Birman

You will recognize the Birman in a second by one detail: it has four snow-white paws, as if it had just walked through spilled milk and stopped exactly at the ankles. These white “gloves” — at the back turning into the characteristic, sharply pointed “spurs” — are the breed's hallmark and the condition of its perfection. The rest of the cat is equally painterly: silky, semi-long, cream fur with darker points on the face, ears, and tail, and above all this a pair of round eyes the color of a deep, unreal blue. The Birman simply looks like a being that someone designed with great care — and, as legend has it, someone really did.

Because no breed has a more beautiful tale of its origin. The story goes that in a temple in old Burma there lived a white cat named Sinh, the companion of an old priest. When one night assailants killed the priest, the cat leapt onto his body and looked into the eyes of the temple's golden goddess — and then its fur blazed with gold, its eyes turned sapphire like her gaze, and its paws, where they touched the holy old man, remained immaculately white as a sign of his pure soul. The next morning all the temple cats looked the same. This is of course a beautiful fairy tale, and the true beginnings of the breed are lost somewhere between Burma and France of the early 20th century — but when you look the Birman in those blue eyes, the tale of Sinh suddenly seems far more probable than any genetics.

In daily life the Birman behaves exactly as befits a temple cat: with a gentleness and calm that spread to the whole house. It is one of the most well-balanced cats there are — quiet (it speaks rarely, in a delicate little voice), well-mannered, and astonishingly cheerful. It loves people deeply, but without possessiveness: it will follow you from room to room, sit beside you during work, settle by you in the evening — calmly accompanying, demanding nothing in return. It tolerates well the presence of children and other animals, rarely falls into a feline frenzy on the curtains, and gives the impression of a cat that long ago reached inner balance and now magnanimously shares it with its surroundings. Around the Birman it simply becomes quieter and warmer.

And here is something worth understanding before this gentleness lulls your vigilance: the Birman's calm disposition is not the same as iron health.

Because the Birman is a combination that in the feline world occurs rarely: the beauty of a sacred image and the character of the calmest of household members. It will not conquer your home — it will quiet and warm it, day by day, with that gentle, blue-eyed presence of its.

Legend says the Birman received white paws for faithfulness that did not retreat even in the face of death. When this cat curls up beside you in the evening and fixes those sapphire eyes of its on you, you will feel where that tale came from — and why in this breed in particular it sounds like pure truth.