The Skeleton
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Chapter first...
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They were ten or twelve young furries. They spoke about arts, books and politics. And, now and them, some anecdote emerged from their muzzles to spice the conversation.
Outside the house they were, at the lonely beach under the dark skies outside the sea roared as waves hit the shores... like meditation in prose. But none one of the guest made any case of the sea. Or of the night for that matter, not that it was ugly or that it seemed to be able to convert itself in a rainstorm any second. It was probable that if started to pouring none would notice it, so entertained they were, arguing about different politic systems, the inherits of an artist or of a writer, or simply laugh about some innocent yarn.
It happened in the middle of night, that one of the guests, a fox stood up from the chair he was sitting until that moment, saying that he would make some tea to appease the cold of that early winter night. As he left the room, a bull started to talk about the beauty of the Germanic language. A lynx agreed, speaking about its advantages, saying that he learned with an old Dr., a lion called Secundus.
"Any of you had the chance to meet Dr. Secundos?" asked The lynx.
"No, Noah" answered the bull, as everyone else.
"It is a truly shame, he was a very singular man. In the time he taught me, he used a long yellow coat that covered his body from his shoulders to his knees, not to mention his extremely large hat, his body still seemed young, but his mane had already started to show the marks of his age."
"He must have been a sight to behold" stated a platypus that shut up under the glare Noah shot at him.
"So, what was the kind of instruction this doctor had?" asked the bull.
"It was incredibly varied, my dear Markus. He wrote a romance, a book of theology and discovered a planet..."
"But this Lion, how we never heard of such great mind?"
"Easy, he had a major case of misfortune. My dear old friend come to the capital to print his books, but he couldn't find a publisher, in anger he preferred to tear the manuscripts than placing then into a shelf. And, about the planet, he wrote a letter and sent it to the Parisian Academy of Science and waited an answer, which never come because the letter arrive in Ukraine sixth months later after traveling through the Europe.
A camel whispered something to the beaver next to him, and both smiled maliciously to the others, as saying that it was way too much disgrace at once. But the attitude of the narrator took them the will to keep smiling. Noah was gazing the floor, melancholic eyes of someone remembering some extinguished happiness. Effectively he sighed after sometime of mute and vague contemplation; then he continued.
"I apologize for this silence of mine, but I can't remember t about that lion without a stubborn tear try to down my cheeks. He was an eccentric furry, maybe he wasn't, for sure he was not a completely good man; but he was my friend; I will not say the only one, but the best and greatest I will ever have had in my whole life."
As natural, these words from the lynx made anyone else change their dispositions of spirit before the old lion's memory. The feline narrator continued quiet by a few more minutes. So, from all sudden, he shook his head, as he was trying to expel some inopportune reminiscences of the past, and said:
"To show you all his eccentricity, allow me a little of your attention so I can tell you the unique story of the skeleton.
The merely reference to the word "skeleton" sharpened the several ears there; a present writer changed his position and leaned forward, to don't miss anything from the narration; the crowd waited anxiously for the skeleton of Dr. Secundus.
The clock marked midnight; the night, as I told, was dark, the sea hit the shores, sounding as a best from the old times.
Noah started his narration...
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Chapter second...
Here my readers, I let the text to this lynx that will tell you this story
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Dr. Secundus was a tall and thin Lion; his mane, in other times Black, was now silver, covering the top of his shoulders; while resting, he was straight as an arrow; however, when he walked he curved his shoulder and spine forward. His eyes were dark yellow, as two puddles of honey. Despite his eyes seemed good and sweet, sometimes he had a sinister flash of sinister thoughts in those globes, and sometimes, while he meditated, his eyes seemed the ones of a corpse.
He seemed to be sixty years old, but in reality he had barely reached the half century mark. The study had pulled him down a lot, and the misadventures of life as well, according to him, in the rare occasions he spoke about the past, and I was the only one to who he spoke about this matter.
One day, precisely at the end of my lesson, I asked him if he had never been married. The doctor smiled without looking at me. I did not insisted in the question; I even regretted of having made it.
"I was married once." He said, after sometime. "And in three months from now I will be able to say: I am married."
