UNDERGRADUATE
Russalka, the Water-Cat '
By ANTHONY WATERMAN (Selwyn College, Cambridge) IN the heart of Wessex, on the very rim of Egdon Heath, there stands a solitary hamlet not far from the ancient village of Owermoigne. I sometimes stay there with my friends, and it was on one of my visits that I first met Russalka. I should explain that at first they did not call her that. She had been given some ordinary sensible name like Demeter, or Electra—I forget which—but soon realising how very inappropriate it was they decided to change it. Who thought of her new name I never discovered—it was apt if exotic— but knowing Russalka, I think she must have christened herself. I say this advisedly.
, Russalka was a water-cat. Perhaps you have never heard of a water-cat, though I am often assured (rather jealously, I think) that many other cats have been known to share Russalka's remarkable propensities. This may be so, but she was no ordinary cat. Directly descended on the distaff side from those feline succubi whose favourite mode of conveyance was the broomstick, there was in her make-up too more than a trace of Mr. Mistopheles, Macavity, and even the redoubtable Growltiger. Villagers, when they saw her pass by on her mysterious way, would avert their eyes and cross themselves. Dogs shunned her, and old Frank the Dairyman refused to allow her in the milking-sheds lest she turn the milk to water.
Russalka, as I have already said, was a water-cat. From her earliest kittenhood she was fascinated by the sound and, sight of running taps, gurgling sinks, and flushing water-closets. She would forsake a cosy spot by the fireside to investigate and participate in our most private ablutions. She would attack the stream of water from the wash-house pump with a Quixotic fervour, retiring at intervals to lick herself dry before renewing the assault. At the sound of a creaking chain she would leap upon the lavatory seat in rapturous contemplation of the rushing waters beneath. Whenever a pipe burst or the boiler overflowed, when a washer leaked or the rain came in through the roof, Russalka was sure to be there, gazing at the trickle Io' with an infuriating air of satisfaction, or ecstatically disporting erself in the flood. And that was how she got her bad name. y themselves, we could have tolerated these minor catas- ophes. But Russalka's calm enjoyment of our discomfiture, . ore exasperating even than her abandoned gambolling, was ometimes more than we could patiently endure. Despite our very apparent hostility, however, Russalka lerated us. I suppose we should have been very proud that - she condescended to remain beneath our roof : it never occurred to us until afterwards when it was too late. During her lifetime we were too filled with a morbid fascination for her extra- rdinary exploits to be able to appreciate her full worth. When, as was frequently the case, it became necessary to drown some of her kittens, she would witness the execution with a com- posure that struck chill into our hearts : one could almost discern a glimpse of envy and longing in her wistful eyes. When, as was frequently the case, the rain-clouds gathered and burst, Russalka would be there, sitting out in the most exposed place. wearing the complacent air of one who has contrived it all. And later, when we had made it quite clear to her that we did not welcome her company, when she took to the woods, only returning sometimes after days away— then, one by one, still more fantastic tales began to percolate back from the superstitious villagers. Russalka had never been a stay-at-home cat. None of , the Ioats on the Farm ever were, and at an early age she had earned to roam far and wide over the Heath in search of her od. Quite soon of course, she discovered the little copse own by the river, where the waterfall was. She would sit ere for hours, sometimes lying in wait for unwary sparrows, sometimes fishing for minnows and other small fry, but, more often than not, just staring and staring at the over-changing patterns of the sparkling fountain. One idyllic spring morning, I saw her there myself. I was taking a stroll by the little common, which is the beginning of the Heath proper, and on my way back, my steps led me through the spinney. She couldn't have heard me coming : I suppose she was too engrossed : and I stood there awhile and watched. The bright sunlight, glinting from a myriad dewy droplets suspended from twig, flower, and shrub, was flashing and glittering on the troubled surface of the cascading waters : the recurring leitmotif of birdsong and spray mingled in an intoxicating Waldwebett. And in the midst of it all, holding the centre of this grassy stage, was Russalka, as insubstantial and unearthly as that heroine of Slavonic legend whose name she bore. Unobserved, she thought, she frisked and frolicked in the effervescent rapids, dabbing with playful paw at the tumbling water, and , pouncing with simulated ferocity upon the miniature breakers. At a sound I made, she looked up startled, and, uttering a weird uncanny cry, plunged into the translucent depths of the crystal pool.
I made my way slowly homeward, sobered by what I had seen. But as I approached the venerable farmstead, I chanced to glance up, and there—thy eyes told me—stretched out luxuriously upon the highest part of the crumbling roof, basking in the noonday sun, was Russalka !
As autumn succeeded spring and summer, rumours of a more sombre kind began to circulate among the tenants. A belated farm-hand, stumbling his unsteady ' ,way home late on Hallowe'en, murmured darkly of sabbatical rites down by the little rill. Russalka had been seen lurking around the solitary cottage of old Widow Perkiss who had the Evil Eye, and who dwelt alone far out on the Heath. Many were the tales that went about that winter, and there was even talk of calling upon the parson to exorcise the unhappy animal. - Russalka bore it all with ineffable patience. No longer, as in her salad days, did she sit in the kitchen sink and play innocently with the dripping tap. No longer did she delight to share in our antics beneath the newly installed shower-bath. Sfe could sense, as could we all, the mounting tension and distrust, and being a cat of impeccable taste, she hesitated to aggravate the situation. But, conscious as she must have been of her approaching doom, her deportment, which was a model of calm dignity, would not have shamed the race of Wiilse.
I like to think of Russalka's end as a grand, Wagnerian climax to an heroic epic fraught with symphonically resolved tensions.
It happened at midnight on the last day of April, and we have the word of Wilfred for it. A great wind was howling over the Heath : an unhealthy, warm, damp wind, driving the clouds in scattered droves across the night 'sky, bringing darkness and desolation on its wings. It whistled round the tottering stack-pipes of the little hamlet, it came roaring and rushing down forgotten chimneys, through the cracks in 'Inouldering rafters, in the holes in rickety floors. Its desperate shrieking through the trees and branches of the Coppice was as the violins of a mighty orchestra : vast waves of sound mounting inexorably to a shattering peroration. The waterfall was swollen by the recent floods, and as Wilfred saw it, fitfully illuminated, by fleeting rays of pale moonlight, every river m the Shire seemed to pour into its raging torrent. While he stood, Russalka materialised out of the gloom—a Russalka transfigured and ennobled by her imminent apotheosis. With tragic deliberation she performed her last watery rites, and then, to a musical accompaniment worthy of Bayreuth, she hurled herself to her aquatic immolation into the foaming depths beraw.
The wind dropped abruptly, and a silver moonbeam came slanting through the trees. Wilfred watched, as slowly and majestically the wraith of Russalka ascended the moonbeam and passed beyond his ken, sped on her way by a glittering cascade of -deliquescent, Schubertian arpeggios.
The wind rose once again to a last tempestuous coda, and then died away for ever. Thus passed Russalka the Water-Cat : her memory—and her spirit, some say—still lingers in the lonely hamlet which nestles on the fringe of Egdon Heath.
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