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 OS CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES

 
 THE FALSE CAGNOTTE.
 
 THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 
 
 MY 
 
 HOUSEHOLD OF PETS. 
 
 BY SUSAN COOLIDGE. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1882.
 
 Copyright, 188S, 
 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. OLD TIMES 5 
 
 II. THE WHITE DYNASTY 23 
 
 III. THE BLACK DYNASTY 43 
 
 IV. OUR DOGS 66 
 
 V. CHAMELEONS, LIZARDS, AND MAGPIES . . 100 
 
 VI. HORSES 119
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 THE FALSE CAGNOTTE Frontispiece 
 
 AS FOR THE EYES OF THE CAT, THEY WERE 
 RIVETED ON THE BlRD WITH A FASCINATED 
 
 INTENSITY 17 
 
 THE WHITE DYNASTY 23 
 
 PIERROT 29 
 
 THE BLACK DYNASTY 43 
 
 LEAVE is GIVEN HER TO PLACE HER FOREPAWS ON 
 
 THE EDGE OF THE TABLE 57 
 
 OUR DOGS 67 
 
 MONSIEUR WAS STUDYING HIS LESSON .... 81 
 WHEN PAYING LITTLE ATTENTIONS TO HIS LADY- 
 LOVES HE STOOD ALWAYS ON HIS HlND-LEGS . 85 
 
 THE CHAMELEON 101
 
 MY HOUSEHOLD OF PETS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OLD TIMES. 
 
 /CARICATURES are in existence 
 which represent us clothed in Turk- 
 ish fashion, sitting cross-legged on cush- 
 ions, and surrounded by cats, who are 
 fearlessly climbing over our shoulders and 
 even upon our head. Caricature is noth- 
 ing more than the exaggeration of truth ; 
 and truth compels us to own that for 
 animals in general, and for cats in par- 
 ticular, we have, all our lives long, had 
 the tenderness of a Brahmin or of an 
 old maid. The illustrious Byron carried 
 a menagerie of pets about with him even
 
 6 My Household of Pets. 
 
 when on his travels, and raised a tomb 
 at Newstead Abbey to his faithful New- 
 foundland, " Boatswain," which bears an 
 epitaph of the poet's own composition. 
 But although we thus share his tastes, 
 we must not be accused of plagiarism ; 
 for in our case the tendency manifested 
 itself even before we had begun to learn 
 the alphabet. 
 
 We are told that a clever man is about 
 to prepare a " History of Educated Ani- 
 mals ; " so we offer him these notes, from 
 which, so far as our animals are con- 
 cerned, he will be able to extract reliable 
 information. 
 
 Our earliest recollections of this nature 
 date back to our arrival in Paris frtm 
 Tarbes. We were then precisely three 
 years of age, a fact which renders diffi- 
 cult of belief the statements of MM. de 
 Mirecourt and Vapereau, who assert, that 
 at that time we had already " received a
 
 Old Times. 7 
 
 bad education " in our native city. A 
 homesickness of which one would hardly 
 believe so young a child to be capable 
 took possession of us. We could speak 
 only in patois, and those who expressed 
 themselves in French seemed to us like 
 foreigners and aliens. In the middle of 
 the night we would wake up and discon- 
 solately ask if we might not soon be al- 
 lowed to go back to our own country. 
 
 No dainty could tempt us to eat. No 
 plaything gave amusement. Drums and 
 trumpets even, failed to rouse us from 
 our melancholy. Among the things most 
 mourned over was a dog named Cagnotte 
 who had necessarily been left behind. His 
 absence produced such wretchedness that, 
 one morning, after having thrown out 
 of window our tin soldiers, a German 
 village painted in gaudy colors, and our 
 reddest of red fiddles, we were on the 
 point of following by the same road in
 
 8 My Household of Pets. 
 
 hopes of finding the sooner Tarbes, Gas- 
 cony and Cagnotte, and were only dragged 
 back in the very nick of time by the collar 
 of our jacket. The happy thought oc- 
 curred to Josephine, our nurse, to tell us 
 that Cagnotte, impatient at being sepa- 
 rated from us, was coming to Paris that 
 very day in the diligence. Children ac- 
 cept the incredible with an artless faith ; 
 nothing seems impossible to their minds ; 
 but it is dangerous to deceive them, for 
 once their opinions are formed the at- 
 tempt to alter them is hopeless. All that 
 day long we asked every quarter of an 
 hour if Cagnotte had not come yet. At 
 last, to pacify us, Josephine went out and 
 bought on the Pont Neuf a little dog who 
 somewhat resembled the dog of Tarbes. 
 At first we were mistrustful, and would 
 not believe him to be the same; but we 
 were assured that travelling produces 
 strange changes in the looks of dogs.
 
 Old Times. 9 
 
 This explanation was satisfactory, and the 
 dog of the Pont Neuf was received as the 
 authentic Cagnotte. He was an amiable 
 dog, gentle and pretty. He licked our 
 cheeks amicably, and his tongue conde- 
 scended to stretch farther and extend it- 
 self to the bread-and-butter which had 
 been cut for our luncheon. The best 
 understanding existed between us. In 
 spite of this, the false Cagnotte little by 
 little became sad, dull, and constrained in 
 his motions. He no longer curled himself 
 up easily for a nap ; all his joyous agility 
 vanished; he panted for breath, and ate 
 nothing. One day, when caressing him, 
 we discovered on his stomach what ap- 
 peared to be a seam, tightly stretched as 
 if swollen. The nurse was called; she 
 came, she cut a thread with the scissors, 
 and lo! Cagnotte, emerging from a sort 
 of jacket of curly lamb's-wool with which 
 the dealers on the Pont Neuf had invested
 
 io My Household of Pets. 
 
 him in order that he might pass for a 
 poodle, stood revealed in all his poverty 
 and ugliness as a common street cur, ill- 
 bred and valueless. He had grown fat, 
 and his tight garments were suffocating 
 him. Relieved from his cuirass, he shook 
 his ears, stretched his legs, and gambolled 
 joyfully round the room, not at all dis- 
 quieted at his own ugliness, now that he 
 once more found himself at ease. His 
 appetite came back, and in his moral qual- 
 ities we found compensation for his loss 
 of good looks. In the companionship of 
 Cagnotte, who was a true child of Paris, 
 we forgot by slow degrees Tarbes and the 
 high mountains which we had been used 
 to see from our windows. We learned 
 French, and we also became Parisian. 
 
 Let no one suppose that this is an im- 
 aginary tale invented to amuse the reader. 
 The facts are strictly true, and they show 
 that the dog-merchants of that period were
 
 Old Times. 1 1 
 
 as ingenious as are the jockeys of to-day 
 in disguising their wares to cheat unsus- 
 pecting country-folk. 
 
 After the death of Cagnotte our affec- 
 tions turned to' cats as more truly domestic 
 animals and better friends for the fireside. 
 We will not attempt to give a detailed his- 
 tory of all of them. Whole dynasties of 
 felines, as numerous as those of the Egyp- 
 tian kings, succeeded one another in our 
 house ; accident, death, escape, in turn 
 carrying them away. All were loved, and 
 all were regretted ; but life is made up of 
 forgettings, and the remembrance of de- 
 parted cats is gradually effaced like the 
 remembrance of men. 
 
 It is a sad fact that the lives of these 
 humble friends, our inferior brothers, are 
 not better proportioned to those of their 
 masters. 
 
 After briefly alluding to an old gray cat, 
 who took our part against our own flesh
 
 1 2 My Household of Pets. 
 
 and blood, and bit our mother's ankles 
 whenever she scolded or seemed about to 
 punish us, we pass on to Childebrand, a 
 cat belonging to the days of romance. 
 From his name the reader will detect the 
 secret desire which we felt to dispute 
 Boileau, whom at thai time we did not 
 love, though since we have made peace 
 with him. Does he not make Nicolas 
 say: 
 
 " Oh charming thought of poet, most ignorant and bland, 
 Among so many heroes to choose out Childebrand " ? 
 
 It did not seem to us that it argued 
 such a depth of ignorance to select a hero 
 of whom no one knew anything. Beside 
 Childebrand struck us as an impressive 
 name ; very long-haired, very Merovingian, 
 Gothic and Mediaeval to the last degree, 
 and much to be preferred to a Grecian 
 name, be it Agamemnon, Achilles, Idom- 
 eneus, Ulysses, or any other. These
 
 Old Times. 13 
 
 names, however, were the fashion of the 
 day, especially among young people ; for 
 to use a phrase taken from the notice of 
 Kaulbach's frescoes on the outside of the 
 Pinacothek at Munich " Never did the 
 Hydra of wigginess dress more bristling 
 heads than at that period ; " and persons of 
 a classical turn doubtless gave their cats 
 such names as Hector, Ajax, or Patrocles. 
 Our Childebrand was a magnificent cat of 
 the house-tops, with shaven hair, striped 
 fawn-color and black like Saltabadil's clown 
 in " Le Roi s'Amuse." His great green 
 eyes of almond shape, and his velvet, 
 striped coat, gave him a resemblance to 
 a tiger, which we found extremely pleas- 
 ing; for, as we have elsewhere said, cats 
 are nothing more than tigers under a 
 cloud. Childebrand has the honor to fig- 
 ure in some verses of ours, also intended 
 for the discomfiture of Boileau:
 
 14 My Household of Pets. 
 
 Then I for you will paint that picture of Rembrandt 
 Which pleases me most greatly ; and meanwhile Childe- 
 
 brand, 
 
 According to his custom soft couched upon my knee, 
 Lifts up his pretty head and watches anxiously 
 The movement of my finger, which traces in the air 
 The outline of the picture to make it clear and fair. 
 
 Childebrand came in nicely as a rhyme 
 to Rembrandt ; for this fragment was a sort 
 of confession of faith and romance to a 
 friend, since dead, who at that time shared 
 all our enthusiasms for Victor Hugo, Sainte- 
 Beuve, and Alfred de Musset. 
 
 We must say of our cats as said Ruy 
 Gomez de Silva to the impatient Don 
 Carlos, when giving him the names and 
 titles of his ancestors, which began with 
 " Don Silvius, three times elected Consul 
 of Rome," " I have skipped some of the 
 
 best ," and so pass on to Madame Theo- 
 
 phile, a reddish cat, with a white breast, 
 pink nose, and blue eyes, who was thus 
 named because she lived with us in an
 
 Old Times. 15 
 
 almost conjugal intimacy, sleeping on the 
 foot of our bed, or on the arm of our writ- 
 ing chair ; following us in our walks in the 
 garden, assisting at our meals, and not in- 
 frequently intercepting the morsels which 
 we were conveying from our plate to our 
 mouth. 
 
 One day a friend, who was leaving- home 
 for a short time, left in our charge a favor- 
 ite parrot. The bird, feeling lonely in a 
 strange house, climbed by the help of his 
 beak to the top of the perch, and sat there 
 rolling about in a scared way his eyes, 
 which glittered like gilt nails, and wrink- 
 ling over them the white membranes which 
 served for eyelids. Madame Theophile 
 had never before encountered a parrot, and 
 the novelty awoke in her mind an evident 
 astonishment. Motionless as an Egyptian 
 cat embalmed in its network of bandages, 
 she sat regarding the bird with an air of 
 profound meditation, and putting together
 
 1 6 My Household of Pets. 
 
 all the ideas of natural history which she 
 had been able to collect during her excur- 
 sions on the roofs or in the courtyard and 
 garden. The shadows of her thoughts 
 flitted across her changeful eyes, and it 
 was not difficult to read the decision at 
 which she finally arrived : " This is de- 
 cidedly it is a green chicken ! " 
 
 This conclusion reached, the cat jumped 
 from the table which she had chosen as 
 her observatory, and crouched in a corner 
 of the room, her belly on the floor, her 
 knees bent, her head lowered, her spine 
 stiffened like that of the black panther 
 in Gerome's picture as it glares at the 
 gazelles who are drinking by the lake. 
 
 The parrot followed each movement of 
 the cat with a feverish disquietude. His 
 feathers bristled ; he rattled his chain, 
 raised one of his claws and exercised its 
 talons, while he whetted his beak on the 
 edge of the feeding cup. Instinct revealed
 
 AS FOR THE EYES OF THE CAT THEY WERE RIVETED 
 ON THE BIRD'WITH A FASCINATED INTENSITY.
 
