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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barks and Purrs
+by Colette Willy, aka Colette
+Translated by Maire Kelly
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Barks and Purrs
+
+Author: Colette Willy, aka Colette
+Translated by Maire Kelly
+
+Release Date: March 28, 2004 [EBook #11737]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARKS AND PURRS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BARKS AND PURRS
+
+BY
+
+COLETTE WILLY
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+MAIRE KELLY
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PREFACE
+SENTIMENTALITIES
+ON THE TRAIN
+DINNER IS LATE
+SHE IS ILL
+THE FIRST FIRE
+THE STORM
+A CALLER
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+_Madame_:
+
+_There are moments when one seems to come to life. One looks about and
+distinguishes a creature whose foot-print closely resembles the ace of
+spades. The thing says: bow-wow. It is a dog. One looks again. The ace
+of spades is now an ace of clubs. The thing says: pffffffff--and it is a
+cat._
+
+_This is the history of the visible world and in particular, that of my
+god-children, Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure. They are so natural--I use
+the word in the sense in which it is applicable to the savages of
+Oceania--that all their acts conspire to make of life, a very simple
+proposition. These are animals in the fullest sense of the
+word--animos--if I may employ the original orthography, capable of
+exclaiming with those of Faust_:  "The fool knows it not! He knows not
+the pot, He knows not the kettle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_And as such, Madame, you have placed them exactly where they should be:
+their earthly Paradise is the apartment of Monsieur Willy. In your
+salon, the probable palm and rubber-plant give the impression of
+luxuriant Edenic flora, relatively speaking, and illustrate the
+transmogrification which is to allow M. Gaston Deschamps--critic of a_
+"Temps" _plus-que-passe--to announce to the wilderness (where he speaks
+familiarly of Chateaubriand), and to the College de France, how well he
+can admire and understand a true poet_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_For you are a true poet and I will declare it freely, not concerning
+myself more with the legends Parisians have the habit of weaving about
+every celebrity. They admire Gauguin and Verlaine, not so much for their
+originality, as for their eccentricities. And so it happens that certain
+persons, unacquainted with the nameless sentiment, the order and purity,
+the thousand interior virtues which guide you, persist in saying that
+you wear your hair short and that Willy is bald._
+
+_Must I then--living at Orthez--tell_ Tout-Paris _who you are, present
+you to all who know you--I who have never seen you_?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_I will say then, that Madame Colette Willy never had short hair, that
+she does not wear masculine attire; that her cat does not accompany her
+when she goes to a concert, that her friend's dog does not drink from a
+tumbler. It is inexact to say that Mme. Colette Willy works in a
+squirrel's cage, or performs upon trapeze and flying rings, and can
+reach with her toe the nape of her neck. Madame Colette Willy has never
+ceased to be the_ plain woman _par excellence, who rises at dawn to give
+oats to the horse, maize to the chickens, cabbage to the rabbits,
+groundsel to the canaries, snails to the ducks and bran-water to the
+pigs. At eight o'clock, summer and winter, she prepares the cafe au lait
+for her maid--and herself. Scarcely a day passes that she does not
+meditate upon this admirable book_:
+
+A LADY'S COUNTRY-HOUSE
+
+BY
+
+MME. MILLET ROBINET.
+
+_Orchard, kitchen-garden, stable, poultry-yard, bee-hive and hot-house,
+have no further mysteries for Madame Colette Willy. They say, she
+refused to divulge her secret for the destruction of mole-crickets to "a
+great statesman, who prayed her on his knees."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Madame Colette Willy is in no way different from the description I have
+just given of her. I am aware that certain folk, having met her in
+society, insist upon making her very complex. A little more, and they
+would have ascribed to her the tastes of the mustiest symbolists--and
+one knows how far from pleasing are those Muses' robes, how odious the
+yellow bandeaux above faces expressionless as eggs. Robes and bandeaux
+are to-day relegated to drawers in the Capitol at Toulouse, from which
+they will never be taken more, except when occasion calls for the
+howling of official alexandrines in honor of M. Gaston Deschamps,
+Jaures, or Vercingetorix._
+
+_Madame Colette Willy rises to-day on the world of Letters as the
+poetess--at last!--who, with the tip of her slipper sends all the
+painted, laureled, cothurned, lyre-carrying Muses--that, from Monselet
+to Renan, have roused the aspirations of classes in Rhetoric--rolling,
+from the top to the bottom of Parnassus._
+
+_How charming she is thus--presenting her bull-dog and her cat with as
+much assurance as Diana would her hound, or a Bacchante her tiger._
+
+_See her apple-cheeks, her eyes like blue myosotis, her
+lips--poppy-petals, and her ivy-like grace! Tell me if this way of
+leaning against the green barrier of her garden-close, or of lying under
+the murmurous arbor of mid-Summer, is not worth the starched manner,
+that old magistrate de Vigny--with his neckcloth wound three times
+around, and rigid in his trousers' straps--imposed upon his goddesses?
+Madame Colette Willy is a live woman, a real woman, who has dared to be
+natural and who resembles a little village bride far more than a
+perverse woman of letters_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Read her book and you shall see how accurate are my assertions. It has
+pleased Madame Colette Willy to embody in a couple of delightful
+animals, the aroma of gardens, the freshness of the field, the heat of
+state-roads,--the passions of men.... For through this girlish laughter
+ringing in the forest, I tell you, I hear the sobbing of a well-spring.
+One does not stoop to a poodle or tom-cat, without feeling the heart
+wrung with dumb anguish. One is sensible, in comparing ourselves to
+them, of all that separates and of all that unites us_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_A dog's eyes hold the sorrow of having, since the earliest days of
+creation, licked the whip of his incorrigible persecutor in vain. For
+nothing has mollified man--not the prey brought him by a famishing
+spaniel, nor the humble guilelessness of the shepherd-dog, guarding the
+peace of the shadowy flocks under the stars_.
+
+_A tragic fear shines in the cat's eyes. "What are you going to do to me
+now?" it seems to ask, lying on a rubbish-heap, a prey to mange and
+hunger--and feverishly it waits the new torture that will shatter its
+nervous system_.
+
+_But have no fear ... Madame Colette Willy is very kind. She quickly
+dispels the hereditary dread of Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure. She
+meliorates the race, so that dogs and cats will learn in the end that it
+is less dull to frequent a poet than an unhappy College de France
+candidate--had this candidate proven more copiously still, that the
+author of "Memoires d'Outre-Tombe" had topsyturvily described the
+jawbone of the Crocodile_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure well
+know that their mistress is a lady who
+would do no harm--neither to a piece of
+sugar nor to a mouse; a lady who, for our
+delight, jumps a rope she has woven of
+flower-words which she never bruises, and
+with which she perfumes us; a lady who sings,
+with the voice of a clear French rivulet, that
+wistful tenderness which makes the hearts of
+animals beat so fast_.
+
+FRANCIS JAMMES.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONAE
+
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, A Maltese cat.
+TOBY-DOG, A French bull-dog.
+HE, }
+SHE,} Master and Mistress (of minor importance).
+
+
+
+SENTIMENTALITIES
+
+ _The sunny porch_. TOBY-DOG _and_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE _sprawl on the hot
+stone-flags, taking their after luncheon nap. The silence of Sunday
+prevails, yet_ TOBY-DOG _is not asleep: the flies and a heavy luncheon
+torment him. Hind-quarters flattened out frog-fashion, he drags himself
+on his belly up to_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE _whose striped body is perfectly
+quiet_.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Are you asleep?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_purrs feebly_)
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Are you even alive? You're so flat! You look like the empty skin of a
+cat.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_in faltering tones_)
+
+L-e-t--m-e--a-l-o-n-e....
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Not sick, are you?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+No.... Let me alone. I'm asleep. I'm not even conscious of my body. What
+torment to live with you! I've eaten, it's two o'clock, let's sleep.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I can't. Something's made a ball in my stomach. It means to go down I
+guess, but very slowly. And then,--these _flies_, these _flies_! The
+eyes start out of my head at the sight of one of them. I'm all jaws,
+bristling with terrible teeth (just hear them snap), yet the infernal
+things escape me. Oh! my ears! Oh! my poor, sensitive, brown belly! My
+feverish nose! There! ... you see?... right on my nose! _What_ shall I
+do? I squint all I can ... two of them now?... No ... only one ... no,
+two!... I toss them up like bits of sugar and it's the empty air I
+snap.... I'm worn out. I detest the sun, and the flies, and
+everything!...
+
+(_He wails_.)
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_sitting up, his eyes pale from the light and
+sleepiness_)
+
+Well, you've succeeded in waking me. That's all you wanted, isn't it? My
+dreams are gone! These flies that you're pursuing--I hardly felt their
+little teasing feet through my thick fur. The merest touch, like a
+caress, now and then thrilled along the silky sloping hairs which clothe
+me.... But then you never act with any discretion. Your vulgar gayety is
+a nuisance, and when sad you howl like a low comedian.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_bitterly)
+
+_ If you woke up just to tell me _that_--
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_correcting_)
+
+Of course you'll remember 'twas _you_ woke me.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I was so uncomfortable, I wanted someone to help me, to give me a word
+of encouragement....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+_I_ don't know any digestive words.
+
+(_Pause_.)
+
+Fancy their giving _me_ a bad character when ... Just examine your
+conscience a bit and compare us. Hunger and heat wear you out and drive
+you mad; cold makes your blood curdle....
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_vexed_)
+
+Mine is a sensitive nature.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+A demoniacal nature, you mean!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+No, I don't mean that. You--you're a monstrous egoist.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Perhaps.... You and the Two-Paws don't understand what you're pleased to
+call a cat's egoism.... Our instinct of self-preservation, our dignity,
+our modest reserve, our attitude of weary renunciation (which comes of
+the hopelessness of ever being understood by them), they dub, in
+haphazard fashion, egoism. You're not a very discriminating dog, but at
+least you're free from prejudice. Will _you_ understand me better? A cat
+is a guest in the house, not a plaything. Truly these are strange times
+we're living in! The Two-Paws, He and She, have _they_ alone the right
+to be sad or joyful, to lick plates, to scold, or to go about the house
+indulging their capricious humors? I too have _my_ whims, _my_ sorrows,
+_my_ irregular appetite, _my_ hours of reverie when I wish to be
+alone....
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_attentive and conscientious_)
+
+I'm listening, but I can hardly follow what you say. It's so
+complicated--a bit over my head, you know. But you astonish me! Are they
+in the habit of hindering you in your changeful moods? You mew, and they
+open the door. You lie on the paper--the sacred paper He's scratching
+on--He moves away, marvelous condescension!--and leaves you his soiled
+page. You meander up and down his scratching table, obviously in quest
+of mischief, your nose wrinkled up, your tail giving quick little jerks
+back and forth like a pendulum. She watches you laughing, while He
+announces "the promenade of devastation." How then, can you accuse
+Them--
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_insincere_)
+
+I don't accuse Them. After all, psychological subtleties are not in your
+line.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Don't speak so fast. I need time to understand. It seems to me--
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_slyly_)
+
+Pray, don't hurry! Your digestion might suffer in consequence.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_unconscious of the irony_)
+
+You're right! I've some trouble in expressing myself to-day.--Well, here
+goes: it seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most
+of, and yet _you_ do all the grumbling.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+That's wrong. It's indiscreet.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Not at all. I have a right to everything.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+To everything? And I?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like
+crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be
+sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is
+nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will
+ever come....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_jeering_)
+
+And _then_ what dreadful thing happens?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a
+bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it--Castor Oil! Wilful and
+unfeeling, she holds me between her strong knees, opens my jaws--
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Close them tighter!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+But I'm afraid of hurting her--and my tongue, horrified, tastes the
+slimy mawkish stuff. I choke and spit, my poor face is convulsed and the
+end of this torture is long in coming.... You've seen me afterwards
+dragging myself around, melancholy, my head hanging, listening to the
+unwholesome glouglou the oil makes in my stomach....
