Barks and Purrs | Page 3

you'll remember 'twas you woke me.
TOBY-DOG
I was so uncomfortable, I wanted someone to help me, to give me a word of encouragement....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I don't know any digestive words.
(Pause.)
Fancy their giving me a bad character when ... Just examine your conscience a bit and compare us. Hunger and heat wear you out and drive you mad; cold makes your blood curdle....
TOBY-DOG, (vexed)
Mine is a sensitive nature.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
A demoniacal nature, you mean!
TOBY-DOG
No, I don't mean that. You--you're a monstrous egoist.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Perhaps.... You and the Two-Paws don't understand what you're pleased to call a cat's egoism.... Our instinct of self-preservation, our dignity, our modest reserve, our attitude of weary renunciation (which comes of the hopelessness of ever being understood by them), they dub, in haphazard fashion, egoism. You're not a very discriminating dog, but at least you're free from prejudice. Will you understand me better? A cat is a guest in the house, not a plaything. Truly these are strange times we're living in! The Two-Paws, He and She, have they alone the right to be sad or joyful, to lick plates, to scold, or to go about the house indulging their capricious humors? I too have my whims, my sorrows, my irregular appetite, my hours of reverie when I wish to be alone....
TOBY-DOG, (attentive and conscientious)
I'm listening, but I can hardly follow what you say. It's so complicated--a bit over my head, you know. But you astonish me! Are they in the habit of hindering you in your changeful moods? You mew, and they open the door. You lie on the paper--the sacred paper He's scratching on--He moves away, marvelous condescension!--and leaves you his soiled page. You meander up and down his scratching table, obviously in quest of mischief, your nose wrinkled up, your tail giving quick little jerks back and forth like a pendulum. She watches you laughing, while He announces "the promenade of devastation." How then, can you accuse Them--
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (insincere)
I don't accuse Them. After all, psychological subtleties are not in your line.
TOBY-DOG
Don't speak so fast. I need time to understand. It seems to me--
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (slyly)
Pray, don't hurry! Your digestion might suffer in consequence.
TOBY-DOG, (unconscious of the irony)
You're right! I've some trouble in expressing myself to-day.--Well, here goes: it seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand.
TOBY-DOG
That's wrong. It's indiscreet.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Not at all. I have a right to everything.
TOBY-DOG
To everything? And I?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
TOBY-DOG
Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; that there is nowhere in the world a sad dog behind a closed door, that no evil will ever come....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (jeering)
And then what dreadful thing happens?
TOBY-DOG
You know very well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it--Castor Oil! Wilful and unfeeling, she holds me between her strong knees, opens my jaws-- KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Close them tighter!
TOBY-DOG
But I'm afraid of hurting her--and my tongue, horrified, tastes the slimy mawkish stuff. I choke and spit, my poor face is convulsed and the end of this torture is long in coming.... You've seen me afterwards dragging myself around, melancholy, my head hanging, listening to the unwholesome glouglou the oil makes in my stomach....
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Once when I was little She tried to give me castor oil. I scratched and bit her so, she never tried again. Ha! She must have thought she held the devil between her knees. I squirmed, blew fire through my nostrils, multiplied my twenty claws by a hundred, my teeth by one thousand, and finally--disappeared as if by magic.
TOBY-DOG
I wouldn't dare do that. You see, I love her. I love her enough to forgive her even the torture of the bath.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (interested)
You do? Tell me how it feels. It makes me shiver all over, just to see her putting you in the water.
TOBY-DOG
Alas.... Listen then, and pity me. Sometimes, when She's come out of her tub with nothing on her but her skin, her soft hairless skin that I lick respectfully,--She spills out more warm water, throws in a brown brick which smells of tar, and calls, "Toby!" That's enough! The soul quits my body; my legs shake under me. Something shines on the water--the picture of a window all twisted out of shape--it dances about and blinds me. She seizes me, poor swooning thing that I am, and plunges me in.... Ye Gods! From that time on I'm lost.... My one hope is in her. My eyes fasten themselves on hers, while a close warmth sticks to me like another skin on top of mine....