Monsieur Matou

FIRST OF JANUARY OF THE FOURTH SERIES

RENE SALOME

MONSIEUR MATOU AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS LIFE

CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE

appearing twenty times per year

PARIS

8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor

with the good wishes of the cahiers for this new year of work

Monsieur Matou and the Circumstances of His Life

The Linen Cupboard and the Salamander

Monsieur Matou is in the tenth year of his age. That is to say he should be a serious cat. Nine years for a cat is forty years for a man. Now, Monsieur Matou is not a serious cat.

He likes to roll in the coke and the coal. The coke and the coal blacken his handsome white waistcoat and his handsome white Turkish-style trousers.

When he comes back from the cellar, Monsieur Matou cleans his handsome waistcoat and his handsome Turkish-style trousers with his little pink tongue that scrapes as it licks. In doing this, Monsieur Matou swallows hairs from his waistcoat and hairs from his trousers: from which it follows that he coughs and feels sick.

— This Monsieur Matou is stupid, declares the old Norman cupboard to her charges, the sheets, the towels, and the hand towels. If he did not blacken his waistcoat and his Turkish-style trousers every day, he would not have to clean them with his tongue. If he did not have to clean them with his tongue, he would not swallow the hairs that are on them. And if he did not swallow the hairs that are on them, he would not feel sick.

— This reasoning is admirable, murmur the sheets, the towels, and the hand towels. And the old Norman cupboard is flattered to be approved. For she takes her glory in making good reasoning.

But Monsieur Matou never listens to the reasoning of the Norman cupboard. He continues to soil his handsome clothes, to clean them, and to fail to digest the hairs.

This morning, he has squatted down beside the salamander stove, which heats and glows. He has curled himself into a ball, his nose in his waistcoat, his paws and his tail tucked into the fur of his belly. Monsieur Matou is feeling unwell.

— Do not stay so close to me, Monsieur Matou, advises the salamander. A little walk on the wall separating the street from the garden would be better for you.

The salamander speaks thus because she has wisdom, heart, and good breeding. Admire how she knows the disadvantages of her heat for people who are feeling unwell, how she takes an interest in Monsieur Matou, and how politely she speaks. Truly, she is an excellent person. There are many stoves and heaters that should take after her.

Monsieur Matou, who has neither heart, nor breeding, nor wisdom, is not moved by so much goodness; he pretends not to have heard and remains in the same too-warm place, curled into a ball, his nose in his waistcoat, his paws and his tail tucked into the fur of his belly.

— It is useless to give good advice to Monsieur Matou, observes the Norman cupboard. Good advice is made to be followed. Now, Monsieur Matou never follows good advice.

— The observation is true and the reasoning is sound, murmur the sheets, the towels, and the hand towels. And, in his corner, an old kitchen apron adds grumblingly:

— It is certain that he never follows good advice. The other time, madam cupboard, the door of your Ladyship was yawning a little: what does Monsieur Matou do? Monsieur Matou, who is a kind of eel, slips into your sanctuary where he amuses himself trampling your charges with his little rounded clawed soles. He even dares to come and sprawl on me, who am an old, useful, and honorable servant of the household. I say to him, suffocating — for he is very heavy, Monsieur Matou — : hey, Monsieur Matou, you are suffocating me; get out of here, for the devil! Otherwise, Noemi, without seeing you, will push the door, turn the key in the lock, and you will be in prison, deprived of the air and the light that are indispensable to people of your species. But Monsieur Matou turns a deaf ear and continues to suffocate me. What happens? Precisely what I had foreseen. Noemi, without seeing Monsieur Matou, pushes the door and turns the key in the lock. Monsieur Matou falls asleep on me, and I suffocate so well that I lose consciousness. Never has an apron, in the memory of aprons, been treated in such a way… When I came back to life, Monsieur Matou was meowing fit to make one shudder and was flailing about, knocking over piles of towels and hand towels. And why this terrible commotion? Why, to have the door opened.

— This apron is an incorrigible chatterbox, thinks the Norman cupboard: he always takes the floor without permission and keeps it for half days. And then he always tells stories, and never reasons. Certainly, his place is not with me, but in the kitchen or in the suppliers’ shop.

And by her majestic silence, the Norman cupboard shows the apron that she does not like chatterboxes. And as she is silent, the sheets, the towels, the hand towels are equally silent. For the sheets, the towels, and the hand towels fear, above all, to offend the Norman cupboard, who is a great lady, and very touchy.

— No one ever answers me when I speak, grumbles the apron. What an affront for me, who am an old, useful, and honorable servant of the household.

Meanwhile Monsieur Matou dozes or sleeps very close to the salamander, which heats him quite reluctantly. But must not the salamander, willingly or not, act as a salamander? And in his dozing or his sleep, as happens when one feels sick and one is too hot, Monsieur Matou has very ugly nightmares and quite stupid dreams.

The Sewing Table

On the upper landing, there is a sewing table in mahogany. To this table is fitted and articulated a lid, by means of two hinges. When the lid is raised, Monsieur Matou jumps into the box of the table. This box is divided by small partitions into compartments, each with its own contents: here the thread, here the needle cases, here the skeins and balls, here the button boxes, here the pin boxes. Monsieur Matou lies down indolently among all these things, sometimes on his side with his head raised in the manner of seals, marine animals, sometimes on his belly, his front paws well stretched out before him, his nose and his gaze in the line of his back, in the fashion of the big stone beasts called sphinxes.

Just now he has taken advantage of the seamstress’s absence to jump into the box of the sewing table. There, he began by moistening his paws with his little pink tongue that scrapes as it licks.

Then with his moistened paws, he settled himself in the manner of a seal on the thread, the cotton, the boxes, and the delicate steel tools.

It is the needles that are not happy. There are also scissors there that are not happy either.

— If only we could prick his belly! murmur the needles.

— If only it were possible to cut his whiskers! murmur the scissors.

And immediately:

— These scissors think only of cutting, murmur the needles disdainfully.

— These needles think only of pricking, murmur the scissors disdainfully.

For neither the former nor the latter have enough wit to understand, the needles that scissors are made for cutting, the scissors that needles are made for pricking. The needles would like to see the scissors do the work of needles and the scissors would like to see the needles do the work of scissors. In truth, these people have very impertinent ideas — and no doubt they have not learned to reason.

But what does Monsieur Matou care about the quarrel of the needles and the scissors. Monsieur Matou continues to crumple his coffee-and-milk fur against the tops of the partitions and the angles of the boxes. He raises his anemone-colored nose toward the skylight that yawns above the staircase, and from his half-closed eyes, he watches the flock of clouds move in the sky. The breeze from outside enters and plays among the hairs of his handsome white waistcoat and his handsome white Turkish-style trousers. He waits for someone to come and admire him.

But no one comes, except the breeze from outside. Only, Monsieur Matou feels himself being pinched and tickled by some little being that is moving behind his left ear. Pshtt!!! Pshtt!!! It is unbearable to be disturbed like this when one is comfortably installed, in the manner of a seal, on the nice firm tops of the partitions and the no less firm angles of the boxes, waiting for someone to come and admire you.

Monsieur Matou sits on his behind; with a clawed paw, he scratches his head impatiently, and from time to time, he goes pshtt!!! pshtt!!! For Monsieur Matou has very sensitive ears.

Meanwhile the sewing table, which is a little lame — it is an old sewing table: it has moved house often; before living in the provinces, it lived in Paris for a long time — the table, shaken by Monsieur Matou’s jolts, beats a three-beat time on the tiles of the landing: pan, pan, pan — pan, pan, pan.

— Monsieur Matou knows neither respect nor pity, sighs the sewing table, thus compelled to beat time. — The fact is that this is not a suitable occupation for a person of her age and condition.

— But then, why not command respect? say the needles to the table. Really, you have no character.

The needles have character: they even have a pointed character.

— You are quite lacking in dignity, add the scissors. Why not let your lid fall on the back of this insolent fellow?

The words of the scissors are always cutting.

— What can I say? replies the table. I am so tired, so tired! My poor feet are numb and my poor joints are stiff. Do not think I have always been so infirm: I too had my youth.

— Now, now, interrupt the scissors. You are not going to tell us your adventures once more. How many times we have already yawned listening to them!

The scissors speak for themselves, for the needles do not know how to yawn: their mouth is much too small.

During this dialogue, Monsieur Matou has lain down again, no longer in the manner of a seal, but in the manner of the big stone beasts called sphinxes. His white belly fits over the tops of the partitions and the angles of the boxes; his haunches widen and rise royally; his front paws stretch out well before him; his nose and his gaze are in the line of his back.

Now, the gaze of Monsieur Matou is fixed on something that has been left lying on the Empire console.

And this something is a big ball of gray knitting wool, a good big nicely plump, nicely soft ball, pierced by two wooden crochet hooks. This good big ball has a naive look and appears easy to get along with.

And Monsieur Matou feels in his two front paws a tickling need to push a little, just a tiny little bit, this good big ball of gray knitting wool. Oh! It is only a matter of pushing it a tiny little bit, just to see if it will move.

And Monsieur Matou jumps down from the sewing table.

— Finally! say the scissors.

— Not before time! say the needles.

— What can I say? He is ill-bred, explains the old sewing table.

