I Am a Cat

by Sōseki Natsume

  However, considered from the feline viewpoint, the same facts lead to the opposite conclusion: that God, if not entirely impotent, is at least of limited ability, even incompetent. Certainly of no greater creative capability than muddle-headed man. God is supposed to have created, of intent, as many faces as there are people. But surely one cannot just dismiss the possibility that, in fact, he lacked sureness of touch; that, though he originally intended to create every man-jack of mankind with the same face, he found the task impossible, and that he consequently produced so long a string of botched appearances as to end up with the present disorderly state of the human physiognomy. Thus the variformity of the human face can equally well be regarded either as a demonstration of God’s success or as evidence of his failure. Lacking knowledge of his original creative intent, one can only say that the evidence of the human face argues no more strongly for God’s omnipotence than it does for his incompetence.

  Consider human eyes. They are embedded in pairs within a flat surface and their owners, therefore, cannot simultaneously see to both their left and right. It is regrettable, but only one side of any object can, at any one time, enter their field of vision. Being thus incapable of seeing in the round, even the daily happenings of life in his own society, it is perhaps not surprising that man should get so excited about certain one-sided aspects of his limited view of reality, and, in particular, should allow himself to fall into awe of God. Any creature capable of seeing things whole must recognize that, if it is difficult to create infinite variation, it is equally difficult to create absolute similitude. Had Raphael ever been asked to paint two absolutely identical portraits of the Madonna, he would have found it no less irksome than to be pressed for two pictures of that subject in which every single detail was totally different. Indeed, it is probable that the painting of identical portraits would prove the harder task. Kōbō Daishi was not only the Great Teacher but also a master calligrapher. But had he been asked one morning to inscribe the two characters of his own name in exactly the same style as he had done the day before, he would have found it more difficult than to write them differently. Consider, too, the nature of language-learning. Human beings learn their various tongues purely by imitation. They reproduce, without any display of initiative or inventiveness, the noises made by the daily mouthings of their mothers, nurses, and whomsoever else they may happen to hear. To the best of their ability, they imitate. Nevertheless, in the course of one or two decades, the languages thus produced by imitation show distinct changes in pronunciation. Which amply demonstrates the human inability to make perfect imitations. Exact imitation is extremely difficult to achieve.

  Now if God had shown himself able to create human beings indistinguishable from each other, that would have been impressive. If every single one of them appeared with the self-same features, like so many mold-cast masks of a fat-faced woman, then indeed would God’s omnipotence have been tellingly demonstrated. But the actual state of affairs, a situation in which God has let loose under the sun all manner of different faces, could well be taken to prove the limited competence of his creative power.

  I must confess that I have now forgotten why I embarked upon this digression. However, since similar forgetfulness is common among mankind, I trust such a lapse will be found pardonable in a cat. The fact is that the foregoing thoughts leapt naturally to my mind the moment that the paper-door slid open and I at last clapped eyes upon the thief.

  Why so? you may ask. Why should the sudden appearance of a thief upon the threshold prompt this closely reasoned, this irrefutable critique of divine omnipotence? As I said, I have forgotten why. But if I may have a moment to recollect my train of thought, I’m sure I can find the reason.

  Ah yes, I have it.

  When I looked at the thief’s calm face, I was so struck by one peculiarity that my long-held theories about God’s incompetence as a face-creator seemed in that instant to he crumbling down to nothing. For the peculiarity was that the thief’s face was the spitting image of the handsome face of our much-loved Avalon Coldmoon. Naturally, I lack acquaintances among the burglaring fraternity, but, basing my judgment on their outrageous behaviors, I had formed my own private picture of a burglar’s face. But the face of this particular burglar did not match my image. I had always assumed that a burglar’s nostrils would be widely splayed to left and right, that his eyes would be as big and round as copper coins, and that his hair would be close-cropped. But there’s a vast difference between the fancied and the fact, so vast one should always be wary of giving free rein to one’s imagination. This thief is tall and slimly built, with a charmingly darkish complexion and straight, level eyebrows: altogether a very modish sort of burglar. He seems, again like Coldmoon, to be about twenty-six or twenty-seven. Indeed a God so deft as to be able to produce this startling likeness cannot possibly be regarded as incompetent. To tell the truth, the resemblance is so close that my immediate and astonished reaction was to wonder whether, bursting in like this in the middle of the night, Coldmoon had gone mad.

  It was only when I noticed the absence of any sign of a budding moustache that I realized that the intruder could not possibly be Coldmoon.

  Coldmoon is both masculine and handsome. He has been manufactured by God with such especial care that it is proper he should so easily besot that walking credit card, Miss Opula Goldfield. Yet, to judge from his appearance, this thief’s power to attract women can be no less strong than Coldmoon’s. If that Goldfield girl is besotted by Coldmoon’s eyes and mouth, it would be no more than a matter of courtesy that she should go into similarly ardent raptures over those of this burglar. Quite apart from the question of courtesy, it would be contrary to logic if she failed to love him. Being so naturally quick-minded and intelligent, she would, of course, immediately grasp the point, and it would follow that, if she were offered the burglar as a substitute for Coldmoon, she would, body and soul, adore him and live with him in conjugal felicity till death did them part. Even if Coldmoon so succumbs to the wiles of Waverhouse that this very rare and excellent match is broken off, still, so long as the burglar remains alive and well, there is no real cause for concern. Having thus projected the possible train of future events, I felt, purely for Miss Goldfield’s sake, relieved and reassured. That this noble burglar exists as a husband-in-reserve is, I think, likely to be important to her happiness in life.

