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THE WORKS OF
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
VOLUME NINETEEN
TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY
PROFESSOR F. C. DE SUMICHRAST
_Department of French, Harvard University_
CAPTAIN FRACASSE
PART THREE
MY PRIVATE MENAGERIE
THE ATHENAEUM SOCIETY
NEW YORK
_Copyright, 1902, by_
GEORGE D. SPROUL
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON
AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
_Contents_
MY PRIVATE MENAGERIE
I ANTIQUITY _Page_ 283
II THE WHITE DYNASTY " 294
III THE BLACK DYNASTY " 305
IV THIS SIDE FOR DOGS " 318
V MY HORSES " 336
_My Private Menagerie_
MY PRIVATE MENAGERIE
I
ANTIQUITY
I have often been caricatured in Turkish dress seated upon cushions, and
surrounded by cats so familiar that they did not hesitate to climb upon
my shoulders and even upon my head. The caricature is truth slightly
exaggerated, and I must own that all my life I have been as fond of
animals in general and of cats in particular as any brahmin or old maid.
The great Byron always trotted a menagerie round with him, even when
travelling, and he caused to be erected, in the park of Newstead Abbey,
a monument to his faithful Newfoundland dog Boatswain, with an
inscription in verse of his own inditing. I cannot be accused of
imitation in the matter of our common liking for dogs, for that love
manifested itself in me at an age when I was yet ignorant of the
alphabet.
A clever man being at this time engaged in preparing a "History of
Animals of Letters," I jot down these notes in which he may find, so far
as my own animals are concerned, trustworthy information.
The earliest remembrance of this sort that I have goes back to the time
of my arrival in Paris from Tarbes. I was then three years old, so that
it is difficult to credit the statement made by Mirecourt and Vapereau,
who affirm that I "proved but an indifferent pupil" in my native town.
Home-sickness of a violence that no one would credit a child with being
capable of experiencing, fell upon me. I spoke our local dialect only,
and people who talked French "were not mine own people." I would wake in
the middle of the night and inquire whether we were not soon to start on
our return to our own land.
No dainty tempted me, no toy could amuse me. Drums and trumpets equally
failed to relieve my gloom. Among the objects and beings I regretted
figured a dog called Cagnotte, whom it had been found impossible to
bring with us. His absence told on me to such an extent that one
morning, having first chucked out of the window my little tin soldiers,
my German village with its painted houses, and my bright red fiddle, I
was about to take the same road to return as speedily as possible to
Tarbes, the Gascons, and Cagnotte. I was grabbed by the jacket in the
nick of time, and Josephine, my nurse, had the happy thought to tell me
that Cagnotte, tired of waiting for us, was coming that very day by the
stage-coach. Children accept the improbable with artless faith; nothing
strikes them as impossible; only, they must not be deceived, for there
is no impairing the fixity of a settled idea in their brains. I kept
asking, every fifteen minutes, whether Cagnotte had not yet come. To
quiet me, Josephine bought on the Pont-Neuf a little dog not unlike the
Tarbes specimen. I did not feel sure of its identity, but I was told
that travelling changed dogs very much. I was satisfied with the
explanation and accepted the Pont-Neuf dog as being the authentic
Cagnotte. He was very gentle, very amiable, and very well behaved. He
would lick my cheeks, and indeed his tongue was not above licking also
the slices of bread and butter cut for my afternoon tea. We lived on the
best of terms with each other.
Presently, however, the supposed Cagnotte became sad, troubled, and his
movements lost their freedom. He found it difficult to curl himself up,
lost his jolly agility, breathed hard and could not eat. One day, while
caressing him, I felt a seam that ran down his stomach, which was much
swelled and very tight. I called my nurse. She came, took a pair of
scissors cut the thread, and Cagnotte, freed of a sort of overcoat made
of curled lambskin, in which he had been tricked out by the Pont-Neuf
dealers to make him look like a poodle, appeared in all the wretched
guise and ugliness of a street cur, a worthless mongrel. He had grown
fat, and his scant garment was choking him. Once he was rid of his
carapace, he wagged his ears, stretched his limbs, and started romping
joyously round the room, caring nothing about being ugly so long as he
was comfortable. His appetite returned, and he made up by his moral
qualities for his lack of beauty. In Cagnotte's company I gradually
lost, for he was a genuine child of Paris, my remembrance of Tarbes and
of the high mountains visible from our windows; I learned French and I
also became a thorough-paced Parisian.
The reader is not to suppose that this is a story I have invented for
the sole purpose of entertaining him. It is literally true, and proves
that the dog-dealers of that day were quite as clever as horse-coupers
in the art of making up their animals and taking in purchasers.
After Cagnotte's death, my liking was rather for cats, on account of
their being more sedentary and fonder of the fireplace. I shall not
attempt to relate their history in detail. Dynasties of felines, as
numerous as the dynasties of Egyptian kings, succeeded each other in our
home. Accident, flight, or death accounted for them in turns. They were
all beloved and regretted; but life is made up of forgetfulness, and the
remembrance of cats passes away like the remembrance of men.
It is a sad thing that the life of these humble friends, of these
inferior brethren, should not be proportionate to that of their masters.
