CHAPTER II.

THE WHITE DYNASTY.

Let us now come down to a more modern epoch. From a cat imported by Mademoiselle Aita de la Penuela, a young Spanish artist whose studies of white Angoras adorned and still adorn the windows of the print-shops, we obtained the tiniest possible kitten, which looked like one of those puffs of swan’s-down which people use in rice-powder boxes. On account of this immaculate whiteness, he received the name of Pierrot, which, as he grew larger, was amplified into that of Don Pierrot de Navarre,—a name infinitely more majestic and having a savor of real grandeur about it. Don Pierrot, like all animals who are petted and spoiled grew up charmingly amiable. He shared our family life with that enjoyment which cats find in being admitted to the intimacies of the fire-side. Seated in his wonted place beside the fire, he seemed always to understand the conversation and to be interested in it. He followed the eyes of the talkers, emitting from time to time a little mew, as if he too had objections to make, and would like to add his opinion on the literary topics which were usually the theme of our discourse. He adored books; and whenever he found one lying open on the table he would seat himself by it, looking earnestly at the pages, and sometimes gently turning one with his claw. He usually finished by going to sleep, as soundly as though he had in reality been reading a modern novel!

When we sat down to write he always jumped upon the writing-table, and watched with a profound attention the point of the steel pen as it scattered flies’ legs over the white surface of the paper, making a little movement of his head at the beginning of each new line. Sometimes he took a fancy to join in the work, and would try to get the pen away from us, doubtless with the intention of using it in his turn; for he was an æsthetic cat, like the cat Murr, described by Hoffman, and we strongly suspected him of spending nights in some hidden gutter writing his memoirs by the light of his own phosphoric eyes. Unfortunately these lucubrations, if they ever existed, are forever lost.

Don Pierrot de Navarre would never settle himself to sleep till we had come home. He always waited just inside the door, and, the moment we stepped into the antechamber, rubbed himself against our legs, arching his back, and purring in a joyous and friendly manner. Then he would walk in, preceding us like a page, and no doubt with a very little urging would have consented to carry the candlestick.

Having thus conducted us to our bedroom, he waited till we were undressed, and then, jumping into bed, embraced our neck with his little paws, rubbed his nose against ours, and licked us with a small pink tongue, rough as a file, uttering meanwhile short, inarticulate cries, which expressed as clearly as possible his joy at our return. Then, having expressed his affection by these demonstrations, and the hour for sleep being come, he would mount the head-board of the bed, and slumber there, poised like a bird on a bough. As soon as we awoke in the morning he would descend, and, stretching himself out close to us, wait quietly till it was time to get up.

Midnight, in his opinion, was the hour at which it was our duty to return to the house. Pierrot and the _concierge_ were entirely of one mind on this point. Just then we had joined with a few friends in getting up a little club, which we called “The Society of the Four Candles,” from the fact that the room in which we met was lighted by four candles in silver candlesticks, which were placed on four corners of a table. Sometimes the talk became so engrossing that, like Cinderella, we forgot the hour, at the risk of finding our carriages changed into pumpkins and our coachmen into rats. Several times Pierrot waited for our return until two or three o’clock in the morning; then his feelings were so deeply hurt that he actually went to bed without us. This dumb protest against our innocent irregularities was so touching that afterwards we made a point of coming in punctually at midnight; but Pierrot for a long while retained a grudge against us. He wanted proof that our penitence was genuine; and not till time had convinced him of the sincerity of our regret did he again take us into favor, and resume his old position inside the door of the antechamber.

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. They will be your friends if you prove worthy of friendship; but they will never be your slaves. 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! what fidelity of affection! He constitutes himself the companion of your solitary hours, of your melancholy, of your work. He will pass whole evenings purring on your knees, happy in your company, and forsaking that of animals of his own species. In vain do enticing mews re-echo from the roofs, calling him to join one of those cat-soirees where juicy red-herrings take the place of tea: he will not be tempted away, and shares your vigil to the end. If you put him on the floor, he jumps back to his place with a murmuring noise which is like a soft reproach. 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. This second cat was named Seraphita, in honor of Balzac’s Swedenborgian romance. Never did the heroine of that marvellous legend radiate a purer whiteness, not even when, accompanied by Minna, she climbed the icy peaks of the Falberg. Seraphita was of a contemplative and dreamy disposition. She would lie for long hours on her cushion, not asleep, but following, with an intense expression of the eyes, sights which were invisible to common mortals. She liked to be caressed; but she caressed in return only a favored few to whom her hard-won esteem was accorded. She loved luxury; and it was always upon the softest chair and the piece of stuff best calculated to show to advantage her swan-like fur that we were sure to find her. Her toilet took an enormous deal of time; every particle of her fur was made glossy each morning of her life. She washed herself with her paws; and every hair of her coat, carefully brushed with her rosy tongue, glistened like new silver. Whenever any one stroked her, she instantly removed all trace of the contact: the least untidiness disturbed her. Her elegance and distinction were truly aristocratic: in the cat-world she must have ranked as a duchess at the very least. She doted on perfumes, plunging her head into bouquets of flowers, and nibbling with little quivers of satisfaction handkerchiefs steeped in odors. She would walk up and down the dressing-table sniffing at the essence bottles, and would willingly have allowed herself to be dipped bodily into the scented rice-powder. Such was Seraphita, and never did a cat better justify a poetical name.

