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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11514-0.txt b/11514-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1dac976 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3877 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11514 *** + +BALCONY STORIES + +BY + +GRACE KING + + +1892 + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE BALCONY + +A DRAMA OF THREE + +LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE + +MIMI'S MARRIAGE + +THE MIRACLE CHAPEL + +THE STORY OF A DAY + +ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE + +A CRIPPLED HOPE + +"ONE OF US" + +THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL + +GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER + +THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION + +A DELICATE AFFAIR + +PUPASSE + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS" + +"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT SNAIL, WITH MY +MAIL?" + +CHAMPIGNY + +"I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT" + +"HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW" + +"ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION" + +"THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!" + +"THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT" + +"LITTLE MAMMY" + +"TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS" + +THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY + +WATCHING A LANDING + +"TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES" + +THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY + +THE FIRST COMMUNION + + + + +BALCONY STORIES + + + + +THE BALCONY + + +There is much of life passed on the balcony in a country where the +summer unrolls in six moon-lengths, and where the nights have to come +with a double endowment of vastness and splendor to compensate for the +tedious, sun-parched days. + +And in that country the women love to sit and talk together of summer +nights, on balconies, in their vague, loose, white garments,--men +are not balcony sitters,--with their sleeping children within easy +hearing, the stars breaking the cool darkness, or the moon making a +show of light--oh, such a discreet show of light!--through the vines. +And the children inside, waking to go from one sleep into another, +hear the low, soft mother-voices on the balcony, talking about this +person and that, old times, old friends, old experiences; and it seems +to them, hovering a moment in wakefulness, that there is no end of the +world or time, or of the mother-knowledge; but, illimitable as it +is, the mother-voices and the mother-love and protection fill it +all,--with their mother's hand in theirs, children are not afraid even +of God,--and they drift into slumber again, their little dreams +taking all kinds of pretty reflections from the great unknown horizon +outside, as their fragile soap-bubbles take on reflections from the +sun and clouds. + +Experiences, reminiscences, episodes, picked up as only women know how +to pick them up from other women's lives,--or other women's destinies, +as they prefer to call them,--and told as only women know how to +relate them; what God has done or is doing with some other woman whom +they have known--that is what interests women once embarked on their +own lives,--the embarkation takes place at marriage, or after the +marriageable time,--or, rather, that is what interests the women who +sit of summer nights on balconies. For in those long-moon countries +life is open and accessible, and romances seem to be furnished real +and gratis, in order to save, in a languor-breeding climate, the +ennui of reading and writing books. Each woman has a different way of +picking up and relating her stories, as each one selects different +pieces, and has a personal way of playing them on the piano. + +Each story _is_ different, or appears so to her; each has some unique +and peculiar pathos in it. And so she dramatizes and inflects it, +trying to make the point visible to her apparent also to her hearers. +Sometimes the pathos and interest to the hearers lie only in +this--that the relater has observed it, and gathered it, and finds it +worth telling. For do we not gather what we have not, and is not our +own lacking our one motive? It may be so, for it often appears so. + +And if a child inside be wakeful and precocious it is not dreams +alone that take on reflections from the balcony outside: through the +half-open shutters the still, quiet eyes look across the dim forms +on the balcony to the star-spangled or the moon-brightened heavens +beyond; while memory makes stores for the future, and germs are sown, +out of which the slow, clambering vine of thought issues, one day, to +decorate or hide, as it may be, the structures or ruins of life. + + + + +A DRAMA OF THREE + + +It was a regular dramatic performance every first of the month in the +little cottage of the old General and Madame B----. + +It began with the waking up of the General by his wife, standing at +the bedside with a cup of black coffee. + +"Hé! Ah! Oh, Honorine! Yes; the first of the month, and +affairs--affairs to be transacted." + +On those mornings when affairs were to be transacted there was not +much leisure for the household; and it was Honorine who constituted +the household. Not the old dressing-gown and slippers, the old, old +trousers, and the antediluvian neck-foulard of other days! Far from +it. It was a case of warm water (with even a fling of cologne in it), +of the trimming of beard and mustache by Honorine, and the black +broadcloth suit, and the brown satin stock, and that _je ne sais quoi +de dégagé_ which no one could possess or assume like the old General. +Whether he possessed or assumed it is an uncertainty which hung over +the fine manners of all the gentlemen of his day, who were kept +through their youth in Paris to cultivate _bon ton_ and an education. + +It was also something of a gala-day for Madame la Générale too, as it +must be a gala-day for all old wives to see their husbands pranked +in the manners and graces that had conquered their maidenhood, and +exhaling once more that ambrosial fragrance which once so well +incensed their compelling presence. + +Ah, to the end a woman loves to celebrate her conquest! It is the last +touch of misfortune with her to lose in the old, the ugly, and the +commonplace her youthful lord and master. If one could look under the +gray hairs and wrinkles with which time thatches old women, one would +be surprised to see the flutterings, the quiverings, the thrills, the +emotions, the coals of the heart-fires which death alone extinguishes, +when he commands the tenant to vacate. + +Honorine's hands chilled with the ice of sixteen as she approached +scissors to the white mustache and beard. When her finger-tips brushed +those lips, still well formed and roseate, she felt it, strange to +say, on her lips. When she asperged the warm water with cologne,--it +was her secret delight and greatest effort of economy to buy this +cologne,--she always had one little moment of what she called +faintness--that faintness which had veiled her eyes, and chained her +hands, and stilled her throbbing bosom, when as a bride she came from +the church with him. It was then she noticed the faint fragrance of +the cologne bath. Her lips would open as they did then, and she would +stand for a moment and think thoughts to which, it must be confessed, +she looked forward from month to month. What a man he had been! In +truth he belonged to a period that would accept nothing less from +Nature than physical beauty; and Nature is ever subservient to the +period. If it is to-day all small men, and to-morrow gnomes and +dwarfs, we may know that the period is demanding them from Nature. + +When the General had completed--let it be called no less than the +ceremony of--his toilet, he took his chocolate and his _pain de +Paris_. Honorine could not imagine him breakfasting on anything but +_pain de Paris._ Then he sat himself in his large arm-chair before his +escritoire, and began transacting his affairs with the usual-- + +"But where is that idiot, that dolt, that sluggard, that snail, with +my mail?" Honorine, busy in the breakfast-room: + +[Illustration: "WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT +SNAIL, WITH MY MAIL?"] + +"In a moment, husband. In a moment." + +"But he should be here now. It is the first of the month, it is nine +o'clock, I am ready; he should be here." + +"It is not yet nine o'clock, husband." + +"Not yet nine! Not yet nine! Am I not up? Am I not dressed? Have I not +breakfasted before nine?" + +"That is so, husband. That is so." Honorine's voice, prompt in +cheerful acquiescence, came from the next room, where she was washing +his cup, saucer, and spoon. + +"It is getting worse and worse every day. I tell you, Honorine, Pompey +must be discharged. He is worthless. He is trifling. Discharge him! +Discharge him! Do not have him about! Chase him out of the yard! Chase +him as soon as he makes his appearance! Do you hear, Honorine?" + +"You must have a little patience, husband." + +It was perhaps the only reproach one could make to Madame Honorine, +that she never learned by experience. + +"Patience! Patience! Patience is the invention of dullards and +sluggards. In a well-regulated world there should be no need of such a +thing as patience. Patience should be punished as a crime, or at +least as a breach of the peace. Wherever patience is found police +investigation should be made as for smallpox. Patience! Patience! I +never heard the word--I assure you, I never heard the word in Paris. +What do you think would be said there to the messenger who craved +patience of you? Oh, they know too well in Paris--a rataplan from the +walking-stick on his back, that would be the answer; and a, 'My good +fellow, we are not hiring professors of patience, but legs.'" + +"But, husband, you must remember we do not hire Pompey. He only does +it to oblige us, out of his kindness." + +"Oblige us! Oblige me! Kindness! A negro oblige me! Kind to me! That +is it; that is it. That is the way to talk under the new régime. It is +favor, and oblige, and education, and monsieur, and madame, now. What +child's play to call this a country--a government! I would not be +surprised"--jumping to his next position on this ever-recurring first +of the month theme--"I would not be surprised if Pompey has failed to +find the letter in the box. How do I know that the mail has not +been tampered with? From day to day I expect to hear it. What is to +prevent? Who is to interpose? The honesty of the officials? Honesty of +the officials--that is good! What a farce--honesty of officials! That +is evidently what has happened. The thought has not occurred to me in +vain. Pompey has gone. He has not found the letter, and--well; that is +the end." + +But the General had still another theory to account for the delay in +the appearance of his mail which he always posed abruptly after the +exhaustion of the arraignment of the post-office. + +"And why not Journel?" Journel was their landlord, a fellow of means, +but no extraction, and a favorite aversion of the old gentleman's. +"Journel himself? You think he is above it, _hé_? You think Journel +would not do such a thing? Ha! your simplicity, Honorine--your +simplicity is incredible. It is miraculous. I tell you, I have known +the Journels, from father to son, for--yes, for seventy-five years. +Was not his grandfather the overseer on my father's plantation? I was +not five years old when I began to know the Journels. And this fellow, +I know him better than he knows himself. I know him as well as God +knows him. I have made up my mind. I have made it up carefully that +the first time that letter fails on the first of the month I +shall have Journel arrested as a thief. I shall land him in the +penitentiary. What! You think I shall submit to have my mail tampered +with by a Journel? Their contents appropriated? What! You think there +was no coincidence in Journel's offering me his post-office box just +the month--just the month, before those letters began to arrive? You +think he did not have some inkling of them? Mark my words, Honorine, +he did--by some of his subterranean methods. And all these five years +he has been arranging his plans--that is all. He was arranging theft, +which no doubt has been consummated to-day. Oh, I have regretted it--I +assure you I have regretted it, that I did not promptly reject his +proposition, that, in fact, I ever had anything to do with the +fellow." + +It was almost invariably, so regularly do events run in this +world,--it was almost invariably that the negro messenger made his +appearance at this point. For five years the General had perhaps +not been interrupted as many times, either above or below the last +sentence. The mail, or rather the letter, was opened, and the usual +amount--three ten-dollar bills--was carefully extracted and counted. +And as if he scented the bills, even as the General said he did, +within ten minutes after their delivery, Journel made his appearance +to collect the rent. + +It could only have been in Paris, among that old retired nobility, who +counted their names back, as they expressed it, "au de çà du déluge," +that could have been acquired the proper manner of treating a +"roturier" landlord: to measure him with the eyes from head to foot; +to hand the rent--the ten-dollar bill--with the tips of the fingers; +to scorn a look at the humbly tendered receipt; to say: "The cistern +needs repairing, the roof leaks; I must warn you that unless such +notifications meet with more prompt attention than in the past, +you must look for another tenant," etc., in the monotonous tone of +supremacy, and in the French, not of Journel's dictionary, nor of +the dictionary of any such as he, but in the French of Racine and +Corneille; in the French of the above suggested circle, which inclosed +the General's memory, if it had not inclosed--as he never tired of +recounting--his star-like personality. + +A sheet of paper always infolded the bank-notes. It always bore, in +fine but sexless tracery, "From one who owes you much." + +There, that was it, that sentence, which, like a locomotive, bore the +General and his wife far on these firsts of the month to two opposite +points of the horizon, in fact, one from the other--"From one who owes +you much." + +The old gentleman would toss the paper aside with the bill receipt. +In the man to whom the bright New Orleans itself almost owed its +brightness, it was a paltry act to search and pick for a debtor. +Friends had betrayed and deserted him; relatives had forgotten him; +merchants had failed with his money; bank presidents had stooped to +deceive him; for he was an old man, and had about run the gamut of +human disappointments--a gamut that had begun with a C major of trust, +hope, happiness, and money. + +His political party had thrown him aside. Neither for ambassador, +plenipotentiary, senator, congressman, not even for a clerkship, could +he be nominated by it. Certes! "From one who owed him much." He had +fitted the cap to a new head, the first of every month, for five +years, and still the list was not exhausted. Indeed, it would have +been hard for the General to look anywhere and not see some one whose +obligations to him far exceeded this thirty dollars a month. Could he +avoid being happy with such eyes? + +But poor Madame Honorine! She who always gathered up the receipts, and +the "From one who owes you much"; who could at an instant's warning +produce the particular ones for any month of the past half-decade. +She kept them filed, not only in her armoire, but the scrawled +papers--skewered, as it were, somewhere else--where women from time +immemorial have skewered such unsigned papers. She was not original in +her thoughts--no more, for the matter of that, than the General was. +Tapped at any time on the first of the month, when she would pause +in her drudgery to reimpale her heart by a sight of the written +characters on the scrap of paper, her thoughts would have been found +flowing thus, "One can give everything, and yet be sure of nothing." + +When Madame Honorine said "everything," she did not, as women in such +cases often do, exaggerate. When she married the General, she in +reality gave the youth of sixteen, the beauty (ah, do not trust the +denial of those wrinkles, the thin hair, the faded eyes!) of an angel, +the dot of an heiress. Alas! It was too little at the time. Had she in +her own person united all the youth, all the beauty, all the wealth, +sprinkled parsimoniously so far and wide over all the women in this +land, would she at that time have done aught else with this than +immolate it on the burning pyre of the General's affection? "And yet +be sure of nothing." + +It is not necessary, perhaps, to explain that last clause. It is very +little consolation for wives that their husbands have forgotten, when +some one else remembers. Some one else! Ah! there could be so many +some one Else's in the General's life, for in truth he had been +irresistible to excess. But this was one particular some one else who +had been faithful for five years. Which one? + +When Madame Honorine solves that enigma she has made up her mind how +to act. + +As for Journel, it amused him more and more. He would go away from the +little cottage rubbing his hands with pleasure (he never saw Madame +Honorine, by the way, only the General). He would have given far more +than thirty dollars a month for this drama; for he was not only rich, +but a great _farceur_. + + + + +LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE + + +That was what she was called by everybody as soon as she was seen or +described. Her name, besides baptismal titles, was Idalie Sainte Foy +Mortemart des Islets. When she came into society, in the brilliant +little world of New Orleans, it was the event of the season, and after +she came in, whatever she did became also events. Whether she went, or +did not go; what she said, or did not say; what she wore, and did not +wear--all these became important matters of discussion, quoted as much +or more than what the president said, or the governor thought. And +in those days, the days of '59, New Orleans was not, as it is now, a +one-heiress place, but it may be said that one could find heiresses +then as one finds type-writing girls now. + +Mademoiselle Idalie received her birth, and what education she had, on +her parents' plantation, the famed old Reine Sainte Foy place, and +it is no secret that, like the ancient kings of France, her birth +exceeded her education. + +It was a plantation, the Reine Sainte Foy, the richness and luxury of +which are really well described in those fervid pictures of tropical +life, at one time the passion of philanthropic imaginations, excited +and exciting over the horrors of slavery. Although these pictures were +then often accused of being purposely exaggerated, they seem now to +fall short of, instead of surpassing, the truth. Stately walls, acres +of roses, miles of oranges, unmeasured fields of cane, colossal +sugar-house--they were all there, and all the rest of it, with the +slaves, slaves, slaves everywhere, whole villages of negro cabins. And +there were also, most noticeable to the natural, as well as to +the visionary, eye--there were the ease, idleness, extravagance, +self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short the whole +enumeration, the moral _sine qua non_, as some people considered it, +of the wealthy slaveholder of aristocratic descent and tastes. + +What Mademoiselle Idalie cared to learn she studied, what she did not +she ignored; and she followed the same simple rule untrammeled in her +eating, drinking, dressing, and comportment generally; and whatever +discipline may have been exercised on the place, either in fact or +fiction, most assuredly none of it, even so much as in a threat, +ever attended her sacred person. When she was just turned sixteen, +Mademoiselle Idalie made up her mind to go into society. Whether she +was beautiful or not, it is hard to say. It is almost impossible +to appreciate properly the beauty of the rich, the very rich. The +unfettered development, the limitless choice of accessories, the +confidence, the self-esteem, the sureness of expression, the +simplicity of purpose, the ease of execution--all these produce a +certain effect of beauty behind which one really cannot get to measure +length of nose, or brilliancy of eye. This much can be said: there was +nothing in her that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty +on her part, or credit of it on the part of others. She was very tall +and very thin with small head, long neck, black eyes, and abundant +straight black hair,--for which her hair-dresser deserved more praise +than she,--good teeth, of course, and a mouth that, even in prayer, +talked nothing but commands; that is about all she had _en fait +d'ornements_, as the modesties say. It may be added that she walked as +if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation extended over the whole earth, and +the soil of it were too vile for her tread. Of course she did not buy +her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was ordered from Paris, and +came as regularly through the custom-house as the modes and robes to +the milliners. She was furnished by a certain house there, just as one +of a royal family would be at the present day. As this had lasted from +her layette up to her sixteenth year, it may be imagined what took +place when she determined to make her début. Then it was literally, +not metaphorically, _carte blanche_, at least so it got to the ears of +society. She took a sheet of note-paper, wrote the date at the top, +added, "I make my début in November," signed her name at the extreme +end of the sheet, addressed it to her dressmaker in Paris, and sent +it. + +It was said that in her dresses the very handsomest silks were +used for linings, and that real lace was used where others put +imitation,--around the bottoms of the skirts, for instance,--and silk +ribbons of the best quality served the purposes of ordinary tapes; and +sometimes the buttons were of real gold and silver, sometimes set +with precious stones. Not that she ordered these particulars, but the +dressmakers, when given _carte blanche_ by those who do not condescend +to details, so soon exhaust the outside limits of garments that +perforce they take to plastering them inside with gold, so to speak, +and, when the bill goes in, they depend upon the furnishings to carry +out a certain amount of the contract in justifying the price. And it +was said that these costly dresses, after being worn once or twice, +were cast aside, thrown upon the floor, given to the negroes--anything +to get them out of sight. Not an inch of the real lace, not one of the +jeweled buttons, not a scrap of ribbon, was ripped off to save. And it +was said that if she wanted to romp with her dogs in all her finery, +she did it; she was known to have ridden horseback, one moonlight +night, all around the plantation in a white silk dinner-dress flounced +with Alençon. And at night, when she came from the balls, tired, tired +to death as only balls can render one, she would throw herself down +upon her bed in her tulle skirts,--on top, or not, of the exquisite +flowers, she did not care,--and make her maid undress her in that +position; often having her bodices cut off her, because she was too +tired to turn over and have them unlaced. + +That she was admired, raved about, loved even, goes without saying. +After the first month she held the refusal of half the beaux of New +Orleans. Men did absurd, undignified, preposterous things for her; and +she? Love? Marry? The idea never occurred to her. She treated the +most exquisite of her pretenders no better than she treated her Paris +gowns, for the matter of that. She could not even bring herself to +listen to a proposal patiently; whistling to her dogs, in the middle +of the most ardent protestations, or jumping up and walking away with +a shrug of the shoulders, and a "Bah!" + +[Illustration: "WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS."] + +Well! Every one knows what happened after '59. There is no need to +repeat. The history of one is the history of all. But there was this +difference--for there is every shade of difference in misfortune, as +there is every shade of resemblance in happiness. Mortemart des Islets +went off to fight. That was natural; his family had been doing that, +he thought, or said, ever since Charlemagne. Just as naturally he was +killed in the first engagement. They, his family, were always +among the first killed; so much so that it began to be considered +assassination to fight a duel with any of them. All that was in the +ordinary course of events. One difference in their misfortunes lay +in that after the city was captured, their plantation, so near, +convenient, and rich in all kinds of provisions, was selected to +receive a contingent of troops--a colored company. If it had been a +colored company raised in Louisiana it might have been different; and +these negroes mixed with the negroes in the neighborhood,--and negroes +are no better than whites, for the proportion of good and bad among +them,--and the officers were always off duty when they should have +been on, and on when they should have been off. + +One night the dwelling caught fire. There was an immediate rush to +save the ladies. Oh, there was no hesitation about that! They were +seized in their beds, and carried out in the very arms of their +enemies; carried away off to the sugar-house, and deposited there. No +danger of their doing anything but keep very quiet and still in their +_chemises de nuit_, and their one sheet apiece, which was about all +that was saved from the conflagration--that is, for them. But it must +be remembered that this is all hearsay. When one has not been present, +one knows nothing of one's own knowledge; one can only repeat. It has +been repeated, however, that although the house was burned to +the ground, and everything in it destroyed, wherever, for a year +afterward, a man of that company or of that neighborhood was found, +there could have been found also, without search-warrant, property +that had belonged to the Des Islets. That is the story; and it is +believed or not, exactly according to prejudice. + +How the ladies ever got out of the sugar-house, history does not +relate; nor what they did. It was not a time for sociability, either +personal or epistolary. At one offensive word your letter, and you, +very likely, examined; and Ship Island for a hotel, with soldiers for +hostesses! Madame Des Islets died very soon after the accident--of +rage, they say; and that was about all the public knew. + +Indeed, at that time the society of New Orleans had other things +to think about than the fate of the Des Islets. As for _la grande +demoiselle_, she had prepared for her own oblivion in the hearts of +her female friends. And the gentlemen,--her _preux chevaliers_,--they +were burning with other passions than those which had driven them to +her knees, encountering a little more serious response than "bahs" and +shrugs. And, after all, a woman seems the quickest thing forgotten +when once the important affairs of life come to men for consideration. + +It might have been ten years according to some calculations, or ten +eternities,--the heart and the almanac never agree about time,--but +one morning old Champigny (they used to call him Champignon) was +walking along his levee front, calculating how soon the water would +come over, and drown him out, as the Louisianians say. It was before a +seven-o'clock breakfast, cold, wet, rainy, and discouraging. The road +was knee-deep in mud, and so broken up with hauling, that it was like +walking upon waves to get over it. A shower poured down. Old Champigny +was hurrying in when he saw a figure approaching. He had to stop to +look at it, for it was worth while. The head was hidden by a green +barege veil, which the showers had plentifully besprinkled with dew; a +tall, thin figure. Figure! No; not even could it be called a figure: +straight up and down, like a finger or a post; high-shouldered, and +a step--a step like a plow-man's. No umbrella; no--nothing more, in +fact. It does not sound so peculiar as when first related--something +must be forgotten. The feet--oh, yes, the feet--they were like +waffle-irons, or frying-pans, or anything of that shape. + +Old Champigny did not care for women--he never had; they simply did +not exist for him in the order of nature. He had been married once, +it is true, about a half century before; but that was not reckoned +against the existence of his prejudice, because he was _célibataire_ +to his finger-tips, as any one could see a mile away. But that woman +_intrigué'd_ him. + +He had no servant to inquire from. He performed all of his own +domestic work in the wretched little cabin that replaced his old home. +For Champigny also belonged to the great majority of the _nouveaux +pauvres_. He went out into the rice-field, where were one or two +hands that worked on shares with him, and he asked them. They knew +immediately; there is nothing connected with the parish that a +field-hand does not know at once. She was the teacher of the colored +public school some three or four miles away. "Ah," thought Champigny, +"some Northern lady on a mission." He watched to see her return in the +evening, which she did, of course; in a blinding rain. Imagine the +green barege veil then; for it remained always down over her face. + +[Illustration: CHAMPIGNY.] + +Old Champigny could not get over it that he had never seen her before. +But he must have seen her, and, with his abstraction and old age, not +have noticed her, for he found out from the negroes that she had been +teaching four or five years there. And he found out also--how, is not +important--that she was Idalie Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. _La +grande demoiselle_! He had never known her in the old days, owing to +his uncomplimentary attitude toward women, but he knew of her, +of course, and of her family. It should have been said that his +plantation was about fifty miles higher up the river, and on the +opposite bank to Reine Sainte Foy. It seemed terrible. The old +gentleman had had reverses of his own, which would bear the telling, +but nothing was more shocking to him than this--that Idalie Sainte +Foy Mortemart des Islets should be teaching a public colored school +for--it makes one blush to name it--seven dollars and a half a month. +For seven dollars and a half a month to teach a set of--well! He found +out where she lived, a little cabin--not so much worse than his own, +for that matter--in the corner of a field; no companion, no servant, +nothing but food and shelter. Her clothes have been described. + +Only the good God himself knows what passed in Champigny's mind on +the subject. We know only the results. He went and married _la grande +demoiselle_. How? Only the good God knows that too. Every first of the +month, when he goes to the city to buy provisions, he takes her with +him--in fact, he takes her everywhere with him. + +Passengers on the railroad know them well, and they always have a +chance to see her face. When she passes her old plantation _la grande +demoiselle_ always lifts her veil for one instant--the inevitable +green barege veil. What a face! Thin, long, sallow, petrified! And the +neck! If she would only tie something around the neck! And her plain, +coarse cottonade gown! The negro women about her were better dressed +than she. + +Poor old Champignon! It was not an act of charity to himself, no +doubt cross and disagreeable, besides being ugly. And as for love, +gratitude! + + + + +MIMI'S MARRIAGE + + +This how she told about it, sitting in her little room,--her bridal +chamber,--not larger, really not larger than sufficed for the bed +there, the armoire here, the bureau opposite, and the washstand behind +the door, the corners all touching. But a nice set of furniture, quite +_comme il faut_,--handsome, in fact,--as a bride of good family should +have. And she was dressed very prettily, too, in her long white +_negligée_, with plenty of lace and ruffles and blue ribbons,--such as +only the Creole girls can make, and brides, alas! wear,--the pretty +honeymoon costume that suggests, that suggests--well! to proceed. "The +poor little cat!" as one could not help calling her, so _mignonne_, +so blond, with the pretty black eyes, and the rosebud of a +mouth,--whenever she closed it,--a perfect kiss. + +"But you know, Louise," she said, beginning quite seriously at the +beginning, "papa would never have consented, never, never--poor papa! +Indeed, I should never have asked him; it would only have been one +humiliation more for him, poor papa! So it was well he was dead, if +it was God's will for it to be. Of course I had my dreams, like +everybody. I was so blond, so blond, and so small; it seemed like a +law I should marry a _brun_, a tall, handsome _brun_, with a mustache +and a fine barytone voice. That was how I always arranged it, and--you +will laugh--but a large, large house, and numbers of servants, and a +good cook, but a superlatively good cuisine, and wine and all that, +and long, trailing silk dresses, and theater every night, and voyages +to Europe, and--well, everything God had to give, in fact. You know, I +get that from papa, wanting everything God has to give! Poor papa! It +seemed to me I was to meet him at any time, my handsome _brun_. I used +to look for him positively on my way to school, and back home again, +and whenever I would think of him I would try and walk so prettily, +and look so pretty! _Mon Dieu!_ I was not ten years old yet! And +afterward it was only for that that I went into society. What should +girls go into society for otherwise but to meet their _brun_ or their +blond? Do you think it is amusing, to economize and economize, and sew +and sew, just to go to a party to dance? No! I assure you, I went into +society only for that; and I do not believe what girls say--they go +into society only for that too. + +"You know at school how we used to _tirer la bonne aventure._[1] Well, +every time he was not _brun, riche, avenant_, Jules, or Raoul, or Guy, +I simply would not accept it, but would go on drawing until I obtained +what I wanted. As I tell you, I thought it was my destiny. And when I +would try with a flower to see if he loved me,--_Il m'aime, un peu, +beaucoup, passionément, pas du tout_,--if it were _pas du tout_, I +would always throw the flower away, and begin tearing off the leaves +from another one immediately. _Passionément_ was what I wanted, and I +always got it in the end. + +[Footnote 1: _La bonne aventure_ is or was generally a very much +battered foolscap copy-book, which contained a list of all possible +elements of future (school-girl) happiness. Each item answered a +question, and had a number affixed to it. To draw one's fortune +consisted in asking question after question, and guessing a number, +a companion volunteering to read the answers. To avoid cheating, the +books were revised from time to time, and the numbers changed.] + +"But papa, poor papa, he never knew anything of that, of course. He +would get furious when any one would come to see me, and sometimes, +when he would take me in society, if I danced with a 'nobody,'--as he +called no matter whom I danced with,--he would come up and take me +away with such an air--such an air! It would seem that papa thought +himself better than everybody in the world. But it went worse and +worse with papa, not only in the affairs of the world, but in health. +Always thinner and thinner, always a cough; in fact, you know, I am a +little feeble-chested myself, from papa. And Clementine! Clementine +with her children--just think, Louise, eight! I thank God my mama had +only me, if papa's second wife had to have so many. And so naughty! I +assure you, they were all devils; and no correction, no punishment, no +education--but you know Clementine! I tell you, sometimes on account +of those children I used to think myself in 'ell [making the Creole's +attempt and failure to pronounce the h], and Clementine had no pride +about them. If they had shoes, well; if they had not shoes, well +also. + +[Illustration] + +"'But Clementine!' I would expostulate, I would pray-- + +"'But do not be a fool, Mimi,' she would say. 'Am I God? Can I do +miracles? Or must I humiliate your papa?' + +"That was true. Poor papa! It would have humiliated papa. When he had +money he gave; only it was a pity he had no money. As for what he +observed, he thought it was Clementine's negligence. For, it is true, +Clementine had no order, no industry, in the best of fortune as in the +worst. But to do her justice, it was not her fault this time, only she +let him believe it, to save his pride; and Clementine, you know, has a +genius for stories. I assure you, Louise, I was desperate. I prayed to +God to help me, to advise me. I could not teach--I had no education; I +could not go into a shop--that would be dishonoring papa--and _enfin_, +I was too pretty. 'And proclaim to the world,' Clementine would cry, +'that your papa does not make money for his family.' That was true. The +world is so malicious. You know, Louise, sometimes it seems to me +the world is glad to hear that a man cannot support his family; it +compliments those who can. As if papa had not intelligence, and honor, +and honesty! But they do not count now as in old times, 'before the +war.' + +"And so, when I thought of that, I laughed and talked and played the +thoughtless like Clementine, and made bills. We made bills--we had +to--for everything; we could do that, you know, on our old name and +family. But it is too long! I am sure it is too long and tiresome! +What egotism on my part! Come, we will take a glass of anisette, and +talk of something else--your trip, your family. No? no? You are only +asking me out of politeness! You are so _aimable_, so kind. Well, if +you are not _ennuyée_--in fact, I want to tell you. It was too long +to write, and I detest a pen. To me there is no instrument of torture +like a pen. + +"Well, the lady next door, she was an American, and common, very +common, according to papa. In comparison to us she had no family +whatever. Our little children were forbidden even to associate with +her little children. I thought that was ridiculous--not that I am a +democrat, but I thought it ridiculous. But the children cared; they +were so disobedient and they were always next door, and they always +had something nice to eat over there. I sometimes thought Clementine +used to encourage their disobedience, just for the good things they +got to eat over there. But papa was always making fun of them; you +know what a sharp tongue he had. The gentleman was a clerk; and, +according to papa, the only true gentlemen in the world had family +and a profession. We did not dare allow ourselves to think it, but +Clementine and I knew that they, in fact, were in more comfortable +circumstances than we. + +"The lady, who also had a great number of children, sent one day, with +all the discretion and delicacy possible, and asked me if I would +be so kind as to--guess what, Louise! But only guess! But you never +could! Well, to darn some of her children's stockings for her. It was +God who inspired her, I am sure, on account of my praying so much to +him. You will be shocked, Louise, when I tell you. It sounds like a +sin, but I was not in despair when papa died. It was a grief,--yes, +it seized the heart, but it was not despair. Men ought not to be +subjected to the humiliation of life; they are not like women, you +know. We are made to stand things; they have their pride,--their +_orgueil_, as we say in French,--and that is the point of honor with +some men. And Clementine and I, we could not have concealed it much +longer. In fact, the truth was crying out everywhere, in the children, +in the house, in our own persons, in our faces. The darning did not +provide a superfluity, I guarantee you! + +"Poor papa! He caught cold. He was condemned from the first. And so +all his fine qualities died; for he had fine qualities--they were too +fine for this age, that was all. Yes; it was a kindness of God to take +him before he found out. If it was to be, it was better. Just so with +Clementine as with me. After the funeral--crack! everything went to +pieces. We were at the four corners for the necessaries of life, and +the bills came in--my dear, the bills that came in! What memories! +what memories! Clementine and I exclaimed; there were some bills that +we had completely forgotten about. The lady next door sent her brother +over when papa died. He sat up all night, that night, and he assisted +us in all our arrangements. And he came in afterward, every evening. +If papa had been there, there would have been a fine scene over it; he +would have had to take the door, very likely. But now there was no one +to make objections. And so when, as I say, we were at the four corners +for the necessaries of life, he asked Clementine's permission to ask +me to marry him. + +"I give you my word, Louise, I had forgotten there was such a thing as +marriage in the world for me! I had forgotten it as completely as the +chronology of the Merovingian dynasty, alas! with all the other school +things forgotten. And I do not believe Clementine remembered there was +such a possibility in the world for me. _Mon Dieu!_ when a girl is +poor she may have all the beauty in the world--not that I had beauty, +only a little prettiness. But you should have seen Clementine! She +screamed for joy when she told me. Oh, there was but one answer +according to her, and according to everybody she could consult, in her +haste. They all said it was a dispensation of Providence in my favor. +He was young, he was strong; he did not make a fortune, it was true, +but he made a good living. And what an assistance to have a man in +the family!--an assistance for Clementine and the children. But the +principal thing, after all, was, he wanted to marry me. Nobody had +ever wanted that before, my dear! + +"Quick, quick, it was all arranged. All my friends did something for +me. One made my _peignoirs_ for me, one this, one that--_ma foi!_ +I did not recognize myself. One made all the toilet of the bureau, +another of the bed, and we all sewed on the wedding-dress together. +And you should have seen Clementine, going out in all her great +mourning, looking for a house, looking for a servant! But the wedding +was private on account of poor papa. But you know, Loulou, I had never +time to think, except about Clementine and the children, and when I +thought of all those poor little children, poor papa's children, I +said 'Quick, quick,' like the rest. + +"It was the next day, the morning after the wedding, I had time to +think. I was sitting here, just as you see me now, in my pretty new +_negligée_. I had been looking at all the pretty presents I have +shown you, and my trousseau, and my furniture,--it is not bad, as +you see,--my dress, my veil, my ring, and--I do not know--I do not +know--but, all of a sudden, from everywhere came the thought of my +_brun_, my handsome _brun_ with the mustache, and the _bonne aventure, +ricke, avenant_, the Jules, Raoul, Guy, and the flower leaves, and +'_il m'aime, un pen, beaucoup, pas du tout,' passionnément_, and the +way I expected to meet him walking to and from school, walking as if +I were dancing the steps, and oh, my plans, my plans, my plans,--silk +dresses, theater, voyages to Europe,--and poor papa, so fine, so tall, +so aristocratic. I cannot tell you how it all came; it seized my +heart, and, _mon Dieu!_ I cried out, and I wept, I wept, I wept. How +I wept! It pains me here now to remember it. Hours, hours it lasted, +until I had no tears in my body, and I had to weep without them, with +sobs and moans. But this, I have always observed, is the time for +reflection--after the tears are all out. And I am sure God himself +gave me my thoughts. 'Poor little Mimi!' I thought, '_fi done_! You +are going to make a fool of yourself now when it is all over, because +why? It is God who manages the world, and not you. You pray to God to +help you in your despair, and he has helped you. He has sent you a +good, kind husband who adores you; who asks only to be a brother to +your sisters and brothers, and son to Clementine; who has given you +more than you ever possessed in your life--but because he did not come +out of the _bonne aventure_--and who gets a husband out of the +_bonne aventure?_--and would your _brun_ have come to you in your +misfortune?' I am sure God inspired those thoughts in me. + +[Illustration: "I wept, I wept, I wept."] + +"I tell you, I rose from that bed--naturally I had thrown myself upon +it. Quick I washed my face, I brushed my hair, and, you see these bows +of ribbons,--look, here are the marks of the tears,--I turned them. +_Hé,_ Loulou, it occurs to me, that if you examined the blue bows on +a bride's _negligée_, you might always find tears on the other side; +for do they not all have to marry whom God sends? and am I the only +one who had dreams? It is the end of dreams, marriage; and that is the +good thing about it. God lets us dream to keep us quiet, but he knows +when to wake us up, I tell you. The blue bows knew! And now, you see, +I prefer my husband to my _brun_; in fact, Loulou, I adore him, and I +am furiously jealous about him. And he is so good to Clementine and +the poor little children; and see his photograph--a blond, and not +good-looking, and small! + +"But poor papa! If he had been alive, I am sure he never would have +agreed with God about my marriage." + + + + +THE MIRACLE CHAPEL + + +Every heart has a miracle to pray for. Every life holds that which +only a miracle can cure. To prove that there have never been, that +there can never be, miracles does not alter the matter. So long as +there is something hoped for,--that does not come in the legitimate +channel of possible events,--so long as something does come not to be +hoped or expected in the legitimate channel of possible events, just +so long will the miracle be prayed for. + +The rich and the prosperous, it would seem, do not depend upon God so +much, do not need miracles, as the poor do. They do not have to pray +for the extra crust when starvation hovers near; for the softening of +an obdurate landlord's heart; for strength in temptation, light in +darkness, salvation from vice; for a friend in friendlessness; for +that miracle of miracles, an opportunity to struggling ambition; for +the ending of a dark night, the breaking of day; and, oh! for God's +own miracle to the bedside-watchers--the change for the better, when +death is there and the apothecary's skill too far, far away. The poor, +the miserable, the unhappy, they can show their miracles by the score; +that is why God is called the poor man's friend. He does not mind, so +they say, going in the face of logic and reason to relieve them; for +often the kind and charitable are sadly hampered by the fetters of +logic and reason, which hold them, as it were, away from their own +benevolence. + +But the rich have their miracles, no doubt, even in that beautiful +empyrean of moneyed ease in which the poor place them. Their money +cannot buy all they enjoy, and God knows how much of their sorrow it +assuages. As it is, one hears now and then of accidents among them, +conversions to better thoughts, warding off of danger, rescue of life; +and heirs are sometimes born, and husbands provided, and fortunes +saved, in such surprising ways, that even the rich, feeling their +limitations in spite of their money, must ascribe it privately if not +publicly to other potencies than their own. These cathedral _tours +de force_, however, do not, if the truth be told, convince like the +miracles of the obscure little chapel. + +There is always a more and a most obscure little miracle chapel, and +as faith seems ever to lead unhesitatingly to the latter one, there is +ever rising out of humility and obscurity, as in response to a demand, +some new shrine, to replace the wear and tear and loss of other +shrines by prosperity. For, alas! it is hard even for a chapel to +remain obscure and humble in the face of prosperity and popularity. +And how to prevent such popularity and prosperity? As soon as the +noise of a real miracle in it gets abroad, every one is for hurrying +thither at once with their needs and their prayers, their candles +and their picayunes; and the little miracle chapel, perhaps despite +itself, becomes with mushroom growth a church, and the church a +cathedral, from whose resplendent altars the cheap, humble ex-voto +tablets, the modest beginnings of its ecclesiastical fortunes, are +before long banished to dimly lighted lateral shrines. + +The miracle chapel in question lay at the end of a very confusing but +still intelligible route. It is not in truth a chapel at all, but a +consecrated chamber in a very small, very lowly cottage, which stands, +or one might appropriately, if not with absolute novelty, say which +kneels, in the center of a large garden, a garden primeval in +rusticity and size, its limits being defined by no lesser boundaries +than the four intersecting streets outside, and its culture showing +only the careless, shiftless culture of nature. The streets outside +were miracles themselves in that, with their liquid contents, they +were streets and not bayous. However, they protected their island +chapel almost as well as a six-foot moat could have done. There was a +small paved space on the sidewalk that served to the pedestrian as an +indication of the spot in the tall, long, broad fence where a gate +might be sought. It was a small gate with a strong latch. It required +a strong hand to open it. At the sound of the click it made, the +little street ragamuffin, who stood near, peeping through the fence, +looked up. He had worked quite a hole between the boards with his +fingers. Such an anxious expression passed over his face that even +a casual passer-by could not help relieving it by a question--any +question: + +"Is this the miracle chapel, little boy?" + +"Yes, ma'am; yes." Then his expression changed to one of eagerness, +yet hardly less anxious. + +"Here. Take this--" + +He did not hold out his hand, the coin had to seek it. At its touch he +refused to take it. + +"I ain't begging." + +"What are you looking at so through the fence?" He was all sadness +now. + +"Just looking." + +"Is there anything to see inside?" + +He did not answer. The interrogation was repeated. + +"I can't see nothing. I'm blind," putting his eyes again to the hole, +first one, then the other. + +"Come, won't you tell me how this came to be a miracle chapel?" + +"Oh, ma'am,"--he turned his face from the fence, and clasped his hands +in excitement,--"it was a poor widow woman who come here with her baby +that was a-dying, and she prayed to the Virgin Mary, and the Virgin +Mary made the baby live--" + +He dropped his voice, the words falling slower and slower. As he +raised his face, one could see then that he was blind, and the +accident that had happened to him, in fording the street. What +sightless eyes! What a wet, muddy little skeleton! Ten? No; hardly ten +years of age. + +"The widow woman she picked up her baby, and she run down the walk +here, and out into the street screaming--she was so glad,"--putting +his eyes to the peep-hole again,--"and the Virgin Mary come down the +walk after her, and come through the gate, too; and that was all she +seed--the widow woman." + +"Did you know the widow woman?" + +He shook his head. + +"How do you know it?" + +"That was what they told me. And they told me, the birds all begun to +sing at once, and the flowers all lighted up like the sun was shining +on them. They seed her. And she come down the walk, and through the +gate," his voice lowering again to a whisper. + +Aye, how the birds must have sung, and the flowers shone, to the +widowed mother as she ran, nay, leaped, down that rose-hedged walk, +with her restored baby clasped to her bosom! + +"_They_ seed her," repeated the little fellow. "And that is why you +stand here--to see her, too?" + +His shoulder turned uneasily in the clasp upon it. + +"They seed her, and they ain't got no eyes." + +"Have you no mother?" + +"Ain't never had no mother." A thought struck him. "Would that count, +ma'am? Would that count? The little baby that was dying--yes, ma'am, +it had a mother; and it's the mothers that come here constant with +their children; I sometimes hear 'em dragging them in by the hand." + +"How long have you been coming here?" + +"Ever since the first time I heard it, ma'am." + +Street ragamuffins do not cry: it would be better if they did so, when +they are so young and so blind; it would be easier for the spectator, +the auditor. + +"They seed her--I might see her ef--ef I could see her once--ef--ef +I could see anything once." His voice faltered; but he stiffened it +instantly. "She might see me. She can't pass through this gate without +seeing me; and--and--ef she seed me--and I didn't even see her--oh, +I'm so tired of being blind!" + +"Did you never go inside to pray?" How embarrassing such a question +is, even to a child! + +"No, ma'am. Does that count, too? The little baby didn't pray, the +flowers didn't go inside, nor the birds. And they say the birds broke +out singing all at once, and the flowers shined, like the sun was +shining on 'em--like the sun was shining in 'em," he corrected +himself. "The birds they can see, and the flowers they can't see, and +they seed her." He shivered with the damp cold--and perhaps too with +hunger. + +"Where do you live?" + +He wouldn't answer. + +"What do you live on?" + +He shook his head. + +"Come with me." He could not resist the grasp on his shoulder, and the +firm directing of his bare, muddy feet through the gate, up the walk, +and into the chamber which the Virgin found that day. He was turned to +the altar, and pressed down on his knees. + +One should not look at the face of a blind child praying to the Virgin +for sight. Only the Virgin herself should see that--and if she once +saw that little boy! There were hearts, feet, hands, and eyes enough +hanging around to warrant hope at least, if not faith; the effigies of +the human aches and pains that had here found relief, if not surcease; +feet and hands beholden to no physician for their exorcism of +rheumatism; eyes and ears indebted to no oculist or aurist; and the +hearts,--they are always in excess,--and, to the most skeptical, there +is something sweetly comforting in the sight of so many cured hearts, +with their thanks cut deep, as they should be, in the very marble +thereof. Where the bed must have stood was the altar, rising by easy +gradations, brave in ecclesiastical deckings, to the plaster figure of +her whom those yearning hearts were seeing, whom those murmuring lips +were addressing. Hearts must be all alike to her at such a distance, +but the faces to the looker-on were so different. The eyes straining +to look through all the experiences and troubles that their life has +held to plead, as only eyes can plead, to one who can, if she will, +perform their miracle for them. And the mouths,--the sensitive human +mouths,--each one distorted by the tragedy against which it was +praying. + +Their miracles! their miracles! what trifles to divinity! Perhaps +hardly more to humanity! How far a simple looker-on could supply them +if so minded! Perhaps a liberal exercise of love and charity by not +more than half a dozen well-to-do people could answer every prayer in +the room! But what a miracle that would be, and how the Virgin's heart +would gladden thereat, and jubilate over her restored heart-dying +children, even as the widowed mother did over her one dying babe! + +And the little boy had stopped praying. The futility of it--perhaps +his own impotence--had overcome him. He was crying, and past the shame +of showing it--crying helplessly, hopelessly. Tears were rolling out +of his sightless eyes over his wordless lips. He could not pray; he +could only cry. What better, after all, can any of us do? But what +a prayer to a woman--to even the plaster figure of a woman! And the +Virgin did hear him; for she had him taken without loss of a moment to +the hospital, and how easy she made it for the physician to remove the +disability! To her be the credit. + + + + +THE STORY OF A DAY + + +It is really not much, the story; it is only the arrangement of it, as +we would say of our dresses and our drawing-rooms. + +It began with the dawn, of course; and the skiff for our voyage, +silvered with dew, waiting in the mist for us, as if it had floated +down in a cloud from heaven to the bayou. When repeated, this sounds +like poor poetry; but that is the way one thinks at day dawn, when the +dew is yet, as it were, upon our brains, and our ideas are still half +dreams, and our waking hearts, alas! as innocent as waking babies +playing with their toes. + +Our oars waked the waters of the bayou, as motionless as a sleeping +snake under its misty covert--to continue the poetical language or +thought. The ripples ran frightened and shivering into the rooty +thicknesses of the sedge-grown banks, startling the little birds +bathing there into darting to the nearest, highest rush-top, where, +without losing their hold on their swaying, balancing perches, they +burst into all sorts of incoherent songs, in their excitement to +divert attention from the near-hidden nests: bird mothers are so much +like women mothers! + +It soon became day enough for the mist to rise. The eyes that saw it +ought to be able to speak to tell fittingly about it. + +Not all at once, nor all together, but a thinning, a lifting, a +breaking, a wearing away; a little withdrawing here, a little +withdrawing there; and now a peep, and now a peep; a bride lifting her +veil to her husband! Blue! White! Lilies! Blue lilies! White lilies! +Blue and white lilies! And still blue and white lilies! And still! And +still! Wherever the veil lifted, still and always the bride! + +Not in clumps and bunches, not in spots and patches, not in banks, +meadows, acres, but in--yes; for still it lifted beyond and beyond and +beyond; the eye could not touch the limit of them, for the eye can +touch only the limit of vision; and the lilies filled the whole +sea-marsh, for that is the way spring comes to the sea-marshes. + +The sedge-roots might have been unsightly along the water's edge, +but there were morning-glories, all colors, all shades--oh, such +morning-glories as we of the city never see! Our city morning-glories +must dream of them, as we dream of angels. Only God could be so +lavish! Dropping from the tall spear-heads to the water, into the +water, under the water. And then, the reflection of them, in all their +colors, blue, white, pink, purple, red, rose, violet! + +To think of an obscure little Acadian bayou waking to flow the +first thing in the morning not only through banks of new-blown +morning-glories, but sown also to its depths with such reflections as +must make it think itself a bayou in heaven, instead of in Paroisse +St. Martin. Perhaps that is the reason the poor poets think themselves +poets, on account of the beautiful things that are only reflected into +their minds from what is above? Besides the reflections, there were +alligators in the bayou, trying to slip away before we could see them, +and watching us with their stupid, senile eyes, sometimes from under +the thickest, prettiest flowery bowers; and turtles splashing into +the water ahead of us; and fish (silver-sided perch), looking like +reflections themselves, floating through the flower reflections, +nibbling their breakfast. + +Our bayou had been running through swamp only a little more solid than +itself; in fact, there was no solidity but what came from the roots of +grasses. Now, the banks began to get firmer, from real soil in them. +We could see cattle in the distance, up to their necks in the lilies, +their heads and sharp-pointed horns coming up and going down in the +blue and white. Nothing makes cattle's heads appear handsomer, with +the sun just rising far, far away on the other side of them. +The sea-marsh cattle turned loose to pasture in the lush spring +beauty--turned loose in Elysium! + +But the land was only partly land yet, and the cattle still cattle to +us. The rising sun made revelations, as our bayou carried us through a +drove in their Elysium, or it might have always been an Elysium to +us. It was not all pasturage, all enjoyment. The rising and falling +feeding head was entirely different, as we could now see, from the +rising and falling agonized head of the bogged--the buried alive. +It is well that the lilies grow taller and thicker over the more +treacherous places; but, misery! misery! not much of the process was +concealed from us, for the cattle have to come to the bayou for +water. Such a splendid black head that had just yielded breath! The +wide-spreading ebony horns thrown back among the morning-glories, the +mouth open from the last sigh, the glassy eyes staring straight at the +beautiful blue sky above, where a ghostly moon still lingered, the +velvet neck ridged with veins and muscles, the body already buried in +black ooze. And such a pretty red-and-white-spotted heifer, lying on +her side, opening and shutting her eyes, breathing softly in meek +resignation to her horrible calamity! And, again, another one was +plunging and battling in the act of realizing her doom: a fierce, +furious, red cow, glaring and bellowing at the soft, yielding +inexorable abysm under her, the bustards settling afar off, and her +own species browsing securely just out of reach. + +They understand that much, the sea-marsh cattle, to keep out of reach +of the dead combatant. In the delirium of anguish, relief cannot be +distinguished from attack, and rescue of the victim has been proved to +mean goring of the rescuer. + +The bayou turned from it at last, from our beautiful lily world about +which our pleasant thoughts had ceased to flow even in bad poetry. + +Our voyage was for information, which might be obtained at a certain +habitation; if not there, at a second one, or surely at a third and +most distant settlement. + +The bayou narrowed into a canal, then widened into a bayou again, and +the low, level swamp and prairie advanced into woodland and forest. +Oak-trees began, our beautiful oak-trees! Great branches bent down +almost to the water,--quite even with high water,--covered with +forests of oak, parasites, lichens, and with vines that swept our +heads as we passed under them, drooping now and then to trail in the +water, a plaything for the fishes, and a landing-place for amphibious +insects. The sun speckled the water with its flickering patterns, +showering us with light and heat. We have no spring suns; our sun, +even in December, is a summer one. + +And so, with all its grace of curve and bend, and so--the description +is longer than the voyage--we come to our first stopping-place. To the +side, in front of the well-kept fertile fields, like a proud little +showman, stood the little house. Its pointed shingle roof covered it +like the top of a chafing-dish, reaching down to the windows, which +peeped out from under it like little eyes. + +A woman came out of the door to meet us. She had had time during our +graceful winding approach to prepare for us. What an irrevocable +vow to old maidenhood! At least twenty-five, almost a possible +grandmother, according to Acadian computation, and well in the grip +of advancing years. She was dressed in a stiff, dark red calico gown, +with a white apron. Her black hair, smooth and glossy under a varnish +of grease, was plaited high in the back, and dropped regular ringlets, +six in all, over her forehead. That was the epoch when her calamity +came to her, when the hair was worn in that fashion. A woman seldom +alters her coiffure after a calamity of a certain nature happens +to her. The figure had taken a compact rigidity, an unfaltering +inflexibility, all the world away from the elasticity of matronhood; +and her eyes were clear and fixed like her figure, neither falling, +nor rising, nor puzzling under other eyes. Her lips, her hands, her +slim feet, were conspicuously single, too, in their intent, neither +reaching, nor feeling, nor running for those other lips, hands, and +feet which should have doubled their single life. + +That was Adorine Mérionaux, otherwise the most industrious Acadian and +the best cottonade-weaver in the parish. It had been short, her story. +A woman's love is still with those people her story. She was thirteen +when she met him. That is the age for an Acadian girl to meet him, +because, you know, the large families--the thirteen, fourteen, +fifteen, twenty children--take up the years; and when one wishes +to know one's great-great-grandchildren (which is the dream of the +Acadian girl) one must not delay one's story. + +She had one month to love him in, and in one week they were to have +the wedding. The Acadians believe that marriage must come _au point_, +as cooks say their sauces must be served. Standing on the bayou-bank +in front of the Mérionaux, one could say "Good day" with the eyes to +the Zévérin Theriots--that was the name of the parents of the young +bridegroom. Looking under the branches of the oaks, one could see +across the prairie,--prairie and sea-marsh it was,--and clearly +distinguish another little red-washed house like the Mérionaux, with +a painted roof hanging over the windows, and a staircase going up +outside to the garret. With the sun shining in the proper direction, +one might distinguish more, and with love shining like the sun in the +eyes, one might see, one might see--a heart full. + +It was only the eyes, however, which could make such a quick voyage to +the Zévérin Theriots; a skiff had a long day's journey to reach them. +The bayou sauntered along over the country like a negro on a Sunday's +pleasuring, trusting to God for time, and to the devil for means. + +Oh, nothing can travel quickly over a bayou! Ask any one who has +waited on a bayou-bank for a physician or a life-and-death message. +Thought refuses to travel and turn and double over it; thought, like +the eye, takes the shortest cut--straight over the sea-marsh; and in +the spring of the year, when the lilies are in bloom, thought could +not take a more heavenly way, even from beloved to beloved. + +It was the week before marriage, that week when, more than one's whole +life afterward, one's heart feels most longing--most--well, in fact, +it was the week before marriage. From Sunday to Sunday, that was all +the time to be passed. Adorine--women live through this week by +the grace of God, or perhaps they would be as unreasonable as the +men--Adorine could look across the prairie to the little red roof +during the day, and could think across it during the night, and get +up before day to look across again--longing, longing all the time. +Of course one must supply all this from one's own imagination or +experience. + +But Adorine could sing, and she sang. One might hear, in a favorable +wind, a gunshot, or the barking of a dog from one place to the other, +so that singing, as to effect, was nothing more than the voicing of +her looking and thinking and longing. + +When one loves, it is as if everything was known of and seen by the +other; not only all that passes in the head and heart, which would +in all conscience be more than enough to occupy the other, but the +talking, the dressing, the conduct. It was then that the back hair was +braided and the front curled more and more beautifully every day, and +that the calico dresses became stiffer and stiffer, and the white +crochet lace collar broader and lower in the neck. At thirteen she was +beautiful enough to startle one, they say, but that was nothing; she +spent time and care upon these things, as if, like other women, her +fate seriously depended upon them. There is no self-abnegation like +that of a woman in love. + +It was her singing, however, which most showed that other existence +in her existence. When she sang at her spinning-wheel or her loom, or +knelt battling clothes on the bank of the bayou, her lips would kiss +out the words, and the tune would rise and fall and tremble, as if +Zepherin were just across there, anywhere; in fact, as if every blue +and white lily might hide an ear of him. + +It was the time of the new moon, fortunately, when all sit up late in +the country. The family would stop in their talking about the +wedding to listen to her. She did not know it herself, but it--the +singing--was getting louder and clearer, and, poor little thing, it +told everything. And after the family went to bed they could still +hear her, sitting on the bank of the bayou, or up in her window, +singing and looking at the moon traveling across the lily prairie--for +all its beauty and brightness no more beautiful and bright than a +heart in love. + +It was just past the middle of the week, a Thursday night. The moon +was so bright the colors of the lilies could be seen, and the singing, +so sweet, so far-reaching--it was the essence of the longing of love. +Then it was that the miracle happened to her. Miracles are always +happening to the Acadians. She could not sleep, she could not stay in +bed. Her heart drove her to the window, and kept her there, and--among +the civilized it could not take place, but here she could sing as she +pleased in the middle of the night; it was nobody's affair, nobody's +disturbance. "Saint Ann! Saint Joseph! Saint Mary!" She heard her song +answered! She held her heart, she bent forward, she sang again. Oh, +the air was full of music! It was all music! She fell on her knees; +she listened, looking at the moon; and, with her face in her hands, +looking at Zepherin. It was God's choir of angels, she thought, and +one with a voice like Zepherin! Whenever it died away she would sing +again, and again, and again-- + +[Illustration: "HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW".] + +But the sun came, and the sun is not created, like the moon, for +lovers, and whatever happened in the night, there was work to be done +in the day. Adorine worked like one in a trance, her face as radiant +as the upturned face of a saint. They did not know what it was, or +rather they thought it was love. Love is so different out there, they +make all kinds of allowances for it. But, in truth, Adorine was +still hearing her celestial voices or voice. If the cackling of the +chickens, the whir of the spinning-wheel, or the "bum bum" of the loom +effaced it a moment, she had only to go to some still place, round +her hand over her ear, and give the line of a song, and--it was +Zepherin--Zepherin she heard. + +She walked in a dream until night. When the moon came up she was at +the window, and still it continued, so faint, so sweet, that answer to +her song. Echo never did anything more exquisite, but she knew nothing +of such a heathen as Echo. Human nature became exhausted. She fell +asleep where she was, in the window, and dreamed as only a bride can +dream of her groom. When she awoke, "Adorine! Adorine!" the beautiful +angel voices called to her; "Zepherin! Zepherin!" she answered, as if +she, too, were an angel, signaling another angel in heaven. It was too +much. She wept, and that broke the charm. She could hear nothing more +after that. All that day was despondency, dejection, tear-bedewed +eyes, and tremulous lips, the commonplace reaction, as all know, of +love exaltation. Adorine's family, Acadian peasants though they were, +knew as much about it as any one else, and all that any one knows +about it is that marriage is the cure-all, and the only cure-all, for +love. + +[Illustration: "ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION."] + +And Zepherin? A man could better describe his side of that week; for +it, too, has mostly to be described from imagination or experience. +What is inferred is that what Adorine longed and thought and looked +in silence and resignation, according to woman's way, he suffered +equally, but in a man's way, which is not one of silence or +resignation,--at least when one is a man of eighteen,--the last +interview, the near wedding, her beauty, his love, her house in sight, +the full moon, the long, wakeful nights. + +He took his pirogue; but the bayou played with his impatience, +maddened his passion, bringing him so near, to meander with him again +so far away. There was only a short prairie between him and ----, a +prairie thick with lily-roots--one could almost walk over their +heads, so close, and gleaming in the moonlight. But this is all only +inference. + +The pirogue was found tethered to the paddle stuck upright in the soft +bank, and--Adorine's parents related the rest. Nothing else was found +until the summer drought had bared the swamp. + +There was a little girl in the house when we arrived--all else were in +the field--a stupid, solemn, pretty child, the child of a brother. How +she kept away from Adorine, and how much that testified! + +It would have been too painful. The little arms around her neck, the +head nestling to her bosom, sleepily pressing against it. And the +little one might ask to be sung to sleep. Sung to sleep! + +The little bed-chamber, with its high mattressed bed, covered with +the Acadian home-spun quilt, trimmed with netting fringe, its bit of +mirror over the bureau, the bottle of perfumed grease to keep the +locks black and glossy, the prayer-beads and blessed palms hanging +on the wall, the low, black polished spinning-wheel, the loom,--the +_métier d' Adorine_ famed throughout the parish,--the ever goodly +store of cotton and yarn hanks swinging from the ceiling, and the +little square, open window which looked under the mossy oak-branches +to look over the prairie; and once again all blue and white +lilies--they were all there, as Adorine was there; but there was +more--not there. + + + + +ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE + + +Old Jeanne Marie leaned her hand against the house, and the tears +rolled down her cheeks. She had not wept since she buried her last +child. With her it was one trouble, one weeping, no more; and her +wrinkled, hard, polished skin so far had known only the tears that +come after death. The trouble in her heart now was almost exactly like +the trouble caused by death; although she knew it was not so bad as +death, yet, when she thought of this to console herself, the tears +rolled all the faster. She took the end of the red cotton kerchief +tied over her head, and wiped them away; for the furrows in her face +did not merely run up and down--they ran in all directions, and +carried her tears all over her face at once. She could understand +death, but she could not understand this. + +It came about in this way: Anne Marie and she lived in the little +red-washed cabin against which she leaned; had lived there alone with +each other for fifty years, ever since Jeanne Marie's husband had died, +and the three children after him, in the fever epidemic. + +The little two-roomed cabin, the stable where there used to be a cow, +the patch of ground planted with onions, had all been bought and paid +for by the husband; for he was a thrifty, hard-working Gascon, and had +he lived there would not have been one better off, or with a larger +family, either in that quarter or in any of the red-washed +suburbs with which Gascony has surrounded New Orleans. His women, +however,--the wife and sister-in-law,--had done their share in the +work: a man's share apiece, for with the Gascon women there is no +discrimination of sex when it comes to work. + +And they worked on just the same after he died, tending the cow, +digging, hoeing, planting, watering. The day following the funeral, by +daylight Jeanne Marie was shouldering around the yoke of milk-cans to +his patrons, while Anne Marie carried the vegetables to market; and so +on for fifty years. + +They were old women now,--seventy-five years old,--and, as they +expressed it, they had always been twins. In twins there is always one +lucky and one unlucky one: Jeanne Marie was the lucky one, Anne Marie +the unlucky one. So much so, that it was even she who had to catch the +rheumatism, and to lie now bedridden, months at a time, while Jeanne +Marie was as active in her sabots as she had ever been. + +In spite of the age of both, and the infirmity of one, every Saturday +night there was some little thing to put under the brick in the +hearth, for taxes and license, and the never-to-be-forgotten funeral +provision. In the husband's time gold pieces used to go in, but they +had all gone to pay for the four funerals and the quadrupled doctor's +bill. The women laid in silver pieces; the coins, however, grew +smaller and smaller, and represented more and more not so much the +gain from onions as the saving from food. + +It had been explained to them how they might, all at once, make a +year's gain in the lottery; and it had become their custom always, at +the end of every month, to put aside one silver coin apiece, to buy a +lottery ticket with--one ticket each, not for the great, but for the +twenty-five-cent, prizes. Anne Marie would buy hers round about the +market; Jeanne Marie would stop anywhere along her milk course and buy +hers, and they would go together in the afternoon to stand with the +little crowd watching the placard upon which the winning numbers were +to be written. And when they were written, it was curious, Jeanne +Marie's numbers would come out twice as often as Anne Marie's. Not +that she ever won anything, for she was not lucky enough to have them +come out in the order to win; they only came out here and there, +singly: but it was sufficient to make old Anne Marie cross and ugly +for a day or two, and injure the sale of the onion-basket. When she +became bedridden, Jeanne Marie bought the ticket for both, on the +numbers, however, that Anne Marie gave her; and Anne Marie had to lie +in bed and wait, while Jeanne Marie went out to watch the placard. + +One evening, watching it, Jeanne Marie saw the ticket-agent write out +the numbers as they came on her ticket, in such a way that they drew +a prize--forty dollars. + +When the old woman saw it she felt such a happiness; just as she used +to feel in the old times right after the birth of a baby. She thought +of that instantly. Without saying a word to any one, she clattered +over the _banquette_ as fast as she could in her sabots, to tell the +good news to Anne Marie. But she did not go so fast as not to have +time to dispose of her forty dollars over and over again. Forty +dollars! That was a great deal of money. She had often in her mind, +when she was expecting a prize, spent twenty dollars; for she had +never thought it could be more than that. But forty dollars! A new +gown apiece, and black silk kerchiefs to tie over their heads instead +of red cotton, and the little cabin new red-washed, and soup in the +pot, and a garlic sausage, and a bottle of good, costly liniment for +Anne Marie's legs; and still a pile of gold to go under the +hearth-brick--a pile of gold that would have made the eyes of the +defunct husband glisten. + +She pushed open the picket-gate, and came into the room where her +sister lay in bed. + +"Eh, Anne Marie, my girl," she called in her thick, pebbly voice, +apparently made purposely to suit her rough Gascon accent; "this time +we have caught it!" + +[Illustration: "THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!"] + +"Whose ticket?" asked Anne Marie, instantly. + +In a flash all Anne Marie's ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's mind; +how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne Marie's +faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of her lottery +numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the catching of +the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, as she looked +at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over Jeanne Marie of her +sister's not being able, in all her poor old seventy-five years of +life, to remember the pressure of the arms of a husband about her +waist, nor the mouth of a child on her breast. + +As soon as Anne Marie had asked her question, Jeanne Marie answered +it. + +"But your ticket, _Coton-Maï!_"[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Coton-Maï_ is an innocent oath invented by the good, +pious priest as a substitute for one more harmful.] + +"Where? Give it here! Give it here!" + +The old woman, who had not been able to move her back for weeks, sat +bolt upright in bed, and stretched out her great bony fingers, with +the long nails as hard and black as rake-prongs from groveling in the +earth. + + +Jeanne Marie poured the money out of her cotton handkerchief into +them. + +Anne Marie counted it, looked at it; looked at it, counted it; and +if she had not been so old, so infirm, so toothless, the smile that +passed over her face would have made it beautiful. + +Jeanne Marie had to leave her to draw water from the well to water the +plants, and to get her vegetables ready for next morning. She felt +even happier now than if she had just had a child, happier even than +if her husband had just returned to her. + +"Ill luck! _Coton-Maï!_ Ill luck! There's a way to turn ill luck!" +And her smile also should have beautified her face, wrinkled and ugly +though it was. + +She did not think any more of the spending of the money, only of the +pleasure Anne Marie would take in spending it. + +The water was low in the well, and there had been a long drought. +There are not many old women of seventy-five who could have watered so +much ground as abundantly as she did; but whenever she thought of the +forty dollars and Anne Marie's smile she would give the thirsting +plant an extra bucketful. + +The twilight was gaining. She paused. "_Coton-Maï_" she exclaimed +aloud. "But I must see the old woman smile again over her good luck." + +Although it was "my girl" face to face, it was always "the old woman" +behind each other's back. + +There was a knot-hole in the plank walls of the house. In spite of +Anne Marie's rheumatism they would never stop it up, needing it, they +said, for light and air. Jeanne Marie slipped her feet out of her +sabots and crept easily toward it, smiling, and saying "_Coton-Maï_!" +to herself all the way. She put her eye to the hole. Anne Marie was +not in the bed, she who had not left her bed for two months! Jeanne +Marie looked through the dim light of the room until she found her. + +Anne Marie, in her short petticoat and nightsack, with bare legs +and feet, was on her knees in the corner, pulling up a plank, +hiding--peasants know hiding when they see it--hiding her money +away--away--away from whom?--muttering to herself and shaking her old +grayhaired head. Hiding her money away from Jeanne Marie! + +And this was why Jeanne Marie leaned her head against the side of the +house and wept. It seemed to her that she had never known her twin +sister at all. + + + + +A CRIPPLED HOPE + + +You must picture to yourself the quiet, dim-lighted room of a +convalescent; outside, the dreary, bleak days of winter in a sparsely +settled, distant country parish; inside, a slow, smoldering log-fire, +a curtained bed, the infant sleeping well enough, the mother wakeful, +restless, thought-driven, as a mother must be, unfortunately, +nowadays, particularly in that parish, where cotton worms and +overflows have acquired such a monopoly of one's future. + +[Illustration: "THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT."] + +God is always pretty near a sick woman's couch; but nearer even than +God seems the sick-nurse--at least in that part of the country, under +those circumstances. It is so good to look through the dimness and +uncertainty, moral and physical, and to meet those little black, +steadfast, all-seeing eyes; to feel those smooth, soft, all-soothing +hands; to hear, across one's sleep, that three-footed step--the +flat-soled left foot, the tiptoe right, and the padded end of +the broomstick; and when one is so wakeful and restless and +thought-driven, to have another's story given one. God, depend upon +it, grows stories and lives as he does herbs, each with a mission of +balm to some woe. + +She said she had, and in truth she had, no other name than "little +Mammy"; and that was the name of her nature. Pure African, but bronze +rather than pure black, and full-sized only in width, her growth +having been hampered as to height by an injury to her hip, which +had lamed her, pulling her figure awry, and burdening her with a +protuberance of the joint. Her mother caused it by dropping her when a +baby, and concealing it, for fear of punishment, until the dislocation +became irremediable. All the animosity of which little Mammy was +capable centered upon this unknown but never-to-be-forgotten mother of +hers; out of this hatred had grown her love--that is, her destiny, a +woman's love being her destiny. Little Mammy's love was for children. + +The birth and infancy (the one as accidental as the other, one would +infer) took place in--it sounds like the "Arabian Nights" now!--took +place in the great room, caravansary, stable, behind a negro-trader's +auction-mart, where human beings underwent literally the daily buying +and selling of which the world now complains in a figure of speech--a +great, square, dusty chamber where, sitting cross-legged, leaning +against the wall, or lying on foul blanket pallets on the floor, the +bargains of to-day made their brief sojourn, awaiting transformation +into the profits of the morrow. + +The place can be pointed out now, is often pointed out; but no emotion +arises at sight of it. It is so plain, so matter-of-fact an edifice +that emotion only comes afterward in thinking about it, and then in +the reflection that such an edifice could be, then as now, plain and +matter-of-fact. + +For the slave-trader there was no capital so valuable as the physical +soundness of his stock; the moral was easily enough forged or +counterfeited. Little Mammy's good-for-nothing mother was sold as +readily as a vote, in the parlance of to-day; but no one would pay +for a crippled baby. The mother herself would not have taken her as +a gift, had it been in the nature of a negro-trader to give +away anything. Some doctoring was done,--so little Mammy heard +traditionally,--some effort made to get her marketable. There were +attempts to pair her off as a twin sister of various correspondencies +in age, size, and color, and to palm her off, as a substitute, +at migratory, bereaved, overfull breasts. Nothing equaled a +negro-trader's will and power for fraud, except the hereditary +distrust and watchfulness which it bred and maintained. And so, in the +even balance between the two categories, the little cripple remained a +fixture in the stream of life that passed through that back room, +in the fluxes and refluxes of buying and selling; not valueless, +however--rely upon a negro-trader for discovering values as +substitutes, as panaceas. She earned her nourishment, and Providence +did not let it kill the little animal before the emancipation of +weaning arrived. + +[Illustration: "LITTLE MAMMY."] + +How much circumstances evoked, how much instinct responded, belongs to +the secrets which nature seems to intend keeping. As a baby she had +eyes, attention, solely for other babies. One cannot say while she was +still crawling, for she could only crawl years after she should have +been walking, but, before even precocious walking-time, tradition or +the old gray-haired negro janitor relates, she would creep from baby +to baby to play with it, put it to sleep, pat it, rub its stomach (a +negro baby, you know, is all stomach, and generally aching stomach at +that). And before she had a lap, she managed to force one for some +ailing nursling. It was then that they began to call her "little +Mammy." In the transitory population of the "pen" no one stayed long +enough to give her another name; and no one ever stayed short enough +to give her another one. + +Her first recollection of herself was that she could not walk--she was +past crawling; she cradled herself along, as she called sitting down +flat, and working herself about with her hands and her one strong +leg. Babbling babies walked all around her,--many walking before they +babbled,--and still she did not walk, imitate them as she might and +did. She would sit and "study" about it, make another trial, fall; +sit and study some more, make another trial, fall again. Negroes, who +believe that they must give a reason for everything even if they have +to invent one, were convinced that it was all this studying upon her +lameness that gave her such a large head. + +And now she began secretly turning up the clothes of every negro +child that came into that pen, and examining its legs, and still more +secretly examining her own, stretched out before her on the ground. +How long it took she does not remember; in fact, she could not have +known, for she had no way of measuring time except by her thoughts and +feelings. But in her own way and time the due process of deliberation +was fulfilled, and the quotient made clear that, bowed or not, all +children's legs were of equal length except her own, and all were +alike, not one full, strong, hard, the other soft, flabby, wrinkled, +growing out of a knot at the hip. A whole psychological period +apparently lay between that conclusion and--a broom-handle +walking-stick; but the broomstick came, as it was bound to +come,--thank heaven!