And
it's all because of the gold on her dainty little head! [_Going
brusquely nearer to her._] Shall you prove worthy, at least, of having
been chosen? Is your breast true red to the core?
THE PHEASANT-HEN
Now tell me!
CHANTECLER
Look at me, Pheasant-hen, and try, if indeed it be possible, try to
recognise, by yourself, sign by sign, the vocation of which my body is
the symbol. Guess, to begin with, at my destiny from my shape, and see
how, curved like a sort of living hunting-horn, I am as much formed for
sound to turn and gain volume within me, as the wild duck is formed to
swim!--Wait!--Mark the fact that, impatient and proud, scratching up the
earth with my claws, I appear always to be seeking something in
the soil--
THE PHEASANT-HEN
You are seeking for grains of corn, seeds, I suppose.
CHANTECLER
Never! I have never looked for such things. I find them occasionally,
into the bargain, but disdainfully I give them to my Hens.
THE PHEASANT-HEN
Well, then, in your perpetual scratching, what is it you are looking
for?
CHANTECLER
The right spot! For always before singing I carefully choose my stand.
Pray, observe--
THE PHEASANT-HEN
True, and then you ruffle your feathers.
CHANTECLER
I never start to sing until my eight claws, after clearing a space of
weeds and stones, have found the soft, dark turf underneath. Then,
placed in direct contact with the good earth, I sing!--And that is
already half the mystery, Pheasant-hen, half the mystery of my song,
which is not of those songs one sings after composing them, but is
received straight from the native soil, like sap! And the time above all
when that sap arises in me,--the hour, briefly, in which I have genius,
in which I can never doubt I have!--is the hour when dawn falters on the
boundaries of the dark sky.
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