I shall do no more than mention an old gray cat that used to side with
me against my parents, and bit my mother's ankles when she scolded me or
seemed about to punish me, and come at once to Childebrand, a cat of the
Romanticist period. The name suffices to let my reader understand the
secret desire I felt to run counter to Boileau, whom I disliked then,
but with whom I have since made my peace. It will be remembered that
Nicolas says:--
"Oh! ridiculous notion of poet ignorant
Who, of so many heroes, chooses Childebrand!"
It seemed to me that the man was not so ignorant after all, since he had
selected a hero no one knew anything of; and, besides, Childebrand
struck me as a most long-haired, Merovingian, mediæval, and Gothic name,
immeasurably preferable to any Greek name, such as Agamemnon, Achilles,
Idomeneus, Ulysses, or others of that sort. These were the ways of our
day, so far as the young fellows were concerned, at least: for never, to
quote the expression that occurs in the account of Kaulbach's frescoes
on the outer walls of the Pinacothek at Munich, never did the hydra of
"wiggery" (_perruquinisme_) erect its heads more fiercely, and no doubt
the Classicists called their cats Hector, Patrocles, or Ajax.
Childebrand was a splendid gutter-cat, short-haired, striped black and
tan, like the trunks worn by Saltabadil in "le Roi s'amuse." His great
green eyes with their almond-shaped pupils, and his regular velvet
stripes, gave him a distant tigerish look that I liked. "Cats are the
tigers of poor devils," I once wrote. Childebrand enjoyed the honour of
entering into some verses of mine, again because I wanted to tease
Boileau:--
"Then shall I describe to you that picture by Rembrandt, that pleased me
so much; and my cat Childebrand, as is his habit, on my knees resting,
and anxiously up at me gazing, shall follow the motions of my finger as
in the air it sketches the story to make it clear."
Childebrand came in well by way of a rime to Rembrandt, for the verses
were meant for a Romanticist profession of faith addressed to a friend,
since deceased, and in those days as enthusiastic an admirer of Victor
Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, and Alfred de Musset as I was.
I am compelled to say of my cats what Don Ruy Gomez de Silva said to Don
Carlos, when the latter became impatient at the enumeration of the
former's ancestors, beginning with Don Silvius "who thrice was Consul of
Rome," that is, "I pass over a number, and of the greatest," and I shall
come to Madame-Théophile, a red cat with white breast, pink nose, and
blue eyes, so called because she lived with me on a footing of conjugal
intimacy. She slept on the foot of my bed, snoozed on the arm of my
chair while I was writing, came down to the garden and accompanied me
on my walks, sat at meals with me and not infrequently appropriated the
morsels on their way from my plate to my mouth.
One day a friend of mine, who was going out of town for a few days,
intrusted his parrot to me with the request that I would take care of it
during his absence. The bird, feeling strange in my house, had climbed,
helping himself with his beak, to the very top of his perch, and looking
pretty well bewildered, rolled round his eyes, that resembled the gilt
nails on arm-chairs, and wrinkled the whitish membrane that served him
for eyelids. Madame-Théophile had never seen a parrot, and she was
evidently much puzzled by the strange bird. Motionless as an Egyptian
mummy cat in its net-work of bands, she gazed upon it with an air of
profound meditation, and put together whatever she had been able to pick
up of natural history on the roofs, the yard, and the garden. Her
thoughts were reflected in her shifting glance, and I was able to read
in it the result of her examination: "It is unmistakably a chicken."
Having reached this conclusion, she sprang from the table on which she
had posted herself to make her investigations, and crouched down in one
corner of the room, flat on her stomach, her elbows out, her head low,
her muscular backbone on the stretch, like the black panther in Gérome's
painting, watching gazelles on their way to the drinking-place.
The parrot followed her movements with feverish anxiety, fluffing out
its feathers, rattling its chain, lifting its foot, and moving its
claws, and sharpening its beak upon the edge of its seed-box. Its
instinct warned it that an enemy was preparing to attack it.
The eyes of the cat, fixed upon the bird with an intensity that had
something of fascination in it, plainly said in a language well
understood of the parrot and absolutely intelligible: "Green though it
is, that chicken must be good to eat."
I watched the scene with much interest, prepared to interfere at the
proper time. Madame-Théophile had gradually crawled nearer; her pink
nose was working, her eyes were half closed, her claws were protruded
and then drawn in. She thrilled with anticipation like a gourmet sitting
down to enjoy a truffled pullet; she gloated over the thought of the
choice and succulent meal she was about to enjoy, and her sensuality was
tickled by the idea of the exotic dish that was to be hers.
Suddenly she arched her back like a bow that is being drawn, and a swift
leap landed her right on the perch. The parrot, seeing the danger upon
him, unexpectedly called out in a deep, sonorous bass voice: "Have you
had your breakfast, Jack?"
The words filled the cat with indescribable terror; and she leapt back.
The blast of a trumpet, the smash of a pile of crockery, or a
pistol-shot fired by her ear would not have dismayed the feline to such
an extent. All her ornithological notions were upset.
"And what did you have?--A royal roast," went on the bird.
The cat's expression clearly meant: "This is not a bird; it's a man; it
speaks."
"When of claret I've drunk my fill,
The pot-house whirls and is whirling still,"
sang out the bird with a deafening voice, for it had at once perceived
that the terror inspired by its speech was its surest means of defence.
