DINNER IS LATE ... of the damned in his vat of boiling oil, if anything amuses him! Mine is not physical torment. I suffer imprisonment, humiliation, darkness, neglect— ( The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries "Aw-ll a-bor!! ... awl aborr!!" ) TOBY-DOG ( bewildered ) Someone's crying out! There's an accident!! Let's run!!! ( He throws himself against the carriage door and scratches madly at it .) SHE, ( half asleep ) Toby dear, you're a nuisance! TOBY-DOG ( distracted ) Oh, you inexplicable person! How can you sit there quietly? Don't you hear those cries? They're stopping now—the accident has gone away. Wish I'd known... ( The train starts again .) HE, ( throwing down his paper ) The poor beast is hungry. SHE, ( now very wide awake ) You think so? Well, I am too. But Toby is to eat very little. HE, ( anxiously ) And Kiki-the-Demure? SHE, ( peremptorily ) Kiki sulks, and he hid this morning, so he'll have even less than Toby. HE He isn't making a sound. Aren't you afraid he's sick? SHE No, he's simply vexed. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( as soon as there's question of himself ) Me-ow! HE, ( tenderly and eagerly ) Come my beautiful Kiki, my imprisoned one, come. You shall have cold roast-beef and some breast of chicken... ( He opens the prison basket and KIKI puts forth his head, flattened on top like that of a serpent; then his long, striped body, cautiously, and so very slowly that one begins to think it's coming out by the yard .) TOBY-DOG ( pleasantly ) Ah, there you are, cat! Well, now, proclaim your freedom! (KIKI, without replying, smoothes his ruffled fur .) TOBY-DOG Proclaim your freedom I tell you! It's the custom. Whenever a door is opened one must run, jump, twist oneself into half circles and cry out. KIKI-THE-DEMURE One ? Who's one, pray? TOBY-DOG We dogs. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( seated and very dignified ) Would you have me bark , too? ... We have never followed the same rules of conduct, that I know of. TOBY-DOG ( vexed ) Oh very well, I don't insist. How do you like this carriage? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( sniffing fastidiously ) It's frightful.—However, the cushions are rather good for one's nails. ( He suits the action to the word .) TOBY-DOG ( aside ) Now if I did that... KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( continuing to scratch the upholstery ) Hon! May this spongy, gray cloth soothe my rage! ... Since morning, the whole universe has been in a state of monstrous revolt. He whom I love, and who venerates me, made not the least effort to defend me. I've submitted to humiliating contacts, been jolted to death, piercing whistles have shot through my head from ear to ear. Ho, ho, how good it is to relax the nerves and to imagine that, with gleeful claws, one tears the enemies' flesh in bloody shreds! Ho, ho! S-c-r-a-t-c-h, and lift the paws on high! Lift them high as possible! It's a supremely insolent gesture.... SHE I say, Kiki, when are you going to stop that? HE, ( Indulgent and admiring ) Let him alone. He's doing his nails. KIKI-THE-DEMURE He has spoken for me. I forgive him. But since it's allowed, I don't care any more about tearing the cushions ... When will I get out of this? Not that I'm afraid; they are both there, and the dog too, with their everyday faces ... I've twinges in my stomach. ( He yawns. The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries, "Aw-ll a-bor! Aw-ll a-b-o-r-r!!" ) TOBY-DOG ( excited ) Screaming again! Another accident?!--Let's run!... KIKI-THE-DEMURE Heavens, what a tiresome dog! What does it matter to him, if there is an accident? I don't believe in it moreover. It's the cry of a man, and men cry out for the pleasure of hearing their own voices. TOBY-DOG ( calm again ) I'm hungry. Can't we hope to eat soon, my mistress? I don't know what time it is in this strange country, but it seems to me... SHE Come now, we'll all have our luncheon. ( She takes the things out of the basket, crumples up some tissue paper and breaks a crisp brown roll .) TOBY-DOG ( chewing ) What She gave me then must have been very good indeed to seem such a tiny bit. It melted in my mouth, there's not even the memory of it left... KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( chewing ) Breast of chicken! Purr-rr ... Goodness me! I was purring without knowing it! That won't do. They'll think me resigned to this journey. I must eat slowly, grim, and undeceived, eat for the sole purpose of keeping myself alive... SHE, ( to the dog and cat ) Allow me to have my luncheon now, if you please. I too, like cold chicken and the hearts of lettuce, dipped in salt... HE, ( anxiously ) What shall we do to make this cat go into his basket again? SHE I don't know. We'll see presently... TOBY-DOG Finished already? I could swallow three times that much. I say Cat, you're eating rather well for a martyr. