Under “Reincarnation” she found something called Recurring Earth-Lives—How and Why, by a man called F. Milton Willis, published in 1921. Under “Liszt” she found two biographical volumes. She took out all three books, returned to the car, and drove home.
Back in the house, she placed the cat on the sofa, sat herself down beside it with her three books, and prepared to do some serious reading. She would begin, she decided, with Mr. F. Milton Willis’s work. The volume was thin and a trifle soiled, but it had a good heavy feel to it and the author’s name had a nice authoritative ring.
The doctrine of reincarnation, she read, states that spiritual souls pass from higher to higher forms of animals. “A man can, for instance, no more be reborn as an animal than an adult can re-become a child.”
She read this again. But how did he know? How could he be so sure? He couldn’t. No one could possibly be certain about a thing like that. At the same time, the statement took a good deal of the wind out of her sails.
“Around the center of consciousness of each of us, there are, besides the dense outer body, four other bodies, invisible to the eye of flesh, but perfectly visible to people whose faculties of perception of superphysical things have undergone the requisite development.…”
She didn’t understand that one at all, but she read on, and soon she came to an interesting passage that told how long a soul usually stayed away from the earth before returning in someone else’s body. The time varied according to type, and Mr. Willis gave the following breakdown:
Drunkards and the unemployable
40/50 years
Unskilled laborers
60/100 "
Skilled workers
100/200 "
The bourgeoisie
200/300 "
The upper-middle classes
500 "
The highest class of gentleman farmers
600/1000 "
Those in the Path of Initiation
1500/2000 "
Quickly she referred to one of the other books, to find out how long Liszt had been dead. It said he died in Bayreuth in 1886. That was sixty-seven years ago. Therefore, according to Mr. Willis, he’d have to have been an unskilled laborer to come back so soon. That didn’t seem to fit at all. On the other hand, she didn’t think much of the author’s methods of grading. According to him, “the highest class of gentleman farmers” was just about the most superior being on the earth. Red jackets and stirrup cups and the bloody, sadistic murder of the fox. No, she thought, that isn’t right. It was a pleasure to find herself beginning to doubt Mr. Willis.
Later in the book, she came upon a list of some of the more famous reincarnations. Epictetus, she was told, returned to earth as Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cicero came back as Gladstone, Alfred the Great as Queen Victoria, William the Conqueror as Lord Kitchener. Ashoka Vardhana, King of India in 272 B.C., came back as Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, an esteemed American lawyer. Pythagoras returned as Master Koot Hoomi, the gentleman who founded the Theosophical Society with Mme. Blavatsky and Colonel H. S. Olcott (the esteemed American lawyer, alias Ashoka Vardhana, King of India). It didn’t say who Mme. Blavatsky had been. But “Theodore Roosevelt,” it said, “has for numbers of incarnations played great parts as a leader of men.… From him descended the royal line of ancient Chaldea, he having been, about 30,000 B.C., appointed Governor of Chaldea by the Ego we know as Caesar who was then ruler of Persia.… Roosevelt and Caesar have been together time after time as military and administrative leaders; at one time, many thousands of years ago, they were husband and wife.…”
That was enough for Louisa. Mr. F. Milton Willis was clearly nothing but a guesser. She was not impressed by his dogmatic assertions. The fellow was probably on the right track, but his pronouncements were extravagant, especially the first one of all, about animals. Soon she hoped to be able to confound the whole Theosophical Society with her proof that man could indeed reappear as a lower animal. Also that he did not have to be an unskilled laborer to come back within a hundred years.
She now turned to one of the Liszt biographies, and she was glancing through it casually when her husband came in again from the garden.
“What are you doing now?” he asked.
“Oh—just checking up a little here and there. Listen, my dear, did you know that Theodore Roosevelt once was Caesar’s wife?”
“Louisa,” he said, “look—why don’t we stop this nonsense? I don’t like to see you making a fool of yourself like this. Just give me that goddam cat and I’ll take it to the police station myself.”
Louisa didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring openmouthed at a picture of Liszt in the book that lay on her lap. “My God!” she cried. “Edward, look!”
“What?”
“Look! The warts on his face! I forgot all about them! He had these great warts on his face and it was a famous thing. Even his students used to cultivate little tufts of hair on their own faces in the same spots, just to be like him.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Nothing. I mean not the students. But the warts have.”
“Oh, Christ,” the man said. “Oh, Christ God Almighty.”
“The cat has them, too! Look, I’ll show you.”
She took the animal onto her lap and began examining its face. “There! There’s one! And there’s another! Wait a minute! I do believe they’re in the same places! Where’s that picture?”
It was a famous portrait of the musician in his old age, showing the fine, powerful face framed in a mass of long gray hair that covered his ears and came halfway down his neck. On the face itself, each large wart had been faithfully reproduced, and there were five of them in all.
“Now, in the picture there’s one above the right eyebrow.” She looked above the right eyebrow of the cat. “Yes! It’s there! In exactly the same place! And another on the left, at the top of the nose. That one’s there, too! And one just below it on the cheek. And two fairly close together under the chin on the right side. Edward! Edward! Come and look! They’re exactly the same.”
