You have been possessed ever
since with the desire to appear like one yourself.
THE BLACKBIRD
But--
CHANTECLER
From that hour, unresting, acting the sparrow night and day, the sparrow
even in sleep, self-condemned to play the sparrow without respite, you
have appeared--famous jay!
THE BLACKBIRD
But--
CHANTECLER
Pathetic effort of a country birdkin, twisting his thick bill to talk
with a city accent! Ah, you wish to bite off bits of slang? My friend,
they are green! Every grape you pick breaks in your jaws, for city
grapes are glass bubbles! Having taken from the sparrow only his make-up
and grimace, you are just a clumsy understudy, a sort of vice-buffoon!
And you serve up stale old cynicisms picked up with crumbs in
fashionable club-rooms, poor little bird, and think to astonish us with
your budget of scandalous news--
THE BLACKBIRD
But--
CHANTECLER
I have not exhausted my ammunition! You wish to imitate the sparrow? But
the sparrow does not, slyly and meanly mischievous, make a cult of
sprightliness is not funny with authority, is not the pedant of
flippancy! You percher among low bushes, who never care to fly, you wish
to imitate--[_Turning to one of the exotic_ COCKS _cackling behind
him._] Silence, Cock of Japan! or I shall spoil a picture!
THE JAPANESE COCK
[_Hurriedly._] I beg your pardon!
CHANTECLER
[_Continuing to the_ BLACKBIRD.
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