--from that premise, and what with stretching one +limb to make it longer, and doubling up the other to make it shorter, +she invented that form of locomotion which is still carrying her +through life, and with no more exaggerated leg-crookedness than many +careless negroes born with straight limbs display. This must have been +when she was about eight or nine. Hobbling on a broomstick, with, no +doubt, the same weird, wizened face as now, an innate sense of the +fitness of things must have suggested the kerchief tied around her big +head, and the burlaps rag of an apron in front of her linsey-woolsey +rag of a gown, and the bit of broken pipe-stem in the corner of her +mouth, where the pipe should have been, and where it was in after +years. That is the way she recollected herself, and that is the way +one recalls her now, with a few modifications. + +The others came and went, but she was always there. It wasn't long +before she became "little Mammy" to the grown folks too; and the +newest inmates soon learned to cry: "Where's little Mammy?" "Oh, +little Mammy! little Mammy! Such a misery in my head [or my back, or +my stomach]! Can't you help me, little Mammy?" It was curious what a +quick eye she had for symptoms and ailments, and what a quick ear +for suffering, and how apt she was at picking up, remembering, and +inventing remedies. It never occurred to her not to crouch at the +head or the foot of a sick pallet, day and night through. As for the +nights, she said she dared not close her eyes of nights. The room they +were in was so vast, and sometimes the negroes lay so thick on the +floor, rolled in their blankets (you know, even in the summer they +sleep under blankets), all snoring so loudly, she would never have +heard a groan or a whimper any more than they did, if she had slept, +too. And negro mothers are so careless and such heavy sleepers. All +night she would creep at regular intervals to the different pallets, +and draw the little babies from under, or away from, the heavy, inert +impending mother forms. There is no telling how many she thus saved +from being overlaid and smothered, or, what was worse, maimed and +crippled. + +Whenever a physician came in, as he was sometimes called, to look at +a valuable investment or to furbish up some piece of damaged goods, +she always managed to get near to hear the directions; and she +generally was the one to apply them also, for negroes always would +steal medicines most scurvily one from the other. And when death at +times would slip into the pen, despite the trader's utmost alertness +and precautions,--as death often "had to do," little Mammy said,--when +the time of some of them came to die, and when the rest of the +negroes, with African greed of eye for the horrible, would press +around the lowly couch where the agonizing form of a slave lay +writhing out of life, she would always to the last give medicines, +and wipe the cold forehead, and soothe the clutching, fearsome hands, +hoping to the end, and trying to inspire the hope that his or her +"time" had not come yet; for, as she said, "Our time doesn't come just +as often as it does come." + +And in those sad last offices, which somehow have always been under +reproach as a kind of shame, no matter how young she was, she was +always too old to have the childish avoidance of them. On the +contrary, to her a corpse was only a kind of baby, and she always +strove, she said, to make one, like the other, easy and comfortable. + +And in other emergencies she divined the mysteries of the flesh, as +other precocities divine the mysteries of painting and music, and so +become child wonders. + +Others came and went. She alone remained there. Babies of her +babyhood--the toddlers she, a toddler, had nursed--were having babies +themselves now; the middle-aged had had time to grow old and die. +Every week new families were coming into the great back chamber; every +week they passed out: babies, boys, girls, buxom wenches, stalwart +youths, and the middle-aged--the grave, serious ones whom misfortune +had driven from their old masters, and the ill-reputed ones, the +trickish, thievish, lazy, whom the cunning of the negro-trader alone +could keep in circulation. All were marketable, all were bought and +sold, all passed in one door and out the other--all except her, little +Mammy. As with her lameness, it took time for her to recognize, to +understand, the fact. She could study over her lameness, she could in +the dull course of time think out the broomstick way of palliation. +It would have been almost better, under the circumstances, for God to +have kept the truth from her; only--God keeps so little of the truth +from us women. It is his system. + +Poor little thing! It was not now that her master _could_ not sell +her, but he _would_ not! Out of her own intelligence she had forged +her chains; the lameness was a hobble merely in comparison. She had +become too valuable to the negro-trader by her services among his +crew, and offers only solidified his determination not to sell her. +Visiting physicians, after short acquaintance with her capacities, +would offer what were called fancy prices for her. Planters who heard +of her through their purchases would come to the city purposely to +secure, at any cost, so inestimable an adjunct to their plantations. +Even ladies--refined, delicate ladies--sometimes came to the pen +personally to back money with influence. In vain. Little Mammy was +worth more to the negro-trader, simply as a kind of insurance against +accidents, than any sum, however glittering the figure, and he was no +ignorant expert in human wares. She can tell it; no one else can for +her. Remember that at times she had seen the streets outside. Remember +that she could hear of the outside world daily from the passing +chattels--of the plantations, farms, families; the green fields, +Sunday woods, running streams; the camp-meetings, corn-shuckings, +cotton-pickings, sugar-grindings; the baptisms, marriages, funerals, +prayer-meetings; the holidays and holy days. Remember that, whether +for liberty or whether for love, passion effloresces in the human +being--no matter when, where, or how--with every spring's return. +Remember that she was, even in middle age, young and vigorous. But no; +do not remember anything. There is no need to heighten the coloring. + +It would be tedious to relate, although it was not tedious to hear her +relate it, the desperations and hopes of her life then. Hardly a day +passed that she did not see, looking for purchases (rummaging among +goods on a counter for bargains), some master whom she could have +loved, some mistress whom she could have adored. Always her favorite +mistresses were there--tall, delicate matrons, who came themselves, +with great fatigue, to select kindly-faced women for nurses; +languid-looking ladies with smooth hair standing out in wide +_bandeaux_ from their heads, and lace shawls dropping from their +sloping shoulders, silk dresses carelessly held up in thumb and finger +from embroidered petticoats that were spread out like tents over huge +hoops which covered whole groups of swarming piccaninnies on the dirty +floor; ladies, pale from illnesses that she might have nursed, and +over-burdened with children whom she might have reared! And not a lady +of that kind saw her face but wanted her, yearned for her, pleaded for +her, coming back secretly to slip silver, and sometimes gold, pieces +into her hand, patting her turbaned head, calling her "little Mammy" +too, instantly, by inspiration, and making the negro-trader give them, +with all sorts of assurances, the refusal of her. She had no need for +the whispered "Buy me, master!" "Buy me, mistress!" "You'll see how I +can work, master!" "You'll never be sorry, mistress!" of the others. +The negro-trader--like hangmen, negro-traders are fitted by nature for +their profession--it came into his head--he had no heart, not even a +negro-trader's heart--that it would be more judicious to seclude her +during these shopping visits, so to speak. She could not have had any +hopes then at all; it must have been all desperations. + +That auction-block, that executioner's block, about which so much has +been written--Jacob's ladder, in his dream, was nothing to what that +block appeared nightly in her dreams to her; and the climbers up and +down--well, perhaps Jacob's angels were his hopes, too. + +At times she determined to depreciate her usefulness, mar her value, +by renouncing her heart, denying her purpose. For days she would +tie her kerchief over her ears and eyes, and crouch in a corner, +strangling her impulses. She even malingered, refused food, became +dumb. And she might have succeeded in making herself salable through +incipient lunacy, if through no other way, had she been able to +maintain her role long enough. But some woman or baby always was +falling into some emergency of pain and illness. + +How it might have ended one does not like to think. Fortunately, one +does not need to think. + +There came a night. She sat alone in the vast, dark caravansary--alone +for the first time in her life. Empty rags and blankets lay strewn +over the floor, no snoring, no tossing in them more. A sacrificial +sale that day had cleared the counters. Alarm-bells rang in the +streets, but she did not know them for alarm-bells; alarm brooded in +the dim space around her, but she did not even recognize that. Her +protracted tension of heart had made her fear-blind to all but one +peradventure. + +Once or twice she forgot herself, and limped over to some heap to +relieve an imaginary struggling babe or moaning sleeper. Morning came. +She had dozed. She looked to see the rag-heaps stir; they lay as still +as corpses. The alarm-bells had ceased. She looked to see a new gang +enter the far door. She listened for the gathering buzzing of voices +in the next room, around the auction-block. She waited for the trader. +She waited for the janitor. At nightfall a file of soldiers entered. +They drove her forth, ordering her in the voice, in the tone, of +the negro-trader. That was the only familiar thing in the chaos of +incomprehensibility about her. She hobbled through the auction-room. +Posters, advertisements, papers, lay on the floor, and in the +torch-light glared from the wall. Her Jacob's ladder, her +stepping-stone to her hopes, lay overturned in a corner. + +You divine it. The negro-trader's trade was abolished, and he had +vanished in the din and smoke of a war which he had not been entirely +guiltless of producing, leaving little Mammy locked up behind him. Had +he forgotten her? One cannot even hope so. She hobbled out into the +street, leaning on her nine-year-old broomstick (she had grown only +slightly beyond it; could still use it by bending over it), her head +tied in a rag kerchief, a rag for a gown, a rag for an apron. + +Free, she was free! But she had not hoped for freedom. The plantation, +the household, the delicate ladies, the teeming children,--broomsticks +they were in comparison to freedom, but,--that was what she had asked, +what she had prayed for. God, she said, had let her drop, just as her +mother had done. More than ever she grieved, as she crept down +the street, that she had never mounted the auctioneer's block. An +ownerless free negro! She knew no one whose duty it was to help her; +no one knew her to help her. In the whole world (it was all she had +asked) there was no white child to call her mammy, no white lackey or +gentleman (it was the extent of her dreams) beholden to her as to a +nurse. And all her innumerable black beneficiaries! Even the janitor, +whom she had tended as the others, had deserted her like his white +prototype. + +She tried to find a place for herself, but she had no indorsers, no +recommenders. She dared not mention the name of the negro-trader; it +banished her not only from the households of the whites, but from +those of the genteel of her own color. And everywhere soldiers +sentineled the streets--soldiers whose tone and accent reminded her of +the negro-trader. + +Her sufferings, whether imaginary or real, were sufficiently acute to +drive her into the only form of escape which once had been possible to +friendless negroes. She became a runaway. With a bundle tied to the +end of a stick over her shoulder, just as the old prints represent it, +she fled from her homelessness and loneliness, from her ignoble past, +and the heart-disappointing termination of it. Following a railroad +track, journeying afoot, sleeping by the roadside, she lived on until +she came to the one familiar landmark in life to her--a sick woman, +but a white one. And so, progressing from patient to patient (it was a +time when sick white women studded the country like mile-posts), she +arrived at a little town, a kind of a refuge for soldiers' wives and +widows. She never traveled further. She could not. Always, as in the +pen, some emergency of pain and illness held her. + +That is all. She is still there. The poor, poor women of that stricken +region say that little Mammy was the only alleviation God left them +after Sheridan passed through; and the richer ones say very much the +same thing-- + +But one should hear her tell it herself, as has been said, on a cold, +gloomy winter day in the country, the fire glimmering on the hearth; +the overworked husband in the fields; the baby quiet at last; the +mother uneasy, restless, thought-driven; the soft black hand rubbing +backward and forward, rubbing out aches and frets and nervousness. + +The eyelids droop; the firelight plays fantasies on the bed-curtains; +the ear drops words, sentences; one gets confused--one sleeps--one +dreams. + + + + +"ONE OF US" + + +At the first glance one might have been inclined to doubt; but at +the second anybody would have recognized her--that is, with a little +mental rehabilitation: the bright little rouge spots in the hollow of +her cheek, the eyebrows well accentuated with paint, the thin lips +rose-tinted, and the dull, straight hair frizzed and curled and +twisted and turned by that consummate rascal and artist, the official +beautifier and rectifier of stage humanity, Robert, the opera +_coiffeur_. Who in the world knows better than he the gulf between +the real and the ideal, the limitations between the natural and the +romantic? + +Yes, one could see her, in that time-honored thin silk dress of hers +stiffened into brocade by buckram underneath; the high, low-necked +waist, hiding any evidences of breast, if there were such evidences to +hide, and bringing the long neck into such faulty prominence; and the +sleeves, crisp puffs of tulle divided by bands of red velvet, through +which the poor lean arm runs like a wire, stringing them together like +beads. Yes, it was she, the whilom _dugazon_ of the opera troupe. +Not that she ever was a _dugazon_, but that was what her voice once +aspired to be: a _dugazon manquée_ would better describe her. + +What a ghost! But they always appeared like mere evaporations of +real women. For what woman of flesh and blood can seriously maintain +through life the rôle of sham attendant on sham sensations, and play +public celebrant of other women's loves and lovers, singing, or rather +saying, nothing more enlivening than: "Oh, madame!" and "Ah, madame!" +and "_Quelle ivresse!_" or "_Quelle horreur!_" or, in recitative, +detailing whatever dreary platitudes and inanities the librettist and +Heaven connive to put upon the tongues of confidantes and attendants? + +[Illustration: "TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS."] + +Looking at her--how it came over one! The music, the lights, the +scene; the fat soprano confiding to her the fact of the "amour +extrême" she bears for the tenor, to which she, the _dugazon_, does +not even try to listen; her eyes wandering listlessly over the +audience. The calorous secret out, and in her possession, how she +stumbles over her train to the back of the stage, there to pose in +abject patience and awkwardness, while the gallant baritone, touching +his sword, and flinging his cape over his shoulder, defies the world +and the tenor, who is just recovering from his "ut de poitrine" behind +the scenes. + +She was talking to me all the time, apologizing for the intrusion, +explaining her mission, which involved a short story of her life, as +women's intrusions and missions usually do. But my thoughts, also as +usual, distracted me from listening, as so often they have distracted +me from following what was perhaps more profitable. + +The composer, of course, wastes no music upon her; flinging to her +only an occasional recitative in two notes, but always ending in a +reef of a scale, trill, or roulade, for her to wreck her voice on +before the audience. The _chef d'orchestre_, if he is charitable, +starts her off with a contribution from his own lusty lungs, and then +she--oh, her voice is always thinner and more osseous than her arms, +and her smile no more graceful than her train! + +As well think of the simulated trees, water-falls, and chateaux +leaving the stage, as the _dugazon_! One always imagines them singing +on into dimness, dustiness, unsteadiness, and uselessness, until, like +any other piece of stage property, they are at last put aside and +simply left there at the end of some season--there seems to be a +superstition against selling or burning useless and dilapidated stage +property. As it came to me, the idea was not an impossibility. +The last representation of the season is over. She, tired beyond +judgment--haply, beyond feeling--by her tireless rôle, sinks upon her +chair to rest in her dressing-room; sinks, further, to sleep. She has +no maid. The troupe, hurrying away to France on the special train +waiting not half a dozen blocks away, forget her--the insignificant +are so easily forgotten! The porter, more tired, perhaps, than any +one of the beautiful ideal world about him, and savoring already in +advance the good onion-flavored _grillade_ awaiting him at home, locks +up everything fast and tight; the tighter and faster for the good +fortnight's vacation he has promised himself. + +No doubt if the old opera-house were ever cleaned out, just such a +heap of stiff, wire-strung bones would be found, in some such hole +as the _dugazon's_ dressing-room, desiccating away in its last +costume--perhaps in that very costume of _Inez_; and if one were +venturesome enough to pass Allhallowe'en there, the spirit of those +bones might be seen availing itself of the privilege of unasperged +corpses to roam. Not singing, not talking--it is an anachronism to say +that ghosts talk: their medium of communication must be pure thought; +and one should be able to see their thoughts working, just as one sees +the working of the digestive organs in the clear viscera of +transparent animalcule. The hard thing of it is that ghosts are +chained to the same scenes that chained their bodies, and when they +sleep-walk, so to speak, it must be through phases of former +existence. What a nightmare for them to go over once again the lived +and done, the suffered and finished! What a comfort to wake up and +find one's self dead, well dead! + +I could have continued and put the whole opera troupe in "costume de +ghost," but I think it was the woman's eyes that drew me back to her +face and her story. She had a sensible face, now that I observed her +naturally, as it were; and her hands,--how I have agonized over those +hands on the stage!--all knuckles and exaggerated veins, clutching her +dress as she sang, or, petrified, outstretched to _Leonore's_ "Pourquoi +ces larmes?"--her hands were the hands of an honest, hard-working +woman who buckrams her own skirts, and at need could scrub her own +floor. Her face (my description following my wandering glance)--her +face was careworn, almost to desuetude; not dissipation-worn, as, +alas! the faces of the more gifted ladies of opera troupes too often +are. There was no fattening in it of pastry, truffles, and bonbons; +upon it none of the tracery left by nightly champagne tides and +ripples; and consequently her figure, under her plain dress, had not +that for display which the world has conventioned to call charms. +Where a window-cord would hardly have sufficed to girdle _Leonore_, a +necklace would have served her. She had not beauty enough to fear the +flattering dangers of masculine snares and temptations,--or there may +have been other reasons,--but as a wife--there was something about her +that guaranteed it--she would have blossomed love and children as a +fig-tree does figs. + +In truth, she was just talking about children. The first part of her +story had passed: her birthplace, education, situation; and now she +was saying: + +"I have always had the temptation, but I have always resisted it. +Now,"--with a blush at her excuse,--"it may be your spring weather, +your birds, your flowers, your sky--and your children in the streets. +The longing came over me yesterday: I thought of it on the stage, +I thought of it afterward--it was better than sleeping; and this +morning"--her eyes moistened, she breathed excitedly--"I was +determined. I gave up, I made inquiry, I was sent to you. Would it be +possible? Would there be any place" ("any rôle," she said first) "in +any of your asylums, in any of your charitable institutions, for me? +I would ask nothing but my clothes and food, and very little of that; +the recompense would be the children--the little girl children," with +a smile--can you imagine the smile of a woman dreaming of children +that might be? "Think! Never to have held a child in my arms more than +a moment, never to have felt a child's arms about my neck! Never to +have known a child! Born on a stage, my mother born on a stage!" Ah, +there were tragic possibilities in that voice and movement! "Pardon, +madam. You see how I repeat. And you must be very wearied hearing +about me. But I could be their nurse and their servant. I would bathe +and dress them, play with them, teach them their prayers; and when +they are sick they would see no difference. They would not know but +what their mother was there!" + +Oh, she had her program all prepared; one could see that. + +"And I would sing to them--no! no!" with a quick gesture, "nothing +from the stage; little songs and lullabys I have picked up +traveling around, and," hesitating, "little things I have composed +myself--little things that I thought children would like to hear some +day." What did she not unconsciously throw into those last words? "I +dream of it," she pursued, talking with as little regard to me as +on the stage she sang to the prima donna. "Their little arms, their +little faces, their little lips! And in an asylum there would be so +many of them! When they cried and were in trouble I would take them in +my lap, and I would say to them, with all sorts of tenderness--" She +had arranged that in her program, too--all the minutiae of what she +would say to them in their distress. But women are that way. When once +they begin to love, their hearts are magnifying-lenses for them to +feel through. "And my heart hungers to commence right here, now, at +once! It seems to me I cannot wait. Ah, madam, no more stage, no more +opera!" speaking quickly, feverishly. "As I said, it may be your +beautiful spring, your flowers, your birds, and your numbers of +children. I have always loved that place most where there are most +children; and you have more children here than I ever saw anywhere. +Children are so beautiful! It is strange, is it not, when you consider +my life and my rearing?" + +Her life, her rearing, how interesting they must have been! What a +pity I had not listened more attentively! + +"They say you have much to do with asylums here." + +Evidently, when rôles do not exist in life for certain characters, God +has to create them. And thus He had to create a rôle in an asylum for +my friend, for so she became from the instant she spoke of children +as she did. It was the poorest and neediest of asylums; and the poor +little orphaned wretches--but it is better not to speak of them. How +can God ever expect to rear children without their mothers! + +But the rôle I craved to create for my friend was far different--some +good, honest bourgeois interior, where lips are coarse and cheeks are +ruddy, and where life is composed of real scenes, set to the real +music of life, the homely successes and failures, and loves and hates, +and embraces and tears, that fill out the orchestra of the heart; +where romance and poetry abound _au naturel_; and where--yes, where +children grow as thick as nature permits: the domestic interior of the +opera porter, for instance, or the clockmaker over the way. But what +a loss the orphan-asylum would have suffered, and the dreary lacking +there would have been in the lives of the children! For there must +have been moments in the lives of the children in that asylum when +they felt, awake, as they felt in their sleep when they dreamed their +mothers were about them. + + + + +THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL + +She was coming down on the boat from Cincinnati, the little convent +girl. Two sisters had brought her aboard. They gave her in charge of +the captain, got her a state-room, saw that the new little trunk was +put into it, hung the new little satchel up on the wall, showed her +how to bolt the door at night, shook hands with her for good-by +(good-bys have really no significance for sisters), and left her +there. After a while the bells all rang, and the boat, in the awkward +elephantine fashion of boats, got into midstream. The chambermaid +found her sitting on the chair in the state-room where the sisters +had left her, and showed her how to sit on a chair in the saloon. And +there she sat until the captain came and hunted her up for supper. +She could not do anything of herself; she had to be initiated into +everything by some one else. + +She was known on the boat only as "the little convent girl." Her name, +of course, was registered in the clerk's office, but on a steamboat no +one thinks of consulting the clerk's ledger. It is always the little +widow, the fat madam, the tall colonel, the parson, etc. The captain, +who pronounced by the letter, always called her the little _convent_ +girl. She was the beau-ideal of the little convent girl. She never +raised her eyes except when spoken to. Of course she never spoke +first, even to the chambermaid, and when she did speak it was in the +wee, shy, furtive voice one might imagine a just-budding violet to +have; and she walked with such soft, easy, carefully calculated steps +that one naturally felt the penalties that must have secured +them--penalties dictated by a black code of deportment. + +[Illustration: THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY.] + +She was dressed in deep mourning. Her black straw hat was trimmed with +stiff new crape, and her stiff new bombazine dress had crape collar +and cuffs. She wore her hair in two long plaits fastened around her +head tight and fast. Her hair had a strong inclination to curl, but +that had been taken out of it as austerely as the noise out of her +footfalls. Her hair was as black as her dress; her eyes, when one saw +them, seemed blacker than either, on account of the bluishness of the +white surrounding the pupil. Her eyelashes were almost as thick as the +black veil which the sisters had fastened around her hat with an extra +pin the very last thing before leaving. She had a round little face, +and a tiny pointed chin; her mouth was slightly protuberant from the +teeth, over which she tried to keep her lips well shut, the effort +giving them a pathetic little forced expression. Her complexion was +sallow, a pale sallow, the complexion of a brunette bleached in +darkened rooms. The only color about her was a blue taffeta ribbon +from which a large silver medal of the Virgin hung over the place +where a breast pin should have been. She was so little, so little, +although she was eighteen, as the sisters told the captain; otherwise +they would not have permitted her to travel all the way to New Orleans +alone. + +Unless the captain or the clerk remembered to fetch her out in front, +she would sit all day in the cabin, in the same place, crocheting +lace, her spool of thread and box of patterns in her lap, on the +handkerchief spread to save her new dress. Never leaning back--oh, no! +always straight and stiff, as if the conventual back board were there +within call. She would eat only convent fare at first, notwithstanding +the importunities of the waiters, and the jocularities of the captain, +and particularly of the clerk. Every one knows the fund of humor +possessed by a steamboat clerk, and what a field for display the table +at meal-times affords. On Friday she fasted rigidly, and she never +began to eat, or finished, without a little Latin movement of the lips +and a sign of the cross. And always at six o'clock of the evening she +remembered the angelus, although there was no church bell to remind +her of it. + +She was in mourning for her father, the sisters told the captain, +and she was going to New Orleans to her mother. She had not seen +her mother since she was an infant, on account of some disagreement +between the parents, in consequence of which the father had brought +her to Cincinnati, and placed her in the convent. There she had been +for twelve years, only going to her father for vacations and holidays. +So long as the father lived he would never let the child have any +communication with her mother. Now that he was dead all that was +changed, and the first thing that the girl herself wanted to do was to +go to her mother. + +The mother superior had arranged it all with the mother of the girl, +who was to come personally to the boat in New Orleans, and receive her +child from the captain, presenting a letter from the mother superior, +a facsimile of which the sisters gave the captain. + +It is a long voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans, the rivers doing +their best to make it interminable, embroidering themselves _ad +libitum_ all over the country. Every five miles, and sometimes +oftener, the boat would stop to put off or take on freight, if not +both. The little convent girl, sitting in the cabin, had her +terrible frights at first from the hideous noises attendant on these +landings--the whistles, the ringings of the bells, the running to and +fro, the shouting. Every time she thought it was shipwreck, death, +judgment, purgatory; and her sins! her sins! She would drop her +crochet, and clutch her prayer-beads from her pocket, and relax the +constraint over her lips, which would go to rattling off prayers with +the velocity of a relaxed windlass. That was at first, before the +captain took to fetching her out in front to see the boat make a +landing. Then she got to liking it so much that she would stay all day +just where the captain put her, going inside only for her meals. She +forgot herself at times so much that she would draw her chair a little +closer to the railing, and put up her veil, actually, to see better. +No one ever usurped her place, quite in front, or intruded upon her +either with word or look; for every one learned to know her shyness, +and began to feel a personal interest in her, and all wanted the +little convent girl to see everything that she possibly could. + +[Illustration: WATCHING A LANDING.] + +And it was worth seeing--the balancing and _chasséeing_ and waltzing +of the cumbersome old boat to make a landing. It seemed to be +always attended with the difficulty and the improbability of a new +enterprise; and the relief when it did sidle up anywhere within +rope's-throw of the spot aimed at! And the roustabout throwing the +rope from the perilous end of the dangling gang-plank! And the +dangling roustabouts hanging like drops of water from it--dropping +sometimes twenty feet to the land, and not infrequently into the river +itself. And then what a rolling of barrels, and shouldering of sacks, +and singing of Jim Crow songs, and pacing of Jim Crow steps; and black +skins glistening through torn shirts, and white teeth gleaming through +red lips, and laughing, and talking and--bewildering! entrancing! +Surely the little convent girl in her convent walls never dreamed of +so much unpunished noise and movement in the world! + +The first time she heard the mate--it must have been like the first +time woman ever heard man--curse and swear, she turned pale, and ran +quickly, quickly into the saloon, and--came out again? No, indeed! +not with all the soul she had to save, and all the other sins on her +conscience. She shook her head resolutely, and was not seen in her +chair on deck again until the captain not only reassured her, but +guaranteed his reassurance. And after that, whenever the boat was +about to make a landing, the mate would first glance up to the guards, +and if the little convent girl was sitting there he would change his +invective to sarcasm, and politely request the colored gentlemen not +to hurry themselves--on no account whatever; to take their time about +shoving out the plank; to send the rope ashore by post-office--write +him when it got there; begging them not to strain their backs; calling +them mister, colonel, major, general, prince, and your royal highness, +which was vastly amusing. At night, however, or when the little +convent girl was not there, language flowed in its natural curve, the +mate swearing like a pagan to make up for lost time. + +The captain forgot himself one day: it was when the boat ran aground +in the most unexpected manner and place, and he went to work to +express his opinion, as only steamboat captains can, of the pilot, +mate, engineer, crew, boat, river, country, and the world in general, +ringing the bell, first to back, then to head, shouting himself +hoarser than his own whistle--when he chanced to see the little black +figure hurrying through the chaos on the deck; and the captain stuck +as fast aground in midstream as the boat had done. + +In the evening the little convent girl would be taken on the upper +deck, and going up the steep stairs there was such confusion, to keep +the black skirts well over the stiff white petticoats; and, coming +down, such blushing when suspicion would cross the unprepared face +that a rim of white stocking might be visible; and the thin feet, +laced so tightly in the glossy new leather boots, would cling to each +successive step as if they could never, never make another venture; +and then one boot would (there is but that word) hesitate out, and +feel and feel around, and have such a pause of helpless agony as if +indeed the next step must have been wilfully removed, or was nowhere +to be found on the wide, wide earth. + +It was a miracle that the pilot ever got her up into the pilot-house; +but pilots have a lonely time, and do not hesitate even at miracles +when there is a chance for company. He would place a box for her to +climb to the tall bench behind the wheel, and he would arrange the +cushions, and open a window here to let in air, and shut one there to +cut off a draft, as if there could be no tenderer consideration in +life for him than her comfort. And he would talk of the river to her, +explain the chart, pointing out eddies, whirlpools, shoals, depths, +new beds, old beds, cut-offs, caving banks, and making banks, as +exquisitely and respectfully as if she had been the River Commission. + +It was his opinion that there was as great a river as the Mississippi +flowing directly under it--an underself of a river, as much a +counterpart of the other as the second story of a house is of the +first; in fact, he said they were navigating through the upper story. +Whirlpools were holes in the floor of the upper river, so to speak; +eddies were rifts and cracks. And deep under the earth, hurrying +toward the subterranean stream, were other streams, small and +great, but all deep, hurrying to and from that great mother-stream +underneath, just as the small and great overground streams hurry to +and from their mother Mississippi. It was almost more than the little +convent girl could take in: at least such was the expression of her +eyes; for they opened as all eyes have to open at pilot stories. And +he knew as much of astronomy as he did of hydrology, could call the +stars by name, and define the shapes of the constellations; and she, +who had studied astronomy at the convent, was charmed to find that +what she had learned was all true. It was in the pilot-house, one +night, that she forgot herself for the first time in her life, and +stayed up until after nine o'clock. Although she appeared almost +intoxicated at the wild pleasure, she was immediately overwhelmed +at the wickedness of it, and observed much more rigidity of conduct +thereafter. The engineer, the boiler-men, the firemen, the stokers, +they all knew when the little convent girl was up in the pilot-house: +the speaking-tube became so mild and gentle. + +With all the delays of river and boat, however, there is an end to the +journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The latter city, which at one +time to the impatient seemed at the terminus of the never, began, +all of a sudden, one day to make its nearingness felt; and from that +period every other interest paled before the interest in the immanence +of arrival into port, and the whole boat was seized with a panic of +preparation, the little convent girl with the others. Although so +immaculate was she in person and effects that she might have been +struck with a landing, as some good people might be struck with death, +at any moment without fear of results, her trunk was packed and +repacked, her satchel arranged and rearranged, and, the last day, her +hair was brushed and plaited and smoothed over and over again until +the very last glimmer of a curl disappeared. Her dress was whisked, +as if for microscopic inspection; her face was washed; and her +finger-nails were scrubbed with the hard convent nail-brush, until +the disciplined little tips ached with a pristine soreness. And still +there were hours to wait, and still the boat added up delays. But she +arrived at last, after all, with not more than the usual and expected +difference between the actual and the advertised time of arrival. + +There was extra blowing and extra ringing, shouting, commanding, +rushing up the gangway and rushing down the gangway. The clerks, +sitting behind tables on the first deck, were plied, in the twinkling +of an eye, with estimates, receipts, charges, countercharges, claims, +reclaims, demands, questions, accusations, threats, all at topmost +voices. None but steamboat clerks could have stood it. And there were +throngs composed of individuals every one of whom wanted to see the +captain first and at once: and those who could not get to him shouted +over the heads of the others; and as usual he lost his temper and +politeness, and began to do what he termed "hustle." + +"Captain! Captain!" a voice called him to where a hand plucked his +sleeve, and a letter was thrust toward him. "The cross, and the name +of the convent." He recognized the envelop of the mother superior. He +read the duplicate of the letter given by the sisters. He looked at +the woman--the mother--casually, then again and again. + +The little convent girl saw him coming, leading some one toward her. +She rose. The captain took her hand first, before the other greeting, +"Good-by, my dear," he said. He tried to add something else, but +seemed undetermined what. "Be a good little girl--" It was evidently +all he could think of. Nodding to the woman behind him, he turned on +his heel, and left. + +One of the deck-hands was sent to fetch her trunk. He walked out +behind them, through the cabin, and the crowd on deck, down the +stairs, and out over the gangway. The little convent girl and her +mother went with hands tightly clasped. She did not turn her eyes to +the right or left, or once (what all passengers do) look backward at +the boat which, however slowly, had carried her surely over dangers +that she wot not of. All looked at her as she passed. All wanted to +say good-by to the little convent girl, to see the mother who had been +deprived of her so long. Some expressed surprise in a whistle; some +in other ways. All exclaimed audibly, or to themselves, "Colored!" + +It takes about a month to make the round trip from New Orleans to +Cincinnati and back, counting five days' stoppage in New Orleans. It +was a month to a day when the steamboat came puffing and blowing up to +the wharf again, like a stout dowager after too long a walk; and the +same scene of confusion was enacted, as it had been enacted twelve +times a year, at almost the same wharf for twenty years; and the +same calm, a death calmness by contrast, followed as usual the next +morning. + +The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been delivered, +part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. The captain +was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk was in his +office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate could be heard +below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; for if steamboat +crews have a single principle,--and there are those who deny them +any,--it is never to ship twice in succession on the same boat. It was +too early yet for any but roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers; +so early that even the river was still partly mist-covered; only in +places could the swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along. + +"Captain!" A hand plucked at his elbow, as if not confident that the +mere calling would secure attention. The captain turned. The mother of +the little convent girl stood there, and she held the little convent +girl by the hand. "I have brought her to see you," the woman said. +"You were so kind--and she is so quiet, so still, all the time, I +thought it would do her a pleasure." + +She spoke with an accent, and with embarrassment; otherwise one would +have said that she was bold and assured enough. + +"She don't go nowhere, she don't do nothing but make her crochet and +her prayers, so I thought I would bring her for a little visit of 'How +d' ye do' to you." + +There was, perhaps, some inflection in the woman's voice that might +have made known, or at least awakened, the suspicion of some latent +hope or intention, had the captain's ear been fine enough to detect +it. There might have been something in the little convent girl's face, +had his eye been more sensitive--trifle paler, maybe, the lips a +little tighter drawn, the blue ribbon a shade faded. He may have +noticed that, but-- And the visit of "How d' ye do" came to an end. + +They walked down the stairway, the woman in front, the little convent +girl--her hand released to shake hands with the captain--following, +across the bared deck, out to the gangway, over to the middle of +it. No one was looking, no one saw more than a flutter of white +petticoats, a show of white stockings, as the little convent girl went +under the water. + +The roustabout dived, as the roustabouts always do, after the +drowning, even at the risk of their good-for-nothing lives. The mate +himself jumped overboard; but she had gone down in a whirlpool. +Perhaps, as the pilot had told her whirlpools always did, it may have +carried her through to the underground river, to that vast, hidden, +dark Mississippi that flows beneath the one we see; for her body was +never found. + + + + +GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER + + +As the grandmother related it fresh from the primeval sources that +feed a grandmother's memory, it happened thus: + +In the early days of the settlement of Georgia--ah, how green and +rustic appears to us now the world in the early days of the settlement +of Georgia! Sometimes to women, listening to the stories of their +grandmothers, it seems better to have lived then than now--her +grandmother was at that time a young wife. It was the day of arduous, +if not of long, courtship before marriage, when every wedding +celebrated the close of an original romance; and when young couples, +for bridal trips, went out to settle new States, riding on a pillion +generally, with their trousseaux following as best they could on +sumpter mules; to hear the grandmother describe it made one long to be +a bride of those days. + +The young husband had the enumeration of qualities that went to the +making of a man of that period, and if the qualities were in the +proportion of ten physical to one intellectual, it does not follow +that the grandmother's grandfather was not a man of parts. For, to +obtain the hand of his bride, an only child and an heiress, he had to +give test of his mettle by ignoring his fortune, studying law, and +getting his license before marriage, and binding himself to live the +first year afterward on the proceeds of his practice; a device of the +time thought to be a wholesome corrective of the corrupting influence +of over-wealth in young domesticities. + +Although he had already chosen the sea for his profession, and was a +midshipman at the time, with more of a reputation for living than for +learning, such was he, and such, it may be said, was the incentive +genius of his choice, that almost before his resignation as midshipman +was accepted, his license as a lawyer was signed. As for practice, it +was currently remarked at his wedding, at the sight of him flying down +the room in the reel with his bride for partner, that his tongue was +as nimble as his heels, and that if he only turned his attention to +criminal practice, there was no man in the country who would make +a better prosecuting attorney for the State. And with him for +prosecuting attorney, it was warranted that sirrahs the highwaymen +would not continue to hold Georgia judge-and-jury justice in quite +such contemptible estimation, and that the gallows would not be left +so long bereft of their legitimate swingings. As for fees, it was +predicted that the young fellow as he stood, or rather "chassé'd," +could snap his fingers at both his and his bride's trustees. + +He did turn his attention to criminal law, was made prosecuting +attorney for the State in his county, and, before his six months +had passed, was convincing the hitherto high and mighty, lordly, +independent knights of the road that other counties in Georgia +furnished more secure pasturage for them. + +It was a beautiful spring morning. The young wife bade him a hearty +good-by, and stood in the doorway watching him, gay and _debonair_, +riding off, on his stout black charger Beetle, in the direction of the +town in which court was to be held that week. + +She herself feeling as full of ambition and work as if she also were +prosecuting attorney, with a perennial spring of eloquence bubbling in +her brain, turned to her domestic duties, and, without going into +the detail of them, it suffices to say that, according to the +grandmother's estimation, one morning's list of duties for a healthy +young bride of that period would shame the week's work of a syndicate +of them to-day. Finding herself nearing the limit of diminution of +several household necessities, and the spring suggesting the beginning +of new ones, she made up her mind to profit by her husband's absence +and the fair weather to make a trading visit to the neighboring town +next day. + +[Illustration: "TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES."] + +So, early in a morning as beautiful as the preceding one, mounted on +her own stanch mare Maid Marion, she ambled down the green over-hung +forest-road, in the vista of which she had watched her husband +disappear the day before; thinking about what she had to buy, and +thinking, no doubt, much more, as brides will, of the absent lord and +master--as brides of those days loved to consider and denominate their +husbands. + +Coming into the little town, the freshly painted, swinging sign-board +of the new tavern, "The Honest Georgian," as usual was the thing to +catch her eye; but the instant after what should she see but Black +Beetle hitched to the rack under the tree that shadowed the hostelry! + +It was not decorous; but she was young, and the day of her first +separation from her husband had been so long; and was he not also, +against the firmest of resolutions and plans, hastening back to her, +the separation being too long for him also? + +Slipping her foot from the stirrup, she jumped to the ground, and ran +into the tavern. There he stood calling hastily for a drink; and +her heart more than her eyes took in his, to her, consecrated +signalment--the riding-boots, short clothes, blue coat, cocked hat, +ruffles. She crept up behind to surprise him, her face, with its +delight and smiles, beyond her control. She crept, until she saw his +watch-fob dangling against the counter, and then her heart made a +call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another man was in her +husband's clothes, a man with a villainous countenance! With a scream +she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, dropped his drink, bounded to +the door and out, leaped to the back of Beetle, gave rein and spur, +and the black horse made good his reputation. In a second all was +hue-and-cry and pursuit. While men and horses made, for all they were +worth, down the road after Beetle, she on Maid Marion galloped for +her life in the opposite direction, the direction of the court town +whither her husband had journeyed. The mare's hide made acquaintance +with the whip that day if never before, for not even the willing Maid +Marion could keep pace with the apprehensions on her back. + +Scouring with her eyes the highway ahead of her, shooting hawk's +glances into the forest on each side of her, the wife rode through +the distance all, all day, praying that the day might be long enough, +might equal the distance. The sun set, and night began to fall; but +she and Maid Marion were none the less fresh, except in the heart. + +The moon rose straight before them down the road, lighting it and them +through the threatened obscurity. And so they came to trampled earth +and torn grass, and so she uncovered concealed footsteps, and so, +creeping on her hands and knees, she followed traces of blood, through +thicket and glade, into the deep forest, to a hastily piled hillock of +earth, gravel, and leaves. Burrowing with her hands, she came to it, +the naked body of her young husband, cold and stiff, foully murdered. +Maid Marion approached at her call. She wrapped him in her cloak, +and--a young wife of those times alone would do it--put him in the +saddle before her: the good mare Maid Marion alone knows the rest. In +the early gray dawn, from one highway there rode into the town the +baffled pursuers, from the other the grandmother's grandmother, +clasping the corpse of her husband with arms as stiff as his own; +loving him, so the grandmother used to say, with a love which, if ever +love could do so, would have effected a resurrection. + + + + +THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION + + +The news came out in the papers that the old lady had been restored +to her fortune. She had been deprived of it so long ago that the real +manner of her dispossession had become lost, or at least hidden under +the many versions that had been invented to replace lapses of memory, +or to remedy the unpicturesqueness of the original truth. The face of +truth, like the face of many a good woman, is liable to the accident +of ugliness, and the desire to embellish one as well as the other +need not necessarily proceed from anything more harmful than an +overweighted love of the beautiful. + +If the old lady had not been restored to her fortune, her _personalia_ +would have remained in the oblivion which, as one might say, had +accumulated upon everything belonging to her. But after that newspaper +paragraph, there was such a flowering of memory around her name as +would have done credit to a whole cemetery on All Saints. It took +three generations to do justice to the old lady, for so long and so +slow had been her descent into poverty that a grandmother was needed +to remember her setting out upon the road to it. + +She set out as most people do, well provided with money, diamonds, +pretty clothing, handsome residence, equipage, opera-box, beaus (for +she was a widow), and so many, many friends that she could never +indulge in a small party--she always had to give a grand ball +to accommodate them. She made quite an occasion of her first +reverse,--some litigation decided against her,--and said it came from +the court's' having only one ear, and that preempted by the other +party. + +She always said whatever she thought, regardless of the consequences, +because she averred truth was so much more interesting than falsehood. +Nothing annoyed her more in society than to have to listen to the +compositions women make as a substitute for the original truth. It was +as if, when she went to the theater to hear Shakspere and Molière, +the actors should try to impose upon the audience by reciting lines +of their own. Truth was the wit of life and the wit of books. She +traveled her road from affluence so leisurely that nothing escaped her +eyes or her feelings, and she signaled unhesitatingly every stage in +it. + +"My dear, do you know there is really such a thing as existence +without a carriage and horses?"--"I assure you it is perfectly new to +me to find that an opera-box is not a necessity. It is a luxury. In +theory one can really never tell the distinction between luxuries and +necessities."--"How absurd! At one time I thought hair was given +us only to furnish a profession to hair-dressers; just as we wear +artificial flowers to support the flower-makers."--"Upon my word, +it is not uninteresting. There is always some _haute nouveauté_ in +economy. The ways of depriving one's self are infinite. There is wine, +now."--"Not own your residence! As soon not own your tomb as your +residence! My mama used to scream that in my ears. According to her, +it was not _comme il faut_ to board or live in a rented house. +How little she knew!" + +When her friends, learning her increasing difficulties, which they did +from the best authority (herself), complimented her, as they were +forced to do, upon her still handsome appearance, pretty laces, +feathers, jewelry, silks, "Fat," she would answer--"fat. I am living +off my fat, as bears do in winter. In truth, I remind myself of an +animal in more ways than one." + +And so every one had something to contribute to the conversation about +her--bits which, they said, affection and admiration had kept alive in +their memory. + +Each city has its own roads to certain ends, its ways of Calvary, so +to speak. In New Orleans the victim seems ever to walk down Royal +street and up Chartres, or _vice versa_. One would infer so, at least, +from the display in the shops and windows of those thorough-fares. +Old furniture, cut glass, pictures, books, jewelry, lace, china--the +fleece (sometimes the flesh still sticking to it) left on the +brambles by the driven herd. If there should some day be a trump of +resurrection for defunct fortunes, those shops would be emptied in +the same twinkling of the eye allowed to tombs for their rendition of +property. + +The old lady must have made that promenade many, many times, to judge +by the samples of her "fat or fleece" displayed in the windows. She +took to hobbling, as if from tired or sore feet. + +"It is nothing," in answer to an inquiry. "Made-to-order feet learning +to walk in ready-made shoes: that is all. One's feet, after all, are +the most unintelligent part of one's body." Tea was her abomination, +coffee her adoration; but she explained: "Tea, you know, is so +detestable that the very worst is hardly worse than the very best; +while coffee is so perfect that the smallest shade of impurity is not +to be tolerated. The truly economical, I observe, always drink tea." +"At one time I thought if all the luxuries of the world were exposed +to me, and but one choice allowed, I should select gloves. Believe me, +there is no superfluity in the world so easily dispensed with." + +As may be supposed, her path led her farther and farther away from her +old friends. Even her intimates became scarce; so much so, that these +observations, which, of course, could be made only to intimates, +became fewer and fewer, unfortunately, for her circumstances were +becoming such that the remarks became increasingly valuable. The last +thing related of her was apropos of friends. + +"My friends! My dear, I cannot tell you just so, on the spur of the +moment, but with a little reflection and calculation I could tell you, +to a picayune, the rent of every friend in the market. You can lease, +rent, or hire them, like horses, carriages, opera-boxes, servants, by +year, month, day, or hour; and the tariff is just as fixed. + +"Christians! Christians are the most discreet people in the world. If +you should ask me what Christianity has most promoted in the world, I +should answer without hesitation, discretion. Of course, when I say +the world I mean society, and when I say Christianity I mean our +interpretation of it. If only duns could be pastors, and pastors duns! +But of course you do not know what duns are; they are the guardian +angels of the creditor, the pursuing fiends of the debtor." + +After that, the old lady made her disappearance under the waves of +that sea into the depths of which it is very improbable that a single +friend ever attempted to pursue her. And there she remained until the +news came that she was restored to fortune. + +A week passed, two weeks; no sight or sound of her. It was during this +period that her old friends were so occupied resuscitating their old +friendships for her--when all her antique sayings and doings became +current ball-room and dinner-table gossip--that she arose from her +obscurity like Cinderella from her ashes, to be decked with every gift +that fairy minds could suggest. Those who had known her intimately +made no effort to conceal their importance. Those who did not know her +personally put forward claims of inherited friendship, and those who +did not know her traditionally or otherwise--the _nouveaux riches_ +and _parvenus_, who alone feel the moneyed value of such social +connections--began making their resolutions to capture her as soon as +she came in sight of society. + +The old residence was to be re-bought, and refurnished from France; +the _avant scène_ at the opera had been engaged; the old cook was to +be hired back from the club at a fabulous price; the old balls and the +old dinners were to gladden the city--so said they who seemed to know. +Nothing was to be spared, nothing stinted--at her age, with no child +or relative, and life running short for pleasure. Diamonds, laces, +velvets, champagne, Château Yquem--"Grand Dieu Seigneur!" the old +Creole servants exclaimed, raising their hands at the enumeration of +it. + +Where the news came from nobody knew, but everything was certified +and accepted as facts, although, as between women, the grain of salt +should have been used. Impatience waxed, until nearly every day some +one would ring the bell of the old residence, to ask when the mistress +was going to move in. And such affectionate messages! And people would +not, simply could not, be satisfied with the incomprehensible answers. +And then it leaked out. The old lady was simply waiting for everything +to arrive--furniture, toilets, carriage, etc.--to make a grand +_entrée_ into her old sphere; to come riding on a throne, as it were. +And still the time passed, and she did not come. Finally two of the +clever-heads penetrated the enigma: _mauvaise honte_, shyness--so long +out of the world, so old; perhaps not sure of her welcome. So they +determined to seek her out. + +[Illustration: THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY.] + +"We will go to her, like children to a grandmother, etc. The others +have no delicacy of sentiment, etc. And she will thus learn who really +remember, really love her, etc." + +Provided with congratulatory bouquets, they set forth. It is very hard +to find a dweller on the very sea-bottom of poverty. Perhaps that is +why the effort is so seldom made. One has to ask at grocers' shops, +groggeries, market-stalls, Chinese restaurants; interview corner +cobblers, ragpickers, gutter children. But nothing is impossible to +the determined. The two ladies overcame all obstacles, and needled +their way along, where under other circumstances they would not have +glanced, would have thought it improper to glance. + +They were directed through an old, old house, out on an old, old +gallery, to a room at the very extreme end. + +"Poor thing! Evidently she has not heard the good news yet. We will +be the first to communicate it," they whispered, standing before the +dilapidated, withered-looking door. + +Before knocking, they listened, as it is the very wisdom of discretion +to do. There was life inside, a little kind of voice, like some one +trying to hum a song with a very cracked old throat. + +The ladies opened the door. "Ah, my friend!" + +"Ah, my friend!" + +"Restored!" + +"Restored!" + +"At last!" + +"At last!" + +"Just the same!" + +"Exactly the same!" + +It was which one would get to her first with bouquet and kiss, +competition almost crowding friendship. + +"The good news!" + +"The good news!" + +"We could not stay!" + +"We had to come!" + +"It has arrived at last!" + +"At last it has arrived!" + +The old lady was very much older, but still the same. + +"You will again have a chance!" + +"Restored to your friends!" + +"The world!" + +"Your luxuries!" + +"Your comforts!" + +"Comforts! Luxuries!" At last the old lady had an opportunity to slip +in a word. "And friends! You say right." + +There was a pause--a pause which held not a small measure of +embarrassment. But the two visitors, although they were women of the +world, and so dreaded an embarrassment more than they did sin, had +prepared themselves even to stand this. + +The old lady standing there--she was very much thinner, very much +bent, but still the same--appeared to be looking not at them, but at +their enumeration. + +"Comfort!" She opened a pot bubbling on the fire. "Bouillon! A good +five-cent bouillon. Luxury!" She picked up something from a chair, +a handful of new cotton chemises. "Luxury!" She turned back her +bedspread: new cotton sheets. "Did you ever lie in your bed at night +and dream of sheets? Comfort! Luxury! I should say so! And friends! My +dear, look!" Opening her door, pointing to an opposite gallery, to +the yard, her own gallery; to the washing, ironing, sewing women, the +cobbling, chair-making, carpentering men; to the screaming, laughing, +crying, quarreling, swarming children. "Friends! All friends--friends +for fifteen years. Ah, yes, indeed! We are all glad--elated in fact. +As you say. I am restored." + +The visitors simply reported that they had found the old lady, and +that she was imbecile; mind completely gone under stress of poverty +and old age. Their opinion was that she should be interdicted. + + + + +A DELICATE AFFAIR + + +"But what does this extraordinary display of light mean?" ejaculated +my aunt, the moment she entered the parlor from the dining-room. "It +looks like the kingdom of heaven in here! Jules! Jules!" she called, +"come and put out some of the light!" + +Jules was at the front door letting in the usual Wednesday-evening +visitor, but now he came running in immediately with his own invention +in the way of a gas-stick,--a piece of broom-handle notched at the +end,--and began turning one tap after the other, until the room was +reduced to complete darkness. + +"But what do you mean now, Jules?" screamed the old lady again. + +"Pardon, madame," answered Jules, with dignity; "it is an accident. I +thought there was one still lighted." + +"An accident! An accident! Do you think I hire you to perform +accidents for me? You are just through telling me that it was accident +made you give me both soup and gumbo for dinner today." + +"But accidents can always happen, madame," persisted Jules, adhering +to his position. + +The chandelier, a design of originality in its day, gave light by what +purported to be wax candles standing each in a circlet of pendent +crystals. The usual smile of ecstatic admiration spread over Jules's +features as he touched the match to the simulated wicks, and lighted +into life the rainbows in the prisms underneath. It was a smile that +did not heighten the intelligence of his features, revealing as it did +the toothless condition of his gums. + +"What will madame have for her dinner tomorrow," looking benignantly +at his mistress, and still standing under his aureole. + +"Do I ever give orders for one dinner, with the other one still on my +lips?" + +"I only asked madame; there is no harm in asking." He walked away, his +long stiff white apron rattling like a petticoat about him. Catching +sight of the visitor still standing at the threshold: "Oh, madame, +here is Mr. Horace. Shall I let him in?" + +"Idiot! Every Wednesday you ask me that question, and every Wednesday +I answer the same way. Don't you think I could tell you when not to let +him in without your asking?" + +"Oh, well, madame, one never knows; it is always safe to ask." + +The appearance of the gentleman started a fresh subject of excitement. + +"Jules! Jules! You have left that front door unlocked again!" + +"Excuse me," said Mr. Horace; "Jules did not leave the front door +unlocked. It was locked when I rang, and he locked it again most +carefully after letting me in. I have been standing outside all the +while the gas was being extinguished and relighted." + +"Ah, very well, then. And what is the news?" She sank into her +arm-chair, pulled her little card-table closer, and began shuffling +the cards upon it for her game of solitaire. "I never hear any news, +you know. She [nodding toward me] goes out, but she never learns +anything. She is as stupid tonight as an empty bottle." + +After a few passes her hands, which were slightly tremulous, regained +some of their wonted steadiness and brilliancy of movement, and the +cards dropped rapidly on the table. Mr. Horace, as he had got into +the habit of doing, watched her mechanically, rather absent-mindedly +retailing what he imagined would interest her, from his week's +observation and hearsay. And madame's little world revolved, complete +for her, in time, place, and personality. + +It was an old-fashioned square room with long ceiling, and broad, low +windows heavily curtained with stiff silk brocade, faded by time into +mellowness. The tall white-painted mantel carried its obligation of +ornaments well: a gilt clock which under a glass case related some +brilliant poetical idyl, and told the hours only in an insignificant +aside, according to the delicate politeness of bygone French taste; +flanked by duplicate continuations of the same idyl in companion +candelabra, also under glass; Sèvres, or imitation Sèvres vases, and +a crowd of smaller objects to which age and rarity were slowly +contributing an artistic value. An oval mirror behind threw replicas +of them into another mirror, receiving in exchange the reflected +portrait of madame in her youth, and in the partial nudity in which +innocence was limned in madame's youth. There were besides mirrors on +the other three walls of the room, all hung with such careful intent +for the exercise of their vocation that the apartment, in spots, +extended indefinitely; the brilliant chandelier was thereby +quadrupled, and the furniture and ornaments multiplied everywhere +and most unexpectedly into twins and triplets, producing such +sociabilities among them, and forcing such correspondences between +inanimate objects with such hospitable insistence, that the effect was +full of gaiety and life, although the interchange in reality was the +mere repetition of one original, a kind of phonographic echo. + +The portrait of monsieur, madame's handsome young husband, hung out +of the circle of radiance, in the isolation that, wherever they hang, +always seems to surround the portraits of the dead. + +Old as the parlors appeared, madame antedated them by the sixteen +years she had lived before her marriage, which had been the occasion +of their furnishment. She had traveled a considerable distance over +the sands of time since the epoch commemorated by the portrait. +Indeed, it would require almost documentary evidence to prove that +she, who now was arriving at eighty, was the same Atalanta that had +started out so buoyantly at sixteen. + +Instead of a cap, she wore black lace over her head, pinned with gold +brooches. Her white hair curled naturally over a low forehead. Her +complexion showed care--and powder. Her eyes were still bright, not +with the effete intelligence of old age, but with actual potency. She +wore a loose black sack flowered in purple, and over that a black lace +mantle, fastened with more gold brooches. + +She played her game of solitaire rapidly, impatiently, and always won; +for she never hesitated to cheat to get out of a tight place, or +into a favorable one, cheating with the quickness of a flash, and +forgetting it the moment afterward. + +Mr. Horace was as old as she, but he looked much younger, although +his dress and appearance betrayed no evidence of an effort in that +direction. Whenever his friend cheated, he would invariably call her +attention to it; and as usual she would shrug her shoulders, and say, +"Bah! lose a game for a card!" and pursue the conversation. + +He happened to mention mushrooms--fresh mushrooms. She threw down +her cards before the words were out of his mouth, and began to call, +"Jules! Jules!" Mr. Horace pulled the bell-cord, but madame was +too excitable for that means of communication. She ran into the +antechamber, and put her head over the banisters, calling, "Jules! +Jules!" louder and louder. She might have heard Jules's slippered feet +running from the street into the corridor and up-stairs, had she not +been so deaf. He appeared at the door. + +"But where have you been? Here I have been raising the house a +half-hour, calling you. You have been in the street. I am sure you +have been in the street." + +"Madame is very much mistaken," answered Jules, with resentful +dignity. He had taken off his white apron of waiter, and was +disreputable in all the shabbiness of his attire as cook. "When madame +forbids me to go into the street, I do not go into the street. I was +in the kitchen; I had fallen asleep. What does madame desire?" smiling +benevolently. + +"What is this I hear? Fresh mushrooms in the market!" + +"Eh, madame?" + +"Fresh mushrooms in the market, and you have not brought me any!" + +"Madame, there are fresh mushrooms everywhere in the market," waving +his hand to show their universality. + +"Everybody is eating them--" + +"Old Pomponnette," Jules continued, "only this morning offered me a +plate, piled up high, for ten cents." + +"Idiot! Why did you not buy them?" + +"If madame had said so; but madame did not say so. Madame said, 'Soup, +Jules; carrots, rice,'" counting on his fingers. + +"And the gumbo?" + +"I have explained that that was an accident. Madame said 'Soup,'" +enumerating his menu again; "madame never once said mushrooms." + +"But how could I know there were mushrooms in the market? Do I go to +market?" + +"That is it!" and Jules smiled at the question thus settled. + +"If you had told me there were mushrooms in the market--" pursued +madame, persisting in treating Jules as a reasonable being. + +"Why did not madame ask me? If madame had asked me, surely I would +have told madame. Yesterday Caesar brought them to the door--a whole +bucketful for twenty-five cents. I had to shut the door in his face to +get rid of him," triumphantly. + +"And you brought me yesterday those detestable peas!" + +"Ah," shrugging his shoulders, "madame told me to buy what I saw. I +saw peas. I bought them." + +"Well, understand now, once for all: whenever you see mushrooms, no +matter what I ordered, you buy them. Do you hear?" + +"No, madame. Surely I cannot buy mushrooms unless madame orders them. +Madame's disposition is too quick." + +"But I do order them. Stupid! I do order them. I tell you to buy them +every day." + +"And if there are none in the market every day?" + +"Go away! Get out of my sight! I do not want to see you. Ah, it is +unendurable! I must--I must get rid of him!" This last was not +a threat, as Jules knew only too well. It was merely a habitual +exclamation. + +During the colloquy Mr. Horace, leaning back in his arm-chair, raised +his eyes, and caught the reflected portrait of madame in the mirror +before him--the reflection so much softer and prettier, so much more +ethereal, than the original painting. Indeed, seen in the mirror, that +way, the portrait was as refreshing as the most charming memory. He +pointed to it when madame, with considerable loss of temper, regained +her seat. + +"It is as beautiful as the past," he explained most unnaturally, for +he and his friend had a horror of looking at the long, long past, +which could not fail to remind them of--what no one cares to +contemplate out of church. Making an effort toward some determination +which a subtle observer might have noticed weighing upon him all the +evening, he added: "And, apropos of the past--" + +"_Hein_?" interrogated the old lady, impatiently, still under the +influence of her irascibility about the mushrooms. + +He moved his chair closer, and bent forward, as if his communication +were to be confidential. + +"Ah, bah! Speak louder!" she cried. "One would suppose you had some +secret to tell. What secrets can there be at our age?" She took up her +cards and began to play. There could be no one who bothered herself +less about the forms of politeness. + +"Yes, yes," answered Mr. Horace, throwing himself back into his chair; +"what secrets can there be at our age?" + +The remark seemed a pregnant one to him; he gave himself up to it. One +must evidently be the age of one's thoughts. Mr. Horace's thoughts +revealed him the old man he was. The lines in his face deepened into +wrinkles; his white mustache could not pretend to conceal his mouth, +worsened by the loss of a tooth or two; and the long, thin hand that +propped his head was crossed with blue, distended veins. "At the last +judgment"--it was a favorite quotation with him--"the book of our +conscience will be read aloud before the whole company." + +But the old lady, deep in her game, paid no more heed to his quotation +than to him. He made a gesture toward her portrait. + +"When that was painted, Josephine--" + +Madame threw a glance after the gesture. The time was so long ago, the +mythology of Greece hardly more distant! At eighty the golden age of +youth must indeed appear an evanescent myth. Madame's ideas seemed to +take that direction. + +"Ah, at that time we were all nymphs, and you all demigods." + +"Demigods and nymphs, yes; but there was one among us who was a god +with you all." + +The allusion--a frequent one with Mr. Horace--was to madame's husband, +who in his day, it is said, had indeed played the god in the little +Arcadia of society. She shrugged her shoulders. The truth is so little +of a compliment The old gentleman sighed in an abstracted way, and +madame, although apparently absorbed in her game, lent her ear. It is +safe to say that a woman is never too old to hear a sigh wafted in her +direction. + +"Josephine, do you remember--in your memory--" + +She pretended not to hear. Remember? Who ever heard of her forgetting? +But she was not the woman to say, at a moment's notice, what she +remembered or what she forgot. + +"A woman's memory! When I think of a woman's memory--in fact, I do not +like to think of a woman's memory. One can intrude in imagination into +many places; but a woman's memory--" + +Mr. Horace seemed to lose his thread. It had been said of him in +his youth that he wrote poetry--and it was said against him. It was +evidently such lapses as these that had given rise to the accusation. +And as there was no one less impatient under sentiment or poetry +than madame, her feet began to agitate themselves as if Jules were +perorating some of his culinary inanities before her. + +"And a man's memory!" totally misunderstanding him. "It is not there +that I either would penetrate, my friend. A man--" + +When madame began to talk about men she was prompted by imagination +just as much as was Mr. Horace when he talked about women. But what a +difference in their sentiments! And yet he had received so little, and +she so much, from the subjects of their inspiration. But that seems to +be the way in life--or in imagination. + +"That you should"--he paused with the curious shyness of the old +before the word "love"--"that you two should--marry--seemed natural, +inevitable, at the time." + +Tradition records exactly the same comment by society at the time on +the marriage in question. Society is ever fatalistic in its comments. + +"But the natural--the inevitable--do we not sometimes, I wonder, +perform them as Jules does his accidents?" + +"Ah, do not talk about that idiot! An idiot born and bred! I won't +have him about me! He is a monstrosity! I tell his grandmother that +every day when she comes to comb me. What a farce--what a ridiculous +farce comfortable existence has become with us! Fresh mushrooms in +market, and bring me carrots!" + +The old gentleman, partly from long knowledge of her habit, or from an +equally persistent bend of his own, quietly held on to his idea. + +"One cannot tell. It seems so at the time. We like to think it so; it +makes it easier. And yet, looking back on our future as we once looked +forward to it--" + +"Eh! but who wants to look back on it, my friend? Who in the world +wants to look back on it?" One could not doubt madame's energy of +opinion on that question to hear her voice. "We have done our future, +we have performed it, if you will. Our future! It is like the dinners +we have eaten; of course we cannot remember the good without becoming +exasperated over the bad: but"--shrugging her shoulders--"since we +cannot beat the cooks, we must submit to fate," forcing a queen that +she needed at the critical point of her game. + +"At sixteen and twenty-one it is hard to realize that one is arranging +one's life to last until sixty, seventy, forever," correcting himself +as he thought of his friend, the dead husband. If madame had ever +possessed the art of self-control, it was many a long day since she +had exercised it; now she frankly began to show ennui. + +"When I look back to that time,"--Mr. Horace leaned back in his chair +and half closed his eyes, perhaps to avoid the expression of her +face,--"I see nothing but lights and flowers, I hear nothing but music +and laughter; and all--lights and flowers and music and laughter--seem +to meet in this room, where we met so often to arrange +our--inevitabilities." The word appeared to attract him. +"Josephine,"--with a sudden change of voice and manner,--"Josephine, +how beautiful you were!" + +The old lady nodded her head without looking from her cards. + +"They used to say," with sad conviction of the truth of his +testimony--"the men used to say that your beauty was irresistible. +None ever withstood you. None ever could." + +That, after all, was Mr. Horace's great charm with madame; he was so +faithful to the illusions of his youth. As he looked now at her, one +could almost feel the irresistibility of which he spoke. + +"It was only their excuse, perhaps; we could not tell at the time; we +cannot tell even now when we think about it. They said then, talking +as men talk over such things, that you were the only one who could +remain yourself under the circumstances; you were the only one who +could know, who could will, under the circumstances. It was their +theory; men can have only theories about such things." His voice +dropped, and he seemed to drop too, into some abysm of thought. + +Madame looked into the mirror, where she could see the face of the one +who alone could retain her presence of mind under the circumstances +suggested by Mr. Horace. She could also have seen, had she wished it, +among the reflected bric-a-brac of the mantel, the corner of the frame +that held the picture of her husband, but peradventure, classing it +with the past which held so many unavenged bad dinners, she never +thought to link it even by a look with her emotions of the present. +Indeed, it had been said of her that in past, present, and future +there had ever been but the one picture to interest her eyes--the +one she was looking at now. This, however, was the remark of the +uninitiated, for the true passion of a beautiful woman is never so +much for her beauty as for its booty; as the passion of a gamester is +for his game, not for his luck. + +"How beautiful _she_ was!" + +It was apparently down in the depths of his abysm that he found the +connection between this phrase and his last, and it was evidently to +himself he said it. Madame, however, heard and understood too; in +fact, traced back to a certain period, her thoughts and Mr. Horace's +must have been fed by pretty much the same subjects. But she had +so carefully barricaded certain issues in her memory as almost to +obstruct their flow into her life; if she were a cook, one would +say that it was her bad dinners which she was trying to keep out of +remembrance. + +"You there, he there, she there, I there." He pointed to the places on +the carpet, under the chandelier; he could have touched them with a +walking-stick, and the recollection seemed just as close. + +"She was, in truth, what we men called her then; it was her eyes +that first suggested it--Myosotis, the little blue flower, the +for-get-me-not. It suited her better than her own name. We always +called her that among ourselves. How beautiful she was!" He leaned his +head on his hand and looked where he had seen her last--so long, such +an eternity, ago. + +It must be explained for the benefit of those who do not live in the +little world where an allusion is all that is necessary to put one in +full possession of any drama, domestic or social, that Mr. Horace was +speaking of the wedding-night of madame, when the bridal party stood +as he described under the chandelier; the bride and groom, with each +one's best friend. It may be said that it was the last night or time +that madame had a best friend of her own sex. Social gossip, with +characteristic kindness, had furnished reasons to suit all tastes, why +madame had ceased that night to have a best friend of her own sex. If +gossip had not done so, society would still be left to its imagination +for information, for madame never tolerated the smallest appeal to her +for enlightenment. What the general taste seemed most to relish as a +version was that madame in her marriage had triumphed, not conquered; +and that the night of her wedding she had realized the fact, and, to +be frank, had realized it ever since. In short, madame had played then +to gain at love, as she played now to gain at solitaire; and hearts +were no more than cards to her--and, "Bah! Lose a game for a card!" +must have been always her motto. It is hard to explain it delicately +enough, for these are the most delicate affairs in life; but the image +of Myosotis had passed through monsieur's heart, and Myosotis does +mean "forget me not." And madame well knew that to love monsieur once +was to love him always, in spite of jealousy, doubt, distrust, nay, +unhappiness (for to love him meant all this and more). He was that +kind of man, they said, whom women could love even against conscience. +Madame never forgave that moment. Her friend, at least, she could put +aside out of her intercourse; unfortunately, we cannot put people out +of our lives. God alone can do that, and so far he had interfered in +the matter only by removing monsieur. It was known to notoriety that +since her wedding madame had abandoned, destroyed, all knowledge of +her friend. And the friend? She had disappeared as much as is possible +for one in her position and with her duties. + +"What there is in blue eyes, light hair, and a fragile form to impress +one, I cannot tell; but for us men it seems to me it is blue-eyed, +light-haired, and fragile-formed women that are the hardest to +forget." + +"The less easy to forget," corrected madam. He paid no attention +to the remark. + +"They are the women that attach themselves in one's memory. If +necessary to keep from being forgotten, they come back into one's +dreams. And as life rolls on, one wonders about them,--'Is she happy? +Is she miserable? Goes life well or ill with her?'" + +Madame played her cards slowly, one would say, for her, prosaically. + +"And there is always a pang when, as one is so wondering, the response +comes,--that is, the certainty in one's heart responds,--'She is +miserable, and life goes ill with her.' Then, if ever, men envy the +power of God." + +Madame threw over the game she was in, and began a new one. + +"Such women should not be unhappy; they are too fragile, too +sensitive, too trusting. I could never understand the infliction +of misery upon them. I could send death to them, but not--not +misfortune." + +Madame, forgetting again to cheat in time, and losing her game, began +impatiently to shuffle her cards for a new deal. + +"And yet, do you know, Josephine, those women are the unhappy ones of +life. They seem predestined to it, as others"--looking at madame's +full-charmed portrait--"are predestined to triumph and victory. +They"--unconscious, in his abstraction, of the personal nature of his +simile--"never know how to handle their cards, and they always play a +losing game." + +"Ha!" came from madame, startled into an irate ejaculation. + +"It is their love always that is sacrificed, their hearts always that +are bruised. One might say that God himself favors the black-haired +ones!" + +As his voice sank lower and lower, the room seemed to become stiller +and stiller. A passing vehicle in the street, however, now and then +drew a shiver of sound from the pendent prisms of the chandelier. + +"She was so slight, so fragile, and always in white, with blue in her +hair to match her eyes--and--God knows what in her heart, all the +time. And yet they stand it, they bear it, they do not die, they live +along with the strongest, the happiest, the most fortunate of us," +bitterly; "and"--raising his eyes to his old friend, who thereupon +immediately began to fumble her cards--"whenever in the street I see +a poor, bent, broken woman's figure, I know, without verifying it +any more by a glance, that it is the wreck of a fair woman's figure; +whenever I hear of a bent, broken existence, I know, without asking +any more, that it is the wreck of a fair woman's life." + +Poor Mr. Horace spoke with the unreason of a superstitious bigot. + +"I have often thought, since, in large assemblies, particularly in +weddings, Josephine, of what was going on in the women's hearts there, +and I have felt sorry for them; and when I think of God's knowing what +is in their hearts, I have felt sorry for the men. And I often think +now, Josephine,--think oftener and oftener of it,--that if the +resurrection trumpet of our childhood should sound some day, no matter +when, out there, over the old St. Louis cemetery, and we should all +have to rise from our long rest of oblivion, what would be the first +thing we should do? And though there were a God and a heaven awaiting +us,--by that same God, Josephine, I believe that our first thought in +awakening would be the last in dying,--confession,--and that our first +rush would be to the feet of one another for forgiveness. For there +are some offenses that must outlast the longest oblivion, and a +forgiveness that will be more necessary than God's own. Then our +hearts will be bared to one another; for if, as you say, there are +no secrets at our age, there can still be less cause for them after +death." + +His voice ended in the faintest whisper. The table crashed over, and +the cards flew wide-spread on the floor. Before we could recover, +madame was in the antechamber, screaming for Jules. + +One would have said that, from her face, the old lady had witnessed +the resurrection described by Mr. Horace, the rush of the spirits with +their burdens of remorse, the one to the feet of the other; and she +must have seen herself and her husband, with a unanimity of purpose +never apparent in their short married life, rising from their common +tomb and hastening to that other tomb at the end of the alley, and +falling at the feet of the one to whom in life he had been recreant in +love, she in friendship. + +Of course Jules answered through the wrong door, rushing in with his +gas-stick, and turning off the gas. In a moment we were involved in +darkness and dispute. + +"But what does he mean? What does the idiot mean? He--" It was +impossible for her to find a word to do justice to him and to her +exasperation at the same time. + +"Pardon, madame; it is not I. It is the cathedral bell; it is ringing +nine o'clock." + +"But--" + +"Madame can hear it herself. Listen!" We could not see it, but we were +conscious of the benign, toothless smile spreading over his face as +the bell-tones fell in the room. + +"But it is not the gas. I--" + +"Pardon, madame; but it is the gas. Madame said, 'Jules, put out the +gas every night when the bell rings.' Madame told me that only last +night. The bell rings: I put out the gas." + +"Will you be silent? Will you listen?" + +"If madame wishes; just as madame says." + +But the old lady had turned to Mr. Horace. "Horace, you have seen--you +know--" and it was a question now of overcoming emotion. "I--I--I--a +carriage, my friend, a carriage." + +"Madame--" Jules interrupted his smile to interrupt her. + +She was walking around the room, picking up a shawl here, a lace +there; for she was always prepared against draughts. + +"Madame--" continued Jules, pursuing her. + +"A carriage." + +"If madame would only listen, I was going to say--but madame is too +quick in her disposition--the carriage has been waiting since a long +hour ago. Mr. Horace said to have it there in a half hour." + +It was then she saw for the first time that it had all been prepared +by Mr. Horace. The rest was easy enough: getting into the carriage, +and finding the place of which Mr. Horace had heard, as he said, only +that afternoon. In it, on her bed of illness, poverty, and suffering, +lay the patient, wasted form of the beautiful fair one whom men had +called in her youth Myosotis. + +But she did not call her Myosotis. + +"_Mon Amour!_" The old pet name, although it had to be fetched across +more than half a century of disuse, flashed like lightning from +madame's heart into the dim chamber. + +"_Ma Divine!_" came in counter-flash from the curtained bed. + +In the old days women, or at least young girls, could hazard such pet +names one upon the other. These--think of it!--dated from the first +communion class, the dating period of so much of friendship. + +"My poor Amour!" + +"My poor, poor Divine!" + +The voices were together, close beside the pillow. + +"I--I--" began Divine. + +"It could not have happened if God had not wished it," interrupted +poor Amour, with the resignation that comes, alas! only with the last +drop of the bitter cup. + +And that was about all. If Mr. Horace had not slipped away, he might +have noticed the curious absence of monsieur's name, and of his own +name, in the murmuring that followed. It would have given him some +more ideas on the subject of woman. + +At any rate, the good God must thank him for having one affair the +less to arrange when the trumpet sounds out there over the old St. +Louis cemetery. And he was none too premature; for the old St. Louis +cemetery, as was shortly enough proved, was a near reach for all three +of the old friends. + + + + +PUPASSE + + +Every day, every day, it was the same overture in Madame Joubert's +room in the Institute St. Denis; the strident: + +"Mesdemoiselles; à vos places! Notre Père qui est dans le ciel--Qui a +fait ce bruit?" + +"It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse!" The answer invariably was +unanimous. + +"But, Madame Joubert,--I assure you, Madame Joubert,--I could not help +it! They know I could not help it!" + +By this time the fresh new fool's cap made from yesterday's "Bee" +would have been pinned on her head. + +"Quelle injustice! Quelle injustice!" + +This last apostrophe in a high, whining nasal voice, always procured +Pupasse's elevation on the tall three-legged stool in the corner. + +It was a theory of the little girls in the primary class that Madame +Joubert would be much more lenient to their own little inevitabilities +of bad conduct and lessons if Pupasse did not invariably comb her +the wrong way every morning after prayers, by dropping something, +or sniffling, or sneezing. Therefore, while they distractedly got +together books, slates, and copy-books, their infantile eyes found +time to dart deadly reproaches toward the corner of penitence, and +their little lips, still shaped from their first nourishment, pouted +anything but sympathy for the occupant of it. + +Indeed, it would have been a most startling unreality to have ever +entered Madame Joubert's room and not seen Pupasse in that corner, on +that stool, her tall figure shooting up like a post, until her tall, +pointed _bonnet d' âne_ came within an inch or two of the ceiling. +It was her hoop-skirt that best testified to her height. It was the +period of those funnel-shaped hoop-skirts that spread out with such +nice mathematical proportions, from the waist down, that it seemed +they must have emanated from the brains of astronomers, like the +orbits, and diameters, and other things belonging to the heavenly +bodies. Pupasse could not have come within three feet of the wall with +her hoop-skirt distended. To have forced matters was not to be thought +of an instant. So even in her greatest grief and indignation, she had +to pause before the three-legged black stool, and gather up steel +after steel of her circumference in her hands behind, until her calico +skirt careened and flattened; and so she could manage to accommodate +herself to the limited space of her punishment, the circles drooping +far over her feet as she stood there, looking like the costumed stick +of a baby's rattle. + +Her thinness continued into her face, which, unfortunately, had +nothing in the way of toilet to assist it. Two little black eyes fixed +in the sides of a mere fence of a nose, and a mouth with the shape and +expression of all mouths made to go over sharp-pointed teeth planted +very far apart; the smallest amount possible of fine, dry, black +hair--a perfect rat-tail when it was plaited in one, as almost all +wore their hair. But sometimes Pupasse took it into her head to plait +it in two braids, as none but the thick-haired ventured to wear it. +As the little girls said, it was a petition to Heaven for "eau +Quinquina." When Marcelite, the hair-dresser, came at her regular +periods to visit the hair of the boarders, she would make an effort +with Pupasse, plaiting her hundred hairs in a ten-strand braid. The +effect was a half yard of black worsted galloon; nothing more, or +better. Had Pupasse possessed as many heads as the hydra, she could +have "coiffe'd" them all with fools' caps during one morning's +recitations. She entirely monopolized the "Daily Bee." Madame Joubert +was forced to borrow from "madame" the stale weekly "Courrier des +Etats-Unis" for the rest of the room. From grammar, through sacred +history, arithmetic, geography, mythology, down to dictation, Pupasse +could pile up an accumulation of penitences that would have tasked the +limits of the current day had not recreation been wisely set as a term +which disbarred, by proscription, previous offenses. But even after +recreation, with that day's lessons safely out, punished and expiated, +Pupasse's doom seemed scarcely lightened; there was still a whole +criminal code of conduct to infract. The only difference was that +instead of books, slates, or copy-books, leathern medals, bearing +various legends and mottos, were hung around her neck--a travestied +decoration worse than the books for humiliation. + +The "abécédaires," their torment for the day over, thankful for any +distraction from the next day's lessons, and eager for any relief +from the intolerable ennui of goodness, were thankful enough now for +Pupasse. They naturally watched her in preference to Madame Joubert, +holding their books and slates quite cunningly to hide their faces. +Pupasse had not only the genius, but that which sometimes fails +genius, the means for grimacing: little eyes, long nose, foolish +mouth, and pointed tongue. And she was so amusing, when Madame +Joubert's head was turned, that the little girls, being young and +innocent, would forget themselves and all burst out laughing. It +sounded like a flight of singing birds through the hot, close, stupid +little room; but not so to Madame Joubert. + +"Young ladies! But what does this mean?" + +And, terror-stricken, the innocents would call out with one voice, +"It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse who made us laugh!" There was +nothing but fools' caps to be gained by prevaricating, and there was +frequently nothing less gained by confession. And oh, the wails and +the sobs as the innocents would be stood up, one by one, in their +places! Even the pigtails at the backs of their little heads were +convulsed with grief. Oh, how they hated Pupasse then! When their +_bonnes_ came for them at three o'clock,--washing their tear-stained +faces at the cistern before daring to take them through the +streets,--how passionately they would cry out, the tears breaking +afresh into the wet handkerchiefs: + +"It's that Pupasse! It's that _vilaine_ Pupasse!" + +To Pupasse herself would be meted out that "peine forte et dure," that +acme of humiliation and disgrace, so intensely horrible that many a +little girl in that room solemnly averred and believed she would kill +herself before submitting to it. Pupasse's voluminous calico skirt +would be gathered up by the hem and tied up over her head! Oh, the +horrible monstrosity on the stool in the corner then! There were no +eyes in that room that had any desire to look upon it. And the cries +and the "Quelle injustice!" that fell on the ears then from the hidden +feelings had all the weirdness of the unseen, but heard. And all the +other girls in the room, in fear and trembling, would begin to move +their lips in a perfect whirlwind of study, or write violently +on their slates, or begin at that very instant to rule off their +copy-books for the next day's verb. + +Pupasse--her name was Marie Pupasse but no one thought of calling +her anything but Pupasse, with emphasis on the first syllable and +sibilance on the last--had no parents only a grandmother, to describe +whom, all that is necessary to say is that she was as short as Pupasse +was tall, and that her face resembled nothing so much as a little +yellow apple shriveling from decay. The old lady came but once a week, +to fetch Pupasse fresh clothes, and a great brown paper bag of nice +things to eat. There was no boarder in the school who received +handsomer bags of cake and fruit than Pupasse. And although, not two +hours before, a girl might have been foremost in the shrill cry, "It +is Pupasse who made the noise! It is Pupasse who made me laugh!" there +was nothing in that paper bag reserved even from such a one. When the +girl herself with native delicacy would, under the circumstances, +judge it discreet to refuse, Pupasse would plead, "Oh, but take it to +give me pleasure!" And if still the refusal continued, Pupasse would +take her bag and go into the summer-house in the corner of the garden, +and cry until the unforgiving one would relent. But the first offering +of the bag was invariably to the stern dispenser of fools' caps and +the unnamed humiliation of the reversed skirt: Madame Joubert. + +Pupasse was in the fifth class. The sixth--the abécédaires--was +the lowest in the school. Green was the color of the fifth; +white--innocence--of the abécédaires. Exhibition after exhibition, the +same green sash and green ribbons appeared on Pupasse's white muslin, +the white muslin getting longer and longer every year, trying to keep +up with her phenomenal growth; and always, from all over the room, +buzzed the audience's suppressed merriment at Pupasse's appearance +in the ranks of the little ones of nine and ten. It was that very +merriment that brought about the greatest change in the Institute +St. Denis. The sitting order of the classes was reversed. The first +class--the graduates--went up to the top step of the _estrade_; and +the little ones put on the lowest, behind the pianos. The graduates +grumbled that it was not _comme il faut_ to have young ladies of their +position stepping like camels up and down those great steps; and the +little girls said it was a shame to hide them behind the pianos after +their mamas had taken so much pains to make them look pretty. But +madame said--going also to natural history for her comparison--that +one must be a rhinoceros to continue the former routine. + +Religion cannot be kept waiting forever on the intelligence. It was +always in the fourth class that the first communion was made; that is, +when the girls stayed one year in each class. But Pupasse had spent +three years in the sixth class, and had already been four in +the fifth, and Madame Joubert felt that longer delay would be +disrespectful to the good Lord. It was true that Pupasse could not +yet distinguish the ten commandments from the seven capital sins, and +still would answer that Jeanne d'Arc was the foundress of the "Little +Sisters of the Poor." But, as Madame Joubert always said in the little +address she made to the catechism class every year before handing it +over to Father Dolomier, God judged from the heart, and not from the +mind. + +Father Dolomier--from his face he would have been an able contestant +of _bonnets d'âne_ with Pupasse, if subjected to Madame Joubert's +discipline--evidently had the same method of judging as God, although +the catechism class said they could dance a waltz on the end of his +long nose without his perceiving it. + +There is always a little air of mystery about the first communion: not +that there is any in reality, but the little ones assume it to render +themselves important. The going to early mass, the holding their +dog-eared catechisms as if they were relics, the instruction from the +priest, even if he were only old Father Dolomier--it all put such a +little air of devotion into their faces that it imposed (as it did +every year) upon their companions, which was a vastly gratifying +effect. No matter how young and innocent she may be, a woman's +devotion always seems to have two aims--God and her own sex. + +The week of retreat came. Oh, the week of retreat! That was the _bonne +bouche_ of it all, for themselves and for the others. It was the same +every year. By the time the week of retreat arrived, interest and +mystery had been frothed to the point of indiscretion; so that the +little girls would stand on tiptoe to peep through the shutters at the +postulants inside, and even the larger girls, to whom first communion +was a thing of an infantile past, would condescend to listen to their +reports with ill-feigned indifference. + +As the day of the first communion neared, the day of the general +confession naturally neared too, leading it. And then the little +girls, peeping through the shutters, and holding their breath to see +better, saw what they beheld every year; but it was always new and +awesome--mysterious scribbling in corners with lead-pencils on scraps +of paper; consultations; rewritings; copyings; the list of their sins, +of all the sins of their lives. + +"_Ma chère!