On the landing, Monsieur Matou takes very short steps, very prudent, very careful steps, as if he feared to place his little rounded clawed soles on something burning and cutting. With each very short, very prudent, very careful step, he abruptly tosses, either to the right or to the left, the plume of his tail.

Having arrived at the foot of the Empire console, he stops, sits down, stretches his neck, raises his muzzle in the line of his waistcoat, as if he were examining a star.

— Singular events are about to occur, whispers the sewing table.

But from their position the scissors and the needles cannot see the Empire console, nor the ball of gray wool, nor Monsieur Matou. They feel some vexation at this. And since they have nothing to say to each other that is not disagreeable, they maintain a furious silence, exchanging sharp glances.

The Ball of Gray Wool

With a calculated, nervous, and precise bound, Monsieur Matou leaves the ground and lands on the Empire console, right next to the big ball of gray wool. Monsieur Matou rests on his four rounded clawed soles; the plume of his tail rises toward the ceiling, like a candle; his furry back, which arches outward, looks like a hunchback; his little anemone-colored nose timidly approaches the big ball of gray wool, and the tips of his ears fold down toward the tufts of his sideburns. It appears that the adventure on which Monsieur Matou has embarked because he had a tickling in his paws suddenly takes on an extraordinary importance, and that, to risk nothing, Monsieur Matou must first rest on his four rounded clawed soles, raise his tail like a candle, hunch his back, sniff the ball of gray wool with his little anemone-colored nose, and fold down the tips of his ears toward the tufts of his sideburns.

The sewing table, who is a person of experience — she has moved house so often! — sees clearly that grave events are in preparation.

— There will be a ruckus, she says.

— Are you afraid? reply the needles and the scissors. We, you know, are afraid of nothing. And even a little ruckus would rather suit us.

These needles and these scissors! They dream only of bumps and bruises. One can see that these people live only to prick or pierce, cut or pare. Between us, I think they have the military spirit.

The big ball of gray wool, not having the military spirit, does not share their sentiments.

— What does this hairy, mustachioed personage want from me, it muses. He does not have the awkward, timid, and bewildered air of those Messrs. Sheep on whose backs I used to grow in the form of a thick and oily fleece. I do not feel at all reassured that he is sniffing me and observing me. Hey, Messrs. Crochet Hooks, please protect me from this hairy, mustachioed personage.

Now, the two wooden crochet hooks are two clods who have no chivalrous soul. They have no life other than the life of the agile and witty Fingers, when the Fingers knit. But they are not there, the agile and witty Fingers. And the two wooden crochet hooks, left to themselves, look quite stupid.

— The wooden crochet hooks will not defend the ball of wool, predicts the sewing table. And this prediction is admirable.

— Wooden crochet hooks, are they good for anything? grind the scissors.

— Wooden crochet hooks, fie! add the needles, in their thin and pointed voice.

For the needles and the scissors, like all people of the military spirit, have aristocratic prejudices.

Meanwhile Monsieur Matou, seated between his two haunches, which form against his flanches two flat shields, Monsieur Matou, supported in front, as on two pillars, by the two white paws that extend downward from his handsome white waistcoat, his tail arranged in a circle around him, in the fashion of those draft-excluder cushions, Monsieur Matou puts his little anemone-colored nose into the fur of his neck, and he observes.

After two minutes of observation, he bends his right knee, so that one of his little rounded clawed soles comes to brush against his belly, then, with slowness and prudence, he brings the little rounded clawed sole forward until it has touched the good big ball of wool.

— I am lost, muses the good big ball of wool, while sliding a little on the marble of the Empire console. How horrible! I felt the prickles of this hairy, mustachioed personage; for his feet have prickles just like the wild rose bushes in the hedge. He is going to tear me; or else, if he strikes me again, he will make me fall into the precipice.

For the ball of wool, in its simplicity, imagines that it rests at the edge of a precipice.

Monsieur Matou has straightened up on his four paws. Gracious! One must be on one’s guard now that the ball of wool has moved. For it has moved, that is obvious. And in the understanding of Monsieur Matou, this means that the ball of wool is a malicious being who wishes to take part in the ordinary games of Monsieur Matou. And why does it wish to take part in the ordinary games of Monsieur Matou, if not to win every game? This is something Monsieur Matou will not tolerate.

Monsieur Matou is bolstered by this error and, persuaded that it is better not to be caught off guard by a perfidious maneuver of the big ball of wool, he attacks first. With a swift and well-aimed stroke of the paw, he strikes his partner, or at least the one he takes for his partner. The ball of wool suddenly disappears, and the flat skulls of the wooden crochet hooks ring against the tiles of the landing.

Monsieur Matou shivers with pride; with the ferocity of a black panther from Java — let us not forget that Monsieur Matou is neither a panther, nor black, nor from Java: he was born at Le Pecq, he is a cat, and he wears a coffee-and-milk fur, with a handsome white waistcoat and white Turkish-style trousers — with this ferocity, then, he is about to plunge in his turn into the precipice to finish off the adversary. For the ball of wool is no longer the partner, it is the adversary. This is no longer a game, it is a battle: since the ball of wool jumped so quickly and from so high, it can only be an ill-advised, subtle, and dangerous personage.

Monsieur Matou methodically places his two front soles at the edge of the marble of the Empire console, puts between them his anemone-colored nose, majestically raises his haunches in the shape of a mountain. Will he jump?

Chirp, chirp, chirp. — It is a young sparrow hopping on the roof, near the half-open skylight, while humming a light little song that he was no doubt taught at the Sparrow School.

Monsieur Matou has abruptly resumed a horizontal position. His white Turkish-style trousers are taut as if they wanted to become English-style trousers; the plume of his tail beats in a premeditated but surprising way against his coffee-and-milk fur; his fixed eyes have the gleam of Edison lamps.

Chirp, chirp, chirp. — The young sparrow is already far away, he and his light little song, which he no doubt learned at the Sparrow School.

Monsieur Matou’s eyes go out; the plume of his tail relaxes, then becomes still. Monsieur Matou has quite forgotten the ball of wool, and his victory over the ball of wool, and, a fortiori, that this victory is incomplete. Monsieur Matou sits on the console, scratches his ears, moistens his paws with his little pink tongue that scrapes as it licks. Then he smooths his whiskers.

Monsieur Matou, Music Lover

The little window of the room where I go to read or to write opens onto a gutter. In the room, below this little window, there is a wooden ledge on which I rest my elbows when I look at the garden, and most especially the big branch of acacia that will one day come to walk its tiny leaves — oval, tender, and velvety — among the books, the notebooks, and the manuscripts. Those are leaves that will be very badly received, for the manuscripts, the notebooks, and the books are not easy folk. There is especially a certain Comparative Grammar of English and German that cannot stand the tiny leaves — oval, tender, and velvety.

And now, do not go and imagine that the gutter serves exclusively to receive the waters when they slide down the brown and mossy slope of the roof, nor that the ledge has no other function than to support my elbows when I watch the big branch of acacia coming.

No doubt the gutter willingly receives the waters, and the ledge willingly receives my elbows. But each of them exercises another function, infinitely more noble. For the gutter is the favorite promenade of Monsieur Matou, when Monsieur Matou feels the need to breathe pure air and to take some exercise. And the wooden ledge is the ordinary observatory of Monsieur Matou, when the weather is fine and curious events occur in the garden. That is how the true destination of things is not always the one that immediately presents itself to the mind.

This morning, Monsieur Matou sat on the ledge, put his muzzle into the hairs of his handsome white waistcoat to chew a corner of the pink epidermis that the waistcoat protects, then noted that no curious event was occurring in the garden. Then he turned toward the room where a bookcase, a table, and chairs reign. He saw, open on the table, the Comparative Grammar of English and German, and he recalled that this grammar is an exacting and surly person. His green eyes, each slashed with a black vertical slit, continued their promenade through the room, and finally they encountered the image of a big book.

This big book is spread on a chair. It too is wide open. On the two visible pages, Monsieur Matou sees sorts of trellises, and on these sorts of trellises, pretty little black marks with elliptical shapes. These little elliptical beings are strange little beings. Some have a tail that they let hang down, others a finger that they hold up. There are some of these tails and fingers that have no relation to the other tails and fingers: those are equipped with fine hooks. There are, on the other hand, tails and fingers that form associations: a little bar holds them or supports them by their ends, and often this little bar is either topped or underlined by other little bars just like it.

The pretty little black marks with elliptical shapes are eighth notes, sixteenth notes, and thirty-second notes. And the big book is none other than The Valkyrie, a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner, German poet and musician.

Monsieur Matou loves music very much. Often Monsieur Matou sits beside the piano when the agile and witty Fingers are bustling about on the little boards and ivory sticks, like mice on the shelves of the attic. And finding very much to his taste the brief fantasies of Schumann or even the long fugues of Bach, Monsieur Matou smooths his whiskers.

So, hypnotized by the little elliptical beings, the little tails and the little fingers, Monsieur Matou makes one bound, two bounds, three bounds, and there are the four rounded clawed soles in contact with The Valkyrie, a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner, German poet and musician.

The music of this musician is naturally very impetuous; and the misfortune is that on the two pages trampled by Monsieur Matou, there are many eighth notes, sixteenth notes, and thirty-second notes, pretty little black marks with elliptical shapes. Now, if I have one piece of advice to give you, it is never to irritate eighth notes, sixteenth notes, and thirty-second notes: for they do not know the slowness of reflection.

