Pierre Loti

“ I laid Pussy White in her grave, and the black and white fur disappeared under [91] a falling mass of earth. I was glad that I had succeeded in keeping her in her last days with us, that she had not died elsewhere like the other; at least her body would decay in our courtyard, where for so long a period she had laid down the law for all cats of the neighborhood, where she had idled away the summer hours on the vine-covered wall, and where on winter nights, at her capricious hour for retiring, her name had resounded so many times in the silence, called by the failing voice of Aunt Clara. ”

“ Against the fresh green verdure, the dazzling brightness of color, the two similar robes of my mother and Aunt Clara formed two intensely black spots. Their silvery heads were bowed down as if somewhat weary of having seen and reseen so many times, almost eighty times, the deceitful renewal. Everything around them, trees, birds, insects, and flowers, seemed chanting the triumph of their perpetual resurrection, regardless of the fragile beings who listened, already agonized by the presage of their inevitable end. ”

“ The far horizons fade; they vanish imperceptibly and nothing is real to me save our mossy stones, our trees, our trellises, and our beloved white roses!
At that time, I had built in a corner of my mansion a Buddhist pagoda, the collected débris of original temples. From the large cases opened daily in the courtyard in the warm sunshine there arose that indefinable and mingled odor of China, from pedestals of columns, bas-reliefs of ceilings, carved altars, and mouldy old idols and vases. ”

“ Once it was Pussy White who, seized by a desire to be in our closer company, leaped upon the table and sat gravely down upon the sewing work of Aunt Clara, turning her back upon her mistress, after unceremoniously sweeping her plumy tail over her face; afterwards remaining there, obstinately indiscreet, and gazing abstractedly at the flame of the lamp. Once in a night of tingling frost, so excitable to a cat’s nerves, we heard, in a near garden, an animated discussion: “Miaou! Miaraouraou!” Then from the mute fur ball, which slumbered so soundly, upsprang two heads, two pair of shining eyes. ”

“ Extremely careful of her little person, always neat, correct, aristocratic, even to the ends of her toes, she was haughtily disdainful of other cats, and conducted herself as if ill bred if any neighbor cat called on her. In this courtyard, which she considered her own domain, she conceded no right of entry. If, above the adjoining [13] garden wall, two ear tips, a cat’s nose, rose timidly, or if something stirred in the vines or moss, she upsprang like a young fury, bristling angrily to the tip of her tail, impossible to restrain, quite beside herself! ”

“ The face of the new cat was very prepossessing. The young, brilliant eyes, the tip of a pink nose, and all else lost in a mass of silken Angora fur; white, warm, clean, exquisite to fondle and caress. Besides, she was marked nearly like her predecessor from Senegal, which fact probably decided the selection of my mother and aunt Clara,—to the end that I might finally regard the two as one, in my somewhat fickle affections. Above the cat’s ears, a capote shaped spot, jet black in color, was set straight, forming a band over the bright eyes ”

“ So dear to me that I am bound to it with all my being, so dear that I love with a love akin to idolatry the old vines and shrubs which are there, the jasmine, the honeysuckles, and a certain dielytra rose, which every returning March unfolds its precocious leaves, gives the same April roses, fades in the June sun, then burns in August heat and seems to perish. ”

“ And then to [74] see ourselves gathered in the courtyard, in a freezing night, Sylvester also of the group and still holding his cat by the tail, and all this united authority set at defiance by a little cat perched high above us, gave an irresistible desire to laugh at ourselves, beginning with Aunt Clara, and in which we all joined. I have never believed there existed in the entire world two such blessed old ladies,—Oh! how old, alas!—capable of such hearty laughter with the young; knowing so well how to be amiable, how to be gay. ”

“ IN the winter season pussy becomes peculiarly the hearthstone guest, constant companion of the fireside, sharing with us, before the flickering flames, vague melancholies and endless reveries of the long twilights.
Since the first frost Pussy Gray had lost all roughness of her mottled coat, and Pussy White had donned a most imposing cravat, a boa of snowy whiteness that framed her face like a Medici ruff. It is well known that in winter the cat attains its fullest perfection of flesh and fur. Their attachment grew as they warmed [59] themselves together by the fireside ”

“ Do you hear?” said Aunt Clara with a slight smile and an anxious look to banter me; recalling the fact that in my childhood I was greatly alarmed by these nocturnal flights of birds. To hear their voices one should have a keen ear and listen in an otherwise silent place. ”

“ The Angora rose up resolutely, her fur bristling in [66] anger, and ran from door to door, seeking an exit as if called outside by some imperative duty of great importance: “No, no, Pussy,” said Aunt Clara, “believe me, there is no necessity for your interference; they will settle their quarrel without your help!” And the Chinese, on the contrary, always calm and averse to perilous adventure, contented herself by glancing at me with a knowing air, evidently regarding her friend’s movements as ridiculous, and asking me, “Am I not right in keeping away from this fracas?” ”