The cat looked at me questioningly, and my reply proving unsatisfactory,
she sneaked under the bed, and refused to come out for the rest of the
day.
Those of my readers who have not been in the habit of having animals to
keep them company, and who see in them, as did Descartes, merely
machines, will no doubt think I am attributing intentions to the bird
and the quadruped, but as a matter of fact, I have merely translated
their thoughts into human speech. The next day, Madame-Théophile, having
somewhat overcome her fright, made another attempt, and was routed in
the same fashion. That was enough for her, and henceforth she remained
convinced that the bird was a man.
This dainty and lovely creature adored perfumes. She would go into
ecstasies on breathing in the patchouli and vetiver used for Cashmere
shawls. She had also a taste for music. Nestling upon a pile of scores,
she would listen most attentively and with every mark of satisfaction to
the singers who came to perform at the critic's piano. But high notes
made her nervous, and she never failed to close the singer's mouth with
her paw if the lady sang the high A. We used to try the experiment for
the fun of the thing, and it never failed once. It was quite impossible
to fool my dilettante cat on that note.
II
THE WHITE DYNASTY
Let me come to more recent times. A cat brought from Havana by Mlle.
Aïta de la Penuela, a young Spanish artist whose studies of white angora
cats used to adorn and still adorn the show-windows of the
print-sellers, gave birth to the daintiest little kitten, exactly like
the puffs used for the application of face powder, which kitten was
presented to me. Its immaculate whiteness caused it to be named Pierrot,
and this appellation, when it grew up, developed into Don Pierrot of
Navarre, which was infinitely more majestic and smacked of a grandee of
Spain.
Don Pierrot, like all animals that are fondled and petted, became
delightfully amiable, and shared the life of the household with that
fulness of satisfaction cats derive from close association with the
fireside. Seated in his customary place, close to the fire, he really
looked as if he understood the conversation and was interested in it.
He followed the speakers with his eyes, and every now and then would
utter a little cry, exactly as if to object and give his own opinion
upon literature, which formed the staple of our talks. He was very fond
of books, and when he found one open on the table, he would lie down by
it, gaze attentively at the page and turn the leaves with his claws;
then he ended by going to sleep, just as if he had really been reading a
fashionable novel. As soon as I picked up my pen, he would leap upon the
desk, and watch attentively the steel nib scribbling away on the paper,
moving his head every time I began a new line. Sometimes he endeavoured
to collaborate with me, and would snatch the pen out of my hand, no
doubt with the intention of writing in his turn, for he was as æsthetic
a cat as Hoffmann's Murr. Indeed, I strongly suspect that he was in the
habit of inditing his memoirs, at night, in some gutter or another, by
the light of his own phosphorescent eyes. Unfortunately, these
lucubrations are lost.
Don Pierrot of Navarre always sat up at night until I came home, waiting
for me on the inside of the door, and as soon as I stepped into the
antechamber he would come rubbing himself against my legs, arching his
back and purring in gladsome, friendly fashion. Then he would start to
walk in front of me, preceding me like a page, and I am sure that if I
had asked him to do so, he would have carried my candle. In this way he
would escort me to my bedroom, wait until I had undressed, jump up on
the bed, put his paws round my neck, rub his nose against mine, lick me
with his tiny red tongue, rough as a file, and utter little inarticulate
cries by way of expressing unmistakably the pleasure he felt at seeing
me again. When he had sufficiently caressed me and it was time to sleep
he used to perch upon the backboard of his bed and slept there like a
bird roosting on a branch. As soon as I woke in the morning, he would
come and stretch out beside me until I rose.
Midnight was the latest time allowed for my return home. On this point
Pierrot was as inflexible as a janitor. Now, at that time I had founded,
along with a few friends, a little evening reunion called "The Four
Candles Society," the place of meeting happening to be lighted by four
candles stuck in silver candlesticks placed at each corner of the table.
Occasionally the conversation became so absorbing that I would forget
the time, even at the risk of seeing, like Cinderella, my carriage turn
into a pumpkin and my coachman into a big rat. Twice or thrice Pierrot
sat up for me until two o'clock in the morning, but presently he took
offence at my conduct and went to bed without waiting for me. I was
touched by this mute protest against my innocently disorderly way of
life, and thereafter I regularly returned home at midnight. Pierrot,
however, proved hard to win back; he wanted to make sure that my
repentance was no mere passing matter, but once he was convinced that I
had really reformed, he deigned to restore me to his good graces and
again took up his nightly post in the antechamber.
It is no easy matter to win a cat's love, for cats are philosophical,
sedate, quiet animals, fond of their own way, liking cleanliness and
order, and not apt to bestow their affection hastily. They are quite
willing to be friends, if you prove worthy of their friendship, but they
decline to be slaves. They are affectionate, but they exercise free
will, and will not do for you what they consider to be unreasonable.
Once, however, they have bestowed their friendship, their trust is
absolute, and their affection most faithful. They become one's
companions in hours of solitude, sadness, and labour. A cat will stay on
your knees a whole evening, purring away, happy in your company and
careless of that of its own species. In vain do mewings sound on the
roofs, inviting it to one of the cat parties where red herring brine
takes the place of tea; it is not to be tempted and spends the evening
with you. If you put it down, it is back in a jiffy with a kind of
cooing that sounds like a gentle reproach. Sometimes, sitting up in
front of you, it looks at you so softly, so tenderly, so caressingly,
and in so human a way that it is almost terrifying, for it is impossible
to believe that there is no mind back of those eyes.
