The male cats heard her sighs and welcomed her from all sides. After fighting and scuffling, Coquette chose for her mate the one who was the strongest of all and whose voice was the loudest. In animal lovemaking their special smell is very important. That’s why spoilt, domesticated and clean male cats don’t appeal to the females. By contrast, the cats on the walls, the thieving, skinny, wandering and hungry cats whose skin gives off the original odour of their species, are more attractive to the females. During the day, but especially at night, Coquette and her mate would bawl out their love in long cries. Her soft delicate body would writhe while the other’s body would bend like a bow, and they would give happy groans. This continued until the coming of dawn. Then Coquette would enter the room with tousled hair, bruised and tired but happy.

“I didn’t sleep at night because of Coquette’s lovemaking. Even­tually, I became very angry. One day I was working in front of this same window when I saw the lovers strutting in the garden. With the very revolver that you see I aimed at them from a distance of two or three steps. I fired the gun and a bullet hit her mate. It seemed as if his back was broken. He made a huge leap and without making a sound or groaning, he ran away through the passageway and fell at the foot of the garden wall.

“Blood had trickled all along the path he had taken. Coquette searched for a while until she found his footsteps. She smelled his blood and went straight to his dead body. For two nights and two days she kept watch by his body. Sometimes she would touch him with her paw as if to say to him, ‘Get up, it’s the beginning of spring. Why do you sleep in the time of love? Why don’t you move? Get up, get up!’ Coquette didn’t know about death and didn’t know that her lover was dead.

“The day after that, Coquette disappeared together with her mate’s body. I searched everywhere, I asked everyone for traces of her. It was useless. Was Coquette sulking? Was she dead? Did she go to search for her love? And what happened to the body?

“One night I heard the miaowing of that same male cat. He cried until dawn. The next night was the same, but in the morning his cries had stopped. The third night I picked up the revolver again and I shot aimlessly towards the pine tree in front of my window. The glittering of his eyes was apparent in the dark. He gave a long moan and became silent. In the morning I saw that three drops of blood had fallen onto the ground under the tree. Since that night he’s been coming every night and moaning in that same voice.