The History of Cats should thus naturally awaken the rivalry of the most illustrious Writers. But after all, since this History has not once been written, no mediocrity of talent should smother zeal. I shall dare to attempt this work, & I shall believe myself within reach of succeeding in it, if you will promise to aid me in my enterprise. We will commence by seeking the sources of this false prejudice against Cats which is held commonly enough here. We will expound in good faith the insights we have gained from a long acquaintance with their affairs & from reflection. We will report the different forms which the interests of Cats have taken successively among the Nations, while keeping all proper circumspection, in order not to revolt those persons who have, from honest feeling, some antipathy for them. We shall always bear in mind that there are certain natural repugnances, which according to Father Malbranche can be the effect of the uncontrolled imagination of mothers, which has influenced that of the children; or, as a celebrated English philosopher explains it, the work of a Nurse’s tales.
Fear is the child’s first lesson, M. de la Fontaine has said, & moreover it is easy enough to recognize that natural or acquired antipathies can fall upon the very objects which seem least to deserve to draw them; one will not be able to look at birds without shuddering: another will flee when he sees a cork. Germanicus could suffer neither the crowing nor the appearance of a cock. Cats, then, are not truly characterized by this sort of hatred as dangerous or wicked. One has heard since the cradle that Cats are treacherous by nature; that they suffocate infants; that perhaps they are sorcerers. Succeeding reason may cry out in vain against these calumnies; the illusion spoke firsts; it will persuade for a long time after it has been recognized for what it is; & if Cats succeed in no longer being sorcerers, they will remain feared at least as much as if they had actually been sorcerers.
M. de Fontenelle avows that he was raised to believe that on St. John’s Eve there remained not a single Cat in the Cities, because on that day they betook themselves to a general Sabbath. What glory for them, Madame, & what satisfaction for us, to dream that one of M. de Fontenelle’s first steps in the pathway of Philosophy might have led him to rid himself of a false prejudice against Cats, & to cherish them!
Our apology, as we have just proposed it, will thus consider only those persons who, through indolence, follow an ancient prejudice, or those who, in delicacy, affect the fear of Cats.
You know, Madame, what a role our dear friends played in Antiquity! If man’s respects, however ridiculously based, can do any honor to that which is their object, there is none among the animals who can bear more brilliant titles than those of the Cat species. It will perhaps not be prudent to paint it so advantageously at the first; but to put some order in our work, we cannot excuse ourselves from beginning by showing Cats deified, as they were in Egypt, & honored by statues, & by a mysterious cult transmitted to the Greeks, & to the Romans; & without pausing at a great number of monuments of Antiquity, which appear to have been preserved expressly to support belief in the glory of the first Cats, we shall first show the Cat God alone, as he was represented in Egypt under his natural form, adorned with a collar, to the middle of which is attached a tablet adorned with hieroglyphic characters. It is true that we have no understanding whatsoever of the meaning of these characters; but we should not forego explaining them in putting together different events of Egyptian Mythology.
These people had a tradition that the Gods, pursued by Typhon, had thought of hiding themselves under the forms of animals. Anubis, later adored under the name of Mercury, was transformed into a Dog. Diana, who according to the opinion of Apuleius is the same as Isis, was transformed into a beautiful Cat; & as Plutarch remarks aptly enough (for it would not do to omit citing him), the Egyptians did not imagine at haphazard the form of animal which each Divinity was supposed to be taken. Mercury, for example, would not have preferred the form of the Dog except to mark its fidelity in carrying out the orders of its Master.
In following Plutarch’s opinion, then, will it not be most reasonable for us to find some correspondence between Diana & her metamorphosis, & to conclude that the Egyptians would not have imagined her so disguised had they not discerned in female Cats qualities suitable to the good sense of the Goddess.
It is necessary next to explain this other antique figure; it is adorned with symbols which will put into a sufficiently ill humor those who have resolved never to esteem Cats. The Cat God has before him as you see, Madame, a Sistrum, the neck of which is placed in a small cup or, if you wish, a goblet; we shall first remark that the Sistrum was an instrument consecrated to the greatest Divinities of the Egyptians; we shall soon find occasion to establish that Music was admitted in their banquets; & that without yet disclosing how much Music generally has in common with our Cats.