Don Pierrot of Navarre had a mate of the same breed just as white as
himself. All the expressions I have accumulated in the "Symphony in
White Major" for the purpose of rendering the idea of snowy whiteness
would be insufficient to give an idea of the immaculate coat of my cat,
by the side of which the ermine's fur would have looked yellow. I called
her Séraphita, after Balzac's Swedenborgian novel. Never did the heroine
of that wondrous legend, when ascending with Minna the snow-covered
summits of the Falberg, gleam more purely white. Séraphita was of a
dreamy and contemplative disposition. She would remain for hours on a
cushion, wide-awake and following with her eyes, with intensest
attention, sights invisible to ordinary mortals. She liked to be petted,
but returned caresses in a very reserved way, and only in the case of
persons whom she honoured with her approbation, a most difficult thing
to obtain. She was fond of luxury, and we were always sure to find her
curled up in the newest arm-chair or on the piece of stuff that best set
off her swan's-down coat. She spent endless time at her toilet; every
morning she carefully smoothed out her fur. She used her paws to wash
herself, and every single hair of her fur, having been brushed out with
her rosy tongue, shone like brand-new silver. If any one touched her,
she at once removed the traces of the touch, for she could not bear to
be rumpled. Her elegance and stylishness suggested that she was an
aristocrat, and among her own kind she must have been a duchess at the
very least. She delighted in perfumes, stuck her little nose into
bouquets, and bit with little spasms of pleasure at handkerchiefs on
which scent had been put; she walked upon the dressing-table among the
scent-bottles, smelling the stoppers, and if she had been allowed to do
so would no doubt have used powder. Such was Séraphita, and never did a
cat bear a poetic name more worthily.
At about this time a couple of those sham sailors who sell striped rugs,
handkerchiefs of pine-apple fibre and other exotic products, happened to
pass through the Rue de Longchamps, where I was living. They had in a
little cage a pair of white Norway rats with red eyes, as pretty as
pretty could be. Just then I had a fancy for white creatures, and my
hen-run was inhabited by white fowls only. I bought the two rats, and a
big cage was built for them, with inner stairs leading to the different
stories, eating-places, bedrooms, and trapezes for gymnastics. They were
unquestionably happier and better off there than La Fontaine's rat in
his Dutch cheese.
The gentle creatures, which, I really do not know why, inspire puerile
repulsion, became astonishingly tame as soon as they found out that no
harm was intended them. They allowed themselves to be petted just like
cats, and would catch my finger in their ideally delicate little rosy
hands, and lick it in the friendliest way. They used to be let out at
the end of our meals, and would clamber up the arms, the shoulders, and
the heads of the guests, emerging from the sleeves of coats and
dressing-gowns with marvellous skill and agility. All these
performances, carried out very prettily, were intended to secure
permission to forage among the remains of the dessert. They were then
placed on the table, and in a twinkling the male and female had put away
the nuts, filberts, raisins, and lumps of sugar. It was most amusing to
watch their quick, eager ways, and their astonishment when they reached
the edge of the table. Then, however, we would hold out to them a strip
of wood reaching to their cage, and they stored away their gains in
their pantry.
The pair multiplied rapidly, and numerous families, as white as their
progenitors, ran up and down the little ladders in the cage, so that ere
long I found myself the owner of some thirty rats so very tame that when
the weather was cold they were in the habit of nestling in my pockets in
order to keep warm, and remained there perfectly still. Sometimes I used
to have the doors of my City of Rats thrown open, and, after having
ascended to the topmost story of my house, I whistled in a way very
familiar to my pets. Then the rats, which find it difficult to ascend
steps, climbed up the balusters, got on to the rail, and proceeding in
Indian file while keeping their equilibrium like acrobats, ascended that
narrow road not infrequently descended astride by schoolboys, and came
to me uttering little squeaks and manifesting the liveliest joy. And
now I must confess to a piece of stupidity on my part. I had so often
been told that a rat's tail looked like a red worm and spoiled the
creature's pretty looks, that I selected one of the younger generation
and cut off the much criticised caudal appendage with a red-hot shovel.
The little rat bore the operation very well, grew apace, and became an
imposing fellow with mustaches. But though he was the lighter for the
loss of his tail, he was much less agile than his comrades; he was very
careful about trying gymnastics and fell very often. He always brought
up the rear when the company ascended the balusters, and looked like a
tight-rope dancer trying to do without a balancing-pole. Then I
understood the usefulness of a tail in the case of rats: it aids them to
maintain their equilibrium when scampering along cornices and narrow
ledges. They swing it to the right or the left by way of counterpoise
when they lean over to the one side or the other; hence the constant
switching which appears so causeless. When one observes Nature
carefully, one readily comes to the conclusion that she does nothing
that is unnecessary, and that one ought to be very careful in attempting
to improve upon her.
