The narrator is a cat, just a cat that has no name. He does not know who his parents are, he only remembers how a kitten climbed into the kitchen of a house in search of food and the owner took pity and sheltered him. It was Kusyami - a school teacher. Since then, the kitten has grown and turned into a big fluffy cat. He fights with the maid, plays with the master's children, fawns on the master. He is smart and inquisitive. The owner, in whom Natsume's features are clearly visible, is often locked in his office, and the household considers him to be very hardworking, and only the cat knows that the owner often sleeps for a long time, having buried himself in the open book. If the cat was a man, he would certainly become a teacher: it is so nice to sleep. True, the owner claims that there is nothing more ungrateful than the teacher’s work, but, according to the cat, he is simply drawn. The owner does not shine with talents, but takes on everything. He then composes a haiku (three verses), then writes articles in English with many errors. Once he decides to seriously engage in painting and writes such paintings that no one can determine what is depicted on them.
His friend Matei, whom the cat considers an art critic, cites the owner as an example, Andrea del Sarto, who said that what should be represented in nature does not matter what it is. Following wise advice, Kusimi begins to draw a cat, but the cat does not like his own portrait. Kusimi rejoices that, thanks to a statement by Andrea del Sarto, he comprehended the true essence of painting, but Meitei admits that he was joking and the Italian artist did not say anything like that. The cat believes that although Maitei wears glasses in a gold frame, but insolence and unceremoniousness resembles the neighboring cat-bully Kuro. The cat is upset that he was not given a name: it is clear that he will have to live his whole life in this house nameless. The cat has a girlfriend - the cat Mikeko, which the hostess really cares about: deliciously feeds and gives gifts. But one day Mikeko falls ill and dies. Her mistress suspects that the cat, who came to visit her, infected her with something, and, fearing revenge, he stops going far from his home.
Kusyami from time to time comes his former student, who became an adult and even graduated from the university - Kangetsu. This time he invited the owner for a walk. The city is a lot of fun: Port Arthur fell. When Kusyami leaves Kangetsu, the cat, having somewhat compromised the rules of decency, eats up pieces of fish remaining on the Kangetsu plate: the teacher is poor, and the cat is not very full fed. The cat discusses how difficult human psychology is to understand. He cannot comprehend the master’s attitude to life: he either laughs at this world, or wants to dissolve in it, or has altogether renounced everything worldly. Cats are much simpler in this regard. And most importantly, cats never have such unnecessary things as diaries. People living a double life, like Kusysy, may have a need, at least in a diary, to express those aspects of their nature that cannot be displayed, in cats, their whole life is natural and genuine, like a diary.
Otis Tofu comes to Kusi with a letter of recommendation from Kangetsu, who, together with his friends, organized a recitation club. Tofu asks Kusiami to become one of the patrons of the circle, and he, having found out that this does not entail any responsibilities, agrees: he is ready to even become a member of the anti-government conspiracy, unless this entails unnecessary trouble. Tofu tells how Matei invited him to a European restaurant to taste totimambo, but the waiter couldn’t understand what kind of dish it was, and to hide the confusion, he said that now there are no necessary products to cook it, but in the near future, maybe will appear. Matei asked what toti-mambo is made from in their restaurant - not from Nihong (Togi Mambo is one of the poets in the Nihong group), and the waiter confirmed that yes, it was from nihong. This story is very amused Kusyami.
Kangeiu and Meitei come to wish Kusimi a Happy New Year.He says that he visited Tofu. Matei recalls that once, at the end of the old year, he had been waiting all day for Tofu to come and, without waiting, went for a walk. By chance, he came upon a pine stump. Standing under this pine tree, he felt a desire to hang himself, but he felt embarrassed in front of Tofu, and he decided to return home, talk with Tofu, and then return and hang himself. At home, he found a note from Tofu, where he apologized for not coming due to urgent matters. Matei was delighted and decided that now you can safely go and hang himself, but when he ran to the treasured pine tree, it turned out that someone had already beaten him. So, being late for just a minute, he survived.
