When I walk into Community Bookstore in Brooklyn, my local, the first thing I do (after saying hi to the owners) is look for the store cat, Tiny the Usurper（篡位者）.
Tiny is the photogenic（上镜的）spirit of the place and gives you approximately five seconds to impress him, otherwise he goes right back to sleep on that pile of translated novels.
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当我走进当地的布鲁克林社区书店时，我做的第一件事（在向店主打招呼后）就是寻找店里的猫，“小小篡位者”。
Tiny是这个地方的镜头明星，给你大约五秒钟的时间给它留下深刻印象，否则它就会继续睡在那堆翻译小说上。
I understand the idea of people either being more for dogs or cats, I do. I also get the weird looks I’ve received for proudly stating that I’m for both, that I can relate to（理解）dogs and their wonderfully dumb, but fiercely loyal attitudes, as well as appreciate the way cats keep you in check by making you work for their love.
But I can say without any doubt that bookstore cats represent the apex（最高点，顶点） of domesticated pets.
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我理解人们不是更喜欢狗就是更喜欢猫，真的。我还收到了一些奇怪的表情，因为我骄傲地说我两者都支持，我可以理解狗和它们非常愚蠢但非常忠诚的态度，以及欣赏猫通过让你为它们热爱的事物而工作来约束你的方式。
但我可以毫无疑问地说，书店里的猫代表了家养宠物的巅峰。
If a bookstore is so fortunate as to have a cat on the premises（店内） during operating hours, you can bet that feline（猫科动物）is co-owner, manager, security, and the abiding（始终不渝的） conscience of the place. You go to a bookstore to buy a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates or the latest Kelly Link collection, but you’re really paying a tribute to the cat, whether you know it or not.
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如果书店很幸运，在营业时间里有一只猫在里面，你可以打赌，这只猫是书店的共同所有者、经理、保安和永恒的良心。你去书店买Ta-Nehisi Coates 的书或最新的Kelly Link系列，但你实际上是在向这只猫致敬，不管你是否意识到这一点。
Cats generally seem above it all（超越一切）—that’s what I tend to like about them. Personally, I’m more like a dog, all stupid and excited about the smallest things, easy to read and always hungry. Cats, on the other hand, look right through you, force you to contemplate（思考）things; they just seem smarter than they’re letting on（透露）, as if they know everything but won’t tell. So it makes sense to see so many of them navigating the stacks of dusty old hardcovers at used bookstores, curling up next to the rainbow display of NYRB Classics. But there’s another, deeper reason cats make so much sense in bookstores—it’s in their DNA.
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猫一般都是超然的——这就是我喜欢它们的原因。就我个人而言，我更像一只狗，对最小的事情都很愚蠢，很兴奋，容易了解，总是很饿。另一方面，猫会直接看穿你，迫使你思考事情；它们只是比它们表现出来的更聪明，就好像它们什么都知道但不会说。所以，看到它们中的许多猫在旧书店里满是灰尘的旧精装书堆中穿行，蜷缩在NYRB经典书籍的彩虹展旁，是有道理的。但猫在书店如此受欢迎还有一个更深层次的原因，那就是它们的DNA。
“One cannot help wondering what the silent critic on the hearthrug（炉前的地毯） thinks of our strange conventions—the mystic Persian, whose ancestors were worshiped as gods whilst we, their masters and mistresses, groveled（卑躬屈膝）in caves and painted our bodies blue,” Virginia Woolf wrote in the essay “On a Faithful Friend.”
As a lot of cat owners will so proudly point out, cats held a special place in Egyptian society, to the point where if you even accidentally killed a cat, you’d be sentenced to death.
Cats were often adorned with jewels, fed meals that would make today’s canned food look like, well, canned cat food, and were even sometimes mummified; a grieving cat owner would often shave his own eyebrows off as an act of mourning. Though not exactly deities（神）, cats did hold a very high place in Egyptian society.
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弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫在《论一个忠实的朋友》一文中写道:“我们不禁要问壁炉前地毯上沉默的评论家对我们奇怪的习俗有何看法——神秘的波斯人，它们的祖先被奉为神，而我们，它们的主人和情人，却在洞穴里俯首称臣，把自己的身体涂成蓝色。”
很多养猫的人都会骄傲地指出，猫在埃及社会中有着特殊的地位，如果你不小心杀死了一只猫，你就会被判处死刑。
当时的猫经常佩戴珠宝，它们被喂食的食物让今天的罐头猫粮比起来简直就只能叫做罐头猫粮，它们有时甚至被做成木乃伊；悲伤的猫主人通常会把自己的眉毛剃掉以示哀悼。猫虽然不是神，但在埃及社会中占有很高的地位。
It’s pretty obvious that cats haven’t really gotten over the sort of treatment they received in the time of the pharaoh（法老）. They carry themselves in a stately（气宇不凡的，庄严的） manner and demand that you treat them with a certain amount of reverence（尊重）, letting you know if you’re doing a good job of petting them, when they’re ready for their meal, and making you aware of what they like and what displeases them. My cats certainly do.
