fervent blue and mauve-colored soul? For like me, She delights in your
dance, Fire, and chastises you when you're quiet, with a stern pair of
tongs. Sitting there with her head bent and her arms hanging along her
sides, what does She read, I wonder, in that fiery rose which is the
labyrinthian heart of you?... She knows a great deal certainly, but not
as much as a Cat.

That thick tear on the log represents the anguish of a very old
fir-tree, killed by the assiduous ivy. Just a short time ago I saw it
struck down, lying on the grass, its foliage looking like a beautiful
head of reddish hair. I saw the axe that felled it, too. Its trunk weeps
tears of resin, which trail along in drivel, then change to heavy,
creeping flame. But the dry red locks break into lines of living fire,
whistle and shoot innumerable jets of many colors underneath a broad
gold wave that rolls voluptuously....

Ah, love ... hunting ... fighting.... It's your light, Fire, that
discovers these passions in the depths of my being. It's time the little
winged creatures searching withered berries came near. I'll have them
soon! I'll watch, motionless in the brushwood, wildly wishing that the
earth itself might hide me, the muscles of my legs twitching with desire
to make the spring, my chin trembling.... Then, if I don't betray my
hiding-place by an irrepressible quavering, frightening them away in one
great commotion of wings and rustling branches!... But no, I'm master of
myself. One bound at exactly the right moment and my feeble prey is
panting under me. Oh, the ridiculous effort of a weak animal--its tiny
ineffectual claws and pointed wings beating against my face! My jaws
will open to the splitting point and my perfect nose wrinkle
ferociously, for the joy of holding a living, terrified body. I'll know
the intoxication of battle! I'll prance victoriously, shaking my head to