_"--pigtails and sunbonnets hiving outside would shudder. +"Oh, _Mon Dieu!_ To have to confess all--but _all_ your sins! As for +me, it would kill me, sure!" + +And the frightful recoils of their consciences would make all +instantly blanch and cross themselves. + +"And look at Pupasse's sins! Oh, but they are long! _Ma chère_, but +look! But look, I ask you, at them!" + +The longest record was of course the most complimentary and honorable +to the possessor, as each girl naturally worked not only for +absolution but for fame. + +Between catechisms and instructions Madame Joubert would have "La Vie +des Saints" read aloud, to stimulate their piety and to engage their +thoughts; for the thoughts of first communicants are worse than flies +for buzzing around the forbidden. The lecture must have been a great +quickener of conscience; for they would dare punishment and cheat +Madame Joubert, under her own eyes, in order surreptitiously to add a +new sin to their list. Of course the one hour's recreation could not +afford time enough for observation now, and the little girls were +driven to all sorts of excuses to get out of the classroom for one +moment's peep through the shutters; at which whole swarms of them +would sometimes be caught and sent into punishment. + +Only two days more. Madame Joubert put them through the rehearsal, +a most important part of the preparation, almost as important as +catechism--how to enter the church, how to hold the candle, how to +advance, how to kneel, retire--everything, in fact. + +Only one day more, the quietest, most devotional day of all. Pupasse +lost her sins! + +Of course every year the same accident happened to some one. But it +was a new accident to Pupasse. And such a long list! + +The commotion inside that retreat! Pupasse's nasal whine, carrying her +lament without any mystery to the outside garden. Such searching of +pockets, rummaging of corners, microscopic examination of the floor! +Such crimination and recrimination, protestation, asseveration, +assurances, backed by divine and saintly invocations! Pupasse accused +companion after companion of filching her sins, which each after +each would violently deny, producing each her own list from her own +pocket,--proof to conviction of innocence, and, we may say, of guilt +also. + +Pupasse declared they had niched it to copy, because her list was the +longest and most complete. She could not go to confession without her +sins; she could not go to communion without confession. The tears +rolled down her long thin nose unchecked, for she never could remember +to use her handkerchief until reminded by Madame Joubert. + +She had committed it to memory, as all the others had done theirs; +but how was she to know without the list if she had not forgotten +something? And to forget one thing in a general confession they knew +was a mortal sin. + +"I shall tell Madame Joubert! I shall tell Madame Joubert!" + +"_Ma chère_!'" whispered the little ones outside. "Oh, but look at +them! _Elles font les quatre cents coups_!" which is equivalent to +"cutting up like the mischief." + +And with reason. As if such an influx of the world upon them at this +moment were not sufficient of itself to damn them. But to tell Madame +Joubert! With all their dresses made and ready, wreaths, veils, +candles, prayer-books, picture-cards, mother-of-pearl prayer-beads, +and festival breakfasts with admiring family and friends prepared. +Tell Madame Joubert! She would simply cancel it all. In a body they +chorused: + +"But, Pupasse!" + +"_Chère_ Pupasse!" + +"_Voyons_, Pupasse!" + +"I assure you, Pupasse!" + +"On the cross, Pupasse!" + +"Ah, Pupasse!" + +"We implore you, Pupasse!" + +The only response--tears, and "I shall tell Madame Joubert." + +Consultations, caucuses, individual appeals, general outbursts. +Pupasse stood in the corner. Curiously, she always sought refuge in +the very sanctum of punishment, her face hidden in her bended arms, +her hoops standing out behind, vouchsafing nothing but tears, and the +promise to tell Madame Joubert. And three o'clock approaching! And +Madame Joubert imminent! But Pupasse really could not go to confession +without her sins. They all recognized that; they were reasonable, as +they assured her. + +A crisis quickens the wits. They heard the cathedral clock strike the +quarter to three. They whispered, suggested, argued--bunched in the +farthest corner from Pupasse. + +"Console yourself, Pupasse! We will help you, Pupasse! Say no more +about it! We will help you!" + +A delegate was sent to say that. She was only four feet and a half +high, and had to stand on tiptoe to pluck the six-foot Pupasse's dress +to gain her attention. + +And they did help her generously. A new sheet of fool's-cap was +procured, and torn in two, lengthwise, and pinned in a long strip. One +by one, each little girl took it, and, retiring as far as possible, +would put her hand into her pocket, and, extracting her list, would +copy it in full on the new paper. Then she would fold it down, and +give it to the next one, until all had written. + +"Here, Pupasse; here are all our sins. We give them to you; you can +have them." + +Pupasse was radiant; she was more than delighted, and the more she +read the better pleased she was. Such a handsome long list, and so +many sins she had never thought of--never dreamed of! She set herself +with zeal to commit them to memory. But a hand on the door--Madame +Joubert! You never could have told that those little girls had not +been sitting during the whole time, with their hands clasped and eyes +cast up to the ceiling, or moving their lips as the prayer-beads +glided through their fingers. Their versatility was really marvelous. + +[Illustration: THE FIRST COMMUNION.] + +Poor Pupasse! God solved the dilemma of her education, and madame's +increasing sensitiveness about her appearance in the fifth class, by +the death of the old grandmother. She went home to the funeral, and +never returned--or at least she returned, but only for madame. There +was a little scene in the parlor: Pupasse, all dressed in black, with +her bag of primary books in her hand, ready and eager to get back to +her classes and fools' caps; madame, hesitating between her interests +and her fear of ridicule; Madame Joubert, between her loyalty to +school and her conscience. Pupasse the only one free and untrammeled, +simple and direct. + +That little school parlor had been the stage for so many scenes! +Madame Joubert detested acting--the comedy, as she called it. There +was nothing she punished with more pleasure up in her room. And +yet-- + +"Pupasse, _ma fille_, give me your grammar." + +The old battered, primitive book was gotten out of the bag, the string +still tied between the leaves for convenience in hanging around the +neck. + +"Your last punishment: the rule for irregular verbs. Commence!" + +"I know it, Madame Joubert; I know it perfectly, I assure you." + +"Commence!" + +"Irregular verbs--but I assure you I know it--I know it by heart--" + +"Commence, _ma fille!_" + +"Irregular verbs--irregular verbs--I know it, Madame Joubert--one +moment--" and she shook her right hand, as girls do to get +inspiration, they say. "Irregular verbs--give me one word, Madame +Joubert; only one word!" + +"That--" + +"Irregular verbs, that--irregular verbs, that--" + +"See here, Pupasse; you do not know that lesson any more than a cat +does"--Madame Joubert's favorite comparison. + +"Yes, I do, Madame Joubert! Yes, I do!" + +"Silence!" + +"But, Madame Joubert--" + +"Will you be silent!" + +"Yes, Madame Joubert; only--" + +"Pupasse, one more word--and--" Madame Joubert was forgetting her +comedy--"Listen, Pupasse, and obey! You go home and learn that lesson. +When you know it, you can reënter your class. That is the punishment I +have thought of to correct your 'want of attention.'" + +That was the way Madame Joubert put it--"want of attention." + +Pupasse looked at her--at madame, a silent but potent spectator. To +be sent from home because she did not know the rule of the irregular +verbs! To be sent from home, family, friends!--for that was the +way Pupasse put it. She had been in that school--it may only be +whispered--fifteen years. Madame Joubert knew it; so did madame, +although they accounted for only four or five years in each class. +That school was her home; Madame Joubert--God help her!--her mother; +madame, her divinity; fools' caps and turned-up skirts, her life. +The old grandmother--she it was who had done everything for her (a +_ci-devant_ rag-picker, they say); she it was who was nothing to her. + +Madame must have felt something of it besides the loss of the +handsome salary for years from the little old withered woman. +But conventionality is inexorable; and the St. Denis's great +recommendation was its conventionality. Madame Joubert must have felt +something of it,--she must have felt something of it,--for why should +she volunteer? Certainly madame could not have imposed _that_ upon +_her. It must_ have been an inspiration of the moment, or a movement, +a _tressaillement_, of the heart. + +"Listen, Pupasse, my child. Go home, study your lesson well. I shall +come every evening myself and hear it; and as soon as you know it, I +shall fetch you back myself. You know I always keep my word." + +Keep her word! That she did. Could the inanimate past testify, what a +fluttering of fools' caps in that parlor--"Daily Bees," and "Weekly +Couriers," by the year-full! + +What could Pupasse say or do? It settled the question, as Madame +Joubert assured madame, when the tall, thin black figure with the bag +of books disappeared through the gate. + +Madame Joubert was never known to break her word; that is all one +knows about her part of the bargain. + +One day, not three years ago, ringing a bell to inquire for a servant, +a familiar murmuring fell upon the ear, and an old abécédaire's eyes +could not resist the temptation to look through the shutters. There +sat Pupasse; there was her old grammar; there were both fingers +stopping her ears--as all studious girls do, or used to do; and there +sounded the old words composing the rule for irregular verbs. + +And you all remember how long it is since we wore funnel-shaped +hoop-skirts! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Balcony Stories, by Grace E. King + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11514 *** diff --git a/11514-h/11514-h.htm b/11514-h/11514-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3df0c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/11514-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3659 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st November 2003), see www.w3.org"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Balcony Stories, by Grace +King.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { text-align: center; } + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%;} + blockquote {text-align: justify;} + .figure, .figcenter, .figright + {padding: 1em; margin: 0; text-align: center;} + .figure img, .figcenter img, .figright img + {border: none;} + .figure p, .figcenter p, .figright p + {margin: 0; text-indent: 1em;} + .figcenter {margin: auto;} + .figright {float: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-top: .5em; + font-size: 0.8em;} + .note, .footnote + {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11514 ***</div> + +<h1>BALCONY STORIES</h1> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>GRACE KING</h2> +<h4>1892</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<div class="toc"><b>CONTENTS</b> +<p><a href="#BALCONY">THE BALCONY</a></p> +<p><a href="#THREE">A DRAMA OF THREE</a></p> +<p><a href="#GRANDE">LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE</a></p> +<p><a href="#MIMI">MIMI'S MARRIAGE</a></p> +<p><a href="#CHAPEL">THE MIRACLE CHAPEL</a></p> +<p><a href="#DAY">THE STORY OF A DAY</a></p> +<p><a href="#ANNE">ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE</a></p> +<p><a href="#HOPE">A CRIPPLED HOPE</a></p> +<p><a href="#US">"ONE OF US"</a></p> +<p><a href="#GIRL">THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL</a></p> +<p><a href="#GRAND">GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER</a></p> +<p><a href="#OLD">THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION</a></p> +<p><a href="#AFFAIR">A DELICATE AFFAIR</a></p> +<p><a href="#PUPASSE">PUPASSE</a></p> +<br> +<br> +<b>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</b> +<p><a href="#01">"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, +THAT SNAIL, WITH MY MAIL?"</a></p> +<p><a href="#02">"WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE +SHOULDERS"</a></p> +<p><a href="#03">CHAMPIGNY</a></p> +<p><a href="#05">"I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT"</a></p> +<p><a href="#06">"HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW"</a></p> +<p><a href="#07">"ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION"</a></p> +<p><a href="#08">"THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!"</a></p> +<p><a href="#09">"THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A +CONVALESCENT"</a></p> +<p><a href="#10">"LITTLE MAMMY"</a></p> +<p><a href="#11">"TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND +AWKWARDNESS"</a></p> +<p><a href="#12">THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY</a></p> +<p><a href="#13">WATCHING A LANDING</a></p> +<p><a href="#14">"TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES"</a></p> +<p><a href="#15">THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY</a></p> +<p><a href="#16">THE FIRST COMMUNION</a></p> +</div> +<hr> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>BALCONY STORIES</h2> +<a name="BALCONY"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE BALCONY</h3> +<p>There is much of life passed on the balcony in a country where +the summer unrolls in six moon-lengths, and where the nights have +to come with a double endowment of vastness and splendor to +compensate for the tedious, sun-parched days.</p> +<p>And in that country the women love to sit and talk together of +summer nights, on balconies, in their vague, loose, white +garments,—men are not balcony sitters,—with their +sleeping children within easy hearing, the stars breaking the cool +darkness, or the moon making a show of light—oh, such a +discreet show of light!--through the vines. And the children +inside, waking to go from one sleep into another, hear the low, +soft mother-voices on the balcony, talking about this person and +that, old times, old friends, old experiences; and it seems to +them, hovering a moment in wakefulness, that there is no end of the +world or time, or of the mother-knowledge; but, illimitable as it +is, the mother-voices and the mother-love and protection fill it +all,—with their mother's hand in theirs, children are not +afraid even of God,—and they drift into slumber again, their +little dreams taking all kinds of pretty reflections from the great +unknown horizon outside, as their fragile soap-bubbles take on +reflections from the sun and clouds.</p> +<p>Experiences, reminiscences, episodes, picked up as only women +know how to pick them up from other women's lives,—or other +women's destinies, as they prefer to call them,—and told as +only women know how to relate them; what God has done or is doing +with some other woman whom they have known—that is what +interests women once embarked on their own lives,—the +embarkation takes place at marriage, or after the marriageable +time,—or, rather, that is what interests the women who sit of +summer nights on balconies. For in those long-moon countries life +is open and accessible, and romances seem to be furnished real and +gratis, in order to save, in a languor-breeding climate, the ennui +of reading and writing books. Each woman has a different way of +picking up and relating her stories, as each one selects different +pieces, and has a personal way of playing them on the piano.</p> +<p>Each story <i>is</i> different, or appears so to her; each has +some unique and peculiar pathos in it. And so she dramatizes and +inflects it, trying to make the point visible to her apparent also +to her hearers. Sometimes the pathos and interest to the hearers +lie only in this—that the relater has observed it, and +gathered it, and finds it worth telling. For do we not gather what +we have not, and is not our own lacking our one motive? It may be +so, for it often appears so.</p> +<p>And if a child inside be wakeful and precocious it is not dreams +alone that take on reflections from the balcony outside: through +the half-open shutters the still, quiet eyes look across the dim +forms on the balcony to the star-spangled or the moon-brightened +heavens beyond; while memory makes stores for the future, and germs +are sown, out of which the slow, clambering vine of thought issues, +one day, to decorate or hide, as it may be, the structures or ruins +of life.</p> +<a name="THREE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>A DRAMA OF THREE</h3> +<p>It was a regular dramatic performance every first of the month +in the little cottage of the old General and Madame B----.</p> +<p>It began with the waking up of the General by his wife, standing +at the bedside with a cup of black coffee.</p> +<p>"Hé! Ah! Oh, Honorine! Yes; the first of the month, and +affairs—affairs to be transacted."</p> +<p>On those mornings when affairs were to be transacted there was +not much leisure for the household; and it was Honorine who +constituted the household. Not the old dressing-gown and slippers, +the old, old trousers, and the antediluvian neck-foulard of other +days! Far from it. It was a case of warm water (with even a fling +of cologne in it), of the trimming of beard and mustache by +Honorine, and the black broadcloth suit, and the brown satin stock, +and that <i>je ne sais quoi de dégagé</i> which no +one could possess or assume like the old General. Whether he +possessed or assumed it is an uncertainty which hung over the fine +manners of all the gentlemen of his day, who were kept through +their youth in Paris to cultivate <i>bon ton</i> and an +education.</p> +<p>It was also something of a gala-day for Madame la +Générale too, as it must be a gala-day for all old +wives to see their husbands pranked in the manners and graces that +had conquered their maidenhood, and exhaling once more that +ambrosial fragrance which once so well incensed their compelling +presence.</p> +<p>Ah, to the end a woman loves to celebrate her conquest! It is +the last touch of misfortune with her to lose in the old, the ugly, +and the commonplace her youthful lord and master. If one could look +under the gray hairs and wrinkles with which time thatches old +women, one would be surprised to see the flutterings, the +quiverings, the thrills, the emotions, the coals of the heart-fires +which death alone extinguishes, when he commands the tenant to +vacate.</p> +<p>Honorine's hands chilled with the ice of sixteen as she +approached scissors to the white mustache and beard. When her +finger-tips brushed those lips, still well formed and roseate, she +felt it, strange to say, on her lips. When she asperged the warm +water with cologne,—it was her secret delight and greatest +effort of economy to buy this cologne,—she always had one +little moment of what she called faintness—that faintness +which had veiled her eyes, and chained her hands, and stilled her +throbbing bosom, when as a bride she came from the church with him. +It was then she noticed the faint fragrance of the cologne bath. +Her lips would open as they did then, and she would stand for a +moment and think thoughts to which, it must be confessed, she +looked forward from month to month. What a man he had been! In +truth he belonged to a period that would accept nothing less from +Nature than physical beauty; and Nature is ever subservient to the +period. If it is to-day all small men, and to-morrow gnomes and +dwarfs, we may know that the period is demanding them from +Nature.</p> +<p>When the General had completed—let it be called no less +than the ceremony of—his toilet, he took his chocolate and +his <i>pain de Paris</i>. Honorine could not imagine him +breakfasting on anything but <i>pain de Paris.</i> Then he sat +himself in his large arm-chair before his escritoire, and began +transacting his affairs with the usual—</p> +<p>"But where is that idiot, that dolt, that sluggard, that snail, +with my mail?" Honorine, busy in the breakfast-room:</p> +<p>"In a moment, husband. In a moment."</p> +<p>"But he should be here now. It is the first of the month, it is +nine o'clock, I am ready; he should be here."</p> +<p>"It is not yet nine o'clock, husband."</p> +<p>"Not yet nine! Not yet nine! Am I not up? Am I not dressed? Have +I not breakfasted before nine?"</p> +<p>"That is so, husband. That is so." Honorine's voice, prompt in +cheerful acquiescence, came from the next room, where she was +washing his cup, saucer, and spoon.</p> +<p>"It is getting worse and worse every day. I tell you, Honorine, +Pompey must be discharged. He is worthless. He is trifling. +Discharge him! Discharge him! Do not have him about! Chase him out +of the yard! Chase him as soon as he makes his appearance! Do you +hear, Honorine?"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="01"></a><img width="600" src= +"images/01.jpg" alt= +""WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT SNAIL, WITH MY MAIL?""> +<h5>"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT SNAIL, +WITH MY MAIL?"</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>"You must have a little patience, husband."</p> +<p>It was perhaps the only reproach one could make to Madame +Honorine, that she never learned by experience.</p> +<p>"Patience! Patience! Patience is the invention of dullards and +sluggards. In a well-regulated world there should be no need of +such a thing as patience. Patience should be punished as a crime, +or at least as a breach of the peace. Wherever patience is found +police investigation should be made as for smallpox. Patience! +Patience! I never heard the word—I assure you, I never heard +the word in Paris. What do you think would be said there to the +messenger who craved patience of you? Oh, they know too well in +Paris—a rataplan from the walking-stick on his back, that +would be the answer; and a, 'My good fellow, we are not hiring +professors of patience, but legs.'"</p> +<p>"But, husband, you must remember we do not hire Pompey. He only +does it to oblige us, out of his kindness."</p> +<p>"Oblige us! Oblige me! Kindness! A negro oblige me! Kind to me! +That is it; that is it. That is the way to talk under the new +régime. It is favor, and oblige, and education, and +monsieur, and madame, now. What child's play to call this a +country—a government! I would not be surprised"—jumping +to his next position on this ever-recurring first of the month +theme—"I would not be surprised if Pompey has failed to find +the letter in the box. How do I know that the mail has not been +tampered with? From day to day I expect to hear it. What is to +prevent? Who is to interpose? The honesty of the officials? Honesty +of the officials—that is good! What a farce—honesty of +officials! That is evidently what has happened. The thought has not +occurred to me in vain. Pompey has gone. He has not found the +letter, and—well; that is the end."</p> +<p>But the General had still another theory to account for the +delay in the appearance of his mail which he always posed abruptly +after the exhaustion of the arraignment of the post-office.</p> +<p>"And why not Journel?" Journel was their landlord, a fellow of +means, but no extraction, and a favorite aversion of the old +gentleman's. "Journel himself? You think he is above it, +<i>hé</i>? You think Journel would not do such a thing? Ha! +your simplicity, Honorine—your simplicity is incredible. It +is miraculous. I tell you, I have known the Journels, from father +to son, for—yes, for seventy-five years. Was not his +grandfather the overseer on my father's plantation? I was not five +years old when I began to know the Journels. And this fellow, I +know him better than he knows himself. I know him as well as God +knows him. I have made up my mind. I have made it up carefully that +the first time that letter fails on the first of the month I shall +have Journel arrested as a thief. I shall land him in the +penitentiary. What! You think I shall submit to have my mail +tampered with by a Journel? Their contents appropriated? What! You +think there was no coincidence in Journel's offering me his +post-office box just the month—just the month, before those +letters began to arrive? You think he did not have some inkling of +them? Mark my words, Honorine, he did—by some of his +subterranean methods. And all these five years he has been +arranging his plans—that is all. He was arranging theft, +which no doubt has been consummated to-day. Oh, I have regretted +it—I assure you I have regretted it, that I did not promptly +reject his proposition, that, in fact, I ever had anything to do +with the fellow."</p> +<p>It was almost invariably, so regularly do events run in this +world,—it was almost invariably that the negro messenger made +his appearance at this point. For five years the General had +perhaps not been interrupted as many times, either above or below +the last sentence. The mail, or rather the letter, was opened, and +the usual amount—three ten-dollar bills—was carefully +extracted and counted. And as if he scented the bills, even as the +General said he did, within ten minutes after their delivery, +Journel made his appearance to collect the rent.</p> +<p>It could only have been in Paris, among that old retired +nobility, who counted their names back, as they expressed it, "au +de çà du déluge," that could have been +acquired the proper manner of treating a "roturier" landlord: to +measure him with the eyes from head to foot; to hand the +rent—the ten-dollar bill—with the tips of the fingers; +to scorn a look at the humbly tendered receipt; to say: "The +cistern needs repairing, the roof leaks; I must warn you that +unless such notifications meet with more prompt attention than in +the past, you must look for another tenant," etc., in the +monotonous tone of supremacy, and in the French, not of Journel's +dictionary, nor of the dictionary of any such as he, but in the +French of Racine and Corneille; in the French of the above +suggested circle, which inclosed the General's memory, if it had +not inclosed—as he never tired of recounting—his +star-like personality.</p> +<p>A sheet of paper always infolded the bank-notes. It always bore, +in fine but sexless tracery, "From one who owes you much."</p> +<p>There, that was it, that sentence, which, like a locomotive, +bore the General and his wife far on these firsts of the month to +two opposite points of the horizon, in fact, one from the +other—"From one who owes you much."</p> +<p>The old gentleman would toss the paper aside with the bill +receipt. In the man to whom the bright New Orleans itself almost +owed its brightness, it was a paltry act to search and pick for a +debtor. Friends had betrayed and deserted him; relatives had +forgotten him; merchants had failed with his money; bank presidents +had stooped to deceive him; for he was an old man, and had about +run the gamut of human disappointments—a gamut that had begun +with a C major of trust, hope, happiness, and money.</p> +<p>His political party had thrown him aside. Neither for +ambassador, plenipotentiary, senator, congressman, not even for a +clerkship, could he be nominated by it. Certes! "From one who owed +him much." He had fitted the cap to a new head, the first of every +month, for five years, and still the list was not exhausted. +Indeed, it would have been hard for the General to look anywhere +and not see some one whose obligations to him far exceeded this +thirty dollars a month. Could he avoid being happy with such +eyes?</p> +<p>But poor Madame Honorine! She who always gathered up the +receipts, and the "From one who owes you much"; who could at an +instant's warning produce the particular ones for any month of the +past half-decade. She kept them filed, not only in her armoire, but +the scrawled papers —skewered, as it were, somewhere +else—where women from time immemorial have skewered such +unsigned papers. She was not original in her thoughts—no +more, for the matter of that, than the General was. Tapped at any +time on the first of the month, when she would pause in her +drudgery to reimpale her heart by a sight of the written characters +on the scrap of paper, her thoughts would have been found flowing +thus, "One can give everything, and yet be sure of nothing."</p> +<p>When Madame Honorine said "everything," she did not, as women in +such cases often do, exaggerate. When she married the General, she +in reality gave the youth of sixteen, the beauty (ah, do not trust +the denial of those wrinkles, the thin hair, the faded eyes!) of an +angel, the dot of an heiress. Alas! It was too little at the time. +Had she in her own person united all the youth, all the beauty, all +the wealth, sprinkled parsimoniously so far and wide over all the +women in this land, would she at that time have done aught else +with this than immolate it on the burning pyre of the General's +affection? "And yet be sure of nothing."</p> +<p>It is not necessary, perhaps, to explain that last clause. It is +very little consolation for wives that their husbands have +forgotten, when some one else remembers. Some one else! Ah! there +could be so many some one Else's in the General's life, for in +truth he had been irresistible to excess. But this was one +particular some one else who had been faithful for five years. +Which one?</p> +<p>When Madame Honorine solves that enigma she has made up her mind +how to act.</p> +<p>As for Journel, it amused him more and more. He would go away +from the little cottage rubbing his hands with pleasure (he never +saw Madame Honorine, by the way, only the General). He would have +given far more than thirty dollars a month for this drama; for he +was not only rich, but a great <i>farceur</i>.</p> +<a name="GRANDE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE</h3> +<p>That was what she was called by everybody as soon as she was +seen or described. Her name, besides baptismal titles, was Idalie +Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. When she came into society, in the +brilliant little world of New Orleans, it was the event of the +season, and after she came in, whatever she did became also events. +Whether she went, or did not go; what she said, or did not say; +what she wore, and did not wear—all these became important +matters of discussion, quoted as much or more than what the +president said, or the governor thought. And in those days, the +days of '59, New Orleans was not, as it is now, a one-heiress +place, but it may be said that one could find heiresses then as one +finds type-writing girls now.</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Idalie received her birth, and what education she +had, on her parents' plantation, the famed old Reine Sainte Foy +place, and it is no secret that, like the ancient kings of France, +her birth exceeded her education.</p> +<p>It was a plantation, the Reine Sainte Foy, the richness and +luxury of which are really well described in those fervid pictures +of tropical life, at one time the passion of philanthropic +imaginations, excited and exciting over the horrors of slavery. +Although these pictures were then often accused of being purposely +exaggerated, they seem now to fall short of, instead of surpassing, +the truth. Stately walls, acres of roses, miles of oranges, +unmeasured fields of cane, colossal sugar-house—they were all +there, and all the rest of it, with the slaves, slaves, slaves +everywhere, whole villages of negro cabins. And there were also, +most noticeable to the natural, as well as to the visionary, +eye—there were the ease, idleness, extravagance, +self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short the whole +enumeration, the moral <i>sine qua non</i>, as some people +considered it, of the wealthy slaveholder of aristocratic descent +and tastes.</p> +<p>What Mademoiselle Idalie cared to learn she studied, what she +did not she ignored; and she followed the same simple rule +untrammeled in her eating, drinking, dressing, and comportment +generally; and whatever discipline may have been exercised on the +place, either in fact or fiction, most assuredly none of it, even +so much as in a threat, ever attended her sacred person. When she +was just turned sixteen, Mademoiselle Idalie made up her mind to go +into society. Whether she was beautiful or not, it is hard to say. +It is almost impossible to appreciate properly the beauty of the +rich, the very rich. The unfettered development, the limitless +choice of accessories, the confidence, the self-esteem, the +sureness of expression, the simplicity of purpose, the ease of +execution—all these produce a certain effect of beauty behind +which one really cannot get to measure length of nose, or +brilliancy of eye. This much can be said: there was nothing in her +that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty on her part, +or credit of it on the part of others. She was very tall and very +thin with small head, long neck, black eyes, and abundant straight +black hair,—for which her hair-dresser deserved more praise +than she,—good teeth, of course, and a mouth that, even in +prayer, talked nothing but commands; that is about all she had +<i>en fait d'ornements</i>, as the modesties say. It may be added +that she walked as if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation extended over +the whole earth, and the soil of it were too vile for her tread. Of +course she did not buy her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was +ordered from Paris, and came as regularly through the custom-house +as the modes and robes to the milliners. She was furnished by a +certain house there, just as one of a royal family would be at the +present day. As this had lasted from her layette up to her +sixteenth year, it may be imagined what took place when she +determined to make her début. Then it was literally, not +metaphorically, <i>carte blanche</i>, at least so it got to the +ears of society. She took a sheet of note-paper, wrote the date at +the top, added, "I make my début in November," signed her +name at the extreme end of the sheet, addressed it to her +dressmaker in Paris, and sent it.</p> +<p>It was said that in her dresses the very handsomest silks were +used for linings, and that real lace was used where others put +imitation,—around the bottoms of the skirts, for +instance,—and silk ribbons of the best quality served the +purposes of ordinary tapes; and sometimes the buttons were of real +gold and silver, sometimes set with precious stones. Not that she +ordered these particulars, but the dressmakers, when given <i>carte +blanche</i> by those who do not condescend to details, so soon +exhaust the outside limits of garments that perforce they take to +plastering them inside with gold, so to speak, and, when the bill +goes in, they depend upon the furnishings to carry out a certain +amount of the contract in justifying the price. And it was said +that these costly dresses, after being worn once or twice, were +cast aside, thrown upon the floor, given to the +negroes—anything to get them out of sight. Not an inch of the +real lace, not one of the jeweled buttons, not a scrap of ribbon, +was ripped off to save. And it was said that if she wanted to romp +with her dogs in all her finery, she did it; she was known to have +ridden horseback, one moonlight night, all around the plantation in +a white silk dinner-dress flounced with Alençon. And at +night, when she came from the balls, tired, tired to death as only +balls can render one, she would throw herself down upon her bed in +her tulle skirts,—on top, or not, of the exquisite flowers, +she did not care,—and make her maid undress her in that +position; often having her bodices cut off her, because she was too +tired to turn over and have them unlaced.</p> +<p>That she was admired, raved about, loved even, goes without +saying. After the first month she held the refusal of half the +beaux of New Orleans. Men did absurd, undignified, preposterous +things for her; and she? Love? Marry? The idea never occurred to +her. She treated the most exquisite of her pretenders no better +than she treated her Paris gowns, for the matter of that. She could +not even bring herself to listen to a proposal patiently; whistling +to her dogs, in the middle of the most ardent protestations, or +jumping up and walking away with a shrug of the shoulders, and a +"Bah!"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="02"></a> <img width="800" src= +"images/02.jpg" alt="WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS"> +<h5>"WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Well! Every one knows what happened after '59. There is no need +to repeat. The history of one is the history of all. But there was +this difference—for there is every shade of difference in +misfortune, as there is every shade of resemblance in happiness. +Mortemart des Islets went off to fight. That was natural; his +family had been doing that, he thought, or said, ever since +Charlemagne. Just as naturally he was killed in the first +engagement. They, his family, were always among the first killed; +so much so that it began to be considered assassination to fight a +duel with any of them. All that was in the ordinary course of +events. One difference in their misfortunes lay in that after the +city was captured, their plantation, so near, convenient, and rich +in all kinds of provisions, was selected to receive a contingent of +troops—a colored company. If it had been a colored company +raised in Louisiana it might have been different; and these negroes +mixed with the negroes in the neighborhood,—and negroes are +no better than whites, for the proportion of good and bad among +them,—and the officers were always off duty when they should +have been on, and on when they should have been off.</p> +<p>One night the dwelling caught fire. There was an immediate rush +to save the ladies. Oh, there was no hesitation about that! They +were seized in their beds, and carried out in the very arms of +their enemies; carried away off to the sugar-house, and deposited +there. No danger of their doing anything but keep very quiet and +still in their <i>chemises de nuit</i>, and their one sheet apiece, +which was about all that was saved from the +conflagration—that is, for them. But it must be remembered +that this is all hearsay. When one has not been present, one knows +nothing of one's own knowledge; one can only repeat. It has been +repeated, however, that although the house was burned to the +ground, and everything in it destroyed, wherever, for a year +afterward, a man of that company or of that neighborhood was found, +there could have been found also, without search-warrant, property +that had belonged to the Des Islets. That is the story; and it is +believed or not, exactly according to prejudice.</p> +<p>How the ladies ever got out of the sugar-house, history does not +relate; nor what they did. It was not a time for sociability, +either personal or epistolary. At one offensive word your letter, +and you, very likely, examined; and Ship Island for a hotel, with +soldiers for hostesses! Madame Des Islets died very soon after the +accident—of rage, they say; and that was about all the public +knew.</p> +<p>Indeed, at that time the society of New Orleans had other things +to think about than the fate of the Des Islets. As for <i>la grande +demoiselle</i>, she had prepared for her own oblivion in the hearts +of her female friends. And the gentlemen,—her <i>preux +chevaliers</i>,—they were burning with other passions than +those which had driven them to her knees, encountering a little +more serious response than "bahs" and shrugs. And, after all, a +woman seems the quickest thing forgotten when once the important +affairs of life come to men for consideration.</p> +<p>It might have been ten years according to some calculations, or +ten eternities,—the heart and the almanac never agree about +time,—but one morning old Champigny (they used to call him +Champignon) was walking along his levee front, calculating how soon +the water would come over, and drown him out, as the Louisianians +say. It was before a seven-o'clock breakfast, cold, wet, rainy, and +discouraging. The road was knee-deep in mud, and so broken up with +hauling, that it was like walking upon waves to get over it. A +shower poured down. Old Champigny was hurrying in when he saw a +figure approaching. He had to stop to look at it, for it was worth +while. The head was hidden by a green barege veil, which the +showers had plentifully besprinkled with dew; a tall, thin figure. +Figure! No; not even could it be called a figure: straight up and +down, like a finger or a post; high-shouldered, and a step—a +step like a plow-man's. No umbrella; no—nothing more, in +fact. It does not sound so peculiar as when first +related—something must be forgotten. The feet—oh, yes, +the feet—they were like waffle-irons, or frying-pans, or +anything of that shape.</p> +<p>Old Champigny did not care for women—he never had; they +simply did not exist for him in the order of nature. He had been +married once, it is true, about a half century before; but that was +not reckoned against the existence of his prejudice, because he was +<i>célibataire</i> to his finger-tips, as any one could see +a mile away. But that woman <i>intrigué'd</i> him.</p> +<p>He had no servant to inquire from. He performed all of his own +domestic work in the wretched little cabin that replaced his old +home. For Champigny also belonged to the great majority of the +<i>nouveaux pauvres</i>. He went out into the rice-field, where +were one or two hands that worked on shares with him, and he asked +them. They knew immediately; there is nothing connected with the +parish that a field-hand does not know at once. She was the teacher +of the colored public school some three or four miles away. "Ah," +thought Champigny, "some Northern lady on a mission." He watched to +see her return in the evening, which she did, of course; in a +blinding rain. Imagine the green barege veil then; for it remained +always down over her face.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="03"></a> <img width="335" src= +"images/03.jpg" alt="CHAMPIGNY."> +<h5>CHAMPIGNY.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Old Champigny could not get over it that he had never seen her +before. But he must have seen her, and, with his abstraction and +old age, not have noticed her, for he found out from the negroes +that she had been teaching four or five years there. And he found +out also—how, is not important—that she was Idalie +Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. <i>La grande demoiselle</i>! He +had never known her in the old days, owing to his uncomplimentary +attitude toward women, but he knew of her, of course, and of her +family. It should have been said that his plantation was about +fifty miles higher up the river, and on the opposite bank to Reine +Sainte Foy. It seemed terrible. The old gentleman had had reverses +of his own, which would bear the telling, but nothing was more +shocking to him than this—that Idalie Sainte Foy Mortemart +des Islets should be teaching a public colored school for—it +makes one blush to name it—seven dollars and a half a month. +For seven dollars and a half a month to teach a set of—well! +He found out where she lived, a little cabin—not so much +worse than his own, for that matter—in the corner of a field; +no companion, no servant, nothing but food and shelter. Her clothes +have been described.</p> +<p>Only the good God himself knows what passed in Champigny's mind +on the subject. We know only the results. He went and married <i>la +grande demoiselle</i>. How? Only the good God knows that too. Every +first of the month, when he goes to the city to buy provisions, he +takes her with him—in fact, he takes her everywhere with +him.</p> +<p>Passengers on the railroad know them well, and they always have +a chance to see her face. When she passes her old plantation <i>la +grande demoiselle</i> always lifts her veil for one +instant—the inevitable green barege veil. What a face! Thin, +long, sallow, petrified! And the neck! If she would only tie +something around the neck! And her plain, coarse cottonade gown! +The negro women about her were better dressed than she.</p> +<p>Poor old Champignon! It was not an act of charity to himself, no +doubt cross and disagreeable, besides being ugly. And as for love, +gratitude!</p> +<a name="MIMI"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>MIMI'S MARRIAGE</h3> +<p>This how she told about it, sitting in her little +room,—her bridal chamber,—not larger, really not larger +than sufficed for the bed there, the armoire here, the bureau +opposite, and the washstand behind the door, the corners all +touching. But a nice set of furniture, quite <i>comme il +faut</i>,—handsome, in fact,—as a bride of good family +should have. And she was dressed very prettily, too, in her long +white <i>negligée</i>, with plenty of lace and ruffles and +blue ribbons,—such as only the Creole girls can make, and +brides, alas! wear,—the pretty honeymoon costume that +suggests, that suggests—well! to proceed. "The poor little +cat!" as one could not help calling her, so <i>mignonne</i>, so +blond, with the pretty black eyes, and the rosebud of a +mouth,—whenever she closed it,—a perfect kiss.</p> +<p>"But you know, Louise," she said, beginning quite seriously at +the beginning, "papa would never have consented, never, +never—poor papa! Indeed, I should never have asked him; it +would only have been one humiliation more for him, poor papa! So it +was well he was dead, if it was God's will for it to be. Of course +I had my dreams, like everybody. I was so blond, so blond, and so +small; it seemed like a law I should marry a <i>brun</i>, a tall, +handsome <i>brun</i>, with a mustache and a fine barytone voice. +That was how I always arranged it, and—you will +laugh—but a large, large house, and numbers of servants, and +a good cook, but a superlatively good cuisine, and wine and all +that, and long, trailing silk dresses, and theater every night, and +voyages to Europe, and—well, everything God had to give, in +fact. You know, I get that from papa, wanting everything God has to +give! Poor papa! It seemed to me I was to meet him at any time, my +handsome <i>brun</i>. I used to look for him positively on my way +to school, and back home again, and whenever I would think of him I +would try and walk so prettily, and look so pretty! <i>Mon +Dieu!</i> I was not ten years old yet! And afterward it was only +for that that I went into society. What should girls go into +society for otherwise but to meet their <i>brun</i> or their blond? +Do you think it is amusing, to economize and economize, and sew and +sew, just to go to a party to dance? No! I assure you, I went into +society only for that; and I do not believe what girls +say—they go into society only for that too.</p> +<p>"You know at school how we used to <i>tirer la bonne +aventure.</i><a name="footnotetag1"></a><a href= +"#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> Well, every time he was not <i>brun, +riche, avenant</i>, Jules, or Raoul, or Guy, I simply would not +accept it, but would go on drawing until I obtained what I wanted. +As I tell you, I thought it was my destiny. And when I would try +with a flower to see if he loved me,—<i>Il m'aime, un peu, +beaucoup, passionément, pas du tout</i>,—if it were +<i>pas du tout</i>, I would always throw the flower away, and begin +tearing off the leaves from another one immediately. +<i>Passionément</i> was what I wanted, and I always got it +in the end.</p> +<p>"But papa, poor papa, he never knew anything of that, of course. +He would get furious when any one would come to see me, and +sometimes, when he would take me in society, if I danced with a +'nobody,'—as he called no matter whom I danced with,—he +would come up and take me away with such an air—such an air! +It would seem that papa thought himself better than everybody in +the world. But it went worse and worse with papa, not only in the +affairs of the world, but in health. Always thinner and thinner, +always a cough; in fact, you know, I am a little feeble-chested +myself, from papa. And Clementine! Clementine with her +children—just think, Louise, eight! I thank God my mama had +only me, if papa's second wife had to have so many. And so naughty! +I assure you, they were all devils; and no correction, no +punishment, no education—but you know Clementine! I tell you, +sometimes on account of those children I used to think myself in +'ell [making the Creole's attempt and failure to pronounce the h], +and Clementine had no pride about them. If they had shoes, well; if +they had not shoes, well also.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><img width="400" src="images/04.jpg" alt= +""></div> +<hr> +<p>"'But Clementine!' I would expostulate, I would pray—</p> +<p>"'But do not be a fool, Mimi,' she would say. 'Am I God? Can I +do miracles? Or must I humiliate your papa?'</p> +<p>"That was true. Poor papa! It would have humiliated papa. When +he had money he gave; only it was a pity he had no money. As for +what he observed, he thought it was Clementine's negligence. For, +it is true, Clementine had no order, no industry, in the best of +fortune as in the worst. But to do her justice, it was not her +fault this time, only she let him believe it, to save his pride; +and Clementine, you know, has a genius for stories. I assure you, +Louise, I was desperate. I prayed to God to help me, to advise me. +I could not teach—I had no education; I could not go into a +shop—that would be dishonoring papa—and <i>enfin</i>, I +was too pretty. 'And proclaim to the world,' Clementine would cry, +'that your papa does not make money for his family.' That was true. +The world is so malicious. You know, Louise, sometimes it seems to +me the world is glad to hear that a man cannot support his family; +it compliments those who can. As if papa had not intelligence, and +honor, and honesty! But they do not count now as in old times, +'before the war.'</p> +<p>"And so, when I thought of that, I laughed and talked and played +the thoughtless like Clementine, and made bills. We made +bills—we had to—for everything; we could do that, you +know, on our old name and family. But it is too long! I am sure it +is too long and tiresome! What egotism on my part! Come, we will +take a glass of anisette, and talk of something else—your +trip, your family. No? no? You are only asking me out of +politeness! You are so <i>aimable</i>, so kind. Well, if you are +not <i>ennuyée</i>—in fact, I want to tell you. It was +too long to write, and I detest a pen. To me there is no instrument +of torture like a pen.</p> +<p>"Well, the lady next door, she was an American, and common, very +common, according to papa. In comparison to us she had no family +whatever. Our little children were forbidden even to associate with +her little children. I thought that was ridiculous—not that I +am a democrat, but I thought it ridiculous. But the children cared; +they were so disobedient and they were always next door, and they +always had something nice to eat over there. I sometimes thought +Clementine used to encourage their disobedience, just for the good +things they got to eat over there. But papa was always making fun +of them; you know what a sharp tongue he had. The gentleman was a +clerk; and, according to papa, the only true gentlemen in the world +had family and a profession. We did not dare allow ourselves to +think it, but Clementine and I knew that they, in fact, were in +more comfortable circumstances than we.</p> +<p>"The lady, who also had a great number of children, sent one +day, with all the discretion and delicacy possible, and asked me if +I would be so kind as to—guess what, Louise! But only guess! +But you never could! Well, to darn some of her children's stockings +for her. It was God who inspired her, I am sure, on account of my +praying so much to him. You will be shocked, Louise, when I tell +you. It sounds like a sin, but I was not in despair when papa died. +It was a grief,—yes, it seized the heart, but it was not +despair. Men ought not to be subjected to the humiliation of life; +they are not like women, you know. We are made to stand things; +they have their pride,—their <i>orgueil</i>, as we say in +French,—and that is the point of honor with some men. And +Clementine and I, we could not have concealed it much longer. In +fact, the truth was crying out everywhere, in the children, in the +house, in our own persons, in our faces. The darning did not +provide a superfluity, I guarantee you!</p> +<p>"Poor papa! He caught cold. He was condemned from the first. And +so all his fine qualities died; for he had fine +qualities—they were too fine for this age, that was all. Yes; +it was a kindness of God to take him before he found out. If it was +to be, it was better. Just so with Clementine as with me. After the +funeral—crack! everything went to pieces. We were at the four +corners for the necessaries of life, and the bills came in—my +dear, the bills that came in! What memories! what memories! +Clementine and I exclaimed; there were some bills that we had +completely forgotten about. The lady next door sent her brother +over when papa died. He sat up all night, that night, and he +assisted us in all our arrangements. And he came in afterward, +every evening. If papa had been there, there would have been a fine +scene over it; he would have had to take the door, very likely. But +now there was no one to make objections. And so when, as I say, we +were at the four corners for the necessaries of life, he asked +Clementine's permission to ask me to marry him.</p> +<p>"I give you my word, Louise, I had forgotten there was such a +thing as marriage in the world for me! I had forgotten it as +completely as the chronology of the Merovingian dynasty, alas! with +all the other school things forgotten. And I do not believe +Clementine remembered there was such a possibility in the world for +me. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> when a girl is poor she may have all the +beauty in the world—not that I had beauty, only a little +prettiness. But you should have seen Clementine! She screamed for +joy when she told me. Oh, there was but one answer according to +her, and according to everybody she could consult, in her haste. +They all said it was a dispensation of Providence in my favor. He +was young, he was strong; he did not make a fortune, it was true, +but he made a good living. And what an assistance to have a man in +the family!--an assistance for Clementine and the children. But the +principal thing, after all, was, he wanted to marry me. Nobody had +ever wanted that before, my dear!</p> +<p>"Quick, quick, it was all arranged. All my friends did something +for me. One made my <i>peignoirs</i> for me, one this, one +that—<i>ma foi!</i> I did not recognize myself. One made all +the toilet of the bureau, another of the bed, and we all sewed on +the wedding-dress together. And you should have seen Clementine, +going out in all her great mourning, looking for a house, looking +for a servant! But the wedding was private on account of poor papa. +But you know, Loulou, I had never time to think, except about +Clementine and the children, and when I thought of all those poor +little children, poor papa's children, I said 'Quick, quick,' like +the rest.</p> +<p>"It was the next day, the morning after the wedding, I had time +to think. I was sitting here, just as you see me now, in my pretty +new <i>negligée</i>. I had been looking at all the pretty +presents I have shown you, and my trousseau, and my +furniture,—it is not bad, as you see,—my dress, my +veil, my ring, and—I do not know—I do not +know—but, all of a sudden, from everywhere came the thought +of my <i>brun</i>, my handsome <i>brun</i> with the mustache, and +the <i>bonne aventure, ricke, avenant</i>, the Jules, Raoul, Guy, +and the flower leaves, and '<i>il m'aime, un pen, beaucoup, pas du +tout,' passionnément</i>, and the way I expected to meet him +walking to and from school, walking as if I were dancing the steps, +and oh, my plans, my plans, my plans,—silk dresses, theater, +voyages to Europe,—and poor papa, so fine, so tall, so +aristocratic. I cannot tell you how it all came; it seized my +heart, and, <i>mon Dieu!</i> I cried out, and I wept, I wept, I +wept. How I wept! It pains me here now to remember it. Hours, hours +it lasted, until I had no tears in my body, and I had to weep +without them, with sobs and moans. But this, I have always +observed, is the time for reflection—after the tears are all +out. And I am sure God himself gave me my thoughts. 'Poor little +Mimi!' I thought, '<i>fi done</i>! You are going to make a fool of +yourself now when it is all over, because why? It is God who +manages the world, and not you. You pray to God to help you in your +despair, and he has helped you. He has sent you a good, kind +husband who adores you; who asks only to be a brother to your +sisters and brothers, and son to Clementine; who has given you more +than you ever possessed in your life—but because he did not +come out of the <i>bonne aventure</i>—and who gets a husband +out of the <i>bonne aventure?</i>—and would your <i>brun</i> +have come to you in your misfortune?' I am sure God inspired those +thoughts in me.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="05"></a> <img width="500" src= +"images/05.jpg" alt=""I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT.""> +<h5>"I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT"</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>"I tell you, I rose from that bed—naturally I had thrown +myself upon it. Quick I washed my face, I brushed my hair, and, you +see these bows of ribbons,—look, here are the marks of the +tears,—I turned them. <i>Hé,</i> Loulou, it occurs to +me, that if you examined the blue bows on a bride's +<i>negligée</i>, you might always find tears on the other +side; for do they not all have to marry whom God sends? and am I +the only one who had dreams? It is the end of dreams, marriage; and +that is the good thing about it. God lets us dream to keep us +quiet, but he knows when to wake us up, I tell you. The blue bows +knew! And now, you see, I prefer my husband to my <i>brun</i>; in +fact, Loulou, I adore him, and I am furiously jealous about him. +And he is so good to Clementine and the poor little children; and +see his photograph—a blond, and not good-looking, and +small!</p> +<p>But poor papa! If he had been alive, I am sure he never would +have agreed with God about my marriage."</p> +<hr class="full"> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a name="footnote1"></a> <b>Footnote +1</b>: <a href="#footnotetag1">(return)</a> +<p><i>La bonne aventure</i> is or was generally a very much +battered foolscap copy-book, which contained a list of all possible +elements of future (school-girl) happiness. Each item answered a +question, and had a number affixed to it. To draw one's fortune +consisted in asking question after question, and guessing a number, +a companion volunteering to read the answers. To avoid cheating, +the books were revised from time to time, and the numbers +changed.</p> +</blockquote> +<hr class="full"> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="CHAPEL"></a><br> +<br> +<h3>THE MIRACLE CHAPEL</h3> +<p>Every heart has a miracle to pray for. Every life holds that +which only a miracle can cure. To prove that there have never been, +that there can never be, miracles does not alter the matter. So +long as there is something hoped for,—that does not come in +the legitimate channel of possible events,—so long as +something does come not to be hoped or expected in the legitimate +channel of possible events, just so long will the miracle be prayed +for.</p> +<p>The rich and the prosperous, it would seem, do not depend upon +God so much, do not need miracles, as the poor do. They do not have +to pray for the extra crust when starvation hovers near; for the +softening of an obdurate landlord's heart; for strength in +temptation, light in darkness, salvation from vice; for a friend in +friendlessness; for that miracle of miracles, an opportunity to +struggling ambition; for the ending of a dark night, the breaking +of day; and, oh! for God's own miracle to the +bedside-watchers—the change for the better, when death is +there and the apothecary's skill too far, far away. The poor, the +miserable, the unhappy, they can show their miracles by the score; +that is why God is called the poor man's friend. He does not mind, +so they say, going in the face of logic and reason to relieve them; +for often the kind and charitable are sadly hampered by the fetters +of logic and reason, which hold them, as it were, away from their +own benevolence.</p> +<p>But the rich have their miracles, no doubt, even in that +beautiful empyrean of moneyed ease in which the poor place them. +Their money cannot buy all they enjoy, and God knows how much of +their sorrow it assuages. As it is, one hears now and then of +accidents among them, conversions to better thoughts, warding off +of danger, rescue of life; and heirs are sometimes born, and +husbands provided, and fortunes saved, in such surprising ways, +that even the rich, feeling their limitations in spite of their +money, must ascribe it privately if not publicly to other potencies +than their own. These cathedral <i>tours de force</i>, however, do +not, if the truth be told, convince like the miracles of the +obscure little chapel.</p> +<p>There is always a more and a most obscure little miracle chapel, +and as faith seems ever to lead unhesitatingly to the latter one, +there is ever rising out of humility and obscurity, as in response +to a demand, some new shrine, to replace the wear and tear and loss +of other shrines by prosperity. For, alas! it is hard even for a +chapel to remain obscure and humble in the face of prosperity and +popularity. And how to prevent such popularity and prosperity? As +soon as the noise of a real miracle in it gets abroad, every one is +for hurrying thither at once with their needs and their prayers, +their candles and their picayunes; and the little miracle chapel, +perhaps despite itself, becomes with mushroom growth a church, and +the church a cathedral, from whose resplendent altars the cheap, +humble ex-voto tablets, the modest beginnings of its ecclesiastical +fortunes, are before long banished to dimly lighted lateral +shrines.</p> +<p>The miracle chapel in question lay at the end of a very +confusing but still intelligible route. It is not in truth a chapel +at all, but a consecrated chamber in a very small, very lowly +cottage, which stands, or one might appropriately, if not with +absolute novelty, say which kneels, in the center of a large +garden, a garden primeval in rusticity and size, its limits being +defined by no lesser boundaries than the four intersecting streets +outside, and its culture showing only the careless, shiftless +culture of nature. The streets outside were miracles themselves in +that, with their liquid contents, they were streets and not bayous. +However, they protected their island chapel almost as well as a +six-foot moat could have done. There was a small paved space on the +sidewalk that served to the pedestrian as an indication of the spot +in the tall, long, broad fence where a gate might be sought. It was +a small gate with a strong latch. It required a strong hand to open +it. At the sound of the click it made, the little street +ragamuffin, who stood near, peeping through the fence, looked up. +He had worked quite a hole between the boards with his fingers. +Such an anxious expression passed over his face that even a casual +passer-by could not help relieving it by a question—any +question:</p> +<p>"Is this the miracle chapel, little boy?"</p> +<p>"Yes, ma'am; yes." Then his expression changed to one of +eagerness, yet hardly less anxious.</p> +<p>"Here. Take this—"</p> +<p>He did not hold out his hand, the coin had to seek it. At its +touch he refused to take it.</p> +<p>"I ain't begging."</p> +<p>"What are you looking at so through the fence?" He was all +sadness now.</p> +<p>"Just looking."</p> +<p>"Is there anything to see inside?"</p> +<p>He did not answer. The interrogation was repeated.</p> +<p>"I can't see nothing. I'm blind," putting his eyes again to the +hole, first one, then the other.</p> +<p>"Come, won't you tell me how this came to be a miracle +chapel?"</p> +<p>"Oh, ma'am,"—he turned his face from the fence, and +clasped his hands in excitement,—"it was a poor widow woman +who come here with her baby that was a-dying, and she prayed to the +Virgin Mary, and the Virgin Mary made the baby live—"</p> +<p>He dropped his voice, the words falling slower and slower. As he +raised his face, one could see then that he was blind, and the +accident that had happened to him, in fording the street. What +sightless eyes! What a wet, muddy little skeleton! Ten? No; hardly +ten years of age.</p> +<p>"The widow woman she picked up her baby, and she run down the +walk here, and out into the street screaming—she was so +glad,"—putting his eyes to the peep-hole again,—"and +the Virgin Mary come down the walk after her, and come through the +gate, too; and that was all she seed—the widow woman."</p> +<p>"Did you know the widow woman?"</p> +<p>He shook his head.</p> +<p>"How do you know it?"</p> +<p>"That was what they told me. And they told me, the birds all +begun to sing at once, and the flowers all lighted up like the sun +was shining on them. They seed her. And she come down the walk, and +through the gate," his voice lowering again to a whisper.</p> +<p>Aye, how the birds must have sung, and the flowers shone, to the +widowed mother as she ran, nay, leaped, down that rose-hedged walk, +with her restored baby clasped to her bosom!</p> +<p>"<i>They</i> seed her," repeated the little fellow. "And that is +why you stand here—to see her, too?"</p> +<p>His shoulder turned uneasily in the clasp upon it.</p> +<p>"They seed her, and they ain't got no eyes."</p> +<p>"Have you no mother?"</p> +<p>"Ain't never had no mother." A thought struck him. "Would that +count, ma'am? Would that count? The little baby that was +dying—yes, ma'am, it had a mother; and it's the mothers that +come here constant with their children; I sometimes hear 'em +dragging them in by the hand."</p> +<p>"How long have you been coming here?"</p> +<p>"Ever since the first time I heard it, ma'am."</p> +<p>Street ragamuffins do not cry: it would be better if they did +so, when they are so young and so blind; it would be easier for the +spectator, the auditor.</p> +<p>"They seed her—I might see her ef—ef I could see her +once—ef—ef I could see anything once." His voice +faltered; but he stiffened it instantly. "She might see me. She +can't pass through this gate without seeing me; +and—and—ef she seed me—and I didn't even see +her—oh, I'm so tired of being blind!"</p> +<p>"Did you never go inside to pray?" How embarrassing such a +question is, even to a child!</p> +<p>"No, ma'am. Does that count, too? The little baby didn't pray, +the flowers didn't go inside, nor the birds. And they say the birds +broke out singing all at once, and the flowers shined, like the sun +was shining on 'em—like the sun was shining in 'em," he +corrected himself. "The birds they can see, and the flowers they +can't see, and they seed her." He shivered with the damp +cold—and perhaps too with hunger.</p> +<p>"Where do you live?"</p> +<p>He wouldn't answer.</p> +<p>"What do you live on?"</p> +<p>He shook his head.</p> +<p>"Come with me." He could not resist the grasp on his shoulder, +and the firm directing of his bare, muddy feet through the gate, up +the walk, and into the chamber which the Virgin found that day. He +was turned to the altar, and pressed down on his knees.</p> +<p>One should not look at the face of a blind child praying to the +Virgin for sight. Only the Virgin herself should see that—and +if she once saw that little boy! There were hearts, feet, hands, +and eyes enough hanging around to warrant hope at least, if not +faith; the effigies of the human aches and pains that had here +found relief, if not surcease; feet and hands beholden to no +physician for their exorcism of rheumatism; eyes and ears indebted +to no oculist or aurist; and the hearts,—they are always in +excess,—and, to the most skeptical, there is something +sweetly comforting in the sight of so many cured hearts, with their +thanks cut deep, as they should be, in the very marble thereof. +Where the bed must have stood was the altar, rising by easy +gradations, brave in ecclesiastical deckings, to the plaster figure +of her whom those yearning hearts were seeing, whom those murmuring +lips were addressing. Hearts must be all alike to her at such a +distance, but the faces to the looker-on were so different. The +eyes straining to look through all the experiences and troubles +that their life has held to plead, as only eyes can plead, to one +who can, if she will, perform their miracle for them. And the +mouths,—the sensitive human mouths,—each one distorted +by the tragedy against which it was praying.</p> +<p>Their miracles! their miracles! what trifles to divinity! +Perhaps hardly more to humanity! How far a simple looker-on could +supply them if so minded! Perhaps a liberal exercise of love and +charity by not more than half a dozen well-to-do people could +answer every prayer in the room! But what a miracle that would be, +and how the Virgin's heart would gladden thereat, and jubilate over +her restored heart-dying children, even as the widowed mother did +over her one dying babe!</p> +<p>And the little boy had stopped praying. The futility of +it—perhaps his own impotence—had overcome him. He was +crying, and past the shame of showing it—crying helplessly, +hopelessly. Tears were rolling out of his sightless eyes over his +wordless lips. He could not pray; he could only cry. What better, +after all, can any of us do? But what a prayer to a woman—to +even the plaster figure of a woman! And the Virgin did hear him; +for she had him taken without loss of a moment to the hospital, and +how easy she made it for the physician to remove the disability! To +her be the credit.</p> +<a name="DAY"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE STORY OF A DAY</h3> +<p>It is really not much, the story; it is only the arrangement of +it, as we would say of our dresses and our drawing-rooms.</p> +<p>It began with the dawn, of course; and the skiff for our voyage, +silvered with dew, waiting in the mist for us, as if it had floated +down in a cloud from heaven to the bayou. When repeated, this +sounds like poor poetry; but that is the way one thinks at day +dawn, when the dew is yet, as it were, upon our brains, and our +ideas are still half dreams, and our waking hearts, alas! as +innocent as waking babies playing with their toes.</p> +<p>Our oars waked the waters of the bayou, as motionless as a +sleeping snake under its misty covert—to continue the +poetical language or thought. The ripples ran frightened and +shivering into the rooty thicknesses of the sedge-grown banks, +startling the little birds bathing there into darting to the +nearest, highest rush-top, where, without losing their hold on +their swaying, balancing perches, they burst into all sorts of +incoherent songs, in their excitement to divert attention from the +near-hidden nests: bird mothers are so much like women mothers!</p> +<p>It soon became day enough for the mist to rise. The eyes that +saw it ought to be able to speak to tell fittingly about it.</p> +<p>Not all at once, nor all together, but a thinning, a lifting, a +breaking, a wearing away; a little withdrawing here, a little +withdrawing there; and now a peep, and now a peep; a bride lifting +her veil to her husband! Blue! White! Lilies! Blue lilies! White +lilies! Blue and white lilies! And still blue and white lilies! And +still! And still! Wherever the veil lifted, still and always the +bride!</p> +<p>Not in clumps and bunches, not in spots and patches, not in +banks, meadows, acres, but in—yes; for still it lifted beyond +and beyond and beyond; the eye could not touch the limit of them, +for the eye can touch only the limit of vision; and the lilies +filled the whole sea-marsh, for that is the way spring comes to the +sea-marshes.</p> +<p>The sedge-roots might have been unsightly along the water's +edge, but there were morning-glories, all colors, all +shades—oh, such morning-glories as we of the city never see! +Our city morning-glories must dream of them, as we dream of angels. +Only God could be so lavish! Dropping from the tall spear-heads to +the water, into the water, under the water. And then, the +reflection of them, in all their colors, blue, white, pink, purple, +red, rose, violet!</p> +<p>To think of an obscure little Acadian bayou waking to flow the +first thing in the morning not only through banks of new-blown +morning-glories, but sown also to its depths with such reflections +as must make it think itself a bayou in heaven, instead of in +Paroisse St. Martin. Perhaps that is the reason the poor poets +think themselves poets, on account of the beautiful things that are +only reflected into their minds from what is above? Besides the +reflections, there were alligators in the bayou, trying to slip +away before we could see them, and watching us with their stupid, +senile eyes, sometimes from under the thickest, prettiest flowery +bowers; and turtles splashing into the water ahead of us; and fish +(silver-sided perch), looking like reflections themselves, floating +through the flower reflections, nibbling their breakfast.</p> +<p>Our bayou had been running through swamp only a little more +solid than itself; in fact, there was no solidity but what came +from the roots of grasses. Now, the banks began to get firmer, from +real soil in them. We could see cattle in the distance, up to their +necks in the lilies, their heads and sharp-pointed horns coming up +and going down in the blue and white. Nothing makes cattle's heads +appear handsomer, with the sun just rising far, far away on the +other side of them. The sea-marsh cattle turned loose to pasture in +the lush spring beauty—turned loose in Elysium!</p> +<p>But the land was only partly land yet, and the cattle still +cattle to us. The rising sun made revelations, as our bayou carried +us through a drove in their Elysium, or it might have always been +an Elysium to us. It was not all pasturage, all enjoyment. The +rising and falling feeding head was entirely different, as we could +now see, from the rising and falling agonized head of the +bogged—the buried alive. It is well that the lilies grow +taller and thicker over the more treacherous places; but, misery! +misery! not much of the process was concealed from us, for the +cattle have to come to the bayou for water. Such a splendid black +head that had just yielded breath! The wide-spreading ebony horns +thrown back among the morning-glories, the mouth open from the last +sigh, the glassy eyes staring straight at the beautiful blue sky +above, where a ghostly moon still lingered, the velvet neck ridged +with veins and muscles, the body already buried in black ooze. And +such a pretty red-and-white-spotted heifer, lying on her side, +opening and shutting her eyes, breathing softly in meek resignation +to her horrible calamity! And, again, another one was plunging and +battling in the act of realizing her doom: a fierce, furious, red +cow, glaring and bellowing at the soft, yielding inexorable abysm +under her, the bustards settling afar off, and her own species +browsing securely just out of reach.</p> +<p>They understand that much, the sea-marsh cattle, to keep out of +reach of the dead combatant. In the delirium of anguish, relief +cannot be distinguished from attack, and rescue of the victim has +been proved to mean goring of the rescuer.</p> +<p>The bayou turned from it at last, from our beautiful lily world +about which our pleasant thoughts had ceased to flow even in bad +poetry.</p> +<p>Our voyage was for information, which might be obtained at a +certain habitation; if not there, at a second one, or surely at a +third and most distant settlement.</p> +<p>The bayou narrowed into a canal, then widened into a bayou +again, and the low, level swamp and prairie advanced into woodland +and forest. Oak-trees began, our beautiful oak-trees! Great +branches bent down almost to the water,—quite even with high +water,—covered with forests of oak, parasites, lichens, and +with vines that swept our heads as we passed under them, drooping +now and then to trail in the water, a plaything for the fishes, and +a landing-place for amphibious insects. The sun speckled the water +with its flickering patterns, showering us with light and heat. We +have no spring suns; our sun, even in December, is a summer +one.</p> +<p>And so, with all its grace of curve and bend, and so—the +description is longer than the voyage—we come to our first +stopping-place. To the side, in front of the well-kept fertile +fields, like a proud little showman, stood the little house. Its +pointed shingle roof covered it like the top of a chafing-dish, +reaching down to the windows, which peeped out from under it like +little eyes.</p> +<p>A woman came out of the door to meet us. She had had time during +our graceful winding approach to prepare for us. What an +irrevocable vow to old maidenhood! At least twenty-five, almost a +possible grandmother, according to Acadian computation, and well in +the grip of advancing years. She was dressed in a stiff, dark red +calico gown, with a white apron. Her black hair, smooth and glossy +under a varnish of grease, was plaited high in the back, and +dropped regular ringlets, six in all, over her forehead. That was +the epoch when her calamity came to her, when the hair was worn in +that fashion. A woman seldom alters her coiffure after a calamity +of a certain nature happens to her. The figure had taken a compact +rigidity, an unfaltering inflexibility, all the world away from the +elasticity of matronhood; and her eyes were clear and fixed like +her figure, neither falling, nor rising, nor puzzling under other +eyes. Her lips, her hands, her slim feet, were conspicuously +single, too, in their intent, neither reaching, nor feeling, nor +running for those other lips, hands, and feet which should have +doubled their single life.</p> +<p>That was Adorine Mérionaux, otherwise the most +industrious Acadian and the best cottonade-weaver in the parish. It +had been short, her story. A woman's love is still with those +people her story. She was thirteen when she met him. That is the +age for an Acadian girl to meet him, because, you know, the large +families—the thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, twenty +children—take up the years; and when one wishes to know one's +great-great-grandchildren (which is the dream of the Acadian girl) +one must not delay one's story.</p> +<p>She had one month to love him in, and in one week they were to +have the wedding. The Acadians believe that marriage must come +<i>au point</i>, as cooks say their sauces must be served. Standing +on the bayou-bank in front of the Mérionaux, one could say +"Good day" with the eyes to the Zévérin +Theriots—that was the name of the parents of the young +bridegroom. Looking under the branches of the oaks, one could see +across the prairie,—prairie and sea-marsh it was,—and +clearly distinguish another little red-washed house like the +Mérionaux, with a painted roof hanging over the windows, and +a staircase going up outside to the garret. With the sun shining in +the proper direction, one might distinguish more, and with love +shining like the sun in the eyes, one might see, one might +see—a heart full.</p> +<p>It was only the eyes, however, which could make such a quick +voyage to the Zévérin Theriots; a skiff had a long +day's journey to reach them. The bayou sauntered along over the +country like a negro on a Sunday's pleasuring, trusting to God for +time, and to the devil for means.</p> +<p>Oh, nothing can travel quickly over a bayou! Ask any one who has +waited on a bayou-bank for a physician or a life-and-death message. +Thought refuses to travel and turn and double over it; thought, +like the eye, takes the shortest cut—straight over the +sea-marsh; and in the spring of the year, when the lilies are in +bloom, thought could not take a more heavenly way, even from +beloved to beloved.</p> +<p>It was the week before marriage, that week when, more than one's +whole life afterward, one's heart feels most +longing—most—well, in fact, it was the week before +marriage. From Sunday to Sunday, that was all the time to be +passed. Adorine—women live through this week by the grace of +God, or perhaps they would be as unreasonable as the +men—Adorine could look across the prairie to the little red +roof during the day, and could think across it during the night, +and get up before day to look across again—longing, longing +all the time. Of course one must supply all this from one's own +imagination or experience.</p> +<p>But Adorine could sing, and she sang. One might hear, in a +favorable wind, a gunshot, or the barking of a dog from one place +to the other, so that singing, as to effect, was nothing more than +the voicing of her looking and thinking and longing.</p> +<p>When one loves, it is as if everything was known of and seen by +the other; not only all that passes in the head and heart, which +would in all conscience be more than enough to occupy the other, +but the talking, the dressing, the conduct. It was then that the +back hair was braided and the front curled more and more +beautifully every day, and that the calico dresses became stiffer +and stiffer, and the white crochet lace collar broader and lower in +the neck. At thirteen she was beautiful enough to startle one, they +say, but that was nothing; she spent time and care upon these +things, as if, like other women, her fate seriously depended upon +them. There is no self-abnegation like that of a woman in love.</p> +<p>It was her singing, however, which most showed that other +existence in her existence. When she sang at her spinning-wheel or +her loom, or knelt battling clothes on the bank of the bayou, her +lips would kiss out the words, and the tune would rise and fall and +tremble, as if Zepherin were just across there, anywhere; in fact, +as if every blue and white lily might hide an ear of him.</p> +<p>It was the time of the new moon, fortunately, when all sit up +late in the country. The family would stop in their talking about +the wedding to listen to her. She did not know it herself, but +it—the singing—was getting louder and clearer, and, +poor little thing, it told everything. And after the family went to +bed they could still hear her, sitting on the bank of the bayou, or +up in her window, singing and looking at the moon traveling across +the lily prairie—for all its beauty and brightness no more +beautiful and bright than a heart in love.</p> +<p>It was just past the middle of the week, a Thursday night. The +moon was so bright the colors of the lilies could be seen, and the +singing, so sweet, so far-reaching—it was the essence of the +longing of love. Then it was that the miracle happened to her. +Miracles are always happening to the Acadians. She could not sleep, +she could not stay in bed. Her heart drove her to the window, and +kept her there, and—among the civilized it could not take +place, but here she could sing as she pleased in the middle of the +night; it was nobody's affair, nobody's disturbance. "Saint Ann! +Saint Joseph! Saint Mary!" She heard her song answered! She held +her heart, she bent forward, she sang again. Oh, the air was full +of music! It was all music! She fell on her knees; she listened, +looking at the moon; and, with her face in her hands, looking at +Zepherin. It was God's choir of angels, she thought, and one with a +voice like Zepherin! Whenever it died away she would sing again, +and again, and again—</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="06"></a> <img width="363" src= +"images/06.jpg" alt= +""HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW"."> +<h5>"HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW".</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>But the sun came, and the sun is not created, like the moon, for +lovers, and whatever happened in the night, there was work to be +done in the day. Adorine worked like one in a trance, her face as +radiant as the upturned face of a saint. They did not know what it +was, or rather they thought it was love. Love is so different out +there, they make all kinds of allowances for it. But, in truth, +Adorine was still hearing her celestial voices or voice. If the +cackling of the chickens, the whir of the spinning-wheel, or the +"bum bum" of the loom effaced it a moment, she had only to go to +some still place, round her hand over her ear, and give the line of +a song, and—it was Zepherin—Zepherin she heard.</p> +<p>She walked in a dream until night. When the moon came up she was +at the window, and still it continued, so faint, so sweet, that +answer to her song. Echo never did anything more exquisite, but she +knew nothing of such a heathen as Echo. Human nature became +exhausted. She fell asleep where she was, in the window, and +dreamed as only a bride can dream of her groom. When she awoke, +"Adorine! Adorine!" the beautiful angel voices called to her; +"Zepherin! Zepherin!" she answered, as if she, too, were an angel, +signaling another angel in heaven. It was too much. She wept, and +that broke the charm. She could hear nothing more after that. All +that day was despondency, dejection, tear-bedewed eyes, and +tremulous lips, the commonplace reaction, as all know, of love +exaltation. Adorine's family, Acadian peasants though they were, +knew as much about it as any one else, and all that any one knows +about it is that marriage is the cure-all, and the only cure-all, +for love.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="07"></a> <img width="400" src= +"images/07.jpg" alt="ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION"> +<h5>"ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>And Zepherin? A man could better describe his side of that week; +for it, too, has mostly to be described from imagination or +experience. What is inferred is that what Adorine longed and +thought and looked in silence and resignation, according to woman's +way, he suffered equally, but in a man's way, which is not one of +silence or resignation,—at least when one is a man of +eighteen,—the last interview, the near wedding, her beauty, +his love, her house in sight, the full moon, the long, wakeful +nights.</p> +<p>He took his pirogue; but the bayou played with his impatience, +maddened his passion, bringing him so near, to meander with him +again so far away. There was only a short prairie between him and +——, a prairie thick with lily-roots—one could +almost walk over their heads, so close, and gleaming in the +moonlight. But this is all only inference.</p> +<p>The pirogue was found tethered to the paddle stuck upright in +the soft bank, and—Adorine's parents related the rest. +Nothing else was found until the summer drought had bared the +swamp.</p> +<p>There was a little girl in the house when we arrived—all +else were in the field—a stupid, solemn, pretty child, the +child of a brother. How she kept away from Adorine, and how much +that testified!</p> +<p>It would have been too painful. The little arms around her neck, +the head nestling to her bosom, sleepily pressing against it. And +the little one might ask to be sung to sleep. Sung to sleep!</p> +<p>The little bed-chamber, with its high mattressed bed, covered +with the Acadian home-spun quilt, trimmed with netting fringe, its +bit of mirror over the bureau, the bottle of perfumed grease to +keep the locks black and glossy, the prayer-beads and blessed palms +hanging on the wall, the low, black polished spinning-wheel, the +loom,—the <i>métier d' Adorine</i> famed throughout +the parish,—the ever goodly store of cotton and yarn hanks +swinging from the ceiling, and the little square, open window which +looked under the mossy oak-branches to look over the prairie; and +once again all blue and white lilies—they were all there, as +Adorine was there; but there was more—not there.</p> +<a name="ANNE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE</h3> +<p>Old Jeanne Marie leaned her hand against the house, and the +tears rolled down her cheeks. She had not wept since she buried her +last child. With her it was one trouble, one weeping, no more; and +her wrinkled, hard, polished skin so far had known only the tears +that come after death. The trouble in her heart now was almost +exactly like the trouble caused by death; although she knew it was +not so bad as death, yet, when she thought of this to console +herself, the tears rolled all the faster. She took the end of the +red cotton kerchief tied over her head, and wiped them away; for +the furrows in her face did not merely run up and down—they +ran in all directions, and carried her tears all over her face at +once. She could understand death, but she could not understand +this.</p> +<p>It came about in this way: Anne Marie and she lived in the +little red-washed cabin against which she leaned; had lived there +alone with each other for fifty years, ever since Jeanne Marie's +husband had died, and the three children after him, in the fever +epidemic.