It consists in exaggerating cruelties that are already
real enough. You call me the last of the Romanticists, aren't you the
first of the Sadics?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Oh dog, poisoned with literature! An eternal misunderstanding separates
us. "I'm a little bull-dog," you replied just now, with that stupid
sincerity which disarms me. Let me say to you in my turn, "I am a Cat."
The name is sufficient dispensation. There is in me a hatred of pain and
ugliness, an overmastering detestation of all that offends my sight, or
my reason. When the concierge's cat dragged around his wounded paw, I
threw myself upon him, fired by a righteous anger, and until he stopped
his whining I--
TOBY-DOG, (_supplicatingly_)
Don't tell me!
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_getting angry_) Understand then, once and for
all--if the pale recital of what I did upsets you--that I wished to
abolish, to annihilate in that bleeding animal the suggestion of my own
inevitable death ...
(_They are quiet for a little while_.)
KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_shuddering_)
This confinement does us no good. I would gladly go out into the soft
sunshine and do "the bayadeer's dance," as He calls it, on the dry
gravel among the leaves, which look like fried potatoes.
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