第38章

I hesitate a little to speak of his capacity for friendship and the affectionateness of his nature, for I know from his own reserve that he would not care to have it much talked about.We understood each other perfectly, but we never made any fuss about it; when I spoke his name and snapped my fingers, he came to me; when I returned home at night, he was pretty sure to be waiting for me near the gate, and would rise and saunter along the walk, as if his being there were purely accidental,--so shy was he commonly of showing feeling; and when I opened the door, he never rushed in, like a cat, but loitered, and lounged, as if he had no intention of going in, but would condescend to.And yet, the fact was, he knew dinner was ready, and he was bound to be there.He kept the run of dinner-time.It happened sometimes, during our absence in the summer, that dinner would be early, and Calvin, walking about the grounds, missed it and came in late.But he never made a mistake the second day.There was one thing he never did,--he never rushed through an open doorway.He never forgot his dignity.If he had asked to have the door opened, and was eager to go out, he always went deliberately; I can see him now standing on the sill, looking about at the sky as if he was thinking whether it were worth while to take an umbrella, until he was near having his tail shut in.

His friendship was rather constant than demonstrative.When we returned from an absence of nearly two years, Calvin welcomed us with evident pleasure, but showed his satisfaction rather by tranquil happiness than by fuming about.He had the faculty of making us glad to get home.It was his constancy that was so attractive.He liked companionship, but he wouldn't be petted, or fussed over, or sit in any one's lap a moment; he always extricated himself from such familiarity with dignity and with no show of temper.If there was any petting to be done, however, he chose to do it.Often he would sit looking at me, and then, moved by a delicate affection, come and pull at my coat and sleeve until he could touch my face with his nose, and then go away contented.He had a habit of coming to my study in the morning, sitting quietly by my side or on the table for hours, watching the pen run over the paper, occasionally swinging his tail round for a blotter, and then going to sleep among the papers by the inkstand.Or, more rarely, he would watch the writing from a perch on my shoulder.Writing always interested him, and, until he understood it, he wanted to hold the pen.

He always held himself in a kind of reserve with his friend, as if he had said, "Let us respect our personality, and not make a "mess" of friendship." He saw, with Emerson, the risk of degrading it to trivial conveniency."Why insist on rash personal relations with your friend?" "Leave this touching and clawing." Yet I would not give an unfair notion of his aloofness, his fine sense of the sacredness of the me and the not-me.And, at the risk of not being believed, I will relate an incident, which was often repeated.

Calvin had the practice of passing a portion of the night in the contemplation of its beauties, and would come into our chamber over the roof of the conservatory through the open window, summer and winter, and go to sleep on the foot of my bed.He would do this always exactly in this way; he never was content to stay in the chamber if we compelled him to go upstairs and through the door.He had the obstinacy of General Grant.But this is by the way.In the morning, he performed his toilet and went down to breakfast with the rest of the family.Now, when the mistress was absent from home, and at no other time, Calvin would come in the morning, when the bell rang, to the head of the bed, put up his feet and look into my face, follow me about when I rose, "assist" at the dressing, and in many purring ways show his fondness, as if he had plainly said, "I know that she has gone away, but I am here." Such was Calvin in rare moments.

He had his limitations.Whatever passion he had for nature, he had no conception of art.There was sent to him once a fine and very expressive cat's head in bronze, by Fremiet.I placed it on the floor.He regarded it intently, approached it cautiously and crouchingly, touched it with his nose, perceived the fraud, turned away abruptly, and never would notice it afterward.On the whole, his life was not only a successful one, but a happy one.He never had but one fear, so far as I know: he had a mortal and a reasonable terror of plumbers.He would never stay in the house when they were here.No coaxing could quiet him.Of course he did n't share our fear about their charges, but he must have had some dreadful experience with them in that portion of his life which is unknown to us.A plumber was to him the devil, and I have no doubt that, in his scheme, plumbers were foreordained to do him mischief.

In speaking of his worth, it has never occurred to me to estimate Calvin by the worldly standard.I know that it is customary now, when any one dies, to ask how much he was worth, and that no obituary in the newspapers is considered complete without such an estimate.

The plumbers in our house were one day overheard to say that, "They say that she says that he says that he wouldn't take a hundred dollars for him." It is unnecessary to say that I never made such a remark, and that, so far as Calvin was concerned, there was no purchase in money.