Chantecler
Look at me, Pheasant-hen, and try, if indeed it be possible, try to recognise, by yourself, sign by sign, the vocation of which my body is the symbol. Guess, to begin with, at my destiny from my shape, and see how, curved like a sort of living hunting-horn, I am as much formed for sound to turn and gain volume within me, as the wild duck is formed to swim!—Wait!—Mark the fact that, impatient and proud, scratching up the earth with my claws, I appear always to be seeking something in the soil—
The Pheasant-hen
You are seeking for grains of corn, seeds, I suppose.
Chantecler
Never! I have never looked for such things. I find them occasionally, into the bargain, but disdainfully I give them to my Hens.
The Pheasant-hen
Well, then, in your perpetual scratching, what is it you are looking for?
Chantecler
The right spot! For always before singing I carefully choose my stand. Pray, observe—
The Pheasant-hen
True, and then you ruffle your feathers.
Chantecler
I never start to sing until my eight claws, after clearing a space of weeds and stones, have found the soft, dark turf underneath. Then, placed in direct contact with the good earth, I sing!—And that is already half the mystery, Pheasant-hen, half the mystery of my song, which is not of those songs one sings after composing them, but is received straight from the native soil, like sap! And the time above all when that sap arises in me,—the hour, briefly, in which I have genius, in which I can never doubt I have!—is the hour when dawn falters on the boundaries of the dark sky. Then, filled with the same quivering as leaves and grass, thrilled to the very tips of my wing quills, I feel myself a chosen instrument. I accentuate my curve of a hunting-horn, Earth speaks in me as in a conch, and ceasing to be an ordinary bird, I become the mouthpiece, in some sort official, through which the cry of the earth escapes toward the sky!
The Pheasant-hen
Chantecler!
Chantecler
And that cry which rises from the earth, that cry is such a cry of love for the light, is such a deep and frenzied cry of love for the golden thing we call the Day, and that all thirst to feel again: the pine on its bark, the tortuous roots in woodland paths on their mosses, the feather-grass on each delicate spray, the tiniest pebble in its tiniest mica flake; it is so wonderfully the cry of all that misses and mourns its colour, its reflection, its flame, its coronet, its pearl; the beseeching cry of the dew-washed meadow begging for a wee rainbow at every grass-tip, of the forest begging a burst of fire at the end of each gloomy avenue; that cry which mounts to the sky through me is so greatly the cry of all that feels itself in disgrace, plunged in a sunless pit, deprived of light without knowing for what offence; is the cry of cold, the cry of fear, the cry of weariness, of all that night disables or disarms; the rose shivering alone in the dark, the hay wanting to be dried and go to the mow, the sickle forgotten out of doors by the reaper and fearing it will rust in the grass, the white things dismayed at not looking white; is so greatly the cry of the innocent among beasts, who have nothing to conceal, of the brook fain to show its crystal clearness; and even—for thy very works, O Night, disown thee!—of the puddle longing to glisten, the mud longing to become earth again, by drying; it is so greatly the magnificent cry of the field impatient to feel its wheat and barley growing, of the blossoming tree mad for still more blossoms of the green grapes craving a purple side; of the bridge waiting for footsteps, for shadows of birds among shadows of branches; the voice of all that yearns to sing, to drop the garb of mourning, live again, serve again, be a brink, be a bourn, a sun-warm seat, a stone glad to comfort with warmth the hand touching, or the insect overcrawling it; finally, it is so greatly the cry toward the light of all Beauty, all Health, all which wishes, in sunshine and joy, to see its work while doing it, and do it to be seen—And when I feel that vast call to the Day arising within me, I so expand my soul to make it more sonorous, by making it more spacious, that the great cry may still be increased in greatness; before giving it, I withold it in my soul a moment so piously; then, when, to expel it, I contract my soul, I am so convinced of accomplishing a great act, I have such faith that my song will make night crumble like the walls of Jericho—
The Pheasant-hen
[Frightened.] Chantecler!