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Barks and Purrs · Barks and Purrs

• 0:00
  Preface, Madame, there are moments when one seems to come to life.
• 0:06
  One looks about and distinguishes a creature whose footprint closely resembles the ace of spades.
• 0:13
  The thing says, bow, wow, it is a dog. One
• 0:17
  looks again. The ace of spades is now an ace of clubs. The
• 0:21
  thing says, p fh, and it is a cat. This is the
• 0:26
  history of the visible world, and in particular that of my god children,
• 0:30
  Toby Dog and Kiki the demure. They are so natural. I use the
• 0:35
  word in the sense in which it is applicable to the savages of Oceania,
• 0:38
  that all their acts conspire to make of life a very simple proposition. These
• 0:43
  are animals in the fullest sense of the word animo. If I may employ
• 0:48
  the original orthography capable of exclaiming with those of faust, the fool knows it
• 0:53
  not, he knows not, the pot, he knows not the kettle.
• 0:57
  And as such, Madame, you have place them exactly where they should be.
• 1:02
  Their earthly paradise is the apartment of Monsieur Villi. In your sannon,
• 1:07
  the probable palm and rubber plant give the impression of luxuriant edenic flora relatively speaking,
• 1:15
  and illustrate the transmogrification, which is to allow Monsieur Gaston de Champ,
• 1:19
  critic of a tant Pleucepassy, to announce to the wilderness, where he speaks
• 1:25
  familiarly of Chateaubriand, and to the College de France, how well he can
• 1:30
  admire and understand a true poet. For you are a true poet, and
• 1:34
  I will declare it freely, not concerning myself more with the legend's. Parisians
• 1:40
  have the habit of weaving about every celebrity they admire Gauguin and Verleines, not
• 1:46
  so much for their originality as for their eccentricities. And so it happens that
• 1:51
  certain persons, unacquainted with the nameless sentiment, the order and purity, the
• 1:57
  thousand interior virtues which guide you, persist in saying that you wear your hair
• 2:02
  short and that Willy is bald. Must I, then, living at RTEs,
• 2:07
  tell tu Paris who you are, present you to all who know you,
• 2:12
  I who have never seen you. I will say then that Madame Colette
• 2:16
  Willie never had short hair, that she does not wear a masculine attire,
• 2:21
  that her cat does not accompany her when she goes to a concert that her
• 2:24
  friend's dog does not drink from a tumbler. It is inexact to say that
• 2:30
  Madame Colette Willie works in a squirrel's cage, or performs upon trapees and flying
• 2:38
  rings, and can reach with her toe the nape of her neck. Madame
• 2:43
  Colette Willie has never ceased to be the plain woman Barich Senance, who rises
• 2:49
  at dawn to give oats to the horse, maids to the chickens, cabbage
• 2:53
  to the rabbits, groundsel to the canneries, snails to the ducks, and
• 2:58
  bran water to the pigs. At eight o'clock summer and winter, she prepares
• 3:02
  the cafolet for her maid and herself. Scarcely a day passes that she does
• 3:08
  not meditate upon this admirable book. A Lady's Country House by Madame Miller.
• 3:14
  Robine, orchard, kitchen, garden, stable, poultry yard, beehive,
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  and hothouse have no further mysteries for Madame Colette Willie. They say she refused
• 3:28
  to divulge her secret for the destruction of mule crickets to a great statesman who
• 3:34
  preyed her on his knees. Madame Colette Willie is in no way different from
• 3:38
  the description I have just given of her. I am aware that certain folk,
• 3:44
  having met her in society, insist upon making her very complex a little
• 3:50
  more, and they would have ascribed to her the tastes of the mustiest symbolists.
• 3:55
  And one knows how far from pleasing those muses Robes, how odious the
• 4:00
  yellow band above the faces expressionless as eggs. Robes and Bardeux are to day
• 4:06
  relegated to drawers in the capital at Toulouse, from which they will never be
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  taken more, except when occasion calls for the howling of official Alexandrine in honor
• 4:18
  of Monsieur Gaston de champ Jeoret or Ras Saint Getorie. Madame Colette Willie rises
• 4:25
  today on the world of letters as the poetess at last, who, with
• 4:29
  the tip of her slipper, sends all the painted laureled cotton lyre carrying muses
• 4:35
  that from Monsielle Tourna have roused the aspirations of classes in rhetoric, rolling from
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  the top to the bottom of Parnassus. How charming she is, thus presenting
• 4:47
  her bulldog and her cat with as much assurance as Diana would her hound or
• 4:54
  a bercanti her tiger, see her apple cheeks, her eyes like bluemyer soota,
• 5:00
  her lips poppy petals, and her ivy like grace. Tell me if
• 5:05
  this way of leaning against the green barrier of her garden close, or of
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  lying under the murmurous arbor of Midsommer, is not worth the starched manner that
• 5:16
  old magistrate du Vigny, with his neckcloth wound three times around, and rigid
• 5:23
  in his trouser straps imposed upon his goddesses. Madame Colette WILLI is a live
• 5:30
  woman, a real woman who has dared to be natural, and who resembles
• 5:34
  a little village bride, far more than a perverse woman of letters. Read
• 5:39
  her book, and you shall see how accurate are my assertions. It has
• 5:44
  pleased Madame Colette Willy to embody in a couple of delightful animals, the aroma
• 5:49
  of gardens, the freshness of the field, the heat of state roads,
• 5:55
  the passions of men. For through the girlish laughter ringing in the forest,
• 6:00
  I tell you I hear the sobbing of a well spring. One does not
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  stoop to a poodle or tom cat without feeling the heart wrung with dumb anguish
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  one is sensible in comparing ourselves to them. Of all that separates and of
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  all that unites us. A dog's eyes hold the sorrow of having, since
• 6:23
  the earliest days of creation, licked the whip of his incorrigible persecutor in vain.
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  For nothing is mollified man, not the prey brought him by a famishing
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  spaniel, nor the humble girelessness of shepherd dog guarding the peace of the shadowy
• 6:39
  flocks under the stars. The tragic fear shines in the cat's eyes. What
• 6:45
  are you going to do to me, it seems to ask, lying on
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  the rubbish heap, a prey to mange and hunger, and feverishly it waits
• 6:51
  the new torture that will shatter its nervous system. But have no fear.
• 6:58
  Madame Colette Willie is very kind. She quickly dispels the hereditary dread of Toby
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  Dog and Kiki the demure. She meliorates the race, so that dogs and
• 7:08
  cats will learn in the end that it is less dull to frequent a poet
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  than an unhappy College de France candidate. Had this candidate proven more copiously still,
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  but the author of memoir Dettle Tomes had Topsy turvily described the jawbone of
• 7:24
  the crocodile. Toby Dog and Kiki the Demure know well that their mistress is
• 7:29
  a lady who would do no harm, neither to a piece of sugar nor
• 7:32
  to a mouse. A lady who, for our delight jumps a rope she
• 7:36
  has woven of flower words which she never bruises, and with which she perfumes
• 7:43
  us. A lady who sings with the voice of a clear French rivulet,
• 7:47
  that wistful tenderness which makes the hearts of animals beat so fast. Francis jam
• 7:57
  End of Prefacemtis Personi. Toby Dog a French bulldog read by Troy Bard.
• 8:05
  Kiki the Demure a Maltese cat read by Bob Gonzales. He Master of Minor
• 8:13
  Importance read by Matthew Reyese. She Mistress of Minor Importance read by Roseanne Schmidt.
• 8:24
  The Little Dog read Byshadah, The Narration read by Sandra Sentimentalities the Sunny
• 8:33
  Porch, Toby Dog and Kiki the Demure sprawl on the hot stone flags,
• 8:39
  taking their after luncheon nap. The silence of Sunday prevails yet Toby Dog is
• 8:46
  not asleep. The flies and a heavy luncheon torment him hind quarters flattened out
• 8:52
  frog fashion, he drags himself on his belly up to Kiki the Demure,
• 8:58
  whose body is perfectly quiet. Are you asleep? The demure purse feebly,
• 9:09
  Are you even alive? You're so flat you look like the empty skin of
• 9:13
  a cat. Kiki the Demure, in faltering tones, Let me alone,
• 9:20
  not sick? Are you? No? Let me alone? I'm asleep.
• 9:28
  I'm not even conscious of my body. What's torments to live with you?
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  I've eaten, it's two o'clock. Let's sleep. I can't. Something's made
• 9:39
  a ball in my stomach. It means to go down, I guess,
• 9:41
  but very slowly. And then these flies, these flies, the eyes start
• 9:46
  out of my head. At the sight of one of them, I'm all
• 9:50
  jaws bristling with terrible teeth. Just hear them snap. Yet the infernal things
• 9:54
  escape me. Oh my ears, Oh my poor sensitive brown belly. My
• 9:58
  fever knows there you see right on my nose. What shall I do?
• 10:03
  I squint all I can two of them? Now, No, only one,
• 10:07
  No two? I toss em up like bits of sugar, and it's
• 10:11
  the empty air. I snap, I'm worn out. I detest the sun
• 10:15
  and the flies and everything. Ooh, he wails Tiki the Demure, sitting
• 10:20
  up, his eyes pale from the light and sleepiness. Well, you've succeeded
• 10:26
  in waking me. That's all you wanted, isn't it. My dreams are
• 10:31
  gone, these flies that you are pursuing, I hardly felt their little teasing
• 10:37
  feet through my thick fur. The nearest touch like a caress now and then
• 10:41
  thrilled along the silky sloping hairs, which clothed me. But then you never
• 10:48
  act with any discretion. Your vulgar gaiety is a nuisance, and when sad,
• 10:52
  you howl like a low comedian Toby Dog bitterly. If you woke up,
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  just tell me that, Tiki the Demur correcting. Of course you'll remember
• 11:05
  twas you woke me, I was so uncomfortable. I wanted someone to help
• 11:09
  me, to give me a word of encouragement. I don't know any digestive
• 11:13
  words. Fancy they're giving me a bad character. When just examine your conscience
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  a bit and compare us. Hunger and heat wear you out and drive you
• 11:24
  mad. Cold makes your blood curdle, tuby dog vexed mine is a sentenive
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  nature, a demoniacal nature. You mean no, I don't mean that you.
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  You're a monstrous egoist. Perhaps you and the two paws don't understand what
• 11:43
  you're pleased to call a cat's egoism, our instinct of self preservation, our
• 11:48
  dignity, our modest reserve, our attitude of weary renunciation, which comes of
• 11:54
  the hopelessness of ever being understood by them, They dub in haphazard fashion egoism.
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  You are not a very discriminating dog, but at least you are free
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  from prejudice. Will you understand me better? A cat is a guest in
• 12:09
  the house, not a plaything. Truly, these are strange times we're living
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  in the two paws. He and she have they alone the right to be
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  sad or joyful, to lick plates, to scold, or to go about
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  the house indulging their capricious humors. I too have my whims, my sorrows,
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  my irregular appetite, my hours of reverie when I wish to be alone.
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  Toby Dog attentive and conscientious. I'm listening, but I can hardly follow
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  what you say. It's so complicated, A bit over my head, you
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  know. But you astonish me. Are they in the habit of hindering you
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  in your changeful moods? You mew and they open the door. You lie
• 12:52
  on the paper, the sacred paper he's scratching on. He moves away,
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  marvelous condescension, and leaves you a soil page. You meander up and down
• 13:01
  a scratching table, obviously in question of mischief, your nose wrinkled up,
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  your tail giving quick little jerks back and forth like a pendulum. She watches
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  you, laughing while he announces the promenade of devastation. How then can you
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  accuse them? Kiki the demure, insincere. I don't accuse them, after
• 13:20
  all, psychological subtleties are not in your line. Don't speak so fast.
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  I need time to understand, it seems to me, Kiki the Demure slyly
• 13:31
  pray. Don't hurry. Your digestion might suffer in consequence. Toby Dog,
• 13:37
  unconscious of the irony. You're right, I've some trouble in expressing myself to
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  day. Well, here goes. It seems to me that of the two
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  of us, it's you they make the most of and yet you do all
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  the grumbling. A dog's logic that the more one gives, the more I
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  demand. That's wrong, it's indiscreet, not at all. I have a
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  right to everything, to everything, and I I don't imagine you lack anything,
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  do you? I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments,
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  I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke
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  me. I would like to be sure, in times of such anguish,
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  that everybody loves me, that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog
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  behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come. Kiki is a
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  demure jeering And then what dreadful thing happens? You know very well inevitably at
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  the moment she appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it,
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  castor oil. Wilful and unfeeling, she holds me between her strong knees,
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  opens my jaws close them tighter, but I'm afraid of hurting her,
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  and my tongue horrified taste the slimy, mawkish stuff, I choke and spit.
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  My poor face is convulsed. In the end of this torture is long
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  and coming. You've seen me afterwards, dragging myself around melon Collie, my
• 15:00
  head hanging, listening to the unwholesome glue, glue the oil makes in my
• 15:03
  stomach. Once, when I was little, she tried to give me castor
• 15:07
  oil. I scratched and bit her, so she never tried again. Ha.
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  She must have thought she held the devil between her knees. I squirmed,
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  blue fire through my nostrils, multiplied my twenty claws by a hundred,
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  my teeth by one thousand, and finally disappeared, as if by magic.
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  I wouldn't dare do that. You see, I love her. I love
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  her enough to forgive her even the torture of the bath. Kiki, the
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  demure interested you do, tell me how it feels. It makes me shiver
• 15:43
  all over just to see her putting you in the water. Alas, listen
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  then and pity me. Sometimes, when she's come out of her tub with
• 15:52
  nothing on but her skin, her soft, hairless skin, that I look
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  respectfully, she spills out more warm water, throws in a brown brick which
• 15:58
  smells them tar, and calls Toby. That's enough. The soul quits my
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  body. My legs shake under me. Something shines on the water the pitcher
• 16:07
  of a window, all twisted out of shape, It dances about and blinds
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  me. She seizes me, poor swooning thing that I am, and plunges
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  me in e Gods. From that time on, I'm lost. My one
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  hope isn't her. My eyes fasten themselves on to hers, while a close
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  warmth sticks to me like another skin on top of mine. The brick's all
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  foamy. Now I smell tar, my eyes and nostrils smart. There are
• 16:33
  storms in my ears. She grows excited, breathes loud and fast, laughs,
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  and scrubs me lightheartedly. At last she rescues me, fishing me out
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  by the nape of my neck. I paw the air, begging for life.