+
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Once when I was little She tried to give _me_ castor oil. I scratched
+and bit her so, she never tried again. Ha! She must have thought she
+held the devil between her knees. I squirmed, blew fire through my
+nostrils, multiplied my twenty claws by a hundred, my teeth by one
+thousand, and finally--disappeared as if by magic.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I wouldn't dare do that. You see, I love her. I love her enough to
+forgive her even the torture of the bath.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_interested_)
+
+You do? Tell me how it feels. It makes me shiver all over, just to see
+her putting you in the water.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Alas.... Listen then, and pity me. Sometimes, when She's come out of her
+tub with nothing on her but her skin, her soft hairless skin that I lick
+respectfully,--She spills out more warm water, throws in a brown brick
+which smells of tar, and calls, "Toby!" That's enough! The soul quits
+my body; my legs shake under me. Something shines on the water--the
+picture of a window all twisted out of shape--it dances about and blinds
+me. She seizes me, poor swooning thing that I am, and plunges me in....
+Ye Gods! From that time on I'm lost.... My one hope is in her. My eyes
+fasten themselves on hers, while a close warmth sticks to me like
+another skin on top of mine.... The brick's all foamy now ... I smell
+tar ... my eyes and nostrils smart ... there are storms in my ears. She
+grows excited, breathes loud and fast, laughs, and scrubs me
+light-heartedly. At last She rescues me, fishing me out by the nape of
+my neck, I paw the air, begging for life; then comes the rough towel and
+the warm coverlet where, exhausted, I relish my convalescence....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_deeply impressed_)
+
+Calm yourself.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Jove! The telling it alone!... But--you old sly-boots--didn't I see her
+one day armed with a sponge standing over _you,_ holding _you_ down on
+the toilet table?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_quite embarrassed, lashing his tail_)
+
+An old story! The long, fluffy hairs on my legs (which give them the
+outline of a Zouave's) had somehow gotten dirty. She insisted upon
+washing me. I persuaded her that I suffered atrociously under the
+sponge....
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+What a fibber you are! Did She believe you?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+'Um ... at first. It was my own fault tho' when She didn't. Turned over
+on my back, I proffered the candid belly, the terrified and forgiving
+eyes of a lamb about to be sacrificed. I felt a slight coolness, nothing
+more. A fear that my sensibilities might be destroyed, took possession
+of me. My rhythmical wailings increased, then subsided, then went up
+again like the noise of the sea (you know the strength of my voice). I
+imitated the calf, the whipped child, the cat in the night, the wind
+under the door. Little by little I grew enraptured with my own song, so
+that long after She had finished soiling me with cold water I continued
+wailing, my eyes fixed on the ceiling. Then She laughed tactlessly and
+cried out, "You're as untruthful as a woman!"
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_with conviction_)
+
+That _was_ annoying.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I was angry with her the entire afternoon.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Oh, as to sulking, you do your share! _I_ never can. I forget injuries.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_dryly_)
+
+You lick the hand that chastens you. Oh it's well known!
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_gullible_)
+
+I lick the hand that--yes, that's it exactly.--An awfully pretty
+expression.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Not mine.... Dignity doesn't trouble _you_ any! My word! I'm often
+ashamed for you. You love everybody. You take all sorts of rebuffs
+without even raising your back. You're as pleasant and as banal as a
+public garden.
+
+TOBY-DOG  Don't you believe it, you ill-bred cat! You think you know
+everything and you don't understand simple politeness. Frankly now,
+would you have me snarl at His or Her friends' heels,--well-dressed
+people who know my name (lots of people _I_ don't know know my name) and
+good-naturedly pull my ears?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I hate new faces.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I don't love them either--whatever you say. I love--Her and Him.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+And I, Him--and Her.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Oh, I guessed _your_ preference long ago. There's a sort of secret
+understanding between you two--
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_smiling mysteriously and abandoning himself to his
+reverie_)
+
+An understanding, yes--secret and profound. He rarely speaks but makes a
+noise like a mouse, scratching his paper. It's for Him I've treasured up
+my little heart, my precious cat's heart, and He, without words, has
+given me his. This exchange makes me happy and reserved. Now and then
+with that pretty, wayward, ruling instinct which makes us cats rivals of
+women, I try my power over him. When we are alone, I point my ears
+forward devilishly as a sign that I'm about to spring upon his
+scratching paper. The tap, tap, tap of my paws straight through pens and
+letters and everything scattered about, is addressed to him as well as
+the insistent miauling when I beg for liberty. "Hymn to the Door-Knob,"
+He laughingly calls it, or "The Plaint of the Sequestered Cat." The
+tender contemplation of my inspiring eyes is for him alone; they weigh
+on his bent head, until the look I'm calling searches and meets mine in
+a shock of souls, so foreseen and so sweet, that I must needs close my
+lids to hide the exquisite shyness I feel.
+
+As for Her, she flutters about too much, often jostles me, holds my paws
+together and rocks me in the air, pets me in excited fashion, laughs
+aloud at me, imitates my voice too well--
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_moved with indignation_)
+
+You're very hard to please! I certainly love Him; he's good and pretends
+not to see my faults, so that he won't have to scold, but She's the most
+beautiful thing in the world to me, the dearest and--the most difficult
+to understand. The sound of her step enchants me, her changeful eyes
+dispense happiness--and trouble. She's like Destiny itself, she never
+hesitates. Even torture from her hands--you know how She teases me?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE  Cruelly.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+No, not cruelly, but artfully. I never can tell what's coming next. This
+morning She bent down as if to speak to me, lifted one of my "tiny
+elephant's ears," as She calls them, and sent a sharp cry into it, which
+went to the very back of my brain.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Horrors!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Was it right or wrong? I can't decide even now. It started waves of
+nervousness running madly through me. Then, She has a fancy for making
+me do tricks. Almost every day I must--"Do the Fish, Toby dear." She
+lifts me in her arms and squeezes me until I gasp. My poor dumb mouth
+opens as a carp's does when they're drowning it in air....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+That's _just_ like Her!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Suddenly I find myself free--and still alive, miraculously saved by the
+power of her will. How beautiful life seems to me then! How fondly I
+lick the hand hanging at her side, the hem of her dress!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_contemptuously_)
+
+A pretty thing to do!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+All good and all evil come to me from Her. She is my worst torment and
+my one sure refuge. When I run to her, my heart sick with fear, how soft
+her arms are and how sweet her hair, falling in my face! I'm her
+"black-baby," her "Toby-Dog," her "little bit o' love." She sits on the
+ground to reassure me, making herself little like me--lies down
+altogether and I go wild with delight at the sight of her face under
+mine, thrown back in her fragrant hair. My feelings overflow, I can't
+resist such a chance for a jolly good game. I rummage and fumble about,
+excitedly poking my nose everywhere, till I find the crispy tip of a
+pink ear--Her ear. I nibble it just enough to tickle her--to make her
+cry out: "Stop, Toby! That's awful! Help! Help! This dog's devouring
+me!"
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+H'm! Simple, homely, wholesome joys! ... And then, off you go to make
+friends with the cook.
+
+TOBY-DOG  And you,--with the cat at the farm.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_coldly_)
+
+Enough I pray, that concerns no one but myself ... and the little cat.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+A pretty conquest! It should make you blush--a seven-months-old kitten!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_roused_)
+
+For me she has all the charm of forbidden fruit and no one dare steal
+her from me. She is slim as a bean-pole....
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_aside_)
+
+You old rascal!  KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+... and long; poised on long legs she walks with the uncertain step
+common to all young things. She hunts field-mice, shrew-mice--even
+partridge, and this hard work in the fields has toughened her young
+muscles and given a rather gloomy expression to her kitten-face.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+She's ugly.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+No, not ugly, but odd-looking. Her muzzle with its very pink nostrils
+strongly resembles that of a goat, her large ears remind one of a
+peasant's coif, her eyes the color of old gold are set slant-wise, and
+their naturally keen expression is varied by an occasional piquant
+squint.
+
+With what a will does she fly me confounding modesty with fear! I pass
+slowly by (one would think me quite uninterested), draped in my splendid
+coat. She's struck by its stripes. Oh, she'll come back, a little
+love-sick kitten, and putting aside all constraint she'll throw herself
+at my feet--like a supple white scarf--
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I've no objection, you know.... I'm comparatively indifferent to all
+that concerns love. Here my time's so completely filled ... physical
+exercise ... my cares of watch-dog, I ... hardly give a thought to the
+bagatelle.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_aside)
+
+Bagatelle!... He indulges in the persiflage of a traveling salesman!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I love--Her and Him devotedly, with a love that lifts me up to them. It
+suffices to occupy my time and heart.
+
+The hour of our siesta is passing, my scornful friend. Do you know, I
+like you in spite of your scorn and you like me, too. Don't turn your
+head away, your peculiar modesty would hide what you call frailty and
+what I call love. Do you think me blind? How often, on coming back to
+the house with Her, have I seen your little triangular face at the
+window, light up and smile at my approach,--the time to open the door
+and you'd already put on your cat's mask--your pretty Japanesy mask,
+with its narrow eyes.... Isn't it so?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_resolved not to hear_)
+
+The hour of the siesta is passing. The cone-shaped shadows of the pear
+trees grow long on the gravel path. We've talked away our sleepiness.
+You've forgotten the flies, your uneasy stomach, and the heat which
+dances in waves on the meadows. The beautiful, sultry day is dying.
+Already there's a breeze bringing perfume from the pines. Their trunks
+are melting into bright tears....
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Here She is! She's left her wicker chair, stretched her lovely arms and,
+judging from the movement of her dress, I think we're going to take a
+walk. See her behind the rosebushes? Now, with her nails she breaks a
+leaf from the lemon tree; she's crumpling it up and smelling it. Ah ...
+I belong to Her, soul and body. With my eyes closed I can divine her
+presence.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Yes, I see Her. She is quiet and gentle for the time being. He'll leave
+his paper now to follow her. He'll come out calling, "Where are you?"
+and sit on the bench, tired out. For _him_, I shall rise politely, and
+go "do my nails" along the leg of his trousers. Silent, happy
+companions, we'll listen for the day's departing footsteps. The perfume
+of the lindens will become sickeningly sweet at the same hour that my
+seer's eyes grow big and black and read mysterious Signs in the air....
+Later on a calm fire will be lit down there, behind the pointed
+mountain--a circle of glistening rose-color in the gray-blue of the
+night--a sort of luminous cocoon from which will burst the dazzling edge
+of the moon. She will sail along, cleaving the clouds.... Then, it will
+be time to go to rest. He'll carry me in on his shoulder and I'll sleep
+close to his feet, which are ever mindful of my repose.... Dawn will
+find me shivering but rejuvenated, sitting face to the sun, in a silvery
+halo of incense, offered me by the dew. Thus, I am a perfect picture of
+the god I was in the old, old days.
+
+
+
+
+ON THE TRAIN
+
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, TOBY-DOG, SHE _and_ HE, _have taken their places in a
+first-class compartment. The train rolls along towards distant
+mountains, and the freedom of Summer-time_. TOBY, _on a leash, lifts an
+inquiring nose to the window_. HE _has strewn the carriage with
+newspapers_: KIKI-THE-DEMURE, _silent and invisible in a closed basket,
+is under his immediate protection_. SHE, _leaning back against the dusty
+cushions, dreams of the mountain she loves best and of the low house on
+it, weighted down with jasmine and virginia-creeper_.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+How fast this carriage goes! It can't be our regular coachman. I haven't
+seen the horses, but they smell very bad and make black smoke. Oh,
+Silent Dreamer, look at me and tell me--shall we arrive soon?
+
+(_No response_. TOBY _gets fidgety and blows through his nostrils_.)
+SHE
+
+Hush! Toby, hush!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I've hardly said a word.... Shall we arrive soon?
+
+(_He turns towards his master, who is reading, and puts a discreet paw
+on the edge of his knee_.)
+
+HE
+
+'Sh!...
