CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH THE CAT CONTENDS
SUCCESSFULLY AGAINST
HIS ENEMY.
he events we have recorded indicate very clearly the position of our personages. Fearing to lose both the well-beloved cat and the advantages she was ambitious to obtain, Mother Michel redoubled her vigilance and attention.
Moumouth, knowing henceforth with whom he had to deal, promised himself to avoid the steward, or to fight him, if need be, with tooth and nail.
As to Father Lustucru, it was enough that his projects had been defeated, in order that he should persist in them with desperation. He now wished the destruction of the poor and innocent cat, not only on account of his jealousy of Mother Michel, but because he hated the cat itself.
"Oh, what humiliation!" he said to himself, with bitterness. "I ought to hide myself, retire to a desert, and bury me in the bowels of the earth! What! I, Jérôme Lustucru, a grown man, a man of knowledge and experience, a man—I dare say it—charming in society, I am vanquished, scoffed at, taken for a dupe, by a cat of the gutter!... I leave him at the bottom of a river, and find him at the top of a house! I wish to separate him from his guardian, and I am the means of bringing them together! I lead Mother Michel to the garret to torture her, and there I witness her transports of joy! The cat I believed dead reappears to defy me!... He shall not defy me long!"
And Father Lustucru remained absorbed in deep meditation.
Lustucru meditates.
Moumouth had not yet dined that day, and he made it plain by expressive miauing that he would very willingly place something under his teeth. Presently, Mother Michel said to him—for she spoke to him as if he were an intelligent being,—
"Have patience, sir; we are going to attend to you."
She descended to the parlor, which she habitually occupied since the departure of Madame de la Grenouillère, and the cat, who accompanied Mother Michel, was clearly displeased at seeing her take the road to the chamber of Lustucru. Nevertheless, he went in with her, persuaded that in the presence of that faithful friend the steward would not dare to undertake anything against him.
At the moment she knocked at the door, Father Lustucru was taking from the shelf a green package which bore this label: Death to Rats.
"This is the thing," he said to himself, thrusting the paper into his vest. "Death to Rats should also be Death to Cats. Our dear Moumouth shall make the trial.... What can one do to serve you, my good Mother Michel?"
"It is five o’clock, M. Lustucru, and you forget my cat."
The Green Package.
"I forget him!" cried the steward, clasping his hands as if very much hurt by the suspicion, "I was just thinking of him.... I am going to prepare for him such a delicious hash that he will never want another!"
"Thanks, Monsieur Lustucru! I shall inform Madame, the Countess, of your care for her favorite. I have received a letter from her this very day; she sends me word that she shall return shortly; that she hopes to find Moumouth in good condition, and that she has in reserve for me a very handsome reward. You comprehend my joy, Monsieur Lustucru! My sister is left a widow with four children, to whom I hand over my little savings each year. Until now this assistance has not been much; but, thanks to the gifts of Madame, the Countess, the poor children will be able to go to school and learn a trade."
In pronouncing these words the eyes of Mother Michel were moist and bright with the most sweet joy,—that which one experiences in performing or meditating good actions. The steward, however, was not affected. He had so given himself up to his evil passions that they completely mastered him, and had by degrees stifled all generous sentiments in his soul, as the tares which one lets grow choke the good grain.
"Come, let us go!"
One would have said that Moumouth understood this man. The cat approached Mother Michel, who had seated herself to chat awhile, and looking at her with supplicating eyes, pulled at the skirt of her robe, as if to say to her:—
"Come, let us go!"
"Take care!" said the good creature, "you will tear my dress."
Moumouth began again.
"What is it? Do you want to get out of here?" asked Mother Michel.
Moumouth made several affirmative capers in the air.
"Decidedly," she added, "this cat is not contented anywhere but in the parlor."
She rose and withdrew, preceded by Moumouth, who bounded with joy.
A quarter of an hour afterward the steward had prepared a most appetizing hash composed of the breast of chicken, the best quality of bread, and other ingredients justly esteemed by dainty eaters. After adding a large dose of the "Death to Rats," he set the hash down in an adjoining room, and, opening the parlor door, cried:
"Monsieur is served!!"
Moumouth is pleased to see the Hash.
On beholding this delicate dish, Moumouth thrilled with pleasure, for, to tell the truth, he was rather greedy. He stretched his nose over the plate, and then suddenly retreated, arching his back. A sickening and infectious odor had mounted to his nostrils. He made a tour round the plate, took another sniff, and again retreated. This animal, full of sagacity, had scented the poison.
"Well, that is very extraordinary," said Mother Michel; and, having vainly offered the food to her cat, she went to find Lustucru, to inform him what had occurred.
