Little Poems in Prose

the stupid waddlings of the polar bear, excites himself this hairy monster—whose shape imi- tates, vaguely enough, your own. “This monster is one of those animals which one generally calls ‘My angel’; that is to say, a woman. The other monster, he who, a stick in his hand, cries loud enough to break your head in, is a husband. He has put his lawful wife in irons like a wild animal, and he is showing her in the suburbs;—on fair days, needless to say, with a licence from the magistrate. “Pay close attention. See with what voracity (perhaps genuine) she tears to pieces the liv- ing rabbits and the cackling fowls which her keeper throws her. ‘Come,’ says he; ‘one must not eat all one’s fortune in a single day’; and with this prudent speech he cruelly tears from her the prey whose torn guts remain for an in- stant clinging to the teeth of the savage brute. I mean of the woman. “Come, a good whack to quiet her! for she darts eyes terrible with greed on the food that he has snatched away. Great God! the stick is not a fool’s bauble; did you not hear the flesh smack, despite the hide? And now too, her eyes jump out of her head; she howls more naturally than before. In her rage she sparkles all over, as when one beats hot iron.