The animal stopped at the doorway, unsure whether to come in. She was alert and ready to run if anything frightened her.
Severn put down his palette and held out his hand.
The cat did not move. Her yellow eyes stayed fixed on him.
“Puss,” he said softly, “come in.”
The tip of her thin tail twitched.
“Come in,” he repeated.
His voice seemed to reassure her. Slowly, she lowered herself onto all four paws. She kept watching him, her tail tucked beneath her bony body.
Severn got up from his easel with a smile.
The cat watched him approach. When he bent over her, she did not flinch. Her eyes followed his hand until it touched the top of her head.
She gave a rough little meow.
Severn had always talked to animals. Perhaps it was because he spent so much time alone.
“What’s wrong, puss?” he asked.
She looked up at him timidly.
“I understand,” he said gently. “You’ll have it right away.”
He moved quietly around the room like a thoughtful host. He rinsed a saucer, poured in the last of the milk from the bottle on the windowsill, then knelt down and crumbled a piece of bread into his palm.
The cat slowly crept toward the saucer.
Using the handle of a palette knife, Severn stirred the bread and milk together. Then he stepped back as she eagerly buried her nose in the mixture.
He watched without speaking.
Every now and then, the saucer made a little clink against the tiled floor as she reached for crumbs along the edge.
Soon the bread was gone.
Her purple tongue carefully searched every last spot until the saucer was as clean as polished marble.
Then she sat up, turned her back on Severn without the slightest concern, and began washing herself.
“Keep going,” Severn said, fascinated. “You need it.”
She flattened one ear but continued cleaning herself without looking at him.
As the dirt slowly disappeared, Severn realized that she had probably been meant to be a white cat.
Disease or hardship had stripped away patches of her fur. Her tail was little more than bone, and her spine stood out sharply beneath her skin.
But beneath all that misery, her natural beauty was beginning to show.
Severn waited patiently until she had finished.
At last, she closed her eyes and tucked her front paws beneath her chest.
“Now, puss,” he said softly, “tell me what’s troubling you.”
At the sound of his voice, she made a harsh, rumbling sound.
Severn recognized it as an attempt to purr.
He bent down and rubbed her cheek.
She answered with another meow, a small, friendly sound that seemed almost like a question.
“Of course,” he replied solemnly. “You look much better already. And once you get your fur back, you’ll be a magnificent creature.”
Apparently pleased by the compliment, she stood up and began walking around his legs.
She pushed her head between them and made several happy little sounds.
Severn answered each one with the seriousness of a gentleman holding a conversation.
“Now, what brought you here?” he asked. “Here, to the Street of the Four Winds, up five flights of stairs, and straight to a door where you knew you would be welcome?”
The cat climbed into his lap.
“What made you decide not to run when I turned from my painting and found those yellow eyes staring at me?”
He stroked her thin coat.
“Are you a Latin Quarter cat, just as I am a Latin Quarter man?”
The cat purred.
“And why,” he continued, “are you wearing a rose-colored, flowered garter around your neck?”
He examined the strange piece of silk while the cat settled comfortably in his lap.
“Forgive me if I seem nosy,” he murmured lazily, matching his voice to the rhythm of her purring. “But I can’t help wondering about this little garter. Rose-colored silk, embroidered with flowers, and fastened with a silver clasp.”
He turned it gently between his fingers.
“Yes, the clasp is definitely silver. I can even see the mint mark along its edge, just as French law requires.”
He smiled to himself.
“So why is this beautiful little garter made of silk and silver wrapped around the neck of a starving cat?”
The cat continued purring.
“Am I being too curious when I ask whether its owner is your owner?”
He scratched beneath her chin.
“Is she an old woman who still remembers the vanities of her youth? Someone affectionate and foolishly fond of you, who dressed you in something that once belonged close to her own body?”
He studied the garter again.
“That would make sense. Your neck is so thin that the garter fits you perfectly.”
He paused.
“But I’ve noticed something else. I notice most things.”
He touched the tiny silver-rimmed holes along the strap.
“This garter can be made much larger. Look here. Five little eyelets.”
He counted them carefully.
“And the fifth one is worn out, as though the tongue of the clasp normally rested there.”
He smiled.
“That suggests your mistress was not always so delicate.”
The cat curled her toes contentedly against his clothes.
Outside, the street was completely silent.
Severn continued in a dreamy voice.
“But why would your mistress give you something she herself needed to wear?”
He yawned.
“At least, something she needed most of the time.”
The cat purred more loudly.
“How did she come to put this little piece of silk and silver around your neck?”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Was it simply a whim?”
His voice grew softer.
“Perhaps one morning, when you were still plump and healthy, you marched into her bedroom as if you owned the place.”
He smiled at the picture forming in his mind.
“She would be sitting among the pillows, her long hair falling loose around her shoulders. You would jump onto the bed, purring as though you were saying, ‘Good morning, my lady.’”
He gave a sleepy little laugh.
“Oh, yes. It’s easy enough to imagine.”
He rested his head against the back of the chair.
The cat was still purring, slowly opening and closing her soft claws against his knee.
“Shall I tell you about her, cat?”
His eyes began to close.
“She is very beautiful—your mistress.”
His voice became almost a whisper.
“Her hair is heavy and bright, like polished gold.”
He sighed.
“I could paint her. But not on canvas. I would need colors far more brilliant than anything found in a rainbow.”
He closed his eyes.
“I could paint her only with my eyes shut, because colors like hers exist only in dreams.”
“For her eyes, I would need the blue of a sky without a single cloud—the sky of dreamland.”
“For her lips, roses from the palaces of sleep.”
“And for her forehead, snow from mountains rising into impossible peaks beneath moons far brighter than our own.”
He paused.
“The crystal moons of dreamland.”
His voice faded.
“She is… very… beautiful, your mistress.”
The last words barely left his lips.
His eyelids closed.
The cat had fallen asleep too, her cheek resting against her wasted flank, her paws loose and relaxed.