He sniffs with Disgust.
The traitor listened with inward rage.
"What!" said he, "he has refused to eat it? It is probably because he is not hungry."
"So I suppose, Monsieur Lustucru; for your hash looks very nice. I should like it myself, and I’ve half a mind to taste it, to set Moumouth an example." At this, Father Lustucru, in spite of his hardness, could not help trembling. For a minute he was horrified at his crime, and cried hastily:—
"Don’t touch it, I beg of you."
"Don’t touch it, I beg of you!"
"Why not? Is there anything wrong in the hash?"
"No, certainly not," stammered Father Lustucru; "but what has been prepared for a cat should not serve for a Christian. It is necessary to guard propriety, and not trifle with the dignity of human nature."
Mother Michel accepted this reasoning, and said, a little snappishly:—
"Very well; Moumouth may suit himself! I do not wish to yield to all his fancies, and I shall not give him anything else."
The following day the hash was still uneaten.
The steward had hoped that the cat, pressed by hunger, would have thrown himself upon the poisoned food; but Moumouth knew how to suffer. He put up with abstinence, lived on scraps and crumbs of bread, and recoiled with terror every time that his guardian offered him the fatal plate, which finally remained forgotten in a corner of the closet in the antechamber.
The Fatal Plate remains forgotten.
Father Lustucru, seeing that his plot had not succeeded, was more irritable than ever. The desire to rid himself of Moumouth became a fixed idea with him, a passion, a monomania; he dreamed of it day and night. Each letter in which Madame de la Grenouillère demanded news of the cat and repeated her promise of recompense to Mother Michel, each sign of interest given by the Countess to her two favorites, increased the blind fury of their enemy. He thought of the most infernal plans to demolish Moumouth without risk to himself, but none of them seemed sufficiently safe and expeditious. Finally he decided on this one:—
Louis XIV.
On a heavy pedestal, in the chamber of Mother Michel, was a marble bust of Louis XIV., represented with a Roman helmet and a peruke interlaced with laurel-leaves. Behind this bust was a round window, which looked upon the staircase; and just in front of the pedestal was the downy cushion that served as a bed for Moumouth, who would certainly have been crushed if the bust had taken it into its head to topple over.
One night Lustucru stole noiselessly into the chamber of Mother Michel, opened the round window, which he was careful to leave ajar, and retired silently. At midnight, when everybody was asleep in the house, he took one of those long brooms, commonly called a wolf-head, placed himself on the staircase opposite the small window, rested his back firmly against the banister, and, with the aid of the wolf-head, pushed over the bust, which tumbled with a loud crash on the cushion beneath.
Downfall of Louis XIV.
The wicked man had expected this result of his movement; it was for him the signal of his triumph and the death of Moumouth. However, when he heard the bust roll heavily on the floor, he was seized by a panic, and, with trembling steps, regained his chamber. Mother Michel awoke with a start; she was in complete darkness, and unable to procure a light, for German chemical matches were not yet invented. Surprise and fright had taken away her faculties for an instant, then she cried, "Stop thief!" with all the strength of her lungs. Very soon the whole house was roused, and all the servants came running in to learn what was the matter.
Lustucru appears.
Lustucru appeared last, with a cotton night-cap on his head, and, for the rest, very simply clad.
"What has happened?" he demanded.
"I see now," answered Mother Michel; "it is the bust of Louis XIV. that has fallen down."
"Bah!" said Father Lustucru, playing astonishment. "But, in that case, your cat must have received it on his head."
As he said these words, Moumouth came out from under the bed and threw himself before Mother Michel, as if to implore her aid and protection. Lustucru stood amazed.
Moumouth comes forth.
Everybody knows how light is the slumber of cats. Moumouth, who had the habit of sleeping with only one eye, had risen quickly on hearing a rustling behind the round window. Like nearly all animals, he was curious, and sought to understand anything that astonished him; so he camped himself in the middle of the chamber, the better to observe with what intention the wolf-head advanced at that unseasonable hour by so unusual a route. Startled by the fall of the bust, he had fled for refuge to the bottom of the alcove.
They gave Mother Michel, to revive her, a glass of sugar and water, flavored with orange-flower; they picked up the great king, who had smashed his nose and chin, and lost half of his beautiful peruke; then everybody went to bed once more.
"Saved again!" said Father Lustucru to himself. "He always escapes me! I shall not be able, then, to send him to his fathers before the return of the Countess! Mother Michel will get her pension of fifteen hundred livres, and I shall remain a nobody, the same as before. That rascally cat distrusts me; everything I undertake alone against him fails.... Decidedly, I must get somebody to help me!"
Mother Michel is revived.