IT IS NO MISTAKE. Matilde has made a survey of her own droppings, keeping assiduous record of her mood, the direction of the wind, the sun's position in the sky. Since she has taken flight, she is most often seen scratching away in the leatherbound diary she keeps stashed between her breasts: leaning up against someone's chimney, or resting in the crotch of a pear tree, her stubby legs dangling cheerfully. In the left-hand column, the data: a loaf of bread and half a pot of preserves; buttermilk; leg of lamb with mint sauce; beer; feeling melancholy; a moderate breeze from the southeast; sun barely past the church spire. In the right-hand column, the results, which are inexorably the same: chalky color, pasty to the touch, and redolent with roses.
The scientific spirit has infected Matilde; like her, these droppings are the product of inexplicable change. Atop the village's roofs, which now serve as her laboratory, she hitches up her skirts and relieves herself. She contemplates the evidence and is puzzled by the enormity of the transformation—the seedy strawberries, the marbled side of ham, the bumpy rind on a wheel of Camembert—all reduced, distilled, made uniform: nothing is left of them except this puddle of excrement, white as an eggshell, and fragrant as June.
Jean-Luc, who has been waiting for her visit, climbs over Claude and slides out of the bed. Before Mother can catch him, he has rushed out of the house and hoisted himself onto the trellis. He trembles on the highest rung, but only his forehead rises over the edge of the thatching.
Matilde leans over the edge to see him better. Her bulk casts a shadow over Jean-Luc's upturned face.
My kites got tangled, he says, and jerks his head towards the pasture, where a fragile forest of kites has knotted itself into a skein. They flap fretfully against the sky.
Will you please untangle them? he asks.
Matilde squints at him. She recognizes his froggy voice, remembers that he could throw far and accurately. She suddenly misses her slow and suety processions. Astride a rooftop, above the hubbub of those bound by gravity, she longs for the market days when she paraded down the street.
Very well, she agrees and struggles to her feet, her wings thrashing the air. Jean-Luc loses his balance and tumbles down into Mother's gesticulating arms.