Speaker 1: Preface, Madame, there are moments when one seems to come
Speaker 1: to life. One looks about and distinguishes a creature whose
Speaker 1: footprint closely resembles the ace of spades. The thing says, bow, wow,
Speaker 1: it is a dog. One looks again. The ace of
Speaker 1: spades is now an ace of clubs. The thing says,
Speaker 1: p fh, and it is a cat. This is the
Speaker 1: history of the visible world, and in particular that of
Speaker 1: my god children, Toby Dog and Kiki the demure. They
Speaker 1: are so natural. I use the word in the sense
Speaker 1: in which it is applicable to the savages of Oceania,
Speaker 1: that all their acts conspire to make of life a
Speaker 1: very simple proposition. These are animals in the fullest sense
Speaker 1: of the word animo. If I may employ the original
Speaker 1: orthography capable of exclaiming with those of faust, the fool
Speaker 1: knows it not, he knows not, the pot, he knows
Speaker 1: not the kettle. And as such, Madame, you have place
Speaker 1: them exactly where they should be. Their earthly paradise is
Speaker 1: the apartment of Monsieur Villi. In your sannon, the probable
Speaker 1: palm and rubber plant give the impression of luxuriant edenic
Speaker 1: flora relatively speaking, and illustrate the transmogrification, which is to
Speaker 1: allow Monsieur Gaston de Champ, critic of a tant Pleucepassy,
Speaker 1: to announce to the wilderness, where he speaks familiarly of Chateaubriand,
Speaker 1: and to the College de France, how well he can
Speaker 1: admire and understand a true poet. For you are a
Speaker 1: true poet, and I will declare it freely, not concerning
Speaker 1: myself more with the legend's. Parisians have the habit of
Speaker 1: weaving about every celebrity they admire Gauguin and Verleines, not
Speaker 1: so much for their originality as for their eccentricities. And
Speaker 1: so it happens that certain persons, unacquainted with the nameless sentiment,
Speaker 1: the order and purity, the thousand interior virtues which guide you,
Speaker 1: persist in saying that you wear your hair short and
Speaker 1: that Willy is bald. Must I, then, living at RTEs,
Speaker 1: tell tu Paris who you are, present you to all
Speaker 1: who know you, I who have never seen you. I
Speaker 1: will say then that Madame Colette Willie never had short hair,
Speaker 1: that she does not wear a masculine attire, that her
Speaker 1: cat does not accompany her when she goes to a
Speaker 1: concert that her friend's dog does not drink from a tumbler.
Speaker 1: It is inexact to say that Madame Colette Willie works
Speaker 1: in a squirrel's cage, or performs upon trapees and flying rings,
Speaker 1: and can reach with her toe the nape of her neck.
Speaker 1: Madame Colette Willie has never ceased to be the plain
Speaker 1: woman Barich Senance, who rises at dawn to give oats
Speaker 1: to the horse, maids to the chickens, cabbage to the rabbits,
Speaker 1: groundsel to the canneries, snails to the ducks, and bran
Speaker 1: water to the pigs. At eight o'clock summer and winter,
Speaker 1: she prepares the cafolet for her maid and herself. Scarcely
Speaker 1: a day passes that she does not meditate upon this
Speaker 1: admirable book. A Lady's Country House by Madame Miller. Robine, orchard, kitchen, garden, stable,
Speaker 1: poultry yard, beehive, and hothouse have no further mysteries for
Speaker 1: Madame Colette Willie. They say she refused to divulge her
Speaker 1: secret for the destruction of mule crickets to a great
Speaker 1: statesman who preyed her on his knees. Madame Colette Willie
Speaker 1: is in no way different from the description I have
Speaker 1: just given of her. I am aware that certain folk,
Speaker 1: having met her in society, insist upon making her very
Speaker 1: complex a little more, and they would have ascribed to
Speaker 1: her the tastes of the mustiest symbolists. And one knows
Speaker 1: how far from pleasing those muses Robes, how odious the
Speaker 1: yellow band above the faces expressionless as eggs. Robes and
Speaker 1: Bardeux are to day relegated to drawers in the capital
Speaker 1: at Toulouse, from which they will never be taken more,
Speaker 1: except when occasion calls for the howling of official Alexandrine
Speaker 1: in honor of Monsieur Gaston de champ Jeoret or Ras
Speaker 1: Saint Getorie. Madame Colette Willie rises today on the world
Speaker 1: of letters as the poetess at last, who, with the
Speaker 1: tip of her slipper, sends all the painted laureled cotton
Speaker 1: lyre carrying muses that from Monsielle Tourna have roused the
Speaker 1: aspirations of classes in rhetoric, rolling from the top to
Speaker 1: the bottom of Parnassus. How charming she is, thus presenting
Speaker 1: her bulldog and her cat with as much assurance as
Speaker 1: Diana would her hound or a bercanti her tiger, see
Speaker 1: her apple cheeks, her eyes like bluemyer soota, her lips
Speaker 1: poppy petals, and her ivy like grace. Tell me if
Speaker 1: this way of leaning against the green barrier of her
Speaker 1: garden close, or of lying under the murmurous arbor of Midsommer,
Speaker 1: is not worth the starched manner that old magistrate du Vigny,
Speaker 1: with his neckcloth wound three times around, and rigid in
Speaker 1: his trouser straps imposed upon his goddesses. Madame Colette WILLI
Speaker 1: is a live woman, a real woman who has dared
Speaker 1: to be natural, and who resembles a little village bride,
Speaker 1: far more than a perverse woman of letters. Read her book,
Speaker 1: and you shall see how accurate are my assertions. It
Speaker 1: has pleased Madame Colette Willy to embody in a couple
Speaker 1: of delightful animals, the aroma of gardens, the freshness of
Speaker 1: the field, the heat of state roads, the passions of men.
Speaker 1: For through the girlish laughter ringing in the forest, I
Speaker 1: tell you I hear the sobbing of a well spring.
Speaker 1: One does not stoop to a poodle or tom cat
Speaker 1: without feeling the heart wrung with dumb anguish one is
Speaker 1: sensible in comparing ourselves to them. Of all that separates
Speaker 1: and of all that unites us. A dog's eyes hold
Speaker 1: the sorrow of having, since the earliest days of creation,
Speaker 1: licked the whip of his incorrigible persecutor in vain. For
Speaker 1: nothing is mollified man, not the prey brought him by
Speaker 1: a famishing spaniel, nor the humble girelessness of shepherd dog
Speaker 1: guarding the peace of the shadowy flocks under the stars.
Speaker 1: The tragic fear shines in the cat's eyes. What are
Speaker 1: you going to do to me, it seems to ask,
Speaker 1: lying on the rubbish heap, a prey to mange and hunger,
Speaker 1: and feverishly it waits the new torture that will shatter
Speaker 1: its nervous system. But have no fear. Madame Colette Willie
Speaker 1: is very kind. She quickly dispels the hereditary dread of
Speaker 1: Toby Dog and Kiki the demure. She meliorates the race,
Speaker 1: so that dogs and cats will learn in the end
Speaker 1: that it is less dull to frequent a poet than
Speaker 1: an unhappy College de France candidate. Had this candidate proven
Speaker 1: more copiously still, but the author of memoir Dettle Tomes
Speaker 1: had Topsy turvily described the jawbone of the crocodile. Toby
Speaker 1: Dog and Kiki the Demure know well that their mistress
Speaker 1: is a lady who would do no harm, neither to
Speaker 1: a piece of sugar nor to a mouse. A lady who,
Speaker 1: for our delight jumps a rope she has woven of
Speaker 1: flower words which she never bruises, and with which she
Speaker 1: perfumes us. A lady who sings with the voice of
Speaker 1: a clear French rivulet, that wistful tenderness which makes the
Speaker 1: hearts of animals beat so fast. Francis jam End of
Speaker 1: Prefacemtis Personi.
Speaker 2: Toby Dog a French bulldog read by Troy Bard.
Speaker 3: Kiki the Demure a Maltese cat read by Bob Gonzales.
Speaker 4: He Master of Minor Importance read by Matthew Reyese.
Speaker 5: She Mistress of Minor Importance read by Roseanne Schmidt.
Speaker 6: The Little Dog read Byshadah.
Speaker 1: The Narration read by Sandra Sentimentalities the Sunny Porch, Toby
Speaker 1: Dog and Kiki the Demure sprawl on the hot stone flags,
Speaker 1: taking their after luncheon nap. The silence of Sunday prevails
Speaker 1: yet Toby Dog is not asleep. The flies and a
Speaker 1: heavy luncheon torment him hind quarters flattened out frog fashion,
Speaker 1: he drags himself on his belly up to Kiki the Demure,
Speaker 1: whose body is perfectly quiet.
Speaker 2: Are you asleep?
Speaker 1: The demure purse feebly.
Speaker 2: Are you even alive? You're so flat you look like
Speaker 2: the empty skin of a cat.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, in faltering tones.
Speaker 2: Let me alone, not sick? Are you?
Speaker 3: No? Let me alone? I'm asleep. I'm not even conscious
Speaker 3: of my body. What's torments to live with you? I've eaten,
Speaker 3: it's two o'clock. Let's sleep.
Speaker 2: I can't. Something's made a ball in my stomach. It
Speaker 2: means to go down, I guess, but very slowly. And
Speaker 2: then these flies, these flies, the eyes start out of
Speaker 2: my head. At the sight of one of them, I'm
Speaker 2: all jaws bristling with terrible teeth. Just hear them snap.
Speaker 2: Yet the infernal things escape me. Oh my ears, Oh
Speaker 2: my poor sensitive brown belly. My fever knows there you
Speaker 2: see right on my nose. What shall I do? I
Speaker 2: squint all I can two of them? Now, No, only one,
Speaker 2: No two? I toss em up like bits of sugar,
Speaker 2: and it's the empty air. I snap, I'm worn out.
Speaker 2: I detest the sun and the flies and everything.
Speaker 1: Ooh, he wails Tiki the Demure, sitting up, his eyes
Speaker 1: pale from the light and sleepiness.
Speaker 3: Well, you've succeeded in waking me. That's all you wanted,
Speaker 3: isn't it. My dreams are gone, these flies that you
Speaker 3: are pursuing, I hardly felt their little teasing feet through
Speaker 3: my thick fur. The nearest touch like a caress now
Speaker 3: and then thrilled along the silky sloping hairs, which clothed me.
Speaker 3: But then you never act with any discretion. Your vulgar
Speaker 3: gaiety is a nuisance, and when sad, you howl like
Speaker 3: a low comedian.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog bitterly.
Speaker 2: If you woke up, just tell me that.
Speaker 1: Tiki the Demur correcting.
Speaker 3: Of course you'll remember twas you woke me.
Speaker 2: I was so uncomfortable. I wanted someone to help me,
Speaker 2: to give me a word of encouragement.
Speaker 3: I don't know any digestive words. Fancy they're giving me
Speaker 3: a bad character. When just examine your conscience a bit
Speaker 3: and compare us. Hunger and heat wear you out and
Speaker 3: drive you mad. Cold makes your blood curdle.
Speaker 1: Tuby dog vexed.
Speaker 3: Mine is a sentenive nature, a demoniacal nature.
Speaker 2: You mean no, I don't mean that you. You're a monstrous egoist.
Speaker 3: Perhaps you and the two paws don't understand what you're
Speaker 3: pleased to call a cat's egoism, our instinct of self preservation,
Speaker 3: our dignity, our modest reserve, our attitude of weary renunciation,
Speaker 3: which comes of the hopelessness of ever being understood by them,
Speaker 3: They dub in haphazard fashion egoism. You are not a
Speaker 3: very discriminating dog, but at least you are free from prejudice.
Speaker 3: Will you understand me better? A cat is a guest
Speaker 3: in the house, not a plaything. Truly, these are strange
Speaker 3: times we're living in the two paws. He and she
Speaker 3: have they alone the right to be sad or joyful,
Speaker 3: to lick plates, to scold, or to go about the
Speaker 3: house indulging their capricious humors. I too have my whims,
Speaker 3: my sorrows, my irregular appetite, my hours of reverie when
Speaker 3: I wish to be alone.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog attentive and conscientious.
Speaker 2: I'm listening, but I can hardly follow what you say.
Speaker 2: It's so complicated, A bit over my head, you know.
Speaker 2: But you astonish me. Are they in the habit of
Speaker 2: hindering you in your changeful moods? You mew and they
Speaker 2: open the door. You lie on the paper, the sacred
Speaker 2: paper he's scratching on. He moves away, marvelous condescension, and
Speaker 2: leaves you a soil page. You meander up and down
Speaker 2: a scratching table, obviously in question of mischief, your nose
Speaker 2: wrinkled up, your tail giving quick little jerks back and
Speaker 2: forth like a pendulum. She watches you, laughing while he
Speaker 2: announces the promenade of devastation. How then can you accuse them?
Speaker 1: Kiki the demure, insincere.
Speaker 3: I don't accuse them, after all, psychological subtleties are not
Speaker 3: in your line.
Speaker 2: Don't speak so fast. I need time to understand, it.
Speaker 1: Seems to me, Kiki the Demure slyly pray.
Speaker 3: Don't hurry. Your digestion might suffer in consequence.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, unconscious of the irony.
Speaker 2: You're right, I've some trouble in expressing myself to day. Well,
Speaker 2: here goes. It seems to me that of the two
Speaker 2: of us, it's you they make the most of and
Speaker 2: yet you do all the grumbling.
Speaker 3: A dog's logic that the more one gives, the more
Speaker 3: I demand.
Speaker 2: That's wrong, it's indiscreet.
Speaker 3: Not at all. I have a right to everything, to everything,
Speaker 3: and I I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I
Speaker 2: feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems
Speaker 2: to choke me. I would like to be sure, in
Speaker 2: times of such anguish, that everybody loves me, that there
Speaker 2: is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a
Speaker 2: closed door, that no evil will ever come.
Speaker 1: Kiki is a demure jeering And then what dreadful thing happens?
Speaker 2: You know very well inevitably at the moment she appears,
Speaker 2: carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it,
Speaker 2: castor oil. Wilful and unfeeling, she holds me between her
Speaker 2: strong knees, opens.
Speaker 3: My jaws close them tighter, but I'm.
Speaker 2: Afraid of hurting her, and my tongue horrified taste the slimy,
Speaker 2: mawkish stuff, I choke and spit. My poor face is convulsed.
Speaker 2: In the end of this torture is long and coming.
Speaker 2: You've seen me afterwards, dragging myself around melon Collie, my
Speaker 2: head hanging, listening to the unwholesome glue, glue the oil
Speaker 2: makes in my stomach.
Speaker 3: Once, when I was little, she tried to give me
Speaker 3: castor oil. I scratched and bit her, so she never
Speaker 3: tried again.
Speaker 2: Ha.