</p> +<p>The little two-roomed cabin, the stable where there used to be a +cow, the patch of ground planted with onions, had all been bought +and paid for by the husband; for he was a thrifty, hard-working +Gascon, and had he lived there would not have been one better off, +or with a larger family, either in that quarter or in any of the +red-washed suburbs with which Gascony has surrounded New Orleans. +His women, however,—the wife and sister-in-law,—had +done their share in the work: a man's share apiece, for with the +Gascon women there is no discrimination of sex when it comes to +work.</p> +<p>And they worked on just the same after he died, tending the cow, +digging, hoeing, planting, watering. The day following the funeral, +by daylight Jeanne Marie was shouldering around the yoke of +milk-cans to his patrons, while Anne Marie carried the vegetables +to market; and so on for fifty years.</p> +<p>They were old women now,—seventy-five years +old,—and, as they expressed it, they had always been twins. +In twins there is always one lucky and one unlucky one: Jeanne +Marie was the lucky one, Anne Marie the unlucky one. So much so, +that it was even she who had to catch the rheumatism, and to lie +now bedridden, months at a time, while Jeanne Marie was as active +in her sabots as she had ever been.</p> +<p>In spite of the age of both, and the infirmity of one, every +Saturday night there was some little thing to put under the brick +in the hearth, for taxes and license, and the never-to-be-forgotten +funeral provision. In the husband's time gold pieces used to go in, +but they had all gone to pay for the four funerals and the +quadrupled doctor's bill. The women laid in silver pieces; the +coins, however, grew smaller and smaller, and represented more and +more not so much the gain from onions as the saving from food.</p> +<p>It had been explained to them how they might, all at once, make +a year's gain in the lottery; and it had become their custom +always, at the end of every month, to put aside one silver coin +apiece, to buy a lottery ticket with—one ticket each, not for +the great, but for the twenty-five-cent, prizes. Anne Marie would +buy hers round about the market; Jeanne Marie would stop anywhere +along her milk course and buy hers, and they would go together in +the afternoon to stand with the little crowd watching the placard +upon which the winning numbers were to be written. And when they +were written, it was curious, Jeanne Marie's numbers would come out +twice as often as Anne Marie's. Not that she ever won anything, for +she was not lucky enough to have them come out in the order to win; +they only came out here and there, singly: but it was sufficient to +make old Anne Marie cross and ugly for a day or two, and injure the +sale of the onion-basket. When she became bedridden, Jeanne Marie +bought the ticket for both, on the numbers, however, that Anne +Marie gave her; and Anne Marie had to lie in bed and wait, while +Jeanne Marie went out to watch the placard.</p> +<p>One evening, watching it, Jeanne Marie saw the ticket-agent +write out the numbers as they came on her ticket, in such a way +that they drew a prize—forty dollars.</p> +<p>When the old woman saw it she felt such a happiness; just as she +used to feel in the old times right after the birth of a baby. She +thought of that instantly. Without saying a word to any one, she +clattered over the <i>banquette</i> as fast as she could in her +sabots, to tell the good news to Anne Marie. But she did not go so +fast as not to have time to dispose of her forty dollars over and +over again. Forty dollars! That was a great deal of money. She had +often in her mind, when she was expecting a prize, spent twenty +dollars; for she had never thought it could be more than that. But +forty dollars! A new gown apiece, and black silk kerchiefs to tie +over their heads instead of red cotton, and the little cabin new +red-washed, and soup in the pot, and a garlic sausage, and a bottle +of good, costly liniment for Anne Marie's legs; and still a pile of +gold to go under the hearth-brick—a pile of gold that would +have made the eyes of the defunct husband glisten.</p> +<p>She pushed open the picket-gate, and came into the room where +her sister lay in bed.</p> +<p>"Eh, Anne Marie, my girl," she called in her thick, pebbly +voice, apparently made purposely to suit her rough Gascon accent; +"this time we have caught it!"</p> +<p>"Whose ticket?" asked Anne Marie, instantly.</p> +<p>In a flash all Anne Marie's ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's +mind; how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne +Marie's faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of +her lottery numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the +catching of the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, +as she looked at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over +Jeanne Marie of her sister's not being able, in all her poor old +seventy-five years of life, to remember the pressure of the arms of +a husband about her waist, nor the mouth of a child on her +breast.</p> +<p>As soon as Anne Marie had asked her question, Jeanne Marie +answered it.</p> +<p>"But your ticket, <i>Coton-Maï</i>!" <a name= +"footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></p> +<p>"Where? Give it here! Give it here!"</p> +<p>The old woman, who had not been able to move her back for weeks, +sat bolt upright in bed, and stretched out her great bony fingers, +with the long nails as hard and black as rake-prongs from groveling +in the earth.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="08"></a><img width="677" src= +"images/08.jpg" alt=""THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!""> +<h5>"THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!"</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Jeanne Marie poured the money out of her cotton handkerchief +into them.</p> +<p>Anne Marie counted it, looked at it; looked at it, counted it; +and if she had not been so old, so infirm, so toothless, the smile +that passed over her face would have made it beautiful.</p> +<p>Jeanne Marie had to leave her to draw water from the well to +water the plants, and to get her vegetables ready for next morning. +She felt even happier now than if she had just had a child, happier +even than if her husband had just returned to her.</p> +<p>"Ill luck! <i>Coton-Maï!</i> Ill luck! There's a way to +turn ill luck!" And her smile also should have beautified her face, +wrinkled and ugly though it was.</p> +<p>She did not think any more of the spending of the money, only of +the pleasure Anne Marie would take in spending it.</p> +<p>The water was low in the well, and there had been a long +drought. There are not many old women of seventy-five who could +have watered so much ground as abundantly as she did; but whenever +she thought of the forty dollars and Anne Marie's smile she would +give the thirsting plant an extra bucketful.</p> +<p>The twilight was gaining. She paused. "<i>Coton-Maï</i>" +she exclaimed aloud. "But I must see the old woman smile again over +her good luck."</p> +<p>Although it was "my girl" face to face, it was always "the old +woman" behind each other's back.</p> +<p>There was a knot-hole in the plank walls of the house. In spite +of Anne Marie's rheumatism they would never stop it up, needing it, +they said, for light and air. Jeanne Marie slipped her feet out of +her sabots and crept easily toward it, smiling, and saying +"<i>Coton-Maï</i>!" to herself all the way. She put her eye to +the hole. Anne Marie was not in the bed, she who had not left her +bed for two months! Jeanne Marie looked through the dim light of +the room until she found her.</p> +<p>Anne Marie, in her short petticoat and nightsack, with bare legs +and feet, was on her knees in the corner, pulling up a plank, +hiding—peasants know hiding when they see it—hiding her +money away—away—away from whom?—muttering to +herself and shaking her old grayhaired head. Hiding her money away +from Jeanne Marie!</p> +<p>And this was why Jeanne Marie leaned her head against the side +of the house and wept. It seemed to her that she had never known +her twin sister at all.</p> +<hr class="full"> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a name="footnote2"></a> <b>Footnote +2</b>: <a href="#footnotetag2">(return)</a> +<p><i>Coton-Maï</i> is an innocent oath invented by the good, +pious priest as a substitute for one more harmful.</p> +</blockquote> +<hr class="full"> +<a name="HOPE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>A CRIPPLED HOPE</h3> +<p>You must picture to yourself the quiet, dim-lighted room of a +convalescent; outside, the dreary, bleak days of winter in a +sparsely settled, distant country parish; inside, a slow, +smoldering log-fire, a curtained bed, the infant sleeping well +enough, the mother wakeful, restless, thought-driven, as a mother +must be, unfortunately, nowadays, particularly in that parish, +where cotton worms and overflows have acquired such a monopoly of +one's future.</p> +<p>God is always pretty near a sick woman's couch; but nearer even +than God seems the sick-nurse—at least in that part of the +country, under those circumstances. It is so good to look through +the dimness and uncertainty, moral and physical, and to meet those +little black, steadfast, all-seeing eyes; to feel those smooth, +soft, all-soothing hands; to hear, across one's sleep, that +three-footed step—the flat-soled left foot, the tiptoe right, +and the padded end of the broomstick; and when one is so wakeful +and restless and thought-driven, to have another's story given one. +God, depend upon it, grows stories and lives as he does herbs, each +with a mission of balm to some woe.</p> +<p>She said she had, and in truth she had, no other name than +"little Mammy"; and that was the name of her nature. Pure African, +but bronze rather than pure black, and full-sized only in width, +her growth having been hampered as to height by an injury to her +hip, which had lamed her, pulling her figure awry, and burdening +her with a protuberance of the joint. Her mother caused it by +dropping her when a baby, and concealing it, for fear of +punishment, until the dislocation became irremediable. All the +animosity of which little Mammy was capable centered upon this +unknown but never-to-be-forgotten mother of hers; out of this +hatred had grown her love—that is, her destiny, a woman's +love being her destiny. Little Mammy's love was for children.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="09"></a><img width="600" src= +"images/09.jpg" alt= +""THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT.""> +<h5>"THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>The birth and infancy (the one as accidental as the other, one +would infer) took place in—it sounds like the "Arabian +Nights" now!--took place in the great room, caravansary, stable, +behind a negro-trader's auction-mart, where human beings underwent +literally the daily buying and selling of which the world now +complains in a figure of speech—a great, square, dusty +chamber where, sitting cross-legged, leaning against the wall, or +lying on foul blanket pallets on the floor, the bargains of to-day +made their brief sojourn, awaiting transformation into the profits +of the morrow.</p> +<p>The place can be pointed out now, is often pointed out; but no +emotion arises at sight of it. It is so plain, so matter-of-fact an +edifice that emotion only comes afterward in thinking about it, and +then in the reflection that such an edifice could be, then as now, +plain and matter-of-fact.</p> +<p>For the slave-trader there was no capital so valuable as the +physical soundness of his stock; the moral was easily enough forged +or counterfeited. Little Mammy's good-for-nothing mother was sold +as readily as a vote, in the parlance of to-day; but no one would +pay for a crippled baby. The mother herself would not have taken +her as a gift, had it been in the nature of a negro-trader to give +away anything. Some doctoring was done,—so little Mammy heard +traditionally,—some effort made to get her marketable. There +were attempts to pair her off as a twin sister of various +correspondencies in age, size, and color, and to palm her off, as a +substitute, at migratory, bereaved, overfull breasts. Nothing +equaled a negro-trader's will and power for fraud, except the +hereditary distrust and watchfulness which it bred and maintained. +And so, in the even balance between the two categories, the little +cripple remained a fixture in the stream of life that passed +through that back room, in the fluxes and refluxes of buying and +selling; not valueless, however—rely upon a negro-trader for +discovering values as substitutes, as panaceas. She earned her +nourishment, and Providence did not let it kill the little animal +before the emancipation of weaning arrived.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="10"></a><img width="622" src= +"images/10.jpg" alt=""LITTLE MAMMY.""> +<h5>"LITTLE MAMMY."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>How much circumstances evoked, how much instinct responded, +belongs to the secrets which nature seems to intend keeping. As a +baby she had eyes, attention, solely for other babies. One cannot +say while she was still crawling, for she could only crawl years +after she should have been walking, but, before even precocious +walking-time, tradition or the old gray-haired negro janitor +relates, she would creep from baby to baby to play with it, put it +to sleep, pat it, rub its stomach (a negro baby, you know, is all +stomach, and generally aching stomach at that). And before she had +a lap, she managed to force one for some ailing nursling. It was +then that they began to call her "little Mammy." In the transitory +population of the "pen" no one stayed long enough to give her +another name; and no one ever stayed short enough to give her +another one.</p> +<p>Her first recollection of herself was that she could not +walk—she was past crawling; she cradled herself along, as she +called sitting down flat, and working herself about with her hands +and her one strong leg. Babbling babies walked all around +her,—many walking before they babbled,—and still she +did not walk, imitate them as she might and did. She would sit and +"study" about it, make another trial, fall; sit and study some +more, make another trial, fall again. Negroes, who believe that +they must give a reason for everything even if they have to invent +one, were convinced that it was all this studying upon her lameness +that gave her such a large head.</p> +<p>And now she began secretly turning up the clothes of every negro +child that came into that pen, and examining its legs, and still +more secretly examining her own, stretched out before her on the +ground. How long it took she does not remember; in fact, she could +not have known, for she had no way of measuring time except by her +thoughts and feelings. But in her own way and time the due process +of deliberation was fulfilled, and the quotient made clear that, +bowed or not, all children's legs were of equal length except her +own, and all were alike, not one full, strong, hard, the other +soft, flabby, wrinkled, growing out of a knot at the hip. A whole +psychological period apparently lay between that conclusion +and—a broom-handle walking-stick; but the broomstick came, as +it was bound to come,—thank heaven!--from that premise, and +what with stretching one limb to make it longer, and doubling up +the other to make it shorter, she invented that form of locomotion +which is still carrying her through life, and with no more +exaggerated leg-crookedness than many careless negroes born with +straight limbs display. This must have been when she was about +eight or nine. Hobbling on a broomstick, with, no doubt, the same +weird, wizened face as now, an innate sense of the fitness of +things must have suggested the kerchief tied around her big head, +and the burlaps rag of an apron in front of her linsey-woolsey rag +of a gown, and the bit of broken pipe-stem in the corner of her +mouth, where the pipe should have been, and where it was in after +years. That is the way she recollected herself, and that is the way +one recalls her now, with a few modifications.</p> +<p>The others came and went, but she was always there. It wasn't +long before she became "little Mammy" to the grown folks too; and +the newest inmates soon learned to cry: "Where's little Mammy?" +"Oh, little Mammy! little Mammy! Such a misery in my head [or my +back, or my stomach]! Can't you help me, little Mammy?" It was +curious what a quick eye she had for symptoms and ailments, and +what a quick ear for suffering, and how apt she was at picking up, +remembering, and inventing remedies. It never occurred to her not +to crouch at the head or the foot of a sick pallet, day and night +through. As for the nights, she said she dared not close her eyes +of nights. The room they were in was so vast, and sometimes the +negroes lay so thick on the floor, rolled in their blankets (you +know, even in the summer they sleep under blankets), all snoring so +loudly, she would never have heard a groan or a whimper any more +than they did, if she had slept, too. And negro mothers are so +careless and such heavy sleepers. All night she would creep at +regular intervals to the different pallets, and draw the little +babies from under, or away from, the heavy, inert impending mother +forms. There is no telling how many she thus saved from being +overlaid and smothered, or, what was worse, maimed and +crippled.</p> +<p>Whenever a physician came in, as he was sometimes called, to +look at a valuable investment or to furbish up some piece of +damaged goods, she always managed to get near to hear the +directions; and she generally was the one to apply them also, for +negroes always would steal medicines most scurvily one from the +other. And when death at times would slip into the pen, despite the +trader's utmost alertness and precautions,—as death often +"had to do," little Mammy said,—when the time of some of them +came to die, and when the rest of the negroes, with African greed +of eye for the horrible, would press around the lowly couch where +the agonizing form of a slave lay writhing out of life, she would +always to the last give medicines, and wipe the cold forehead, and +soothe the clutching, fearsome hands, hoping to the end, and trying +to inspire the hope that his or her "time" had not come yet; for, +as she said, "Our time doesn't come just as often as it does +come."</p> +<p>And in those sad last offices, which somehow have always been +under reproach as a kind of shame, no matter how young she was, she +was always too old to have the childish avoidance of them. On the +contrary, to her a corpse was only a kind of baby, and she always +strove, she said, to make one, like the other, easy and +comfortable.</p> +<p>And in other emergencies she divined the mysteries of the flesh, +as other precocities divine the mysteries of painting and music, +and so become child wonders.</p> +<p>Others came and went. She alone remained there. Babies of her +babyhood—the toddlers she, a toddler, had nursed—were +having babies themselves now; the middle-aged had had time to grow +old and die. Every week new families were coming into the great +back chamber; every week they passed out: babies, boys, girls, +buxom wenches, stalwart youths, and the middle-aged—the +grave, serious ones whom misfortune had driven from their old +masters, and the ill-reputed ones, the trickish, thievish, lazy, +whom the cunning of the negro-trader alone could keep in +circulation. All were marketable, all were bought and sold, all +passed in one door and out the other—all except her, little +Mammy. As with her lameness, it took time for her to recognize, to +understand, the fact. She could study over her lameness, she could +in the dull course of time think out the broomstick way of +palliation. It would have been almost better, under the +circumstances, for God to have kept the truth from her; +only—God keeps so little of the truth from us women. It is +his system.</p> +<p>Poor little thing! It was not now that her master <i>could</i> +not sell her, but he <i>would</i> not! Out of her own intelligence +she had forged her chains; the lameness was a hobble merely in +comparison. She had become too valuable to the negro-trader by her +services among his crew, and offers only solidified his +determination not to sell her. Visiting physicians, after short +acquaintance with her capacities, would offer what were called +fancy prices for her. Planters who heard of her through their +purchases would come to the city purposely to secure, at any cost, +so inestimable an adjunct to their plantations. Even +ladies—refined, delicate ladies—sometimes came to the +pen personally to back money with influence. In vain. Little Mammy +was worth more to the negro-trader, simply as a kind of insurance +against accidents, than any sum, however glittering the figure, and +he was no ignorant expert in human wares. She can tell it; no one +else can for her. Remember that at times she had seen the streets +outside. Remember that she could hear of the outside world daily +from the passing chattels—of the plantations, farms, +families; the green fields, Sunday woods, running streams; the +camp-meetings, corn-shuckings, cotton-pickings, sugar-grindings; +the baptisms, marriages, funerals, prayer-meetings; the holidays +and holy days. Remember that, whether for liberty or whether for +love, passion effloresces in the human being—no matter when, +where, or how—with every spring's return. Remember that she +was, even in middle age, young and vigorous. But no; do not +remember anything. There is no need to heighten the coloring.</p> +<p>It would be tedious to relate, although it was not tedious to +hear her relate it, the desperations and hopes of her life then. +Hardly a day passed that she did not see, looking for purchases +(rummaging among goods on a counter for bargains), some master whom +she could have loved, some mistress whom she could have adored. +Always her favorite mistresses were there—tall, delicate +matrons, who came themselves, with great fatigue, to select +kindly-faced women for nurses; languid-looking ladies with smooth +hair standing out in wide <i>bandeaux</i> from their heads, and +lace shawls dropping from their sloping shoulders, silk dresses +carelessly held up in thumb and finger from embroidered petticoats +that were spread out like tents over huge hoops which covered whole +groups of swarming piccaninnies on the dirty floor; ladies, pale +from illnesses that she might have nursed, and over-burdened with +children whom she might have reared! And not a lady of that kind +saw her face but wanted her, yearned for her, pleaded for her, +coming back secretly to slip silver, and sometimes gold, pieces +into her hand, patting her turbaned head, calling her "little +Mammy" too, instantly, by inspiration, and making the negro-trader +give them, with all sorts of assurances, the refusal of her. She +had no need for the whispered "Buy me, master!" "Buy me, mistress!" +"You'll see how I can work, master!" "You'll never be sorry, +mistress!" of the others. The negro-trader—like hangmen, +negro-traders are fitted by nature for their profession—it +came into his head—he had no heart, not even a negro-trader's +heart—that it would be more judicious to seclude her during +these shopping visits, so to speak. She could not have had any +hopes then at all; it must have been all desperations.</p> +<p>That auction-block, that executioner's block, about which so +much has been written—Jacob's ladder, in his dream, was +nothing to what that block appeared nightly in her dreams to her; +and the climbers up and down—well, perhaps Jacob's angels +were his hopes, too.</p> +<p>At times she determined to depreciate her usefulness, mar her +value, by renouncing her heart, denying her purpose. For days she +would tie her kerchief over her ears and eyes, and crouch in a +corner, strangling her impulses. She even malingered, refused food, +became dumb. And she might have succeeded in making herself salable +through incipient lunacy, if through no other way, had she been +able to maintain her role long enough. But some woman or baby +always was falling into some emergency of pain and illness.</p> +<p>How it might have ended one does not like to think. Fortunately, +one does not need to think.</p> +<p>There came a night. She sat alone in the vast, dark +caravansary—alone for the first time in her life. Empty rags +and blankets lay strewn over the floor, no snoring, no tossing in +them more. A sacrificial sale that day had cleared the counters. +Alarm-bells rang in the streets, but she did not know them for +alarm-bells; alarm brooded in the dim space around her, but she did +not even recognize that. Her protracted tension of heart had made +her fear-blind to all but one peradventure.</p> +<p>Once or twice she forgot herself, and limped over to some heap +to relieve an imaginary struggling babe or moaning sleeper. Morning +came. She had dozed. She looked to see the rag-heaps stir; they lay +as still as corpses. The alarm-bells had ceased. She looked to see +a new gang enter the far door. She listened for the gathering +buzzing of voices in the next room, around the auction-block. She +waited for the trader. She waited for the janitor. At nightfall a +file of soldiers entered. They drove her forth, ordering her in the +voice, in the tone, of the negro-trader. That was the only familiar +thing in the chaos of incomprehensibility about her. She hobbled +through the auction-room. Posters, advertisements, papers, lay on +the floor, and in the torch-light glared from the wall. Her Jacob's +ladder, her stepping-stone to her hopes, lay overturned in a +corner.</p> +<p>You divine it. The negro-trader's trade was abolished, and he +had vanished in the din and smoke of a war which he had not been +entirely guiltless of producing, leaving little Mammy locked up +behind him. Had he forgotten her? One cannot even hope so. She +hobbled out into the street, leaning on her nine-year-old +broomstick (she had grown only slightly beyond it; could still use +it by bending over it), her head tied in a rag kerchief, a rag for +a gown, a rag for an apron.</p> +<p>Free, she was free! But she had not hoped for freedom. The +plantation, the household, the delicate ladies, the teeming +children,—broomsticks they were in comparison to freedom, +but,—that was what she had asked, what she had prayed for. +God, she said, had let her drop, just as her mother had done. More +than ever she grieved, as she crept down the street, that she had +never mounted the auctioneer's block. An ownerless free negro! She +knew no one whose duty it was to help her; no one knew her to help +her. In the whole world (it was all she had asked) there was no +white child to call her mammy, no white lackey or gentleman (it was +the extent of her dreams) beholden to her as to a nurse. And all +her innumerable black beneficiaries! Even the janitor, whom she had +tended as the others, had deserted her like his white +prototype.</p> +<p>She tried to find a place for herself, but she had no indorsers, +no recommenders. She dared not mention the name of the +negro-trader; it banished her not only from the households of the +whites, but from those of the genteel of her own color. And +everywhere soldiers sentineled the streets—soldiers whose +tone and accent reminded her of the negro-trader.</p> +<p>Her sufferings, whether imaginary or real, were sufficiently +acute to drive her into the only form of escape which once had been +possible to friendless negroes. She became a runaway. With a bundle +tied to the end of a stick over her shoulder, just as the old +prints represent it, she fled from her homelessness and loneliness, +from her ignoble past, and the heart-disappointing termination of +it. Following a railroad track, journeying afoot, sleeping by the +roadside, she lived on until she came to the one familiar landmark +in life to her—a sick woman, but a white one. And so, +progressing from patient to patient (it was a time when sick white +women studded the country like mile-posts), she arrived at a little +town, a kind of a refuge for soldiers' wives and widows. She never +traveled further. She could not. Always, as in the pen, some +emergency of pain and illness held her.</p> +<p>That is all. She is still there. The poor, poor women of that +stricken region say that little Mammy was the only alleviation God +left them after Sheridan passed through; and the richer ones say +very much the same thing—</p> +<p>But one should hear her tell it herself, as has been said, on a +cold, gloomy winter day in the country, the fire glimmering on the +hearth; the overworked husband in the fields; the baby quiet at +last; the mother uneasy, restless, thought-driven; the soft black +hand rubbing backward and forward, rubbing out aches and frets and +nervousness.</p> +<p>The eyelids droop; the firelight plays fantasies on the +bed-curtains; the ear drops words, sentences; one gets +confused—one sleeps—one dreams.</p> +<a name="US"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>"ONE OF US"</h3> +<p>At the first glance one might have been inclined to doubt; but +at the second anybody would have recognized her—that is, with +a little mental rehabilitation: the bright little rouge spots in +the hollow of her cheek, the eyebrows well accentuated with paint, +the thin lips rose-tinted, and the dull, straight hair frizzed and +curled and twisted and turned by that consummate rascal and artist, +the official beautifier and rectifier of stage humanity, Robert, +the opera <i>coiffeur</i>. Who in the world knows better than he +the gulf between the real and the ideal, the limitations between +the natural and the romantic?</p> +<p>Yes, one could see her, in that time-honored thin silk dress of +hers stiffened into brocade by buckram underneath; the high, +low-necked waist, hiding any evidences of breast, if there were +such evidences to hide, and bringing the long neck into such faulty +prominence; and the sleeves, crisp puffs of tulle divided by bands +of red velvet, through which the poor lean arm runs like a wire, +stringing them together like beads. Yes, it was she, the whilom +<i>dugazon</i> of the opera troupe. Not that she ever was a +<i>dugazon</i>, but that was what her voice once aspired to be: a +<i>dugazon manquée</i> would better describe her.</p> +<p>What a ghost! But they always appeared like mere evaporations of +real women. For what woman of flesh and blood can seriously +maintain through life the rôle of sham attendant on sham +sensations, and play public celebrant of other women's loves and +lovers, singing, or rather saying, nothing more enlivening than: +"Oh, madame!" and "Ah, madame!" and "<i>Quelle ivresse!</i>" or +"<i>Quelle horreur!</i>" or, in recitative, detailing whatever +dreary platitudes and inanities the librettist and Heaven connive +to put upon the tongues of confidantes and attendants?</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="11"></a><img width="430" src= +"images/11.jpg" alt= +""TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS.""> +<h5>"TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Looking at her—how it came over one! The music, the +lights, the scene; the fat soprano confiding to her the fact of the +"amour extrême" she bears for the tenor, to which she, the +<i>dugazon</i>, does not even try to listen; her eyes wandering +listlessly over the audience. The calorous secret out, and in her +possession, how she stumbles over her train to the back of the +stage, there to pose in abject patience and awkwardness, while the +gallant baritone, touching his sword, and flinging his cape over +his shoulder, defies the world and the tenor, who is just +recovering from his "ut de poitrine" behind the scenes.</p> +<p>She was talking to me all the time, apologizing for the +intrusion, explaining her mission, which involved a short story of +her life, as women's intrusions and missions usually do. But my +thoughts, also as usual, distracted me from listening, as so often +they have distracted me from following what was perhaps more +profitable.</p> +<p>The composer, of course, wastes no music upon her; flinging to +her only an occasional recitative in two notes, but always ending +in a reef of a scale, trill, or roulade, for her to wreck her voice +on before the audience. The <i>chef d'orchestre</i>, if he is +charitable, starts her off with a contribution from his own lusty +lungs, and then she—oh, her voice is always thinner and more +osseous than her arms, and her smile no more graceful than her +train!</p> +<p>As well think of the simulated trees, water-falls, and chateaux +leaving the stage, as the <i>dugazon</i>! One always imagines them +singing on into dimness, dustiness, unsteadiness, and uselessness, +until, like any other piece of stage property, they are at last put +aside and simply left there at the end of some season—there +seems to be a superstition against selling or burning useless and +dilapidated stage property. As it came to me, the idea was not an +impossibility. The last representation of the season is over. She, +tired beyond judgment—haply, beyond feeling—by her +tireless rôle, sinks upon her chair to rest in her +dressing-room; sinks, further, to sleep. She has no maid. The +troupe, hurrying away to France on the special train waiting not +half a dozen blocks away, forget her—the insignificant are so +easily forgotten! The porter, more tired, perhaps, than any one of +the beautiful ideal world about him, and savoring already in +advance the good onion-flavored <i>grillade</i> awaiting him at +home, locks up everything fast and tight; the tighter and faster +for the good fortnight's vacation he has promised himself.</p> +<p>No doubt if the old opera-house were ever cleaned out, just such +a heap of stiff, wire-strung bones would be found, in some such +hole as the <i>dugazon's</i> dressing-room, desiccating away in its +last costume—perhaps in that very costume of <i>Inez</i>; and +if one were venturesome enough to pass Allhallowe'en there, the +spirit of those bones might be seen availing itself of the +privilege of unasperged corpses to roam. Not singing, not +talking—it is an anachronism to say that ghosts talk: their +medium of communication must be pure thought; and one should be +able to see their thoughts working, just as one sees the working of +the digestive organs in the clear viscera of transparent +animalcule. The hard thing of it is that ghosts are chained to the +same scenes that chained their bodies, and when they sleep-walk, so +to speak, it must be through phases of former existence. What a +nightmare for them to go over once again the lived and done, the +suffered and finished! What a comfort to wake up and find one's +self dead, well dead!</p> +<p>I could have continued and put the whole opera troupe in +"costume de ghost," but I think it was the woman's eyes that drew +me back to her face and her story. She had a sensible face, now +that I observed her naturally, as it were; and her hands,—how +I have agonized over those hands on the stage!--all knuckles and +exaggerated veins, clutching her dress as she sang, or, petrified, +outstretched to <i>Leonore's</i> "Pourquoi ces larmes?"—her +hands were the hands of an honest, hard-working woman who buckrams +her own skirts, and at need could scrub her own floor. Her face (my +description following my wandering glance)—her face was +careworn, almost to desuetude; not dissipation-worn, as, alas! the +faces of the more gifted ladies of opera troupes too often are. +There was no fattening in it of pastry, truffles, and bonbons; upon +it none of the tracery left by nightly champagne tides and ripples; +and consequently her figure, under her plain dress, had not that +for display which the world has conventioned to call charms. Where +a window-cord would hardly have sufficed to girdle <i>Leonore</i>, +a necklace would have served her. She had not beauty enough to fear +the flattering dangers of masculine snares and +temptations,—or there may have been other reasons,—but +as a wife—there was something about her that guaranteed +it—she would have blossomed love and children as a fig-tree +does figs.</p> +<p>In truth, she was just talking about children. The first part of +her story had passed: her birthplace, education, situation; and now +she was saying:</p> +<p>"I have always had the temptation, but I have always resisted +it. Now,"—with a blush at her excuse,—"it may be your +spring weather, your birds, your flowers, your sky—and your +children in the streets. The longing came over me yesterday: I +thought of it on the stage, I thought of it afterward—it was +better than sleeping; and this morning"—her eyes moistened, +she breathed excitedly—"I was determined. I gave up, I made +inquiry, I was sent to you. Would it be possible? Would there be +any place" ("any rôle," she said first) "in any of your +asylums, in any of your charitable institutions, for me? I would +ask nothing but my clothes and food, and very little of that; the +recompense would be the children—the little girl children," +with a smile—can you imagine the smile of a woman dreaming of +children that might be? "Think! Never to have held a child in my +arms more than a moment, never to have felt a child's arms about my +neck! Never to have known a child! Born on a stage, my mother born +on a stage!" Ah, there were tragic possibilities in that voice and +movement! "Pardon, madam. You see how I repeat. And you must be +very wearied hearing about me. But I could be their nurse and their +servant. I would bathe and dress them, play with them, teach them +their prayers; and when they are sick they would see no difference. +They would not know but what their mother was there!"</p> +<p>Oh, she had her program all prepared; one could see that.</p> +<p>"And I would sing to them—no! no!" with a quick gesture, +"nothing from the stage; little songs and lullabys I have picked up +traveling around, and," hesitating, "little things I have composed +myself—little things that I thought children would like to +hear some day." What did she not unconsciously throw into those +last words? "I dream of it," she pursued, talking with as little +regard to me as on the stage she sang to the prima donna. "Their +little arms, their little faces, their little lips! And in an +asylum there would be so many of them! When they cried and were in +trouble I would take them in my lap, and I would say to them, with +all sorts of tenderness—" She had arranged that in her +program, too—all the minutiæ of what she would say to +them in their distress. But women are that way. When once they +begin to love, their hearts are magnifying-lenses for them to feel +through. "And my heart hungers to commence right here, now, at +once! It seems to me I cannot wait. Ah, madam, no more stage, no +more opera!" speaking quickly, feverishly. "As I said, it may be +your beautiful spring, your flowers, your birds, and your numbers +of children. I have always loved that place most where there are +most children; and you have more children here than I ever saw +anywhere. Children are so beautiful! It is strange, is it not, when +you consider my life and my rearing?"</p> +<p>Her life, her rearing, how interesting they must have been! What +a pity I had not listened more attentively!</p> +<p>"They say you have much to do with asylums here."</p> +<p>Evidently, when rôles do not exist in life for certain +characters, God has to create them. And thus He had to create a +rôle in an asylum for my friend, for so she became from the +instant she spoke of children as she did. It was the poorest and +neediest of asylums; and the poor little orphaned +wretches—but it is better not to speak of them. How can God +ever expect to rear children without their mothers!</p> +<p>But the rôle I craved to create for my friend was far +different—some good, honest bourgeois interior, where lips +are coarse and cheeks are ruddy, and where life is composed of real +scenes, set to the real music of life, the homely successes and +failures, and loves and hates, and embraces and tears, that fill +out the orchestra of the heart; where romance and poetry abound +<i>au naturel</i>; and where—yes, where children grow as +thick as nature permits: the domestic interior of the opera porter, +for instance, or the clockmaker over the way. But what a loss the +orphan-asylum would have suffered, and the dreary lacking there +would have been in the lives of the children! For there must have +been moments in the lives of the children in that asylum when they +felt, awake, as they felt in their sleep when they dreamed their +mothers were about them.</p> +<a name="GIRL"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL</h3> +<p>She was coming down on the boat from Cincinnati, the little +convent girl. Two sisters had brought her aboard. They gave her in +charge of the captain, got her a state-room, saw that the new +little trunk was put into it, hung the new little satchel up on the +wall, showed her how to bolt the door at night, shook hands with +her for good-by (good-bys have really no significance for sisters), +and left her there. After a while the bells all rang, and the boat, +in the awkward elephantine fashion of boats, got into midstream. +The chambermaid found her sitting on the chair in the state-room +where the sisters had left her, and showed her how to sit on a +chair in the saloon. And there she sat until the captain came and +hunted her up for supper. She could not do anything of herself; she +had to be initiated into everything by some one else.</p> +<p>She was known on the boat only as "the little convent girl." Her +name, of course, was registered in the clerk's office, but on a +steamboat no one thinks of consulting the clerk's ledger. It is +always the little widow, the fat madam, the tall colonel, the +parson, etc. The captain, who pronounced by the letter, always +called her the little <i>convent</i> girl. She was the beau-ideal +of the little convent girl. She never raised her eyes except when +spoken to. Of course she never spoke first, even to the +chambermaid, and when she did speak it was in the wee, shy, furtive +voice one might imagine a just-budding violet to have; and she +walked with such soft, easy, carefully calculated steps that one +naturally felt the penalties that must have secured +them—penalties dictated by a black code of deportment.</p> +<p>She was dressed in deep mourning. Her black straw hat was +trimmed with stiff new crape, and her stiff new bombazine dress had +crape collar and cuffs. She wore her hair in two long plaits +fastened around her head tight and fast. Her hair had a strong +inclination to curl, but that had been taken out of it as austerely +as the noise out of her footfalls. Her hair was as black as +her dress; her eyes, when one saw them, seemed blacker than either, +on account of the bluishness of the white surrounding the pupil. +Her eyelashes were almost as thick as the black veil which the +sisters had fastened around her hat with an extra pin the very last +thing before leaving. She had a round little face, and a tiny +pointed chin; her mouth was slightly protuberant from the teeth, +over which she tried to keep her lips well shut, the effort giving +them a pathetic little forced expression. Her complexion was +sallow, a pale sallow, the complexion of a brunette bleached in +darkened rooms. The only color about her was a blue taffeta ribbon +from which a large silver medal of the Virgin hung over the place +where a breast pin should have been. She was so little, so little, +although she was eighteen, as the sisters told the captain; +otherwise they would not have permitted her to travel all the way +to New Orleans alone.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="12"></a><img width="400" src= +"images/12.jpg" alt="THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY."> +<h5>THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Unless the captain or the clerk remembered to fetch her out in +front, she would sit all day in the cabin, in the same place, +crocheting lace, her spool of thread and box of patterns in her +lap, on the handkerchief spread to save her new dress. Never +leaning back—oh, no! always straight and stiff, as if the +conventual back board were there within call. She would eat only +convent fare at first, notwithstanding the importunities of the +waiters, and the jocularities of the captain, and particularly of +the clerk. Every one knows the fund of humor possessed by a +steamboat clerk, and what a field for display the table at +meal-times affords. On Friday she fasted rigidly, and she never +began to eat, or finished, without a little Latin movement of the +lips and a sign of the cross. And always at six o'clock of the +evening she remembered the angelus, although there was no church +bell to remind her of it.</p> +<p>She was in mourning for her father, the sisters told the +captain, and she was going to New Orleans to her mother. She had +not seen her mother since she was an infant, on account of some +disagreement between the parents, in consequence of which the +father had brought her to Cincinnati, and placed her in the +convent. There she had been for twelve years, only going to her +father for vacations and holidays. So long as the father lived he +would never let the child have any communication with her mother. +Now that he was dead all that was changed, and the first thing that +the girl herself wanted to do was to go to her mother.</p> +<p>The mother superior had arranged it all with the mother of the +girl, who was to come personally to the boat in New Orleans, and +receive her child from the captain, presenting a letter from the +mother superior, a facsimile of which the sisters gave the +captain.</p> +<p>It is a long voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans, the rivers +doing their best to make it interminable, embroidering themselves +<i>ad libitum</i> all over the country. Every five miles, and +sometimes oftener, the boat would stop to put off or take on +freight, if not both. The little convent girl, sitting in the +cabin, had her terrible frights at first from the hideous noises +attendant on these landings—the whistles, the ringings of the +bells, the running to and fro, the shouting. Every time she thought +it was shipwreck, death, judgment, purgatory; and her sins! her +sins! She would drop her crochet, and clutch her prayer-beads from +her pocket, and relax the constraint over her lips, which would go +to rattling off prayers with the velocity of a relaxed windlass. +That was at first, before the captain took to fetching her out in +front to see the boat make a landing. Then she got to liking it so +much that she would stay all day just where the captain put her, +going inside only for her meals. She forgot herself at times so +much that she would draw her chair a little closer to the railing, +and put up her veil, actually, to see better. No one ever usurped +her place, quite in front, or intruded upon her either with word or +look; for every one learned to know her shyness, and began to feel +a personal interest in her, and all wanted the little convent girl +to see everything that she possibly could.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="13"></a><img width="577" src= +"images/13.jpg" alt="WATCHING A LANDING."> +<h5>WATCHING A LANDING.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>And it was worth seeing—the balancing and +<i>chasséeing</i> and waltzing of the cumbersome old boat to +make a landing. It seemed to be always attended with the difficulty +and the improbability of a new enterprise; and the relief when it +did sidle up anywhere within rope's-throw of the spot aimed at! And +the roustabout throwing the rope from the perilous end of the +dangling gang-plank! And the dangling roustabouts hanging like +drops of water from it—dropping sometimes twenty feet to the +land, and not infrequently into the river itself. And then what a +rolling of barrels, and shouldering of sacks, and singing of Jim +Crow songs, and pacing of Jim Crow steps; and black skins +glistening through torn shirts, and white teeth gleaming through +red lips, and laughing, and talking and—bewildering! +entrancing! Surely the little convent girl in her convent walls +never dreamed of so much unpunished noise and movement in the +world!</p> +<p>The first time she heard the mate—it must have been like +the first time woman ever heard man—curse and swear, she +turned pale, and ran quickly, quickly into the saloon, +and—came out again? No, indeed! not with all the soul she had +to save, and all the other sins on her conscience. She shook her +head resolutely, and was not seen in her chair on deck again until +the captain not only reassured her, but guaranteed his reassurance. +And after that, whenever the boat was about to make a landing, the +mate would first glance up to the guards, and if the little convent +girl was sitting there he would change his invective to sarcasm, +and politely request the colored gentlemen not to hurry +themselves—on no account whatever; to take their time about +shoving out the plank; to send the rope ashore by +post-office—write him when it got there; begging them not to +strain their backs; calling them mister, colonel, major, general, +prince, and your royal highness, which was vastly amusing. At +night, however, or when the little convent girl was not there, +language flowed in its natural curve, the mate swearing like a +pagan to make up for lost time.</p> +<p>The captain forgot himself one day: it was when the boat ran +aground in the most unexpected manner and place, and he went to +work to express his opinion, as only steamboat captains can, of the +pilot, mate, engineer, crew, boat, river, country, and the world in +general, ringing the bell, first to back, then to head, shouting +himself hoarser than his own whistle—when he chanced to see +the little black figure hurrying through the chaos on the deck; and +the captain stuck as fast aground in midstream as the boat had +done.</p> +<p>In the evening the little convent girl would be taken on the +upper deck, and going up the steep stairs there was such confusion, +to keep the black skirts well over the stiff white petticoats; and, +coming down, such blushing when suspicion would cross the +unprepared face that a rim of white stocking might be visible; and +the thin feet, laced so tightly in the glossy new leather boots, +would cling to each successive step as if they could never, never +make another venture; and then one boot would (there is but that +word) hesitate out, and feel and feel around, and have such a pause +of helpless agony as if indeed the next step must have been +wilfully removed, or was nowhere to be found on the wide, wide +earth.</p> +<p>It was a miracle that the pilot ever got her up into the +pilot-house; but pilots have a lonely time, and do not hesitate +even at miracles when there is a chance for company. He would place +a box for her to climb to the tall bench behind the wheel, and he +would arrange the cushions, and open a window here to let in air, +and shut one there to cut off a draft, as if there could be no +tenderer consideration in life for him than her comfort. And he +would talk of the river to her, explain the chart, pointing out +eddies, whirlpools, shoals, depths, new beds, old beds, cut-offs, +caving banks, and making banks, as exquisitely and respectfully as +if she had been the River Commission.</p> +<p>It was his opinion that there was as great a river as the +Mississippi flowing directly under it—an underself of a +river, as much a counterpart of the other as the second story of a +house is of the first; in fact, he said they were navigating +through the upper story. Whirlpools were holes in the floor of the +upper river, so to speak; eddies were rifts and cracks. And deep +under the earth, hurrying toward the subterranean stream, were +other streams, small and great, but all deep, hurrying to and from +that great mother-stream underneath, just as the small and great +overground streams hurry to and from their mother Mississippi. It +was almost more than the little convent girl could take in: at +least such was the expression of her eyes; for they opened as all +eyes have to open at pilot stories. And he knew as much of +astronomy as he did of hydrology, could call the stars by name, and +define the shapes of the constellations; and she, who had studied +astronomy at the convent, was charmed to find that what she had +learned was all true. It was in the pilot-house, one night, that +she forgot herself for the first time in her life, and stayed up +until after nine o'clock. Although she appeared almost intoxicated +at the wild pleasure, she was immediately overwhelmed at the +wickedness of it, and observed much more rigidity of conduct +thereafter. The engineer, the boiler-men, the firemen, the stokers, +they all knew when the little convent girl was up in the +pilot-house: the speaking-tube became so mild and gentle.</p> +<p>With all the delays of river and boat, however, there is an end +to the journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The latter city, +which at one time to the impatient seemed at the terminus of the +never, began, all of a sudden, one day to make its nearingness +felt; and from that period every other interest paled before the +interest in the immanence of arrival into port, and the whole boat +was seized with a panic of preparation, the little convent girl +with the others. Although so immaculate was she in person and +effects that she might have been struck with a landing, as some +good people might be struck with death, at any moment without fear +of results, her trunk was packed and repacked, her satchel arranged +and rearranged, and, the last day, her hair was brushed and plaited +and smoothed over and over again until the very last glimmer of a +curl disappeared. Her dress was whisked, as if for microscopic +inspection; her face was washed; and her finger-nails were scrubbed +with the hard convent nail-brush, until the disciplined little tips +ached with a pristine soreness. And still there were hours to wait, +and still the boat added up delays. But she arrived at last, after +all, with not more than the usual and expected difference between +the actual and the advertised time of arrival.</p> +<p>There was extra blowing and extra ringing, shouting, commanding, +rushing up the gangway and rushing down the gangway. The clerks, +sitting behind tables on the first deck, were plied, in the +twinkling of an eye, with estimates, receipts, charges, +countercharges, claims, reclaims, demands, questions, accusations, +threats, all at topmost voices. None but steamboat clerks could +have stood it. And there were throngs composed of individuals every +one of whom wanted to see the captain first and at once: and those +who could not get to him shouted over the heads of the others; and +as usual he lost his temper and politeness, and began to do what he +termed "hustle."</p> +<p>"Captain! Captain!" a voice called him to where a hand plucked +his sleeve, and a letter was thrust toward him. "The cross, and the +name of the convent." He recognized the envelop of the mother +superior. He read the duplicate of the letter given by the sisters. +He looked at the woman—the mother—casually, then again +and again.</p> +<p>The little convent girl saw him coming, leading some one toward +her. She rose. The captain took her hand first, before the other +greeting, "Good-by, my dear," he said. He tried to add something +else, but seemed undetermined what. "Be a good little girl—" +It was evidently all he could think of. Nodding to the woman behind +him, he turned on his heel, and left.</p> +<p>One of the deck-hands was sent to fetch her trunk. He walked out +behind them, through the cabin, and the crowd on deck, down the +stairs, and out over the gangway. The little convent girl and her +mother went with hands tightly clasped. She did not turn her eyes +to the right or left, or once (what all passengers do) look +backward at the boat which, however slowly, had carried her surely +over dangers that she wot not of. All looked at her as she passed. +All wanted to say good-by to the little convent girl, to see the +mother who had been deprived of her so long. Some expressed +surprise in a whistle; some in other ways. All exclaimed audibly, +or to themselves, "Colored!"</p> +<p>It takes about a month to make the round trip from New Orleans +to Cincinnati and back, counting five days' stoppage in New +Orleans. It was a month to a day when the steamboat came puffing +and blowing up to the wharf again, like a stout dowager after too +long a walk; and the same scene of confusion was enacted, as it had +been enacted twelve times a year, at almost the same wharf for +twenty years; and the same calm, a death calmness by contrast, +followed as usual the next morning.</p> +<p>The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been +delivered, part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. +The captain was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk +was in his office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate +could be heard below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; +for if steamboat crews have a single principle,—and there are +those who deny them any,—it is never to ship twice in +succession on the same boat. It was too early yet for any but +roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers; so early that even the +river was still partly mist-covered; only in places could the +swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along.</p> +<p>"Captain!" A hand plucked at his elbow, as if not confident that +the mere calling would secure attention. The captain turned. The +mother of the little convent girl stood there, and she held the +little convent girl by the hand. "I have brought her to see you," +the woman said. "You were so kind—and she is so quiet, so +still, all the time, I thought it would do her a pleasure."</p> +<p>She spoke with an accent, and with embarrassment; otherwise one +would have said that she was bold and assured enough.</p> +<p>"She don't go nowhere, she don't do nothing but make her crochet +and her prayers, so I thought I would bring her for a little visit +of 'How d' ye do' to you."</p> +<p>There was, perhaps, some inflection in the woman's voice that +might have made known, or at least awakened, the suspicion of some +latent hope or intention, had the captain's ear been fine enough to +detect it. There might have been something in the little convent +girl's face, had his eye been more sensitive—trifle paler, +maybe, the lips a little tighter drawn, the blue ribbon a shade +faded. He may have noticed that, but— And the visit of "How +d' ye do" came to an end.</p> +<p>They walked down the stairway, the woman in front, the little +convent girl—her hand released to shake hands with the +captain—following, across the bared deck, out to the gangway, +over to the middle of it. No one was looking, no one saw more than +a flutter of white petticoats, a show of white stockings, as the +little convent girl went under the water.</p> +<p>The roustabout dived, as the roustabouts always do, after the +drowning, even at the risk of their good-for-nothing lives. The +mate himself jumped overboard; but she had gone down in a +whirlpool. Perhaps, as the pilot had told her whirlpools always +did, it may have carried her through to the underground river, to +that vast, hidden, dark Mississippi that flows beneath the one we +see; for her body was never found.</p> +<a name="GRAND"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER</h3> +<p>As the grandmother related it fresh from the primeval sources +that feed a grandmother's memory, it happened thus:</p> +<p>In the early days of the settlement of Georgia—ah, how +green and rustic appears to us now the world in the early days of +the settlement of Georgia! Sometimes to women, listening to the +stories of their grandmothers, it seems better to have lived then +than now—her grandmother was at that time a young wife. It +was the day of arduous, if not of long, courtship before marriage, +when every wedding celebrated the close of an original romance; and +when young couples, for bridal trips, went out to settle new +States, riding on a pillion generally, with their trousseaux +following as best they could on sumpter mules; to hear the +grandmother describe it made one long to be a bride of those +days.</p> +<p>The young husband had the enumeration of qualities that went to +the making of a man of that period, and if the qualities were in +the proportion of ten physical to one intellectual, it does not +follow that the grandmother's grandfather was not a man of parts. +For, to obtain the hand of his bride, an only child and an heiress, +he had to give test of his mettle by ignoring his fortune, studying +law, and getting his license before marriage, and binding himself +to live the first year afterward on the proceeds of his practice; a +device of the time thought to be a wholesome corrective of the +corrupting influence of over-wealth in young domesticities.</p> +<p>Although he had already chosen the sea for his profession, and +was a midshipman at the time, with more of a reputation for living +than for learning, such was he, and such, it may be said, was the +incentive genius of his choice, that almost before his resignation +as midshipman was accepted, his license as a lawyer was signed. As +for practice, it was currently remarked at his wedding, at the +sight of him flying down the room in the reel with his bride for +partner, that his tongue was as nimble as his heels, and that if he +only turned his attention to criminal practice, there was no man in +the country who would make a better prosecuting attorney for the +State. And with him for prosecuting attorney, it was warranted that +sirrahs the highwaymen would not continue to hold Georgia +judge-and-jury justice in quite such contemptible estimation, and +that the gallows would not be left so long bereft of their +legitimate swingings. As for fees, it was predicted that the young +fellow as he stood, or rather "chassé'd," could snap his +fingers at both his and his bride's trustees.</p> +<p>He did turn his attention to criminal law, was made prosecuting +attorney for the State in his county, and, before his six months +had passed, was convincing the hitherto high and mighty, lordly, +independent knights of the road that other counties in Georgia +furnished more secure pasturage for them.</p> +<p>It was a beautiful spring morning. The young wife bade him a +hearty good-by, and stood in the doorway watching him, gay and +<i>debonair</i>, riding off, on his stout black charger Beetle, in +the direction of the town in which court was to be held that +week.</p> +<p>She herself feeling as full of ambition and work as if she also +were prosecuting attorney, with a perennial spring of eloquence +bubbling in her brain, turned to her domestic duties, and, without +going into the detail of them, it suffices to say that, according +to the grandmother's estimation, one morning's list of duties for a +healthy young bride of that period would shame the week's work of a +syndicate of them to-day. Finding herself nearing the limit of +diminution of several household necessities, and the spring +suggesting the beginning of new ones, she made up her mind to +profit by her husband's absence and the fair weather to make a +trading visit to the neighboring town next day.</p> +<p>So, early in a morning as beautiful as the preceding one, +mounted on her own stanch mare Maid Marion, she ambled down the +green over-hung forest-road, in the vista of which she had watched +her husband disappear the day before; thinking about what she had +to buy, and thinking, no doubt, much more, as brides will, of the +absent lord and master—as brides of those days loved to +consider and denominate their husbands.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="14"></a><img width="443" src= +"images/14.jpg" alt=""TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES.""> +<h5>"TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Coming into the little town, the freshly painted, swinging +sign-board of the new tavern, "The Honest Georgian," as usual was +the thing to catch her eye; but the instant after what should she +see but Black Beetle hitched to the rack under the tree that +shadowed the hostelry!</p> +<p>It was not decorous; but she was young, and the day of her first +separation from her husband had been so long; and was he not also, +against the firmest of resolutions and plans, hastening back to +her, the separation being too long for him also?</p> +<p>Slipping her foot from the stirrup, she jumped to the ground, +and ran into the tavern. There he stood calling hastily for a +drink; and her heart more than her eyes took in his, to her, +consecrated signalment—the riding-boots, short clothes, blue +coat, cocked hat, ruffles. She crept up behind to surprise him, her +face, with its delight and smiles, beyond her control. She crept, +until she saw his watch-fob dangling against the counter, and then +her heart made a call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another +man was in her husband's clothes, a man with a villainous +countenance! With a scream she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, +dropped his drink, bounded to the door and out, leaped to the back +of Beetle, gave rein and spur, and the black horse made good his +reputation. In a second all was hue-and-cry and pursuit. While men +and horses made, for all they were worth, down the road after +Beetle, she on Maid Marion galloped for her life in the opposite +direction, the direction of the court town whither her husband had +journeyed. The mare's hide made acquaintance with the whip that day +if never before, for not even the willing Maid Marion could keep +pace with the apprehensions on her back.</p> +<p>Scouring with her eyes the highway ahead of her, shooting hawk's +glances into the forest on each side of her, the wife rode through +the distance all, all day, praying that the day might be long +enough, might equal the distance. The sun set, and night began to +fall; but she and Maid Marion were none the less fresh, except in +the heart.</p> +<p>The moon rose straight before them down the road, lighting it +and them through the threatened obscurity. And so they came to +trampled earth and torn grass, and so she uncovered concealed +footsteps, and so, creeping on her hands and knees, she followed +traces of blood, through thicket and glade, into the deep forest, +to a hastily piled hillock of earth, gravel, and leaves. Burrowing +with her hands, she came to it, the naked body of her young +husband, cold and stiff, foully murdered. Maid Marion approached at +her call. She wrapped him in her cloak, and—a young wife of +those times alone would do it—put him in the saddle before +her: the good mare Maid Marion alone knows the rest. In the early +gray dawn, from one highway there rode into the town the baffled +pursuers, from the other the grandmother's grandmother, clasping +the corpse of her husband with arms as stiff as his own; loving +him, so the grandmother used to say, with a love which, if ever +love could do so, would have effected a resurrection.</p> +<a name="OLD"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION</h3> +<p>The news came out in the papers that the old lady had been +restored to her fortune. She had been deprived of it so long ago +that the real manner of her dispossession had become lost, or at +least hidden under the many versions that had been invented to +replace lapses of memory, or to remedy the unpicturesqueness of the +original truth. The face of truth, like the face of many a good +woman, is liable to the accident of ugliness, and the desire to +embellish one as well as the other need not necessarily proceed +from anything more harmful than an overweighted love of the +beautiful.</p> +<p>If the old lady had not been restored to her fortune, her +<i>personalia</i> would have remained in the oblivion which, as one +might say, had accumulated upon everything belonging to her. But +after that newspaper paragraph, there was such a flowering of +memory around her name as would have done credit to a whole +cemetery on All Saints. It took three generations to do justice to +the old lady, for so long and so slow had been her descent into +poverty that a grandmother was needed to remember her setting out +upon the road to it.</p> +<p>She set out as most people do, well provided with money, +diamonds, pretty clothing, handsome residence, equipage, opera-box, +beaus (for she was a widow), and so many, many friends that she +could never indulge in a small party—she always had to give a +grand ball to accommodate them. She made quite an occasion of her +first reverse,—some litigation decided against her,—and +said it came from the court's' having only one ear, and that +preempted by the other party.</p> +<p>She always said whatever she thought, regardless of the +consequences, because she averred truth was so much more +interesting than falsehood. Nothing annoyed her more in society +than to have to listen to the compositions women make as a +substitute for the original truth. It was as if, when she went to +the theater to hear Shakspere and Molière, the actors should +try to impose upon the audience by reciting lines of their own. +Truth was the wit of life and the wit of books. She traveled her +road from affluence so leisurely that nothing escaped her eyes or +her feelings, and she signaled unhesitatingly every stage in +it.</p> +<p>"My dear, do you know there is really such a thing as existence +without a carriage and horses?"—"I assure you it is perfectly +new to me to find that an opera-box is not a necessity. It is a +luxury. In theory one can really never tell the distinction between +luxuries and necessities."—"How absurd! At one time I thought +hair was given us only to furnish a profession to hair-dressers; +just as we wear artificial flowers to support the +flower-makers."—"Upon my word, it is not uninteresting. There +is always some <i>haute nouveauté</i> in economy. The ways +of depriving one's self are infinite. There is wine, +now."—"Not own your residence! As soon not own your tomb as +your residence! My mama used to scream that in my ears. According +to her, it was not <i>comme il faut</i> to board or live in a +rented house. How little she knew!"</p> +<p>When her friends, learning her increasing difficulties, which +they did from the best authority (herself), complimented her, as +they were forced to do, upon her still handsome appearance, pretty +laces, feathers, jewelry, silks, "Fat," she would +answer—"fat. I am living off my fat, as bears do in winter. +In truth, I remind myself of an animal in more ways than one."</p> +<p>And so every one had something to contribute to the conversation +about her—bits which, they said, affection and admiration had +kept alive in their memory.</p> +<p>Each city has its own roads to certain ends, its ways of +Calvary, so to speak. In New Orleans the victim seems ever to walk +down Royal street and up Chartres, or <i>vice versa</i>. One would +infer so, at least, from the display in the shops and windows of +those thorough-fares. Old furniture, cut glass, pictures, books, +jewelry, lace, china—the fleece (sometimes the flesh still +sticking to it) left on the brambles by the driven herd. If there +should some day be a trump of resurrection for defunct fortunes, +those shops would be emptied in the same twinkling of the eye +allowed to tombs for their rendition of property.</p> +<p>The old lady must have made that promenade many, many times, to +judge by the samples of her "fat or fleece" displayed in the +windows. She took to hobbling, as if from tired or sore feet.</p> +<p>"It is nothing," in answer to an inquiry. "Made-to-order feet +learning to walk in ready-made shoes: that is all. One's feet, +after all, are the most unintelligent part of one's body." Tea was +her abomination, coffee her adoration; but she explained: "Tea, you +know, is so detestable that the very worst is hardly worse than the +very best; while coffee is so perfect that the smallest shade of +impurity is not to be tolerated. The truly economical, I observe, +always drink tea." "At one time I thought if all the luxuries of +the world were exposed to me, and but one choice allowed, I should +select gloves. Believe me, there is no superfluity in the world so +easily dispensed with."</p> +<p>As may be supposed, her path led her farther and farther away +from her old friends. Even her intimates became scarce; so much so, +that these observations, which, of course, could be made only to +intimates, became fewer and fewer, unfortunately, for her +circumstances were becoming such that the remarks became +increasingly valuable. The last thing related of her was apropos of +friends.</p> +<p>"My friends! My dear, I cannot tell you just so, on the spur of +the moment, but with a little reflection and calculation I could +tell you, to a picayune, the rent of every friend in the market. +You can lease, rent, or hire them, like horses, carriages, +opera-boxes, servants, by year, month, day, or hour; and the tariff +is just as fixed.</p> +<p>"Christians! Christians are the most discreet people in the +world. If you should ask me what Christianity has most promoted in +the world, I should answer without hesitation, discretion. Of +course, when I say the world I mean society, and when I say +Christianity I mean our interpretation of it. If only duns could be +pastors, and pastors duns! But of course you do not know what duns +are; they are the guardian angels of the creditor, the pursuing +fiends of the debtor."</p> +<p>After that, the old lady made her disappearance under the waves +of that sea into the depths of which it is very improbable that a +single friend ever attempted to pursue her. And there she remained +until the news came that she was restored to fortune.</p> +<p>A week passed, two weeks; no sight or sound of her. It was +during this period that her old friends were so occupied +resuscitating their old friendships for her—when all her +antique sayings and doings became current ball-room and +dinner-table gossip—that she arose from her obscurity like +Cinderella from her ashes, to be decked with every gift that fairy +minds could suggest. Those who had known her intimately made no +effort to conceal their importance. Those who did not know her +personally put forward claims of inherited friendship, and those +who did not know her traditionally or otherwise—the +<i>nouveaux riches</i> and <i>parvenus</i>, who alone feel the +moneyed value of such social connections—began making their +resolutions to capture her as soon as she came in sight of +society.</p> +<p>The old residence was to be re-bought, and refurnished from +France; the <i>avant scène</i> at the opera had been +engaged; the old cook was to be hired back from the club at a +fabulous price; the old balls and the old dinners were to gladden +the city—so said they who seemed to know. Nothing was to be +spared, nothing stinted—at her age, with no child or +relative, and life running short for pleasure. Diamonds, laces, +velvets, champagne, Château Yquem—"Grand Dieu +Seigneur!" the old Creole servants exclaimed, raising their hands +at the enumeration of it.</p> +<p>Where the news came from nobody knew, but everything was +certified and accepted as facts, although, as between women, the +grain of salt should have been used. Impatience waxed, until nearly +every day some one would ring the bell of the old residence, to ask +when the mistress was going to move in. And such affectionate +messages! And people would not, simply could not, be satisfied with +the incomprehensible answers. And then it leaked out. The old lady +was simply waiting for everything to arrive—furniture, +toilets, carriage, etc.—to make a grand <i>entrée</i> +into her old sphere; to come riding on a throne, as it were. And +still the time passed, and she did not come. Finally two of the +clever-heads penetrated the enigma: <i>mauvaise honte</i>, +shyness—so long out of the world, so old; perhaps not sure of +her welcome. So they determined to seek her out.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="15"></a><img width="600" src= +"images/15.jpg" alt="THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY."> +<h5>THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>"We will go to her, like children to a grandmother, etc. The +others have no delicacy of sentiment, etc. And she will thus learn +who really remember, really love her, etc."</p> +<p>Provided with congratulatory bouquets, they set forth. It is +very hard to find a dweller on the very sea-bottom of poverty. +Perhaps that is why the effort is so seldom made. One has to ask at +grocers' shops, groggeries, market-stalls, Chinese restaurants; +interview corner cobblers, ragpickers, gutter children. But nothing +is impossible to the determined. The two ladies overcame all +obstacles, and needled their way along, where under other +circumstances they would not have glanced, would have thought it +improper to glance.</p> +<p>They were directed through an old, old house, out on an old, old +gallery, to a room at the very extreme end.</p> +<p>"Poor thing! Evidently she has not heard the good news yet. We +will be the first to communicate it," they whispered, standing +before the dilapidated, withered-looking door.</p> +<p>Before knocking, they listened, as it is the very wisdom of +discretion to do. There was life inside, a little kind of voice, +like some one trying to hum a song with a very cracked old +throat.</p> +<p>The ladies opened the door. "Ah, my friend!"</p> +<p>"Ah, my friend!"</p> +<p>"Restored!"</p> +<p>"Restored!"</p> +<p>"At last!"</p> +<p>"At last!"</p> +<p>"Just the same!"</p> +<p>"Exactly the same!"</p> +<p>It was which one would get to her first with bouquet and kiss, +competition almost crowding friendship.</p> +<p>"The good news!"</p> +<p>"The good news!"</p> +<p>"We could not stay!"</p> +<p>"We had to come!"</p> +<p>"It has arrived at last!"</p> +<p>"At last it has arrived!"</p> +<p>The old lady was very much older, but still the same.</p> +<p>"You will again have a chance!"</p> +<p>"Restored to your friends!"</p> +<p>"The world!"</p> +<p>"Your luxuries!"</p> +<p>"Your comforts!"</p> +<p>"Comforts! Luxuries!" At last the old lady had an opportunity to +slip in a word. "And friends! You say right."</p> +<p>There was a pause—a pause which held not a small measure +of embarrassment. But the two visitors, although they were women of +the world, and so dreaded an embarrassment more than they did sin, +had prepared themselves even to stand this.</p> +<p>The old lady standing there—she was very much thinner, +very much bent, but still the same—appeared to be looking not +at them, but at their enumeration.</p> +<p>"Comfort! "She opened a pot bubbling on the fire. "Bouillon! A +good five-cent bouillon. Luxury!" She picked up something from a +chair, a handful of new cotton chemises. "Luxury!" She turned back +her bedspread: new cotton sheets. "Did you ever lie in your bed at +night and dream of sheets? Comfort! Luxury! I should say so! And +friends! My dear, look!" Opening her door, pointing to an opposite +gallery, to the yard, her own gallery; to the washing, ironing, +sewing women, the cobbling, chair-making, carpentering men; to the +screaming, laughing, crying, quarreling, swarming children. +"Friends! All friends—friends for fifteen years. Ah, yes, +indeed! We are all glad—elated in fact. As you say. I am +restored."</p> +<p>The visitors simply reported that they had found the old lady, +and that she was imbecile; mind completely gone under stress of +poverty and old age. Their opinion was that she should be +interdicted.</p> +<a name="AFFAIR"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>A DELICATE AFFAIR</h3> +<p>"But what does this extraordinary display of light mean?" +ejaculated my aunt, the moment she entered the parlor from the +dining-room. "It looks like the kingdom of heaven in here! Jules! +Jules!" she called, "come and put out some of the light!"</p> +<p>Jules was at the front door letting in the usual +Wednesday-evening visitor, but now he came running in immediately +with his own invention in the way of a gas-stick,—a piece of +broom-handle notched at the end,—and began turning one tap +after the other, until the room was reduced to complete +darkness.</p> +<p>"But what do you mean now, Jules?" screamed the old lady +again.</p> +<p>"Pardon, madame," answered Jules, with dignity; "it is an +accident. I thought there was one still lighted."</p> +<p>"An accident! An accident! Do you think I hire you to perform +accidents for me? You are just through telling me that it was +accident made you give me both soup and gumbo for dinner +today."</p> +<p>"But accidents can always happen, madame," persisted Jules, +adhering to his position.</p> +<p>The chandelier, a design of originality in its day, gave light +by what purported to be wax candles standing each in a circlet of +pendent crystals. The usual smile of ecstatic admiration spread +over Jules's features as he touched the match to the simulated +wicks, and lighted into life the rainbows in the prisms underneath. +It was a smile that did not heighten the intelligence of his +features, revealing as it did the toothless condition of his +gums.</p> +<p>"What will madame have for her dinner tomorrow," looking +benignantly at his mistress, and still standing under his +aureole.</p> +<p>"Do I ever give orders for one dinner, with the other one still +on my lips?"</p> +<p>"I only asked madame; there is no harm in asking." He walked +away, his long stiff white apron rattling like a petticoat about +him. Catching sight of the visitor still standing at the threshold: +"Oh, madame, here is Mr. Horace. Shall I let him in?"</p> +<p>"Idiot! Every Wednesday you ask me that question, and every +Wednesday I answer the same way. Don't you think I could tell you +when not to let him in without your asking?"</p> +<p>"Oh, well, madame, one never knows; it is always safe to +ask."</p> +<p>The appearance of the gentleman started a fresh subject of +excitement.</p> +<p>"Jules! Jules! You have left that front door unlocked +again!"</p> +<p>"Excuse me," said Mr. Horace; "Jules did not leave the front +door unlocked. It was locked when I rang, and he locked it again +most carefully after letting me in. I have been standing outside +all the while the gas was being extinguished and relighted."</p> +<p>"Ah, very well, then. And what is the news?" She sank into her +arm-chair, pulled her little card-table closer, and began shuffling +the cards upon it for her game of solitaire. "I never hear any +news, you know. She [nodding toward me] goes out, but she never +learns anything. She is as stupid tonight as an empty bottle."</p> +<p>After a few passes her hands, which were slightly tremulous, +regained some of their wonted steadiness and brilliancy of +movement, and the cards dropped rapidly on the table. Mr. Horace, +as he had got into the habit of doing, watched her mechanically, +rather absent-mindedly retailing what he imagined would interest +her, from his week's observation and hearsay. And madame's little +world revolved, complete for her, in time, place, and +personality.</p> +<p>It was an old-fashioned square room with long ceiling, and +broad, low windows heavily curtained with stiff silk brocade, faded +by time into mellowness. The tall white-painted mantel carried its +obligation of ornaments well: a gilt clock which under a glass case +related some brilliant poetical idyl, and told the hours only in an +insignificant aside, according to the delicate politeness of bygone +French taste; flanked by duplicate continuations of the same idyl +in companion candelabra, also under glass; Sèvres, or +imitation Sèvres vases, and a crowd of smaller objects to +which age and rarity were slowly contributing an artistic value. An +oval mirror behind threw replicas of them into another mirror, +receiving in exchange the reflected portrait of madame in her +youth, and in the partial nudity in which innocence was limned in +madame's youth. There were besides mirrors on the other three walls +of the room, all hung with such careful intent for the exercise of +their vocation that the apartment, in spots, extended indefinitely; +the brilliant chandelier was thereby quadrupled, and the furniture +and ornaments multiplied everywhere and most unexpectedly into +twins and triplets, producing such sociabilities among them, and +forcing such correspondences between inanimate objects with such +hospitable insistence, that the effect was full of gaiety and life, +although the interchange in reality was the mere repetition of one +original, a kind of phonographic echo.</p> +<p>The portrait of monsieur, madame's handsome young husband, hung +out of the circle of radiance, in the isolation that, wherever they +hang, always seems to surround the portraits of the dead.</p> +<p>Old as the parlors appeared, madame antedated them by the +sixteen years she had lived before her marriage, which had been the +occasion of their furnishment. She had traveled a considerable +distance over the sands of time since the epoch commemorated by the +portrait. Indeed, it would require almost documentary evidence to +prove that she, who now was arriving at eighty, was the same +Atalanta that had started out so buoyantly at sixteen.</p> +<p>Instead of a cap, she wore black lace over her head, pinned with +gold brooches. Her white hair curled naturally over a low forehead. +Her complexion showed care—and powder. Her eyes were still +bright, not with the effete intelligence of old age, but with +actual potency. She wore a loose black sack flowered in purple, and +over that a black lace mantle, fastened with more gold +brooches.</p> +<p>She played her game of solitaire rapidly, impatiently, and +always won; for she never hesitated to cheat to get out of a tight +place, or into a favorable one, cheating with the quickness of a +flash, and forgetting it the moment afterward.</p> +<p>Mr. Horace was as old as she, but he looked much younger, +although his dress and appearance betrayed no evidence of an effort +in that direction. Whenever his friend cheated, he would invariably +call her attention to it; and as usual she would shrug her +shoulders, and say, "Bah! lose a game for a card!" and pursue the +conversation.</p> +<p>He happened to mention mushrooms—fresh mushrooms. She +threw down her cards before the words were out of his mouth, and +began to call, "Jules! Jules!" Mr. Horace pulled the bell-cord, but +madame was too excitable for that means of communication. She ran +into the antechamber, and put her head over the banisters, calling, +"Jules! Jules!" louder and louder. She might have heard Jules's +slippered feet running from the street into the corridor and +up-stairs, had she not been so deaf. He appeared at the door.</p> +<p>"But where have you been? Here I have been raising the house a +half-hour, calling you. You have been in the street. I am sure you +have been in the street."</p> +<p>"Madame is very much mistaken," answered Jules, with resentful +dignity. He had taken off his white apron of waiter, and was +disreputable in all the shabbiness of his attire as cook. "When +madame forbids me to go into the street, I do not go into the +street. I was in the kitchen; I had fallen asleep. What does madame +desire?" smiling benevolently.</p> +<p>"What is this I hear? Fresh mushrooms in the market!"</p> +<p>"Eh, madame?"</p> +<p>"Fresh mushrooms in the market, and you have not brought me +any!"</p> +<p>"Madame, there are fresh mushrooms everywhere in the market," +waving his hand to show their universality.</p> +<p>"Everybody is eating them—"</p> +<p>"Old Pomponnette," Jules continued, "only this morning offered +me a plate, piled up high, for ten cents."</p> +<p>"Idiot! Why did you not buy them?"</p> +<p>"If madame had said so; but madame did not say so. Madame said, +'Soup, Jules; carrots, rice,'" counting on his fingers.</p> +<p>"And the gumbo?"</p> +<p>"I have explained that that was an accident. Madame said +'Soup,'" enumerating his menu again; "madame never once said +mushrooms."</p> +<p>"But how could I know there were mushrooms in the market? Do I +go to market?"</p> +<p>"That is it!" and Jules smiled at the question thus settled.</p> +<p>"If you had told me there were mushrooms in the market—" +pursued madame, persisting in treating Jules as a reasonable +being.</p> +<p>"Why did not madame ask me? If madame had asked me, surely I +would have told madame. Yesterday Caesar brought them to the +door—a whole bucketful for twenty-five cents. I had to shut +the door in his face to get rid of him," triumphantly.</p> +<p>"And you brought me yesterday those detestable peas!"</p> +<p>"Ah," shrugging his shoulders, "madame told me to buy what I +saw. I saw peas. I bought them."</p> +<p>"Well, understand now, once for all: whenever you see mushrooms, +no matter what I ordered, you buy them. Do you hear?"</p> +<p>"No, madame. Surely I cannot buy mushrooms unless madame orders +them. Madame's disposition is too quick."</p> +<p>"But I do order them. Stupid! I do order them. I tell you to buy +them every day."</p> +<p>"And if there are none in the market every day?"</p> +<p>"Go away! Get out of my sight! I do not want to see you. Ah, it +is unendurable! I must—I must get rid of him!" This last was +not a threat, as Jules knew only too well. It was merely a habitual +exclamation.</p> +<p>During the colloquy Mr. Horace, leaning back in his arm-chair, +raised his eyes, and caught the reflected portrait of madame in the +mirror before him—the reflection so much softer and prettier, +so much more ethereal, than the original painting. Indeed, seen in +the mirror, that way, the portrait was as refreshing as the most +charming memory. He pointed to it when madame, with considerable +loss of temper, regained her seat.</p> +<p>"It is as beautiful as the past," he explained most unnaturally, +for he and his friend had a horror of looking at the long, long +past, which could not fail to remind them of—what no one +cares to contemplate out of church. Making an effort toward some +determination which a subtle observer might have noticed weighing +upon him all the evening, he added: "And, apropos of the +past—"</p> +<p>"<i>Hein</i>?" interrogated the old lady, impatiently, still +under the influence of her irascibility about the mushrooms.</p> +<p>He moved his chair closer, and bent forward, as if his +communication were to be confidential.</p> +<p>"Ah, bah! Speak louder!" she cried. "One would suppose you had +some secret to tell. What secrets can there be at our age?" She +took up her cards and began to play. There could be no one who +bothered herself less about the forms of politeness.</p> +<p>"Yes, yes," answered Mr. Horace, throwing himself back into his +chair; "what secrets can there be at our age?"</p> +<p>The remark seemed a pregnant one to him; he gave himself up to +it. One must evidently be the age of one's thoughts. Mr. Horace's +thoughts revealed him the old man he was. The lines in his face +deepened into wrinkles; his white mustache could not pretend to +conceal his mouth, worsened by the loss of a tooth or two; and the +long, thin hand that propped his head was crossed with blue, +distended veins. "At the last judgment"—it was a favorite +quotation with him—"the book of our conscience will be read +aloud before the whole company."</p> +<p>But the old lady, deep in her game, paid no more heed to his +quotation than to him. He made a gesture toward her portrait.</p> +<p>"When that was painted, Josephine—"</p> +<p>Madame threw a glance after the gesture. The time was so long +ago, the mythology of Greece hardly more distant! At eighty the +golden age of youth must indeed appear an evanescent myth. Madame's +ideas seemed to take that direction.</p> +<p>"Ah, at that time we were all nymphs, and you all demigods."</p> +<p>"Demigods and nymphs, yes; but there was one among us who was a +god with you all."</p> +<p>The allusion—a frequent one with Mr. Horace—was to +madame's husband, who in his day, it is said, had indeed played the +god in the little Arcadia of society. She shrugged her shoulders. +The truth is so little of a compliment The old gentleman sighed in +an abstracted way, and madame, although apparently absorbed in her +game, lent her ear. It is safe to say that a woman is never too old +to hear a sigh wafted in her direction.</p> +<p>"Josephine, do you remember—in your memory—"</p> +<p>She pretended not to hear. Remember? Who ever heard of her +forgetting? But she was not the woman to say, at a moment's notice, +what she remembered or what she forgot.</p> +<p>"A woman's memory! When I think of a woman's memory—in +fact, I do not like to think of a woman's memory. One can intrude +in imagination into many places; but a woman's memory—"</p> +<p>Mr. Horace seemed to lose his thread. It had been said of him in +his youth that he wrote poetry—and it was said against him. +It was evidently such lapses as these that had given rise to the +accusation. And as there was no one less impatient under sentiment +or poetry than madame, her feet began to agitate themselves as if +Jules were perorating some of his culinary inanities before +her.</p> +<p>"And a man's memory!" totally misunderstanding him. "It is not +there that I either would penetrate, my friend. A man—"</p> +<p>When madame began to talk about men she was prompted by +imagination just as much as was Mr. Horace when he talked about +women. But what a difference in their sentiments! And yet he had +received so little, and she so much, from the subjects of their +inspiration. But that seems to be the way in life—or in +imagination.</p> +<p>"That you should"—he paused with the curious shyness of +the old before the word "love"—"that you two +should—marry—seemed natural, inevitable, at the +time."</p> +<p>Tradition records exactly the same comment by society at the +time on the marriage in question. Society is ever fatalistic in its +comments.</p> +<p>"But the natural—the inevitable—do we not sometimes, +I wonder, perform them as Jules does his accidents?"