became ill, very ill,
and passed her days sobbing. The little cat made for herself a kind of
joyous cradling-place in the sun where it shone upon her white, drolly
inflated abdomen.

The cat's lover had come later than the girl's. So things happened
that they were both confined at the same time.

One day the little working-girl received a letter from the handsome
fellow who had deserted her. He sent her twenty-five francs, and spoke
of his generosity to her. She bought charcoal, a burner, and a sou's
worth of matches. Then she killed herself.

When she had entered heaven, which a young priest had at first tried
to prevent, the dainty and delicate creature trembled because that she
was pregnant and that the _Bon Dieu_ would condemn her.

But the _Bon Dieu_ said to her:

"My dear young friend, I have made ready for you a charming room. Go
there for your confinement. Everything ends happily in heaven and you
will not die. I love little children and suffer them to come unto me."

And when she entered the little room which had been made ready for her
in the great Hospital of Divine Mercy, she saw that God had arranged a
surprise for her. There in a box lay the cat she loved, and there was
also a pot of basil on the window-sill. She lay down.

She had a pretty, little, golden-haired daughter, and the cat had four
sweet, delightfully black kittens.

THE LITTLE NEGRESS

Sometimes my imagination is fascinated by the yellowing of old ocean
charts, and in my feverish brain I hear the roaring of monsoons.
What then? Must I, in order to have an interest in this present life,
exhume that which, perhaps, I led before my birth, between two black
suns?

It was a vague region, abounding in stars and in the diffused sobbing
of an ocean. There was a scratching at my door, and I said, "Come in."

A young negress in a loose blue loincloth, reaching halfway down her
thighs, entered. She crouched down on the ground, and held out her
thin clasped hands toward me. And I saw that her bare arms were
covered with the blows of a lash.

"Who did this to you, Assumption?" I asked.

She did not answer, but all her limbs trembled, for she did not
understand, and wondered, perhaps, whether I too was about to inflict
some brutality upon her.

Gently I removed her garment, and saw that her back also was wounded.
I washed it. But she, frightened by such kindness, fled for refuge
under the table of my cabin. My eyes filled with tear