Speaker 3: She must have thought she held the devil between her knees.
Speaker 3: I squirmed, blue fire through my nostrils, multiplied my twenty
Speaker 3: claws by a hundred, my teeth by one thousand, and
Speaker 3: finally disappeared, as if by magic.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't dare do that. You see, I love her.
Speaker 2: I love her enough to forgive her even the torture
Speaker 2: of the bath.
Speaker 1: Kiki, the demure interested.
Speaker 3: You do, tell me how it feels. It makes me
Speaker 3: shiver all over just to see her putting you in
Speaker 3: the water.
Speaker 2: Alas, listen then and pity me. Sometimes, when she's come
Speaker 2: out of her tub with nothing on but her skin,
Speaker 2: her soft, hairless skin, that I look respectfully, she spills
Speaker 2: out more warm water, throws in a brown brick which
Speaker 2: smells them tar, and calls Toby. That's enough. The soul
Speaker 2: quits my body. My legs shake under me. Something shines
Speaker 2: on the water the pitcher of a window, all twisted
Speaker 2: out of shape, It dances about and blinds me. She
Speaker 2: seizes me, poor swooning thing that I am, and plunges
Speaker 2: me in e Gods. From that time on, I'm lost.
Speaker 2: My one hope isn't her. My eyes fasten themselves on
Speaker 2: to hers, while a close warmth sticks to me like
Speaker 2: another skin on top of mine. The brick's all foamy.
Speaker 2: Now I smell tar, my eyes and nostrils smart. There
Speaker 2: are storms in my ears. She grows excited, breathes loud
Speaker 2: and fast, laughs, and scrubs me lightheartedly. At last she
Speaker 2: rescues me, fishing me out by the nape of my neck.
Speaker 2: I paw the air, begging for life. Then comes the
Speaker 2: rough towel and the warm coverlet, where, exhausted, I relish
Speaker 2: my convalescence.
Speaker 1: Kiki the demure, deeply.
Speaker 3: Impressed, Calm yourself, jove the telling it alone.
Speaker 2: But you old sly boots, didn't I see her one day,
Speaker 2: armed with a sponge, standing over you, holding you down
Speaker 2: on the toilet table.
Speaker 1: Do you give it a mule? Quite embarrassed, lashing his.
Speaker 3: Tail an old story, the long fluffy hairs on my legs,
Speaker 3: which gave them the outline of a zwoves had somehow
Speaker 3: gotten dirty. She insisted upon washing me. I persuaded her
Speaker 3: that I suffered atrociously under the sponge.
Speaker 2: What a fivery you are? Did she believe you?
Speaker 3: Um? At first it was my own fault, though when
Speaker 3: she didn't turned over on my back, I proffered the
Speaker 3: candid belly, the terrified and forgiving eyes of a lamb
Speaker 3: about to be sacrificed. I felt a slight coolness, nothing more.
Speaker 3: A fear that my sensibilities might be destroyed took possession
Speaker 3: of me. My rhythmical wailings increased, then subsided, then went
Speaker 3: up again, like the noise of the sea. You know
Speaker 3: the strength of my voice. I imitated the calf, the
Speaker 3: whipped child, the cat in the night, the wind under
Speaker 3: the door. Little by little I grew enraptured with my
Speaker 3: own song, so that long after she finished soiling me
Speaker 3: with the cold water, I continued wailing, my eyes fixed
Speaker 3: on the ceiling. Then she laughed tactlessly and cried out,
Speaker 3: you're as untruthful as.
Speaker 1: A woman toby dog, with conviction.
Speaker 2: That was annoying.
Speaker 3: I was angry with her the entire afternoon.
Speaker 2: Oh as to sulking, you do your share. I never
Speaker 2: can I forget injuries.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, dryly.
Speaker 3: You lick the hand that chastens you. Oh, it's well.
Speaker 1: Known, Toby dog gullible.
Speaker 2: I looked the hand that Yes, that's it, exactly, an
Speaker 2: awfully pretty expression.
Speaker 3: Not mine. Dignity doesn't trouble you any my word. I'm
Speaker 3: often ashamed for you. You love everybody, You take all
Speaker 3: sorts of rebuffs without even raising your back. You're as
Speaker 3: pleasant and as banal as a public garden.
Speaker 2: Don't you believe it? You ill bred cat. You think
Speaker 2: you know everything, and you don't understand simple politeness. Frankly, now,
Speaker 2: would you have me snarl at his or her friend's heels?
Speaker 2: Well dress people who know my name? Lots of people
Speaker 2: I don't know know my name, and good naturally pull
Speaker 2: my ears.
Speaker 3: I hate new faces.
Speaker 2: I don't love them either, whatever you say, I love her.
Speaker 3: And him and I him and her.
Speaker 2: Oh I guess your preference long ago. There's a sort
Speaker 2: of secret understanding between you two.
Speaker 1: Jikit the Demure, smiling mysteriously and abandoning himself to his referee.
Speaker 3: An understanding, yes, secret and profound. He rarely speaks, but
Speaker 3: makes a noise like a mouse scratching his paper. It's
Speaker 3: for him. I've treasured up my little heart, my precious
Speaker 3: cat's heart, and he, without words, has given me his.
Speaker 3: This exchange makes me happy and reserved. Now and then,
Speaker 3: with the pretty wayward ruling instinct which makes us cat's
Speaker 3: rivals of women, I try my power over him. When
Speaker 3: we are alone, I point my ears forward devilishly as
Speaker 3: a sign that I am about to spring upon his
Speaker 3: scratching paper. The tap tap tap of my paws, straight
Speaker 3: through pens and letters and everything scattered about, is addressed
Speaker 3: to him, as well as the insistent meowling. When I
Speaker 3: beg for liberty him to the door knob, he laughingly
Speaker 3: calls it or the plaint of the sequestered cat. The
Speaker 3: tender contemplation of my inspiring eyes is for him alone.
Speaker 3: They weigh on his bent head until the look I'm
Speaker 3: calling searches and meets mine in a shock of souls
Speaker 3: so foreseen and so sweet that I must needs close
Speaker 3: my lids to hide the exquisite shyness I feel as
Speaker 3: for her. She flutters about too much, often jostles me,
Speaker 3: holds my paws together, and rocks me in the air,
Speaker 3: pets me in excited fashion, laughs aloud at me, imitates
Speaker 3: my voice too well.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog moved with indignation.
Speaker 2: You're very hard to please. I certainly love him. He's
Speaker 2: good and pretends not to see my faults so that
Speaker 2: he won't have to scold. But she's the most beautiful
Speaker 2: thing in the world to me, the dearest and the
Speaker 2: most difficult to understand. The sound of her step enchants me.
Speaker 2: Her changeful eyes dispense happiness and trouble. She's like destiny itself.
Speaker 2: She never hesitates, even torture from her hands. You know
Speaker 2: how she teases me cruelly, No, not cruelly, but artfully.
Speaker 2: I never can tell what's coming next. This morning, she
Speaker 2: bent down as if to speak to me, lifted one
Speaker 2: of my tiny elephant's ears, as she calls them, and
Speaker 2: sent a sharp cry into it, which went to the
Speaker 2: very back of my brain horrors. Was it right or wrong?
Speaker 2: I can't decide Even now. It started waves of nervis
Speaker 2: running madly through me. Then she has a fancy for
Speaker 2: making me do tricks. Almost every day. I must do
Speaker 2: the fish, Toby Dear. She lifts me in her arms
Speaker 2: and squeezes me until I gasp. My poor dumb mouth
Speaker 2: opens as the carpst does when they're drowning it in air.
Speaker 3: That's just like her.
Speaker 2: Suddenly I find myself free and still alive, miraculously saved
Speaker 2: by the power of her will. How beautiful life seems
Speaker 2: to me. Then, how fondly I locked the hend hanging
Speaker 2: at her side, the hem of her.
Speaker 1: Dress kikika demure contemptuously, a pretty thing to do.
Speaker 2: All good and evil come to me from her. She
Speaker 2: is my worst torment and my one sure refuge. When
Speaker 2: I run to her, my heart's sick with fear. How
Speaker 2: soft her arms are, and how sweet her hair falling
Speaker 2: in my face. I'm her black baby, her toby dog,
Speaker 2: her little bit of love. She sits on the ground
Speaker 2: to reassure me, making herself little like me, lies down altogether,
Speaker 2: and I go wild with delight at the sight of
Speaker 2: her face and her mind, her own back, and her
Speaker 2: fragrant hair. My feelings overflow. I can't resist such a
Speaker 2: chance for a jolly good game. I rummage and fumble about, excitedly,
Speaker 2: poking my nose everywhere till I find the crispy tip
Speaker 2: of a pink ear her ear. I nibble it just
Speaker 2: enough to tickle her to make her cry out. Stop, Toby,
Speaker 2: that's awful. Help help this dog's devouring me.
Speaker 3: Hm, simple, homely, wholesome joys. And then off you go
Speaker 3: to make friends with the cook, and you with the cat.
Speaker 2: At the farm.
Speaker 1: TI keep the demule coldly enough.
Speaker 3: I pray that concerns no one but myself and the
Speaker 3: little cat.
Speaker 2: A pretty conquest. It should make you blush. A seven
Speaker 2: months old kitten.
Speaker 1: TI keep the demule roused for me.
Speaker 3: She has all the charm of forbidden fruit, and no
Speaker 3: one dares steal her from me. She is slim as
Speaker 3: a bean.
Speaker 1: Pole Toby dog aside.
Speaker 3: You'll rascal, and long poised on long legs. She walks
Speaker 3: with the uncertain step common to all young things. She
Speaker 3: hunts field mice, shrew mice, even partridge, and this hard
Speaker 3: work in the fields has toughened her young muscles and
Speaker 3: given a rather gloomy expression to her kitten face. She's ugly, no,
Speaker 3: not ugly, but odd looking. Her muzzle, with its very
Speaker 3: pink nostrils, strongly resembles that of a goat. Her large
Speaker 3: ears remind one of a peasant's koif her eyes, the
Speaker 3: color of old gold, are set slantwise, and their naturally
Speaker 3: keen expression is varied by an occasional piquant squint. With
Speaker 3: what a will? Does she fly me? Confounding modesty, with fear.
Speaker 3: I pass slowly by. One would think me quite uninterested.
Speaker 3: Draped in my splendid coat, she's struck by its stripes.
Speaker 3: Oh she'll come back, a little love sick kitten, and
Speaker 3: putting aside all constraint, she'll throw herself at my feet
Speaker 3: like a supple white scarf.
Speaker 2: I've no objection. You know, I'm comparatively indifferent to all
Speaker 2: the concerns love here. My time so completely filled physical exercise,
Speaker 2: my cares of watchdog. I hardly give a thought to
Speaker 2: the bagatelle.
Speaker 1: Kiki, the demuur.
Speaker 3: Aside bagatelle, he indulges in the persiflage of a traveling salesman.
Speaker 2: I love her and him devotedly, with a love that
Speaker 2: lifts me up to them. It suffices to occupy my
Speaker 2: time and heart. The hour of ar siesta is passing,
Speaker 2: My scornful friend, do you know I like you in
Speaker 2: spite of your scorn, and you like me too. Don't
Speaker 2: turn your head away, you peculiar modesty would hide what
Speaker 2: you call frailty and what I call love. Do you
Speaker 2: think me blind? How often on coming back to the
Speaker 2: house with her, have I seen your little triangular face
Speaker 2: at the window light up and smile at my approach?
Speaker 2: The time to open the door, and you'd already put
Speaker 2: on your cat's mask, your pretty Japanese mask with its
Speaker 2: narrow eyes, isn't it so?
Speaker 1: Kiki? The demure resolved not to hear.
Speaker 3: The hour of the siesta is passing. The cone shaped
Speaker 3: shadows of the pear trees grow long on the gravel path.
Speaker 3: We've talked away our sleepiness. You've forgotten the flies, your
Speaker 3: uneasy stomach, and the heat which dances and waves on
Speaker 3: the meadows. The beautiful sultry day is dying already. There's
Speaker 3: a breeze bringing perfume from the pines. Their trunks are
Speaker 3: melting into bright tears.
Speaker 2: Here she is. She's left her worker chair, stretched her
Speaker 2: lovely arms, and judging from the movement of her dress,
Speaker 2: I think we're going to take a walk. See her
Speaker 2: behind the rose bushes now with her nails, she breaks
Speaker 2: a leaf from the lemon tree. She's crumpling it up
Speaker 2: and smelling it ah. With my eyes closed, I can
Speaker 2: divine her presence.
Speaker 3: Yes, I see her. She is quiet and gentle for
Speaker 3: the time being. He'll leave his paper now to follow her.
Speaker 3: He'll come out, calling where are you? And sit on
Speaker 3: the bench tired out for him. I shall rise politely
Speaker 3: and go do my nails along the leg of his trousers. Silent,
Speaker 3: happy companions, we'll listen for the day's departing footsteps. The
Speaker 3: perfume of the lindens will become sickeningly sweet at the
Speaker 3: same hour that my seer's eyes grow big and black
Speaker 3: and read mysterious signs in the air. Later on, a
Speaker 3: calm fire will be lit down there behind the pointed mountain,
Speaker 3: a circle of glistening rose color in the gray blue
Speaker 3: of the night, a sort of luminous cocoon from which
Speaker 3: will burst the dazzling edge of the moon. She will
Speaker 3: sail along, cleaving the clouds. Then it will be time
Speaker 3: to go to rest. He'll carry me in on his shoulder,
Speaker 3: and I'll sleep close to his feet, which are ever
Speaker 3: mindful of my repose. Dawn will find me shivering but rejuvening,
Speaker 3: sitting face to the sun in a silvery halo of
Speaker 3: incense offered me by the dew. Thus I am a
Speaker 3: perfect picture of the God I was in the old
Speaker 3: old days.
Speaker 1: On the train, Kiki the demure Toby dog. She and
Speaker 1: he have taken their places in a first class compartment.
Speaker 1: The train rolls along towards distant mountains and the freedom
Speaker 1: of summertime. Toby, on a leash, lifts an inquiring nose
Speaker 1: to the window. He has strewn the carriage with newspapers. Kiki,
Speaker 1: the demure, silent and invisible in a closed basket, is
Speaker 1: under his immediate protection. She, leaning against the dusty cushions,
Speaker 1: is dreaming of the mountain she loves best, and of
Speaker 1: the low house on it, weighed down with Jasmin and
Speaker 1: Virginia creeper.
Speaker 2: How fast this carriage goes? It can't be our regular coachman.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen the horses, but they smell very bad
Speaker 2: and make black sis smoke. Oh, silent dreamer, look at
Speaker 2: me and tell me, shall we arrive soon?
Speaker 1: No response. Toby is fidgety and blows through his nostrils.
Speaker 5: Hush, Toby, Hush.
Speaker 2: I've hardly said a word. Shall we arrive soon?
