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“The Cat Who Thought She Was a Dog and the Dog Who Thought He Was a Cat”

by Isaac Bashevis Singer

 

Once there was a poor peasant, Jan Skiba by name. He lived with his wife and three

daughters in a one-room hut with a straw roof, far from the village. The house had a

bed, a bench, and a stove, but no mirror. A mirror was a luxury for a poor peasant. And

why would a peasant need a mirror? Peasants aren’t curious about their appearance.

 

 

But this peasant did have a dog and a cat in his hut. The dog was named Burek and the

cat Kot. They had both been born within the same week. As little food as the peasant

had for himself and his family, he still wouldn’t let his dog and cat go hungry. Since the

dog had never seen another dog and the cat had never seen another cat and they saw

only each other, the dog thought he was a cat and the cat thought she was a dog. True,

they were far from being alike by nature. The dog barked and the cat meowed. The dog

chased rabbits and the cat lurked after mice. But must all creatures be exactly like their

own kind? The peasant’s children weren’t exactly alike either. Burek and Kot lived on

good terms, often ate from the same dish, and tried to mimic each other. When Burek

barked, Kot tried to bark along, and when Kot meowed, Burek tried to meow too. Kot

occasionally chased rabbits and Burek made an effort to catch a mouse.

 

 

The peddlers who bought goats, chickens, eggs, honey, calves, and whatever was

available from the peasants in the village never came to Jan Skiba’s poor hut. They

knew that Jan was so poor he had nothing to sell. But one day a peddler happened to

stray there. When he came inside and began to lay out his wares, Jan Skiba’s wife and

daughters were bedazzled by all the pretty doodads. From his sack the peddler drew

yellow beads, false pearls, tin earrings, rings, brooches, colored kerchiefs, garters, and

other such trinkets. But what enthralled the women of the house most was a mirror set

in a wooden frame. They asked the peddler its price and he said a half gulden, which as

a lot of money for poor peasants. After a while, Jan Skiba’s wife, Marianna, made a

proposition to the peddler. She would pay him five groshen a month for the mirror. The

peddler hesitated a moment. The mirror took up too much space in his sack and there

was always the danger it might break. He, therefore, decided to go along, took the first

payment of five groshen from Marianna, and left the mirror with the family. He visited the

region often and he knew the Skibas to be honest people. He would gradually get his

money back and a profit besides.

 

 

The mirror created a commotion in the hut. Until then Marianna and the children had

seldom seen themselves. Before they had the mirror, they had only seen their

reflections in the barrel of water that stood by the door. Now they could see themselves

clearly and they began to find defects in their faces, defects they had never noticed

before. Marianna was pretty but she had a tooth missing in front and she felt that this

made her ugly. One daughter discovered that her nose was too snub and too broad; a

second that her chin was too narrow and too long; a third that her face was sprinkled

with freckles. Jan Skiba too caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and grew

displeased by his thick lips and his teeth, which protruded like a buck’s. That day, the

women of the house became so absorbed in the mirror they didn’t cook supper, didn’t

make up the bed, and neglected all the other household tasks. Marianna had heard of a

dentist in the big city who could replace a missing tooth, but such things were

expensive. The girls tried to console each other that they were pretty enough and that

they would find suitors, but they no longer felt as jolly as before. They had been afflicted

with the vanity of city girls. The one with the broad nose kept trying to pinch it together

with her fingers to make it narrower; the one with the too-long chin pushed it up with her

fist to make it shorter; the one with the freckles wondered if there was a salve in the city

that could remove freckles. But where would the money come from for the fare to the

city? And what about the money to buy this salve? For the first time the Skiba family

deeply felt its poverty and envied the rich.

 

 

But the human members of the household were not the only ones affected. The dog and

the cat also grew disturbed by the mirror. The hut was low and the mirror had been

hung just above a bench. The first time the cat sprang up on the bench and saw her

image in the mirror, she became terribly perplexed. She had never before seen such a

creature. Kot’s whiskers bristled, she began to meow at her reflection and raised a paw

to it, but the other creature meowed back and raised her paw too. Soon the dog jumped

up on the bench, and when he saw the other dog he became wild with rage and shock.

He barked at the other dog and showed him his teeth, but the other barked back and

bared his fangs too. So great was the distress of Burek and Kot that for the first time in

their lives they turned on each other. Burek took a bite out of Kot’s throat and Kot hissed

and spat at him and clawed his muzzle. They both started to bleed and the sight of

blood aroused them so that they nearly killed or crippled each other. The members of

the household barely managed to separate them. Because a dog is stronger than a cat,

Burek had to be tied outside, and he howled all day and all night. In their anguish, both

the dog and the cat stopped eating.

 

 

When Jan Skiba saw the disruption the mirror had created in his household, he decided

a mirror wasn’t what his family needed. “Why look at yourself,” he said, “when you can

see and admire the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth, with all its forests,

meadows, rivers, and plants?” He took the mirror down from the wall and put it away in

the woodshed. When the peddler came for his monthly installment, Jan Skiba gave him

back the mirror and in its stead, bought kerchiefs and slippers for the women. After the

mirror disappeared, Burek and Kot returned to normal. Again Burek thought he was a

cat and Kot was sure she was a dog. Despite all the defects the girls had found in

themselves, they made good marriages. The village priest heard what had happened at

Jan Skiba’s house and he said, “A glass mirror shows only the skin of the body. The real

image of a person is in his willingness to help himself and his family and, as far as

possible, all those he comes in contact with. This kind of mirror reveals the very soul of

the person.”