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  Then comes the rough towel and the warm coverlet, where, exhausted,
• 16:49
  I relish my convalescence. Kiki the demure, deeply impressed, Calm yourself,
• 16:56
  jove the telling it alone. But you old sly boots, didn't I see
• 17:02
  her one day, armed with a sponge, standing over you, holding you
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  down on the toilet table. Do you give it a mule? Quite embarrassed,
• 17:08
  lashing his tail an old story, the long fluffy hairs on my legs,
• 17:14
  which gave them the outline of a zwoves had somehow gotten dirty. She
• 17:18
  insisted upon washing me. I persuaded her that I suffered atrociously under the sponge.
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  What a fivery you are? Did she believe you? Um? At
• 17:30
  first it was my own fault, though when she didn't turned over on my
• 17:34
  back, I proffered the candid belly, the terrified and forgiving eyes of a
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  lamb about to be sacrificed. I felt a slight coolness, nothing more.
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  A fear that my sensibilities might be destroyed took possession of me. My rhythmical
• 17:51
  wailings increased, then subsided, then went up again, like the noise of
• 17:55
  the sea. You know the strength of my voice. I imitated the calf,
• 18:00
  the whipped child, the cat in the night, the wind under the
• 18:04
  door. Little by little I grew enraptured with my own song, so that
• 18:08
  long after she finished soiling me with the cold water, I continued wailing,
• 18:14
  my eyes fixed on the ceiling. Then she laughed tactlessly and cried out,
• 18:18
  you're as untruthful as a woman toby dog, with conviction. That was annoying.
• 18:26
  I was angry with her the entire afternoon. Oh as to sulking,
• 18:30
  you do your share. I never can I forget injuries. Kiki the Demure,
• 18:34
  dryly, you lick the hand that chastens you. Oh, it's well
• 18:40
  known, Toby dog gullible. I looked the hand that Yes, that's it,
• 18:45
  exactly, an awfully pretty expression, not mine. Dignity doesn't trouble you
• 18:51
  any my word. I'm often ashamed for you. You love everybody, You
• 18:56
  take all sorts of rebuffs without even raising your back. You're as pleasant and
• 19:00
  as banal as a public garden. Don't you believe it? You ill bred
• 19:04
  cat. You think you know everything, and you don't understand simple politeness.
• 19:10
  Frankly, now, would you have me snarl at his or her friend's heels?
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  Well dress people who know my name? Lots of people I don't know
• 19:17
  know my name, and good naturally pull my ears. I hate new faces.
• 19:22
  I don't love them either, whatever you say, I love her and
• 19:26
  him and I him and her. Oh I guess your preference long ago.
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  There's a sort of secret understanding between you two. Jikit the Demure, smiling
• 19:37
  mysteriously and abandoning himself to his referee. An understanding, yes, secret and
• 19:44
  profound. He rarely speaks, but makes a noise like a mouse scratching his
• 19:48
  paper. It's for him. I've treasured up my little heart, my precious
• 19:52
  cat's heart, and he, without words, has given me his. This
• 19:56
  exchange makes me happy and reserved. Now and then, with the pretty wayward
• 20:02
  ruling instinct which makes us cat's rivals of women, I try my power over
• 20:07
  him. When we are alone, I point my ears forward devilishly as a
• 20:11
  sign that I am about to spring upon his scratching paper. The tap tap
• 20:15
  tap of my paws, straight through pens and letters and everything scattered about,
• 20:21
  is addressed to him, as well as the insistent meowling. When I beg
• 20:26
  for liberty him to the door knob, he laughingly calls it or the plaint
• 20:30
  of the sequestered cat. The tender contemplation of my inspiring eyes is for him
• 20:37
  alone. They weigh on his bent head until the look I'm calling searches and
• 20:42
  meets mine in a shock of souls so foreseen and so sweet that I must
• 20:48
  needs close my lids to hide the exquisite shyness I feel as for her.
• 20:55
  She flutters about too much, often jostles me, holds my paws together,
• 21:00
  and rocks me in the air, pets me in excited fashion, laughs aloud
• 21:04
  at me, imitates my voice too well, Toby Dog moved with indignation.
• 21:10
  You're very hard to please. I certainly love him. He's good and pretends
• 21:14
  not to see my faults so that he won't have to scold. But she's
• 21:18
  the most beautiful thing in the world to me, the dearest and the most
• 21:22
  difficult to understand. The sound of her step enchants me. Her changeful eyes
• 21:26
  dispense happiness and trouble. She's like destiny itself. She never hesitates, even
• 21:32
  torture from her hands. You know how she teases me cruelly, No,
• 21:37
  not cruelly, but artfully. I never can tell what's coming next. This
• 21:42
  morning, she bent down as if to speak to me, lifted one of
• 21:45
  my tiny elephant's ears, as she calls them, and sent a sharp cry
• 21:49
  into it, which went to the very back of my brain horrors. Was
• 21:55
  it right or wrong? I can't decide Even now. It started waves of
• 21:59
  nervis running madly through me. Then she has a fancy for making me do
• 22:03
  tricks. Almost every day. I must do the fish, Toby Dear.
• 22:07
  She lifts me in her arms and squeezes me until I gasp. My poor
• 22:11
  dumb mouth opens as the carpst does when they're drowning it in air. That's
• 22:17
  just like her. Suddenly I find myself free and still alive, miraculously saved
• 22:22
  by the power of her will. How beautiful life seems to me. Then,
• 22:26
  how fondly I locked the hend hanging at her side, the hem of
• 22:29
  her dress kikika demure contemptuously, a pretty thing to do. All good and
• 22:34
  evil come to me from her. She is my worst torment and my one
• 22:38
  sure refuge. When I run to her, my heart's sick with fear.
• 22:42
  How soft her arms are, and how sweet her hair falling in my face.
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  I'm her black baby, her toby dog, her little bit of love.
• 22:51
  She sits on the ground to reassure me, making herself little like me,
• 22:55
  lies down altogether, and I go wild with delight at the sight of
• 22:57
  her face and her mind, her own back, and her fragrant hair.
• 23:02
  My feelings overflow. I can't resist such a chance for a jolly good game.
• 23:06
  I rummage and fumble about, excitedly, poking my nose everywhere till I
• 23:10
  find the crispy tip of a pink ear her ear. I nibble it just
• 23:14
  enough to tickle her to make her cry out. Stop, Toby, that's
• 23:17
  awful. Help help this dog's devouring me. Hm, simple, homely,
• 23:23
  wholesome joys. And then off you go to make friends with the cook,
• 23:29
  and you with the cat at the farm. TI keep the demule coldly enough.
• 23:33
  I pray that concerns no one but myself and the little cat. A
• 23:41
  pretty conquest. It should make you blush. A seven months old kitten,
• 23:45
  TI keep the demule roused for me. She has all the charm of forbidden
• 23:48
  fruit, and no one dares steal her from me. She is slim as
• 23:53
  a bean pole Toby dog aside you'll rascal, and long poised on long legs.
• 24:03
  She walks with the uncertain step common to all young things. She hunts
• 24:07
  field mice, shrew mice, even partridge, and this hard work in the
• 24:12
  fields has toughened her young muscles and given a rather gloomy expression to her kitten
• 24:18
  face. She's ugly, no, not ugly, but odd looking. Her
• 24:23
  muzzle, with its very pink nostrils, strongly resembles that of a goat.
• 24:29
  Her large ears remind one of a peasant's koif her eyes, the color of
• 24:33
  old gold, are set slantwise, and their naturally keen expression is varied by
• 24:38
  an occasional piquant squint. With what a will? Does she fly me?
• 24:44
  Confounding modesty, with fear. I pass slowly by. One would think me
• 24:49
  quite uninterested. Draped in my splendid coat, she's struck by its stripes.
• 24:56
  Oh she'll come back, a little love sick kitten, and putting aside all
• 25:02
  constraint, she'll throw herself at my feet like a supple white scarf. I've
• 25:07
  no objection. You know, I'm comparatively indifferent to all the concerns love here.
• 25:14
  My time so completely filled physical exercise, my cares of watchdog. I
• 25:18
  hardly give a thought to the bagatelle kiki, the demuur. Aside bagatelle,
• 25:25
  he indulges in the persiflage of a traveling salesman. I love her and him
• 25:30
  devotedly, with a love that lifts me up to them. It suffices to
• 25:33
  occupy my time and heart. The hour of ar siesta is passing, My
• 25:40
  scornful friend, do you know I like you in spite of your scorn,
• 25:44
  and you like me too. Don't turn your head away, you peculiar modesty
• 25:48
  would hide what you call frailty and what I call love. Do you think
• 25:52
  me blind? How often on coming back to the house with her, have
• 25:55
  I seen your little triangular face at the window light up and smile at my
• 25:59
  approach? The time to open the door, and you'd already put on your
• 26:02
  cat's mask, your pretty Japanese mask with its narrow eyes, isn't it so?
• 26:07
  Kiki? The demure resolved not to hear. The hour of the siesta
• 26:11
  is passing. The cone shaped shadows of the pear trees grow long on the
• 26:17
  gravel path. We've talked away our sleepiness. You've forgotten the flies, your
• 26:22
  uneasy stomach, and the heat which dances and waves on the meadows. The
• 26:26
  beautiful sultry day is dying already. There's a breeze bringing perfume from the pines.
• 26:33
  Their trunks are melting into bright tears. Here she is. She's left
• 26:37
  her worker chair, stretched her lovely arms, and judging from the movement of
• 26:41
  her dress, I think we're going to take a walk. See her behind
• 26:44
  the rose bushes now with her nails, she breaks a leaf from the lemon
• 26:48
  tree. She's crumpling it up and smelling it ah. With my eyes closed,
• 26:52
  I can divine her presence. Yes, I see her. She is
• 26:56
  quiet and gentle for the time being. He'll leave his paper now to follow
• 27:00
  her. He'll come out, calling where are you? And sit on the
• 27:03
  bench tired out for him. I shall rise politely and go do my nails
• 27:11
  along the leg of his trousers. Silent, happy companions, we'll listen for
• 27:15
  the day's departing footsteps. The perfume of the lindens will become sickeningly sweet at
• 27:22
  the same hour that my seer's eyes grow big and black and read mysterious signs
• 27:27
  in the air. Later on, a calm fire will be lit down there
• 27:32
  behind the pointed mountain, a circle of glistening rose color in the gray blue
• 27:37
  of the night, a sort of luminous cocoon from which will burst the dazzling
• 27:41
  edge of the moon. She will sail along, cleaving the clouds. Then
• 27:47
  it will be time to go to rest. He'll carry me in on his
• 27:49
  shoulder, and I'll sleep close to his feet, which are ever mindful of
• 27:55
  my repose. Dawn will find me shivering but rejuvening, sitting face to the
• 28:00
  sun in a silvery halo of incense offered me by the dew. Thus I
• 28:07
  am a perfect picture of the God I was in the old old days.
• 28:12
  On the train, Kiki the demure Toby dog. She and he have taken
• 28:18
  their places in a first class compartment. The train rolls along towards distant mountains
• 28:25
  and the freedom of summertime. Toby, on a leash, lifts an inquiring
• 28:30
  nose to the window. He has strewn the carriage with newspapers. Kiki,
• 28:33
  the demure, silent and invisible in a closed basket, is under his immediate
• 28:38
  protection. She, leaning against the dusty cushions, is dreaming of the mountain
• 28:45
  she loves best, and of the low house on it, weighed down with
• 28:49
  Jasmin and Virginia creeper. How fast this carriage goes? It can't be our
• 28:55
  regular coachman. I haven't seen the horses, but they smell very bad and
• 28:59
  make black sis smoke. Oh, silent dreamer, look at me and tell
• 29:03
  me, shall we arrive soon? No response. Toby is fidgety and blows
• 29:07
  through his nostrils. Hush, Toby, Hush, I've hardly said a word.
• 29:12
  Shall we arrive soon? He turns towards his master, who is reading
• 29:18
  and puts a discreet paw on the edge of his knee. Sh Toby dog
• 29:22
  resigned hard luck. No one wants to talk to me. I'm bored,
• 29:27
  and what's more, I don't know this carriage well enough. I'm tired out.
• 29:33
  They woke me very early this morning. I amused myself by running all
• 29:37
  over the house. They had hidden the chairs under sheets, wrapped up the
• 29:41
  lamps, rolled up the rugs. Things were white and changed and awful.
• 29:45
  There was a horrid smell of camphor everywhere. My eyes filled with water.
• 29:49
  I sneezed under the chairs and slid on the bare floor in my haste to
• 29:52
  follow the maid's white aprons. They bustled about among trunks with such unwonted zeal
• 29:59
  that I would sure something exceptional was going to happen. At the last minute,
• 30:03
  just as she came in, calling Toby's collar in the cat's basket.
• 30:07
  Quick put the cat in his basket, just as she was saying that my
• 30:11
  chum disappeared. It was indescribable. He terrible to see, swore by all
• 30:17
  the gods and struck the floor with his cane, furious because they had allowed
• 30:21
  his kiki to get away. She called Kiki, at first supplicatingly, then
• 30:26
  in threatening tones, and the maids brought empty plates meant to deceive, and
• 30:30
  yellow paper from the butcher's. I really thought my chum had left this world,
• 30:34
  when suddenly there he was, perched on top of the bookcase, looking
• 30:38
  down on us, with an expression of contempt in his green eyes. She
• 30:42
  put up her arms, Kiki, will you come down immediately. You're going
• 30:47
  to make us lose the train. But he didn't come down, and it
• 30:49
  made me dizzy, though I was on the ground, to see him way
• 30:53
  up there, walking and turning about and muling shrilly to tell us how impossible
• 30:59
  he found it to obey. He was about frantic and kept saying, heavens,
• 31:03
  he's going to fall. But she smiled, skeptically, went out of
• 31:07
  the room and came back armed with the whip. The whip said crack twice.
