The Race of Tom

CATS are the Only Woman’s favorite animal. Sometimes I’ve even thought that she hardly makes a sufficient exception in favor of man. And I’ve learned to understand the cat, partly by being with her, and partly by traveling. True, as Pierre Loti says, ‘On a le sens de chat, ou on ne l’a pas.’ Yet not even with the sens, can anybody completely fathom the cat by staying at home. Some one or two individual specimens are certain to get in the way, and obscure one’s sense of the cat per se.

The Only Woman, reading the foregoing over my shoulder, denies that the cat may be completely fathomed at all.

‘You know very well,’ she says, ‘that nobody could do it, even by circumnavigating the globe.’

I yield at once. I always yield to her when it comes to cats, chiefly, I think, because she doesn’t want to keep one. Keeping cats is a mad practice, something like having children, but without that consciousness of public approval, of doing one’s duty and of God being responsible, which sustains the courage of parents. Why, if you keep a cat, it may die. Also, if you are a nomad, it’s out of the question.

So we have to enjoy the cat temperately, intermittently, humbly, and by the sufferance of others. A degree of asceticism is necessary to the perfection of any passion. For all I know, there may be such a thing as cat-satiety. Travel spares us that. It has also taught us the inner significance of the cat’s Latin name — Felis Domestica. Some might translate it, ‘Happily Domesticated,’ which is ridiculous. But ‘At Home Everywhere’ is a true rendering; for the cat is universal.

I don’t mean merely that it is to be found everywhere. The dog is to be found everywhere, too. But, whereas the dog is like the dyer’s hand, tinted somewhat by environment, stained not a little by the surrounding ocean of human nationality, so that there are American dogs, English dogs, French dogs, Russian dogs, and not anywhere simply dogs, the cat is always simply the cat, whether domiciled in Egypt as a god, or among the white shadows of the South Seas as an outcast.

There are inner differences, it is true, but they reflect on the character of Homo, not of Felis. You can tell all you need to know about the society of a region simply by the way in which its cat regards your first advances — by her patient waiting to give you a chance to prove yourself, or by her celerity in climbing the nearest tree. The dog has spoiled man by sticking to him through thick and thin. The cat, like woman, makes certain cultural demands.

This is the secret, I think, of the implacable feud which exists between cat-lovers and the partisans of the dog. There is no sens de chien. Anybody can appreciate the sentimental faithfulness of the dog. But dog people resent our preference for aloofness, treachery, and indifference. They suspect the existence of something fine and consciously superior, which they cannot grasp, and they retaliate usually by resorting to bad language.

They even pretend to be annoyed by those mystically soothing notes indicative of sublime insight into the sad heart of things, which arise sometimes at midnight from back fences and kitchen roofs, and are known to the Anglo-Saxon as caterwaulings, but to the Frenchman more politely as miaulements. And the very men who hurl shoes at this music seem unable to discover anything disagreeable in the intermittent, senseless yapping of a wakeful cur. There is no use in arguing about it. Nobody can love Dickens and Thackeray equally well. The catophile will inevitably choose Thackeray, and prefer Baudelaire to either. On a le sens de chat, ou on ne l’a pas.

The most perfect cat I ever met lived in Venice. The Only Woman and I were proceeding toward the Accademia, along the street known as the Rio Terra de S. Agnese. He was seated in a doorway waiting to be let in.

We both stopped. The cat was no Royal Siamese, Blue Persian, or Angora, but of the common variety called Tiger — and of an age which permitted t he golden subtints of his fur to begin to make themselves felt. A glance was sufficient to assure one that he had not a single physical imperfection, from the tip of his tail to the clean, sharply turned corners of his eyes.

I stooped, holding out my hand cautiously. He turned his head in our direction, and said: —

‘ Meow! ’

‘What a wonderful creature!’ I exclaimed, after having rung the doorbell for my new friend’s accommodation, and passed on so as to avoid explanations on my own account.

I felt the Only Woman’s hand tighten on my arm. ‘I was so afraid you would n’t see it,’ she whispered.

‘See what?’

‘That he is the greatest cat that ever lived.’

‘I’m not blind,’ I retorted, hurt, and saying to myself that I would never have accused her in that way-not without, at least, taking evidence.

‘But it was n’t only the outside of him,’she went on in explanation. ‘He was just as intelligent as he was lovely. How did he know what kind of people we were? How did he dare be so friendly? There are plenty of folks in the world who would have scatted him.’

We continued our way, happy in the thought that there was something in our very appearance which distinguished us from those who could have said, ‘scat.’ We were also happy in the knowledge that we did not own the Perfect Cat. I’d rather own the Venus of Milo. You could watch over that, I suppose. Anyway, it would never die or grow old.