The decision made, I drooped my tongue out cautiously. But if I can actually see the bitter liquid I find it hard to drink it; so closing my eyes tight shut, I began to lap.
When, by sheer strength of will and tigerlike perseverance, I’d lapped away the beer-lees in the first glass, a strange phenomenon occurred. The initial agony of my needled tongue began to ease off and the ghastly feeling in my mouth, a feeling as if some hand were squeezing my cheeks together from the outside, was pleasurably relieved. By the time I’d dealt with the first glass, beer swilling was no longer much of a problem. I finished off the second glass so painlessly that, while I was about it, I even lapped up all the spill on the tray and slurped the whole lot down into my stomach.
That done, in order to study my body’s reactions, I crouched down quietly for a while. My body is gradually growing warm. I feel hot around my eyes and my ears are burning. I feel like singing a song. I feel like dancing the Cat’s High Links. I feel like telling my master, Waverhouse, and Singleman that they can all go to hell. I feel like scratching old man Goldfield. I feel like biting his wife’s vast nose off. I feel like doing lots of things. And in the end I felt I’d like to wobble to my feet. As I stood up, I felt I’d like to walk. Highly pleased with myself I felt like going out. And as I staggered out, I felt like shouting, “Moon, old man, how goes it?” So I did. Oh, but I felt wonderful!
So this, I thought, is how it feels to be gloriously drunk. Radiant with glory, I persevered in setting my unsteady feet one in front of each other in the correct order. Which is very difficult when you have four feet. I made no effort to travel in any particular direction but just kept going in long, slow wayward totter. I’m beginning to feel extremely sleepy, and indeed I hardly know if I’m still walking or already sunk in sleep. I try to open my eyes, but their lids have grown unliftably heavy. Ah, well, it can’t be helped. Confidently telling myself that nothing in this world, neither seas nor mountains nor anything else, could now impede my cat-imperial progress, I put a front paw forward when suddenly I hear a loud, sloppy splash. . . As I come to my senses, I know that I’m done for.
I had no time to work out how I’d been done for because, in the very moment that I realized the fact of it, everything went haywire.
When I again came to myself I found I was floating in water. Because I was also in pain I clawed at what seemed its cause, but scratching water had no effect except to result in my immediate submersion. I struck out desperately for the surface by kicking with my hind-legs and scrabbling with my fore-paws. This action eventually produced a sort of scraping sound and, as I managed to thrust my head just clear of the water, I saw that I’d fallen into a big clay jar against whose side my claws had scraped.
All through the summer this jar had contained a thick growth of water-hollyhocks, but in the early autumn the crows had descended first to eat the plants and then to bathe in the water. In the end their splashing about and the heat of the sun had so lowered the water level that the crows found it difficult either to bathe or to drink, and they had stopped coming. I remember that only the other day I was thinking that the water must have gone down because I’d seen no birds about. Little did I then dream that I myself would be the next to splash about in that jar.
From the water’s surface to the lip of the jar, it measures some five inches. However much I stretch my paws I cannot reach the lip. And the water gives no purchase for a jump. If I do nothing, I just sink. If I flounder around, my claws scrabble on the clay sides but the only result is that scraping sound. It’s true that when I claw at the jar I do seem to rise a little in the water but, as soon as my claws scrape down the clay, I slide back deep below the surface. This is so painful that I immediately start scrabbling again until I break surface and can breathe. But it’s a very tiring business, and my strength is going. I become impatient with my ill success, but my legs are growing sluggish. In the end I can hardly tell whether I am scratching the jar in order to sink or am sinking to induce more scratching.
While this was going on and despite the constant pain, I found myself reasoning that I’m only in agony because I want to escape from the jar.
Now, much as I’d like to get out, it’s obvious that I can’t: my extended front leg is scarcely three inches long and even if I could hoist my body with its outstretched fore-paws up above the surface, I still could never hook my claws over the rim. Accordingly, since it’s blindingly clear that I can’t get out, it’s equally clear that it’s senseless to persist in my efforts to do so. Only my own senseless persistence is causing my ghastly suffering. How very stupid. How very, very stupid deliberately to prolong the agonies of this torture.
“I’d better stop. I just don’t care what happens next. I’ve had quite enough, thank you, of this clutching, clawing, scratching, scraping, scrabbling, senseless struggle against nature.” The decision made, I give up and relax: first my fore-paws, then my hind-legs, then my head and tail.
Gradually I begin to feel at ease. I can no longer tell whether I’m suffering or feeling grateful. It isn’t even clear whether I’m drowning in water or lolling in some comfy room. And it really doesn’t matter. It does not matter where I am or what I’m doing. I simply feel increasingly at ease. No, I can’t actually say that I feel at ease, either. I feel that I’ve cut away the sun and moon, they pull at me no longer; I’ve pulverized both Heaven and Earth, and I’m drifting off and away into some unknown endlessness of peace. I am dying, Egypt, dying. Through death I’m drifting slowly into peace. Only by dying can this divine quiescence be attained. May one rest in peace! I am thankful, I am thankful. Thankful, thankful, thankful.
Table of Contents
Cover
contents
INTRODUCTION
VOLUME I
I
II
III
VOLUME II
I
II
III
IV
VOLUME III
I
II
III
IV
Backcover
I Am a Cat Page 62