</p> +<p>"Ah, do not talk about that idiot! An idiot born and bred! I +won't have him about me! He is a monstrosity! I tell his +grandmother that every day when she comes to comb me. What a +farce—what a ridiculous farce comfortable existence has +become with us! Fresh mushrooms in market, and bring me +carrots!"</p> +<p>The old gentleman, partly from long knowledge of her habit, or +from an equally persistent bend of his own, quietly held on to his +idea.</p> +<p>"One cannot tell. It seems so at the time. We like to think it +so; it makes it easier. And yet, looking back on our future as we +once looked forward to it—"</p> +<p>"Eh! but who wants to look back on it, my friend? Who in the +world wants to look back on it?" One could not doubt madame's +energy of opinion on that question to hear her voice. "We have done +our future, we have performed it, if you will. Our future! It is +like the dinners we have eaten; of course we cannot remember the +good without becoming exasperated over the bad: +but"—shrugging her shoulders—"since we cannot beat the +cooks, we must submit to fate," forcing a queen that she needed at +the critical point of her game.</p> +<p>"At sixteen and twenty-one it is hard to realize that one is +arranging one's life to last until sixty, seventy, forever," +correcting himself as he thought of his friend, the dead husband. +If madame had ever possessed the art of self-control, it was many a +long day since she had exercised it; now she frankly began to show +ennui.</p> +<p>"When I look back to that time,"—Mr. Horace leaned back in +his chair and half closed his eyes, perhaps to avoid the expression +of her face,—"I see nothing but lights and flowers, I hear +nothing but music and laughter; and all—lights and flowers +and music and laughter—seem to meet in this room, where we +met so often to arrange our —inevitabilities." The word +appeared to attract him. "Josephine,"—with a sudden change of +voice and manner,—"Josephine, how beautiful you were!"</p> +<p>The old lady nodded her head without looking from her cards.</p> +<p>"They used to say," with sad conviction of the truth of his +testimony—"the men used to say that your beauty was +irresistible. None ever withstood you. None ever could."</p> +<p>That, after all, was Mr. Horace's great charm with madame; he +was so faithful to the illusions of his youth. As he looked now at +her, one could almost feel the irresistibility of which he +spoke.</p> +<p>"It was only their excuse, perhaps; we could not tell at the +time; we cannot tell even now when we think about it. They said +then, talking as men talk over such things, that you were the only +one who could remain yourself under the circumstances; you were the +only one who could know, who could will, under the circumstances. +It was their theory; men can have only theories about such things." +His voice dropped, and he seemed to drop too, into some abysm of +thought.</p> +<p>Madame looked into the mirror, where she could see the face of +the one who alone could retain her presence of mind under the +circumstances suggested by Mr. Horace. She could also have seen, +had she wished it, among the reflected bric-a-brac of the mantel, +the corner of the frame that held the picture of her husband, but +peradventure, classing it with the past which held so many +unavenged bad dinners, she never thought to link it even by a look +with her emotions of the present. Indeed, it had been said of her +that in past, present, and future there had ever been but the one +picture to interest her eyes—the one she was looking at now. +This, however, was the remark of the uninitiated, for the true +passion of a beautiful woman is never so much for her beauty as for +its booty; as the passion of a gamester is for his game, not for +his luck.</p> +<p>"How beautiful <i>she</i> was!"</p> +<p>It was apparently down in the depths of his abysm that he found +the connection between this phrase and his last, and it was +evidently to himself he said it. Madame, however, heard and +understood too; in fact, traced back to a certain period, her +thoughts and Mr. Horace's must have been fed by pretty much the +same subjects. But she had so carefully barricaded certain issues +in her memory as almost to obstruct their flow into her life; if +she were a cook, one would say that it was her bad dinners which +she was trying to keep out of remembrance.</p> +<p>"You there, he there, she there, I there." He pointed to the +places on the carpet, under the chandelier; he could have touched +them with a walking-stick, and the recollection seemed just as +close.</p> +<p>"She was, in truth, what we men called her then; it was her eyes +that first suggested it—Myosotis, the little blue flower, the +for-get-me-not. It suited her better than her own name. We always +called her that among ourselves. How beautiful she was!" He leaned +his head on his hand and looked where he had seen her last—so +long, such an eternity, ago.</p> +<p>It must be explained for the benefit of those who do not live in +the little world where an allusion is all that is necessary to put +one in full possession of any drama, domestic or social, that Mr. +Horace was speaking of the wedding-night of madame, when the bridal +party stood as he described under the chandelier; the bride and +groom, with each one's best friend. It may be said that it was the +last night or time that madame had a best friend of her own sex. +Social gossip, with characteristic kindness, had furnished reasons +to suit all tastes, why madame had ceased that night to have a best +friend of her own sex. If gossip had not done so, society would +still be left to its imagination for information, for madame never +tolerated the smallest appeal to her for enlightenment. What the +general taste seemed most to relish as a version was that madame in +her marriage had triumphed, not conquered; and that the night of +her wedding she had realized the fact, and, to be frank, had +realized it ever since. In short, madame had played then to gain at +love, as she played now to gain at solitaire; and hearts were no +more than cards to her—and, "Bah! Lose a game for a card!" +must have been always her motto. It is hard to explain it +delicately enough, for these are the most delicate affairs in life; +but the image of Myosotis had passed through monsieur's heart, and +Myosotis does mean "forget me not." And madame well knew that to +love monsieur once was to love him always, in spite of jealousy, +doubt, distrust, nay, unhappiness (for to love him meant all this +and more). He was that kind of man, they said, whom women could +love even against conscience. Madame never forgave that moment. Her +friend, at least, she could put aside out of her intercourse; +unfortunately, we cannot put people out of our lives. God alone can +do that, and so far he had interfered in the matter only by +removing monsieur. It was known to notoriety that since her wedding +madame had abandoned, destroyed, all knowledge of her friend. And +the friend? She had disappeared as much as is possible for one in +her position and with her duties.</p> +<p>"What there is in blue eyes, light hair, and a fragile form to +impress one, I cannot tell; but for us men it seems to me it is +blue-eyed, light-haired, and fragile-formed women that are the +hardest to forget."</p> +<p>"The less easy to forget," corrected madammadamehe paid no +attention to the remark.</p> +<p>"They are the women that attach themselves in one's memory. If +necessary to keep from being forgotten, they come back into one's +dreams. And as life rolls on, one wonders about them,—'Is she +happy? Is she miserable? Goes life well or ill with her?'"</p> +<p>Madame played her cards slowly, one would say, for her, +prosaically.</p> +<p>"And there is always a pang when, as one is so wondering, the +response comes,—that is, the certainty in one's heart +responds,—'She is miserable, and life goes ill with her.' +Then, if ever, men envy the power of God."</p> +<p>Madame threw over the game she was in, and began a new one.</p> +<p>"Such women should not be unhappy; they are too fragile, too +sensitive, too trusting. I could never understand the infliction of +misery upon them. I could send death to them, but not—not +misfortune."</p> +<p>Madame, forgetting again to cheat in time, and losing her game, +began impatiently to shuffle her cards for a new deal.</p> +<p>"And yet, do you know, Josephine, those women are the unhappy +ones of life. They seem predestined to it, as others"—looking +at madame's full-charmed portrait—"are predestined to triumph +and victory. They"—unconscious, in his abstraction, of the +personal nature of his simile—"never know how to handle their +cards, and they always play a losing game."</p> +<p>"Ha!" came from madame, startled into an irate ejaculation.</p> +<p>"It is their love always that is sacrificed, their hearts always +that are bruised. One might say that God himself favors the +black-haired ones!"</p> +<p>As his voice sank lower and lower, the room seemed to become +stiller and stiller. A passing vehicle in the street, however, now +and then drew a shiver of sound from the pendent prisms of the +chandelier.</p> +<p>"She was so slight, so fragile, and always in white, with blue +in her hair to match her eyes—and—God knows what in her +heart, all the time. And yet they stand it, they bear it, they do +not die, they live along with the strongest, the happiest, the most +fortunate of us," bitterly; "and"—raising his eyes to his old +friend, who thereupon immediately began to fumble her +cards—"whenever in the street I see a poor, bent, broken +woman's figure, I know, without verifying it any more by a glance, +that it is the wreck of a fair woman's figure; whenever I hear of a +bent, broken existence, I know, without asking any more, that it is +the wreck of a fair woman's life."</p> +<p>Poor Mr. Horace spoke with the unreason of a superstitious +bigot.</p> +<p>"I have often thought, since, in large assemblies, particularly +in weddings, Josephine, of what was going on in the women's hearts +there, and I have felt sorry for them; and when I think of God's +knowing what is in their hearts, I have felt sorry for the men. And +I often think now, Josephine,—think oftener and oftener of +it,—that if the resurrection trumpet of our childhood should +sound some day, no matter when, out there, over the old St. Louis +cemetery, and we should all have to rise from our long rest of +oblivion, what would be the first thing we should do? And though +there were a God and a heaven awaiting us,—by that same God, +Josephine, I believe that our first thought in awakening would be +the last in dying,—confession,—and that our first rush +would be to the feet of one another for forgiveness. For there are +some offenses that must outlast the longest oblivion, and a +forgiveness that will be more necessary than God's own. Then our +hearts will be bared to one another; for if, as you say, there are +no secrets at our age, there can still be less cause for them after +death."</p> +<p>His voice ended in the faintest whisper. The table crashed over, +and the cards flew wide-spread on the floor. Before we could +recover, madame was in the antechamber, screaming for Jules.</p> +<p>One would have said that, from her face, the old lady had +witnessed the resurrection described by Mr. Horace, the rush of the +spirits with their burdens of remorse, the one to the feet of the +other; and she must have seen herself and her husband, with a +unanimity of purpose never apparent in their short married life, +rising from their common tomb and hastening to that other tomb at +the end of the alley, and falling at the feet of the one to whom in +life he had been recreant in love, she in friendship.</p> +<p>Of course Jules answered through the wrong door, rushing in with +his gas-stick, and turning off the gas. In a moment we were +involved in darkness and dispute.</p> +<p>"But what does he mean? What does the idiot mean? He—" It +was impossible for her to find a word to do justice to him and to +her exasperation at the same time.</p> +<p>"Pardon, madame; it is not I. It is the cathedral bell; it is +ringing nine o'clock."</p> +<p>"But—"</p> +<p>"Madame can hear it herself. Listen!" We could not see it, but +we were conscious of the benign, toothless smile spreading over his +face as the bell-tones fell in the room.</p> +<p>"But it is not the gas. I—"</p> +<p>"Pardon, madame; but it is the gas. Madame said, 'Jules, put out +the gas every night when the bell rings.' Madame told me that only +last night. The bell rings: I put out the gas."</p> +<p>"Will you be silent? Will you listen?"</p> +<p>"If madame wishes; just as madame says."</p> +<p>But the old lady had turned to Mr. Horace. "Horace, you have +seen—you know—" and it was a question now of overcoming +emotion. "I—I—I—a carriage, my friend, a +carriage."</p> +<p>"Madame—" Jules interrupted his smile to interrupt +her.</p> +<p>She was walking around the room, picking up a shawl here, a lace +there; for she was always prepared against draughts.</p> +<p>"Madame—" continued Jules, pursuing her.</p> +<p>"A carriage."</p> +<p>"If madame would only listen, I was going to say—but +madame is too quick in her disposition—the carriage has been +waiting since a long hour ago. Mr. Horace said to have it there in +a half hour."</p> +<p>It was then she saw for the first time that it had all been +prepared by Mr. Horace. The rest was easy enough: getting into the +carriage, and finding the place of which Mr. Horace had heard, as +he said, only that afternoon. In it, on her bed of illness, +poverty, and suffering, lay the patient, wasted form of the +beautiful fair one whom men had called in her youth Myosotis.</p> +<p>But she did not call her Myosotis.</p> +<p>"<i>Mon Amour!</i>" The old pet name, although it had to be +fetched across more than half a century of disuse, flashed like +lightning from madame's heart into the dim chamber.</p> +<p>"<i>Ma Divine!</i>" came in counter-flash from the curtained +bed.</p> +<p>In the old days women, or at least young girls, could hazard +such pet names one upon the other. These—think of it!--dated +from the first communion class, the dating period of so much of +friendship.</p> +<p>"My poor Amour!"</p> +<p>"My poor, poor Divine!"</p> +<p>The voices were together, close beside the pillow.</p> +<p>"I—I—" began Divine.</p> +<p>"It could not have happened if God had not wished it," +interrupted poor Amour, with the resignation that comes, alas! only +with the last drop of the bitter cup.</p> +<p>And that was about all. If Mr. Horace had not slipped away, he +might have noticed the curious absence of monsieur's name, and of +his own name, in the murmuring that followed. It would have given +him some more ideas on the subject of woman.</p> +<p>At any rate, the good God must thank him for having one affair +the less to arrange when the trumpet sounds out there over the old +St. Louis cemetery. And he was none too premature; for the old St. +Louis cemetery, as was shortly enough proved, was a near reach for +all three of the old friends.</p> +<a name="PUPASSE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>PUPASSE</h3> +<p>Every day, every day, it was the same overture in Madame +Joubert's room in the Institute St. Denis; the strident:</p> +<p>"Mesdemoiselles; à vos places! Notre Père qui est +dans le ciel—Qui a fait ce bruit?"</p> +<p>"It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse!" The answer invariably was +unanimous.</p> +<p>"But, Madame Joubert,—I assure you, Madame +Joubert,—I could not help it! They know I could not help +it!"</p> +<p>By this time the fresh new fool's cap made from yesterday's +"Bee" would have been pinned on her head.</p> +<p>"Quelle injustice! Quelle injustice!"</p> +<p>This last apostrophe in a high, whining nasal voice, always +procured Pupasse's elevation on the tall three-legged stool in the +corner.</p> +<p>It was a theory of the little girls in the primary class that +Madame Joubert would be much more lenient to their own little +inevitabilities of bad conduct and lessons if Pupasse did not +invariably comb her the wrong way every morning after prayers, by +dropping something, or sniffling, or sneezing. Therefore, while +they distractedly got together books, slates, and copy-books, their +infantile eyes found time to dart deadly reproaches toward the +corner of penitence, and their little lips, still shaped from their +first nourishment, pouted anything but sympathy for the occupant of +it.</p> +<p>Indeed, it would have been a most startling unreality to have +ever entered Madame Joubert's room and not seen Pupasse in that +corner, on that stool, her tall figure shooting up like a post, +until her tall, pointed <i>bonnet d' âne</i> came within an +inch or two of the ceiling. It was her hoop-skirt that best +testified to her height. It was the period of those funnel-shaped +hoop-skirts that spread out with such nice mathematical +proportions, from the waist down, that it seemed they must have +emanated from the brains of astronomers, like the orbits, and +diameters, and other things belonging to the heavenly bodies. +Pupasse could not have come within three feet of the wall with her +hoop-skirt distended. To have forced matters was not to be thought +of an instant. So even in her greatest grief and indignation, she +had to pause before the three-legged black stool, and gather up +steel after steel of her circumference in her hands behind, until +her calico skirt careened and flattened; and so she could manage to +accommodate herself to the limited space of her punishment, the +circles drooping far over her feet as she stood there, looking like +the costumed stick of a baby's rattle.</p> +<p>Her thinness continued into her face, which, unfortunately, had +nothing in the way of toilet to assist it. Two little black eyes +fixed in the sides of a mere fence of a nose, and a mouth with the +shape and expression of all mouths made to go over sharp-pointed +teeth planted very far apart; the smallest amount possible of fine, +dry, black hair—a perfect rat-tail when it was plaited in +one, as almost all wore their hair. But sometimes Pupasse took it +into her head to plait it in two braids, as none but the +thick-haired ventured to wear it. As the little girls said, it was +a petition to Heaven for "eau Quinquina." When Marcelite, the +hair-dresser, came at her regular periods to visit the hair of the +boarders, she would make an effort with Pupasse, plaiting her +hundred hairs in a ten-strand braid. The effect was a half yard of +black worsted galloon; nothing more, or better. Had Pupasse +possessed as many heads as the hydra, she could have "coiffe'd" +them all with fools' caps during one morning's recitations. She +entirely monopolized the "Daily Bee." Madame Joubert was forced to +borrow from "madame" the stale weekly "Courrier des Etats-Unis" for +the rest of the room. From grammar, through sacred history, +arithmetic, geography, mythology, down to dictation, Pupasse could +pile up an accumulation of penitences that would have tasked the +limits of the current day had not recreation been wisely set as a +term which disbarred, by proscription, previous offenses. But even +after recreation, with that day's lessons safely out, punished and +expiated, Pupasse's doom seemed scarcely lightened; there was still +a whole criminal code of conduct to infract. The only difference +was that instead of books, slates, or copy-books, leathern medals, +bearing various legends and mottos, were hung around her +neck—a travestied decoration worse than the books for +humiliation.</p> +<p>The "abécédaires," their torment for the day over, +thankful for any distraction from the next day's lessons, and eager +for any relief from the intolerable ennui of goodness, were +thankful enough now for Pupasse. They naturally watched her in +preference to Madame Joubert, holding their books and slates quite +cunningly to hide their faces. Pupasse had not only the genius, but +that which sometimes fails genius, the means for grimacing: little +eyes, long nose, foolish mouth, and pointed tongue. And she was so +amusing, when Madame Joubert's head was turned, that the little +girls, being young and innocent, would forget themselves and all +burst out laughing. It sounded like a flight of singing birds +through the hot, close, stupid little room; but not so to Madame +Joubert.</p> +<p>"Young ladies! But what does this mean?"</p> +<p>And, terror-stricken, the innocents would call out with one +voice, "It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse who made us laugh!" +There was nothing but fools' caps to be gained by prevaricating, +and there was frequently nothing less gained by confession. And oh, +the wails and the sobs as the innocents would be stood up, one by +one, in their places! Even the pigtails at the backs of their +little heads were convulsed with grief. Oh, how they hated Pupasse +then! When their <i>bonnes</i> came for them at three +o'clock,—washing their tear-stained faces at the cistern +before daring to take them through the streets,—how +passionately they would cry out, the tears breaking afresh into the +wet handkerchiefs:</p> +<p>"It's that Pupasse! It's that <i>vilaine</i> Pupasse!"</p> +<p>To Pupasse herself would be meted out that "peine forte et +dure," that acme of humiliation and disgrace, so intensely horrible +that many a little girl in that room solemnly averred and believed +she would kill herself before submitting to it. Pupasse's +voluminous calico skirt would be gathered up by the hem and tied up +over her head! Oh, the horrible monstrosity on the stool in the +corner then! There were no eyes in that room that had any desire to +look upon it. And the cries and the "Quelle injustice!" that fell +on the ears then from the hidden feelings had all the weirdness of +the unseen, but heard. And all the other girls in the room, in fear +and trembling, would begin to move their lips in a perfect +whirlwind of study, or write violently on their slates, or begin at +that very instant to rule off their copy-books for the next day's +verb.</p> +<p>Pupasse—her name was Marie Pupasse but no one thought of +calling her anything but Pupasse, with emphasis on the first +syllable and sibilance on the last—had no parents only a +grandmother, to describe whom, all that is necessary to say is that +she was as short as Pupasse was tall, and that her face resembled +nothing so much as a little yellow apple shriveling from decay. The +old lady came but once a week, to fetch Pupasse fresh clothes, and +a great brown paper bag of nice things to eat. There was no boarder +in the school who received handsomer bags of cake and fruit than +Pupasse. And although, not two hours before, a girl might have been +foremost in the shrill cry, "It is Pupasse who made the noise! It +is Pupasse who made me laugh!" there was nothing in that paper bag +reserved even from such a one. When the girl herself with native +delicacy would, under the circumstances, judge it discreet to +refuse, Pupasse would plead, "Oh, but take it to give me pleasure!" +And if still the refusal continued, Pupasse would take her bag and +go into the summer-house in the corner of the garden, and cry until +the unforgiving one would relent. But the first offering of the bag +was invariably to the stern dispenser of fools' caps and the +unnamed humiliation of the reversed skirt: Madame Joubert.</p> +<p>Pupasse was in the fifth class. The sixth—the +abécédaires—was the lowest in the school. Green +was the color of the fifth; white—innocence—of the +abécédaires. Exhibition after exhibition, the same +green sash and green ribbons appeared on Pupasse's white muslin, +the white muslin getting longer and longer every year, trying to +keep up with her phenomenal growth; and always, from all over the +room, buzzed the audience's suppressed merriment at Pupasse's +appearance in the ranks of the little ones of nine and ten. It was +that very merriment that brought about the greatest change in the +Institute St. Denis. The sitting order of the classes was reversed. +The first class—the graduates—went up to the top step +of the <i>estrade</i>; and the little ones put on the lowest, +behind the pianos. The graduates grumbled that it was not <i>comme +il faut</i> to have young ladies of their position stepping like +camels up and down those great steps; and the little girls said it +was a shame to hide them behind the pianos after their mamas had +taken so much pains to make them look pretty. But madame +said—going also to natural history for her +comparison—that one must be a rhinoceros to continue the +former routine.</p> +<p>Religion cannot be kept waiting forever on the intelligence. It +was always in the fourth class that the first communion was made; +that is, when the girls stayed one year in each class. But Pupasse +had spent three years in the sixth class, and had already been four +in the fifth, and Madame Joubert felt that longer delay would be +disrespectful to the good Lord. It was true that Pupasse could not +yet distinguish the ten commandments from the seven capital sins, +and still would answer that Jeanne d'Arc was the foundress of the +"Little Sisters of the Poor." But, as Madame Joubert always said in +the little address she made to the catechism class every year +before handing it over to Father Dolomier, God judged from the +heart, and not from the mind.</p> +<p>Father Dolomier—from his face he would have been an able +contestant of <i>bonnets d'âne</i> with Pupasse, if subjected +to Madame Joubert's discipline—evidently had the same method +of judging as God, although the catechism class said they could +dance a waltz on the end of his long nose without his perceiving +it.</p> +<p>There is always a little air of mystery about the first +communion: not that there is any in reality, but the little ones +assume it to render themselves important. The going to early mass, +the holding their dog-eared catechisms as if they were relics, the +instruction from the priest, even if he were only old Father +Dolomier—it all put such a little air of devotion into their +faces that it imposed (as it did every year) upon their companions, +which was a vastly gratifying effect. No matter how young and +innocent she may be, a woman's devotion always seems to have two +aims—God and her own sex.</p> +<p>The week of retreat came. Oh, the week of retreat! That was the +<i>bonne bouche</i> of it all, for themselves and for the others. +It was the same every year. By the time the week of retreat +arrived, interest and mystery had been frothed to the point of +indiscretion; so that the little girls would stand on tiptoe to +peep through the shutters at the postulants inside, and even the +larger girls, to whom first communion was a thing of an infantile +past, would condescend to listen to their reports with ill-feigned +indifference.</p> +<p>As the day of the first communion neared, the day of the general +confession naturally neared too, leading it. And then the little +girls, peeping through the shutters, and holding their breath to +see better, saw what they beheld every year; but it was always new +and awesome—mysterious scribbling in corners with +lead-pencils on scraps of paper; consultations; rewritings; +copyings; the list of their sins, of all the sins of their +lives.</p> +<p>"<i>Ma chère!</i>"—pigtails and sunbonnets hiving +outside would shudder. "Oh, <i>Mon Dieu!</i> To have to confess +all—but <i>all</i> your sins! As for me, it would kill me, +sure!"</p> +<p>And the frightful recoils of their consciences would make all +instantly blanch and cross themselves.</p> +<p>"And look at Pupasse's sins! Oh, but they are long! <i>Ma +chère</i>, but look! But look, I ask you, at them!"</p> +<p>The longest record was of course the most complimentary and +honorable to the possessor, as each girl naturally worked not only +for absolution but for fame.</p> +<p>Between catechisms and instructions Madame Joubert would have +"La Vie des Saints" read aloud, to stimulate their piety and to +engage their thoughts; for the thoughts of first communicants are +worse than flies for buzzing around the forbidden. The lecture must +have been a great quickener of conscience; for they would dare +punishment and cheat Madame Joubert, under her own eyes, in order +surreptitiously to add a new sin to their list. Of course the one +hour's recreation could not afford time enough for observation now, +and the little girls were driven to all sorts of excuses to get out +of the classroom for one moment's peep through the shutters; at +which whole swarms of them would sometimes be caught and sent into +punishment.</p> +<p>Only two days more. Madame Joubert put them through the +rehearsal, a most important part of the preparation, almost as +important as catechism—how to enter the church, how to hold +the candle, how to advance, how to kneel, retire—everything, +in fact.</p> +<p>Only one day more, the quietest, most devotional day of all. +Pupasse lost her sins!</p> +<p>Of course every year the same accident happened to some one. But +it was a new accident to Pupasse. And such a long list!</p> +<p>The commotion inside that retreat! Pupasse's nasal whine, +carrying her lament without any mystery to the outside garden. Such +searching of pockets, rummaging of corners, microscopic examination +of the floor! Such crimination and recrimination, protestation, +asseveration, assurances, backed by divine and saintly invocations! +Pupasse accused companion after companion of filching her sins, +which each after each would violently deny, producing each her own +list from her own pocket,—proof to conviction of innocence, +and, we may say, of guilt also.</p> +<p>Pupasse declared they had niched it to copy, because her list +was the longest and most complete. She could not go to confession +without her sins; she could not go to communion without confession. +The tears rolled down her long thin nose unchecked, for she never +could remember to use her handkerchief until reminded by Madame +Joubert.</p> +<p>She had committed it to memory, as all the others had done +theirs; but how was she to know without the list if she had not +forgotten something? And to forget one thing in a general +confession they knew was a mortal sin.</p> +<p>"I shall tell Madame Joubert! I shall tell Madame Joubert!"</p> +<p>"<i>Ma chère</i>!'" whispered the little ones outside. +"Oh, but look at them! <i>Elles font les quatre cents coups</i>!" +which is equivalent to "cutting up like the mischief."</p> +<p>And with reason. As if such an influx of the world upon them at +this moment were not sufficient of itself to damn them. But to tell +Madame Joubert! With all their dresses made and ready, wreaths, +veils, candles, prayer-books, picture-cards, mother-of-pearl +prayer-beads, and festival breakfasts with admiring family and +friends prepared. Tell Madame Joubert! She would simply cancel it +all. In a body they chorused:</p> +<p>"But, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"<i>Chère</i> Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"<i>Voyons</i>, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"I assure you, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"On the cross, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"Ah, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"We implore you, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>The only response—tears, and "I shall tell Madame +Joubert."</p> +<p>Consultations, caucuses, individual appeals, general outbursts. +Pupasse stood in the corner. Curiously, she always sought refuge in +the very sanctum of punishment, her face hidden in her bended arms, +her hoops standing out behind, vouchsafing nothing but tears, and +the promise to tell Madame Joubert. And three o'clock approaching! +And Madame Joubert imminent! But Pupasse really could not go to +confession without her sins. They all recognized that; they were +reasonable, as they assured her.</p> +<p>A crisis quickens the wits. They heard the cathedral clock +strike the quarter to three. They whispered, suggested, +argued—bunched in the farthest corner from Pupasse.</p> +<p>"Console yourself, Pupasse! We will help you, Pupasse! Say no +more about it! We will help you!"</p> +<p>A delegate was sent to say that. She was only four feet and a +half high, and had to stand on tiptoe to pluck the six-foot +Pupasse's dress to gain her attention.</p> +<p>And they did help her generously. A new sheet of fool's-cap was +procured, and torn in two, lengthwise, and pinned in a long strip. +One by one, each little girl took it, and, retiring as far as +possible, would put her hand into her pocket, and, extracting her +list, would copy it in full on the new paper. Then she would fold +it down, and give it to the next one, until all had written.</p> +<p>"Here, Pupasse; here are all our sins. We give them to you; you +can have them."</p> +<p>Pupasse was radiant; she was more than delighted, and the more +she read the better pleased she was. Such a handsome long list, and +so many sins she had never thought of—never dreamed of! She +set herself with zeal to commit them to memory. But a hand on the +door—Madame Joubert! You never could have told that those +little girls had not been sitting during the whole time, with their +hands clasped and eyes cast up to the ceiling, or moving their lips +as the prayer-beads glided through their fingers. Their versatility +was really marvelous.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="16"></a><img width="500" src= +"images/16.jpg" alt="THE FIRST COMMUNION."> +<h5>THE FIRST COMMUNION.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Poor Pupasse! God solved the dilemma of her education, and +madame's increasing sensitiveness about her appearance in the fifth +class, by the death of the old grandmother. She went home to the +funeral, and never returned—or at least she returned, but +only for madame. There was a little scene in the parlor: Pupasse, +all dressed in black, with her bag of primary books in her hand, +ready and eager to get back to her classes and fools' caps; madame, +hesitating between her interests and her fear of ridicule; Madame +Joubert, between her loyalty to school and her conscience. Pupasse +the only one free and untrammeled, simple and direct.</p> +<p>That little school parlor had been the stage for so many scenes! +Madame Joubert detested acting—the comedy, as she called it. +There was nothing she punished with more pleasure up in her room. +And yet—</p> +<p>"Pupasse, <i>ma fille</i>, give me your grammar."</p> +<p>The old battered, primitive book was gotten out of the bag, the +string still tied between the leaves for convenience in hanging +around the neck.</p> +<p>"Your last punishment: the rule for irregular verbs. +Commence!"</p> +<p>"I know it, Madame Joubert; I know it perfectly, I assure +you."</p> +<p>"Commence!"</p> +<p>"Irregular verbs—but I assure you I know it—I know +it by heart—"</p> +<p>"Commence, <i>ma fille!</i>"</p> +<p>"Irregular verbs—irregular verbs—I know it, Madame +Joubert—one moment—" and she shook her right hand, as +girls do to get inspiration, they say. "Irregular verbs—give +me one word, Madame Joubert; only one word!"</p> +<p>"That—"</p> +<p>"Irregular verbs, that—irregular verbs, that—"</p> +<p>"See here, Pupasse; you do not know that lesson any more than a +cat does"—Madame Joubert's favorite comparison.</p> +<p>"Yes, I do, Madame Joubert! Yes, I do!"</p> +<p>"Silence!"</p> +<p>"But, Madame Joubert—"</p> +<p>"Will you be silent!"</p> +<p>"Yes, Madame Joubert; only—"</p> +<p>"Pupasse, one more word—and—" Madame Joubert was +forgetting her comedy—"Listen, Pupasse, and obey! You go home +and learn that lesson. When you know it, you can reënter your +class. That is the punishment I have thought of to correct your +'want of attention.'"</p> +<p>That was the way Madame Joubert put it—"want of +attention."</p> +<p>Pupasse looked at her—at madame, a silent but potent +spectator. To be sent from home because she did not know the rule +of the irregular verbs! To be sent from home, family, friends!--for +that was the way Pupasse put it. She had been in that +school—it may only be whispered—fifteen years. Madame +Joubert knew it; so did madame, although they accounted for only +four or five years in each class. That school was her home; Madame +Joubert—God help her!--her mother; madame, her divinity; +fools' caps and turned-up skirts, her life. The old +grandmother—she it was who had done everything for her (a +<i>ci-devant</i> rag-picker, they say); she it was who was nothing +to her.</p> +<p>Madame must have felt something of it besides the loss of the +handsome salary for years from the little old withered woman. But +conventionality is inexorable; and the St. Denis's great +recommendation was its conventionality. Madame Joubert must have +felt something of it,—she must have felt something of +it,—for why should she volunteer? Certainly madame could not +have imposed <i>that</i> upon <i>her. It must</i> have been an +inspiration of the moment, or a movement, a <i>tressaillement</i>, +of the heart.</p> +<p>"Listen, Pupasse, my child. Go home, study your lesson well. I +shall come every evening myself and hear it; and as soon as you +know it, I shall fetch you back myself. You know I always keep my +word."</p> +<p>Keep her word! That she did. Could the inanimate past testify, +what a fluttering of fools' caps in that parlor—"Daily Bees," +and "Weekly Couriers," by the year-full!</p> +<p>What could Pupasse say or do? It settled the question, as Madame +Joubert assured madame, when the tall, thin black figure with the +bag of books disappeared through the gate.</p> +<p>Madame Joubert was never known to break her word; that is all +one knows about her part of the bargain.</p> +<p>One day, not three years ago, ringing a bell to inquire for a +servant, a familiar murmuring fell upon the ear, and an old +abécédaire's eyes could not resist the temptation to +look through the shutters. There sat Pupasse; there was her old +grammar; there were both fingers stopping her ears—as all +studious girls do, or used to do; and there sounded the old words +composing the rule for irregular verbs.</p> +<p>And you all remember how long it is since we wore funnel-shaped +hoop-skirts!</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11514 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/11514-h/images/01.jpg b/11514-h/images/01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..675209d --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/01.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/02.jpg b/11514-h/images/02.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b906173 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/02.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/03.jpg b/11514-h/images/03.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9610dbf --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/03.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/04.jpg b/11514-h/images/04.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..156e648 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/04.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/05.jpg b/11514-h/images/05.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6947213 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/05.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/06.jpg b/11514-h/images/06.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..77d02b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/06.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/07.jpg b/11514-h/images/07.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb266d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/07.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/08.jpg b/11514-h/images/08.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2de3cd3 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/08.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/09.jpg b/11514-h/images/09.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4a5664 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/09.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/10.jpg b/11514-h/images/10.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..03bf2e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/10.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/11.jpg b/11514-h/images/11.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a48255 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/11.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/12.jpg b/11514-h/images/12.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5090ee0 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/12.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/13.jpg b/11514-h/images/13.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ea6902a --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/13.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/14.jpg b/11514-h/images/14.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a104f2e --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/14.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/15.jpg b/11514-h/images/15.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ca2719 --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/15.jpg diff --git a/11514-h/images/16.jpg b/11514-h/images/16.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2fdadfd --- /dev/null +++ b/11514-h/images/16.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..514238b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11514 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11514) diff --git a/old/11514-8.txt b/old/11514-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe84cc5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11514-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4299 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Balcony Stories, by Grace E. King + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Balcony Stories + +Author: Grace E. King + +Release Date: March 8, 2004 [EBook #11514] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BALCONY STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Bradley Norton and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +BALCONY STORIES + +BY + +GRACE KING + + +1892 + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE BALCONY + +A DRAMA OF THREE + +LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE + +MIMI'S MARRIAGE + +THE MIRACLE CHAPEL + +THE STORY OF A DAY + +ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE + +A CRIPPLED HOPE + +"ONE OF US" + +THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL + +GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER + +THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION + +A DELICATE AFFAIR + +PUPASSE + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS" + +"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT SNAIL, WITH MY +MAIL?" + +CHAMPIGNY + +"I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT" + +"HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW" + +"ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION" + +"THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!" + +"THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT" + +"LITTLE MAMMY" + +"TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS" + +THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY + +WATCHING A LANDING + +"TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES" + +THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY + +THE FIRST COMMUNION + + + + +BALCONY STORIES + + + + +THE BALCONY + + +There is much of life passed on the balcony in a country where the +summer unrolls in six moon-lengths, and where the nights have to come +with a double endowment of vastness and splendor to compensate for the +tedious, sun-parched days. + +And in that country the women love to sit and talk together of summer +nights, on balconies, in their vague, loose, white garments,--men +are not balcony sitters,--with their sleeping children within easy +hearing, the stars breaking the cool darkness, or the moon making a +show of light--oh, such a discreet show of light!--through the vines. +And the children inside, waking to go from one sleep into another, +hear the low, soft mother-voices on the balcony, talking about this +person and that, old times, old friends, old experiences; and it seems +to them, hovering a moment in wakefulness, that there is no end of the +world or time, or of the mother-knowledge; but, illimitable as it +is, the mother-voices and the mother-love and protection fill it +all,--with their mother's hand in theirs, children are not afraid even +of God,--and they drift into slumber again, their little dreams +taking all kinds of pretty reflections from the great unknown horizon +outside, as their fragile soap-bubbles take on reflections from the +sun and clouds. + +Experiences, reminiscences, episodes, picked up as only women know how +to pick them up from other women's lives,--or other women's destinies, +as they prefer to call them,--and told as only women know how to +relate them; what God has done or is doing with some other woman whom +they have known--that is what interests women once embarked on their +own lives,--the embarkation takes place at marriage, or after the +marriageable time,--or, rather, that is what interests the women who +sit of summer nights on balconies. For in those long-moon countries +life is open and accessible, and romances seem to be furnished real +and gratis, in order to save, in a languor-breeding climate, the +ennui of reading and writing books. Each woman has a different way of +picking up and relating her stories, as each one selects different +pieces, and has a personal way of playing them on the piano. + +Each story _is_ different, or appears so to her; each has some unique +and peculiar pathos in it. And so she dramatizes and inflects it, +trying to make the point visible to her apparent also to her hearers. +Sometimes the pathos and interest to the hearers lie only in +this--that the relater has observed it, and gathered it, and finds it +worth telling. For do we not gather what we have not, and is not our +own lacking our one motive? It may be so, for it often appears so. + +And if a child inside be wakeful and precocious it is not dreams +alone that take on reflections from the balcony outside: through the +half-open shutters the still, quiet eyes look across the dim forms +on the balcony to the star-spangled or the moon-brightened heavens +beyond; while memory makes stores for the future, and germs are sown, +out of which the slow, clambering vine of thought issues, one day, to +decorate or hide, as it may be, the structures or ruins of life. + + + + +A DRAMA OF THREE + + +It was a regular dramatic performance every first of the month in the +little cottage of the old General and Madame B----. + +It began with the waking up of the General by his wife, standing at +the bedside with a cup of black coffee. + +"Hé! Ah! Oh, Honorine! Yes; the first of the month, and +affairs--affairs to be transacted." + +On those mornings when affairs were to be transacted there was not +much leisure for the household; and it was Honorine who constituted +the household. Not the old dressing-gown and slippers, the old, old +trousers, and the antediluvian neck-foulard of other days! Far from +it. It was a case of warm water (with even a fling of cologne in it), +of the trimming of beard and mustache by Honorine, and the black +broadcloth suit, and the brown satin stock, and that _je ne sais quoi +de dégagé_ which no one could possess or assume like the old General. +Whether he possessed or assumed it is an uncertainty which hung over +the fine manners of all the gentlemen of his day, who were kept +through their youth in Paris to cultivate _bon ton_ and an education. + +It was also something of a gala-day for Madame la Générale too, as it +must be a gala-day for all old wives to see their husbands pranked +in the manners and graces that had conquered their maidenhood, and +exhaling once more that ambrosial fragrance which once so well +incensed their compelling presence. + +Ah, to the end a woman loves to celebrate her conquest! It is the last +touch of misfortune with her to lose in the old, the ugly, and the +commonplace her youthful lord and master. If one could look under the +gray hairs and wrinkles with which time thatches old women, one would +be surprised to see the flutterings, the quiverings, the thrills, the +emotions, the coals of the heart-fires which death alone extinguishes, +when he commands the tenant to vacate. + +Honorine's hands chilled with the ice of sixteen as she approached +scissors to the white mustache and beard. When her finger-tips brushed +those lips, still well formed and roseate, she felt it, strange to +say, on her lips. When she asperged the warm water with cologne,--it +was her secret delight and greatest effort of economy to buy this +cologne,--she always had one little moment of what she called +faintness--that faintness which had veiled her eyes, and chained her +hands, and stilled her throbbing bosom, when as a bride she came from +the church with him. It was then she noticed the faint fragrance of +the cologne bath. Her lips would open as they did then, and she would +stand for a moment and think thoughts to which, it must be confessed, +she looked forward from month to month. What a man he had been! In +truth he belonged to a period that would accept nothing less from +Nature than physical beauty; and Nature is ever subservient to the +period. If it is to-day all small men, and to-morrow gnomes and +dwarfs, we may know that the period is demanding them from Nature. + +When the General had completed--let it be called no less than the +ceremony of--his toilet, he took his chocolate and his _pain de +Paris_. Honorine could not imagine him breakfasting on anything but +_pain de Paris._ Then he sat himself in his large arm-chair before his +escritoire, and began transacting his affairs with the usual-- + +"But where is that idiot, that dolt, that sluggard, that snail, with +my mail?" Honorine, busy in the breakfast-room: + +[Illustration: "WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT +SNAIL, WITH MY MAIL?"] + +"In a moment, husband. In a moment." + +"But he should be here now. It is the first of the month, it is nine +o'clock, I am ready; he should be here." + +"It is not yet nine o'clock, husband." + +"Not yet nine! Not yet nine! Am I not up? Am I not dressed? Have I not +breakfasted before nine?" + +"That is so, husband. That is so." Honorine's voice, prompt in +cheerful acquiescence, came from the next room, where she was washing +his cup, saucer, and spoon. + +"It is getting worse and worse every day. I tell you, Honorine, Pompey +must be discharged. He is worthless. He is trifling. Discharge him! +Discharge him! Do not have him about! Chase him out of the yard! Chase +him as soon as he makes his appearance! Do you hear, Honorine?" + +"You must have a little patience, husband." + +It was perhaps the only reproach one could make to Madame Honorine, +that she never learned by experience. + +"Patience! Patience! Patience is the invention of dullards and +sluggards. In a well-regulated world there should be no need of such a +thing as patience. Patience should be punished as a crime, or at +least as a breach of the peace. Wherever patience is found police +investigation should be made as for smallpox. Patience! Patience! I +never heard the word--I assure you, I never heard the word in Paris. +What do you think would be said there to the messenger who craved +patience of you? Oh, they know too well in Paris--a rataplan from the +walking-stick on his back, that would be the answer; and a, 'My good +fellow, we are not hiring professors of patience, but legs.'" + +"But, husband, you must remember we do not hire Pompey. He only does +it to oblige us, out of his kindness." + +"Oblige us! Oblige me! Kindness! A negro oblige me! Kind to me! That +is it; that is it. That is the way to talk under the new régime. It is +favor, and oblige, and education, and monsieur, and madame, now. What +child's play to call this a country--a government! I would not be +surprised"--jumping to his next position on this ever-recurring first +of the month theme--"I would not be surprised if Pompey has failed to +find the letter in the box. How do I know that the mail has not +been tampered with? From day to day I expect to hear it. What is to +prevent? Who is to interpose? The honesty of the officials? Honesty of +the officials--that is good! What a farce--honesty of officials! That +is evidently what has happened. The thought has not occurred to me in +vain. Pompey has gone. He has not found the letter, and--well; that is +the end." + +But the General had still another theory to account for the delay in +the appearance of his mail which he always posed abruptly after the +exhaustion of the arraignment of the post-office. + +"And why not Journel?" Journel was their landlord, a fellow of means, +but no extraction, and a favorite aversion of the old gentleman's. +"Journel himself? You think he is above it, _hé_? You think Journel +would not do such a thing? Ha! your simplicity, Honorine--your +simplicity is incredible. It is miraculous. I tell you, I have known +the Journels, from father to son, for--yes, for seventy-five years. +Was not his grandfather the overseer on my father's plantation? I was +not five years old when I began to know the Journels. And this fellow, +I know him better than he knows himself. I know him as well as God +knows him. I have made up my mind. I have made it up carefully that +the first time that letter fails on the first of the month I +shall have Journel arrested as a thief. I shall land him in the +penitentiary. What! You think I shall submit to have my mail tampered +with by a Journel? Their contents appropriated? What! You think there +was no coincidence in Journel's offering me his post-office box just +the month--just the month, before those letters began to arrive? You +think he did not have some inkling of them? Mark my words, Honorine, +he did--by some of his subterranean methods. And all these five years +he has been arranging his plans--that is all. He was arranging theft, +which no doubt has been consummated to-day. Oh, I have regretted it--I +assure you I have regretted it, that I did not promptly reject his +proposition, that, in fact, I ever had anything to do with the +fellow." + +It was almost invariably, so regularly do events run in this +world,--it was almost invariably that the negro messenger made his +appearance at this point. For five years the General had perhaps +not been interrupted as many times, either above or below the last +sentence. The mail, or rather the letter, was opened, and the usual +amount--three ten-dollar bills--was carefully extracted and counted. +And as if he scented the bills, even as the General said he did, +within ten minutes after their delivery, Journel made his appearance +to collect the rent. + +It could only have been in Paris, among that old retired nobility, who +counted their names back, as they expressed it, "au de çà du déluge," +that could have been acquired the proper manner of treating a +"roturier" landlord: to measure him with the eyes from head to foot; +to hand the rent--the ten-dollar bill--with the tips of the fingers; +to scorn a look at the humbly tendered receipt; to say: "The cistern +needs repairing, the roof leaks; I must warn you that unless such +notifications meet with more prompt attention than in the past, +you must look for another tenant," etc., in the monotonous tone of +supremacy, and in the French, not of Journel's dictionary, nor of +the dictionary of any such as he, but in the French of Racine and +Corneille; in the French of the above suggested circle, which inclosed +the General's memory, if it had not inclosed--as he never tired of +recounting--his star-like personality. + +A sheet of paper always infolded the bank-notes. It always bore, in +fine but sexless tracery, "From one who owes you much." + +There, that was it, that sentence, which, like a locomotive, bore the +General and his wife far on these firsts of the month to two opposite +points of the horizon, in fact, one from the other--"From one who owes +you much." + +The old gentleman would toss the paper aside with the bill receipt. +In the man to whom the bright New Orleans itself almost owed its +brightness, it was a paltry act to search and pick for a debtor. +Friends had betrayed and deserted him; relatives had forgotten him; +merchants had failed with his money; bank presidents had stooped to +deceive him; for he was an old man, and had about run the gamut of +human disappointments--a gamut that had begun with a C major of trust, +hope, happiness, and money. + +His political party had thrown him aside. Neither for ambassador, +plenipotentiary, senator, congressman, not even for a clerkship, could +he be nominated by it. Certes! "From one who owed him much." He had +fitted the cap to a new head, the first of every month, for five +years, and still the list was not exhausted. Indeed, it would have +been hard for the General to look anywhere and not see some one whose +obligations to him far exceeded this thirty dollars a month. Could he +avoid being happy with such eyes? + +But poor Madame Honorine! She who always gathered up the receipts, and +the "From one who owes you much"; who could at an instant's warning +produce the particular ones for any month of the past half-decade. +She kept them filed, not only in her armoire, but the scrawled +papers--skewered, as it were, somewhere else--where women from time +immemorial have skewered such unsigned papers. She was not original in +her thoughts--no more, for the matter of that, than the General was. +Tapped at any time on the first of the month, when she would pause +in her drudgery to reimpale her heart by a sight of the written +characters on the scrap of paper, her thoughts would have been found +flowing thus, "One can give everything, and yet be sure of nothing." + +When Madame Honorine said "everything," she did not, as women in such +cases often do, exaggerate. When she married the General, she in +reality gave the youth of sixteen, the beauty (ah, do not trust the +denial of those wrinkles, the thin hair, the faded eyes!) of an angel, +the dot of an heiress. Alas! It was too little at the time. Had she in +her own person united all the youth, all the beauty, all the wealth, +sprinkled parsimoniously so far and wide over all the women in this +land, would she at that time have done aught else with this than +immolate it on the burning pyre of the General's affection? "And yet +be sure of nothing." + +It is not necessary, perhaps, to explain that last clause. It is very +little consolation for wives that their husbands have forgotten, when +some one else remembers. Some one else! Ah! there could be so many +some one Else's in the General's life, for in truth he had been +irresistible to excess. But this was one particular some one else who +had been faithful for five years. Which one? + +When Madame Honorine solves that enigma she has made up her mind how +to act. + +As for Journel, it amused him more and more. He would go away from the +little cottage rubbing his hands with pleasure (he never saw Madame +Honorine, by the way, only the General). He would have given far more +than thirty dollars a month for this drama; for he was not only rich, +but a great _farceur_. + + + + +LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE + + +That was what she was called by everybody as soon as she was seen or +described. Her name, besides baptismal titles, was Idalie Sainte Foy +Mortemart des Islets. When she came into society, in the brilliant +little world of New Orleans, it was the event of the season, and after +she came in, whatever she did became also events. Whether she went, or +did not go; what she said, or did not say; what she wore, and did not +wear--all these became important matters of discussion, quoted as much +or more than what the president said, or the governor thought. And +in those days, the days of '59, New Orleans was not, as it is now, a +one-heiress place, but it may be said that one could find heiresses +then as one finds type-writing girls now. + +Mademoiselle Idalie received her birth, and what education she had, on +her parents' plantation, the famed old Reine Sainte Foy place, and +it is no secret that, like the ancient kings of France, her birth +exceeded her education. + +It was a plantation, the Reine Sainte Foy, the richness and luxury of +which are really well described in those fervid pictures of tropical +life, at one time the passion of philanthropic imaginations, excited +and exciting over the horrors of slavery. Although these pictures were +then often accused of being purposely exaggerated, they seem now to +fall short of, instead of surpassing, the truth. Stately walls, acres +of roses, miles of oranges, unmeasured fields of cane, colossal +sugar-house--they were all there, and all the rest of it, with the +slaves, slaves, slaves everywhere, whole villages of negro cabins. And +there were also, most noticeable to the natural, as well as to +the visionary, eye--there were the ease, idleness, extravagance, +self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short the whole +enumeration, the moral _sine qua non_, as some people considered it, +of the wealthy slaveholder of aristocratic descent and tastes. + +What Mademoiselle Idalie cared to learn she studied, what she did not +she ignored; and she followed the same simple rule untrammeled in her +eating, drinking, dressing, and comportment generally; and whatever +discipline may have been exercised on the place, either in fact or +fiction, most assuredly none of it, even so much as in a threat, +ever attended her sacred person. When she was just turned sixteen, +Mademoiselle Idalie made up her mind to go into society. Whether she +was beautiful or not, it is hard to say. It is almost impossible +to appreciate properly the beauty of the rich, the very rich. The +unfettered development, the limitless choice of accessories, the +confidence, the self-esteem, the sureness of expression, the +simplicity of purpose, the ease of execution--all these produce a +certain effect of beauty behind which one really cannot get to measure +length of nose, or brilliancy of eye. This much can be said: there was +nothing in her that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty +on her part, or credit of it on the part of others. She was very tall +and very thin with small head, long neck, black eyes, and abundant +straight black hair,--for which her hair-dresser deserved more praise +than she,--good teeth, of course, and a mouth that, even in prayer, +talked nothing but commands; that is about all she had _en fait +d'ornements_, as the modesties say. It may be added that she walked as +if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation extended over the whole earth, and +the soil of it were too vile for her tread. Of course she did not buy +her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was ordered from Paris, and +came as regularly through the custom-house as the modes and robes to +the milliners. She was furnished by a certain house there, just as one +of a royal family would be at the present day. As this had lasted from +her layette up to her sixteenth year, it may be imagined what took +place when she determined to make her début. Then it was literally, +not metaphorically, _carte blanche_, at least so it got to the ears of +society. She took a sheet of note-paper, wrote the date at the top, +added, "I make my début in November," signed her name at the extreme +end of the sheet, addressed it to her dressmaker in Paris, and sent +it. + +It was said that in her dresses the very handsomest silks were +used for linings, and that real lace was used where others put +imitation,--around the bottoms of the skirts, for instance,--and silk +ribbons of the best quality served the purposes of ordinary tapes; and +sometimes the buttons were of real gold and silver, sometimes set +with precious stones. Not that she ordered these particulars, but the +dressmakers, when given _carte blanche_ by those who do not condescend +to details, so soon exhaust the outside limits of garments that +perforce they take to plastering them inside with gold, so to speak, +and, when the bill goes in, they depend upon the furnishings to carry +out a certain amount of the contract in justifying the price. And it +was said that these costly dresses, after being worn once or twice, +were cast aside, thrown upon the floor, given to the negroes--anything +to get them out of sight. Not an inch of the real lace, not one of the +jeweled buttons, not a scrap of ribbon, was ripped off to save. And it +was said that if she wanted to romp with her dogs in all her finery, +she did it; she was known to have ridden horseback, one moonlight +night, all around the plantation in a white silk dinner-dress flounced +with Alençon. And at night, when she came from the balls, tired, tired +to death as only balls can render one, she would throw herself down +upon her bed in her tulle skirts,--on top, or not, of the exquisite +flowers, she did not care,--and make her maid undress her in that +position; often having her bodices cut off her, because she was too +tired to turn over and have them unlaced. + +That she was admired, raved about, loved even, goes without saying. +After the first month she held the refusal of half the beaux of New +Orleans. Men did absurd, undignified, preposterous things for her; and +she? Love? Marry? The idea never occurred to her. She treated the +most exquisite of her pretenders no better than she treated her Paris +gowns, for the matter of that. She could not even bring herself to +listen to a proposal patiently; whistling to her dogs, in the middle +of the most ardent protestations, or jumping up and walking away with +a shrug of the shoulders, and a "Bah!" + +[Illustration: "WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS."] + +Well! Every one knows what happened after '59. There is no need to +repeat. The history of one is the history of all. But there was this +difference--for there is every shade of difference in misfortune, as +there is every shade of resemblance in happiness. Mortemart des Islets +went off to fight. That was natural; his family had been doing that, +he thought, or said, ever since Charlemagne. Just as naturally he was +killed in the first engagement. They, his family, were always +among the first killed; so much so that it began to be considered +assassination to fight a duel with any of them. All that was in the +ordinary course of events. One difference in their misfortunes lay +in that after the city was captured, their plantation, so near, +convenient, and rich in all kinds of provisions, was selected to +receive a contingent of troops--a colored company. If it had been a +colored company raised in Louisiana it might have been different; and +these negroes mixed with the negroes in the neighborhood,--and negroes +are no better than whites, for the proportion of good and bad among +them,--and the officers were always off duty when they should have +been on, and on when they should have been off. + +One night the dwelling caught fire. There was an immediate rush to +save the ladies. Oh, there was no hesitation about that! They were +seized in their beds, and carried out in the very arms of their +enemies; carried away off to the sugar-house, and deposited there. No +danger of their doing anything but keep very quiet and still in their +_chemises de nuit_, and their one sheet apiece, which was about all +that was saved from the conflagration--that is, for them. But it must +be remembered that this is all hearsay. When one has not been present, +one knows nothing of one's own knowledge; one can only repeat. It has +been repeated, however, that although the house was burned to +the ground, and everything in it destroyed, wherever, for a year +afterward, a man of that company or of that neighborhood was found, +there could have been found also, without search-warrant, property +that had belonged to the Des Islets. That is the story; and it is +believed or not, exactly according to prejudice. + +How the ladies ever got out of the sugar-house, history does not +relate; nor what they did. It was not a time for sociability, either +personal or epistolary. At one offensive word your letter, and you, +very likely, examined; and Ship Island for a hotel, with soldiers for +hostesses! Madame Des Islets died very soon after the accident--of +rage, they say; and that was about all the public knew. + +Indeed, at that time the society of New Orleans had other things +to think about than the fate of the Des Islets. As for _la grande +demoiselle_, she had prepared for her own oblivion in the hearts of +her female friends. And the gentlemen,--her _preux chevaliers_,--they +were burning with other passions than those which had driven them to +her knees, encountering a little more serious response than "bahs" and +shrugs. And, after all, a woman seems the quickest thing forgotten +when once the important affairs of life come to men for consideration. + +It might have been ten years according to some calculations, or ten +eternities,--the heart and the almanac never agree about time,--but +one morning old Champigny (they used to call him Champignon) was +walking along his levee front, calculating how soon the water would +come over, and drown him out, as the Louisianians say. It was before a +seven-o'clock breakfast, cold, wet, rainy, and discouraging. The road +was knee-deep in mud, and so broken up with hauling, that it was like +walking upon waves to get over it. A shower poured down. Old Champigny +was hurrying in when he saw a figure approaching. He had to stop to +look at it, for it was worth while. The head was hidden by a green +barege veil, which the showers had plentifully besprinkled with dew; a +tall, thin figure. Figure! No; not even could it be called a figure: +straight up and down, like a finger or a post; high-shouldered, and +a step--a step like a plow-man's. No umbrella; no--nothing more, in +fact. It does not sound so peculiar as when first related--something +must be forgotten. The feet--oh, yes, the feet--they were like +waffle-irons, or frying-pans, or anything of that shape. + +Old Champigny did not care for women--he never had; they simply did +not exist for him in the order of nature. He had been married once, +it is true, about a half century before; but that was not reckoned +against the existence of his prejudice, because he was _célibataire_ +to his finger-tips, as any one could see a mile away. But that woman +_intrigué'd_ him. + +He had no servant to inquire from. He performed all of his own +domestic work in the wretched little cabin that replaced his old home. +For Champigny also belonged to the great majority of the _nouveaux +pauvres_. He went out into the rice-field, where were one or two +hands that worked on shares with him, and he asked them. They knew +immediately; there is nothing connected with the parish that a +field-hand does not know at once. She was the teacher of the colored +public school some three or four miles away. "Ah," thought Champigny, +"some Northern lady on a mission." He watched to see her return in the +evening, which she did, of course; in a blinding rain. Imagine the +green barege veil then; for it remained always down over her face. + +[Illustration: CHAMPIGNY.] + +Old Champigny could not get over it that he had never seen her before. +But he must have seen her, and, with his abstraction and old age, not +have noticed her, for he found out from the negroes that she had been +teaching four or five years there. And he found out also--how, is not +important--that she was Idalie Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. _La +grande demoiselle_! He had never known her in the old days, owing to +his uncomplimentary attitude toward women, but he knew of her, +of course, and of her family. It should have been said that his +plantation was about fifty miles higher up the river, and on the +opposite bank to Reine Sainte Foy. It seemed terrible. The old +gentleman had had reverses of his own, which would bear the telling, +but nothing was more shocking to him than this--that Idalie Sainte +Foy Mortemart des Islets should be teaching a public colored school +for--it makes one blush to name it--seven dollars and a half a month. +For seven dollars and a half a month to teach a set of--well! He found +out where she lived, a little cabin--not so much worse than his own, +for that matter--in the corner of a field; no companion, no servant, +nothing but food and shelter. Her clothes have been described. + +Only the good God himself knows what passed in Champigny's mind on +the subject. We know only the results. He went and married _la grande +demoiselle_. How? Only the good God knows that too. Every first of the +month, when he goes to the city to buy provisions, he takes her with +him--in fact, he takes her everywhere with him. + +Passengers on the railroad know them well, and they always have a +chance to see her face. When she passes her old plantation _la grande +demoiselle_ always lifts her veil for one instant--the inevitable +green barege veil. What a face! Thin, long, sallow, petrified! And the +neck! If she would only tie something around the neck! And her plain, +coarse cottonade gown! The negro women about her were better dressed +than she. + +Poor old Champignon! It was not an act of charity to himself, no +doubt cross and disagreeable, besides being ugly. And as for love, +gratitude! + + + + +MIMI'S MARRIAGE + + +This how she told about it, sitting in her little room,--her bridal +chamber,--not larger, really not larger than sufficed for the bed +there, the armoire here, the bureau opposite, and the washstand behind +the door, the corners all touching. But a nice set of furniture, quite +_comme il faut_,--handsome, in fact,--as a bride of good family should +have. And she was dressed very prettily, too, in her long white +_negligée_, with plenty of lace and ruffles and blue ribbons,--such as +only the Creole girls can make, and brides, alas! wear,--the pretty +honeymoon costume that suggests, that suggests--well! to proceed. "The +poor little cat!" as one could not help calling her, so _mignonne_, +so blond, with the pretty black eyes, and the rosebud of a +mouth,--whenever she closed it,--a perfect kiss. + +"But you know, Louise," she said, beginning quite seriously at the +beginning, "papa would never have consented, never, never--poor papa! +Indeed, I should never have asked him; it would only have been one +humiliation more for him, poor papa! So it was well he was dead, if +it was God's will for it to be. Of course I had my dreams, like +everybody. I was so blond, so blond, and so small; it seemed like a +law I should marry a _brun_, a tall, handsome _brun_, with a mustache +and a fine barytone voice. That was how I always arranged it, and--you +will laugh--but a large, large house, and numbers of servants, and a +good cook, but a superlatively good cuisine, and wine and all that, +and long, trailing silk dresses, and theater every night, and voyages +to Europe, and--well, everything God had to give, in fact. You know, I +get that from papa, wanting everything God has to give! Poor papa! It +seemed to me I was to meet him at any time, my handsome _brun_. I used +to look for him positively on my way to school, and back home again, +and whenever I would think of him I would try and walk so prettily, +and look so pretty! _Mon Dieu!_ I was not ten years old yet! And +afterward it was only for that that I went into society. What should +girls go into society for otherwise but to meet their _brun_ or their +blond? Do you think it is amusing, to economize and economize, and sew +and sew, just to go to a party to dance? No! I assure you, I went into +society only for that; and I do not believe what girls say--they go +into society only for that too. + +"You know at school how we used to _tirer la bonne aventure._[1] Well, +every time he was not _brun, riche, avenant_, Jules, or Raoul, or Guy, +I simply would not accept it, but would go on drawing until I obtained +what I wanted. As I tell you, I thought it was my destiny. And when I +would try with a flower to see if he loved me,--_Il m'aime, un peu, +beaucoup, passionément, pas du tout_,--if it were _pas du tout_, I +would always throw the flower away, and begin tearing off the leaves +from another one immediately. _Passionément_ was what I wanted, and I +always got it in the end. + +[Footnote 1: _La bonne aventure_ is or was generally a very much +battered foolscap copy-book, which contained a list of all possible +elements of future (school-girl) happiness. Each item answered a +question, and had a number affixed to it. To draw one's fortune +consisted in asking question after question, and guessing a number, +a companion volunteering to read the answers. To avoid cheating, the +books were revised from time to time, and the numbers changed.] + +"But papa, poor papa, he never knew anything of that, of course. He +would get furious when any one would come to see me, and sometimes, +when he would take me in society, if I danced with a 'nobody,'--as he +called no matter whom I danced with,--he would come up and take me +away with such an air--such an air! It would seem that papa thought +himself better than everybody in the world. But it went worse and +worse with papa, not only in the affairs of the world, but in health. +Always thinner and thinner, always a cough; in fact, you know, I am a +little feeble-chested myself, from papa. And Clementine! Clementine +with her children--just think, Louise, eight! I thank God my mama had +only me, if papa's second wife had to have so many. And so naughty! I +assure you, they were all devils; and no correction, no punishment, no +education--but you know Clementine! I tell you, sometimes on account +of those children I used to think myself in 'ell [making the Creole's +attempt and failure to pronounce the h], and Clementine had no pride +about them. If they had shoes, well; if they had not shoes, well +also. + +[Illustration] + +"'But Clementine!' I would expostulate, I would pray-- + +"'But do not be a fool, Mimi,' she would say. 'Am I God? Can I do +miracles? Or must I humiliate your papa?' + +"That was true. Poor papa! It would have humiliated papa. When he had +money he gave; only it was a pity he had no money. As for what he +observed, he thought it was Clementine's negligence. For, it is true, +Clementine had no order, no industry, in the best of fortune as in the +worst. But to do her justice, it was not her fault this time, only she +let him believe it, to save his pride; and Clementine, you know, has a +genius for stories. I assure you, Louise, I was desperate. I prayed to +God to help me, to advise me. I could not teach--I had no education; I +could not go into a shop--that would be dishonoring papa--and _enfin_, +I was too pretty. 'And proclaim to the world,' Clementine would cry, +'that your papa does not make money for his family.' That was true. The +world is so malicious. You know, Louise, sometimes it seems to me +the world is glad to hear that a man cannot support his family; it +compliments those who can. As if papa had not intelligence, and honor, +and honesty! But they do not count now as in old times, 'before the +war.' + +"And so, when I thought of that, I laughed and talked and played the +thoughtless like Clementine, and made bills. We made bills--we had +to--for everything; we could do that, you know, on our old name and +family. But it is too long! I am sure it is too long and tiresome! +What egotism on my part! Come, we will take a glass of anisette, and +talk of something else--your trip, your family. No? no? You are only +asking me out of politeness! You are so _aimable_, so kind. Well, if +you are not _ennuyée_--in fact, I want to tell you. It was too long +to write, and I detest a pen. To me there is no instrument of torture +like a pen. + +"Well, the lady next door, she was an American, and common, very +common, according to papa. In comparison to us she had no family +whatever. Our little children were forbidden even to associate with +her little children. I thought that was ridiculous--not that I am a +democrat, but I thought it ridiculous. But the children cared; they +were so disobedient and they were always next door, and they always +had something nice to eat over there. I sometimes thought Clementine +used to encourage their disobedience, just for the good things they +got to eat over there. But papa was always making fun of them; you +know what a sharp tongue he had. The gentleman was a clerk; and, +according to papa, the only true gentlemen in the world had family +and a profession. We did not dare allow ourselves to think it, but +Clementine and I knew that they, in fact, were in more comfortable +circumstances than we. + +"The lady, who also had a great number of children, sent one day, with +all the discretion and delicacy possible, and asked me if I would +be so kind as to--guess what, Louise! But only guess! But you never +could! Well, to darn some of her children's stockings for her. It was +God who inspired her, I am sure, on account of my praying so much to +him. You will be shocked, Louise, when I tell you. It sounds like a +sin, but I was not in despair when papa died. It was a grief,--yes, +it seized the heart, but it was not despair. Men ought not to be +subjected to the humiliation of life; they are not like women, you +know. We are made to stand things; they have their pride,--their +_orgueil_, as we say in French,--and that is the point of honor with +some men. And Clementine and I, we could not have concealed it much +longer. In fact, the truth was crying out everywhere, in the children, +in the house, in our own persons, in our faces. The darning did not +provide a superfluity, I guarantee you! + +"Poor papa! He caught cold. He was condemned from the first. And so +all his fine qualities died; for he had fine qualities--they were too +fine for this age, that was all. Yes; it was a kindness of God to take +him before he found out. If it was to be, it was better. Just so with +Clementine as with me. After the funeral--crack! everything went to +pieces. We were at the four corners for the necessaries of life, and +the bills came in--my dear, the bills that came in! What memories! +what memories! Clementine and I exclaimed; there were some bills that +we had completely forgotten about. The lady next door sent her brother +over when papa died. He sat up all night, that night, and he assisted +us in all our arrangements. And he came in afterward, every evening. +If papa had been there, there would have been a fine scene over it; he +would have had to take the door, very likely. But now there was no one +to make objections. And so when, as I say, we were at the four corners +for the necessaries of life, he asked Clementine's permission to ask +me to marry him. + +"I give you my word, Louise, I had forgotten there was such a thing as +marriage in the world for me! I had forgotten it as completely as the +chronology of the Merovingian dynasty, alas! with all the other school +things forgotten. And I do not believe Clementine remembered there was +such a possibility in the world for me. _Mon Dieu!_ when a girl is +poor she may have all the beauty in the world--not that I had beauty, +only a little prettiness. But you should have seen Clementine! She +screamed for joy when she told me. Oh, there was but one answer +according to her, and according to everybody she could consult, in her +haste. They all said it was a dispensation of Providence in my favor. +He was young, he was strong; he did not make a fortune, it was true, +but he made a good living. And what an assistance to have a man in +the family!--an assistance for Clementine and the children. But the +principal thing, after all, was, he wanted to marry me. Nobody had +ever wanted that before, my dear! + +"Quick, quick, it was all arranged. All my friends did something for +me. One made my _peignoirs_ for me, one this, one that--_ma foi!_ +I did not recognize myself. One made all the toilet of the bureau, +another of the bed, and we all sewed on the wedding-dress together. +And you should have seen Clementine, going out in all her great +mourning, looking for a house, looking for a servant! But the wedding +was private on account of poor papa. But you know, Loulou, I had never +time to think, except about Clementine and the children, and when I +thought of all those poor little children, poor papa's children, I +said 'Quick, quick,' like the rest. + +"It was the next day, the morning after the wedding, I had time to +think. I was sitting here, just as you see me now, in my pretty new +_negligée_. I had been looking at all the pretty presents I have +shown you, and my trousseau, and my furniture,--it is not bad, as +you see,--my dress, my veil, my ring, and--I do not know--I do not +know--but, all of a sudden, from everywhere came the thought of my +_brun_, my handsome _brun_ with the mustache, and the _bonne aventure, +ricke, avenant_, the Jules, Raoul, Guy, and the flower leaves, and +'_il m'aime, un pen, beaucoup, pas du tout,' passionnément_, and the +way I expected to meet him walking to and from school, walking as if +I were dancing the steps, and oh, my plans, my plans, my plans,--silk +dresses, theater, voyages to Europe,--and poor papa, so fine, so tall, +so aristocratic. I cannot tell you how it all came; it seized my +heart, and, _mon Dieu!_ I cried out, and I wept, I wept, I wept. How +I wept! It pains me here now to remember it. Hours, hours it lasted, +until I had no tears in my body, and I had to weep without them, with +sobs and moans. But this, I have always observed, is the time for +reflection--after the tears are all out. And I am sure God himself +gave me my thoughts. 'Poor little Mimi!' I thought, '_fi done_! You +are going to make a fool of yourself now when it is all over, because +why? It is God who manages the world, and not you. You pray to God to +help you in your despair, and he has helped you. He has sent you a +good, kind husband who adores you; who asks only to be a brother to +your sisters and brothers, and son to Clementine; who has given you +more than you ever possessed in your life--but because he did not come +out of the _bonne aventure_--and who gets a husband out of the +_bonne aventure?