The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New

by Pamela Sargent

  And though he could laugh in the face of so unequal an antagonist as Duke, Gipsy felt that he was never at his best or able to do himself full justice unless he could perform that feline operation inaccurately known as “spitting.” To his notion, this was an absolute essential to combat; but, as all cats of the slightest pretensions to technique perfectly understand, it can neither be well done nor produce the best effects unless the mouth be opened to its utmost capacity so as to expose the beginnings of the alimentary canal, down which—at least that is the intention of the threat—the opposing party will soon be passing. And Gipsy could not open his mouth without relinquishing his fishbone.

  Therefore, on small accounts he decided to leave the field to his enemies and to carry the fishbone elsewhere. He took two giant leaps. The first landed him upon the edge of the porch. There, without an instant’s pause, he gathered his fur-sheathed muscles, concentrated himself into one big steel spring, and launched himself superbly into space. He made a stirring picture, however brief, as he left the solid porch behind him and sailed upward on an ascending curve into the sunlit air. His head was proudly up; he was the incarnation of menacing power and of self-confidence. It is possible that the white-fish’s spinal column and flopping tail had interfered with his vision, and in launching himself he may have mistaken the dark, round opening of the cistern for its dark, round cover. In that case, it was a leap calculated and executed with precision, for as the boys clamored their pleased astonishment, Gipsy descended accurately into the orifice and passed majestically from public view, with the fishbone still in his mouth and his haughty head still high.

  There was a grand splash!

  THE CAT WHO CHANGED INTO A WOMAN, by Eugène Scribe

  Translated by Frank J. Morlock

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Guido, son of a Trieste business man

  Marianne, his servant

  Minette, his cat

  Dig-Dig, an Indian conjuror

  THE PLAY

  The stage represents Guido’s room. In the back, an alcove with a small raised window between which is a small bed hidden by two curtains. On the left is a table on which is a chest of middling size. Above the table a cage which hangs down from the wall. Two side doors. To the left an entrance door. To the right one that appears to lead into another room.

  Marianne, alone, seated near the table and knitting, she holds an enormous white cat on her knees.

  MARIANNE:

  Our master’s not coming back. Since morning he’s been running through the whole town of Biberach. He’s not found anything, that’s certain. Poor Guido! He’s the finest young man in all Swabia. A young man so good, so amiable, who had so many friends when he had money! They’ve all left, and all those who dined with us, all that remains to the house is our cat, this poor Minette who’s sleeping on my knees and whom we must part with also. The Governor’s cook has already offered me three florins for her which I refused! Her fur alone is worth that. Without counting her character. And yet, I’ll be forced to that point, for her best interests, because here, we don’t have wherewithal to nourish her. Do you hear, Minette; you aren’t to be pitied, it’s me! Because cats, they are the passion of aged governesses, and since the death of my husband, I can say, word of an honest woman, you’re the only attachment I’ve allowed myself.

  (sings)

  Heaven wills it, in its wisdom

  That my heart be always attached,

  In youth one is tender, and when old age comes

  Instead of making love, you love your cat.

  Still, the nature of cats is treacherous

  They cheat those who cherish them.

  Perhaps that’s why we love them

  It’s like a memory of lovers.

  (She rises and places the sleeping Minette on the bed, whose curtains are barely half open. The cat is no longer visible to the audience. Knocking outside.)

  Ah, my God, it’s our Master. Let’s not mention the idea of selling Minette to him; he loves her so much and he’d sooner die of hunger.

  GUIDO:

  (outside) Marianne, Marianne.

  MARIANNE:

  (going to open) Coming, coming.

  GUIDO:

  That’s fortunate! I thought you, too, Marianne, you were going to leave me at the door.

  MARIANNE:

  I was afraid of waking Minette.

  GUIDO:

  (darkly) Poor little thing! She’s asleep! She does well, and me, too, I’d do well to sleep, to sleep forever! First of all, he who sleeps dines, that’s an economy, and then one has even greater pleasure if it’s possible.

