Complete Works of Emile Zola (1800 page)

I made up my mind to fly. I felt sure there were other things in life than underdone meat. There was the unknown, the ideal. One day they forgot to close the kitchen window. I sprang on to a small roof beneath it.

II

How beautiful the roofs were! They were bordered by broad gutters exhaling delicious odours. I followed those gutters in raptures of delight, my feet sinking into fine mud, which was deliciously warm and soft. I fancied I was walking on velvet. And the generous heat of the sun melted my fat I will not conceal from you the fact that I was trembling in every limb. My delight was mingled with terror. I remember, particularly, experiencing a terrible shock that almost made me tumble down into the street. Three cats came rolling over from the top of a house towards me, mewing most frightfully, and as I was on the point of fainting away, they called me a silly thing, and said they were mewing for fun. I began mewing with them. It was charming. The jolly fellows had none of my stupid fat. When I slipped on the sheets of zinc heated by the burning sun, they laughed at me. An old tom, who was one of the band, showed me particular friendship. He offered to teach me a thing or two, and I gratefully accepted. Ah! your aunt’s cat’s meat was far from my thoughts! I drank in the gutters, and never had sugared milk seemed so sweet to me. Everything appeared nice and beautiful. A she-cat passed by, a charming she-cat, the sight of her gave me a feeling I had never experienced before. Hitherto, I had only seen these exquisite creatures, with such delightfully supple backbones, in my dreams. I and my three companions rushed forward to meet the newcomer. I was in front of the others, and was about to pay my respects to the bewitching thing, when one of my comrades cruelly bit my neck. I cried out with pain.

“Bah!” said the old tom, leading me away; “you will meet with stranger adventures than that.”

III

After an hour’s walk I felt as hungry as a wolf.

“What do you eat on the roofs?” I inquired of my friend the tom.

“What you can find,” he answered shrewdly.

This reply caused me some embarrassment, for though I carefully searched I found nothing. At last I perceived a young work-girl in a garret preparing her lunch. A beautiful chop of a tasty red colour was lying on a table under the window.

“There’s the very thing I want,” I thought, in all simplicity.

And I sprang on to the table and took the chop. But the work-girl, having seen me, struck me a fearful blow with a broom on the spine, and I fled, uttering a dreadful oath.

“You are fresh from your village then?” said the tom. “Meat that is on tables is there for the purpose of being longed for at a distance. You must search in the gutters.”

I could never understand that kitchen meat did not belong to cats. My stomach was beginning to get seriously angry. The tom put me completely to despair by telling me it would be necessary to wait until night. Then we would go down into the street and turn over the heaps of muck. Wait until night! He said it quietly, like a hardened philosopher. I felt myself fainting at the mere thought of this prolonged fast.

IV

Night came slowly, a foggy night that chilled me to the bones. It soon began to rain, a fine, penetrating rain, driven by sudden gusts of wind. We went down along the glazed roof of a staircase. How ugly the street appeared to me! It was no longer that nice heat, that beautiful sun, those roofs white with light where one rolled about so deliciously. My paws slipped on the greasy stones. I sorrowfully recalled to memory my triple blanket and feather pillow.

We were hardly in the street when my friend the tom began to tremble. He made himself small, very small, and ran stealthily along beside the houses, telling me to follow as rapidly as possible. He rushed in at the first street door he came to, and purred with satisfaction as he sought refuge there. When I questioned him as to the motive of his flight, he answered:

“Did you see that man with a basket on his back and a stick with an iron hook at the end?”

“Yes.”

“Well! if he had seen us he would have knocked us on the heads and roasted us!”

“Roasted us!” I exclaimed. “Then the street is not ours? One can’t eat, but one’s eaten!
”

V

However, the boxes of kitchen refuse had been emptied before the street doors. I rummaged in the heaps in despair. I came across two or three bare bones that had been lying among the cinders, and I then understood what a succulent dish fresh cat’s meat made. My friend the tom scratched artistically among the muck. He made me run about until morning, inspecting each heap, and without showing the least hurry. I was out in the rain for more than ten hours, shivering in every limb. Cursed street, cursed liberty, and how I regretted my prison!