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_resigned_)
+
+Hard luck! No one wants to talk to me. I'm bored and what's more, I
+don't know this carriage well enough. I'm tired out. They woke me very
+early this morning. I amused myself by running all over the house. They
+had hidden the chairs under sheets, wrapped up the lamps, rolled up the
+rugs. Things were white and changed and awful. There was a horrid smell
+of camphor everywhere. My eyes filled with water, I sneezed under the
+chairs and slid on the bare floor in my haste to follow the maids' white
+aprons. They bustled about among trunks with such unwonted zeal, that I
+was sure something exceptional was going to happen. At the last minute
+just as She came in, calling: "Toby's collar and the cat's basket!
+Quick! put the cat in his basket!"--just as she was saying that, my chum
+disappeared. It was indescribable! He, terrible to see, swore by all the
+gods, and struck the floor with his cane, furious because they had
+allowed his Kiki to get away. She called "Kiki!" at first
+supplicatingly, then in threatening tones, and the maids brought empty
+plates, meant to deceive, and yellow paper from the butcher's. I really
+thought my chum had left this world, when suddenly--there he was perched
+on top of the book-case, looking down on us with an expression of
+contempt in his green eyes. She put up her arms: "Kiki _will_ you come
+down immediately! You are going to make us lose the train!" But he
+didn't come down and it made me dizzy--though I was on the ground--to
+see him way up there walking and turning about and miauling shrilly to
+tell us how impossible he found it to obey. He was about frantic and
+kept saying: "Heavens, he's going to fall." But She smiled skeptically,
+went out of the room and came back armed with the whip. The whip said,
+"crack!" twice only; then a miracle happened I think, 'cause the cat
+leaped to the floor, softer and more bouncey than our plaything, the
+ball of wool. _I_ would have broken to pieces falling like that!... He
+has been in this basket ever since.... (TOBY _goes to the basket_.) Ah!
+here's a little peek-hole.... I see his whiskers ... they're like white
+needles. Whew! What eyes! (_He jumps back_.) I'm rather afraid. One
+can't really shut a cat up; he always manages to get out somehow. ... He
+must suffer, poor fellow! Perhaps if I speak kindly to him ... (_he
+calls very politely_) Cat!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_spitting furiously_)
+
+Khhh!...
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_jumping back_)
+
+Oh, you said a bad word! You look awful! Have you a pain anywhere?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Go away! I'm a martyr.... Go away I tell you, or I'll blow fire at you!
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_ingenuous_)
+
+But why?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Why!--Because you're free, because I'm in this basket, because the
+basket's in a foul carriage which is shaking me to pieces, and because
+the serenity of those two exasperates me.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Would you like me to look out and tell you what one sees from the
+carriage window?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Everything is equally odious to me.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_having looked out, comes back_)
+
+I haven't seen anything....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_bitterly_)
+
+Thanks just the same.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I mean I haven't seen anything that's easy to describe. Some green
+things which pass right close to us--so close and so fast that they give
+one a slap in the eye. A flat field turning 'round and 'round and over
+there, a little pointed steeple--it's running as fast as the carriage.
+Another field all red with blossoming clover has just given me another
+slap in the eye--a red slap. The earth is sinking in--or else we're
+going up, I'm not sure which. I see way off, _far_ away, some green
+lawns dotted with white daisies--perhaps they're cows.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_with sarcasm_)
+
+Or wafers, for sealing letters--or anything you like.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Aren't you the least little bit amused?  KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_with a
+sinister laugh_)
+
+Ha! Ask of the damned ...
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Of whom?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_more and more melodramatic, but without conviction_)
+
+... of the damned in his vat of boiling oil, if anything amuses him!
+Mine is not physical torment. I suffer imprisonment, humiliation,
+darkness, neglect--
+
+(_The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries "Aw-ll a-bor!!...
+awl aborr!!"_)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_bewildered_)
+
+Someone's crying out! There's an accident!! Let's run!!!
+
+(_He throws himself against the carriage door and scratches madly at
+it_.)  SHE, (_half asleep_)
+
+Toby dear, you're a nuisance!
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_distracted_)
+
+Oh, you inexplicable person! How can you sit there quietly? Don't you
+hear those cries? They're stopping now--the accident has gone away. Wish
+I'd known ...
+
+(_The train starts again_.)
+
+HE, (_throwing down his paper_)
+
+The poor beast is hungry.
+
+SHE, (_now very wide awake_)
+
+You think so? Well, I am too. But Toby is to eat very little.
+
+HE, (_anxiously_)
+
+And Kiki-the-Demure?
+
+SHE, (_peremptorily_)  Kiki sulks, and he hid this morning, so he'll
+have even less than Toby.
+
+HE
+
+He isn't making a sound. Aren't you afraid he's sick?
+
+SHE
+
+No, he's simply vexed.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_as soon as there's question of himself_)
+
+Me-ow!
+
+HE, (_tenderly and eagerly_)
+
+Come my beautiful Kiki, my imprisoned one, come. You shall have cold
+roast-beef and some breast of chicken ...
+
+(_He opens the prison basket and_ KIKI _puts forth his_ _head, flattened
+on top like that of a serpent; then his long, striped body, cautiously,
+and so very slowly that one begins to think it's coming out by the
+yard_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_pleasantly)
+
+Ah, there you are, cat! Well, now, proclaim your freedom!
+
+(KIKI, _without replying, smoothes his ruffled fur_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Proclaim your freedom I tell you! It's the custom. Whenever a door is
+opened one must run, jump, twist oneself into half circles and cry out.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+_One_? Who's one, pray?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+We dogs.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_seated and very dignified_)
+
+Would you have me _bark_, too?... We have never followed the same rules
+of conduct, that I know of.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_vexed_)
+
+Oh very well, I don't insist. How do you like this carriage?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_sniffing fastidiously_)
+
+It's frightful.--However, the cushions are rather good for one's nails.
+
+(_He suits the action to the word_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_aside_)
+
+Now if _I_ did that ...
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_continuing to scratch the upholstery_)
+
+Hon! May this spongy, gray cloth soothe my rage!... Since morning, the
+whole universe has been in a state of monstrous revolt. He whom I love,
+and who venerates me, made not the least effort to defend me. I've
+submitted to humiliating contacts, been jolted to death, piercing
+whistles have shot through my head from ear to ear. Ho, ho, how good it
+is to relax the nerves and to imagine that, with gleeful claws, one
+tears the enemies' flesh in bloody shreds! Ho, ho! S-c-r-a-t-c-h, and
+lift the paws on high! Lift them high as possible! It's a supremely
+insolent gesture....
+
+SHE
+
+I say, Kiki, when are you going to stop that?
+
+HE, (_Indulgent and admiring_)
+
+Let him alone. He's doing his nails.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+He has spoken for me. I forgive him. But since it's allowed, I don't
+care any more about tearing the cushions ... When will I get out of
+this? Not that I'm afraid; they are both there, and the dog too, with
+their everyday faces ... I've twinges in my stomach.
+
+(_He yawns. The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries, "Aw-ll
+a-bor! Aw-ll a-b-o-r-r!!"_)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_excited_)
+
+Screaming again! Another accident?!--Let's run!...
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Heavens, what a tiresome dog! What does it matter to him, if there _is_
+an accident?
+
+I don't believe in it moreover. It's the cry of a man, and men cry out
+for the pleasure of hearing their own voices.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_calm again_)
+
+I'm hungry. Can't we hope to eat soon, my mistress? I don't know what
+time it is in this strange country, but it seems to me....
+
+SHE
+
+Come now, we'll all have our luncheon.
+
+(_She takes the things out of the basket, crumples up some tissue paper
+and breaks a crisp brown roll_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_chewing_)
+
+What She gave me then must have been very good indeed to seem such a
+tiny bit. It melted in my mouth, there's not even the memory of it
+left....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_chewing_)
+
+Breast of chicken! Purr-rr ... Goodness me! I was purring without
+knowing it! That won't do. They'll think me resigned to this journey. I
+must eat slowly, grim, and undeceived, eat for the sole purpose of
+keeping myself alive ...
+
+SHE, (_to the dog and cat_)
+
+Allow me to have _my_ luncheon now, if you please. _I_ too, like cold
+chicken and the hearts of lettuce, dipped in salt....
+
+HE, (_anxiously_)
+
+What _shall_ we do to make this cat go into his basket again?
+
+SHE
+
+I don't know. We'll see presently ...
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Finished already? I could swallow three times that much. I say Cat,
+you're eating rather well for a martyr.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_fibbing_)
+
+Trouble digs a hole in one's interior. Move away please, I want to sleep
+now ... if I can. Perhaps a merciful dream will take me back to the
+house I've left, to the flowered cushion He gave me.... Home! sweet
+home! Rugs of bright colors for the delight of my eyes, a palm with
+nice shoots for me to eat, deep arm-chairs, under which I hide my woolen
+ball as a future surprise for myself--ah, and the cork hanging by a
+string to the door-latch! the tables covered with bibelots! I thread my
+way in and out among them and occasionally it amuses me to break some
+brittle thing. The dining-room is a temple! The vestibule, full of
+mystery; there unseen, I can watch those who come and go ... Oh narrow
+back-stairway, where the step of the milkman rings out for me like a
+morning angelus--farewell! farewell! my destiny carries me on, and who
+knows if ever ... But this is _too_ sad! All the pretty things I've been
+saying have really begun to make me feel badly!!
+
+(_He begins a minute and mournful toilet. The train stops. A conductor
+on the platform cries, "Aw-ll-a-borr-a-borr!!"_)
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+There it is again! An acci--Oh bother, I've had enough of that!
+
+HE, (_anxiously_)
+
+We're going to change trains in ten minutes. How about the cat? He'll
+never allow us to shut him up ...
+
+SHE
+
+We'll see ... Suppose we put some meat in his basket?
+
+HE
+
+Or perhaps petting would ...
+
+(_They approach the redoubtable_ KIKI _and both speak together_.)
+
+HE
+
+Kiki, my beautiful Kiki, come jump on my knee, or on my shoulder. You
+like that as a rule. You'll doze there and then I'll put you gently into
+the basket. After all, it's open-work and has a comfortable cushion to
+protect you from the rough wicker. Come, my dear....
+
+SHE
+
+Listen, Kiki. You must learn to act properly and to take life as it is.
+You can't stay there like that. We're going to change trains and a
+horrible guard will appear and say insulting things of you and your
+race. Besides you'd better obey, because if you don't, I--I'll give you
+a good whipping.
+
+(_But before she can lift her hand against his sacred fur, Kiki gets up,
+stretches himself, arches his back, yawns,--to show the rosy lining of
+his mouth, and then walks to the open basket where he lies down with an
+admirable air of quiet insolence. He and She exchange eloquent
+glances_.)
+
+
+
+
+DINNER IS LATE
+
+
+_A parlor, in the country, at the close of a long summer's day_.
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE _and_ TOBY-DOG _doze; ears twitching and eyelids
+obstinately shut. Now_ KIKI'S _lids part in a narrow slit, and disclose
+eyes the color of purple grapes. He yawns, with the ferocious
+expression of a small dragon._
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_haughtily_)
+
+You're snoring!
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_who was not really asleep_)
+
+I'm not; it's you.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Impossible! I don't snore, I purr.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Same thing.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_not condescending to a discussion_)
+
+Thank heaven, it isn't! (_A silence_.)
