Cats

Cats appear in the miller's hut not merely as background animals but as creatures whose movements and interactions command a sequence of their own. A tabby first becomes agitated, then encounters a tomcat brought from a neighbor; later, the pair play with human eyeballs on the floor. That play ends when Jealous the miller drives them away and crushes the eyes. Through these shifts, the cats connect an episode of animal behavior to the unnamed boy narrator's sense that something capable of reflecting the world has been irretrievably lost.

Presence in the Hut

The tabby is introduced as another inhabitant of the hut, well fed and ordinarily part of its domestic setting. One day her behavior changes: rather than mewing, she makes strained sounds, moves along the walls, and claws at the skirts of the wife of Jealous the miller. As dusk comes, her agitation continues. These details establish a specific animal presence in a crowded human household, while showing how the tabby's behavior alters the room's atmosphere and draws the household's attention.

The account does not give the tabby a human explanation or a spoken intention. Instead, it follows observable behavior: her sounds, movement, and persistent restlessness. That focus gives the animal a distinct place in the scene without making her a conventional companion to the boy. She acts on her own impulses, and the people around her respond to a disturbance they cannot simply ignore.

The Tabby and the Tomcat

Jealous the miller returns with a young man and a tomcat borrowed from a neighbor. The tomcat is brought in a sack, and the tabby is in the cellar. Once she is released, the two cats approach warily and circle one another. Their encounter proceeds through hesitation and repeated movement: the tabby confronts and evades the male, while he approaches cautiously. The scene's attention stays on the animals' actions rather than on a human interpretation of them.

The cats' cautious circling gives way to a mating encounter. Afterward, the exhausted tomcat relaxes, while the tabby breaks away and moves onto the cooled oven, where she continues to toss and turn. The sequence thus gives the encounter a beginning, a change in pace, and an aftermath centered on the female cat's separate behavior. The tomcat does not remain the focus once the mating has occurred; the tabby again directs the scene through her movement.

The narrative's close attention to the pair makes them more than a single sign of disorder in the hut. Their wariness, approach, and retreat form an animal interaction with its own rhythm. At the same time, the human setting remains present: the tomcat has been fetched and brought into the room by people, while the cats' behavior itself is not presented as an action commanded by the boy.

Play with the Eyeballs

Later, the unnamed boy narrator walks around a pair of eyeballs lying on the floor. The cats cautiously move into the middle of the room and begin to play with them. They roll the eyes, sniff and lick them, and pass them between their paws. Under the oil lamp, their pupils narrow in the light. In this moment the eyes become the focus of an exchange among the animals, while the boy watches from nearby.

The narration shifts from concrete handling to the boy's perception: the eyes seem to look at him from different corners, as if they have acquired motion and a life of their own. The cats' play contributes to this impression. Their movements make the eyes seem active and mobile, although they remain objects on the floor. The passage does not identify whose eyes they are, so their significance here rests on what the boy sees and feels rather than on an explanation of their origin.

Interruption and Significance

Jealous the miller is annoyed by the cats' play. He kicks the animals away and crushes the eyeballs under his boots, ending both the cats' game and the boy's vision of the eyes as a remarkable mirror capable of reflecting the whole world. What remains is a crushed remnant, and the boy experiences a terrible sense of loss. The destruction is abrupt: the same room that held the cats' encounter now becomes the setting for an adult's intervention and the termination of their play.

The cats therefore occupy two connected but distinct parts of the episode. First, the tabby and tomcat enact an encounter shaped by their own cautious movements; later, the cats take up the eyes as playthings. In the latter scene they do not understand or preserve the boy's sense of the eyes' value. Their play is interrupted by Jealous the miller, whose act determines the objects' fate. The contrast leaves the boy's response—not an explanation from the cats—as the measure of what has been lost.

As represented here, Cats are neither simply decorative nor presented as deliberate symbols. Their actions have an immediate animal logic, and the narrative allows them to occupy the center of several moments before returning attention to human power and perception. Their play briefly lends movement to the eyes in the boy's imagination; the miller's intervention then reduces that apparent world to a crushed remnant. The cats' presence thus links embodied animal activity with the boy's fragile experience of wonder and loss.