A bed-room in the country-house;
autumnal sunshine filters in through closed blinds.
SHE lies on a couch, apparently asleep, dressed
in a white woolen gown. KIKI-THE-DEMURE
makes his toilet on a narrow console-table.
TOBY-DOG, on the carpet, in a sphinx-like attitude,
watches HER and at the same time, is attentive
to the words of his master, who is leaving the room
on tip-toe.
HE, (in a very low voice to the two animals)
Sh! Don’t wake her. Be good.
I’m going downstairs, to write.
(He closes the door noiselessly
after him.) TOBY-DOG, (to KIKI-THE-DEMURE)
What did He say?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I don’t know. Something vague. Directions,
like: stay there, good-by.
TOBY-DOG
He said, “’Sh!” I’m
not making any noise.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (ironically)
They’re astonishing! They
say “no noise,” and thereupon walk off
with a step a deaf rat could hear two miles away.
TOBY-DOG Some truth in that. (He
looks at the sleeping figure on the couch.) Her
face still looks very small. She’s asleep.
If you jump down from that table don’t land
with a big thump.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (stiffly)
Ah, you’re teaching me to jump
now, are you? Oh, worthy counselor! (quoting)
Put a beggar in your barn and he’ll make himself
your heir.
TOBY-DOG
What’s that?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Nothing. An Oriental proverb.
If I wished, dog, to disturb the silence of this room
I’d be clever enough to choose a rickety chair;
its feet would pound out a regular tic-toc, tic-toc,
tic-toc, in time with my tongue as I washed
myself. It’s a means I’ve invented
to gain my liberty. Tic-toc, tic-toc,
says the chair. She happens to be reading or
writing, is easily irritated, and cries, “Be
quiet, Kiki!” But I go on unconscious of
any wrong-doing; tic-toc, tic-toc.
She jumps up distracted and opens the door wide for
me: slowly, like one exiled, I cross its threshold
and once outside, laugh to find myself so superior
to them all.
TOBY-DOG, (who hasn’t been listening, yawns)
What a sad week, eh? I don’t
know what it is to take a walk any more. I haven’t
taken any pleasure in eating either, since She fell
from her horse.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Heavens, one can love people and care
for one’s stomach too.
TOBY-DOG, (with ardor)
Not I! When She screamed and
fell from her horse, I felt the heart crack inside
me.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
That affair couldn’t have ended
otherwise. One doesn’t go climbing up on
a horse! People don’t do such things!
I see nothing but extravagance around me. To
begin with, a horse is a fearful monstrosity.
TOBY-DOG, (indignantly)
Did one ever hear the like!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (peremptorily)
I happen to have had the opportunity
of making a very close study of one....
TOBY-DOG, (aside)
He makes me laugh!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
... It was the farmer’s
horse that grazed in the meadow. My life, for
a whole month, was embittered by that roving mountain.
Lying under the hedge, I could see his heavy feet
disfiguring the ground. I breathed his vulgar
odor and heard his strident cry shaking the air.
Once when he was eating the lower twigs of the hedge,
I saw myself the whole of me reflected
in one of his eyes! I fled ... and from that day
my hatred was so strong that I wildly hoped to annihilate
the monster. I’ll go up to him, thought
I, I’ll plant myself firmly in front of him,
and the desire of his death will be so strong in my
eyes, that perhaps, he’ll die when he meets
my look ...
TOBY-DOG, (diverted)
And then?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (continuing)
I carried out my plan. But the
horse I had waited for in fear and trembling, just
blew through his nostrils a long jet of foul-smelling
vapor, and I fell back in atrocious convulsions.
TOBY-DOG, (Inwardly writhing with laughter)
You don’t exaggerate?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (serious)
Never! And She must needs go
climbing on a horse’s back, holding fast to
four cords, one leg this side and the other that. ...
Strange aberration!
TOBY-DOG
We don’t think alike, Cat.
For me, the horse is, after man, the most beautiful
thing in the world.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (vexed) And where do
I come in?
TOBY-DOG, (evasive and courteous)
Oh, you’re a Cat.
But a horse, and with Her on his back! What a
beautiful picture they make, high up in the blue air!
