n:
Had the sun with fervent glowing
Ripened well the spicy red wine
Which the Baron had selected
As his usual evening beverage.
And, to heighten his enjoyment,
He puffed out clouds of tobacco.
In his red and simple clay-pipe
Burned the weed from foreign countries,
Which he smoked through a long pipe-stem
Made of fragrant cherry-wood.

At the Baron's feet was lying
Gracefully the worthy tom-cat,
Hiddigeigei, with the coal-black
Velvet fur and mighty tail.
'Twas an heirloom from his long-lost,
Much-beloved, and stately consort,
Leonore Monfort du Plessys.
Hiddigeigei's native country
Was Hungaria, and his mother,
Who was of the race Angora,
Bore him to a Puszta tom-cat.
In his early youth to Paris
He was sent as a fond token
Of the love of an Hungarian,
Who, though far in Debreczin, still
With due reverence had remembered
The blue eyes of Leonora,
And the rats in her old palace.
With the stately Leonora
To the Rhine came Hiddigeigei.
A true house-pet, somewhat lonesome
Did he while away his life there;
For, he hated to consort with
Any of the German cat-tribe.
"They may have," thus he was thinking
In his consequential cat-pride,
"Right good hearts, and may possess too
At the bottom some good feeling,
But 'tis polish that is wanting;
A fine culture and high breeding,
I miss sorely in these vulgar
Natives of this forest-city.
And a cat who won his knight spurs
In fair Paris, and who often
In the quarter of Montfaucon
Has enjoyed a racy rat-hunt,
Misses in this little town here
All that is to him congenial,
Any intercourse with equals."
Isolated, therefore, but still
Ever dignified and solemn
Lived he in this lonely castle.
Graceful through the halls he glided,
Most melodious was his purring;
And in fits of passion even,
When he curved his back in anger,
And his hair stood bristling backward,
Never did he fail to mingle
Dignity with graceful bearing.
But when over roof and gable
Up he softly clambered, starting
On a hunting expedition.
Then mysteriously by moonlight
His green eyes like emeralds glistened;
Then,