Kittens

Chapter One

GREY PUSS

The May moon is still shining white and round in the sky; but eastward beyond the hills, silhouetting a farmhouse roof, the first faint light of dawn tinges the distant horizon.... Along a hedge leading from the farm a house-cat comes creeping. At intervals it stops and casts a watchful glance behind ... then hurries on again.

The advancing day slowly spreads its wakening touch over the land. In the zenith the sky is already blue, and the stars are going to rest; but all human talk and noise is still buried in the feather-beds of the farm ... only a mighty vibrating chorus of invisible larks fills the air.

The animal is apparently quite an ordinary cat. Its small round head rests on a thick, shapely neck; the legs are short, the tail round and smooth, and the curve of the neck graceful and harmonious.

But on the underside pussy is quite bare and naked. Her stomach is distended from breast to groin like an overfilled sack. The cat has had kittens in her time; the fact cannot be denied!

The squeak of a mouse from the shadow of the hedge brings her to an abrupt halt. Her ears spring to a point and appear all at once disproportionately large, like those of a rabbit. In shape they resemble lynx ears more than a cat’s; the only thing lacking is the tuft.

The night-mists roll slowly from the valleys, revealing the green, dew-spangled blades of the fresh spring crop. Along border and hedge the wild flowers begin to clothe themselves in the sun’s variegated hues. The colours, too, in the cat’s coat begin now to be visible.

She is mouse-grey, with black stockings and white shoes. But round her breast and sides runs--like a mark of distinction--a band of rust-red fur.

Soon Grey Puss resumes her interrupted journey from the farm; the mouse has been successfully captured and eaten. At first she had been tempted to play with it; but the bark of a dog from the direction of the farm brought other thoughts into her head. She no longer steals along--but runs....

THE WILLOW STUMPS

At the farthest end of the hedge loom three ancient willow stumps, like monster mushrooms springing from the ground.

For more than a century they have been regularly clipped, a process which has given them weirdly distorted heads. In each of their bowl-shaped tops is ample room for a couple of men.

Black ants live in the trunks beneath, and form paths up the furrowed, moss-covered bark; on the wind-dried branches and along the withered twigs the male ants assemble in swarming-time, giving the group of ancient trees an extraordinarily lifelike appearance.

But spiders spin their webs from every knot and curve, and in them ant corpses hang thickly in bunches. In one stump a redstart has built its nest; in another, which is big and full of touchwood, grow burdocks, mugworts, and nettles.

The old willow stumps are never at rest.... Hairy, yellow-speckled willow-moths wander all over them from top to root, devouring the leaves, until, later in the summer, only the stalks are left--then they spin their cocoons, and one day rise on their soft white wings to desert the stripped, maltreated larva-trees, the ground beneath carpeted with their filth.

The central stump, the one with fat, crooked stem, is hollow right down to the bottom.

Outside the entrance to the hole--a split in the top of the head--grows a large, thick gooseberry bush, which gives shelter from the wind and rain, and serves as a perfect door. Once upon a time the bush must have flown up here as a seed; now it has developed a long, thick aerial-root which runs down inside, clinging to the wooden wall until it reaches its mouldering base.

In the thorny branches a linnet has built its circular, down-lined nest--and here the bird has been sitting fearlessly for eight days and nights without caring in the least about the old grey cat, which at this very moment is squeezing its way through the narrow entrance.

THE KITTENS

A shadowy bundle at the bottom of the bole comes to life: human eyes would have taken it for a number of mouldering sausages lying among moss and touchwood.

The she-cat cautiously approaches the bundle, letting herself down backwards by the root of the gooseberry bush--at every third or fourth step uttering a low, soft miauw.

The bundle becomes conscious of her, and still half asleep, begins to move.

Now a little leg with tiny, extended claws is stretched into the air, now a sleepy, yawning head pops into sight. Then the old cat glides behind the heap and pushes herself carefully underneath.

The young ones, listening delightedly to the soft, ingratiating miauws, scent immediately the spiced milk-nipples and swarm into her embrace--with relaxed thighs she cuddles still farther beneath them. They crawl forward, fumbling blindly and seeking to get hold ... and she purrs to them contentedly a long, long lullaby.

Outside, the day rises from its cloudy bed on the horizon. The stork’s cackle resounds from the farmhouse roof; the bird, emitting a volley of notes, appears simultaneously on the top of the chimney like a small black paper silhouette. Its crackling castenets wake the farmyard cocks--and now a running fire is kept up all over the village; cock-a-doodle-do, cock-a-doodle-do. Small strips of cloud which seemed before so water-logged and grey become fleecy and reddish, while the horizon is filled like a deep dish with the dazzling shafts of the rising sun.

Above the fields trills the now visible chorus of larks, and the waking cattle greet the day with subdued grunts and bellows. Linnets fly twittering through the air, and a company of peewits flap like a black, drifting cloud across the sunlit sky. Along the grass-bordered wheel-tracks the hare comes hopping, his stomach stuffed with food, his long ears straddled wide; the fellow is courting in these days and has scarcely time for sleep. He squats down and stares at the big red bull, wondering where his little, light-footed hare-girl can have gone. The bull gets up and stretches himself lazily....

Now the edge of the sun appears behind the hills; the partridge whirrs and the wild ducks in the swamp sweep round in circles. Hedge and fence are thrown into sharp relief, and thin, crooked shadows from the farm trees jump up on the white gable of the house.

The horizon is on fire! It is sunrise. The kittens down in the willow stump have all found their nipples; they lift their tiny paws with joy and stretch out their little claws; they cling greedily to the old she-cat’s body and nestle warmly in the shelter of her loins.

Big, the largest, now places a forepaw on either side of his milk-spring, and pushes and pulls with all his strength, while with distended nostrils he sucks and squeezes until he gasps for breath and the milk gurgles in his throat.

Occasionally one of the kittens, its tiny tongue licking its small, pointed muzzle, thrusts up a red nose for a breathing-space.

No mercy is shown! Another kitten at once seizes the still running nipple--the poor, greedy one, occupied for the moment in coughing, must be content temporarily to stand aside.

The happy little mother lies purring with delight over her maternal duties--and at intervals, when one of her little blind children utters a tiny miauw, she miauws back tenderly and consolingly.

Old Grey Puss has the sweetest cat-face possible. The chin and lower lip are white, as is also the upper lip with its shining whiskers. But above the slightly mahogany-coloured snout she seems almost to be wearing a mask. It is dead black--and gives a veiled, deceitful look to the gleaming, golden-yellow eyes.

GREY PUSS AND HER PAST

She had been the children’s kitten; had been petted and played with and had free run of the living-rooms. She could never forget those wonderful days--and the room there--just the other side of the threshold, where no hen or cock, cow or horse, not even Box himself, ever set foot--where only “humans” came. Old as she was, it still lingered in her memory.

Often during the chill of spring or the frost of winter she would see it hovering above her, dreamlike, with its endless bowls of milk and its everlasting summer.

The days of luxury had lasted little more than a month; after that the command was “Get out!” And with boot and broomstick she was ruthlessly expelled.

“Grey Puss is such a thief!” complained the housewife.... “She is always after the meat and cream on the kitchen table. Grey Puss steals ... we can’t have her in the house!”

What did she know about human laws? What were meat and cream meant for if not for a cat?... She took what she could; it was her nature.

After being expelled from the house she began to avoid people; soon the habit became second nature. From the house she was chased to the farmyard, from the farmyard to the cow-stall.... The smoke from the chimney was now the only thing in sight to remind her of her childhood’s luxury.

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