Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1893-03-11
KILLING THROUGH PITY.
Even the Meanest of Things Love to Pro-
long Their Lives.

long Their Lives.
An old NANCY cat, hunted out OF
its abode no doubt by its owner, had
established itself in our street, on the
fo0tpath of our house, where little
November sun once more warmed its
body, says Pierre Lott in "A Book Of
Pity and Death" 1t is the custom
with certain people whose pity is a
selfish pity thus TO send of as far
away as possible and lose" the poor
animals they care neither to tend nor
to see suffer.
All day long it would sit piteously in
the corner of a windowsill, looking,
oh, so unhappy and SO humble, an OBJ
ject Of disgust to those who passed,
menaced by children and by dogs, in
continual danger, and sickening from
hour to hour. Its poor head was
eaten up with disease, covered with
sores, and almost without fur, but its
eyes, which remained bright, seemed
to reflect profoundly.
1t must have felt in its frightful
bitterness the worst Of all sutferings
for a cat-that of not being able to
make its toilet, to lick its fur, and to
comb itself with the care cats always
bestow on this operation.
To make its toilet! / believe that
to beast, as to man, this is one of
the most necessary distractions Of
life. The poorest, and most diseased,
and the most decrepit animals at GER
tain hours dress themselves up, and
as long as they are able to do that
have not lost everything in life. But
to be no longer able to care for their
appearance because nothing can be
done before the final moldering away,
that has always appeared to me the
! lowest depth of all the supreme
agony. Alas! for those poor old beg
garS who before their death have mud
and filth on their faces, their bodies
scared with wounds that no longer
can be dressed, the poor, diseased
animals for whom there is no longer
even pity,
| ended its life with a narcotized
cup.
The annihilation of a thinking ami
NAL, even though it be not a human
being, has in it something to dunn
! found us when one thinks Of it. 1t
is always the same revolving mystery,
and death besides carries with it so
much majesty that it has the power
of giving sublimity in an unexpected,
exaggerated form to the most intin-
itesimal scene from the instant its
shadow appears. At this moment |
appeared to myself like some black
magician arrogating to myself the
right of bringing to the suffering
what | believed to be supreme peace,
the right of opening to those who had
not demanded it the gates of the
great night.
Cats as the people say, have their
souls pinned TO their bodies. In a
last spasm of life it looked at me
across the half sleep of death. II
seemed even all at once to cOmpre-
bend everything. "Ah, then it was
to kill me and not assist me. allow
it to be done. 1t is too late / am
falling asleep"
In fact l was afraid that | had
done wrong. In this world, in which
we know nothing Of anything, mer
are not allowed to even pity intelli-
gently. Thus, NANCY tabhy's look,
infinitely sad even while it descended
into the putrefactiOn Of death, con.
tiEued to pursue me as with a re.
preach: why did you interfere with
my destiny? | might have been able
to drag along for IA time-to have
had still some little thoughts for
another week. There remained to
me sufficient strength to leap on the
window sill, where the dogs could nc
more torment me, where / was not
cold. In the morning when the sun
came there | had some moments
which were not unbearable, looking
at the movements Of life around me,
interested in the coming and going
of other cats, conscious at least OF
something; while now | am about tC
decOmpOse and be transformed into
1 ] know not what that will not re-
/ member. Soon | shall no longer be.
! should have recOllcctcd, in fact,
that even the mcanest of things love
to prolong their lives by every means,
even to its utmost limits of misery
preferring anything to the terror Of
being nothing, of no longer being.