No doubt my reader wonders how cats and rats, two races so hostile to
each other, and the one of which is the prey of the other, can manage to
live together. The fact is that mine got on wonderfully harmoniously
together. The cats were good as gold to the rats, which had lost all
fear of them. The felines were never perfidious, and the rats never had
to mourn the loss of a single comrade. Don Pierrot of Navarre was
uncommonly fond of them; he would lie down by their cage and spend hours
watching them at play. When by chance the door of the room was closed,
he would scratch and miaoul gently until it was opened and he could join
his little white friends, which often came and slept by him. Séraphita,
who was more stand-off and who disliked the strong odour of musk given
out by the rats, did not take part in their sports, but she never harmed
them, and allowed them to pass quietly in front of her without ever
unsheathing her claws.
The end of these rats was strange. One heavy, stormy summer's day, when
the mercury was nearly up to a hundred degrees, their cage had been put
in the garden, in an arbour covered with creepers, as they seemed to
feel the heat greatly. The storm burst with lightnings, rain, thunder,
and squalls of wind. The tall poplars on the river bank bent like reeds.
Armed with an umbrella, which the wind turned inside out, I was just
starting to fetch in my rats, when a dazzling flash of lightning, which
seemed to tear open the very depths of heaven, stopped me on the
uppermost of the steps leading from the terrace to the garden.
A terrific thunder-clap, louder than the report of a hundred guns,
followed almost instantaneously upon the flash, and the shock was so
violent that I was nearly thrown to the ground.
The storm passed away shortly after that frightful explosion, but, on
reaching the arbour, I found the thirty-two rats, toes up, killed by the
one and same stroke of lightning. No doubt the iron wires of their cage
had attracted the electric fluid and acted as a conductor.
Thus died together, as they had lived, the thirty-two Norway rats,--an
enviable death, not often vouchsafed by fate!
III
THE BLACK DYNASTY
Don Pierrot of Navarre, being a native of Havana, required a hot-house
temperature, and he enjoyed it in the house; round the dwelling,
however, stretched great gardens, separated by open fences through which
a cat could easily make its way, and rose great trees in which
twittered, warbled, and sang whole flocks of birds; so that sometimes
Pierrot, profiting by a door left open, would go out at night and start
on a hunt, rambling through the grass and flowers wet with dew. In such
cases he would have to await daylight to be let in, for although he
would come and miaoul under our windows, his appeals did not always
awaken the sleepers in the house. He had a delicate chest, and one
night, when it was colder than usual, he caught a cold which soon turned
into consumption. After coughing for a whole year poor Pierrot became
thin and emaciated, and his coat, formerly so silky, had the mat
whiteness of a shroud. His great transparent eyes had become the most
important feature in his poor shrunken face; his red nose had turned
pale, and he walked with slow steps, in a melancholy fashion, by the
sunny side of the wall, watching the yellow autumn leaves whirling and
twisting. One could have sworn he was reciting to himself Millevoye's
elegy. A sick animal is a very touching object, for it bears suffering
with such gentle and sad resignation. We did all we could to save him; I
called in a very skilful physician who tested his chest and felt his
pulse. Ass's milk was prescribed, and the poor little creature drank it
willingly enough out of his tiny china saucer. He would remain for hours
at a time stretched out on my knee like the shadow of a sphinx; I could
feel his vertebræ like the grains of a chaplet, and he would try to
acknowledge my caresses with a feeble purr that sounded like a
death-rattle. On the day he died, he lay on his side gasping, but got
himself up by a supreme effort, came to me, and opening wide his eyes,
fixed upon me a glance that called for help with intense supplication.
He seemed to say to me, "You are a man; do save me." Then he staggered,
his eyes already glazed, and fell to the ground, uttering so woeful, so
despairing, so anguished a cry that it filled me with mute horror. He
was buried at the foot of the garden, under a white rosebush that still
marks the place of his tomb.
Séraphita died two or three years later, of croup, which the physician
was unable to master. She rests not far from Pierrot.
With her ended the White Dynasty, but not the family. From that pair of
snow-white cats had sprung three coal-black kittens, a mystery the
solution of which I leave to others. Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables" were
then all the rage, and the names of the characters in the novel were in
every one's mouth. The two little male cats were called Enjolras and
Gavroche, and the female Eponine. They were the sweetest of kittens, and
we trained them to fetch and carry pieces of paper thrown at a distance
just as a dog would do. We got so far as to throw the paper ball on the
top of wardrobes, or to hide it behind boxes or in tall vases, and they
would retrieve it very prettily with their paws. On attaining years of
discretion, they forsook these frivolous sports and resumed the dreamy,
philosophical calm which is the real characteristic of cats.
All negroes are alike to people who land in a slave-owning country in
America, and it is impossible for them to tell one from another. So, to
those who do not care for them, three black cats are three black cats
and nothing more. But an observing eye makes no such mistake. The
physiognomies of animals are as different as those of men, and I could
always tell to which particular cat belonged the black face, as black as
Harlequin's mask, and lighted by emerald disks with golden gleams.
