Catacaustic Reflections

Before going to bed I had read Balzac’s story, ‘A Passion in the Desert.’ It tells, as you may remember, of a Frenchman lost in the desert, who went to sleep in a cave. ’In the middle of the night his slumber was disturbed by a peculiar noise. He sat up, and the profound silence which prevailed enabled him to distinguish a breathing whose savage energy could not belong to a human being. . . . By dint of straining his eyes, he perceived in the darkness two faint amber lights. . . . Soon, the brilliancy of the night assisting him little by little to distinguish the objects in the cavern, he discovered a huge beast lying within two yards of him. Was it a lion? Was it a tiger? Was it a crocodile?’

His was a terrible fear, increased by the dark, the silence, and the bewilderment of the first waking moments. But consider me, a domesticated person, and my fear. I too was awakened in the middle of the night, not by a mere noise, but by the actual physical contact of a body moving along my bed, carelessly rubbing my legs as I lay in my first stupor of the night. I cannot convey my impressions with the skill of a Balzac, but think of my predicament, of my suspicions. Was it a snake? No! Preposterously, no; not in a Connecticut farmhouse. Was it Tiger? Was it Nigger? Was it Buff? Was it Snow? Was it Katurai? These were the questions I asked myself as I lay there unable to move. I had not enough education to know which of our five cats my companion was; but my curiosity, my state of mind, was the more violent when the body curled itself with the gravity of five cats squarely across my feet.

The Frenchman in the desert cave endured the fiendish tortures of ’listening, of noticing the irregularities of that breathing, without losing a sound, and without daring to make the slightest motion. An odor as pungent as that given forth by foxes, but more penetrating, more weighty, so to speak, filled the cave; and when the Provengal smelled it, his terror reached its height.

. . . Soon the reflection of the moon, which was sinking rapidly toward the horizon, lighted up the den, and little by little illuminated the spotted skin of a panther. . . . Its muzzle was stained with blood. It was a female; the hair on the stomach and thighs was of a dazzling white. A number of little spots, like velvet, formed dainty bracelets around her paws. The muscular tail was white also, but ended in black rings. . . . That placid but formidable hostess lay snoring in an attitude as graceful as that of a cat lying on the cushion of an ottoman.’

His companion was his hostess, mine — an intruder. How much more reason, then, had I to be afraid! Nor did my visitor betray himself or herself in any way. It lay there heavy as a cannon ball, silent as a crouching assassin. Nor did it snore, which is perhaps the one sign of domestic felicity which falls most gratefully upon the ear of domesticated man. Prostrated, I lay there under the direct rays of the moon. I lay there with that body on my feet, all through the night, waiting for the dawn.

When the sun appeared in Balzac’s story, ‘ The panther suddenly opened her eyes; then she stretched her paws, as if to limber them, and to rid herself of the cramp; finally she yawned, showing her terrifying arsenal of teeth, and her cloven tongue, hard as a file.’ By so much was the Frenchman entertained, while I was not even in a position to see what had taken possession of my bed! ‘“She is like a dainty woman!” thought the Frenchman as he watched her roll about and go through the prettiest and most coquettish movements. . . . She licked off the blood which stained her paws and nose, and scratched her head again and again.’

When the sun appeared in my bedroom, the intruder suddenly stuck its claws into my feet, waking me from my last stupor of the night. I screamed in silent rage and beheld Nigger, the black cat, curving his back on high and yawning from the foot of the bed and displaying his full arsenal of teeth. Then he closed his mouth with a vicious snap, wrinkling his nose at me contemptuously, if I mistake not. Then he jumped off the bed and disappeared.

‘ It is a distinctly masculine performance,’ I said to myself as he left me. But I was relieved, nevertheless. My horrible experience was at an end, I thought, only to be reminded that we have five cats in our house to the one panther which the Frenchman faced in the extensive desert. I do not wish to exaggerate a single detail of my experience. But how much more terrible my life must be than that episode of his, since I have not only five times as many felines to contend with, but this force is concentrated to the degree that our farmhouse is smaller than the desert of Sahara.