 Old Times. 19 
 
 to him that this was an enemy who was 
 plotting mischief. 
 
 As for the eyes of the cat, they were 
 riveted on the bird with a fascinated inten- 
 sity, and said plainly as eyes could speak, 
 and in a language which the parrot under- 
 stood only too well, " Green though he be, 
 this chicken is without doubt good to eat." 
 
 While we watched this scene with inter- 
 est, ready to interfere whenever it should 
 seem necessary, Madame Theophile was 
 imperceptibly drawing nearer to her prey. 
 Her pink nose quivered, her eyes were 
 half shut, her elastic claws projected and 
 then disappeared again in their velvet 
 sheaths. Little shivers ran down her spine : 
 she was like an epicure as he seats himself 
 at table before a dish of truffled chicken, 
 and smacks his lips in advance over the 
 choice and succulent repast which he is 
 about to enjoy. This exotic dainty tickled 
 all her sensuous capabilities.
 
 2O My Household of Pets. 
 
 Suddenly her back curved like a bow 
 which is bent, and with one strong elastic 
 bound she alighted on the perch. The 
 parrot, seeing his danger, remarked in a 
 deep bass voice, as low and solemn as that 
 of M. Joseph Prudhomme, " Hast thou 
 breakfasted, Jacquot ? " 
 
 This remark created in the mind of the 
 cat an evident dismay. She took a sud- 
 den leap backward. A blast from a trum- 
 pet, a pile of plates crashing to the floor, 
 a pistol shot close to the ear, could not 
 have inspired more sudden and giddy 
 terror in an animal of her race. All her 
 ornithological ideas were in one fell mo- 
 ment overturned. 
 
 " And on what ? On the roast beef of 
 the king ? " continued the parrot. 
 
 The face of the cat now said, as dis- 
 tinctly as words, " This is not a bird. It 
 is a gentleman ! He speaks ! "
 
 Old Times. 21 
 
 "When I on wine have feasted free, 
 The tavern turns around with me," 
 
 sang the bird in a tremendous voice ; for 
 he perceived that the alarm caused by his 
 words was his readiest means of defence. 
 The cat cast a questioning glance toward 
 us, and, getting no reassurance in reply, 
 took refuge under the bed, from which 
 place of safety she could not be enticed for 
 the remainder of that day. 
 
 People who are not accustomed to live 
 with animals, or who, like Descartes, see 
 nothing in them but irrational organisms, 
 will no doubt suppose that these designs 
 and reflections which we attribute to birds 
 and beasts, are pure inventions of our 
 fancy. In this they are mistaken : we 
 but interpret their ideas, and faithfully 
 translate them into human speech. 
 
 Next day Madame Theophile, regaining 
 courage, made another attempt on the par- 
 rot, which was repulsed in the same way.
 
 22 My Household of Pets. 
 
 After that she gave it up, and accepted the 
 bird as a man. 
 
 This sensitive and charming animal 
 adored perfumes. Patchouli, the scent of 
 cashmeres, threw her into ecstasies. She 
 had also a taste for music ; perched upon 
 a pile of score, she would listen attentively 
 and with evident pleasure to vocalists who 
 came to test their voices at our piano and 
 receive criticism. Sharp notes, however, 
 made her nervous, and at the upper " la " 
 she was apt to close the mouth of the 
 songstress with a tap of her little paw. It 
 was an experiment which caused us much 
 amusement, and was unfailing. Our feline 
 amateur never mistook the note, and never 
 let it pass unrebuked.
 
 THE WHITE DYNASTY.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE WHITE DYNASTY. 
 
 ET us now come down to a more 
 modern epoch. From a cat im- 
 ported by Mademoiselle Aita de la Pen- 
 uela, a young Spanish artist whose studies 
 of white Angoras adorned and still adorn 
 the windows of the print-shops, we obtained 
 the tiniest possible kitten, which looked 
 like one of those puffs of swan's-down 
 which people use in rice-powder boxes. 
 On account of this immaculate whiteness, 
 he received the name of Pierrot, which, as 
 he grew larger, was amplified into that of 
 Don Pierrot de Navarre, a name infi- 
 nitely more majestic and having a savor of 
 real grandeur about it. Don Pierrot, like
 
 26 My Household of Pets. 
 
 all animals who are petted and spoiled 
 grew up charmingly amiable. He shared 
 our family life with that enjoyment which 
 cats find in being admitted to the intima- 
 cies of the fire-side. Seated in his wonted 
 place beside the fire, he seemed always to 
 understand the conversation and to be in- 
 terested in it. He followed the eyes of the 
 talkers, emitting from time to time a little 
 mew, as if he too had objections to make, 
 and would like to add his opinion on the 
 literary topics which were usually the 
 theme of our discourse. He adored books ; 
 and whenever he found one lying open on 
 the table he would seat himself by it, look- 
 ing earnestly at the pages, and sometimes 
 gently turning one with his claw. He usu- 
 ally finished by going to sleep, as soundly 
 as though he had in reality been reading 
 a modern novel ! 
 
 When we sat down to write he always 
 jumped upon the writing-table, and watched
 
 The White Dynasty. 27 
 
 with a profound attention the point of the 
 steel pen as it scattered flies' legs over the 
 white surface of the paper, making a little 
 movement of his head at the beginning of 
 each new line. Sometimes he took a fancy 
 to join in the work, and would try to get 
 the pen away from us, doubtless with the 
 intention of using it in his turn ; for he 
 was an aesthetic cat, like the cat Murr, de- 
 scribed by Hoffman, and we strongly sus- 
 pected him of spending nights in some 
 hidden gutter writing his memoirs by the 
 light of his own phosphoric eyes. Unfor- 
 tunately these lucubrations, if they ever 
 existed, are forever lost. 
 
 Don Pierrot de Navarre would never set- 
 tle himself to sleep till we had come home. 
 He always waited just inside the door, 
 and, the moment we stepped into the ante- 
 chamber, rubbed himself against our legs, 
 arching his back, and purring in a joyous 
 and friendly manner. Then he would
 
 28 My Household of Pets. 
 
 walk in, preceding us like a page, and no 
 doubt with a very little urging would 
 have consented to carry the candlestick. 
 
 Having thus conducted us to our bed- 
 room, he waited till we were undressed, and 
 then, jumping into bed, embraced our neck 
 with his little paws, rubbed his nose against 
 ours, and licked us with a small pink 
 tongue, rough as a file, uttering meanwhile 
 short, inarticulate cries, which expressed as 
 clearly as possible his joy at our return. 
 Then, having expressed his affection by 
 these demonstrations, and the hour for 
 sleep being come, he would mount the 
 head-board of the bed, and slumber there, 
 poised like a bird on a bough. As soon 
 as we awoke in the morning he would de- 
 scend, and, stretching himself out close to 
 us, wait quietly till it was time to get up. 
 
 Midnight, in his opinion, was the hour 
 at which it was our duty to return to the 
 house. Pierrot and the concierge were
 
 
 PIERROT.
 
 The White Dynasty. 31 
 
 entirely of one mind on this point. Just 
 then we had joined with a few friends in 
 getting up a little club, which we called 
 " The Society of the Four Candles," from 
 the fact that the room in which we met 
 was lighted by four candles in silver can- 
 dlesticks, which were placed on four cor- 
 ners of a table. Sometimes the talk became 
 so engrossing that, like Cinderella, we for- 
 got the hour, at the risk of rinding our 
 carriages changed into pumpkins and our 
 coachmen into rats. Several times Pier- 
 rot waited for our return until two or 
 three o'clock in the morning ; then his feel- 
 ings were so deeply hurt that he actually 
 went to bed without us. This dumb pro- 
 test against our innocent irregularities was 
 so touching that afterwards we made a 
 point of coming in punctually at midnight; 
 but Pierrot for a long while retained a 
 grudge against us. He wanted proof that 
 our penitence was genuine; and not till
 
 32 My Household of Pets. 
 
 time had convinced him of the sincerity of 
 our regret did he again take us into favor, 
 and resume his old position inside the door 
 of the antechamber. 
 
 A cat's friendship is a hard thing to 
 conquer. Cats are philosophical animals, 
 sedate, quiet, fixed in their habits, true 
 believers in decency and order, and not at 
 all given to the bestowing of a thoughtless 
 affection. They will be your friends if 
 you prove worthy of friendship ; but they 
 will never be your slaves. Even in mo- 
 ments of tenderness a cat preserves his 
 freedom of will, and cannot be made to 
 comply with demands which seem to him 
 unreasonable. But once he surrenders 
 himself to you as a friend, what absolute 
 confidence he gives ! what fidelity of affec- 
 tion ! He constitutes himself the com- 
 panion of your solitary hours, of your 
 melancholy, of your work. He will pass 
 whole evenings purring on your knees,
 
 
 The White Dynasty. 33 
 
 happy in your company, and forsaking 
 that of animals of his own species. In 
 vain do enticing mews re-echo from the 
 roofs, calling him to join one of those cat- 
 soirees where juicy red-herrings take the 
 place of tea : he will not be tempted away, 
 and shares your vigil to the end. If you 
 put him on the floor, he jumps back to his 
 place with a murmuring noise which is 
 like a soft reproach. Sometimes, standing 
 near, he looks at you with eyes so full of 
 melting tenderness, so loving and so hu- 
 man, that you are half-frightened ; for it 
 seems impossible that in such a regard 
 reason can be lacking. 
 
 Don Pierrot de Navarre had a companion 
 of the same race, no less white than him- 
 self. All the comparisons which we have 
 heaped together in " The symphony in 
 white, major" cannot express the idea of 
 this immaculate snowiness, which makes 
 even the fur of the ermine look yellow. 
 
 3
 
 34 My Household of Pets. 
 
 This second cat was named Seraphita, in 
 honor of Balzac's Swedenborgian romance. 
 Never did the heroine of that marvel- 
 lous legend radiate a purer whiteness, not 
 even when, accompanied by Minna, she 
 climbed the icy peaks of the Falberg. 
 Seraphita was of a contemplative and 
 dreamy disposition. She would lie for long 
 hours on her cushion, not asleep, but fol- 
 lowing, with an intense expression of the 
 eyes, sights which were invisible to com- 
 mon mortals. She liked to be caressed; 
 but she caressed in return only a favored 
 few to whom her hard-won esteem was 
 accorded. She loved luxury; and it was 
 always upon the softest chair and the piece 
 of stuff best calculated to show to advan- 
 tage her swan-like fur that we were sure to 
 find her. Her toilet took an enormous 
 deal of time ; every particle of her fur was 
 made glossy each morning of her life. She 
 washed herself with her paws; and every
 
 The White Dynasty. 35 
 
 hair of her coat, carefully brushed with her 
 rosy tongue, glistened like new silver. 
 Whenever any one stroked her, she in- 
 stantly removed all trace of the contact: 
 the least untidiness disturbed her. Her 
 elegance and distinction were truly aristo- 
 cratic: in the cat-world she must have 
 ranked as a duchess at the very least. 
 She doted on perfumes, plunging her head 
 into bouquets of flowers, and nibbling with 
 little quivers of satisfaction handkerchiefs 
 steeped in odors. She would walk up and 
 down the dressing-table sniffing at the 
 essence bottles, and would willingly have 
 allowed herself to be dipped bodily into 
 the scented rice-powder. Such was Sera- 
 phita, and never did a cat better justify a 
 poetical name. 
 
 About this time two of those counterfeit 
 sailors who sell striped table-covers, hand- 
 kerchiefs woven of pineapple thread, and 
 other foreign commodities, chanced to
 
 36 My Household of Pets. 
 
 pass through our street at Longchamps. 
 They carried in a tiny cage two Norway 
 rats, with the prettiest pink eyes in the 
 world. White animals were a passion with 
 us just then, and we carried this passion so 
 far that even our poultry-yard was stocked 
 with white cocks and hens. We bought 
 the white rats, and had a large cage made 
 for them, with interior staircases which 
 led to different stories, to dining-rooms, 
 sleeping-chambers, and gymnasiums fitted 
 up with trapezes. In this cage they were 
 happier and better lodged than even the 
 rat of La Fontaine in the middle of his 
 Dutch cheese. 
 