"Are you going to marry?"
"I will!"
"With who?"
"With Mrs. Manuella"
I was incredulous toward my friend, how he could be about to marry and I am not even aware of such important fact. Mrs. Manuella was a widow that lived from ............, Mrs. of her twenty six years old, maybe not astonishing, but a still beautiful bear with reddish fur; she wasn't so rich as the doctor himself, but possessed more than many people. I was introduced to her in a bowl a few weeks ago, but I wondered when the doctor had meet her.
"I am going to marry" the Dr. continued "And only because that you spoke about it. Not even five minutes ago, I had not the slightest intention of such act. But your question made obvious to me that I need a mate next to my side."
I was still with my jaw dropped after being informed he had just schemed this, and I was the trigger. He was still talking...
"I tried to scavenge in my memories the possibilities of brides, and no one seems more appropriate than this one. In three months you will watch our weeding, do you promise."
"I promised." I answered with an incredulous smile.
"What you think, isn't going to be great?"
"Yes, I think so. She seemed sympathetic and intelligent."
"Sympathetic, kind, educated and widow. My idea is that every male should marry with widows.
I rolled my eyes to the absurd comment. "Who would marry the maidens then?"
"The ones that are not males." Answered the old lion "like you" he fixed before I could say anything "and most of the furry kind; when I say males I am referring to the creatures of my age, but..."
The doctor stopped, as he was uncertain of entering in greatest confidences, and returned about talking of the widow Manuella, whose good qualities he praised with enthusiasm.
"She is not so beautiful as my fist wife." He said "Oh. This one... Have you meet her"
"Never."
"It is impossible."
"It is the truth. I already meet you widow, I think so."
"Oh, yes, it is my own fault, I never showed you her. Come on, I am going to introduce her."
He stood up; I stood up. We were sitting next to the door; he took me to one interior room. I confess that I was going scared and curious. Despite him being my friend, and I had proves of this, he cause such fear to the people, and he was so effectively singular, that I couldn't avoid a small feeling of fear.
At one of the corners of the room there was a piece of furniture covered by a green blanket, the only thing in hat room that was not covered in dust; the lion removed the blanket and I felt my knees go numb.
It was a glass cabinet, having a skeleton on the inside. Even today, after the years that have passed, and the changes that my spirit gone throughout, I can't remember that scene without a certain terror.
"This is my wife." Said the old lion contemplating the skeleton of what seemed to have been a female rodent. "She is so beautiful, isn't she? It is on her spine, as you see. Of such beauty, such grace, such wonder that bewitched me once upon a time, that bewitched me by so many years, what is left of it? See my young friend; such is the last expression of life."
Saying this, the doctor covered the cabinet with the blanket again and we left the cabinet. I didn't know what to say, so astonished I was from the dark spectacle.
We come again to our seat next the door, and we spend some time this way, saying no word to each other. The doctor gazed the floor; I gazed him. His lips trembled, and his face contracting now and them, the fur bristling a bit. A servant come to talk with him and he snapped of that state of lethargy.
When we were finally left alone, he was already another feline; he was smiling and behaving as some years were relieved from over his back, a behavior that was new to him.
"Well , if I be happy in my marriage" he said "To you I will own this. It was you my friend that gave that idea! And you done good, because I even feel younger." He made a small spin, holding the coat he never left to use, just when he was going to bed at night.
"This lion looks capable under your eyes?" he asked
"Without doubts."
‘So she will think. You will see my friend, more than one will envy my luck. No, that is not enough, more than one will envy her luck. Yes, there are not husband as me."
I said absolutely nothing from all of this, and the leonine continued talking by the next twenty minutes. The afternoon had ended and the first stars were starting to shine on the sky above; the night and the idea of the skeleton there, just a few steps from us, more the strange behavior from my mentor made me go back to my own home before I would normally go.
The doctor smiled with a sinister smile as I said goodbye, however he didn't argued to me stay more. I went home stunned and sad; stunned with I had saw; sad with the responsibility that the doctor had laid over my shoulder about his wedding.
