JOANNETTI remained in the attitude I have described, awaiting the explanation he had asked of me. I withdrew my head from the folds of my travelling dress, into which I had thrust it that I might meditate more at my ease; and after a moment’s silence, to enable me to collect my thoughts after the reflections I had just made, I said, turning my arm-chair toward him,—
“Do you not see that as a picture is a plane surface, the rays of light proceeding from each point on that surface ...?”
At that explanation, Joannetti stretched his eyes to their very widest, while he kept his mouth half open. These two movements of the human face express, according to the famous Le Brun, the highest pitch of astonishment. It was, without doubt, my animal, that had undertaken this dissertation, while my soul was well aware that Joannetti knew nothing whatever about plane surfaces and rays of light. The prodigious dilatation of his eyelids caused me to draw back. I ensconced my head in the collar of my travelling coat, and this so effectively that I well-nigh succeeded in altogether hiding it. I determined to dine where I was. The morning was far advanced, and another step in my room would have delayed my dinner until night-fall. I let myself slip to the edge of my chair, and putting both feet on the mantel-piece, patiently awaited my meal. This was a most comfortable attitude; indeed, it would be difficult to find another possessing so many advantages, and so well adapted to the inevitable sojourns of a long voyage.
At such moments, Rose, my faithful dog, never fails to come and pull at the skirts of my travelling dress that I may take her up. She finds a very convenient ready-made bed at the angle formed by the two parts of my body. A V admirably represents my position. Rose jumps to her post if I do not take her up quickly enough to please her, and I often find her there without knowing how she has come. My hands fall into a position which minister to her well-being, and this, either through a sympathy existing between this good-natured creature and myself, or through the merest chance. But no, I do not believe in that miserable doctrine of chance,—in that unmeaning word! I would rather believe in animal magnetism.
There is such reality in the relations which exist between these two animals, that when out of sheer distraction, I put my two feet on the mantel-piece and have no thought at all about a halt, dinner-time not being near, Rose, observing this movement, shows by a slight wag of her tail the pleasure she enjoys. Reserve keeps her in her place. The other perceives this and is gratified by it, though quite unable to reason upon its cause. And thus a mute dialogue is established between them, a pleasing interchange of sensations which could not be attributed to simple chance.