Enjolras, who was by far the handsomest of the three, was marked by his
big lion-like head and well whiskered cheeks, by his muscular shoulders,
his long back, and his splendid tail, fluffy as a feather duster. There
was something theatrical and grandiloquent about him, and he seemed to
pose like an actor who attracts admiration. His motions were slow,
undulating, and full of majesty; he seemed to be always stepping on a
table covered with china ornaments and Venetian glass, so circumspectly
did he select the place where he put down his foot. He was not much of a
Stoic, and exhibited a liking for food which his namesake would have had
reason to blame. No doubt Enjolras, the pure and sober youth, would have
said to him, as the angel did to Swedenborg, "You eat too much." We
rather encouraged this amusing voracity, analogous to that of monkeys,
and Enjolras grew to a size and weight very uncommon among domestic
cats. Then I bethought myself of having him shaved in the style of
poodles, in order to bring out completely his leonine appearance. He
retained his mane and a long tuft of hair at the end of the tail, and I
would not swear that his thighs were not adorned with mutton-chop
whiskers like those Munito used to wear. Thus trimmed, he resembled, I
must confess, a Japanese monster much more than a lion of the Atlas
Mountains or the Cape. Never was a more extravagant fancy carried out on
the body of a living animal; his closely clipped coat allowed the skin
to show through, and its bluish tones, most curious to note, contrasted
strangely with his black mane.
Gavroche was a cat with a sharp, satirical look, as if he intended to
recall his namesake in the novel. Smaller than Enjolras, he was endowed
with abrupt and comical agility, and in the stead of the puns and slang
of the Paris street-Arab, he indulged in the funniest capers, leaps, and
attitudes. I am bound to add that, yielding to his street instincts,
Gavroche was in the habit of seizing every opportunity of leaving the
drawing-room and going off to join, in the court, and even in the public
streets, numbers of wandering cats, "of unknown blood and lineage low,"
with whom he took part in performances of doubtful taste, completely
forgetful of his dignified rank as a Havana cat, the son of the
illustrious Don Pierrot of Navarre, a grandee of Spain of the first
class, and of the Marchioness Séraphita, noted for her haughty and
aristocratic manners.
Sometimes he would bring in to his meals, in order to treat them,
consumptive friends of his, so starved that every rib in their body
showed, having nothing but skin and bones, whom he had picked up in the
course of his excursions and wanderings, for he was a kind-hearted
fellow. The poor devils, their ears laid back, their tails between their
legs, their glance restless, dreading to be driven from their free meal
by a housemaid armed with a broom, swallowed the pieces two, three, and
four at a time, and like the famous dog, _Siete Aguas_ (Seven Waters),
of Spanish posadas, would lick the platter as clean as if it had been
washed and scoured by a Dutch housekeeper who had served as model to
Mieris or Gerard Dow. Whenever I saw Gavroche's companions, I
remembered the lettering under one of Gavarni's drawings: "A nice lot,
the friends you are capable of proceeding with!" But after all it was
merely a proof of Gavroche's kindness of heart, for he was quite able to
polish off the plateful himself.
The cat who bore the name of the interesting Eponine was more lissome
and slender in shape than her brothers. Her mien was quite peculiar to
herself, owing to her somewhat long face, her eyes slanting slightly in
the Chinese fashion, and of a green like that of the eyes of Pallas
Athene, on whom Homer invariably bestows the title of ~glaukôpis~, her
velvety black nose, of as fine a grain as a Perigord truffle, and her
incessantly moving whiskers. Her coat, of a superb black, was always in
motion and shimmered with infinite changes. There never was a more
sensitive, nervous, and electric animal. If she were stroked two or
three times, in the dark, blue sparks came crackling from her fur. She
attached herself to me in particular, just as in the novel Eponine
becomes attached to Marius. As I was less taken up with Cosette than
that handsome youth, I accepted the love of my affectionate and devoted
cat, who is still the assiduous companion of my labours and the delight
of my hermitage on the confines of the suburbs. She trots up when she
hears the bell ring, welcomes my visitors, leads them into the
drawing-room, shows them to a seat, talks to them--yes, I mean it, talks
to them--with croonings and cooings and whimpers quite unlike the
language cats make use of among themselves, and which simulate the
articulate speech of man. You ask me what it is she says? She says, in
the plainest possible fashion: "Do not be impatient; look at the
pictures or chat with me, if you enjoy that. My master will be down in a
minute." And when I come in she discreetly retires to an arm-chair or on
top of the piano, and listens to the conversation without breaking in
upon it, like a well-bred animal that is used to society.
Sweet Eponine has given us so many proofs of intelligence, kindly
disposition, and sociability that she has been promoted, by common
consent, to the dignity of a _person_, for it is plain that a higher
order of reason than instinct guides her actions. This dignity entails
the right of eating at table like a person, and not from a saucer in a
corner, like an animal. So Eponine's chair is placed beside mine at
lunch and dinner, and on account of her size she is allowed to rest her
fore paws upon the edge of the table. She has her own place set, without
fork or spoon, but with her glass. She eats of every course that is
brought on, from the soup to the dessert, always waiting for her turn to
be served and behaving with a discretion and decency that it is to be
wished were more frequently met with in children. She turns up at the
first sound of the bell, and when we enter the dining-room we are sure
to find her already in her place, standing on her chair, her paws on the
edge of the table, and holding up her little head to be kissed, like a
well-bred young lady who is polite and affectionate towards her parents
and her elders.
