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I Am A Cat, No. Ii, Natsume Sōseki, Kan-Ichi Ando

Zea E-Books Collection

What would the neighbors say about you if they didn’t know your cat was listening?

What if it was “The Cat With No Name”? The one who claims “I have, as a cat, attained the highest pitch of evolution imaginable. … My tail is filled with all sorts of wisdom and, above all, a secret art handed down in the cat family, which teaches how to make fools of mankind. … I am a cat, it is true, but remember I am one who keeps in the house of a scholar who reads the Moral Discourses of Epictetus and bangs …

I Am A Cat, Natsume Sōseki

Zea E-Books Collection

This English version of 吾輩は猫である (Wagahai-wa neko de aru: I Am a Cat), Chapters I and II, written by Natsume Sōseki, pseudonym of Natsume Kinnosuke (1867–1916), and translated by Kan-ichi Ando (1878-1924), was published by Hattori Shoten, Tokyo, in 1906.

It begins: "I am a cat; but as yet I have no name." Its sardonic feline narrator describes his origins, his settlement in the household of a Meiji teacher-intellectual, and the goings-on and conversations among the cats and humans about the neighborhood. Of the men he concludes: "They are miserable creatures in the eyes of a cat."

Japanese novelist Natsume …