Beyond the Gates of Paradise

A strange motleyA strange motley cut-throat band I had found myself among, too. Wild Somalis, half-caste Indian Jews, Bedouin Arabs, and burly Persian merchants, all armed with sword and spear and shield, and long rifles that, judging by their build, seemed made to shoot round corners. Strings of camels lay on the ground; and round each camp-fire squatted these swarthy sons of the desert, engaged in talking, eating, smoking, or quarrelling, as the case might be.

In the midst of a group of young Arabs, was one that attracted my special attention. He was an old man who looked, with his snow-white beard, his turban and robes, as venerable as one of Doré’s patriarchs.⁠1 In sonorous tones, in his own noble language, he was reading from a book in his lap, while one arm was coiled lovingly round a beautiful long-haired cat. Beside this man I threw myself down. The fierceness of his first glance, which seemed to resent my intrusion, melted into a smile as sweet as a woman’s, when I began to stroke and admire his cat. Just the same story all the world over, praise a man’s pet and he’ll do anything for you; fight for you, or even lend you money.

That Arab shared his supper with me. “Ah! my son,” he said, “more than my goods, more than my horse, I love my cat. She comforts me. More than the smoke she soothes me.

“Allah is great and good; when our first mother and father went out into the mighty desert alone, He gave them two friends to defend and comfort them — the dog and the cat. In the body of the cat He placed the spirit of a gentle woman; in the dog the soul of a brave man. It is true, my son; the book hath it.” After this I remained for some time speculatively silent.

The old man’s story may be taken — according to taste — with or without a grain of salt; but we must admit it is as good a way of accounting for domestic pussy’s origin as any other. There really is, moreover, a great deal of the woman’s nature in the cat. Like a woman, pussy prefers a settled home to leading a roving life. Like a true woman, she is fond of fireside comforts. Then she is so gentle in all her ways, so kind, so loving, and so forgiving.

On your return from business, the very look of her honest face, as she sits purring on the hearth-rug, with the pleasant adjuncts of a bright fire and hissing tea-urn, tends to make you forget all the cares of the day.

When you are dull and lonely, how often does her ‘punky humour’, her mirth-provoking attitudes and capers banish ennui. And if you are ill, how carefully she will watch by your bedside and keep you company. How her low song will lull you, her soft caresses soothe you, giving you more real consolation from the looks of concern exhibited on her loving little face, than any language could convey. On the other hand, like a woman, she is prying and curious. A locked cupboard is often a greater source of care and thought to pussy, than the secret chamber was to the wife of Blue Beard.⁠2 I’m sure it is only because she cannot read that she refrains from opening your letters of a morning, and only because she cannot speak that she keeps a secret. Like a woman, too, she dearly loves a gossip, and will have it too, even if it be by night on the tiles, at the risk of keeping the neighbours awake. Oh! I’m far from sure that the Arab isn’t right, after all.