— Ho there! What is the meaning of this! Boor! Out of here! Help! Murder! cry in chorus the eighth notes, the sixteenth notes, and the thirty-second notes.

And since the voice of each differs from the voice of the others in sound and in pitch — note well that they are all crying at once across the entire extent of the two pages — it is very fortunate for Monsieur Matou and for the people of the household that all these voices are infinitely discreet and distant, for if they were unleashed in copper pipes and on well-tightened strings, Monsieur Matou would certainly become deaf, and the people of the household would find themselves in real danger of becoming idiots.

— Do you hear these discordant, confused, and shrill cries? asks the Comparative Grammar of English and German of her colleague the big Greek Dictionary.

And the big Greek Dictionary answers her with these words, which he measures and cadences according to the difficult rules of the oratorical art:

— O Grammar learned in barbarian tongues, certainly you speak with wisdom and the clamor of these little elliptical beings would put to flight the fair-voiced Muses and put to wrath the Archer Phoebus Apollo. But it is just to say that if the animal called Matou, a cat full of audacity and fearing neither the immortal gods nor mortal men, had not come trampling on the venerable book, the little elliptical beings would not have uttered this clamor which is evidently not in conformity with the eternal laws of harmony.

— This Monsieur Matou is an ignorant and coarse personage, declares the Comparative Grammar. His mind is dark and full of detestable errors. See how he despises the Arts. Believe that he despises the sciences in general and linguistics in particular no less. Many times I have had to endure the contact of his robe of fur, the rubbing of his rounded clawed soles, and the touches of his pale nose. In vain I pointed out to him that I was a learned grammar, well informed, well documented, purged of the etymological fantasies that raged in the old grammars, exact in my definitions and methodical in my divisions, informed at last of the grammatical discoveries most recently made in the German universities. Monsieur Matou listened to nothing and I had to suffer that he scratched the places in my leaves where my critical spirit and my perpetual concern for exactitude show themselves best.

Thus complains the Comparative Grammar of English and German and we shall share in her grief, although she is an exacting and surly person, because we must defend the cause of science and civilization against Monsieur Matou who is nothing but ignorance and barbarism.

Do you see him, quite calmly seated on the eighth notes, the sixteenth notes, and the thirty-second notes of Mr. Richard Wagner, German poet and musician? He is examining with attention a large bluish fly that circles buzzing above the books, the notebooks, and the manuscripts. So I could not paint the indignation of the eighth notes, the sixteenth notes, and the thirty-second notes: their clamor is less and less in conformity with the eternal laws of harmony. And it is in vain that their governesses, the treble clefs — rounded ladies — and the bass clefs — intellectuals with heavy brows — exhort them to composure and recall them to dignity. Dignity, certainly, they have. But composure, just try demanding that of eighth notes, sixteenth notes, and thirty-second notes, especially in the music of Richard Wagner, German poet and musician!

Meanwhile the blue fly has left. Does Monsieur Matou intend to conciliate the eighth notes, the sixteenth notes, and the thirty-second notes? Does he wish to penetrate the secrets of Wagnerian Art? A mystery. What is certain is that he has lowered toward the pretty little black marks with elliptical shapes his little anemone-colored nose, and that he is busy conscientiously scraping the two pages with his little pink tongue that scrapes as it licks.

After all, as Noemi says with much wisdom, everyone has his own way of reading music.

Monsieur Matou and the Araucaria

The Greek Dictionary is conversing with the Comparative Grammar of English and German. The conversation turns on the so-called Mycenaean civilization. The Greek Dictionary, very well informed by certain Reviews in his circle, speaks of the little Cretan ladies, whom Mr. Evans discovered in the palace of Knossos. These little ladies are painted on a wall; although they lived, I think, more than four thousand years ago, they already wear flounced dresses, leg-of-mutton sleeves, and beribonned hairstyles.

— That is extraordinary, declares the Comparative Grammar of English and German. But these frivolities are of mediocre interest compared to the clay tablets you told me about yesterday, which are covered with inscriptions that no one has yet been able to decipher.

And the conversation, full of charm and erudition, is about to continue between the Greek Dictionary and the Comparative Grammar of English and German, when suddenly Monsieur Matou appears, whose indifference in matters of Mycenaean civilization it is superfluous to affirm, whether it concerns feminine costume or clay archives.

At the sight of Monsieur Matou, the Greek Dictionary and the Comparative Grammar of English and German fall silent and stiffen: they consider that learned and wise beings must compose a majestic attitude when they feel themselves threatened by ignorance and barbarism.

But Monsieur Matou does not deign to notice either the Comparative Grammar, an exacting and surly person, or her colleague the big Greek Dictionary, who knows how to say so many pretty things, with such sweet words!

Monsieur Matou is attentive only to a little tree-like shrub in the shape of a fir. This little shrub, straight as an i, comes out of a pot of old porcelain that sits comfortably on the ledge fixed below the window. It is called an araucaria. It is frail and sickly. Its zones of graying greenery tend to droop toward the ground; many of its emerald claws have dried and shriveled: for our countries are ice-cold for this exile whose brothers bathe, thick and robust, over there, amid the moist and warm half-light of the equatorial forests.

No one in the household likes the araucaria except Monsieur Matou. In this, Monsieur Matou shows that he is not entirely pitiless, for the araucaria is a poor, etiolated, puny, and feeble shrub. Monsieur Matou, with his little pink tongue that scrapes as it licks, often scrapes the rough and grayish stem of the shrub; he willingly runs his little anemone-colored nose over the dried and shriveled claws. And the grateful claws most agreeably prickle the little anemone-colored nose.

Monsieur Matou is not like my friend the poet who used to overwhelm the araucaria with epigrams and pointed remarks. My friend the poet accused the araucaria of being a cramped shrub, of artificial appearance and insufficient thickness. Monsieur Matou is not of this opinion. On the contrary, he maintains in the bizarre illusion that the araucaria is a giant tree projecting sumptuous limbs into the distance. What clearly proves this illusion is that Monsieur Matou likes to insinuate himself beneath the branches of the lower zone and to assume there various attitudes of sphinx or seal without appearing to see any of the beings and things around him, as if he found himself isolated in a chamber of greenery, beneath an opaque canopy of tropical trees.

It is obvious that compared to Monsieur Matou, my friend the poet has very little imagination.

Today, Monsieur Matou has again insinuated himself beneath the branches of the lower zone, and he has lain down on the ledge in the manner of a seal. His anemone-colored nose rubs lightly against the little dried and shriveled claws. His gaze pierces the circular zones of graying greenery: there it discovers certainly complications and thicknesses that are not there, and amid these complications and thicknesses, things flying, gliding, and hopping, that are no more there than the rest. Otherwise, the gaze of Monsieur Matou would not remain so long fixed and passionate.

— See, says the Greek Dictionary to the Comparative Grammar of English and German, an exacting and surly person. See the admirable harmony of the ugly little tree and Monsieur Matou. I imagine that there is in this ugly little tree a beautiful nymph who enchants this barbarian to make him wiser and more sensible.

The Comparative Grammar of English and German is an exacting and surly person. She insists that all facts be explained by natural causes, and she speaks a rough, heavy, and Germanic language to all who place the action of gods, fairies, and genii in the phenomena of nature. In this instance, she cannot endure the language of the Greek Dictionary.

— I accept in a pinch that this nymph is a poetic figure expressing the attraction that the araucaria exercises on Monsieur Matou, but if you believe that she exists as you or I exist, I shall say, my dear colleague, that you are no doubt raving, and that having formerly deserved, for the number and the exactitude of your references, a prize from the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, you deserve today, for the amplitude of your delirium, free treatment in some asylum for the insane.

This heavy irony enormously pains the gentle and polished soul of the Greek Dictionary.

What would he answer? If he loves the marvelous, he well knows that the marvelous is not in things. He also knows that it is dangerous to substitute for the words of ordinary language the names of marvelous creatures, for many simple souls take these fictions for realities, and it is not scientific to produce such an error. So the Greek Dictionary is preparing to make apologies to the Comparative Grammar of English and German.

But the Comparative Grammar of English and German is not waiting for apologies; her mind, equipped with precise observations and trained in good experimental methods, applies itself to the examination of the curious fact, which is the admirable harmony of the ugly little tree with Monsieur Matou. And this curious fact suggests to her a rational explanation.

— The attraction exercised by the ugly little tree on Monsieur Matou has nothing mysterious about it. The distant ancestors of Monsieur Matou lived freely in thick forests; they were part of these thick forests; they slipped and wallowed under tangled vegetation; they rubbed their backs and their noses against the clawed, hairy, or leafy lianas and branches that fell straight down or inclined toward the ground; they sometimes looked toward the treetops, amid the inextricable network of branches, at flying or leaping aerial beings. And these ancestors had children. And these children had children. And so on. And the Monsieur Matous of each generation found it as necessary, as easy to slip and wallow under vegetation as it is necessary and easy to eat or breathe. And there were generations of Monsieur Matous that left the forests. But, no more than eating or breathing, did they forget to slip or wallow under the bushes and shrubs that they encountered here and there. For the habitual movements of the ancestors reproduce themselves of their own accord in the descendants, without the cause or reason surviving for which these movements were once performed. And there were Monsieur Matous that came to the cities: there they liked to brush against the flowers of the very small gardens that tall houses stifle, to press against the geranium pots or to shelter under the sickly araucarias. Monsieur Matou continues to do what his ancestors did. But, a degenerate cat, he slips or wallows under a degenerate plant. And the pitiful look of the araucaria and the uselessness of this mechanical act make the ignorant believe that Monsieur Matou is a pitiful cat, and the extravagant believe that the araucaria is inhabited by a nymph.

