“Fiam!”
“Miferino!” he added.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?” he replied excitingly, stepping outside with an agility I had never observed in him before. “What do I want? How delightful! I smell saki, and you left me shut up in the box.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Saki, sakii, sakiii,” he began to sing, dancing around on my shoulder.
He was beside himself with excitement.
“Be careful,” I said, “or you will fall off.” I had never seen him so lively.
If Fiam had one fault it was that of being melancholy. Sometimes I scolded him for it.
“In this world you must be resigned,” I would say. “It is true you are no longer a beautiful willow in the woods, and I am sorry for you, but that is no reason for being so sad, and for grumbling all the time about everything and everybody.”