Théophile Gautier

“ We must frankly own that when, in the middle of a dusky lane checkered by moonlight into fantastic lights and shadows, Blanche, usually so docile,—Blanche, who, to excite her into a gallop, needed nothing heavier than that whip of Queen Mab’s which was made of cricket’s bone with gossamer lash,—planted herself suddenly on her four feet as though some spectre had seized her bridle, and with unconquerable obstinacy refused to move a step forward, we could not prevent a cold chill from running down our spine. ”

“ You will doubtless wonder how our rats and cats, creatures so totally unsympathetic,—one in fact being the natural prey of the other,—managed to live together. In the most amicable way imaginable. The cats never showed their claws to the rats; the rats never exhibited the least fear or distrust of the cats. This conduct on the part of the cats was thoroughly sincere, and never once were the rats called upon to mourn the death of a comrade. Don Pierrot de Navarre showed the tenderest affection for these tiny neighbors. He would lie down by the cage for hours together, watching them at play. ”

“ Zamore persisted in his Terpsichorean aspirations, and in time became an admirable dancer. Every day, as soon as the fife and the tambourine began to sound, he ran to the square, glided between the legs of the spectators, and with the deepest attention watched the trained dogs going through with their exercises. Mindful, however, of that cut of the whip, he never again tried to join in the dance, but, noting carefully each step, each movement, each graceful attitude, rehearsed it at night in the privacy of his own room,—while by day he maintained his usual austerity of demeanor. ”

“ Nothing can be droller than her shaggy head, her face composed of two eyes as glittering as furniture nails, and a little nose which might easily be mistaken for a Piedmont truffle. Long locks of hair, as curly as Astrakan wool, fly about this nose in picturesque confusion, sometimes getting into one eye, sometimes 92into the other,—the whole making up the most whimsical countenance imaginable, as odd and as unreal as the face of a chameleon. ”

“ When a dinner-party is projected Eponine, without seeing the guests, understands perfectly well that there is to be company that evening. She takes a look at her usual place, and, if she notices a knife, fork, and spoon beside the plate, she decamps without a word and seats herself on the piano-stool, which is her chosen refuge on such occasions. I should be glad if people who deny the possession of reason to animals, would explain this fact, apparently so simple and yet containing such a world of inferences. ”

“ During our brief conversation the chameleons (for there were two) continued their ascension of the cord. Nothing more absurd than their appearance could be imagined. It must be admitted that the chameleon is not beautiful, and, although people say that Nature does everything well, it strikes us that by taking a very little more trouble she might easily have made a prettier animal than he. But, like all great artists, Nature has her caprices, and she occasionally amuses herself by modelling grotesque shapes. ”

“ When matters reach this serious stage the dainty Eponine gobbles up her soup in all haste to the very last drop, despatches every crumb of bread or Italian paste, and then turns round and looks at us with a proud glance as one who has done her duty, and whose conscience is henceforth free from reproach. ”

“ It was one of those blinding effects of southern light and color which would be called an exaggeration of nature if any artist should attempt to reproduce in full its crude and dazzling truth.
We sought a refuge from the fiery sun shower in the patio of The Three Moorish Kings. A patio, as all the world knows, is an inside court surrounded by arcades, whose arrangement reminds one of the ancient impluvium. In place of a roof it is shaded by a linen awning striped with gay colors, called in Spanish a velarium, which is kept constantly wet, in order to secure greater coolness. ”

“ Even in moments of tenderness a cat preserves his freedom of will, and cannot be made to comply with demands which seem to him unreasonable. But once he surrenders himself to you as a friend, what absolute confidence he gives! ”

“ They can look to the right with one and to the left with the other, cast one up to the skies and the other down to the floor, producing thereby a variety of squints which have the most extraordinary effect. A swollen pouch under the jaw, not unlike a goitre, gives the poor animal an air of haughty complacency and stupid conceit, of which he is as unconscious as he is innocent. His awkwardly formed paws make a projecting angle above the line of his back, and his movements are alike ungraceful and meaningless. ”

