No, I am not cold.—But she likes to look me over as we walk, to be quite sure; will gather my cloak a little higher about my throat, to keep off draughts. No, my boots are not taking in the dew.—But she''ll slide a finger between my stockinged ankle and the leather of my shoe, for certainty''s sake. I must not catch cold, at any cost. I must not tire. ''Wouldn''t you say you had walked enough, miss?'' I mustn''t grow ill. ''Here is all your breakfast, look, untouched. Won''t you take a little more?'' I mustn''t grow thin. I am a goose that must be plump, to be worth its slaughter.
Of course, though she does not know it, it is she who must be plump—she who will learn, in time, to sleep, to wake, to dress, to walk, to a pattern, to signals and bells. She thinks she humours me. She thinks she pities me! She learns the ways of the house, not understanding that the habits and the fabrics that bind me will, soon, bind her. Bind her, like morocco or like calf ... I have grown
used to thinking of myself as a sort of book. Now I feel myself a book, as books must seem to her: she looks at me with her unread-ing eyes, sees the shape, but not the meaning of the text. She marks the white flesh—Ain''t you