As I walked, I was reflecting that the idea of the lion wouldn't have ready or remote realization. Maybe he would never marry, neither is really thinking in this. How could be sure of marrying the widow bear Manuella in three months? Maybe that, I even considered, that was just made to mock with me.
This idea buried deep into my smile. In the following day I got up already with my mind effectively convinced that the doctor just wanted to kill some time and use the situation to show the strange memento he had from his wife.
Naturally, I said to myself, he loved her to much, and by this motive he still kept her to his side. Of course ge wouldn't marry with other one; or will find anyone willing to marry with him, so fear and bad comments his mere presence inspired to the people. Some even think that he was a close friend to the devil himself... Him! My good and kind master.
With those ideas I gone right early to his house, to receive my lessons. I found him having lunch alone as always, served by a servant of the same age.
"Come on in, Noah." Said the lion, not even looking to him, but one of his ear twitched in my direction. The ages didn't had erased his sharp senses. "Do you want to have lunch?"
"It is kind early, but I accept"
"Please, Jhonas, another dish."
We had a happy and good lunch together; the doctor was as I was used to him, talking about serious things, mixing a philosophic reflection with a yarn, an anecdote of a young with a saying of Virgil. At the end of the lunch we spoke about his matrimony
"So... you are really considering that?" I asked uncertain of the answer.
"Why not? It just depends of her; but I am almost sure that she will not refuse. Can you introduce me at her house?"
"Yes, as you wish."
In the following day the old lion that went for the name of Secundus was introduced into Manuella's house, and he was received with kindness.
"Is he going to really marry with her" I asked to myself, amazed with what I saw, because, beyond the ages difference between them, and his eccentric manners, there was already a claimant to her paw, the Lieutenant Lemos.
Neither the widow nor the lieutenant wondered which were the intentions of the eccentric leonine; from this point wou can already imagine the amazement of the bear when after eight days had passed, and my master asked is she would like to marry with him.
"Not with you, and not with anyone else." Said the widow "I made a vote of don't marrying anymore."
"Why?" asked the doctor, coldly.
"Because I loved much my husband."
"That don't hinder you of loving the second one" he added smiling.
Silence lowered between everyone as an uncomfortable veil, but she looked at him as evaluating what such lion wanted, I may swear I saw a small and quickly smile in those lips.
"I will not push you." He Said. "Neither will make a dramatic scene. I Love you and really much, but it a philosopher love, a love as think all should be. But I ask you this, let me have hope. I will ask you two more time in marriage. If in the last time I don't reach my goal, allow me to be your friend.
She smiled and nodded.
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Chapter Third...
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Dr. Secundus was loyal to this unique schedule. In one month he was there, asking her paw in matrimony, and had the same refusal; but, this one, less final than the first one. He let six weeks pass, and repeated the purpose.
"Does she accepted?" I asked as soon I had seem he step out of her house.
"Why would she refuse? Didn't I told you I would marry in three months?"
"So what this makes you? A fortune teller, a magician? A..."
The doctor released a laugh, one of those he kept for when he wanted to mock someone or about something. In that occasion the one being mocked was me. I think I didn't made a good face because he got instantaneously serious and hugged me saying:
"Oh! My friend, don't be this way. You know me from a long time." The kindness he use to speak those words made him another fur. He no longer had the sinister looks and way of speak, that he usually had.
I hugged him, and we spoke about the marriage and about the bride. The doctor was happy; petting my shoulder gently, thanking me by the idea over and over; he made plans to the future. He had ideas to coming to the capital after the wedding; he wondered about going to Europe, but barely he started with those thoughts and he didn't wanted to leave his homeland, he wanted to die there, around our mountains.
"I am already seeing that you are already as a husband" I said "You have all the aspects of a man on the eve of his marriage."
"Do you think?"
"I know"
"In fact, I like the bride." He said with a serious look. "It is probable that I die before her, but the most sure is that the die first. In this case, I swear her skeleton will make company to the other one."
The twisted idea made me shiver. The doctor, as he said that gazed the floor, profusely thoughtful. Therefore, the conversation was less happy. I went back to my home unpleasantly impressed.