Plutarch, shall we say, makes mention of a celebrated song which was sung at all Egyptian suppers; this song was in praise of the young Maneros, whose name it bore. The Egyptians believed him the inventor of Music; he was the son of King Malcander & of Queen Astarte, who welcomed Isis when, seeking the body of her husband which Typhon had cut to pieces, she found it thrown up by the waves upon the coast of Biblus, where this King, father of the young Maneros, then reigned.
Another circumstance which it will be quite essential to remark is that the upper extremity of the Egyptian Sistrum was ordinarily embellished by a beautiful sculpture, which represented a Cat with a woman’s face; & that there were sometimes Cats scattered on various other areas of this instrument.
But we have another monument of Antiquity more important still. The Cat God is represented with his natural head upon the body of a man; note well, Madame, all his attributes. He holds this same Sistrum; but with a readiness, & with a striking air of familiarity which reveals that he knows how to make use of this instrument. Eh! Why should there not be some true affinities between musical instruments & Cats? Since Dolphins for so many centuries have had the right to be stirred by the harmonies of the flute; & since the Mares of Greece loved songs so well that one was made expressly for them & bore their name. This, according to what Plutarch reports, was a sort of epithalamium, the charm of which softened the austerity of these Mares. They would not consent to receive a mate until they heard this voluptuous air which was only employed for this purpose.
But here is quite another discovery which absolutely must be made plain. Cats are most advantageously organized for Music; they are capable of giving various modulations to their voices, & in expressing the different passions which possess them, they make use of a diversity of tones.
Those who will rise against this proposition will be quite astonished to learn that we will avail ourselves expressly of the statements of two men celebrated for their science.
Cats having been put in possession of a beautiful & large voice, we will demand of their adversaries what they think of this arrangement of Sistrum & Goblet so often found between the paws of Cats. It seems to me, Madame, that they will avow in good faith (for there are certain truths which cut across prejudice); they will agree, say I, that this Sistrum, symbol of Music, & this goblet which necessarily awakens the idea of banquets, reveal clearly that among the Egyptians Cats were admitted to feasts, & that they delighted everyone there by the charm of their voices.
But suppose that they do not grasp at the outset the simplicity of this proposition, & that like those strong minds in the fable by M. de la Mothe, who found impossible that which they did not comprehend, they dare to tell us that the song of Cats, which they lose no chance to call a caterwauling, on the basis of a verse wrongly attributed to Ovid, that this song, say I, could not have been harmonious, or even bearable, will appear to us most unreasonable; but we will conceal our knowledge of it so as not to appear forewarned. We shall content ourselves at first by replying that this which seem to them to be a caterwauling among Cats today proves nothing against the Cats of Antiquity, the arts being subject to great revolutions: We will add, with all the circumspection possible, th
at these dissonances of which they complain are perhaps nothing but a lack of understanding & of taste on their part. This may require certain clarification; & it is then that the truth will appear in its fairest light.
Our Music, to our modern ears, let us say, is limited to a certain division of sounds which we call Tones, or Semi-tones; & we are limited enough ourselves to suppose that this same division includes all that can be called Music; hence we have the injustice to name as lowing, mewing, neighing, those sounds whose intervals & whose relations, though perhaps admirable enough in their genre, escape us because they pass the limits within which we restrict ourselves. The Egyptians were without doubt more enlightened; they had studied, in all likelihood, the Music of animals; they understood that a sound is neither just nor false in itself, & that almost always it would appear neither one nor the other except for the habit we have of judging whether such a collection of sounds is a dissonance or a harmony; they knew, for example, whether Cats in their Music progressed from one tone to another by the same steps as ourselves, or if they broke down this same tone & struck the tones between the half-tones, which would have made a prodigious difference between their Music & ours; they discovered in a chorus of Tomcats, or in a recitative, modulations simple or more involved, lightness of passages, sweetness of sound, or a sharpness which perhaps gave it its appeal: Hence, that which seems to us no more than a confused noise, a charivari, is nothing but the effect of our own ignorance, a lack of delicacy in our organs, of proportion & of discernment.