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( fibbing ) Trouble digs a hole in one's interior. Move away please, I want to sleep now ... if I can. Perhaps a merciful dream will take me back to the house I've left, to the flowered cushion He gave me.... Home! sweet home! Rugs of bright colors for the delight of my eyes, a palm with nice shoots for me to eat, deep arm-chairs, under which I hide my woolen ball as a future surprise for myself—ah, and the cork hanging by a string to the door-latch! the tables covered with bibelots! I thread my way in and out among them and occasionally it amuses me to break some brittle thing. The dining-room is a temple! The vestibule, full of mystery; there unseen, I can watch those who come and go ... Oh narrow back-stairway, where the step of the milkman rings out for me like a morning angelus—farewell! farewell! my destiny carries me on, and who knows if ever ... But this is too sad! All the pretty things I've been saying have really begun to make me feel badly!! ( He begins a minute and mournful toilet. The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries, "Aw-ll-a-borr-a-borr!!" ) TOBY-DOG There it is again! An acci—Oh bother, I've had enough of that! HE, ( anxiously ) We're going to change trains in ten minutes. How about the cat? He'll never allow us to shut him up... SHE We'll see ... Suppose we put some meat in his basket? HE Or perhaps petting would... ( They approach the redoubtable KIKI and both speak together .) HE Kiki, my beautiful Kiki, come jump on my knee, or on my shoulder. You like that as a rule. You'll doze there and then I'll put you gently into the basket. After all, it's open-work and has a comfortable cushion to protect you from the rough wicker. Come, my dear.... SHE Listen, Kiki. You must learn to act properly and to take life as it is. You can't stay there like that. We're going to change trains and a horrible guard will appear and say insulting things of you and your race. Besides you'd better obey, because if you don't, I—I'll give you a good whipping. ( But before she can lift her hand against his sacred fur, Kiki gets up, stretches himself, arches his back, yawns,—to show the rosy lining of his mouth, and then walks to the open basket where he lies down with an admirable air of quiet insolence. He and She exchange eloquent glances .) DINNER IS LATE A parlor, in the country, at the close of a long summer's day . KIKI-THE-DEMURE and TOBY-DOG doze; ears twitching and eyelids obstinately shut. Now KIKI'S lids part in a narrow slit, and disclose eyes the color of purple grapes. He yawns, with the ferocious expression of a small dragon. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( haughtily ) You're snoring! TOBY-DOG ( who was not really asleep ) I'm not; it's you. KIKI-THE-DEMURE Impossible! I don't snore, I purr. TOBY-DOG Same thing. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( not condescending to a discussion ) Thank heaven, it isn't! ( A silence .) I'm hungry. One doesn't hear the noise of plates in the next room. Isn't it dinner time? TOBY-DOG ( gets up, slowly stretches his forepaws and yawns, darting forth a heraldic tongue with curly end ) I don't know ... I'm hungry. KIKI-THE-DEMURE Where is She? How is it you're not at her heels? TOBY-DOG ( embarrassed, nibbling his nails ) She's in the garden I believe, picking up plums. KIKI-THE-DEMURE Those yellow balls that rain about one's ears? I know them. You've seen her then? I bet She scolded you ... What have you been doing now? TOBY-DOG ( self-conscious, turning away his wrinkled, toad-like face ) She told me to return to the house because—because I too, was eating plums. KIKI-THE-DEMURE She did well! You have depraved tastes—the tastes of men. TOBY-DOG ( offended ) Say—no one ever sees me eating bad fish! And never, never will I understand how you can go into such fits over a dead frog, or that herb. KIKI-THE-DEMURE Valerian. TOBY-DOG