Speaker 1: He turns towards his master, who is reading and puts
Speaker 1: a discreet paw on the edge of his knee. Sh
Speaker 1: Toby dog resigned hard luck.
Speaker 2: No one wants to talk to me. I'm bored, and
Speaker 2: what's more, I don't know this carriage well enough. I'm
Speaker 2: tired out. They woke me very early this morning. I
Speaker 2: amused myself by running all over the house. They had
Speaker 2: hidden the chairs under sheets, wrapped up the lamps, rolled
Speaker 2: up the rugs. Things were white and changed and awful.
Speaker 2: There was a horrid smell of camphor everywhere. My eyes
Speaker 2: filled with water. I sneezed under the chairs and slid
Speaker 2: on the bare floor in my haste to follow the
Speaker 2: maid's white aprons. They bustled about among trunks with such
Speaker 2: unwonted zeal that I would sure something exceptional was going
Speaker 2: to happen. At the last minute, just as she came in,
Speaker 2: calling Toby's collar in the cat's basket. Quick put the
Speaker 2: cat in his basket, just as she was saying that
Speaker 2: my chum disappeared. It was indescribable. He terrible to see,
Speaker 2: swore by all the gods and struck the floor with
Speaker 2: his cane, furious because they had allowed his kiki to
Speaker 2: get away. She called Kiki, at first supplicatingly, then in
Speaker 2: threatening tones, and the maids brought empty plates meant to deceive,
Speaker 2: and yellow paper from the butcher's. I really thought my
Speaker 2: chum had left this world, when suddenly there he was,
Speaker 2: perched on top of the bookcase, looking down on us,
Speaker 2: with an expression of contempt in his green eyes. She
Speaker 2: put up her arms, Kiki, will you come down immediately.
Speaker 2: You're going to make us lose the train. But he
Speaker 2: didn't come down, and it made me dizzy, though I
Speaker 2: was on the ground, to see him way up there,
Speaker 2: walking and turning about and muling shrilly to tell us
Speaker 2: how impossible he found it to obey. He was about
Speaker 2: frantic and kept saying, heavens, he's going to fall. But
Speaker 2: she smiled, skeptically, went out of the room and came
Speaker 2: back armed with the whip. The whip said crack twice.
Speaker 2: Only then a miracle happened, I think, because the cat
Speaker 2: leaped to the floor softer and more bounty than our plaything,
Speaker 2: the ball of wool I would have broken to piece
Speaker 2: if falling like that. He has been in this basket
Speaker 2: ever since.
Speaker 1: Toby goes to the basket.
Speaker 2: Ah, here's a little peak hole. I see his whiskers.
Speaker 2: They're like white needles. Who what eyes?
Speaker 1: He jumps back.
Speaker 2: I'm rather afraid one can't really shut a cat up.
Speaker 2: He always manages to get out. Somehow he must suffer,
Speaker 2: poor fellow. Perhaps if I speak kindly.
Speaker 1: To him, he calls, very politely, got Tiki the demure,
Speaker 1: spitting furiously, Toby Dog jumping back.
Speaker 2: Oh you said a bad word. You look awful. Have
Speaker 2: you pain anywhere?
Speaker 3: Go away? I'm a martyr. Go away, I tell you,
Speaker 3: or I'll blow fire at you.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog? Ingenuous?
Speaker 3: But why why? Because you're free, because I'm in this basket,
Speaker 3: because the basket's in a foul carriage, which is shaking
Speaker 3: me to pieces, And because the serenity of those two
Speaker 3: exasperates me.
Speaker 2: Would you like me to look out and tell you
Speaker 2: what one sees from the carriage window?
Speaker 3: Everything is equally odious to me.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, having looked out, comes back.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen anything, thanks, just the same. I mean,
Speaker 2: I haven't seen anything that's easy to describe. Some green
Speaker 2: things which pass right close to us, so close and
Speaker 2: so fast that they give one a slap in the eye.
Speaker 2: A flat field turning round and round, and over there,
Speaker 2: a little pointed steeple. It's running as fast as the carriage.
Speaker 2: Another field, all red with blossoming clover, has just giving
Speaker 2: me another slap in the eye, a red slap. The
Speaker 2: earth is sinking in or else we're going up. Sure wedg,
Speaker 2: I see way off far away, some green lawns, daughter
Speaker 2: with white daisies. Perhaps they're cows.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure with sarcasm or wafers for sealing letters
Speaker 1: or anything you.
Speaker 2: Like, aren't you the least little bit amused?
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure with a sinister laugh.
Speaker 3: Hah, ask of the damned, of whom.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, more and more melodramatic, but without conviction of.
Speaker 3: The damned in his vat of boiling oil. If anything
Speaker 3: amuses him, mine is not physical torment. I suffer imprisonment, humiliation, darkness, neglect.
Speaker 1: The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries all aboard,
Speaker 1: All aboard. Toby Dog bewildered.
Speaker 2: Someone's crying out, there's an accident. Let's run.
Speaker 1: He throws himself against the carriage door and scratches at it.
Speaker 1: She half asleep, Toby Dear, You're a nuisance. Toby Dog
Speaker 1: distracted oh, you inexplicable person.
Speaker 2: How can you sit there quietly? Don't you hear those cries?
Speaker 2: They're stopping now the accident has gone away.
Speaker 1: Wish i'd know the train starts again, he throwing down
Speaker 1: his paper.
Speaker 4: The poor beast is hungry.
Speaker 1: She now very wide awake.
Speaker 5: You think so well, I am too, But Toby is
Speaker 5: to eat very little.
Speaker 1: He anxiously.
Speaker 4: And Kiki the Demure she peremptorily.
Speaker 5: Kiki socks, and he hid this morning, so they'll have
Speaker 5: even less than Toby.
Speaker 4: He isn't making a sound. Aren't you afraid he's sick.
Speaker 5: No, he's simply vexed.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure as soon as there's a question of himself,
Speaker 1: me ow, he tenderly and eagerly.
Speaker 4: Come, my beautiful Kiki, my imprisoned one. Come, you shall
Speaker 4: have cold roast beef and some breast of chicken.
Speaker 1: He opens the prison basket, and Kiki puts forth, his
Speaker 1: head flattened on top like that of a serpent, then
Speaker 1: his long striped body cautiously and so very slowly that
Speaker 1: one begins to think it's coming out by the yard.
Speaker 1: Toby dog pleasantly.
Speaker 2: Ah, there you are, cat well, now proclaim.
Speaker 1: Your freedom, Kiki, without replying, smoothed his ruffled fur.
Speaker 2: Proclaim your freedom. I tell you. It's the custom. Whenever
Speaker 2: a door is open, one must run, jump, twist one's
Speaker 2: self into half circles, and cry.
Speaker 3: Out one who's one? Pray we dogs?
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, seated and very dignified.
Speaker 3: Would you have me bark too? We have never followed
Speaker 3: the same rules of conduct that I know of.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog vexed, Oh.
Speaker 2: Very well, I don't insist.
Speaker 1: How do you like this courage, Kiki the Demure, smiffing fastidiously.
Speaker 3: It's frightful. However, the cushions are rather good for one's nails.
Speaker 1: He suits the action to the word Toby Dog aside.
Speaker 2: Now if I did.
Speaker 1: That, Kiki the Demure, continuing to scratch the upholstery.
Speaker 3: Han, may this spongy gray cloth soothe my rage? Since morning,
Speaker 3: the whole universe has been in a state of monstrous revolt.
Speaker 3: He whom I love and who venerates me, made not
Speaker 3: the least effort to defend me. I've submitted to humiliating contacts,
Speaker 3: been jolted to death. Piercing whistles have shot through my
Speaker 3: head from ear to ear. Ho ho, how good it
Speaker 3: is to relax the nerves, and to imagine that with
Speaker 3: gleeful claws one tears the enemy's flesh and bloody shreds.
Speaker 3: Ho Ho, scretch and lift the paws on high, lift
Speaker 3: them high as possible. It's a supremely insolent gesture.
Speaker 5: I say, Kiki, when are you going to stop that?
Speaker 1: He indulgent and admiring.
Speaker 4: Let him alone. He's doing his nails.
Speaker 3: He has spoken for me. I forgive him, But since
Speaker 3: it's allowed, I don't care any more about tearing the cushions.
Speaker 3: When will I get out of this? Not that I'm afraid.
Speaker 3: They are both there, and the dog too, with their
Speaker 3: everyday faces. I've twinges in my stomach.
Speaker 1: He yawns. The train stops. A conductor on the platform
Speaker 1: cries all aboard, All aboard. Toby Dog excited.
Speaker 2: Screaming again, another accident, Let's run, heavens, what a tiresome dog.
Speaker 3: What does it matter to him if there is an accident?
Speaker 3: I don't believe in it. Moreover, it's the cry of
Speaker 3: a man, and men cry out for the pleasure of
Speaker 3: hearing their own voices.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog calm again.
Speaker 2: I'm hungry, can't we hope to eat soon, my mistress,
Speaker 2: I don't know what time. It isn't a strange country,
Speaker 2: but it seems to me.
Speaker 5: Come now, we'll all have our luncheon.
Speaker 1: She takes the things out of the basket, crumbles up
Speaker 1: some tissue paper, and breaks a crisp brown row. Toby
Speaker 1: dog chewing.
Speaker 2: What she gave me then must have been very good. Indeed,
Speaker 2: seemed such a tiny bit it melted in my mouth.
Speaker 2: There's not even the memory of it left.
Speaker 1: Kiki the demure, chewing breast of chicken.
Speaker 3: Goodness me, I was purring without knowing it. That won't do.
Speaker 3: They'll think me resigned to this journey. I must eat, slowly,
Speaker 3: grim and undeceived, eat for the sole purpose of keeping
Speaker 3: myself alive.
Speaker 5: She to the dog and cat, allow me to have
Speaker 5: my luncheon now, if you please. I too, like cold
Speaker 5: chicken and hearts of lettuce tipped in salt.
Speaker 1: He anxiously.
Speaker 4: What shall we do to make this cat go into
Speaker 4: his basket again?
Speaker 5: I don't know. We'll see presently.
Speaker 2: Finished already I could swallow three times that much. I say, cat,
Speaker 2: you're eating rather well for a martyr.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, fibbing.
Speaker 3: Trouble digs a hole in one's interior. Move away, please,
Speaker 3: I want to sleep now. If I can, perhaps a
Speaker 3: merciful dream will take me back to the house I've left,
Speaker 3: to the flowered cushion. He gave me home, sweet home,
Speaker 3: rugs of bright colors for the delight of my eyes,
Speaker 3: a palm with nice shoots for me to eat, deep
Speaker 3: arm chairs under which I hide my woolen ball as
Speaker 3: a future surprise for myself. Ah in the cork hanging
Speaker 3: by a string to the door latch. The tables covered
Speaker 3: with bibelots. I thread my way in and out among them,
Speaker 3: and occasionally it amuses me to break some brittle thing.
Speaker 3: The dining room, who is a temple? The vestibule full
Speaker 3: of mystery. There unseen, I can watch those who come
Speaker 3: and go. Oh narrow back stairway, where the step of
Speaker 3: the milkman rings out for me like a morning angelus, farewell, farewell.
Speaker 3: My destiny carries me on, and who knows if ever,
Speaker 3: but this is too sad. All the pretty things I've
Speaker 3: been saying have really begun to make me feel badly.
Speaker 1: He begins a minute and mournful toilet. The train stops,
Speaker 1: a conductor on the platform, cries, all the board on the.
Speaker 2: Board there it is again an accent, Oh bother, I've
Speaker 2: had enough of that.
Speaker 1: He anxiously.
Speaker 4: We're going to change trains in ten minutes. How about
Speaker 4: the cat? He'll never allow us to shut him up.
Speaker 5: We'll see. Suppose we put some meat in his basket.
Speaker 4: Or perhaps petting wood.
Speaker 1: They approached the redoubtable Kiki and both speak together.
Speaker 4: Kiki, my beautiful Kiki, Come jump on my knee or
Speaker 4: on my shoulder. You like that? As a rule, you'll
Speaker 4: doze there and then I'll put you gently into the basket.
Speaker 4: After all, it's open work and has a comfortable cushion
Speaker 4: to protect you from the rough wicker. Come, my dear.
Speaker 5: Listen, Kiki. You must learn to act properly and to
Speaker 5: take life as it is. You can't stay there like that.
Speaker 5: We're going to change trains, and a horrible guard will
Speaker 5: appear and say insulting things of you in your race. Besides,
Speaker 5: you'd better obey, because if you don't, I I'll give
Speaker 5: you a good whippon.
Speaker 1: But before she can lift her hand against his sacred fur,
Speaker 1: Kiki gets up, stretches himself, arches his back, yawns, to
Speaker 1: show the rosy lining of his mouth, and then walks
Speaker 1: to the open basket, where he lies down with an
Speaker 1: admirable air of quiet insolence. He and she exchange eloquent glances.
Speaker 1: Dinner is late a parlor in the country, at the
Speaker 1: close of a long summer's day. Kiki the Demure and
Speaker 1: Toby Dog does ears twitching and eyelids obstinately shut. Now
Speaker 1: Kiki's lids part in a narrow slit and disclosed eyes
Speaker 1: the color of purple grapes. He yawns with the ferocious
Speaker 1: expression of a small dragon. Kiki the Demure.
Speaker 3: Haughtily, you're snoring.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, who is not really asleep.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 3: It's you impossible. I don't snore.
Speaker 1: I pur same thing, Kiki the Demure, not condescending to
Speaker 1: a discussion.
Speaker 3: Thank Heaven, it isn't a silence. I'm hungry. One doesn't
Speaker 3: hear the noise of plates in the next room. Isn't
Speaker 3: it dinner time?
Speaker 1: Toby Dog gets up, slowly, stretches his forepaws, and yawns,
Speaker 1: darting forth a heraldic tongue with curly end.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, I'm hungry.
Speaker 3: Where is she? How is it. You're not at her heels.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, embarrassed, nibbling his nails.
Speaker 2: She's in the garden, I believe, picking up plums.
Speaker 3: Those yellow balls that rain about one's ears. I know them.
Speaker 3: You've seen her, then, I bet she scolded you. What
Speaker 3: have you been doing now.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog self conscious, turning away his wrinkled toad like face.
Speaker 2: She told me to return to the house because because
Speaker 2: I too was eating plums.
Speaker 3: She did, Well, you have depraved tastes, the tastes of men.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, offended.
Speaker 2: Say, no one ever sees me eating bad fish, and
Speaker 2: never never will. I understand how you can go into
Speaker 2: such fits over a dead.
Speaker 3: Frog or that herb Valerian.
Speaker 2: That's it. I guess an herb is medicine, isn't it medicine?
