In a bubble above his head a picture appears: He is seated at a long table covered with a white tablecloth. Shaking his head, he returns to his chair and takes up his book. He opens the box and turns it upside down. The mouse rises and goes over to the cupboard, which is empty except for a tin box with the word “Cheese” on it. The dish is empty: his fingers tap about inside it. As the mouse reads his book, he reaches without looking toward a dish on the table. Near the armchair is a bookcase filled with books, with several titles visible: “Martin Cheddarwit,” Gouda’s “Faust,” “The Memoirs of Anthony Edam,” “A History of the Medicheese,” the sonnets of Shakespaw. On the wall hang a tilted sampler bearing the words “Home Sweet Home,” an oval photograph of the mouse’s mother with her gray hair in a bun, and a reproduction of Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon” in which all the figures are mice. Yellow light from a table lamp pours onto the book and dimly illuminates the cozy brown room. His feet rest on a hassock, and a pair of spectacles rest on the end of his long, whiskered nose. The mouse, dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, is sitting in his plump armchair, reading a book. In the cat’s eyes, cash registers ring up “No Sale.” Slowly it rolls toward the frame, drops over the edge, and lands on the cat’s head. Apples fall from the tree and land with a thump on the grass. The cat’s head struggles to rise, then pops up with the sound of a yanked cork, lifting the picture. The painting shows a green tree with bright-red apples. A framed painting falls heavily on his head, which plunges out of sight between his shoulders. A small piece of plaster drops on his head. He lies on the floor with his chin on his upraised paw, one eyebrow lifted high in disgust, the claws of his other forepaw tapping the floorboards. Slowly, he unfolds, emitting accordion music. The cat crashes into the wall and folds up like an accordion. Then he pulls free and rushes after the mouse, who turns and darts into a mousehole in the baseboard. For a moment, the cat hangs sideways there, his stiff legs shaking like the clapper of a bell. Behind him the rushing cat fails to split in half and crashes into the lamp: his head and body push the brass pole into the shape of a trombone. Impossible to stop-at the last moment, he splits in half and rejoins himself on the other side. The fleeing mouse snatches a glance over his shoulder, and when he looks forward again he sees the floor lamp coming closer and closer. In the living room, they race over the back of the couch, across the piano keys (delicate mouse tune, crash of cat chords), along the blue rug. The cat crashes through, replacing the mouse-shaped hole with a larger, cat-shaped hole. The mouse crashes through, leaving a mouse-shaped hole. Sparks shoot from their heels, but it’s much too late: the big door looms. The cat and the mouse lean backward and try to stop on the slippery wax, which shows their flawless reflections. The cat is chasing the mouse through the kitchen: between the blue chair legs, over the tabletop with its red-and-white checkered tablecloth that is already sliding in great waves, past the sugar bowl falling to the left and the cream jug falling to the right, over the blue chair back, down the chair legs, across the waxed and butter-yellow floor.
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