Synopsis: The Paradise of Cats (Le paradis des chats) is a short story by Émile Zola published in 1874 in Nouveaux Contes à Ninon. It tells the story of a cat who experiences an identity crisis. Raised in the comfort and luxury of a home, where he is spoiled with plenty of food and a warm place to sleep, the cat feels dissatisfied and longs to experience the freedom and adventures of the outside world, idealizing the life of stray cats. However, he soon discovers that not everything on the street is as he thought.
The Paradise of Cats
by Émile Zola
(Full story)
AN aunt bequeathed me an Angora cat, which is certainly the most stupid animal I know of. This is what my cat related to me, one winter night, before the warm embers.
I
I was then two years old, and I was certainly the fattest and most simple cat any one could have seen. Even at that tender age I displayed all the presumption of an animal that scorns the attractions of the fireside. And yet what gratitude I owed to Providence for having placed me with your aunt! The worthy woman idolised me. I had a regular bedroom at the bottom of a cupboard, with a feather pillow and a triple-folded rug. The food was as good as the bed; no bread or soup, nothing but meat, good underdone meat.
Well! amidst all these comforts, I had but one wish, but one dream, to slip out by the half-open window, and run away on to the tiles. Caresses appeared to me insipid, the softness of my bed disgusted me, I was so fat that I felt sick, and from morn till eve I experienced the weariness of being happy.
I must tell you that by straining my neck I had perceived the opposite roof from the window. That day four cats were fighting there. With bristling coats and tails in the air, they were rolling on the blue slates, in the full sun, amidst oaths of joy. I bad never witnessed such an extraordinary sight. From that moment my convictions were settled. Real happiness was upon that roof, in front of that window which the people of the house so carefully closed. I found the proof of this in the way in which they shut the doors of the cupboards where the meat was hidden.
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.
THE END