About this time two of those counterfeit sailors who sell striped table-covers, handkerchiefs woven of pineapple thread, and other foreign commodities, chanced to pass through our street at Longchamps. They carried in a tiny cage two Norway rats, with the prettiest pink eyes in the world. White animals were a passion with us just then, and we carried this passion so far that even our poultry-yard was stocked with white cocks and hens. We bought the white rats, and had a large cage made for them, with interior staircases which led to different stories,—to dining-rooms, sleeping-chambers, and gymnasiums fitted up with trapezes. In this cage they were happier and better lodged than even the rat of La Fontaine in the middle of his Dutch cheese.

These pretty creatures—of which so many people, for reasons that we cannot understand, have a silly fear—grew tame to an astonishing degree, so soon as they became certain that no harm was intended them. They allowed themselves to be stroked like kittens; and taking our finger between their tiny pink paws, delicate to an ideal degree, would lick it in a friendly way. They were usually let loose at the end of our meals, and climbing on our arms, shoulders, and head, would dart in and out of the sleeves of our jacket or dressing-gown with singular skill and agility. The motive of all these exercises, so gracefully performed, was to win leave to rummage among the remains of the dessert. Placed upon the table, in the twinkling of an eye the pair would make away with every walnut or hazel-nut, every dried raisin, every bit of sugar, which remained. Nothing could be droller than the eager and furtive glances which they cast about them while doing this, or their look of surprise when they found themselves on the edge of the table-cloth. When a tiny board was laid from the cage to the table, they would joyfully run across it and store their plunder away in their private cupboard.

The couple multiplied rapidly, until whole families of equal whiteness ascended and descended the staircases of the cage. At last we found ourselves at the head of thirty rats, all so much at home with us that when the weather was cold they burrowed in our pockets without the least ceremony, and lay there, keeping themselves warm. Sometimes leaving open the door of the Ratopolis, we would go up to the second floor of the house, and give a whistle well known to our pupils. 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.

We must now confess to an act of brutality. We had so often heard it said that a rat’s tail resembled a pink worm and detracted from the beauty of the animal, that at last we selected one from our menagerie, and cut off the much-abused appendage. The little rat bore the operation well, grew up bravely, and became a master rat, with a fine pair of moustaches; but in spite of being lightened of the weight of his caudal extremity, he was always less agile than his companions, was wary in gymnastic exercises, and frequently experienced a tumble. 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; and 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.

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. If by accident the door of the room was shut, he would scratch and softly mew to have it opened, that he might rejoin his little white friends, who not infrequently would come from their cage and go to sleep by his side. Seraphita, of a loftier nature than he, and not so fond of the musky odor of rats, never took part in these games; but she did the rats no harm, and suffered them to pass before her without once extending a claw.

The end of these rats was strange enough. One sultry day in summer when the thermometer marked the ordinary heat of Senegal, their cage was placed in the garden, under the shade of a vine-covered arbor; for they seemed to suffer from the heat. A heavy storm came up, with great gusts of wind, lightning and rain. The tall poplars on the river’s bank bent like reeds. Armed with an umbrella, we were on the point of going out to look for our pets, when a vivid lightning flash, which seemed to split the very depths of the heavens, stopped us on the first step of the flight which led from the terrace to the garden. A tremendous thunder-clap followed, louder than the discharge of a hundred cannon. The shock was so violent that we were almost thrown down by it.

After this explosion the storm grew a little calmer; and hastening to the arbor we found the thirty-two rats lying with their paws in the air, all killed by the same thunderbolt.

The wire of their cage had without doubt attracted the lightning. Thus perished together, as they had lived together, thirty-two Norway rats,—an enviable death, and one not often granted by implacable fate!