Speaker 3: Indeed Valerian? But no, you can't understand. I've seen her
Speaker 3: laugh and go on as I do over the Valerian
Speaker 3: after having emptied a glass of fetid wine that jumped
Speaker 3: dangerously too. As for the dead frog, so dead that
Speaker 3: it seems a bit of dry Russia leather in the
Speaker 3: form of a frog, it's a sachet impregnated with rare musk,
Speaker 3: with which I wish to scent my fur.
Speaker 2: Oh, you talk very well, but she always scolds and
Speaker 2: says that you smell bad after it, And he says
Speaker 2: the same thing.
Speaker 3: They're nothing but two paws, both of them. You poor thing,
Speaker 3: belittle yourself by seeking to imitate them. You stand on
Speaker 3: your hind legs, wear a coat when it rains, eat
Speaker 3: plums for shame. And those big green balls the malicious
Speaker 3: trees let fall sometimes when I'm past underneath apples. Very
Speaker 3: likely she picks one up and throws it down the path,
Speaker 3: crying Apple, Toby Apple, and you rush after in unseemly fashioned,
Speaker 3: gasping for breath, looking like a fool, your tongue and
Speaker 3: your eyes sticking out.
Speaker 1: Toby dogs scowling, his head resting on his paws.
Speaker 2: One takes one's pleasures where one finds them.
Speaker 1: Kiki, the demure yawning shows his pointed teeth and his
Speaker 1: palette of pink velvet.
Speaker 3: I'm hungry, dinner is surely late tonight. Suppose you look
Speaker 3: for her.
Speaker 2: I daren't she forbade it. She's down there in the
Speaker 2: hollow with a big basket. The dew is falling and
Speaker 2: wetting her feet, and the sun's going away. But you
Speaker 2: know how she is. She sits on the damp ground,
Speaker 2: looking ahead of her as if she were asleep, or
Speaker 2: lies flat on her stomach, whistling and watching an ant
Speaker 2: in the grass. She tears up a handful of wild
Speaker 2: thyme and smells it. Calls the tom tits and the jays,
Speaker 2: who never come to her by any chance. She takes
Speaker 2: a heavy watering pot, and oh, it gives me the shivers,
Speaker 2: pours thousands of icy silvery threads over the roses or
Speaker 2: into the hollows of those little stone troughs way back
Speaker 2: in the woods. I always look in to see the
Speaker 2: head of a brindle bull who comes to meet me
Speaker 2: and to drink up the pictures of the leaves. But
Speaker 2: she pulls me back by the collar with Toby, Toby,
Speaker 2: that water is for the birds. Then she takes out
Speaker 2: her knife and opens nuts fifty a hundred nuts and
Speaker 2: forgets the time. There's no end to the things she does.
Speaker 1: Kiki, the demure, slyly.
Speaker 3: And what do you do all that time?
Speaker 2: I well, I just wait for her.
Speaker 3: I admire you once in a while.
Speaker 2: Squatting down, she eagerly scratches the earth toils and sweats
Speaker 2: over it. Then I jump round her, delighted to see
Speaker 2: her at something so useful and so familiar. But her
Speaker 2: feeble scent deceieves her. I never smell mole or shrew mouse,
Speaker 2: of the rosy paws and the whole she digs, and
Speaker 2: how explain her utter lack of purpose? Presently falling back
Speaker 2: on her haunches, she brandishes a hairy rooted herb and cries,
Speaker 2: I have it the jade. I lie in the damp
Speaker 2: grass and tremble or dig my nose, she calls it,
Speaker 2: my snout into the earth to get the complicated odors
Speaker 2: of it. When there are three or four cents, all blended,
Speaker 2: all mixed together. Can you distinguish that of the mole
Speaker 2: from that of the hair which passed quickly or the
Speaker 2: bird which rested there?
Speaker 3: Certainly I can. My nose is highly educated. It's smaller, regular,
Speaker 3: wide between my eyes, delicate at the shammy skin end
Speaker 3: of my nostrils. The lightest touch of a blade of grass,
Speaker 3: the shadow of smoke tickles and makes it sneeze. It
Speaker 3: doesn't bother about distinguishing the scent of moles from that
Speaker 3: of hares, did you say? But it delights in the
Speaker 3: trace left by a cat in a hedge. I've a
Speaker 3: charming nose, she calls it, his pretty little nose of
Speaker 3: cotton velvet. Since my eye opened on this world, I've
Speaker 3: not known the day that someone has not uttered a
Speaker 3: truthful flattery on the subject of my nose. Now yours
Speaker 3: is a rough, grained truffle. What makes you move it
Speaker 3: so ridiculously at this very moment.
Speaker 2: I'm hungry and I don't hear the plates.
Speaker 3: Your truffle of a nose works up and down and
Speaker 3: makes another wrinkle in your irregular mug.
Speaker 2: She always says. His square muzzle has wrinkled truffle so
Speaker 2: tenderly and so lovingly.
Speaker 3: And you think of nothing but eating.
Speaker 2: It's your empty stomach that scolds and complaints, wants to
Speaker 2: quarrel with me.
Speaker 3: I've a charming stomach.
Speaker 2: But no at your nose that's charming. You just said so.
Speaker 3: My stomach too. There's none more fastidious, more whimsical, stronger,
Speaker 3: and at the same time more delicate. It digests the
Speaker 3: bones of soul, but meat that's the least bit tainted.
Speaker 2: Literally turns it literally is the you have active indigestion.
Speaker 3: Yes, the whole house is affected by it from the
Speaker 3: very first qualms. I'm in terrible distress. The earth gives
Speaker 3: way under me. My eyes dilate, I hurriedly swallow quantities
Speaker 3: of salty saliva, involuntary ventry. Loquial cries escape me, My
Speaker 3: sides bulge out.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog disgusted.
Speaker 2: I say, if it's all the same to you, tell
Speaker 2: me the rest.
Speaker 3: After dinner, I'm hungry. Where can he be?
Speaker 2: He's there in a study, scratching paper.
Speaker 3: He's always doing that. It's a game. Two paws play
Speaker 3: at the same thing for hours and hours. I've often
Speaker 3: tried to scratch paper gently as he does, but the
Speaker 3: pleasure doesn't last long. I prefer newspapers torn into shreds
Speaker 3: that rustle and fly. There is a little part of dark, violet,
Speaker 3: muddy water on his table. I never sniff it without
Speaker 3: horror since the day a rather foolish curiosity made me
Speaker 3: dip my paw into it. This very paw, so strong
Speaker 3: and aristocratic, the tufts of useless hair you see between
Speaker 3: my toes proclaimed the purity of my race. This very
Speaker 3: paw bore a bluish stain for eight days, and the
Speaker 3: degrading odor of rusty steel clung to it a long
Speaker 3: time after.
Speaker 2: What's the little pot for?
Speaker 3: He drinks from it doubtless silence.
Speaker 2: She's not back yet, Heaven grant she isn't lost as
Speaker 2: I was. One day in the streets of Paris. I'm hungry,
Speaker 2: I'm hungry. Where are we going to eat? This evening?
Speaker 3: I saw a chicken. It made a silly noise and
Speaker 3: dropped red blood on the kitchen floor, soiling it far
Speaker 3: more than I ever did, or you either. Yet no
Speaker 3: one whipped it, but Emily put it in the fire
Speaker 3: to teach it a lesson. I licked up some of
Speaker 3: the blood.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog yawns.
Speaker 2: Chicken, it makes my mouth water. She'll say, hear Toby
Speaker 2: bones and throw me the carcasse.
Speaker 3: How badly you speak? He says, Little chicken bones, Kiki,
Speaker 3: little chicken bones.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog's surprised.
Speaker 2: But no, really, it's hear Toby bones that she says.
Speaker 3: He speaks better than she does.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog incompetent.
Speaker 2: Ah, tell me, do birds taste anything like chicken?
Speaker 1: Kikith the demure His eyes light up suddenly.
Speaker 3: No, they're far better. They're alive, Ah, the quivering bird,
Speaker 3: the warm feathers the delicious little brain. You feel it
Speaker 3: all crackling between your teeth.
Speaker 2: Oh, you make me sick. It always worries me to
Speaker 2: see tiny animals like that flutter about.
Speaker 1: And birds are dear, good little things, Kiki the demure dryly.
Speaker 3: Don't you believe it? They're only good to eat. They're noisy,
Speaker 3: stupid creatures infatuated with themselves, made to be eaten. You
Speaker 3: know the two jays not very well. They live in
Speaker 3: the little wood. When I walk by, they laugh a
Speaker 3: sardonic tiac tiak. Because I wear a bell at my
Speaker 3: neck in vain do. I hold my head very stiffly
Speaker 3: and put my paws down very gently. My bell tinkles,
Speaker 3: and the two creatures scream from the top of the
Speaker 3: fir tree. Just let me get hold of them one
Speaker 3: of these days.
Speaker 1: He lays back his ears and raises the hair along
Speaker 1: his back. Toby Dog pensive positively.
Speaker 2: Cat. There are times when I don't know you. We
Speaker 2: are talking quietly and suddenly you brizzle like a bottle brush,
Speaker 2: or we haven'ty playing amicably together, and I bark behind
Speaker 2: your back, o, just for fun. Then one doesn't know why,
Speaker 2: Perhaps because my nose grays the long hairs in your legs.
Speaker 2: You're so proud of you become all at once a
Speaker 2: savage beast, spitting fire and charging at me like a
Speaker 2: strange dog. Don't you think that shows a bad character.
Speaker 1: Kiki de demure, mysterious eyes half closed.
Speaker 3: Not at all its character, simply a cat's character. In
Speaker 3: such moments of irritability, I'm keenly alive to the humiliation
Speaker 3: of my present state and that of my race. I
Speaker 3: can remember a time when priests in long linen tunics,
Speaker 3: bending low, spoke to us and humbly tried to comprehend
Speaker 3: our chanted utterance. No dog, that it is not we
Speaker 3: who have changed. It may be there are days when
Speaker 3: I'm more myself, when everything offends me, and justly. A
Speaker 3: brusque gesture, a vulgar laugh, the banging of a door,
Speaker 3: your odor, your inconceivable impudence, when you touch me or
Speaker 3: encircle me, jumping and yelping.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog patiently to himself he's having one of his attacks,
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, with a start, did you hear?
Speaker 2: Yes? The kitchen door and the door into the dining room,
Speaker 2: and now the drawer with the spoons are kept at last, at.
Speaker 1: Last, ha ha, he yawns.
Speaker 2: I stare there's any longer? Where is she? I don't
Speaker 2: hear the gravel creaking? Night's coming on.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure ironically.
Speaker 3: Go find her, and how about him?
Speaker 2: He usually worries and comes in, asking where is she?
Speaker 2: But he's scratching still. He must have drunk up all
Speaker 2: the violet colored water in the muddy little pot.
Speaker 1: By this time, Toby carefully stretches his legs.
Speaker 2: Ah, I feel lively and empty. We're going to eat soon.
Speaker 2: Just smell the good kitchen smells that come under the door.
Speaker 2: Let's play. No run, I'll chase without touching you.
Speaker 3: No, why not? I don't want to.
Speaker 2: Oh but you're tiresome. Watch me jump and arch my
Speaker 2: neck like a little horse and try to catch my
Speaker 2: stubby tail. Now I turn round and round, and Heaven's
Speaker 2: a whole room spins. It's stopping now.
Speaker 3: Insufferable creature, insufferable yourself.
Speaker 2: Look out, I'm gonna run at you as she does
Speaker 2: when she's merry crying. Ha cat.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure rising puts up a paw, bristling with
Speaker 1: claws and spotted with rose color and black underneath. It
Speaker 1: looks like a thorny flower. If you dare, Toby dog
Speaker 1: in a frenzy.
Speaker 2: I do dare. We're a robberl Ha cat ha cat Kiki.
Speaker 1: The demure, exasperated, gives a spring and hangs on the tablecloths,
Speaker 1: dragging it down a lamp and various things fall to
Speaker 1: the ground. Terrified silence. The two animals, crouching under an
Speaker 1: arm chair, await punishment. He appears at the study door,
Speaker 1: holding a pen like a bit between his teeth.
Speaker 2: Thunder and blitzen.
Speaker 3: What is it now?
Speaker 4: This cursed managerie has overturned everything? Where's your mistress? What
Speaker 4: a place this is? To be sure?
Speaker 3: Dinner never on time.
Speaker 1: Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The two guilty ones,
Speaker 1: who well know the harmlessness of such outbursts, laugh quietly
Speaker 1: to themselves, and lying flatter's bedroom slippers, look at one
Speaker 1: another through the fringes of the chair. The garden gate opens.
Speaker 1: She comes in carrying a basket full of fragrant plums.
Speaker 1: Her hands are sticky from their sugarness, her hair tumbled.
Speaker 1: She stands horrified before the disaster.
Speaker 5: Oh they've been fighting again, have they?
Speaker 1: Without conviction?
Speaker 5: Dear me, what nasty creature. I'll give them away, I'll
Speaker 5: sell them, I'll kill them.
Speaker 1: But the cat and dog, groveling in exaggerated humidity, crawl
Speaker 1: up to her and speak together.
Speaker 3: Ah, there you are. It's very late. Toby attacked me.
Speaker 3: It's he who's broken everything. I believe he went mad
Speaker 3: from hunger. You smell good of grass and the twilight.
Speaker 3: You sat down on some wild thyme. Come tell your
Speaker 3: master to carry me on his shoulder. The meat will
Speaker 3: be overdone. I'm afraid you'll carve the chicken very quickly,
Speaker 3: won't you, And you'll keep the browned skin for me
Speaker 3: if you wish. I'll stretch out my paw like a
Speaker 3: spoon which knows how to take up the littlest morsels,
Speaker 3: and carry them to my mouth with that human gesture
Speaker 3: that makes you laugh. So you and he come, hi.
Speaker 2: Haye, there you are at last. I'm so unhappy when
Speaker 2: you're away. You banished me, You didn't love me. The
Speaker 2: lamb fell down all by itself.
Speaker 7: Calm.
Speaker 2: I'm awfully hungry, but I'll gladly go without dinner if
Speaker 2: you'll promise to take me with you always wherever you go. Yes,
Speaker 2: even out in the twilight, though it makes me sad.
Speaker 2: I will only follow you there, my nose close close
Speaker 2: to the hem of your dress.
Speaker 1: She disarmed and quite indifferent to the ctaclysm.
Speaker 5: Do look how pretty they are?
Speaker 1: She is ill a bedroom in the country house. Autumnal
Speaker 1: sunshine filled his inn through closed blinds. She lies on
Speaker 1: a couch, apparently asleep, dressed in a white woolen gown.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demuur makes his toilet on a narrow console table.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, on the carpet, in a sphinxlike attitude, watches her,
Speaker 1: and at the same time is attentive to the words
Speaker 1: of his master, who is leaving the room on tiptoe. He,
Speaker 1: in a very low voice to the two animals.