The marriage was reality within a few time. No one wanted to believe in their eyes as the party happened. Everyone admired the courage (it was the word they used) of the widow Manuella, that did not stepped back before that big Sacrifice.
Sacrifice it wasn't. The bear seemed most of content and happy. The congratulations she received were ironic, she knew this, but nevertheless was less polite as she received them. Lieutenant Lemos didn't saluted her, just sent a note on the fore day, saying all the things that someone on his position think it's free to say.
The wedding was celebrated a few day after the three months the old Lion had stipulated in the conversation I already mentioned. It was a true happening in the city. By eight days no one talked about other thing but the "impossible" case; after some time, the news passed, as all the things in this world, and no one more talked about them.
At the end of two weeks I went to have dinner with them; Mrs. Manuella seemed happier than ever; Dr. Secundus wasn't less happy. He even seemed other. The bear was starting to influence him, one of the first things that gone was that large coat he used to wear. The doctor consented to dress less eccentrically.
"You can dress me as you want." He said to the bear " what you can't do is to change my soul. That never."
"Neither I want to."
"Neither you can."
They seemed destined to rejoice a eternal happiness, At the end of one more month I went back there, and found her sad.
"And the trouble have already started" I said to myself
The doctor was as always. We read together and it was time to my lesson again. For two hours he taught me and left me with a small hand book in German, so I could give it a try.
The night had settled as I finished, rubbing my forehead at the brain effort, but happy that all my classes were making huge progresses.
I thought in saying good bye to them before leaving. In the hallway I heard the sound of dishes being used, but no wod being said coming from the dinner room.
"And the troubles continue." I thought.
I kept walking... but you can't even imagine what was my surprise as I got to the doorframe. The doctor was sitting with his back to me, he couldn't see me, the bear had her eyes to her dish. Between he and she was the skeleton. I stopped dead on my tracks. What that meant? I lost myself in conjectures; I even stepped forward to demand an answer, but I didn't dare; I went back thought the same way. I had to place my paw on the wall to don't lose balance as I stepped out of the house. As soon as I could think clearly again, I ran all the way back home.
At the house of my cousin and her husband everyone noticed the fear I Still carried in my face. Markus, the other that married my cousin, asked me if I had saw something from the other world. Smiling, I said yes.
During three days I didn't returned his house. It was terror, not from the skeleton but from the owner of the house, that was starting to seem a lunatic and bad for the first time before my eyes. But the curiosity, I needed to knew why the skeleton was there, that burned deep into my mind.
Perhaps Manuella could answer me if I ask, but how would I ask such a thing if the doctor never left the house?
At the end of the forth day the doctor himself surprised me showing up at my house.
"Three days" he said "Three days without the fortune of seeing you. Where have you been? Are you not happy with us?"
"I have been sick" I said, without thinking in anything better to say at that time.
"Heh! And why have you not sent me a note, we could have paid you a visit, your little ingrate. Are you not my friend anymore?"
The sweetness of those words dissipated my scruples. It was singular how that lion, because of certain habits, manners and ideas, and even by the physical expression, scareid a lot of people, yet he had such incomparable kindness and the paternal and benevolent tone.
We talked a little and I was required to follow him to his house. The woman still seemed me sad, but a little less than the last time. He treated with such kindness and consideration, and she didn't answered happily, at least he answered with equal kindness.
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Chapter Fourth...
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In the middle of the conversation one servant come to say that the dinner was ready and on the table.
"Now you are going to have dinner with us." He said
"I can't" I mumbled "I must go and..."
"You don't have to go to anywhere else; it seems you want to rum from me; Manuella, ask to Mr. Noah here have dinner with us."
She repeated the invitation of her husband. But I could sense an visible atmosphere of embarrassment. I would refuse again, but the doctor closed his paw around my arm and I couldn't say no.
"Let me at least offer my arm to your wife" I said as she stood next to us
"Why not?"
I offered my arm to the bear, as she grabbed my arm I sensed she trembling. As the Lon released my arm and walked in front of us whistling I leaned and whispered into her ear. "What mystery is this?"
She trembled again. This time, strongly than the first time, with a paw movement she asked for silence, and so I did.