• 31:11
  Only then a miracle happened, I think, because the cat leaped to
• 31:14
  the floor softer and more bounty than our plaything, the ball of wool I
• 31:18
  would have broken to piece if falling like that. He has been in this
• 31:22
  basket ever since. Toby goes to the basket. Ah, here's a little
• 31:26
  peak hole. I see his whiskers. They're like white needles. Who what
• 31:32
  eyes? He jumps back. I'm rather afraid one can't really shut a cat
• 31:37
  up. He always manages to get out. Somehow he must suffer, poor
• 31:41
  fellow. Perhaps if I speak kindly to him, he calls, very politely,
• 31:47
  got Tiki the demure, spitting furiously, Toby Dog jumping back. Oh
• 31:53
  you said a bad word. You look awful. Have you pain anywhere?
• 31:59
  Go away? I'm a martyr. Go away, I tell you, or
• 32:04
  I'll blow fire at you. Toby Dog? Ingenuous? But why why?
• 32:10
  Because you're free, because I'm in this basket, because the basket's in a
• 32:15
  foul carriage, which is shaking me to pieces, And because the serenity of
• 32:19
  those two exasperates me. Would you like me to look out and tell you
• 32:22
  what one sees from the carriage window? Everything is equally odious to me.
• 32:28
  Toby Dog, having looked out, comes back, I haven't seen anything,
• 32:32
  thanks, just the same. I mean, I haven't seen anything that's easy
• 32:37
  to describe. Some green things which pass right close to us, so close
• 32:40
  and so fast that they give one a slap in the eye. A flat
• 32:45
  field turning round and round, and over there, a little pointed steeple.
• 32:49
  It's running as fast as the carriage. Another field, all red with blossoming
• 32:52
  clover, has just giving me another slap in the eye, a red slap.
• 32:55
  The earth is sinking in or else we're going up. Sure wedg,
• 33:00
  I see way off far away, some green lawns, daughter with white daisies.
• 33:05
  Perhaps they're cows. Kiki the Demure with sarcasm or wafers for sealing letters
• 33:12
  or anything you like, aren't you the least little bit amused? Kiki the
• 33:15
  Demure with a sinister laugh hah, ask of the damned, of whom Kiki
• 33:22
  the Demure, more and more melodramatic, but without conviction of the damned in
• 33:27
  his vat of boiling oil. If anything amuses him, mine is not physical
• 33:34
  torment. I suffer imprisonment, humiliation, darkness, neglect. The train stops.
• 33:43
  A conductor on the platform cries all aboard, All aboard. Toby Dog
• 33:47
  bewildered. Someone's crying out, there's an accident. Let's run. He throws
• 33:52
  himself against the carriage door and scratches at it. She half asleep, Toby
• 33:57
  Dear, You're a nuisance. Toby Dog distracted oh, you inexplicable person.
• 34:02
  How can you sit there quietly? Don't you hear those cries? They're stopping
• 34:07
  now the accident has gone away. Wish i'd know the train starts again,
• 34:13
  he throwing down his paper. The poor beast is hungry. She now very
• 34:17
  wide awake. You think so well, I am too, But Toby is
• 34:22
  to eat very little. He anxiously. And Kiki the Demure she peremptorily.
• 34:28
  Kiki socks, and he hid this morning, so they'll have even less than
• 34:32
  Toby. He isn't making a sound. Aren't you afraid he's sick. No,
• 34:37
  he's simply vexed. Kiki the Demure as soon as there's a question of
• 34:42
  himself, me ow, he tenderly and eagerly. Come, my beautiful Kiki,
• 34:49
  my imprisoned one. Come, you shall have cold roast beef and some
• 34:53
  breast of chicken. He opens the prison basket, and Kiki puts forth,
• 34:58
  his head flattened on top like that of a serpent, then his long striped
• 35:02
  body cautiously and so very slowly that one begins to think it's coming out by
• 35:08
  the yard. Toby dog pleasantly, Ah, there you are, cat well,
• 35:14
  now proclaim your freedom, Kiki, without replying, smoothed his ruffled fur.
• 35:19
  Proclaim your freedom. I tell you. It's the custom. Whenever a
• 35:22
  door is open, one must run, jump, twist one's self into half
• 35:24
  circles, and cry out one who's one? Pray we dogs? Kiki the
• 35:30
  Demure, seated and very dignified. Would you have me bark too? We
• 35:36
  have never followed the same rules of conduct that I know of. Toby Dog
• 35:40
  vexed, Oh, very well, I don't insist. How do you like
• 35:45
  this courage, Kiki the Demure, smiffing fastidiously. It's frightful. However,
• 35:52
  the cushions are rather good for one's nails. He suits the action to the
• 35:58
  word Toby Dog aside. Now if I did that, Kiki the Demure,
• 36:04
  continuing to scratch the upholstery, Han, may this spongy gray cloth soothe my
• 36:12
  rage? Since morning, the whole universe has been in a state of monstrous
• 36:16
  revolt. He whom I love and who venerates me, made not the least
• 36:22
  effort to defend me. I've submitted to humiliating contacts, been jolted to death.
• 36:30
  Piercing whistles have shot through my head from ear to ear. Ho ho,
• 36:35
  how good it is to relax the nerves, and to imagine that with
• 36:38
  gleeful claws one tears the enemy's flesh and bloody shreds. Ho Ho, scretch
• 36:49
  and lift the paws on high, lift them high as possible. It's a
• 36:53
  supremely insolent gesture. I say, Kiki, when are you going to stop
• 37:00
  that? He indulgent and admiring. Let him alone. He's doing his nails.
• 37:07
  He has spoken for me. I forgive him, But since it's allowed,
• 37:12
  I don't care any more about tearing the cushions. When will I get
• 37:17
  out of this? Not that I'm afraid. They are both there, and
• 37:22
  the dog too, with their everyday faces. I've twinges in my stomach.
• 37:28
  He yawns. The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries all aboard,
• 37:34
  All aboard. Toby Dog excited, screaming again, another accident, Let's
• 37:38
  run, heavens, what a tiresome dog. What does it matter to him
• 37:44
  if there is an accident? I don't believe in it. Moreover, it's
• 37:47
  the cry of a man, and men cry out for the pleasure of hearing
• 37:51
  their own voices. Toby Dog calm again. I'm hungry, can't we hope
• 37:57
  to eat soon, my mistress, I don't know what time. It isn't
• 38:00
  a strange country, but it seems to me. Come now, we'll all
• 38:04
  have our luncheon. She takes the things out of the basket, crumbles up
• 38:07
  some tissue paper, and breaks a crisp brown row. Toby dog chewing.
• 38:14
  What she gave me then must have been very good. Indeed, seemed such
• 38:16
  a tiny bit it melted in my mouth. There's not even the memory of
• 38:21
  it left. Kiki the demure, chewing breast of chicken. Goodness me,
• 38:29
  I was purring without knowing it. That won't do. They'll think me resigned
• 38:34
  to this journey. I must eat, slowly, grim and undeceived, eat
• 38:39
  for the sole purpose of keeping myself alive. She to the dog and cat,
• 38:45
  allow me to have my luncheon now, if you please. I too,
• 38:51
  like cold chicken and hearts of lettuce tipped in salt. He anxiously.
• 38:57
  What shall we do to make this cat go into his basket again? I
• 39:00
  don't know. We'll see presently finished already I could swallow three times that much.
• 39:06
  I say, cat, you're eating rather well for a martyr. Kiki
• 39:09
  the Demure, fibbing trouble digs a hole in one's interior. Move away,
• 39:15
  please, I want to sleep now. If I can, perhaps a merciful
• 39:21
  dream will take me back to the house I've left, to the flowered cushion.
• 39:24
  He gave me home, sweet home, rugs of bright colors for the
• 39:32
  delight of my eyes, a palm with nice shoots for me to eat,
• 39:37
  deep arm chairs under which I hide my woolen ball as a future surprise for
• 39:42
  myself. Ah in the cork hanging by a string to the door latch.
• 39:47
  The tables covered with bibelots. I thread my way in and out among them,
• 39:53
  and occasionally it amuses me to break some brittle thing. The dining room,
• 40:00
  who is a temple? The vestibule full of mystery. There unseen,
• 40:06
  I can watch those who come and go. Oh narrow back stairway, where
• 40:13
  the step of the milkman rings out for me like a morning angelus, farewell,
• 40:19
  farewell. My destiny carries me on, and who knows if ever,
• 40:24
  but this is too sad. All the pretty things I've been saying have really
• 40:30
  begun to make me feel badly. He begins a minute and mournful toilet.
• 40:35
  The train stops, a conductor on the platform, cries, all the board
• 40:39
  on the board there it is again an accent, Oh bother, I've had
• 40:45
  enough of that, he anxiously. We're going to change trains in ten minutes.
• 40:50
  How about the cat? He'll never allow us to shut him up.
• 40:52
  We'll see. Suppose we put some meat in his basket, or perhaps petting
• 40:58
  wood. They approached the redoubtable Kiki and both speak together. Kiki, my
• 41:04
  beautiful Kiki, Come jump on my knee or on my shoulder. You like
• 41:07
  that? As a rule, you'll doze there and then I'll put you gently
• 41:10
  into the basket. After all, it's open work and has a comfortable cushion
• 41:15
  to protect you from the rough wicker. Come, my dear listen, Kiki.
• 41:21
  You must learn to act properly and to take life as it is.
• 41:23
  You can't stay there like that. We're going to change trains, and a
• 41:28
  horrible guard will appear and say insulting things of you in your race. Besides,
• 41:34
  you'd better obey, because if you don't, I I'll give you a
• 41:37
  good whippon. But before she can lift her hand against his sacred fur,
• 41:43
  Kiki gets up, stretches himself, arches his back, yawns, to show
• 41:47
  the rosy lining of his mouth, and then walks to the open basket,
• 41:53
  where he lies down with an admirable air of quiet insolence. He and she
• 42:00
  exchange eloquent glances. Dinner is late a parlor in the country, at the
• 42:07
  close of a long summer's day. Kiki the Demure and Toby Dog does ears
• 42:14
  twitching and eyelids obstinately shut. Now Kiki's lids part in a narrow slit and
• 42:21
  disclosed eyes the color of purple grapes. He yawns with the ferocious expression of
• 42:27
  a small dragon. Kiki the Demure haughtily, you're snoring, Toby Dog,
• 42:34
  who is not really asleep. I'm not. It's you impossible. I don't
• 42:39
  snore. I pur same thing, Kiki the Demure, not condescending to a
• 42:45
  discussion. Thank Heaven, it isn't a silence. I'm hungry. One doesn't
• 42:52
  hear the noise of plates in the next room. Isn't it dinner time?
• 42:55
  Toby Dog gets up, slowly, stretches his forepaws, and yawns, darting
• 43:01
  forth a heraldic tongue with curly end Oh, I don't know, I'm hungry.
• 43:07
  Where is she? How is it. You're not at her heels,
• 43:13
  Toby Dog, embarrassed, nibbling his nails. She's in the garden, I
• 43:16
  believe, picking up plums, those yellow balls that rain about one's ears.
• 43:22
  I know them. You've seen her, then, I bet she scolded you.
• 43:29
  What have you been doing now, Toby Dog self conscious, turning away
• 43:32
  his wrinkled toad like face. She told me to return to the house because
• 43:38
  because I too was eating plums, she did, Well, you have depraved
• 43:44
  tastes, the tastes of men, Toby Dog, offended, say, no
• 43:49
  one ever sees me eating bad fish, and never never will. I understand
• 43:52
  how you can go into such fits over a dead frog or that herb Valerian.
• 44:00
  That's it. I guess an herb is medicine, isn't it medicine?
• 44:04
  Indeed Valerian? But no, you can't understand. I've seen her laugh and
• 44:12
  go on as I do over the Valerian after having emptied a glass of fetid
• 44:16
  wine that jumped dangerously too. As for the dead frog, so dead that
• 44:22
  it seems a bit of dry Russia leather in the form of a frog,
• 44:27
  it's a sachet impregnated with rare musk, with which I wish to scent my
• 44:31
  fur. Oh, you talk very well, but she always scolds and says
• 44:37
  that you smell bad after it, And he says the same thing. They're
• 44:40
  nothing but two paws, both of them. You poor thing, belittle yourself
• 44:45
  by seeking to imitate them. You stand on your hind legs, wear a
• 44:51
  coat when it rains, eat plums for shame. And those big green balls
• 44:57
  the malicious trees let fall sometimes when I'm past underneath apples. Very likely she
• 45:02
  picks one up and throws it down the path, crying Apple, Toby Apple,
• 45:07
  and you rush after in unseemly fashioned, gasping for breath, looking like
• 45:14
  a fool, your tongue and your eyes sticking out Toby dogs scowling, his
• 45:19
  head resting on his paws. One takes one's pleasures where one finds them.
• 45:23
  Kiki, the demure yawning shows his pointed teeth and his palette of pink velvet.
• 45:31
  I'm hungry, dinner is surely late tonight. Suppose you look for her.