That's it, I guess ... An herb—is medicine, isn't it? KIKI-THE-DEMURE Medicine, indeed! Valerian ... but no you , can't understand ... I've seen Her laugh and go on, as I do over the valerian, after having emptied a glass of fetid wine that jumped dangerously too. As for the dead frog—so dead that it seems a bit of dry russia leather in the form of a frog—it's a sachet, impregnated with rare musk, with which I wish to scent my fur. TOBY-DOG Oh, you talk very well—but She always scolds and says that you smell bad after it, and He says the same thing. KIKI-THE-DEMURE They're nothing but Two-Paws, both of them. You, poor thing, belittle yourself by seeking to imitate them. You stand on your hind legs, wear a coat when it rains, eat plums—for shame!--and those big green balls, the malicious trees let fall sometimes, when I'm passing underneath. TOBY-DOG Apples? KIKI-THE-DEMURE Very likely. She picks one up and throws it down the path, crying: "Apple, Toby, apple," and you rush after, in unseemly fashion, gasping for breath, looking like a fool, your tongue and your eyes sticking out ... TOBY-DOG ( scowling, head resting on his paws ) One takes one's pleasures where one finds them. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( yawning, shows his pointed teeth and his palate of pink velvet ) I'm hungry. Dinner is surely late tonight. Suppose you look for Her? TOBY-DOG I daren't. She forbade it. She is down there in the hollow, with a big basket. The dew is falling and wetting her feet and the sun's going away. But you know how She is. She sits on the damp ground, looking ahead of her, as if She were asleep—or lies flat on her stomach, whistling and watching an ant in the grass ... She tears up a handful of wild thyme and smells it, or calls the tomtits and the jays—who never come to her by any chance. She takes a heavy watering pot and—ugh! it gives me the shivers—pours thousands of icy, silvery threads over the roses or into the hollows of those little stone troughs, 'way back in the woods. I always look in to see the head of a brindle-bull who comes to meet me and to drink up the pictures of the leaves, but She pulls me back by the collar with: "Toby, Toby, that water is for the birds." ... Then She takes out her knife and opens nuts, fifty, a hundred nuts, and forgets the time ... There's no end to the things She does. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( slyly ) And what do you do all that time? TOBY-DOG I—well—I just wait for her. KIKI-THE-DEMURE I admire you! TOBY-DOG Once in a while, squatting down, She eagerly scratches the earth, toils and sweats over it; then I jump 'round her, delighted to see her at something so useful and so familiar. But her feeble scent deceives her. I never smell mole, or shrew-mouse-of-the-rosy-paws, in the holes She digs. And how explain her utter lack of purpose? Presently, falling back on her haunches, She brandishes a hairy-rooted herb and cries: "I have it, the jade!" I lie in the damp grass and tremble, or dig my nose (She calls it my snout) into the earth to get the complicated odors of it. ... When there are three or four scents all blended, all mixed together, can you distinguish that of the mole from that of the hare which passed quickly, or the bird which rested there? KIKI-THE-DEMURE Certainly I can. My nose is highly educated. It's small, regular, wide between my eyes, delicate at the chamois-skin end of my nostrils; the lightest touch of a blade of grass, the shadow of smoke tickles and makes it sneeze. It doesn't bother about distinguishing the scent of moles from that of—hares, did you say? But it delights in the trace left by a cat in a hedge ... I've a charming nose. She calls it, "his pretty little nose of cotton velvet." Since my eyes opened on this world I've not known the day that someone has not uttered a truthful flattery on the subject of my nose. Now yours—is a rough-grained truffle. What makes you move it so ridiculously? At this very moment. TOBY-DOG I'm hungry and I don't hear the plates. KIKI-THE-DEMURE ... your truffle of a nose works up and down and makes another wrinkle in your irregular mug. TOBY-DOG She always says, "his square muzzle, his wrinkled truffle," so tenderly and so lovingly! KIKI-THE-DEMURE ... And you think of nothing but eating. TOBY-DOG It's your empty stomach that scolds and complains and wants to quarrel with me. KIKI-THE-DEMURE I've a charming