Homemade menagerie

French writer Theophilia Gauthier (1811-1872) is known to the Russian reader as the author of the adventure novel "Captain Fracass", fantastic and satirical stories, poems and travel notes.
But the "domestic menagerie" has not yet been translated into Russian - a story about his own animals: dogs and cats, horses and chameleons, a lizard and a forty.
This book is very tender and at the same time ironic, in some places sad, but in some places insanely ridiculous. What is at least a story about a cat, who decided to try what a parrot tastes, the parrot began to shout all the human words from horror, as he was taught, and then the cat changed his mind, deciding that since this green chicken was talking, he was not a bird, but not a bird, but not a bird, but not a bird Some kind of gentleman.
Everyone who loves animals will certainly receive pleasure from reading this book. And everyone who does not like them has yet, have a chance to love them.

It is not easy to win cat friendship. The cat is a philosophical animal, neat, calm: he agrees to be a friend if you are worthy, but will never be a slave. Evenings on end, he with a satisfied rumbling lies on your knees, preferring your company to your own kind. No matter how loud the meowing from the next roof calls him to one of those cat parties, where, instead of tea, they serve herring juice, he will not succumb to temptation and will remain beside you. If you transplant him from your knees to the floor, he will immediately return back with a purring, in which a gentle reproach will be heard. Sometimes, sitting in front of you, he looks at you with his eyes so soft, so velvet, affectionate and human that it becomes almost scary: after all, it is impossible to assume that there is no thought in these eyes.
Theophile Gauthier