A fury took possession of her at the mere thought of the caresses of love. Proud of her virginity, she hated all that was not chaste, and the function of the flesh seemed to her a diabolical thing by which the Tempter soiled, made vile both beast and man. She reddened with anger when she saw lovers arm-in-arm in the moonlight, birds flying after each other at night, doves joining their beaks at the edge of their nest.
At one time the cat had been beautiful, with shining fur and firm, round limbs, and neighbors had more than once asked its mistress:
“Will you lend her to us? She and our cat would make such beautiful kittens.”
“No! I wish to keep her. for myself…” she had answered, frowning as she drew the creature against her flat chest.
By degrees the animal had become ugly. Its sterile flanks had fallen in. In the cloisterlike atmosphere Poussette seemed to have forgotten her instinct. Her ardent flesh had slowly but surely lost its virility, and she no longer seemed to hear the insistent calls of the males.
One summer night, however, she became restless, left the armchair where she slept, and began to prowl about in the shadow. Outside on the roof-gutters the cats were miauling. She stretched out her paws, dug her claws into the carpet, beat her sides with her tail, and responding suddenly to a surge of nature, slipped out through the half-open door into the garden.
When she found herself with the others, the long-repressed instinct woke into vibrating life. Her jaws distended, her claws clinging to the slates, she flung herself among the males, her cries mingling with their calls, yelling joyfully as they bit her.
The noise awakened the old maid and she sat up in bed to listen. Never had the cries of the Flesh sounded so loudly, rung so triumphantly in her ears. She got up quickly to protect her animal from them, and not finding her on the armchair, called:
“Poussette!… Little Poussette!… Come here!… Come!…”
Usually one word brought the cat to her side. This time there was no response. Looking about, she found that the door was half open, and she was seized with fear, not that someone might have broken in, but the fear that Poussette had escaped. She struck a match, and while the little blue flame flickered without giving any light, she murmured:
“It’s not possible!… My God!… Poussette!…”
But when the candle was lit, she gave a cry of rage.
Poussette was not there.
Out into the garden, full of flower-scent and moonlight, she rushed, calling, calling…
Upon the roof, the cat, now appeased, was gently rubbing itself against the side of its companion; it looked fixedly, disdainfully, at her for a moment, then fell back to its caressings, its head bent forwards, its body stretched out.
At six o’clock, when the old maid set out for church, Poussette was still missing.
The service finished, she hastened back, forgetting to tell her beads. She had paid but scant attention to the mass, kneeling and rising mechanically, her mind tortured by memories of the night.
She found the cat lying on a chair, sleeping so soundly that it scarcely moved an ear when it was called.
Livid with rage, she seized it by the neck and flung it on the floor. The surprised animal stood still for a second, yawned, arched its back, sat down, blinked its eyelids, then, its whole body slack, rolled itself up and went to sleep again.
From that moment the old maid kept it at a distance, shrinking from it as from something impure. If it approached, she pushed it away with her foot:
“Get away! Get away!”
Sometimes, livid with rage, she lifted it up between her thin fingers, glared into its eyes and flung it on the ground; or if the cat got in her way, she seized and beat it on the head, on the shoulders, the flanks, above all on the flanks, finding in this chastisement a ferocious and holy joy. The beast submitted to all this without a sign of revolt.
This went on for six weeks. The old maid avoided her neighbors as might a mother who dreads hearing the name of an unworthy child.
One morning when she had beaten the cat harder than usual and was belaboring its belly, the beast leaped up, its paws raised, its fur bristling.
“Ah!” cried the old maid. “You are going to begin scratching me now, are you? We’ll see about that…”
But hardly had she raised her hand when the cat made a bound toward her face, digging its claws in her cheeks.
Terrified, she gave a loud shriek and fled to her bedroom, her face covered with blood.
For her Poussette was now a diabolical animal, and she dared not open her door, fearing she would see again its flaming eyes and threatening teeth.
Kneeling on her prie-dieu, she shuddered:
“The Demon is after me!… The Demon is here in this house!…”
At night she crouched in her bed with her eyes open, her chin on her knees, listening to every sound, feeling no fatigue as she muttered:
“The Demon!… The Demon!…”
Soon she had no longer the strength to speak, and her lips trembled over words she could no longer hear.
When nearly a week had gone by, surprised not to see her at mass, the priest called at her house. Some of the neighbors joined him as he stood knocking at the door.
“Something must be wrong. We would have gone in to see if we could do anything for her, but we dared not, she is so rude… with you it will be different… She will be glad to see you…”
They knocked at the shutters; no reply. They knocked again; silence.
“Yes, something must be wrong,” murmured the priest.
He turned the handle of the door. It opened, and the neighbors followed him in.
Everything was in order. In the dining-room the remains of breakfast were still on the table. Some coffee, covered with a gray skim, was in the bottom of a cup. Flies buzzed round a piece of sugar, and little curls of butter, very yellow, were melting on a plate.
“Perhaps she is in her bedroom?” hazarded a woman.
They opened the door. At first they could not see anything, for the shutters were closed and the curtains closely drawn. The woman bent her head to listen and whispered:
“There is someone here!… Listen… someone is breathing.”
A man went forward, drew the curtains, opened the window and pulled back the shutters; a flood of sunshine poured in.
The old woman was crouching in a corner near the foot of the unmade bed; she had nothing on but a chemise that showed her thin chest, and her disordered hair hung about her. Seeing the figures bending over her, she hid her face, which was covered with caked blood, in her hands, shuddering as she moaned:
“Satan! Satan! The Demon!…”
The priest tried to take her hand, to speak to her:
“Don’t you know me?… It is I… your priest…”
But she only cried the louder, her nails digging into her forehead:
“Satan! The Demon! The Demon!”
He shook his head and said sadly:
“Alas, our poor friend has lost her reason! She, so pious! Who would have thought it possible? What can have happened to her? Look! She has been tearing her face with her own hands. Go and bring a doctor: I will stay here with her.”
While they hurried out on their errand and the old maid continued to mutter in a hoarse voice: “The Demon! The Demon!…” the priest went back to the dining-room where he stooped with a smile to caress the cat. It was lying stretched out on its side, its chin up, its eyes half closed, purring as it offered its rose-colored teats to three kittens…
The Father
WHEN THE last spadeful of earth had been shoveled in and the last handshake given, the father and the son went home, walking slowly, as if every step were an effort. They were silent, for there had suddenly fallen on them the great weariness that follows an effort that has been too long sustained.