Patou
[With ears up-pricked and shining eyes.] Yes! [Suddenly, as if controlling himself, passionately.] No—!
The Blackbird
What affects you so?
Patou
Oh, horrible, horrible! A poor little partridge perhaps—
The Blackbird
Is that streaming eye, my friend, a result of age or rheumatism?
Patou
Neither! But I have within me several dogs, and there is conflict amidst me. My hunter’s nostril twitches at a shot, but, directly, my house-dog’s memory raises before me a bleeding wing, the glazing eye of a doe, the pathos of a rabbit’s dying look—and I feel the heart of a Saint Bernard waking in my breast! [Another shot.]
Chantecler
Again?
Scene Fifth
The Same, a Golden Pheasant, later Briffaut.
A Golden Pheasant
[Flying suddenly over the wall, and dropping in the yard, mad with fright.] Hide me!
Chantecler
Heavens!