Sabor was thinking, as she half dozed, of Wappi, the plump antelope, that her splendid mate might this very minute be dragging through the tangled jungle to her. Or perhaps, it would be Pacco, the zebra, whose flesh was the best beloved of her kind – juicy, succulent Pacco. Sabor’s mouth watered.
Ah, what was that? The shadow of a sound had come to those keen ears. She raised her head, cocking it to one side and then the other, as with uppricked ears she sought to catch the faintest repetition of that which had disturbed her. Her nose sniffed the air. There was but the suggestion of a breeze, but what there was moved toward her from the direction of the sound she ERB’s had heard, and which she still heard in a slightly increasing volume that told her that whatever was making it was approaching her. As it drew closer the beast’s nervousness increased and sherolled over on her belly, shutting off the milk supply from the cub, which vented its disapprovalin miniature growls until a low, querulous whine from the lioness silenced him, then he stood at her side, looking first at her and then in the direction toward which she looked, cocking his little head first on one side and then on the other.
Evidently there was a disturbing quality in the sound that Sabor heard – something that inspired a certain restlessness, if not actual apprehension – though she could not be sure as yet that it boded ill. It might be her great lord returning, but it did not sound like the movement of a lion, certainly not like a lion dragging a heavy kill. She glanced at her cub, breathing as she did so a plaintive whine. There was always the fear that some danger menaced him – the last of her little family – but she, Sabor the lioness, was there to defend him.
Presently the breeze brought to her nostrils the scent-spoor of the thing that moved toward her through the jungle. Instantly the troubled mother-face was metamorphosed into a bare-fanged, glittery-eyed mask of savage rage, for the scent that came up to her from the jungle was the hated man-scent. She rose to her feet, her head flattened, her sinuous tail twitching nervously. Through that strange medium by which animals communicate with one another she cautioned her cub to lie down and remain where he was until she returned, then she moved rapidly and silently to meet the intruder.
The cub had heard what its mother heard and now he caught the smell of man – an unfamiliar smell that had never impinged upon his nostrils before, yet a smell that he knew at once for that of an enemy – a smell that brought a reaction as typical as that which marked the attitude of the grown lionesses, bringing the hairs along his little spine erect and baring his tiny fangs. As the adult moved quickly and stealthily into the underbrush the small cub, ignoring her injunction, followed after her, his hind quarters wobbling from side to side, after the manner of the very young of his kind, the ridiculous gait comporting ill with the dignified bearing of his forequarters; but the lioness, intent upon that which lay before her, did not know that he followed her.
ERB was fascinated by lions. He used to hang around lion tamers to learn the animal’s idiosyncrasies so that he could describe their movements with deadly accuracy. He had received some biting criticism for some inaccuracies when first writing Tarzan novels, but he soon overcame them by becoming an expert on the subject. After all, one finds it hard to imagine ERB without any lions around.According to Henry G. Franke III in his “Afterword” in the recent ERB edition, page 245:
“He had been impressed with the lion trainer Charley Gray’s humane methods, and successfully lobbied for hiring Gray’s Lion Farm” for the silent movie version. ERB was fond of these methods, for they are the ones John Carter teaches Tars Tarkus when it comes to training thoats, the wild horses of Mars in A Princess of Mars.
There was dense jungle before the two for a hundred yards, but through it the lions had worn a tunnel-like path to their lair; and then there was a small clearing through which ran a well-worn jungle trail, out of the jungle at one end of the clearing and into the jungle again at the other. As Sabor reached the clearing she saw the object of her fear and hatred well within it.What if the man-thing were not hunting her or hers? What if he even dreamed not of their presence? These facts were as nothing to Sabor, the lioness, today. Ordinarily she would have let him pass unmolested, so long as he did not come close enough to threaten the safety of her cub; or, cubless, she would have slunk away at the first intimation of his approach. But today the lioness was nervous and fearful – fearful because of the single cub that remained to her – her maternal instinct centered threefold, perhaps, upon this lone and triply loved survivor – and so she did not wait for the man to threaten the safety of her little one; but instead she moved to meet him and to stop him. From the soft mother she had become a terrifying creature of destruction, her brain obsessed by a single thought – to kill.
