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