The sun has its spots, the diamond its flaws, and perfection itself its
little weak points. Eponine, it must be owned, has an overmastering
fondness for fish, a taste she shares in common with all her race. The
Latin proverb, _Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas_, to the
contrary notwithstanding, she is always ready to pop her paw into the
water to fish out a blay, a small carp, or a trout. Fish makes her
well-nigh delirious, and like children eagerly looking for the dessert,
she is apt to object to the soup, when the preliminary investigations
she has carried on in the kitchen have enabled her to ascertain that the
fish has duly come in and that there is no reason why Vatel should run
himself through with his sword. In such cases we do not help her to
fish, and I remark to her, in a cold tone, "A lady who has no appetite
for soup cannot have any appetite for fish," and the dish is
remorselessly sent past her. Then seeing that it is no joking matter,
dainty Eponine bolts her soup in hot haste, licks up the very last drop
of the bouillon, puts away the minutest crumb of bread or Italian paste,
and turns round to me with the proud look of one conscious of being
without fear or reproach and of having fulfilled her duty. Her share of
the fish is handed to her, and she despatches it with every mark of
extreme satisfaction. Then, having tasted a little of every dish, she
winds up her meal by drinking one-third of a glassful of water.
If we happen to have guests at dinner, Eponine does not need to have
seen them enter to be aware that there is to be company. She simply
looks at her place, and if she sees a knife, fork, and spoon laid there,
she makes off at once and perches on the piano stool, her usual place of
refuge in such cases. Those who deny reasoning powers to animals may
explain this fact, so simple apparently, yet so suggestive, as best they
may. That judicious and observant cat of mine deduces from the presence
by her plate of utensils which man alone understands how to use that she
must give up her position for that day to a guest, and she forthwith
does so. Never once has she made a mistake. Only, when she is well
acquainted with the particular guest, she will climb upon his knee and
seek, by her graceful ways and her caresses, to induce him to bestow
some tit-bit upon her.
But enough of this; I must not weary my readers, and stories of cats are
less attractive than stories about dogs. Yet I deem that I ought to tell
of the deaths of Enjolras and Gavroche. In the Latin Rudiments there is
a rule stated thus: _Sua eum perdidit ambitio._ Of Enjolras it may be
said: _Sua eum perdidit pinguitudo_, that is, his admirable condition
was the cause of his death. He was killed by idiotic fanciers of jugged
hare. His murderers, however, perished before the end of the year in the
most painful manner; for the death of a black cat, an eminently
cabalistic animal, never goes unavenged.
Gavroche, seized with a frantic love of freedom, or rather with a
sudden attack of vertigo, sprang out of the window one day, crossed the
street, climbed the fence of the Parc Saint-James, which faces our
house, and vanished. In spite of our utmost endeavours, we never managed
to hear of him again, and a shadow of mystery hangs over his fate; so
that the only survivor of the Black Dynasty is Eponine, who is still
faithful to her master and has become a thorough cat of letters.
Her companion now is a magnificent angora cat, whose gray and silver fur
recalls Chinese spotted porcelain. He is called Zizi, alias "Too
Handsome to Work." The handsome fellow lives in a sort of contemplative
_kief_, like a theriaki under the influence of the drug, and makes one
think of "The Ecstasies of Mr. Hochenez." Zizi is passionately fond of
music, and, not satisfied with listening to it, he indulges in it
himself. Sometimes, in the dead of night, when everybody is asleep, a
strange, fantastic melody, which the Kreislers and the musicians of the
future might well envy, breaks in upon the silence. It is Zizi walking
upon the key-board of the piano which has been left open, and who is at
once astonished and delighted at hearing the keys sing under his tread.
It would be unjust not to link with this branch Cleopatra, Eponine's
daughter, whose shy disposition keeps her from mingling in society. She
is of a tawny black, like Mummia, Atta-Croll's hairy companion, and her
two green eyes look like huge aqua-marines. She generally stands on
three legs, her fourth lifted up like a classical lion that has lost its
marble ball.
These be the chronicles of the Black Dynasty. Enjolras, Gavroche, and
Eponine recall to me the creations of a beloved master; only, when I
re-read "Les Misérables," the chief characters in the novel seem to me
to be taken by black cats, a fact that in no wise diminishes the
interest I take in it.
IV
THIS SIDE FOR DOGS
I have often been charged with not being fond of dogs; a charge which
does not at first sight appear to be very serious, but which I
nevertheless desire to clear myself of, for it implies a certain amount
of dislike. People who prefer cats are thought by many to be cruel,
sensuous, and treacherous, while dog-lovers are credited with being
frank, loyal, and open-hearted,--in a word, possessed of all the
qualities attributed to the canine race. I in no wise deny the merits of
Médor, Turk, Miraut, and other engaging animals, and I am prepared to
acknowledge the truth of the axiom formulated by Charlet,--"The best
thing about man is his dog." I have been the owner of several, and I
still own some. Should any of those who seek to discredit me come to my
house, they would be met by a Havana lap-dog barking shrilly and
furiously at them, and by a greyhound that very likely would bite their
legs for them. But my affection for dogs has an understratum of fear.