To gaze on it, I have to throw my head ’way
back on my thick neck. The horse lends her his
speed. Now at last, She can race with me when
I go off on a mad run. Sometimes I’m ahead,
ears floating back and tongue hanging out like a little
flag the angular shadow of the horse on
the road in front. If I follow her, a fragrant
dust blows back at me. It smells of warm leather,
moist beast, and a little of her own perfume too.
The road runs under me, like a ribbon that someone
is pulling. Oh, what joy it is to be so little
and so swift, running along in the shadow of a great
galloping horse! When we halt, I pant like a
motor, between the legs of my friend, who snorts and
in the kindliest way puts down his fettered mouth and
sprinkles me ...
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I know, I know! The horse “with
long mane ashake; hoofs, heavy with tumult; eyes,
glimmering white.” ...You are the last of the
Romanticists.
TOBY-DOG
I’m not the last of the Romanticists.
I’m a little bull-dog that came into the world
one evening, almost under the feet of a chestnut mare.
She didn’t lie down all night long, she was so
afraid of crushing my mother and her puppies.
A little bull-dog like me is almost the child of a
horse. I lay in the warm straw against her warm
flanks, I drank out of the stable pails. I used
to get up when I heard the sound of hoofs coming in
and I took an interest in the washing of the carriages,
until the day She came and picked me out me,
the best-looking, the most snub-nosed, the stockiest
of the litter. (Sighing.) And there She lies,
so dreadfully quiet! It makes me sad to see her
with that little cloth still ’round her ankle.
You remember when He picked her up in his arms?
He held her and She’s a lot bigger
than I am just as if She were a little
dog that he was going to drown....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (bitterly)
I remember. I was at the top
of the stairs irritated by the noise, but curious.
He came up and pushed me aside with his foot, as he
would have done if a piece of furniture had happened
to be in his way.
TOBY-DOG
Is that why you stayed away from this
room her room for three whole
days?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (hesitating)
Yes ... and for another reason too.
TOBY-DOG
What reason?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Because of the fever.
TOBY-DOG, (carried away by his love)
Her fever smells better than other peoples’
good health!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (shrugging his shoulders)
And they talk of a dog’s scent!
Truly the convictions of Two-Paws are based upon childish
fables. You know of course that fever
TOBY-DOG, (in a low tone)
Makes one afraid, yes.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (in a low tone)
Makes one afraid, gives one cold shivers
down one’s back, distaste for everything and
uneasiness all over. One hesitates on the threshold
of a room where there is fever, searching fearfully
some hidden thing.... She was in bed and burning
hot. I looked at her a long time, ready to run,
saying to myself: “Who can be with her there behind
the curtains who is it stifles and torments
her and makes her moan in her sleep?” TOBY-DOG,
(frightened retrospectively)
There wasn’t anyone, was there?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
No one but He and the fever.
He, the most intelligent of Two-Paws, was leaning
over her listening to her breathing, dimly aware of
an invisible presence. I overcame my aversion
and looked at her. I was melancholy and jealous.
He must love her, thought I, to go so near and defend
her, to kiss her, imbued as She is with the evil charm.
Would He hold me to his heart, if I
TOBY-DOG, (imperatively)
’Sh!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
What?
TOBY-DOG
She stirred.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
No.
TOBY-DOG, (alert, looking at her)
No ... She didn’t stir, but her thoughts
did. I felt them. Continue.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (who has recovered his equanimity)
I don’t know now what we were talking about.
TOBY-DOG
The fev
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (quickly)
Enough. Don’t recall it.
Fever is the beginning of the thing one never speaks
of.
TOBY-DOG, (shivering)
Yes, I know.... I don’t
like an animal that can’t move. You know
what I mean ...
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (laughing cruelly)
Nor do I. I can only eat live birds,
and as for the tiny mice, I prefer to swallow them,
squeak and all....
TOBY-DOG
Why does it amuse you to horrify me?
You’ve a certain vanity that I can’t understand.
It consists in exaggerating cruelties that are already
real enough. You call me the last of the Romanticists,
aren’t you the first of the Sadics?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Oh dog, poisoned with literature!