 These pretty creatures of which so 
 many people, for reasons that we cannot 
 understand, have a silly fear grew tame 
 to an astonishing degree, so soon as they 
 became certain that no harm was intended 
 them. They allowed themselves to be 
 stroked like kittens ; and taking our finger
 
 The White Dynasty. 37 
 
 between their tiny pink paws, delicate to 
 an ideal degree, would lick it in a friendly 
 way. They were usually let loose at the 
 end of our meals, and climbing on our 
 arms, shoulders, and head, would dart in 
 and out of the sleeves of our jacket or 
 dressing-gown with singular skill and agil- 
 ity. The motive of all these exercises, so 
 gracefully performed, was to win leave to 
 rummage among the remains of the des- 
 sert. Placed upon the table, in the twink- 
 ling of an eye the pair would make away 
 with every walnut or hazel-nut, every dried 
 raisin, every bit of sugar, which remained. 
 Nothing could be droller than the eager 
 and furtive glances which they cast about 
 them while doing this, or their look of sur- 
 prise when they found themselves on the 
 edge of the table-cloth. When a tiny board 
 was laid from the cage to the table, they 
 would joyfully run across it and store their 
 plunder away in their private cupboard.
 
 38 My Household of Pets. 
 
 The couple multiplied rapidly, until 
 whole families of equal whiteness ascended 
 and descended the staircases of the cage. 
 At last we found ourselves at the head of 
 thirty rats, all so much at home with us 
 that when the weather was cold they bur- 
 rowed in our pockets without the least 
 ceremony, and lay there, keeping them- 
 selves warm. Sometimes leaving open the 
 door of the Ratopolis, we would go up to 
 the second floor of the house, and give a 
 whistle well known to our pupils. Then 
 the tiny crew, who with great difficulty 
 could climb from one step of the stairs to 
 the other, would swarm upward, clutching 
 the rail, pulling themselves along by the 
 balusters, following each other in a file 
 with the regularity of acrobats, up the steep 
 road, down which occasionally one slipped, 
 and run to find us, uttering little cries and 
 manifesting the liveliest joy. 
 
 We must now confess to an act of bru-
 
 The White Dynasty. 39 
 
 tality. We had so often heard it said that 
 a rat's tail resembled a pink worm and de- 
 tracted from the beauty of the animal, that 
 at last we selected one from our menagerie, 
 and cut off the much-abused appendage. 
 The little rat bore the operation well, 
 grew up bravely, and became a master rat, 
 with a fine pair of moustaches ; but in 
 spite of being lightened of the weight of 
 his caudal extremity, he was always less 
 agile than his companions, was wary in 
 gymnastic exercises, and frequently expe- 
 rienced a tumble. When the troop ran up 
 the staircase, he invariably came last ; and 
 he always had the air of an acrobat who 
 is testing his tight-rope and is not quite 
 sure of his balance. This experiment con- 
 vinced us of the usefulness of a tail to rats. 
 It holds them in equilibrium as they run 
 along cornices and narrow projections. 
 When they swiftly turn to right or left 
 the tail turns too, serving as a counter-
 
 4O My Household of Pets. 
 
 poise ; and this is the cause of the perpet- 
 ual wiggle which characterizes it. Nature 
 seldom makes a superfluous thing, and for 
 this reason we should be very cautious in 
 trying to improve her handiwork. 
 
 You will doubtless wonder how our rats 
 and cats, creatures so totally unsympa- 
 thetic, one in fact being the natural prey 
 of the other, managed to live together. 
 In the most amicable way imaginable. The 
 cats never showed their claws to the rats ; 
 the rats never exhibited the least fear or 
 distrust of the cats. This conduct on the 
 part of the cats was thoroughly sincere, 
 and never once were the rats called upon 
 to mourn the death of a comrade. Don 
 Pierrot de Navarre showed the tenderest 
 affection for these tiny neighbors. He 
 would lie down by the cage for hours to- 
 gether, watching them at play. If by acci- 
 dent the door of the room was shut, he 
 would scratch and softly mew to have it
 
 The White Dynasty. 41 
 
 opened, that he might rejoin his little white 
 friends, who not infrequently would come 
 from their cage and go to sleep by his side. 
 Seraphita, of a loftier nature than he, and 
 not so fond of the musky odor of rats, 
 never took part in these games; but she 
 did the rats no harm, and suffered them 
 to pass before her without once extending 
 a claw. 
 
 The end of these rats was strange 
 enough. One sultry day in summer when 
 the thermometer marked the ordinary heat 
 of Senegal, their cage was placed in the 
 garden, under the shade of a vine-covered 
 arbor ; for they seemed to suffer from the 
 heat. A heavy storm came up, with great 
 gusts of wind, lightning and rain. The 
 tall poplars on the river's bank bent like 
 reeds. Armed with an umbrella, we were 
 on the point of going out to look for our 
 pets, when a vivid lightning flash, which 
 seemed to split the very depths of the
 
 42 My Household of Pets. 
 
 heavens, stopped us on the first step of 
 the flight which led from the terrace to 
 the garden. A tremendous thunder-clap 
 followed, louder than the discharge of a 
 hundred cannon. The shock was so vio- 
 lent that we were almost thrown down 
 by it. 
 
 After this explosion the storm grew a 
 little calmer; and hastening to the arbor 
 we found the thirty-two rats lying with 
 their paws in the air, all killed by the same 
 thunderbolt. 
 
 The wire of their cage had without doubt 
 attracted the lightning. Thus perished 
 together, as they had lived together, thirty- 
 two Norway rats, an enviable death, and 
 one not often granted by implacable fate !
 
 THE BLACK DYNASTY.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BLACK DYNASTY. 
 
 TAON PIERROT de Navarre, being a 
 native of Havana, needed a very 
 warm temperature. This temperature was 
 provided for him in our rooms ; but about 
 the house lay extensive gardens, separated 
 by wire fences which offered no difficulties 
 to a cat, and which were planted with large 
 trees, in whose branches innumerable birds 
 twittered and sang. Not infrequently Pier- 
 rot, profiting by an open door, would make 
 his escape of evenings for the enjoyment 
 of a private hunt over the lawns and the 
 flower-beds wet with dew. Sometimes he 
 had to wait till daylight before he could 
 re-enter the house ; for, though he mewed
 
 46 My Household of Pets. 
 
 under the windows, his signal did not al- 
 ways rouse the sleepers within. His chest 
 had always been delicate, and one chilly 
 night he took a cold, which speedily de- 
 veloped into consumption. Poor Pierrot ! 
 he became painfully thin after a year of 
 coughing. His fur, once so silky, lost its 
 gloss, and reminded one of the dull, opaque 
 whiteness of a winding-sheet. His great 
 transparent eyes looked enormous by con- 
 trast with his poor little face. His pink 
 nose grew pale, and he dragged his feet 
 slowly along his favorite sunshiny wall, 
 watching the yellow autumn leaves whirled 
 along in spiral flights by the wind, and 
 looking as though he were repeating to 
 himself the elegy of Millevoye. 
 
 There is nothing in the world more 
 touching than a sick animal. It submits 
 to its sufferings with such a sweet, sad 
 resignation. Everything possible was done 
 to save Pierrot. He had a skilful doctor,
 
 The Black Dynasty. 47 
 
 who stethoscoped him and felt his pulse. 
 Asses' milk was ordered, and the poor 
 thing lapped it willingly enough from his 
 little porcelain saucer. He would lie for 
 long hours on .our knees, stretched out, 
 and immovable as the shadow of a sphinx. 
 We could number his vertebrae with our 
 fingers, like the beads of a rosary. When 
 he tried to respond to our caresses by 
 a feeble mew, it sounded like a death- 
 rattle. On the day of his death, as he lay 
 panting upon his side, he raised himself 
 with a supreme effort and crept toward 
 us, opening wide his dilated eyes with a 
 look which seemed to claim our help with 
 an intense supplication. It said plainly as 
 words could say, " Come, save me, thou 
 who art a man ! " Then he staggered ; his 
 eyes became fixed ; and he fell with a cry 
 so desperate, so lamentable, so full of an- 
 guish, that we sat transfixed with silent 
 horror. He was buried at the bottom of
 
 48 My Household of Pets. 
 
 the garden, under a white-rose tree which 
 still marks the place of his grave. 
 
 Two or three years later Seraphita died 
 also, of a mysterious disease against which 
 all the resources of science proved un- 
 availing. She is buried not far from 
 Pierrot. 
 
 With them the Dynastie Blanche be- 
 came extinct, but not the family. For of 
 this couple, white as snow, were born 
 three kittens as black as ink. Explain, 
 who can, this mystery. The great excite- 
 ment of the day was Victor Hugo's novel 
 " Les Miserables." No one spoke of any- 
 thing else, and the names of its heroes 
 and heroines were in every mouth. Nat- 
 urally, therefore, the two male kittens were 
 christened Enjolras and Gavroche, while 
 their sister received the title of Eponine. 
 When very young they acquired a num- 
 ber of pretty tricks. Among the rest 
 they were taught to run like a dog after
 
 The Black Dynasty. 49 
 
 a ball made of rolled-up paper, and to 
 fetch it back when thrown to a distance. 
 Even though the ball were tossed up to 
 the cornices of the wardrobes, hidden be- 
 hind piles of sheets on a shelf, or dropped 
 into a deep vase, they would always dis- 
 cover and fetch it safely in their paws. 
 Later in life they learned to despise these 
 frivolous amusements, and acquired that 
 calm and dreamy philosophy which is the 
 true characteristic of the cat nature. 
 
 When people first land in one of the 
 Southern States of America, the negroes 
 they see are to them simply negroes ; they 
 cannot tell one from another. So to care- 
 less eyes three black cats are three black 
 cats, and nothing more. Observant per- 
 sons, however, do not make such mistakes. 
 The physiognomies of animals differ from 
 each other like those of men ; and we never 
 had the least difficulty in distinguishing 
 between these three faces, all black as the 
 
 4
 
 50 My Household of Pets. 
 
 mask of Harlequin, and lighted by emerald 
 disks with reflections of gold. 
 
 Enjolras, by far the prettiest of the three 
 cats, could be identified by his large and 
 lion-like head, his well-whiskered cheeks, 
 strong shoulders, long back, and a superb 
 tail which expanded like a plume. There 
 was something theatrical and emphatic 
 about him, and he was addicted to poses 
 like a favorite actor. His slow and un- 
 dulating movements were full of majesty. 
 He could be trusted to walk over consoles 
 loaded with treasures in china and Venice 
 glass, so circumspectly did he order his 
 footsteps. He was not much of a Stoic 
 in character, and his taste for dainties 
 would have horrified his namesake Enjol- 
 ras, that sober and pure young man, who 
 would doubtless have said to him, as the 
 angel did to Swedenborg, " Thou eatest 
 too much." This gluttonous turn, which 
 was as droll as that of a gastronomic
 
 The Black Dynasty. 51 
 
 monkey, was indulged ; and Enjolras at- 
 tained a size and weight most unusual 
 in a domestic cat. The idea occurred to 
 us to have him shaved like a poodle, in 
 order to complete his resemblance to a 
 lion. A mane was left to him, and one 
 thick tuft of hair at the end of his tail. 
 We will not swear that it was not part of 
 the original design to furnish him with 
 leg-of-mutton whiskers like those in the 
 portrait of Munito. Thus accoutred, he 
 looked, it must be confessed, less like a 
 lion of the jungle or of the Cape than 
 like a Japanese chimera. Never was a 
 more absurd whim carried out upon the 
 body of a living animal. His hair was 
 shaved so closely that it showed the skin, 
 which exhibited odd bluish tones, and 
 contrasted in the most extraordinary way 
 with the blackness of his mane. 
 
 Gavroche, as if to suit with the character 
 of his namesake in the novel, was a cat of
 
 52 My Household of Pets. 
 
 a crafty and furtive disposition. Smaller 
 than Enjolras, his agility was most comical 
 and surprising. His substitutes for the 
 jokes and slang of the Paris gamin were 
 capers, somersaults, and ludicrous motions. 
 We are forced to confess that, notwith- 
 standing these attractive qualities, Gav- 
 roche never lost an opportunity of stealing 
 out of the parlor in order to join in the 
 street or courtyard with vagabond cats, 
 
 "Of any sort of birth, and blood unknown to fame," 
 
 in parties of the most unrefined sort, quite 
 forgetting his dignity as a cat from Ha- 
 vana: son of the illustrious Don Pierrot 
 de Navarre, grandee of Spain of the first 
 rank, and of the Marquise Seraphita, whose 
 manners were so lofty and disdainful. 
 Sometimes by way of a treat he would 
 conduct to his porridge-plate some com- 
 rade emaciated by famine and all skin- 
 and-bone, whom he had picked up during
 
 The Black Dynasty. 53 
 
 his peregrinations; introducing him with 
 all the airs of a condescending prince. 
 The poor wretch, with drooping ears, 
 sidelong glance, and tail between his legs, 
 fearing that his free lunch might at any 
 moment be interrupted by the housemaid's 
 broom, would gobble down double, triple, 
 quadruple mouthfuls, and like Siete-Aguas, 
 or Seven Waters, of the Spanish posada, 
 make the plate in a few seconds as clean 
 as though it had been scrubbed by a 
 Dutch housewife to serve as a model to 
 Mieris or Gerard Dow. 
 
