Saki's Cats E-Book

Saki

• Herausgeber: Renard Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 66

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Saki's Cats rounds up the tales about cats, big and small, by the undisputed master of the short story. 'Tobermory', one of Saki's most famous pieces, demonstrates the danger that would ensue from granting cats the power of speech – animals have long lurked unseen, eavesdropping, in the background. The tom in 'The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat' is the only one to enjoy his meal, as is the leopard in 'The Guests'. In 'The Penance' and 'Mrs Packletide's Tiger', hunters who put cats in their sights are humiliated and blackmailed. 'The Achievement of the Cat' considers how cats have come to be served by the human race. In addition to the short stories about cats, Saki's Cats also collects Saki's juvenile letters to his sister Ethel about the tiger cub he adopted while living in Burma. The feisty felines of these tales are the only clear winners, and, with a characteristic smirk and dash of his pen, it is Edwardian Society that Saki sends slinking off, tail between its legs.

Leseprobe

Saki’s Cats

saki

renard press

Renard Press Ltd

124 City Road

London EC1V 2NX

United Kingdom

[email protected]

020 8050 2928

www.renardpress.com

Texts first published 1911–1924 (see Note on the Text on p. 71)

This collection first published by Renard Press Ltd in 2022

Design, notes, edited text and selection © Renard Press Ltd, 2022

Extra Material © Renard Press Ltd, 2022

Cover design by Will Dady

Renard Press is proud to be a climate positive publisher, removing more carbon from the air than we emit and planting a small forest. For more information see renardpress.com/eco.

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, used to train artificial intelligence systems or models, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of the publisher.

EU Authorised Representative: Easy Access System Europe – Mustamäe tee 50, 10621 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected].

contents

Saki’s Tiger

Saki’s Cats

Tobermory

The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat

The Achievement of the Cat

The Penance

The Guests

Mrs Packletide’s Tiger

Notes

Extra Material

saki’s tiger

Saki was a great lover of animals, and seems to have had a particular soft spot for felines. He had several cats over the years, including, while living overseas in 1893, recovering from illness, a young tiger, which he wrote of fondly in the following letters he sent (and illustrated himself) to his sister.

singu

6th September ’93

I found the tiger kitten quite wild; pretended it had never seen me before, so I had to go through the ceremony of introduction again. I soon made it tame again, and we have great games together. It has not learnt how to drink properly yet, and immerses its nose in the milk, then it gets mad with the saucer and shakes it, which sends the milk all over its paws, upon which it swears horribly. I have another queer creature in the shape of a young darter (same species of bird as the self-hatching one) which I saw sitting on the river bank en route for here; the men rowed to shore and just picked it up and put it in the boat, where it sat as if it didn’t care a twopenny damn. What blasé birds those darters are. Then there is the crow-brought chicken, which was carried here by a crow and rescued by the syce;* crows often run off with one’s chickens, but it is not often they add to your poultry. I feel quite like the prophet Elijah (or was it Elisha?) who was boarded by ravens.* Milk is scarce now, but the kitten has to have some of my scanty store, while the ponies feel very annoyed if they don’t get a bit of bread now and then; I believe I am rather expected to share my sardines with the darter, but I draw the line there! The Burmans have not collected any eggs for me yet; my boy says the birds are ‘too much upstairs-living.’ Frightfully thrilling!

The kitten throws off the cat and assumes the tiger when it is fed; I have to throw it its food (generally the head of a chicken) and then bolt; it is making the day hideous with its growling now, as I gave it the head and wing, and it is trying to eat both at once.

mandalay

24th October ’93

The tiger kitten has had a nice cage made for it, with an upstairs apartment to sleep in, but every afternoon it comes out into my room for an hour or two and has fine romps. It would make a nice pet for you, but it would be an awful trouble sending it – it might die – and it won’t be safe when it grows up. It goes into lovely tiger attitudes when it thinks I’m looking.

hôtel de francemandalay

30th October ’93

An old lady came to the hotel last week – one of those people with a tongue and a settled conviction that they can manage everybody’s affairs. She had the room next to mine – connected by a door – and I was rather astonished when the proprietor came that evening, and, with great nervousness, said that there was an old lady in the next room and er… she was rather a er… fidgety old lady and er… er… er… there was a door connecting our rooms. I was quite mystified as to what he was driving at, but I answered languidly that the door was locked on my side and there was a box against it, so she could not possibly break in. The proprietor collapsed and retired in confusion; I afterwards remembered that the ‘cub’ had spent a large portion of the afternoon pretending that this door was a besieged city and it was a battering ram. And it does throw such vigour into its play. I met the old lady at dinner and was greeted with an icy stare, which was refreshing in such a climate. That night the kitten broke out in a new direction; as soon as I went up to bed it began to roar; ‘and still the wonder grew, so small a throat could give so large a mew.’* The more I tried to comfort it the more inconsolable it grew. The situation was awful – in my room a noise like the lion house at 4 p.m., while on the other side of the door rose the beautiful litany of the Church of England. Then I heard the rapid turning of leaves – she was evidently searching for Daniel to gain strength from the perusal of the lion’s den story – only she couldn’t find Daniel, so fell back upon the Psalms of David. As for me, I fled, and sent my boy to take the cage down to the stable. When I came back I heard words in the next room that never came out of the Psalms – words such as no old lady ought to use; but then it is annoying to be woken out of your first sleep by a rendering of Jamrach’s Evening Hymn.* She left. The beast has behaved fairly well since, except that it ate up a handkerchief… It also insisted on taking tea with me yesterday, and sent my cup flying into my plate, trying meanwhile to hide itself in the milk jug to prove an alibi. I am getting as bad as Aunt Charlotte, with her perpetual cats, but I have seen very few human beings as yet, everyone being away, as this is a sort of holiday time.

mandalay

1st February ’94

I hear you have a Persian kitten; of course I, who have the untameable carnivora of the jungle roaming in savage freedom through my rooms, cannot feel any interest in mere domestic cats, but I am not intolerant, and I have no objection to your keeping one or two. My beast does not show any signs of getting morose; it sleeps on a shelf in its cage all day, but comes out after dinner and plays the giddy goat all over the place. I should like to get another wild cat to chum with it – there are several species in Burma: the jungle cat, the bay cat, the lesser leopard cat, the tiger cat, marbled cat, spotted wildcat and rusty-spotted cat; the latter, I have read, make delightful pets.

saki’s cats

tobermory

It was a chill, rain-washed