Speaker 4: Sh, don't wake her, be good, I'm going downstairs to write.
Speaker 1: He closes the door noiselessly after himself. Toby Dog, Takiki
Speaker 1: the Demuur.
Speaker 2: What did he say?
Speaker 3: I don't know, something vague directions like stay there, good bye.
Speaker 2: He said, sh, I'm not making any.
Speaker 1: Noise, Kiki the Demure.
Speaker 3: Ironically, they're astonishing. They say no noise, and thereupon walk
Speaker 3: off with a step. A deaf rat could hear two
Speaker 3: miles away some truth.
Speaker 1: In that he looks at the sleeping figure on the couch.
Speaker 2: Her face still looks very small. She's asleep. If you
Speaker 2: jump down from that table, don't land with a big thump.
Speaker 1: Kiki, the demure stiffly.
Speaker 3: Ah, you are teaching me to jump now, are you,
Speaker 3: oh worthy? Counselor put a b in your barn and
Speaker 3: he'll make himself your heir. What's that nothing? An oriental proverb.
Speaker 3: If I wished dog to disturb the silence of this room,
Speaker 3: I'd be clever enough to choose a rickety chair. Its
Speaker 3: feet would pound out a regular tick talk, tick talk,
Speaker 3: tick talk, in time with my tongue as I washed myself.
Speaker 3: It's a means I've invented to gain my liberty. Tick talk,
Speaker 3: tick talk, says the chair she happens to be reading
Speaker 3: or writing, is easily irritated and cries be quiet, Kiki,
Speaker 3: But I go on, unconscious of any wrongdoing. Tick talk,
Speaker 3: tick talk. She jumps up, distracted and opens the door
Speaker 3: wide for me slowly, like one exiled. I cross its threshold, and,
Speaker 3: once outside laugh to find myself so superior to them all.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, who hasn't been listening, yawns.
Speaker 2: What a sad week? Eh, I don't know what it
Speaker 2: is to take a walk anymore. I haven't taken any
Speaker 2: pleasure in eating either, said she fall from her horse.
Speaker 3: Heavens, one can love people and care for one's stomach too.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, with ardor not.
Speaker 2: I when she screamed and fell from her horse, I
Speaker 2: felt the heart crack inside me.
Speaker 3: That affair couldn't have ended Otherwise, one doesn't go climbing
Speaker 3: up on a horse. People don't do such things. I
Speaker 3: see nothing but extravagance around me, to begin with. The
Speaker 3: horse is a fearful monstrosity.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog indignantly.
Speaker 2: Did one ever hear the like?
Speaker 1: Do you keep the demure peremptorily?
Speaker 3: I happen to have had the opportunity of making a
Speaker 3: very close study of.
Speaker 1: One Toby Dog. Aside, he makes me laugh.
Speaker 3: It was the farmer's horse that grazed in the meadow.
Speaker 3: My life for a whole month was embittered by the
Speaker 3: roving mountain lying under the hedge. I could see his
Speaker 3: heavy feet disfiguring the ground. I breathed his vulgar odor,
Speaker 3: and heard his strident cry shaking the air. Once when
Speaker 3: he was eating the lower twigs of the hedge. I
Speaker 3: saw myself, the whole of me, reflected in one of
Speaker 3: his eyes. I fled, and from that day my hatred
Speaker 3: was so strong that I wildly hoped to annihilate the monster.
Speaker 3: I'll go up to him, thought I. I'll plant myself
Speaker 3: firmly in front of him, and the desire of his
Speaker 3: death will be so strong in my eyes that perhaps
Speaker 3: he'll die when he meets my look.
Speaker 1: Topy Dog diverted, and then Kii the Demure, continuing.
Speaker 3: I carried out my plan. But the horse I had
Speaker 3: waited for, in fear and trembling, just blew through his
Speaker 3: nostrils a long jet of foul smelling vapor, and I
Speaker 3: fell back in atrocious convulsions.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, inwardly writhing with laughter. You don't exaggerate, Kiki
Speaker 1: the Demure, serious.
Speaker 3: Never, and she must needs go climbing on a horse's back,
Speaker 3: holding fast to four cords, one leg this side and
Speaker 3: the other that strange aberration.
Speaker 2: We don't think alike. Cat for me, the horse is,
Speaker 2: after man, the most beautiful thing in the world.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure vexed.
Speaker 3: And where do I come in?
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, evasive and courteous.
Speaker 2: No, you're a cat, but a horse, and with her
Speaker 2: on his back, What a beautiful picture they make, high
Speaker 2: up in the blue air. To gaze on it, I
Speaker 2: have to throw my head way back on my thick neck.
Speaker 2: The horse lends her his speed. Now at last she
Speaker 2: can race with me. When I go off on a
Speaker 2: mad run. Sometimes I'm ahead, ears floating back and tongue
Speaker 2: hanging out like a little flag, the angular shadow of
Speaker 2: the horse on the road in front. If I follow her,
Speaker 2: a fragrant dust blows back at me. It smells of
Speaker 2: warm leather, moist beast, and a little of her own
Speaker 2: perfume too. The road runs under me like a ribbon
Speaker 2: that someone is pulling. Oh what a joy it is
Speaker 2: to be so little and so swift, running along the
Speaker 2: shadow of a great galloping horse. When we halt, I
Speaker 2: pat like a motor between the legs of my friend,
Speaker 2: who snorts and in the kindliest way, puts down his
Speaker 2: fettered mouth and sprinkles me.
Speaker 3: I know, I know, the horse, with long mane, a
Speaker 3: shake hoofs, heavy with tumult eyes glimmering white. You are
Speaker 3: the last of the romanticists.
Speaker 2: I'm not the last of the romanticists. I'm a little
Speaker 2: bulldog that came into the world one evening almost under
Speaker 2: the feet of a chestnut mare. She didn't lie down
Speaker 2: all night long. She was so afraid of crushing my
Speaker 2: mother and her puppies. A little bulldog like me is
Speaker 2: almost the child of a horse. I lay in the
Speaker 2: warm straw against her warm flanks. I drank out of
Speaker 2: the stable pails. I used to get up when I
Speaker 2: heard the sound of hoofs coming in, and I took
Speaker 2: an interest in the washing of the carriages until the
Speaker 2: day she came and picked me out, Me the best looking,
Speaker 2: the most snub nosed, the stockiest of the litter ah.
Speaker 2: And there she lies, so dreadfully quiet. It makes me
Speaker 2: sad to see her with that little cloth still round
Speaker 2: her ankle. You remember when he picked her up in
Speaker 2: his arms. He held her, and she's a lot bigger
Speaker 2: than I am, just as if she were a little
Speaker 2: dog that he was going to drown.
Speaker 1: Kiki de demure bitterly.
Speaker 3: I remember, I was at the top of the stairs,
Speaker 3: irritated by the noise, but curious. He came up and
Speaker 3: pushed me aside with his foot, as he would have
Speaker 3: done if a piece of furniture had happened to be
Speaker 3: in his way.
Speaker 2: Is that why you stayed away from this room, her
Speaker 2: room for three whole.
Speaker 1: Days, Kiki de Demure, hesitating.
Speaker 3: Yes, And for another reason too, What reason? Because of the.
Speaker 1: Fever Toby Dog carried away by his love.
Speaker 2: Her fever smells better than other people's good health.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, shrugging his shoulders.
Speaker 3: And they talk of a dog's scent. Truly, the convictions
Speaker 3: of two paws are based upon childish fables. You know,
Speaker 3: of course, that.
Speaker 1: Fever Toby Dog in a low.
Speaker 2: Tone makes one afraid, Yes.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure in a low tone.
Speaker 3: Makes one afraid, gives one cold, shivers down one's back,
Speaker 3: distaste for everything, and uneasiness all over. One hesitates on
Speaker 3: the threshold of a room where there is fever, searching
Speaker 3: fearfully some hidden thing. She was in bed and burning hot.
Speaker 3: I looked at her a long time, ready to run,
Speaker 3: saying to myself, who can be with her? There? Behind
Speaker 3: the curtains? Who is it? Stifles and torments her and
Speaker 3: makes her moan in her sleep?
Speaker 1: Toby Dog frightened retrospectively.
Speaker 2: There wasn't any one, was there?
Speaker 3: No one but he and the fever he the most
Speaker 3: intelligent of two paws, was leaning over her, listening to
Speaker 3: her breathing, dimly aware of an invisible presence. I overcame
Speaker 3: my aversion and looked at her. I was melancholy and jealous.
Speaker 3: He must love her, thought I to go so near
Speaker 3: and defend her, to kiss her, imbued as she is
Speaker 3: with the evil charm? Would he hold me to his
Speaker 3: heart if I?
Speaker 1: Toby Dog imperatively sho what she stirred? No, Toby Dog
Speaker 1: alert looking at her.
Speaker 2: No, she didn't stir, but her thoughts did. I felt
Speaker 2: them continue.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, who has recovered his equanimity.
Speaker 3: I don't know what we were talking about. The fief enough,
Speaker 3: don't recall it. Fever is the beginning of the thing.
Speaker 3: One never speaks of.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog's shivering.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know, I don't like an animal that can't move,
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, laughing cruelly.
Speaker 2: Ha ha ha, Nor do I.
Speaker 3: I can only eat live birds, and as for the
Speaker 3: tiny mice, I prefer to swallow them squeak and awe.
Speaker 2: Why does it amuse you to horrify me? You've a
Speaker 2: certain vanity that I can't understand it consists in exaggerating
Speaker 2: cruelties that are already real enough. You call me the
Speaker 2: last of the romanticist, aren't you? The first of the sadis.
Speaker 3: Oh dog poisoned with literature. An eternal misunderstanding separates us.
Speaker 2: I'm a little bulldog.
Speaker 3: He replied, Just now, with that stupid sincerity which disarms me,
Speaker 3: let me say to you, in my turn, I am
Speaker 3: a cat. The name is sufficient dispensation. There is in
Speaker 3: me a hatred of pain and ugliness, an overmastering detestation
Speaker 3: of all that offends my sight or my reason. When
Speaker 3: the concierge's cat dragged around his wounded paw, I threw
Speaker 3: myself upon him, fired by a righteous anger, and until
Speaker 3: he stopped his whining.
Speaker 1: Eye Toby dogs supplicating me, don't tell me. Quiki the
Speaker 1: demure getting.
Speaker 3: Angry, understand then, once and for all, if the pale
Speaker 3: recital of what I did upsets you, that I wished
Speaker 3: to abolish, to annihilate in that bleeding animal, the suggestion
Speaker 3: of my own inevitable death, they're.
Speaker 1: Quiet for a little while, Kiki the demure, shuddering.
Speaker 3: This confinement does us no good. I would gladly go
Speaker 3: out into the soft sunshine, and do the Bayadere's dance,
Speaker 3: as he calls it. On the dry gravel, among the leaves,
Speaker 3: which look like fried potatoes. Everything is yellow. Out of doors.
Speaker 3: My green eyes would reflect the golden sun and the
Speaker 3: flaming woods, and so turn yellow too. Now I'll think
Speaker 3: only of what is joyous and yellow, the beautiful cold autumn,
Speaker 3: the rosy dawn that leaves its colors in the foliage
Speaker 3: of the cherry tree. Come, let's prove the strength of
Speaker 3: our legs and enjoy to the fall the consciousness that
Speaker 3: youth has only just begun for us, who knows death
Speaker 3: may never come.
Speaker 1: He jumps down from the console table without making the
Speaker 1: least noise, Toby Dog stopping him.
Speaker 2: What are you going to do?
Speaker 3: Scratch at the door and strike up the hymn of
Speaker 3: the sequestered cat.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, indicating the figure on the couch, and doubtless
Speaker 1: waken her. Kiki the Demure stubbornly.
Speaker 3: I'll sing in a very small voice.
Speaker 2: And you'll scratch with your tiniest claws. I suppose stay
Speaker 2: here quietly, He commanded it when he went away.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, loftily.
Speaker 3: Does he command me he beseeches me, and that's my
Speaker 3: only reason for obeying him.
Speaker 1: He sits down again, apparently resigned, and yawned slowly.
Speaker 3: Toby Dog yawning, You make me how on the contrary, it's.
Speaker 1: You who bore me temptingly.
Speaker 3: You're thinking what a good thing freedom is, aren't you?
Speaker 3: A hen has probably escaped from the chicken yard. What
Speaker 3: sport you're missing?
Speaker 2: You really think so?
Speaker 3: I said, probably? Have you finished exploring that rabbit hole?
Speaker 1: Dog disturbed?
Speaker 2: No, it's so very deep. I almost buried myself following
Speaker 2: it out yesterday. The earth that stuck to my muzzle
Speaker 2: had some of the animal's fur in it.
Speaker 1: Kikit the demure more and more satanic.
Speaker 3: I suppose you'll finish that tomorrow or.
Speaker 1: Some other day, Toby Dog sadly.
Speaker 2: Why not say next year? While you're about it.
Speaker 3: What's the matter with you? Your shiny black lip hangs down
Speaker 3: like an el, and your froggy eyes glitter with tears.
Speaker 3: Are you crying?
Speaker 1: Toby Dog's sniffling.
Speaker 3: No, poor sensitive heart, console yourself. You'll have your pleasures
Speaker 3: and your friends again. At this very moment, the farmer's
Speaker 3: dog is crunching bones in the kitchen to beguile. The
Speaker 3: long wait for.
Speaker 1: You, Toby Dog overcome.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, the farmer's dog.
Speaker 3: She's not alone either, That great dane, the watch dog
Speaker 3: keeps her company.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog rebellious.
Speaker 2: That's not true.
Speaker 1: Go see Toby Dog. After one bound toward the door.
Speaker 2: No, that would make noise.
Speaker 3: You're right, it would.
Speaker 1: A mournful silence follows. Toby curls himself up like a
Speaker 1: turban and closes his eyes because he feels like crying.
Speaker 1: His breath comes in little sobs. Kiki the demure, absently
Speaker 1: in a low, monotonous chant.
Speaker 8: The dog, the little dog, the bones, the little dog,
Speaker 8: the rabbit, the great Dane, the rabbit's hole, the little.
Speaker 3: Dog, the mutton, bones, the rabbit's skin.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog at first endures the torture heroically, Then his
Speaker 1: nerves betray him, and lifting his head, he howls the
Speaker 1: long plaint of the abandoned. Oh Kigi, the demure from
Speaker 1: the top of the console table. Will you be quiet,
Speaker 1: Oh Kiki the demure aside?
Speaker 3: That's it, that's it.
Speaker 1: She wakes bewildered, still captive of her dreams, while the
Speaker 1: cat listens patiently to the approaching step on the stairs,
Speaker 1: which means liberty for him and punishment for Toby Dog.
