KERBEROS
Let us never forget, in our relations with the dog, the fundamental pact which he alone, among the animals, concluded with us at a time which is lost in the darkest depths of prehistory.
In Pactum there is Pax, and this pact is a veritable treaty of peace, a treaty to be honoured in life and death. For his part, he is irrevocably, unshakeably faithful. One asks oneself before what God, in what august and inconceivable circum- stances, was he thus inviolately dedicated? We, alas! Have too often forgotten the pact; but he has always remembered it. His master -even though he may be ugly, malodorous, unjust, imbecile, cruel-will always remain, in his confident and melting eyes, the one God, infallible, intangible, and sacred. He may be the victim of a manifest injustice, but we shall read, in the mournful glance of the faithful dog, only astonishment, and the silent reproach evoked by this inexplicable forfeiture.
This singular but exclusively worshipped God must transgress all the limits of reason and equity, and his unhappy worshipper must be driven by the frenzy of a drunkard or a madman to defend his own skin, before he will dare to break, even for an instant, the immemorial agreement.
Maurice Maeterlinck, Avant la grande Silence (Before the Great Silence, published transl. Bernard Miall)