KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (on the piano, musingly)
All that, yes...and the habits of the year before that one finds again, molded to one's shape, like a cushion marked with the imprint of a long sleep...the long nights of freedom, when the lone owlet, with his sad little laugh, makes his way through the air as quietly as I do on the ground, and silvery gray rats cling to the vines, eating grapes and keeping their eyes on me at the same time. It's the sun-cure on the hot stone-wall, from which I arise wan and shrunken, baked through and through, but svelte enough to make the youngest tomcat envious. (Coming back to the present with a murderous look at THE LITTLE DOG.) Death to you, ill-smelling beast, for having evoked these by-gone joys! Aren't you going to disappear, that I may come down from this cold pedestal, where my paws are growing numb?
TOBY-DOG, (enthusiastically to THE LITTLE DOG)
But let us forget all that! With you there, I can think of nothing but you. I feel that I love you!
THE LITTLE DOG, (lowering her eyes)
Do you mean...really?
TOBY-DOG
Of course I do!
THE LITTLE DOG
So soon!