  MARIANNE:

  What’s that?

  GUIDO:

  That of no longer seeing men, and in my misanthropic state, Marianne, I can no longer envisage them.

  MARIANNE:

  Is it possible! So then you were unable to obtain anything from your father’s debtors?

  GUIDO:

  Ah, indeed, yes! If you’d seen the long faces they pulled on me!

  (sings)

  One couldn’t recognize me.

  Others had misfortunes

  That made them vanish.

  MARIANNE:

  (sings)

  You must pursue them anyway

  And meet those inveiglers.

  GUIDO:

  (sings)

  Impossible, I swear to you. I give it to the cleverest racers

  Since they’ve had misfortunes

  All my debtors now have carriages

  (speaking)

  And as for me, I’m on foot

  That’s how I came to Trieste,

  And that’s how I’ll return.

  MARIANNE:

  That’s indeed the bother of coming to their wretched country! I ask you, what good did it do you?

  GUIDO:

  To educate us, Marianne. They say hard times forms youth thus.

  MARIANNE:

  Yours, up to the present, taught you only folly and—

  GUIDO:

  And stupidities, you mean, Marianne. Keep on, I’m not getting angry with you. Because I had keen and ardent passions, people thought I was wasting my life and my youth. That’s the general opinion, I know. But it’s not mine. And opinions are free. First of all at Leipzig where I was regarded as a student, I didn’t study, but I read Werther and Doctor Faustus who further added to the exaltation of my ideas; so much for literature! Later, I hurled myself into the Opera at Stuttgart where the prettiest shepherdesses—. You know how they danced!

  MARIANNE:

  And your gold crowns, too.

  GUIDO:

  So much for the knowledge of women! At last, here at Biberach, where I came to gather the debris of our house of business, I discovered intimate friends, who, after having eaten up with me, my paternal inheritance, closed their doors in my face. So much for the study of the human heart. See, Marianne, see what I’ve learned; of what do you complain?

  MARIANNE:

  That you do not want to do anything to get out of the situation you are in. Why did you refuse to write to your uncle who lived in this town and was so rich?

  GUIDO:

  (excitedly) My uncle, Marianne! I forbid you to utter his name before me; it is he, it is this honest merchant who ruined my father with his double accounting. Besides, he would have had trouble replying to me, since he’s dead.

  MARIANNE:

  You should address his supervisor, Mr. Schlagg.

  GUIDO:

  That crafty individual, was always amusing himself at my expense when I was little. He caught me once, but he’ll never catch me again.

  MARIANNE:

  But at least your young female cousin with whom you were brought up, and who is, they say, very mischievous, very satirical, and yet very good; she would repair her father’s wrongs, she would make you propose for her hand, she attempted everything to see you, and you kept refusing.

  GUIDO:

  And I still refuse.

  MARIANNE:
>
  And why, I ask you?

  GUIDO:

  For two reasons: the first I already told you: because I’m a misanthrope. And the second—

  MARIANNE:

  Well?

  GUIDO:

  I won’t tell you.

  MARIANNE:

  In that case it’s the same as if you have only one.

  GUIDO:

  My second reason is the more powerful; it’s that I have a passion in my heart.

  MARIANNE:

  And for whom? Great God! For some young chit!

  GUIDO:

  (darkly) No.

  MARIANNE:

  For some widow?

  GUIDO:

  No.

  MARIANNE:

  O heaven! It’s for some married woman?

  GUIDO:

  (with effort) No, but you will never discover, neither you nor anyone else. As for me, who am telling you, I’m not actually sure of knowing it.

  MARIANNE:

  Then it’s something quite terrible?

  GUIDO:

  So terrible, Marianne, that you see, I’d be in love with you, if that were possible. I’m putting it at its worst so that—there would be nothing after that.

  MARIANNE:

  What’s that mean?