At dawn the tom, seeing I was staggering, said to me with a strange air:

“Have you had enough of it?”

“Oh yes,” I answered.

“Do you want to go home?”

“I do, indeed; but how shall I find the house?”

“Come along. This morning, when I saw you come out, I understood that a fat cat like you was not made for the lively delights of liberty. I know your place of abode and will take you to the door.”

The worthy tom said this very quietly. When we had arrived, he bid me “Good-bye,” without betraying the least emotion.

“No,” I exclaimed, “we will not leave each other so. You must accompany me. We will share the same bed and the same food. My mistress is a good woman—”

He would not allow me to finish my sentence.

“
Hold your tongue,” he said sharply, “you are a simpleton. Your effeminate existence would kill me. Your life of plenty is good for bastard cats. Free cats would never purchase your cat’s meat and feather pillow at the price of a prison. Goodbye.”

And he returned up on to the roofs, where I saw his long outline quiver with joy in the rays of the rising sun.

When I got in, your aunt took the whip and gave me a thrashing which I received with profound delight. I tasted in full measure the pleasure of being beaten and being warm. Whilst she was striking me, I thought with rapture of the meat she would give me afterwards.

VI

You see — concluded my cat, stretching itself out in front of the embers — real happiness, paradise, my dear master, consists in being shut up and beaten in a room where there is meat I am speaking from the point of view of cats.

LILI

I

You come from the fields, Ninon, from real fields with their broad views and penetrating fragrance. You are not so silly as to immure yourself in a casino, at some fashionable watering-place. You go where the crowd does not go, to some leafy nook in the heart of Burgundy. Your retreat is a white house, hidden like a nest amidst the trees. It is there that you pass your springs, in the healthy open air. And thus, when you return to me for a few days, your dear friends are astonished at your cheeks which are as fresh as your hawthorn blossoms, and at your lips as red as your sweet-briar.

But your mouth is all sugary, and I would vow that no later than yesterday you were eating cherries. You see you are not a little lady afraid of wasps and brambles. You walk along bravely in the full glare of the sun, knowing very well that your sunburnt neck is as transparent as clear amber. And you run about the fields in a cotton gown and broad-brimmed hat like a peasant girl who loves the land. You cut the fruit with your little embroidery scissors, performing but a slight task, it is true, but working with all your heart and returning home, proud of the rosy scratches the thistles have left on your white hands.

What will you do next winter? Nothing. You will feel dull, will you not? You are not fond of a fashionable life. Do you remember that ball I took you to one night? You had bare shoulders and were shivering in the carriage. It was stifling hot beneath the raw light of the chandeliers. You remained sitting back in your arm-chair, suppressing little yawns behind your fan. Ah! how dull it was! And, when we returned, you murmured, showing me your faded bouquet:

“Look at these poor flowers. I should die like them, if I lived in that hot air. What has become of you, my dear spring?”

We’ll go to no more balls, Ninon. We’ll stay at home at our fireside. We’ll love one another; and, when we’re weary of that, we’ll still love one another.

I remember your exclamation of the other day: “Really women are very indolent.” I thought all day of that avowal. Man has taken all the work and has left you dangerous reverie. Wrong is the result of much musing. What can one think of when embroidering all day? One builds castles in the air or one falls asleep like the Sleeping Beauty whilst awaiting the kisses of the first knight who may pass along the road.

“My father,” you have often said to me, “was a worthy man, who let me grow up at home. I did not learn wrong after the manner of those delicious dolls who, at the boarding-school, hide their cousins’ letters in their prayer-books. I have never confused God with a bogie, and I confess I have always had more dread of causing my father pain than of being cooked in the devil’s caldrons. I must tell you, also, that I bow naturally, without having studied the art of making curtsies; my dancing-master, moreover, did not teach me to cast down my eyes, to smile, or to lie with my face; I am absolutely unfamiliar with those grimaces of coquettes which form the most important part of the education of a well-born young lady. I have grown freely, like a vigorous plant That is why the air of Paris makes me gasp for breath.”

