“We are traveling to amuse ourselves,” I replied.
“Beautiful amusement,” he grumbled, “to be carried by this monster spitting out smoke. It seems to me like going back to that great house where I was split up and cut to pieces. Look up there,” he added after a few moments. “What lovely country! See the roof of that temple through the trees, and that wonderful field of flowers. Let us stop here.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not, if we are traveling to amuse ourselves?”
“Yes, but the amusement will come further on.”
Fiam gave a soft whistle—it was his way of sighing. Then he crept down on my shirt to find the silk waterfall and rest a while in a fold; but he couldn’t find any tie. I was wearing a kind of uniform similar to that of the soldiers.
“Why are you dressed this way?” he asked in a surprised tone, tapping me on my chin.
“It is the fashion in my country.”
He whistled again, and going down from button to button he reached my knees.
“Why do you wear these great boots?” he said, looking down at my feet, stretching himself out cautiously as if he were an Alpine climber hanging over a precipice.