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THE MEMOIRS OF A CAT
shown that this is not a pure blessing. Therefore, the handicap may enable me to excel in my literary venture. My thoughts will not be paralysed by words. I should have no difficulty in calling a spade a piece of iron with a certain shape, if such a definition would be more effective than the conventional nonsense—a spade is a spade. Yet, technically, the handicap rcinains; it must be overcome. What I have to say will not be understood by men if it is not said in their language. To overcome this difficulty, I had to find a human collaborator,--one who, having outgrown the childish illusion of divine essence, is clearly conscious of his natural animalness and therefore in a position to read my reflections from my behaviour, and express them in human language.
I found such a collaborator in an inmate of the prison where I was born. I chanced upon him in the first month of iny life. Conventionally, I became his pet, and he my owner. But in reality, the relation was entirely different. Otherwise, the singular collaboration would not take place, and this unprecedented effort of portraying animal emotions in human language could not be made. No, it is not quite correct to say that this is the first portrayal of animal emotions in human language. Because, in a way, practically the whole of literature (I mean what is called belles-lettresartistic, as distinct from scientific, literature) is such a portrayal. Only with this difference that there
