XVI 
  
THE CLOCK 
  
  
THE Chinese can tell the time by looking in 
the eyes of a cat. 
One day a missionary, while walking in the 
suburbs of Nankin, found that he had forgotten 
his watch, and asked a little boy what the time 
was. The gutter-snipe of the Flowery Kingdom 
hesitated at first, then, recollecting himself, he 
replied, “I will find out for you.” A minute later 
he reappeared, holding in his arms a fine big 
cat, and looking, as the saying is, in the white 
of its eyes, he unhesitatingly affirmed, “It is 
just a little before noon.” This turned out to be 
the case. 
As to me, if I bend over towards my beauti-
ful Féline, so well named, who is at once the 
glory of her sex, the pride of my heart, and the 
incense of my spirit, whether it be night, or 
whether it be day, in broad daylight or thick 
darkness, in the abyss of her adorable eyes I 
always read the hour most clearly. This hour is 
always the same; vast, solemn, wide as space, 
without division into minutes or seconds; a