Romance of the Rabbit | Page 7

sting! Oh brother of the poor! Oh Son of God! How
could even I leave you? My life was evil, and you have filled it with
joy. During the nights it was my fate to lie in wait listening to the
breath of the dogs, the herdsmen, and the fires, until the right moment
came to bury my fangs in the throat of sleeping lambs. You taught me,
Oh Blessed One, the sweetness of orchards. And even at this moment
when my belly was hollow with hunger for flesh, it was your love for
me that nourished me. Often, indeed, my hunger has been a joy to me
when I could place my head on your sandal for I suffer this hunger that
I may follow you, and gladly I would die for your love."
And the doves cooed.
They stopped in their shivering flight together among the branches of a

barren tree. They could not make up their minds to speak. Each
moment it seemed as though they were about to begin, when in sudden
fright they again filled the listening forest with their sobbing white
caresses. They trembled like young girls who mingle their tears and
their arms. They spoke together as if they had but a single voice:
"Oh Francis, you are more lovely than the light of the glow-worm
gleaming in the moss, gentler than the brook which sings to us while
we hang our warm nest in the fragrant shade of the young poplars.
What matter that the hoarfrost and famine would banish us from your
side and drive us far away to more fruitful lands? For your sake we will
love hoarfrost and famine. For the sake of your love we will give up the
things we crave. And if we must die of the cold, Oh our Master, it will
be with heart against heart."
And one of the dogs with the spiked collars advanced. It was the
spaniel, Rabbit's friend. Like the wolf she had already suffered bitterly
with hunger and her teeth chattered. Her ears were wrinkled even when
she raised them, and her straggly tail which looked like tufts of cotton
she held out rigid and motionless. Her eyes of the color of yellow
raspberries were fixed on Francis with the ardor of absolute Faith. And
her two companions, who trustfully were getting ready to listen to her,
lowered their heads in sign of their ignorance and goodwill. They were
shepherd dogs, who had never heard anything but the sob of the
sheep-bells, the bleating of the flocks and the lash-like crack of the
lightning on the summits, and, proud and happy, they waited while the
little spaniel bore witness.
She took a step forward. But not a sound came from her throat. She
licked the hand of Francis, and then lay down at his feet.
And the ewe bleated.
Her bleats were so full of sadness that it seemed as if she were already
exhaling her soul toward death at the very thought of leaving Francis.
As she stood there in silence, her lamb, seized by some strange
melancholy, was suddenly heard, crying like a child.
And the ewe spoke:
"Neither the placidity of grassy meadows toned down by the mists of
the dawn, nor the sweet woods of the mountains dotted by the fog with
the pearls of its silvery sweat, nor the beds of straw of the smoke-filled
cabins, are in any way comparable to the pasture-grounds of your heart.

Rather than leave you we should prefer the bloody and loathful
slaughter-house, and the rocking of the cart on which we are carried
thither with our legs tied and our flanks and cheeks on the boards. Oh
Francis, it would be like unto death to us to lose you, for we love you."
And while the sheep spoke the owl and the hawks, perched near one
another, remained motionless, their eyes full of anguish and their wings
pressed close to their sides lest they fly away.
The last one to speak was Rabbit.
Clothed in his fur of the color of stubble and earth he seemed like a god
of the fields. In the midst of the wintry waste he was like a clod of earth
of the summer time. He made one think of a road-mender or a rural
postman. Tucked up in the windings of his flapping ears he carried with
himself the agitation of all sounds. One of the ears, extended toward the
ground, listened to the crackling of the frost, while the other, open to
the distance, gathered in the blows of an axe with which the dead forest
resounded.
"Surely, Oh Francis," he said, "I can be satisfied with the mossgrown
bark which has grown tender beneath the caress of the snows and
which