_] Hop! Hop!
CHANTECLER
Pigeons turning acrobats!--Oh, the joy of seeing something true,
something unblemished--
THE MAGPIE
[_Announcing._] The Swan!
CHANTECLER
[_Coming forward delighted._] Good! A Swan! [_Shrinking away._] He is
black!
THE BLACK SWAN
[_With swaggering satisfaction._] I have discarded the whiteness while
preserving the outline!
CHANTECLER
The real Swan's shadow does no less! [_Thrusting the_ SWAN _aside to hop
up on a bench whence, through a gap in the hedge, he can see the distant
meadows._] Let me climb up on this bench. I need to make sure that
Nature still exists--though so far away! Ah, yes! The grass is green, a
cow is grazing, a calf sucking--And Heaven be praised, the calf has a
single head! [_Coming down again beside the_ PHEASANT-HEN.]
THE PHEASANT-HEN
Oh, come away to the innocent woods, sincere and dewy, where we will
love each other!
THE BLACKBIRD
[_Pointing at_ CHANTECLER _and the_ PHEASANT-HEN, _who are standing
close and talking low._] We are getting on!
THE GUINEA-HEN
[_Intensely interested._] Do you think so? [_She spreads her wings to
screen them._] Oh, I am so fond of helping along a clandestine
love affair!
THE BLACKBIRD
[_Sticking his bill under the_ GUINEA-HEN'S _wing so as to keep the pair
in sight._] I believe she has thoughts of annexing his comb.
THE PHEASANT-HEN
[_To_ CHANTECLER.] Come, dearest, come away!
CHANTECLER
[_Resisting.
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