THE PRIEST’S CAT
From the Greek original:
Γρηγόριος Ξενόπουλος, «Η γάτα του παπά»
Adapted by Vassilis C. Militsis
[The story takes place on the Ionian island of Zante (Zakynthos) in the first quarter of the 20th century]
[Dedicated to some of my critics]
On that late spring afternoon, after the vesper mass, Father Zissimos Klontiras was sitting in his little orchard. His wicker chair was under a small canopy formed by a thick bower adorned with large, dark-blue flowers, beside a tall gravestone resembling a table. On this gravestone, next to the deceased’s name with the masonic symbols – compasses and angle - a maxim was engraved: Life has brought us to the dust of death.
Bent and perplexed, Father Zissimos read it for the umpteenth time – he had been the vicar at St. John, the Logothete’s chapel for at least two years – but it was the first time he pondered over the maxim thinking that it was not well chosen: “Is it really life that brings us to the dust of death?” he thought to himself; “everything, that is, stops here? All that remains after death is the grave, and not heaven? That’s nice! And masons are said to be Christians. Then take the trouble and see what’s written on their graves! Well, you silly pussy-cat! What are you doing here?”
He uttered the last words is a very gentle voice. He accosted a black kitten with white spots; she had suddenly interrupted the priest’s meditations springing from the gravestone onto his lap. Father Zissimos, affable and tender, began to stroke her with his pale old man’s hands, while the kitten purred loudly with contentment and rubbing playfully her pitch black, small head against him, as briskly as a baby goat.
“Kitty, kitty…what do you want, you silly one? You love your master, don’t you? Ah, you’re so cuddly…you roguish beast! With your frolicsome and impish eyes! Come on, now; that’s enough. Easy, easy now. Come and curl up over here!”
Father Zissimos appeared very happy for this manifestation of love, which he deemed special. But the truth is that this spotted kitty was very reserved to other people. The kitty kept aloof from either madam Papadia1 (the priest’s wife), or from Susanna, their dear, old daughter, or from Anthimos, her fiancé, or from Christos, the sexton, or from Nionios, the altar boy. She was fonder of the priest than of all the others, and thus the kind man was flattered and proud. He was trying to make her sit still in his lap, but she went on being recalcitrant; she stood erect, fidgeted, and occasionally looked at him intently right into his eyes – small, bright eyes, very clever, which contracted and grew brighter behind his spectacles – and again she bent her little head down under the fingers that fondled her. And, all of a sudden, the kitten crouched and turned around fixing her attention on the inscription of the gravestone – who knows what sort of bug she descried walking upon the marble! – and appeared as though she was reading it!
“What are you looking at?” Father Zissimos wondered; “do you find it strange? Does it also strike you amiss? But what am I saying? The end of your life may, in truth, be and here, in death and grave. But what can I do for you, poor creature, as animals are barred from heaven? There is neither heaven nor hell for you… that’s the will of God, the Mighty One. You see, God intended immortal souls only for us; you are created only for a transitory breath. Whether this is right or wrong, that’s how things stand. I can do nothing for you, I beg your pardon! If you happen to die now – far from it – a thousand memorial services as may I read for you, they’ll be all in vain, let alone they’ll send me to damnation, too…”
Suddenly, with a joyful meow, the kitten slipped out of the priest’s hands and sprinted straight at the blue painted cell-like cottage, the kitchen of which overlooked the orchard.
“What’s come over you?” said the priest perplexed; “have you caught wind of something? Ah, I see, you smelled of fish.” And from his seat he hollered to the house:
“What kind of fish are you gutting, wife?”
“Some fries, blast them!” she replied from within in an angry, squawking voice; “Christos has bought them at Ammos,2 but I’m afraid they’re not so fresh…”
“They’re all right and blessed, dear; but give a couple of them to the cat, too.”
“I might as well give them a dozen! Are you joking?” she gibed angrily. “One is just enough for her! Out with the dirty cat! Are you forgetting what she’s done to us?”
“Hold your tongue, woman!” murmured the
priest with a comic grimace. At the same moment he picked up the book he had
left on the gravestone, opened it at the marked page and began to read.
It was The Count of Monte
Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
A bookworm
since his youth, Father Zissimos had been reading various books, even novels.
And though he indignantly denied it, the gossips averred that he had also done
some reading of Charles
Paul de Kock.
Once, however, he had certainly spent the night reading Pope Joan by Emmanuel Rhoides; and as he was a man of taste and broad mind, he did not approve the author’s excommunication by the Church – a fact that had weighed that intelligent writer down. Meanwhile, the kitten had devoured her treasured fish thrown out for her by the avaricious priest’s wife, and after she had meowed around hoping in vain to procure still another one, she despaired and went out to the orchard and sprang upon the priest’s lap as if she wanted to express her grievances to him.