Speaker 1: The first fire, because it is raining and an October
Speaker 1: wind chases wet leaves through the air, she has lit
Speaker 1: the first fire of the season in the great chimney place.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure and Toby Dog, in ecstasy, side by
Speaker 1: side on a corner of the warm hearthstone, contemplate the
Speaker 1: flame with dazzled eyes and address their meditations to it.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, looking very like a cushion, no pause visible.
Speaker 3: Oh Fire, how splendid you are. You have come back
Speaker 3: more beautiful than my memory of you. You are hotter
Speaker 3: and nearer than the sun. The pupils of my eyes
Speaker 3: contract in your light, their lids half close, modestly hiding
Speaker 3: the joy I feel at seeing you again. And my
Speaker 3: inscrutable countenance shows but the semblance of a thought painted
Speaker 3: there in fawn color and black. Your crackling drowns the
Speaker 3: soft sound of my purr. Don't snap too much, be merciful, Oh,
Speaker 3: inconstant fire, don't sputter sparks on my fur. Allow me
Speaker 3: to adore you without fear.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, half baked eyes, bloodshot tongue, pendant fire fire.
Speaker 2: Here you are again. I'm still very young, but I
Speaker 2: remember how awestruck I was the first time her hand
Speaker 2: woke you in the same chimney place. The sight of
Speaker 2: a god as mysterious as you are was most impressive
Speaker 2: to a baby dog just out of the maternal stable. Oh, Fire,
Speaker 2: I've not quite gotten over my fear. Hi. You spit
Speaker 2: at me something red that smarts. I'm afraid. Well it's
Speaker 2: gone now. How beautiful you are. Fire out from your
Speaker 2: ruddy center, shoot tatters and shreds of gold, sudden spurts
Speaker 2: of blue, and smoke that twists upward and draws queer
Speaker 2: shapes of beasts. Oh but I'm hot, Gently, gently, sovereign fire.
Speaker 2: See how my truffle of a nose is drying up
Speaker 2: and cracking in my ears? Are they not a blaze?
Speaker 2: I adjure thee with supply, and paw, I groan. Ah,
Speaker 2: I can endure it no longer.
Speaker 1: He turns away.
Speaker 2: Nothing is ever perfect. The east wind coming under the
Speaker 2: door nips my hind legs. Well, it can't be helped.
Speaker 2: I'll freeze behind if I must, provided I can adore
Speaker 2: you face to face.
Speaker 3: I am a cat, and therefore aware of all that
Speaker 3: you bring in your train o fire. I foresee winter.
Speaker 3: It's coming. Both troubles and pleases me. I've already begun
Speaker 3: to thicken and embellish my fur coat in its honor.
Speaker 3: The darker stripes are becoming black. My white tippet swells
Speaker 3: into a dazzling boa, and the fur on my belly
Speaker 3: surpasses in beauty anything that has ever been seen. What
Speaker 3: shall I say of my tail broad as a club
Speaker 3: with alternate rings of fawn color and black, Or of
Speaker 3: the sensitive, priceless agrets which spring from my ears? My
Speaker 3: ear rings? She calls them? What cat could resist me?
Speaker 8: Ah?
Speaker 3: The January nights, the serenades under a frosty moon, the
Speaker 3: dignified weight on the pinnacle of a roof, the encounter
Speaker 3: with a rival cat on the narrow top of a wall.
Speaker 3: But I feel quite sure of my superior strength. I'll
Speaker 3: swish my tail, put back my ears, sniff tragically as
Speaker 3: one does before vomiting, and then lift up my voice.
Speaker 3: Its modulations are infinite. I'll make it strong enough to
Speaker 3: waken all the sleeping two paws. I'll vociferate, I'll whimper,
Speaker 3: pacing up and down the garden. My body distended, my
Speaker 3: legs bent outward, feigning madness to terrify the tom cats.
Speaker 2: I know something of the changes and pleasures you foretell, Fire,
Speaker 2: for I'm a dog. Already. It is raining in the garden.
Speaker 2: I suppose it's raining on the road too, And in
Speaker 2: the woods. The falling drops are not warm as they
Speaker 2: were in the summer. Storms from my truffle, gray with
Speaker 2: dust to light it in the damp smell that came
Speaker 2: from the west. The sky is troubled, and the wind
Speaker 2: has grown strong enough to blow my ears out straight
Speaker 2: like little flags. A sharp cry such as I make
Speaker 2: when I beg comes under the door. You'll be shining
Speaker 2: here every day, Fire, But I'll have to suffer for
Speaker 2: the right to worship you. For she'll continue to wander about,
Speaker 2: her head covered with the pointed hood, which changes her
Speaker 2: so that it frightens me. She'll put on wooden shoes too,
Speaker 2: and carelessly crush the puddles, the little heaps of mud,
Speaker 2: and the weeping mosses. I'll follow her, since I've promised
Speaker 2: to do so my life long, and also because I
Speaker 2: can't help it. I'll follow her, a forlorn and piteous object,
Speaker 2: shining wet my belly covered with mud, until through very
Speaker 2: excess of misery, I'll forget and ramble in the coppice,
Speaker 2: interested in every undulation of the grass, eager to revive
Speaker 2: the drowned sense in it. She'll become communicative when she
Speaker 2: sees me hurrying along, and we'll talk. Ha, tobby dogs,
Speaker 2: You'll say, ha, a bird there on the branch. Look,
Speaker 2: you booby, Now he's gone. Show condole with me. Then
Speaker 2: until I'm on the verge of tears, Oh, my little
Speaker 2: black boy, my sympathetic cylinder, my betraychean love, How cold
Speaker 2: you are, how wet, how sad, how you suffer? Ooh,
Speaker 2: And before I'm able to judge the sincerity of her pity,
Speaker 2: the tears will overflow my throat contract and will wail
Speaker 2: in unison. Ah, but what delirious joy. When the capricious
Speaker 2: wooden shoes turn again toward the house, hurrying to rejoin
Speaker 2: him whom we've left scratching paper, they don't go half
Speaker 2: fast enough for me. Then I jump round her, barking
Speaker 2: with the light to see the hill diminishing, or climb
Speaker 2: at an end to smell the good stable smell and
Speaker 2: that of burning wood. As we near the house. At last,
Speaker 2: you shine forth, oh fire, oh sun, through the misty
Speaker 2: window pane. I shall hardly have crossed the threshold, and
Speaker 2: an overpowering sleepiness will dash me to the floor in
Speaker 2: front of you, You who will reduce the mud on
Speaker 2: my belly to fine powder and change the water of
Speaker 2: the roads to smoky vapor.
Speaker 3: A delightful glow penetrates my coat to the silky down,
Speaker 3: the impalpable colorless threads which protect my delicate skin. I
Speaker 3: feel myself swelling like a cloud. I must quite fill
Speaker 3: the room. My whiskers seem charged with electricity, a sign
Speaker 3: that I will sleep. But for the time being, the
Speaker 3: contemplation of your splendor and thoughts of the coming season
Speaker 3: keep me awake. It's raining, I shall not go out.
Speaker 3: I'll wait for the sun or the dry wind, or
Speaker 3: better still, the frost. Ah how the biting coal stimulates me.
Speaker 3: It lashes my lungs with handfuls of needles and makes
Speaker 3: a bon bon blassee of my charming nose. The rollicking
Speaker 3: frost sprite will blow his madness into me. She'll laugh,
Speaker 3: and he too, leaving his scratching paper to see me
Speaker 3: vie with the leaves in bounds, leaps and wild whirlings,
Speaker 3: resembling a floating flurry of gray smoke rather than a
Speaker 3: cat to the top of a tree. Down again. Then
Speaker 3: seven turns after my tail, a perilous backward leap, a
Speaker 3: vertical jump with aerial domes, du ventre gyrations, sneezes, careering
Speaker 3: from the reel to the dream, until, in terror of myself,
Speaker 3: I come to a sudden stop. Everything turns before my eyes.
Speaker 3: I am the center of a strange spinning world. In
Speaker 3: my bewilderment, half feigned, I'll make a little moo like
Speaker 3: a cow, which will bring them both running to me,
Speaker 3: she laughing and he fearing something wrong. That will suffice
Speaker 3: to sober me. And with a bold front and noble
Speaker 3: I'll regain this cushion near your altar old fire.
Speaker 2: The hearthstone burns the horny pads of my feet. What
Speaker 2: shall I do? Move away? Never, I'll toast to death
Speaker 2: rather than give up this redoubtable bliss. Heaven prevent her coming.
Speaker 2: Now I've reason to fear the lash of the whip
Speaker 2: and the magic words which mean exile. Toby, that's stupid.
Speaker 2: I forbid you to roast yourself. You'll have sore eyes
Speaker 2: and catch cold when you go out. That's what she says,
Speaker 2: while I regard her with a stupid look of utter devotion.
Speaker 2: But she's never duped by it. I hear noises upstairs,
Speaker 2: her step coming and going. I wonder as her vagabond
Speaker 2: fancy wearied at last this morning, she whistled to me,
Speaker 2: and in my haste to obey her, I rolled to
Speaker 2: the bottom of the stairs. Being low and thick set,
Speaker 2: with short legs, no nose, and almost no tail to
Speaker 2: balance me. Well, we set off. The last apples were
Speaker 2: rocking to and fro on swaying branches, my happy voice,
Speaker 2: a joyful shout from her now, and then the vain
Speaker 2: crowing of the cock, the creaking of wagons on the road.
Speaker 2: All these sounds floated on a bluish, cottony, suffocating fog.
Speaker 2: She took me far, and many marvelous things happened on
Speaker 2: our way. We met terrible giant dogs. My proud bearings
Speaker 2: seemed to exasperate them, but I kept them back with
Speaker 2: a single look. Besides, a closed iron gate rendered them powerless.
Speaker 2: I chased a rabbit into the thicket. Though she cried loudly,
Speaker 2: I forbid you to touch the little animal. My mother
Speaker 2: certainly gave me swift legs, but they're short, and the
Speaker 2: white end of the little beast kept far ahead. A
Speaker 2: bush covered with red berries detained us a very long time.
Speaker 2: She sees no objection to eating strange things. And I
Speaker 2: can truthfully say that I always taste everything she offers me,
Speaker 2: for I've great faith in her. But this morning, eat toby,
Speaker 2: nice berries.
Speaker 3: Eat.
Speaker 2: Here are some rose hips, Oh stupid, how can you
Speaker 2: not dote upon their delicious flavor? I assure you these
Speaker 2: are comforts of Mother Nature's making. In deference to her,
Speaker 2: I chewed a reddish ball. There are some rough hairs
Speaker 2: on it, put their outlets by her teasing hand. And
Speaker 2: what was bound to happen did happen. Ha ha, My throat
Speaker 2: rejected the nasty rose hip. But listen fire. What I
Speaker 2: saw after that passes my understanding. It was in a
Speaker 2: wood where stiff leaves rustled. Had she carried you under
Speaker 2: her cloak? Or do gods like you come at her bidding?
Speaker 2: I saw her hands pile up the wood, arrange flat
Speaker 2: stones in some mysterious fashion, and then fire. I saw
Speaker 2: the sparks flash, and your joyous soul, palpitate, grow big, sore,
Speaker 2: naked and rose colored, veil itself in smoke, snapped noisily
Speaker 2: for yours as a belligerent soul, agonize and disappear. The
Speaker 2: world is full of incomprehensible things. Last of all, on
Speaker 2: our way back, I discovered near the park gate, saw
Speaker 2: it before she did, one of those invincible beasts called hedgehogs,
Speaker 2: the mere sight of which brings us dogs to bay.
Speaker 2: What madness to realize that an animal is hiding under
Speaker 2: that pincushion and laughing at me, and that I can
Speaker 2: do nothing nothing, I implored her. She can do nearly
Speaker 2: everything to pluck him for me. She began by turning
Speaker 2: him over with a little stick, as if he were
Speaker 2: a horse chestnut. Astonishing, said she, I can't find the
Speaker 2: top of him. Then she took one of his spines
Speaker 2: between two fingers and carried him home that way, I
Speaker 2: dancing behind her, and put him in her work basket.
Speaker 2: After a while, the horrid beast unrolled himself, stuck out
Speaker 2: a pig like nose, opened two shiny rats eyes, and
Speaker 2: raised himself, holding fast by his little paws, which were
Speaker 2: exactly like a mule's. How pretty he is, She cried,
Speaker 2: a real little black pig. I stood near the table,
Speaker 2: groaning with covetousness. But she didn't pluck him for me,
Speaker 2: not then or ever. And perhaps the cook ate him,
Speaker 2: this cancer dissembler. Maybe he but away with care. I'm
Speaker 2: too excitable. I mustn't let myself think of these things.
Speaker 2: Life is beautiful, old fire, since you illumine it. I'm
Speaker 2: going to sleep. Watch over my unco body. I'm going
Speaker 2: to sleep.
Speaker 3: One would think me asleep, because the narrow slit made
Speaker 3: by my parted eyelids seems but the continuation of that
Speaker 3: velvety line, that bold crayon stroke, a sort of oriental
Speaker 3: make up, uniting my eyelids and my ears. But I'm awake,
Speaker 3: keeping watch like a yogi, in a state of blissful ankylosis,
Speaker 3: conscious of all that's going on around me. My privileged
Speaker 3: eyes fire do but behold you better when they are closed,
Speaker 3: and I can count the various essences you mingle in
Speaker 3: a sparkling bouquet. Here, in a flame of mauve color
Speaker 3: and blue, close the soul of a branch of arbor vitti.
Speaker 3: Yesterday it waved a plume like shadow on the garden
Speaker 3: walk to day with its delicate twigs, it is but
Speaker 3: a writhing skeleton. She cut it with one stroke of
Speaker 3: the pruning scissors. Why that it might breathe out its
Speaker 3: fervent blue and mauve colored soul. For like me, she
Speaker 3: delights in your dance fire and chastises you when you
Speaker 3: are quiet with a stern pair of tongs. Sitting there
Speaker 3: with her head bent and her arms hanging along her sides,
Speaker 3: what does she read? I wonder, in that fiery rose,
Speaker 3: which is the labyrinthian heart of you? She knows a
Speaker 3: great deal, certainly, but not as much as a cat.
Speaker 3: That thick tear on the log represents the anguish of
Speaker 3: a very old fir tree killed by the assiduous ivy.
Speaker 3: Just a short time ago. I saw it struck down,
Speaker 3: lying on the grass, its foliage looking like a beautiful
Speaker 3: head of reddish hair. I saw the axe that felled
Speaker 3: it too. Its trunk weeps tears of resin which trail
Speaker 3: along and drivel, then change to heavy creeping flame. But
Speaker 3: the dry red locks break into lines of living fire,
Speaker 3: whistle and shoot innumerable jets of many colors, underneath a
Speaker 3: broad gold wave that rolls voluptuously. Ah, love, hunting, fighting.
