“Oh, ‘Steppenwolf’ is magnificent! And are you the Steppenwolf? Is that meant for you?”
“Yes, it’s me. I am one who is half-wolf and half-man, or thinks himself so at least.”
She made no answer. She gave me a searching look in the eyes, then looked at my hands, and for a moment her face and expression had that deep seriousness and sinister passion of a few minutes before. Making a guess at her thoughts I felt she was wondering whether I were wolf enough to carry out her last command.
“That is, of course, your own fanciful idea,” she said, becoming serene once more, “or a poetical one, if you like. But there’s something in it. You’re no wolf today, but the other day when you came in as if you had fallen from the moon there was really something of the beast about you. It is just what struck me at the time.”
She broke off as though surprised by a sudden idea.
“How absurd those words are, such as beast and beast of prey. One should not speak of animals in that way. They may be terrible sometimes, but they’re much more right than men.”
“How do you mean—right?”
“Well, look at an animal, a cat, a dog, or a bird, or one of those beautiful great beasts in the Zoo, a puma or a giraffe. You can’t help seeing that all of them are right. They’re never in any embarrassment. They always know what to do and how to behave themselves. They don’t flatter and they don’t intrude. They don’t pretend. They are as they are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky. Don’t you agree?”
I did.