• 45:37
  I daren't she forbade it. She's down there in the hollow with a
• 45:42
  big basket. The dew is falling and wetting her feet, and the sun's
• 45:45
  going away. But you know how she is. She sits on the damp
• 45:50
  ground, looking ahead of her as if she were asleep, or lies flat
• 45:52
  on her stomach, whistling and watching an ant in the grass. She tears
• 45:57
  up a handful of wild thyme and smells it. Calls the tom tits and
• 46:00
  the jays, who never come to her by any chance. She takes a
• 46:05
  heavy watering pot, and oh, it gives me the shivers, pours thousands
• 46:09
  of icy silvery threads over the roses or into the hollows of those little stone
• 46:13
  troughs way back in the woods. I always look in to see the head
• 46:16
  of a brindle bull who comes to meet me and to drink up the pictures
• 46:20
  of the leaves. But she pulls me back by the collar with Toby,
• 46:23
  Toby, that water is for the birds. Then she takes out her knife
• 46:28
  and opens nuts fifty a hundred nuts and forgets the time. There's no end
• 46:31
  to the things she does. Kiki, the demure, slyly, And what
• 46:36
  do you do all that time? I well, I just wait for her.
• 46:42
  I admire you once in a while. Squatting down, she eagerly scratches
• 46:45
  the earth toils and sweats over it. Then I jump round her, delighted
• 46:50
  to see her at something so useful and so familiar. But her feeble scent
• 46:53
  deceieves her. I never smell mole or shrew mouse, of the rosy paws
• 46:58
  and the whole she digs, and how explain her utter lack of purpose?
• 47:01
  Presently falling back on her haunches, she brandishes a hairy rooted herb and cries,
• 47:06
  I have it the jade. I lie in the damp grass and tremble
• 47:09
  or dig my nose, she calls it, my snout into the earth to
• 47:14
  get the complicated odors of it. When there are three or four cents,
• 47:16
  all blended, all mixed together. Can you distinguish that of the mole from
• 47:21
  that of the hair which passed quickly or the bird which rested there? Certainly
• 47:24
  I can. My nose is highly educated. It's smaller, regular, wide
• 47:30
  between my eyes, delicate at the shammy skin end of my nostrils. The
• 47:36
  lightest touch of a blade of grass, the shadow of smoke tickles and makes
• 47:40
  it sneeze. It doesn't bother about distinguishing the scent of moles from that of
• 47:46
  hares, did you say? But it delights in the trace left by a
• 47:51
  cat in a hedge. I've a charming nose, she calls it, his
• 47:55
  pretty little nose of cotton velvet. Since my eye opened on this world,
• 48:01
  I've not known the day that someone has not uttered a truthful flattery on the
• 48:06
  subject of my nose. Now yours is a rough, grained truffle. What
• 48:13
  makes you move it so ridiculously at this very moment. I'm hungry and I
• 48:20
  don't hear the plates. Your truffle of a nose works up and down and
• 48:24
  makes another wrinkle in your irregular mug. She always says. His square muzzle
• 48:29
  has wrinkled truffle so tenderly and so lovingly, and you think of nothing but
• 48:34
  eating. It's your empty stomach that scolds and complaints, wants to quarrel with
• 48:37
  me. I've a charming stomach, But no at your nose that's charming.
• 48:43
  You just said so. My stomach too. There's none more fastidious, more
• 48:46
  whimsical, stronger, and at the same time more delicate. It digests the
• 48:52
  bones of soul, but meat that's the least bit tainted. Literally turns it
• 48:59
  literally is the you have active indigestion. Yes, the whole house is affected
• 49:04
  by it from the very first qualms. I'm in terrible distress. The earth
• 49:09
  gives way under me. My eyes dilate, I hurriedly swallow quantities of salty
• 49:15
  saliva, involuntary ventry. Loquial cries escape me, My sides bulge out.
• 49:22
  Toby Dog disgusted, I say, if it's all the same to you,
• 49:25
  tell me the rest. After dinner, I'm hungry. Where can he be?
• 49:31
  He's there in a study, scratching paper. He's always doing that.
• 49:37
  It's a game. Two paws play at the same thing for hours and hours.
• 49:42
  I've often tried to scratch paper gently as he does, but the pleasure
• 49:46
  doesn't last long. I prefer newspapers torn into shreds that rustle and fly.
• 49:52
  There is a little part of dark, violet, muddy water on his table.
• 49:58
  I never sniff it without horror since the day a rather foolish curiosity made
• 50:01
  me dip my paw into it. This very paw, so strong and aristocratic,
• 50:09
  the tufts of useless hair you see between my toes proclaimed the purity of
• 50:15
  my race. This very paw bore a bluish stain for eight days, and
• 50:21
  the degrading odor of rusty steel clung to it a long time after. What's
• 50:25
  the little pot for? He drinks from it doubtless silence. She's not back
• 50:34
  yet, Heaven grant she isn't lost as I was. One day in the
• 50:37
  streets of Paris. I'm hungry, I'm hungry. Where are we going to
• 50:43
  eat? This evening? I saw a chicken. It made a silly noise
• 50:47
  and dropped red blood on the kitchen floor, soiling it far more than I
• 50:52
  ever did, or you either. Yet no one whipped it, but Emily
• 50:55
  put it in the fire to teach it a lesson. I licked up some
• 51:00
  of the blood. Toby Dog yawns, Chicken, it makes my mouth water.
• 51:06
  She'll say, hear Toby bones and throw me the carcasse. How badly
• 51:10
  you speak? He says, Little chicken bones, Kiki, little chicken bones.
• 51:16
  Toby Dog's surprised. But no, really, it's hear Toby bones that
• 51:22
  she says. He speaks better than she does. Toby Dog incompetent. Ah,
• 51:30
  tell me, do birds taste anything like chicken? Kikith the demure His
• 51:34
  eyes light up suddenly. No, they're far better. They're alive, Ah,
• 51:42
  the quivering bird, the warm feathers the delicious little brain. You feel
• 51:47
  it all crackling between your teeth. Oh, you make me sick. It
• 51:52
  always worries me to see tiny animals like that flutter about. And birds are
• 51:57
  dear, good little things, Kiki the demure dryly. Don't you believe it?
• 52:02
  They're only good to eat. They're noisy, stupid creatures infatuated with themselves,
• 52:09
  made to be eaten. You know the two jays not very well.
• 52:15
  They live in the little wood. When I walk by, they laugh a
• 52:20
  sardonic tiac tiak. Because I wear a bell at my neck in vain do.
• 52:24
  I hold my head very stiffly and put my paws down very gently.
• 52:30
  My bell tinkles, and the two creatures scream from the top of the fir
• 52:35
  tree. Just let me get hold of them one of these days. He
• 52:39
  lays back his ears and raises the hair along his back. Toby Dog pensive
• 52:45
  positively. Cat. There are times when I don't know you. We are
• 52:50
  talking quietly and suddenly you brizzle like a bottle brush, or we haven'ty playing
• 52:53
  amicably together, and I bark behind your back, o, just for fun.
• 52:59
  Then one doesn't know why, Perhaps because my nose grays the long hairs
• 53:02
  in your legs. You're so proud of you become all at once a savage
• 53:07
  beast, spitting fire and charging at me like a strange dog. Don't you
• 53:10
  think that shows a bad character, Kiki de demure, mysterious eyes half closed,
• 53:17
  not at all its character, simply a cat's character. In such moments
• 53:22
  of irritability, I'm keenly alive to the humiliation of my present state and that
• 53:29
  of my race. I can remember a time when priests in long linen tunics,
• 53:35
  bending low, spoke to us and humbly tried to comprehend our chanted utterance.
• 53:42
  No dog, that it is not we who have changed. It may
• 53:46
  be there are days when I'm more myself, when everything offends me, and
• 53:52
  justly. A brusque gesture, a vulgar laugh, the banging of a door,
• 53:58
  your odor, your inconceivable impudence, when you touch me or encircle me,
• 54:05
  jumping and yelping. Toby Dog patiently to himself he's having one of his
• 54:09
  attacks, Kiki the Demure, with a start, did you hear? Yes?
• 54:15
  The kitchen door and the door into the dining room, and now the
• 54:17
  drawer with the spoons are kept at last, at last, ha ha,
• 54:22
  he yawns. I stare there's any longer? Where is she? I don't
• 54:28
  hear the gravel creaking? Night's coming on. Kiki the Demure ironically go find
• 54:35
  her, and how about him? He usually worries and comes in, asking
• 54:38
  where is she? But he's scratching still. He must have drunk up all
• 54:43
  the violet colored water in the muddy little pot. By this time, Toby
• 54:46
  carefully stretches his legs. Ah, I feel lively and empty. We're going
• 54:53
  to eat soon. Just smell the good kitchen smells that come under the door.
• 54:59
  Let's play. No run, I'll chase without touching you. No,
• 55:05
  why not? I don't want to. Oh but you're tiresome. Watch me
• 55:10
  jump and arch my neck like a little horse and try to catch my stubby
• 55:14
  tail. Now I turn round and round, and Heaven's a whole room spins.
• 55:19
  It's stopping now. Insufferable creature, insufferable yourself. Look out, I'm
• 55:28
  gonna run at you as she does when she's merry crying. Ha cat.
• 55:31
  Kiki the Demure rising puts up a paw, bristling with claws and spotted with
• 55:36
  rose color and black underneath. It looks like a thorny flower. If you
• 55:40
  dare, Toby dog in a frenzy, I do dare. We're a robberl
• 55:45
  Ha cat ha cat Kiki. The demure, exasperated, gives a spring and
• 55:52
  hangs on the tablecloths, dragging it down a lamp and various things fall to
• 55:55
  the ground. Terrified silence. The two animals, crouching under an arm chair,
• 56:01
  await punishment. He appears at the study door, holding a pen like
• 56:07
  a bit between his teeth. Thunder and blitzen. What is it now?
• 56:12
  This cursed managerie has overturned everything? Where's your mistress? What a place this
• 56:16
  is? To be sure? Dinner never on time, et cetera, et
• 56:21
  cetera, et cetera. The two guilty ones, who well know the harmlessness
• 56:25
  of such outbursts, laugh quietly to themselves, and lying flatter's bedroom slippers,
• 56:31
  look at one another through the fringes of the chair. The garden gate opens.
• 56:37
  She comes in carrying a basket full of fragrant plums. Her hands are
• 56:43
  sticky from their sugarness, her hair tumbled. She stands horrified before the disaster.
• 56:51
  Oh they've been fighting again, have they? Without conviction? Dear me,
• 56:58
  what nasty creature. I'll give them away, I'll sell them, I'll
• 57:04
  kill them. But the cat and dog, groveling in exaggerated humidity, crawl
• 57:09
  up to her and speak together. Ah, there you are. It's very
• 57:17
  late. Toby attacked me. It's he who's broken everything. I believe he
• 57:22
  went mad from hunger. You smell good of grass and the twilight. You
• 57:30
  sat down on some wild thyme. Come tell your master to carry me on
• 57:35
  his shoulder. The meat will be overdone. I'm afraid you'll carve the chicken
• 57:39
  very quickly, won't you, And you'll keep the browned skin for me if
• 57:45
  you wish. I'll stretch out my paw like a spoon which knows how to
• 57:49
  take up the littlest morsels, and carry them to my mouth with that human
• 57:52
  gesture that makes you laugh. So you and he come, hi, Haye,
• 58:00
  there you are at last. I'm so unhappy when you're away. You
• 58:04
  banished me, You didn't love me. The lamb fell down all by itself.
• 58:07
  Calm. I'm awfully hungry, but I'll gladly go without dinner if you'll
• 58:12
  promise to take me with you always wherever you go. Yes, even out
• 58:15
  in the twilight, though it makes me sad. I will only follow you
• 58:19
  there, my nose close close to the hem of your dress. She disarmed
• 58:23
  and quite indifferent to the ctaclysm. Do look how pretty they are? She
• 58:30
  is ill a bedroom in the country house. Autumnal sunshine filled his inn through
• 58:36
  closed blinds. She lies on a couch, apparently asleep, dressed in a
• 58:42
  white woolen gown. Kiki the Demuur makes his toilet on a narrow console table.
• 58:47
  Toby Dog, on the carpet, in a sphinxlike attitude, watches her,
• 58:52
  and at the same time is attentive to the words of his master,
• 58:55
  who is leaving the room on tiptoe. He, in a very low voice
• 59:00
  to the two animals, sh, don't wake her, be good, I'm
• 59:07
  going downstairs to write. He closes the door noiselessly after himself. Toby Dog,
• 59:13
  Takiki the Demuur. What did he say? I don't know, something
• 59:17
  vague directions like stay there, good bye, He said, sh, I'm
• 59:24
  not making any noise, Kiki the Demure. Ironically, they're astonishing. They
• 59:30
  say no noise, and thereupon walk off with a step. A deaf rat
• 59:37
  could hear two miles away some truth in that he looks at the sleeping figure
• 59:42
  on the couch. Her face still looks very small. She's asleep. If
• 59:46
  you jump down from that table, don't land with a big thump. Kiki,
• 59:50
  the demure stiffly. Ah, you are teaching me to jump now,
• 59:54
  are you, oh worthy? Counselor put a b in your barn and he'll
• 1:00:00
  make himself your heir. What's that nothing? An oriental proverb. If I
• 1:00:07
  wished dog to disturb the silence of this room, I'd be clever enough to
• 1:00:12
  choose a rickety chair. Its feet would pound out a regular tick talk,
• 1:00:16
  tick talk, tick talk, in time with my tongue as I washed myself.
• 1:00:22
  It's a means I've invented to gain my liberty. Tick talk, tick
• 1:00:28
  talk, says the chair she happens to be reading or writing, is easily
• 1:00:32
  irritated and cries be quiet, Kiki, But I go on, unconscious of
• 1:00:38
  any wrongdoing. Tick talk, tick talk. She jumps up, distracted and
• 1:00:45
  opens the door wide for me slowly, like one exiled. I cross its
• 1:00:52
  threshold, and, once outside laugh to find myself so superior to them all.
• 1:01:00
  Toby Dog, who hasn't been listening, yawns, What a sad week?
• 1:01:04
  Eh, I don't know what it is to take a walk anymore.
• 1:01:07
  I haven't taken any pleasure in eating either, said she fall from her horse.
