He dreamt of climbing to the moon

My long lean striped and dotted tabby, Riley, trying to have his way with my sweet and gentle little tuxedo cat, Emily, tonight, reminded me of this passage from The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino.  It’s a novel about a young Italian nobleman from the 18th century who, as an act of rebellion against authority, decides to live out his life up in the trees of his village.

 "But behind all this restlessness of his there was a deeper dissatisfaction, and in this need for listeners, a different lack.  Cosimo did not yet know love, and what is any experience without that?  What point is there in risking life, when the real flavor of life is as yet unknown?

Peasant girls and fishmongers used to pass through the square of Ombrosa, and young ladies in coaches, and Cosimo would look them sharply over from the trees, unable to understand why something that he was looking for was there in all of them, and not there completely in any one of them.  At night, when the lights went on in the houses, and Cosimo was alone on the branches with the yellow eyes of the owls, he would begin dreaming of love.  The couples who met behind bushes or amidst vines filled him with admiration and envy, and he would follow them with his eyes as they went off into the dark, but if they lay down at the foot of his particular tree, he would rush off in embarrassment.

Then, to overcome his shyness, he would stop and watch the love-making of animals.  In the spring the world on the trees was a world of nuptials; the squirrels made love with squeals and movements that were almost human, the birds coupled with flapping wings; even the lizards slid off united, with their tails tight in knots; and the porcupines seemed to soften their quills to sweeten their embraces.  Ottimo Massimo, in no way put off by the fact that he was the only dachshund in Ombrosa, would court big shepherd bitches, or police dogs, with brazen ardor, trusting to the natural sympathy this inspired.  Sometimes he would return bitten all over; but a successful love affair was enough to repay for all defeats.

Cosimo, like Ottimo Massimo, was the only example of a species.  In his daydreams, he would see himself courting girls of exquisite beauty; but how could he fall in love up in the trees?  In his fantasies, he managed to avoid specifying where it would happen; on earth, or up in the element where he lived now: a place without a place, he would imagine; a world reached by going up, not down.  Yes, that was it.  Perhaps there was a tree so high that by climbing it, he would touch another world– the moon."

Emily always wiggles out from underneath Riley, stands upright on her two back legs, slaps him twice across his face, once with each front paw, and runs off, leaving him looking dejected and confused.  After a couple of minutes, he turns to my little rambunctious tortoiseshell calico, Pippa, and tries to mount her.  They’ve all been neutered and spayed from the age of 3 to 4 months old, but I suppose a natural urge like that can be difficult to suppress.  

How many of us must feel like the only example of a species?  Love under moonlight sounds quite nice about now.