“ In fact, he may be said to have divided his time between the box-stalls and the piano.
From Kobold, the King Charles, we pass to Myrza, a small Cuban lap-dog, who at one time had the honor to belong to Giula Grisi, from whom we received her as a present. She is white as snow, especially when freshly washed, and before she has had time to roll in the dust,—a mania which some dogs share with a certain kind of dusty-winged birds. She is the gentlest of animals, very demonstrative, and guileless as a dove. ”

“ Children accept the incredible with an artless faith; nothing seems impossible to their minds; but it is dangerous to deceive them, for once their opinions are formed the attempt to alter them is hopeless. All that day long we asked every quarter of an hour if Cagnotte had not come yet. At last, to pacify us, Josephine went out and bought on the Pont Neuf a little dog who somewhat resembled the dog of Tarbes. At first we were mistrustful, and would not believe him to be the same; but we were assured that travelling produces strange changes in the looks of dogs. ”

“ Never was a more absurd whim carried out upon the body of a living animal. His hair was shaved so closely that it showed the skin, which exhibited odd bluish tones, and contrasted in the most extraordinary way with the blackness of his mane.
Gavroche, as if to suit with the character of his namesake in the novel, was a cat of 52a crafty and furtive disposition. Smaller than Enjolras, his agility was most comical and surprising. ”

“ A cat’s friendship is a hard thing to conquer. Cats are philosophical animals,—sedate, quiet, fixed in their habits, true believers in decency and order, and not at all given to the bestowing of a thoughtless affection. ”

“ Then the tiny crew, who with great difficulty could climb from one step of the stairs to the other, would swarm upward, clutching the rail, pulling themselves along by the balusters, following each other in a file with the regularity of acrobats, up the steep road, down which occasionally one slipped, and run to find us, uttering little cries and manifesting the liveliest joy. ”

“ The difference in size between master and beasts was quite too apparent to the eye, though it must be said for the ponies that they made no difficulty at all about drawing their light phaeton, to which they were fastened by a tiny harness of pale fawn-colored leather, which looked as though it might have been purchased at a toy-shop. ”

“ From seeing beside her plate those utensils which man only can use, this wise and observant cat argues that, for the day, she must yield her place to a guest, and she makes haste to do so. She never deceives herself about the matter, but sometimes, when the visitor is one with whom she is on familiar terms, she will 62climb his knee and try to coax a few tit-bits out of him by her grace and caresses.
But enough of this; we must not weary our readers. Stories about cats are less popular than those about dogs. Still, we feel obliged to tell the end of Enjolras and Gavroche. ”

“ Later in life they learned to despise these frivolous amusements, and acquired that calm and dreamy philosophy which is the true characteristic of the cat nature.
When people first land in one of the Southern States of America, the negroes they see are to them simply negroes; they cannot tell one from another. ”

“ Eponine therefore has her chair, which is regularly placed beside our own, at breakfast and dinner. In consideration of her shape and size, leave is given her to place her fore-paws on the edge of the table. She has also her own plate and her own tumbler, but not a fork or spoon. She watches the dinner through all its courses from soup to dessert, waiting for her turn to be helped, and altogether comporting herself with a wisdom and decency which we wish that children would oftener imitate. ”

“ At the first tinkle of the bell she makes her appearance, and when we enter the dining-room there she is, already seated on her chair with her paws crossed before her on the edge of the table; and she holds up her forehead to be kissed precisely as a nice little girl does who has been trained to show an affectionate politeness towards her parents and other elderly friends. ”

“ But, apart from this, dogs somehow produce a disquieting effect upon us. Their eyes are so deep, so intense; they place themselves before us with such an interrogative air that it is almost embarrassing. ”