_--and would your _brun_ have come to you in your +misfortune?' I am sure God inspired those thoughts in me. + +[Illustration: "I wept, I wept, I wept."] + +"I tell you, I rose from that bed--naturally I had thrown myself upon +it. Quick I washed my face, I brushed my hair, and, you see these bows +of ribbons,--look, here are the marks of the tears,--I turned them. +_Hé,_ Loulou, it occurs to me, that if you examined the blue bows on +a bride's _negligée_, you might always find tears on the other side; +for do they not all have to marry whom God sends? and am I the only +one who had dreams? It is the end of dreams, marriage; and that is the +good thing about it. God lets us dream to keep us quiet, but he knows +when to wake us up, I tell you. The blue bows knew! And now, you see, +I prefer my husband to my _brun_; in fact, Loulou, I adore him, and I +am furiously jealous about him. And he is so good to Clementine and +the poor little children; and see his photograph--a blond, and not +good-looking, and small! + +"But poor papa! If he had been alive, I am sure he never would have +agreed with God about my marriage." + + + + +THE MIRACLE CHAPEL + + +Every heart has a miracle to pray for. Every life holds that which +only a miracle can cure. To prove that there have never been, that +there can never be, miracles does not alter the matter. So long as +there is something hoped for,--that does not come in the legitimate +channel of possible events,--so long as something does come not to be +hoped or expected in the legitimate channel of possible events, just +so long will the miracle be prayed for. + +The rich and the prosperous, it would seem, do not depend upon God so +much, do not need miracles, as the poor do. They do not have to pray +for the extra crust when starvation hovers near; for the softening of +an obdurate landlord's heart; for strength in temptation, light in +darkness, salvation from vice; for a friend in friendlessness; for +that miracle of miracles, an opportunity to struggling ambition; for +the ending of a dark night, the breaking of day; and, oh! for God's +own miracle to the bedside-watchers--the change for the better, when +death is there and the apothecary's skill too far, far away. The poor, +the miserable, the unhappy, they can show their miracles by the score; +that is why God is called the poor man's friend. He does not mind, so +they say, going in the face of logic and reason to relieve them; for +often the kind and charitable are sadly hampered by the fetters of +logic and reason, which hold them, as it were, away from their own +benevolence. + +But the rich have their miracles, no doubt, even in that beautiful +empyrean of moneyed ease in which the poor place them. Their money +cannot buy all they enjoy, and God knows how much of their sorrow it +assuages. As it is, one hears now and then of accidents among them, +conversions to better thoughts, warding off of danger, rescue of life; +and heirs are sometimes born, and husbands provided, and fortunes +saved, in such surprising ways, that even the rich, feeling their +limitations in spite of their money, must ascribe it privately if not +publicly to other potencies than their own. These cathedral _tours +de force_, however, do not, if the truth be told, convince like the +miracles of the obscure little chapel. + +There is always a more and a most obscure little miracle chapel, and +as faith seems ever to lead unhesitatingly to the latter one, there is +ever rising out of humility and obscurity, as in response to a demand, +some new shrine, to replace the wear and tear and loss of other +shrines by prosperity. For, alas! it is hard even for a chapel to +remain obscure and humble in the face of prosperity and popularity. +And how to prevent such popularity and prosperity? As soon as the +noise of a real miracle in it gets abroad, every one is for hurrying +thither at once with their needs and their prayers, their candles +and their picayunes; and the little miracle chapel, perhaps despite +itself, becomes with mushroom growth a church, and the church a +cathedral, from whose resplendent altars the cheap, humble ex-voto +tablets, the modest beginnings of its ecclesiastical fortunes, are +before long banished to dimly lighted lateral shrines. + +The miracle chapel in question lay at the end of a very confusing but +still intelligible route. It is not in truth a chapel at all, but a +consecrated chamber in a very small, very lowly cottage, which stands, +or one might appropriately, if not with absolute novelty, say which +kneels, in the center of a large garden, a garden primeval in +rusticity and size, its limits being defined by no lesser boundaries +than the four intersecting streets outside, and its culture showing +only the careless, shiftless culture of nature. The streets outside +were miracles themselves in that, with their liquid contents, they +were streets and not bayous. However, they protected their island +chapel almost as well as a six-foot moat could have done. There was a +small paved space on the sidewalk that served to the pedestrian as an +indication of the spot in the tall, long, broad fence where a gate +might be sought. It was a small gate with a strong latch. It required +a strong hand to open it. At the sound of the click it made, the +little street ragamuffin, who stood near, peeping through the fence, +looked up. He had worked quite a hole between the boards with his +fingers. Such an anxious expression passed over his face that even +a casual passer-by could not help relieving it by a question--any +question: + +"Is this the miracle chapel, little boy?" + +"Yes, ma'am; yes." Then his expression changed to one of eagerness, +yet hardly less anxious. + +"Here. Take this--" + +He did not hold out his hand, the coin had to seek it. At its touch he +refused to take it. + +"I ain't begging." + +"What are you looking at so through the fence?" He was all sadness +now. + +"Just looking." + +"Is there anything to see inside?" + +He did not answer. The interrogation was repeated. + +"I can't see nothing. I'm blind," putting his eyes again to the hole, +first one, then the other. + +"Come, won't you tell me how this came to be a miracle chapel?" + +"Oh, ma'am,"--he turned his face from the fence, and clasped his hands +in excitement,--"it was a poor widow woman who come here with her baby +that was a-dying, and she prayed to the Virgin Mary, and the Virgin +Mary made the baby live--" + +He dropped his voice, the words falling slower and slower. As he +raised his face, one could see then that he was blind, and the +accident that had happened to him, in fording the street. What +sightless eyes! What a wet, muddy little skeleton! Ten? No; hardly ten +years of age. + +"The widow woman she picked up her baby, and she run down the walk +here, and out into the street screaming--she was so glad,"--putting +his eyes to the peep-hole again,--"and the Virgin Mary come down the +walk after her, and come through the gate, too; and that was all she +seed--the widow woman." + +"Did you know the widow woman?" + +He shook his head. + +"How do you know it?" + +"That was what they told me. And they told me, the birds all begun to +sing at once, and the flowers all lighted up like the sun was shining +on them. They seed her. And she come down the walk, and through the +gate," his voice lowering again to a whisper. + +Aye, how the birds must have sung, and the flowers shone, to the +widowed mother as she ran, nay, leaped, down that rose-hedged walk, +with her restored baby clasped to her bosom! + +"_They_ seed her," repeated the little fellow. "And that is why you +stand here--to see her, too?" + +His shoulder turned uneasily in the clasp upon it. + +"They seed her, and they ain't got no eyes." + +"Have you no mother?" + +"Ain't never had no mother." A thought struck him. "Would that count, +ma'am? Would that count? The little baby that was dying--yes, ma'am, +it had a mother; and it's the mothers that come here constant with +their children; I sometimes hear 'em dragging them in by the hand." + +"How long have you been coming here?" + +"Ever since the first time I heard it, ma'am." + +Street ragamuffins do not cry: it would be better if they did so, when +they are so young and so blind; it would be easier for the spectator, +the auditor. + +"They seed her--I might see her ef--ef I could see her once--ef--ef +I could see anything once." His voice faltered; but he stiffened it +instantly. "She might see me. She can't pass through this gate without +seeing me; and--and--ef she seed me--and I didn't even see her--oh, +I'm so tired of being blind!" + +"Did you never go inside to pray?" How embarrassing such a question +is, even to a child! + +"No, ma'am. Does that count, too? The little baby didn't pray, the +flowers didn't go inside, nor the birds. And they say the birds broke +out singing all at once, and the flowers shined, like the sun was +shining on 'em--like the sun was shining in 'em," he corrected +himself. "The birds they can see, and the flowers they can't see, and +they seed her." He shivered with the damp cold--and perhaps too with +hunger. + +"Where do you live?" + +He wouldn't answer. + +"What do you live on?" + +He shook his head. + +"Come with me." He could not resist the grasp on his shoulder, and the +firm directing of his bare, muddy feet through the gate, up the walk, +and into the chamber which the Virgin found that day. He was turned to +the altar, and pressed down on his knees. + +One should not look at the face of a blind child praying to the Virgin +for sight. Only the Virgin herself should see that--and if she once +saw that little boy! There were hearts, feet, hands, and eyes enough +hanging around to warrant hope at least, if not faith; the effigies of +the human aches and pains that had here found relief, if not surcease; +feet and hands beholden to no physician for their exorcism of +rheumatism; eyes and ears indebted to no oculist or aurist; and the +hearts,--they are always in excess,--and, to the most skeptical, there +is something sweetly comforting in the sight of so many cured hearts, +with their thanks cut deep, as they should be, in the very marble +thereof. Where the bed must have stood was the altar, rising by easy +gradations, brave in ecclesiastical deckings, to the plaster figure of +her whom those yearning hearts were seeing, whom those murmuring lips +were addressing. Hearts must be all alike to her at such a distance, +but the faces to the looker-on were so different. The eyes straining +to look through all the experiences and troubles that their life has +held to plead, as only eyes can plead, to one who can, if she will, +perform their miracle for them. And the mouths,--the sensitive human +mouths,--each one distorted by the tragedy against which it was +praying. + +Their miracles! their miracles! what trifles to divinity! Perhaps +hardly more to humanity! How far a simple looker-on could supply them +if so minded! Perhaps a liberal exercise of love and charity by not +more than half a dozen well-to-do people could answer every prayer in +the room! But what a miracle that would be, and how the Virgin's heart +would gladden thereat, and jubilate over her restored heart-dying +children, even as the widowed mother did over her one dying babe! + +And the little boy had stopped praying. The futility of it--perhaps +his own impotence--had overcome him. He was crying, and past the shame +of showing it--crying helplessly, hopelessly. Tears were rolling out +of his sightless eyes over his wordless lips. He could not pray; he +could only cry. What better, after all, can any of us do? But what +a prayer to a woman--to even the plaster figure of a woman! And the +Virgin did hear him; for she had him taken without loss of a moment to +the hospital, and how easy she made it for the physician to remove the +disability! To her be the credit. + + + + +THE STORY OF A DAY + + +It is really not much, the story; it is only the arrangement of it, as +we would say of our dresses and our drawing-rooms. + +It began with the dawn, of course; and the skiff for our voyage, +silvered with dew, waiting in the mist for us, as if it had floated +down in a cloud from heaven to the bayou. When repeated, this sounds +like poor poetry; but that is the way one thinks at day dawn, when the +dew is yet, as it were, upon our brains, and our ideas are still half +dreams, and our waking hearts, alas! as innocent as waking babies +playing with their toes. + +Our oars waked the waters of the bayou, as motionless as a sleeping +snake under its misty covert--to continue the poetical language or +thought. The ripples ran frightened and shivering into the rooty +thicknesses of the sedge-grown banks, startling the little birds +bathing there into darting to the nearest, highest rush-top, where, +without losing their hold on their swaying, balancing perches, they +burst into all sorts of incoherent songs, in their excitement to +divert attention from the near-hidden nests: bird mothers are so much +like women mothers! + +It soon became day enough for the mist to rise. The eyes that saw it +ought to be able to speak to tell fittingly about it. + +Not all at once, nor all together, but a thinning, a lifting, a +breaking, a wearing away; a little withdrawing here, a little +withdrawing there; and now a peep, and now a peep; a bride lifting her +veil to her husband! Blue! White! Lilies! Blue lilies! White lilies! +Blue and white lilies! And still blue and white lilies! And still! And +still! Wherever the veil lifted, still and always the bride! + +Not in clumps and bunches, not in spots and patches, not in banks, +meadows, acres, but in--yes; for still it lifted beyond and beyond and +beyond; the eye could not touch the limit of them, for the eye can +touch only the limit of vision; and the lilies filled the whole +sea-marsh, for that is the way spring comes to the sea-marshes. + +The sedge-roots might have been unsightly along the water's edge, +but there were morning-glories, all colors, all shades--oh, such +morning-glories as we of the city never see! Our city morning-glories +must dream of them, as we dream of angels. Only God could be so +lavish! Dropping from the tall spear-heads to the water, into the +water, under the water. And then, the reflection of them, in all their +colors, blue, white, pink, purple, red, rose, violet! + +To think of an obscure little Acadian bayou waking to flow the +first thing in the morning not only through banks of new-blown +morning-glories, but sown also to its depths with such reflections as +must make it think itself a bayou in heaven, instead of in Paroisse +St. Martin. Perhaps that is the reason the poor poets think themselves +poets, on account of the beautiful things that are only reflected into +their minds from what is above? Besides the reflections, there were +alligators in the bayou, trying to slip away before we could see them, +and watching us with their stupid, senile eyes, sometimes from under +the thickest, prettiest flowery bowers; and turtles splashing into +the water ahead of us; and fish (silver-sided perch), looking like +reflections themselves, floating through the flower reflections, +nibbling their breakfast. + +Our bayou had been running through swamp only a little more solid than +itself; in fact, there was no solidity but what came from the roots of +grasses. Now, the banks began to get firmer, from real soil in them. +We could see cattle in the distance, up to their necks in the lilies, +their heads and sharp-pointed horns coming up and going down in the +blue and white. Nothing makes cattle's heads appear handsomer, with +the sun just rising far, far away on the other side of them. +The sea-marsh cattle turned loose to pasture in the lush spring +beauty--turned loose in Elysium! + +But the land was only partly land yet, and the cattle still cattle to +us. The rising sun made revelations, as our bayou carried us through a +drove in their Elysium, or it might have always been an Elysium to +us. It was not all pasturage, all enjoyment. The rising and falling +feeding head was entirely different, as we could now see, from the +rising and falling agonized head of the bogged--the buried alive. +It is well that the lilies grow taller and thicker over the more +treacherous places; but, misery! misery! not much of the process was +concealed from us, for the cattle have to come to the bayou for +water. Such a splendid black head that had just yielded breath! The +wide-spreading ebony horns thrown back among the morning-glories, the +mouth open from the last sigh, the glassy eyes staring straight at the +beautiful blue sky above, where a ghostly moon still lingered, the +velvet neck ridged with veins and muscles, the body already buried in +black ooze. And such a pretty red-and-white-spotted heifer, lying on +her side, opening and shutting her eyes, breathing softly in meek +resignation to her horrible calamity! And, again, another one was +plunging and battling in the act of realizing her doom: a fierce, +furious, red cow, glaring and bellowing at the soft, yielding +inexorable abysm under her, the bustards settling afar off, and her +own species browsing securely just out of reach. + +They understand that much, the sea-marsh cattle, to keep out of reach +of the dead combatant. In the delirium of anguish, relief cannot be +distinguished from attack, and rescue of the victim has been proved to +mean goring of the rescuer. + +The bayou turned from it at last, from our beautiful lily world about +which our pleasant thoughts had ceased to flow even in bad poetry. + +Our voyage was for information, which might be obtained at a certain +habitation; if not there, at a second one, or surely at a third and +most distant settlement. + +The bayou narrowed into a canal, then widened into a bayou again, and +the low, level swamp and prairie advanced into woodland and forest. +Oak-trees began, our beautiful oak-trees! Great branches bent down +almost to the water,--quite even with high water,--covered with +forests of oak, parasites, lichens, and with vines that swept our +heads as we passed under them, drooping now and then to trail in the +water, a plaything for the fishes, and a landing-place for amphibious +insects. The sun speckled the water with its flickering patterns, +showering us with light and heat. We have no spring suns; our sun, +even in December, is a summer one. + +And so, with all its grace of curve and bend, and so--the description +is longer than the voyage--we come to our first stopping-place. To the +side, in front of the well-kept fertile fields, like a proud little +showman, stood the little house. Its pointed shingle roof covered it +like the top of a chafing-dish, reaching down to the windows, which +peeped out from under it like little eyes. + +A woman came out of the door to meet us. She had had time during our +graceful winding approach to prepare for us. What an irrevocable +vow to old maidenhood! At least twenty-five, almost a possible +grandmother, according to Acadian computation, and well in the grip +of advancing years. She was dressed in a stiff, dark red calico gown, +with a white apron. Her black hair, smooth and glossy under a varnish +of grease, was plaited high in the back, and dropped regular ringlets, +six in all, over her forehead. That was the epoch when her calamity +came to her, when the hair was worn in that fashion. A woman seldom +alters her coiffure after a calamity of a certain nature happens +to her. The figure had taken a compact rigidity, an unfaltering +inflexibility, all the world away from the elasticity of matronhood; +and her eyes were clear and fixed like her figure, neither falling, +nor rising, nor puzzling under other eyes. Her lips, her hands, her +slim feet, were conspicuously single, too, in their intent, neither +reaching, nor feeling, nor running for those other lips, hands, and +feet which should have doubled their single life. + +That was Adorine Mérionaux, otherwise the most industrious Acadian and +the best cottonade-weaver in the parish. It had been short, her story. +A woman's love is still with those people her story. She was thirteen +when she met him. That is the age for an Acadian girl to meet him, +because, you know, the large families--the thirteen, fourteen, +fifteen, twenty children--take up the years; and when one wishes +to know one's great-great-grandchildren (which is the dream of the +Acadian girl) one must not delay one's story. + +She had one month to love him in, and in one week they were to have +the wedding. The Acadians believe that marriage must come _au point_, +as cooks say their sauces must be served. Standing on the bayou-bank +in front of the Mérionaux, one could say "Good day" with the eyes to +the Zévérin Theriots--that was the name of the parents of the young +bridegroom. Looking under the branches of the oaks, one could see +across the prairie,--prairie and sea-marsh it was,--and clearly +distinguish another little red-washed house like the Mérionaux, with +a painted roof hanging over the windows, and a staircase going up +outside to the garret. With the sun shining in the proper direction, +one might distinguish more, and with love shining like the sun in the +eyes, one might see, one might see--a heart full. + +It was only the eyes, however, which could make such a quick voyage to +the Zévérin Theriots; a skiff had a long day's journey to reach them. +The bayou sauntered along over the country like a negro on a Sunday's +pleasuring, trusting to God for time, and to the devil for means. + +Oh, nothing can travel quickly over a bayou! Ask any one who has +waited on a bayou-bank for a physician or a life-and-death message. +Thought refuses to travel and turn and double over it; thought, like +the eye, takes the shortest cut--straight over the sea-marsh; and in +the spring of the year, when the lilies are in bloom, thought could +not take a more heavenly way, even from beloved to beloved. + +It was the week before marriage, that week when, more than one's whole +life afterward, one's heart feels most longing--most--well, in fact, +it was the week before marriage. From Sunday to Sunday, that was all +the time to be passed. Adorine--women live through this week by +the grace of God, or perhaps they would be as unreasonable as the +men--Adorine could look across the prairie to the little red roof +during the day, and could think across it during the night, and get +up before day to look across again--longing, longing all the time. +Of course one must supply all this from one's own imagination or +experience. + +But Adorine could sing, and she sang. One might hear, in a favorable +wind, a gunshot, or the barking of a dog from one place to the other, +so that singing, as to effect, was nothing more than the voicing of +her looking and thinking and longing. + +When one loves, it is as if everything was known of and seen by the +other; not only all that passes in the head and heart, which would +in all conscience be more than enough to occupy the other, but the +talking, the dressing, the conduct. It was then that the back hair was +braided and the front curled more and more beautifully every day, and +that the calico dresses became stiffer and stiffer, and the white +crochet lace collar broader and lower in the neck. At thirteen she was +beautiful enough to startle one, they say, but that was nothing; she +spent time and care upon these things, as if, like other women, her +fate seriously depended upon them. There is no self-abnegation like +that of a woman in love. + +It was her singing, however, which most showed that other existence +in her existence. When she sang at her spinning-wheel or her loom, or +knelt battling clothes on the bank of the bayou, her lips would kiss +out the words, and the tune would rise and fall and tremble, as if +Zepherin were just across there, anywhere; in fact, as if every blue +and white lily might hide an ear of him. + +It was the time of the new moon, fortunately, when all sit up late in +the country. The family would stop in their talking about the +wedding to listen to her. She did not know it herself, but it--the +singing--was getting louder and clearer, and, poor little thing, it +told everything. And after the family went to bed they could still +hear her, sitting on the bank of the bayou, or up in her window, +singing and looking at the moon traveling across the lily prairie--for +all its beauty and brightness no more beautiful and bright than a +heart in love. + +It was just past the middle of the week, a Thursday night. The moon +was so bright the colors of the lilies could be seen, and the singing, +so sweet, so far-reaching--it was the essence of the longing of love. +Then it was that the miracle happened to her. Miracles are always +happening to the Acadians. She could not sleep, she could not stay in +bed. Her heart drove her to the window, and kept her there, and--among +the civilized it could not take place, but here she could sing as she +pleased in the middle of the night; it was nobody's affair, nobody's +disturbance. "Saint Ann! Saint Joseph! Saint Mary!" She heard her song +answered! She held her heart, she bent forward, she sang again. Oh, +the air was full of music! It was all music! She fell on her knees; +she listened, looking at the moon; and, with her face in her hands, +looking at Zepherin. It was God's choir of angels, she thought, and +one with a voice like Zepherin! Whenever it died away she would sing +again, and again, and again-- + +[Illustration: "HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW".] + +But the sun came, and the sun is not created, like the moon, for +lovers, and whatever happened in the night, there was work to be done +in the day. Adorine worked like one in a trance, her face as radiant +as the upturned face of a saint. They did not know what it was, or +rather they thought it was love. Love is so different out there, they +make all kinds of allowances for it. But, in truth, Adorine was +still hearing her celestial voices or voice. If the cackling of the +chickens, the whir of the spinning-wheel, or the "bum bum" of the loom +effaced it a moment, she had only to go to some still place, round +her hand over her ear, and give the line of a song, and--it was +Zepherin--Zepherin she heard. + +She walked in a dream until night. When the moon came up she was at +the window, and still it continued, so faint, so sweet, that answer to +her song. Echo never did anything more exquisite, but she knew nothing +of such a heathen as Echo. Human nature became exhausted. She fell +asleep where she was, in the window, and dreamed as only a bride can +dream of her groom. When she awoke, "Adorine! Adorine!" the beautiful +angel voices called to her; "Zepherin! Zepherin!" she answered, as if +she, too, were an angel, signaling another angel in heaven. It was too +much. She wept, and that broke the charm. She could hear nothing more +after that. All that day was despondency, dejection, tear-bedewed +eyes, and tremulous lips, the commonplace reaction, as all know, of +love exaltation. Adorine's family, Acadian peasants though they were, +knew as much about it as any one else, and all that any one knows +about it is that marriage is the cure-all, and the only cure-all, for +love. + +[Illustration: "ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION."] + +And Zepherin? A man could better describe his side of that week; for +it, too, has mostly to be described from imagination or experience. +What is inferred is that what Adorine longed and thought and looked +in silence and resignation, according to woman's way, he suffered +equally, but in a man's way, which is not one of silence or +resignation,--at least when one is a man of eighteen,--the last +interview, the near wedding, her beauty, his love, her house in sight, +the full moon, the long, wakeful nights. + +He took his pirogue; but the bayou played with his impatience, +maddened his passion, bringing him so near, to meander with him again +so far away. There was only a short prairie between him and ----, a +prairie thick with lily-roots--one could almost walk over their +heads, so close, and gleaming in the moonlight. But this is all only +inference. + +The pirogue was found tethered to the paddle stuck upright in the soft +bank, and--Adorine's parents related the rest. Nothing else was found +until the summer drought had bared the swamp. + +There was a little girl in the house when we arrived--all else were in +the field--a stupid, solemn, pretty child, the child of a brother. How +she kept away from Adorine, and how much that testified! + +It would have been too painful. The little arms around her neck, the +head nestling to her bosom, sleepily pressing against it. And the +little one might ask to be sung to sleep. Sung to sleep! + +The little bed-chamber, with its high mattressed bed, covered with +the Acadian home-spun quilt, trimmed with netting fringe, its bit of +mirror over the bureau, the bottle of perfumed grease to keep the +locks black and glossy, the prayer-beads and blessed palms hanging +on the wall, the low, black polished spinning-wheel, the loom,--the +_métier d' Adorine_ famed throughout the parish,--the ever goodly +store of cotton and yarn hanks swinging from the ceiling, and the +little square, open window which looked under the mossy oak-branches +to look over the prairie; and once again all blue and white +lilies--they were all there, as Adorine was there; but there was +more--not there. + + + + +ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE + + +Old Jeanne Marie leaned her hand against the house, and the tears +rolled down her cheeks. She had not wept since she buried her last +child. With her it was one trouble, one weeping, no more; and her +wrinkled, hard, polished skin so far had known only the tears that +come after death. The trouble in her heart now was almost exactly like +the trouble caused by death; although she knew it was not so bad as +death, yet, when she thought of this to console herself, the tears +rolled all the faster. She took the end of the red cotton kerchief +tied over her head, and wiped them away; for the furrows in her face +did not merely run up and down--they ran in all directions, and +carried her tears all over her face at once. She could understand +death, but she could not understand this. + +It came about in this way: Anne Marie and she lived in the little +red-washed cabin against which she leaned; had lived there alone with +each other for fifty years, ever since Jeanne Marie's husband had died, +and the three children after him, in the fever epidemic. + +The little two-roomed cabin, the stable where there used to be a cow, +the patch of ground planted with onions, had all been bought and paid +for by the husband; for he was a thrifty, hard-working Gascon, and had +he lived there would not have been one better off, or with a larger +family, either in that quarter or in any of the red-washed +suburbs with which Gascony has surrounded New Orleans. His women, +however,--the wife and sister-in-law,--had done their share in the +work: a man's share apiece, for with the Gascon women there is no +discrimination of sex when it comes to work. + +And they worked on just the same after he died, tending the cow, +digging, hoeing, planting, watering. The day following the funeral, by +daylight Jeanne Marie was shouldering around the yoke of milk-cans to +his patrons, while Anne Marie carried the vegetables to market; and so +on for fifty years. + +They were old women now,--seventy-five years old,--and, as they +expressed it, they had always been twins. In twins there is always one +lucky and one unlucky one: Jeanne Marie was the lucky one, Anne Marie +the unlucky one. So much so, that it was even she who had to catch the +rheumatism, and to lie now bedridden, months at a time, while Jeanne +Marie was as active in her sabots as she had ever been. + +In spite of the age of both, and the infirmity of one, every Saturday +night there was some little thing to put under the brick in the +hearth, for taxes and license, and the never-to-be-forgotten funeral +provision. In the husband's time gold pieces used to go in, but they +had all gone to pay for the four funerals and the quadrupled doctor's +bill. The women laid in silver pieces; the coins, however, grew +smaller and smaller, and represented more and more not so much the +gain from onions as the saving from food. + +It had been explained to them how they might, all at once, make a +year's gain in the lottery; and it had become their custom always, at +the end of every month, to put aside one silver coin apiece, to buy a +lottery ticket with--one ticket each, not for the great, but for the +twenty-five-cent, prizes. Anne Marie would buy hers round about the +market; Jeanne Marie would stop anywhere along her milk course and buy +hers, and they would go together in the afternoon to stand with the +little crowd watching the placard upon which the winning numbers were +to be written. And when they were written, it was curious, Jeanne +Marie's numbers would come out twice as often as Anne Marie's. Not +that she ever won anything, for she was not lucky enough to have them +come out in the order to win; they only came out here and there, +singly: but it was sufficient to make old Anne Marie cross and ugly +for a day or two, and injure the sale of the onion-basket. When she +became bedridden, Jeanne Marie bought the ticket for both, on the +numbers, however, that Anne Marie gave her; and Anne Marie had to lie +in bed and wait, while Jeanne Marie went out to watch the placard. + +One evening, watching it, Jeanne Marie saw the ticket-agent write out +the numbers as they came on her ticket, in such a way that they drew +a prize--forty dollars. + +When the old woman saw it she felt such a happiness; just as she used +to feel in the old times right after the birth of a baby. She thought +of that instantly. Without saying a word to any one, she clattered +over the _banquette_ as fast as she could in her sabots, to tell the +good news to Anne Marie. But she did not go so fast as not to have +time to dispose of her forty dollars over and over again. Forty +dollars! That was a great deal of money. She had often in her mind, +when she was expecting a prize, spent twenty dollars; for she had +never thought it could be more than that. But forty dollars! A new +gown apiece, and black silk kerchiefs to tie over their heads instead +of red cotton, and the little cabin new red-washed, and soup in the +pot, and a garlic sausage, and a bottle of good, costly liniment for +Anne Marie's legs; and still a pile of gold to go under the +hearth-brick--a pile of gold that would have made the eyes of the +defunct husband glisten. + +She pushed open the picket-gate, and came into the room where her +sister lay in bed. + +"Eh, Anne Marie, my girl," she called in her thick, pebbly voice, +apparently made purposely to suit her rough Gascon accent; "this time +we have caught it!" + +[Illustration: "THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!"] + +"Whose ticket?" asked Anne Marie, instantly. + +In a flash all Anne Marie's ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's mind; +how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne Marie's +faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of her lottery +numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the catching of +the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, as she looked +at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over Jeanne Marie of her +sister's not being able, in all her poor old seventy-five years of +life, to remember the pressure of the arms of a husband about her +waist, nor the mouth of a child on her breast. + +As soon as Anne Marie had asked her question, Jeanne Marie answered +it. + +"But your ticket, _Coton-Maï!_"[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Coton-Maï_ is an innocent oath invented by the good, +pious priest as a substitute for one more harmful.] + +"Where? Give it here! Give it here!" + +The old woman, who had not been able to move her back for weeks, sat +bolt upright in bed, and stretched out her great bony fingers, with +the long nails as hard and black as rake-prongs from groveling in the +earth. + + +Jeanne Marie poured the money out of her cotton handkerchief into +them. + +Anne Marie counted it, looked at it; looked at it, counted it; and +if she had not been so old, so infirm, so toothless, the smile that +passed over her face would have made it beautiful. + +Jeanne Marie had to leave her to draw water from the well to water the +plants, and to get her vegetables ready for next morning. She felt +even happier now than if she had just had a child, happier even than +if her husband had just returned to her. + +"Ill luck! _Coton-Maï!_ Ill luck! There's a way to turn ill luck!" +And her smile also should have beautified her face, wrinkled and ugly +though it was. + +She did not think any more of the spending of the money, only of the +pleasure Anne Marie would take in spending it. + +The water was low in the well, and there had been a long drought. +There are not many old women of seventy-five who could have watered so +much ground as abundantly as she did; but whenever she thought of the +forty dollars and Anne Marie's smile she would give the thirsting +plant an extra bucketful. + +The twilight was gaining. She paused. "_Coton-Maï_" she exclaimed +aloud. "But I must see the old woman smile again over her good luck." + +Although it was "my girl" face to face, it was always "the old woman" +behind each other's back. + +There was a knot-hole in the plank walls of the house. In spite of +Anne Marie's rheumatism they would never stop it up, needing it, they +said, for light and air. Jeanne Marie slipped her feet out of her +sabots and crept easily toward it, smiling, and saying "_Coton-Maï_!" +to herself all the way. She put her eye to the hole. Anne Marie was +not in the bed, she who had not left her bed for two months! Jeanne +Marie looked through the dim light of the room until she found her. + +Anne Marie, in her short petticoat and nightsack, with bare legs +and feet, was on her knees in the corner, pulling up a plank, +hiding--peasants know hiding when they see it--hiding her money +away--away--away from whom?--muttering to herself and shaking her old +grayhaired head. Hiding her money away from Jeanne Marie! + +And this was why Jeanne Marie leaned her head against the side of the +house and wept. It seemed to her that she had never known her twin +sister at all. + + + + +A CRIPPLED HOPE + + +You must picture to yourself the quiet, dim-lighted room of a +convalescent; outside, the dreary, bleak days of winter in a sparsely +settled, distant country parish; inside, a slow, smoldering log-fire, +a curtained bed, the infant sleeping well enough, the mother wakeful, +restless, thought-driven, as a mother must be, unfortunately, +nowadays, particularly in that parish, where cotton worms and +overflows have acquired such a monopoly of one's future. + +[Illustration: "THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT."] + +God is always pretty near a sick woman's couch; but nearer even than +God seems the sick-nurse--at least in that part of the country, under +those circumstances. It is so good to look through the dimness and +uncertainty, moral and physical, and to meet those little black, +steadfast, all-seeing eyes; to feel those smooth, soft, all-soothing +hands; to hear, across one's sleep, that three-footed step--the +flat-soled left foot, the tiptoe right, and the padded end of +the broomstick; and when one is so wakeful and restless and +thought-driven, to have another's story given one. God, depend upon +it, grows stories and lives as he does herbs, each with a mission of +balm to some woe. + +She said she had, and in truth she had, no other name than "little +Mammy"; and that was the name of her nature. Pure African, but bronze +rather than pure black, and full-sized only in width, her growth +having been hampered as to height by an injury to her hip, which +had lamed her, pulling her figure awry, and burdening her with a +protuberance of the joint. Her mother caused it by dropping her when a +baby, and concealing it, for fear of punishment, until the dislocation +became irremediable. All the animosity of which little Mammy was +capable centered upon this unknown but never-to-be-forgotten mother of +hers; out of this hatred had grown her love--that is, her destiny, a +woman's love being her destiny. Little Mammy's love was for children. + +The birth and infancy (the one as accidental as the other, one would +infer) took place in--it sounds like the "Arabian Nights" now!--took +place in the great room, caravansary, stable, behind a negro-trader's +auction-mart, where human beings underwent literally the daily buying +and selling of which the world now complains in a figure of speech--a +great, square, dusty chamber where, sitting cross-legged, leaning +against the wall, or lying on foul blanket pallets on the floor, the +bargains of to-day made their brief sojourn, awaiting transformation +into the profits of the morrow. + +The place can be pointed out now, is often pointed out; but no emotion +arises at sight of it. It is so plain, so matter-of-fact an edifice +that emotion only comes afterward in thinking about it, and then in +the reflection that such an edifice could be, then as now, plain and +matter-of-fact. + +For the slave-trader there was no capital so valuable as the physical +soundness of his stock; the moral was easily enough forged or +counterfeited. Little Mammy's good-for-nothing mother was sold as +readily as a vote, in the parlance of to-day; but no one would pay +for a crippled baby. The mother herself would not have taken her as +a gift, had it been in the nature of a negro-trader to give +away anything. Some doctoring was done,--so little Mammy heard +traditionally,--some effort made to get her marketable. There were +attempts to pair her off as a twin sister of various correspondencies +in age, size, and color, and to palm her off, as a substitute, +at migratory, bereaved, overfull breasts. Nothing equaled a +negro-trader's will and power for fraud, except the hereditary +distrust and watchfulness which it bred and maintained. And so, in the +even balance between the two categories, the little cripple remained a +fixture in the stream of life that passed through that back room, +in the fluxes and refluxes of buying and selling; not valueless, +however--rely upon a negro-trader for discovering values as +substitutes, as panaceas. She earned her nourishment, and Providence +did not let it kill the little animal before the emancipation of +weaning arrived. + +[Illustration: "LITTLE MAMMY."] + +How much circumstances evoked, how much instinct responded, belongs to +the secrets which nature seems to intend keeping. As a baby she had +eyes, attention, solely for other babies. One cannot say while she was +still crawling, for she could only crawl years after she should have +been walking, but, before even precocious walking-time, tradition or +the old gray-haired negro janitor relates, she would creep from baby +to baby to play with it, put it to sleep, pat it, rub its stomach (a +negro baby, you know, is all stomach, and generally aching stomach at +that). And before she had a lap, she managed to force one for some +ailing nursling. It was then that they began to call her "little +Mammy." In the transitory population of the "pen" no one stayed long +enough to give her another name; and no one ever stayed short enough +to give her another one. + +Her first recollection of herself was that she could not walk--she was +past crawling; she cradled herself along, as she called sitting down +flat, and working herself about with her hands and her one strong +leg. Babbling babies walked all around her,--many walking before they +babbled,--and still she did not walk, imitate them as she might and +did. She would sit and "study" about it, make another trial, fall; +sit and study some more, make another trial, fall again. Negroes, who +believe that they must give a reason for everything even if they have +to invent one, were convinced that it was all this studying upon her +lameness that gave her such a large head. + +And now she began secretly turning up the clothes of every negro +child that came into that pen, and examining its legs, and still more +secretly examining her own, stretched out before her on the ground. +How long it took she does not remember; in fact, she could not have +known, for she had no way of measuring time except by her thoughts and +feelings. But in her own way and time the due process of deliberation +was fulfilled, and the quotient made clear that, bowed or not, all +children's legs were of equal length except her own, and all were +alike, not one full, strong, hard, the other soft, flabby, wrinkled, +growing out of a knot at the hip. A whole psychological period +apparently lay between that conclusion and--a broom-handle +walking-stick; but the broomstick came, as it was bound to +come,--thank heaven!--from that premise, and what with stretching one +limb to make it longer, and doubling up the other to make it shorter, +she invented that form of locomotion which is still carrying her +through life, and with no more exaggerated leg-crookedness than many +careless negroes born with straight limbs display. This must have been +when she was about eight or nine. Hobbling on a broomstick, with, no +doubt, the same weird, wizened face as now, an innate sense of the +fitness of things must have suggested the kerchief tied around her big +head, and the burlaps rag of an apron in front of her linsey-woolsey +rag of a gown, and the bit of broken pipe-stem in the corner of her +mouth, where the pipe should have been, and where it was in after +years. That is the way she recollected herself, and that is the way +one recalls her now, with a few modifications. + +The others came and went, but she was always there. It wasn't long +before she became "little Mammy" to the grown folks too; and the +newest inmates soon learned to cry: "Where's little Mammy?" "Oh, +little Mammy! little Mammy! Such a misery in my head [or my back, or +my stomach]! Can't you help me, little Mammy?" It was curious what a +quick eye she had for symptoms and ailments, and what a quick ear +for suffering, and how apt she was at picking up, remembering, and +inventing remedies. It never occurred to her not to crouch at the +head or the foot of a sick pallet, day and night through. As for the +nights, she said she dared not close her eyes of nights. The room they +were in was so vast, and sometimes the negroes lay so thick on the +floor, rolled in their blankets (you know, even in the summer they +sleep under blankets), all snoring so loudly, she would never have +heard a groan or a whimper any more than they did, if she had slept, +too. And negro mothers are so careless and such heavy sleepers. All +night she would creep at regular intervals to the different pallets, +and draw the little babies from under, or away from, the heavy, inert +impending mother forms. There is no telling how many she thus saved +from being overlaid and smothered, or, what was worse, maimed and +crippled. + +Whenever a physician came in, as he was sometimes called, to look at +a valuable investment or to furbish up some piece of damaged goods, +she always managed to get near to hear the directions; and she +generally was the one to apply them also, for negroes always would +steal medicines most scurvily one from the other. And when death at +times would slip into the pen, despite the trader's utmost alertness +and precautions,--as death often "had to do," little Mammy said,--when +the time of some of them came to die, and when the rest of the +negroes, with African greed of eye for the horrible, would press +around the lowly couch where the agonizing form of a slave lay +writhing out of life, she would always to the last give medicines, +and wipe the cold forehead, and soothe the clutching, fearsome hands, +hoping to the end, and trying to inspire the hope that his or her +"time" had not come yet; for, as she said, "Our time doesn't come just +as often as it does come." + +And in those sad last offices, which somehow have always been under +reproach as a kind of shame, no matter how young she was, she was +always too old to have the childish avoidance of them. On the +contrary, to her a corpse was only a kind of baby, and she always +strove, she said, to make one, like the other, easy and comfortable. + +And in other emergencies she divined the mysteries of the flesh, as +other precocities divine the mysteries of painting and music, and so +become child wonders. + +Others came and went. She alone remained there. Babies of her +babyhood--the toddlers she, a toddler, had nursed--were having babies +themselves now; the middle-aged had had time to grow old and die. +Every week new families were coming into the great back chamber; every +week they passed out: babies, boys, girls, buxom wenches, stalwart +youths, and the middle-aged--the grave, serious ones whom misfortune +had driven from their old masters, and the ill-reputed ones, the +trickish, thievish, lazy, whom the cunning of the negro-trader alone +could keep in circulation. All were marketable, all were bought and +sold, all passed in one door and out the other--all except her, little +Mammy. As with her lameness, it took time for her to recognize, to +understand, the fact. She could study over her lameness, she could in +the dull course of time think out the broomstick way of palliation. +It would have been almost better, under the circumstances, for God to +have kept the truth from her; only--God keeps so little of the truth +from us women. It is his system. + +Poor little thing! It was not now that her master _could_ not sell +her, but he _would_ not! Out of her own intelligence she had forged +her chains; the lameness was a hobble merely in comparison. She had +become too valuable to the negro-trader by her services among his +crew, and offers only solidified his determination not to sell her. +Visiting physicians, after short acquaintance with her capacities, +would offer what were called fancy prices for her. Planters who heard +of her through their purchases would come to the city purposely to +secure, at any cost, so inestimable an adjunct to their plantations. +Even ladies--refined, delicate ladies--sometimes came to the pen +personally to back money with influence. In vain. Little Mammy was +worth more to the negro-trader, simply as a kind of insurance against +accidents, than any sum, however glittering the figure, and he was no +ignorant expert in human wares. She can tell it; no one else can for +her. Remember that at times she had seen the streets outside. Remember +that she could hear of the outside world daily from the passing +chattels--of the plantations, farms, families; the green fields, +Sunday woods, running streams; the camp-meetings, corn-shuckings, +cotton-pickings, sugar-grindings; the baptisms, marriages, funerals, +prayer-meetings; the holidays and holy days. Remember that, whether +for liberty or whether for love, passion effloresces in the human +being--no matter when, where, or how--with every spring's return. +Remember that she was, even in middle age, young and vigorous. But no; +do not remember anything. There is no need to heighten the coloring. + +It would be tedious to relate, although it was not tedious to hear her +relate it, the desperations and hopes of her life then. Hardly a day +passed that she did not see, looking for purchases (rummaging among +goods on a counter for bargains), some master whom she could have +loved, some mistress whom she could have adored. Always her favorite +mistresses were there--tall, delicate matrons, who came themselves, +with great fatigue, to select kindly-faced women for nurses; +languid-looking ladies with smooth hair standing out in wide +_bandeaux_ from their heads, and lace shawls dropping from their +sloping shoulders, silk dresses carelessly held up in thumb and finger +from embroidered petticoats that were spread out like tents over huge +hoops which covered whole groups of swarming piccaninnies on the dirty +floor; ladies, pale from illnesses that she might have nursed, and +over-burdened with children whom she might have reared! And not a lady +of that kind saw her face but wanted her, yearned for her, pleaded for +her, coming back secretly to slip silver, and sometimes gold, pieces +into her hand, patting her turbaned head, calling her "little Mammy" +too, instantly, by inspiration, and making the negro-trader give them, +with all sorts of assurances, the refusal of her. She had no need for +the whispered "Buy me, master!" "Buy me, mistress!" "You'll see how I +can work, master!" "You'll never be sorry, mistress!" of the others. +The negro-trader--like hangmen, negro-traders are fitted by nature for +their profession--it came into his head--he had no heart, not even a +negro-trader's heart--that it would be more judicious to seclude her +during these shopping visits, so to speak. She could not have had any +hopes then at all; it must have been all desperations. + +That auction-block, that executioner's block, about which so much has +been written--Jacob's ladder, in his dream, was nothing to what that +block appeared nightly in her dreams to her; and the climbers up and +down--well, perhaps Jacob's angels were his hopes, too. + +At times she determined to depreciate her usefulness, mar her value, +by renouncing her heart, denying her purpose. For days she would +tie her kerchief over her ears and eyes, and crouch in a corner, +strangling her impulses. She even malingered, refused food, became +dumb. And she might have succeeded in making herself salable through +incipient lunacy, if through no other way, had she been able to +maintain her role long enough. But some woman or baby always was +falling into some emergency of pain and illness. + +How it might have ended one does not like to think. Fortunately, one +does not need to think. + +There came a night. She sat alone in the vast, dark caravansary--alone +for the first time in her life. Empty rags and blankets lay strewn +over the floor, no snoring, no tossing in them more. A sacrificial +sale that day had cleared the counters. Alarm-bells rang in the +streets, but she did not know them for alarm-bells; alarm brooded in +the dim space around her, but she did not even recognize that. Her +protracted tension of heart had made her fear-blind to all but one +peradventure. + +Once or twice she forgot herself, and limped over to some heap to +relieve an imaginary struggling babe or moaning sleeper. Morning came. +She had dozed. She looked to see the rag-heaps stir; they lay as still +as corpses. The alarm-bells had ceased. She looked to see a new gang +enter the far door. She listened for the gathering buzzing of voices +in the next room, around the auction-block. She waited for the trader. +She waited for the janitor. At nightfall a file of soldiers entered. +They drove her forth, ordering her in the voice, in the tone, of +the negro-trader. That was the only familiar thing in the chaos of +incomprehensibility about her. She hobbled through the auction-room. +Posters, advertisements, papers, lay on the floor, and in the +torch-light glared from the wall. Her Jacob's ladder, her +stepping-stone to her hopes, lay overturned in a corner. + +You divine it. The negro-trader's trade was abolished, and he had +vanished in the din and smoke of a war which he had not been entirely +guiltless of producing, leaving little Mammy locked up behind him. Had +he forgotten her? One cannot even hope so. She hobbled out into the +street, leaning on her nine-year-old broomstick (she had grown only +slightly beyond it; could still use it by bending over it), her head +tied in a rag kerchief, a rag for a gown, a rag for an apron. + +Free, she was free! But she had not hoped for freedom. The plantation, +the household, the delicate ladies, the teeming children,--broomsticks +they were in comparison to freedom, but,--that was what she had asked, +what she had prayed for. God, she said, had let her drop, just as her +mother had done. More than ever she grieved, as she crept down +the street, that she had never mounted the auctioneer's block. An +ownerless free negro! She knew no one whose duty it was to help her; +no one knew her to help her. In the whole world (it was all she had +asked) there was no white child to call her mammy, no white lackey or +gentleman (it was the extent of her dreams) beholden to her as to a +nurse. And all her innumerable black beneficiaries! Even the janitor, +whom she had tended as the others, had deserted her like his white +prototype. + +She tried to find a place for herself, but she had no indorsers, no +recommenders. She dared not mention the name of the negro-trader; it +banished her not only from the households of the whites, but from +those of the genteel of her own color. And everywhere soldiers +sentineled the streets--soldiers whose tone and accent reminded her of +the negro-trader. + +Her sufferings, whether imaginary or real, were sufficiently acute to +drive her into the only form of escape which once had been possible to +friendless negroes. She became a runaway. With a bundle tied to the +end of a stick over her shoulder, just as the old prints represent it, +she fled from her homelessness and loneliness, from her ignoble past, +and the heart-disappointing termination of it. Following a railroad +track, journeying afoot, sleeping by the roadside, she lived on until +she came to the one familiar landmark in life to her--a sick woman, +but a white one. And so, progressing from patient to patient (it was a +time when sick white women studded the country like mile-posts), she +arrived at a little town, a kind of a refuge for soldiers' wives and +widows. She never traveled further. She could not. Always, as in the +pen, some emergency of pain and illness held her. + +That is all. She is still there. The poor, poor women of that stricken +region say that little Mammy was the only alleviation God left them +after Sheridan passed through; and the richer ones say very much the +same thing-- + +But one should hear her tell it herself, as has been said, on a cold, +gloomy winter day in the country, the fire glimmering on the hearth; +the overworked husband in the fields; the baby quiet at last; the +mother uneasy, restless, thought-driven; the soft black hand rubbing +backward and forward, rubbing out aches and frets and nervousness. + +The eyelids droop; the firelight plays fantasies on the bed-curtains; +the ear drops words, sentences; one gets confused--one sleeps--one +dreams. + + + + +"ONE OF US" + + +At the first glance one might have been inclined to doubt; but at +the second anybody would have recognized her--that is, with a little +mental rehabilitation: the bright little rouge spots in the hollow of +her cheek, the eyebrows well accentuated with paint, the thin lips +rose-tinted, and the dull, straight hair frizzed and curled and +twisted and turned by that consummate rascal and artist, the official +beautifier and rectifier of stage humanity, Robert, the opera +_coiffeur_. Who in the world knows better than he the gulf between +the real and the ideal, the limitations between the natural and the +romantic? + +Yes, one could see her, in that time-honored thin silk dress of hers +stiffened into brocade by buckram underneath; the high, low-necked +waist, hiding any evidences of breast, if there were such evidences to +hide, and bringing the long neck into such faulty prominence; and the +sleeves, crisp puffs of tulle divided by bands of red velvet, through +which the poor lean arm runs like a wire, stringing them together like +beads. Yes, it was she, the whilom _dugazon_ of the opera troupe. +Not that she ever was a _dugazon_, but that was what her voice once +aspired to be: a _dugazon manquée_ would better describe her. + +What a ghost! But they always appeared like mere evaporations of +real women. For what woman of flesh and blood can seriously maintain +through life the rôle of sham attendant on sham sensations, and play +public celebrant of other women's loves and lovers, singing, or rather +saying, nothing more enlivening than: "Oh, madame!" and "Ah, madame!" +and "_Quelle ivresse!_" or "_Quelle horreur!_" or, in recitative, +detailing whatever dreary platitudes and inanities the librettist and +Heaven connive to put upon the tongues of confidantes and attendants? + +[Illustration: "TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS."] + +Looking at her--how it came over one! The music, the lights, the +scene; the fat soprano confiding to her the fact of the "amour +extrême" she bears for the tenor, to which she, the _dugazon_, does +not even try to listen; her eyes wandering listlessly over the +audience. The calorous secret out, and in her possession, how she +stumbles over her train to the back of the stage, there to pose in +abject patience and awkwardness, while the gallant baritone, touching +his sword, and flinging his cape over his shoulder, defies the world +and the tenor, who is just recovering from his "ut de poitrine" behind +the scenes. + +She was talking to me all the time, apologizing for the intrusion, +explaining her mission, which involved a short story of her life, as +women's intrusions and missions usually do. But my thoughts, also as +usual, distracted me from listening, as so often they have distracted +me from following what was perhaps more profitable. + +The composer, of course, wastes no music upon her; flinging to her +only an occasional recitative in two notes, but always ending in a +reef of a scale, trill, or roulade, for her to wreck her voice on +before the audience. The _chef d'orchestre_, if he is charitable, +starts her off with a contribution from his own lusty lungs, and then +she--oh, her voice is always thinner and more osseous than her arms, +and her smile no more graceful than her train! + +As well think of the simulated trees, water-falls, and chateaux +leaving the stage, as the _dugazon_! One always imagines them singing +on into dimness, dustiness, unsteadiness, and uselessness, until, like +any other piece of stage property, they are at last put aside and +simply left there at the end of some season--there seems to be a +superstition against selling or burning useless and dilapidated stage +property. As it came to me, the idea was not an impossibility. +The last representation of the season is over. She, tired beyond +judgment--haply, beyond feeling--by her tireless rôle, sinks upon her +chair to rest in her dressing-room; sinks, further, to sleep. She has +no maid. The troupe, hurrying away to France on the special train +waiting not half a dozen blocks away, forget her--the insignificant +are so easily forgotten! The porter, more tired, perhaps, than any +one of the beautiful ideal world about him, and savoring already in +advance the good onion-flavored _grillade_ awaiting him at home, locks +up everything fast and tight; the tighter and faster for the good +fortnight's vacation he has promised himself. + +No doubt if the old opera-house were ever cleaned out, just such a +heap of stiff, wire-strung bones would be found, in some such hole +as the _dugazon's_ dressing-room, desiccating away in its last +costume--perhaps in that very costume of _Inez_; and if one were +venturesome enough to pass Allhallowe'en there, the spirit of those +bones might be seen availing itself of the privilege of unasperged +corpses to roam. Not singing, not talking--it is an anachronism to say +that ghosts talk: their medium of communication must be pure thought; +and one should be able to see their thoughts working, just as one sees +the working of the digestive organs in the clear viscera of +transparent animalcule. The hard thing of it is that ghosts are +chained to the same scenes that chained their bodies, and when they +sleep-walk, so to speak, it must be through phases of former +existence. What a nightmare for them to go over once again the lived +and done, the suffered and finished! What a comfort to wake up and +find one's self dead, well dead! + +I could have continued and put the whole opera troupe in "costume de +ghost," but I think it was the woman's eyes that drew me back to her +face and her story. She had a sensible face, now that I observed her +naturally, as it were; and her hands,--how I have agonized over those +hands on the stage!--all knuckles and exaggerated veins, clutching her +dress as she sang, or, petrified, outstretched to _Leonore's_ "Pourquoi +ces larmes?"--her hands were the hands of an honest, hard-working +woman who buckrams her own skirts, and at need could scrub her own +floor. Her face (my description following my wandering glance)--her +face was careworn, almost to desuetude; not dissipation-worn, as, +alas! the faces of the more gifted ladies of opera troupes too often +are. There was no fattening in it of pastry, truffles, and bonbons; +upon it none of the tracery left by nightly champagne tides and +ripples; and consequently her figure, under her plain dress, had not +that for display which the world has conventioned to call charms. +Where a window-cord would hardly have sufficed to girdle _Leonore_, a +necklace would have served her. She had not beauty enough to fear the +flattering dangers of masculine snares and temptations,--or there may +have been other reasons,--but as a wife--there was something about her +that guaranteed it--she would have blossomed love and children as a +fig-tree does figs. + +In truth, she was just talking about children. The first part of her +story had passed: her birthplace, education, situation; and now she +was saying: + +"I have always had the temptation, but I have always resisted it. +Now,"--with a blush at her excuse,--"it may be your spring weather, +your birds, your flowers, your sky--and your children in the streets. +The longing came over me yesterday: I thought of it on the stage, +I thought of it afterward--it was better than sleeping; and this +morning"--her eyes moistened, she breathed excitedly--"I was +determined. I gave up, I made inquiry, I was sent to you. Would it be +possible? Would there be any place" ("any rôle," she said first) "in +any of your asylums, in any of your charitable institutions, for me? +I would ask nothing but my clothes and food, and very little of that; +the recompense would be the children--the little girl children," with +a smile--can you imagine the smile of a woman dreaming of children +that might be? "Think! Never to have held a child in my arms more than +a moment, never to have felt a child's arms about my neck! Never to +have known a child! Born on a stage, my mother born on a stage!" Ah, +there were tragic possibilities in that voice and movement! "Pardon, +madam. You see how I repeat. And you must be very wearied hearing +about me. But I could be their nurse and their servant. I would bathe +and dress them, play with them, teach them their prayers; and when +they are sick they would see no difference. They would not know but +what their mother was there!" + +Oh, she had her program all prepared; one could see that. + +"And I would sing to them--no! no!" with a quick gesture, "nothing +from the stage; little songs and lullabys I have picked up +traveling around, and," hesitating, "little things I have composed +myself--little things that I thought children would like to hear some +day." What did she not unconsciously throw into those last words? "I +dream of it," she pursued, talking with as little regard to me as +on the stage she sang to the prima donna. "Their little arms, their +little faces, their little lips! And in an asylum there would be so +many of them! When they cried and were in trouble I would take them in +my lap, and I would say to them, with all sorts of tenderness--" She +had arranged that in her program, too--all the minutiae of what she +would say to them in their distress. But women are that way. When once +they begin to love, their hearts are magnifying-lenses for them to +feel through. "And my heart hungers to commence right here, now, at +once! It seems to me I cannot wait. Ah, madam, no more stage, no more +opera!" speaking quickly, feverishly. "As I said, it may be your +beautiful spring, your flowers, your birds, and your numbers of +children. I have always loved that place most where there are most +children; and you have more children here than I ever saw anywhere. +Children are so beautiful! It is strange, is it not, when you consider +my life and my rearing?" + +Her life, her rearing, how interesting they must have been! What a +pity I had not listened more attentively! + +"They say you have much to do with asylums here." + +Evidently, when rôles do not exist in life for certain characters, God +has to create them. And thus He had to create a rôle in an asylum for +my friend, for so she became from the instant she spoke of children +as she did. It was the poorest and neediest of asylums; and the poor +little orphaned wretches--but it is better not to speak of them. How +can God ever expect to rear children without their mothers! + +But the rôle I craved to create for my friend was far different--some +good, honest bourgeois interior, where lips are coarse and cheeks are +ruddy, and where life is composed of real scenes, set to the real +music of life, the homely successes and failures, and loves and hates, +and embraces and tears, that fill out the orchestra of the heart; +where romance and poetry abound _au naturel_; and where--yes, where +children grow as thick as nature permits: the domestic interior of the +opera porter, for instance, or the clockmaker over the way. But what +a loss the orphan-asylum would have suffered, and the dreary lacking +there would have been in the lives of the children! For there must +have been moments in the lives of the children in that asylum when +they felt, awake, as they felt in their sleep when they dreamed their +mothers were about them. + + + + +THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL + +She was coming down on the boat from Cincinnati, the little convent +girl. Two sisters had brought her aboard. They gave her in charge of +the captain, got her a state-room, saw that the new little trunk was +put into it, hung the new little satchel up on the wall, showed her +how to bolt the door at night, shook hands with her for good-by +(good-bys have really no significance for sisters), and left her +there. After a while the bells all rang, and the boat, in the awkward +elephantine fashion of boats, got into midstream. The chambermaid +found her sitting on the chair in the state-room where the sisters +had left her, and showed her how to sit on a chair in the saloon. And +there she sat until the captain came and hunted her up for supper. +She could not do anything of herself; she had to be initiated into +everything by some one else. + +She was known on the boat only as "the little convent girl." Her name, +of course, was registered in the clerk's office, but on a steamboat no +one thinks of consulting the clerk's ledger. It is always the little +widow, the fat madam, the tall colonel, the parson, etc. The captain, +who pronounced by the letter, always called her the little _convent_ +girl. She was the beau-ideal of the little convent girl. She never +raised her eyes except when spoken to. Of course she never spoke +first, even to the chambermaid, and when she did speak it was in the +wee, shy, furtive voice one might imagine a just-budding violet to +have; and she walked with such soft, easy, carefully calculated steps +that one naturally felt the penalties that must have secured +them--penalties dictated by a black code of deportment. + +[Illustration: THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY.] + +She was dressed in deep mourning. Her black straw hat was trimmed with +stiff new crape, and her stiff new bombazine dress had crape collar +and cuffs. She wore her hair in two long plaits fastened around her +head tight and fast. Her hair had a strong inclination to curl, but +that had been taken out of it as austerely as the noise out of her +footfalls. Her hair was as black as her dress; her eyes, when one saw +them, seemed blacker than either, on account of the bluishness of the +white surrounding the pupil. Her eyelashes were almost as thick as the +black veil which the sisters had fastened around her hat with an extra +pin the very last thing before leaving. She had a round little face, +and a tiny pointed chin; her mouth was slightly protuberant from the +teeth, over which she tried to keep her lips well shut, the effort +giving them a pathetic little forced expression. Her complexion was +sallow, a pale sallow, the complexion of a brunette bleached in +darkened rooms. The only color about her was a blue taffeta ribbon +from which a large silver medal of the Virgin hung over the place +where a breast pin should have been. She was so little, so little, +although she was eighteen, as the sisters told the captain; otherwise +they would not have permitted her to travel all the way to New Orleans +alone. + +Unless the captain or the clerk remembered to fetch her out in front, +she would sit all day in the cabin, in the same place, crocheting +lace, her spool of thread and box of patterns in her lap, on the +handkerchief spread to save her new dress. Never leaning back--oh, no! +always straight and stiff, as if the conventual back board were there +within call. She would eat only convent fare at first, notwithstanding +the importunities of the waiters, and the jocularities of the captain, +and particularly of the clerk. Every one knows the fund of humor +possessed by a steamboat clerk, and what a field for display the table +at meal-times affords. On Friday she fasted rigidly, and she never +began to eat, or finished, without a little Latin movement of the lips +and a sign of the cross. And always at six o'clock of the evening she +remembered the angelus, although there was no church bell to remind +her of it. + +She was in mourning for her father, the sisters told the captain, +and she was going to New Orleans to her mother. She had not seen +her mother since she was an infant, on account of some disagreement +between the parents, in consequence of which the father had brought +her to Cincinnati, and placed her in the convent. There she had been +for twelve years, only going to her father for vacations and holidays. +So long as the father lived he would never let the child have any +communication with her mother. Now that he was dead all that was +changed, and the first thing that the girl herself wanted to do was to +go to her mother. + +The mother superior had arranged it all with the mother of the girl, +who was to come personally to the boat in New Orleans, and receive her +child from the captain, presenting a letter from the mother superior, +a facsimile of which the sisters gave the captain. + +It is a long voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans, the rivers doing +their best to make it interminable, embroidering themselves _ad +libitum_ all over the country. Every five miles, and sometimes +oftener, the boat would stop to put off or take on freight, if not +both. The little convent girl, sitting in the cabin, had her +terrible frights at first from the hideous noises attendant on these +landings--the whistles, the ringings of the bells, the running to and +fro, the shouting. Every time she thought it was shipwreck, death, +judgment, purgatory; and her sins! her sins! She would drop her +crochet, and clutch her prayer-beads from her pocket, and relax the +constraint over her lips, which would go to rattling off prayers with +the velocity of a relaxed windlass. That was at first, before the +captain took to fetching her out in front to see the boat make a +landing. Then she got to liking it so much that she would stay all day +just where the captain put her, going inside only for her meals. She +forgot herself at times so much that she would draw her chair a little +closer to the railing, and put up her veil, actually, to see better. +No one ever usurped her place, quite in front, or intruded upon her +either with word or look; for every one learned to know her shyness, +and began to feel a personal interest in her, and all wanted the +little convent girl to see everything that she possibly could. + +[Illustration: WATCHING A LANDING.] + +And it was worth seeing--the balancing and _chasséeing_ and waltzing +of the cumbersome old boat to make a landing. It seemed to be +always attended with the difficulty and the improbability of a new +enterprise; and the relief when it did sidle up anywhere within +rope's-throw of the spot aimed at! And the roustabout throwing the +rope from the perilous end of the dangling gang-plank! And the +dangling roustabouts hanging like drops of water from it--dropping +sometimes twenty feet to the land, and not infrequently into the river +itself. And then what a rolling of barrels, and shouldering of sacks, +and singing of Jim Crow songs, and pacing of Jim Crow steps; and black +skins glistening through torn shirts, and white teeth gleaming through +red lips, and laughing, and talking and--bewildering! entrancing! +Surely the little convent girl in her convent walls never dreamed of +so much unpunished noise and movement in the world! + +The first time she heard the mate--it must have been like the first +time woman ever heard man--curse and swear, she turned pale, and ran +quickly, quickly into the saloon, and--came out again? No, indeed! +not with all the soul she had to save, and all the other sins on her +conscience. She shook her head resolutely, and was not seen in her +chair on deck again until the captain not only reassured her, but +guaranteed his reassurance. And after that, whenever the boat was +about to make a landing, the mate would first glance up to the guards, +and if the little convent girl was sitting there he would change his +invective to sarcasm, and politely request the colored gentlemen not +to hurry themselves--on no account whatever; to take their time about +shoving out the plank; to send the rope ashore by post-office--write +him when it got there; begging them not to strain their backs; calling +them mister, colonel, major, general, prince, and your royal highness, +which was vastly amusing. At night, however, or when the little +convent girl was not there, language flowed in its natural curve, the +mate swearing like a pagan to make up for lost time. + +The captain forgot himself one day: it was when the boat ran aground +in the most unexpected manner and place, and he went to work to +express his opinion, as only steamboat captains can, of the pilot, +mate, engineer, crew, boat, river, country, and the world in general, +ringing the bell, first to back, then to head, shouting himself +hoarser than his own whistle--when he chanced to see the little black +figure hurrying through the chaos on the deck; and the captain stuck +as fast aground in midstream as the boat had done. + +In the evening the little convent girl would be taken on the upper +deck, and going up the steep stairs there was such confusion, to keep +the black skirts well over the stiff white petticoats; and, coming +down, such blushing when suspicion would cross the unprepared face +that a rim of white stocking might be visible; and the thin feet, +laced so tightly in the glossy new leather boots, would cling to each +successive step as if they could never, never make another venture; +and then one boot would (there is but that word) hesitate out, and +feel and feel around, and have such a pause of helpless agony as if +indeed the next step must have been wilfully removed, or was nowhere +to be found on the wide, wide earth. + +It was a miracle that the pilot ever got her up into the pilot-house; +but pilots have a lonely time, and do not hesitate even at miracles +when there is a chance for company. He would place a box for her to +climb to the tall bench behind the wheel, and he would arrange the +cushions, and open a window here to let in air, and shut one there to +cut off a draft, as if there could be no tenderer consideration in +life for him than her comfort. And he would talk of the river to her, +explain the chart, pointing out eddies, whirlpools, shoals, depths, +new beds, old beds, cut-offs, caving banks, and making banks, as +exquisitely and respectfully as if she had been the River Commission. + +It was his opinion that there was as great a river as the Mississippi +flowing directly under it--an underself of a river, as much a +counterpart of the other as the second story of a house is of the +first; in fact, he said they were navigating through the upper story. +Whirlpools were holes in the floor of the upper river, so to speak; +eddies were rifts and cracks. And deep under the earth, hurrying +toward the subterranean stream, were other streams, small and +great, but all deep, hurrying to and from that great mother-stream +underneath, just as the small and great overground streams hurry to +and from their mother Mississippi. It was almost more than the little +convent girl could take in: at least such was the expression of her +eyes; for they opened as all eyes have to open at pilot stories. And +he knew as much of astronomy as he did of hydrology, could call the +stars by name, and define the shapes of the constellations; and she, +who had studied astronomy at the convent, was charmed to find that +what she had learned was all true. It was in the pilot-house, one +night, that she forgot herself for the first time in her life, and +stayed up until after nine o'clock. Although she appeared almost +intoxicated at the wild pleasure, she was immediately overwhelmed +at the wickedness of it, and observed much more rigidity of conduct +thereafter. The engineer, the boiler-men, the firemen, the stokers, +they all knew when the little convent girl was up in the pilot-house: +the speaking-tube became so mild and gentle. + +With all the delays of river and boat, however, there is an end to the +journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The latter city, which at one +time to the impatient seemed at the terminus of the never, began, +all of a sudden, one day to make its nearingness felt; and from that +period every other interest paled before the interest in the immanence +of arrival into port, and the whole boat was seized with a panic of +preparation, the little convent girl with the others. Although so +immaculate was she in person and effects that she might have been +struck with a landing, as some good people might be struck with death, +at any moment without fear of results, her trunk was packed and +repacked, her satchel arranged and rearranged, and, the last day, her +hair was brushed and plaited and smoothed over and over again until +the very last glimmer of a curl disappeared. Her dress was whisked, +as if for microscopic inspection; her face was washed; and her +finger-nails were scrubbed with the hard convent nail-brush, until +the disciplined little tips ached with a pristine soreness. And still +there were hours to wait, and still the boat added up delays. But she +arrived at last, after all, with not more than the usual and expected +difference between the actual and the advertised time of arrival. + +There was extra blowing and extra ringing, shouting, commanding, +rushing up the gangway and rushing down the gangway. The clerks, +sitting behind tables on the first deck, were plied, in the twinkling +of an eye, with estimates, receipts, charges, countercharges, claims, +reclaims, demands, questions, accusations, threats, all at topmost +voices. None but steamboat clerks could have stood it. And there were +throngs composed of individuals every one of whom wanted to see the +captain first and at once: and those who could not get to him shouted +over the heads of the others; and as usual he lost his temper and +politeness, and began to do what he termed "hustle." + +"Captain! Captain!" a voice called him to where a hand plucked his +sleeve, and a letter was thrust toward him. "The cross, and the name +of the convent." He recognized the envelop of the mother superior. He +read the duplicate of the letter given by the sisters. He looked at +the woman--the mother--casually, then again and again. + +The little convent girl saw him coming, leading some one toward her. +She rose. The captain took her hand first, before the other greeting, +"Good-by, my dear," he said. He tried to add something else, but +seemed undetermined what. "Be a good little girl--" It was evidently +all he could think of. Nodding to the woman behind him, he turned on +his heel, and left. + +One of the deck-hands was sent to fetch her trunk. He walked out +behind them, through the cabin, and the crowd on deck, down the +stairs, and out over the gangway. The little convent girl and her +mother went with hands tightly clasped. She did not turn her eyes to +the right or left, or once (what all passengers do) look backward at +the boat which, however slowly, had carried her surely over dangers +that she wot not of. All looked at her as she passed. All wanted to +say good-by to the little convent girl, to see the mother who had been +deprived of her so long. Some expressed surprise in a whistle; some +in other ways. All exclaimed audibly, or to themselves, "Colored!" + +It takes about a month to make the round trip from New Orleans to +Cincinnati and back, counting five days' stoppage in New Orleans. It +was a month to a day when the steamboat came puffing and blowing up to +the wharf again, like a stout dowager after too long a walk; and the +same scene of confusion was enacted, as it had been enacted twelve +times a year, at almost the same wharf for twenty years; and the +same calm, a death calmness by contrast, followed as usual the next +morning. + +The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been delivered, +part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. The captain +was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk was in his +office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate could be heard +below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; for if steamboat +crews have a single principle,--and there are those who deny them +any,--it is never to ship twice in succession on the same boat. It was +too early yet for any but roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers; +so early that even the river was still partly mist-covered; only in +places could the swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along. + +"Captain!" A hand plucked at his elbow, as if not confident that the +mere calling would secure attention. The captain turned. The mother of +the little convent girl stood there, and she held the little convent +girl by the hand. "I have brought her to see you," the woman said. +"You were so kind--and she is so quiet, so still, all the time, I +thought it would do her a pleasure." + +She spoke with an accent, and with embarrassment; otherwise one would +have said that she was bold and assured enough. + +"She don't go nowhere, she don't do nothing but make her crochet and +her prayers, so I thought I would bring her for a little visit of 'How +d' ye do' to you." + +There was, perhaps, some inflection in the woman's voice that might +have made known, or at least awakened, the suspicion of some latent +hope or intention, had the captain's ear been fine enough to detect +it. There might have been something in the little convent girl's face, +had his eye been more sensitive--trifle paler, maybe, the lips a +little tighter drawn, the blue ribbon a shade faded. He may have +noticed that, but-- And the visit of "How d' ye do" came to an end. + +They walked down the stairway, the woman in front, the little convent +girl--her hand released to shake hands with the captain--following, +across the bared deck, out to the gangway, over to the middle of +it. No one was looking, no one saw more than a flutter of white +petticoats, a show of white stockings, as the little convent girl went +under the water. + +The roustabout dived, as the roustabouts always do, after the +drowning, even at the risk of their good-for-nothing lives. The mate +himself jumped overboard; but she had gone down in a whirlpool. +Perhaps, as the pilot had told her whirlpools always did, it may have +carried her through to the underground river, to that vast, hidden, +dark Mississippi that flows beneath the one we see; for her body was +never found. + + + + +GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER + + +As the grandmother related it fresh from the primeval sources that +feed a grandmother's memory, it happened thus: + +In the early days of the settlement of Georgia--ah, how green and +rustic appears to us now the world in the early days of the settlement +of Georgia! Sometimes to women, listening to the stories of their +grandmothers, it seems better to have lived then than now--her +grandmother was at that time a young wife. It was the day of arduous, +if not of long, courtship before marriage, when every wedding +celebrated the close of an original romance; and when young couples, +for bridal trips, went out to settle new States, riding on a pillion +generally, with their trousseaux following as best they could on +sumpter mules; to hear the grandmother describe it made one long to be +a bride of those days. + +The young husband had the enumeration of qualities that went to the +making of a man of that period, and if the qualities were in the +proportion of ten physical to one intellectual, it does not follow +that the grandmother's grandfather was not a man of parts. For, to +obtain the hand of his bride, an only child and an heiress, he had to +give test of his mettle by ignoring his fortune, studying law, and +getting his license before marriage, and binding himself to live the +first year afterward on the proceeds of his practice; a device of the +time thought to be a wholesome corrective of the corrupting influence +of over-wealth in young domesticities. + +Although he had already chosen the sea for his profession, and was a +midshipman at the time, with more of a reputation for living than for +learning, such was he, and such, it may be said, was the incentive +genius of his choice, that almost before his resignation as midshipman +was accepted, his license as a lawyer was signed. As for practice, it +was currently remarked at his wedding, at the sight of him flying down +the room in the reel with his bride for partner, that his tongue was +as nimble as his heels, and that if he only turned his attention to +criminal practice, there was no man in the country who would make +a better prosecuting attorney for the State. And with him for +prosecuting attorney, it was warranted that sirrahs the highwaymen +would not continue to hold Georgia judge-and-jury justice in quite +such contemptible estimation, and that the gallows would not be left +so long bereft of their legitimate swingings. As for fees, it was +predicted that the young fellow as he stood, or rather "chassé'd," +could snap his fingers at both his and his bride's trustees. + +He did turn his attention to criminal law, was made prosecuting +attorney for the State in his county, and, before his six months +had passed, was convincing the hitherto high and mighty, lordly, +independent knights of the road that other counties in Georgia +furnished more secure pasturage for them. + +It was a beautiful spring morning. The young wife bade him a hearty +good-by, and stood in the doorway watching him, gay and _debonair_, +riding off, on his stout black charger Beetle, in the direction of the +town in which court was to be held that week. + +She herself feeling as full of ambition and work as if she also were +prosecuting attorney, with a perennial spring of eloquence bubbling in +her brain, turned to her domestic duties, and, without going into +the detail of them, it suffices to say that, according to the +grandmother's estimation, one morning's list of duties for a healthy +young bride of that period would shame the week's work of a syndicate +of them to-day. Finding herself nearing the limit of diminution of +several household necessities, and the spring suggesting the beginning +of new ones, she made up her mind to profit by her husband's absence +and the fair weather to make a trading visit to the neighboring town +next day. + +[Illustration: "TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES."] + +So, early in a morning as beautiful as the preceding one, mounted on +her own stanch mare Maid Marion, she ambled down the green over-hung +forest-road, in the vista of which she had watched her husband +disappear the day before; thinking about what she had to buy, and +thinking, no doubt, much more, as brides will, of the absent lord and +master--as brides of those days loved to consider and denominate their +husbands. + +Coming into the little town, the freshly painted, swinging sign-board +of the new tavern, "The Honest Georgian," as usual was the thing to +catch her eye; but the instant after what should she see but Black +Beetle hitched to the rack under the tree that shadowed the hostelry! + +It was not decorous; but she was young, and the day of her first +separation from her husband had been so long; and was he not also, +against the firmest of resolutions and plans, hastening back to her, +the separation being too long for him also? + +Slipping her foot from the stirrup, she jumped to the ground, and ran +into the tavern. There he stood calling hastily for a drink; and +her heart more than her eyes took in his, to her, consecrated +signalment--the riding-boots, short clothes, blue coat, cocked hat, +ruffles. She crept up behind to surprise him, her face, with its +delight and smiles, beyond her control. She crept, until she saw his +watch-fob dangling against the counter, and then her heart made a +call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another man was in her +husband's clothes, a man with a villainous countenance! With a scream +she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, dropped his drink, bounded to +the door and out, leaped to the back of Beetle, gave rein and spur, +and the black horse made good his reputation. In a second all was +hue-and-cry and pursuit. While men and horses made, for all they were +worth, down the road after Beetle, she on Maid Marion galloped for +her life in the opposite direction, the direction of the court town +whither her husband had journeyed. The mare's hide made acquaintance +with the whip that day if never before, for not even the willing Maid +Marion could keep pace with the apprehensions on her back. + +Scouring with her eyes the highway ahead of her, shooting hawk's +glances into the forest on each side of her, the wife rode through +the distance all, all day, praying that the day might be long enough, +might equal the distance. The sun set, and night began to fall; but +she and Maid Marion were none the less fresh, except in the heart. + +The moon rose straight before them down the road, lighting it and them +through the threatened obscurity. And so they came to trampled earth +and torn grass, and so she uncovered concealed footsteps, and so, +creeping on her hands and knees, she followed traces of blood, through +thicket and glade, into the deep forest, to a hastily piled hillock of +earth, gravel, and leaves. Burrowing with her hands, she came to it, +the naked body of her young husband, cold and stiff, foully murdered. +Maid Marion approached at her call. She wrapped him in her cloak, +and--a young wife of those times alone would do it--put him in the +saddle before her: the good mare Maid Marion alone knows the rest. In +the early gray dawn, from one highway there rode into the town the +baffled pursuers, from the other the grandmother's grandmother, +clasping the corpse of her husband with arms as stiff as his own; +loving him, so the grandmother used to say, with a love which, if ever +love could do so, would have effected a resurrection. + + + + +THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION + + +The news came out in the papers that the old lady had been restored +to her fortune. She had been deprived of it so long ago that the real +manner of her dispossession had become lost, or at least hidden under +the many versions that had been invented to replace lapses of memory, +or to remedy the unpicturesqueness of the original truth. The face of +truth, like the face of many a good woman, is liable to the accident +of ugliness, and the desire to embellish one as well as the other +need not necessarily proceed from anything more harmful than an +overweighted love of the beautiful. + +If the old lady had not been restored to her fortune, her _personalia_ +would have remained in the oblivion which, as one might say, had +accumulated upon everything belonging to her. But after that newspaper +paragraph, there was such a flowering of memory around her name as +would have done credit to a whole cemetery on All Saints. It took +three generations to do justice to the old lady, for so long and so +slow had been her descent into poverty that a grandmother was needed +to remember her setting out upon the road to it. + +She set out as most people do, well provided with money, diamonds, +pretty clothing, handsome residence, equipage, opera-box, beaus (for +she was a widow), and so many, many friends that she could never +indulge in a small party--she always had to give a grand ball +to accommodate them. She made quite an occasion of her first +reverse,--some litigation decided against her,--and said it came from +the court's' having only one ear, and that preempted by the other +party. + +She always said whatever she thought, regardless of the consequences, +because she averred truth was so much more interesting than falsehood. +Nothing annoyed her more in society than to have to listen to the +compositions women make as a substitute for the original truth. It was +as if, when she went to the theater to hear Shakspere and Molière, +the actors should try to impose upon the audience by reciting lines +of their own. Truth was the wit of life and the wit of books. She +traveled her road from affluence so leisurely that nothing escaped her +eyes or her feelings, and she signaled unhesitatingly every stage in +it. + +"My dear, do you know there is really such a thing as existence +without a carriage and horses?"--"I assure you it is perfectly new to +me to find that an opera-box is not a necessity. It is a luxury. In +theory one can really never tell the distinction between luxuries and +necessities."--"How absurd! At one time I thought hair was given +us only to furnish a profession to hair-dressers; just as we wear +artificial flowers to support the flower-makers."--"Upon my word, +it is not uninteresting. There is always some _haute nouveauté_ in +economy. The ways of depriving one's self are infinite. There is wine, +now."--"Not own your residence! As soon not own your tomb as your +residence! My mama used to scream that in my ears. According to her, +it was not _comme il faut_ to board or live in a rented house. +How little she knew!" + +When her friends, learning her increasing difficulties, which they did +from the best authority (herself), complimented her, as they were +forced to do, upon her still handsome appearance, pretty laces, +feathers, jewelry, silks, "Fat," she would answer--"fat. I am living +off my fat, as bears do in winter. In truth, I remind myself of an +animal in more ways than one." + +And so every one had something to contribute to the conversation about +her--bits which, they said, affection and admiration had kept alive in +their memory. + +Each city has its own roads to certain ends, its ways of Calvary, so +to speak. In New Orleans the victim seems ever to walk down Royal +street and up Chartres, or _vice versa_. One would infer so, at least, +from the display in the shops and windows of those thorough-fares. +Old furniture, cut glass, pictures, books, jewelry, lace, china--the +fleece (sometimes the flesh still sticking to it) left on the +brambles by the driven herd. If there should some day be a trump of +resurrection for defunct fortunes, those shops would be emptied in +the same twinkling of the eye allowed to tombs for their rendition of +property. + +The old lady must have made that promenade many, many times, to judge +by the samples of her "fat or fleece" displayed in the windows. She +took to hobbling, as if from tired or sore feet. + +"It is nothing," in answer to an inquiry. "Made-to-order feet learning +to walk in ready-made shoes: that is all. One's feet, after all, are +the most unintelligent part of one's body." Tea was her abomination, +coffee her adoration; but she explained: "Tea, you know, is so +detestable that the very worst is hardly worse than the very best; +while coffee is so perfect that the smallest shade of impurity is not +to be tolerated. The truly economical, I observe, always drink tea." +"At one time I thought if all the luxuries of the world were exposed +to me, and but one choice allowed, I should select gloves. Believe me, +there is no superfluity in the world so easily dispensed with." + +As may be supposed, her path led her farther and farther away from her +old friends. Even her intimates became scarce; so much so, that these +observations, which, of course, could be made only to intimates, +became fewer and fewer, unfortunately, for her circumstances were +becoming such that the remarks became increasingly valuable. The last +thing related of her was apropos of friends. + +"My friends! My dear, I cannot tell you just so, on the spur of the +moment, but with a little reflection and calculation I could tell you, +to a picayune, the rent of every friend in the market. You can lease, +rent, or hire them, like horses, carriages, opera-boxes, servants, by +year, month, day, or hour; and the tariff is just as fixed. + +"Christians! Christians are the most discreet people in the world. If +you should ask me what Christianity has most promoted in the world, I +should answer without hesitation, discretion. Of course, when I say +the world I mean society, and when I say Christianity I mean our +interpretation of it. If only duns could be pastors, and pastors duns! +But of course you do not know what duns are; they are the guardian +angels of the creditor, the pursuing fiends of the debtor." + +After that, the old lady made her disappearance under the waves of +that sea into the depths of which it is very improbable that a single +friend ever attempted to pursue her. And there she remained until the +news came that she was restored to fortune. + +A week passed, two weeks; no sight or sound of her. It was during this +period that her old friends were so occupied resuscitating their old +friendships for her--when all her antique sayings and doings became +current ball-room and dinner-table gossip--that she arose from her +obscurity like Cinderella from her ashes, to be decked with every gift +that fairy minds could suggest. Those who had known her intimately +made no effort to conceal their importance. Those who did not know her +personally put forward claims of inherited friendship, and those who +did not know her traditionally or otherwise--the _nouveaux riches_ +and _parvenus_, who alone feel the moneyed value of such social +connections--began making their resolutions to capture her as soon as +she came in sight of society. + +The old residence was to be re-bought, and refurnished from France; +the _avant scène_ at the opera had been engaged; the old cook was to +be hired back from the club at a fabulous price; the old balls and the +old dinners were to gladden the city--so said they who seemed to know. +Nothing was to be spared, nothing stinted--at her age, with no child +or relative, and life running short for pleasure. Diamonds, laces, +velvets, champagne, Château Yquem--"Grand Dieu Seigneur!" the old +Creole servants exclaimed, raising their hands at the enumeration of +it. + +Where the news came from nobody knew, but everything was certified +and accepted as facts, although, as between women, the grain of salt +should have been used. Impatience waxed, until nearly every day some +one would ring the bell of the old residence, to ask when the mistress +was going to move in. And such affectionate messages! And people would +not, simply could not, be satisfied with the incomprehensible answers. +And then it leaked out. The old lady was simply waiting for everything +to arrive--furniture, toilets, carriage, etc.