Speaker 3: It's your light fire that discovers these passions in the
Speaker 3: depths of my being. It's time the little winged creatures
Speaker 3: searching withered berries came near. I'll have them soon. I'll
Speaker 3: watch motionless in the brushwood, wildly wishing that the earth
Speaker 3: itself might hide me, the muscles of my legs twitching
Speaker 3: with desire to make the spring, my chin trembling. Then
Speaker 3: if I don't betray my hiding place by an irrepressible
Speaker 3: quavering frightening them away in one great commotion of wings
Speaker 3: and rustling branches. But no, I'm master of myself, one
Speaker 3: bound at exactly the right moment, And my feeble prey
Speaker 3: is panting under me. Oh, the ridiculous effort of a
Speaker 3: weak animal, its tiny, ineffectual claws and pointed wings beating
Speaker 3: against my face. My jaws will open to the splitting point,
Speaker 3: and my perfect nose wrinkle ferociously for the joy of
Speaker 3: holding a living, terrified body. I'll know the intoxication of battle.
Speaker 3: I'll prance victoriously, shaking my head to torment the bird
Speaker 3: a little, for it faints away too soon between my teeth,
Speaker 3: terrible to see I'll gallop towards the house, singing in
Speaker 3: a strangled voice without loosening my grip. For he must
Speaker 3: stop his scratching to admire me, and she must give
Speaker 3: chase with distracted cries. Wicked savage cat, drop that bird,
Speaker 3: Drop that bird. Oh, I beg of you. It hurts
Speaker 3: me so ha. She never can have hunted. I intend
Speaker 3: to astonish the world fire during winter's reign. The cat
Speaker 3: that lives at the farm, she says, the farmer's cat,
Speaker 3: while we say the cat's farmer. The fellow that's so
Speaker 3: badly dressed, disfigured by the nose of a weasel, and
Speaker 3: seems to walk on stilts. His legs are so long. Well,
Speaker 3: he sharpens his claws and regards me the while patience.
Speaker 3: He's strong, brutal, irresolute, and utterly lacks distinction. The slamming
Speaker 3: of a door terrifies him. He puts back his ears
Speaker 3: and flies panic stricken. Still, I've seen him kill a
Speaker 3: good sized hen without making any fuss about it. For
Speaker 3: a glance of the young cat's deceitful eyes, or right
Speaker 3: of precedence on the garden wall. For a word of
Speaker 3: double meaning, for nothing but for the fun of it,
Speaker 3: I'll take my chances with him. He'll learn that a
Speaker 3: mysterious silence can demoralize the enemy quite as effectively as
Speaker 3: murderous cries. The low garden wall seems to me a
Speaker 3: convenient place. Let him try his horse meowling in all
Speaker 3: possible keys. May his unsightly face and more hideous body
Speaker 3: dislocate itself in a deceitful ataxia. For there still at
Speaker 3: these old tricks. I'll be proof against it all, and
Speaker 3: merely flash the green magnetism of my magnificent eyes upon him.
Speaker 3: His brows will fall under their persistent insult. A shudder
Speaker 3: will run along his spine. He'll do a few steps
Speaker 3: of our ancient war dance forward, back forward again. But
Speaker 3: I'll stand motionless as the statue of a cat. The
Speaker 3: green witchcraft of my gaze will strike terror and madness
Speaker 3: into my rival, and soon I'll see him writhe utter
Speaker 3: false cries, and as a last resource, try to balance
Speaker 3: himself on the nape of his neck like a forked
Speaker 3: pear tree, only to roll over shamefully into the potato field.
Speaker 3: All that will come to pass fire exactly as I've
Speaker 3: told it to day. The future dawns in your new flame.
Speaker 3: I'm growing drowsy. My purr and your crackling are ceasing together.
Speaker 3: I see you still, and already I catch glimpses of
Speaker 3: my dreams. The silky sound of the rain against the
Speaker 3: window is soft as a caress, and the water pipe
Speaker 3: on the roof sobs low like a pigeon. Don't go
Speaker 3: out during my nap fire. Remember you're the guardian of
Speaker 3: my august repose that delicate death known as a cat's sleep.
Speaker 1: The storm a suffocating summer's day in the country. The
Speaker 1: blinds of the house are half closed. Not a sound
Speaker 1: is heard from within, not a murmur from the parched garden,
Speaker 1: where even the sensitive leaves of the mimosa hang motionless.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure and Toby Dog begin to feel uncomfortably
Speaker 1: conscious of the coming storm, which is yet but a
Speaker 1: slate blue plinth thickly painted at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: dull blue sky wall. Toby Dog lying restlessly, first on
Speaker 1: one side, then the other.
Speaker 2: No use, I can't be comfortable. What does this heat
Speaker 2: mean anyway? I must be sick. It began at breakfast.
Speaker 2: I didn't like the meat and sniffed as dainfully at
Speaker 2: my dog, biscuit. Something awful is going to happen. I
Speaker 2: haven't done anything wrong that I know of. My conscience
Speaker 2: is clear, and yet I'm suffering. There lies my chum,
Speaker 2: shivering and unable to sleep. I know why, his quick
Speaker 2: breathing that he feels just as I do. I say, can't?
Speaker 1: Can you give it? Amure irritably in a low tone.
Speaker 3: Be quiet what.
Speaker 2: You're listening to? Some noise?
Speaker 3: No heavens, No, don't mention noise. The mere sound of
Speaker 3: your voice makes the skin on my back go in
Speaker 3: waves like the sea.
Speaker 1: Toby dog frightened.
Speaker 2: Are you going to die?
Speaker 3: I hope not. I've a sick headache. Can't you see
Speaker 3: the arteries throbbing under the almost hairless skin of my temples,
Speaker 3: the transparent bluish skin that denotes a thoroughbred. It's atrocious.
Speaker 3: The veins on my forehead are like writhing vipers. And
Speaker 3: I don't know what gnome forges in my brain. Oh,
Speaker 3: be quiet, or at least speak so low that the
Speaker 3: coursing of my agitator blood may drown the sound of
Speaker 3: your voice.
Speaker 2: But it's this very silence that oppresses me. I tremble
Speaker 2: and I don't know why I long for the familiar
Speaker 2: voice of the wind in the chimney, the slamming of doors,
Speaker 2: the whispering of the garden, the popular ceaseless rustle. It
Speaker 2: always sounds like a trickling spring.
Speaker 3: The uproar will come soon enough, do you think so?
Speaker 2: I wish she'd scratch paper. It's an idle habit, but
Speaker 2: an honored one. And see how listless she is there
Speaker 2: in her wicker chair. Their silence frightens me more than anything.
Speaker 2: She seems asleep, but I can see her eyelashes move,
Speaker 2: and the tips of her fingers too. She's forgetting to
Speaker 2: play with the little balls of thread and doesn't sing
Speaker 2: or whistle. She suffers just as we do. Do you
Speaker 2: think this can be the end of the world?
Speaker 3: Cat, No, it's a storm. Heaven's how uncomfortable I am.
Speaker 3: If I could only get out of my skin, cast
Speaker 3: off this fleece which is smothering me, flinging myself naked
Speaker 3: as a skinned mouse, into a fresher at me. Oh dog,
Speaker 3: you cannot see the sparks that make every separate hair
Speaker 3: on my body crackle, but I feel them. Don't come near.
Speaker 3: A blue flame is going to shoot out of.
Speaker 1: Me Toby Dog's shuddering.
Speaker 2: Things are coming to an awful pass.
Speaker 1: He drags himself to the porch.
Speaker 2: What have they done to the out of doors? Look?
Speaker 2: The trees are all blue, and the grass glistens like
Speaker 2: a sheet of water. What mournful sunlight? It shines white
Speaker 2: on the slate roofs, and the little houses over there
Speaker 2: on the hill look like brand new tombstones. A heavy odor,
Speaker 2: like bitter almond, creeps from the white bell shaped blossoms
Speaker 2: of the Deturres and makes me feel sick and faint.
Speaker 2: Far away, some smoke, heavy as the perfume of the
Speaker 2: Detourres goes slowly up in a straight line and falls
Speaker 2: again like a broken agrit. But come and see for yourself, Kiki.
Speaker 1: The demure walks faltering me to the porch.
Speaker 2: My word, you're changed too, cat. You look as if
Speaker 2: you were starving. Your face is so drawn. Your fur
Speaker 2: is plastered down in some places and sticking up in other's.
Speaker 2: Gives you the expression of a weasel that had tumbled
Speaker 2: into oil.
Speaker 3: Don't let that worry you. I'll regain my dignity if
Speaker 3: ever another day dawns for us to day, I drag
Speaker 3: myself around unwashed, uncombed, like a woman not of love
Speaker 3: with love and life.
Speaker 2: You say such distressing things, I think I'll whine and
Speaker 2: call for help. Perhaps I better go to her and
Speaker 2: look in her face for the comfort. You refuse me.
Speaker 2: But she seems asleep now in that wicker chair, And
Speaker 2: how can I read my fate in her eyes? When
Speaker 2: their lids are down. I'll lick her hand, very respectfully
Speaker 2: and ever so lightly. That will wake her, and oh,
Speaker 2: may her first caress drive away the evil charm.
Speaker 1: He nicks the hand hanging at the side of the chair.
Speaker 5: She with a scream A heavens, how you frighten me?
Speaker 5: Was there ever such a ninny as this dog?
Speaker 3: There?
Speaker 1: She admitted, does a smart rap on the nose. Toby's
Speaker 1: nerves give way, and he howls loud and long.
Speaker 5: Oh quiet, not a word I say out of my sight.
Speaker 5: I don't know what's the matter, but I hate you.
Speaker 5: And that cat sitting there looking at me like a
Speaker 5: bump on a log.
Speaker 1: Kiki, the demure bristling.
Speaker 3: If she dares to touch me, I'll devour her.
Speaker 1: Just at this dangerous crisis. A low rumbling is heard,
Speaker 1: distant and then near impossible to tell whether it comes
Speaker 1: from the horizon or arises from the house itself, all
Speaker 1: three in whose interests in the quarrel, Toby Dog and
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure slink away as if responding to a signal,
Speaker 1: and seeks shelter, one under the bookcase and the other
Speaker 1: under an arm chair. She turns anxiously to the leaden
Speaker 1: hued garden and the great violet bank of cloud, which
Speaker 1: all of a sudden is riven by a blinding streak
Speaker 1: of blue f She, Toby Dog, Kiki the Demure all together. Oh,
Speaker 1: A sudden crash shakes the windows, and instantly a great
Speaker 1: rush of wind envelops the house with a noise as
Speaker 1: of flapping canvas. All the garden prostrates itself. She in
Speaker 1: anguish heavens the apples. Toby Dog invisible.
Speaker 2: I'll let them cut my ears into strips rather than
Speaker 2: leave this hiding place.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, invisible.
Speaker 3: I can't help hearing, and it's as if I saw
Speaker 3: everything that's going on. She hastens to close the windows.
Speaker 3: Someone is running on the stairs. Aye, another awful flame,
Speaker 3: and everything is falling in silence. Now I wonder are
Speaker 3: they all dead? I look through the fringes of the chair,
Speaker 3: though it's risking my life to do so. Ah, hailstones
Speaker 3: making holes in the leaves. Here comes the rain in
Speaker 3: silvery drops, wide apart and so heavy that the gravel
Speaker 3: wrinkles up when they fall.
Speaker 1: She heart broken.
Speaker 5: I can hear the peaches falling, and the green nuts too.
Speaker 1: All three are silent rain, quivering streaks of lightning hissing
Speaker 1: in the pine trees. The wind howls alung.
Speaker 2: I'm not quite so afraid as I was. The sound
Speaker 2: of the rain relaxes my tired nerves. I seem to
Speaker 2: feel it streaming warmth on my ears in the back
Speaker 2: of my neck. Now the hubbub is further off. I
Speaker 2: can hear myself breathe. The light coming under this bookcase
Speaker 2: is brighter than it was. What is she doing? I
Speaker 2: daren't go out yet. If only the cat would move.
Speaker 1: He sticks out his head like a weary turtle. A
Speaker 1: flash of lightning makes him draw it back again.
Speaker 2: Ha, it's beginning all over again. Rain by the bucket
Speaker 2: falls against the window panes. Something in the chimney is
Speaker 2: trying to imitate that far away rumbling. Everything's falling to pieces,
Speaker 2: and she gave me a rap on the nose.
Speaker 3: Drop by drop, a little brownish river is filtering under
Speaker 3: the loose window sash. It's stretching out and out on
Speaker 3: the floor, winding its way over to me. I'm so
Speaker 3: hot and thirsty, I'd like to lap up some of it.
Speaker 3: My joints ache, and my ears are tired of standing
Speaker 3: up like weather cocks at every crash. My jaws are
Speaker 3: still clenched with nervous fear. The seat of this chair
Speaker 3: is too low. It annoys me rubbing against the fur
Speaker 3: on my back. However, it's some comfort to be able
Speaker 3: to think of such things, thanks to the piece that's
Speaker 3: descended on the house. The rain is falling quietly, and
Speaker 3: the wind has gone down, But the memory of the
Speaker 3: Din still hums in my ears. Can he be doing?
Speaker 3: The storm distresses him too? Why didn't he come forward
Speaker 3: to calm the raging elements? There she is opening the
Speaker 3: porch door. Isn't it too soon? No, for the hens
Speaker 3: are cackling like old maids as they hop over the puddles.
Speaker 3: We're going to have fine weather. Oh, the adorable smell
Speaker 3: of wet leaves and earth refreshed. It's so new, so pure.
Speaker 3: I seem to breathe for the first time.
Speaker 1: He creeps stealthily to the porch. Toby dogs suddenly.
Speaker 2: Ah, how good that smells like a walk. Things change
Speaker 2: so quickly one hasn't time to think. She's opened the door.
Speaker 1: Let's run, he dashes out.
Speaker 2: Well, well, the garden has got back its own color again.
Speaker 2: A warmest vapor moistes my rough grained nose. I've fell
Speaker 2: with a desire to jump and run. The grass is raking, shining,
Speaker 2: Wet horned snails are filling around in the pink gravel
Speaker 2: with the tips of their eyes, and speckled black and
Speaker 2: white slugs embroider the wall with a silver ribbon. Oh
Speaker 2: what a beautiful green and gold beasty running out there
Speaker 2: in the wet Shall I catch it? Shall I scratch
Speaker 2: his metallic shell until it breaks with a little cracking sound. No,
Speaker 2: I'd rather stay near her. She's leaning against the door,
Speaker 2: taking deep breaths and smiling quietly to herself. I'm so happy.
Speaker 2: Something inside me feels grateful to the whole world. The
Speaker 2: light is beautiful, and I'm quite sure that there'll never
Speaker 2: never be another storm.
