Mallarme’s Cat

From “Anecdotal Evidence,” by Eliot Weinberger, in the Fall 2003 issue of Conjunctions. [reprinted in Harper’s Magazine, June 2004]

On a cold, rainy February night in New York, I remember a story Andre Malraux used to tell—and which, at some remove, was told to me—about Mallarme’s cat, whose name, almost needless to say, was Blanche.

On a cold, rainy February night in Paris, a thin and bedraggled alley cat, wandering the streets, looks in the window of Mallarme’s house and sees a white, fat and fluffy cat dozing in an overstuffed chair by a blazing fire. He taps on the window:

“Comrade cat, how can you live in luxury and sleep so peacefully when your brothers are here in the streets starving?”

“Have no fear, comrade,” Blanche replies. “I’m only pretending to be Mallarme’s cat.”