The Music of the peoples of Asia appears to us at least ridiculous. From their standpoint, they find no common sense in ours. We believe reciprocally that we hear nothing but caterwauling; thus each Nation, in this regard, is so to speak the Cat of the other, & on either side perhaps, guided by ignorance, we form only false judgments.
To this reasoning which, simple as it is, will without doubt make a great impression on them, we shall add a reflection which will complete their conviction. The Egyptians put all to good use in order to savor the happiness of existence. Skeletons borne in during banquets admonished them to profit from each moment of life. Drink, they said, & enjoy yourself: Tomorrow perhaps you will be dead; but this spectacle, regardless of how accustomed to it the Egyptians may have been, & this exhortation, must not have given agreeable ideas through a first impression; it is not for a precept to inspire pleasure, but for the images of pleasure itself. The Songs, the Sistrums, the Cats came then to the rescue; they brightened the somber truth which had just been announced: From then on, no doubt, gaiety imperceptibly took possession of the feast. In our songs, where this same theme recurs often enough, it is at least presented by images which seem to have more relation to the sentiments which they seek to inspire.
Pardon me, Madame, the small vanity of citing myself here by way of example. This song is nothing but the Egyptians’ same idea rendered with softer colors, which are, as far as we are concerned, the Sistrums & the Cats that enlivened the display of skeletons.
These are the ideas which have awakened in me in the first moments of my vexation. My letter must carry the feeling of my agitation: Have the goodness to put in it all the felicities which it lacks; I am going to engage in some serious research, before assembling the Chronicles of Cats with the order & exactitude suitable to the vulgar. I have the honor to be, etc.
CAT, by Reginald Bretnor
I had no premonition of disaster when Smithby married Cynthia Carmichael and took her off on his sabbatical. No inner voice whispered its awful warning in my ear when it was rumored that he was spending his year of leave in research of a strangely private nature. Even as his department head, how could I know that he was bringing Cat into the world?
His year drew to a close, my own sabbatical began, and off I went—intending, after three therapeutic months in sunny Italy, to seek the scholarly seclusion of Scotland’s National Library for the remainder of my time. But it was not to be. Scarcely a week after I arrived in Edinburgh, the letter came.
Did I say “letter”? There was no letter in the grimy envelope which had followed my wandering path from Naples north. It contained only a brief note and an enormous clipping from some cheap green newspaper.
I glanced at the curt message:
Dear Christopher,
Smithby has betrayed our tradition and our trust. Your entire department is in turmoil. Three of us have already tendered our resignations.
Witherspoon
For one dreadful moment, I closed my eyes; and Smithby’s face, a pallid mask of modest erudition, appeared before me. Then, with trembling fingers, I opened up the clipping:
WIFE’S LOVE PROMPTS SCIENCE TRIUMPH!
Young Bogwood Prof Wins Plaudits
For First Cat Language Studies!
The headlines screamed with a malicious glee, above a photograph of Smithby and his spouse, each grasping a large feline. Stupefied, I read on:
New Haven, August 5: For the first time in nearly a century Bogwood College flashed into the limelight today as Emerson Smithby, professor of English Literature, bared what scientists acclaim as the outstanding discovery of the age—the language spoken by cats.
Giving full credit to his wife, blonde curvesome Cynthia Smithby, the surprisingly youthful savant this morning outlined highlights of the gruelling research that enabled him to break down the hitherto insurmountable barrier between man and the so-called lower animals.
Professor Smithby said, in part:
“Cats not only have a language—they have a complex culture not basically dissimilar to our own. I first began to suspect this when Mrs. Smithby and I were honeymooning; and she assisted me untiringly, lending both her own cats for the enquiry.
