I walked around mentally wringing my hands. The worst of it was my keen sense of disappointment: it consumed me. What had I done to myself? It was as though I had longed for a baby, then had one, only to discover that neither I, nor the baby, had any talent for the relationship. If I was home, I wandered around the apartment feeling homeless. I tried going about my business as usual-working at my desk, keeping appointments, meeting friends for dinner-but a black cloud hung over me. I was sure they would both die of asphyxiation and I’d be brought up on charges of animal cruelty. After that, there were days when they both hid themselves so thoroughly that I ran around the house like a lunatic, flinging open closets and drawers, pulling furniture away from the walls, calling out desperately. Then one of them hid for three days behind the couch, during which time the other one meowed piteously, all the while keeping a steady watch at the exact place where Cat One had disappeared. If I made a move toward either kitten, both shrank a second move and they scurried away. What did they do now? Obviously, they hadn’t a clue, either. Like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, I stared at the cats, and they stared back.

Suddenly, there they were: in the apartment. No sooner done than anxiety of a high order set in. Why not, I thought, and said yes, I’d take the pair. I said to the woman minding the cages, “I’ll take one of them.” No, she said, they’re females from the same litter, they can’t be separated it’s either both or neither. Soon enough, I spotted an exceptionally beautiful pair of twelve-week-old tabbies, each streaked in a different pattern of black and gray, both possessed of exquisite little tiger faces dominated by great green eyes perfectly outlined in pencil-thin black. It was late summer, and everywhere in the city, there were cages full of rescue cats being attended to by one animal rescue person or another. But now the yearning carried the day, and out I went in search of the affectionate creature who would purr in my lap, sleep in my bed, and at all times enliven the apartment with its antic presence. My mother’s fear of anything that moved on more than two legs had infected me quite early, and for most of my life I, too, have been either frightened of, or repelled by, animals-dogs, cats, sheep, cows, frogs, insects: you name it, if it came near me, I shuddered. Some years ago, after having lived alone for decades, I found myself yearning for something alive in the house besides myself and, to my own great surprise, decided on adopting a cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art/Gift of Seymour Adelman, 1968/Bridgeman Images

On Cats by Doris Lessing