“Hey, let me read, will you?” said the priest passing his hand along her back in a caress that was rather a push. The kitten, however, would not go, and thus the priest went on stroking her more gently without lifting his eyes from the page, which appeared to mesmerize him. After a while, papadia emerged from the kitchen to get rid of the washed fish dirt and scales into the gutter, that issued from a corner of the orchard and out into the street. When he noticed his spouse, Father Zissimos, in a mixture of shame and anxiety, shooed the cat away from him. However, papadia caught his act just on time, and shook her head in pity. Then, as she was just reentering the kitchen with the empty pot, she paused at the door – she could stand it no more – and told the priest:
“Bless me, husband; are you busy with this dirty old cat… the accursed…the blighted one? God won’t forgive it! She’s done that horrible thing, and there you are still pampering and fondling her like your own kid! Shame, shame on you! Shoo, out with you, carrion of a cat!”
In this way papadia finished reproaching the priest, and stamped her foot upon the ground to scare off the cat, which in the meantime had approached and sniffed at the earthen pot. Papadia made her bolt out in terror and scramble up the orchard wall, without jumping on the neighboring one as though she had realized that all the fuss was about her; she stood on top of the wall from where she could safely see and hear them.
Father Zissimos resented it all, for he did not want to pick on his cat. Ah, enough is enough!
“Well, why have you blown your top?” the priest responded angrily, “I beg your pardon, why do you put the blame on the poor beast? She’s just an animal! If she died, how would it strike you if I performed a memorial service for her?”
“Memorial Service!” exclaimed his wife stunned. “Holy Mother of God and Jesus Christ! What are you babbling about?”
“I’m dead serious!” the priest went on in earnest because he recalled what he had thought before and he liked it: “Would I read a memorial mass for the cat? Certainly not! Or else I would deserve a strait jacket. Truly! In the same way I would be a madman if I, like you, begrudged the cat – a beast – for what she had done two days before. And if you begrudge her as if she were human, a God’s reasoning creature, then it goes without saying that you, a priest’s wife, possess no intellect or judgment – in other words you have only a cat’s brains!”
While the priest was berating her, papadia was gradually advancing closer to her husband as though she could not believe her ears or wanted to hear better. And she often attempted to interrupt him but her voice seemed to choke in her throat from anger and astonishment while the priest, triumphing in his reasoning, kept thundering at her.
And in the end she was close to him, but she could barely get a word in edgewise until he stopped talking.
“And what do you mean by saying she has no mind or judgment?” she finally managed to say; “And I wonder if the serpent had also reason when Satan sent it to tempt Eve; and it indeed tempted her into sinning because it was accursed – Satan’s instrument. So is your cat that you’re defending now. Are you forgetting that she’s gone and defiled – God forgive me – the Holy Altar? I really believe that the devil had set her to do such a sacrilege in order to entice us to sin. And you’re still fondling and being tender to her. But I am disgusted and I don’t want to see her before my eyes again. And, mind you, Father Zissimos, so help me God, if she does such a woeful thing again, may I never go to heaven or may Susanna never get married if I don’t give her to Christos to get her to drown into the open sea!”
“Meow,” the kitten mewed impudently as if she were mocking them.
“All right, dear!” replied the priest as calm as a stoic philosopher. “Those who claim that women are stubborn are absolutely right. Get off my back now; I want to read.”
“Get off your back, eh? But I’ll tell you again; if your beast should do that again, it won’t get away with drowning, should you beg me down on your knees! Get lost, you filthy cat; and don’t you mew me! Varmint! Accursed by God!”
Since the priest had been absorbed in his book, resolving not to talk to her any more, his wife lifted the pot and pretended to throw it at the cat in order to scare her off, and went into the cottage. Shortly the cat gained courage, climbed down from her safety, approached her friend mewing so quietly that the priest thought she was talking sotto voce so as not to be heard from inside the house. This newly acquired shrewdness of his friend excited Father Zissimos so much that he left his perusal to talk to her.
“Are you talking about your mistress?” he asked slyly.
“Meow!” mewed the kitten sniffing at his hand, still not daring to jump onto his lap.
“To tell the truth, your mistress is right somehow. What you did to us two days ago was not proper at all… Don’t you ever dare do it again, poor thing, or else you’ve heard what she has just said – you won’t escape drowning, much as we try to appeal to her compassionate feelings. Have you heard it?”
