Ahead of All Parting by Rainer Maria Rilke

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke [Rilke, Rainer Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5357-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-01-20T16:00:00+00:00

MITSOU

Forty Drawings by Balthus

Preface

Who knows cats?—Do you, for example, think that you do? I must admit that, for me, their existence was never more than a tolerably risked hypothesis.

Animals (don’t you agree?), in order to belong to our world, must enter into it a little. They must consent, however partially, to our way of life, they must tolerate it; otherwise, whether timidly or with hostility, they will measure the distance that separates them from us, and that will be the way they relate to us.

Take dogs: their confidential and admiring nearness is such that certain of them seem to have renounced their most ancient canine traditions, in order to adore our habits, and even our errors. This is precisely what makes them tragic and sublime. Their decision to admit us forces them to live, so to speak, at the very boundaries of their nature, which they constantly pass beyond with their humanized gaze and their nostalgic muzzle.

But what is the attitude of cats?—Cats are, quite simply, cats, and their world is the world of cats from one end to the other. They look at us, you say? But has anyone ever known if they really deign to lodge for a moment, in the depths of their retina, our futile image? Perhaps, in staring at us, they are quite simply facing us with a magical refusal of their forever complete pupils?—It is true that certain persons among us allow themselves to be influenced by their charming and electric caresses. But let them remember the strange and abrupt distraction with which their favorite animal often put an end to the effusions which they thought were reciprocal. They too, these privileged persons admitted into the presence of cats, have been disowned and repudiated time and time again, and, even as they still held the mysteriously apathetic animal in their arms, they felt themselves stopped at the threshold of this world which is the world of cats and which they inhabit exclusively, surrounded by circumstances that none of us can ever guess.

Was man ever their contemporary? —I doubt it. And I assure you that sometimes, in the twilight, the neighbor’s cat leaps across my body completely unaware of me, or to prove to the bewildered Things that I don’t exist.

*

Tell me, am I wrong to get you involved in these considerations, when my real purpose is to lead you toward the story my small friend Balthusz is going to tell you? True, he draws the story, without speaking to you any further, but his images will more than satisfy your curiosity. Why should I repeat them in another form? I would rather add what he has not yet said. But first, to summarize:

Balthusz (I think he was ten years old at the time) finds a cat. This happens at the château de Nyon, which you probably know. He is allowed to keep his small, trembling discovery, and he travels home with him. Here is the boat, here is the arrival at Geneva, at Molard, here is the streetcar.

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