We arrived at the dinner room.
Despite I have already seem the scene the other day, I couldn't avoid to shiver before the strong impression that that skeleton caused in me. There it was, sitting on one of the chairs, the arms over the table. It was horrible.
I already introduced you to my first wife." Said the doctor to me "You two are now old friends."
We sat down. The skeleton was between him and Manuella and I sat down next to her. Until that moment i couldn't say a Word; it was, nonetheless, natural that I expressed my fright.
"Doctor." I said "I respect your habits, but aren't you going to give me an explanation about this one?"
"What do you mean by this one?
With a hand gesture I pointed the skeleton.
"Ah!... " started the doctor "A natural habit; I have dinner with my two wives."
"At least you have to confess that it is an original use."
"You wanted me to copy the others?"
"No, but you can have pity of the deads..."
I dare to speak this way because, beyond that being a profanation, the melancholy of the bear seemed to ask desperately to anyone talk to her husband and tried to bring him back to the better way.
The doctor just released one of his singular laughs and, serving me a dish of soup, replied:
"You speak of conventional pity; I am straight to my manners. I think the best way to respect a creature we love during life, is to bring what is left of it after its death."
I answered nothing to these words of the doctor. I just ate the soup silently the soup, don't ask me how I managed to gulp it down, or retain it in my muzzle. He continued talking about his ideas about the dead.
"The fear of the dead" he said " it is not Just a weakness, it is an insult, a perversity of the heart. By my part, I deal better with the dead than with the livings.
And then silence
"Confess that you are scared."
I shook my head negatively.
"fear it is, as that lady that is sitting there feels and shivers, because you two are children. What is the big deal about this skeleton, what can be so threatening? I don't say to you that it is pretty; it is not pretty according to life, but is remarkably beautiful according to death. Remember that we are this, just with a little more of flesh."
"And that is all" I asked intentionally .
The doctor smiled and answered:
"That is all"
I think I make a gesture of boringness or that I didn't agreed, because he hurried up to continue.
Don't understand me bad and don't twist my words. I also believe in the soul; I don't just believe, I demonstrate it, what it is not for all of us. But the soul is no longer in here; he can't retain it; at last, we should keep this last piece of the loved one.
As he finished those words, the doctor kissed respectfully the paw of the skeleton. I shivered and glanced Manuella. This one had closed her eyes. I was anxious to finish that terrible scene that I considered so discussing to contemplate. The lion seemed to don't notice anything; he continued talking about the same subject and by more efforts I made to avoid it, it was impossible to silence the Lion.
The desert had arrived when the doctor, interrupting a silence of ten minutes, asked:
"I do believe I have not told you the story of this skeleton. I mean, the story of my wife. Have I?"
"I think you haven't" I regretted those words.
"and to you?" the feline asked, his ears twitching withing his silvery mane as he looked his second wife.
"Yes"
"It was a crime."
"A crime?"
"Committed by me."
"By you?" the fur on the back of my head got all bristled. Gladly, he didn't noticed, or he faked he didn't noticed it.
"It is the true."
He finished a piece of cake and drunk the remaining of wine from his glass, then he repeated:
"It is the true, a crime from which I was the author. My wife was very loved by me; it is not a big deal, I am such a soft heart. A certain day, however, I suspected that she had cheated me; people come to tell me a alligator from the neighborhood was her love. I was fooled. Them I told her I knew about everything, and that I was going to punish her from what she have done to me. She feel to my feet washed by her tears claiming innocence. I was blind; an killed her.
You can imagine how I felt, but neither I can write the accurate feeling of horror those words caused to me, nor you can know what it is like until something similar happen to any of you.
I looked to that old feline, to the skeleton, to the poor bear, my paw rubbing my forehead without being told to do so. It was my body trying to see if I was awake o not, if that was a dream or not. It was not a dream.
The doctor had his eyes glued to the skeleton and a tear ran slowly through the fur of his face. Ten minutes passed and no one moved or produced a sound, I couldn't even hear my own breathing.
The doctor interrupted the silence.
"Years later, when the crime was already done without the justice knew it, I find out that my wife was innocent. The pain that I suffered was indescribable; I had been the demon that reaped an Angel.