+
+I'm hungry. One doesn't hear the noise of plates in the next room. Isn't
+it dinner time?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_gets up, slowly stretches his forepaws and yawns, darting
+forth a heraldic tongue with curly end_) I don't know ... I'm hungry.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Where is She? How is it you're not at her heels?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_embarrassed, nibbling his nails_)
+
+She's in the garden I believe, picking up plums.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Those yellow balls that rain about one's ears? I know them. You've seen
+her then? I bet She scolded you ... What have you been doing now?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_self-conscious, turning away his wrinkled, toad-like face_)
+
+She told me to return to the house because--because I too, was eating
+plums.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+She did well! You have depraved tastes--the tastes of men.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_offended_)
+
+Say--no one ever sees me eating bad fish! And never, _never_ will I
+understand how you can go into such fits over a dead frog, or that herb.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Valerian.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+That's it, I guess ... An herb--is medicine, isn't it?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Medicine, indeed! Valerian ... but no _you_, can't understand ... I've
+seen Her laugh and go on, as I do over the valerian, after having
+emptied a glass of fetid wine that jumped dangerously too. As for the
+dead frog--so dead that it seems a bit of dry russia leather in the form
+of a frog--it's a sachet, impregnated with rare musk, with which I wish
+to scent my fur.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Oh, you talk very well--but She always scolds and says that you smell
+bad after it, and He says the same thing.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+They're nothing but Two-Paws, both of them. You, poor thing, belittle
+yourself by seeking to imitate them. You stand on your hind legs, wear a
+coat when it rains, eat plums--for shame!--and those big green balls,
+the malicious trees let fall sometimes, when I'm passing underneath.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Apples?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Very likely. She picks one up and throws it down the path, crying:
+"Apple, Toby, apple," and you rush after, in unseemly fashion, gasping
+for breath, looking like a fool, your tongue and your eyes sticking
+out....
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_scowling, head resting on his paws_)
+
+One takes one's pleasures where one finds them.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_yawning, shows his pointed teeth and his palate of
+pink velvet_)
+
+I'm hungry. Dinner is surely late tonight. Suppose you look for Her?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I daren't. She forbade it. She is down there in the hollow, with a big
+basket. The dew is falling and wetting her feet and the sun's going
+away. But you know how She is. She sits on the damp ground, looking
+ahead of her, as if She were asleep--or lies flat on her stomach,
+whistling and watching an ant in the grass ... She tears up a handful of
+wild thyme and smells it, or calls the tomtits and the jays--who never
+come to her by any chance. She takes a heavy watering pot and--ugh! it
+gives me the shivers--pours thousands of icy, silvery threads over the
+roses or into the hollows of those little stone troughs, 'way back in
+the woods. I always look in to see the head of a brindle-bull who comes
+to meet me and to drink up the pictures of the leaves, but She pulls me
+back by the collar with: "Toby, Toby, _that_ water is for the birds."
+... Then She takes out her knife and opens nuts, fifty, a _hundred_
+nuts, and forgets the time ... There's no end to the things She does.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_slyly_)
+
+And what do you do all that time?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I--well--I just wait for her.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I admire you!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Once in a while, squatting down, She eagerly scratches the earth, toils
+and sweats over it; then I jump 'round her, delighted to see her at
+something so useful and so familiar. But her feeble scent deceives her.
+_I_ never smell mole, or shrew-mouse-of-the-rosy-paws, in the holes
+_She_ digs. And how explain her utter lack of purpose? Presently,
+falling back on her haunches, She brandishes a hairy-rooted herb and
+cries: "I have it, the jade!" I lie in the damp grass and tremble, or
+dig my nose (She calls it my snout) into the earth to get the
+complicated odors of it. ... When there are three or four scents all
+blended, all mixed together, can you distinguish that of the mole from
+that of the hare which passed quickly, or the bird which rested there?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Certainly I can. My nose is highly educated. It's small, regular, wide
+between my eyes, delicate at the chamois-skin end of my nostrils; the
+lightest touch of a blade of grass, the shadow of smoke tickles and
+makes it sneeze. It doesn't bother about distinguishing the scent of
+moles from that of--hares, did you say? But it delights in the trace
+left by a cat in a hedge ... I've a charming nose. She calls it, "his
+pretty little nose of cotton velvet." Since my eyes opened on this world
+I've not known the day that someone has not uttered a truthful flattery
+on the subject of my nose. Now yours--is a rough-grained truffle. What
+makes you move it so ridiculously? At this very moment.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I'm hungry and I don't hear the plates.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+... your truffle of a nose works up and down and makes another wrinkle
+in your irregular mug.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+She always says, "his square muzzle, his wrinkled truffle," so tenderly
+and so lovingly!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+... And you think of nothing but eating.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+It's _your_ empty stomach that scolds and complains and wants to quarrel
+with me.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I've a charming stomach.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+But no, it's your nose that's charming. You just said so.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+My stomach too. There's none more fastidious, more whimsical, stronger
+and at the same time more delicate. It digests the bones of sole, but
+meat that's the least bit tainted literally turns it.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Literally's the word. You have _active_ indigestion.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Yes, the whole house is affected by it. From the very first qualms I'm
+in terrible distress; the earth gives way under me, my eyes dilate, I
+hurriedly swallow quantities of salty saliva; involuntary, ventriloquial
+cries escape me, my sides bulge out--
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_disgusted_)
+
+I say, if it's all the same to you, tell me the rest after dinner.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I'm hungry. Where can He be?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+He's there, in his study, scratching paper.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+He's always doing that. It's a game. Two-Paws play at the same thing for
+hours and hours. I've often tried to scratch paper gently, as He does,
+but the pleasure doesn't last long. I prefer newspapers torn into shreds
+that rustle and fly ... There is a little pot of dark-violet, muddy
+water on his table. I never sniff it without horror, since the day a
+rather foolish curiosity made me dip my paw into it. This very paw, so
+strong and aristocratic, (the tufts of useless hair you see between my
+toes proclaim the purity of my race) this very paw bore a bluish stain
+for eight days and the degrading odor of rusty steel clung to it a long
+time after ...
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+What's the little pot for?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+He drinks from it doubtless.
+
+(_Silence_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+She's not back yet! Heaven grant She isn't lost, as I was one day in the
+streets of Paris!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I'm hungry!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I'm hungry! What are we going to eat this evening?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I saw a chicken. It made a silly noise and dropped red blood on the
+kitchen floor, soiling it far more than I ever did, or you either--yet
+no one whipped it. But Emily put it in the fire, to teach it a lesson. I
+licked up some of the blood ...
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_yawns_)
+
+Chicken ... it makes my mouth water. She'll say: "Here Toby, bones!" and
+throw me the carcass.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+How badly you speak! He says: "Little chicken bones, Kiki, little
+chicken bones!"
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_surprised_)
+
+But no _really_ it's, "Here, Toby, bones!" that She says.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+He speaks better than She does.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_incompetent_)
+
+Ah?... Tell me, do birds taste anything like chicken?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_whose eyes light up suddenly_)
+
+No ... they're far better, they're alive. Ha, the quivering bird, the
+warm feathers, the delicious little brain ... you feel it all crackling
+between your teeth!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Oh, you make me sick! It always worries me to see tiny animals like that
+flutter about ... and birds are dear, good little things.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_dryly_)
+
+Don't you believe it, they're only good to eat. They're noisy, stupid
+creatures, infatuated with themselves, _made_ to be eaten. ... You know
+the two jays?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Not very well.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE They live in the little wood. When I walk by they laugh
+a sardonic "tiac, tiac," because I wear a bell at my neck. In vain do I
+hold my head very stiffly and put my paws down _very_ gently, my bell
+tinkles and the two creatures scream from the top of the fir-tree. Just
+let me get hold of them, one of these days!...
+
+(_He lays back his ears and raises the hair along his back_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_pensive_) Positively, Cat, there are times when I don't know
+you. We are talking quietly and suddenly you bristle like a
+bottle-brush; or we happen to be playing amicably together and I bark
+behind your back--bow, wow-wow!--just for fun; then,--one doesn't know
+why, perhaps because my nose has grazed the long hairs on your legs
+you're so proud of--you become all at once a savage beast, spitting
+fire, and charging at me like a strange dog. Don't you think that shows
+a bad character?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_mysterious, eyes half-closed_)
+
+Not at all. It's character, simply. A Cat's character. In such moments
+of irritability, I'm keenly alive to the humiliation of my present
+state, and that of my race.
+
+I can remember a time when priests in long, linen tunics, bending low,
+spoke to us and humbly tried to comprehend our chanted utterance. Know,
+dog, that it is not _we_ who have changed! It may be, there are days
+when I'm more myself, when everything offends me, and justly; a brusque
+gesture, a vulgar laugh, the banging of a door, your odor, your
+inconceivable impudence when you touch me, or encircle me, jumping and
+yelping ...
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_patiently, to himself_)
+
+He's having one of his attacks.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_with a start_)
+
+Did you hear?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Yes, the kitchen door, and the door into the dining-room ... and now the
+drawer where the spoons are kept. At last! At last! aaah! (_He yawns_.)
+I can't stand this any longer. _Where_ is She? I don't hear the gravel
+creaking ... night's coming on!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_ironically_)
+
+Go find her.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+And how about Him? He usually worries, and comes in asking, "Where is
+She?" But He's scratching still. He must have drunk up all the
+violet-colored water in the muddy little pot by this time. (TOBY
+_carefully stretches his legs_.) Ah! I feel lively ... and empty. We're
+going to eat soon! Just smell the good kitchen-smells that come under
+the door!... Let's play!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+No.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Run, I'll chase, without touching you.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+No.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Why not?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I don't want to.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Oh! but you're tiresome! Watch me jump and arch my neck like a little
+horse and try to catch my stubby tail. Now I turn 'round and
+'round--and--heavens! the whole room spins!--It's--st--opping--now.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Insufferable creature!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Insufferable yourself! Look out, I'm going to run at you as She does,
+when She's merry, crying "Ha, cat!"
+
+(KIKI-THE-DEMURE, _without rising, puts up a paw bristling with claws
+and spotted underneath with rose color and black; it looks like a thorny
+flower_.)
+
+If you dare!...
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_in a frenzy_)  I do dare! Bow-wow-wow! Ha, cat! ha, cat!
+
+(KIKI-THE-DEMURE, _exasperated, gives a spring and hangs on the
+table-cloth, slowly dragging it down. A lamp and various things fall to
+the ground. Terrified silence. The two animals, crouching under an
+arm-chair, await punishment_.)
+
+HE _appears at the study door, holding a pen, like a bit, between his
+teeth_.
+
+Thunder and blitzen! What is it now? This cursed menagerie has
+overturned everything! Where's your Mistress? What a place this is to be
+sure! Dinner never on time!... (etc., etc., etc....)
+
+(_The two guilty ones, who well know the harmlessness of such outbursts,
+laugh quietly to themselves and lying flat as bed-room slippers, look at
+one another through the fringes of the chair. The garden gate opens_.
+
+SHE _comes in carrying a basket, full of fragrant plums; her hands are
+sticky from their sugariness, her hair tumbled_. SHE _stands horrified,
+before the disaster_.)
+
+SHE
+
+Oh! They've been fighting again, have they? (_Without conviction_.) Dear
+_me,_ what nasty creatures! I'll give them away! I'll sell them!!--I'll
+_kill_ them!!! (_But the cat and dog, groveling in exaggerated humility,
+crawl up to her, and speak together_.)
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Purr-rr-rr!...There you are!...It's very late ...Toby attacked me; it's
+he who's broken everything. I believe he went mad from hunger.... You
+smell good, of grass and the twilight. You sat down on some wild thyme.
+Come!...Tell your Master to carry me on his shoulder--the meat will be
+overdone, I'm afraid. You'll carve the chicken very quickly, won't you,
+and you'll keep the browned skin for me? If you wish I'll stretch out my
+paw like a spoon, which knows how to take up the littlest morsels, and
+carry them to my mouth with that human gesture that makes you laugh
+so--you and He.... Come!
+
+TOBY-DOG  Hiii ... hiii ... there you are at last! I'm so unhappy when
+you're away. You banished me ... you didn't love me ... The lamp fell
+down all by itself ... Come! I'm awfully hungry, but I'll gladly go
+without dinner, if you'll promise to take me with you always wherever
+you go ... yes, even out in the twilight, though it makes me sad, I'll
+willingly follow you there ... my nose close, close to the hem of your
+dress....
+
+SHE, (_disarmed and quite indifferent to the cataclysm_)
+
+Do look how pretty they are!
