Chicago

This is Chi-Cago (Italian Domestic Longhair aged five) as we met it in the garden of the Palazzo Pitti, playful, delightful, a perverted predator strolling, laying in the sun during days and hunting small rodents, reptiles, and insects at night. Chi, of course, would just kill, not eat its prey, as caretakers fed all the park's cats twice a day. Chi was very quiet, almost never making a sound, but when it did, it was the sweetest and purest and most melodious a creature could produce. Evidently, there is a story behind the almost-mute Chi: many, many, many, years ago Chi's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, a skilled hunter as well, lived in the small town of Cremona in the household of one Antonio, a luthier by trade. That forefather cat also had the voice of an angel but he used it often to the delight of all. Antonio, a very skilled artisan with a scientific curiosity, obsessed about the origin of the cat sound, decided to examine it further; the investigation was highly invasive and fatal (for the unfortunate cat). He was convinced it must be the intestines, so he cleaned them and cleaned them again and dried them and spun them and used them on his latest creation: a very handsome dark-yellow violin. It was a hit, the sound was amazing, people fainted, violinists fought each other to buy it ... Antonio was beaming, when asked about his secret he would mumble about wood, lacquer, talent, etc. The same night, the female cat of the house ran to the river and jumped on a barge going away to anywhere. Unbeknownst to Chi (although cats know everything), technology evolved and these days, "no animal had to suffer ... " but Chi keeps mostly Stumm just the same.