Those word were said with such sadness that I felt touched deeply. After all the years of the terrible happening, the doctor still felt the remorse from what he had done.
Manuella, herself, seemed touched. But her commotion was also fear; as I came to know later, she thought her husband hadn't his mind working perfectly.
It was a mistake.
The doctor was, yes, a singular lion and eccentric; crazy is that those who pretend to be smarter than him called the good feline.
Another time we silenced, and yet again, it was him that interrupted the silence.
"I will not tell you how I achieve the skeleton of my wife. Here I have it and I shall preserve it until my death. Now you might want to know why I bring it to the table after I have married."
I didn't answered with my lips, but my eyes said that I effectively wanted to know the explanation to that strange behavior.
"It is simple" he continued "it is to my second wife be always next to my victim, so she will never forget her duties, because, now as always, it is most probable that I will not try to search the truth; I will make justice with my won paws."
This last revelation from the doctor made my patience end. I don't remember what I told him, but I remember he was smiling the whole time I was talking. As I finished he opened his muzzle and said a single word:
"Child"
I walked out of the house at that very instant, I was resolute. I would never step my foot there ever again.
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Chapter fifth...
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The promise wasn't carried out.
I think the doctor sent someone to call me at my house more than once in a week. He come himself three time to ask me to have dinner with him, or, at least, talk, so starving he was for attention and friendship.
I don't remember what I said, but I invented a motive and didn't gone there.
One day, however, I received a note of the bear. She said in it that I was the only strange person that gone there; asking me to don't abandon her. I gone.
It had been passed fifteen days since the singular and unique terrifying dinner at the doctor's house in which the Lion explained me the story of the skeleton. The situation between them was the same; thought part of her kindness was fear as I would discover later.
Precisely at this day, the doctor informed me he wanted to made a trip to a small village a few miles from our town.
"But I am going alone." He said "So I want you to make company to my wife, coming here now and them."
I refused
"why?"
"Doctor, why would we, without urgent need, give space and argument to the infamy of gossip? Have you imagined what will other people say?"
"You are right, my friend. But, at least, make me something."
"What?"
"Please, make your cousin accept my dear wife in her house during the few weeks I will be absent. Would you be so kind?"
"This I will do very happy."
My cousin, Mariana, accepted to receive Dr. Secundus' wife at her house, a few day later, he was leaving the town to the counry. His goodbyes was kind and friendly to both of us, the wife and me; we, my cousin and her husband made company to him until a certain part of the travel and then we returned home.
So I finally had the opportunity to talk with Mrs. Manuella, that communicated me her fears towards the reasoning capacity of her husband. I tried to calm her down; already told my opinion about Dr. Secundus. So she remembered what he told when I heard the story of how his first wife died, and how he treated end her life is she make a wrong step.
"Neither the looks will save you, he said" she finished, saying me.
She also told me that it was normal seeing him kissing the skeleton of the first wife repeatedly and saying several words of passion and love to it. One night, dreaming with her, the doctor had got out of the bed to hug her skeleton, asking for forgiveness.
In my house, all were of the same opinion: Manuealla shouldn't go back to the side of the old lion. I was of a different opinion. No one knew him as I did.
"despite all, he is good." I said several times "He has his eccentricities, but has a good heart."
At the end of a month we received the doctor a letter from the doctor addressed to his wife. It was saying to the bear meet him in the village he was, and that I was supposed to go with her.
I refused going just me and her. My cousin and her husband offered their company, so we wouldn't have any trouble. We all took the train that would pass near the small city he had gone to study botanic.
However, there was an essential recommendation on the doctor's letter; he ordered his wife to take with her the skeleton.
"What weirdness is this?" asked the husband of my cousin.
"You might discover that the only motive to this trip is that he is missing his dear skeleton." Sighed Manuella melancholically."
I said nothing, but my mind had got to the same conclusion long time ago.
The train arrived and we stepped out of the train; a rented cart took us to the house in which the doctor was living for those weeks.
Before we have even let out our seat he was coming to our direction, smiling broadly. He greeted us and we all gone to the house.