+
+
+
+
+SHE IS ILL
+
+ _A bed-room in the country-house; autumnal sunshine filters in through
+closed blinds_. SHE _lies on a couch, apparently asleep, dressed in a
+white woolen gown_. KIKI-THE-DEMURE _makes his toilet on a narrow
+console-table_. TOBY-DOG, _on the carpet, in a sphinx-like attitude,
+watches_ HER _and at the same time, is attentive to the words of his
+master, who is leaving the room on tip-toe._
+
+HE, (_in a very low voice to the two animals_)
+
+Sh! Don't wake her. Be good. I'm going downstairs, to write.
+
+(_He closes the door noiselessly after him_.)  TOBY-DOG, (_to_
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE)
+
+What did He say?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I don't know. Something vague. Directions, like: stay there, good-by.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+He said, "'Sh!" _I'm_ not making any noise.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_ironically_)
+
+They're astonishing! They say "no noise," and thereupon walk off with a
+step a deaf rat could hear two miles away.
+
+TOBY-DOG  Some truth in that. (_He looks at the sleeping figure on the
+couch_.) Her face still looks very small. She's asleep. If you jump down
+from that table don't land with a big thump.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_stiffly_)
+
+Ah, you're teaching me to jump now, are you? Oh, worthy counselor!
+(_quoting_) Put a beggar in your barn and he'll make himself your heir.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+What's that?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Nothing. An Oriental proverb. If I wished, dog, to disturb the silence
+of this room I'd be clever enough to choose a rickety chair; its feet
+would pound out a regular tic-toc, tic-toc, tic-toc, in time with my
+tongue as I washed myself. It's a means I've invented to gain my
+liberty. Tic-toc, tic-toc, says the chair. She happens to be reading or
+writing, is easily irritated, and cries, "Be quiet, Kiki!" But I go on
+unconscious of any wrong-doing; tic-toc, tic-toc. She jumps up
+distracted and opens the door wide for me: slowly, like one exiled, I
+cross its threshold and once outside, laugh to find myself so superior
+to them all.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_who hasn't been listening, yawns_)
+
+What a sad week, eh? I don't know what it is to take a walk any more. I
+haven't taken any pleasure in eating either, since She fell from her
+horse.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Heavens, one can love people and care for one's stomach too.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_with ardor_)
+
+Not I! When She screamed and fell from her horse, I felt the heart
+crack inside me.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+That affair couldn't have ended otherwise. One doesn't go climbing up on
+a horse! People don't do such things! I see nothing but extravagance
+around me. To begin with, a horse is a fearful monstrosity.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_indignantly_)
+
+Did one ever hear the like!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_peremptorily_)
+
+I happen to have had the opportunity of making a very close study of
+one....
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_aside_)
+
+He makes me laugh!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+... It was the farmer's horse that grazed in the meadow. My life, for a
+whole month, was embittered by that roving mountain. Lying under the
+hedge, I could see his heavy feet disfiguring the ground. I breathed
+his vulgar odor and heard his strident cry shaking the air. Once when he
+was eating the lower twigs of the hedge, I saw myself--the whole of
+me--reflected in one of his eyes! I fled ... and from that day my hatred
+was so strong that I wildly hoped to annihilate the monster. I'll go up
+to him, thought I, I'll plant myself firmly in front of him, and the
+desire of his death will be so strong in my eyes, that perhaps, he'll
+die when he meets my look ...
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_diverted_)
+
+And then?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_continuing_)
+
+I carried out my plan. But the horse I had waited for in fear and
+trembling, just blew through his nostrils a long jet of foul-smelling
+vapor, and _I_ fell back in atrocious convulsions.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_Inwardly writhing with laughter_)
+
+You don't exaggerate?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_serious_)
+
+Never! And She must needs go climbing on a horse's back, holding fast to
+four cords, one leg this side and the other that. ... Strange
+aberration!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+We don't think alike, Cat. For me, the horse is, after man, the most
+beautiful thing in the world.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_vexed_)  And where do I come in?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_evasive and courteous_)
+
+Oh, you're a _Cat_. But a horse, and with Her on his back! What a
+beautiful picture they make, high up in the blue air! To gaze on it, I
+have to throw my head 'way back on my thick neck. The horse lends her
+his speed. Now at last, She can race with me when I go off on a mad run.
+Sometimes I'm ahead, ears floating back and tongue hanging out like a
+little flag--the angular shadow of the horse on the road in front. If I
+follow her, a fragrant dust blows back at me. It smells of warm leather,
+moist beast, and a little of her own perfume too. The road runs under
+me, like a ribbon that someone is pulling. Oh, what joy it is to be so
+little and so swift, running along in the shadow of a great galloping
+horse! When we halt, I pant like a motor, between the legs of my friend,
+who snorts and in the kindliest way puts down his fettered mouth and
+sprinkles me ...
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I know, I know! The horse "with long mane ashake; hoofs, heavy with
+tumult; eyes, glimmering white." ...You are the last of the
+Romanticists.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I'm not the last of the Romanticists. I'm a little bull-dog that came
+into the world one evening, almost under the feet of a chestnut mare.
+She didn't lie down all night long, she was so afraid of crushing my
+mother and her puppies. A little bull-dog like me is almost the child of
+a horse. I lay in the warm straw against her warm flanks, I drank out of
+the stable pails. I used to get up when I heard the sound of hoofs
+coming in and I took an interest in the washing of the carriages, until
+the day She came and picked me out--_me_, the best-looking, the most
+snub-nosed, the stockiest of the litter. (_Sighing_.) And there She
+lies, so dreadfully quiet! It makes me sad to see her with that little
+cloth still 'round her ankle. You remember when He picked her up in his
+arms? He held her--and She's a lot bigger than I am--just as if She were
+a little dog that he was going to drown....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_bitterly_)
+
+I remember. I was at the top of the stairs irritated by the noise, but
+curious. He came up and pushed me aside with his foot, as he would have
+done if a piece of furniture had happened to be in his way.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Is that why you stayed away from this room--her room--for three whole
+days?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_hesitating_)
+
+Yes ... and for another reason too.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+What reason?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Because of the fever.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_carried away by his love_)
+
+Her fever smells better than other peoples' good health!
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_shrugging his shoulders_)
+
+And they talk of a dog's scent! Truly the convictions of Two-Paws are
+based upon childish fables. You know of course that fever--
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_in a low tone_)
+
+Makes one afraid, yes.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_in a low tone_)
+
+Makes one afraid, gives one cold shivers down one's back, distaste for
+everything and uneasiness all over. One hesitates on the threshold of a
+room where there is fever, searching fearfully some hidden thing.... She
+was in bed and burning hot. I looked at her a long time, ready to run,
+saying to myself: "Who can be with her there--behind the curtains--who
+is it stifles and torments her and makes her moan in her sleep?"
+TOBY-DOG, (_frightened retrospectively_)
+
+There wasn't anyone, was there?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+No one but He--and the fever. He, the most intelligent of Two-Paws, was
+leaning over her listening to her breathing, dimly aware of an invisible
+presence. I overcame my aversion and looked at her. I was melancholy and
+jealous. He must love her, thought I, to go so near and defend her, to
+kiss her, imbued as She is with the evil charm. Would He hold me to his
+heart, if I--
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_imperatively_)
+
+'Sh!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+What?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+She stirred.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+No.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_alert, looking at her_)
+
+No ... She didn't stir, but her thoughts did. I felt them. Continue.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_who has recovered his equanimity_)
+
+I don't know now what we were talking about.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+The fev--
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_quickly_)
+
+Enough. Don't recall it. Fever is the beginning of the thing one never
+speaks of.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_shivering_)
+
+Yes, I know.... I don't like an animal that can't move. You know what I
+mean ...
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_laughing cruelly_)
+
+Nor do I. I can only eat live birds, and as for the tiny mice, I prefer
+to swallow them, squeak and all....
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Why does it amuse you to horrify me? You've a certain vanity that I
+can't understand. It consists in exaggerating cruelties that are already
+real enough. You call me the last of the Romanticists, aren't you the
+first of the Sadics?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Oh dog, poisoned with literature! An eternal misunderstanding separates
+us. "I'm a little bull-dog," you replied just now, with that stupid
+sincerity which disarms me. Let me say to you in my turn, "I am a Cat."
+The name is sufficient dispensation. There is in me a hatred of pain and
+ugliness, an overmastering detestation of all that offends my sight, or
+my reason. When the concierge's cat dragged around his wounded paw, I
+threw myself upon him, fired by a righteous anger, and until he stopped
+his whining I--
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_supplicatingly_)
+
+Don't tell me!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_getting angry_)  Understand then, once and for
+all--if the pale recital of what I did upsets you--that I wished to
+abolish, to annihilate in that bleeding animal the suggestion of my own
+inevitable death ...
+
+(_They are quiet for a little while_.)
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_shuddering_)
+
+This confinement does us no good. I would gladly go out into the soft
+sunshine and do "the bayadeer's dance," as He calls it, on the dry
+gravel among the leaves, which look like fried potatoes. Everything is
+yellow out-of-doors. My green eyes would reflect the golden sun and the
+flaming woods and so turn yellow too.... Now I'll think only of what is
+joyous and yellow, the beautiful, cold Autumn, the rosy dawn that leaves
+its colors in the foliage of the cherry-tree ... Come, let's prove the
+strength of our legs and enjoy to the full the consciousness that youth
+has only just begun for us ... Who knows, death may never come ...
+
+(_He jumps down from the console-table, without making the least
+noise_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_stopping him_)
+
+What are you going to do?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Scratch at the door, and strike up the "Hymn of the Sequestered Cat."
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_indicating the figure on the couch_)
+
+And doubtless waken Her?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_stubbornly_)
+
+I'll sing in a very small voice.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+And you'll scratch with your tiniest claws, I suppose? Stay here
+quietly, He commanded it when He went away.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_loftily_)
+
+Does He command me? He beseeches me, and that's my only reason for
+obeying him.
+
+(_He sits down again, apparently resigned, and yawns slowly_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_yawning_)
+
+You make me yawn.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+On the contrary, it's you who bore me. (_Temptingly_.) You're thinking
+what a good thing freedom is, aren't you?... A hen has probably escaped
+from the chicken yard--what sport you're missing!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+You really think so?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I said: probably.... Have you finished exploring that rabbit's hole?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_disturbed_)
+
+No ... it's so very deep! I almost buried myself, hollowing it out
+yesterday. The earth that stuck to my muzzle had some of the animal's
+fur in it....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_more and more satanic_)
+
+I suppose you'll finish that to-morrow ... or some other day. TOBY-DOG,
+(_sadly_)
+
+Why not say next year, while you're about it?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+What's the matter with you? Your shiny black lip hangs down an ell, and
+your froggy eyes glitter with tears. Are you crying?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_sniffling_)
+
+No ...
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Poor, sensitive heart, console yourself. You'll have your pleasures and
+your friends again. At this very moment the farmer's dog is crunching
+bones in the kitchen ... to beguile the long wait for you.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_overcome_)
+
+Oh! oh! the farmer's dog!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+She's not alone either; that great dane, the watch-dog, keeps her
+company.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_rebellious_)
+
+That's not true!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Go see.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_after one bound toward the door_)  No, that would make
+noise.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+You're right, it would.
+
+(_A mournful silence follows_. TOBY _curls himself up like a turban and
+closes his eyes, because he feels like crying. His breath comes in
+little sobs_.)
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_absently, in a low, monotonous chant_.)
+
+The dog ... the little dog ... the bones, the little dog ... the rabbit
+... the great dane, the rabbit's hole ...the little dog, the mutton
+bones ...the rabbit's skin ...
+
+TOBY-DOG, _at first endures the torture heroically; then his nerves
+betray him and lifting his head he howls--the long plaint of the
+abandoned dog_.
+
+Wooo--oo--oooooo!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_from the top of the console-table_)
+
+Will you be quiet!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Wooooooooo!!--oo--oooo--oo!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_aside_)
+
+That's it! That's it!
+
+(SHE _wakes bewildered, still captive of her dreams, while the Cat
+listens patiently to the approaching step on the stairs, which means
+liberty for him and punishment for_ TOBY-DOG.)