“ THE two cats whose histories I am about to write are associated in memory with comparatively happy years of my life,—years scarce past by the dates they bear, but years already seeming in the remote past, borne away by the frightfully accelerating speed of time, and which, placed beside the gray to-day, bear tints of early dawn or last rosy light of morning. ”

“ The Angora usually proceeded resignedly to her proper sleeping place. Sometimes it happened, at certain phases of the moon, that vagabond fancies seized her, aspirations to play the truant and sleep at the angle of some roof, or at the summit of a solitary pear tree, in the bracing air of December, after having passed the entire day in an armchair by the fireside. ”

“ For entire days she lay lazily in the sunshine on the old wall top among the honeysuckles and roses, or, extended on the tiled walks, turned her white belly to the sun amidst the pots of red or golden cacti. ”

“ They were going from us, our beloved and cherished pets, filling our hearts with great compassion,—and neither the loveliness of spring nor its glory of returning sunshine could rouse them from the torpor of approaching death. ”

“ Pussy Gray could never get sufficiently close to her friend. Returning from some scamper in open air, if she perceived the Angora sleeping before the fire, she softly, very softly approached her, as if about to spring upon a mouse; the other, always nervous, whimsical, irritated at being disturbed, sometimes gave her a light cuff of disapproval. She never retaliated, the Chinese, but merely raising her little paw, as if quite ready to laugh, then saying to me from a corner of her eyes, “You must allow that she is rather cross! ”

“ Our two pets lived to enjoy together the light and warmth of another delicious summer; they found again their days of blissful idleness, in company of the everlasting tortoise, Suleïma, whom the years forgot, between the blooming cacti, on the sun-heated pavements,—or stretched on the old wall amidst the profusion of jasmines and roses. They had many kittens, raised with tender care and afterward advantageously domiciled in the neighborhood; those of the [77] Chinese were in great demand, being of a peculiar color and bearing distinctive race marks. ”

“ Oh! the last agonized cry of an animal, be it that of the ox, drawn down to the abattoir, even that of the miserable rat held between the teeth of a bull-dog; that hopeless appeal, addressed to no one, which seems a protest addressed to nature itself,—an appeal to an unknown, impersonal mercy, pervading all space. ”

“ For us men who sail the seas there are always the strong winds that buffet us, the starry nights on deck, and the goings on shore in foreign ports—always some event to break the monotony of sea life. She, on the contrary, knew nothing of the vast world over which her prison moved, nothing of her kindred, or of the sun, or of verdure, or of [29] shade. And, never going outside, she lived in the solitude of my narrow cabin; it was a glacial place at times when the door swung open to the fierce wind sweeping the decks ”

“ The house had been catless for a long time; succeeding the mourning for a certain African cat that I had brought home from my first voyage and worshiped for two years, but who one fine morning, after a short illness, breathed out her little foreign soul, giving me her last conscious glance, and whom I had afterward buried beneath a tree in the garden.
I lifted for a closer view the roll of fur which lay so white on the crimson mat. I held her carefully with both hands, in a [8] position cats immediately comprehend, and say to themselves, “Here is a man who understands us ”

“ And her imploring eyes called for [84] aid. “Do you not see that I am dying? Can you do nothing to help me live a little longer?”
Presages of death everywhere, this fair June morning, beneath its resplendent sky: Aunt Clara, leaning over her suffering favorite, seemed to me suddenly, so old, feebler than ever before, ready also to go from us.
We decided to carry Pussy White back to the dressing-room, and place her on the rose-colored lounge she herself had chosen the preceding week, and which had seemed to please her. ”

“ So fast our days hasten to the twilight, so fast our fall to the night.
[5] (III) PARDON me that I call each of my cats Pussy. At first I had no idea of giving names to my pets. A cat was “Pussy,” a kitten “Kitty;” and surely no names could be more expressive and tender than these. I shall call the poor little personages of my story by the names they bore in their real lives, Pussy White and Pussy Gray; the latter often known as Pussy Chinese.
[6] (IV) AS the oldest, allow me first to present the Angora, Pussy White. ”

“ Pussy White decidedly had the best of the discussion! We reëntered, crestfallen and chilled, the little room too much cooled by the opened door, to gain our respective chambers by a series of stairways and sombre passages. And Aunt Clara, with a relapse [75] of anger, when reaching her threshold, said to me, “Good-night; but, on the whole, what is your opinion of that cat?”
[76] (XXI) THE life of a cat may extend over a period of twelve to fifteen years, if no accident occurs. ”

“ They were an intimate and inseparable pair, taking counsel together, following each other in the least and most trivial actions of their lives; and making their toilets together, licking each other with mutual interest.
Pussy White maintained her position as the special cat of Aunt Clara, while the Chinese continued my faithful little friend, holding fast to her old habits of following me with her speaking eyes, and replying in her expressive “Trr-trr-trr,” whenever I spoke to her. Scarcely would I be seated [52] before a light paw rested on me, as in the old evenings on the ship ”