• 1:01:10
  Heavens, one can love people and care for one's stomach too, Toby
• 1:01:16
  Dog, with ardor not. I when she screamed and fell from her horse,
• 1:01:21
  I felt the heart crack inside me. That affair couldn't have ended Otherwise,
• 1:01:25
  one doesn't go climbing up on a horse. People don't do such things.
• 1:01:31
  I see nothing but extravagance around me, to begin with. The horse
• 1:01:36
  is a fearful monstrosity, Toby Dog indignantly. Did one ever hear the like?
• 1:01:42
  Do you keep the demure peremptorily? I happen to have had the opportunity
• 1:01:45
  of making a very close study of one Toby Dog. Aside, he makes
• 1:01:51
  me laugh. It was the farmer's horse that grazed in the meadow. My
• 1:01:55
  life for a whole month was embittered by the roving mountain lying under the hedge.
• 1:02:02
  I could see his heavy feet disfiguring the ground. I breathed his vulgar
• 1:02:07
  odor, and heard his strident cry shaking the air. Once when he was
• 1:02:14
  eating the lower twigs of the hedge. I saw myself, the whole of
• 1:02:19
  me, reflected in one of his eyes. I fled, and from that
• 1:02:23
  day my hatred was so strong that I wildly hoped to annihilate the monster.
• 1:02:30
  I'll go up to him, thought I. I'll plant myself firmly in front
• 1:02:35
  of him, and the desire of his death will be so strong in my
• 1:02:38
  eyes that perhaps he'll die when he meets my look. Topy Dog diverted,
• 1:02:45
  and then Kii the Demure, continuing. I carried out my plan. But
• 1:02:52
  the horse I had waited for, in fear and trembling, just blew through
• 1:02:57
  his nostrils a long jet of foul smelling vapor, and I fell back in
• 1:03:02
  atrocious convulsions. Toby Dog, inwardly writhing with laughter. You don't exaggerate,
• 1:03:10
  Kiki the Demure, serious, never, and she must needs go climbing on
• 1:03:16
  a horse's back, holding fast to four cords, one leg this side and
• 1:03:22
  the other that strange aberration. We don't think alike. Cat for me,
• 1:03:29
  the horse is, after man, the most beautiful thing in the world.
• 1:03:32
  Kiki the Demure vexed. And where do I come in? Toby Dog,
• 1:03:37
  evasive and courteous. No, you're a cat, but a horse, and
• 1:03:43
  with her on his back, What a beautiful picture they make, high up
• 1:03:46
  in the blue air. To gaze on it, I have to throw my
• 1:03:50
  head way back on my thick neck. The horse lends her his speed.
• 1:03:53
  Now at last she can race with me. When I go off on a
• 1:03:57
  mad run. Sometimes I'm ahead, ears floating back and tongue hanging out like
• 1:04:00
  a little flag, the angular shadow of the horse on the road in front.
• 1:04:04
  If I follow her, a fragrant dust blows back at me. It
• 1:04:09
  smells of warm leather, moist beast, and a little of her own perfume
• 1:04:12
  too. The road runs under me like a ribbon that someone is pulling.
• 1:04:15
  Oh what a joy it is to be so little and so swift, running
• 1:04:19
  along the shadow of a great galloping horse. When we halt, I pat
• 1:04:25
  like a motor between the legs of my friend, who snorts and in the
• 1:04:28
  kindliest way, puts down his fettered mouth and sprinkles me. I know,
• 1:04:31
  I know, the horse, with long mane, a shake hoofs, heavy
• 1:04:36
  with tumult eyes glimmering white. You are the last of the romanticists. I'm
• 1:04:44
  not the last of the romanticists. I'm a little bulldog that came into the
• 1:04:47
  world one evening almost under the feet of a chestnut mare. She didn't lie
• 1:04:53
  down all night long. She was so afraid of crushing my mother and her
• 1:04:56
  puppies. A little bulldog like me is almost the child of a horse.
• 1:05:00
  I lay in the warm straw against her warm flanks. I drank out of
• 1:05:03
  the stable pails. I used to get up when I heard the sound of
• 1:05:06
  hoofs coming in, and I took an interest in the washing of the carriages
• 1:05:10
  until the day she came and picked me out, Me the best looking,
• 1:05:14
  the most snub nosed, the stockiest of the litter ah. And there she
• 1:05:18
  lies, so dreadfully quiet. It makes me sad to see her with that
• 1:05:23
  little cloth still round her ankle. You remember when he picked her up in
• 1:05:27
  his arms. He held her, and she's a lot bigger than I am,
• 1:05:30
  just as if she were a little dog that he was going to drown.
• 1:05:33
  Kiki de demure bitterly. I remember, I was at the top of
• 1:05:38
  the stairs, irritated by the noise, but curious. He came up and
• 1:05:43
  pushed me aside with his foot, as he would have done if a piece
• 1:05:47
  of furniture had happened to be in his way. Is that why you stayed
• 1:05:50
  away from this room, her room for three whole days, Kiki de Demure,
• 1:05:56
  hesitating, yes, And for another reason too, What reason? Because
• 1:06:02
  of the fever Toby Dog carried away by his love. Her fever smells better
• 1:06:09
  than other people's good health, Kiki the Demure, shrugging his shoulders, and
• 1:06:14
  they talk of a dog's scent. Truly, the convictions of two paws are
• 1:06:18
  based upon childish fables. You know, of course, that fever Toby Dog
• 1:06:26
  in a low tone makes one afraid, Yes, Kiki the Demure in a
• 1:06:30
  low tone makes one afraid, gives one cold, shivers down one's back,
• 1:06:36
  distaste for everything, and uneasiness all over. One hesitates on the threshold of
• 1:06:43
  a room where there is fever, searching fearfully some hidden thing. She was
• 1:06:49
  in bed and burning hot. I looked at her a long time, ready
• 1:06:56
  to run, saying to myself, who can be with her? There?
• 1:07:00
  Behind the curtains? Who is it? Stifles and torments her and makes her
• 1:07:05
  moan in her sleep? Toby Dog frightened retrospectively. There wasn't any one,
• 1:07:11
  was there? No one but he and the fever he the most intelligent of
• 1:07:19
  two paws, was leaning over her, listening to her breathing, dimly aware
• 1:07:26
  of an invisible presence. I overcame my aversion and looked at her. I
• 1:07:30
  was melancholy and jealous. He must love her, thought I to go so
• 1:07:35
  near and defend her, to kiss her, imbued as she is with the
• 1:07:42
  evil charm? Would he hold me to his heart if I? Toby Dog
• 1:07:47
  imperatively sho what she stirred? No, Toby Dog alert looking at her.
• 1:07:55
  No, she didn't stir, but her thoughts did. I felt them continue.
• 1:08:00
  Kiki the Demure, who has recovered his equanimity. I don't know what
• 1:08:03
  we were talking about. The fief enough, don't recall it. Fever is
• 1:08:09
  the beginning of the thing. One never speaks of Toby Dog's shivering. Yes,
• 1:08:14
  I know, I don't like an animal that can't move, You know
• 1:08:16
  what I mean, Kiki the Demure, laughing cruelly, ha ha ha,
• 1:08:21
  Nor do I. I can only eat live birds, and as for the
• 1:08:28
  tiny mice, I prefer to swallow them squeak and awe. Why does it
• 1:08:32
  amuse you to horrify me? You've a certain vanity that I can't understand it
• 1:08:38
  consists in exaggerating cruelties that are already real enough. You call me the last
• 1:08:43
  of the romanticist, aren't you? The first of the sadis oh dog poisoned
• 1:08:48
  with literature. An eternal misunderstanding separates us. I'm a little bulldog, he
• 1:08:56
  replied, Just now, with that stupid sincerity which disarms me, let me
• 1:09:02
  say to you, in my turn, I am a cat. The name
• 1:09:08
  is sufficient dispensation. There is in me a hatred of pain and ugliness,
• 1:09:14
  an overmastering detestation of all that offends my sight or my reason. When the
• 1:09:20
  concierge's cat dragged around his wounded paw, I threw myself upon him, fired
• 1:09:27
  by a righteous anger, and until he stopped his whining eye Toby dogs supplicating
• 1:09:32
  me, don't tell me. Quiki the demure getting angry, understand then,
• 1:09:39
  once and for all, if the pale recital of what I did upsets you,
• 1:09:44
  that I wished to abolish, to annihilate in that bleeding animal, the
• 1:09:49
  suggestion of my own inevitable death, they're quiet for a little while, Kiki
• 1:09:57
  the demure, shuddering. This confinement does us no good. I would gladly
• 1:10:04
  go out into the soft sunshine, and do the Bayadere's dance, as he
• 1:10:09
  calls it. On the dry gravel, among the leaves, which look like
• 1:10:14
  fried potatoes. Everything is yellow. Out of doors. My green eyes would
• 1:10:19
  reflect the golden sun and the flaming woods, and so turn yellow too.
• 1:10:26
  Now I'll think only of what is joyous and yellow, the beautiful cold autumn,
• 1:10:31
  the rosy dawn that leaves its colors in the foliage of the cherry tree.
• 1:10:39
  Come, let's prove the strength of our legs and enjoy to the fall
• 1:10:43
  the consciousness that youth has only just begun for us, who knows death may
• 1:10:48
  never come. He jumps down from the console table without making the least noise,
• 1:10:54
  Toby Dog stopping him. What are you going to do? Scratch at
• 1:10:58
  the door and strike up the hymn of the sequestered cat, Toby Dog,
• 1:11:03
  indicating the figure on the couch, and doubtless waken her. Kiki the Demure
• 1:11:09
  stubbornly, I'll sing in a very small voice, and you'll scratch with your
• 1:11:15
  tiniest claws. I suppose stay here quietly, He commanded it when he went
• 1:11:19
  away. Kiki the Demure, loftily does he command me he beseeches me,
• 1:11:27
  and that's my only reason for obeying him. He sits down again, apparently
• 1:11:31
  resigned, and yawned slowly. Toby Dog yawning, You make me how on
• 1:11:38
  the contrary, it's you who bore me temptingly. You're thinking what a good
• 1:11:44
  thing freedom is, aren't you? A hen has probably escaped from the chicken
• 1:11:48
  yard. What sport you're missing? You really think so? I said,
• 1:11:54
  probably? Have you finished exploring that rabbit hole? Dog disturbed? No,
• 1:12:01
  it's so very deep. I almost buried myself following it out yesterday. The
• 1:12:06
  earth that stuck to my muzzle had some of the animal's fur in it.
• 1:12:10
  Kikit the demure more and more satanic. I suppose you'll finish that tomorrow or
• 1:12:16
  some other day, Toby Dog sadly, why not say next year? While
• 1:12:21
  you're about it, what's the matter with you? Your shiny black lip hangs
• 1:12:28
  down like an el, and your froggy eyes glitter with tears. Are you
• 1:12:33
  crying? Toby Dog's sniffling, No, poor sensitive heart, console yourself.
• 1:12:42
  You'll have your pleasures and your friends again. At this very moment, the
• 1:12:47
  farmer's dog is crunching bones in the kitchen to beguile. The long wait for
• 1:12:53
  you, Toby Dog overcome. Oh oh, the farmer's dog. She's not
• 1:13:00
  alone either, That great dane, the watch dog keeps her company. Toby
• 1:13:05
  Dog rebellious. That's not true. Go see Toby Dog. After one bound
• 1:13:12
  toward the door. No, that would make noise. You're right, it
• 1:13:15
  would. A mournful silence follows. Toby curls himself up like a turban and
• 1:13:21
  closes his eyes because he feels like crying. His breath comes in little sobs.
• 1:13:29
  Kiki the demure, absently in a low, monotonous chant. The dog,
• 1:13:33
  the little dog, the bones, the little dog, the rabbit,
• 1:13:41
  the great Dane, the rabbit's hole, the little dog, the mutton,
• 1:13:46
  bones, the rabbit's skin. Toby Dog at first endures the torture heroically,
• 1:13:53
  Then his nerves betray him, and lifting his head, he howls the long
• 1:13:58
  plaint of the abandoned. Oh Kigi, the demure from the top of the
• 1:14:08
  console table. Will you be quiet, Oh Kiki the demure aside? That's
• 1:14:17
  it, that's it. She wakes bewildered, still captive of her dreams,
• 1:14:24
  while the cat listens patiently to the approaching step on the stairs, which means
• 1:14:29
  liberty for him and punishment for Toby Dog. The first fire, because it
• 1:14:35
  is raining and an October wind chases wet leaves through the air, she has
• 1:14:40
  lit the first fire of the season in the great chimney place. Kiki the
• 1:14:45
  Demure and Toby Dog, in ecstasy, side by side on a corner of
• 1:14:49
  the warm hearthstone, contemplate the flame with dazzled eyes and address their meditations to
• 1:14:56
  it. Kiki the Demure, looking very like a cushion, no pause visible,
• 1:15:02
  Oh Fire, how splendid you are. You have come back more beautiful
• 1:15:11
  than my memory of you. You are hotter and nearer than the sun.
• 1:15:16
  The pupils of my eyes contract in your light, their lids half close,
• 1:15:23
  modestly hiding the joy I feel at seeing you again. And my inscrutable countenance
• 1:15:30
  shows but the semblance of a thought painted there in fawn color and black.
• 1:15:36
  Your crackling drowns the soft sound of my purr. Don't snap too much,
• 1:15:44
  be merciful, Oh, inconstant fire, don't sputter sparks on my fur.
• 1:15:50
  Allow me to adore you without fear. Toby Dog, half baked eyes,
• 1:15:56
  bloodshot tongue, pendant fire fire. Here you are again. I'm still very
• 1:16:02
  young, but I remember how awestruck I was the first time her hand woke
• 1:16:06
  you in the same chimney place. The sight of a god as mysterious as
• 1:16:11
  you are was most impressive to a baby dog just out of the maternal stable.
• 1:16:15
  Oh, Fire, I've not quite gotten over my fear. Hi.
