It was as though everything held its breath and listened and stared. The rustling of the trees ceased. The violet woke from her dreams and looked up in wonder. The lion raised his head and stood with one paw uplifted. The stag stopped grazing, the eagle rested high in the air on his wings, the little mouse ran out of his hole and pricked up his ears.
There came two through the forest who were different from the others and whom no one had ever seen before.
They walked erect. Their foreheads were high, their eyes firm and steady. They went hand in hand and looked around them as though they did not know where they were.
“Who, in the name of wonder, are these?” asked the lion.
“They’re animals,” said the stag. “They can walk. But how oddly they do it! Why don’t they leap on all fours, seeing that they have four legs? Then they would get along much faster.”
“Oh,” said the snake, “I have no legs at all and it seems to me I get along pretty fast!’
“I don’t believe they are animals,” said the nightingale. “They have no feathers and no hair, except that bit on their heads.”
“Scales would do quite as well,” said the pike, popping his head out of the river.
“Some of us have to manage with our bare skin,” said the earth-worm, quietly.