Thus speaks the Comparative Grammar of English and German, and joy enters her exacting and surly soul.

As for the Greek Dictionary, he thinks that she is perhaps right. But he also thinks that it is a pity that Monsieur Matou is not pitiful and that the araucaria is not inhabited by a nymph.

The Story of Monsieur Mouton Told to Monsieur Matou

Before the dining room window, on a little table dressed in an old wool carpet in dead-leaf tones, there sits permanently a basket where everything needed for darning, mending, and sewing is piled up. To the left of the basket lies an old spectacle case; to the right of the basket are stacked copies of Le Petit Parisien, Le Matin, and some issues of the Revue des Deux Mondes, a bi-monthly periodical.

Of all these individuals, the most interesting, in terms of habits and memories, is incontestably the spectacle case. It is a very old case, contemporary with the big silver-framed spectacles, which hide in its leather sheath their ancient and venerable form. It likes the things and customs of former times; it is hostile to innovations; its memory is a museum of honest figures and domestic events.

It is night: the shutters are closed and the curtains drawn. Outside, the acacia branches moan and the rain taps the gutters. In the dining room, Madame Salamander glows, and from the family lamp go skeins of white gleams that go gently caressing the basket, the spectacle case, the newspapers, and the Revue des Deux Mondes, a bi-monthly periodical.

Monsieur Matou has tucked himself under the little table dressed in an old wool carpet in dead-leaf tones. One could not see him, given that he is hidden by the vertical sides of the carpet; but as he stirs at every moment, either to scratch his anemone-colored nose, or to chew his handsome white waistcoat, or to tread or rub the floorboards with his little rounded clawed soles — for the floorboards do not let themselves be crushed like forest lianas, nor hollowed like the sands of the desert — his presence is revealed by a series of abnormal rustlings.

— I pity, sings the family lamp, those who will not be caressed by my skeins of white gleams. Monsieur Matou must be full of remorse or imbecility to love the caresses of the dark. For only those take refuge there who fear just punishments, or who have neither good manners nor fine language.

— Indeed! Everyone knows that Monsieur Matou has neither morals, nor knowledge of the world, nor common sense, coughs the spectacle case. Is he not busy knocking against the feet of the table at the risk of making us all tumble into the abyss!

— This individual, solemnly declares the Revue des Deux Mondes, devotes himself to doing evil because he has no idea of good, and he has no idea of good because he was not nurtured in religion, it being quite improbable that he ever read Bossuet or the Church Fathers.

— Ah! All of you, if you had known Monsieur Mouton! sighs the spectacle case.

— Well did I know him, says the basket: he was a most respectable cat who did honor to the household. He was not, like Monsieur Matou, ridiculously adorned with a big fur cravat and a big fur jabot, which looks like nothing and is impertinent in our parts. Monsieur Mouton wore an all-white coat, comfortably lined with fur, I grant, but without superfluous tufts or puffs. Unlike Monsieur Matou, he was a regular, punctual, and methodical personage: every day at the same hour he made his toilet, to which he brought an admirable consistency and logic.

— Tut, tut, tut, my dear, coughs the spectacle case. If one did not put a stop to it, you would hold the floor until tomorrow: now, your gossip is perfectly idle. You never did and never will see anything but the small side of things, so that your speeches ordinarily evoke only minuscule, insignificant, and shriveled images. Now then, listen to me, all of you. In those days we were in the country: the house was large and surrounded by a large garden. Among the beings of the household — all folk respectful of public order, practicing most of the private virtues and governed by old habits — there were Monsieur Fox and Monsieur Mouton. Monsieur Fox barked a great deal, which is why I never had a very warm affection for him: I esteemed him, nonetheless, for he looked very presentable. As for Monsieur Mouton, he was, beyond any doubt, a person of consequence, as much for bravery, audacity, and the genius of theft, as for good manners and polished morals.

— Speak, speak on, good spectacle case, sings the family lamp. I love the stories that are told in winter by my light, in closed rooms, when outside the trees moan and the rain taps the gutters.

— Now then, observes the Revue des Deux Mondes, did you not say that this Monsieur Mouton had the genius of theft? How can one believe after that that he was respectful of public order and that he practiced most of the private virtues?

— Wait, replies the spectacle case somewhat curtly — for he does not like objections. The thefts committed by Monsieur Mouton were not ordinary thefts. First of all, Monsieur Mouton was marvelously adroit at opening the doors of cupboards, having judiciously exercised his paws in turning the key in the lock. He also used priceless ruses to get himself locked in the pantry, and one of them consisted in closely and very silently following old Marie in all her comings and goings, in all her twists and turns, taking good care above all never to pass in front of her, so well that she had no suspicion of his presence and she would pull the pantry door shut behind her, without suspecting that she was leaving Monsieur Mouton face to face with whiting, milk, and leftover stew. And this marvelous skill and these priceless ruses so amused the people of the household that they lost all courage to punish Monsieur Mouton.

— This indulgence was culpable, remarks the Revue des Deux Mondes.

— On the other hand, continues the spectacle case, not deigning to pick up this pointed remark, Monsieur Mouton stole with admirable audacity. He slipped into the neighboring houses from which he often brought back fragments of leg of mutton, sausages, and notable pieces of smoked bacon. He went poaching in the warren, notwithstanding the gamekeepers, the traps, the snares, and the set traps. Where others would have perished without even glimpsing a chance of survival, Monsieur Mouton got out of it cheerfully. Sometimes, he came home with his neck squeezed in a snare, other times with his ears in tatters and his paws bleeding. But these disgraces removed nothing from the gentleness of his half-closed eyes nor rendered his bearing less dignified or his manners less courteous. That is why it was generally considered that Monsieur Mouton had the soul of a hero: now, heroism is hardly found anymore among the cats of the present day, judging by Monsieur Matou who is afraid of mice and runs under the cupboards when, by misfortune, a plate is broken.

— This Monsieur Mouton was a sort of bandit, grumbles the Revue des Deux Mondes.

— Must the world really be so wicked to say such things! moans the basket. Monsieur Mouton a bandit! He who was so well-bred, so obliging, and so respectable! For you will know, Madame the prig — this, of course, is addressed to the Revue des Deux Mondes — that Monsieur Mouton, besides being very careful about his white coat, had for everyone the most delicate attentions. It was not he who, out of malice or idleness, would ever have jostled or upset the learned spectacle cases and the poor old baskets where everything needed for darning, mending, and sewing is piled up. And because of that, and also because he was serious, dignified, and excellent company, the old lady in a bonnet with blue ribbons who sat every day in her armchair, right next to a dining room window, allowed Monsieur Mouton on her flea-colored silk dress, while she reread for the twentieth time The Wandering Jew or The Lily in the Valley. Thus Monsieur Mouton was not lacking in letters, which well explains why he answered either “mia” or “mia, mia,” in a little extinguished voice, to those who asked him questions.

— It is through such stories, sings the family lamp, that one recreates by my light, in the well-closed rooms, the labors and the artifices of the heroes of old, that one revives their soul and their figure, to move, instruct, and charm the beings of the present.

— The beings of the present are not worth those of former times, grates the old spectacle case. Whatever that acrimonious and ill-polished Review may say, despite her advanced age, Monsieur Mouton was a person of consequence, and I hold it as established that along with Monsieur Guizot and that Monsieur Thiers, whose portrait hangs down there above the Empire desk, he greatly honored the French bourgeoisie. His misdeeds cease to be misdeeds if one considers, in particular, the boldness and fineness of the execution, all the more so since the correct bearing and the conservative sentiments of Monsieur Mouton were a salutary example to all who enjoyed his company… Poor dear Monsieur Mouton! He died of old age, in the cellar, on a pile of shavings, and that day I saw the little boy in a blue apron weep, on whose shoulder Monsieur Mouton would sometimes perch to meditate some hunting project in the warren or some problem of spiritualist philosophy.

— What does Monsieur Matou think of all this? asks the basket.

Monsieur Matou is still under the table, hidden by the vertical sides of the old wool carpet in dead-leaf tones. He would certainly take care not to think anything of all this: while the story of Monsieur Mouton was being told, Monsieur Matou fell into a deep sleep.

Monsieur Matou, Property Owner

I do not know whether the Comparative Grammar of English and German, an exacting and surly person who explains everything in a rational way, could tell us why Monsieur Matou has the instinct of property; but it is certain that Monsieur Matou has the instinct of property. Does this instinct come to him from the primitive Monsieur Matous who lived amid the moist and warm half-light of the equatorial forests? Or is it an instinct of recent formation, to which perhaps the walls, surly guardians of the garden, have contributed?

