This English version of _______ (Wagahai-wa neko de aru: I Am a Cat), Chapters I and II, written by Natsume S_seki, pseudonym of Natsume Kinnosuke (1867Ð1916), and translated by Kan-ichi Ando (1878-1924), was published by Hattori Shoten, Tokyo, in 1906.
It begins: "I am a cat; but as yet I have no name." Its sardonic feline narrator describes his origins, his settlement in the household of a Meiji teacher-intellectual, and the goings-on and conversations among the cats and humans about the neighborhood. Of the men he concludes: "They are miserable creatures in the eyes of a cat."