stomach. TOBY-DOG But no, it's your nose that's charming. You just said so. KIKI-THE-DEMURE My stomach too. There's none more fastidious, more whimsical, stronger and at the same time more delicate. It digests the bones of sole, but meat that's the least bit tainted literally turns it. TOBY-DOG Literally's the word. You have active indigestion. KIKI-THE-DEMURE Yes, the whole house is affected by it. From the very first qualms I'm in terrible distress; the earth gives way under me, my eyes dilate, I hurriedly swallow quantities of salty saliva; involuntary, ventriloquial cries escape me, my sides bulge out— TOBY-DOG ( disgusted ) I say, if it's all the same to you, tell me the rest after dinner. KIKI-THE-DEMURE I'm hungry. Where can He be? TOBY-DOG He's there, in his study, scratching paper. KIKI-THE-DEMURE He's always doing that. It's a game. Two-Paws play at the same thing for hours and hours. I've often tried to scratch paper gently, as He does, but the pleasure doesn't last long. I prefer newspapers torn into shreds that rustle and fly ... There is a little pot of dark-violet, muddy water on his table. I never sniff it without horror, since the day a rather foolish curiosity made me dip my paw into it. This very paw, so strong and aristocratic, (the tufts of useless hair you see between my toes proclaim the purity of my race) this very paw bore a bluish stain for eight days and the degrading odor of rusty steel clung to it a long time after ... TOBY-DOG What's the little pot for? KIKI-THE-DEMURE He drinks from it doubtless. ( Silence .) TOBY-DOG She's not back yet! Heaven grant She isn't lost, as I was one day in the streets of Paris! KIKI-THE-DEMURE I'm hungry! TOBY-DOG I'm hungry! What are we going to eat this evening? KIKI-THE-DEMURE I saw a chicken. It made a silly noise and dropped red blood on the kitchen floor, soiling it far more than I ever did, or you either—yet no one whipped it. But Emily put it in the fire, to teach it a lesson. I licked up some of the blood ... TOBY-DOG ( yawns ) Chicken ... it makes my mouth water. She'll say: "Here Toby, bones!" and throw me the carcass. KIKI-THE-DEMURE How badly you speak! He says: "Little chicken bones, Kiki, little chicken bones!" TOBY-DOG ( surprised ) But no really it's, "Here, Toby, bones!" that She says. KIKI-THE-DEMURE He speaks better than She does. TOBY-DOG ( incompetent ) Ah? ... Tell me, do birds taste anything like chicken? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( whose eyes light up suddenly ) No ... they're far better, they're alive. Ha, the quivering bird, the warm feathers, the delicious little brain ... you feel it all crackling between your teeth! TOBY-DOG Oh, you make me sick! It always worries me to see tiny animals like that flutter about ... and birds are dear, good little things. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( dryly ) Don't you believe it, they're only good to eat. They're noisy, stupid creatures, infatuated with themselves, made to be eaten. ... You know the two jays? TOBY-DOG Not very well. KIKI-THE-DEMURE They live in the little wood. When I walk by they laugh a sardonic "tiac, tiac," because I wear a bell at my neck. In vain do I hold my head very stiffly and put my paws down very gently, my bell tinkles and the two creatures scream from the top of the fir-tree. Just let me get hold of them, one of these days! ... ( He lays back his ears and raises the hair along his back .) TOBY-DOG ( pensive ) Positively, Cat, there are times when I don't know you. We are talking quietly and suddenly you bristle like a bottle-brush; or we happen to be playing amicably together and I bark behind your back—bow, wow-wow!--just for fun; then,—one doesn't know why, perhaps because my nose has grazed the long hairs on your legs you're so proud of—you become all at once a savage beast, spitting fire, and charging at me like a strange dog. Don't you think that shows a bad character? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( mysterious, eyes half-closed ) Not at all. It's character, simply. A Cat's character. In such moments of irritability, I'm keenly alive to the humiliation of my present state, and that of my race. I can remember a time when priests in long, linen tunics, bending low, spoke to us and humbly tried to comprehend our chanted utterance. Know, dog, that it is not we who have changed! It may be, there are days when I'm more myself, when everything offends me, and justly; a brusque gesture, a vulgar laugh, the banging of a door, your odor, your inconceivable impudence when you touch me, or encircle me, jumping and yelping ... TOBY-DOG ( patiently, to himself ) He's having one of his attacks. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( with a start ) Did you hear? TOBY-DOG Yes, the kitchen door, and the door into the dining-room ... and now the drawer where the spoons are kept. At last! At last! aaah! ( He yawns .) I can't stand this any longer. Where is She? I don't hear the gravel creaking ... night's coming on! KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( ironically ) Go find her. TOBY-DOG And how about Him? He usually worries, and comes in asking, "Where is She?" But He's scratching still. He must have drunk up all the violet-colored water in the muddy little pot by this time. (TOBY carefully stretches his legs .) Ah! I feel lively ... and empty. We're going to eat soon! Just smell the good kitchen-smells that come under the door! ... Let's play! KIKI-THE-DEMURE No. TOBY-DOG Run, I'll chase, without touching you. KIKI-THE-DEMURE No. TOBY-DOG Why not? KIKI-THE-DEMURE I don't want to. TOBY-DOG Oh! but you're tiresome! Watch me jump and arch my neck like a little horse and try to catch my stubby tail. Now I turn 'round and 'round—and—heavens! the whole room spins!--It's—st—opping—now. KIKI-THE-DEMURE Insufferable creature! TOBY-DOG Insufferable yourself! Look out, I'm going to run at you as She does, when She's merry, crying "Ha, cat!" (KIKI-THE-DEMURE, without rising, puts up a paw bristling with claws and spotted underneath with rose color and black; it looks like a thorny flower .) If you dare! ... TOBY-DOG ( in a frenzy ) I do dare! Bow-wow-wow! Ha, cat! ha, cat! (KIKI-THE-DEMURE, exasperated, gives a spring and hangs on the table-cloth, slowly dragging it down. A lamp and various things fall to the ground. Terrified silence. The two animals, crouching under an arm-chair, await punishment .) HE appears at the study door, holding a pen, like a bit, between his teeth . Thunder and blitzen! What is it now? This cursed menagerie has overturned everything! Where's your Mistress? What a place this is to be sure! Dinner never on time! ... (etc., etc., etc....) ( The two guilty ones, who well know the harmlessness of such outbursts, laugh quietly to themselves and lying flat as bed-room slippers, look at one another through the fringes of the chair. The garden gate opens . SHE comes in carrying a basket, full of fragrant plums; her hands are sticky from their sugariness, her hair tumbled . SHE stands horrified, before the disaster .) SHE Oh! They've been fighting again, have they? ( Without conviction .) Dear me, what nasty creatures! I'll give them away! I'll sell them!!--I'll kill them!!! ( But the cat and dog, groveling in exaggerated humility, crawl up to her, and speak together .) KIKI-THE-DEMURE Purr-rr-rr!...There you are!...It's very late...Toby attacked me; it's he who's broken everything. I believe he went mad from hunger.... You smell good, of grass and the twilight. You sat down on some wild thyme. Come!...Tell your Master to carry me on his shoulder—the meat will be overdone, I'm afraid. You'll carve the chicken very quickly, won't you, and you'll keep the browned skin for me? If you wish I'll stretch out my paw like a spoon, which knows how to take up the littlest morsels, and carry them to my mouth with that human gesture that makes you laugh so—you and He.... Come! TOBY-DOG Hiii ... hiii ... there you are at last! I'm so unhappy when you're away. You banished me ... you didn't love me ... The lamp fell down all by itself ... Come! I'm awfully hungry, but I'll gladly go without dinner, if you'll promise to take me with you always wherever you go ... yes, even out in the twilight, though it makes me sad, I'll willingly follow you there ... my nose close, close to the hem of your dress.... SHE, ( disarmed and quite indifferent to the cataclysm ) Do look how pretty they are! SHE IS ILL A bed-room in the country-house; autumnal sunshine filters in through closed blinds . SHE lies on a couch, apparently asleep, dressed in a white woolen gown . KIKI-THE-DEMURE makes his toilet on a narrow console-table . TOBY-DOG, on the carpet, in a sphinx-like attitude, watches HER and at the same time, is attentive to the words of his master, who is leaving the room on tip-toe. HE, ( in a very low voice to the two animals ) Sh! Don't wake her. Be good. I'm going downstairs, to write. ( He closes the door noiselessly after him .) TOBY-DOG ( to KIKI-THE-DEMURE) What did He say? KIKI-THE-DEMURE I don't know. Something vague. Directions, like: stay there, good-by. TOBY-DOG He said, "'Sh!" I'm not making any noise. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( ironically ) They're astonishing! They say "no noise," and thereupon walk off with a step a deaf rat could hear two miles away. TOBY-DOG Some truth in that. ( He looks at the sleeping figure on the couch .) Her face still looks very small. She's asleep. If you jump down from that table don't land with a big thump. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( stiffly ) Ah, you're teaching me to jump now, are you? Oh, worthy counselor! ( quoting ) Put a beggar in your barn and he'll make himself your heir. TOBY-DOG What's that? KIKI-THE-DEMURE Nothing. An Oriental proverb. If I wished, dog, to disturb the silence of this room I'd be clever enough to choose a rickety chair; its feet would pound out a regular tic-toc, tic-toc, tic-toc, in time with my tongue as I washed myself. It's a means I've invented to gain my liberty. Tic-toc, tic-toc, says the chair. She happens to be reading or writing, is easily irritated, and cries, "Be quiet, Kiki!" But I go on unconscious of any wrong-doing; tic-toc, tic-toc. She jumps up distracted and opens the door wide for me: slowly, like one exiled, I cross its threshold and once outside, laugh to find myself so superior to them all. TOBY-DOG ( who hasn't been listening, yawns ) What a sad week, eh? I don't know what it is to take a walk any more. I haven't taken any pleasure in eating either, since She fell from her horse. KIKI-THE-DEMURE Heavens, one can love people and care for one's stomach too. TOBY-DOG ( with ardor ) Not I! When She screamed and fell from her horse, I felt the heart crack inside me. KIKI-THE-DEMURE That affair couldn't have ended otherwise. One doesn't go climbing up on a horse! People don't do such things! I see nothing but extravagance around me. To begin with, a horse is a fearful monstrosity. TOBY-DOG ( indignantly ) Did one ever hear the like! KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( peremptorily ) I happen to have had the opportunity of making a very close study of one.... TOBY-DOG ( aside ) He makes me laugh! KIKI-THE-DEMURE ... It was the farmer's horse that grazed in the meadow. My life, for a whole month, was embittered by that roving mountain. Lying under the hedge, I could see his heavy feet disfiguring the ground. I breathed his vulgar odor and heard his strident cry shaking the air. Once when he was eating the lower twigs of the hedge, I saw myself—the whole of me—reflected in one of his eyes! I fled ... and from that day my hatred was so strong that I wildly hoped to annihilate the monster. I'll go up to him, thought I, I'll plant myself firmly in front of him, and the desire of his death will be so strong in my eyes, that perhaps, he'll die when he meets my look... TOBY-DOG ( diverted ) And then? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( continuing ) I carried out my plan. But the horse I had waited for in fear and trembling, just blew through his nostrils a long jet of foul-smelling vapor, and I fell back in atrocious convulsions. TOBY-DOG ( Inwardly writhing with laughter ) You don't exaggerate? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( serious ) Never! And She must needs go climbing on a horse's back, holding fast to four cords, one leg this side and the other that. ... Strange aberration! TOBY-DOG We don't think alike, Cat. For me, the horse is, after man, the most beautiful thing in the world. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( vexed ) And where do I come in? TOBY-DOG ( evasive and courteous ) Oh, you're a Cat . But a horse, and with Her on his back! What a beautiful picture they make, high up in the blue air! To gaze on it, I have to throw my head 'way back on my thick neck. The horse lends her his speed. Now at last, She can race with me when I go off on a mad run. Sometimes I'm ahead, ears floating back and tongue hanging out like a little flag—the angular shadow of the horse on the road in front. If I follow her, a fragrant dust blows back at me. It smells of warm leather, moist beast, and a little of her own perfume too. The road runs under me, like