Discourse of the Bear

This is a story by Julio Cortazar, from the book Cronopios
and Famas.


"Discourse of the Bear

I'm the bear in the pipes of the house, I climb through 
the pipes in the hours of silence, the hot-water pipes, 
the radiator pipes, the air-conditioning ducts. I go 
through the pipes from apartment to apartment and I am the
bear who goes through the pipes.

I think that they like me because it's my hair keeps the 
conduits clean, I run unceasingly through the tubes and 
nothing pleases me more than slipping through the pipes, 
running from floor to floor. Once in a while I stick my 
paw out through a faucet and the girl on the third floor
screams that she's scalded herself, or I growl at oven 
height on the second, and Wilhelmina the cook complains
that the chimney is drawing badly. At night I go quietly 
and it's when I'm moving most quickly that I raise myself 
to the roof by the chimney to see if the moon is dancing 
up there, and I let myself slide down like the wind to 
the boilers in the cellar. And in summer I swim at night 
in the cistern, prickled all over with stars, I wash my 
face first with one paw then with the other, finally with
both together, and that gives me a great joy.

Then I slide back down through the pipes of the house, 
growling happily, and the married couples stir in their 
beds and deplore the quality of the installation of the 
pipes. Some even put on the light and write a note to 
themselves to be sure to remember to complain when they 
see the superintendent. I look for the tap that's always 
running in some apartment and I stick my nose out and 
look into the darkness of rooms where those beings who 
cannot walk through the pipes live, and I'm always a 
little sorry for them, heavy beings, big ones, to hear how
they snore and dream aloud and are so very much alone. 
When they wash their faces in the morning, I caress their 
cheeks and lick their noses and I leave, somewhat sure of 
having done some good."