VI. FRIMOUSSE.

My mother, taking me by the hand, led me with her into the kitchen, and gave me a glass of sugar-and-water to help me to recover myself. She then showed me Frimousse, who had taken refuge on the roof of a little shed at the end of the garden, and the naughty cat was there eating greedily her stolen meal. While devouring the meat, she kept jerking her head first to the right, then to the left, as if she found it rather tough. At the same time she looked at us, or rather at me, with a menacing and defiant expression.

“You see now that it was naughty Frimousse,” said my mother, in her loving, caressing voice; “don’t you, my darling boy? You are quite sure now that there was nothing to frighten you, are you not?”

“Yes, mamma, I do see it: I was a silly boy,” I replied.

My reason, the fact of seeing the cat eating the stolen meat, my mother’s assertion, everything told me clearly enough that it was Frimousse that had frightened me so: still in spite of all, something within me seemed to deny the fact. Was it possible that Frimousse, our cat that I knew so well, could have appeared so enormous?

Well, it was just possible perhaps; and now I began to fancy that there was something very strange about that cat. While she was eating, what fierce looks she gave me! Certainly there seemed something unnatural and odd—dreadful too—about her. And those strange glances which she gave me! Surely it was against me that she cherished spiteful feelings! Then another idea came into my head: perhaps this cat, who gave me such vicious looks, was not a real cat? Perhaps, I thought, she has the power, at times, to take the shape of that fearful, that horrible creature which I saw on the staircase.

If I had explained these foolish thoughts to my mother, I knew beforehand how silly she would have thought me, and what she would have answered. I knew also, beforehand that her answer would not convince me. Oh! how terrible it was! Still, I preferred to say nothing, and I kept my thoughts to myself to torment me.