These excellent creatures, so good, so faithful, so devoted, so loving,
may go mad at any moment, and then they become more dangerous than a
lance-head snake, an asp, a rattlesnake or a cobra capella. This reacts
on my love for dogs. Then dogs strike me as a bit uncanny; they have
such a searching, intense glance; they sit down in front of you with so
questioning a look that it is fairly embarrassing. Goethe disliked that
glance of theirs that seems to attempt to incorporate man's soul within
itself, and he drove away dogs, saying, "You shall not swallow my monad,
much as you may try."
The Pharamond of my canine dynasty was called Luther. He was a big white
spaniel, with liver spots, and handsome brown ears. He was a setter, had
lost his owner, and after looking for him a long time in vain, had taken
to living in my father's house at Passy. Not having partridges to go
after, he had taken to rat-hunting, and was as clever at it as a Scotch
terrier. At that time I was living in that blind alley of the Doyenné,
now destroyed, where Gérard de Nerval, Arsène Houssaye and Camille
Rogier were the heads of a little picturesque and artistic Bohemia, the
eccentric mode of life in which has been so well told by others that it
is unnecessary to relate it over again. There we were, right in the
centre of the Carrousel, as independent and solitary as on a desert
island in Oceanica, under the shadow of the Louvre, among the blocks of
stone and the nettles, close to an old ruinous church, with fallen-in
roof which looked most romantic in the moonlight. Luther, with whom I
was on a most friendly footing, seeing that I had finally abandoned the
paternal nest, made a point of coming to see me every morning. He
started from Passy, no matter what the weather was, came down the Quai
de Billy, the Cours-la-Reine, and reached my place at about eight
o'clock, just as I was waking. He used to scratch at the door, which was
opened for him, and he dashed joyously at me with yelps of joy, put his
paws on my knees, received with a modest and unassuming air the caresses
his noble conduct merited, took a look round the room, and started back
to Passy. On arriving there, he went to my mother, wagged his tail,
barked a little, and said as plainly as if he had spoken: "I have seen
young master; don't worry; he is all right." Having thus reported to the
proper person the result of his self-imposed mission, he would drink up
half a bowlful of water, eat his food, lie down on the carpet by my
mother's chair,--for he entertained peculiar affection for her,--and
sleep for an hour or two after his long run. Now, how do people who
maintain that animals do not think and are incapable of putting two and
two together explain this morning visit, which kept up family relations
and brought to the home-nest news of the fledgeling that had so recently
left it?
Poor Luther's end was very sad. He became taciturn, morose, and one fine
morning bolted from the house, feeling the rabies on him and resolved
not to bite his masters; so he fled, and we have every reason to believe
that he was killed as a mad dog, for we never saw him again.
After a pretty long interregnum a new dog was brought into the house. It
was called Zamore, and was a sort of spaniel, of very mixed breed, small
in size, with a black coat, save the tan spots over his eyes and the tan
hair on his stomach. On the whole he was insignificant physically, and
ugly rather than handsome; but morally, he was a remarkable dog. He
absolutely despised women, would not obey them, never would follow them,
and never once did my mother or my sisters manage to win from him the
least sign of friendship or deference. He would accept their attentions
and the tit-bits they gave him with a superior air, but never did he
express any gratitude for them. Never would he yelp, never would he rap
the floor with his tail, never bestow on them a single one of those
caresses dogs are so fond of lavishing. He remained impassible in a
sphinx-like pose, like a serious man who will not take part in the
conversation of frivolous persons. The master he had elected was my
father, in whom he acknowledged the authority of the head of the house,
and whom he considered a mature and serious man. But his affection for
him was austere and stoical, and was not shown by gambadoes, larks, and
lickings. Only, he always kept his eyes upon him, followed his every
motion and kept close to heel, never allowing himself the smallest
escapade or the least nod to any passing comrades. My dear and lamented
father was a great fisherman before the Lord, and he caught more barbels
than Nimrod ever slew antelopes. It certainly could not be said of his
fishing-rod that it was a pole and string with a worm at one end and a
fool at the other, for he was a very clever man, and none the less he
daily filled his basket with fish. Zamore used to accompany him on his
trips, and during the long night-watches entailed by ground-line
fishing for the big fellows, he would stand on the very edge of the
water, apparently trying to fathom its dark depths and to follow the
movements of the prey. Although he often pricked up his ears at the
faint and distant sounds that, at night, are heard in the deepest
silence, he never barked, having understood that to be mute is a quality
indispensable in a fisherman's dog. In vain did Phoebe's alabaster brow
show above the horizon reflected in the sombre mirror of the river;
Zamore would not bay at the moon, although such prolonged ululation
gives infinite delight to creatures of his species. Only when the bell
on the set-line tinkled did he look at his master and allow himself one
short bark, knowing that the prey was caught; and he appeared to take
the greatest interest in the manoeuvres involved in the landing of a
three or four pound barbel.
No one would have suspected that under his calm, abstracted,
philosophical look, this dog, so serious that he was almost melancholy,
and despised all frivolity, nursed an overmastering, strange, never to
be suspected passion, absolutely contrary to his apparent moral and
physical character.
"You do not mean," I hear my reader exclaim, "that the good Zamore had
hidden vices?--that he was a thief?" No. "A libertine?" No. "That he
loved brandied cherries?" No. "That he bit people?" Never. Zamore was
crazy about dancing. He was an artist devoted to the choregraphic art.