II

Recently, on one of those rare fine afternoons that spring reserves for us, I found myself seated in the Tuileries gardens in the slender shade of the great chestnut trees. Children were at play, breaking the dull rumbling sound in the adjoining streets with their shrill laughter.

My eyes ended by resting on a little girl, six or seven years of age, whose young mother was in conversation with a friend a few steps away from me. She was a fair-haired child, reaching a little higher than my knee, and already had the manners of a young lady. She was wearing one of those delicious toilettes in which Parisians alone know how to deck their children: a puffed pink silk skirt, showing legs encased in pearl-grey stockings; a low-neck bodice, trimmed with lace; a toque with white feathers; for jewels a coral necklace and bracelet. She resembled her mamma, with a little extra dose of coquetry.

She had succeeded in obtaining possession of her mamma’s sunshade, and was walking gravely about with it open, although there was not the smallest stream of sunshine under the trees. She was practising walking lightly, gliding gracefully along as she had seen grown-up persons do. She was unaware that she was being watched. She was rehearsing her part quite conscientiously, trying different expressions of countenance, graceful pouts, learning movements of the head, glances, smiles. She ended by getting to the trunk of an old chestnut tree, to which she very seriously made half a dozen low bows.

She was a little woman. I was really terrified at her self-assurance and knowledge. She was not seven, and was already familiar with the arts of an enchantress. It is only at Paris that one meets with such precocious little girls, who know how to dance before they can say their alphabet I remember the country children; they are clumsy and unwieldy; they crawl stupidly along the ground. There is no fear of Lili spoiling her beautiful dress; she prefers not to play; she carries herself very upright in her starched petticoats, finding her pleasure in being looked at, and in hearing people around her exclaim: “Ah! what a charming child!”

In the meantime Lili was still bowing to the trunk of the old chestnut. All at once I saw her draw herself up and make ready; the sunshade on a slope, her lips wreathed in smiles, and with rather a giddy air about her. I was not long in understanding what it all meant. Another little girl, a brunette in a green skirt, was advancing along the broad walk. She was a friend, and it was a question of meeting her in the most elegant manner possible.

The two children slightly touched each other’s hand, and made the grimaces which are usual among ladies in the same station of life. When they had gone through the customary polite inquiries, they began walking side by side, conversing in shrill voices. There was no question of playing.

“You have a very pretty gown there.”

“The trimming is Valencienne lace, is it not?”

“Mamma was unwell this morning. I was very much afraid I should be unable to come, as I promised you.”

“Have you seen Thérèse’s doll? She has a magnificent trousseau.”

“Is that sunshade yours? It is beautiful.”

Lili turned very red. She was showing off with her mamma’s sunshade because she perceived she eclipsed her friend, who had none. The latter’s question embarrassed her, as she saw that if she told the truth she would be vanquished.

“Yes,” she answered graciously. “It was papa who made me a present of it.”

That was the finishing stroke. She understood how to lie, as she understood how to be beautiful. She could grow up now; she was ignorant of nothing it was necessary to know to be a pretty woman. When girls have such educations how can poor husbands sleep in peace?

At that moment a little boy of eight passed by, dragging along a waggon loaded with stones. He was uttering terrible
gees!
acting the carter; he was playing with all his heart, and as he passed by Lili he almost knocked up against her.

“How brutal a man is!” she said disdainfully. “Observe the disorder of that child’s dress!”

The young ladies laughed contemptuously. The child must certainly have appeared a very little boy to them to play at horses in this way. Twenty years hence, if one of them marries him, she will always treat him with the superiority of a woman who knew how to wield a sunshade at seven, whereas at that age he only knew how to tear his breeches.

Lili had resumed her stroll, after having carefully arranged the folds of her skirt.

“Just look,” she continued, “at that great booby of a girl in a white frock over there, who looks bored to death. The other day she sent to me to ask if I would allow her to be introduced to me. Only fancy, my dear, the daughter of a small clerk I refused, as you may suppose: one ought not to compromise oneself.”