Excerpt from Remembering Tanizaki Jun'ichirō & Matsuko by Anthony

H. Chambers.

MATSUKO: A Persian cat, a favorite of Tanizaki's, would wait by his seat at the table for dinner to begin. Tanizaki would give it choice pieces of sashimi, making the maids jealous. But if one of the maids, or anyone else, was mean to the cat, the cat would tell on them, going to Tanizaki and meowing plaintively. When the cat died, Tanizaki had it taken to the Ueno Zoo to be stuffed. Mrs. Tanizaki still has it, in its glass case, but keeps it put away because it's frightening to look at.