 Beholding these chosen prote'ges of Gav- 
 roche's, that phrase with which Gavarni 
 illustrates one of his caricatures frequently 
 came into our head: "Fine friends these 
 are which you have selected to go about 
 with ! " But after all they were only a 
 proof of Gavroche's real goodness of heart; 
 for he might easily have eaten up every- 
 thing himself.
 
 54 My Household of Pets. 
 
 The cat who bore the name of the in- 
 teresting Eponine was more slender and 
 delicately made than her brothers. Her 
 nose was slightly longer ; her eyes set 
 obliquely in the head like those of a Chi- 
 nese, were of a green hue like the eyes of 
 Pallas Athene, to which Homer invariably 
 applies the epithet y\au/c<u7u<?. Her nose 
 of a velvety blackness, as finely grained 
 as a Perigord truffle ; her moustaches per- 
 petually waving, made up a physiognomy 
 full of expression. Her superb black fur 
 was always in a quiver, and glittered with 
 changeful lustres. Never was there a creat- 
 ure so sympathetic, nervous, and theatrical 
 as Eponine. If you passed your hand 
 over her back once or twice in the dusk 
 little blue sparks would flash from the 
 fur. Eponine attached herself to us as 
 devotedly as did the Eponine of the novel 
 to Marius; but not being pre-occupied 
 with a Cosette, as was that dear young
 
 The Black Dynasty. 55 
 
 man, we were able to respond to the af- 
 fection of this tender and devoted cat, 
 who is still the companion of our labors 
 and the joy of our suburban hermitage. 
 At the sound of the door-bell she runs 
 out, receives the visitors, shows them into 
 the drawing-room, asks them to sit down, 
 talks with them; yes, talks> prattling on 
 with murmurs and little cries which are 
 not in the least like those which cats 
 use to one another, but which resemble 
 the speech of men. What does she say, 
 do you ask ? She says in the most intel- 
 ligible language : " Gentlemen and ladies, 
 do not be impatient ; look at the pictures, 
 or, if you please, converse with me. Mon- 
 sieur will be here soon." When we enter 
 she discreetly retires to an easy chair or 
 the corner of the piano, and listens to 
 the conversation without trying to take 
 part in it, like a polite animal who is 
 familiar with the habits of good society.
 
 56 My Household of Pets. 
 
 This charming Eponine has given so 
 many proofs of merit, of intelligence, and 
 superior social qualities, that by common 
 consent she has been elevated to the dig- 
 nity of a person ; for there can be no doubt 
 that her conduct is governed by a reason 
 which is far superior to instinct. This 
 dignity gives her the right to eat at table 
 like a human being, and not as cats do 
 out of a saucer set on the floor in a 
 corner. Eponine therefore has her chair, 
 which is regularly placed beside our own, 
 at breakfast and dinner. In considera- 
 tion of her shape and size, leave is given 
 her to place her fore-paws on the edge 
 of the table. She has also her own plate 
 and her own tumbler, but not a fork or 
 spoon. She watches the dinner through 
 all its courses from soup to dessert, wait- 
 ing for her turn to be helped, and alto- 
 gether comporting herself with a wisdom 
 and decency which we wish that children
 
 LEAVE IS GIVEN HER TO PLACE HER FOREPAWS ON 
 THE EDGE OF THE TABLE.
 
 The Black Dynasty. 59 
 
 would oftener imitate. At the first tinkle 
 of the bell she makes her appearance, and 
 when we enter the dining-room there she 
 is, already seated on her chair with her 
 paws crossed before her on the edge of 
 the table ; and she holds up her forehead 
 to be kissed precisely as a nice little girl 
 does who has been trained to show an 
 affectionate politeness towards her parents 
 and other elderly friends. 
 
 But there are flaws in the diamond, 
 spots even on the sun, shadows upon per- 
 fection, and Eponine, it must be owned, 
 has an over-passionate love for fish, a 
 passion which is shared by cats in general. 
 In contradiction to the Latin proverb 
 
 " Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas," 
 
 she will dip her paw into water without the 
 least hesitation in order to draw out a carp, 
 a white bait, or a trout. Fish awake in her 
 a sort of frenzy ; and like children who are
 
 60 My Household of Pets. 
 
 in a state of excitement over the idea 
 of dessert, she sometimes looks sulkily at 
 the soup, when preliminary observations 
 made in the kitchen have assured her 
 that there is fish to come, and that the 
 cook has no need to expiate a failure by 
 falling on his sword, as did the noble 
 Vatel. At such times she is left un- 
 served, and we say to her coldly, " Made- 
 moiselle, a person who is not hungry for 
 soup cannot be hungry for fish," and 
 the dish is carried pitilessly past under 
 her very nose. When matters reach this 
 serious stage the dainty Eponine gobbles 
 up her soup in all haste to the very last 
 drop, despatches every crumb of bread or 
 Italian paste, and then turns round and 
 looks at us with a proud glance as one who 
 has done her duty, and whose conscience is 
 henceforth free from reproach. Her por- 
 tion of fish is then given her. She eats 
 it with the utmost satisfaction, and having
 
 The Black Dynasty. 61 
 
 tasted of all the other dishes, finishes her 
 meal with a glass of water. 
 
 When a dinner-party is projected Epo- 
 nine, without seeing the guests, understands 
 perfectly well that there is to be company 
 that evening. She takes a look at her 
 usual place, and, if she notices a knife, fork, 
 and spoon beside the plate, she decamps 
 without a word and seats herself on the 
 piano-stool, which is her chosen refuge on 
 such occasions. I should be glad if people 
 who deny the possession of reason to ani- 
 mals, would explain this fact, apparently so 
 simple and yet containing such a world of 
 inferences. From seeing beside her plate 
 those utensils which man only can use, 
 this wise and observant cat argues that, for 
 the day, she must yield her place to a 
 guest, and she makes haste to do so. She 
 never deceives herself about the matter, 
 but sometimes, when the visitor is one with 
 whom she is on familiar terms, she will
 
 62 My Household of Pets. 
 
 climb his knee and try to coax a few 
 tit-bits out of him by her grace and ca- 
 resses. 
 
 But enough of this ; we must not weary 
 our readers. Stories about cats are less 
 popular than those about dogs. Still, we 
 feel obliged to tell the end of Enjolras and 
 Gavroche. In some text-books there is 
 this sentence : " Sua eum perdidit ambi- 
 tio." One might say of Enjolras, " Sua 
 eum perdidit pinguetudo " he died of 
 his own fat. He was mistaken for a hare 
 and killed by some idiotic hunters. His 
 murderers, however, perished within a 
 twelvemonth, and in the most miserable 
 manner. The death of a black cat, that 
 most cabalistical of creatures, never goes 
 unavenged ! 
 
 Gavroche, seized with a fanatical love of 
 liberty, or perhaps with sudden madness, 
 leaped out of a window one day, crossed 
 the street, climbed the high fence sur-
 
 The Black Dynasty. 63 
 
 rounding St. James' Church, which stands 
 opposite our house, and disappeared. In 
 spite of our anxious enquiries no traces 
 of him could ever be found. A myste- 
 rious shadow hovers over his fate. Thus 
 of the black dynasty only Eponine re- 
 mains. She is faithful still to her master, 
 and to all intents and purposes has become 
 an educated cat. 
 
 She has for companion a magnificent 
 Angora, of a silver-gray coat which makes 
 one think of clouded Chinese porcelain. 
 His name is Zizi, which means "Too 
 handsome to do anything." This beauti- 
 ful creature lives in a sort of contemplative 
 stupor like a thekiari during his period of 
 inebriation. Looking at him one is re- 
 minded of the "Ecstasies of M. Hochener." 
 Zizi's passion is music. Not content with 
 listening to it, he is himself a performer. 
 Occasionally at night when all are sleep- 
 ing there breaks upon the silence a strange,
 
 64 My Household of Pets. 
 
 fantastic melody which Kriesler and the 
 musicians of the future might well envy. 
 It is Zizi, walking up and down the key- 
 board of the piano and enjoying the rap- 
 ture of hearing the notes sing under his 
 feet. 
 
 It would be unfair not to give a passing 
 mention to Cleopatra, the daughter of 
 Eponine, who is a charming animal, but of 
 too timid a nature to be introduced to the 
 public. She is of a deep fawn color, like 
 Mummia, the shaggy companion of Atta 
 Croll, and her dark green eyes are just like 
 two enormous pieces of aqua-marina. She 
 walks habitually on three paws, and holds 
 the fourth in the air, like the figure of a 
 classical line which has lost his marble 
 ball. 
 
 This then is the chronicle of the Black 
 Dynasty, Enjolras, Gavroche, Eponine. 
 recalling to us the creations of a beloved 
 master. Only, when we now glance over
 
 The Black Dynasty. 65 
 
 " Les Miserables," it seems as though the 
 principal characters in the romance are 
 taken by black cats, but this fact does not 
 in the least diminish the interest of the 
 story for us.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUR DOGS. 
 
 \1( 7E have sometimes been accused of 
 disliking dogs. This at first sight 
 does not seem to be a very grave charge, 
 still, we feel bound to justify ourselves, 
 since the accusation carries with it a cer- 
 tain amount of disgrace. People who pre- 
 fer cats to dogs, pass in the eyes of most 
 persons as necessarily false, voluptuous and 
 cruel ; while dog-lovers are supposed to 
 be invariably pure, loyal, open characters, 
 gifted, in short, with all the attributes which 
 are popularly ascribed to the canine race. 
 We could in no wise detract from the 
 merits of Medor, Turc, Merot, and other 
 equally amiable beasts, and we are quite 
 ready to agree with the maxim formulated
 
 OUR DOGS.
 
 Our Dogs. 69 
 
 by Charlet : " The best thing which a man 
 possesses is his dog." We have owned 
 many, we still own some ; and if our cal- 
 umniators will kindly call at our residence 
 they will be greeted b,y the shrill and furi- 
 ous barking of a small Cuban lap-dog, and 
 by a large greyhound who will take much 
 pleasure in biting their ankles. 
 
 Still, we will not deny that our liking 
 for dogs has a strong admixture of fear. 
 These animals, excellent, faithful, devoted 
 as they are, may at any moment run 
 mad, and in that condition they are as 
 dangerous and deadly as the viper, the asp, 
 the bell-serpent, or the cobra di capello. 
 This thought somewhat moderates our 
 raptures over them. But, apart from this, 
 dogs somehow produce a disquieting effect 
 upon us. Their eyes are so deep, so in- 
 tense ; they place themselves before us 
 with such an interrogative air that it is 
 almost embarrassing. Goethe did not like,
 
 7O My Household of Pets. 
 
 any more than ourselves, this gaze which 
 seems to assimilate a man's most secret 
 thoughts. He would drive the poor ani- 
 mals away, and say to them " You have 
 done your best : you shall not devour my 
 identity." 
 