+
+
+
+THE FIRST FIRE
+
+
+_Because it is raining and an October wind chases wet leaves through the
+air, She has lit the first fire of the season in the great
+chimney-place_. KIKI-THE-DEMURE _and_ TOBY-DOG, _in ecstasy, side by
+side on a corner of the warm hearth-stone, contemplate the flame with
+dazzled eyes and address their meditations to it_.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_looking very like a cushion; no paws visible_)
+
+Oh Fire, how splendid you are! You have come back more beautiful than my
+memory of you! You are hotter and nearer than the sun! The pupils of my
+eyes contract in your light, their lids half close, modestly hiding the
+joy I feel at seeing you again, and my inscrutable countenance shows but
+the semblance of a thought painted there in fawn color and black....
+Your crackling drowns the soft sound of my purr. Don't snap too much. Be
+merciful, O inconstant Fire! Don't sputter sparks on my fur. Allow me to
+adore you without fear ...
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_half baked; eyes blood-shot; tongue pendant_)
+
+Fire! Divine Fire! Here you are again! I am still very young, but I
+remember how awe-struck I was the first time Her hand woke you in this
+same chimney-place. The sight of a god as mysterious as you are was most
+impressive to a baby-dog just out of the maternal stable. Oh Fire, I've
+not quite gotten over my fear! Hiii!... You spit at me, something red
+that smarts ... I'm afraid ... Well, it's gone now. How beautiful you
+are, Fire! Out from your ruddy center shoot tatters and shreds of gold,
+sudden spurts of blue, and smoke that twists upwards and draws queer
+shapes of beasts ... Oh, but I'm hot! Gently, gently, sovereign Fire,
+see how my truffle of a nose is drying up and cracking, and my ears--are
+they not ablaze? I adjure thee with suppliant paw. I groan ... ah ... I
+can endure it no longer!... (_He turns away_.) Nothing is ever perfect.
+The east wind coming under the door nips my hind-legs. Well, it can't be
+helped! I'll freeze behind if I must, provided I can adore you face to
+face.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I am a Cat and therefore aware of all that you bring in your train, O
+Fire! I foresee winter; its coming both troubles and pleases me. I've
+already begun to thicken and embellish my fur-coat in its honor, the
+darker stripes are becoming black, my white tippet swells into a
+dazzling boa, and the fur on my belly surpasses in beauty anything that
+has ever been seen. What shall I say of my tail, broad as a club, with
+alternate rings of fawn-color and black, or of the sensitive, priceless
+aigrettes which spring from my ears? My ear-rings She calls them....
+What cat could resist me! Ah! the January nights, the serenades under a
+frosty moon, the dignified wait on the pinnacle of a roof, the encounter
+with a rival cat on the narrow top of a wall!... But I feel quite sure
+of my superior strength. I'll swish my tail, put back my ears, sniff
+tragically as one does before vomiting, and then lift up my voice--its
+modulations are infinite. I'll make it strong enough to waken all the
+sleeping Two-Paws. I'll vociferate, I'll whimper, pacing up and down the
+garden, my body distended, my legs bent outward, feigning madness to
+terrify the tom-cats!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I know something of the changes and pleasures you foretell, Fire--for
+I'm a Dog. Already, it is raining in the garden. I suppose it's raining
+on the road too, and in the woods. The falling drops are not warm, as
+they were in the summer storms when my truffle, gray with dust,
+delighted in the damp smell that came from the west. The sky is troubled
+and the wind has grown strong enough to blow my ears out straight, like
+little flags. A sharp cry, such as I make when I beg, comes under the
+door. You'll be shining here every day, Fire; but I'll have to suffer
+for the right to worship you. For She'll continue to wander about, her
+head covered with the pointed hood which changes her so, that it
+frightens me. She'll put on wooden shoes too, and carelessly crush the
+puddles, the little heaps of mud, and the weeping mosses. I'll follow
+her, since I've promised to do so my life long (and also because I
+can't help it), I'll follow her, a forlorn and piteous object, shining
+wet, my belly covered with mud, until, through very excess of misery
+I'll forget, and ramble in the coppice, interested in every undulation
+of the grass, eager to revive the drowned scents in it.... She'll become
+communicative when she sees me hurrying along and we'll talk: "Ha,
+Toby-Dog," she'll say, "ha! ha! a bird! There on the branch! Look! you
+booby! Now he's gone." She'll condole with me then, until I'm on the
+verge of tears. "Oh, my little black boy, my sympathetic cylinder, my
+batrachian love, how cold you are, how wet, how sad, how you suffer,
+oooo!" And before I'm able to judge of the sincerity of her pity, the
+tears will overflow, my throat contract, and we'll wail in unison....
+
+Ah, but what delirious joy when the capricious wooden shoes turn again
+toward the house, hurrying to rejoin Him whom we've left scratching
+paper! They don't go half fast enough for me then! I jump 'round her,
+barking with delight to see the hill diminishing, our climb at an end,
+to smell the good stable smell and that of burning wood as we near the
+house. At last you shine forth, O Fire, O Sun, through the misty window
+pane!... I shall hardly have crossed the threshold when an overpowering
+sleepiness will dash me to the floor in front of you--you, who will
+reduce the mud on my belly to fine powder and change the water of the
+roads to smoky vapor.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE  A delightful glow penetrates my coat to the silky
+down, the impalpable colorless threads which protect my delicate skin. I
+feel myself swelling like a cloud. I must quite fill the room. My
+whiskers seem charged with electricity--a sign that I will sleep--but
+for the time being, the contemplation of your splendor and thoughts of
+the coming season keep me awake. It's raining. I shall not go out. I'll
+wait for the sun, or the dry wind, or better still, the frost. Ah, how
+the biting cold stimulates me! It lashes my lungs with handfuls of
+needles, and makes a _bonbon glace_ of my charming nose. The rollicking
+frost-sprite will blow his madness into me. She'll laugh and He too,
+leaving his scratching-paper, to see me vie with the leaves in bounds,
+leaps and wild whirlings, resembling a floating flurry of gray smoke
+rather than a Cat. To the top of a tree! Down again! Then seven turns
+after my tail! A perilous backward leap! A vertical jump, with aerial
+_danse du ventre_! Girations, sneezes, careering from the real to the
+dream, until in terror of myself, I come to a sudden stop.... Everything
+turns before my eyes. I'm the center of a strange, spinning world ... In
+my bewilderment (half-feigned) I'll make a little moo, like a cow, which
+will bring them both running to me,--She laughing, and He fearing
+something wrong. That will suffice to sober me, and with a bold front
+and noble mien, I'll regain this cushion near your altar, O Fire!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+This hearth-stone burns the horny pads of my feet. What shall I do?
+Move away? never! I'll toast to death rather than give up this
+redoubtable bliss. Heaven prevent Her coming, now! I've reason to fear
+the lash of the whip, and the magic words which mean exile: "Toby!
+that's stupid! I forbid you to roast yourself. You'll have sore eyes,
+and catch cold when you go out." That's what She says, while I regard
+her with a stupid look of utter devotion. But She's never duped by it. I
+hear noises upstairs, her step coming and going ... I wonder is her
+vagabond fancy wearied at last? This morning She whistled to me and in
+my haste to obey her, I rolled to the bottom of the stairs--being low
+and thick-set, with short legs, no nose, and almost no tail to balance
+me. Well, we set off. The last apples were rocking to-and-fro on swaying
+branches. My happy voice, a joyful shout from her now and then, the vain
+crowing of the cocks, the creaking of wagons on the road--all these
+sounds floated on a bluish, cottony, suffocating fog. She took me far,
+and many marvelous things happened on our way. We met terrible giant
+dogs. My proud bearing seemed to exasperate them, but I kept them back
+with a single look (besides, a closed iron gate rendered them
+powerless). I chased a rabbit into the thicket, though She cried loudly:
+"I forbid you to touch the little animal!" ... My mother certainly gave
+me swift legs but they're short, and the white end of the little beast
+kept far ahead. A bush covered with red berries detained us a very long
+time. She sees no objection to eating strange things and I can
+truthfully say that I always taste everything She offers me, for I've
+great faith in her. But this morning--"Eat, Toby, nice berries. Eat!
+here are some rose-hips. Oh stupid! how can you not dote upon their
+delicious flavor? I assure you these are comfits of Mother Nature's
+making." In deference to her, I chewed a reddish ball; there were some
+rough hairs on it--put there doubtless by her teasing hand--and what was
+bound to happen, did happen ... Khaha! My throat rejected the nasty
+"rosehip." ...
+
+But listen, Fire, what I saw after that, passes _my_ understanding. It
+was in a wood where stiff leaves rustled. Had She carried you under her
+cloak, or do gods like you come at her bidding? I saw her hands pile up
+the wood, arrange flat stones in some mysterious fashion, and then,
+Fire, I saw the sparks flash and your joyous soul palpitate, grow big,
+soar naked and rose-colored, veil itself in smoke, snap noisily (for
+yours is a belligerent soul), agonize--and disappear.... The world is
+full of incomprehensible things.... Last of all, on our way back, I
+discovered near the park gate--saw it before She did--one of those
+invincible beasts called hedge-hogs, the mere sight of which brings us
+dogs to bay. What madness to realize that an animal is hiding under that
+pin-cushion and laughing at me, and that I can do nothing, _nothing_! I
+implored her--She can do nearly everything--to pluck him for me. She
+began by turning him over with a little stick, as if he were a horse
+chestnut. "Astonishing," said She, "I can't find the top of him!" Then
+She took one of his spines between two fingers and carried him home that
+way--I dancing behind her--and put him in her work basket. After a while
+the horrid beast unrolled himself, stuck out a pig-like nose, opened two
+shiny rat's eyes and raised himself, holding fast by his little paws,
+which were exactly like a mole's. "How pretty he is," She cried, "a real
+little black pig." I stood near the table groaning with covetousness,
+but She didn't pluck him for me, not then, or ever, and perhaps the cook
+ate him.... This cat's a dissembler. Maybe _he_ ... But away with care!
+I'm too excitable! I mustn't let myself think of these things. Life is
+beautiful, O Fire, since you illumine it ... I'm going to sleep ...
+Watch over my unconscious body ... I'm going ... to sleep....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+One would think me asleep because the narrow slit made by my parted
+eyelids, seems but the continuation of that velvety line, that bold
+crayon-stroke, a sort of Oriental make-up, uniting my eyelids and my
+ears. But I'm awake, keeping watch like a yogi, in a state of blissful
+ankylosis, conscious of all that's going on around me.... My privileged
+eyes, Fire, do but behold you better when they're closed and I can count
+the various essences you mingle in a sparkling bouquet. Here in a flame
+of mauve-color and blue, glows the soul of a branch of arbor-vitae.
+Yesterday it waved a plume-like shadow on the garden walk ... To-day,
+with its delicate twigs, it is but a writhing skeleton. She cut it with
+one stroke of the pruning scissors. Why? That it might breathe out its
+fervent blue and mauve-colored soul? For like me, She delights in your
+dance, Fire, and chastises you when you're quiet, with a stern pair of
+tongs. Sitting there with her head bent and her arms hanging along her
+sides, what does She read, I wonder, in that fiery rose which is the
+labyrinthian heart of you?... She knows a great deal certainly, but not
+as much as a Cat.
+
+That thick tear on the log represents the anguish of a very old
+fir-tree, killed by the assiduous ivy. Just a short time ago I saw it
+struck down, lying on the grass, its foliage looking like a beautiful
+head of reddish hair. I saw the axe that felled it, too. Its trunk weeps
+tears of resin, which trail along in drivel, then change to heavy,
+creeping flame. But the dry red locks break into lines of living fire,
+whistle and shoot innumerable jets of many colors underneath a broad
+gold wave that rolls voluptuously....