And saying this Father Zissimos stood up as dusk began to fall on the orchard and he could not make out the lines of the book. It was his habitual time for him to go by the next door shop of Gerolymos, a learned friend of his, belonging to the priestly people
of Andreas Laskaratos and they would go on a pleasant walk at lovely Strata Marina.3
* * *
The week went by peacefully. The kitten must have apprehended the threat, abided by the advice, and she withheld from doing the same thing. However, on Sunday, at dawn, as soon as Father Zissimos got up, washed and said his first prayers in his small chamber, there was a knock at the door by someone both in a hurry and apprehension. That knock foreboded no good. The priest was immediately terrified.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“It’s me, Christos,” the sexton’s voice replied.
“Come in…What is it, my child?”
A pale Christos, the sexton, walked into the room.
“Again the same thing, Father!”
“Well?”
“The accursed cat!”
“Oh, woe to me! At the same place?”
“No, on the Table of oblation this time.”
“Oh, alas! What a sacrilege! An unpardonable sin! Oh, what a curse! God, forgive me! Oh, oh!”
The priest beat his hands in despair and lifted his eyes upwards as if seeking help from heaven. Christos, the sexton, fell silent for a moment and shared his master’s despair mimicking his gestures; then he added:
“Shall I let the mistress know so that she can give me what is needed to clean the place? And then, your grace, come quickly to tidy up and say a prayer for…”
“No, bless you, no!” the priest interrupted him in terror; you shall not touch anything, and not a word to papadia! Or to Susanna, or to anyone! I’m coming right now. I’ll fix it up. Oh, you, filthy cat; what have you done to me?”
But fixing things up was not an easy thing without his wife’s catching wind of it. Such ‘disasters’ cannot be concealed. Water, soap, wiping rags and vinegar were carried to the sanctuary and the cleaning was done in secret by the priest and the sexton; for they did not want to wake any suspicion on behalf of papadia. Therefore, they did not want to disturb her. However, they needed fresh covers for the table and the keys to the cupboard were always in papadia’s possession. Thus the priest had no alternative but to send Christos to fetch the covers.
“Give me,” he said, “two fresh covers for the Oblation; one plain and the other starched for covering the offerings.”
“But didn’t we change them a Sunday ago?” asked papadia puzzled.
“True, but they weren’t the new ones,” replied Christos. “The reverend wants those with the laces and the red bows embroidered by Siora Susanna.”
“Has the priest himself told you so?”
“Indeed, himself.”
“Oh, Jesus and Holy Mother! My old man has gone out of his mind and he doesn’t know what he’s doing! What holiday is it this Sunday: Christmas, Easter or Saint John’s? It’s only an ordinary Sunday!”
“But you know,” Mistress papadia… some wine from the container spilled the other day …only a little… but the reverend doesn’t want to see the covers stained.”
Christos must have been confusing his words and papadia was immediately suspicious.
“My good Christos,” she told him; “you’re lying to me! Something rotten is going on here! It can’t be explained otherwise!”
And all of a sudden she slapped her forehead, and untidy as she was, dressed only in her petticoat, she slipped into her mules, climbed down the little staircase, and running along the gravel path of the orchard, entered the church through the glass door.
“Well, dear, what’s this chap is talking about?” she immediately began shouting at the priest. “Do you really want to change the Oblation covers? But why?”
“Oh, woman!” Father Zissimos replied from the sanctuary discontinuing a prayer he was saying sotto voce; “why are you making a big deal of it? That’s the way I want it!”
His wife paused on the stairs of the sanctuary and got hold of the closed leaf of the side door. As a woman she was not permitted to get into the sanctuary, which exasperated it more now than ever before.
“Stop talking nonsense and tell me! Might the cat have fouled up again? The accursed one has done it again, hasn’t she?”
“Stop pestering me,” rejoined the priest; “all you have to do is give Christos what you’ve been asked to, and do it on the double! Come on! Talk is cheap; and I don’t much feel like talking.”
Papadia cast a glance inside to make out some traces of what was going on. The Oblation Table was bare and appeared wet. Undoubtedly, they had washed the painted wood of the table, placed in the niche of the wall, on which there was a mural depicting the Deposition of Christ. Closely on a stool there stood pell mell the sacred vessels, but there was no sign of the white covers, which had been removed. Had papadia not been snuffly, she could have sensed the acrid smell of strong vinegar. But the signs were too conspicuous for her to understand.
“Hey, priest, what is it you’re holding back from me?” she hollered again; “the filthy cat has done it again, hasn’t she?”
“Well, yes!” responded the priest from within; “I won’t be afraid to tell you. The filthy cat has indeed done it again! What else?”
“What?” papadia roared biting her knuckles in rage. Where is she? Now I’ll go find her and I won’t be called by my name if I don’t beat her to a pulp!”
