Barks and Purrs | Page 7

made me
dizzy--though I was on the ground--to see him way up there walking
and turning about and miauling shrilly to tell us how impossible he
found it to obey. He was about frantic and kept saying: "Heavens, he's
going to fall." But She smiled skeptically, went out of the room and
came back armed with the whip. The whip said, "crack!" twice only;
then a miracle happened I think, 'cause the cat leaped to the floor, softer
and more bouncey than our plaything, the ball of wool. I would have
broken to pieces falling like that!... He has been in this basket ever
since.... (TOBY goes to the basket.) Ah! here's a little peek-hole.... I see

his whiskers ... they're like white needles. Whew! What eyes! (He
jumps back.) I'm rather afraid. One can't really shut a cat up; he always
manages to get out somehow. ... He must suffer, poor fellow! Perhaps
if I speak kindly to him ... (he calls very politely) Cat!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (spitting furiously)
Khhh!...
TOBY-DOG, (jumping back)
Oh, you said a bad word! You look awful! Have you a pain anywhere?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Go away! I'm a martyr.... Go away I tell you, or I'll blow fire at you!
TOBY-DOG, (ingenuous)
But why?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Why!--Because you're free, because I'm in this basket, because the
basket's in a foul carriage which is shaking me to pieces, and because
the serenity of those two exasperates me.
TOBY-DOG
Would you like me to look out and tell you what one sees from the
carriage window?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Everything is equally odious to me.
TOBY-DOG, (having looked out, comes back)
I haven't seen anything....

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (bitterly)
Thanks just the same.
TOBY-DOG
I mean I haven't seen anything that's easy to describe. Some green
things which pass right close to us--so close and so fast that they give
one a slap in the eye. A flat field turning 'round and 'round and over
there, a little pointed steeple--it's running as fast as the carriage.
Another field all red with blossoming clover has just given me another
slap in the eye--a red slap. The earth is sinking in--or else we're going
up, I'm not sure which. I see way off, far away, some green lawns
dotted with white daisies--perhaps they're cows.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (with sarcasm)
Or wafers, for sealing letters--or anything you like.
TOBY-DOG
Aren't you the least little bit amused? KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (with a
sinister laugh)
Ha! Ask of the damned ...
TOBY-DOG
Of whom?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (more and more melodramatic, but without
conviction)
... of the damned in his vat of boiling oil, if anything amuses him! Mine
is not physical torment. I suffer imprisonment, humiliation, darkness,
neglect--
(The train stops. A conductor on the platform cries "Aw-ll a-bor!!... awl
aborr!!")

TOBY-DOG, (bewildered)
Someone's crying out! There's an accident!! Let's run!!!
(He throws himself against the carriage door and scratches madly at it.)
SHE, (half asleep)
Toby dear, you're a nuisance!
TOBY-DOG, (distracted)
Oh, you inexplicable person! How can you sit there quietly? Don't you
hear those cries? They're stopping now--the accident has gone away.
Wish I'd known ...
(The train starts again.)
HE, (throwing down his paper)
The poor beast is hungry.
SHE, (now very wide awake)
You think so? Well, I am too. But Toby is to eat very little.
HE, (anxiously)
And Kiki-the-Demure?
SHE, (peremptorily) Kiki sulks, and he hid this morning, so he'll have
even less than Toby.
HE
He isn't making a sound. Aren't you afraid he's sick?
SHE
No, he's simply vexed.

KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (as soon as there's question of himself)
Me-ow!
HE, (tenderly and eagerly)
Come my beautiful Kiki, my imprisoned one, come. You shall have
cold roast-beef and some breast of chicken ...
(He opens the prison basket and KIKI puts forth his head, flattened on
top like that of a serpent; then his long, striped body, cautiously, and so
very slowly that one begins to think it's coming out by the yard.)
TOBY-DOG, (pleasantly)
Ah, there you are, cat! Well, now, proclaim your freedom!
(KIKI, without replying, smoothes his ruffled fur.)
TOBY-DOG
Proclaim your freedom I tell you! It's the custom. Whenever a door is
opened one must run, jump, twist oneself into half circles and cry out.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
One? Who's one, pray?
TOBY-DOG
We dogs.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (seated and very dignified)
Would you have me bark, too?... We have never followed the same
rules of conduct, that I know of.
TOBY-DOG, (vexed)

Oh very well, I don't insist. How do you like this carriage?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (sniffing fastidiously)
It's frightful.--However, the cushions are rather good for one's nails.
(He suits the action to the word.)
TOBY-DOG, (aside)
Now if I did that ...
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (continuing to scratch the upholstery)
Hon! May this spongy, gray cloth soothe my rage!... Since morning, the
whole universe has been in a state of monstrous revolt.