She did not hesitate an instant at the edge of the clearing, nor did she give the slightest warning. The first intimation that the black warrior had that there was a lion within twenty miles of him was the terrifying apparition of this devil-faced cat charging across the clearing toward him with the speed of an arrow. The man was not searching for lions. Had he known that there was one near he would have given it a wide berth. He would have fled now had there been anywhere to flee. The nearest tree was farther from him than was the lioness. She could overhaul him before he would have covered a quarter of the distance. There was no hope and there was only one thing to do. The beast was almost upon him and behind her he saw a tiny cub. The man bore a heavy spear. He carried it far back with his right hand and hurled it at the very instant that Sabor rose to seize him. The spear passed through the savage heart and almost simultaneously the giant jaws closed upon the face and skull of the warrior. The momentum of the lioness carried the two heavily to the ground, dead except for a few spasmodic twitchings of their muscles.
The orphaned cub stopped twenty feet away and surveyed the first great catastrophe of his life with questioning eyes. He wanted to approach his dam but a natural fear of the man-scent held him away. Presently he commenced to whine in a tone that always brought his mother to him hurriedly; but this time she did not come – she did not even rise and look toward him. He was puzzled – he could not understand it. He continued to cry, feeling all the while more sad and more lonely. Gradually he crept closer to his mother. He saw that the strange creature she had killed did not move and after a while he felt less terror of it, so that at last he found the courage to come quite close to his mother and sniff at her. He still whined to her, but she did not answer.
It dawned on him at last that there was something wrong – that his great, beautiful mother was not as she had been – a change had come over her; yet still he clung to her, crying much until at last he fell asleep, cuddled close to her dead body.
It was thus that Tarzan found him – Tarzan and Jane, and their son, Korak the Killer, returning from the mysterious land of Pal-ul-don from which the two men had rescued Jane Clayton. At the sound of their approach the cub opened his eyes and rising, flattened his ears and snarled at them, backing close against his dead mother. At sight of him the ape-man smiled. “Plucky little devil,” he commented, taking in the story of the tragedy at a single glance.
He approached the spitting cub, expecting it to turn and run away; but it did nothing of the sort. Instead it snarled more ferociously and struck at his extended hand as he stooped and reached for it. “What a brave little fellow,” cried Jane. “Poor little orphan!”
“He’s going to make a great lion, or he would have if his dam had lived,” said Korak. “Look at that back – as straight and strong as a spear. Too bad the rascal has got to die.”
“He doesn’t have to die,” returned Tarzan.
“There’s not much chance for him – he’ll need milk for a couple of months more, and who’s going to get it for him?”
“I am,” replied Tarzan.
“You’re going to adopt him?”
Tarzan nodded.
Korak and Jane laughed. “That’ll be fine,” commented the former.
“Lord Greystoke, foster mother to the son of Numa,” laughed Jane.
Tarzan smiled with them, but he did not cease his attentions toward the cub. Reaching out suddenly he caught the little lion by the scruff of its neck and then stroking it gently he talked to it in a low, crooning tone. I do not know what he said; but perhaps the cub did, for presently it ceased its struggles and no longer sought to scratch or bite the caressing hand. After that he picked it up and held it against his breast. It did not seem afraid now, nor did it even bare its fangs against this close proximity of the erstwhile hated man-scent.
“How do you do it?” exclaimed Jane Clayton.
Tarzan shrugged his broad shoulders. “Your kind are not afraid of you – these are really my kind, try to civilize me as you will, and perhaps that is why they are not afraid of me when I give them the signs of friendship. Even this little rascal seems to know it, doesn’t he?”
“I can never understand it,” commented Korak. “I think I am rather familiar with African animals, yet I haven’t the power over them or the understanding that you have. Why is it?”
“There is but one Tarzan,” said Lady Greystoke, smiling at her son teasingly, and yet her tone was not without a note of pride.
“Remember that I was born among beasts and raised by beasts,” Tarzan reminded him.“Perhaps after all my father was an ape – you know Kala always insisted that he was.”
