This morning She whistled to me and in my haste to obey her, I rolled to the bottom of the stairs—being low and thick-set, with short legs, no nose, and almost no tail to balance me. Well, we set off. The last apples were rocking to-and-fro on swaying branches. My happy voice, a joyful shout from her now and then, the vain crowing of the cocks, the creaking of wagons on the road—all these sounds floated on a bluish, cottony, suffocating fog. She took me far, and many marvelous things happened on our way. We met terrible giant dogs. My proud bearing seemed to exasperate them, but I kept them back with a single look (besides, a closed iron gate rendered them powerless). I chased a rabbit into the thicket, though She cried loudly: "I forbid you to touch the little animal!" ... My mother certainly gave me swift legs but they're short, and the white end of the little beast kept far ahead. A bush covered with red berries detained us a very long time. She sees no objection to eating strange things and I can truthfully say that I always taste everything She offers me, for I've great faith in her. But this morning—"Eat, Toby, nice berries. Eat! here are some rose-hips. Oh stupid! how can you not dote upon their delicious flavor? I assure you these are comfits of Mother Nature's making." In deference to her, I chewed a reddish ball; there were some rough hairs on it—put there doubtless by her teasing hand—and what was bound to happen, did happen ... Khaha! My throat rejected the nasty "rosehip."...
But listen, Fire, what I saw after that, passes my understanding. It was in a wood where stiff leaves rustled. Had She carried you under her cloak, or do gods like you come at her bidding? I saw her hands pile up the wood, arrange flat stones in some mysterious fashion, and then, Fire, I saw the sparks flash and your joyous soul palpitate, grow big, soar naked and rose-colored, veil itself in smoke, snap noisily (for yours is a belligerent soul), agonize—and disappear.... The world is full of incomprehensible things....
Last of all, on our way back, I discovered near the park gate—saw it before She did—one of those invincible beasts called hedge-hogs, the mere sight of which brings us dogs to bay. What madness to realize that an animal is hiding under that pin-cushion and laughing at me, and that I can do nothing, nothing! I implored her—She can do nearly everything—to pluck him for me. She began by turning him over with a little stick, as if he were a horse chestnut. "Astonishing," said She, "I can't find the top of him!" Then She took one of his spines between two fingers and carried him home that way—I dancing behind her—and put him in her work basket. After a while the horrid beast unrolled himself, stuck out a pig-like nose, opened two shiny rat's eyes and raised himself, holding fast by his little paws, which were exactly like a mole's. "How pretty he is," She cried, "a real little black pig." I stood near the table groaning with covetousness, but She didn't pluck him for me, not then, or ever, and perhaps the cook ate him.... This cat's a dissembler. Maybe he... But away with care! I'm too excitable! I mustn't let myself think of these things. Life is beautiful, O Fire, since you illumine it ... I'm going to sleep ... Watch over my unconscious body ... I'm going ... to sleep....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
One would think me asleep because the narrow slit made by my parted eyelids, seems but the continuation of that velvety line, that bold crayon-stroke, a sort of Oriental make-up, uniting my eyelids and my ears. But I'm awake, keeping watch like a yogi, in a state of blissful ankylosis, conscious of all that's going on around me.... My privileged eyes, Fire, do but behold you better when they're closed and I can count the various essences you mingle in a sparkling bouquet. Here in a flame of mauve-color and blue, glows the soul of a branch of arbor-vitae. Yesterday it waved a plume-like shadow on the garden walk ... To-day, with its delicate twigs, it is but a writhing skeleton. She cut it with one stroke of the pruning scissors. Why? That it might breathe out its fervent blue and mauve-colored soul? For like me, She delights in your dance, Fire, and chastises you when you're quiet, with a stern pair of tongs. Sitting there with her head bent and her arms hanging along her sides, what does She read, I wonder, in that fiery rose which is the labyrinthian heart of you?... She knows a great deal certainly, but not as much as a Cat.
That thick tear on the log represents the anguish of a very old fir-tree, killed by the assiduous ivy. Just a short time ago I saw it struck down, lying on the grass, its foliage looking like a beautiful head of reddish hair. I saw the axe that felled it, too. Its trunk weeps tears of resin, which trail along in drivel, then change to heavy, creeping flame. But the dry red locks break into lines of living fire, whistle and shoot innumerable jets of many colors underneath a broad gold wave that rolls voluptuously....
Ah, love ... hunting ... fighting.... It's your light, Fire, that discovers these passions in the depths of my being. It's time the little winged creatures searching withered berries came near. I'll have them soon! I'll watch, motionless in the brushwood, wildly wishing that the earth itself might hide me, the muscles of my legs twitching with desire to make the spring, my chin trembling.... Then, if I don't betray my hiding-place by an irrepressible quavering, frightening them away in one great commotion of wings and rustling branches!... But no, I'm master of myself. One bound at exactly the right moment and my feeble prey is panting under me. Oh, the ridiculous effort of a weak animal—its tiny ineffectual claws and pointed wings beating against my face! My jaws will open to the splitting point and my perfect nose wrinkle ferociously, for the joy of holding a living, terrified body. I'll know the intoxication of battle! I'll prance victoriously, shaking my head to torment the bird a little, for it faints away too soon between my teeth! Terrible to see I'll gallop towards the house, singing in a strangled voice, without loosening my grip, for He must stop his scratching to admire me, and She must give chase with distracted cries: "Wicked, savage cat! Drop that bird! drop that bird!! Oh, I beg of you! It hurts me so...." Ha! She never can have hunted....