The company of walls is detestable, whether or not their tops are bristling with bottle shards. Walls speak hardly of anything but mine and yours; they recite by heart articles of law concerning party walls, seepage, breaches of enclosure, and scaling; their soul is selfish and cold. In my opinion, it is by dint of frequenting the walls that Monsieur Matou has gently assimilated the certainty that he is a property owner.

You see, the walls will have told him:

— Monsieur Matou, you are at home here, and the outdoor cats, if they entered here, would not be at home, but at your home. Let them come by invitation, that may pass, although we do not much like having strangers received here. But that an outdoor cat should introduce himself into your domain surreptitiously and by climbing over the wall — that is something not to be tolerated. Do not hesitate, Monsieur Matou, to chase the intruder out at once, having, if possible, eaten his nose and split his ears. For it would be scandalous for such a crime to go unpunished with rigor, and all laws divine and human, as well as all morals divine and human, severely condemn violations of domicile.

One who must have laughed hearing the walls talk thus is our friend the young sparrow — the one who learns light little songs at the Sparrow School — for if he understands the language of the walls, he has certainly thought:

— Never has any divine and human law prevented me from coming to the acacia in the garden to sharpen my light little songs on two wrong notes — or even on three wrong notes, when I am in good spirits. No divine and human law, never ever in the world, has prevented me from pecking with my beak, on the sand of the paths, the little unctuous and succulent worms, the little insects so pleasant to pick apart, and the crumbs of bread — honest food — and the tiny seeds — health in the body: there is no property owner so jealous of his rights who does not admit, willingly or not, the gentlemen sparrows to enjoy his domains.

Thus must our friend the young sparrow have thought — who learns light little songs at the Sparrow School — and many other people have thought like him. All the birds have thought like him, and all the insects that fly from tree to tree or walk on the leaves with their pretty enameled bonbon boxes, and all the germs and all the vegetable dusts that the breeze brings to put a fragrant, delicate, and green life on the lawns, on the bark of trees, on the barren stones, and the light, and the freshness of morning and evening, and the heat of noon — and so many others!

But in Monsieur Matou’s view, those people are part of the garden. They are not intruders, they are playmates, little picnics on the grass, funny fingers that caress and tickle, good fragrances, sweet warmths, soft surfaces, playthings and delicate utensils, a whole set of things ingeniously arranged there to create desires and to satisfy them. — And the outdoor cats, what does Monsieur Matou do about them? That depends, as you shall see.

Sometimes, at the edge of a neighboring roof, the whiskered muzzle of an outdoor cat timidly advances. From the top of his wall or from the lawn of his garden, Monsieur Matou contemplates the outdoor cat at length and the outdoor cat contemplates Monsieur Matou at length. There are some of these contemplations that last for hours. But during these interminable contemplations, the thoughts of Monsieur Matou do not resemble the thoughts of the outdoor cat.

Monsieur Matou feels at home. He is well-fed. Under his thick white fur, he has a belly. He has high and broad haunches under his long coffee-and-milk fur coat. He has Turkish-style trousers. He has no crust under his eyes because Noemi washed his face. Monsieur Matou feels himself a property owner, well-fed, of good appearance, dressed in elegant and comfortable garments. His thoughts are those of a cat who feels himself a property owner, well-fed, of good appearance, dressed in elegant and comfortable garments, which is to say that he thinks nothing or not much; he looks at the outdoor cat as a being who has been put there to amuse his property-owner’s gaze: yes, to amuse his gaze. The eyes are like the paws: they must play.

The outdoor cat is a poor thin cat who wears neither furs nor Turkish-style trousers, but a simple robe of short hair. His destiny is wandering; he knows the beings and things of the rooftops, the surprising twists and turns of the journeys one takes in the world of chimneys, attics, and garrets, the fearsome aspect of chimney sweeps, and the tortures of hunger. And before this garden of delights whose foliage whistles, lisps, and quivers, and where long green grasshoppers trace ellipses in the wild grass, and where big blue flies in the mauve air nervously draw sharp angles, the outdoor cat aspires to a more tranquil existence, less wandering, less perilous, an existence with daily meals, a safe shelter, and no chimney sweeps.

But Monsieur Matou is there. Monsieur Matou, lying in the shape of a ball on his wall or on his lawn, raises toward the outdoor cat a fixed and interested muzzle. And Monsieur Matou is so thoroughly persuaded of his exclusive rights over the garden that the idea does not even come to him that the outdoor cat might dream of coming down into it. And Monsieur Matou continues peacefully to charm his gaze with that muzzle pointing at the edge of a roof.

Before Monsieur Matou’s persistent gaze, as a property owner, the outdoor cat withdraws his muzzle little by little, and his thin tail trailing in the gutter, his bones jutting under his simple robe of short hair, he moves slowly away toward the very complicated world of chimneys, attics, and garrets.

It is an outdoor cat who respects acquired rights — real or imaginary. It would be dangerous to entrust him with the conduct of a colonial expedition.

I know some outdoor cats who are more enterprising. Above all I used to know some — is everything really degenerating? — when we lived on the rue du Vieil-Abreuvoir. Then Monsieur Matou possessed, or believed he possessed, a long courtyard shaded by three linden trees. There he indulged in the barbarous diversion of the hunt, in gymnastics, in meditation, and in sleep.

Not far from there was a cavalry barracks and, right next to it, the stables of a wholesale wine merchant. From these fearsome dens came fearsome cats, personages without timidity or moral scruples, accustomed to all sorts of wrongful or criminal excesses. I remember among others a certain yellow cat who, in my opinion, was capable of anything except good.

These outdoor cats would install themselves on the party walls, descend into Monsieur Matou’s courtyard, take the cool air in the shade of his linden trees, rub themselves against his flowerpots, and stalk his game.

Now, often, while an intruder was thus enjoying the goods of Monsieur Matou, Monsieur Matou, slow and solemn, grave as justice, impenetrable in his designs, would appear on the threshold of the vestibule. And Monsieur Matou, interminably, would contemplate the outdoor cat; and the outdoor cat, interminably, would contemplate Monsieur Matou. But those, I assure you, were terrible contemplations. Monsieur Matou, with unexpected bursts of speed, would snap the plume of his tail successively toward the four cardinal points. The outdoor cat, with his pointed jaw, would make the noise of a saw cutting into a building stone. And it always ended in incivilities.

There was an exchange of slaps, furry bodies rolled and bowled, muzzles scratched, ears torn. But each battle ended in the victory of Monsieur Matou, who felt himself strong because he had on his side all laws divine and human, which is assuredly a considerable advantage.

And the outdoor cat would flee in panic toward the cavalry barracks or the stables of the wholesale wine merchant.

Those times are already distant. Today, Monsieur Matou enjoys his herbal and leafy domain more or less peacefully. No longer threatened by new intrusions, he sinks into softness and loses interest in social questions. When he sees, overflowing a gutter, the muzzle of an outdoor cat, he simply imagines that this muzzle is there to amuse his property-owner’s eyes; the eyes are like the paws: they must play.

Are outdoor cats more timid than they used to be? I think that in our parts their timidity comes from the fact that they do not frequent cavalry barracks or the stables of wholesale wine merchants, fearsome places where one becomes accustomed to all sorts of wrongful or criminal excesses.

The Wisdom of Monsieur Matou

One must be fair. For the Comparative Grammar of English and German, Monsieur Matou is nothing but ignorance and barbarism. This opinion is not at all mine.

First, I am persuaded that Monsieur Matou does not lack useful or even superfluous knowledge, which forms a little intellectual baggage for him. This little baggage is no doubt of little account in the estimation of the Comparative Grammar, which is an imposing repertoire of linguistic phenomena and which is ignorant of nothing concerning the great biological hypotheses and the good experimental methods. But because one is closed to the things of linguistics, biology, and methodology, does it follow that one is an ignorant and a barbarian?

How could Monsieur Matou not have acquired useful or even superfluous knowledge, he who has the taste and the patience for observation? For you will know that Monsieur Matou is very observant. And his observations bear equally on circumstances that could become advantageous to him and on those from which he has nothing to gain.

Now, I am grateful to Monsieur Matou for sometimes observing circumstances from which he has nothing to gain. From this I conclude that he observes for the joys of observation, and I admire that all his acts are not determined uniquely by gluttony and by appetite. This activity without covetousness is perhaps that of a scientist, perhaps that of an artist.

Look, there he is in the dining room rubbing his little anemone-colored nose against the curtains of the casement. From time to time there comes from his throat a short, thin, and pitiful voice. This casement, he asks that it open, that it at least be cracked open; and as it is slow to open, or at least to crack open, the voice of Monsieur Matou becomes shorter, thinner, more pitiful. Monsieur Matou knows how to melt our hardened hearts.

At last, two beneficent hands intervene above Monsieur Matou’s head, and the casement cracks open, and Monsieur Matou slips outside, first onto the window ledge, then onto the roof of the little greenhouse leaning against the house. To whom do the two beneficent hands that intervened belong? This is a question Monsieur Matou does not ask himself. It seems quite simple to him that the fervor of his distress and the humble sweetness of his repeated complaints should have won over a closed window.

Now, he sits gravely on the wall, the wall with the selfish and cold soul that speaks only of mine and yours. He rises out of the circular cushion of fur that the plume of his tail forms around him. His anemone-colored nose descends toward the quiet street; his nape forms a big furry ball. He observes.