An eternal misunderstanding separates us. “I’m
a little bull-dog,” you replied just now, with
that stupid sincerity which disarms me. Let me
say to you in my turn, “I am a Cat.”
The name is sufficient dispensation. There is
in me a hatred of pain and ugliness, an overmastering
detestation of all that offends my sight, or my reason.
When the concierge’s cat dragged around his wounded
paw, I threw myself upon him, fired by a righteous
anger, and until he stopped his whining I
TOBY-DOG, (supplicatingly)
Don’t tell me!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (getting
angry) Understand then, once and for all if
the pale recital of what I did upsets you that
I wished to abolish, to annihilate in that bleeding
animal the suggestion of my own inevitable death ...
(They are quiet for a little while.)
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (shuddering)
This confinement does us no good.
I would gladly go out into the soft sunshine and do
“the bayadeer’s dance,” as He calls
it, on the dry gravel among the leaves, which look
like fried potatoes. Everything is yellow out-of-doors.
My green eyes would reflect the golden sun and the
flaming woods and so turn yellow too.... Now I’ll
think only of what is joyous and yellow, the beautiful,
cold Autumn, the rosy dawn that leaves its colors
in the foliage of the cherry-tree ... Come, let’s
prove the strength of our legs and enjoy to the full
the consciousness that youth has only just begun for
us ... Who knows, death may never come ...
(He jumps down from the console-table,
without making the least noise.)
TOBY-DOG, (stopping him)
What are you going to do?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Scratch at the door, and strike up the “Hymn
of the Sequestered Cat.”
TOBY-DOG, (indicating the figure on the couch)
And doubtless waken Her?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (stubbornly)
I’ll sing in a very small voice.
TOBY-DOG
And you’ll scratch with your
tiniest claws, I suppose? Stay here quietly,
He commanded it when He went away.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (loftily)
Does He command me? He beseeches
me, and that’s my only reason for obeying him.
(He sits down again, apparently
resigned, and yawns slowly.)
TOBY-DOG, (yawning)
You make me yawn.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
On the contrary, it’s you who
bore me. (Temptingly.) You’re thinking
what a good thing freedom is, aren’t you?...
A hen has probably escaped from the chicken yard what
sport you’re missing!
TOBY-DOG
You really think so?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I said: probably.... Have
you finished exploring that rabbit’s hole?
TOBY-DOG, (disturbed)
No ... it’s so very deep!
I almost buried myself, hollowing it out yesterday.
The earth that stuck to my muzzle had some of the animal’s
fur in it....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (more and more satanic)
I suppose you’ll finish that
to-morrow ... or some other day. TOBY-DOG, (sadly)
Why not say next year, while you’re about it?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
What’s the matter with you?
Your shiny black lip hangs down an ell, and your froggy
eyes glitter with tears. Are you crying?
TOBY-DOG, (sniffling)
No ...
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Poor, sensitive heart, console yourself.
You’ll have your pleasures and your friends
again. At this very moment the farmer’s
dog is crunching bones in the kitchen ... to beguile
the long wait for you.
TOBY-DOG, (overcome)
Oh! oh! the farmer’s dog!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
She’s not alone either; that
great dane, the watch-dog, keeps her company.
TOBY-DOG, (rebellious)
That’s not true!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Go see.
TOBY-DOG, (after one bound toward
the door) No, that would make noise.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
You’re right, it would.
(A mournful silence follows.
TOBY curls himself up like a turban and closes
his eyes, because he feels like crying. His breath
comes in little sobs.)
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (absently,
in a low, monotonous chant.)
The dog ... the little dog ... the
bones, the little dog ... the rabbit ... the great
dane, the rabbit’s hole ...the little dog, the
mutton bones ...the rabbit’s skin ...
TOBY-DOG, at first endures the
torture heroically; then his nerves betray him and
lifting his head he howls the long plaint
of the abandoned dog.
Wooo oo oooooo!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (from the top of the console-table)
Will you be quiet!
TOBY-DOG
Wooooooooo!! oo oooo oo!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (aside)
That’s it! That’s it!
(SHE wakes bewildered, still captive
of her dreams, while the Cat listens patiently to
the approaching step on the stairs, which means liberty
for him and punishment for TOBY-DOG.)