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很明显，猫还没有从法老时代受到的那种待遇中走出来。它们举止庄重，要求你对它们有一定的尊重，让你知道你是否爱抚它们，当它们准备好吃饭时，让你知道它们喜欢什么，不喜欢什么。我的猫当然喜欢。
They love their comfy spots in the apartment, and often give me a hard time when I try to make them move, shooting me a look, letting out a sad meow, and then instigating a showdown（摊牌） which almost always ends with me picking them up. And those spots they love in my apartment? Among my books. And since the living room is covered in them–on shelves, my desk, piling up on the floor–my cats are never without a stack or two to rub（摩擦） up against, claiming the essay collections and several different paperback versions of Miss Lonelyhearts that I own.
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它们喜欢公寓里舒适的地方，当我试图让它们动起来的时候，它们常常会让我很为难，它们会朝我瞟一眼，发出悲伤的喵喵声，然后挑起一场摊牌，几乎总是以我抱起它们而告终。我公寓里那些它们喜欢的地方呢？在我的书中。因为客厅里到处都是它们——书架上的，我的桌子上的，地板上的——我的猫总是有一两堆可以蹭，它们占据了我的散文集和几本不同的平装版《寂寞芳心小姐》。
Egypt, where cats are believed to have been first domesticated（驯化）, is also where the relationship with bookstores can be traced. While mainly used to keep rodents and poisonous snakes away from homes and crops, some cats were trained specifically to keep pests from eating away at the papyrus（尤指古埃及人制造的纸莎草纸） rolls that contained texts. Without cats, in fact, it’s hard to imagine how Egyptian civilization could have so successfully weathered the diseases and famine caused by vermin—but also imagine the knowledge that might have been lost were it not for those four-legged protectors guarding the temples from tiny intruders.
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埃及被认为是最早驯养猫的地方，也是与书店有联系的地方。虽然猫主要用来防止啮齿类动物和毒蛇远离房屋和农作物，但一些猫被专门训练来防止害虫吃掉含有文本的纸莎草卷。事实上，如果没有猫，很难想象埃及文明如何能如此成功地经受住由害虫引起的疾病和饥荒——但也可以想象，如果不是那些四条腿的保护者保护寺庙不受微小入侵者的侵犯，这些知识可能会丢失。
Over time, cats would continue to be called upon to protect sacred documents. You can find cats mentioned in Sufi tales from the Islamic Golden Age that saw huge advances in mathematics, philosophy, and physics, and European monks in the Middle Ages employed them to keep rodents away.
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随着时间的推移，猫会继续被要求保护神圣的文件。你可以在伊斯兰黄金时代苏菲派的故事中找到猫，苏菲派见证了数学、哲学和物理学的巨大进步，中世纪的欧洲僧侣用猫来驱赶啮齿类动物。
Today when we think of a cat chasing a mouse it’s usually in some slapstick, Tom and Jerry sort of way. The dumb cat always foiled by its tiny adversary, like we’re supposed to forgive the little jerks for gnawing on our possessions and spreading disease. It’s unfair. Especially since anyone who’s ever adopted a cat because a mice-problem knows that even if the cat doesn’t end up catching the intruders, they certainly scare them off. Cats might not always necessarily enforce the law, but they do act like security guards without guns, a living, breathing warning to mice and other rodents that it’s maybe not the best idea to overrun（肆虐） this place.
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今天，当我们想到猫追老鼠时，通常是在一些闹剧中，类似于《猫和老鼠》。哑巴猫总是被它的小对手打败，就好像我们应该原谅这些小混蛋咬我们的东西，传播疾病一样。这是不公平的。特别是任何因为老鼠问题而收养过猫的人都知道，即使猫最终没有抓住入侵者，它们也肯定会把入侵者吓跑。猫可能并不总是执行法律，但它们确实像没有枪的保安，哈着气向老鼠和其他啮齿动物发出真实的警告，在这里肆虐可能不是一个好主意。
And once the cats were invited into bookstores, they never really left. Cats are quiet and want to be left alone for the bulk of the day; they’re animals that long for solitude, much like readers and writers. It began as a working relationship, but became something more than that, something deeper. Cats ultimately became integral to the bookstore experience, a small part of why you’d rather go to your local indie than buy online or go to a chain. Sure, not every great bookstore has a cat prowling around; but in the ones that do, the cats are a big part of what makes those stores great.
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一旦猫咪被邀请到书店，它们就再也不会离开了。猫很安静，一天的大部分时间都想一个人呆着；它们是渴望独处的动物，就像读者和作家一样。一开始只是一种工作关系，但后来变得更深入了。猫咪最终成为书店体验中不可或缺的一部分，这也是为什么你宁愿去当地独立书店，也不愿在网上或连锁书店购物的一小部分原因。当然，不是每家大书店都有一只猫在附近徘徊；但在那些有猫的书店里，猫是这些书店之所以伟大的主要原因。
原文：Jason Diamond 图源：pixabay
