Balloons — Fido and Ponto

FIDO AND PONTO

Fido was a Dalmatian--of the race described by some as blotting paper and by others as plum pudding dogs.

Every line of his body had been formed by hundreds of years of tradition.

You can find his ancestors in tapestries and petit point in Italian primitives and Flemish family groups, nestling in voluminous satin petticoats, or running at the heels of skating children--moving in sedate indifference beside the cortège of a pope, or barking in gay derision at the tidy Dutch snow.

Not "a dog" or "the dog" but "dog" unspecified and absolute.

True, till 1700 it was largely a matter of silhouette, the lissom outline was there, but with a certain variety of colouring.

Then the 18th century stepped in and made spots de rigueur--Dalmatians invaded new territory.

They conquered the kingdom of china and occupied a commanding position in coaching prints.

An unaccompanied post chaise, deplorable in life, because unknown in art, and the expression "carriage dog" came into use for the first time.

The 18th and 19th centuries were the golden age of Dalmatian rule, and when their dynasty was finally overthrown, it was not by a new upstart race of dogs, but by a new upstart production of that blind and ugly mother of strong and hideous children--progress.

Motors were invented.

If machinery had a conscience, what a procession of ghosts would it not be haunted by--ghosts of white fingers and humming spinning wheels, ghosts of parasols--stiff pagodas of taffetas or rippling fountains of lace--ghosts of victorias and barouches and tandems--ghosts of spotted streaks of lightning bounding forward with the grace of cats and the speed of Derby winners, capering with fastidious frivolity between yellow wheels.

Dalmatians, console yourselves, you are in good company.

Beside you walks the ghost of civilisation herself--surrounded by the phantom forms of courtesy and leisure and all the lost company of the divine superfluous.

Cause and effect, demand and supply, where does the vicious circle begin and end?

Certain it is that when motors began to drench the countryside in dust and suppress reflexion by providing our afterthoughts with transport, Dalmatians disappeared.

Silently, imperceptibly, putting down their paws with all the old fastidious grace, they crept out of a world that had betrayed aristocracy.

Only Fido remained--to die of a broken heart.

When I first saw him, he was a puppy--a thin lanky puppy, waiting to be filled in by life, a mere sketch of the masterpiece he was to become.

Even in those days he had heavy black charmeuse ears, marvellous thick rich satin they were, and tiny dark rims to his eyes--a setting of pencilled shadow.

How am I to describe his spots?

The wonderful distribution of black and white, the ruffle at the side of his arched neck made by the meeting of two competitive rhythms of hairs, the looseness of his skin, his long lithe legs that would tie themselves into a tangled heap of grace when he lay down.

To see him move was to see motion made concrete--to see him run was to realise that even Pavlova had never quite overcome the obstacle of being a human.

At night he seemed phosphorescent, the dark itself was defeated by his whiteness.

His bark was low and deep and resonant--a church bell of a bark--it reminded [Transcriber's note: original reads 'remainded'] you less of a 'cello than all 'cellos--except M. Casal's--remind you of a bark.

He had the divine irrelevant grace of a cat.

Always he was showing off, practising his paws, curling and stretching and pirouetting, letting himself go like an arrow out of a bow, circling on the lawn like a swallow above water, giving you daily a thousand illustrations of how much you would have lost by only having 100 masterpieces in bronze of him.

Living with Fido was a daily revelation of absolute beauty.

He was the key to the secret of Phidias and Ucello Pascal and Mozart.

But he was alive, warm and gay and moody--joyous and absurd--full of little confiding gestures--a nose pressed under one's chin, or a paw laid in alluring appeal on one's hand.

Withal he was detached with the detachment of his separate universe--a divine world of smells and sounds and ever new adventurous possibilities, unspoilt by memory and untarnished by experience.

Dogs are the best company in the world--I would watch Fido abandoning himself to each moment of the day, the victim or the hero of a hundred impulses, torn by competing smells and sounds as we are torn by overlapping warring emotions and ambitions.

And then he would lie sprawling in front of the fire with a half open eye and when you said "Fido" his ears would answer you, taut with response, while his tail would beat the floor in indolent happiness.

