Cat Country by Lao She Read Free Book Online Page A

bite from one of the leaves. It was quite tasty and there was a lot of juice in it. Due to my inexperience in eating leaves I let a bit of the juice drip out from the corners of my mouth. My cat-friend’s hands and feet began to twitch as though he were preparing to run over and catch the few precious drops that I was losing. These leaves must be very valuable indeed, I thought to myself. But since the forest was so large, why should he begrudge me a few measly leaves? Forget it. There were enough odd things going on without worrying about that. After having eaten two of the leaves in a row, my head began to feel a bit dizzy, and yet it wasn’t at all an unpleasant sensation. Not only did I feel that precious juice enter my stomach, but I was also conscious of an anaesthetic effect that communicated to every part of my body; though, it did not make me very numb at first. My stomach began to feel full and languorous, and my brain became a bit sluggish as though I should like to doze off but couldn’t. It was almost like I were benumbed and excited at the same time – the kind of feeling one gets when slightly high. I was still holding on to a piece of leaf, and my hand had that loose and comfortable feeling that one experiences just after waking. I didn’t have the strength to lift it any more. In my heart I felt like laughing, but I couldn’t have told you whether or not that feeling had been transmitted to my face. I leaned against a large tree and closed my eyes for a while. Then after a very short interval, I shook my head lightly once or twice and the feeling of intoxication was past. Every last pore in my body felt relaxed and happy enough to laugh, if pores could laugh. I no longer felt the least bit hungry or thirsty, nor did I mind the dirt on my body any longer. The mud, blood and sweat that clung to my flesh all gave me a delicious feeling, and I felt that I should be perfectly happy if I never took another bath as long as I lived.
    The forest appeared much greener than it had before and the grey atmosphere that surrounded me seemed just right, neither too hot nor too cold. There was even a general, poetic beauty in the green trees and grey atmosphere; and if one sniffed carefully, one could tell that it really wasn’t at all a foul odour that was wrapped in the dank air so much as it was a very rich and fragrant sweetness, something like that given off by a very ripe muskmelon. ‘Happiness’ is insufficient to describe my state of mind at the time. ‘Ecstasy on top of ecstasy’ would be more like it. Those two leaves had given my mind a muted kind of strength and had blended my whole being into the leaden atmosphere, making me one with it, like a fish thrown into water.
    I squatted down next to the tree. I had never liked to squat before, but now it was the only position I found relaxing. I began to take a closer inventory of my cat-friend, and didn’t find him nearly as revolting as I had previously; in fact, I began to feel that he was really quite likeable.
    By ‘Cat People’, I don’t mean to call to mind the image of a large feline walking upright and wearing clothes. My friend wore no clothes. I smiled and pulled off the few tattered remnants of shirt that still covered my own chest. Since it wasn’t cold anyway, what sense did it make to wear such a tattered shirt? However, I did keep my trousers on. This wasn’t out of prudishness, but out of the desire to keep a belt to hang my pistol on. Of course, I could have gone nude and still worn the belt, but I couldn’t bring myself to part with that box of matches. I’d have to keep my pants so that I’d have a watch pocket to keep that box in just in case they should ever put me in those flammable leg irons again. I took off my boots and threw them to one side too.
    To backtrack a bit, my cat-friend didn’t wear any clothes. His waist was long and narrow. His hands and feet were very short, and his fingers and toes were also quite stubby. (No