TOBY-DOG

But it's this very silence that oppresses me. I tremble and don't know
why. I long for the familiar voice of the wind in the chimney, the
slamming of doors, the whispering of the garden, the poplars' ceaseless
rustle--it always sounds like a trickling spring--

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

The uproar will come, soon enough.

TOBY-DOG Do you think so? I wish He'd scratch paper. It's an idle
habit but an honored one. And see how listless She is, there in her
wicker chair. Their silence frightens me more than anything. She seems
asleep, but I can see her eyelashes move and the tips of her fingers,
too. She's forgetting to play with the little balls of thread and
doesn't sing, or whistle. She suffers just as we do.... Do you think
this can be the end of the world, Cat?

KIKI-THE-DEMURE

No. It's a storm. Heavens! how uncomfortable I am! If I could only get
out of my skin, cast off this fleece which is smothering me, fling
myself naked as a skinned mouse into a fresher atmosphere! Oh Dog, you
cannot see the sparks that make every separate hair on my body crackle,
but I feel them. Don't come near! A blue flame is going to shoot out of
me....

TOBY-DOG, (_shuddering_)