 The Pharamond of our canine dynasty 
 was named Luther. He was a large white 
 pointer with red spots, and handsome 
 brown ears, who, having lost his master, 
 and searched after him vainly for a long 
 time, domesticated himself in the house 
 of our parents, who then lived at Passy. 
 Having no partridges to hunt he gave 
 himself up to the pursuit of rats, in which 
 pursuit he became as proficient as a Scotch 
 terrier. At that time we were living in a 
 room in that blind alley of Doyenne, no 
 longer in existence, where Gerard de Ner- 
 val, Arsene Houssaye, and Camille Rogier 
 had established themselves as the centres 
 of a picturesque little Bohemian circle of
 
 Our Dogs. 71 
 
 artists and literary men, whose freaks and 
 eccentricities have been too often de- 
 scribed elsewhere to need further men- 
 tion now. There, in the very midst of 
 the Carrousel, we lived a life as free and 
 as lonely as if in some desert isle of the 
 ocean, among nettles and blocks of stone, 
 under the shadow of the Louvre, and 
 close to the ruins of an old church, whose 
 crumbling arches presented the most pic- 
 turesque effects by moonlight. Luther, 
 with whom we had always been on friendly 
 terms, seeing us thus take our final flight 
 from the family nest, assumed the task of 
 making us a daily visit. He left Passy 
 each morning at some time unknown, and, 
 following the Quai de Billy and the Cours- 
 la-Reine, arrived about eight o'clock, just 
 as we were waking up. Scratching at 
 the door, which was always opened for 
 him, he threw himself upon us with a 
 joyous yelping, put his fore-paws on our
 
 72 My Household of Pets. 
 
 knees, received with great simplicity and 
 modesty the caresses which his good con- 
 duct had earned, made a rapid inspection 
 of the room, and then set out on his 
 homeward journey. Arrived at Passy, 
 he would at once run to our mother, 
 wagging his tail and uttering little barks 
 which said as plainly as words, " Do not 
 be anxious, I have seen the young master, 
 and he is well." Having thus given a re- 
 port of his self-imposed mission he would 
 lap a bowl full of water, eat his porridge, 
 and, stretching himself near the easy chair 
 of mamma, for whom he had a particular 
 affection, would refresh himself by an hour 
 or two of sleep after the long journey that 
 he had taken. 
 
 Those who hold that animals do not 
 think and are incapable of putting two 
 ideas together, may explain as best they 
 can this daily visit which kept up the 
 family relations, and gave to the old birds
 
 Our Dogs. 73 
 
 in the nest regular news of their recently 
 escaped fledgling. 
 
 Poor Luther ! he had a melancholy end. 
 He gradually became silent and morose, 
 and one day fled from the house, appar- 
 ently because he felt himself attacked by 
 hydrophobia and feared that he might be 
 led to bite his master. We have every 
 reason to suppose that he was killed as 
 a mad dog. At all events we never saw 
 him again. 
 
 After rather a long interval, a new dog 
 was installed at the house a dog called 
 Zamore. He was half mongrel, half span- 
 iel, small in size, and with a black coat, 
 excepting for a few spots of flame color 
 beneath his eyebrows and some tones of 
 fawn color on the belly. He was, in short, 
 insignificant in appearance and rather ugly 
 than pretty, but so far as moral qualities 
 are concerned he was really a remarkable 
 dog. For women he had an absolute con-
 
 74 My Household of Pets. 
 
 tempt; he would neither follow nor obey 
 them, and our mother and our sisters tried 
 in vain to win from him the least evidence 
 of friendship or respect. He would loftily 
 accept their attentions and their tit-bits, but 
 he never deigned to give them a word of 
 thanks in return. No barking for them, 
 no drumming of his tail against the floor, 
 none of those endearments of which dogs 
 are so prodigal. Toward these he main- 
 tained always an attitude impassive and 
 impassible, crouching in the position of 
 a sphinx, like some serious and dignified 
 personage who disdains to mix in a frivo- 
 lous conversation. 
 
 The master he elected to serve was 
 our father whom he recognized in the 
 head of the family and a man of weight 
 and character. Zamore's tenderness, even 
 for him, was of an austere and stoi- 
 cal sort, and never expressed by merri- 
 ment, or antics, or lickings of the tongue.
 
 Our Dogs. 75 
 
 But his eyes were forever fixed on his 
 master, his head turned to watch each 
 slightest movement, and everywhere he 
 followed him, his nose close to his master's 
 heel, never permitting himself to play the 
 smallest prank, or paying the least atten- 
 tion to any dog whom they met. This 
 dear and lamented father of ours was a 
 great fisher before the Lord. The barbels 
 caught by him must have out-numbered the 
 antelopes caught by Nimrod. It could 
 never be said of his fishing-rod that it 
 was an instrument with a hook at one 
 end and a fool at the other, for he was 
 a man full of wit and intelligence, which, 
 however, did not hinder his filling his fish- 
 basket every day. Zamore always accom- 
 panied him on these excursions, and dur- 
 ing those long nocturnal watchings, which 
 are necessary for the capture of such fish 
 as only bite when the line touches bottom, 
 he would place himself close to the water's
 
 76 My Household of Pets. 
 
 edge and seem to explore the darksome 
 depths with his eyes, as if searching for 
 the prey. Though he now and then 
 pricked up his ears at those numberless 
 vague and distant sounds which are au- 
 dible even in the deepest silence of the 
 night, he never uttered a bark, for he 
 perfectly understood that it is indispensa- 
 ble for a fisherman's dog to be dumb. 
 Diana might lift her alabaster brow above 
 the horizon and the river give back the 
 reflection ; it was all in vain ; not even 
 at the moon would Zamore bark, though 
 such midnight bayings are among the chief 
 pleasures of animals of his species. Only 
 when the bell on the fishing-line tinkled 
 did he indulge in a yelp, for then he knew 
 that the prey was secured, and he took 
 intense interest in those after manoeuvres 
 which are requisite for landing a barbel of 
 three or four pounds weight. 
 
 Who could have guessed that under
 
 Our Dogs. 77 
 
 this calm and self-contained exterior, so 
 philosophical, so far removed from all fri- 
 volity, lurked one imperious and extrava- 
 gant passion, in utter contradiction to the 
 apparent character, moral and physical, of 
 this animal so serious and so thoughtful 
 that one would have almost called him 
 sad? 
 
 What, you say, has this admirable 
 Zamore then some hidden vice ? No. 
 Was he a thief, a libertine? No. Had 
 he a taste for brandy-cherries? No. Did 
 he bite? Ten thousand times, no! Za- 
 more's passion was for dancing. In him, 
 a true Terpsichorean artist was lost to 
 the world. 
 
 This vocation was discovered in the 
 following manner. One day there ap- 
 peared in the public square at Passy a 
 grayish ass, one of those luckless donkeys 
 belonging to a juggler, which Decamps 
 and Fouquet have so successfully painted.
 
 78 My Household of Pets. 
 
 Two panniers, balanced across his galled 
 back, held a troop of trained dogs, cos- 
 tumed according to sex as marquises, 
 troubadours, Turks, Swiss shepherds, and 
 queens of Golconda. The show-man lifted 
 out the dogs, cracked his whip, and in- 
 stantly all the actors exchanged the hori- 
 zontal position for the perpendicular, and 
 transformed themselves from quadrupeds 
 into bipeds. A fife and a tambourine 
 sounded, and the ballet began. 
 
 Zamore, who was strolling gravely past, 
 stopped short, astonished at the spectacle. 
 These gayly caparisoned dogs, with laced 
 seams and clinking ornaments, plumed 
 hats and turbans on their heads, and such 
 an odd resemblance to men and women, 
 seemed to him supernatural beings. Their 
 measured steps, their courtesies, their pi- 
 rouettes enchanted but did not discourage 
 him. Like Correggio before the pictures 
 of Raphael, he cried in the canine Ian-
 
 Our Dogs. 79 
 
 guage, " Anch' io son pittore," " I also am 
 a painter," and, seized with noble emu- 
 lation as the troop defiled before him in 
 a ladies' chain, he raised himself on his 
 hind legs which visibly shook, and, to the 
 vociferous delight of the bystanders, made 
 a movement to join them. But the show- 
 man was not so much charmed as the by- 
 standers. He gave Zamore a sharp cut 
 of his whip and drove him from the circle, 
 just as one might expel from the door of 
 a theatre a spectator who, during the pro- 
 gress of the play, took it into his head 
 to climb on to the stage and join in the 
 ballet. 
 
 This public humiliation, however, did 
 not deter Zamore from following his voca- 
 tion. He ran back to the house with his 
 tail between his legs and an air of deep 
 thought. All that day he was more silent, 
 preoccupied and morose than usual. That 
 night our two little sisters were roused
 
 8o My Household of Pets. 
 
 from their sleep by a low, mysterious noise 
 which seemed to come from an unoccupied 
 chamber next to their own, where Zamore 
 was in the habit of passing the night on 
 an old arm-chair. The sound was a sort 
 of rhythmic stamping, which in the quiet 
 of the night sounded louder than it really 
 was. At first the children thought that 
 it must be the mice giving a ball, but the 
 steps and the jumps were too loud and 
 heavy for mice. At last the bravest of 
 the two crept out of bed, half opened the 
 door, and peeped in. What did she see 
 by the light of a struggling moonbeam 
 but Zamore, erect on his hind legs, beat- 
 ing time with his fore-paws, and practising 
 as in a dancing class the steps which he 
 had so much admired that morning in 
 the street. Monsieur was studying his 
 lesson ! 
 
 This was not, as might be supposed, a 
 random fancy, pursued for one night only.
 
 MONSIEUR WAS STUDYING HIS LESSON.
 
 Our Dogs. 83 
 
 Zamore persisted in his Terpsichorean 
 aspirations, and in time became an admi- 
 rable dancer. Every day, as soon as the 
 fife and the tambourine began to sound, 
 he ran to the square, glided between the 
 legs of the spectators, and with the deepest 
 attention watched the trained dogs going 
 through with their exercises. Mindful, 
 however, of that cut of the whip, he 
 never again tried to join in the dance, 
 but, noting carefully each step, each move- 
 ment, each graceful attitude, rehearsed it 
 at night in the privacy of his own room, 
 while by day he maintained his usual aus- 
 terity of demeanor. After a time, to imi- 
 tate no longer sufficed him ; he began to 
 invent, to compose new steps, and we are 
 bound to say that few dogs have ever sur- 
 passed him in this noble accomplishment. 
 
 We ourselves, concealed behind the half- 
 open door, have often watched him at his 
 practice. He put so much energy and
 
 84 My Household of Pets. 
 
 fire into his exercise that, morning after 
 morning, the huge bowl of water set for* 
 his refreshment in the corner of the room 
 the night before would be found drained 
 of every drop. 
 
 At length the day came when, all his 
 difficulties conquered, he felt himself the 
 equal of any four-legged dancer in crea- 
 tion, and now it seemed only proper to 
 remove the bushel which had hitherto 
 obscured his candle, and give the world 
 the benefit of his talents. 
 
 The courtyard of the house was closed 
 on one side by a grating which had open- 
 ings wide enough to allow of the passage 
 of dogs of an ordinary size. One morning 
 fifteen or twenty such friends of Zamore's 
 connoisseurs, without doubt, to whom 
 he had sent cards of invitation for his de- 
 but in the choregraphic art were noticed 
 assembling round a level square of earth 
 (which the artist seemed to have swept
 
 WHEN PAYING LITTLE ATTENTIONS TO HIS LADY-LOVES 
 HE STOOD ALWAYS ON HIS HIND-LEGS.
 
 Our Dogs. 87 
 
 clean with his tail), and the performances 
 commenced. The audience was enthusi- 
 astic, and manifested its approbation with 
 bow-wows which sounded extremely like 
 the " Bravos ! " of opera-goers. With the 
 exception of one old water-spaniel of a 
 muddy and degraded appearance, who 
 seemed an adverse critic, and yelped out 
 something about " sound traditions ignored 
 and forgotten," all united in pronouncing 
 Zamore the Vestris of dogs and the true 
 genius of the dance. A minuet, a jig, 
 and a waltz a deux temps were included 
 in the programme. Quite a number of 
 two - legged spectators joined the four- 
 legged ones before the entertainment was 
 concluded, and Zamore had the honor 
 and satisfaction of being applauded by 
 the clapping of human hands. 
 
 After this his habits became so entirely 
 those of the dancer that, when paying 
 casual attentions to his lady-loves, he stood
 
 88 My Household of Pets. 
 
 always on his hind legs, making courteous 
 little bows and turning out his toes like 
 a gallant marquis of the ancien regime; 
 nothing was lacking but the plumed opera- 
 hat under the arm. 
 
 Except for these occasional interludes 
 Zamore's character was as splenetic as 
 that of other comic actors, and he took 
 no share whatever in the ordinary life of 
 the house. He never stirred except when 
 he saw his master take his hat and cane, 
 and he died finally of brain fever, caused, as 
 we supposed, by the over-exertion and ex- 
 citement of learning the Schottische, which 
 just then came into fashion. From his grave 
 Zamore might say, like the Greek dancer 
 in the epitaph, " Lie on me lightly, earth, 
 for I have very lightly weighed on thee." 
 