a ribbon that someone is pulling. Oh, what joy it is to be so little and so swift, running along in the shadow of a great galloping horse! When we halt, I pant like a motor, between the legs of my friend, who snorts and in the kindliest way puts down his fettered mouth and sprinkles me ... KIKI-THE-DEMURE I know, I know! The horse "with long mane ashake; hoofs, heavy with tumult; eyes, glimmering white." ...You are the last of the Romanticists. TOBY-DOG I'm not the last of the Romanticists. I'm a little bull-dog that came into the world one evening, almost under the feet of a chestnut mare. She didn't lie down all night long, she was so afraid of crushing my mother and her puppies. A little bull-dog like me is almost the child of a horse. I lay in the warm straw against her warm flanks, I drank out of the stable pails. I used to get up when I heard the sound of hoofs coming in and I took an interest in the washing of the carriages, until the day She came and picked me out— me , the best-looking, the most snub-nosed, the stockiest of the litter. ( Sighing .) And there She lies, so dreadfully quiet! It makes me sad to see her with that little cloth still 'round her ankle. You remember when He picked her up in his arms? He held her—and She's a lot bigger than I am—just as if She were a little dog that he was going to drown.... KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( bitterly ) I remember. I was at the top of the stairs irritated by the noise, but curious. He came up and pushed me aside with his foot, as he would have done if a piece of furniture had happened to be in his way. TOBY-DOG Is that why you stayed away from this room—her room—for three whole days? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( hesitating ) Yes ... and for another reason too. TOBY-DOG What reason? KIKI-THE-DEMURE Because of the fever. TOBY-DOG ( carried away by his love ) Her fever smells better than other peoples' good health! KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( shrugging his shoulders ) And they talk of a dog's scent! Truly the convictions of Two-Paws are based upon childish fables. You know of course that fever— TOBY-DOG ( in a low tone ) Makes one afraid, yes. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( in a low tone ) Makes one afraid, gives one cold shivers down one's back, distaste for everything and uneasiness all over. One hesitates on the threshold of a room where there is fever, searching fearfully some hidden thing.... She was in bed and burning hot. I looked at her a long time, ready to run, saying to myself: "Who can be with her there—behind the curtains—who is it stifles and torments her and makes her moan in her sleep?" TOBY-DOG ( frightened retrospectively ) There wasn't anyone, was there? KIKI-THE-DEMURE No one but He—and the fever. He, the most intelligent of Two-Paws, was leaning over her listening to her breathing, dimly aware of an invisible presence. I overcame my aversion and looked at her. I was melancholy and jealous. He must love her, thought I, to go so near and defend her, to kiss her, imbued as She is with the evil charm. Would He hold me to his heart, if I— TOBY-DOG ( imperatively ) 'Sh! KIKI-THE-DEMURE What? TOBY-DOG She stirred. KIKI-THE-DEMURE No. TOBY-DOG ( alert, looking at her ) No ... She didn't stir, but her thoughts did. I felt them. Continue. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( who has recovered his equanimity ) I don't know now what we were talking about. TOBY-DOG The fev— KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( quickly ) Enough. Don't recall it. Fever is the beginning of the thing one never speaks of. TOBY-DOG ( shivering ) Yes, I know.... I don't like an animal that can't move. You know what I mean ... KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( laughing cruelly ) Nor do I. I can only eat live birds, and as for the tiny mice, I prefer to swallow them, squeak and all ... TOBY-DOG Why does it amuse you to horrify me? You've a certain vanity that I can't understand. It consists in exaggerating cruelties that are already real enough. You call me the last of the Romanticists, aren't you the first of the Sadics? KIKI-THE-DEMURE Oh dog, poisoned with literature! An eternal misunderstanding separates us. "I'm a little bull-dog," you replied just now, with that stupid sincerity which disarms me. Let me say to you in my turn, "I am a Cat." The name is sufficient