and whipping the back of the "Cosmography of Munster" as though it
were a hippogriff.

"I don't really know," I answered rubbing my eyes.

This reply, indicating a deeply scientific scepticism, had the most
deplorable effect upon my questioner.

"Monsieur Sylvestre Bonnard," she said to me, "you are nothing but an
old pedant. I always suspected as much. The smallest little
ragamuffin who goes along the road with his shirt-tail sticking
out through a hole in his pantaloons knows more about me than all
the old spectacled folks in your Institutes and your Academies. To
know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything. Nothing exists
except that which is imagined. I am imaginary. That is what it is
to exist, I should think! I am dreamed of, and I appear. Everything
is only dream; and as nobody ever dreams about you, Sylvestre Bonnard,
it is YOU who do not exist. I charm the world; I am everywhere--on
a moon-beam, in the trembling of a hidden spring, in the moving of
leaves that murmur, in the white vapours that rise each morning from
the hollow meadow, in the thickets of pink brier--everywhere!...
I am seen; I am loved. There are sighs uttered, weird thrills of
pleasure felt by those who follow the light print of my feet, as I
make the dead leaves whisper. I make the little children smile; I
give wit to the dullest-minded nurses. Leaning above the cradles,
I play, I comfort, I lull to sleep--and you doubt whether I exist!
Sylvestre Bonnard, your warm coat covers the hide of an ass!"

She ceased speaking; her delicate nostrils swelled with indignation;
and while I admired, despite my vexation, the heroic anger of this