  GUIDO:

  Let’s stop it right there, Marianne. One of two things: either you understand me, and then we’ve understood each other, or actually, you don’t understand me, and we are in agreement, because I don’t even understand myself.

  MARIANNE:

  Ah, my God, my God! You are such a nice young man; must you lose your wits like this?

  GUIDO:

  (frigidly) I’ve lost nothing, Marianne. Leave me alone, let me nourish my dreams and my melancholy.

  MARIANNE:

  Yes, sir, nourish yourself.

  (she takes a basket from the back)

  GUIDO:

  On that subject, what have you got for lunch?

  MARIANNE:

  (returning and passing to Guido’s left) Alas, I have nothing.

  GUIDO:

  For the two of us?

  MARIANNE:

  Yes, sir.

  GUIDO:

  That suffices, I won’t ask you anymore. (sentimentally) Strive only that the best part be for Minette.

  MARIANNE:

  What, sir—?

  GUIDO:

  As for me, I have a philosophic idea that sustains me, but she, poor little thing! Busy yourself with her food, that’s the essential thing.

  MARIANNE:

  Yes, sir. (aside) Oh, I can’t take it anymore! I’m going to go find the Governor’s cook, and sell that poor cat.

  (sings)

  It’s my duty, it must be done

  I’m going to conclude the bargain, no going back.

  Once we make her live

  She can actually make us live in her turn.

  GUIDO:

  (singing to himself)

  Yes, that passion, alas, that I’m reproached for

  Keeps me from hunger and thirst, that’s a lot.

  That’s all profit. Having nothing in one’s pocket

  You must be in love. Love takes the place of everything.

  MARIANNE:

  (aside, singing)

  It’s my duty, it must be done, etc.

  GUIDO:

  When my soul is delivered to its transports

  I will forget everything, and feel each day

  That there’s a need to live in this world

  With a tender heart and a great love.

  (Marianne leaves by the door at the rear.)

  GUIDO:

  (alone) She’s gone! She’s left me at last; and now that I am alone, shall I state the cause of my trouble? (coming forward as if to speak and then stopping) No, I won’t say it. And the object of my passion will always be unaware of it! O Guido, Guido! Consider a bit! A love that you do not dare confess, is it not a criminal love? No, it’s not a crime, it’s only a passion? And when I say a passion it’s not a passion. It’s only an idea, and yet I call it an idea because it’s necessary to give it a name—because without it, there wouldn’t be any. So there you have it, Guido. This is where your hatred of the human race has led you! You’ve become a maniac, an ideologue, and the only definition you can give yourself is—that it’s impossible to be more stupid! Yes, I am, nothing can justify me! And yet, I’m not more stupid than you, O Pygmalion, who adored a statue. Like you, I am experiencing an incomprehensible and disordered love. Like you, I burn, and like you, I burn without hope; but with all the more reason and you said it so well O Doctor Faustus, O my master; if it was possible, if it was reasonable, it would no longer be a passion.

  (going to the bed at the back) She’s there. How graceful and sweet she is. Her little head resting on her little paws! Little love.

  (sorrowfully) She’s not responding to me? Is she sleeping? Is she dead? Minette, O gods, Minette! no, no—

  (passing his hand over her head and her mouth)

  She did it like that and like this.

  Someone’s coming.

  (closing the bed curtains)

  Gods, if they’d seen me. Then it would no longer be necessary to compromise anymore.

  (perceiving Dig-Dig)

  A foreigner! What a funny face and a devilish costume!

  DIG-DIG:

  (aside, bowing) He still seems to me as naive as before, and I think I cannot.— Great, he’s alone!

  (aloud) Is it not to young Guido that I have the honor to speak?

  GUIDO:

  To himself. I am that young Guido. But you don’t walk in on folks when you don’t know them.

  DIG-DIG:

  (in a honeyed tone) The acquaintance will soon be made, O my son, and you will not repent of my visit. My dress indicates to you that I am not European. I am Indian. In the past, your father had business with the merchants of the India Company, my compatriots, and—

  GUIDO:

  (aside) I can see what it is: some bills of exchange in arrears.