I dressed and descended to breakfast, where five cats were concentrated in the dining-room itself. Tiger, Nigger, Buff, Snow, and Katurai, the mother, all regarded me with steely eyes. I thought of the Provencal upon whom the panther had gazed steadfastly without moving. The rigidity of her steely eyes, and their unendurable brilliancy, made him shudder, especially when the beast walked toward him; ‘but he gazed at her with a caressing expression, and smiling at her as if to magnetize her, allowed her to come close to him; then, with a touch as gentle and loving as if he were caressing the fairest of women, he passed his hand over her whole body from head to tail, scratching with his nails the flexible vertebræ which formed the panther’s yellow back. The animal stiffened her tail with pleasure, her eyes became softer; she began to purr, as cats do to express pleasure; but the sound came forth from a throat so deep and so powerful that it rang through the grotto like the last notes of an organ through a church.’

Such was the music which he heard, ‘like the last notes of an organ through a church.’ How truly glorious — for him! But for me, — ah, pity me, to whom the last notes of an organ ringing through a church would have been like manna to one in the wilderness. There was I huddled in a chair, grasping the table with both elbows for support, and listening to the purring of five cats. Five cats of all colors and temperaments, five cats purring in the confines of the dining-room, their combined purrs like the first notes of a buzzsaw beginning a day’s work. And Buff, the tawny head of the family, — see him approach me as I put fork into wheat-cakes and cream! With veiled insistence, he raises his huge body on his hind legs and leans on my left leg. Tiger sits in waiting on my right. I tremble, swallowing cakes and cream. In less time than it takes to mention it, Buff inserts two pairs of claws, ten pointed reminders, into the flesh of my thigh. What Provencal in the desert ever endured such agony as I? Would he not have thrown pieces of cake to the four corners of the room in such a crisis?

It is said of the panther in the desert that her face was distinguished by ’an expression of extraordinary shrewdness; the unfeeling cruelty of the tiger was predominant therein, but there was also a vague resemblance to the face of an artful woman. At that moment, that solitary queen’s features disclosed a sort of merriment like that of Nero in his cups.’

Let me emphasize here the fact that no one of our cats looks like Nero in his cups, or ever did look like him; no, not one. They are deadly serious cats, all of them, which makes life all the more frightful for me. They are as serious in temper as Jesuits or Puritans, civil war veterans, militant suffragettes, or Presidential candidates. Nor is there anything vague about their looks or what they do. From the unfeeling cruelty of Tiger to the extraordinary shrewdness of Nigger, their expressions bode no good to me.

I know not how it will end. Am I to spend my life shut in with five hungry cats striking claws into my thighs ? Is there no protective association that domesticated man may join to put down strikes? How to end it all I cannot think. The lady of the house has forbidden me to make surreptitious journeys to the mill-pond with a sack. I have no dagger as the Frenchman had with which he tickled the skull of his panther, watching for an opportunity. I watch and watch, but no opportunity is vouchsafed. These cats climb over me at all hours of the day and night; they pursue me about the yard, and rub their bodies against my legs, leaving superfluous hair behind. But there is never that ‘ vague expression of kindness ’ with which the panther regarded her companion in the desert. None of the cats examines me with the ’prudent scrutiny of a tradesman.’ Theirs is rather the scrutiny of the villain in melodrama approaching the lonely heroine.

But I would not have you think me a ridiculous coward. I do force myself to play with a cat occasionally, with Snow especially. Like the Provençal, I too neglect no method of taming her and winning her good graces. I have had with Snow, as he with his panther lady, the indescribable joy of seeing her move her tail with an almost imperceptible movement. I too have patted her paws and her nose, twisted her ears, thrown her over on her back, and scratched roughly her soft, warm flanks. For this I have been scratched as the Frenchman was never scratched by the Damascus blades of his panther playmate. He and Balzac did not know what comparative good-fortune was his.

How I long for the final moment that came to him in the desert! You may remember how their passion ended, as Balzac says all great passions do, by a misunderstanding. The Provençcal did not know how he hurt her, but she turned as if she had gone mad, and wounded his thigh with her sharp teeth — a slight wound. ‘I, thinking that she meant to devour me, plunged my dagger into her throat.’ Would that Snow or Tiger or Buff or Nigger or Katurai would give me such an opportunity. I would put an end to one clawing mass of feminism after another. How I should relish the moment when I could do something without offending the lady of the house! But alas, think, reader, and commiserate me! Though I kill one farmhouse feline as the Frenchman killed his panther in the desert, I have still four lives, sixteen paws, innumerable claws, contiguous to my feet in bed, and, as you have seen, close to my person when I eat, which form of amusement, common to mortals, I persist in at the risk of my life, my cakes, my cream, and all the meat that cats fall heir to, myself included.