you really dead, since I alone am conscious of your death? What proof
can you give to sleep that you are not merely slumbering? Is the fruit
of the clematis asleep or is it dead when the wind no longer ruffles
the lightness of its tendrils? Perhaps, Oh wolf, it is merely that
there is no longer sufficient breath from on high for you to raise
your flanks; and for you, doves, to make you expand like a sigh;
and for you, sheep, to cause your lamentations by their sweetness to
augment even the sweetness of flooded pastures; and for you, owl, to
reawaken your sobbing, the plaint of the amorous night itself; and for
you, hawks, to rise soaring from the earth; and for you, sheep-dogs,
to have your barking mingle once more with the sound of the sluices;
and for you, spaniel, to have exquisite understanding born again, that
you may play with Rabbit again?"

* * * * *

Suddenly Rabbit made a leap into the azure from the molehill where
he had lain down, and did not drop back. And lightly as if he were
passing over a meadow of blue clover he made a second bound into
space, into the realm of the angels.

He had hardly completed this second leap when he saw the little
spaniel by his side, and joyously he asked her:

"Aren't you really dead, then?"

And skipping toward him she replied:

"I do not understand what you are saying to me. My noonday sleep
to-day was peaceful and bright."