Speaker 3: I shan't wait any longer. I'm going out I'll find
Speaker 3: dry places between the puddles for my dainty paws to
Speaker 3: step on. An imperceptible thrill runs through the streaming garden,
Speaker 3: making the jewels hung all about tremble and sparkle. The
Speaker 3: slanting rays of the setting sun find their reflection in
Speaker 3: my eyes, which are spangled with green and gold. Down
Speaker 3: near the horizon, where the sk eye is still unsettled,
Speaker 3: a glittering sword leaps up and puts to flight the
Speaker 3: dark fuming cloud horses that have been galloping over our heads. Now,
Speaker 3: the odor of the deturahs rises and perfumes all the air,
Speaker 3: mingled with that of lemon leaves bruised by the hail.
Speaker 3: The roses are crowned with midges. Oh sudden springtime. An
Speaker 3: involuntary smile stretches the corners of my mouth. I'm going
Speaker 3: to play at tickling my nostrils with the point of
Speaker 3: a sweet smelling blade of grass, carefully stretching my neck
Speaker 3: to avoid the falling drops. But I want him to
Speaker 3: follow and admire me. Will he not come out and
Speaker 3: enjoy himself with us?
Speaker 1: A voice is heard, humming a motif from the Reagenborgan
Speaker 1: So Sie ray so la si all flats, a door
Speaker 1: opens and closes again. He appears under the dripping foliage
Speaker 1: of vines framing the verandah, and at the same moment
Speaker 1: a rainbow is seen in the sky A caller a
Speaker 1: winter's afternoon in Paris the studio. A fire crackles gently
Speaker 1: in the towel shaped stove. Toby Dog and Kiki the Demure,
Speaker 1: one on the floor, the other on his own particular cushion,
Speaker 1: proceed with the minute toilet, which follows a long siesta.
Speaker 1: Peace reigns.
Speaker 2: My nails grow faster here than in the country.
Speaker 3: It's the contrary with mine.
Speaker 1: Really, Kiki the Demure, bitterly.
Speaker 3: Not to be wondered at, she clips them for the
Speaker 3: sake of the hangings. Well, what can't be cured must
Speaker 3: be endured.
Speaker 2: What are you going to do today?
Speaker 1: Why nothing, Toby Dog ironically, for.
Speaker 3: A change, I suppose, pardon to avoid change? What is
Speaker 3: this rage for change that takes possession of you? All
Speaker 3: change means destruction. Only that which remains stationary is eternal.
Speaker 2: I'm eternal. Then these three hours passed.
Speaker 3: But you've been out with her, haven't you. You came
Speaker 3: in like a whirlwind. Bells rang, clothes were shaken out.
Speaker 3: You were sneezing and laughing and aureoled with icy air.
Speaker 3: The end of her nose felt so cold when she
Speaker 3: kissed me on the forehead. She always kisses me there,
Speaker 3: just over the dark stripes, forming the classic M, which
Speaker 3: she assures me stands for miaw and for mine my
Speaker 3: name in French.
Speaker 2: Yes, we had a fine run on the banks of
Speaker 2: the fortifications, and then we went into a shop.
Speaker 3: Is that amusing?
Speaker 2: Not often there are a great many people crowded together.
Speaker 2: I'm immediately seed with the fear of losing her, and
Speaker 2: I stick close to her heels no matter what comes.
Speaker 2: Strange feet push and knock me about and step on
Speaker 2: my paws. I yelp, but the skirts all round stifle
Speaker 2: my voice. When we're out of it, we both look
Speaker 2: as if we've been shipwrecked.
Speaker 3: May the gods preserve me from anything of the sort.
Speaker 3: Here the moments have glided peacefully by. When she's not
Speaker 3: in this house, there's nothing to hinder me. I employ
Speaker 3: the time as my system of hygiene dictates. After my
Speaker 3: breakfast of rosy liver and milk, my kitten hood seems
Speaker 3: to come back to me. I'm filled with a foolish gayety.
Speaker 3: I go over to him. He's rumpling big blackish papers
Speaker 3: and welcomes me with a quiet smile. We loll on
Speaker 3: the same divan and revel in a few idle moments together,
Speaker 3: sometimes with imperious paw. I tear the paper he holds
Speaker 3: like a screen between us. It always seems to me
Speaker 3: the most desirable, the one that crackles best. He cries out,
Speaker 3: and I throw myself on my back and wriggle with
Speaker 3: joy in a sort of horizontal dance he calls the
Speaker 3: dance of the Bayadier. Then somehow everything dwindles before my eyes,
Speaker 3: grows dim and far away. I want to rise and
Speaker 3: go back to my cushion, but dreams already separate me
Speaker 3: from the world. Ah, blessed hour when you and she disappear,
Speaker 3: when the house is at rest and takes a long breath.
Speaker 3: Soon I'm in the depths of a dark, sweet sleep.
Speaker 3: My ears alone keep watch and turn like sensitive antennas
Speaker 3: toward vague sounds of doors and bells.
Speaker 1: At this moment, some one rings. Toby Dog and Kiki
Speaker 1: the Demure start and change their positions. The cat sitting
Speaker 1: encircles himself with his fluffy tail. The dog, in a
Speaker 1: sphinxlike attitude, lifts his head boldly. What's that a tradesman,
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure, shrugging his shoulders.
Speaker 3: That's not the kitchen bell. Perhaps it's a caller.
Speaker 1: Toby dog with bound What luck they have?
Speaker 2: Tea and cakes? Come on, sugar, sugar, little cakes, little cakes.
Speaker 1: Kiki the Demure gloomily.
Speaker 3: To see ladies who shriek and put gloved hands on
Speaker 3: my back, hands covered with dead skin.
Speaker 2: RHoK.
Speaker 1: Feminine voices are heard, hers among them, and the clear
Speaker 1: tinkling of a little bell. Then the door opens and
Speaker 1: a very diminutive toy terrier enters alone. She's black and tan,
Speaker 1: seems in love with herself, and comes forward with a
Speaker 1: mincing step. The little dog voice way up in her head.
Speaker 6: I'm the darling little dog, so pretty.
Speaker 1: Toby is struck dumb with admiration and astonishment. Kiki, indignant,
Speaker 1: has jumped on top of the piano and remains an
Speaker 1: unseen and hostile spectator. The little dog, astonished at not
Speaker 1: hearing the chorus of admiration that everywhere greets her, is reciting.
Speaker 6: I'm the darling little dog, so pretty. I weigh only
Speaker 6: one pound eleven ounces. My collar's gold. My ears of
Speaker 6: black satin lined with shiny rubber. My nails are polished
Speaker 6: like the beaks of little birds.
Speaker 1: Catching sight of Toby dog, Oh, someone, silence, he's rather
Speaker 1: good looking. They ogle and strut.
Speaker 2: How tiny she is, sir, don't come near me? Why not?
Speaker 6: I don't know. My mistress knows she's not here. She
Speaker 6: stayed in the other room.
Speaker 2: How old are you?
Speaker 1: Eleven months reciting I'm eleven months old.
Speaker 6: At the dog show, my mother took first prize for beauty.
Speaker 6: I weigh only one pound eleven ounces.
Speaker 2: And you've said that already. What makes you so little?
Speaker 1: Kiki the demure from the piano.
Speaker 3: She's ugly and has an evil odor. Her paws are deformed.
Speaker 3: She can't stand still an instant, and this dog takes
Speaker 3: pains to make himself fascinating.
Speaker 1: The little dog very coquettish and talkative.
Speaker 6: It's my lineage, of course. Oh one can hold me
Speaker 6: in a muff. You've seen my collar. It's gold.
Speaker 2: And what's that hanging from it?
Speaker 6: My mother's metal, sir. I always wear it. I come
Speaker 6: from the Palatic Glass, where I made quite a hit.
Speaker 6: Imagine I wanted to bite a gentleman who was speaking
Speaker 6: to my mistress. How they laughed.
Speaker 1: She wriggles and chaps Toby Dog aside.
Speaker 2: What an odd creature? Is she really a dog?
Speaker 1: Sniffs?
Speaker 2: Yes, smells of rice powder, But it's a dog, just
Speaker 2: the same. Aloud, Sit down a moment. It makes me
Speaker 2: quite dizzy to see you moving about. So certainly.
Speaker 1: She lies down like a miniature greyhound, crossing her forepaws
Speaker 1: to show the slimness of her toes.
Speaker 6: You were here all alone.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog, looking toward the piano.
Speaker 2: Yes, no other dog.
Speaker 6: Why there's a strange odor.
Speaker 2: The cat, doubtless the cat?
Speaker 6: Who what's the cat? I've never seen one. Do they
Speaker 6: leave you in the room all alone?
Speaker 2: It happens so now and then, and you don't bark.
Speaker 6: I cry as soon as I'm left alone. I'm bored, afraid,
Speaker 6: feel sick, and chew up the cushions.
Speaker 2: And then you're wept.
Speaker 1: The little dog insulted.
Speaker 6: I'm what did you say? You're losing your senses.
Speaker 1: I imagine suddenly amoble again.
Speaker 6: That would be a pity. You have lovely eyes.
Speaker 2: Haven't died? They show well, don't they They're large? And
Speaker 2: then they stick out. She says, I have eyes like
Speaker 2: a lobster's, and sometimes she says his beautiful seal's eyes,
Speaker 2: his frog like eyes of gold.
Speaker 1: Who she Toby Dog?
Speaker 6: Simple she I don't understand all you say, but I
Speaker 6: find you so very sympathetic. What are you doing this evening?
Speaker 2: Why I dine naturally?
Speaker 6: I wanted to know whether they receive here this evening?
Speaker 6: Or do you go out?
Speaker 2: No, I've been out already, driving walking, of course.
Speaker 6: Why of course, I hardly stir except in a carriage.
Speaker 6: Show me the underside of your paws. Horrors, one would
Speaker 6: say to us, the stoney, sharpened knives on. Look at mine,
Speaker 6: satin on top, velvet underneath.
Speaker 2: I'd like to see you in the country, on the cobblestones.
Speaker 6: I've been there, sir. I was in the country last summer,
Speaker 6: and there weren't any cobblestones.
Speaker 2: Then it wasn't the country. You don't know what country means,
Speaker 2: the little dog vexed.
Speaker 6: Indeed I do, sir. It's fine sand and velvety lawns
Speaker 6: that are swept every morning. It's a reclining chair on
Speaker 6: the grass, great fresh cushions and cree tone foamy milk naps.
Speaker 6: In the shade and charming little red apples to play.
Speaker 1: With, Toby Dog shaking his head.
Speaker 2: No, it's the road covered with white powder that makes
Speaker 2: the eyelids smart and the paws burn. The tough, shriveled,
Speaker 2: sweet smelling grass where I scratch my nose and my gums.
Speaker 2: It's the fearful night, for I'm the only one to
Speaker 2: guard them. He and she I lie in my basket,
Speaker 2: but the beating of my poort overdriven heart keeps me awake.
Speaker 2: I hear a dog crying to me from far off
Speaker 2: that the bad man is passed on the road. Is
Speaker 2: he coming in my direction? Will I be obliged in
Speaker 2: another minute? My eyes bloodshot and tongue dry as chalk,
Speaker 2: to throw myself upon him and devour his shadowy face.
Speaker 1: The little dog trembling in an ecstasy.
Speaker 6: Go on, go on, Oh, how frightened I am.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog modestly, don't be afraid.
Speaker 2: It has never happened. All that is the country, yes,
Speaker 2: and the interminable hill and the shadow of the carriage.
Speaker 2: When thirst, hunger, heat and fatigue render the soul submissive
Speaker 2: and hopeless.
Speaker 1: The little dog quite worked up, And.
Speaker 2: Then oh, nothing one arrives at the house after all,
Speaker 2: and the pail of dark water one drinks without taking breath.
Speaker 2: His tongue, she says, His big tongue is parted in
Speaker 2: the center like an iris petal, while sore eyelids and
Speaker 2: dusty lashes are splashed with cooling drops. The country is
Speaker 2: all that, and many things besides.
Speaker 1: Kiki the demure on top of the piano, musingly.
Speaker 3: All that, yes, and the habits of the year before
Speaker 3: that one finds again molded to one's shape like a cushion,
Speaker 3: marked with the imprint of a long sleep, the long
Speaker 3: nights of freedom, when the lone owlet with his sad
Speaker 3: little laugh makes his way through the air as quietly
Speaker 3: as I do on the ground, and silvery gray rats
Speaker 3: cling to the vines, eating grapes and keeping their eyes
Speaker 3: on me at the same time. It's the sun cure
Speaker 3: on the hot stone wall from which I arise, wan
Speaker 3: and shrunken, baked through and through, but smelt enough to
Speaker 3: make the youngest tom cat envious.
Speaker 1: Coming back to the present with a murderous look at
Speaker 1: the little dog.
Speaker 3: Death to you, ill smelling beast for having evoked these
Speaker 3: by gone joys, aren't you going to disappear, that I
Speaker 3: may come down from this cold pedestal where my paws
Speaker 3: are growing numb.
Speaker 1: Toby Dog enthusiastically to the little dog.
Speaker 2: But let us forget all that with you there. I
Speaker 2: can think of nothing but you. I feel that I
Speaker 2: love you.
Speaker 1: The little dog lowering her eyes.
Speaker 6: Do you mean really?
Speaker 2: Of course?
Speaker 6: I do so soon.
Speaker 2: We've already wasted a great deal of time, but.
Speaker 6: We've been chatting. I've enjoyed it very much, and I
Speaker 6: fail to understand why the society of young dogs like
Speaker 6: you is forbidden me.
Speaker 2: Allow me to make love to you.
Speaker 6: What's that?
Speaker 2: I'll show you first? I hold myself very erect, stiffen
Speaker 2: my legs, walk round you, barking low and melodiously. My
Speaker 2: tail wriggles, my ears.
Speaker 6: Don't come near me.
Speaker 1: I feel quite upset escaping you, A merrily fellow Kiki
Speaker 1: the demur standing up.
Speaker 3: These preludes are indeed a sad parody on our wild love, making.
Speaker 1: A loud, very angry I should think. The little dog
Speaker 1: looks to see where the dreadful voice is coming from,
Speaker 1: and despise a strange striped monster with eyes of fire
Speaker 1: and eyebrows and whiskers bristling ferociously. She dashes towards the door, crying.
Speaker 6: Help, help, there's a tiner on the.
Speaker 1: Piano, and falls into the arms of her mistress, who
Speaker 1: has come upon the scene and proceeds to console her
Speaker 1: with great volubility.
Speaker 7: Phoebe, my sizette, my darling, they're there. Goo goo goo goo,
Speaker 7: you poor helpless little doggie. What did they do to her?
Speaker 1: Oh? Was it the naughty bow wow? Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: End of Barks and Purse by Colette Willie, translated by
Speaker 1: Mary Kelly,