| OUR FRIEND THE DOG BY MAURICE MAETERLINCK Author of "THE LIFE OF THE BEE," etc. Translated by ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTTOS Illustrated by CECIL ALDEN NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1913 |
Copyright, 1903, by
The Century Co.
Copyright, 1904, by
Dodd, Mead & Company
Published, October, 1913
OUR FRIEND THE DOG
I
I have lost, within these last few days, a little bull-dog. He had justcompleted the sixth month of his brief existence. He had no history. Hisintelligent eyes opened to look out upon the world, to love mankind,then closed again on the cruel secrets of death.
The friend who presented me with him had given him, perhaps[Pg 4] byantiphrasis, the startling name of Pelléas. Why rechristen him? For howcan a poor dog, loving, devoted, faithful, disgrace the name of a man oran imaginary hero?
Pelléas had a great bulging, powerful forehead, like that of Socrates orVerlaine; and, under a little black nose, blunt as a churlish assent, apair of large hanging and symmetrical chops, which made his head a sortof massive, obstinate, pensive and[Pg 5] three-cornered menace. He wasbeautiful after the manner of a beautiful, natural monster that hascomplied strictly with the laws of its species. And what a smile ofattentive obligingness, of incorruptible innocence, of affectionatesubmission, of boundless gratitude and total self-abandonment lit up, atthe least caress, that adorable mask of ugliness! Whence exactly didthat smile emanate? From the ingenuous and melting eyes? From the[Pg 6] earspricked up to catch the words of man? From the forehead that unwrinkledto appreciate and love, or from the stump of a tail that wriggled at theother end to testify to the intimate and impassioned joy that filled hissmall being, happy once more to encounter the hand or the glance of thegod to whom he surrendered himself?
Pelléas was born in Paris, and I had taken him to the country. His bonnyfat paws, shapeless [Pg 7]and not yet stiffened, carried slackly through theunexplored pathways of his new existence his huge and serious head,flat-nosed and, as it were, rendered heavy with thought.
For this thankless and rather sad head, like that of an overw