  (aloud) Sir, I’ve renounced commerce with men and especially with men of commerce. And if there’s money to give—

  DIG-DIG:

  (presenting him with a purse) On the contrary, it’s 100 Florins to receive.

  GUIDO:

  What are you doing me the honor of telling me? Eh, yes, truly—

  DIG-DIG:

  The person who sent me and who desires to remain unknown is a debtor of your father, an Indian like me.

  GUIDO:

  So that’s the way it is: it’s actually money coming to me from the other side of the world. Let’s put it in my cash box.

  (he puts the purse that Dig-Dig gave him in the little box on the table)

  It’s not lacking room! Ah, so you are Indian! And how is it you find yourself in Germany, in Swabia?

  DIG-DIG:

  My son! Man is a traveler. Such, you see me. I was born in the Kingdom of Kashmir. My father, who was a Brahmin of the third class, had placed me in the temple of Kandahar, with the grand guru of Kashmir.

  GUIDO:

  (with respect) With the Grand Guru? He’s seen the Grand Guru? You’ve seen the Grand Guru? (he kisses Dig-Dig’s sleeve)

  DIG-DIG:

  Very often, but the love of travel seized me. I’ve seen France, I’ve seen Paris.

  GUIDO:

  Beautiful country for a savant like yourself.

  DIG-DIG:

  Superb country! Where I would have died of starvation if I hadn’t remembered the trickery we possess in our country, and under the name of Dig-Dig, Indian Magician—because in that country all magicians succeed, I had the honor of running all of Paris for the past ten years. At last I came to locate myself permanently in the city where I enjoy a certain consideration. I teach dancing, astronomy, sleight of hand, which doesn’t prevent me from delivering myself to my favorite study: the great work of Brahma, the transmission of souls.

  GUIDO:

  The transmi
ssion of souls?

  DIG-DIG:

  It’s one of the Dogmas of our belief; because, no doubt, you know what metempsychosis is?

  GUIDO:

  By Jove, yes, I do know.

  DIG-DIG:

  Yes, when our existence ends, according to our virtues and our defects, we obtain as reward the honor of being bears or partridges. Profound dogma! Admirable cult! System as gentle as it is moral. Which makes us love our likes in every animal! I am speaking to you in this way because I think that a lad with a mind like yours must believe in metempsychosis.

  GUIDO:

  Yes, I believe in it! Certainly! First of all as Doctor Faustus says, I always cite him—“If it’s not impossible, it may be.”

  DIG-DIG:

  What? Yes, it may be. As for me, I who am talking to you, I recall perfectly having been a camel.

  GUIDO:

  You were a camel?

  DIG-DIG:

  For ten years—in Egypt. After that a Giraffe.

  GUIDO:

  Truly! Well—there’s plenty left for you yet.

  DIG-DIG:

  I don’t deny it; but you, just looking at you, I could tell you: you’ve been a sheep.

  GUIDO:

  (frigidly) It’s possible.

  DIG-DIG:

  A handsome lamb.

  GUIDO:

  I believe that well enough. First of all, I love it a lot, which is, perhaps, a vestige of egotism. And then the facility I’ve always had of letting myself eat the wool on— Ah, my God! When I think about it, since you are so wise, I have a question to ask you, a question on which my whole life’s happiness depends.

  DIG-DIG:

  Speak, my son.

  GUIDO:

  You must know that I have a charming cat here, a magnificent angora.

  DIG-DIG:

  I know her.

  GUIDO:

  (with a fleck of jealousy) What! You know her?

  DIG-DIG:

  I’ve often admired her, when Marianne your old governess was carrying her in her arms. I’ve even spoken with that brave woman several times, and I know more about you than you can imagine.

  GUIDO:

  Indeed! Tell me what you think of Minette? Who ought she to be?