The street is indeed quite quiet, bordered by old two-story houses and walls over which branches lean or stretch; it is a roughly paved street of shapeless blocks, scarcely noisy and scarcely busy.

But the passersby, in the view of Monsieur Matou, are all the more remarkable for being rarer. One sees them for a long time approaching and receding. One more easily manages to fix one’s gaze on the tic, the gesture, the form by which they are extraordinary. Obviously the qualities that strike Monsieur Matou are not those that would strike us. In my opinion, he is interested, in his observation of a moving body, in delicate back-and-forth movements and in imperceptible deviations that would be found again in the flight of a bird, in the aerial quest of an insect. But because Monsieur Matou does not notice precisely the things that you, I, and the Comparative Grammar would notice, must one conclude that he is incapable of acquiring useful or even superfluous knowledge?

— What is Monsieur Matou doing? whisper the acacia leaves.

You know how leaves love to whisper.

— He is guarding us, reply the walls.

The walls think only of guarding and being guarded.

— He is playing at watching people pass by, emits our friend the young sparrow, on the two or three wrong notes of his voice that crackles and sizzles.

A very grave and very still game, interrupted by astonishments and enveloped in reveries. Where does the game of a soul that amuses itself feeling things end, and where does the curious examination of things for their truth or their beauty begin?

— After all, what is Monsieur Matou doing on that wall with the selfish and cold soul? murmur the blades of grass and the little plants of the garden.

— There, crackles our friend the young sparrow, hitting upon another hypothesis, he is studying the things of the outside world.

But how could the blades of grass and the little plants of the garden understand what that means? For the little plants and the blades of grass, the world goes no farther than the wall with the selfish and cold soul.

Yet our friend the young sparrow is right. He has not entirely wasted his time at the Sparrow School. Monsieur Matou is studying the things of the outside world.

The things of the outside world are very considerable and go well beyond the walls with the selfish and cold soul. The things of the outside world consist of strange twists and turns, ill-intentioned children, fearsome noises, barking dogs, and crushing vehicles. There are also found there many basement windows cracked open onto cellars into which it is lucky to plunge, for many ventured there who never came out again. Monsieur Matou knows all this, confusedly perhaps, but he knows it: and you can well see that one must not accuse him of ignorance and barbarism.

Monsieur Matou knows all this because he has made in his lifetime three great journeys of which I shall tell you soon. Three times he wandered for ten long days, far from the family home, like Odysseus who wandered for ten years, from sea to sea and from island to island, before seeing again Ithaca his homeland, his wife Penelope, and his herds of pigs.

And now, Monsieur Matou wisely stays at the edge of this world full of mystery and fright. Under his little anemone-colored nose, people, dogs, and vehicles move. Toward him rise the murmurs of the street, and from the near and distant surroundings. And all this charms him or warns him.

Thus the pleasant and the useful flow gently from this world full of beautiful light and pretty movements, of dark malevolence and noisy machines, toward the top of the wall with the selfish and cold soul where Monsieur Matou rises out of the circular cushion of fur that the plume of his tail forms around him.

A Journey of Monsieur Matou

Monsieur Matou has made in his lifetime three great journeys. Three times he wandered for ten long days far from the family home, like Odysseus who wandered for ten long years from sea to sea and from island to island, before seeing again Ithaca, his homeland, his wife Penelope, and his herds of pigs.

Monsieur Matou loves play, to the great detriment of the piles of towels, the trinkets of the sewing table, the good big balls of wool with their innocent souls, and also of the cord tied to the dressing gown of the lady in whose household Monsieur Matou serves as cat. He loves sleep and reverie. He loves the company of plants and flowerpots. He loves property, the privileges it confers, the struggles one must sustain to keep it intact. He loves observation by which useful and even superfluous knowledge is acquired. You will see that he loves other things still, notably fish and foot baths.

But there was a time when all these sorts of nonchalance and activity were not enough, the former to calm, the latter to tire the singular restlessness of a still-new soul solicited by the unknown just beyond — that unknown which rustled, murmured, sang, or meowed on the other side of the walls.

Monsieur Matou began with short expeditions. He went to the wholesale wine merchant’s, toward the stables, the cellars, and the hayloft. There lived cats who, I think I have already told you, had neither the elegance of costume nor the polish of morals. Among them there raged even a certain yellow cat of very bad appearance, and in my opinion, that yellow cat was capable of anything except good.

The plants in the earthen pots and the orange trees in their boxes conceived lively anxieties. Their vegetable souls are so made for the contemplative and sedentary life that they do not at all grasp the necessity of travel.

— Monsieur Matou will get lost, said the geraniums.

And the orange trees, who have delicate sentiments, expressed the fear that in those ugly places Monsieur Matou would damage his coffee-and-milk fur, his white waistcoat, his Turkish-style trousers, and that moreover he would become a cat of bad company, as there are so many among the outdoor cats.

The truth is that Monsieur Matou, in those regions of new and diverse appearance, among those outdoor cats who differed from each other in physique and in morals, acquired the useful certainty that the world is vast, incoherent, and complicated. And that was the beginning of his science. He knew the intolerant and malicious temper of other cats, and that one ought to confront its effects bravely or skillfully dodge them. And that was the beginning of his prudence.

Was he ever at the cavalry barracks? I very much doubt it, although no document or testimony authorizes me to affirm that he was never there. I doubt it because Monsieur Matou detests brutal ways and abusive voices. Although he has sometimes warred against outdoor cats, he does not have the military spirit.

You should also know that at the barracks, there are many rats; now, Monsieur Matou fears rats. I even believe he is afraid of mice.

I no longer know when the first great journey of Monsieur Matou took place. The importance of this journey appears to me above all now that many other events have intervened and my memories have faded. So many acts are played and so many visions rise between my desire to narrate the first journey of Monsieur Matou and the distant reality of this journey, that I have great trouble going back that far.

Why did I not, at the very time when Monsieur Matou disappeared, was absent, then returned, note down by means of written signs the feelings of people and the impressions of things? I must confess: I had not foreseen the high destinies of Monsieur Matou, nor that one day his social utility would assert itself as imperiously as that of certain prelates, military men, and political personages. And that is why I neglected to note by means of written signs what the beings and things felt during this first great journey. The principal events of history grow over time, as their effects impose themselves: it is rare that, at the moment, one measures their full scope.

My memory, although troubled and wavering at this point, nonetheless lets me glimpse defeated attitudes and lugubre physiognomies. Noemi wept, Louis heaved heart-rending sighs, the children called in vain for Monsieur Matou under the linden trees of the courtyard and in the corridors of the household. At the family table, each of us expressed, in more or less subtle conjectures, why, how, and toward what places Monsieur Matou had gone. At the beginning of meals, severe judgments were emitted, sharpened by the rigors of bourgeois morality, which is hard on attempts at emancipation, on the slightest stirrings of independence. But toward the salad, the spirit freed itself from prejudices and floated softly toward indulgence. At dessert, one grew tender. Over coffee, one analyzed with intelligence and sympathy the restless curiosities of youth.

Would that I could tell you in detail the diverse fortunes of this journey! Alas! I did not follow Monsieur Matou on the walls and on the roofs, to the very complicated world of chimneys, attics, and garrets, nor into the dark alleys where mangy cats and sickly children swarm, nor into the spiral staircases of the poor houses, nor into the cellars, nor elsewhere. And always we shall be ignorant of the strange beings, of violence or gentleness, of treachery or loyalty, that Monsieur Matou met, the enemies he was able to vanquish, and the perils he was able to dodge. This Odyssey will have no Homer.

Time passed. The beings and things of the courtyard commented on this absence. The orange trees, who have delicate sentiments, considered it preferable that Monsieur Matou not return.

— For if he returned, they said, Monsieur Matou would introduce into this honorable courtyard and this honorable household the bad manners, the bad ways, and the bad spirit of the outdoor cats.

The orange trees hold with decorum, with exquisite manners, and with the morals of the well-off, all things that one must not expect from outdoor cats.

In their earthen pots, the geraniums, simple and routine personages, right next to whom Monsieur Matou used to take his afternoon nap, did not venture to answer the orange trees: for the orange tree has social principles whereas the geranium has none, which renders the latter incapable of arguing against the former. But they murmured imperceptibly, the good geraniums, from the tips of their scalloped and shaded leaves:

— Let Monsieur Matou introduce here whatever he likes, provided he comes back here to keep us company.

For these good geraniums, like so many peaceful citizens, loved their little habits.

Meanwhile, Louis went from door to door questioning the neighbors. Had they not seen Monsieur Matou? And to those who did not know Monsieur Matou, Louis provided the description of the traveler. But these efforts came to nothing. Louis brought us back only the condolences of three eminently respectable neighbor women: the wife of the wholesale wine merchant, the one-eyed washerwoman, and the midwife. For these three ladies loved animals.

And mourning fell upon us, upon the household, upon the familiar things that the presence of Monsieur Matou had brightened. Each said to himself in his own way: He will never come back. And except for the orange trees, who have delicate sentiments, each suffered at this thought.

The worst is that our imaginations worked on the case of Monsieur Matou with extreme zeal in forging terrifying hypotheses. We imagined in turn Monsieur Matou lost in the forest, Monsieur Matou become a performing cat in a traveling circus, Monsieur Matou imprisoned by a dishonest old lady, Monsieur Matou turned into a rabbit stew in a cheap restaurant. And these hypotheses, the last one especially, gave us cause to reflect on the consequences of distant expeditions.