“John! How can you?” exclaimed Jane. “You know perfectly well who your father and mother were.”
Tarzan looked solemnly at his son and closed one eye. “Your mother never can learn to appreciate the fine qualities of the anthropoids. One might almost think that she objected to the
suggestion that she had mated with one of them.”“John Clayton, I shall never speak to you again if you don’t stop saying such hideous things. I am ashamed of you. It is bad enough that you are an unregenerate wild-man, without trying to suggest that you may be an ape into the bargain.”
My favorite Tarzan story is The Beasts of Tarzan because of his relationship with his fierce killer Animal Army, especially with Akut and Sheeta. Sheeta willingly joins Tarzan’s army because Tarzan saved her life, rescuing her from a tree limb that had pinned her down. She was loyal to the end and eventually Tarzan rewarded her by taking her back to her original hunting grounds on Jungle Island. I really missed that relationship and look forward to Tarzan’s relationship with his new pet lion cub.
The long journey from Pal-ul-don was almost completed – inside the week they should be again at the site of their former home. Whether anything now remained of the ruins the Germans had left was problematical. The barns and the outhouses had all been burned and the interior of the bungalow partially wrecked. Those of the Waziri, the faithful native retainers of the Greystokes, who had not been killed by Hauptman Fritz Schneider’s soldiers, had rallied to the beat of the war drum and gone to place themselves at the disposal of the English in whatever capacity they might be found useful to the great cause of humanity. This much Tarzan had known before he set out in search of Lady Jane; but how many of his warlike Waziri had survived the war and what further had befallen his vast estates he did not know. Wandering tribes of natives, or raiding bands of Arab slavers might have completed the demolition inaugurated by the Hun, and it was likely, too, that the jungle had swept up and reclaimed its own, coveting his clearings and burying amidst its riot of lush verdure every sign of man’s brief trespass upon its world-old preserves.Following the adoption of the tiny Numa, Tarzan was compelled to an immediate consideration of the needs of his protege in planning his marches and his halts, for the cub must have sustenance and that sustenance could be naught but milk. Lion’s milk was out of the question, but fortunately they were now within a comparatively well-peopled country where villages were not infrequent and where the great Lord of the Jungle was known, feared, and respected, and so it was that upon the afternoon of the day he had found the young lion Tarzan
approached a village for the purpose of attaining milk for the cub.At first the natives appeared sullen and indifferent, looking with contempt upon whites who traveled without a large safari – with contempt and without fear. With no safari these strangers could carry no presents for them, nor anything wherewith to repay for the food they would doubtless desire, and with no askari they could not demand food, or rather they could not enforce an order, nor could they protect themselves should it seem worthwhile to molest them.
Sullen and indifferent the natives seemed, yet they were scarce unconcerned, their curiosity being aroused by the unusual apparel and ornamentation of these whites. They saw them almost as naked as themselves and armed similarly except that one, the younger man, carried a rifle. All three wore the trappings of Pal-ul-don, primitive and barbaric, and entirely strange to the eyes of the natives.
“Where is your chief?” asked Tarzan as he strode into the village amongst the women, the children, and the yapping dogs.
A few dozing warriors rose from the shadows of the huts where they had been lying and approached the newcomers. “The chief sleeps,” replied one. “Who are you to awaken him? What do you want?”
“I wish to speak to your chief. Go and fetch him!”
The warrior looked at him in wide-eyed amaze, and then broke into a loud laugh. “The chief must be brought to him,” he cried, addressing his fellows, and then, laughing loudly, he slapped his thigh and nudged those nearest him with his elbows.
“Tell him,” continued the ape-man, “that Tarzan would speak with him.”
Instantly the attitude of his auditors underwent a remarkable transformation – they fell back from him and they ceased laughing – their eyes very wide and round. “Bring mats,” he cried, “for Tarzan and his people to sit upon, while I fetch Umanga the chief,” and off he ran as fast as he could as though glad of the excuse to escape the presence of the mighty one he feared he had offended.