Kangetsu says that an incredible story happened to him too before the New Year. He met the young lady N at a party, and a few days later she fell ill and kept repeating his name in delirium. Upon learning that young lady N was dangerously ill, Kangetsu, walking along the Azumabashi bridge, thought about her, and suddenly heard her voice calling him. He thought that he heard this, but when the scream was repeated three times, he strained his will, jumped high and rushed down from the bridge. He lost consciousness, and when he came to, he found that he was very cold, but his clothes were dry: it turns out he mistakenly jumped not into the water, but to the other side, in the middle of the bridge. No matter how much Maitei was trying to find out about the young lady in question, Kangetsu did not name her. The owner also told a funny story. The wife asked him to take her to the theater as a New Year's gift. Kusimi really wanted to make his wife happy, but he didn’t like one play, the other too, and on the third he was afraid not to get tickets. But the wife said that if you arrive no later than four hours, then everything will be in order. The owner began to gather in the theater, but felt a chill. He hoped to recover until four o'clock, but as soon as he brought a cup of medicine to his mouth, he began to feel nauseous, and he could not swallow it. But as soon as four hours struck, the owner's nausea immediately passed, he was able to drink the medicine and immediately recovered. If the doctor had come to him a quarter of an hour earlier, he and his wife would have managed to go to the theater, and it was already too late.
After the death of Mikeko and a quarrel with Kuro, the cat feels lonely, and only communication with people brightens his loneliness. Since he believes that he has almost turned into a man, then from now on he will only tell about Kangetsu da Meitei. One day, Kangetsu, before giving a talk in the Physical Society, decides to read it by Kushi and Meitei. The report is called "Hanging Mechanics" and is replete with formulas and examples. Soon after, the wife of a wealthy merchant, Mrs. Kaneda, comes to Kusyami, whose cat immediately gives the nickname Hanako (Mrs. Nose) for her huge hooked nose, which stretched, stretched up, but suddenly became modest and, deciding to return to its former place, bent and remained hang. She came to inquire about Kangetsu, who allegedly wants to marry their daughter. Her daughter has a lot of fans, and she and her husband want to choose the most worthy of them. If Kangetsu soon becomes a doctor of science, then he will suit them. Kusimi and Meitei doubt that Kangetsu really wants to marry Kaneda’s daughter, rather, she shows an immoderate interest in him. In addition, Ms. Nose is so arrogant that her friends have no desire to promote Kangetsu’s marriage with the young lady Kaneda. Without telling the visitor anything definite, Kusyami and Matei sigh of relief after her departure, and she, dissatisfied with the reception, begins to harm Kusyami in every way - bribes his neighbors so that they make noise and swear at him under the windows. The cat sneaks into Kaneda’s house. He sees their capricious daughter mocking the servant, her arrogant parents, despising everyone who is poorer than them.
At night, a thief enters Kusyami’s house. In the bedroom at the head of the hostess, like a casket of jewelry, stands a nailed up drawer.It contains wild sweet potatoes, received by the owners as a gift. This box draws the thief’s attention. In addition, he steals a few more things. Filing a complaint to the police, the spouse quarrel, determining the price of the missing things. They discuss what the thief will do with wild sweet potato: just cook or make soup. Tatara Sampei, who brought sweet potatoes in Kusya, advises him to become a merchant: merchants get money easily, not like teachers. But Kusyami, although he hates teachers, he hates businessmen even more.
There is a Russo-Japanese war, and the patriotic cat dreams of forming a consolidated cat brigade to go to the front to scratch Russian soldiers. But since he was surrounded by ordinary people, he has to put up with being an ordinary cat, and ordinary cats must catch mice. Going out on a night hunt, he is attacked by mice and, fleeing from them, overturns the utensils on the shelf. Hearing the roar, the owner thinks that thieves climbed into the house again, but does not find anyone.