• 1:16:19
  You spit at me something red that smarts. I'm afraid. Well it's gone
• 1:16:25
  now. How beautiful you are. Fire out from your ruddy center, shoot
• 1:16:30
  tatters and shreds of gold, sudden spurts of blue, and smoke that twists
• 1:16:34
  upward and draws queer shapes of beasts. Oh but I'm hot, Gently,
• 1:16:40
  gently, sovereign fire. See how my truffle of a nose is drying up
• 1:16:45
  and cracking in my ears? Are they not a blaze? I adjure thee
• 1:16:48
  with supply, and paw, I groan. Ah, I can endure it
• 1:16:54
  no longer. He turns away. Nothing is ever perfect. The east wind
• 1:16:59
  coming under the door nips my hind legs. Well, it can't be helped.
• 1:17:02
  I'll freeze behind if I must, provided I can adore you face to
• 1:17:06
  face. I am a cat, and therefore aware of all that you bring
• 1:17:12
  in your train o fire. I foresee winter. It's coming. Both troubles
• 1:17:18
  and pleases me. I've already begun to thicken and embellish my fur coat in
• 1:17:25
  its honor. The darker stripes are becoming black. My white tippet swells into
• 1:17:30
  a dazzling boa, and the fur on my belly surpasses in beauty anything that
• 1:17:35
  has ever been seen. What shall I say of my tail broad as a
• 1:17:43
  club with alternate rings of fawn color and black, Or of the sensitive,
• 1:17:48
  priceless agrets which spring from my ears? My ear rings? She calls them?
• 1:17:56
  What cat could resist me? Ah? The January nights, the serenades
• 1:18:02
  under a frosty moon, the dignified weight on the pinnacle of a roof,
• 1:18:08
  the encounter with a rival cat on the narrow top of a wall. But
• 1:18:14
  I feel quite sure of my superior strength. I'll swish my tail, put
• 1:18:19
  back my ears, sniff tragically as one does before vomiting, and then lift
• 1:18:26
  up my voice. Its modulations are infinite. I'll make it strong enough to
• 1:18:30
  waken all the sleeping two paws. I'll vociferate, I'll whimper, pacing up
• 1:18:38
  and down the garden. My body distended, my legs bent outward, feigning
• 1:18:44
  madness to terrify the tom cats. I know something of the changes and pleasures
• 1:18:48
  you foretell, Fire, for I'm a dog. Already. It is raining
• 1:18:53
  in the garden. I suppose it's raining on the road too, And in
• 1:18:57
  the woods. The falling drops are not warm as they were in the summer.
• 1:19:00
  Storms from my truffle, gray with dust to light it in the damp
• 1:19:04
  smell that came from the west. The sky is troubled, and the wind
• 1:19:08
  has grown strong enough to blow my ears out straight like little flags. A
• 1:19:13
  sharp cry such as I make when I beg comes under the door. You'll
• 1:19:16
  be shining here every day, Fire, But I'll have to suffer for the
• 1:19:20
  right to worship you. For she'll continue to wander about, her head covered
• 1:19:25
  with the pointed hood, which changes her so that it frightens me. She'll
• 1:19:29
  put on wooden shoes too, and carelessly crush the puddles, the little heaps
• 1:19:31
  of mud, and the weeping mosses. I'll follow her, since I've promised
• 1:19:35
  to do so my life long, and also because I can't help it.
• 1:19:40
  I'll follow her, a forlorn and piteous object, shining wet my belly covered
• 1:19:45
  with mud, until through very excess of misery, I'll forget and ramble in
• 1:19:50
  the coppice, interested in every undulation of the grass, eager to revive the
• 1:19:56
  drowned sense in it. She'll become communicative when she sees me hurrying along,
• 1:20:00
  and we'll talk. Ha, tobby dogs, You'll say, ha, a
• 1:20:03
  bird there on the branch. Look, you booby, Now he's gone.
• 1:20:09
  Show condole with me. Then until I'm on the verge of tears, Oh,
• 1:20:12
  my little black boy, my sympathetic cylinder, my betraychean love, How
• 1:20:16
  cold you are, how wet, how sad, how you suffer? Ooh,
• 1:20:21
  And before I'm able to judge the sincerity of her pity, the tears
• 1:20:25
  will overflow my throat contract and will wail in unison. Ah, but what
• 1:20:30
  delirious joy. When the capricious wooden shoes turn again toward the house, hurrying
• 1:20:34
  to rejoin him whom we've left scratching paper, they don't go half fast enough
• 1:20:40
  for me. Then I jump round her, barking with the light to see
• 1:20:43
  the hill diminishing, or climb at an end to smell the good stable smell
• 1:20:47
  and that of burning wood. As we near the house. At last,
• 1:20:50
  you shine forth, oh fire, oh sun, through the misty window pane.
• 1:20:55
  I shall hardly have crossed the threshold, and an overpowering sleepiness will dash
• 1:21:00
  me to the floor in front of you, You who will reduce the mud
• 1:21:02
  on my belly to fine powder and change the water of the roads to smoky
• 1:21:08
  vapor. A delightful glow penetrates my coat to the silky down, the impalpable
• 1:21:15
  colorless threads which protect my delicate skin. I feel myself swelling like a cloud.
• 1:21:21
  I must quite fill the room. My whiskers seem charged with electricity,
• 1:21:29
  a sign that I will sleep. But for the time being, the contemplation
• 1:21:33
  of your splendor and thoughts of the coming season keep me awake. It's raining,
• 1:21:40
  I shall not go out. I'll wait for the sun or the dry
• 1:21:43
  wind, or better still, the frost. Ah how the biting coal stimulates
• 1:21:49
  me. It lashes my lungs with handfuls of needles and makes a bon bon
• 1:21:55
  blassee of my charming nose. The rollicking frost sprite will blow his madness into
• 1:22:01
  me. She'll laugh, and he too, leaving his scratching paper to see
• 1:22:06
  me vie with the leaves in bounds, leaps and wild whirlings, resembling a
• 1:22:13
  floating flurry of gray smoke rather than a cat to the top of a tree.
• 1:22:17
  Down again. Then seven turns after my tail, a perilous backward leap,
• 1:22:24
  a vertical jump with aerial domes, du ventre gyrations, sneezes, careering
• 1:22:30
  from the reel to the dream, until, in terror of myself, I
• 1:22:33
  come to a sudden stop. Everything turns before my eyes. I am the
• 1:22:39
  center of a strange spinning world. In my bewilderment, half feigned, I'll
• 1:22:45
  make a little moo like a cow, which will bring them both running to
• 1:22:49
  me, she laughing and he fearing something wrong. That will suffice to sober
• 1:22:57
  me. And with a bold front and noble I'll regain this cushion near your
• 1:23:02
  altar old fire. The hearthstone burns the horny pads of my feet. What
• 1:23:09
  shall I do? Move away? Never, I'll toast to death rather than
• 1:23:13
  give up this redoubtable bliss. Heaven prevent her coming. Now I've reason to
• 1:23:17
  fear the lash of the whip and the magic words which mean exile. Toby,
• 1:23:21
  that's stupid. I forbid you to roast yourself. You'll have sore eyes
• 1:23:25
  and catch cold when you go out. That's what she says, while I
• 1:23:28
  regard her with a stupid look of utter devotion. But she's never duped by
• 1:23:32
  it. I hear noises upstairs, her step coming and going. I wonder
• 1:23:36
  as her vagabond fancy wearied at last this morning, she whistled to me,
• 1:23:41
  and in my haste to obey her, I rolled to the bottom of the
• 1:23:44
  stairs. Being low and thick set, with short legs, no nose,
• 1:23:47
  and almost no tail to balance me. Well, we set off. The
• 1:23:51
  last apples were rocking to and fro on swaying branches, my happy voice,
• 1:23:56
  a joyful shout from her now, and then the vain crowing of the cock,
• 1:24:00
  the creaking of wagons on the road. All these sounds floated on a
• 1:24:03
  bluish, cottony, suffocating fog. She took me far, and many marvelous
• 1:24:09
  things happened on our way. We met terrible giant dogs. My proud bearings
• 1:24:14
  seemed to exasperate them, but I kept them back with a single look.
• 1:24:17
  Besides, a closed iron gate rendered them powerless. I chased a rabbit into
• 1:24:21
  the thicket. Though she cried loudly, I forbid you to touch the little
• 1:24:25
  animal. My mother certainly gave me swift legs, but they're short, and
• 1:24:29
  the white end of the little beast kept far ahead. A bush covered with
• 1:24:32
  red berries detained us a very long time. She sees no objection to eating
• 1:24:38
  strange things. And I can truthfully say that I always taste everything she offers
• 1:24:41
  me, for I've great faith in her. But this morning, eat toby,
• 1:24:45
  nice berries. Eat. Here are some rose hips, Oh stupid,
• 1:24:48
  how can you not dote upon their delicious flavor? I assure you these are
• 1:24:51
  comforts of Mother Nature's making. In deference to her, I chewed a reddish
• 1:24:57
  ball. There are some rough hairs on it, put their outlets by her
• 1:25:00
  teasing hand. And what was bound to happen did happen. Ha ha,
• 1:25:04
  My throat rejected the nasty rose hip. But listen fire. What I saw
• 1:25:11
  after that passes my understanding. It was in a wood where stiff leaves rustled.
• 1:25:15
  Had she carried you under her cloak? Or do gods like you come
• 1:25:18
  at her bidding? I saw her hands pile up the wood, arrange flat
• 1:25:23
  stones in some mysterious fashion, and then fire. I saw the sparks flash,
• 1:25:27
  and your joyous soul, palpitate, grow big, sore, naked and
• 1:25:30
  rose colored, veil itself in smoke, snapped noisily for yours as a belligerent
• 1:25:35
  soul, agonize and disappear. The world is full of incomprehensible things. Last
• 1:25:43
  of all, on our way back, I discovered near the park gate,
• 1:25:46
  saw it before she did, one of those invincible beasts called hedgehogs, the
• 1:25:50
  mere sight of which brings us dogs to bay. What madness to realize that
• 1:25:56
  an animal is hiding under that pincushion and laughing at me, and that I
• 1:25:59
  can do nothing nothing, I implored her. She can do nearly everything to
• 1:26:03
  pluck him for me. She began by turning him over with a little stick,
• 1:26:08
  as if he were a horse chestnut. Astonishing, said she, I
• 1:26:12
  can't find the top of him. Then she took one of his spines between
• 1:26:15
  two fingers and carried him home that way, I dancing behind her, and
• 1:26:19
  put him in her work basket. After a while, the horrid beast unrolled
• 1:26:24
  himself, stuck out a pig like nose, opened two shiny rats eyes,
• 1:26:29
  and raised himself, holding fast by his little paws, which were exactly like
• 1:26:32
  a mule's. How pretty he is, She cried, a real little black
• 1:26:36
  pig. I stood near the table, groaning with covetousness. But she didn't
• 1:26:42
  pluck him for me, not then or ever. And perhaps the cook ate
• 1:26:45
  him, this cancer dissembler. Maybe he but away with care. I'm too
• 1:26:49
  excitable. I mustn't let myself think of these things. Life is beautiful,
• 1:26:55
  old fire, since you illumine it. I'm going to sleep. Watch over
• 1:26:59
  my unco body. I'm going to sleep. One would think me asleep,
• 1:27:06
  because the narrow slit made by my parted eyelids seems but the continuation of that
• 1:27:13
  velvety line, that bold crayon stroke, a sort of oriental make up,
• 1:27:18
  uniting my eyelids and my ears. But I'm awake, keeping watch like a
• 1:27:25
  yogi, in a state of blissful ankylosis, conscious of all that's going on
• 1:27:30
  around me. My privileged eyes fire do but behold you better when they are
• 1:27:38
  closed, and I can count the various essences you mingle in a sparkling bouquet.
• 1:27:43
  Here, in a flame of mauve color and blue, close the soul
• 1:27:47
  of a branch of arbor vitti. Yesterday it waved a plume like shadow on
• 1:27:53
  the garden walk to day with its delicate twigs, it is but a writhing
• 1:27:59
  skeleton. She cut it with one stroke of the pruning scissors. Why that
• 1:28:03
  it might breathe out its fervent blue and mauve colored soul. For like me,
• 1:28:10
  she delights in your dance fire and chastises you when you are quiet with
• 1:28:15
  a stern pair of tongs. Sitting there with her head bent and her arms
• 1:28:20
  hanging along her sides, what does she read? I wonder, in that
• 1:28:25
  fiery rose, which is the labyrinthian heart of you? She knows a great
• 1:28:30
  deal, certainly, but not as much as a cat. That thick tear
• 1:28:35
  on the log represents the anguish of a very old fir tree killed by the
• 1:28:42
  assiduous ivy. Just a short time ago. I saw it struck down,
• 1:28:47
  lying on the grass, its foliage looking like a beautiful head of reddish hair.
• 1:28:54
  I saw the axe that felled it too. Its trunk weeps tears of
• 1:28:58
  resin which trail along and drivel, then change to heavy creeping flame. But
• 1:29:04
  the dry red locks break into lines of living fire, whistle and shoot innumerable
• 1:29:11
  jets of many colors, underneath a broad gold wave that rolls voluptuously. Ah,
• 1:29:19
  love, hunting, fighting. It's your light fire that discovers these passions
• 1:29:28
  in the depths of my being. It's time the little winged creatures searching withered
• 1:29:32
  berries came near. I'll have them soon. I'll watch motionless in the brushwood,
• 1:29:41
  wildly wishing that the earth itself might hide me, the muscles of my
• 1:29:45
  legs twitching with desire to make the spring, my chin trembling. Then if
• 1:29:51
  I don't betray my hiding place by an irrepressible quavering frightening them away in one
• 1:29:58
  great commotion of wings and rustling branches. But no, I'm master of myself,
• 1:30:05
  one bound at exactly the right moment, And my feeble prey is panting
• 1:30:11
  under me. Oh, the ridiculous effort of a weak animal, its tiny,
• 1:30:16
  ineffectual claws and pointed wings beating against my face. My jaws will open
• 1:30:23
  to the splitting point, and my perfect nose wrinkle ferociously for the joy of
• 1:30:29
  holding a living, terrified body. I'll know the intoxication of battle. I'll
• 1:30:35
  prance victoriously, shaking my head to torment the bird a little, for it
• 1:30:42
  faints away too soon between my teeth, terrible to see I'll gallop towards the
• 1:30:46
  house, singing in a strangled voice without loosening my grip. For he must
• 1:30:53
  stop his scratching to admire me, and she must give chase with distracted cries.