She turned around, pushed off Christos, who had followed her standing behind and went out to search the sluttish, filthy cat. The priest went immediately after her, also pushing off poor Christos, who barred his way.
“Bring me first the cover to tidy up the Oblation,” he shouted after her from the orchard, “and then go and find the cat, and if only you could impale her. But don’t tell me about what you’ve done, do you hear? Don’t tempt me now because I have to say the Sunday mass!”
“As if the cat’s fouling up was not enough tempting for you!” responded his wife as she entered the cottage. “Look at the mess you’ve created as you didn’t let me get rid of her the first time!”
Papadia had no option but to take out the special covers. She gave them to Christos, whined about the new ‘disaster’ to Susanna, crossed herself a thousand times, and then began to look for the cat. But the kitten had vanished.
“Has she disappeared into thin air?” papadia wondered in exasperation.
“I have never seen such a smart beast!” said Susanna; “she must have realized her horrible mischief and has gone into hiding…”
“Your father may have hidden her to avoid me killing her; there’s no love lost between us.”
But that was sheer slander! Not a moment did Father Zissimos speculate to protect the cat from her wife’s wrath. In fact, one can say that he found it fair enough, for, in truth, his dear puss had gone too far this time. Enough is enough!
And while the priest was finishing the tidying up in the sanctuary saying the proper prayers, he was brooding on the fact that he had to quench his affection for the cat and let his wife have a free hand to do the cat in. However, this cruel thought was tempered to a more temperate one. In no way should he allow his wife to torture the beast unduly; for if the Devil had made it his instrument, should the blame be put on the poor creature? No, the animal should not be given to Christos to drown it into the sea. The cat shall be handed over to his friend, Gerolymos, to keep her in his shop. And again, a little later, after he had taken his time and began to put on his vestments for the service, helped by young Nionios, the altar boy, he mellowed completely. He would keep the cat and all he would do was to lock safely all three doors of the sanctuary. As for the rats in the church, the cat would be restricted only in the nave, where she was free to get in and out.
In the meanwhile, the pussy-cat kept on hiding. None in the cottage saw her, albeit they all were searching. Woe to her if she appeared on that early morning! But she was either too cunning or too lucky, and she was not to be seen till midday. Only when papadia was ready to serve the Sunday lamb stew, a timid mewing was heard from the orchard. Father Zissimos, already at the table, sprang up immediately.
Papadia, also jumped up frantically and dashed out of the kitchen door, where she was stopped by the priest.
“Wait,” he said; “This is my own business! Mind you, I’ll make her remember the day!”
Papadia gave in; she had to look after the lunch. The priest called the cat to him sweetly and when she advanced close by, he grabbed her by the waist.
“Come here,” he said; “come here so I can teach you a lesson…”
He did not finish his sentence. He only climbed up the ladder to the attic and threw the cat in, locked the door, got the key and climbed down.
“I kicked her so hard that she’ll remember it!” he lied as he was resuming his place at the table ostensibly angry; “she got such a wallop that was really hers!”
“I bet you didn’t even touch her,” said his wife. “Let it be, though; I’ll fix her up later.”
“If you could only find her!”
“Why, has she bolted out?”
“She won’t be back soon after my spanking. It’ll be long until she sets foot in here.
Thus Father Zissimos managed to shield his kitten from his wife’s wrath until the first dangerous hours passed. Then he sneaked to the attic to give her some food, and then he tried to calm his wife down. There were also present Anthimos, the cantor, Gerolymos, his friend, and a parishioner. They had all been taken into confidence concerning the disastrous event, and they were very sorry.
“Well, my children!” Father Zissimos told them as they were taking their coffee in the living room. “How many of us, who are human, don’t defile the sacred and holy each day without being more conscious of their acts than my cat! I’ve encountered a host of them in my life!...
Therefore, we ought to forgive those unfortunate ones the way we don’t take into account the deeds of an animal possessing no reason. They have no sense of evil: For they do not know what they do.
“The priest is right,” Gerolymos approved; “I also heard the other day about a pipsqueak that writes ridiculous verses mocking – whom do you imagine? – Our immortal poet, Dionysios Solomos
! Take now the trouble to come and tie a stone around his neck and throw him into the sea like your cat. Don’t bother!”
“Right as the priest may be,” papadia cut in, “if she dare do such a thing again, I will drown her. I won’t spare her!”
June, 1912
Glossary:
1 Papadia or Presbytera is a Greek title of honor that is used to refer to a priest's wife.
2 Ammos is a place name in Zakynthos.
3 Strata Marina: a scenic seaside promenade for leisurely strolls.