Kusimi and Meitei ask Kangetsu what the topic of his dissertation is and whether he will finish it soon. Kangetsu replies that he is writing a dissertation on the subject “The influence of ultraviolet rays on electrical processes in the frog’s eyeball” and, since this topic is very serious, he intends to work on it for ten, or even twenty years.
The cat begins to play sports. The enviable health of the fish convinces him of the benefits of sea bathing, and he hopes that someday cats, like people, will be able to go to resorts. In the meantime, the cat catches the mantis, does the exercise "sliding along the pine" and performs a "walk around the fence." The cat starts fleas, and he goes to the bathhouse, whose visitors seem to him werewolves. The cat has never seen anything like a bathhouse and believes that everyone should definitely visit this institution.
Kusimi reflects on the greatest question that occupies the minds of philologists: what is the cat's “meow” or “yes-yes”, with which the wife answers his call - interjection or adverbs. The wife is perplexed:
Do cats meow in Japanese? Kusyami explains that this is just the difficulty and that this is called comparative linguistics. The pupils of a nearby private gymnasium are bothering with kusya, and his philosopher friend Dokusen advises him not to fall under the influence of the European spirit of activity, the drawback of which is that it knows no limits. European culture has made progress, but it is a culture of people who do not know satisfaction and never rest on their laurels. Dokusen, as an adherent of Japanese culture, believes that no matter how great a man, he will never succeed in remaking the world, and only with himself is a man free to do whatever he pleases. The main thing is to learn to control yourself, to achieve equanimity, improving your spirit in an all-embracing passivity. Kusi is imbued with Dokusen’s ideas, but Matei laughs at him: Dokusen is passive only in words, and when there was an earthquake nine years ago, he got so scared that he jumped from the second floor.
The police catches the thief who robbed Kusyami, He goes to the police department for his things. Meanwhile, his wife is visited by the seventeen-year-old niece of the owner, Yukie, who tells her how to behave with her husband. Since the spirit of contradiction is strong in Kusyami, we must all speak the opposite. For example, when he decided to give Yukie a gift, she purposely said that she did not need an umbrella - and he bought her an umbrella. Wife Kusyami wanted him to insure, and Kusyami did not agree. When he returns from the police department, the wife says how well he did that he was not safe, and Kusami immediately objects to her, promising to be safe from the next month.
Kangetsu goes home and marries his fellow countrywoman.When he returns to Tokyo and tells his friends about this, they pity Tofu, who, while awaiting the wedding of Kangetsu with the girl Kaneda, has already composed The Eagle's Song, but Tofu quickly redirects his poem. Having learned that Kangetsu did not become a doctor, Tatara Sampei wants to marry Tomiko Kaneda, and Kangetsu gladly gives this honor to him. Sampei invites everyone to the wedding. When guests disagree with Kusyami, the cat reflects on their life. "All these people seem carefree, but knock on the bottom of their soul, and you will hear some sad echo." Kotu is over two years old. Until now, he considered himself the smartest cat in the world, but recently read the reasoning of the cat Murr, and they struck him: “I learned that the cat Murr died a long time ago, a hundred years ago. Now, it turns out, only to surprise me, he became a ghost and appears to me from a distant other world. This cat did not know the laws of filial duty - once he went to visit his mother, bringing her a gift of fish, but on the way he could not stand it and ate it himself. This shows that his mind was not inferior to the mind of man. Once he even surprised his master by writing poetry. And if such a hero lived a century ago, such an insignificant cat like me should have said goodbye to this light for a long time and went to that kingdom where Nothing reigns. ” The cat decides to try beer and gets drunk. Having stepped out into the yard, he enters a vat of water dug into the ground. Having floundered for some time, he realizes that he still cannot get out, and entrusts himself to fate. It becomes easier and easier for him, and he no longer understands what he is experiencing - torment or bliss, and finds great peace, which is given only in death.