+
+Ah, love ... hunting ... fighting.... It's your light, Fire, that
+discovers these passions in the depths of my being. It's time the little
+winged creatures searching withered berries came near. I'll have them
+soon! I'll watch, motionless in the brushwood, wildly wishing that the
+earth itself might hide me, the muscles of my legs twitching with desire
+to make the spring, my chin trembling.... Then, if I don't betray my
+hiding-place by an irrepressible quavering, frightening them away in one
+great commotion of wings and rustling branches!... But no, I'm master of
+myself. One bound at exactly the right moment and my feeble prey is
+panting under me. Oh, the ridiculous effort of a weak animal--its tiny
+ineffectual claws and pointed wings beating against my face! My jaws
+will open to the splitting point and my perfect nose wrinkle
+ferociously, for the joy of holding a living, terrified body. I'll know
+the intoxication of battle! I'll prance victoriously, shaking my head to
+torment the bird a little, for it faints away too soon between my teeth!
+Terrible to see I'll gallop towards the house, singing in a strangled
+voice, without loosening my grip, for He must stop his scratching to
+admire me, and She must give chase with distracted cries: "Wicked,
+savage cat! Drop that bird! drop that bird!! Oh, I beg of you! It hurts
+me so...." Ha! She never can have hunted....
+
+I intend to astonish the world, Fire, during Winter's reign. The Cat
+that lives at the farm (She says the farmer's cat, while we say the
+Cat's farmer), the fellow that's so badly dressed, disfigured by the
+nose of a weasel, and seems to walk on stilts, his legs are so
+long--well, he sharpens his claws and regards me the while. Patience!
+He's strong, brutal, irresolute, and utterly lacks distinction. The
+slamming of a door terrifies him; he puts back his ears and flies,
+panic-stricken. Still, I've seen him kill a good-sized hen, without
+making any fuss about it. For a glance of the young cat's deceitful
+eyes, or right of precedence on the garden wall, for a word of double
+meaning, for nothing, but the fun of the thing--I'll take my chances
+with him! He'll learn that a mysterious silence can demoralize the enemy
+quite as effectively as murderous cries. The low garden wall seems to me
+a convenient place. Let him try his hoarse miauling in all possible
+keys! May his unsightly face, and more hideous body dislocate itself in
+a deceitful ataxia (for they're still at these old tricks)! I'll be
+proof against it all, and merely flash the green magnetism of my
+magnificent eyes upon him. His brows will fall under their persistent
+insult, a shudder will run along his spine, he'll do a few steps of our
+ancient war dance--forward, back, forward again. But I'll
+stand--motionless as the statue of a Cat. The green witchcraft of my
+gaze will strike terror and madness into my rival and soon I'll see him
+writhe, utter false cries, and, as a last resource, try to balance
+himself on the nape of his neck, like a forked pear tree, only to roll
+over shamefully into the potato field....
+
+All that will come to pass, Fire, exactly as I've told it. To-day the
+future dawns in your new flame.... I'm growing drowsy.... My purr and
+your crackling are ceasing together.... I see you still and already I
+catch glimpses of my dreams.... The silky sound of the rain against the
+window is soft as a caress, and the water-pipe on the roof sobs low like
+a pigeon....
+
+Don't go out during my nap, Fire. Remember, you're the guardian of my
+august repose--that delicate death, known as a Cat's sleep....
+
+
+
+THE STORM
+
+
+_A suffocating summer's day in the country. The blinds of the house are
+half closed. Not a sound is heard from within; not a murmur from the
+parched garden, where even the sensitive leaves of the mimosa hang
+motionless_.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE _and_ TOBY-DOG _begin to feel uncomfortably conscious of
+the coming storm, which is yet but a slate-blue plinth thickly painted
+at the bottom of the dull blue sky-wall._
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_restlessly lying first on one side, then on the other_) No
+use! I can't be comfortable. What does this heat mean anyway? I must be
+sick. It began at breakfast; I didn't like the meat and sniffed
+disdainfully at my dog-biscuit. Something awful is going to happen. I
+haven't done anything wrong that I know of--my conscience is clear--and
+yet, I'm suffering. There lies my chum, shivering and unable to sleep. I
+know by his quick breathing that he feels just as I do.... I say, Cat?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_irritably, in a low tone_)
+
+Be quiet!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+What? You're listening to some noise?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+No! _Heavens_, no! Don't mention noise. The mere sound of your voice
+makes the skin on my back go in waves like the sea. TOBY-DOG,
+(_frightened_)
+
+Are you going to die?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I hope not. I've a sick headache. Can't you see the arteries throbbing
+under the almost hairless skin of my temples--the transparent, bluish
+skin that denotes a thoroughbred? It's atrocious! The veins on my
+forehead are like writhing vipers, and I don't know _what_ gnome forges
+in my brain! Oh, be quiet! Or at least speak so low that the coursing
+of my agitated blood may drown the sound of your voice....
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+But it's this very silence that oppresses me. I tremble and don't know
+why. I long for the familiar voice of the wind in the chimney, the
+slamming of doors, the whispering of the garden, the poplars' ceaseless
+rustle--it always sounds like a trickling spring--
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+The uproar will come, soon enough.
+
+TOBY-DOG  Do you think so? I wish He'd scratch paper. It's an idle
+habit but an honored one. And see how listless She is, there in her
+wicker chair. Their silence frightens me more than anything. She seems
+asleep, but I can see her eyelashes move and the tips of her fingers,
+too. She's forgetting to play with the little balls of thread and
+doesn't sing, or whistle. She suffers just as we do.... Do you think
+this can be the end of the world, Cat?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+No. It's a storm. Heavens! how uncomfortable I am! If I could only get
+out of my skin, cast off this fleece which is smothering me, fling
+myself naked as a skinned mouse into a fresher atmosphere! Oh Dog, you
+cannot see the sparks that make every separate hair on my body crackle,
+but I feel them. Don't come near! A blue flame is going to shoot out of
+me....
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_shuddering_)
+
+Things are coming to an awful pass! (_He drags himself to the porch_.)
+_What_ have they done to the out-of-doors? Look! the trees are all blue
+and the grass glistens like a sheet of water. What mournful sunlight! It
+shines white on the slate roofs, and the little houses over there on the
+hill look like brand new tombstones. A heavy odor, like bitter almond,
+creeps from the white bell-shaped blossoms of the daturas, and makes me
+feel sick and faint. Far away, some smoke, heavy as the perfume of the
+daturas, goes slowly up in a straight line and falls again--like a
+broken aigrette.... But come and see for yourself!
+
+(KIKI-THE-DEMURE _walks falteringly to the porch_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+My word, _you're_ changed too, Cat! You look as if you were starving,
+your face is so drawn. Your fur is plastered down in some places and
+sticking up in others; gives you the expression of a weasel that had
+tumbled into oil.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Don't let that worry you! I'll regain my dignity--if ever another day
+dawns for us. To-day, I drag myself around unwashed, uncombed, like a
+woman out of love with love, and life....
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+You say such distressing things. I think I'll whine and call for help.
+Perhaps I'd better go to Her, and look in her face for the comfort you
+refuse me. But She seems asleep now, in that wicker chair, and how can I
+read my fate in her eyes, when their lids are down. I'll lick her hand
+very respectfully and ever so lightly! That will wake her and oh, may
+her first caress drive away the evil charm!
+
+(_He licks the hand hanging at the side of the chair_.)
+
+SHE, (_with a scream_)  Heavens! how you frightened me! Was there ever
+such a ninny as this Dog? There!...
+
+(SHE _administers a smart rap on the nose_. TOBY'S _nerves give way and
+he howls loud and long_.)
+
+SHE
+
+Quiet! Not a word I say! Out of my sight! I don't know what's the
+matter, but I hate you! And that Cat sitting there, looking at me, like
+a bump on a log!...
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_bristling_)
+
+If She dares to touch me, I'll devour her!
+
+(_Just at this dangerous crisis a low rumbling is heard, distant and
+then near. Impossible to tell whether it comes from the horizon, or
+arises in the house itself. All three lose interest in the quarrel_.
+
+TOBY-DOG _and_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE _slink away, as if responding to a
+signal, and seek shelter, one under the bookcase and the other under an
+armchair_. SHE _turns anxiously to the leaden-hued garden, and the great
+violet bank of cloud, which of a sudden is riven by a blinding streak of
+blue fire_.)
+
+SHE, TOBY-DOG, KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_all together_)
+
+Oh!
+
+(_A sudden crash shakes the windows, and instantly a great rush of wind
+envelopes the house, with a noise as of flapping canvas:--all the garden
+prostrates itself_.)
+
+SHE, (_in anguish_)
+
+Heavens! the apples!
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_invisible_)
+
+I'll let them cut my ears into strips rather than leave this
+hiding-place!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_invisible_)
+
+I can't help hearing, and it's as if I saw everything that's going on.
+She hastens to close the windows. Someone is running on the stairs. Aie!
+Another awful flame--and everything is falling in! Silence now.... I
+wonder are they all dead? I'll look through the fringes of the chair,
+though it's risking my life to do so. Ah, hailstones making holes in
+the leaves! Here comes the rain, in silvery drops, wide apart, and so
+heavy that the gravel wrinkles up when they fall.
+
+SHE, (_heart-broken_)
+
+I can hear the peaches falling, and the green nuts too!
+
+(_All three are silent. Rain; quivering streaks of lightning; hissing in
+the pine-trees. The wind howls. A lull_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I'm not quite so afraid as I was. The sound of the rain relaxes my tired
+nerves. I seem to feel its streaming warmth on my ears and the back of
+my neck. Now the hubbub is further off! I can hear myself breathe. The
+light coming under this bookcase, is brighter than it was. What is She
+doing? I daren't go out yet. If only the Cat would move! (_He sticks
+out his head, like a wary turtle. A flash of lightning makes him draw it
+back again_.) Ha! It's beginning all over again. Rain by the bucketfuls
+against the window-panes. Something in the chimney is trying to imitate
+that far-away rumbling. Everything's falling to pieces ... and _She_
+gave me a rap on the nose!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Drop by drop, a little brownish river is filtering under the loose
+window-sash. It's stretching out and out on the floor, winding its way
+over to me. I'm so hot and thirsty, I'd like to lap up some of it. My
+joints ache and my ears are tired of standing up like weather-cocks at
+every crash. My jaws are still clenched with nervous fear. The seat of
+this chair is too low; it annoys me, rubbing against the fur on my back.
+However, it's some comfort to be able to _think_ of such things--thanks
+to the peace that's descended on the house. The rain is falling quietly
+and the wind has gone down, but the memory of the din still hums in my
+ears. What can He be doing? The storm distresses him too. Why didn't He
+come forward to calm the raging elements? There She is, opening the
+porch door. Isn't it too soon?... No, for the hens are cackling like old
+maids as they hop over the puddles. We're going to have fine weather.
+Oh, the adorable smell of wet leaves and earth refreshed! It's so new,
+so pure, I seem to breathe for the first time!
+
+(_He creeps stealthily to the porch_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_suddenly_)
+
+Um! How good! That smells like a walk! Things change so quickly one
+hasn't time to think. She's opened the door? Let's run! (_He dashes
+out_.) Well! well! the garden has got back its own color again! A
+warmish vapor moistens my rough-grained nose. I'm filled with the desire
+to jump and run. The grass is reeking, shining wet. Horned snails are
+feeling around in the pink gravel with the tips of their eyes, and
+speckled black and white slugs embroider the wall with a silver ribbon.
+Oh! what a beautiful green and gold beastie running out there in the
+wet! Shall I catch it? Shall I scratch its metallic shell, until it
+breaks with a little crackling sound? No. I'd rather stay near Her.
+She's leaning against the door, taking deep breaths and smiling quietly
+to herself. I'm _so_ happy! Something inside me feels grateful to the
+whole world. The light is beautiful, and I'm quite sure that there'll
+never, never be another storm.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+I shan't wait any longer; I'm going out. I'll find dry places between
+the puddles for my dainty paws to step on. An imperceptible thrill runs
+through the streaming garden, making the jewels hung all about, tremble
+and sparkle.... The slanting rays of the setting sun find their
+reflection in my eyes which are spangled with green and gold. Down near
+the horizon, where the sky is still unsettled, a glittering sword leaps
+up and puts to flight the dark, fuming cloud-horses, that have been
+galloping over our heads. Now the odor of the daturas rises and perfumes
+all the air, mingled with that of lemon leaves, bruised by the hail.