 Some may ask why, with such remarka- 
 ble talents, Zamore was not engaged as 
 one of the troupe of M. Corvi. Even 
 then we had sufficient influence as a critic
 
 Our Dogs. 89 
 
 to negotiate such an arrangement had it 
 been desirable. But Zamore would not 
 leave his master ; he sacrificed his self-love 
 to his love, a devotion which one cannot 
 hope very often to find among men. 
 
 Our dancer was replaced by a singer 
 named Kobold, a King Charles spaniel 
 of the purest breed, brought from the fa- 
 mous kennels of Lord Lauder. Nothing 
 earthly was ever so like a chimera as this 
 droll little creature, with his enormous, 
 bulging forehead, his prominent eyes, his 
 nose which seemed broken off at the base, 
 and his long ears which swept the ground. 
 Carried over to France, Kobold, who spoke 
 only English, seemed at first to be half- 
 stupefied. The orders given were per- 
 fectly unintelligible to him. Trained to 
 obey " Go on," " Come here," he stood 
 motionless and perplexed at the sound of 
 "Va"and"Va-t'en." 
 
 It took him a year to learn the language
 
 QO My Household of Pets. 
 
 of his new country well enough to be able 
 to join in conversation. Kobold was very 
 sensitive to music, and sang several little 
 songs himself, though with a strong Eng- 
 lish accent. The key-note was given him 
 on the piano, he caught the exact tone, 
 and in a flute-like and sighing voice war- 
 bled passages which were really musical, 
 and bore no relation whatever to barkings 
 or yelpings. 
 
 When we wanted him to begin again it 
 was only necessary to say, " Sing a little 
 more," and he at once recommenced the 
 cadence. For a creature brought up in 
 the most delicate luxury, and with all the 
 care which one would naturally give to a 
 tenor and a gentleman of distinction, Ko- 
 bold had the most singular tastes. He 
 devoured earth like a Digger Indian ; and 
 this habit, of which he could not be cured, 
 brought on a disease of which he died. 
 He had a strong turn for grooms, horses,
 
 Our Dogs. 91 
 
 and stables in general, and our ponies had 
 no comrade more devoted than he. In 
 fact, he may be said to have divided his 
 time between the box-stalls and the piano. 
 From Kobold, the King Charles, we pass 
 to Myrza, a small Cuban lap-dog, who at 
 one time had the honor to belong to Giula 
 Grisi, from whom we received her as a 
 present. She is white as snow, especially 
 when freshly washed, and before she has 
 had time to roll in the dust, a mania 
 which some dogs share with a certain kind 
 of dusty-winged birds. She is the gentlest 
 of animals, very demonstrative, and guile- 
 less as a dove. Nothing can be droller 
 than her shaggy head, her face composed 
 of two eyes as glittering as furniture nails, 
 and a little nose which might easily be 
 mistaken for a Piedmont truffle. Long 
 locks of hair, as curly as Astrakan wool, 
 fly about this nose in picturesque confu- 
 sion, sometimes getting into one eye, some-
 
 92 My Household of Pets. 
 
 times into the other, the whole making 
 up the most whimsical countenance im- 
 aginable, as odd and as unreal as the face 
 of a chameleon. 
 
 In Myrza's case nature has imitated art 
 with such perfection that any one would 
 be ready to swear that she came straight 
 from the show-case of a toy-shop. With 
 her blue collar, silver bell, and her hair of 
 the regulation frizz, she looks exactly like 
 a pasteboard dog; and when she barks, 
 one instinctively examines her feet to see 
 if there is not a tiny squeaking-machine 
 fastened under the paws. 
 
 Myrza, who spends three quarters of the 
 day in sleep, so that life would seem pretty 
 much the same to her if she were in reality 
 stuffed, and who under ordinary circum- 
 stances is anything but bright, neverthe- 
 less gave one day a proof of intelligence 
 such as we have never known in any other 
 dog. Bonnegrace, who painted those por-
 
 Our Dogs. 93 
 
 traits of Tchoumakoff and of M. E. H., 
 which were so much talked about when 
 exhibited, had brought a portrait for us 
 to look at, painted after the style of Pag- 
 nest, which is so full of vivid color and 
 lifelike light and shadow. Although we 
 have always lived in such intimate rela- 
 tions with animals, and could cite hun- 
 dreds of instances in which cats, dogs, and 
 birds have proved themselves wise, philo- 
 sophical, and ingenious, we are forced to 
 admit that the taste for art is totally lack- 
 ing among them. We have never seen an 
 animal who took the slightest notice of a 
 picture, and the story of the birds who 
 pecked at the grapes painted by Apelles 
 has always appeared to us a pure inven- 
 tion. The one essential distinction be- 
 tween man and beast seems to be just this 
 sense of art and feeling for decoration. 
 A dog would be as likely to put on ear- 
 rings, as to waste time over pictures.
 
 94 My Household of Pets. 
 
 Well, Myrza, catching sight of Bonne- 
 grace's portrait set up against the wall, 
 jumped from the stool where she was ly- 
 ing rolled up like a ball, rushed to the 
 canvas, and began to bark furiously, try- 
 ing to bite the intrusive stranger who 
 had entered the room. Her surprise was 
 extreme when she recognized the fact 
 that she had a flat surface to deal with, 
 on which her teeth made no impression, 
 and which was only a deceitful show. 
 She smelt the picture, tried in vain to get 
 behind the frame, looked at us both with 
 a questioning expression in her eyes, and 
 then went back to the stool and resumed 
 her nap, taking no further trouble about 
 the gentleman in oil-colors. Her own 
 countenance, meanwhile, will not be lost 
 to posterity, for a beautiful portrait of her 
 is in existence, painted by M. Victor Mada- 
 rasz, an Hungarian artist. 
 
 We will conclude our chapter on dogs
 
 Our Dogs. 95 
 
 with the history of Dash. One day a rag- 
 and-bottle man stopped at our door in 
 search of scraps of broken glass and old 
 bottles. In his cart was a puppy some 
 three or four months old, which he had 
 been told to drown, an order which trou- 
 bled the honest fellow, at whom the puppy 
 was casting tender and supplicating looks, 
 as if he understood the situation of affairs. 
 The reason of the severe sentence passed 
 on the poor brute was that one of his fore- 
 paws was broken. 
 
 Pity stirred in our heart, and we adopted 
 the condemned victim on the spot. A 
 veterinary surgeon was sent for, who set 
 the leg and put it in splints ; but Dash 
 persisted in gnawing off the bandages, so 
 that the bones did not unite, and the paw 
 remained dangling uselessly, like the sleeve 
 of a man who has lost his arm. This in- 
 firmity, however, did not hinder Dash from 
 being one of the gayest, liveliest, and most
 
 g6 My Household of Pets. 
 
 alert of dogs ; and he ran on three legs 
 quite as fast as was desirable. 
 
 He was the commonest of street dogs, 
 a veritable mongrel, on whose breed Buffon 
 himself would have been embarrassed to de- 
 cide. He was ugliness personified, but pos- 
 sessed an expressive face, which sparkled 
 with intelligence. Everything that was 
 said to him he understood, his expres- 
 sion changing according as the words, 
 spoken in the same tone of voice, were flat- 
 tering or abusive. He rolled his eyes, 
 turned up his chops, abandoned himself to 
 unrestrained, nervous wriggles, or laughed, 
 showing a row of white teeth ; and, in short, 
 produced the most comical effect, of which 
 he was quite conscious. Very often he 
 tried to speak. With paws placed upon 
 our knee, he would eye us with an intense 
 look, and begin a series of murmurs, sighs, 
 and growls, so varied in intonation that it 
 was easy to see that they were parts of a
 
 Our Dogs. 97 
 
 regular language. Now and then, in the 
 midst of this conversation, Dash would in- 
 terject a sudden and noisy yelp. Then 
 we would look severely at him, and say : 
 " That is barking, not talking. Can it be 
 that after all you are only an animal ? " 
 Whereupon Dash, much humiliated by the 
 insinuation, would recommence his vocal- 
 ization, throwing into it a still more pa- 
 thetic expression. No one could doubt 
 that at these times he was giving an ac- 
 count of his misfortunes. 
 
 Dash adored sugar. He always came 
 in with the coffee after dessert, and went 
 round the table begging a lump of sugar 
 from each person with an urgency which 
 seldom failed of success. In the end he 
 grew to consider these benevolent gifts in 
 the light of a regular tax, which he rigor- 
 ously exacted. This cur, in the body of a 
 Thersites, carried the soul of an Achilles. 
 Disabled as he was, he constantly attacked, 
 7
 
 98 My Household of Pets. 
 
 with the frenzy of an heroic courage, dogs 
 ten times as big as himself, and was 
 frightfully beaten. Like Don Quixote, the 
 brave knight of La Mancha, he set out in 
 triumph, and came back in most piteous 
 plight. Alas, he fell a victim to this mis- 
 taken courage. He was brought home, a 
 few months since, torn to pieces by an 
 amiable brute of a Newfoundland, who the 
 very next day broke the backbone of a 
 greyhound. 
 
 The death of Dash was followed by all 
 sorts of catastrophes. The mistress of the 
 house in which he had received his death- 
 blow was burned to death in her bed a 
 few days after ; and her husband, in trying 
 to save her, met with the same fate. It 
 was not an expiation, it was only a fatal 
 coincidence, for they were the best peo- 
 ple in the world, loving animals like Brah- 
 mins, and not in the least to blame for the 
 sad fate of our poor Dash.
 
 Our Dogs. 99 
 
 We have now another dog, who is called 
 Nero, but he is too recent an acquisition 
 to have a history. 
 
 In the next chapter we propose to give 
 a chronicle of the different chameleons, 
 lizards, magpies, and other small creatures 
 who have made part of our household of 
 pets. 
 
 N. B. Alas, Nero is dead! He was 
 poisoned a day or two since as thoroughly 
 as if he had supped with the Borgias, 
 and the first chapter of his life begins 
 and ends with an epitaph.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHAMELEONS, LIZARDS, AND MAGPIES. 
 
 /^VNCE upon a time we happened to be 
 at the port of Santa-Maria in the 
 Bay of Cadiz, a little village which seems 
 cut out of the white loaf of Spain, between 
 the indigo of the sea and the lapis-lazuli 
 of the sky. It was noon, and on that par- 
 ticular day such a warm noon that the 
 sun appeared to be amusing himself by 
 dropping spoonfuls of melted lead on the 
 heads of travellers, as the garrison of a be- 
 leaguered fortress, by some well-planned 
 artifice, pours boiling oil or pitch on the 
 heads of its assailants. This picturesque 
 little port is made famous by the cele- 
 brated song in the Andalusian patois of
 
 THE CHAMELEON.
 
 Chameleons, Lizards, and Magpies. 103 
 
 Murillo-Bravo, " The Bulls of Puerto," in 
 which the gallant boatman says to the lady 
 about to embark, " Lleve V. la patita." 
 We hummed the refrain in a voice which 
 sings no less falsely in Spanish than in 
 French, following with our eyes, as we 
 sang, the line, straight as the selvage of 
 a piece of linen, which was cast by the 
 shadow at the foot of the wall. 
 
 It was a market day, and foreign com- 
 modities of all sorts were exposed for sale 
 on the square, which were of colors gor- 
 geous enough to enchant Ziem himself. 
 Garlands of fiery-red peppers swung above 
 deep-green melons, some of which had 
 been cut in halves to show the rose-col- 
 ored pulp within, dotted with black spots 
 like a shell from the South Seas. Heavy- 
 clusters of clear, yellow grapes, like am- 
 ber beads, reminding one by their fair 
 transparency of Turkish rosaries, hung by 
 the side of bunches of a bluish color, and
 
 IO4 My Household of Pets. 
 
 others which were of an amethystine hue 
 shading into deeper purple. Chickpeas 
 in weedy mats rounded their globes of 
 paly gold ; pomegranates, bursting their 
 rinds, showed caskets of rubies within. 
 The fruit-sellers, with their scarlet and yel- 
 low capes, their black silk petticoats, bare 
 feet thrust into satin slippers, and what 
 feet, hardly bigger than a Savoy biscuit! 
 their paper fans held against the cheek 
 to take the place of a parasol, sat proudly 
 beside their vegetables chattering with that 
 Andalusian volubility which is so full of 
 grace. Here and there some passing gal- 
 lant, balancing himself on the point of his 
 white cane, his jacket swinging from his 
 shoulders, a broad sash from Gibraltar en- 
 circling his waist from armpit to hips, his 
 elastic breeches open at the knee, and 
 leathern boots from Ronda unbuttoned all 
 the way up the leg, in what seems to be 
 the height of the style, lingered a moment
 
 Chameleons, Lizards, and Magpies. 105 
 
 to cast a seductive glance while rolling 
 between thumb and forefinger his ciga- 
 rette of alcoy paper. It was one of those 
 blinding effects of southern light and color 
 which would be called an exaggeration of 
 nature if any artist should attempt to 
 reproduce in full its crude and dazzling 
 truth. 
 