--to make a grand +_entrée_ into her old sphere; to come riding on a throne, as it were. +And still the time passed, and she did not come. Finally two of the +clever-heads penetrated the enigma: _mauvaise honte_, shyness--so long +out of the world, so old; perhaps not sure of her welcome. So they +determined to seek her out. + +[Illustration: THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY.] + +"We will go to her, like children to a grandmother, etc. The others +have no delicacy of sentiment, etc. And she will thus learn who really +remember, really love her, etc." + +Provided with congratulatory bouquets, they set forth. It is very hard +to find a dweller on the very sea-bottom of poverty. Perhaps that is +why the effort is so seldom made. One has to ask at grocers' shops, +groggeries, market-stalls, Chinese restaurants; interview corner +cobblers, ragpickers, gutter children. But nothing is impossible to +the determined. The two ladies overcame all obstacles, and needled +their way along, where under other circumstances they would not have +glanced, would have thought it improper to glance. + +They were directed through an old, old house, out on an old, old +gallery, to a room at the very extreme end. + +"Poor thing! Evidently she has not heard the good news yet. We will +be the first to communicate it," they whispered, standing before the +dilapidated, withered-looking door. + +Before knocking, they listened, as it is the very wisdom of discretion +to do. There was life inside, a little kind of voice, like some one +trying to hum a song with a very cracked old throat. + +The ladies opened the door. "Ah, my friend!" + +"Ah, my friend!" + +"Restored!" + +"Restored!" + +"At last!" + +"At last!" + +"Just the same!" + +"Exactly the same!" + +It was which one would get to her first with bouquet and kiss, +competition almost crowding friendship. + +"The good news!" + +"The good news!" + +"We could not stay!" + +"We had to come!" + +"It has arrived at last!" + +"At last it has arrived!" + +The old lady was very much older, but still the same. + +"You will again have a chance!" + +"Restored to your friends!" + +"The world!" + +"Your luxuries!" + +"Your comforts!" + +"Comforts! Luxuries!" At last the old lady had an opportunity to slip +in a word. "And friends! You say right." + +There was a pause--a pause which held not a small measure of +embarrassment. But the two visitors, although they were women of the +world, and so dreaded an embarrassment more than they did sin, had +prepared themselves even to stand this. + +The old lady standing there--she was very much thinner, very much +bent, but still the same--appeared to be looking not at them, but at +their enumeration. + +"Comfort!" She opened a pot bubbling on the fire. "Bouillon! A good +five-cent bouillon. Luxury!" She picked up something from a chair, +a handful of new cotton chemises. "Luxury!" She turned back her +bedspread: new cotton sheets. "Did you ever lie in your bed at night +and dream of sheets? Comfort! Luxury! I should say so! And friends! My +dear, look!" Opening her door, pointing to an opposite gallery, to +the yard, her own gallery; to the washing, ironing, sewing women, the +cobbling, chair-making, carpentering men; to the screaming, laughing, +crying, quarreling, swarming children. "Friends! All friends--friends +for fifteen years. Ah, yes, indeed! We are all glad--elated in fact. +As you say. I am restored." + +The visitors simply reported that they had found the old lady, and +that she was imbecile; mind completely gone under stress of poverty +and old age. Their opinion was that she should be interdicted. + + + + +A DELICATE AFFAIR + + +"But what does this extraordinary display of light mean?" ejaculated +my aunt, the moment she entered the parlor from the dining-room. "It +looks like the kingdom of heaven in here! Jules! Jules!" she called, +"come and put out some of the light!" + +Jules was at the front door letting in the usual Wednesday-evening +visitor, but now he came running in immediately with his own invention +in the way of a gas-stick,--a piece of broom-handle notched at the +end,--and began turning one tap after the other, until the room was +reduced to complete darkness. + +"But what do you mean now, Jules?" screamed the old lady again. + +"Pardon, madame," answered Jules, with dignity; "it is an accident. I +thought there was one still lighted." + +"An accident! An accident! Do you think I hire you to perform +accidents for me? You are just through telling me that it was accident +made you give me both soup and gumbo for dinner today." + +"But accidents can always happen, madame," persisted Jules, adhering +to his position. + +The chandelier, a design of originality in its day, gave light by what +purported to be wax candles standing each in a circlet of pendent +crystals. The usual smile of ecstatic admiration spread over Jules's +features as he touched the match to the simulated wicks, and lighted +into life the rainbows in the prisms underneath. It was a smile that +did not heighten the intelligence of his features, revealing as it did +the toothless condition of his gums. + +"What will madame have for her dinner tomorrow," looking benignantly +at his mistress, and still standing under his aureole. + +"Do I ever give orders for one dinner, with the other one still on my +lips?" + +"I only asked madame; there is no harm in asking." He walked away, his +long stiff white apron rattling like a petticoat about him. Catching +sight of the visitor still standing at the threshold: "Oh, madame, +here is Mr. Horace. Shall I let him in?" + +"Idiot! Every Wednesday you ask me that question, and every Wednesday +I answer the same way. Don't you think I could tell you when not to let +him in without your asking?" + +"Oh, well, madame, one never knows; it is always safe to ask." + +The appearance of the gentleman started a fresh subject of excitement. + +"Jules! Jules! You have left that front door unlocked again!" + +"Excuse me," said Mr. Horace; "Jules did not leave the front door +unlocked. It was locked when I rang, and he locked it again most +carefully after letting me in. I have been standing outside all the +while the gas was being extinguished and relighted." + +"Ah, very well, then. And what is the news?" She sank into her +arm-chair, pulled her little card-table closer, and began shuffling +the cards upon it for her game of solitaire. "I never hear any news, +you know. She [nodding toward me] goes out, but she never learns +anything. She is as stupid tonight as an empty bottle." + +After a few passes her hands, which were slightly tremulous, regained +some of their wonted steadiness and brilliancy of movement, and the +cards dropped rapidly on the table. Mr. Horace, as he had got into +the habit of doing, watched her mechanically, rather absent-mindedly +retailing what he imagined would interest her, from his week's +observation and hearsay. And madame's little world revolved, complete +for her, in time, place, and personality. + +It was an old-fashioned square room with long ceiling, and broad, low +windows heavily curtained with stiff silk brocade, faded by time into +mellowness. The tall white-painted mantel carried its obligation of +ornaments well: a gilt clock which under a glass case related some +brilliant poetical idyl, and told the hours only in an insignificant +aside, according to the delicate politeness of bygone French taste; +flanked by duplicate continuations of the same idyl in companion +candelabra, also under glass; Sèvres, or imitation Sèvres vases, and +a crowd of smaller objects to which age and rarity were slowly +contributing an artistic value. An oval mirror behind threw replicas +of them into another mirror, receiving in exchange the reflected +portrait of madame in her youth, and in the partial nudity in which +innocence was limned in madame's youth. There were besides mirrors on +the other three walls of the room, all hung with such careful intent +for the exercise of their vocation that the apartment, in spots, +extended indefinitely; the brilliant chandelier was thereby +quadrupled, and the furniture and ornaments multiplied everywhere +and most unexpectedly into twins and triplets, producing such +sociabilities among them, and forcing such correspondences between +inanimate objects with such hospitable insistence, that the effect was +full of gaiety and life, although the interchange in reality was the +mere repetition of one original, a kind of phonographic echo. + +The portrait of monsieur, madame's handsome young husband, hung out +of the circle of radiance, in the isolation that, wherever they hang, +always seems to surround the portraits of the dead. + +Old as the parlors appeared, madame antedated them by the sixteen +years she had lived before her marriage, which had been the occasion +of their furnishment. She had traveled a considerable distance over +the sands of time since the epoch commemorated by the portrait. +Indeed, it would require almost documentary evidence to prove that +she, who now was arriving at eighty, was the same Atalanta that had +started out so buoyantly at sixteen. + +Instead of a cap, she wore black lace over her head, pinned with gold +brooches. Her white hair curled naturally over a low forehead. Her +complexion showed care--and powder. Her eyes were still bright, not +with the effete intelligence of old age, but with actual potency. She +wore a loose black sack flowered in purple, and over that a black lace +mantle, fastened with more gold brooches. + +She played her game of solitaire rapidly, impatiently, and always won; +for she never hesitated to cheat to get out of a tight place, or +into a favorable one, cheating with the quickness of a flash, and +forgetting it the moment afterward. + +Mr. Horace was as old as she, but he looked much younger, although +his dress and appearance betrayed no evidence of an effort in that +direction. Whenever his friend cheated, he would invariably call her +attention to it; and as usual she would shrug her shoulders, and say, +"Bah! lose a game for a card!" and pursue the conversation. + +He happened to mention mushrooms--fresh mushrooms. She threw down +her cards before the words were out of his mouth, and began to call, +"Jules! Jules!" Mr. Horace pulled the bell-cord, but madame was +too excitable for that means of communication. She ran into the +antechamber, and put her head over the banisters, calling, "Jules! +Jules!" louder and louder. She might have heard Jules's slippered feet +running from the street into the corridor and up-stairs, had she not +been so deaf. He appeared at the door. + +"But where have you been? Here I have been raising the house a +half-hour, calling you. You have been in the street. I am sure you +have been in the street." + +"Madame is very much mistaken," answered Jules, with resentful +dignity. He had taken off his white apron of waiter, and was +disreputable in all the shabbiness of his attire as cook. "When madame +forbids me to go into the street, I do not go into the street. I was +in the kitchen; I had fallen asleep. What does madame desire?" smiling +benevolently. + +"What is this I hear? Fresh mushrooms in the market!" + +"Eh, madame?" + +"Fresh mushrooms in the market, and you have not brought me any!" + +"Madame, there are fresh mushrooms everywhere in the market," waving +his hand to show their universality. + +"Everybody is eating them--" + +"Old Pomponnette," Jules continued, "only this morning offered me a +plate, piled up high, for ten cents." + +"Idiot! Why did you not buy them?" + +"If madame had said so; but madame did not say so. Madame said, 'Soup, +Jules; carrots, rice,'" counting on his fingers. + +"And the gumbo?" + +"I have explained that that was an accident. Madame said 'Soup,'" +enumerating his menu again; "madame never once said mushrooms." + +"But how could I know there were mushrooms in the market? Do I go to +market?" + +"That is it!" and Jules smiled at the question thus settled. + +"If you had told me there were mushrooms in the market--" pursued +madame, persisting in treating Jules as a reasonable being. + +"Why did not madame ask me? If madame had asked me, surely I would +have told madame. Yesterday Caesar brought them to the door--a whole +bucketful for twenty-five cents. I had to shut the door in his face to +get rid of him," triumphantly. + +"And you brought me yesterday those detestable peas!" + +"Ah," shrugging his shoulders, "madame told me to buy what I saw. I +saw peas. I bought them." + +"Well, understand now, once for all: whenever you see mushrooms, no +matter what I ordered, you buy them. Do you hear?" + +"No, madame. Surely I cannot buy mushrooms unless madame orders them. +Madame's disposition is too quick." + +"But I do order them. Stupid! I do order them. I tell you to buy them +every day." + +"And if there are none in the market every day?" + +"Go away! Get out of my sight! I do not want to see you. Ah, it is +unendurable! I must--I must get rid of him!" This last was not +a threat, as Jules knew only too well. It was merely a habitual +exclamation. + +During the colloquy Mr. Horace, leaning back in his arm-chair, raised +his eyes, and caught the reflected portrait of madame in the mirror +before him--the reflection so much softer and prettier, so much more +ethereal, than the original painting. Indeed, seen in the mirror, that +way, the portrait was as refreshing as the most charming memory. He +pointed to it when madame, with considerable loss of temper, regained +her seat. + +"It is as beautiful as the past," he explained most unnaturally, for +he and his friend had a horror of looking at the long, long past, +which could not fail to remind them of--what no one cares to +contemplate out of church. Making an effort toward some determination +which a subtle observer might have noticed weighing upon him all the +evening, he added: "And, apropos of the past--" + +"_Hein_?" interrogated the old lady, impatiently, still under the +influence of her irascibility about the mushrooms. + +He moved his chair closer, and bent forward, as if his communication +were to be confidential. + +"Ah, bah! Speak louder!" she cried. "One would suppose you had some +secret to tell. What secrets can there be at our age?" She took up her +cards and began to play. There could be no one who bothered herself +less about the forms of politeness. + +"Yes, yes," answered Mr. Horace, throwing himself back into his chair; +"what secrets can there be at our age?" + +The remark seemed a pregnant one to him; he gave himself up to it. One +must evidently be the age of one's thoughts. Mr. Horace's thoughts +revealed him the old man he was. The lines in his face deepened into +wrinkles; his white mustache could not pretend to conceal his mouth, +worsened by the loss of a tooth or two; and the long, thin hand that +propped his head was crossed with blue, distended veins. "At the last +judgment"--it was a favorite quotation with him--"the book of our +conscience will be read aloud before the whole company." + +But the old lady, deep in her game, paid no more heed to his quotation +than to him. He made a gesture toward her portrait. + +"When that was painted, Josephine--" + +Madame threw a glance after the gesture. The time was so long ago, the +mythology of Greece hardly more distant! At eighty the golden age of +youth must indeed appear an evanescent myth. Madame's ideas seemed to +take that direction. + +"Ah, at that time we were all nymphs, and you all demigods." + +"Demigods and nymphs, yes; but there was one among us who was a god +with you all." + +The allusion--a frequent one with Mr. Horace--was to madame's husband, +who in his day, it is said, had indeed played the god in the little +Arcadia of society. She shrugged her shoulders. The truth is so little +of a compliment The old gentleman sighed in an abstracted way, and +madame, although apparently absorbed in her game, lent her ear. It is +safe to say that a woman is never too old to hear a sigh wafted in her +direction. + +"Josephine, do you remember--in your memory--" + +She pretended not to hear. Remember? Who ever heard of her forgetting? +But she was not the woman to say, at a moment's notice, what she +remembered or what she forgot. + +"A woman's memory! When I think of a woman's memory--in fact, I do not +like to think of a woman's memory. One can intrude in imagination into +many places; but a woman's memory--" + +Mr. Horace seemed to lose his thread. It had been said of him in +his youth that he wrote poetry--and it was said against him. It was +evidently such lapses as these that had given rise to the accusation. +And as there was no one less impatient under sentiment or poetry +than madame, her feet began to agitate themselves as if Jules were +perorating some of his culinary inanities before her. + +"And a man's memory!" totally misunderstanding him. "It is not there +that I either would penetrate, my friend. A man--" + +When madame began to talk about men she was prompted by imagination +just as much as was Mr. Horace when he talked about women. But what a +difference in their sentiments! And yet he had received so little, and +she so much, from the subjects of their inspiration. But that seems to +be the way in life--or in imagination. + +"That you should"--he paused with the curious shyness of the old +before the word "love"--"that you two should--marry--seemed natural, +inevitable, at the time." + +Tradition records exactly the same comment by society at the time on +the marriage in question. Society is ever fatalistic in its comments. + +"But the natural--the inevitable--do we not sometimes, I wonder, +perform them as Jules does his accidents?" + +"Ah, do not talk about that idiot! An idiot born and bred! I won't +have him about me! He is a monstrosity! I tell his grandmother that +every day when she comes to comb me. What a farce--what a ridiculous +farce comfortable existence has become with us! Fresh mushrooms in +market, and bring me carrots!" + +The old gentleman, partly from long knowledge of her habit, or from an +equally persistent bend of his own, quietly held on to his idea. + +"One cannot tell. It seems so at the time. We like to think it so; it +makes it easier. And yet, looking back on our future as we once looked +forward to it--" + +"Eh! but who wants to look back on it, my friend? Who in the world +wants to look back on it?" One could not doubt madame's energy of +opinion on that question to hear her voice. "We have done our future, +we have performed it, if you will. Our future! It is like the dinners +we have eaten; of course we cannot remember the good without becoming +exasperated over the bad: but"--shrugging her shoulders--"since we +cannot beat the cooks, we must submit to fate," forcing a queen that +she needed at the critical point of her game. + +"At sixteen and twenty-one it is hard to realize that one is arranging +one's life to last until sixty, seventy, forever," correcting himself +as he thought of his friend, the dead husband. If madame had ever +possessed the art of self-control, it was many a long day since she +had exercised it; now she frankly began to show ennui. + +"When I look back to that time,"--Mr. Horace leaned back in his chair +and half closed his eyes, perhaps to avoid the expression of her +face,--"I see nothing but lights and flowers, I hear nothing but music +and laughter; and all--lights and flowers and music and laughter--seem +to meet in this room, where we met so often to arrange +our--inevitabilities." The word appeared to attract him. +"Josephine,"--with a sudden change of voice and manner,--"Josephine, +how beautiful you were!" + +The old lady nodded her head without looking from her cards. + +"They used to say," with sad conviction of the truth of his +testimony--"the men used to say that your beauty was irresistible. +None ever withstood you. None ever could." + +That, after all, was Mr. Horace's great charm with madame; he was so +faithful to the illusions of his youth. As he looked now at her, one +could almost feel the irresistibility of which he spoke. + +"It was only their excuse, perhaps; we could not tell at the time; we +cannot tell even now when we think about it. They said then, talking +as men talk over such things, that you were the only one who could +remain yourself under the circumstances; you were the only one who +could know, who could will, under the circumstances. It was their +theory; men can have only theories about such things." His voice +dropped, and he seemed to drop too, into some abysm of thought. + +Madame looked into the mirror, where she could see the face of the one +who alone could retain her presence of mind under the circumstances +suggested by Mr. Horace. She could also have seen, had she wished it, +among the reflected bric-a-brac of the mantel, the corner of the frame +that held the picture of her husband, but peradventure, classing it +with the past which held so many unavenged bad dinners, she never +thought to link it even by a look with her emotions of the present. +Indeed, it had been said of her that in past, present, and future +there had ever been but the one picture to interest her eyes--the +one she was looking at now. This, however, was the remark of the +uninitiated, for the true passion of a beautiful woman is never so +much for her beauty as for its booty; as the passion of a gamester is +for his game, not for his luck. + +"How beautiful _she_ was!" + +It was apparently down in the depths of his abysm that he found the +connection between this phrase and his last, and it was evidently to +himself he said it. Madame, however, heard and understood too; in +fact, traced back to a certain period, her thoughts and Mr. Horace's +must have been fed by pretty much the same subjects. But she had +so carefully barricaded certain issues in her memory as almost to +obstruct their flow into her life; if she were a cook, one would +say that it was her bad dinners which she was trying to keep out of +remembrance. + +"You there, he there, she there, I there." He pointed to the places on +the carpet, under the chandelier; he could have touched them with a +walking-stick, and the recollection seemed just as close. + +"She was, in truth, what we men called her then; it was her eyes +that first suggested it--Myosotis, the little blue flower, the +for-get-me-not. It suited her better than her own name. We always +called her that among ourselves. How beautiful she was!" He leaned his +head on his hand and looked where he had seen her last--so long, such +an eternity, ago. + +It must be explained for the benefit of those who do not live in the +little world where an allusion is all that is necessary to put one in +full possession of any drama, domestic or social, that Mr. Horace was +speaking of the wedding-night of madame, when the bridal party stood +as he described under the chandelier; the bride and groom, with each +one's best friend. It may be said that it was the last night or time +that madame had a best friend of her own sex. Social gossip, with +characteristic kindness, had furnished reasons to suit all tastes, why +madame had ceased that night to have a best friend of her own sex. If +gossip had not done so, society would still be left to its imagination +for information, for madame never tolerated the smallest appeal to her +for enlightenment. What the general taste seemed most to relish as a +version was that madame in her marriage had triumphed, not conquered; +and that the night of her wedding she had realized the fact, and, to +be frank, had realized it ever since. In short, madame had played then +to gain at love, as she played now to gain at solitaire; and hearts +were no more than cards to her--and, "Bah! Lose a game for a card!" +must have been always her motto. It is hard to explain it delicately +enough, for these are the most delicate affairs in life; but the image +of Myosotis had passed through monsieur's heart, and Myosotis does +mean "forget me not." And madame well knew that to love monsieur once +was to love him always, in spite of jealousy, doubt, distrust, nay, +unhappiness (for to love him meant all this and more). He was that +kind of man, they said, whom women could love even against conscience. +Madame never forgave that moment. Her friend, at least, she could put +aside out of her intercourse; unfortunately, we cannot put people out +of our lives. God alone can do that, and so far he had interfered in +the matter only by removing monsieur. It was known to notoriety that +since her wedding madame had abandoned, destroyed, all knowledge of +her friend. And the friend? She had disappeared as much as is possible +for one in her position and with her duties. + +"What there is in blue eyes, light hair, and a fragile form to impress +one, I cannot tell; but for us men it seems to me it is blue-eyed, +light-haired, and fragile-formed women that are the hardest to +forget." + +"The less easy to forget," corrected madam. He paid no attention +to the remark. + +"They are the women that attach themselves in one's memory. If +necessary to keep from being forgotten, they come back into one's +dreams. And as life rolls on, one wonders about them,--'Is she happy? +Is she miserable? Goes life well or ill with her?'" + +Madame played her cards slowly, one would say, for her, prosaically. + +"And there is always a pang when, as one is so wondering, the response +comes,--that is, the certainty in one's heart responds,--'She is +miserable, and life goes ill with her.' Then, if ever, men envy the +power of God." + +Madame threw over the game she was in, and began a new one. + +"Such women should not be unhappy; they are too fragile, too +sensitive, too trusting. I could never understand the infliction +of misery upon them. I could send death to them, but not--not +misfortune." + +Madame, forgetting again to cheat in time, and losing her game, began +impatiently to shuffle her cards for a new deal. + +"And yet, do you know, Josephine, those women are the unhappy ones of +life. They seem predestined to it, as others"--looking at madame's +full-charmed portrait--"are predestined to triumph and victory. +They"--unconscious, in his abstraction, of the personal nature of his +simile--"never know how to handle their cards, and they always play a +losing game." + +"Ha!" came from madame, startled into an irate ejaculation. + +"It is their love always that is sacrificed, their hearts always that +are bruised. One might say that God himself favors the black-haired +ones!" + +As his voice sank lower and lower, the room seemed to become stiller +and stiller. A passing vehicle in the street, however, now and then +drew a shiver of sound from the pendent prisms of the chandelier. + +"She was so slight, so fragile, and always in white, with blue in her +hair to match her eyes--and--God knows what in her heart, all the +time. And yet they stand it, they bear it, they do not die, they live +along with the strongest, the happiest, the most fortunate of us," +bitterly; "and"--raising his eyes to his old friend, who thereupon +immediately began to fumble her cards--"whenever in the street I see +a poor, bent, broken woman's figure, I know, without verifying it +any more by a glance, that it is the wreck of a fair woman's figure; +whenever I hear of a bent, broken existence, I know, without asking +any more, that it is the wreck of a fair woman's life." + +Poor Mr. Horace spoke with the unreason of a superstitious bigot. + +"I have often thought, since, in large assemblies, particularly in +weddings, Josephine, of what was going on in the women's hearts there, +and I have felt sorry for them; and when I think of God's knowing what +is in their hearts, I have felt sorry for the men. And I often think +now, Josephine,--think oftener and oftener of it,--that if the +resurrection trumpet of our childhood should sound some day, no matter +when, out there, over the old St. Louis cemetery, and we should all +have to rise from our long rest of oblivion, what would be the first +thing we should do? And though there were a God and a heaven awaiting +us,--by that same God, Josephine, I believe that our first thought in +awakening would be the last in dying,--confession,--and that our first +rush would be to the feet of one another for forgiveness. For there +are some offenses that must outlast the longest oblivion, and a +forgiveness that will be more necessary than God's own. Then our +hearts will be bared to one another; for if, as you say, there are +no secrets at our age, there can still be less cause for them after +death." + +His voice ended in the faintest whisper. The table crashed over, and +the cards flew wide-spread on the floor. Before we could recover, +madame was in the antechamber, screaming for Jules. + +One would have said that, from her face, the old lady had witnessed +the resurrection described by Mr. Horace, the rush of the spirits with +their burdens of remorse, the one to the feet of the other; and she +must have seen herself and her husband, with a unanimity of purpose +never apparent in their short married life, rising from their common +tomb and hastening to that other tomb at the end of the alley, and +falling at the feet of the one to whom in life he had been recreant in +love, she in friendship. + +Of course Jules answered through the wrong door, rushing in with his +gas-stick, and turning off the gas. In a moment we were involved in +darkness and dispute. + +"But what does he mean? What does the idiot mean? He--" It was +impossible for her to find a word to do justice to him and to her +exasperation at the same time. + +"Pardon, madame; it is not I. It is the cathedral bell; it is ringing +nine o'clock." + +"But--" + +"Madame can hear it herself. Listen!" We could not see it, but we were +conscious of the benign, toothless smile spreading over his face as +the bell-tones fell in the room. + +"But it is not the gas. I--" + +"Pardon, madame; but it is the gas. Madame said, 'Jules, put out the +gas every night when the bell rings.' Madame told me that only last +night. The bell rings: I put out the gas." + +"Will you be silent? Will you listen?" + +"If madame wishes; just as madame says." + +But the old lady had turned to Mr. Horace. "Horace, you have seen--you +know--" and it was a question now of overcoming emotion. "I--I--I--a +carriage, my friend, a carriage." + +"Madame--" Jules interrupted his smile to interrupt her. + +She was walking around the room, picking up a shawl here, a lace +there; for she was always prepared against draughts. + +"Madame--" continued Jules, pursuing her. + +"A carriage." + +"If madame would only listen, I was going to say--but madame is too +quick in her disposition--the carriage has been waiting since a long +hour ago. Mr. Horace said to have it there in a half hour." + +It was then she saw for the first time that it had all been prepared +by Mr. Horace. The rest was easy enough: getting into the carriage, +and finding the place of which Mr. Horace had heard, as he said, only +that afternoon. In it, on her bed of illness, poverty, and suffering, +lay the patient, wasted form of the beautiful fair one whom men had +called in her youth Myosotis. + +But she did not call her Myosotis. + +"_Mon Amour!_" The old pet name, although it had to be fetched across +more than half a century of disuse, flashed like lightning from +madame's heart into the dim chamber. + +"_Ma Divine!_" came in counter-flash from the curtained bed. + +In the old days women, or at least young girls, could hazard such pet +names one upon the other. These--think of it!--dated from the first +communion class, the dating period of so much of friendship. + +"My poor Amour!" + +"My poor, poor Divine!" + +The voices were together, close beside the pillow. + +"I--I--" began Divine. + +"It could not have happened if God had not wished it," interrupted +poor Amour, with the resignation that comes, alas! only with the last +drop of the bitter cup. + +And that was about all. If Mr. Horace had not slipped away, he might +have noticed the curious absence of monsieur's name, and of his own +name, in the murmuring that followed. It would have given him some +more ideas on the subject of woman. + +At any rate, the good God must thank him for having one affair the +less to arrange when the trumpet sounds out there over the old St. +Louis cemetery. And he was none too premature; for the old St. Louis +cemetery, as was shortly enough proved, was a near reach for all three +of the old friends. + + + + +PUPASSE + + +Every day, every day, it was the same overture in Madame Joubert's +room in the Institute St. Denis; the strident: + +"Mesdemoiselles; à vos places! Notre Père qui est dans le ciel--Qui a +fait ce bruit?" + +"It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse!" The answer invariably was +unanimous. + +"But, Madame Joubert,--I assure you, Madame Joubert,--I could not help +it! They know I could not help it!" + +By this time the fresh new fool's cap made from yesterday's "Bee" +would have been pinned on her head. + +"Quelle injustice! Quelle injustice!" + +This last apostrophe in a high, whining nasal voice, always procured +Pupasse's elevation on the tall three-legged stool in the corner. + +It was a theory of the little girls in the primary class that Madame +Joubert would be much more lenient to their own little inevitabilities +of bad conduct and lessons if Pupasse did not invariably comb her +the wrong way every morning after prayers, by dropping something, +or sniffling, or sneezing. Therefore, while they distractedly got +together books, slates, and copy-books, their infantile eyes found +time to dart deadly reproaches toward the corner of penitence, and +their little lips, still shaped from their first nourishment, pouted +anything but sympathy for the occupant of it. + +Indeed, it would have been a most startling unreality to have ever +entered Madame Joubert's room and not seen Pupasse in that corner, on +that stool, her tall figure shooting up like a post, until her tall, +pointed _bonnet d' âne_ came within an inch or two of the ceiling. +It was her hoop-skirt that best testified to her height. It was the +period of those funnel-shaped hoop-skirts that spread out with such +nice mathematical proportions, from the waist down, that it seemed +they must have emanated from the brains of astronomers, like the +orbits, and diameters, and other things belonging to the heavenly +bodies. Pupasse could not have come within three feet of the wall with +her hoop-skirt distended. To have forced matters was not to be thought +of an instant. So even in her greatest grief and indignation, she had +to pause before the three-legged black stool, and gather up steel +after steel of her circumference in her hands behind, until her calico +skirt careened and flattened; and so she could manage to accommodate +herself to the limited space of her punishment, the circles drooping +far over her feet as she stood there, looking like the costumed stick +of a baby's rattle. + +Her thinness continued into her face, which, unfortunately, had +nothing in the way of toilet to assist it. Two little black eyes fixed +in the sides of a mere fence of a nose, and a mouth with the shape and +expression of all mouths made to go over sharp-pointed teeth planted +very far apart; the smallest amount possible of fine, dry, black +hair--a perfect rat-tail when it was plaited in one, as almost all +wore their hair. But sometimes Pupasse took it into her head to plait +it in two braids, as none but the thick-haired ventured to wear it. +As the little girls said, it was a petition to Heaven for "eau +Quinquina." When Marcelite, the hair-dresser, came at her regular +periods to visit the hair of the boarders, she would make an effort +with Pupasse, plaiting her hundred hairs in a ten-strand braid. The +effect was a half yard of black worsted galloon; nothing more, or +better. Had Pupasse possessed as many heads as the hydra, she could +have "coiffe'd" them all with fools' caps during one morning's +recitations. She entirely monopolized the "Daily Bee." Madame Joubert +was forced to borrow from "madame" the stale weekly "Courrier des +Etats-Unis" for the rest of the room. From grammar, through sacred +history, arithmetic, geography, mythology, down to dictation, Pupasse +could pile up an accumulation of penitences that would have tasked the +limits of the current day had not recreation been wisely set as a term +which disbarred, by proscription, previous offenses. But even after +recreation, with that day's lessons safely out, punished and expiated, +Pupasse's doom seemed scarcely lightened; there was still a whole +criminal code of conduct to infract. The only difference was that +instead of books, slates, or copy-books, leathern medals, bearing +various legends and mottos, were hung around her neck--a travestied +decoration worse than the books for humiliation. + +The "abécédaires," their torment for the day over, thankful for any +distraction from the next day's lessons, and eager for any relief +from the intolerable ennui of goodness, were thankful enough now for +Pupasse. They naturally watched her in preference to Madame Joubert, +holding their books and slates quite cunningly to hide their faces. +Pupasse had not only the genius, but that which sometimes fails +genius, the means for grimacing: little eyes, long nose, foolish +mouth, and pointed tongue. And she was so amusing, when Madame +Joubert's head was turned, that the little girls, being young and +innocent, would forget themselves and all burst out laughing. It +sounded like a flight of singing birds through the hot, close, stupid +little room; but not so to Madame Joubert. + +"Young ladies! But what does this mean?" + +And, terror-stricken, the innocents would call out with one voice, +"It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse who made us laugh!" There was +nothing but fools' caps to be gained by prevaricating, and there was +frequently nothing less gained by confession. And oh, the wails and +the sobs as the innocents would be stood up, one by one, in their +places! Even the pigtails at the backs of their little heads were +convulsed with grief. Oh, how they hated Pupasse then! When their +_bonnes_ came for them at three o'clock,--washing their tear-stained +faces at the cistern before daring to take them through the +streets,--how passionately they would cry out, the tears breaking +afresh into the wet handkerchiefs: + +"It's that Pupasse! It's that _vilaine_ Pupasse!" + +To Pupasse herself would be meted out that "peine forte et dure," that +acme of humiliation and disgrace, so intensely horrible that many a +little girl in that room solemnly averred and believed she would kill +herself before submitting to it. Pupasse's voluminous calico skirt +would be gathered up by the hem and tied up over her head! Oh, the +horrible monstrosity on the stool in the corner then! There were no +eyes in that room that had any desire to look upon it. And the cries +and the "Quelle injustice!" that fell on the ears then from the hidden +feelings had all the weirdness of the unseen, but heard. And all the +other girls in the room, in fear and trembling, would begin to move +their lips in a perfect whirlwind of study, or write violently +on their slates, or begin at that very instant to rule off their +copy-books for the next day's verb. + +Pupasse--her name was Marie Pupasse but no one thought of calling +her anything but Pupasse, with emphasis on the first syllable and +sibilance on the last--had no parents only a grandmother, to describe +whom, all that is necessary to say is that she was as short as Pupasse +was tall, and that her face resembled nothing so much as a little +yellow apple shriveling from decay. The old lady came but once a week, +to fetch Pupasse fresh clothes, and a great brown paper bag of nice +things to eat. There was no boarder in the school who received +handsomer bags of cake and fruit than Pupasse. And although, not two +hours before, a girl might have been foremost in the shrill cry, "It +is Pupasse who made the noise! It is Pupasse who made me laugh!" there +was nothing in that paper bag reserved even from such a one. When the +girl herself with native delicacy would, under the circumstances, +judge it discreet to refuse, Pupasse would plead, "Oh, but take it to +give me pleasure!" And if still the refusal continued, Pupasse would +take her bag and go into the summer-house in the corner of the garden, +and cry until the unforgiving one would relent. But the first offering +of the bag was invariably to the stern dispenser of fools' caps and +the unnamed humiliation of the reversed skirt: Madame Joubert. + +Pupasse was in the fifth class. The sixth--the abécédaires--was +the lowest in the school. Green was the color of the fifth; +white--innocence--of the abécédaires. Exhibition after exhibition, the +same green sash and green ribbons appeared on Pupasse's white muslin, +the white muslin getting longer and longer every year, trying to keep +up with her phenomenal growth; and always, from all over the room, +buzzed the audience's suppressed merriment at Pupasse's appearance +in the ranks of the little ones of nine and ten. It was that very +merriment that brought about the greatest change in the Institute +St. Denis. The sitting order of the classes was reversed. The first +class--the graduates--went up to the top step of the _estrade_; and +the little ones put on the lowest, behind the pianos. The graduates +grumbled that it was not _comme il faut_ to have young ladies of their +position stepping like camels up and down those great steps; and the +little girls said it was a shame to hide them behind the pianos after +their mamas had taken so much pains to make them look pretty. But +madame said--going also to natural history for her comparison--that +one must be a rhinoceros to continue the former routine. + +Religion cannot be kept waiting forever on the intelligence. It was +always in the fourth class that the first communion was made; that is, +when the girls stayed one year in each class. But Pupasse had spent +three years in the sixth class, and had already been four in +the fifth, and Madame Joubert felt that longer delay would be +disrespectful to the good Lord. It was true that Pupasse could not +yet distinguish the ten commandments from the seven capital sins, and +still would answer that Jeanne d'Arc was the foundress of the "Little +Sisters of the Poor." But, as Madame Joubert always said in the little +address she made to the catechism class every year before handing it +over to Father Dolomier, God judged from the heart, and not from the +mind. + +Father Dolomier--from his face he would have been an able contestant +of _bonnets d'âne_ with Pupasse, if subjected to Madame Joubert's +discipline--evidently had the same method of judging as God, although +the catechism class said they could dance a waltz on the end of his +long nose without his perceiving it. + +There is always a little air of mystery about the first communion: not +that there is any in reality, but the little ones assume it to render +themselves important. The going to early mass, the holding their +dog-eared catechisms as if they were relics, the instruction from the +priest, even if he were only old Father Dolomier--it all put such a +little air of devotion into their faces that it imposed (as it did +every year) upon their companions, which was a vastly gratifying +effect. No matter how young and innocent she may be, a woman's +devotion always seems to have two aims--God and her own sex. + +The week of retreat came. Oh, the week of retreat! That was the _bonne +bouche_ of it all, for themselves and for the others. It was the same +every year. By the time the week of retreat arrived, interest and +mystery had been frothed to the point of indiscretion; so that the +little girls would stand on tiptoe to peep through the shutters at the +postulants inside, and even the larger girls, to whom first communion +was a thing of an infantile past, would condescend to listen to their +reports with ill-feigned indifference. + +As the day of the first communion neared, the day of the general +confession naturally neared too, leading it. And then the little +girls, peeping through the shutters, and holding their breath to see +better, saw what they beheld every year; but it was always new and +awesome--mysterious scribbling in corners with lead-pencils on scraps +of paper; consultations; rewritings; copyings; the list of their sins, +of all the sins of their lives. + +"_Ma chère!_"--pigtails and sunbonnets hiving outside would shudder. +"Oh, _Mon Dieu!_ To have to confess all--but _all_ your sins! As for +me, it would kill me, sure!" + +And the frightful recoils of their consciences would make all +instantly blanch and cross themselves. + +"And look at Pupasse's sins! Oh, but they are long! _Ma chère_, but +look! But look, I ask you, at them!" + +The longest record was of course the most complimentary and honorable +to the possessor, as each girl naturally worked not only for +absolution but for fame. + +Between catechisms and instructions Madame Joubert would have "La Vie +des Saints" read aloud, to stimulate their piety and to engage their +thoughts; for the thoughts of first communicants are worse than flies +for buzzing around the forbidden. The lecture must have been a great +quickener of conscience; for they would dare punishment and cheat +Madame Joubert, under her own eyes, in order surreptitiously to add a +new sin to their list. Of course the one hour's recreation could not +afford time enough for observation now, and the little girls were +driven to all sorts of excuses to get out of the classroom for one +moment's peep through the shutters; at which whole swarms of them +would sometimes be caught and sent into punishment. + +Only two days more. Madame Joubert put them through the rehearsal, +a most important part of the preparation, almost as important as +catechism--how to enter the church, how to hold the candle, how to +advance, how to kneel, retire--everything, in fact. + +Only one day more, the quietest, most devotional day of all. Pupasse +lost her sins! + +Of course every year the same accident happened to some one. But it +was a new accident to Pupasse. And such a long list! + +The commotion inside that retreat! Pupasse's nasal whine, carrying her +lament without any mystery to the outside garden. Such searching of +pockets, rummaging of corners, microscopic examination of the floor! +Such crimination and recrimination, protestation, asseveration, +assurances, backed by divine and saintly invocations! Pupasse accused +companion after companion of filching her sins, which each after +each would violently deny, producing each her own list from her own +pocket,--proof to conviction of innocence, and, we may say, of guilt +also. + +Pupasse declared they had niched it to copy, because her list was the +longest and most complete. She could not go to confession without her +sins; she could not go to communion without confession. The tears +rolled down her long thin nose unchecked, for she never could remember +to use her handkerchief until reminded by Madame Joubert. + +She had committed it to memory, as all the others had done theirs; +but how was she to know without the list if she had not forgotten +something? And to forget one thing in a general confession they knew +was a mortal sin. + +"I shall tell Madame Joubert! I shall tell Madame Joubert!" + +"_Ma chère_!'" whispered the little ones outside. "Oh, but look at +them! _Elles font les quatre cents coups_!" which is equivalent to +"cutting up like the mischief." + +And with reason. As if such an influx of the world upon them at this +moment were not sufficient of itself to damn them. But to tell Madame +Joubert! With all their dresses made and ready, wreaths, veils, +candles, prayer-books, picture-cards, mother-of-pearl prayer-beads, +and festival breakfasts with admiring family and friends prepared. +Tell Madame Joubert! She would simply cancel it all. In a body they +chorused: + +"But, Pupasse!" + +"_Chère_ Pupasse!" + +"_Voyons_, Pupasse!" + +"I assure you, Pupasse!" + +"On the cross, Pupasse!" + +"Ah, Pupasse!" + +"We implore you, Pupasse!" + +The only response--tears, and "I shall tell Madame Joubert." + +Consultations, caucuses, individual appeals, general outbursts. +Pupasse stood in the corner. Curiously, she always sought refuge in +the very sanctum of punishment, her face hidden in her bended arms, +her hoops standing out behind, vouchsafing nothing but tears, and the +promise to tell Madame Joubert. And three o'clock approaching! And +Madame Joubert imminent! But Pupasse really could not go to confession +without her sins. They all recognized that; they were reasonable, as +they assured her. + +A crisis quickens the wits. They heard the cathedral clock strike the +quarter to three. They whispered, suggested, argued--bunched in the +farthest corner from Pupasse. + +"Console yourself, Pupasse! We will help you, Pupasse! Say no more +about it! We will help you!" + +A delegate was sent to say that. She was only four feet and a half +high, and had to stand on tiptoe to pluck the six-foot Pupasse's dress +to gain her attention. + +And they did help her generously. A new sheet of fool's-cap was +procured, and torn in two, lengthwise, and pinned in a long strip. One +by one, each little girl took it, and, retiring as far as possible, +would put her hand into her pocket, and, extracting her list, would +copy it in full on the new paper. Then she would fold it down, and +give it to the next one, until all had written. + +"Here, Pupasse; here are all our sins. We give them to you; you can +have them." + +Pupasse was radiant; she was more than delighted, and the more she +read the better pleased she was. Such a handsome long list, and so +many sins she had never thought of--never dreamed of! She set herself +with zeal to commit them to memory. But a hand on the door--Madame +Joubert! You never could have told that those little girls had not +been sitting during the whole time, with their hands clasped and eyes +cast up to the ceiling, or moving their lips as the prayer-beads +glided through their fingers. Their versatility was really marvelous. + +[Illustration: THE FIRST COMMUNION.] + +Poor Pupasse! God solved the dilemma of her education, and madame's +increasing sensitiveness about her appearance in the fifth class, by +the death of the old grandmother. She went home to the funeral, and +never returned--or at least she returned, but only for madame. There +was a little scene in the parlor: Pupasse, all dressed in black, with +her bag of primary books in her hand, ready and eager to get back to +her classes and fools' caps; madame, hesitating between her interests +and her fear of ridicule; Madame Joubert, between her loyalty to +school and her conscience. Pupasse the only one free and untrammeled, +simple and direct. + +That little school parlor had been the stage for so many scenes! +Madame Joubert detested acting--the comedy, as she called it. There +was nothing she punished with more pleasure up in her room. And +yet-- + +"Pupasse, _ma fille_, give me your grammar." + +The old battered, primitive book was gotten out of the bag, the string +still tied between the leaves for convenience in hanging around the +neck. + +"Your last punishment: the rule for irregular verbs. Commence!" + +"I know it, Madame Joubert; I know it perfectly, I assure you." + +"Commence!" + +"Irregular verbs--but I assure you I know it--I know it by heart--" + +"Commence, _ma fille!_" + +"Irregular verbs--irregular verbs--I know it, Madame Joubert--one +moment--" and she shook her right hand, as girls do to get +inspiration, they say. "Irregular verbs--give me one word, Madame +Joubert; only one word!" + +"That--" + +"Irregular verbs, that--irregular verbs, that--" + +"See here, Pupasse; you do not know that lesson any more than a cat +does"--Madame Joubert's favorite comparison. + +"Yes, I do, Madame Joubert! Yes, I do!" + +"Silence!" + +"But, Madame Joubert--" + +"Will you be silent!" + +"Yes, Madame Joubert; only--" + +"Pupasse, one more word--and--" Madame Joubert was forgetting her +comedy--"Listen, Pupasse, and obey! You go home and learn that lesson. +When you know it, you can reënter your class. That is the punishment I +have thought of to correct your 'want of attention.'" + +That was the way Madame Joubert put it--"want of attention." + +Pupasse looked at her--at madame, a silent but potent spectator. To +be sent from home because she did not know the rule of the irregular +verbs! To be sent from home, family, friends!--for that was the +way Pupasse put it. She had been in that school--it may only be +whispered--fifteen years. Madame Joubert knew it; so did madame, +although they accounted for only four or five years in each class. +That school was her home; Madame Joubert--God help her!--her mother; +madame, her divinity; fools' caps and turned-up skirts, her life. +The old grandmother--she it was who had done everything for her (a +_ci-devant_ rag-picker, they say); she it was who was nothing to her. + +Madame must have felt something of it besides the loss of the +handsome salary for years from the little old withered woman. +But conventionality is inexorable; and the St. Denis's great +recommendation was its conventionality. Madame Joubert must have felt +something of it,--she must have felt something of it,--for why should +she volunteer? Certainly madame could not have imposed _that_ upon +_her. It must_ have been an inspiration of the moment, or a movement, +a _tressaillement_, of the heart. + +"Listen, Pupasse, my child. Go home, study your lesson well. I shall +come every evening myself and hear it; and as soon as you know it, I +shall fetch you back myself. You know I always keep my word." + +Keep her word! That she did. Could the inanimate past testify, what a +fluttering of fools' caps in that parlor--"Daily Bees," and "Weekly +Couriers," by the year-full! + +What could Pupasse say or do? It settled the question, as Madame +Joubert assured madame, when the tall, thin black figure with the bag +of books disappeared through the gate. + +Madame Joubert was never known to break her word; that is all one +knows about her part of the bargain. + +One day, not three years ago, ringing a bell to inquire for a servant, +a familiar murmuring fell upon the ear, and an old abécédaire's eyes +could not resist the temptation to look through the shutters. There +sat Pupasse; there was her old grammar; there were both fingers +stopping her ears--as all studious girls do, or used to do; and there +sounded the old words composing the rule for irregular verbs. + +And you all remember how long it is since we wore funnel-shaped +hoop-skirts! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Balcony Stories, by Grace E. 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King + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Balcony Stories + +Author: Grace E. King + +Release Date: March 8, 2004 [EBook #11514] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BALCONY STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Bradley Norton and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>BALCONY STORIES</h1> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>GRACE KING</h2> +<h4>1892</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<div class="toc"><b>CONTENTS</b> +<p><a href="#BALCONY">THE BALCONY</a></p> +<p><a href="#THREE">A DRAMA OF THREE</a></p> +<p><a href="#GRANDE">LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE</a></p> +<p><a href="#MIMI">MIMI'S MARRIAGE</a></p> +<p><a href="#CHAPEL">THE MIRACLE CHAPEL</a></p> +<p><a href="#DAY">THE STORY OF A DAY</a></p> +<p><a href="#ANNE">ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE</a></p> +<p><a href="#HOPE">A CRIPPLED HOPE</a></p> +<p><a href="#US">"ONE OF US"</a></p> +<p><a href="#GIRL">THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL</a></p> +<p><a href="#GRAND">GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER</a></p> +<p><a href="#OLD">THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION</a></p> +<p><a href="#AFFAIR">A DELICATE AFFAIR</a></p> +<p><a href="#PUPASSE">PUPASSE</a></p> +<br> +<br> +<b>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</b> +<p><a href="#01">"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, +THAT SNAIL, WITH MY MAIL?"</a></p> +<p><a href="#02">"WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE +SHOULDERS"</a></p> +<p><a href="#03">CHAMPIGNY</a></p> +<p><a href="#05">"I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT"</a></p> +<p><a href="#06">"HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW"</a></p> +<p><a href="#07">"ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION"</a></p> +<p><a href="#08">"THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!"</a></p> +<p><a href="#09">"THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A +CONVALESCENT"</a></p> +<p><a href="#10">"LITTLE MAMMY"</a></p> +<p><a href="#11">"TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND +AWKWARDNESS"</a></p> +<p><a href="#12">THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY</a></p> +<p><a href="#13">WATCHING A LANDING</a></p> +<p><a href="#14">"TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES"</a></p> +<p><a href="#15">THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY</a></p> +<p><a href="#16">THE FIRST COMMUNION</a></p> +</div> +<hr> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>BALCONY STORIES</h2> +<a name="BALCONY"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE BALCONY</h3> +<p>There is much of life passed on the balcony in a country where +the summer unrolls in six moon-lengths, and where the nights have +to come with a double endowment of vastness and splendor to +compensate for the tedious, sun-parched days.</p> +<p>And in that country the women love to sit and talk together of +summer nights, on balconies, in their vague, loose, white +garments,—men are not balcony sitters,—with their +sleeping children within easy hearing, the stars breaking the cool +darkness, or the moon making a show of light—oh, such a +discreet show of light!--through the vines. And the children +inside, waking to go from one sleep into another, hear the low, +soft mother-voices on the balcony, talking about this person and +that, old times, old friends, old experiences; and it seems to +them, hovering a moment in wakefulness, that there is no end of the +world or time, or of the mother-knowledge; but, illimitable as it +is, the mother-voices and the mother-love and protection fill it +all,—with their mother's hand in theirs, children are not +afraid even of God,—and they drift into slumber again, their +little dreams taking all kinds of pretty reflections from the great +unknown horizon outside, as their fragile soap-bubbles take on +reflections from the sun and clouds.</p> +<p>Experiences, reminiscences, episodes, picked up as only women +know how to pick them up from other women's lives,—or other +women's destinies, as they prefer to call them,—and told as +only women know how to relate them; what God has done or is doing +with some other woman whom they have known—that is what +interests women once embarked on their own lives,—the +embarkation takes place at marriage, or after the marriageable +time,—or, rather, that is what interests the women who sit of +summer nights on balconies. For in those long-moon countries life +is open and accessible, and romances seem to be furnished real and +gratis, in order to save, in a languor-breeding climate, the ennui +of reading and writing books. Each woman has a different way of +picking up and relating her stories, as each one selects different +pieces, and has a personal way of playing them on the piano.</p> +<p>Each story <i>is</i> different, or appears so to her; each has +some unique and peculiar pathos in it. And so she dramatizes and +inflects it, trying to make the point visible to her apparent also +to her hearers. Sometimes the pathos and interest to the hearers +lie only in this—that the relater has observed it, and +gathered it, and finds it worth telling. For do we not gather what +we have not, and is not our own lacking our one motive? It may be +so, for it often appears so.</p> +<p>And if a child inside be wakeful and precocious it is not dreams +alone that take on reflections from the balcony outside: through +the half-open shutters the still, quiet eyes look across the dim +forms on the balcony to the star-spangled or the moon-brightened +heavens beyond; while memory makes stores for the future, and germs +are sown, out of which the slow, clambering vine of thought issues, +one day, to decorate or hide, as it may be, the structures or ruins +of life.</p> +<a name="THREE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>A DRAMA OF THREE</h3> +<p>It was a regular dramatic performance every first of the month +in the little cottage of the old General and Madame B----.</p> +<p>It began with the waking up of the General by his wife, standing +at the bedside with a cup of black coffee.</p> +<p>"Hé! Ah! Oh, Honorine! Yes; the first of the month, and +affairs—affairs to be transacted."</p> +<p>On those mornings when affairs were to be transacted there was +not much leisure for the household; and it was Honorine who +constituted the household. Not the old dressing-gown and slippers, +the old, old trousers, and the antediluvian neck-foulard of other +days! Far from it. It was a case of warm water (with even a fling +of cologne in it), of the trimming of beard and mustache by +Honorine, and the black broadcloth suit, and the brown satin stock, +and that <i>je ne sais quoi de dégagé</i> which no +one could possess or assume like the old General. Whether he +possessed or assumed it is an uncertainty which hung over the fine +manners of all the gentlemen of his day, who were kept through +their youth in Paris to cultivate <i>bon ton</i> and an +education.</p> +<p>It was also something of a gala-day for Madame la +Générale too, as it must be a gala-day for all old +wives to see their husbands pranked in the manners and graces that +had conquered their maidenhood, and exhaling once more that +ambrosial fragrance which once so well incensed their compelling +presence.</p> +<p>Ah, to the end a woman loves to celebrate her conquest! It is +the last touch of misfortune with her to lose in the old, the ugly, +and the commonplace her youthful lord and master. If one could look +under the gray hairs and wrinkles with which time thatches old +women, one would be surprised to see the flutterings, the +quiverings, the thrills, the emotions, the coals of the heart-fires +which death alone extinguishes, when he commands the tenant to +vacate.</p> +<p>Honorine's hands chilled with the ice of sixteen as she +approached scissors to the white mustache and beard. When her +finger-tips brushed those lips, still well formed and roseate, she +felt it, strange to say, on her lips. When she asperged the warm +water with cologne,—it was her secret delight and greatest +effort of economy to buy this cologne,—she always had one +little moment of what she called faintness—that faintness +which had veiled her eyes, and chained her hands, and stilled her +throbbing bosom, when as a bride she came from the church with him. +It was then she noticed the faint fragrance of the cologne bath. +Her lips would open as they did then, and she would stand for a +moment and think thoughts to which, it must be confessed, she +looked forward from month to month. What a man he had been! In +truth he belonged to a period that would accept nothing less from +Nature than physical beauty; and Nature is ever subservient to the +period. If it is to-day all small men, and to-morrow gnomes and +dwarfs, we may know that the period is demanding them from +Nature.</p> +<p>When the General had completed—let it be called no less +than the ceremony of—his toilet, he took his chocolate and +his <i>pain de Paris</i>. Honorine could not imagine him +breakfasting on anything but <i>pain de Paris.</i> Then he sat +himself in his large arm-chair before his escritoire, and began +transacting his affairs with the usual—</p> +<p>"But where is that idiot, that dolt, that sluggard, that snail, +with my mail?" Honorine, busy in the breakfast-room:</p> +<p>"In a moment, husband. In a moment."</p> +<p>"But he should be here now. It is the first of the month, it is +nine o'clock, I am ready; he should be here."</p> +<p>"It is not yet nine o'clock, husband."</p> +<p>"Not yet nine! Not yet nine! Am I not up? Am I not dressed? Have +I not breakfasted before nine?"</p> +<p>"That is so, husband. That is so." Honorine's voice, prompt in +cheerful acquiescence, came from the next room, where she was +washing his cup, saucer, and spoon.</p> +<p>"It is getting worse and worse every day. I tell you, Honorine, +Pompey must be discharged. He is worthless. He is trifling. +Discharge him! Discharge him! Do not have him about! Chase him out +of the yard! Chase him as soon as he makes his appearance! Do you +hear, Honorine?"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="01"></a><img width="600" src= +"images/01.jpg" alt= +""WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT SNAIL, WITH MY MAIL?""> +<h5>"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT SNAIL, +WITH MY MAIL?"</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>"You must have a little patience, husband."</p> +<p>It was perhaps the only reproach one could make to Madame +Honorine, that she never learned by experience.</p> +<p>"Patience! Patience! Patience is the invention of dullards and +sluggards. In a well-regulated world there should be no need of +such a thing as patience. Patience should be punished as a crime, +or at least as a breach of the peace. Wherever patience is found +police investigation should be made as for smallpox. Patience! +Patience! I never heard the word—I assure you, I never heard +the word in Paris. What do you think would be said there to the +messenger who craved patience of you? Oh, they know too well in +Paris—a rataplan from the walking-stick on his back, that +would be the answer; and a, 'My good fellow, we are not hiring +professors of patience, but legs.'"</p> +<p>"But, husband, you must remember we do not hire Pompey. He only +does it to oblige us, out of his kindness."</p> +<p>"Oblige us! Oblige me! Kindness! A negro oblige me! Kind to me! +That is it; that is it. That is the way to talk under the new +régime. It is favor, and oblige, and education, and +monsieur, and madame, now. What child's play to call this a +country—a government! I would not be surprised"—jumping +to his next position on this ever-recurring first of the month +theme—"I would not be surprised if Pompey has failed to find +the letter in the box. How do I know that the mail has not been +tampered with? From day to day I expect to hear it. What is to +prevent? Who is to interpose? The honesty of the officials? Honesty +of the officials—that is good! What a farce—honesty of +officials! That is evidently what has happened. The thought has not +occurred to me in vain. Pompey has gone. He has not found the +letter, and—well; that is the end."</p> +<p>But the General had still another theory to account for the +delay in the appearance of his mail which he always posed abruptly +after the exhaustion of the arraignment of the post-office.</p> +<p>"And why not Journel?" Journel was their landlord, a fellow of +means, but no extraction, and a favorite aversion of the old +gentleman's. "Journel himself? You think he is above it, +<i>hé</i>? You think Journel would not do such a thing? Ha! +your simplicity, Honorine—your simplicity is incredible. It +is miraculous. I tell you, I have known the Journels, from father +to son, for—yes, for seventy-five years. Was not his +grandfather the overseer on my father's plantation? I was not five +years old when I began to know the Journels. And this fellow, I +know him better than he knows himself. I know him as well as God +knows him. I have made up my mind. I have made it up carefully that +the first time that letter fails on the first of the month I shall +have Journel arrested as a thief. I shall land him in the +penitentiary. What! You think I shall submit to have my mail +tampered with by a Journel? Their contents appropriated? What! You +think there was no coincidence in Journel's offering me his +post-office box just the month—just the month, before those +letters began to arrive? You think he did not have some inkling of +them? Mark my words, Honorine, he did—by some of his +subterranean methods. And all these five years he has been +arranging his plans—that is all. He was arranging theft, +which no doubt has been consummated to-day. Oh, I have regretted +it—I assure you I have regretted it, that I did not promptly +reject his proposition, that, in fact, I ever had anything to do +with the fellow."</p> +<p>It was almost invariably, so regularly do events run in this +world,—it was almost invariably that the negro messenger made +his appearance at this point. For five years the General had +perhaps not been interrupted as many times, either above or below +the last sentence. The mail, or rather the letter, was opened, and +the usual amount—three ten-dollar bills—was carefully +extracted and counted. And as if he scented the bills, even as the +General said he did, within ten minutes after their delivery, +Journel made his appearance to collect the rent.</p> +<p>It could only have been in Paris, among that old retired +nobility, who counted their names back, as they expressed it, "au +de çà du déluge," that could have been +acquired the proper manner of treating a "roturier" landlord: to +measure him with the eyes from head to foot; to hand the +rent—the ten-dollar bill—with the tips of the fingers; +to scorn a look at the humbly tendered receipt; to say: "The +cistern needs repairing, the roof leaks; I must warn you that +unless such notifications meet with more prompt attention than in +the past, you must look for another tenant," etc., in the +monotonous tone of supremacy, and in the French, not of Journel's +dictionary, nor of the dictionary of any such as he, but in the +French of Racine and Corneille; in the French of the above +suggested circle, which inclosed the General's memory, if it had +not inclosed—as he never tired of recounting—his +star-like personality.</p> +<p>A sheet of paper always infolded the bank-notes. It always bore, +in fine but sexless tracery, "From one who owes you much."</p> +<p>There, that was it, that sentence, which, like a locomotive, +bore the General and his wife far on these firsts of the month to +two opposite points of the horizon, in fact, one from the +other—"From one who owes you much."</p> +<p>The old gentleman would toss the paper aside with the bill +receipt. In the man to whom the bright New Orleans itself almost +owed its brightness, it was a paltry act to search and pick for a +debtor. Friends had betrayed and deserted him; relatives had +forgotten him; merchants had failed with his money; bank presidents +had stooped to deceive him; for he was an old man, and had about +run the gamut of human disappointments—a gamut that had begun +with a C major of trust, hope, happiness, and money.</p> +<p>His political party had thrown him aside. Neither for +ambassador, plenipotentiary, senator, congressman, not even for a +clerkship, could he be nominated by it. Certes! "From one who owed +him much." He had fitted the cap to a new head, the first of every +month, for five years, and still the list was not exhausted. +Indeed, it would have been hard for the General to look anywhere +and not see some one whose obligations to him far exceeded this +thirty dollars a month. Could he avoid being happy with such +eyes?</p> +<p>But poor Madame Honorine! She who always gathered up the +receipts, and the "From one who owes you much"; who could at an +instant's warning produce the particular ones for any month of the +past half-decade. She kept them filed, not only in her armoire, but +the scrawled papers —skewered, as it were, somewhere +else—where women from time immemorial have skewered such +unsigned papers. She was not original in her thoughts—no +more, for the matter of that, than the General was. Tapped at any +time on the first of the month, when she would pause in her +drudgery to reimpale her heart by a sight of the written characters +on the scrap of paper, her thoughts would have been found flowing +thus, "One can give everything, and yet be sure of nothing."</p> +<p>When Madame Honorine said "everything," she did not, as women in +such cases often do, exaggerate. When she married the General, she +in reality gave the youth of sixteen, the beauty (ah, do not trust +the denial of those wrinkles, the thin hair, the faded eyes!) of an +angel, the dot of an heiress. Alas! It was too little at the time. +Had she in her own person united all the youth, all the beauty, all +the wealth, sprinkled parsimoniously so far and wide over all the +women in this land, would she at that time have done aught else +with this than immolate it on the burning pyre of the General's +affection? "And yet be sure of nothing."</p> +<p>It is not necessary, perhaps, to explain that last clause. It is +very little consolation for wives that their husbands have +forgotten, when some one else remembers. Some one else! Ah! there +could be so many some one Else's in the General's life, for in +truth he had been irresistible to excess. But this was one +particular some one else who had been faithful for five years. +Which one?</p> +<p>When Madame Honorine solves that enigma she has made up her mind +how to act.</p> +<p>As for Journel, it amused him more and more. He would go away +from the little cottage rubbing his hands with pleasure (he never +saw Madame Honorine, by the way, only the General). He would have +given far more than thirty dollars a month for this drama; for he +was not only rich, but a great <i>farceur</i>.</p> +<a name="GRANDE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE</h3> +<p>That was what she was called by everybody as soon as she was +seen or described. Her name, besides baptismal titles, was Idalie +Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. When she came into society, in the +brilliant little world of New Orleans, it was the event of the +season, and after she came in, whatever she did became also events. +Whether she went, or did not go; what she said, or did not say; +what she wore, and did not wear—all these became important +matters of discussion, quoted as much or more than what the +president said, or the governor thought. And in those days, the +days of '59, New Orleans was not, as it is now, a one-heiress +place, but it may be said that one could find heiresses then as one +finds type-writing girls now.</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Idalie received her birth, and what education she +had, on her parents' plantation, the famed old Reine Sainte Foy +place, and it is no secret that, like the ancient kings of France, +her birth exceeded her education.</p> +<p>It was a plantation, the Reine Sainte Foy, the richness and +luxury of which are really well described in those fervid pictures +of tropical life, at one time the passion of philanthropic +imaginations, excited and exciting over the horrors of slavery. +Although these pictures were then often accused of being purposely +exaggerated, they seem now to fall short of, instead of surpassing, +the truth. Stately walls, acres of roses, miles of oranges, +unmeasured fields of cane, colossal sugar-house—they were all +there, and all the rest of it, with the slaves, slaves, slaves +everywhere, whole villages of negro cabins. And there were also, +most noticeable to the natural, as well as to the visionary, +eye—there were the ease, idleness, extravagance, +self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short the whole +enumeration, the moral <i>sine qua non</i>, as some people +considered it, of the wealthy slaveholder of aristocratic descent +and tastes.</p> +<p>What Mademoiselle Idalie cared to learn she studied, what she +did not she ignored; and she followed the same simple rule +untrammeled in her eating, drinking, dressing, and comportment +generally; and whatever discipline may have been exercised on the +place, either in fact or fiction, most assuredly none of it, even +so much as in a threat, ever attended her sacred person. When she +was just turned sixteen, Mademoiselle Idalie made up her mind to go +into society. Whether she was beautiful or not, it is hard to say. +It is almost impossible to appreciate properly the beauty of the +rich, the very rich. The unfettered development, the limitless +choice of accessories, the confidence, the self-esteem, the +sureness of expression, the simplicity of purpose, the ease of +execution—all these produce a certain effect of beauty behind +which one really cannot get to measure length of nose, or +brilliancy of eye. This much can be said: there was nothing in her +that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty on her part, +or credit of it on the part of others. She was very tall and very +thin with small head, long neck, black eyes, and abundant straight +black hair,—for which her hair-dresser deserved more praise +than she,—good teeth, of course, and a mouth that, even in +prayer, talked nothing but commands; that is about all she had +<i>en fait d'ornements</i>, as the modesties say. It may be added +that she walked as if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation extended over +the whole earth, and the soil of it were too vile for her tread. Of +course she did not buy her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was +ordered from Paris, and came as regularly through the custom-house +as the modes and robes to the milliners. She was furnished by a +certain house there, just as one of a royal family would be at the +present day. As this had lasted from her layette up to her +sixteenth year, it may be imagined what took place when she +determined to make her début. Then it was literally, not +metaphorically, <i>carte blanche</i>, at least so it got to the +ears of society. She took a sheet of note-paper, wrote the date at +the top, added, "I make my début in November," signed her +name at the extreme end of the sheet, addressed it to her +dressmaker in Paris, and sent it.</p> +<p>It was said that in her dresses the very handsomest silks were +used for linings, and that real lace was used where others put +imitation,—around the bottoms of the skirts, for +instance,—and silk ribbons of the best quality served the +purposes of ordinary tapes; and sometimes the buttons were of real +gold and silver, sometimes set with precious stones. Not that she +ordered these particulars, but the dressmakers, when given <i>carte +blanche</i> by those who do not condescend to details, so soon +exhaust the outside limits of garments that perforce they take to +plastering them inside with gold, so to speak, and, when the bill +goes in, they depend upon the furnishings to carry out a certain +amount of the contract in justifying the price. And it was said +that these costly dresses, after being worn once or twice, were +cast aside, thrown upon the floor, given to the +negroes—anything to get them out of sight. Not an inch of the +real lace, not one of the jeweled buttons, not a scrap of ribbon, +was ripped off to save. And it was said that if she wanted to romp +with her dogs in all her finery, she did it; she was known to have +ridden horseback, one moonlight night, all around the plantation in +a white silk dinner-dress flounced with Alençon. And at +night, when she came from the balls, tired, tired to death as only +balls can render one, she would throw herself down upon her bed in +her tulle skirts,—on top, or not, of the exquisite flowers, +she did not care,—and make her maid undress her in that +position; often having her bodices cut off her, because she was too +tired to turn over and have them unlaced.</p> +<p>That she was admired, raved about, loved even, goes without +saying. After the first month she held the refusal of half the +beaux of New Orleans. Men did absurd, undignified, preposterous +things for her; and she? Love? Marry? The idea never occurred to +her. She treated the most exquisite of her pretenders no better +than she treated her Paris gowns, for the matter of that. She could +not even bring herself to listen to a proposal patiently; whistling +to her dogs, in the middle of the most ardent protestations, or +jumping up and walking away with a shrug of the shoulders, and a +"Bah!"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="02"></a> <img width="800" src= +"images/02.jpg" alt="WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS"> +<h5>"WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Well! Every one knows what happened after '59. There is no need +to repeat. The history of one is the history of all. But there was +this difference—for there is every shade of difference in +misfortune, as there is every shade of resemblance in happiness. +Mortemart des Islets went off to fight. That was natural; his +family had been doing that, he thought, or said, ever since +Charlemagne. Just as naturally he was killed in the first +engagement. They, his family, were always among the first killed; +so much so that it began to be considered assassination to fight a +duel with any of them. All that was in the ordinary course of +events. One difference in their misfortunes lay in that after the +city was captured, their plantation, so near, convenient, and rich +in all kinds of provisions, was selected to receive a contingent of +troops—a colored company. If it had been a colored company +raised in Louisiana it might have been different; and these negroes +mixed with the negroes in the neighborhood,—and negroes are +no better than whites, for the proportion of good and bad among +them,—and the officers were always off duty when they should +have been on, and on when they should have been off.</p> +<p>One night the dwelling caught fire. There was an immediate rush +to save the ladies. Oh, there was no hesitation about that! They +were seized in their beds, and carried out in the very arms of +their enemies; carried away off to the sugar-house, and deposited +there. No danger of their doing anything but keep very quiet and +still in their <i>chemises de nuit</i>, and their one sheet apiece, +which was about all that was saved from the +conflagration—that is, for them. But it must be remembered +that this is all hearsay. When one has not been present, one knows +nothing of one's own knowledge; one can only repeat. It has been +repeated, however, that although the house was burned to the +ground, and everything in it destroyed, wherever, for a year +afterward, a man of that company or of that neighborhood was found, +there could have been found also, without search-warrant, property +that had belonged to the Des Islets. That is the story; and it is +believed or not, exactly according to prejudice.</p> +<p>How the ladies ever got out of the sugar-house, history does not +relate; nor what they did. It was not a time for sociability, +either personal or epistolary. At one offensive word your letter, +and you, very likely, examined; and Ship Island for a hotel, with +soldiers for hostesses! Madame Des Islets died very soon after the +accident—of rage, they say; and that was about all the public +knew.</p> +<p>Indeed, at that time the society of New Orleans had other things +to think about than the fate of the Des Islets. As for <i>la grande +demoiselle</i>, she had prepared for her own oblivion in the hearts +of her female friends. And the gentlemen,—her <i>preux +chevaliers</i>,—they were burning with other passions than +those which had driven them to her knees, encountering a little +more serious response than "bahs" and shrugs. And, after all, a +woman seems the quickest thing forgotten when once the important +affairs of life come to men for consideration.</p> +<p>It might have been ten years according to some calculations, or +ten eternities,—the heart and the almanac never agree about +time,—but one morning old Champigny (they used to call him +Champignon) was walking along his levee front, calculating how soon +the water would come over, and drown him out, as the Louisianians +say. It was before a seven-o'clock breakfast, cold, wet, rainy, and +discouraging. The road was knee-deep in mud, and so broken up with +hauling, that it was like walking upon waves to get over it. A +shower poured down. Old Champigny was hurrying in when he saw a +figure approaching. He had to stop to look at it, for it was worth +while. The head was hidden by a green barege veil, which the +showers had plentifully besprinkled with dew; a tall, thin figure. +Figure! No; not even could it be called a figure: straight up and +down, like a finger or a post; high-shouldered, and a step—a +step like a plow-man's. No umbrella; no—nothing more, in +fact. It does not sound so peculiar as when first +related—something must be forgotten. The feet—oh, yes, +the feet—they were like waffle-irons, or frying-pans, or +anything of that shape.</p> +<p>Old Champigny did not care for women—he never had; they +simply did not exist for him in the order of nature. He had been +married once, it is true, about a half century before; but that was +not reckoned against the existence of his prejudice, because he was +<i>célibataire</i> to his finger-tips, as any one could see +a mile away. But that woman <i>intrigué'd</i> him.</p> +<p>He had no servant to inquire from. He performed all of his own +domestic work in the wretched little cabin that replaced his old +home. For Champigny also belonged to the great majority of the +<i>nouveaux pauvres</i>. He went out into the rice-field, where +were one or two hands that worked on shares with him, and he asked +them. They knew immediately; there is nothing connected with the +parish that a field-hand does not know at once. She was the teacher +of the colored public school some three or four miles away. "Ah," +thought Champigny, "some Northern lady on a mission." He watched to +see her return in the evening, which she did, of course; in a +blinding rain. Imagine the green barege veil then; for it remained +always down over her face.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="03"></a> <img width="335" src= +"images/03.jpg" alt="CHAMPIGNY."> +<h5>CHAMPIGNY.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Old Champigny could not get over it that he had never seen her +before. But he must have seen her, and, with his abstraction and +old age, not have noticed her, for he found out from the negroes +that she had been teaching four or five years there. And he found +out also—how, is not important—that she was Idalie +Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. <i>La grande demoiselle</i>! He +had never known her in the old days, owing to his uncomplimentary +attitude toward women, but he knew of her, of course, and of her +family. It should have been said that his plantation was about +fifty miles higher up the river, and on the opposite bank to Reine +Sainte Foy. It seemed terrible. The old gentleman had had reverses +of his own, which would bear the telling, but nothing was more +shocking to him than this—that Idalie Sainte Foy Mortemart +des Islets should be teaching a public colored school for—it +makes one blush to name it—seven dollars and a half a month. +For seven dollars and a half a month to teach a set of—well! +He found out where she lived, a little cabin—not so much +worse than his own, for that matter—in the corner of a field; +no companion, no servant, nothing but food and shelter. Her clothes +have been described.</p> +<p>Only the good God himself knows what passed in Champigny's mind +on the subject. We know only the results. He went and married <i>la +grande demoiselle</i>. How? Only the good God knows that too. Every +first of the month, when he goes to the city to buy provisions, he +takes her with him—in fact, he takes her everywhere with +him.</p> +<p>Passengers on the railroad know them well, and they always have +a chance to see her face. When she passes her old plantation <i>la +grande demoiselle</i> always lifts her veil for one +instant—the inevitable green barege veil. What a face! Thin, +long, sallow, petrified! And the neck! If she would only tie +something around the neck! And her plain, coarse cottonade gown! +The negro women about her were better dressed than she.</p> +<p>Poor old Champignon! It was not an act of charity to himself, no +doubt cross and disagreeable, besides being ugly. And as for love, +gratitude!</p> +<a name="MIMI"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>MIMI'S MARRIAGE</h3> +<p>This how she told about it, sitting in her little +room,—her bridal chamber,—not larger, really not larger +than sufficed for the bed there, the armoire here, the bureau +opposite, and the washstand behind the door, the corners all +touching. But a nice set of furniture, quite <i>comme il +faut</i>,—handsome, in fact,—as a bride of good family +should have. And she was dressed very prettily, too, in her long +white <i>negligée</i>, with plenty of lace and ruffles and +blue ribbons,—such as only the Creole girls can make, and +brides, alas! wear,—the pretty honeymoon costume that +suggests, that suggests—well! to proceed. "The poor little +cat!" as one could not help calling her, so <i>mignonne</i>, so +blond, with the pretty black eyes, and the rosebud of a +mouth,—whenever she closed it,—a perfect kiss.</p> +<p>"But you know, Louise," she said, beginning quite seriously at +the beginning, "papa would never have consented, never, +never—poor papa! Indeed, I should never have asked him; it +would only have been one humiliation more for him, poor papa! So it +was well he was dead, if it was God's will for it to be. Of course +I had my dreams, like everybody. I was so blond, so blond, and so +small; it seemed like a law I should marry a <i>brun</i>, a tall, +handsome <i>brun</i>, with a mustache and a fine barytone voice. +That was how I always arranged it, and—you will +laugh—but a large, large house, and numbers of servants, and +a good cook, but a superlatively good cuisine, and wine and all +that, and long, trailing silk dresses, and theater every night, and +voyages to Europe, and—well, everything God had to give, in +fact. You know, I get that from papa, wanting everything God has to +give! Poor papa! It seemed to me I was to meet him at any time, my +handsome <i>brun</i>. I used to look for him positively on my way +to school, and back home again, and whenever I would think of him I +would try and walk so prettily, and look so pretty! <i>Mon +Dieu!</i> I was not ten years old yet! And afterward it was only +for that that I went into society. What should girls go into +society for otherwise but to meet their <i>brun</i> or their blond? +Do you think it is amusing, to economize and economize, and sew and +sew, just to go to a party to dance? No! I assure you, I went into +society only for that; and I do not believe what girls +say—they go into society only for that too.</p> +<p>"You know at school how we used to <i>tirer la bonne +aventure.</i><a name="footnotetag1"></a><a href= +"#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> Well, every time he was not <i>brun, +riche, avenant</i>, Jules, or Raoul, or Guy, I simply would not +accept it, but would go on drawing until I obtained what I wanted. +As I tell you, I thought it was my destiny. And when I would try +with a flower to see if he loved me,—<i>Il m'aime, un peu, +beaucoup, passionément, pas du tout</i>,—if it were +<i>pas du tout</i>, I would always throw the flower away, and begin +tearing off the leaves from another one immediately. +<i>Passionément</i> was what I wanted, and I always got it +in the end.</p> +<p>"But papa, poor papa, he never knew anything of that, of course. +He would get furious when any one would come to see me, and +sometimes, when he would take me in society, if I danced with a +'nobody,'—as he called no matter whom I danced with,—he +would come up and take me away with such an air—such an air! +It would seem that papa thought himself better than everybody in +the world. But it went worse and worse with papa, not only in the +affairs of the world, but in health. Always thinner and thinner, +always a cough; in fact, you know, I am a little feeble-chested +myself, from papa. And Clementine! Clementine with her +children—just think, Louise, eight! I thank God my mama had +only me, if papa's second wife had to have so many. And so naughty! +I assure you, they were all devils; and no correction, no +punishment, no education—but you know Clementine! I tell you, +sometimes on account of those children I used to think myself in +'ell [making the Creole's attempt and failure to pronounce the h], +and Clementine had no pride about them. If they had shoes, well; if +they had not shoes, well also.