Barks and Purrs | Page 2

of Parnassus.
How charming she is thus--presenting her bull-dog and her cat with as much assurance as Diana would her hound, or a Bacchante her tiger.
See her apple-cheeks, her eyes like blue myosotis, her lips--poppy-petals, and her ivy-like grace! Tell me if this way of leaning against the green barrier of her garden-close, or of lying under the murmurous arbor of mid-Summer, is not worth the starched manner, that old magistrate de Vigny--with his neckcloth wound three times around, and rigid in his trousers' straps--imposed upon his goddesses? Madame Colette Willy is a live woman, a real woman, who has dared to be natural and who resembles a little village bride far more than a perverse woman of letters.
* * * * *
Read her book and you shall see how accurate are my assertions. It has pleased Madame Colette Willy to embody in a couple of delightful animals, the aroma of gardens, the freshness of the field, the heat of state-roads,--the passions of men.... For through this girlish laughter ringing in the forest, I tell you, I hear the sobbing of a well-spring. One does not stoop to a poodle or tom-cat, without feeling the heart wrung with dumb anguish. One is sensible, in comparing ourselves to them, of all that separates and of all that unites us.
* * * * *
A dog's eyes hold the sorrow of having, since the earliest days of creation, licked the whip of his incorrigible persecutor in vain. For nothing has mollified man--not the prey brought him by a famishing spaniel, nor the humble guilelessness of the shepherd-dog, guarding the peace of the shadowy flocks under the stars.
A tragic fear shines in the cat's eyes. "What are you going to do to me now?" it seems to ask, lying on a rubbish-heap, a prey to mange and hunger--and feverishly it waits the new torture that will shatter its nervous system.
But have no fear ... Madame Colette Willy is very kind. She quickly dispels the hereditary dread of Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure. She meliorates the race, so that dogs and cats will learn in the end that it is less dull to frequent a poet than an unhappy Collège de France candidate--had this candidate proven more copiously still, that the author of "Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe" had topsyturvily described the jawbone of the Crocodile.
* * * * *
Toby-Dog and Kiki-the-Demure well know that their mistress is a lady who would do no harm--neither to a piece of sugar nor to a mouse; a lady who, for our delight, jumps a rope she has woven of flower-words which she never bruises, and with which she perfumes us; a lady who sings, with the voice of a clear French rivulet, that wistful tenderness which makes the hearts of animals beat so fast.
FRANCIS JAMMES.
* * * * *

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, A Maltese cat. TOBY-DOG, A French bull-dog. HE, } SHE,} Master and Mistress (of minor importance).

SENTIMENTALITIES
The sunny porch. TOBY-DOG and KIKI-THE-DEMURE sprawl on the hot stone-flags, taking their after luncheon nap. The silence of Sunday prevails, yet TOBY-DOG is not asleep: the flies and a heavy luncheon torment him. Hind-quarters flattened out frog-fashion, he drags himself on his belly up to KIKI-THE-DEMURE whose striped body is perfectly quiet.
TOBY-DOG
Are you asleep?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (purrs feebly)
TOBY-DOG
Are you even alive? You're so flat! You look like the empty skin of a cat.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (in faltering tones)
L-e-t--m-e--a-l-o-n-e....
TOBY-DOG
Not sick, are you?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
No.... Let me alone. I'm asleep. I'm not even conscious of my body. What torment to live with you! I've eaten, it's two o'clock, let's sleep.
TOBY-DOG
I can't. Something's made a ball in my stomach. It means to go down I guess, but very slowly. And then,--these flies, these flies! The eyes start out of my head at the sight of one of them. I'm all jaws, bristling with terrible teeth (just hear them snap), yet the infernal things escape me. Oh! my ears! Oh! my poor, sensitive, brown belly! My feverish nose! There! ... you see?... right on my nose! What shall I do? I squint all I can ... two of them now?... No ... only one ... no, two!... I toss them up like bits of sugar and it's the empty air I snap.... I'm worn out. I detest the sun, and the flies, and everything!...
(He wails.)
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (sitting up, his eyes pale from the light and sleepiness)
Well, you've succeeded in waking me. That's all you wanted, isn't it? My dreams are gone! These flies that you're pursuing--I hardly felt their little teasing feet through my thick fur. The merest touch, like a caress, now and then thrilled along the silky sloping hairs which clothe me.... But then you never act with any discretion. Your vulgar gayety is a nuisance, and when sad you howl like a low comedian.
TOBY-DOG, (bitterly)
If you woke up just to tell me that--
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (correcting)
Of course