As children, we had strange pets. The most bizarre was an enormous rat, as big as a rabbit, a rather filthy beast with a long, rough tail; but he was treated like one of the family. He accompanied us on trips in a bird cage; in fact, he complicated our lives for a long time. The poor creature finally died, like a saint, showing obvious symptoms of poisoning. (We had five servants and were never able to discover the murderer; but before his odor had disappeared, we'd forgotten all about him.
At one time or another, we had monkeys, parakeets, falcons, frogs and toads, grass snakes, and a large African lizard who the cook killed with a poker in a moment of terror. My favorite was Gregorio, the sheep, who just missed crushing me when I was ten. I think we brought him from Italy when he was a baby. Poor Gregorio was always a misfit, a true "black sheep"; the only thing he loved was Nene, the horse. Luis also had a hatbox filled with tiny gray mice whom he allowed us to look at once a day--well fed, fairly comatose couples who procreated nonstop. Before he left for Madrid, he took them up to the attic and, much to our dismay, gave them their freedom while admonishing them to "grow and multiply."引自第37页
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