Is there anything in life so infectiously joyous as a wagging tail?

Worry, distress, crossness, all melt at the sight of it--a hypnotic conductor's, baton beating the rhythm of triumphant joie de vivre.

Fido was a daily, hourly delight.

I would shut my eyes, to be able to open them suddenly and realise--with fresh acuteness--his infinite variety.

There was to me something poignant about his loveliness like an open rose in whose very perfection lies the herald of doom.

I loved him too much.

The cynical masterpieces of the past looking at his beauty smiled in satisfied revenge for they knew that he was alive and that life means death.

Love gives mortality to everything.

Fido grew limp and listless.

His nose was hot and dry.

He no longer trotted about, he wandered from room to room.

His eyes were dull.

His heart bumped about like money in a money-box.

With an effort he wagged his tail to cheer me up.

Wearily he would climb into a chair and lie there indifferent to my trembling caresses.

Fido died.

* * * * * I gave up looking at dogs, alive or china, embroidered or painted.

Fortunately most of my friends have "pets," griffons that look like tropical spiders, little shiny naked shivering animals, bloated prosperous Pekineses, exuding the complacency of their mistresses and seeming to be rather the last word of a dressmaker, or a furrier, than a creation of the Gods.

If I saw a sheepdog, or a greyhound, a spaniel or a retriever, I would avert my eyes, shivering a little as when the hitherto harmless buzzing machine reaches the hidden nerve.

"Don't you like dogs?"

people would say.

LIKE!

"No!"

I would answer.

"How strange.

I adore animals."

ADORE!

Oh the verbs of the untouched.

And then, in spite of everything, because of everything, a Dalmatian once more invaded my life--the life that I had so resolutely determined never again to expose to any dog.

What is invulnerability but a pis-aller?

Which of us, given the choice between perfect peace and imperfect love would hesitate for one moment?

When Providence gave me Ponto I accepted him with hungry passion, with nervous propitiatory prayers to the Gods.

He was a stray dog, masterless and collarless, an erring emigré of civilisation and he came to me.

At first I did not dare look--my heart was beating so fast.

I was frightened of being radiant.

I was frightened of being miserable.

And then I turned to him.

He was bigger than Fido, with longer, stronger legs.

His ears were not quite black, there were two little white spots on them, his eyes were not set in pencilled rims.

But he was beautiful, as beautiful as a Greek athlete--to see him run was to see the Olympic games, and in the house he would curl and stretch and tangle up his paws, and put his head on my lap and reassure me with his eyes.

Once more I lived with motion made concrete, with beauty made absolute--once more a wagging tail brought the inexhaustible dot of gaiety.

Ponto had finer manners than Fido.

He was maturer, with a deeper sense of noblesse oblige.

He never forgot that even if he had been born a Dalmatian, privilege entails certain obligations.

Perhaps he lacked something of Fido's moody charm, of his frivolous pathos, of his absurd joyousness, of his enchanting vanity.

Perhaps it was just Fido's youth that he lacked, and his irresponsibility.

There was a certain gravity about Ponto--a perfect dignity.

His fastidiousness had gone beyond the stage of selections, and had reached the stage of exclusions.

But he never lost his manners, or his manner.

Always he said "Good-morning," and "Good-night."

If I was embarrassed, or worried, he would pretend not to notice it, but if I was happy, or sad, he would show his sympathy in a hundred ways--putting his head on my lap, or cutting absurd capers to distract my mind.

And then one day I went away.

I told Ponto when I said good-bye to him that it would be some time before I saw him again.

How was I to explain partings to him?

The monstrous rôle that geography plays in our lives?

I just told him that I loved him, that his image was in my heart, that our separation was only the preparation of a glorious meeting when old-remembered delights would merge into newly discovered ones.

He listened to me while I stroked his heavy charmeuse ears.

He licked my hand, knowing that with my whispering words, I was trying to console myself as well as him.

Then I left him quickly.

They wrote to me that he had disappeared.

They wrote to me that his master had reclaimed him.

But I know that he is mine.

For I have made a great discovery.

What I love belongs to me.

Not the chairs and tables in my house, but the masterpieces of the world.

It is only a question of loving them enough.

THE END

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