• 1:30:59
  Wicked savage cat, drop that bird, Drop that bird. Oh,
• 1:31:02
  I beg of you. It hurts me so ha. She never can have
• 1:31:09
  hunted. I intend to astonish the world fire during winter's reign. The cat
• 1:31:16
  that lives at the farm, she says, the farmer's cat, while we
• 1:31:20
  say the cat's farmer. The fellow that's so badly dressed, disfigured by the
• 1:31:27
  nose of a weasel, and seems to walk on stilts. His legs are
• 1:31:30
  so long. Well, he sharpens his claws and regards me the while patience.
• 1:31:36
  He's strong, brutal, irresolute, and utterly lacks distinction. The slamming
• 1:31:43
  of a door terrifies him. He puts back his ears and flies panic stricken.
• 1:31:48
  Still, I've seen him kill a good sized hen without making any fuss
• 1:31:54
  about it. For a glance of the young cat's deceitful eyes, or right
• 1:31:59
  of precedence on the garden wall. For a word of double meaning, for
• 1:32:02
  nothing but for the fun of it, I'll take my chances with him.
• 1:32:08
  He'll learn that a mysterious silence can demoralize the enemy quite as effectively as murderous
• 1:32:14
  cries. The low garden wall seems to me a convenient place. Let him
• 1:32:18
  try his horse meowling in all possible keys. May his unsightly face and more
• 1:32:26
  hideous body dislocate itself in a deceitful ataxia. For there still at these old
• 1:32:30
  tricks. I'll be proof against it all, and merely flash the green magnetism
• 1:32:36
  of my magnificent eyes upon him. His brows will fall under their persistent insult.
• 1:32:43
  A shudder will run along his spine. He'll do a few steps of
• 1:32:46
  our ancient war dance forward, back forward again. But I'll stand motionless as
• 1:32:54
  the statue of a cat. The green witchcraft of my gaze will strike terror
• 1:33:00
  and madness into my rival, and soon I'll see him writhe utter false cries,
• 1:33:08
  and as a last resource, try to balance himself on the nape of
• 1:33:12
  his neck like a forked pear tree, only to roll over shamefully into the
• 1:33:16
  potato field. All that will come to pass fire exactly as I've told it
• 1:33:26
  to day. The future dawns in your new flame. I'm growing drowsy.
• 1:33:32
  My purr and your crackling are ceasing together. I see you still, and
• 1:33:40
  already I catch glimpses of my dreams. The silky sound of the rain against
• 1:33:45
  the window is soft as a caress, and the water pipe on the roof
• 1:33:49
  sobs low like a pigeon. Don't go out during my nap fire. Remember
• 1:34:00
  you're the guardian of my august repose that delicate death known as a cat's sleep.
• 1:34:15
  The storm a suffocating summer's day in the country. The blinds of the
• 1:34:19
  house are half closed. Not a sound is heard from within, not a
• 1:34:25
  murmur from the parched garden, where even the sensitive leaves of the mimosa hang
• 1:34:30
  motionless. Kiki the Demure and Toby Dog begin to feel uncomfortably conscious of the
• 1:34:35
  coming storm, which is yet but a slate blue plinth thickly painted at the
• 1:34:40
  bottom of the dull blue sky wall. Toby Dog lying restlessly, first on
• 1:34:45
  one side, then the other. No use, I can't be comfortable.
• 1:34:48
  What does this heat mean anyway? I must be sick. It began at
• 1:34:53
  breakfast. I didn't like the meat and sniffed as dainfully at my dog,
• 1:34:57
  biscuit. Something awful is going to happen. I haven't done anything wrong that
• 1:35:00
  I know of. My conscience is clear, and yet I'm suffering. There
• 1:35:05
  lies my chum, shivering and unable to sleep. I know why, his
• 1:35:09
  quick breathing that he feels just as I do. I say, can't?
• 1:35:14
  Can you give it? Amure irritably in a low tone. Be quiet what
• 1:35:18
  you're listening to? Some noise? No heavens, No, don't mention noise.
• 1:35:25
  The mere sound of your voice makes the skin on my back go in
• 1:35:28
  waves like the sea. Toby dog frightened. Are you going to die?
• 1:35:32
  I hope not. I've a sick headache. Can't you see the arteries throbbing
• 1:35:36
  under the almost hairless skin of my temples, the transparent bluish skin that denotes
• 1:35:43
  a thoroughbred. It's atrocious. The veins on my forehead are like writhing vipers.
• 1:35:49
  And I don't know what gnome forges in my brain. Oh, be
• 1:35:55
  quiet, or at least speak so low that the coursing of my agitator blood
• 1:36:00
  may drown the sound of your voice. But it's this very silence that oppresses
• 1:36:04
  me. I tremble and I don't know why I long for the familiar voice
• 1:36:09
  of the wind in the chimney, the slamming of doors, the whispering of
• 1:36:12
  the garden, the popular ceaseless rustle. It always sounds like a trickling spring.
• 1:36:16
  The uproar will come soon enough, do you think so? I wish
• 1:36:20
  she'd scratch paper. It's an idle habit, but an honored one. And
• 1:36:25
  see how listless she is there in her wicker chair. Their silence frightens me
• 1:36:30
  more than anything. She seems asleep, but I can see her eyelashes move,
• 1:36:33
  and the tips of her fingers too. She's forgetting to play with the
• 1:36:36
  little balls of thread and doesn't sing or whistle. She suffers just as we
• 1:36:41
  do. Do you think this can be the end of the world? Cat,
• 1:36:45
  No, it's a storm. Heaven's how uncomfortable I am. If I
• 1:36:49
  could only get out of my skin, cast off this fleece which is smothering
• 1:36:55
  me, flinging myself naked as a skinned mouse, into a fresher at me.
• 1:37:00
  Oh dog, you cannot see the sparks that make every separate hair on
• 1:37:05
  my body crackle, but I feel them. Don't come near. A blue
• 1:37:11
  flame is going to shoot out of me Toby Dog's shuddering. Things are coming
• 1:37:15
  to an awful pass. He drags himself to the porch. What have they
• 1:37:19
  done to the out of doors? Look? The trees are all blue,
• 1:37:23
  and the grass glistens like a sheet of water. What mournful sunlight? It
• 1:37:28
  shines white on the slate roofs, and the little houses over there on the
• 1:37:30
  hill look like brand new tombstones. A heavy odor, like bitter almond,
• 1:37:34
  creeps from the white bell shaped blossoms of the Deturres and makes me feel sick
• 1:37:40
  and faint. Far away, some smoke, heavy as the perfume of the
• 1:37:44
  Detourres goes slowly up in a straight line and falls again like a broken agrit.
• 1:37:49
  But come and see for yourself, Kiki, the demure walks faltering me
• 1:37:54
  to the porch. My word, you're changed too, cat. You look
• 1:37:59
  as if you were starving. Your face is so drawn. Your fur is
• 1:38:01
  plastered down in some places and sticking up in other's. Gives you the expression
• 1:38:05
  of a weasel that had tumbled into oil. Don't let that worry you.
• 1:38:10
  I'll regain my dignity if ever another day dawns for us to day, I
• 1:38:15
  drag myself around unwashed, uncombed, like a woman not of love with love
• 1:38:21
  and life. You say such distressing things, I think I'll whine and call
• 1:38:27
  for help. Perhaps I better go to her and look in her face for
• 1:38:30
  the comfort. You refuse me. But she seems asleep now in that wicker
• 1:38:33
  chair, And how can I read my fate in her eyes? When their
• 1:38:36
  lids are down. I'll lick her hand, very respectfully and ever so lightly.
• 1:38:42
  That will wake her, and oh, may her first caress drive away
• 1:38:45
  the evil charm. He nicks the hand hanging at the side of the chair.
• 1:38:49
  She with a scream A heavens, how you frighten me? Was there
• 1:38:55
  ever such a ninny as this dog? There? She admitted, does a
• 1:39:00
  smart rap on the nose. Toby's nerves give way, and he howls loud
• 1:39:05
  and long. Oh quiet, not a word I say out of my sight.
• 1:39:15
  I don't know what's the matter, but I hate you. And that
• 1:39:18
  cat sitting there looking at me like a bump on a log, Kiki,
• 1:39:23
  the demure bristling. If she dares to touch me, I'll devour her.
• 1:39:29
  Just at this dangerous crisis. A low rumbling is heard, distant and then
• 1:39:31
  near impossible to tell whether it comes from the horizon or arises from the house
• 1:39:35
  itself, all three in whose interests in the quarrel, Toby Dog and Kiki
• 1:39:40
  the Demure slink away as if responding to a signal, and seeks shelter,
• 1:39:45
  one under the bookcase and the other under an arm chair. She turns anxiously
• 1:39:50
  to the leaden hued garden and the great violet bank of cloud, which all
• 1:39:56
  of a sudden is riven by a blinding streak of blue f She, Toby
• 1:40:01
  Dog, Kiki the Demure all together. Oh, A sudden crash shakes the
• 1:40:06
  windows, and instantly a great rush of wind envelops the house with a noise
• 1:40:13
  as of flapping canvas. All the garden prostrates itself. She in anguish heavens
• 1:40:19
  the apples. Toby Dog invisible. I'll let them cut my ears into strips
• 1:40:26
  rather than leave this hiding place. Kiki the Demure, invisible. I can't
• 1:40:30
  help hearing, and it's as if I saw everything that's going on. She
• 1:40:35
  hastens to close the windows. Someone is running on the stairs. Aye,
• 1:40:42
  another awful flame, and everything is falling in silence. Now I wonder are
• 1:40:49
  they all dead? I look through the fringes of the chair, though it's
• 1:40:56
  risking my life to do so. Ah, hailstones making holes in the leaves.
• 1:41:02
  Here comes the rain in silvery drops, wide apart and so heavy that
• 1:41:09
  the gravel wrinkles up when they fall. She heart broken. I can hear
• 1:41:15
  the peaches falling, and the green nuts too. All three are silent rain,
• 1:41:20
  quivering streaks of lightning hissing in the pine trees. The wind howls alung.
• 1:41:29
  I'm not quite so afraid as I was. The sound of the rain
• 1:41:31
  relaxes my tired nerves. I seem to feel it streaming warmth on my ears
• 1:41:36
  in the back of my neck. Now the hubbub is further off. I
• 1:41:41
  can hear myself breathe. The light coming under this bookcase is brighter than it
• 1:41:45
  was. What is she doing? I daren't go out yet. If only
• 1:41:48
  the cat would move. He sticks out his head like a weary turtle.
• 1:41:54
  A flash of lightning makes him draw it back again. Ha, it's beginning
• 1:41:58
  all over again. Rain by the bucket falls against the window panes. Something
• 1:42:02
  in the chimney is trying to imitate that far away rumbling. Everything's falling to
• 1:42:08
  pieces, and she gave me a rap on the nose. Drop by drop,
• 1:42:13
  a little brownish river is filtering under the loose window sash. It's stretching
• 1:42:17
  out and out on the floor, winding its way over to me. I'm
• 1:42:21
  so hot and thirsty, I'd like to lap up some of it. My
• 1:42:26
  joints ache, and my ears are tired of standing up like weather cocks at
• 1:42:30
  every crash. My jaws are still clenched with nervous fear. The seat of
• 1:42:35
  this chair is too low. It annoys me rubbing against the fur on my
• 1:42:40
  back. However, it's some comfort to be able to think of such things,
• 1:42:45
  thanks to the piece that's descended on the house. The rain is falling
• 1:42:50
  quietly, and the wind has gone down, But the memory of the Din
• 1:42:56
  still hums in my ears. Can he be doing? The storm distresses him
• 1:43:02
  too? Why didn't he come forward to calm the raging elements? There she
• 1:43:09
  is opening the porch door. Isn't it too soon? No, for the
• 1:43:14
  hens are cackling like old maids as they hop over the puddles. We're going
• 1:43:18
  to have fine weather. Oh, the adorable smell of wet leaves and earth
• 1:43:25
  refreshed. It's so new, so pure. I seem to breathe for the
• 1:43:30
  first time. He creeps stealthily to the porch. Toby dogs suddenly, Ah,
• 1:43:36
  how good that smells like a walk. Things change so quickly one hasn't
• 1:43:42
  time to think. She's opened the door. Let's run, he dashes out.
• 1:43:46
  Well, well, the garden has got back its own color again.
• 1:43:49
  A warmest vapor moistes my rough grained nose. I've fell with a desire to
• 1:43:55
  jump and run. The grass is raking, shining, Wet horned snails are
• 1:43:59
  filling around in the pink gravel with the tips of their eyes, and speckled
• 1:44:02
  black and white slugs embroider the wall with a silver ribbon. Oh what a
• 1:44:06
  beautiful green and gold beasty running out there in the wet Shall I catch it?
• 1:44:11
  Shall I scratch his metallic shell until it breaks with a little cracking sound.
• 1:44:15
  No, I'd rather stay near her. She's leaning against the door,
• 1:44:18
  taking deep breaths and smiling quietly to herself. I'm so happy. Something inside
• 1:44:25
  me feels grateful to the whole world. The light is beautiful, and I'm
• 1:44:28
  quite sure that there'll never never be another storm. I shan't wait any longer.
• 1:44:32
  I'm going out I'll find dry places between the puddles for my dainty paws
• 1:44:38
  to step on. An imperceptible thrill runs through the streaming garden, making the
• 1:44:45
  jewels hung all about tremble and sparkle. The slanting rays of the setting sun
• 1:44:51
  find their reflection in my eyes, which are spangled with green and gold.