“It doesn’t prove a thing.”
She looked up at her husband, who was standing in the center of the room in his green sweater and khaki slacks, still perspiring freely. “You’re scared, aren’t you, Edward? Scared of losing your precious dignity and having people think you might be making a fool of yourself just for once.”
“I refuse to get hysterical about it, that’s all.”
Louisa turned back to the book and began reading some more. “This is interesting,” she said. “It says here that Liszt loved all of Chopin’s works except one—the Scherzo in B Flat Minor. Apparently he hated that. He called it the ‘Governess Scherzo,’ and said that it ought to be reserved solely for people in that profession.”
“So what?”
“Edward, listen. As you insist on being so horrid about all this, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to play this Scherzo right now and you can stay here and see what happens.”
“And then maybe you will deign to get us some supper.”
Louisa got up and took from the shelf a large green volume containing all of Chopin’s works. “Here it is. Oh, yes. I remember it. It is rather awful. Now, listen—or, rather, watch. Watch to see what he does.”
She placed the music on the piano and sat down. Her husband remained standing. He had his hands in his pockets and a cigarette in his mouth, and in spite of himself he was watching the cat, which was now dozing on the sofa. When Louisa began to play, the first effect was as dramatic as ever. The animal jumped up as though it had been stung, and it stood motionless for at least a minute, the ears pricked up, the whole body quivering. Then it became restless and began to walk back and forth, back and forth, the length of the sofa. Finally, it hopped down onto the floor, and with its nose and tail held high in the air, it marched slowly, majestically, from the room.
PROTECTED
Cat-owning couple on a motor tour took their pet to his fi
rst hotel. Before going out to dinner, without the cat, they told the day maid they were afraid the animal might escape if the night maid popped in. “Don’t worry,” said the maid, and when they got back, there was a “Do Not Disturb” card hanging from the outside handle of their door.
| 1951 |
“There!” Louisa cried, jumping up and running after it. “That does it! That really proves it!” She came back carrying the cat, which she put down again on the sofa. Her whole face was shining with excitement now, her fists were clenched white, and the little bun on top of her head was loosening and going over to one side. “What about it, Edward? What d’you think?” She was sort of laughing every time she spoke.
“I must say it was quite amusing.”
“Amusing! My dear Edward, it’s the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened! Oh, goodness me!” she cried, picking up the cat again and hugging it to her bosom. “Isn’t it marvellous to think we’ve got Franz Liszt staying in the house?”
“Now, Louisa. Don’t let’s get hysterical.”
“I can’t help it, I simply can’t. And to imagine that he’s actually going to live with us for always!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, Edward! I can hardly talk from excitement. And d’you know what I’m going to do next? Every musician in the whole world is going to want to meet him, that’s a fact, and ask him about the people he knew—about Beethoven and Chopin and Schubert—”
“He can’t talk,” her husband said.
“Well—all right. But they’re going to want to meet him anyway, just to see him and touch him, and to play their own music to him, modern music he’s never heard before.”
“He wasn’t that great. Now, if it had been Bach or Beethoven …”
“Don’t interrupt, Edward, please. So what I’m going to do is notify all the important living composers everywhere. It’s my duty. I’ll tell them Liszt is here, and invite them to visit him. And you know what? They’ll come flying in from every corner of the earth!”
“To see a gray cat?”
“Darling, it’s the same thing. It’s him. No one cares what he looks like. Oh, Edward, it’ll be the most exciting thing there ever was!”
“They’ll think you’re mad.”
“You wait and see.” She was holding the cat in her arms and petting it tenderly but looking across at her husband, who now walked over to the French windows and stood there staring out into the garden. The evening was beginning, and the lawn was turning slowly from green to black, and in the distance he could just see the smoke from his bonfire rising straight up in a white column.
“No,” he said, without turning round, “I’m not having it. Not in this house. It’ll make us both look perfect fools.”
“Edward, what do you mean?”
“Just what I say. I absolutely refuse to have you stirring up a lot of publicity about a foolish thing like this. You happen to have found a trick cat. O.K.—that’s fine. Keep it, if it pleases you. I don’t mind. But I don’t wish you to go any further than that. Do you understand me, Louisa?”
“Further than what?”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this crazy talk. You’re acting like a lunatic.”
Louisa put the cat slowly down on the sofa. Then slowly she raised herself to her full small height and took one pace forward. “Damn you, Edward!” she shouted, stamping her foot. “For the first time in our lives something really exciting comes along and you’re scared to death of having anything to do with it because someone may laugh at you! That’s right, isn’t it? You can’t deny it, can you?”
“Louisa,” her husband said. “That’s quite enough of that. Pull yourself together now and stop this at once.” He walked over and took a cigarette from the box on the table, then lit it with the enormous patent lighter. His wife stood watching him, and now the tears were beginning to trickle out of the inside corners of her eyes, making two little shiny rivers where they ran through the powder on her cheeks.
“We’ve been having too many of these scenes just lately, Louisa,” he was saying. “No, no, don’t interrupt. Listen to me. I make full allowance for the fact that this may be an awkward time of life for you, and that—”
“Oh, my God! You idiot! You pompous idiot! Can’t you see that this is different, this is—this is something miraculous? Can’t you see that?”