+The roses are crowned with midges. Oh sudden springtime! An involuntary
+smile stretches the corners of my mouth. I'm going to play at tickling
+my nostrils with the point of a sweet-smelling blade of grass, carefully
+stretching my neck to avoid the falling drops. But I want Him to follow
+and admire me. Will He not come out and enjoy himself with us?
+
+(_A voice is heard humming the motif of the_ Regensbogen: _sol, si, re,
+sol, la, si,--all flats. A door opens and closes again_. HE _appears
+under the dripping foliage of vines and jasmine, framing the veranda,
+and at the same moment, a rainbow is seen in the sky_.)
+
+
+
+
+A CALLER
+
+
+(_A winter's afternoon, in Paris. The studio; a fire crackles gently in
+the tower-shaped stove_. TOBY-DOG _and_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE, _one on the
+floor, the other on his own particular cushion, proceed with the minute
+toilet which follows a long siesta. Peace reigns_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+My nails grow faster here than in the country.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+It's the contrary, with mine.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Really!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_bitterly_)
+
+Not to be wondered at! She clips them for the sake of the hangings ...
+Well! (_Magniloquently_), what can't be cured must be endured.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+What are you going to do to-day?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Why ... nothing.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_ironically_)
+
+For a change I suppose.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE Pardon, to _avoid_ change. What is this rage for change
+that takes possession of you all? Change means destruction. Only that
+which remains stationary is eternal.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I'm eternal then, these three hours past.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+But you've been out with Her, haven't you? You came in like a whirlwind;
+bells rang, clothes were shaken out, you were sneezing and laughing and
+aureoled with icy air.... The end of her nose felt so cold when She
+kissed me on the forehead. She always kisses me there, just over the
+dark stripes forming the classic M, which She assures me stands for
+miaou and for Minet, my name in French.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Yes ... we had a fine run on the banks of the fortifications, and then
+we went into a shop.
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+Is that amusing?
+
+TOBY-DOG  Not often. There are a great many people crowded together.
+I'm immediately seized with the fear of losing Her, and I stick close to
+her heels, no matter what comes. Strange feet push and knock me about
+and step on my paws. I yelp but the skirts all around stifle my
+voice.... When we're out of it, we both look as if we'd been
+shipwrecked....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+May the gods preserve _me_ from anything of the sort! Here, the moments
+have glided peacefully by. When She's not in this house, there's
+nothing to hinder me; I employ the time as my system of hygiene
+dictates. After my breakfast of rosy liver and milk, my kittenhood seems
+to come back to me; I'm filled with a foolish gayety. I go over to him.
+He's rumpling big, blackish papers and welcomes me with a quiet smile;
+we loll on the same divan, and revel in a few idle moments together.
+Sometimes, with imperious paw, I tear the paper He holds like a screen
+between us. It always seems to me the most desirable--the one that
+crackles best. He cries out, and I throw myself on my back and wriggle
+with joy in a sort of horizontal dance, He calls "the dance of the
+bayadeer." Then somehow, everything dwindles before my eyes, grows dim,
+and far away; I want to rise and go back to my cushion, but dreams
+already separate me from the world ... Ah! blessed hour when you and She
+disappear, when the house is at rest and takes a long breath. Soon I'm
+in the depths of a dark, sweet sleep; my ears alone keep watch and turn
+like sensitive antennas towards vague sounds of doors and bells ...
+
+(_At this moment someone rings_. TOBY-DOG _and_ KIKI-THE-DEMURE _start
+and change their positions. The Cat, sitting, encircles himself with his
+fluffy tail. The Dog, in a sphinx-like attitude, lifts his head
+boldly_.)
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE
+
+What's that?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+A tradesman?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_shrugging his shoulders_)
+
+That's not the kitchen bell. Perhaps it's caller.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_with a bound_)
+
+What luck! They'll have tea and cakes! Come on!! Sugar, sugar! Little
+cakes! Little cakes!!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_gloomily_)
+
+To see ladies who shriek, and put gloved hands on my back--hands covered
+with dead skin?... ugh!
+
+(_Feminine voices are heard--Hers among them--and the clear tinkling of
+a little bell; then the door opens and a very diminutive toy terrier
+enters, alone. She's black and tan, seems in love with herself, and
+comes forward with a mincing step_.)
+
+THE LITTLE DOG, (_voice way up in her head_)
+
+I'm the darling little dog, so pretty!
+
+(TOBY _is struck dumb with admiration and astonishment_. KIKI,
+_indignant, has jumped on top of the piano and remains an unseen and
+hostile spectator_.)
+
+THE LITTLE DOG, (_astonished at not hearing the chorus of admiration
+that everywhere greets her, is reciting_--)
+
+I'm the darling little dog, so pretty! I weigh only one pound, eleven
+ounces, my collar is of gold, my ears of black satin, lined with shiny
+rubber, my nails are polished like the beaks of little birds. (_Catching
+sight of_ TOBY-DOG.) Oh!--someone--(_silence_). He's rather
+good-looking.
+
+(_They ogle and strut_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+How tiny she is!
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+Sir--don't come near me.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Why not?
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+I don't know. My mistress knows. She's not here. She stayed in the other
+room.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+How old are you?
+
+THE LITTLE DOG  Eleven months, (_reciting_) I'm eleven months old. At
+the dog show, my mother took first prize for beauty. I weigh only one
+pound eleven ounces and--
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+You've said that already. What makes you so little?
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_from the piano_)
+
+She's ugly, and has an evil odor. Her paws are deformed, she can't stand
+still an instant, and this dog takes pains to make himself fascinating!
+
+THE LITTLE DOG, (_very coquettish and talkative_) It's my lineage, of
+course. One can hold me in a muff. You've seen my new collar? It's
+gold....
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+And what's that hanging from it?
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+My mother's medal, Sir. I always wear it. I come from the _Palais de
+Glace_, where I made quite a hit. Imagine! I wanted to bite a gentleman
+who was speaking to my mistress. _How_ they laughed!
+
+(_She wriggles and chirps_.)
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_aside_)
+
+What an odd creature! Is she _really_ a dog? (_Sniffs_.) Yes ... smells
+of rice powder, but it's a dog just the same. (_Aloud_.) Sit down a
+moment, it makes me quite dizzy to see you moving about so.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+Certainly. (_She lies down, like a miniature greyhound, crossing her
+fore-paws to show the slimness of her toes_.) You were here all alone?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_looking toward the piano_)
+
+Yes, no other dog. Why?
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+There's a strange odor.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+The Cat, doubtless.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+The Cat? What's a Cat? I've never seen one. Do they leave you in the
+room all alone?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+It happens so now and then.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+And you don't bark? _I_ cry as soon as I'm left alone. I'm bored,
+afraid, feel sick, and chew up the cushions.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+And then you're whipped.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG, (_insulted_)
+
+I'm--what did you say? You're losing your senses, I imagine. (_Suddenly
+amiable again_.) That would be a pity. You have lovely eyes.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Haven't I? They show well, don't they? They're large, and then they
+stick out. She says I have eyes like a lobster's, and sometimes She says
+"his beautiful seal's eyes, his frog-like eyes of gold."
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+Who's She?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_simple_)
+
+She.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+I don't understand all you say, but I find you so _very_ sympathetic!
+What are you doing this evening?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Why ... I dine.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+Naturally! I wanted to know whether they receive here this evening, or
+do _you_ go out?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+No, I've been out already.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+Driving?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Walking--of course.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+Why, of course? I hardly stir except in a carriage. Show me the
+underside of your paws. Horrors! One would say 'twas the stone they
+sharpen knives on! Look at mine. Satin on top, velvet underneath.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I'd like to see you in the country, on the cobble-stones.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+I've been there, Sir. I was in the country last summer and there weren't
+any cobble-stones.
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Then it wasn't the country. You don't know what country means.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG, (_vexed_)
+
+Indeed I do, Sir! It's fine sand, and velvety lawns that are swept every
+morning; it's a reclining chair on the grass, great, fresh cushions of
+cretonne, foamy milk, naps in the shade, and charming little red apples
+to play with.
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_shaking his head_)
+
+No. It's the road covered with white powder that makes the eyelids smart
+and the paws burn, the tough, shriveled, sweet-smelling grass, where I
+scratch my nose and my gums; it's the fearful night--for I'm the only
+one to guard them, He and She. I lie in my basket, but the beating of my
+poor overdriven heart keeps me awake. I hear a dog crying to me from far
+off, that the Bad Man has passed on the road. Is he coming in my
+direction? Will I be obliged in another minute, my eyes bloodshot and
+tongue dry as chalk, to throw myself upon him and devour his shadowy
+face?...
+
+THE LITTLE DOG, (_trembling and in ecstasy_)
+
+Go on! Go on! Oh! how frightened I am!...
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_modestly_)  Don't be afraid--it has never happened. All
+that is the country, yes, and the interminable hill, in the shadow of
+the carriage, when thirst, hunger, heat and fatigue, render the soul
+submissive and hopeless ...
+
+THE LITTLE DOG, (_quite worked up_)
+
+And then?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Oh, nothing. One arrives at the house, after all, and the pail of dark
+water, one drinks without taking breath, ("his tongue," She says, "his
+big tongue is parted in the center, like an iris-petal") while sore
+eyelids and dusty lashes are splashed with cooling drops.... The country
+is all that and many things besides....
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_on the piano, musingly_)
+
+All that, yes ...and the habits of the year before that one finds again,
+molded to one's shape, like a cushion marked with the imprint of a long
+sleep ...the long nights of freedom, when the lone owlet, with his sad
+little laugh, makes his way through the air as quietly as I do on the
+ground, and silvery gray rats cling to the vines, eating grapes and
+keeping their eyes on me at the same time. It's the sun-cure on the hot
+stone-wall, from which I arise wan and shrunken, baked through and
+through, but svelte enough to make the youngest tomcat envious. (_Coming
+back to the present with a murderous look at_ THE LITTLE DOG.) Death to
+you, ill-smelling beast, for having evoked these by-gone joys! Aren't
+you going to disappear, that I may come down from this cold pedestal,
+where my paws are growing numb?
+
+TOBY-DOG, (_enthusiastically to_ THE LITTLE DOG)
+
+But let us forget all that! With you there, I can think of nothing but
+you. I feel that I love you!
+
+THE LITTLE DOG, (_lowering her eyes_)
+
+Do you mean ...really?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Of course I do!
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+So soon!
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+We've already wasted a great deal of time.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+But ... we've been chatting. I've enjoyed it very much ... and I fail to
+understand why the society of young dogs like you, is forbidden me ...
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+Allow me to make love to you.
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+What's that?
+
+TOBY-DOG
+
+I'll show you. First I hold myself very erect, stiffen my legs, walk
+'round you, barking low and melodiously. My tail wriggles, my ears ...
+
+THE LITTLE DOG
+
+Don't come near me. I feel quite upset. (_Escaping_.) Aie! You
+unmannerly fellow!
+
+KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_standing up_)
+
+These preludes are indeed a sad parody on our wild love-making ...
+(_aloud, very angry_) I should think--
+
+THE LITTLE DOG _looks to see where the dreadful voice is coming from,
+and espies a strange striped monster with eyes afire, and eyebrows and
+whiskers bristling ferociously. She dashes towards the door crying_,
+
+Help, help! There's a tiger on the piano!...
+
+_And falls into the arms of her mistress, who has come upon the scene
+and proceeds to console her with great volubility; Fifi! my Zezette! My
+darling! there, there, goo, goo, goo, goo, you poor helpless little
+doggie! What did they do to her? Ooooo!--Ooo! Was it the naughty
+bow-bow? etc., etc., etc_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Barks and Purrs
+by Colette Willy, aka Colette
+Translated by Maire Kelly
+
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