[Illustration: “AND FROM THAT HOUR THEY WERE FAST FRIENDS”] LIVES OF TWO CATS _From the French of Pierre Loti_ TRANSLATION BY M. B. RICHARDS ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. E. ALLEN [Illustration] BOSTON 1900 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY M. B. RICHARDS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Riverside Press _Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE “And from that hour they were fast friends” (page 50) _Frontispiece_ “Rolling on the crimson rug” 10 “Advancing, ... her clear eyes fixed on mine” 16 “And still looked directly in my eyes” 22 “She passed deliciously dreamy days” 48 “There was a useless battle” 70 “In company of the everlasting tortoise” 76 “I was glad ... that she had not died elsewhere” 90 LIVES OF TWO CATS Lives of Two Cats (I) I have often seen, with a questioning restlessness infinitely sad, the soul of animals meet mine from the depths of their eyes: the soul of a cat, the soul of a dog, the soul of a monkey, as pathetically, for an instant, as a human soul, revealing itself suddenly in a glance and seeking my own soul with tenderness, supplication, or terror; and I have felt perhaps more pity for these souls of animals than for those of my own brethren, because they are speechless, incapable of emerging from their semi-intelligence; above all, because they are more humble and despised. (II) The two cats whose histories I am about to write are associated in memory with comparatively happy years of my life,--years scarce past by the dates they bear, but years already seeming in the remote past, borne away by the frightfully accelerating speed of time, and which, placed beside the gray to-day, bear tints of early dawn or last rosy light of morning. So fast our days hasten to the twilight, so fast our fall to the night. (III) Pardon me that I call each of my cats Pussy. At first I had no idea of giving names to my pets. A cat was “Pussy,” a kitten “Kitty;” and surely no names could be more expressive and tender than these. I shall call the poor little personages of my story by the names they bore in their real lives, Pussy White and Pussy Gray; the latter often known as Pussy Chinese. (IV) As the oldest, allow me first to present the Angora, Pussy White. Her visiting card, by her desire, was thus inscribed-- MADAME MOUMOUTTE BLANCHE PREMIÈRE CHATTE Chez M. Pierre Loti.