Yet, just as Odysseus, after having wandered ten years from sea to sea and from island to island, at last saw again Ithaca his homeland, his wife Penelope, and his herds of pigs, so Monsieur Matou, after ten days and more of a mysterious journey, saw again his family, his kitchen, his courtyard, and his geraniums.

A rescuer appeared. — Was he a baker’s boy or a wine merchant’s boy? To which corporation did this officious and sympathetic personage belong? Alas! Many remarkable circumstances fall into oblivion — and history is full of obscure heroes.

Now, this obscure hero was working in a neighboring house. He had been hearing for hours and hours a cat meowing in a lamentable way on the roof of that house. He went to fetch Louis. Louis reached the said roof and brought us back a cat frightfully thin and frightfully black who, introduced into the kitchen, began to rub himself joyfully against the legs of the table, against Noemi’s skirts, against the dish towels and the hand towels, while purring with persistence and vigor.

The adventurers of fabulous times descended to the land of shadows. Monsieur Matou had evidently descended into a cellar full of coal and had sojourned there for a long time, judging by the number of soapings it took to scrub and wash his coffee-and-milk fur, his handsome white waistcoat, and his Turkish-style trousers.

The plants of the courtyard, and notably the orange trees who have delicate sentiments, found that, after all, Monsieur Matou, thus thinned down by fasting and the fatigues of the journey, looked quite presentable.

— Come, come, Monsieur Matou, said the good geraniums; come and settle yourself under our leaves. Why ever did you leave us?

They spoke thus because their vegetable souls are so made for the contemplative and sedentary life that they do not at all grasp the necessity of travel.

Monsieur Matou at the Fountain

It is raining tediously, a dense and fine rain that blurs the distances. Now the houses are nothing but gray patches, the people gray shadows, the trees gray silhouettes.

The window of the little room where I work is open: for the air has become rare and heavy. On the ledge you know, Monsieur Matou has settled himself in the manner of a seal. The fine droplets sprinkle his pointed ears, his robe of furs, his anemone-colored muzzle. But Monsieur Matou is not one of those cats that fear water: on the contrary, Monsieur Matou is an aquatic cat.

I wanted to tell you of his last two journeys: but the account would be monotonous. For the first journey, I could only timidly hazard a few conjectures and relate what happened among us between the departure and the return of the traveler. For the last two, I could not proceed any differently, since, no more the second and third time than the first, did I follow Monsieur Matou in his twists and turns.

Is it not more timely, since the dense and fine rain is falling and Monsieur Matou rejoices in it, to say in what way Monsieur Matou revealed himself to be an aquatic cat?

Monsieur Matou was born at Le Pecq, on the banks of the Seine, a peaceful and winding river. Of the father of Monsieur Matou, I know nothing and shall never know anything. But I was told that the mother of Monsieur Matou, a fecund and nurturing goddess, was accustomed to go down the banks and to snap up, at the risk of wetting her whiskered muzzle and muddying her clawed paws, the little fish that school and play almost at the surface. Let us not be surprised, then, that this river cat should have given birth to an aquatic cat.

Monsieur Matou owes to distant ancestors his taste for vegetable caresses; he owes to his mother cat, a fecund and nurturing goddess, a singular predilection for foot and muzzle baths, for raw fish, for the touches of the humid atmosphere.

The sandstone fountain, a person of age who occupies a corner of the kitchen, spreads on this subject inexhaustible remarks.

— Monsieur Matou, she told me, willingly settles on my lid. He loves the freshness of this contact. The song of the waters flowing from my tap into the carafes pleases his musical soul. This Monsieur Matou is really quite likable.

The washing stone, the tub, the terrine, and the buckets approve of this opinion. These humble agents of domestic sanitation would lose all sense of their importance, were it not for the discreet tributes that Monsieur Matou pays them, whether Monsieur Matou brushes with the clawed tips of his front paws their liquid and colorless contents, or whether he admires in these contents his green eyes, his pointed ears, and his little anemone-colored nose. The humblest agents of public sanitation would lead a charming and noble life if analogous tributes were ordinarily paid to them.

Formerly it was the buckets that Monsieur Matou preferred. Standing upright on his hind paws, resting his front ones on the rim of the favored bucket, he would touch with his little anemone-colored nose, caress with his little pink tongue that scrapes as it licks, the surface of the liquid and colorless contents. But then, it was in the old house: a porter would carry the water up from the courtyard to the second floor. Now, in the new dwelling, the water comes by itself to where it should come, so that the buckets are hardly used anymore. That is why Monsieur Matou has transferred his affections as an aquatic cat from the buckets to the sandstone fountain, a person of age, who occupies a corner of the kitchen.

On fine days, he comes to find her, settles on her lid: there he reigns and presides over the culinary activities. And meanwhile, the freshness of the sandstone fills him with agreeable sensations; the song of the waters flowing from the tap into the carafes pleases his musical soul.

Caprices

Monsieur Matou likes to vary the circumstances of his life. That is why he rarely sleeps eight nights in a row in the same place.

When I found him again in the month of July, after ten months of cruel separation, Monsieur Matou slept in my room.

In the evening, he would come in like a gust of wind, as if he were hunting on horseback. He would bound onto a chair, from that chair onto a little table, and from that little table onto the ledge that juts out below my window.

There Monsieur Matou would search for a comfortable and remarkable position. He would not find it right away. To rest from the fatigue one gets from seeking a comfortable and remarkable position, he would sit on his behind and watch me undress, then go to bed, with the eyes of an owl.

When I was in bed I would read a little and Monsieur Matou would watch me read. He hoped for a few kind words from me. But the moment I raised my nose to address those few kind words to him, Monsieur Matou would slip behind one of the muslin curtains, and I could no longer see in the half-light, through the network of patterned threads, anything but a round and motionless ball of fur.

After a week, Monsieur Matou decided that he would spend his nights elsewhere. He leaves us, us others, to the routine of our habits, and he follows his little whims, governed by little causes generally unperceived.

So after having galloped up the stairs, as if hunting on horseback, instead of rushing into my room, Monsieur Matou rushed into the room where I work, the ordinary domicile of the Comparative Grammar of English and German and of her colleague the big Greek Dictionary. He slept there several nights in a row, first on the window ledge, then on the leather armchair, then on the table among my papers, despite the protests of the Comparative Grammar who likes neither hairs nor fleas.

But there came a day when this nocturnal shelter ceased to be the ideal shelter. The ideal of Monsieur Matou is mobile: it undergoes perpetual crises. Monsieur Matou does not know the quietude of banal souls. Suddenly, Monsieur Matou made this admirable discovery that nothing was more picturesque, nor safer, nor sweeter than to sprawl on the first-floor landing, in the recess of a closed door. So Monsieur Matou slept for several nights on the first-floor landing in the recess of the closed door. In vain did the cold marble of the console offer him hospitality. Monsieur Matou waited to lie on the cold marble of the console until the nights were a little less hot. By acting counter to common sense Monsieur Matou must have proved to himself the independence of his self.

I maintain that if Monsieur Matou had access to the parlor, it is there that he would establish his nocturnal shelter in an almost definitive way. In this parlor, to the right of the window, there is a door over which falls an imposing red plush curtain. Now, sleeping between the door and the imposing red plush curtain is a pleasure that can leave in a cat’s memory only voluptuous and lasting impressions. Between the door and the imposing red plush curtain, it is as warm as in a nest of velvety leaves in a tropical forest; one is as far from two-legged and four-legged enemies as in the hollow of a tree or the hole of a rock; it is as silent as in the desert. Monsieur Matou knows neither the warm forests, nor the rocks, nor the deserts, and he has no dangerous enemies. But the wisdom of the ancestors always speaks in him.

Monsieur Matou willingly sleeps in half-open cupboards and in sewing tables.

When a trunk is open on the landing, Monsieur Matou sleeps in the trunk.

I recall this remark of a little girl:

— Monsieur Matou never laughs.

And indeed the circular line of his mouth is an immobile line, never stretching toward his ears. Monsieur Matou does not even have the thin and short smile of the diplomat.

He is very playful. The inhabitants of the linen cupboard consider that he is not serious despite his respectable age. He plays with strings, balls of knitting wool, the cord that hangs from the dressing gown of the lady in whose household he serves as cat. When I am there, we play together at the beef’s foot game.

Monsieur Matou may play as much as he likes, he never laughs. Does one play to laugh? One plays to catch the things that move, and to feel them tamed under one’s claws, all ready to be bitten.

When things do not move, one can push them with one’s paw to make them mobile.

None of this is funny.

Monsieur Matou does not know the drawbacks of verbal language. To name a sentiment is not expressive: the word that one makes ring by articulating it awakens in others sensations foreign to our sensations and images distant from our images.

And the Circumstances of His Life

To cry out a sentiment is expressive. This is the ordinary method of Monsieur Matou. His cries are a mode of being of his sentiments. They suggest to us similar sentiments: whereupon our desires accord with the desires of Monsieur Matou, our wills with his wills.

Only a soul of bronze could fail to be moved when he moans his need for air and a walk.