 We sought a refuge from the fiery sun 
 shower in the patio of The Three Moorish 
 Kings. A patio, as all the world knows, 
 is an inside court surrounded by arcades, 
 whose arrangement reminds one of the 
 ancient impluvium. In place of a roof it 
 is shaded by a linen awning striped with 
 gay colors, called in Spanish a velarium^ 
 which is kept constantly wet, in order to 
 secure greater coolness. In the middle of 
 this patio a slender thread of water rose 
 and fell from a marble basin, throwing a 
 fine spray over boxes of myrtles, pome- 
 granates and oleanders, which were grouped
 
 io6 My Household of Pets. 
 
 about it. Sofas covered with horse-hair, 
 and cane-seated chairs, were scattered 
 about under the arcades. Guitars, sus- 
 pended on the walls, cast brilliant reflec- 
 tions out of the shadow, as the light glinted 
 on their varnished surfaces, and beside 
 them hung the brown disks of tambou- 
 rines. 
 
 These patios are common in the Moor- 
 ish houses of Algeria, and no better con- 
 trivance to secure coolness can be imag- 
 ined. They are a device of the Arabs 
 adopted by the Spaniards. Upon the capi- 
 tals of the smaller columns, in many dwell- 
 ings, can still be read verses from the 
 Koran glorifying Allah, or laudations of 
 some caliph long ago driven back into the 
 heart of Africa and forgotten. 
 
 After draining an unglazed jug of cold 
 water we retired to one of the rooms open- 
 ing on the patio for a siesta. Our drowsy 
 eyes wandered to the ceiling of the low
 
 Chameleons, Lizards, and Magpies. 107 
 
 chamber, which, like all Spanish ceilings, 
 was whitewashed, and ornamented in the 
 middle by a rosette picked out into yellow, 
 black, and red sections like the sides of 
 a ball. From this rosette hung a cord 
 meant, without doubt, to hold a lamp; 
 and along this cord a mysterious object 
 was moving upward. We fitted our eye- 
 glass into its place under the arch of our 
 eyebrow, and at last made out that the 
 thing, which with so much pains was 
 climbing on the cord toward the ceiling, 
 was a kind of lizard, of a grayish yellow, 
 and a shape which had about it something 
 monstrous, recalling in miniature those 
 vast Saurians which disappeared from 
 earth at the close of the antediluvian 
 epoch. 
 
 The maid of the inn was summoned, 
 Pepa, Lola, or Casilda, we cannot recall 
 the exact name, but are ready to swear 
 that she was an excellent person, and
 
 io8 My Household of Pets. 
 
 she explained that the creature on the cord 
 was a chameleon. 
 
 Lola, if Lola it was, taking pity 
 on our ignorance, and perhaps not sorry 
 to exhibit her own zoological knowledge, 
 said to us in an instructive way, "These 
 animals change their color, you know, ac- 
 cording to the place where they happen 
 to be, and they live on air." 
 
 During our brief conversation the cha- 
 meleons (for there were two) continued 
 their ascension of the cord. Nothing 
 more absurd than their appearance could 
 be imagined. It must be admitted that 
 the chameleon is not beautiful, and, al- 
 though people say that Nature does every- 
 thing well, it strikes us that by taking a 
 very little more trouble she might easily 
 have made a prettier animal than he. But, 
 like all great artists, Nature has her ca- 
 prices, and she occasionally amuses her- 
 self by modelling grotesque shapes. The
 
 Chameleons, Lizards, and Magpies. 109 
 
 eyes of the chameleon, which are almost 
 completely detached from the head, are 
 fitted into external membranous sacs, and 
 have complete independence of movement. 
 They can look to the right with one and 
 to the left with the other, cast one up to 
 the skies and the other down to the floor, 
 producing thereby a variety of squints 
 which have the most extraordinary effect. 
 A swollen pouch under the jaw, not un- 
 like a goitre, gives the poor animal an air 
 of haughty complacency and stupid con- 
 ceit, of which he is as unconscious as he 
 is innocent. His awkwardly formed paws 
 make a projecting angle above the line of 
 his back, and his movements are alike un- 
 graceful and meaningless. 
 
 One of the chameleons had now reached 
 the top of the string and the centre of the 
 rosette. Putting out a pitiful little paw, he 
 tried the ceiling to see if it were possible 
 to cling to it, and in that way to effect an
 
 no My Household of Pets. 
 
 escape. In making this experiment, for 
 the hundredth time perhaps, he squinted 
 with his eyes in the most desperate and 
 touching way, as if invoking aid from 
 heaven and earth; then, seeing no hope 
 of egress on that side, he slowly began 
 to descend the cord again, with a sad, 
 resigned, and piteous look, emblem of 
 useless labor, a Sisyphus of wasted ener- 
 gies. Half-way down the two creatures 
 met, exchanged glances meant to be 
 friendly, perhaps, but horrible from their 
 squints, and for a moment or two formed 
 a group which was like a hideous bunch 
 on the perpendicular line of the string. 
 
 After a few ludicrous contortions the 
 group disentangled, each chameleon con- 
 tinuing its journey, the one which was com- 
 ing down reaching the end of the cord, 
 stretching out a hind leg, sounding the 
 air cautiously and finding no place of sup- 
 port, drawing it in again with a discour-
 
 Chameleons, Lizards, and Magpies. 1 1 1 
 
 aged movement whose heart-breaking and 
 absurd melancholy baffles all description. 
 By one of those associations of ideas which 
 cannot be accounted for, but which the 
 mind conceives without understanding 
 why, the chameleons reminded me of one 
 of Goya's gloomiest etchings, in which are 
 represented spectres, who, with feeble and 
 shadowy arms, are trying to lift heavy 
 stones which roll back upon and crush 
 them, an unequal conflict of weakness 
 with destiny. 
 
 In order to deliver these poor animals 
 from their sufferings we bought for them 
 a rough sort of cage. It was of good size, 
 and, once installed therein, they were able 
 to dispense with those acrobatic exercises 
 which seemed to make them so miserable. 
 As to the question of food, with all re- 
 spect for Southern frugality, this living on 
 air by its very name seems insufficient. 
 A Spanish lover may, perhaps, be able to
 
 112 My Household of Pets. 
 
 breakfast on a glass of water, dine on a 
 cigarette, and sup on a tune from his man- 
 dolin ; but the tastes of chameleons are 
 less refined, and they crave and devour 
 flies, which they catch, in the oddest man- 
 ner, by darting out from the throat a sort 
 of long lance covered with a viscous slime, 
 which adheres to the wings of the insect, 
 and, when drawn in again, carries him 
 bodily along with it into the gullet. 
 
 Do chameleons change their color ac- 
 cording to the place where they happen 
 to be ? In the literal sense of the words 
 they do not, but their skins, broken by little 
 facet-shaped roughnesses, absorb the hues 
 of surrounding objects more easily than 
 other bodies do. Placed near a red thing, 
 or a yellow or a green one, the chameleon 
 seems to steep itself in that color, but, 
 after all, it is but an effect of refraction. 
 A plate of polished metal will be colored 
 in the same way ; there is no real power
 
 Chameleons, Lizards, and Magpies. 113 
 
 of absorption. In its ordinary state the 
 chameleon is of a gray-green or a yellow- 
 ish gray. However, those who have a 
 taste for marvels may, if they like, assert 
 that the chameleon changes its color at 
 will, and is thus the proper emblem of 
 political versatility; but we must be per- 
 mitted to say in our turn that after the 
 minutest observations, continued for a long 
 time, we are convinced that chameleons ' 
 are entirely indifferent to affairs of state 
 and everything connected with them. 
 
 We were anxious to carry our chame- 
 leons home with us, but the autumn was 
 near at hand, and, though the sun still had 
 a great deal of heat as we followed the 
 coast northward from Tarifa to Port Ven- 
 dres, passing by Gibraltar, Malaga, Ali- 
 cante, Almeria, Valencia, and Barcelona, 
 the poor beasts faded away before our very 
 sight. As they wasted, their eyes seemed 
 to project from their heads, and day by
 
 H4 My Household of Pets. 
 
 day to increase in prominence. Their 
 squint increased ; under their loose and 
 flabby skins their tiny skeletons grew more 
 and more distinct with every mile. It was 
 a piteous sight, these consumptive liz- 
 ards feebly going through the death dance, 
 and too weak even to thrust their sticky 
 tongues out for the flies which we col- 
 lected for them in the galley of the 
 steamer. They died within a few days 
 of each other, and the blue Mediterra- 
 nean was their grave. 
 
 From chameleons to lizards the transi- 
 tion is easy. Our youngest daughter once 
 received the present of a lizard which had 
 been caught at Fontainebleau, and which 
 became very fond of her. Jacques' color 
 was the most beautiful Veronese green 
 that can be imagined. His eyes were very 
 bright, his scales overlapped each other 
 with the most perfect regularity, and his 
 movements were extraordinarily swift. He
 
 Chameleons, Lizards, and Magpies. 1 15 
 
 never left his little mistress, and usually 
 lay hidden in a loop of her hair near the 
 comb. Nestled there, he accompanied her 
 to the play, to walk, to evening parties, 
 without once betraying his presence ; only, 
 when the young girl was playing on the 
 piano, he would desert his retreat, descend 
 her shoulder and creep out to the end of 
 the arm, always preferring the right hand, 
 which plays the air, to the left, which 
 makes the accompaniment, thus testify- 
 ing to his preference for melody over har- 
 mony. 
 
 Jacques' house was a glass box lined 
 with moss, which had once contained Rus- 
 sian cigars from the Eliseieph manufac- 
 tory. His private life may therefore be 
 justly said to have lain open to the public. 
 His food consisted of drops of milk, which 
 he preferred to take from the end of his 
 mistress's finger. He died of grief and 
 hunger during her absence on a journey,
 
 n6 My Household of Pets. 
 
 to which she had not dared to expose him 
 on account of the severity of the weather. 
 
 There is nothing to be told of Balylas, 
 the sparrow, but that he died. One blow 
 under his wing, from a claw, finished his 
 career, and he was buried in a domino- 
 box. 
 
 It now only remains for us to describe 
 Margot, the magpie, a most intelligent 
 and chatty gossip, worthy to live in an 
 osier cage in the window of a concierge 
 and be fed with white cheese. We wasted 
 much time in trying to teach her the dead 
 languages. She never could be taught to 
 pronounce correctly the Latin for " Bon- 
 jour," as did the Pompeiian magpies. She 
 could not say " Ave," but she said a great 
 many other things. She was a most comi- 
 cal and entertaining bird, who would play 
 at hide-and-go-seek with the children, dance 
 the Pyrrhic dance, and fearlessly attack any 
 number of cats, absolutely running after
 
 Chameleons, Lizards, and Magpies. 117 
 
 them and nipping the ends of their tails ; 
 which malicious act she always supple- 
 mented with a loud burst of laughter. She 
 was as thievish as the " Gazza Ladra " her- 
 self, and equal to getting ten servants hung 
 on false accusations. In the twinkling of 
 an eye she would rifle every knife, fork, 
 and spoon from the table. Money, scis- 
 sors, thimbles, anything that glittered, she 
 would seize upon and swiftly fly away with 
 to her hiding place. As the corner where 
 she deposited her stolen goods was well 
 known to us all, we allowed her to do this ; 
 but the servants of a neighboring family 
 were less indulgent, and they killed her 
 one day because, as they stated, she had 
 stolen a pair of new sheets, an accusa- 
 tion which made us think of that minute 
 cat in " How to succeed," which devoured 
 four pounds of butter and only weighed 
 three quarters of a pound after it! The 
 master and mistress of the house scouted
 
 n8 My Household of Pets. 
 
 the idea, and turned the fools of servants 
 off at once ; but this reprisal did not mend 
 the matter, Dame Margot's neck was none 
 the less wrung. She was lamented by 
 all the neighborhood, which had been 
 kept in a state of constant diversion by 
 her good humor and her pranks.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HORSES. 
 
 not be in a hurry to accuse us of 
 coxcombry on seeing the heading of 
 this chapter. Horses ! a glorious word 
 indeed for the pen of a literary man. 
 Musa pedestris (the muse goes on foot), 
 says Horace, and all Parnassus together 
 had but a single horse in its stable, the 
 well known Pegasus ; and he, if we may 
 believe Schiller's ballad, was a beast with 
 wings, and not at all easy to harness. We 
 are no sportsman, alas, and we deeply re- 
 gret the fact, for we are as fond of horses 
 as though we had an income of five hun- 
 dred thousand francs a year, and entirely 
 agree with the Arabs in their contempt for
 
 1 20 My Household of Pets. 
 
 people who are forced to walk. A horse 
 is the natural pedestal for a man, and the 
 perfect existence is that of the Centaur, 
 that ingenious mythological invention. 
 