  The thief is carrying something under his arm. Peering, I discover that it’s that decrepit blanket which, a little earlier on, my master had pitched away into his study. The thief is dressed in a short coat of cotton drawn tight below his bottom with a sash of blue-gray silk. His pallid legs are bare from the knees down. Gently he extends one foot from the veranda and sets it softly on the bedroom matting. At which moment my dozing master, no doubt still dreaming that his finger is being savaged by a scarlet book, turns over in his sleep and, as he slumps with a heavy thud into a new position, suddenly shouts, “It’s Coldmoon!” The burglar drops the blanket and whips back as though he’d trodden on a scorpion.

  Through the flimsy paper of the sliding door, I see the silhouette of two long legs a-tremble. My master grunts in his sleep, mumbles something meaningless and knocks his red book sideways. He then begins a noisy scratching of his dark-skinned arm as though he’d caught the scurvy. He suddenly goes quiet, and lies there fast asleep with his head off the pillow. His shout of Coldmoon-recognition relates, not to reality, but to some incident of dream. Nevertheless, for quite a little while the burglar stood silent on the veranda watching the room for any further liveliness. Satisfied at last that my master and his wife are safely deep in sleep, he reintrudes one cautious foot. There is, this time, no commentary on Coldmoon. Almost at once the second foot appears.

  The glow of the night lamp, which hitherto had bathed the whole of this six-mat bedroom, is now sharply segmented by the shadow of the thief. An utter darkness has fallen upon the wickerwork trunk and reaches halfway up the wall behind it. I turn my head and see the shadow of t
he intruder’s skull drifting about the wall some two-thirds of the way up to the ceiling. Though the man is certainly handsome, the misshapen shadow of his head, like some deformed potato, is positively ludicrous. For a while he stood there staring down at Mrs. Sneaze’s face and then, suddenly and for goodness knows what reason, broke into a grin. I was surprised to find that even in such aimless grinning he was a twin to Coldmoon. Lying close to Mrs. Sneaze’s pillow there is an oblong box, perhaps fifteen inches long and some four inches broad. The lid is nailed down fast and the box itself so placed as to suggest that its contents must be precious. It is in fact that box of yams which, just the other day, Mr. Tatara Sampei presented to the Sneazes on his return from holiday at his family’s country place in Karatsu. It is, one must admit, rather unusual to go to sleep with yams to decorate one’s bedside, but Mrs. Sneaze is a lady little troubled by notions of propriety of placement. She keeps high-quality cooking sugar in her chest of drawers, so the presence in her bedroom of pickles, let alone of yams, would hardly even ruffle her placid unconcern. But the burglar, a non-participant in the alleged omniscience of God, could hardly be expected to have such knowledge of her nature and it is consequently understandable that he should jump to the conclusion that a box so carefully kept within hand’s reach of a sleeping woman is certain to be worth removing. He lifts and hefts the box. Finding its weight matches his expectations, he nods in satisfaction. It suddenly struck me as extremely funny that this gentleman-thief this very prepossessing burglar, was about to waste his expert skills in vegetable furacity. However, since it could be dangerous to make my presence heard, I hold back the laughter bursting to escape.

  The burglar wraps the yam box carefully in the blanket and looks round the room for something with which to tie the bundle. His eye lights upon the sash that my master threw down on the floor when he was undressing for bed. The burglar ties and knots the sash around the yam box and hoists it smoothly onto his back. I doubt if women would be attracted to the figure he now presents. He proceeds to stuff two of the children’s sleeveless jackets into my master’s knitted underpants.

  Each of the leg parts looks like a snake that has swallowed a frog. Perhaps their swollen ugliness could be better compared to the shape of some pregnant serpent. At all events the shape produced was odd and rather ugly. If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself. The thief then tied the pant legs round his neck, leaving his hands free for further rummage.

  Wondering what he’ll nobble next, I watch him closely. He spreads out my master’s silk kimono on the floor and neatly, quickly, piles upon it Mrs. Sneaze’s obi, my master’s haori, and his remaining underwear together with various bits and bobs which he finds about the room. I am deeply impressed by the sheer professionalism of his larceny, the technical polish of his packaging and parcel work. First he fashions a long silk cord by knotting Mrs. Sneaze’s obi-string to her waistband-fastener.

  With this cord he ties his loot into a tidy package, and lifts the lot with one hand. Taking a last look round, he spots a packet of cheap gaspers lying beside my master’s head. He shoves the packet into his sleeve but, on second thought, takes it out again and, carefully selecting a cigarette, bends to light it at the flame of the night lamp. He inhales deeply, like a man content with a job well done. Before the exhaled smoke had thinned to nothingness around the milky glass of the night lamp’s chimney, the sound of the burglar’s footfalls had faded away into silent distance. Husband and wife remain deep-sunk in slumber. Contrary even to their own idea of themselves, human beings are a careless and unwary lot. I myself feel quite worn out by the night’s excitements and, if I now continue this account of them, I shall have some kind of break-down. . .

