... The world is
full of incomprehensible things.... Last of all, on our way back, I
discovered near the park gate--saw it before She did--one of those
invincible beasts called hedge-hogs, the mere sight of which brings us
dogs to bay. What madness to realize that an animal is hiding under that
pin-cushion and laughing at me, and that I can do nothing, _nothing_! I
implored her--She can do nearly everything--to pluck him for me. She
began by turning him over with a little stick, as if he were a horse
chestnut. "Astonishing," said She, "I can't find the top of him!" Then
She took one of his spines between two fingers and carried him home that
way--I dancing behind her--and put him in her work basket. After a while
the horrid beast unrolled himself, stuck out a pig-like nose, opened two
shiny rat's eyes and raised himself, holding fast by his little paws,
which were exactly like a mole's. "How pretty he is," She cried, "a real
little black pig." I stood near the table groaning with covetousness,
but She didn't pluck him for me, not then, or ever, and perhaps the cook
ate him.... This cat's a dissembler.
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