Our Friend the Dog

Our Friend the Dog

I have lost, within these last few days, a little bull-dog. He had just completed the sixth month of his brief existence. He had no history. His intelligent 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] by antiphrasis, the startling name of Pellas. Why rechristen him? For how can a poor dog, loving, devoted, faithful, disgrace the name of a man or an imaginary hero? Pellas had a great bulging, powerful forehead, like that of Socrates or Verlaine; and, under a little black nose, blunt as a churlish assent, a pair of large hanging and symmetrical chops, which made his head a sort of massive, obstinate, pensive and[Pg 5] three-cornered menace. He was beautiful after the manner of a beautiful, natural monster that has complied strictly with the laws of its species. And what a smile of attentive obligingness, of incorruptible innocence, of affectionate submission, of boundless gratitude and total self-abandonment lit up, at the least caress, that adorable mask of ugliness! Whence exactly did that smile emanate? From the ingenuous and melting eyes? From the[Pg 6] ears pricked up to catch the words of man? From the forehead that unwrinkled to appreciate and love, or from the stump of a tail that wriggled at the other end to testify to the intimate and impassioned joy that filled his small being, happy once more to encounter the hand or the glance of the god to whom he surrendered himself? ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 18214
Author: Maeterlinck, Maurice
Release Date: Apr 20, 2006
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Alden, Cecil
Translator: Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander, 1865-1921