I noticed he was no longer kind with his wife as he used to, h seemed cold. But that didn't last long; in one hour he was what he used to be.
We spent two day at the small village the doctor was. He said he just went to that place to study some plants of the region. At the end of the two days we were willing to return to the our hometown. He, on the other paw, asked us to delay there at least one more day, so we would all come back together.
We agreed.
At the following day, during the morning, he invited the wife to see some beautiful parasite plants in the woods next to the house. She shivered, but dared not to refuse.
"Are you coming as well?" he asked
"I am" I answered.
The bear sighed in relief and glanced me as thanking me for that. The doctor noticed and chuckled. I did not understood soon the reason of that chuckle; but in not much time I would receive my explanation. We gone to see the parasites. He before me, with the bear, and me behind them both, we were silent.
After a few minutes of walk, a small river appeared before our eyes; but I barely could see the river; what I saw, what made me step back, was a skeleton.
Manuella screamed.
"A skeleton!" She exclamed, her body shaking savagely.
"Please you two, calm down." Said the doctor "It is the one of my first wife.
"But.."
"I brought it here long before you two had awoken."
None of us were understanding a thing. The doctor sat over a stone, crossing his leg, his tail up and swishing.
"Noah," he started "I, you and Manuella. Another crime should be committed in this occasion; but so much I love you, Noah, so much I loved you, Manuella, that I prefer don't carry out my promise"
I opened my muzzle to argue but he didn't let me.
"You two love each other" he said. The sentence sharp as a dagger.
Mannuella screamed, falling to her knees, covering her face with her paws and sobbing; I would protest.
"You two love each other that I know," he continuated dryly. "It doesn't matter! It is natural. Who would love a stupid old lion like me? Patience, love each other; I was only love once, by this one." Saying this he hugged the skeleton.
"Doctor, think in what you are saying!"
"I already thought..."
"But this lady is innocent. Can't you see those tears?"
"I know those tears; tears are no argument. You two love each other, I know; I hope you two can be happy together, because I am your friend, Noah.
"She didn't deserve this."
"Oh! My friend" I interrupted him "Pay attention to what you are saying. Once in the past you already committed a crime by reasons you discovered were not true. Even today you feel remorse for what you have done. Reflect, see if I can tolerate such slander."
He dropped his shoulder and reached for his pocket, I paid attention to the small note of paper he pulled. It was an anonymous letter the I come to know a few months later belonged to Lemos.
"This is indignant" I claimed.
"Maybe" he muttered.
And then the silence. The cursed silence, even the animals and insects might have noticed something was going and make quiet, or maybe the world stopped.
"In any case, my resolution is formed, said the doctor." His eyes dared not meet mine, and his tail swishing as a snake behind him. "I want to make you happy, and I have only a way to make this: I have to leave you two. I go with the woman that always loved me. Good bye."
The doctor hugged the skeleton and moved away from us in large steps. I run after him; shouted; all was pointless; the lion had vanished in the woods rapidly. When I returned to the place Manuella was I found her laying over the leafy ground, the emotions were too intense he had fainted.
My muscles might not be big, but I carried her back to the house. In one hour, I was trying to explain everything to the husband of my cousin as the poor bear, widow without being, had awaken and washed my cousin's shoulder, crying in affliction.
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Chapter Sixth...
He has said what he had to say, so I will continue from this point.
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Noah finished his story as the fox returned with the tea. He smiled a bit seeing the steaming drinks coming over the silver plate, washing the room with the sweet vanilla flavor.
The fox observed the terror atmosphere that remained in the room as the lynx start to serve himself.
"But was crazy this doctor of yours" exclaimed one tall bull, breaking the cold silence that remained after the lynx had closed his lips.
Noah smiled for a few seconds to this statement. Adding some sugar to his cup and sitting on a couch. "crazy" he said, repeating the adjective. "Yes, a crazy he would effectively be if this old lion had existed."
Jaws dropped everywhere as he seeped some tea, grinning deviously before continuing:
"This doctor never existed, I just to spend some time while we waited for this magnificent tea.
It is useless to say the effect of this announcement upon the listeners.