• 1:44:57
  Down near the horizon, where the sk eye is still unsettled, a glittering
• 1:45:01
  sword leaps up and puts to flight the dark fuming cloud horses that have been
• 1:45:08
  galloping over our heads. Now, the odor of the deturahs rises and perfumes
• 1:45:13
  all the air, mingled with that of lemon leaves bruised by the hail.
• 1:45:17
  The roses are crowned with midges. Oh sudden springtime. An involuntary smile stretches
• 1:45:25
  the corners of my mouth. I'm going to play at tickling my nostrils with
• 1:45:30
  the point of a sweet smelling blade of grass, carefully stretching my neck to
• 1:45:34
  avoid the falling drops. But I want him to follow and admire me.
• 1:45:40
  Will he not come out and enjoy himself with us? A voice is heard,
• 1:45:44
  humming a motif from the Reagenborgan So Sie ray so la si all flats,
• 1:45:51
  a door opens and closes again. He appears under the dripping foliage of
• 1:45:56
  vines framing the verandah, and at the same moment a rainbow is seen in
• 1:46:00
  the sky A caller a winter's afternoon in Paris the studio. A fire crackles
• 1:46:10
  gently in the towel shaped stove. Toby Dog and Kiki the Demure, one
• 1:46:15
  on the floor, the other on his own particular cushion, proceed with the
• 1:46:18
  minute toilet, which follows a long siesta. Peace reigns. My nails grow
• 1:46:25
  faster here than in the country. It's the contrary with mine, really,
• 1:46:30
  Kiki the Demure, bitterly, not to be wondered at, she clips them
• 1:46:34
  for the sake of the hangings. Well, what can't be cured must be
• 1:46:40
  endured. What are you going to do today? Why nothing, Toby Dog
• 1:46:45
  ironically, for a change, I suppose, pardon to avoid change? What
• 1:46:53
  is this rage for change that takes possession of you? All change means destruction.
• 1:47:00
  Only that which remains stationary is eternal. I'm eternal. Then these three
• 1:47:04
  hours passed, But you've been out with her, haven't you. You came
• 1:47:10
  in like a whirlwind. Bells rang, clothes were shaken out. You were
• 1:47:15
  sneezing and laughing and aureoled with icy air. The end of her nose felt
• 1:47:20
  so cold when she kissed me on the forehead. She always kisses me there,
• 1:47:26
  just over the dark stripes, forming the classic M, which she assures
• 1:47:30
  me stands for miaw and for mine my name in French. Yes, we
• 1:47:36
  had a fine run on the banks of the fortifications, and then we went
• 1:47:40
  into a shop. Is that amusing? Not often there are a great many
• 1:47:45
  people crowded together. I'm immediately seed with the fear of losing her, and
• 1:47:48
  I stick close to her heels no matter what comes. Strange feet push and
• 1:47:53
  knock me about and step on my paws. I yelp, but the skirts
• 1:47:56
  all round stifle my voice. When we're out of it, we both look
• 1:48:00
  as if we've been shipwrecked. May the gods preserve me from anything of the
• 1:48:04
  sort. Here the moments have glided peacefully by. When she's not in this
• 1:48:11
  house, there's nothing to hinder me. I employ the time as my system
• 1:48:15
  of hygiene dictates. After my breakfast of rosy liver and milk, my kitten
• 1:48:20
  hood seems to come back to me. I'm filled with a foolish gayety.
• 1:48:26
  I go over to him. He's rumpling big blackish papers and welcomes me with
• 1:48:30
  a quiet smile. We loll on the same divan and revel in a few
• 1:48:36
  idle moments together, sometimes with imperious paw. I tear the paper he holds
• 1:48:43
  like a screen between us. It always seems to me the most desirable,
• 1:48:47
  the one that crackles best. He cries out, and I throw myself on
• 1:48:51
  my back and wriggle with joy in a sort of horizontal dance he calls the
• 1:48:58
  dance of the Bayadier. Then somehow everything dwindles before my eyes, grows dim
• 1:49:03
  and far away. I want to rise and go back to my cushion,
• 1:49:09
  but dreams already separate me from the world. Ah, blessed hour when you
• 1:49:15
  and she disappear, when the house is at rest and takes a long breath.
• 1:49:21
  Soon I'm in the depths of a dark, sweet sleep. My ears
• 1:49:27
  alone keep watch and turn like sensitive antennas toward vague sounds of doors and bells.
• 1:49:34
  At this moment, some one rings. Toby Dog and Kiki the Demure
• 1:49:39
  start and change their positions. The cat sitting encircles himself with his fluffy tail.
• 1:49:45
  The dog, in a sphinxlike attitude, lifts his head boldly. What's
• 1:49:49
  that a tradesman, Kiki the Demure, shrugging his shoulders. That's not the
• 1:49:56
  kitchen bell. Perhaps it's a caller. Toby dog with bound What luck they
• 1:50:01
  have? Tea and cakes? Come on, sugar, sugar, little cakes,
• 1:50:04
  little cakes. Kiki the Demure gloomily to see ladies who shriek and put
• 1:50:11
  gloved hands on my back, hands covered with dead skin. RHoK. Feminine
• 1:50:17
  voices are heard, hers among them, and the clear tinkling of a little
• 1:50:21
  bell. Then the door opens and a very diminutive toy terrier enters alone.
• 1:50:28
  She's black and tan, seems in love with herself, and comes forward with
• 1:50:32
  a mincing step. The little dog voice way up in her head. I'm
• 1:50:38
  the darling little dog, so pretty. Toby is struck dumb with admiration and
• 1:50:44
  astonishment. Kiki, indignant, has jumped on top of the piano and remains
• 1:50:48
  an unseen and hostile spectator. The little dog, astonished at not hearing the
• 1:50:55
  chorus of admiration that everywhere greets her, is reciting I'm the darling little dog,
• 1:51:01
  so pretty. I weigh only one pound eleven ounces. My collar's gold.
• 1:51:11
  My ears of black satin lined with shiny rubber. My nails are polished
• 1:51:16
  like the beaks of little birds. Catching sight of Toby dog, Oh,
• 1:51:23
  someone, silence, he's rather good looking. They ogle and strut. How
• 1:51:30
  tiny she is, sir, don't come near me? Why not? I
• 1:51:34
  don't know. My mistress knows she's not here. She stayed in the other
• 1:51:40
  room. How old are you? Eleven months reciting I'm eleven months old.
• 1:51:47
  At the dog show, my mother took first prize for beauty. I weigh
• 1:51:51
  only one pound eleven ounces, and you've said that already. What makes you
• 1:51:57
  so little? Kiki the demure from the piano. She's ugly and has an
• 1:52:00
  evil odor. Her paws are deformed. She can't stand still an instant,
• 1:52:05
  and this dog takes pains to make himself fascinating. The little dog very coquettish
• 1:52:12
  and talkative. It's my lineage, of course. Oh one can hold me
• 1:52:15
  in a muff. You've seen my collar. It's gold. And what's that
• 1:52:21
  hanging from it? My mother's metal, sir. I always wear it.
• 1:52:27
  I come from the Palatic Glass, where I made quite a hit. Imagine
• 1:52:31
  I wanted to bite a gentleman who was speaking to my mistress. How they
• 1:52:36
  laughed. She wriggles and chaps Toby Dog aside. What an odd creature?
• 1:52:45
  Is she really a dog? Sniffs? Yes, smells of rice powder,
• 1:52:49
  But it's a dog, just the same. Aloud, Sit down a moment.
• 1:52:54
  It makes me quite dizzy to see you moving about. So certainly.
• 1:52:58
  She lies down like a miniature greyhound, crossing her forepaws to show the slimness
• 1:53:02
  of her toes. You were here all alone, Toby Dog, looking toward
• 1:53:08
  the piano. Yes, no other dog. Why there's a strange odor.
• 1:53:14
  The cat, doubtless the cat? Who what's the cat? I've never seen
• 1:53:18
  one. Do they leave you in the room all alone? It happens so
• 1:53:23
  now and then, and you don't bark. I cry as soon as I'm
• 1:53:28
  left alone. I'm bored, afraid, feel sick, and chew up the
• 1:53:32
  cushions. And then you're wept. The little dog insulted. I'm what did
• 1:53:39
  you say? You're losing your senses, I imagine suddenly amoble again. That
• 1:53:45
  would be a pity. You have lovely eyes. Haven't died? They show
• 1:53:50
  well, don't they They're large? And then they stick out. She says,
• 1:53:55
  I have eyes like a lobster's, and sometimes she says his beautiful seal's
• 1:53:59
  eyes, his frog like eyes of gold. Who she Toby Dog? Simple
• 1:54:03
  she I don't understand all you say, but I find you so very sympathetic.
• 1:54:11
  What are you doing this evening? Why I dine naturally? I wanted
• 1:54:17
  to know whether they receive here this evening? Or do you go out?
• 1:54:21
  No, I've been out already, driving walking, of course. Why of
• 1:54:27
  course, I hardly stir except in a carriage. Show me the underside of
• 1:54:31
  your paws. Horrors, one would say to us, the stoney, sharpened
• 1:54:36
  knives on. Look at mine, satin on top, velvet underneath. I'd
• 1:54:43
  like to see you in the country, on the cobblestones. I've been there,
• 1:54:46
  sir. I was in the country last summer, and there weren't any
• 1:54:50
  cobblestones. Then it wasn't the country. You don't know what country means,
• 1:54:56
  the little dog vexed. Indeed I do, sir. It's fine sand and
• 1:55:00
  velvety lawns that are swept every morning. It's a reclining chair on the grass,
• 1:55:05
  great fresh cushions and cree tone foamy milk naps. In the shade and
• 1:55:13
  charming little red apples to play with, Toby Dog shaking his head. No,
• 1:55:18
  it's the road covered with white powder that makes the eyelids smart and the
• 1:55:21
  paws burn. The tough, shriveled, sweet smelling grass where I scratch my
• 1:55:26
  nose and my gums. It's the fearful night, for I'm the only one
• 1:55:30
  to guard them. He and she I lie in my basket, but the
• 1:55:32
  beating of my poort overdriven heart keeps me awake. I hear a dog crying
• 1:55:36
  to me from far off that the bad man is passed on the road.
• 1:55:41
  Is he coming in my direction? Will I be obliged in another minute?
• 1:55:44
  My eyes bloodshot and tongue dry as chalk, to throw myself upon him and
• 1:55:47
  devour his shadowy face. The little dog trembling in an ecstasy. Go on,
• 1:55:54
  go on, Oh, how frightened I am, Toby Dog modestly,
• 1:56:00
  don't be afraid. It has never happened. All that is the country,
• 1:56:02
  yes, and the interminable hill and the shadow of the carriage. When thirst,
• 1:56:08
  hunger, heat and fatigue render the soul submissive and hopeless, the little
• 1:56:13
  dog quite worked up, And then oh, nothing one arrives at the house
• 1:56:17
  after all, and the pail of dark water one drinks without taking breath.
• 1:56:23
  His tongue, she says, His big tongue is parted in the center like
• 1:56:26
  an iris petal, while sore eyelids and dusty lashes are splashed with cooling drops.
• 1:56:30
  The country is all that, and many things besides Kiki the demure on
• 1:56:35
  top of the piano, musingly. All that, yes, and the habits
• 1:56:41
  of the year before that one finds again molded to one's shape like a cushion,
• 1:56:45
  marked with the imprint of a long sleep, the long nights of freedom,
• 1:56:51
  when the lone owlet with his sad little laugh makes his way through the
• 1:56:57
  air as quietly as I do on the ground, and silvery gray rats cling
• 1:57:01
  to the vines, eating grapes and keeping their eyes on me at the same
• 1:57:06
  time. It's the sun cure on the hot stone wall from which I arise,
• 1:57:13
  wan and shrunken, baked through and through, but smelt enough to make
• 1:57:18
  the youngest tom cat envious, coming back to the present with a murderous look
• 1:57:24
  at the little dog. Death to you, ill smelling beast for having evoked
• 1:57:30
  these by gone joys, aren't you going to disappear, that I may come
• 1:57:34
  down from this cold pedestal where my paws are growing numb. Toby Dog enthusiastically
• 1:57:42
  to the little dog. But let us forget all that with you there.
• 1:57:45
  I can think of nothing but you. I feel that I love you,
• 1:57:48
  the little dog lowering her eyes. Do you mean really? Of course?
• 1:57:55
  I do so soon. We've already wasted a great deal of time, but
• 1:58:00
  we've been chatting. I've enjoyed it very much, and I fail to understand
• 1:58:06
  why the society of young dogs like you is forbidden me. Allow me to
• 1:58:12
  make love to you. What's that? I'll show you first? I hold
• 1:58:16
  myself very erect, stiffen my legs, walk round you, barking low and
• 1:58:19
  melodiously. My tail wriggles, my ears. Don't come near me. I
• 1:58:25
  feel quite upset escaping you, A merrily fellow Kiki the demur standing up.
• 1:58:32
  These preludes are indeed a sad parody on our wild love, making a loud,
• 1:58:39
  very angry I should think. The little dog looks to see where the
• 1:58:44
  dreadful voice is coming from, and despise a strange striped monster with eyes of
• 1:58:48
  fire and eyebrows and whiskers bristling ferociously. She dashes towards the door, crying,
• 1:58:56
  help, help, there's a tiner on the piano, and falls into
• 1:59:00
  the arms of her mistress, who has come upon the scene and proceeds to
• 1:59:04
  console her with great volubility. Phoebe, my sizette, my darling, they're
• 1:59:13
  there. Goo goo goo goo, you poor helpless little doggie. What did
• 1:59:19
  they do to her? Oh? Was it the naughty bow wow? Et
• 1:59:25
  cetera, et cetera. End of Barks and Purse by Colette Willie, translated
• 1:59:31
  by Mary Kelly,