Their first interview was certainly terrible. It was unpremeditated, a few days after, in the kitchen (a locality of irresistible attractions, where the cats of the same household, do what one can to prevent, will some day meet). The servants summoned me hastily and I ran to the battlefield, where, uttering unearthly yells, a shapeless package of fur and claws formed of their closely clinched little bodies, rolled and bounded,--shattering glasses, plates, and dishes, while tufts of white fur, gray fur, black fur, and fawn fur flew and floated everywhere. It was necessary to interfere energetically and instantly: to separate them I threw upon them a whole carafe of water. I was at my wits’ end. (XI) Breathless, scratched, and bleeding, her heart beating as if it must break, Pussy Gray was gathered to my breast, where she clung closely, growing more quiet in the consciousness of sweet security; then she became less and less rigid and as limp and inert as if dying, which is a way cats have of showing entire confidence in one who holds them. Pussy White, seated thoughtful and gloomy in a corner, looked at us with surprised eyes, and a deduction from the view was formed in her little jealous brain; that she, who from one year’s end to the other had driven from the neighboring walls all other cats, unwilling even to endure their presence, must acknowledge this ugly pagan as mine, since I held her so tenderly, so closely; then it became necessary that she, Pussy White, should tolerate her presence in the mansion and trouble her no more. My surprise and admiration were great to see these two, an instant after, pass by each other, not merely with indifference but calmly, civilly,--and all was ended. During their lives they never quarreled again. (XII) The springtime of the following year! How pleasant my reminiscences of its sunny days. Very short as all seasons now seem, it was the last which held a charm for me, like the mysterious enchantment of childhood’s days, passed in the same environment of verdure and bloom, in the midst of flowers blooming anew in their annual ranks, the same jasmines, the same roses. After my campaigns I joyfully returned there, to forget other continents and the immense seas; again, as in my infancy, I limited the exterior world to the old walls hung with vines and mosses, which bounded my rambles; the distant lands where I have since lived seeming unreal as those of which I dreamed, having never seen. The far horizons fade; they vanish imperceptibly and nothing is real to me save our mossy stones, our trees, our trellises, and our beloved white roses!