 However, notwithstanding that we are a 
 simple man of letters, we once had horses. 
 About the year 1843 or 1844, when en- 
 gaged in sifting the sands of journalism 
 through the sieve of the daily newspapers, 
 enough golden particles appeared, to allow 
 of the hope that, in addition to dogs, cats, 
 and magpies, we might be able to find 
 food for a couple of pets of larger size. 
 At first it was a pair of Shetland ponies, 
 about the size of a large dog, and shaggy 
 as bears, who looked at us through their 
 long, black manes with such friendly faces 
 that we felt much more inclined to take 
 them with us into the parlor than to send 
 them to their stable. They helped them- 
 selves to sugar out of our pockets, just 
 like trained horses. For use, however,
 
 Horses. 121 
 
 they were entirely too small. They would 
 have answered very well to carry an Eng- 
 lish child eight years old, or as coach 
 horses to Tom Thumb ; but, even at that 
 date, we were blessed with the same ath- 
 letic frame as now, and crowned with the 
 same plenteous flesh which still charac- 
 terizes us, and which we have been enabled 
 to support, without giving way under its 
 weight, for forty consecutive years. The 
 difference in size between master and 
 beasts was quite too apparent to the eye, 
 though it must be said for the ponies that 
 they made no difficulty at all about draw- 
 ing their light phaeton, to which they were 
 fastened by a tiny harness of pale fawn- 
 colored leather, which looked as though it 
 might have been purchased at a toy-shop. 
 
 At that time illustrated comic journals 
 were not so plentiful as to-day, but there 
 were plenty in existence to caricature us 
 and our equipage. Of course, with the
 
 122 My Household of Pets. 
 
 exaggeration permissible in such cases, we 
 were invested with elephantine propor- 
 tions, like those of Ganesa, the Indian 
 god of wisdom, while the ponies dwindled 
 to the size of puppies, or, even less, to 
 that of rats and mice. It is true that, with- 
 out great difficulty, we might have carried 
 the little creatures, one under each arm, 
 and the phaeton to boot upon our back. 
 For a moment we debated the possibility 
 of harnessing four, but this Liliputian four- 
 in-hand would have been still more con- 
 spicuous. With great regret therefore (for 
 we had already grown fond of the gentle 
 creatures) we exchanged them for a pair 
 of dappled-gray ponies of a larger size, 
 with strong necks, wide chests, and mas- 
 sive shoulders, which, though far enough 
 from being Mecklenburgers, at least 
 looked capable of drawing grown people 
 about. They were mares, one named 
 Jane and the other Betsey.
 
 Horses. 123 
 
 In appearance they were as much alike 
 as two drops of water. Never was a better 
 match so far as looks went ; but in propor- 
 tion as Jane was mettlesome, Betsey was 
 indolent. While the former pulled at the 
 collar, the other trotted by her side con- 
 tentedly, shirking work, and giving herself 
 no sort of trouble. These two animals, of 
 the same breed, the same age, fated to live 
 in stalls side by side, felt for each other 
 the strongest antipathy. They could not 
 endure each other, fought in the stable, 
 and snapped and bit when prancing in the 
 traces. Nothing could reconcile them. It 
 was a pity too, for with their brush-like 
 manes cut like those of the horses of the 
 Parthenon, their snorting nostrils and eyes 
 dilated with fury, they presented rather a 
 triumphant appearance when going up and 
 down the Champs Elysees. 
 
 We were obliged to look for a substi- 
 tute for Betsey, and found one in a small
 
 124 My Household of Pets. 
 
 mare with skin of a somewhat lighter color, 
 
 for the shade we wanted could not be 
 exactly matched. Jane approved at once 
 of this new-comer, with whom she seemed 
 charmed, and did the honors of the stable 
 in the most graceful way. The tenderest 
 friendship was soon established between 
 them ; Jane would rest her head on the 
 shoulder of Blanche, thus named be- 
 cause her shade of gray bordered on white, 
 
 and when let loose in the courtyard for 
 an airing, they would play together like 
 dogs or children. If one was driven out 
 in single harness, the other, left behind, 
 seemed sad, gave signs of feeling lonely, 
 and, when far away she heard the hoofs 
 of her comrade sounding on the pavement, 
 she raised a joyful neighing like the blast 
 of a trumpet, to which her approaching 
 friend never failed to respond. 
 
 They came to be harnessed with re- 
 markable docility, and would go of their
 
 Horses. 125 
 
 own accord to their proper places on either 
 side of the pole. Like all animals who 
 are loved and kindly treated, Jane and 
 Blanche soon acquired the most perfect 
 confidence and familiarity. They would 
 follow us about on their hind legs like 
 dogs, and when we stood still, put their 
 heads on our shoulders to be petted. 
 Jane loved bread, Blanche sugar. Both 
 of them adored watermelon rind, and 
 there was nothing that they would not 
 do to obtain these dainties. 
 
 If only men were not so odiously fero- 
 cious and brutal as they too often are, 
 how happily and good-naturedly animals 
 would play about them ! This being, 
 who can think, can speak, can do so many 
 things which they cannot understand, fills 
 their dimly understood thoughts, and is 
 for them a perpetual astonishment and 
 mystery. How frequently animals look at 
 us with eyes which are full of question-
 
 126 My Household of Pets. 
 
 ings questionings to which we cannot 
 reply, as we have not the key to their 
 language ! They have a language, never- 
 theless, by which, through sounds and in- 
 tonations which we scarcely notice, they 
 exchange ideas, confused, perhaps, but 
 still ideas, such as creatures of their sphere 
 of sentiment and action can understand. 
 Less stupid in this one instance than our- 
 selves, they succeed in learning a few 
 words of our idiom, but not enough to 
 enable them to talk with us. These words 
 are mostly answers to our demands upon 
 them, so our intercourse is naturally brief. 
 But that animals talk with each other no 
 one can doubt who has ever lived familiarly 
 with dogs, cats, horses, or any other sort 
 of beasts. 
 
 As an example of this, Jane, who by 
 nature was perfectly fearless, shying at 
 no obstacle whatever, and afraid of noth- 
 ing, changed her character after living
 
 Horses. 127 
 
 for a few months in the same stable with 
 Blanche, and began to exhibit sudden and 
 unaccountable fears. Her more timid 
 companion had, without doubt, told her 
 ghost stories at night. At times, when 
 dashing along in the dusk through the 
 Bois de Boulogne, Blanche would stop 
 short and shy sharply to one side as if to 
 avoid some phantom, which, invisible to 
 us, had appeared to her. Trembling all 
 over, with loud breathings, and body cov- 
 ered with sweat, she would rear straight 
 on end if we tried to make her go on by 
 touching her with the whip. Jane could 
 not force her to follow, however hard she 
 might try. In these cases there was noth- 
 ing to be done but to get out, cover 
 Blanche's eyes and lead her along for 
 a few paces till the vision took flight. 
 Jane ended with allowing herself to be 
 conquered by these terrors, which Blanche, 
 when safely back in her stable, doubt-
 
 128 My Household of Pets. 
 
 less explained to her in full. We must 
 frankly own that when, in the middle 
 of a dusky lane checkered by moonlight 
 into fantastic lights and shadows, Blanche, 
 usually so docile, Blanche, who, to ex- 
 cite her into a gallop, needed nothing 
 heavier than that whip of Queen Mab's 
 which was made of cricket's bone with gos- 
 samer lash, planted herself suddenly on 
 her four feet as though some spectre had 
 seized her bridle, and with unconquerable 
 obstinacy refused to move a step forward, 
 we could not prevent a cold chill from 
 running down our spine. Searching the 
 shadow with unquiet glances, we almost 
 imagined that we could detect therein 
 the ghastly countenance of one of Goya's 
 " Caprices," where in reality were only in- 
 nocent silhouettes of leafy birch-trees or 
 beeches. 
 
 It was one of our great pleasures to 
 drive these charming animals ourselves,
 
 Horses. 129 
 
 and an intimate understanding was soon 
 established between us. If we held the 
 reins in our hands, it was mainly for 
 the look of the thing. The least click of 
 the tongue sufficed to guide them to right 
 or to left, to make them go slower or bring 
 them to a stop. In a very short time they 
 learned all our habits. They went of their 
 own accord to the newspaper office, to the 
 printers, to the editors, to the Bois de Bou- 
 logne, to the houses where we dined on 
 particular days of the week, all with such 
 exactitude that at last it became abso- 
 lutely compromising. By consulting Jane 
 or Blanche any one could have procured 
 the address of our most mysterious visit- 
 ing-places. If, while pursuing some in- 
 teresting or tender conversation, we forgot 
 the flight of time, they would recall it to 
 our minds by neighing, and stamping with 
 their hoofs under the balcony. 
 
 Notwithstanding the pleasantness of go-
 
 1 30 My Household of Pets. 
 
 ing about the city in a phaeton with our 
 little friends to pull it, we could not help 
 sometimes finding the wind sharp and the 
 rain cold, when those months came in so 
 fitly christened in the Republican calendar 
 as " Brumaire, Frimaire, Pluviose, Ventose, 
 and Nivose." We therefore purchased a 
 blue coupe lined with white reps, so small 
 that people compared it to one belonging 
 to the most famous dwarf of the day, an 
 insult about which we were troubled very 
 little. A brown coupe lined with garnet 
 succeeded the blue, and was replaced at a 
 later date with one of the color of a crow's 
 eye upholstered with deep blue ; for we 
 luxuriated in carriages, in spite of being 
 nothing but a poor scribbler, with no in- 
 come stated in the big book, and no lega- 
 cies left us for years back; and our po- 
 nies, though nourished on literature, so to 
 speak, with nouns for hay, adjectives in 
 place of oats, and adverbs instead of straw,
 
 Horses. 131 
 
 were none the less fat and glossy because 
 of that. Alas, just then came, no one 
 knew exactly why, the Revolution of Feb- 
 ruary. Paving-stones were being dug up 
 on all sides to serve patriotic ends, and 
 the streets were no longer accessible for 
 wheeled vehicles. We might easily have 
 scaled the barricades with our agile ponies 
 and their light equipage, but unluckily we 
 had no credit left anywhere but at the 
 cook-shop. Horses cannot be fed on roast 
 chicken. The horizon was lowering with 
 heavy black clouds, across which red light- 
 nings flashed. Money took alarm, and 
 made haste to conceal itself. The news- 
 paper for which we wrote suspended pub- 
 lication, and we thought ourselves fortu- 
 nate when a purchaser turned up and took 
 horses, harnesses, and carriages off our 
 hands at a quarter of their value. It was 
 a bitter grief to us to have them go, and 
 we will not swear that a salt tear or two
 
 132 My Household of Pets. 
 
 may not have dropped on the manes of 
 Jane and Blanche as they were led away. 
 
 They are driven past their old home oc- 
 casionally by their new owner ; and always 
 the light feet make an instant's pause un- 
 der the windows, to testify that they have 
 not forgotten the dwelling where they were 
 once so cared for and so tenderly loved. 
 Then we breathe a bitter and sympathetic 
 sigh, and say in the depths of our heart, 
 " Poor Jane ! Poor Blanche ! Are they 
 happy ? " 
 
 In the overwhelming of our tiny for- 
 tunes theirs is the only loss which caused 
 us a real regret. 
 
 University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.
 
 ^