“As soon as we convinced them of the importance of the project, we progressed rapidly. In less than two months, we were able to prattle conversational Cat with some fluency.”
Professor Smithby then revealed that he has already issued a text for beginners: Cat, Its Basic Grammar, Pronunciation, and General Usage.
He refused, however, to discuss a rumor that, through the efforts of Gregory Morton, widely known cat fancier and member of Bogwood’s Board of Regents, courses in Cat will shortly be added to the curriculum.
Professor Christopher Flewkes, head of Dr. Smithby’s department, could not be reached for comment.
I sat there staring. Lucid thought was impossible. Blind instinct told me that Bogwood was in peril—that Bogwood needed me—that I must catch the first boat back.
Nothing could have prepared me for the reception Fate had arranged in the Faculty Club on the night of my return. Perhaps the bright light over the desk in the lobby blinded me as I entered; perhaps my preoccupation with my own harried thoughts prevented me from seeing the cat. Whatever the reason, I had no inkling of its presence until its sudden scream informed the world that I had stepped upon its tail.
It was a strange tableau. The cat had fled, leaving me standing beside my fallen bag in the middle of the floor. From behind the desk, the clerk—a young Oriental hired in my absence—glared at me through a pair of those curious spectacles known, I believe, as harlequins.
“Do you, my sir,” he demanded with placid insolence, “practice to come and step upon the guests? If so, go to where you belong.”
I stifled my anger. “See here,” I replied, “I am Dr. Flewkes—Christopher Flewkes.”
The fellow smiled. “Then stepping will be an accident. I have knowledge of you. You are Flewkes. I am Yu.”
I thought: The man, of course, is mad! “Indeed?” I exclaimed. “You are me?”
Still smiling, he shook his head gravely. “It is not Mee. It is Yu—Beowulf Yu. I have named myself after an English literature. You will be glad.”
“Very well,” I snapped, “you are You. Is my room ready?”
Yu bowed, unruffled. “I am here for studying,” he informed me. “At the night, I am a clerk; at the day, I am studying Cat with some progress. In Cat, I am even possible to get a passing gra
de.”
“Is my room ready?” I repeated grimly.
“In a certainty, my sir,” said Yu. “At the moment, I will accompany with my presence. Now I must assure our guest of your apologies—”
He went to the cat where it sat nursing its bruised appendage in a corner. “Ee-owr-r,” he said, very courteously. “Meow, meeiu mr-r-ou.”
The cat paid no attention whatsoever; and You, with a worried frown, hastily took a small volume from his pocket, referred to it, and repeated his original comment several times.
Finally, the animal raised its head. “Meow,” it said plaintively.
Yu bowed. Then he turned to me happily. “You are forgiven, for it is a cultured one. Now we ascend upstairs.”
I nodded feebly. As we turned toward the staircase, I saw that the lobby was full of cats. They were on the chairs, on the rugs, before the fire. They were even on the mantel under the portrait of Ebenezer Bogwood.
I entered my room. In a daze, I heard Yu’s ungrammatical goodnight at my door. Wearily I sat down on the bed—and, in doing so, I spied the Announcement of Courses for the current semester lying on the bedside table. I fought against the urge to pick it up—but I was powerless. I reached for it, opened it, turned the pages. And I saw:
Department of Feline Languages
Emerson Smithby, Ph.D., Chairman
This was followed by a list of courses—Cat 100A (Elementary), Cat 212 (Philology), Cat 227 (Literature)—and by other pertinent data, including the information that all instruction was in the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Smithby.
Hopelessly, until day was breaking, I wept for Bogwood.
I did not wake until shortly before the luncheon hour, when the telephone rang to tell me that Witherspoon was awaiting me downstairs; and sad indeed were my thoughts as I forced myself to rise and dress. Witherspoon’s note had mentioned resignation from the faculty; and now the impulse came to me that perhaps I should join him in his tragic withdrawal from the academic world, that perhaps we both had been outmoded by the science of a newer age. Finally, with clothing draggled and beard uncombed, I stumbled down the stairs.
The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New Page 23