It made no difference now that they had no safari, no askari, nor any presents. The villagers were vying with one another to do them honor. Even before the chief came many had already brought presents of food and ornaments. Presently Umanga appeared. He was an old man who had been a chief even before Tarzan of the Apes was born. His manner was patriarchal and dignified and he greeted his guest as one great man might greet another, yet he was undeniably pleased that the Lord of the Jungle had honored his village with a visit. When Tarzan explained his wishes and exhibited the lion cub Umanga assured him that there would be milk aplenty so long as Tarzan honored them with his presence – warm milk, fresh from the chief’s own goats. As they palavered the ape-man’s keen eyes took in every detail of the village and its people, and presently they alighted upon a large bitch among the numerous curs that overran the huts and the street. Her udder was swollen with milk and the sight of it suggested a plan to Tarzan. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the animal.
“I would buy her,” he said to Umanga.
“She is yours, Bwana, without payment,” replied the chief. “She whelped two days since and last night her pups were all stolen from her nest, doubtless by a great snake; but if you will accept them I will give you instead as many younger and fatter dogs as you wish, for I am sure that this one would prove poor eating.”
“I do not wish to eat her,” replied Tarzan. “I will take her along with me to furnish milk for the cub. Have her brought to me.”
Some boys then caught the animal and tying a thong about its neck dragged it to the apeman. Like the lion, the dog was at first afraid, for the scent of the Tamangani was not as the scent of the blacks, and it snarled and snapped at its new master; but at length he won the animal’s confidence so that it lay quietly beside him while he stroked its head. To get the lion close to it was, however, another matter, for here both were terrified by the enemy scent of the other – the lion snarling and spitting and the dog bare-fanged and growling. It required patience – infinite patience – but at last the thing was an accomplished fact and the cur bitch suckled the son of Numa. Hunger had succeeded in overcoming the natural suspicion of the lion, while the firm yet kindly attitude of the ape-man had won the confidence of the canine, which had been accustomed through life to more of cuffs and kicks than kindness.
That night Tarzan had the dog tied in the hut he occupied, and twice before morning he made her lie while the cub fed. The next day they took leave of Umanga and his people and with the dog still upon a leash trotting beside them they set off once more toward home, the young lion cuddled in the hollow of one of Tarzan’s arms or carried in a sack slung across his shoulder.
They named the lion Jad-bal-ja, which in the language of the pithecanthropi of Pal-ul-don means the Golden Lion, because of his color. Every day he became more accustomed to them and to his foster mother, who finally came to accept him as flesh of her flesh. The bitch they called Za, meaning girl. The second day they removed her leash and she followed them willingly through the jungle, nor ever after did she seek to leave them, nor was happy unless she was near one of the three.
As the moment approached when the trail should break from the jungle onto the edge of the rolling plain where their home had been, the three were filled with suppressed excitement, though none uttered a syllable of the hope and fear that was in the heart of each. What would they find? What could they find other than the same tangled mass of vegetation that the ape-man had cleared away to build his home when first he had come there with his bride?
At last they stepped from the concealing verdure of the forest to look out across the plain where, in the distance, the outlines of the bungalow had once been clearly discernable nestled amidst the trees and shrubs that had been retained or imported to beautify the grounds.
“Look!” cried Lady Jane. “It is there – it is still there!”
“But what are those other things to the left, beyond it?” asked Korak.
“They are the huts of natives,” replied Tarzan.
“The fields are being cultivated!” exclaimed the woman.
“And some of the outbuildings have been rebuilt,” said Tarzan. “It can mean but one thing – the Waziri have come back from the war – my faithful Waziri. They have restored what the Hun destroyed and are watching over our home until we return.
And so ends chapter one. I was left wondering about the condition of their quarters in Umanga’s village. Usually Tarzan is nauseated by the dirty, vermin infested native huts, but maybe those were inhabited by cannibals and perhaps Umanga’s were clean and well ventilated.Well, looking forward to chapter two so happy trails until then.
ERBzine REFERENCES
Tarzan and the Golden Lion: ERB C.H.A.S.E.R. BibliographyALL THE WOODROW NICHOLS FEATURES IN ERBzine
www.ERBzine.com/nichols
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