Makes one afraid, gives one cold shivers down one's back, distaste for everything and uneasiness all over. One hesitates on the threshold of a room where there is fever, searching fearfully some hidden thing.... She was in bed and burning hot. I looked at her a long time, ready to run, saying to myself: "Who can be with her there--behind the curtains--who is it stifles and torments her and makes her moan in her sleep?" TOBY-DOG, (_frightened retrospectively_) There wasn't anyone, was there? KIKI-THE-DEMURE No one but He--and the fever. He, the most intelligent of Two-Paws, was leaning over her listening to her breathing, dimly aware of an invisible presence. I overcame my aversion and looked at her. I was melancholy and jealous. He must love her, thought I, to go so near and defend her, to kiss her, imbued as She is with the evil charm. Would He hold me to his heart, if I-- TOBY-DOG, (_imperatively_) 'Sh! KIKI-THE-DEMURE What? TOBY-DOG She stirred. KIKI-THE-DEMURE No. TOBY-DOG, (_alert, looking at her_) No ... She didn't stir, but her thoughts did. I felt them. Continue. KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_who has recovered his equanimity_) I don't know now what we were talking about. TOBY-DOG The fev-- KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_quickly_) Enough. Don't recall it. Fever is the beginning of the thing one never speaks of. TOBY-DOG, (_shivering_) Yes, I know.... I don't like an animal that can't move. You know what I mean ... KIKI-THE-DEMURE, (_laughing cruelly_) Nor do I. I can only eat live birds, and as for the tiny mice, I prefer to swallow them, squeak and all.... TOBY-DOG Why does it amuse you to horrify me? You've a certain vanity that I can't understand. 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_)