  I slept both deep and late, so that, when I finally awoke, the sun was already bright in the blue spring sky. My master and his wife were talking to a policeman at the kitchen entrance.

  “I see. You reckon he entered here and then worked round toward the bedroom? And you two were asleep and noticed nothing at all?”

  “That’s right.” My master seems a bit embarrassed.

  “And about what time did this burglary take place?” The policeman asks the usual silly question. If one could he in a position to state the hour of such an offense, the chances are that no offense would have occurred.

  My master and his wife seem not to realize this point and take the question in real earnest.

  “I wonder whenabouts it was.”

  “Well now, let me think,” says Mrs. Sneaze. She seems to imagine that by taking thought one can fix the time of events that took place when one was unconscious. “What was the time,” she asks her husband, “when you went to bed?”

  “It was after you that I went to bed.”

  “Yes,” she agrees, “I went to bed before you did.”

  “I wonder what time I woke up.”

  “I think it was at half past seven.”

  “So what time would that make it when the thief broke in?”

  “It must, I suppose, have been sometime in the dead of night.”

  “Of course it was sometime in the dead of night. But what I’m asking you about is the particular time.”

  “Well, that I can’t just say for certain. Not until I’ve had a good think.” She’s still committed to her thinking ways.

  The policeman had only asked his potty question as a matter of form, and he is in fact totally indifferent as to the precise time at which the burglar broke in. All he wants is that my master and his wife should give some kind of an answer: any answer, never mind whether true or not, would do. But the victims engage in such pointless and protracted dialogue that the policeman shows signs of irritation. Eventually he snaps at them.

  “Right then. So the time of the burglary is not known. Is that correct?”

  “I suppose it does come down to that,” my master answers in his usual drily pedagogic manner.

  The policeman was not amused. He plodded stolidly on in accordance with his own routine of police procedure.

  “In that case you should send in a written statement of complaint to the effect that on such and such a date in this the thirty-eighth year of the Meiji Era, you, having fastened the entrances to your dwelling, retired to bed, and that subsequently a burglar, having removed such and such a sliding wooden shutter, sneaked into such and such a room or rooms and there stole such and such items of property. Remember, this paper is not just a statement of lost goods but constitutes a formal complaint which may later be used as an accusation. You’d be advised not to address it to anyone in particular.”

  “Do we have to identify every single item that’s been stolen?”

  “Yes. Set it all out in a detailed list. Coats, for instance, set down how many have gone, and the value of each one taken. No,” he went on in answer to my master’s next suggestion, “I don’t think it would help much if I stepped inside. The burglary has already taken place.” With which unhelpful comment he took himself off.

  My master, having planted himself with his writing brush and ink-stone in the very center of the room, calls his wife to come and sit beside him. Then, almost in belligerence, he announces, “I shall now compose a written statement of complaint. Tell me what’s been stolen. Item by item. Sharp, if you please.”

  “What cheek! Who d’you think you are to tell me to look sharp? If you talk to me in that dictatorial manner, I shall tell you nothing.” Her toilet incomplete, she plonks herself down sulkily beside him.

  “Just look at yourself! You might be some cheap tart at a post-town inn. Why aren’t you wearing an obi?”

  “If you don’t like how I look, buy me decent clothes. A post-town tart, indeed! How can I dress correctly when half my stuff’s been stolen?”

  “He took your obi? What a despicable thing to do! All right then, we’ll start with that. What kind of obi was it?”

  “What d’you mean? What kind? How many obi do you think I’ve got?

  It was my black satin with the crêpe lining.”

/>   “One obi of black satin lined with crêpe. . . And what would you say it cost?”

  “About six yen, I think.”

  “Six yen! That’s far too expensive. You know we can’t afford to fling our money about on fripperies. Don’t spend more than one yen fifty sen on the replacement.”

  “And where do you think you’d find a decent obi at that price? As I always say, you’re totally heartless. You couldn’t care less how wretchedly your wife may be dressed, so long as you yourself look reasonably turned out.”

  “All right. We’ll drop the matter. Now, what’s next?”

  “A surcoat woven with thrown silk. It was given to me as a keepsake of Aunt Kōno. You won’t find surcoats these days of that quality.”

  “I didn’t ask for a lecture on the decline of textiles. What would it cost?”

  “Not less than fifteen yen.”

  “You mean you’ve been going around in a surcoat worth not less than fifteen yen? That’s real extravagance. A standard of living miles beyond our means.”

  “Oh, what does it matter? You didn’t even buy it.”

  “What’s the next item?”

  “One pair of black foot-gloves.”

  “Yours?”

  “Don’t be silly. Whoever heard of a woman wearing black ones?

  They’re yours, of course. And the price, twenty-seven sen.”

  “Next?”

  “One box of yams.”

  “Did he even filch the yams? I wonder how he’ll eat them. Stewed, d’you think? Or in some kind of soup?”