In another house, they gave themselves up to the enthralling task of measuring the seventeen and three-quarter inches of Little Flower against the wall. And, really, it was a delightful surprise: she was even smaller than the sharpest imagination could have pictured. In the heart of each member of the family was born, nostalgic, the desire to have that tiny and indomitable thing for itself, that thing spared having been eaten, that permanent source of charity. The avid family soul wanted to devote itself. To tell the truth, who hasn’t wanted to own a human being just for himself? Which, it is true, wouldn’t always be convenient; there are times at which one doesn’t want to have feelings.
“I bet if she lived here it would end in a fight,” said the father, sitting in the armchair and definitely turning the page of the newspaper. “In this house everything ends in a fight.”
“Oh, you, José—always a pessimist,” said the mother.
“But, mama, have you thought of the size her baby’s going to be?” said the oldest little girl, aged thirteen, eagerly.
The father stirred uneasily behind his paper.
“It should be the smallest black baby in the world,” the mother answered, melting with pleasure. “Imagine her serving our table, with her big little belly!”
“That’s enough!” growled father.
“But you have to admit,” said the mother, unexpectedly offended, “that it is something very rare. You’re the insensitive one.”
And the rare thing itself?
In the meanwhile, in Africa, the rare thing herself, in her heart — and who knows if the heart wasn’t black, too, since once nature has erred she can no longer be trusted — the rare thing herself had something even rarer in her heart, like the secret of her own secret: a minimal child. Methodically, the explorer studied the little belly of the smallest mature human being. It was at this moment that the explorer, for the first time since he had known her, instead of feeling curiosity, or exaltation, or victory, or the scientific spirit, felt sick.
The smallest woman in the world was laughing.
She was laughing, warm, warm — Little Flower was enjoying life. The rare thing herself was experiencing the ineffable sensation of not having been eaten yet. Not having been eaten yet was something that at any other time would have given her the agile impulse to jump from branch to branch. But, in this moment of tranquility, amid the thick leaves of the Eastern Congo, she was not putting this impulse into action — it was entirely concentrated in the smallness of the rare thing itself. So she was laughing. It was a laugh such as only one who does not speak laughs. It was a laugh that the explorer, constrained, couldn’t classify. And she kept on enjoying her own soft laugh, she who wasn’t being devoured. Not to be devoured is the most perfect feeling. Not to be devoured is the secret goal of a whole life. While she was not being eaten, her bestial laughter was as delicate as joy is delicate. The explorer was baffled.
In the second place, if the rare thing herself was laughing, it was because, within her smallness, a great darkness had begun to move.
The rare thing herself felt in her breast a warmth that might be called love. She loved that sallow explorer. If she could have talked and had told him that she loved him, he would have been puffed up with vanity. Vanity that would have collapsed when she added that she also loved the explorer’s ring very much, and the explorer’s boots. And when that collapse had taken place, Little Flower would not have understood why. Because her love for the explorer — one might even say “profound love,” since, having no other resources, she was reduced to profundity — her profound love for the explorer would not have been at all diminished by the fact that she also loved his boots. There is an old misunderstanding about the word love, and, if many children are born from this misunderstanding, many others have lost the unique chance of being born, only because of a susceptibility that demands that it be me! me! that is loved, and not my money. But in the humidity of the forest these cruel refinements do not exist, and love is not to be eaten, love is to find a boot pretty, love is to like the strange color of a man who isn’t black, love is to laugh for love of a shiny ring. Little Flower blinked with love, and laughed warmly, small, gravid, warm.
The explorer tried to smile back, without knowing exactly to what abyss his smile responded, and then he was embarrassed as only a very big man can be embarrassed. He pretended to adjust his explorer’s hat better; he colored, prudishly. He turned a lovely color, a greenish-pink, like a lime at sunrise. He was undoubtedly sour.
Perhaps adjusting the symbolic helmet helped the explorer to get control of himself, severely recapture the discipline of his work, and go on with his note-taking. He had learned how to understand some of the tribe’s few articulate words, and to interpret their signs. By now, he could ask questions.
Little Flower answered “Yes.” That it was very nice to have a tree of her own to live in. Because — she didn’t say this but her eyes became so dark that they said it — because it is good to own, good to own, good to own. The explorer winked several times.
Marcel Pretre had some difficult moments with himself. But at least he kept busy taking notes. Those who didn’t take notes had to manage as best they could.
“Well,” suddenly declared one old lady, folding up the newspaper decisively, “well, as I always say: God knows what He’s doing.”
A Hen
She was a Sunday hen. She was still alive only because it was not yet 9.00 o’clock.
She seemed calm. Since Saturday she had cowered in a corner of the kitchen. She didn’t look at anyone, no one looked at her. Even when they had selected her, fingering her intimately and indifferently, they couldn’t have said whether she was fat or thin. No one would ever have guessed that she had a desire.
So it was a surprise when she opened her little wings, puffed out her breast, and, after two or three tries, reached the wall of the terrace. For an instant she vacillated — long enough for the cook to scream — and then she was on the neighbor’s terrace, and from there, by means of another awkward flight, she reached a tile roof. There she remained like a misplaced weather vane, hesitating, first on one foot, then the other. The family was urgently called and, in consternation, saw their lunch standing beside a chimney. The father of the family, reminding himself of the double obligation of eating and of occasionally taking exercise, happily got into his bathing trunks and resolved to follow the itinerary of the hen. By cautious jumps he reached the roof, and the hen, trembling and hesitating, quickly picked another direction. The pursuit became more intense. From roof to roof, more than a block of the street was traversed. Unprepared for a more savage struggle for life, the hen had to decide for herself which routes to take, without any help from her race. In the young man, however, the sleeping hunter woke up. Lowly as was the prey, he gave a hunting cry.