Monsieur Matou excels in the plaintive genre.

Monsieur Matou likes people to take an interest in him. To attract attention he moans out of turn, gallops on the stairs, lies on his back with all four feet in the air, or else, sprawled on his side, his spine well arched, he inserts his anemone-colored muzzle between his two hind paws. All positions full of art and study, meditated and executed for the amusement and astonishment of spectators.

A circle forms around Monsieur Matou. People laugh. They say: this cat is a show-off, or else: he is really not ordinary, or else: Monsieur Matou, you are simply grotesque.

Monsieur Matou appears neither to rejoice nor to take offense at these reflections and observations.

He continues.

On a step of the staircase sits Monsieur Matou between two banisters. He looks straight ahead. Since the staircase turns, there is before him a wall and, looking down, he can see other steps, other banisters, and, at the ground floor, the rounded and tiled base of the stairwell. Monsieur Matou dominates the people who come up to the first floor or come down from it. He watches them with attention and gravity. Gravity is customary for him. Attention is called for before the unknown. He does not watch them with astonishment. In Monsieur Matou astonishments are not distinguished from frights, and do not call for meditation, but for flight. Now here, there is no cause for fright. These people who come up to the first floor or come down from it, Monsieur Matou does not fear them, since he is higher than they are on the staircase.

In former times there lived with us Mademoiselle Fedora, known as Little Wolf, a griffon bitch of small size who, having always been ill-tempered, shrill, and vindictive, became in addition obese and deaf before her time, by the effect of inaction and gluttony. Monsieur Matou and Mademoiselle Little Wolf endured each other. After a few rare conflicts in which Mademoiselle Little Wolf was entirely at fault, they lived in peace under the same roof.

Mademoiselle Little Wolf, whose surly temper raged everywhere and always without discernment, sulked at Monsieur Matou. She sulked for lack of being able to harm, having learned that Monsieur Matou had claws and powerful protectors. Monsieur Matou, who has the instinct of property and some discernment, had understood that Mademoiselle Little Wolf was a domestic thing — and venerated her as such.

About the same time, having likewise understood that the outdoor cats were not domestic things, Monsieur Matou did not venerate them. He rolled them and bowled them in the courtyard. Peaceable as usual, he would turn against them into a warrior for the sole reason that they were not from our house. And this has often reminded me of a thought of Pascal that it is excellent to know by heart:

Why are you killing me? — Why! Do you not dwell on the other side of the water? My friend, if you dwelt on this side, I would be a murderer, it would be unjust to kill you in this way; but since you dwell on the other side, I am a brave man, and it is just.

We are eating. Monsieur Matou approaches me and, rising on his hind legs, he uses his front ones to scratch my arm or my thigh: it is a way of expressing that he loves leg of mutton. This mode of expression is generally disastrous for trousers and for sleeves.

A little affectionate and complimentary purring accompanies these expressive gestures.

It is useless to push Monsieur Matou away: he will come right back with new ardor to scratch and purr. The wisest course is to surrender a mouthful of leg of mutton to him.

He seizes it as if he feared seeing it suddenly fly away. He does not seem to distinguish it from the fingers that hold it out to him.

The dining room window overlooks the garden. We do not have the use of this garden, which belongs to a heavy, spacious, and sinister hovel in the shape of a hangar. The tenants of this hovel are currently Cubans, beings apparently simple in mind and peaceful in manners, who play croquet from nine o’clock in the morning until nightfall.

Monsieur Matou does not like croquet. Croquet brings into the garden that Monsieur Matou considers his property ladies in light outfits, dark very mustachioed gentlemen, children who run without purpose and make useless gestures. Croquet does not go without wooden balls that fly along the paths or without the dry noise of mallets striking the wooden balls.

From atop the wall with the selfish and cold soul, or from atop the little greenhouse that leans against our house, Monsieur Matou, nestled in his furs, listens and watches.

He understands all the less the purpose of these people, these balls, and these noises in that access to the garden is all the more desirable. Down there, on the ground floor of the heavy, spacious, and sinister hovel, on a window ledge, a little yellow bird hops and cries in its cage.

The house is full of things that enjoy a marvelous power for either good or evil.

Among the beneficent things, the shopping basket holds the place of honor. This shopping basket plays a very important role in the morning life of Monsieur Matou. From nine o’clock, Monsieur Matou takes up position beside the empty basket. The presence of Monsieur Matou reminds the said basket that the hour approaches for going shopping.

The basket goes to market. Monsieur Matou awaits its return. For a good hour, Monsieur Matou, seated and tucked into a ball on a chair in the entrance hall, waits with impatience and gravity. The people who come in or go out stroke Monsieur Matou or address kind words to him. Neither strokes nor kind words manage to distract Monsieur Matou from his silent and motionless task, which is to wait for the shopping basket.

Whatever a superficial critic may say, Monsieur Matou has a great deal of consistency in his ideas.

The shopping basket returns from market. It immediately becomes the object, on the part of Monsieur Matou, of the most touching attentions. Monsieur Matou brushes it with his fur or fans it with the plume of his tail or sniffs it with his little anemone-colored muzzle or else gently rubs against the wicker weave one or the other of his rounded and bushy cheeks, the whole accompanied by a little complimentary purring. The basket, generally sensitive to so many courtesies, cracks open and reveals its contents.

There is indeed a person who carries the basket. But what can that matter to Monsieur Matou? It is evident — is it not? — that it is the basket that governs the person and not the person who governs the basket.

Letter to Monsieur Matou

Brussels, November first, 1902

Dear Monsieur Matou,

Why should I not write to you? You yourself once sent me your visiting card on New Year’s Day. No doubt it was not you yourself who had visiting cards made, nor who, having scribbled some well-wishing phrases on one of those little rectangles, had it delivered to me in due time, to my surprise and my joy. The surprise past, and the joy settled, I had easily guessed that someone had acted for you and who had acted for you. The unexpected, singular, gravely comical idea came from a charming soul that we both love.

But believe me well, Monsieur Matou, if you had not been a cat remarkable in several respects, the young lady from overseas, spiritual sister of the Mark Twains and the Artemus Wards, would not have honored you in this way. She would not, in her unexpected, singular, gravely comical way, have inscribed you on the registers of the human city, which is not yet, alas! the harmonious city of our desires, the one of which all the living shall be citizens.

Now you were a cat remarkable in several respects. Though always independent and capricious in temper, you regarded with an indulgent eye the conduct of human affairs. You attentively observed the practice of our customs, the workings of our habits. Your courteous and kind curiosity flattered us. And though kindness and courtesy are usually virtues acquired by a cat treated with civility, we took pleasure in recognizing in you the will to be amiable and the faculty to understand us.

That is why, yielding to the same sentiments that once induced the young lady from overseas to order your visiting cards, I have taken it upon myself to write you this letter, not to discuss frivolous matters, but to speak to you of this little book in which the question is of yourself and the circumstances of your life.

And first, Monsieur Matou, modest cat and enemy of crowds, do not take offense if I publish the secrets of your private life and the oddities of your habits. Your modesty becomes you; it is good that you are modest, but it would not be just for your friends to be so on your behalf.

Then, suffer with equanimity that I not conceal your habitual weaknesses or your occasional failings, your hereditary manias and your sudden fancies, the sometimes bizarre disorder of your acts, the often cruel law of your appetites. The finest qualities, even in man, do not exist in a pure state. The best among us obey pernicious and absurd desires whose very ancient origin still eludes the researches of the scientists.

Do not fear either that this mixture of good and evil, of reason and unreason, this succession of actions without unity, connection, or purpose, will repel readers. They already know or are in the process of learning how incoherent reality is and that it is precisely this incoherence that earns our curiosity. If you understood human language, and could decipher our books, you would have discovered in the Memoirs of Jeanne Marguerite Delaunay, Baroness de Staal (1684-1750) this admirable thought: The true is as it can be and has no merit but to be what it is. Its irregularities are often more pleasing than the perpetual symmetry found in all the works of art.

It may perhaps seem bizarre to you that in this little book the Comparative Grammar, the big Greek Dictionary, and other objects have opinions and deliver speeches. It is because there was between you and them neither thoughtful commerce nor exchange of good offices. I who have known them for a long time, who have handled, felt, consulted, and examined them, or who have seen them handled, felt, consulted, and examined, I know what they would think, want, and say, if consciousness should suddenly come to them. I have acted as if consciousness had come to them. I did so without premeditation, without study, without effort, as if I had long known their language.

What can I say? Where the effort of man has been spent to serve and to please, one finds again, for little that one knows how to see and reflect, thought and life. Things, like animals, await the times of intelligence and fraternal tolerance.

And now, goodbye, Monsieur Matou. Continue to fulfill your functions, which are to play, eat, sleep, observe distractedly or with concupiscence the little beings that fly in the air, form on the seats or in the cupboards a comfortable ball of fur — all this gracefully, strangely, to divert us from the heavy and banal visions.

Goodbye, Monsieur Matou; do not fear that I will forget you. Belgian cats have neither your wit nor your elegant manners.

Monsieur Matou was once photographed. But the need for a new portrait is felt, for Monsieur Matou is now more ample than formerly, and his physiognomy is less distracted.

Unfortunately, Monsieur Matou is afraid of photographic apparatus.

Written in Brussels in 1902