dispensation. There is in me a hatred of pain and ugliness, an overmastering detestation of all that offends my sight, or my reason. When the concierge's cat dragged around his wounded paw, I threw myself upon him, fired by a righteous anger, and until he stopped his whining I— TOBY-DOG ( supplicatingly ) Don't tell me! KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( getting angry ) Understand then, once and for all—if the pale recital of what I did upsets you—that I wished to abolish, to annihilate in that bleeding animal the suggestion of my own inevitable death ... ( They are quiet for a little while .) KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( shuddering ) This confinement does us no good. I would gladly go out into the soft sunshine and do "the bayadeer's dance," as He calls it, on the dry gravel among the leaves, which look like fried potatoes. Everything is yellow out-of-doors. My green eyes would reflect the golden sun and the flaming woods and so turn yellow too. ... Now I'll think only of what is joyous and yellow, the beautiful, cold Autumn, the rosy dawn that leaves its colors in the foliage of the cherry-tree ... Come, let's prove the strength of our legs and enjoy to the full the consciousness that youth has only just begun for us ... Who knows, death may never come ... ( He jumps down from the console-table, without making the least noise .) TOBY-DOG ( stopping him ) What are you going to do? KIKI-THE-DEMURE Scratch at the door, and strike up the "Hymn of the Sequestered Cat." TOBY-DOG ( indicating the figure on the couch ) And doubtless waken Her? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( stubbornly ) I'll sing in a very small voice. TOBY-DOG And you'll scratch with your tiniest claws, I suppose? Stay here quietly, He commanded it when He went away. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( loftily ) Does He command me? He beseeches me, and that's my only reason for obeying him. ( He sits down again, apparently resigned, and yawns slowly .) TOBY-DOG ( yawning ) You make me yawn. KIKI-THE-DEMURE On the contrary, it's you who bore me. ( Temptingly .) You're thinking what a good thing freedom is, aren't you? ... A hen has probably escaped from the chicken yard—what sport you're missing! TOBY-DOG You really think so? KIKI-THE-DEMURE I said: probably.... Have you finished exploring that rabbit's hole? TOBY-DOG ( disturbed ) No ... it's so very deep! I almost buried myself, hollowing it out yesterday. The earth that stuck to my muzzle had some of the animal's fur in it ... KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( more and more satanic ) I suppose you'll finish that to-morrow ... or some other day. TOBY-DOG ( sadly ) Why not say next year, while you're about it? KIKI-THE-DEMURE What's the matter with you? Your shiny black lip hangs down an ell, and your froggy eyes glitter with tears. Are you crying? TOBY-DOG ( sniffling ) No ... KIKI-THE-DEMURE Poor, sensitive heart, console yourself. You'll have your pleasures and your friends again. At this very moment the farmer's dog is crunching bones in the kitchen ... to beguile the long wait for you. TOBY-DOG ( overcome ) Oh! oh! the farmer's dog! KIKI-THE-DEMURE She's not alone either; that great dane, the watch-dog, keeps her company. TOBY-DOG ( rebellious ) That's not true! KIKI-THE-DEMURE Go see. TOBY-DOG ( after one bound toward the door ) No, that would make noise. KIKI-THE-DEMURE You're right, it would. ( A mournful silence follows . TOBY curls himself up like a turban and closes his eyes, because he feels like crying. His breath comes in little sobs .) KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( absently, in a low, monotonous chant .) The dog ... the little dog ... the bones, the little dog ... the rabbit ... the great dane, the rabbit's hole...the little dog, the mutton bones...the rabbit's skin... TOBY-DOG at first endures the torture heroically; then his nerves betray him and lifting his head he howls—the long plaint of the abandoned dog . Wooo—oo—oooooo! KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( from the top of the console-table ) Will you be quiet! TOBY-DOG Wooooooooo!!--oo—oooo—oo! KIKI-THE-DEMURE, ( aside ) That's it! That's it! (SHE wakes bewildered, still captive of her dreams, while the Cat listens patiently to the approaching step on the stairs, which means liberty for him and punishment for TOBY-DOG.)