Lives of Two Cats

Chapter 12: (X)

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About This Book

The narrator recalls two household cats—an Angora and a gray cat often called Chinese—whose characters and daily habits are rendered in affectionate vignettes. The prose interweaves playful episodes and quiet domestic rituals: sunlit idleness, nocturnal wanderings, encounters with family members and a resident tortoise, and small mischiefs. Alongside concrete scenes, the account offers gentle reflections on animal consciousness, loyalty, attachment, aging, and loss. Moving through seasons and modest adventures, these sketches compose a tender portrait of companionship that doubles as a meditation on memory, the passage of time, and the comfort and sorrow found in close domestic bonds.

(X)

THEIR first interview was certainly terrible. It was unpremeditated, a few days after, in the kitchen (a locality of irresistible attractions, where the cats of the same household, do what one can to prevent, will some day meet). The servants summoned me hastily and I ran to the battlefield, where, uttering unearthly yells, a shapeless package of fur and claws formed of their closely clinched little bodies, rolled and bounded,—shattering glasses, plates, and dishes, while tufts of white fur, gray fur, black fur, and fawn fur flew and floated everywhere. It was necessary to interfere[36] energetically and instantly: to separate them I threw upon them a whole carafe of water. I was at my wits’ end.