“ Madame Theophile had never before encountered a parrot, and the novelty awoke in her mind an evident astonishment. Motionless as an Egyptian cat embalmed in its network of bandages, she sat regarding the bird with an air of profound meditation, and putting together 16all the ideas of natural history which she had been able to collect during her excursions on the roofs or in the courtyard and garden. ”

“ Myrza, who spends three quarters of the day in sleep, so that life would seem pretty much the same to her if she were in reality stuffed, and who under ordinary circumstances is anything but bright, nevertheless gave one day a proof of intelligence such as we have never known in any other dog. Bonnegrace, who painted those portraits 93of Tchoumakoff and of M. E. H.,—which were so much talked about when exhibited, had brought a portrait for us to look at, painted after the style of Pagnest, which is so full of vivid color and lifelike light and shadow. ”

“ Sometimes, standing near, he looks at you with eyes so full of melting tenderness, so loving and so human, that you are half-frightened; for it seems impossible that in such a regard reason can be lacking.
Don Pierrot de Navarre had a companion of the same race, no less white than himself. All the comparisons which we have heaped together in “The symphony in white, major” cannot express the idea of this immaculate snowiness, which makes even the fur of the ermine look yellow. 34This second cat was named Seraphita, in honor of Balzac’s Swedenborgian romance. ”

“ When the troop ran up the staircase, he invariably came last; and he always had the air of an acrobat who is testing his tight-rope and is not quite sure of his balance. This experiment convinced us of the usefulness of a tail to rats. It holds them in equilibrium as they run along cornices and narrow projections. When they swiftly turn to right or left the tail turns too, serving as a counterpoise; 40and this is the cause of the perpetual wiggle which characterizes it. Nature seldom makes a superfluous thing, and for this reason we should be very cautious in trying to improve her handiwork. ”

“ So to careless eyes three black cats are three black cats, and nothing more. Observant persons, however, do not make such mistakes. The physiognomies of animals differ from each other like those of men; and we never had the least difficulty in distinguishing between these three faces, all black as the 50mask of Harlequin, and lighted by emerald disks with reflections of gold.
Enjolras, by far the prettiest of the three cats, could be identified by his large and lion-like head, his well-whiskered cheeks, strong shoulders, long back, and a superb tail which expanded like a plume. ”

“ Our Childebrand was a magnificent cat of the house-tops, with shaven hair, striped fawn color and black like Saltabadil’s clown in “Le Roi s’Amuse.” His great green eyes of almond shape, and his velvet, striped coat, gave him a resemblance to a tiger, which we found extremely pleasing; for, as we have elsewhere said, cats are nothing more than tigers under a cloud. Childebrand has the honor to figure in some verses of ours, also intended for the discomfiture of Boileau ”

“ After the death of Cagnotte our affections turned to cats as more truly domestic animals and better friends for the fire-side. We will not attempt to give a detailed history of all of them. Whole dynasties of felines, as numerous as those of the Egyptian kings, succeeded one another in our house; accident, death, escape, in turn carrying them away. All were loved, and all were regretted; but life is made up of forgettings, and the remembrance of departed cats is gradually effaced like the remembrance of men. ”

“ People who prefer cats to dogs, pass in the eyes of most persons as necessarily false, voluptuous and cruel; while dog-lovers are supposed to be invariably pure, loyal, open characters, gifted, in short, with all the attributes which are popularly ascribed to the canine race. ”

“ A horse is the natural pedestal for a man, and the perfect existence is that of the Centaur,—that ingenious mythological invention.
However, notwithstanding that we are a simple man of letters, we once had horses. About the year 1843 or 1844, when engaged in sifting the sands of journalism through the sieve of the daily newspapers, enough golden particles appeared, to allow of the hope that, in addition to dogs, cats, and magpies, we might be able to find food for a couple of pets of larger size. ”

“ A homesickness of which one would hardly believe so young a child to be capable took possession of us. We could speak only in patois, and those who expressed themselves in French seemed to us like foreigners and aliens. In the middle of the night we would wake up and disconsolately ask if we might not soon be allowed to go back to our own country. ”