At that point, he came across the room and took her firmly by the shoulders. He had the freshly lit cigarette between his lips, and she could see faint contours on his skin where the heavy perspiration had dried in patches. “Listen,” he said. “I’m hungry. I’ve given up my golf, and I’ve been working all day in the garden, and I’m tired and hungry and I want some supper. So do you. Off you go, now, to the kitchen and get us both something good to eat.”
Louisa stepped back and put both hands to her mouth. “My heavens!” she cried. “I forgot all about it. He must be absolutely famished. Except for some milk, I haven’t given him a thing to eat since he arrived.”
“Who?”
“Why, him, of course. I must go at once and cook something really special. I wish I knew what his favorite dishes used to be. What do you think he would like best, Edward?”
“Goddam it, Louisa!”
“Now, Edward, please. I’m going to handle this my way just for once. You stay here,” she said, bending down and touching the cat gently with her fingers. “I won’t be long.”
Louisa went into the kitchen and stood for a moment, wondering what special dish she might prepare. How about a soufflé? A nice cheese soufflé? Yes, that would be rather special. Of course, Edward didn’t much care for them, but that couldn’t be helped.
She was only a fair cook, and she couldn’t be sure of always having a soufflé come out well, but she took extra trouble this time, and waited a long while to make certain the oven had heated fully to the correct temperature. While the soufflé was baking and she was searching around for something to go with it, it occurred to her that Liszt had probably never in his life tasted either avocado pears or grapefruit, so she decided to give him both of them at once in a salad. It would be fun to watch his reaction. It really would.
When it was all ready, she put it on a tray and carried it into the living room. At the exact moment she entered, she saw her husband coming in through the French windows from the garden.
“Here’s his supper,” she said, putting it on the table and turning toward the sofa. “Where is he?”
Her husband closed the garden door behind him and walked across the room to get himself a cigarette.
“Edward, where is he?”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“Ah, yes. Yes, that’s right. Well—I’ll tell you.” He was bending forward to light the cigarette, and his hands were cupped around the enormous patent lighter. He glanced up and saw Louisa looking at him—at his shoes and the bottoms of his khaki slacks, which were damp from walking in long grass.
“I just went out to see how the bonfire was going,” he said.
Her eyes travelled slowly upward and rested on his hands.
“It’s still burning fine,” he went on. “I think it’ll keep going all night.”
But the way she was staring made him uncomfortable.
“What is it?” he said, lowering the lighter. Then he looked down and noticed for the first time the long thin scratch that ran diagonally clear across the back of one hand, from the knuckle to the wrist.
“Edward!”
“Yes,” he said, “I know. These brambles are terrible. They tear you to pieces. Now, just a minute, Louisa. What’s the matter?”
“Edward!”
“Oh, for God’s sake, woman, sit down and keep calm. There’s nothing to get worked up about. Louisa! Louisa, sit down!”
| 1953 |
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” (illustration credit 19.5)
A CAT/A FUTURE
A cat can draw
the blinds
behind her eyes
whenever she
decides. Nothing
alters in the stare
itself but she’s
not there. Likewise
a future can occlude:
still sitting there,
doing nothing rude.
—KAY RYAN | 1995 |
QUESTIONS ABOUT LANGUAGE—CATS
* * *
VICKI HEARNE
There used to be, and probably still is, activity in the area called comparative psychology which consists of various attempts to work out ways of studying and quantifying memory and intelligence across different species. There was sometimes a certain amount of difficulty in coming up with experimental designs that gave clear results. (In one case that I remember something of, various animals were shown where food was hidden and then brought back minutes, hours, or days later and watched to see how well they did in finding the food.) I used to hear older experimenters advising younger ones about working with cats. It seems that under certain circumstances if you give cats a problem to solve or a task to perform in order to find food they work it out pretty quickly. But, as I heard, “the trouble is that as soon as they figure out that the researcher or technician wants them to push the lever they stop doing it; some of them will starve to death rather than do it.”
That result fascinated me—I would have dropped everything in order to find out what the cats were trying to do or say to the researchers. After all, when human beings behave that way we come up with a pretty fancy catalogue of virtues in order to account for it. But, of course, I was stupidly supposing that the point of these efforts was to understand animals, and it wasn’t at all. The point was simply to Do Science, or so I began to suspect when I heard one venerable professor tell a young researcher, “Don’t use cats. They’ll screw up your data.”
What is it about cats? Among gentler and more tentative philosophers than the investigators I have described, cats are considered unobtrusively ubiquitous, and the philosophers are by and large grateful for this. At least, I hear the sound of gratitude in Montaigne when he says that while our way of talking is to say that one plays with one’s cat there is no reason we shouldn’t suppose that it is the other way about—that one’s cat is playing with one. Montaigne’s delicate alertness to such possibilities of grammatical reversal is sadly missing from most modern speculations about language and consciousness, but our cats are still here, which means that the most agreeable of philosophical expressions, the grateful one, is still possible.
The Big New Yorker Book of Cats Page 33