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><img width="400" src="images/04.jpg" alt= +""></div> +<hr> +<p>"'But Clementine!' I would expostulate, I would pray—</p> +<p>"'But do not be a fool, Mimi,' she would say. 'Am I God? Can I +do miracles? Or must I humiliate your papa?'</p> +<p>"That was true. Poor papa! It would have humiliated papa. When +he had money he gave; only it was a pity he had no money. As for +what he observed, he thought it was Clementine's negligence. For, +it is true, Clementine had no order, no industry, in the best of +fortune as in the worst. But to do her justice, it was not her +fault this time, only she let him believe it, to save his pride; +and Clementine, you know, has a genius for stories. I assure you, +Louise, I was desperate. I prayed to God to help me, to advise me. +I could not teach—I had no education; I could not go into a +shop—that would be dishonoring papa—and <i>enfin</i>, I +was too pretty. 'And proclaim to the world,' Clementine would cry, +'that your papa does not make money for his family.' That was true. +The world is so malicious. You know, Louise, sometimes it seems to +me the world is glad to hear that a man cannot support his family; +it compliments those who can. As if papa had not intelligence, and +honor, and honesty! But they do not count now as in old times, +'before the war.'</p> +<p>"And so, when I thought of that, I laughed and talked and played +the thoughtless like Clementine, and made bills. We made +bills—we had to—for everything; we could do that, you +know, on our old name and family. But it is too long! I am sure it +is too long and tiresome! What egotism on my part! Come, we will +take a glass of anisette, and talk of something else—your +trip, your family. No? no? You are only asking me out of +politeness! You are so <i>aimable</i>, so kind. Well, if you are +not <i>ennuyée</i>—in fact, I want to tell you. It was +too long to write, and I detest a pen. To me there is no instrument +of torture like a pen.</p> +<p>"Well, the lady next door, she was an American, and common, very +common, according to papa. In comparison to us she had no family +whatever. Our little children were forbidden even to associate with +her little children. I thought that was ridiculous—not that I +am a democrat, but I thought it ridiculous. But the children cared; +they were so disobedient and they were always next door, and they +always had something nice to eat over there. I sometimes thought +Clementine used to encourage their disobedience, just for the good +things they got to eat over there. But papa was always making fun +of them; you know what a sharp tongue he had. The gentleman was a +clerk; and, according to papa, the only true gentlemen in the world +had family and a profession. We did not dare allow ourselves to +think it, but Clementine and I knew that they, in fact, were in +more comfortable circumstances than we.</p> +<p>"The lady, who also had a great number of children, sent one +day, with all the discretion and delicacy possible, and asked me if +I would be so kind as to—guess what, Louise! But only guess! +But you never could! Well, to darn some of her children's stockings +for her. It was God who inspired her, I am sure, on account of my +praying so much to him. You will be shocked, Louise, when I tell +you. It sounds like a sin, but I was not in despair when papa died. +It was a grief,—yes, it seized the heart, but it was not +despair. Men ought not to be subjected to the humiliation of life; +they are not like women, you know. We are made to stand things; +they have their pride,—their <i>orgueil</i>, as we say in +French,—and that is the point of honor with some men. And +Clementine and I, we could not have concealed it much longer. In +fact, the truth was crying out everywhere, in the children, in the +house, in our own persons, in our faces. The darning did not +provide a superfluity, I guarantee you!</p> +<p>"Poor papa! He caught cold. He was condemned from the first. And +so all his fine qualities died; for he had fine +qualities—they were too fine for this age, that was all. Yes; +it was a kindness of God to take him before he found out. If it was +to be, it was better. Just so with Clementine as with me. After the +funeral—crack! everything went to pieces. We were at the four +corners for the necessaries of life, and the bills came in—my +dear, the bills that came in! What memories! what memories! +Clementine and I exclaimed; there were some bills that we had +completely forgotten about. The lady next door sent her brother +over when papa died. He sat up all night, that night, and he +assisted us in all our arrangements. And he came in afterward, +every evening. If papa had been there, there would have been a fine +scene over it; he would have had to take the door, very likely. But +now there was no one to make objections. And so when, as I say, we +were at the four corners for the necessaries of life, he asked +Clementine's permission to ask me to marry him.</p> +<p>"I give you my word, Louise, I had forgotten there was such a +thing as marriage in the world for me! I had forgotten it as +completely as the chronology of the Merovingian dynasty, alas! with +all the other school things forgotten. And I do not believe +Clementine remembered there was such a possibility in the world for +me. <i>Mon Dieu!</i> when a girl is poor she may have all the +beauty in the world—not that I had beauty, only a little +prettiness. But you should have seen Clementine! She screamed for +joy when she told me. Oh, there was but one answer according to +her, and according to everybody she could consult, in her haste. +They all said it was a dispensation of Providence in my favor. He +was young, he was strong; he did not make a fortune, it was true, +but he made a good living. And what an assistance to have a man in +the family!--an assistance for Clementine and the children. But the +principal thing, after all, was, he wanted to marry me. Nobody had +ever wanted that before, my dear!</p> +<p>"Quick, quick, it was all arranged. All my friends did something +for me. One made my <i>peignoirs</i> for me, one this, one +that—<i>ma foi!</i> I did not recognize myself. One made all +the toilet of the bureau, another of the bed, and we all sewed on +the wedding-dress together. And you should have seen Clementine, +going out in all her great mourning, looking for a house, looking +for a servant! But the wedding was private on account of poor papa. +But you know, Loulou, I had never time to think, except about +Clementine and the children, and when I thought of all those poor +little children, poor papa's children, I said 'Quick, quick,' like +the rest.</p> +<p>"It was the next day, the morning after the wedding, I had time +to think. I was sitting here, just as you see me now, in my pretty +new <i>negligée</i>. I had been looking at all the pretty +presents I have shown you, and my trousseau, and my +furniture,—it is not bad, as you see,—my dress, my +veil, my ring, and—I do not know—I do not +know—but, all of a sudden, from everywhere came the thought +of my <i>brun</i>, my handsome <i>brun</i> with the mustache, and +the <i>bonne aventure, ricke, avenant</i>, the Jules, Raoul, Guy, +and the flower leaves, and '<i>il m'aime, un pen, beaucoup, pas du +tout,' passionnément</i>, and the way I expected to meet him +walking to and from school, walking as if I were dancing the steps, +and oh, my plans, my plans, my plans,—silk dresses, theater, +voyages to Europe,—and poor papa, so fine, so tall, so +aristocratic. I cannot tell you how it all came; it seized my +heart, and, <i>mon Dieu!</i> I cried out, and I wept, I wept, I +wept. How I wept! It pains me here now to remember it. Hours, hours +it lasted, until I had no tears in my body, and I had to weep +without them, with sobs and moans. But this, I have always +observed, is the time for reflection—after the tears are all +out. And I am sure God himself gave me my thoughts. 'Poor little +Mimi!' I thought, '<i>fi done</i>! You are going to make a fool of +yourself now when it is all over, because why? It is God who +manages the world, and not you. You pray to God to help you in your +despair, and he has helped you. He has sent you a good, kind +husband who adores you; who asks only to be a brother to your +sisters and brothers, and son to Clementine; who has given you more +than you ever possessed in your life—but because he did not +come out of the <i>bonne aventure</i>—and who gets a husband +out of the <i>bonne aventure?</i>—and would your <i>brun</i> +have come to you in your misfortune?' I am sure God inspired those +thoughts in me.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="05"></a> <img width="500" src= +"images/05.jpg" alt=""I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT.""> +<h5>"I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT"</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>"I tell you, I rose from that bed—naturally I had thrown +myself upon it. Quick I washed my face, I brushed my hair, and, you +see these bows of ribbons,—look, here are the marks of the +tears,—I turned them. <i>Hé,</i> Loulou, it occurs to +me, that if you examined the blue bows on a bride's +<i>negligée</i>, you might always find tears on the other +side; for do they not all have to marry whom God sends? and am I +the only one who had dreams? It is the end of dreams, marriage; and +that is the good thing about it. God lets us dream to keep us +quiet, but he knows when to wake us up, I tell you. The blue bows +knew! And now, you see, I prefer my husband to my <i>brun</i>; in +fact, Loulou, I adore him, and I am furiously jealous about him. +And he is so good to Clementine and the poor little children; and +see his photograph—a blond, and not good-looking, and +small!</p> +<p>But poor papa! If he had been alive, I am sure he never would +have agreed with God about my marriage."</p> +<hr class="full"> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a name="footnote1"></a> <b>Footnote +1</b>: <a href="#footnotetag1">(return)</a> +<p><i>La bonne aventure</i> is or was generally a very much +battered foolscap copy-book, which contained a list of all possible +elements of future (school-girl) happiness. Each item answered a +question, and had a number affixed to it. To draw one's fortune +consisted in asking question after question, and guessing a number, +a companion volunteering to read the answers. To avoid cheating, +the books were revised from time to time, and the numbers +changed.</p> +</blockquote> +<hr class="full"> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<a name="CHAPEL"></a><br> +<br> +<h3>THE MIRACLE CHAPEL</h3> +<p>Every heart has a miracle to pray for. Every life holds that +which only a miracle can cure. To prove that there have never been, +that there can never be, miracles does not alter the matter. So +long as there is something hoped for,—that does not come in +the legitimate channel of possible events,—so long as +something does come not to be hoped or expected in the legitimate +channel of possible events, just so long will the miracle be prayed +for.</p> +<p>The rich and the prosperous, it would seem, do not depend upon +God so much, do not need miracles, as the poor do. They do not have +to pray for the extra crust when starvation hovers near; for the +softening of an obdurate landlord's heart; for strength in +temptation, light in darkness, salvation from vice; for a friend in +friendlessness; for that miracle of miracles, an opportunity to +struggling ambition; for the ending of a dark night, the breaking +of day; and, oh! for God's own miracle to the +bedside-watchers—the change for the better, when death is +there and the apothecary's skill too far, far away. The poor, the +miserable, the unhappy, they can show their miracles by the score; +that is why God is called the poor man's friend. He does not mind, +so they say, going in the face of logic and reason to relieve them; +for often the kind and charitable are sadly hampered by the fetters +of logic and reason, which hold them, as it were, away from their +own benevolence.</p> +<p>But the rich have their miracles, no doubt, even in that +beautiful empyrean of moneyed ease in which the poor place them. +Their money cannot buy all they enjoy, and God knows how much of +their sorrow it assuages. As it is, one hears now and then of +accidents among them, conversions to better thoughts, warding off +of danger, rescue of life; and heirs are sometimes born, and +husbands provided, and fortunes saved, in such surprising ways, +that even the rich, feeling their limitations in spite of their +money, must ascribe it privately if not publicly to other potencies +than their own. These cathedral <i>tours de force</i>, however, do +not, if the truth be told, convince like the miracles of the +obscure little chapel.</p> +<p>There is always a more and a most obscure little miracle chapel, +and as faith seems ever to lead unhesitatingly to the latter one, +there is ever rising out of humility and obscurity, as in response +to a demand, some new shrine, to replace the wear and tear and loss +of other shrines by prosperity. For, alas! it is hard even for a +chapel to remain obscure and humble in the face of prosperity and +popularity. And how to prevent such popularity and prosperity? As +soon as the noise of a real miracle in it gets abroad, every one is +for hurrying thither at once with their needs and their prayers, +their candles and their picayunes; and the little miracle chapel, +perhaps despite itself, becomes with mushroom growth a church, and +the church a cathedral, from whose resplendent altars the cheap, +humble ex-voto tablets, the modest beginnings of its ecclesiastical +fortunes, are before long banished to dimly lighted lateral +shrines.</p> +<p>The miracle chapel in question lay at the end of a very +confusing but still intelligible route. It is not in truth a chapel +at all, but a consecrated chamber in a very small, very lowly +cottage, which stands, or one might appropriately, if not with +absolute novelty, say which kneels, in the center of a large +garden, a garden primeval in rusticity and size, its limits being +defined by no lesser boundaries than the four intersecting streets +outside, and its culture showing only the careless, shiftless +culture of nature. The streets outside were miracles themselves in +that, with their liquid contents, they were streets and not bayous. +However, they protected their island chapel almost as well as a +six-foot moat could have done. There was a small paved space on the +sidewalk that served to the pedestrian as an indication of the spot +in the tall, long, broad fence where a gate might be sought. It was +a small gate with a strong latch. It required a strong hand to open +it. At the sound of the click it made, the little street +ragamuffin, who stood near, peeping through the fence, looked up. +He had worked quite a hole between the boards with his fingers. +Such an anxious expression passed over his face that even a casual +passer-by could not help relieving it by a question—any +question:</p> +<p>"Is this the miracle chapel, little boy?"</p> +<p>"Yes, ma'am; yes." Then his expression changed to one of +eagerness, yet hardly less anxious.</p> +<p>"Here. Take this—"</p> +<p>He did not hold out his hand, the coin had to seek it. At its +touch he refused to take it.</p> +<p>"I ain't begging."</p> +<p>"What are you looking at so through the fence?" He was all +sadness now.</p> +<p>"Just looking."</p> +<p>"Is there anything to see inside?"</p> +<p>He did not answer. The interrogation was repeated.</p> +<p>"I can't see nothing. I'm blind," putting his eyes again to the +hole, first one, then the other.</p> +<p>"Come, won't you tell me how this came to be a miracle +chapel?"</p> +<p>"Oh, ma'am,"—he turned his face from the fence, and +clasped his hands in excitement,—"it was a poor widow woman +who come here with her baby that was a-dying, and she prayed to the +Virgin Mary, and the Virgin Mary made the baby live—"</p> +<p>He dropped his voice, the words falling slower and slower. As he +raised his face, one could see then that he was blind, and the +accident that had happened to him, in fording the street. What +sightless eyes! What a wet, muddy little skeleton! Ten? No; hardly +ten years of age.</p> +<p>"The widow woman she picked up her baby, and she run down the +walk here, and out into the street screaming—she was so +glad,"—putting his eyes to the peep-hole again,—"and +the Virgin Mary come down the walk after her, and come through the +gate, too; and that was all she seed—the widow woman."</p> +<p>"Did you know the widow woman?"</p> +<p>He shook his head.</p> +<p>"How do you know it?"</p> +<p>"That was what they told me. And they told me, the birds all +begun to sing at once, and the flowers all lighted up like the sun +was shining on them. They seed her. And she come down the walk, and +through the gate," his voice lowering again to a whisper.</p> +<p>Aye, how the birds must have sung, and the flowers shone, to the +widowed mother as she ran, nay, leaped, down that rose-hedged walk, +with her restored baby clasped to her bosom!</p> +<p>"<i>They</i> seed her," repeated the little fellow. "And that is +why you stand here—to see her, too?"</p> +<p>His shoulder turned uneasily in the clasp upon it.</p> +<p>"They seed her, and they ain't got no eyes."</p> +<p>"Have you no mother?"</p> +<p>"Ain't never had no mother." A thought struck him. "Would that +count, ma'am? Would that count? The little baby that was +dying—yes, ma'am, it had a mother; and it's the mothers that +come here constant with their children; I sometimes hear 'em +dragging them in by the hand."</p> +<p>"How long have you been coming here?"</p> +<p>"Ever since the first time I heard it, ma'am."</p> +<p>Street ragamuffins do not cry: it would be better if they did +so, when they are so young and so blind; it would be easier for the +spectator, the auditor.</p> +<p>"They seed her—I might see her ef—ef I could see her +once—ef—ef I could see anything once." His voice +faltered; but he stiffened it instantly. "She might see me. She +can't pass through this gate without seeing me; +and—and—ef she seed me—and I didn't even see +her—oh, I'm so tired of being blind!"</p> +<p>"Did you never go inside to pray?" How embarrassing such a +question is, even to a child!</p> +<p>"No, ma'am. Does that count, too? The little baby didn't pray, +the flowers didn't go inside, nor the birds. And they say the birds +broke out singing all at once, and the flowers shined, like the sun +was shining on 'em—like the sun was shining in 'em," he +corrected himself. "The birds they can see, and the flowers they +can't see, and they seed her." He shivered with the damp +cold—and perhaps too with hunger.</p> +<p>"Where do you live?"</p> +<p>He wouldn't answer.</p> +<p>"What do you live on?"</p> +<p>He shook his head.</p> +<p>"Come with me." He could not resist the grasp on his shoulder, +and the firm directing of his bare, muddy feet through the gate, up +the walk, and into the chamber which the Virgin found that day. He +was turned to the altar, and pressed down on his knees.</p> +<p>One should not look at the face of a blind child praying to the +Virgin for sight. Only the Virgin herself should see that—and +if she once saw that little boy! There were hearts, feet, hands, +and eyes enough hanging around to warrant hope at least, if not +faith; the effigies of the human aches and pains that had here +found relief, if not surcease; feet and hands beholden to no +physician for their exorcism of rheumatism; eyes and ears indebted +to no oculist or aurist; and the hearts,—they are always in +excess,—and, to the most skeptical, there is something +sweetly comforting in the sight of so many cured hearts, with their +thanks cut deep, as they should be, in the very marble thereof. +Where the bed must have stood was the altar, rising by easy +gradations, brave in ecclesiastical deckings, to the plaster figure +of her whom those yearning hearts were seeing, whom those murmuring +lips were addressing. Hearts must be all alike to her at such a +distance, but the faces to the looker-on were so different. The +eyes straining to look through all the experiences and troubles +that their life has held to plead, as only eyes can plead, to one +who can, if she will, perform their miracle for them. And the +mouths,—the sensitive human mouths,—each one distorted +by the tragedy against which it was praying.</p> +<p>Their miracles! their miracles! what trifles to divinity! +Perhaps hardly more to humanity! How far a simple looker-on could +supply them if so minded! Perhaps a liberal exercise of love and +charity by not more than half a dozen well-to-do people could +answer every prayer in the room! But what a miracle that would be, +and how the Virgin's heart would gladden thereat, and jubilate over +her restored heart-dying children, even as the widowed mother did +over her one dying babe!</p> +<p>And the little boy had stopped praying. The futility of +it—perhaps his own impotence—had overcome him. He was +crying, and past the shame of showing it—crying helplessly, +hopelessly. Tears were rolling out of his sightless eyes over his +wordless lips. He could not pray; he could only cry. What better, +after all, can any of us do? But what a prayer to a woman—to +even the plaster figure of a woman! And the Virgin did hear him; +for she had him taken without loss of a moment to the hospital, and +how easy she made it for the physician to remove the disability! To +her be the credit.</p> +<a name="DAY"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE STORY OF A DAY</h3> +<p>It is really not much, the story; it is only the arrangement of +it, as we would say of our dresses and our drawing-rooms.</p> +<p>It began with the dawn, of course; and the skiff for our voyage, +silvered with dew, waiting in the mist for us, as if it had floated +down in a cloud from heaven to the bayou. When repeated, this +sounds like poor poetry; but that is the way one thinks at day +dawn, when the dew is yet, as it were, upon our brains, and our +ideas are still half dreams, and our waking hearts, alas! as +innocent as waking babies playing with their toes.</p> +<p>Our oars waked the waters of the bayou, as motionless as a +sleeping snake under its misty covert—to continue the +poetical language or thought. The ripples ran frightened and +shivering into the rooty thicknesses of the sedge-grown banks, +startling the little birds bathing there into darting to the +nearest, highest rush-top, where, without losing their hold on +their swaying, balancing perches, they burst into all sorts of +incoherent songs, in their excitement to divert attention from the +near-hidden nests: bird mothers are so much like women mothers!</p> +<p>It soon became day enough for the mist to rise. The eyes that +saw it ought to be able to speak to tell fittingly about it.</p> +<p>Not all at once, nor all together, but a thinning, a lifting, a +breaking, a wearing away; a little withdrawing here, a little +withdrawing there; and now a peep, and now a peep; a bride lifting +her veil to her husband! Blue! White! Lilies! Blue lilies! White +lilies! Blue and white lilies! And still blue and white lilies! And +still! And still! Wherever the veil lifted, still and always the +bride!</p> +<p>Not in clumps and bunches, not in spots and patches, not in +banks, meadows, acres, but in—yes; for still it lifted beyond +and beyond and beyond; the eye could not touch the limit of them, +for the eye can touch only the limit of vision; and the lilies +filled the whole sea-marsh, for that is the way spring comes to the +sea-marshes.</p> +<p>The sedge-roots might have been unsightly along the water's +edge, but there were morning-glories, all colors, all +shades—oh, such morning-glories as we of the city never see! +Our city morning-glories must dream of them, as we dream of angels. +Only God could be so lavish! Dropping from the tall spear-heads to +the water, into the water, under the water. And then, the +reflection of them, in all their colors, blue, white, pink, purple, +red, rose, violet!</p> +<p>To think of an obscure little Acadian bayou waking to flow the +first thing in the morning not only through banks of new-blown +morning-glories, but sown also to its depths with such reflections +as must make it think itself a bayou in heaven, instead of in +Paroisse St. Martin. Perhaps that is the reason the poor poets +think themselves poets, on account of the beautiful things that are +only reflected into their minds from what is above? Besides the +reflections, there were alligators in the bayou, trying to slip +away before we could see them, and watching us with their stupid, +senile eyes, sometimes from under the thickest, prettiest flowery +bowers; and turtles splashing into the water ahead of us; and fish +(silver-sided perch), looking like reflections themselves, floating +through the flower reflections, nibbling their breakfast.</p> +<p>Our bayou had been running through swamp only a little more +solid than itself; in fact, there was no solidity but what came +from the roots of grasses. Now, the banks began to get firmer, from +real soil in them. We could see cattle in the distance, up to their +necks in the lilies, their heads and sharp-pointed horns coming up +and going down in the blue and white. Nothing makes cattle's heads +appear handsomer, with the sun just rising far, far away on the +other side of them. The sea-marsh cattle turned loose to pasture in +the lush spring beauty—turned loose in Elysium!</p> +<p>But the land was only partly land yet, and the cattle still +cattle to us. The rising sun made revelations, as our bayou carried +us through a drove in their Elysium, or it might have always been +an Elysium to us. It was not all pasturage, all enjoyment. The +rising and falling feeding head was entirely different, as we could +now see, from the rising and falling agonized head of the +bogged—the buried alive. It is well that the lilies grow +taller and thicker over the more treacherous places; but, misery! +misery! not much of the process was concealed from us, for the +cattle have to come to the bayou for water. Such a splendid black +head that had just yielded breath! The wide-spreading ebony horns +thrown back among the morning-glories, the mouth open from the last +sigh, the glassy eyes staring straight at the beautiful blue sky +above, where a ghostly moon still lingered, the velvet neck ridged +with veins and muscles, the body already buried in black ooze. And +such a pretty red-and-white-spotted heifer, lying on her side, +opening and shutting her eyes, breathing softly in meek resignation +to her horrible calamity! And, again, another one was plunging and +battling in the act of realizing her doom: a fierce, furious, red +cow, glaring and bellowing at the soft, yielding inexorable abysm +under her, the bustards settling afar off, and her own species +browsing securely just out of reach.</p> +<p>They understand that much, the sea-marsh cattle, to keep out of +reach of the dead combatant. In the delirium of anguish, relief +cannot be distinguished from attack, and rescue of the victim has +been proved to mean goring of the rescuer.</p> +<p>The bayou turned from it at last, from our beautiful lily world +about which our pleasant thoughts had ceased to flow even in bad +poetry.</p> +<p>Our voyage was for information, which might be obtained at a +certain habitation; if not there, at a second one, or surely at a +third and most distant settlement.</p> +<p>The bayou narrowed into a canal, then widened into a bayou +again, and the low, level swamp and prairie advanced into woodland +and forest. Oak-trees began, our beautiful oak-trees! Great +branches bent down almost to the water,—quite even with high +water,—covered with forests of oak, parasites, lichens, and +with vines that swept our heads as we passed under them, drooping +now and then to trail in the water, a plaything for the fishes, and +a landing-place for amphibious insects. The sun speckled the water +with its flickering patterns, showering us with light and heat. We +have no spring suns; our sun, even in December, is a summer +one.</p> +<p>And so, with all its grace of curve and bend, and so—the +description is longer than the voyage—we come to our first +stopping-place. To the side, in front of the well-kept fertile +fields, like a proud little showman, stood the little house. Its +pointed shingle roof covered it like the top of a chafing-dish, +reaching down to the windows, which peeped out from under it like +little eyes.</p> +<p>A woman came out of the door to meet us. She had had time during +our graceful winding approach to prepare for us. What an +irrevocable vow to old maidenhood! At least twenty-five, almost a +possible grandmother, according to Acadian computation, and well in +the grip of advancing years. She was dressed in a stiff, dark red +calico gown, with a white apron. Her black hair, smooth and glossy +under a varnish of grease, was plaited high in the back, and +dropped regular ringlets, six in all, over her forehead. That was +the epoch when her calamity came to her, when the hair was worn in +that fashion. A woman seldom alters her coiffure after a calamity +of a certain nature happens to her. The figure had taken a compact +rigidity, an unfaltering inflexibility, all the world away from the +elasticity of matronhood; and her eyes were clear and fixed like +her figure, neither falling, nor rising, nor puzzling under other +eyes. Her lips, her hands, her slim feet, were conspicuously +single, too, in their intent, neither reaching, nor feeling, nor +running for those other lips, hands, and feet which should have +doubled their single life.</p> +<p>That was Adorine Mérionaux, otherwise the most +industrious Acadian and the best cottonade-weaver in the parish. It +had been short, her story. A woman's love is still with those +people her story. She was thirteen when she met him. That is the +age for an Acadian girl to meet him, because, you know, the large +families—the thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, twenty +children—take up the years; and when one wishes to know one's +great-great-grandchildren (which is the dream of the Acadian girl) +one must not delay one's story.</p> +<p>She had one month to love him in, and in one week they were to +have the wedding. The Acadians believe that marriage must come +<i>au point</i>, as cooks say their sauces must be served. Standing +on the bayou-bank in front of the Mérionaux, one could say +"Good day" with the eyes to the Zévérin +Theriots—that was the name of the parents of the young +bridegroom. Looking under the branches of the oaks, one could see +across the prairie,—prairie and sea-marsh it was,—and +clearly distinguish another little red-washed house like the +Mérionaux, with a painted roof hanging over the windows, and +a staircase going up outside to the garret. With the sun shining in +the proper direction, one might distinguish more, and with love +shining like the sun in the eyes, one might see, one might +see—a heart full.</p> +<p>It was only the eyes, however, which could make such a quick +voyage to the Zévérin Theriots; a skiff had a long +day's journey to reach them. The bayou sauntered along over the +country like a negro on a Sunday's pleasuring, trusting to God for +time, and to the devil for means.</p> +<p>Oh, nothing can travel quickly over a bayou! Ask any one who has +waited on a bayou-bank for a physician or a life-and-death message. +Thought refuses to travel and turn and double over it; thought, +like the eye, takes the shortest cut—straight over the +sea-marsh; and in the spring of the year, when the lilies are in +bloom, thought could not take a more heavenly way, even from +beloved to beloved.</p> +<p>It was the week before marriage, that week when, more than one's +whole life afterward, one's heart feels most +longing—most—well, in fact, it was the week before +marriage. From Sunday to Sunday, that was all the time to be +passed. Adorine—women live through this week by the grace of +God, or perhaps they would be as unreasonable as the +men—Adorine could look across the prairie to the little red +roof during the day, and could think across it during the night, +and get up before day to look across again—longing, longing +all the time. Of course one must supply all this from one's own +imagination or experience.</p> +<p>But Adorine could sing, and she sang. One might hear, in a +favorable wind, a gunshot, or the barking of a dog from one place +to the other, so that singing, as to effect, was nothing more than +the voicing of her looking and thinking and longing.</p> +<p>When one loves, it is as if everything was known of and seen by +the other; not only all that passes in the head and heart, which +would in all conscience be more than enough to occupy the other, +but the talking, the dressing, the conduct. It was then that the +back hair was braided and the front curled more and more +beautifully every day, and that the calico dresses became stiffer +and stiffer, and the white crochet lace collar broader and lower in +the neck. At thirteen she was beautiful enough to startle one, they +say, but that was nothing; she spent time and care upon these +things, as if, like other women, her fate seriously depended upon +them. There is no self-abnegation like that of a woman in love.</p> +<p>It was her singing, however, which most showed that other +existence in her existence. When she sang at her spinning-wheel or +her loom, or knelt battling clothes on the bank of the bayou, her +lips would kiss out the words, and the tune would rise and fall and +tremble, as if Zepherin were just across there, anywhere; in fact, +as if every blue and white lily might hide an ear of him.</p> +<p>It was the time of the new moon, fortunately, when all sit up +late in the country. The family would stop in their talking about +the wedding to listen to her. She did not know it herself, but +it—the singing—was getting louder and clearer, and, +poor little thing, it told everything. And after the family went to +bed they could still hear her, sitting on the bank of the bayou, or +up in her window, singing and looking at the moon traveling across +the lily prairie—for all its beauty and brightness no more +beautiful and bright than a heart in love.</p> +<p>It was just past the middle of the week, a Thursday night. The +moon was so bright the colors of the lilies could be seen, and the +singing, so sweet, so far-reaching—it was the essence of the +longing of love. Then it was that the miracle happened to her. +Miracles are always happening to the Acadians. She could not sleep, +she could not stay in bed. Her heart drove her to the window, and +kept her there, and—among the civilized it could not take +place, but here she could sing as she pleased in the middle of the +night; it was nobody's affair, nobody's disturbance. "Saint Ann! +Saint Joseph! Saint Mary!" She heard her song answered! She held +her heart, she bent forward, she sang again. Oh, the air was full +of music! It was all music! She fell on her knees; she listened, +looking at the moon; and, with her face in her hands, looking at +Zepherin. It was God's choir of angels, she thought, and one with a +voice like Zepherin! Whenever it died away she would sing again, +and again, and again—</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="06"></a> <img width="363" src= +"images/06.jpg" alt= +""HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW"."> +<h5>"HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW".</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>But the sun came, and the sun is not created, like the moon, for +lovers, and whatever happened in the night, there was work to be +done in the day. Adorine worked like one in a trance, her face as +radiant as the upturned face of a saint. They did not know what it +was, or rather they thought it was love. Love is so different out +there, they make all kinds of allowances for it. But, in truth, +Adorine was still hearing her celestial voices or voice. If the +cackling of the chickens, the whir of the spinning-wheel, or the +"bum bum" of the loom effaced it a moment, she had only to go to +some still place, round her hand over her ear, and give the line of +a song, and—it was Zepherin—Zepherin she heard.</p> +<p>She walked in a dream until night. When the moon came up she was +at the window, and still it continued, so faint, so sweet, that +answer to her song. Echo never did anything more exquisite, but she +knew nothing of such a heathen as Echo. Human nature became +exhausted. She fell asleep where she was, in the window, and +dreamed as only a bride can dream of her groom. When she awoke, +"Adorine! Adorine!" the beautiful angel voices called to her; +"Zepherin! Zepherin!" she answered, as if she, too, were an angel, +signaling another angel in heaven. It was too much. She wept, and +that broke the charm. She could hear nothing more after that. All +that day was despondency, dejection, tear-bedewed eyes, and +tremulous lips, the commonplace reaction, as all know, of love +exaltation. Adorine's family, Acadian peasants though they were, +knew as much about it as any one else, and all that any one knows +about it is that marriage is the cure-all, and the only cure-all, +for love.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="07"></a> <img width="400" src= +"images/07.jpg" alt="ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION"> +<h5>"ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>And Zepherin? A man could better describe his side of that week; +for it, too, has mostly to be described from imagination or +experience. What is inferred is that what Adorine longed and +thought and looked in silence and resignation, according to woman's +way, he suffered equally, but in a man's way, which is not one of +silence or resignation,—at least when one is a man of +eighteen,—the last interview, the near wedding, her beauty, +his love, her house in sight, the full moon, the long, wakeful +nights.</p> +<p>He took his pirogue; but the bayou played with his impatience, +maddened his passion, bringing him so near, to meander with him +again so far away. There was only a short prairie between him and +——, a prairie thick with lily-roots—one could +almost walk over their heads, so close, and gleaming in the +moonlight. But this is all only inference.</p> +<p>The pirogue was found tethered to the paddle stuck upright in +the soft bank, and—Adorine's parents related the rest. +Nothing else was found until the summer drought had bared the +swamp.</p> +<p>There was a little girl in the house when we arrived—all +else were in the field—a stupid, solemn, pretty child, the +child of a brother. How she kept away from Adorine, and how much +that testified!</p> +<p>It would have been too painful. The little arms around her neck, +the head nestling to her bosom, sleepily pressing against it. And +the little one might ask to be sung to sleep. Sung to sleep!</p> +<p>The little bed-chamber, with its high mattressed bed, covered +with the Acadian home-spun quilt, trimmed with netting fringe, its +bit of mirror over the bureau, the bottle of perfumed grease to +keep the locks black and glossy, the prayer-beads and blessed palms +hanging on the wall, the low, black polished spinning-wheel, the +loom,—the <i>métier d' Adorine</i> famed throughout +the parish,—the ever goodly store of cotton and yarn hanks +swinging from the ceiling, and the little square, open window which +looked under the mossy oak-branches to look over the prairie; and +once again all blue and white lilies—they were all there, as +Adorine was there; but there was more—not there.</p> +<a name="ANNE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE</h3> +<p>Old Jeanne Marie leaned her hand against the house, and the +tears rolled down her cheeks. She had not wept since she buried her +last child. With her it was one trouble, one weeping, no more; and +her wrinkled, hard, polished skin so far had known only the tears +that come after death. The trouble in her heart now was almost +exactly like the trouble caused by death; although she knew it was +not so bad as death, yet, when she thought of this to console +herself, the tears rolled all the faster. She took the end of the +red cotton kerchief tied over her head, and wiped them away; for +the furrows in her face did not merely run up and down—they +ran in all directions, and carried her tears all over her face at +once. She could understand death, but she could not understand +this.</p> +<p>It came about in this way: Anne Marie and she lived in the +little red-washed cabin against which she leaned; had lived there +alone with each other for fifty years, ever since Jeanne Marie's +husband had died, and the three children after him, in the fever +epidemic.</p> +<p>The little two-roomed cabin, the stable where there used to be a +cow, the patch of ground planted with onions, had all been bought +and paid for by the husband; for he was a thrifty, hard-working +Gascon, and had he lived there would not have been one better off, +or with a larger family, either in that quarter or in any of the +red-washed suburbs with which Gascony has surrounded New Orleans. +His women, however,—the wife and sister-in-law,—had +done their share in the work: a man's share apiece, for with the +Gascon women there is no discrimination of sex when it comes to +work.</p> +<p>And they worked on just the same after he died, tending the cow, +digging, hoeing, planting, watering. The day following the funeral, +by daylight Jeanne Marie was shouldering around the yoke of +milk-cans to his patrons, while Anne Marie carried the vegetables +to market; and so on for fifty years.</p> +<p>They were old women now,—seventy-five years +old,—and, as they expressed it, they had always been twins. +In twins there is always one lucky and one unlucky one: Jeanne +Marie was the lucky one, Anne Marie the unlucky one. So much so, +that it was even she who had to catch the rheumatism, and to lie +now bedridden, months at a time, while Jeanne Marie was as active +in her sabots as she had ever been.</p> +<p>In spite of the age of both, and the infirmity of one, every +Saturday night there was some little thing to put under the brick +in the hearth, for taxes and license, and the never-to-be-forgotten +funeral provision. In the husband's time gold pieces used to go in, +but they had all gone to pay for the four funerals and the +quadrupled doctor's bill. The women laid in silver pieces; the +coins, however, grew smaller and smaller, and represented more and +more not so much the gain from onions as the saving from food.</p> +<p>It had been explained to them how they might, all at once, make +a year's gain in the lottery; and it had become their custom +always, at the end of every month, to put aside one silver coin +apiece, to buy a lottery ticket with—one ticket each, not for +the great, but for the twenty-five-cent, prizes. Anne Marie would +buy hers round about the market; Jeanne Marie would stop anywhere +along her milk course and buy hers, and they would go together in +the afternoon to stand with the little crowd watching the placard +upon which the winning numbers were to be written. And when they +were written, it was curious, Jeanne Marie's numbers would come out +twice as often as Anne Marie's. Not that she ever won anything, for +she was not lucky enough to have them come out in the order to win; +they only came out here and there, singly: but it was sufficient to +make old Anne Marie cross and ugly for a day or two, and injure the +sale of the onion-basket. When she became bedridden, Jeanne Marie +bought the ticket for both, on the numbers, however, that Anne +Marie gave her; and Anne Marie had to lie in bed and wait, while +Jeanne Marie went out to watch the placard.</p> +<p>One evening, watching it, Jeanne Marie saw the ticket-agent +write out the numbers as they came on her ticket, in such a way +that they drew a prize—forty dollars.</p> +<p>When the old woman saw it she felt such a happiness; just as she +used to feel in the old times right after the birth of a baby. She +thought of that instantly. Without saying a word to any one, she +clattered over the <i>banquette</i> as fast as she could in her +sabots, to tell the good news to Anne Marie. But she did not go so +fast as not to have time to dispose of her forty dollars over and +over again. Forty dollars! That was a great deal of money. She had +often in her mind, when she was expecting a prize, spent twenty +dollars; for she had never thought it could be more than that. But +forty dollars! A new gown apiece, and black silk kerchiefs to tie +over their heads instead of red cotton, and the little cabin new +red-washed, and soup in the pot, and a garlic sausage, and a bottle +of good, costly liniment for Anne Marie's legs; and still a pile of +gold to go under the hearth-brick—a pile of gold that would +have made the eyes of the defunct husband glisten.</p> +<p>She pushed open the picket-gate, and came into the room where +her sister lay in bed.</p> +<p>"Eh, Anne Marie, my girl," she called in her thick, pebbly +voice, apparently made purposely to suit her rough Gascon accent; +"this time we have caught it!"</p> +<p>"Whose ticket?" asked Anne Marie, instantly.</p> +<p>In a flash all Anne Marie's ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's +mind; how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne +Marie's faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of +her lottery numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the +catching of the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, +as she looked at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over +Jeanne Marie of her sister's not being able, in all her poor old +seventy-five years of life, to remember the pressure of the arms of +a husband about her waist, nor the mouth of a child on her +breast.</p> +<p>As soon as Anne Marie had asked her question, Jeanne Marie +answered it.</p> +<p>"But your ticket, <i>Coton-Maï</i>!" <a name= +"footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></p> +<p>"Where? Give it here! Give it here!"</p> +<p>The old woman, who had not been able to move her back for weeks, +sat bolt upright in bed, and stretched out her great bony fingers, +with the long nails as hard and black as rake-prongs from groveling +in the earth.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="08"></a><img width="677" src= +"images/08.jpg" alt=""THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!""> +<h5>"THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!"</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Jeanne Marie poured the money out of her cotton handkerchief +into them.</p> +<p>Anne Marie counted it, looked at it; looked at it, counted it; +and if she had not been so old, so infirm, so toothless, the smile +that passed over her face would have made it beautiful.</p> +<p>Jeanne Marie had to leave her to draw water from the well to +water the plants, and to get her vegetables ready for next morning. +She felt even happier now than if she had just had a child, happier +even than if her husband had just returned to her.</p> +<p>"Ill luck! <i>Coton-Maï!</i> Ill luck! There's a way to +turn ill luck!" And her smile also should have beautified her face, +wrinkled and ugly though it was.</p> +<p>She did not think any more of the spending of the money, only of +the pleasure Anne Marie would take in spending it.</p> +<p>The water was low in the well, and there had been a long +drought. There are not many old women of seventy-five who could +have watered so much ground as abundantly as she did; but whenever +she thought of the forty dollars and Anne Marie's smile she would +give the thirsting plant an extra bucketful.</p> +<p>The twilight was gaining. She paused. "<i>Coton-Maï</i>" +she exclaimed aloud. "But I must see the old woman smile again over +her good luck."</p> +<p>Although it was "my girl" face to face, it was always "the old +woman" behind each other's back.</p> +<p>There was a knot-hole in the plank walls of the house. In spite +of Anne Marie's rheumatism they would never stop it up, needing it, +they said, for light and air. Jeanne Marie slipped her feet out of +her sabots and crept easily toward it, smiling, and saying +"<i>Coton-Maï</i>!" to herself all the way. She put her eye to +the hole. Anne Marie was not in the bed, she who had not left her +bed for two months! Jeanne Marie looked through the dim light of +the room until she found her.</p> +<p>Anne Marie, in her short petticoat and nightsack, with bare legs +and feet, was on her knees in the corner, pulling up a plank, +hiding—peasants know hiding when they see it—hiding her +money away—away—away from whom?—muttering to +herself and shaking her old grayhaired head. Hiding her money away +from Jeanne Marie!</p> +<p>And this was why Jeanne Marie leaned her head against the side +of the house and wept. It seemed to her that she had never known +her twin sister at all.</p> +<hr class="full"> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a name="footnote2"></a> <b>Footnote +2</b>: <a href="#footnotetag2">(return)</a> +<p><i>Coton-Maï</i> is an innocent oath invented by the good, +pious priest as a substitute for one more harmful.</p> +</blockquote> +<hr class="full"> +<a name="HOPE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>A CRIPPLED HOPE</h3> +<p>You must picture to yourself the quiet, dim-lighted room of a +convalescent; outside, the dreary, bleak days of winter in a +sparsely settled, distant country parish; inside, a slow, +smoldering log-fire, a curtained bed, the infant sleeping well +enough, the mother wakeful, restless, thought-driven, as a mother +must be, unfortunately, nowadays, particularly in that parish, +where cotton worms and overflows have acquired such a monopoly of +one's future.</p> +<p>God is always pretty near a sick woman's couch; but nearer even +than God seems the sick-nurse—at least in that part of the +country, under those circumstances. It is so good to look through +the dimness and uncertainty, moral and physical, and to meet those +little black, steadfast, all-seeing eyes; to feel those smooth, +soft, all-soothing hands; to hear, across one's sleep, that +three-footed step—the flat-soled left foot, the tiptoe right, +and the padded end of the broomstick; and when one is so wakeful +and restless and thought-driven, to have another's story given one. +God, depend upon it, grows stories and lives as he does herbs, each +with a mission of balm to some woe.</p> +<p>She said she had, and in truth she had, no other name than +"little Mammy"; and that was the name of her nature. Pure African, +but bronze rather than pure black, and full-sized only in width, +her growth having been hampered as to height by an injury to her +hip, which had lamed her, pulling her figure awry, and burdening +her with a protuberance of the joint. Her mother caused it by +dropping her when a baby, and concealing it, for fear of +punishment, until the dislocation became irremediable. All the +animosity of which little Mammy was capable centered upon this +unknown but never-to-be-forgotten mother of hers; out of this +hatred had grown her love—that is, her destiny, a woman's +love being her destiny. Little Mammy's love was for children.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="09"></a><img width="600" src= +"images/09.jpg" alt= +""THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT.""> +<h5>"THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>The birth and infancy (the one as accidental as the other, one +would infer) took place in—it sounds like the "Arabian +Nights" now!--took place in the great room, caravansary, stable, +behind a negro-trader's auction-mart, where human beings underwent +literally the daily buying and selling of which the world now +complains in a figure of speech—a great, square, dusty +chamber where, sitting cross-legged, leaning against the wall, or +lying on foul blanket pallets on the floor, the bargains of to-day +made their brief sojourn, awaiting transformation into the profits +of the morrow.</p> +<p>The place can be pointed out now, is often pointed out; but no +emotion arises at sight of it. It is so plain, so matter-of-fact an +edifice that emotion only comes afterward in thinking about it, and +then in the reflection that such an edifice could be, then as now, +plain and matter-of-fact.</p> +<p>For the slave-trader there was no capital so valuable as the +physical soundness of his stock; the moral was easily enough forged +or counterfeited. Little Mammy's good-for-nothing mother was sold +as readily as a vote, in the parlance of to-day; but no one would +pay for a crippled baby. The mother herself would not have taken +her as a gift, had it been in the nature of a negro-trader to give +away anything. Some doctoring was done,—so little Mammy heard +traditionally,—some effort made to get her marketable. There +were attempts to pair her off as a twin sister of various +correspondencies in age, size, and color, and to palm her off, as a +substitute, at migratory, bereaved, overfull breasts. Nothing +equaled a negro-trader's will and power for fraud, except the +hereditary distrust and watchfulness which it bred and maintained. +And so, in the even balance between the two categories, the little +cripple remained a fixture in the stream of life that passed +through that back room, in the fluxes and refluxes of buying and +selling; not valueless, however—rely upon a negro-trader for +discovering values as substitutes, as panaceas. She earned her +nourishment, and Providence did not let it kill the little animal +before the emancipation of weaning arrived.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="10"></a><img width="622" src= +"images/10.jpg" alt=""LITTLE MAMMY.""> +<h5>"LITTLE MAMMY."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>How much circumstances evoked, how much instinct responded, +belongs to the secrets which nature seems to intend keeping. As a +baby she had eyes, attention, solely for other babies. One cannot +say while she was still crawling, for she could only crawl years +after she should have been walking, but, before even precocious +walking-time, tradition or the old gray-haired negro janitor +relates, she would creep from baby to baby to play with it, put it +to sleep, pat it, rub its stomach (a negro baby, you know, is all +stomach, and generally aching stomach at that). And before she had +a lap, she managed to force one for some ailing nursling. It was +then that they began to call her "little Mammy." In the transitory +population of the "pen" no one stayed long enough to give her +another name; and no one ever stayed short enough to give her +another one.</p> +<p>Her first recollection of herself was that she could not +walk—she was past crawling; she cradled herself along, as she +called sitting down flat, and working herself about with her hands +and her one strong leg. Babbling babies walked all around +her,—many walking before they babbled,—and still she +did not walk, imitate them as she might and did. She would sit and +"study" about it, make another trial, fall; sit and study some +more, make another trial, fall again. Negroes, who believe that +they must give a reason for everything even if they have to invent +one, were convinced that it was all this studying upon her lameness +that gave her such a large head.</p> +<p>And now she began secretly turning up the clothes of every negro +child that came into that pen, and examining its legs, and still +more secretly examining her own, stretched out before her on the +ground. How long it took she does not remember; in fact, she could +not have known, for she had no way of measuring time except by her +thoughts and feelings. But in her own way and time the due process +of deliberation was fulfilled, and the quotient made clear that, +bowed or not, all children's legs were of equal length except her +own, and all were alike, not one full, strong, hard, the other +soft, flabby, wrinkled, growing out of a knot at the hip. A whole +psychological period apparently lay between that conclusion +and—a broom-handle walking-stick; but the broomstick came, as +it was bound to come,—thank heaven!--from that premise, and +what with stretching one limb to make it longer, and doubling up +the other to make it shorter, she invented that form of locomotion +which is still carrying her through life, and with no more +exaggerated leg-crookedness than many careless negroes born with +straight limbs display. This must have been when she was about +eight or nine. Hobbling on a broomstick, with, no doubt, the same +weird, wizened face as now, an innate sense of the fitness of +things must have suggested the kerchief tied around her big head, +and the burlaps rag of an apron in front of her linsey-woolsey rag +of a gown, and the bit of broken pipe-stem in the corner of her +mouth, where the pipe should have been, and where it was in after +years. That is the way she recollected herself, and that is the way +one recalls her now, with a few modifications.</p> +<p>The others came and went, but she was always there. It wasn't +long before she became "little Mammy" to the grown folks too; and +the newest inmates soon learned to cry: "Where's little Mammy?" +"Oh, little Mammy! little Mammy! Such a misery in my head [or my +back, or my stomach]! Can't you help me, little Mammy?" It was +curious what a quick eye she had for symptoms and ailments, and +what a quick ear for suffering, and how apt she was at picking up, +remembering, and inventing remedies. It never occurred to her not +to crouch at the head or the foot of a sick pallet, day and night +through. As for the nights, she said she dared not close her eyes +of nights. The room they were in was so vast, and sometimes the +negroes lay so thick on the floor, rolled in their blankets (you +know, even in the summer they sleep under blankets), all snoring so +loudly, she would never have heard a groan or a whimper any more +than they did, if she had slept, too. And negro mothers are so +careless and such heavy sleepers. All night she would creep at +regular intervals to the different pallets, and draw the little +babies from under, or away from, the heavy, inert impending mother +forms. There is no telling how many she thus saved from being +overlaid and smothered, or, what was worse, maimed and +crippled.</p> +<p>Whenever a physician came in, as he was sometimes called, to +look at a valuable investment or to furbish up some piece of +damaged goods, she always managed to get near to hear the +directions; and she generally was the one to apply them also, for +negroes always would steal medicines most scurvily one from the +other. And when death at times would slip into the pen, despite the +trader's utmost alertness and precautions,—as death often +"had to do," little Mammy said,—when the time of some of them +came to die, and when the rest of the negroes, with African greed +of eye for the horrible, would press around the lowly couch where +the agonizing form of a slave lay writhing out of life, she would +always to the last give medicines, and wipe the cold forehead, and +soothe the clutching, fearsome hands, hoping to the end, and trying +to inspire the hope that his or her "time" had not come yet; for, +as she said, "Our time doesn't come just as often as it does +come."</p> +<p>And in those sad last offices, which somehow have always been +under reproach as a kind of shame, no matter how young she was, she +was always too old to have the childish avoidance of them. On the +contrary, to her a corpse was only a kind of baby, and she always +strove, she said, to make one, like the other, easy and +comfortable.</p> +<p>And in other emergencies she divined the mysteries of the flesh, +as other precocities divine the mysteries of painting and music, +and so become child wonders.</p> +<p>Others came and went. She alone remained there. Babies of her +babyhood—the toddlers she, a toddler, had nursed—were +having babies themselves now; the middle-aged had had time to grow +old and die. Every week new families were coming into the great +back chamber; every week they passed out: babies, boys, girls, +buxom wenches, stalwart youths, and the middle-aged—the +grave, serious ones whom misfortune had driven from their old +masters, and the ill-reputed ones, the trickish, thievish, lazy, +whom the cunning of the negro-trader alone could keep in +circulation. All were marketable, all were bought and sold, all +passed in one door and out the other—all except her, little +Mammy. As with her lameness, it took time for her to recognize, to +understand, the fact. She could study over her lameness, she could +in the dull course of time think out the broomstick way of +palliation. It would have been almost better, under the +circumstances, for God to have kept the truth from her; +only—God keeps so little of the truth from us women. It is +his system.</p> +<p>Poor little thing! It was not now that her master <i>could</i> +not sell her, but he <i>would</i> not! Out of her own intelligence +she had forged her chains; the lameness was a hobble merely in +comparison. She had become too valuable to the negro-trader by her +services among his crew, and offers only solidified his +determination not to sell her. Visiting physicians, after short +acquaintance with her capacities, would offer what were called +fancy prices for her. Planters who heard of her through their +purchases would come to the city purposely to secure, at any cost, +so inestimable an adjunct to their plantations. Even +ladies—refined, delicate ladies—sometimes came to the +pen personally to back money with influence. In vain. Little Mammy +was worth more to the negro-trader, simply as a kind of insurance +against accidents, than any sum, however glittering the figure, and +he was no ignorant expert in human wares. She can tell it; no one +else can for her. Remember that at times she had seen the streets +outside. Remember that she could hear of the outside world daily +from the passing chattels—of the plantations, farms, +families; the green fields, Sunday woods, running streams; the +camp-meetings, corn-shuckings, cotton-pickings, sugar-grindings; +the baptisms, marriages, funerals, prayer-meetings; the holidays +and holy days. Remember that, whether for liberty or whether for +love, passion effloresces in the human being—no matter when, +where, or how—with every spring's return. Remember that she +was, even in middle age, young and vigorous. But no; do not +remember anything. There is no need to heighten the coloring.</p> +<p>It would be tedious to relate, although it was not tedious to +hear her relate it, the desperations and hopes of her life then. +Hardly a day passed that she did not see, looking for purchases +(rummaging among goods on a counter for bargains), some master whom +she could have loved, some mistress whom she could have adored. +Always her favorite mistresses were there—tall, delicate +matrons, who came themselves, with great fatigue, to select +kindly-faced women for nurses; languid-looking ladies with smooth +hair standing out in wide <i>bandeaux</i> from their heads, and +lace shawls dropping from their sloping shoulders, silk dresses +carelessly held up in thumb and finger from embroidered petticoats +that were spread out like tents over huge hoops which covered whole +groups of swarming piccaninnies on the dirty floor; ladies, pale +from illnesses that she might have nursed, and over-burdened with +children whom she might have reared! And not a lady of that kind +saw her face but wanted her, yearned for her, pleaded for her, +coming back secretly to slip silver, and sometimes gold, pieces +into her hand, patting her turbaned head, calling her "little +Mammy" too, instantly, by inspiration, and making the negro-trader +give them, with all sorts of assurances, the refusal of her. She +had no need for the whispered "Buy me, master!" "Buy me, mistress!" +"You'll see how I can work, master!" "You'll never be sorry, +mistress!" of the others. The negro-trader—like hangmen, +negro-traders are fitted by nature for their profession—it +came into his head—he had no heart, not even a negro-trader's +heart—that it would be more judicious to seclude her during +these shopping visits, so to speak. She could not have had any +hopes then at all; it must have been all desperations.</p> +<p>That auction-block, that executioner's block, about which so +much has been written—Jacob's ladder, in his dream, was +nothing to what that block appeared nightly in her dreams to her; +and the climbers up and down—well, perhaps Jacob's angels +were his hopes, too.</p> +<p>At times she determined to depreciate her usefulness, mar her +value, by renouncing her heart, denying her purpose. For days she +would tie her kerchief over her ears and eyes, and crouch in a +corner, strangling her impulses. She even malingered, refused food, +became dumb. And she might have succeeded in making herself salable +through incipient lunacy, if through no other way, had she been +able to maintain her role long enough. But some woman or baby +always was falling into some emergency of pain and illness.</p> +<p>How it might have ended one does not like to think. Fortunately, +one does not need to think.</p> +<p>There came a night. She sat alone in the vast, dark +caravansary—alone for the first time in her life. Empty rags +and blankets lay strewn over the floor, no snoring, no tossing in +them more. A sacrificial sale that day had cleared the counters. +Alarm-bells rang in the streets, but she did not know them for +alarm-bells; alarm brooded in the dim space around her, but she did +not even recognize that. Her protracted tension of heart had made +her fear-blind to all but one peradventure.</p> +<p>Once or twice she forgot herself, and limped over to some heap +to relieve an imaginary struggling babe or moaning sleeper. Morning +came. She had dozed. She looked to see the rag-heaps stir; they lay +as still as corpses. The alarm-bells had ceased. She looked to see +a new gang enter the far door. She listened for the gathering +buzzing of voices in the next room, around the auction-block. She +waited for the trader. She waited for the janitor. At nightfall a +file of soldiers entered. They drove her forth, ordering her in the +voice, in the tone, of the negro-trader. That was the only familiar +thing in the chaos of incomprehensibility about her. She hobbled +through the auction-room. Posters, advertisements, papers, lay on +the floor, and in the torch-light glared from the wall. Her Jacob's +ladder, her stepping-stone to her hopes, lay overturned in a +corner.</p> +<p>You divine it. The negro-trader's trade was abolished, and he +had vanished in the din and smoke of a war which he had not been +entirely guiltless of producing, leaving little Mammy locked up +behind him. Had he forgotten her? One cannot even hope so. She +hobbled out into the street, leaning on her nine-year-old +broomstick (she had grown only slightly beyond it; could still use +it by bending over it), her head tied in a rag kerchief, a rag for +a gown, a rag for an apron.</p> +<p>Free, she was free! But she had not hoped for freedom. The +plantation, the household, the delicate ladies, the teeming +children,—broomsticks they were in comparison to freedom, +but,—that was what she had asked, what she had prayed for. +God, she said, had let her drop, just as her mother had done. More +than ever she grieved, as she crept down the street, that she had +never mounted the auctioneer's block. An ownerless free negro! She +knew no one whose duty it was to help her; no one knew her to help +her. In the whole world (it was all she had asked) there was no +white child to call her mammy, no white lackey or gentleman (it was +the extent of her dreams) beholden to her as to a nurse. And all +her innumerable black beneficiaries! Even the janitor, whom she had +tended as the others, had deserted her like his white +prototype.</p> +<p>She tried to find a place for herself, but she had no indorsers, +no recommenders. She dared not mention the name of the +negro-trader; it banished her not only from the households of the +whites, but from those of the genteel of her own color. And +everywhere soldiers sentineled the streets—soldiers whose +tone and accent reminded her of the negro-trader.</p> +<p>Her sufferings, whether imaginary or real, were sufficiently +acute to drive her into the only form of escape which once had been +possible to friendless negroes. She became a runaway. With a bundle +tied to the end of a stick over her shoulder, just as the old +prints represent it, she fled from her homelessness and loneliness, +from her ignoble past, and the heart-disappointing termination of +it. Following a railroad track, journeying afoot, sleeping by the +roadside, she lived on until she came to the one familiar landmark +in life to her—a sick woman, but a white one. And so, +progressing from patient to patient (it was a time when sick white +women studded the country like mile-posts), she arrived at a little +town, a kind of a refuge for soldiers' wives and widows. She never +traveled further. She could not. Always, as in the pen, some +emergency of pain and illness held her.</p> +<p>That is all. She is still there. The poor, poor women of that +stricken region say that little Mammy was the only alleviation God +left them after Sheridan passed through; and the richer ones say +very much the same thing—</p> +<p>But one should hear her tell it herself, as has been said, on a +cold, gloomy winter day in the country, the fire glimmering on the +hearth; the overworked husband in the fields; the baby quiet at +last; the mother uneasy, restless, thought-driven; the soft black +hand rubbing backward and forward, rubbing out aches and frets and +nervousness.</p> +<p>The eyelids droop; the firelight plays fantasies on the +bed-curtains; the ear drops words, sentences; one gets +confused—one sleeps—one dreams.</p> +<a name="US"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>"ONE OF US"</h3> +<p>At the first glance one might have been inclined to doubt; but +at the second anybody would have recognized her—that is, with +a little mental rehabilitation: the bright little rouge spots in +the hollow of her cheek, the eyebrows well accentuated with paint, +the thin lips rose-tinted, and the dull, straight hair frizzed and +curled and twisted and turned by that consummate rascal and artist, +the official beautifier and rectifier of stage humanity, Robert, +the opera <i>coiffeur</i>. Who in the world knows better than he +the gulf between the real and the ideal, the limitations between +the natural and the romantic?</p> +<p>Yes, one could see her, in that time-honored thin silk dress of +hers stiffened into brocade by buckram underneath; the high, +low-necked waist, hiding any evidences of breast, if there were +such evidences to hide, and bringing the long neck into such faulty +prominence; and the sleeves, crisp puffs of tulle divided by bands +of red velvet, through which the poor lean arm runs like a wire, +stringing them together like beads. Yes, it was she, the whilom +<i>dugazon</i> of the opera troupe. Not that she ever was a +<i>dugazon</i>, but that was what her voice once aspired to be: a +<i>dugazon manquée</i> would better describe her.</p> +<p>What a ghost! But they always appeared like mere evaporations of +real women. For what woman of flesh and blood can seriously +maintain through life the rôle of sham attendant on sham +sensations, and play public celebrant of other women's loves and +lovers, singing, or rather saying, nothing more enlivening than: +"Oh, madame!" and "Ah, madame!" and "<i>Quelle ivresse!</i>" or +"<i>Quelle horreur!</i>" or, in recitative, detailing whatever +dreary platitudes and inanities the librettist and Heaven connive +to put upon the tongues of confidantes and attendants?</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="11"></a><img width="430" src= +"images/11.jpg" alt= +""TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS.""> +<h5>"TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Looking at her—how it came over one! The music, the +lights, the scene; the fat soprano confiding to her the fact of the +"amour extrême" she bears for the tenor, to which she, the +<i>dugazon</i>, does not even try to listen; her eyes wandering +listlessly over the audience. The calorous secret out, and in her +possession, how she stumbles over her train to the back of the +stage, there to pose in abject patience and awkwardness, while the +gallant baritone, touching his sword, and flinging his cape over +his shoulder, defies the world and the tenor, who is just +recovering from his "ut de poitrine" behind the scenes.</p> +<p>She was talking to me all the time, apologizing for the +intrusion, explaining her mission, which involved a short story of +her life, as women's intrusions and missions usually do. But my +thoughts, also as usual, distracted me from listening, as so often +they have distracted me from following what was perhaps more +profitable.</p> +<p>The composer, of course, wastes no music upon her; flinging to +her only an occasional recitative in two notes, but always ending +in a reef of a scale, trill, or roulade, for her to wreck her voice +on before the audience. The <i>chef d'orchestre</i>, if he is +charitable, starts her off with a contribution from his own lusty +lungs, and then she—oh, her voice is always thinner and more +osseous than her arms, and her smile no more graceful than her +train!</p> +<p>As well think of the simulated trees, water-falls, and chateaux +leaving the stage, as the <i>dugazon</i>! One always imagines them +singing on into dimness, dustiness, unsteadiness, and uselessness, +until, like any other piece of stage property, they are at last put +aside and simply left there at the end of some season—there +seems to be a superstition against selling or burning useless and +dilapidated stage property. As it came to me, the idea was not an +impossibility. The last representation of the season is over. She, +tired beyond judgment—haply, beyond feeling—by her +tireless rôle, sinks upon her chair to rest in her +dressing-room; sinks, further, to sleep. She has no maid. The +troupe, hurrying away to France on the special train waiting not +half a dozen blocks away, forget her—the insignificant are so +easily forgotten! The porter, more tired, perhaps, than any one of +the beautiful ideal world about him, and savoring already in +advance the good onion-flavored <i>grillade</i> awaiting him at +home, locks up everything fast and tight; the tighter and faster +for the good fortnight's vacation he has promised himself.</p> +<p>No doubt if the old opera-house were ever cleaned out, just such +a heap of stiff, wire-strung bones would be found, in some such +hole as the <i>dugazon's</i> dressing-room, desiccating away in its +last costume—perhaps in that very costume of <i>Inez</i>; and +if one were venturesome enough to pass Allhallowe'en there, the +spirit of those bones might be seen availing itself of the +privilege of unasperged corpses to roam. Not singing, not +talking—it is an anachronism to say that ghosts talk: their +medium of communication must be pure thought; and one should be +able to see their thoughts working, just as one sees the working of +the digestive organs in the clear viscera of transparent +animalcule. The hard thing of it is that ghosts are chained to the +same scenes that chained their bodies, and when they sleep-walk, so +to speak, it must be through phases of former existence. What a +nightmare for them to go over once again the lived and done, the +suffered and finished! What a comfort to wake up and find one's +self dead, well dead!</p> +<p>I could have continued and put the whole opera troupe in +"costume de ghost," but I think it was the woman's eyes that drew +me back to her face and her story. She had a sensible face, now +that I observed her naturally, as it were; and her hands,—how +I have agonized over those hands on the stage!--all knuckles and +exaggerated veins, clutching her dress as she sang, or, petrified, +outstretched to <i>Leonore's</i> "Pourquoi ces larmes?"—her +hands were the hands of an honest, hard-working woman who buckrams +her own skirts, and at need could scrub her own floor. Her face (my +description following my wandering glance)—her face was +careworn, almost to desuetude; not dissipation-worn, as, alas! the +faces of the more gifted ladies of opera troupes too often are. +There was no fattening in it of pastry, truffles, and bonbons; upon +it none of the tracery left by nightly champagne tides and ripples; +and consequently her figure, under her plain dress, had not that +for display which the world has conventioned to call charms. Where +a window-cord would hardly have sufficed to girdle <i>Leonore</i>, +a necklace would have served her. She had not beauty enough to fear +the flattering dangers of masculine snares and +temptations,—or there may have been other reasons,—but +as a wife—there was something about her that guaranteed +it—she would have blossomed love and children as a fig-tree +does figs.</p> +<p>In truth, she was just talking about children. The first part of +her story had passed: her birthplace, education, situation; and now +she was saying:</p> +<p>"I have always had the temptation, but I have always resisted +it. Now,"—with a blush at her excuse,—"it may be your +spring weather, your birds, your flowers, your sky—and your +children in the streets. The longing came over me yesterday: I +thought of it on the stage, I thought of it afterward—it was +better than sleeping; and this morning"—her eyes moistened, +she breathed excitedly—"I was determined. I gave up, I made +inquiry, I was sent to you. Would it be possible? Would there be +any place" ("any rôle," she said first) "in any of your +asylums, in any of your charitable institutions, for me? I would +ask nothing but my clothes and food, and very little of that; the +recompense would be the children—the little girl children," +with a smile—can you imagine the smile of a woman dreaming of +children that might be? "Think! Never to have held a child in my +arms more than a moment, never to have felt a child's arms about my +neck! Never to have known a child! Born on a stage, my mother born +on a stage!" Ah, there were tragic possibilities in that voice and +movement! "Pardon, madam. You see how I repeat. And you must be +very wearied hearing about me. But I could be their nurse and their +servant. I would bathe and dress them, play with them, teach them +their prayers; and when they are sick they would see no difference. +They would not know but what their mother was there!"</p> +<p>Oh, she had her program all prepared; one could see that.</p> +<p>"And I would sing to them—no! no!" with a quick gesture, +"nothing from the stage; little songs and lullabys I have picked up +traveling around, and," hesitating, "little things I have composed +myself—little things that I thought children would like to +hear some day." What did she not unconsciously throw into those +last words? "I dream of it," she pursued, talking with as little +regard to me as on the stage she sang to the prima donna. "Their +little arms, their little faces, their little lips! And in an +asylum there would be so many of them! When they cried and were in +trouble I would take them in my lap, and I would say to them, with +all sorts of tenderness—" She had arranged that in her +program, too—all the minutiæ of what she would say to +them in their distress. But women are that way. When once they +begin to love, their hearts are magnifying-lenses for them to feel +through. "And my heart hungers to commence right here, now, at +once! It seems to me I cannot wait. Ah, madam, no more stage, no +more opera!" speaking quickly, feverishly. "As I said, it may be +your beautiful spring, your flowers, your birds, and your numbers +of children. I have always loved that place most where there are +most children; and you have more children here than I ever saw +anywhere. Children are so beautiful! It is strange, is it not, when +you consider my life and my rearing?"</p> +<p>Her life, her rearing, how interesting they must have been! What +a pity I had not listened more attentively!</p> +<p>"They say you have much to do with asylums here."</p> +<p>Evidently, when rôles do not exist in life for certain +characters, God has to create them. And thus He had to create a +rôle in an asylum for my friend, for so she became from the +instant she spoke of children as she did. It was the poorest and +neediest of asylums; and the poor little orphaned +wretches—but it is better not to speak of them. How can God +ever expect to rear children without their mothers!</p> +<p>But the rôle I craved to create for my friend was far +different—some good, honest bourgeois interior, where lips +are coarse and cheeks are ruddy, and where life is composed of real +scenes, set to the real music of life, the homely successes and +failures, and loves and hates, and embraces and tears, that fill +out the orchestra of the heart; where romance and poetry abound +<i>au naturel</i>; and where—yes, where children grow as +thick as nature permits: the domestic interior of the opera porter, +for instance, or the clockmaker over the way. But what a loss the +orphan-asylum would have suffered, and the dreary lacking there +would have been in the lives of the children! For there must have +been moments in the lives of the children in that asylum when they +felt, awake, as they felt in their sleep when they dreamed their +mothers were about them.</p> +<a name="GIRL"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL</h3> +<p>She was coming down on the boat from Cincinnati, the little +convent girl. Two sisters had brought her aboard. They gave her in +charge of the captain, got her a state-room, saw that the new +little trunk was put into it, hung the new little satchel up on the +wall, showed her how to bolt the door at night, shook hands with +her for good-by (good-bys have really no significance for sisters), +and left her there. After a while the bells all rang, and the boat, +in the awkward elephantine fashion of boats, got into midstream. +The chambermaid found her sitting on the chair in the state-room +where the sisters had left her, and showed her how to sit on a +chair in the saloon. And there she sat until the captain came and +hunted her up for supper. She could not do anything of herself; she +had to be initiated into everything by some one else.</p> +<p>She was known on the boat only as "the little convent girl." Her +name, of course, was registered in the clerk's office, but on a +steamboat no one thinks of consulting the clerk's ledger. It is +always the little widow, the fat madam, the tall colonel, the +parson, etc. The captain, who pronounced by the letter, always +called her the little <i>convent</i> girl. She was the beau-ideal +of the little convent girl. She never raised her eyes except when +spoken to. Of course she never spoke first, even to the +chambermaid, and when she did speak it was in the wee, shy, furtive +voice one might imagine a just-budding violet to have; and she +walked with such soft, easy, carefully calculated steps that one +naturally felt the penalties that must have secured +them—penalties dictated by a black code of deportment.</p> +<p>She was dressed in deep mourning. Her black straw hat was +trimmed with stiff new crape, and her stiff new bombazine dress had +crape collar and cuffs. She wore her hair in two long plaits +fastened around her head tight and fast. Her hair had a strong +inclination to curl, but that had been taken out of it as austerely +as the noise out of her footfalls. Her hair was as black as +her dress; her eyes, when one saw them, seemed blacker than either, +on account of the bluishness of the white surrounding the pupil. +Her eyelashes were almost as thick as the black veil which the +sisters had fastened around her hat with an extra pin the very last +thing before leaving. She had a round little face, and a tiny +pointed chin; her mouth was slightly protuberant from the teeth, +over which she tried to keep her lips well shut, the effort giving +them a pathetic little forced expression. Her complexion was +sallow, a pale sallow, the complexion of a brunette bleached in +darkened rooms. The only color about her was a blue taffeta ribbon +from which a large silver medal of the Virgin hung over the place +where a breast pin should have been. She was so little, so little, +although she was eighteen, as the sisters told the captain; +otherwise they would not have permitted her to travel all the way +to New Orleans alone.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="12"></a><img width="400" src= +"images/12.jpg" alt="THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY."> +<h5>THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Unless the captain or the clerk remembered to fetch her out in +front, she would sit all day in the cabin, in the same place, +crocheting lace, her spool of thread and box of patterns in her +lap, on the handkerchief spread to save her new dress. Never +leaning back—oh, no! always straight and stiff, as if the +conventual back board were there within call. She would eat only +convent fare at first, notwithstanding the importunities of the +waiters, and the jocularities of the captain, and particularly of +the clerk. Every one knows the fund of humor possessed by a +steamboat clerk, and what a field for display the table at +meal-times affords. On Friday she fasted rigidly, and she never +began to eat, or finished, without a little Latin movement of the +lips and a sign of the cross. And always at six o'clock of the +evening she remembered the angelus, although there was no church +bell to remind her of it.</p> +<p>She was in mourning for her father, the sisters told the +captain, and she was going to New Orleans to her mother. She had +not seen her mother since she was an infant, on account of some +disagreement between the parents, in consequence of which the +father had brought her to Cincinnati, and placed her in the +convent. There she had been for twelve years, only going to her +father for vacations and holidays. So long as the father lived he +would never let the child have any communication with her mother. +Now that he was dead all that was changed, and the first thing that +the girl herself wanted to do was to go to her mother.</p> +<p>The mother superior had arranged it all with the mother of the +girl, who was to come personally to the boat in New Orleans, and +receive her child from the captain, presenting a letter from the +mother superior, a facsimile of which the sisters gave the +captain.</p> +<p>It is a long voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans, the rivers +doing their best to make it interminable, embroidering themselves +<i>ad libitum</i> all over the country. Every five miles, and +sometimes oftener, the boat would stop to put off or take on +freight, if not both. The little convent girl, sitting in the +cabin, had her terrible frights at first from the hideous noises +attendant on these landings—the whistles, the ringings of the +bells, the running to and fro, the shouting. Every time she thought +it was shipwreck, death, judgment, purgatory; and her sins! her +sins! She would drop her crochet, and clutch her prayer-beads from +her pocket, and relax the constraint over her lips, which would go +to rattling off prayers with the velocity of a relaxed windlass. +That was at first, before the captain took to fetching her out in +front to see the boat make a landing. Then she got to liking it so +much that she would stay all day just where the captain put her, +going inside only for her meals. She forgot herself at times so +much that she would draw her chair a little closer to the railing, +and put up her veil, actually, to see better. No one ever usurped +her place, quite in front, or intruded upon her either with word or +look; for every one learned to know her shyness, and began to feel +a personal interest in her, and all wanted the little convent girl +to see everything that she possibly could.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="13"></a><img width="577" src= +"images/13.jpg" alt="WATCHING A LANDING."> +<h5>WATCHING A LANDING.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>And it was worth seeing—the balancing and +<i>chasséeing</i> and waltzing of the cumbersome old boat to +make a landing. It seemed to be always attended with the difficulty +and the improbability of a new enterprise; and the relief when it +did sidle up anywhere within rope's-throw of the spot aimed at! And +the roustabout throwing the rope from the perilous end of the +dangling gang-plank! And the dangling roustabouts hanging like +drops of water from it—dropping sometimes twenty feet to the +land, and not infrequently into the river itself. And then what a +rolling of barrels, and shouldering of sacks, and singing of Jim +Crow songs, and pacing of Jim Crow steps; and black skins +glistening through torn shirts, and white teeth gleaming through +red lips, and laughing, and talking and—bewildering! +entrancing! Surely the little convent girl in her convent walls +never dreamed of so much unpunished noise and movement in the +world!</p> +<p>The first time she heard the mate—it must have been like +the first time woman ever heard man—curse and swear, she +turned pale, and ran quickly, quickly into the saloon, +and—came out again? No, indeed! not with all the soul she had +to save, and all the other sins on her conscience. She shook her +head resolutely, and was not seen in her chair on deck again until +the captain not only reassured her, but guaranteed his reassurance. +And after that, whenever the boat was about to make a landing, the +mate would first glance up to the guards, and if the little convent +girl was sitting there he would change his invective to sarcasm, +and politely request the colored gentlemen not to hurry +themselves—on no account whatever; to take their time about +shoving out the plank; to send the rope ashore by +post-office—write him when it got there; begging them not to +strain their backs; calling them mister, colonel, major, general, +prince, and your royal highness, which was vastly amusing. At +night, however, or when the little convent girl was not there, +language flowed in its natural curve, the mate swearing like a +pagan to make up for lost time.</p> +<p>The captain forgot himself one day: it was when the boat ran +aground in the most unexpected manner and place, and he went to +work to express his opinion, as only steamboat captains can, of the +pilot, mate, engineer, crew, boat, river, country, and the world in +general, ringing the bell, first to back, then to head, shouting +himself hoarser than his own whistle—when he chanced to see +the little black figure hurrying through the chaos on the deck; and +the captain stuck as fast aground in midstream as the boat had +done.</p> +<p>In the evening the little convent girl would be taken on the +upper deck, and going up the steep stairs there was such confusion, +to keep the black skirts well over the stiff white petticoats; and, +coming down, such blushing when suspicion would cross the +unprepared face that a rim of white stocking might be visible; and +the thin feet, laced so tightly in the glossy new leather boots, +would cling to each successive step as if they could never, never +make another venture; and then one boot would (there is but that +word) hesitate out, and feel and feel around, and have such a pause +of helpless agony as if indeed the next step must have been +wilfully removed, or was nowhere to be found on the wide, wide +earth.</p> +<p>It was a miracle that the pilot ever got her up into the +pilot-house; but pilots have a lonely time, and do not hesitate +even at miracles when there is a chance for company. He would place +a box for her to climb to the tall bench behind the wheel, and he +would arrange the cushions, and open a window here to let in air, +and shut one there to cut off a draft, as if there could be no +tenderer consideration in life for him than her comfort. And he +would talk of the river to her, explain the chart, pointing out +eddies, whirlpools, shoals, depths, new beds, old beds, cut-offs, +caving banks, and making banks, as exquisitely and respectfully as +if she had been the River Commission.</p> +<p>It was his opinion that there was as great a river as the +Mississippi flowing directly under it—an underself of a +river, as much a counterpart of the other as the second story of a +house is of the first; in fact, he said they were navigating +through the upper story. Whirlpools were holes in the floor of the +upper river, so to speak; eddies were rifts and cracks. And deep +under the earth, hurrying toward the subterranean stream, were +other streams, small and great, but all deep, hurrying to and from +that great mother-stream underneath, just as the small and great +overground streams hurry to and from their mother Mississippi. It +was almost more than the little convent girl could take in: at +least such was the expression of her eyes; for they opened as all +eyes have to open at pilot stories. And he knew as much of +astronomy as he did of hydrology, could call the stars by name, and +define the shapes of the constellations; and she, who had studied +astronomy at the convent, was charmed to find that what she had +learned was all true. It was in the pilot-house, one night, that +she forgot herself for the first time in her life, and stayed up +until after nine o'clock. Although she appeared almost intoxicated +at the wild pleasure, she was immediately overwhelmed at the +wickedness of it, and observed much more rigidity of conduct +thereafter. The engineer, the boiler-men, the firemen, the stokers, +they all knew when the little convent girl was up in the +pilot-house: the speaking-tube became so mild and gentle.</p> +<p>With all the delays of river and boat, however, there is an end +to the journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The latter city, +which at one time to the impatient seemed at the terminus of the +never, began, all of a sudden, one day to make its nearingness +felt; and from that period every other interest paled before the +interest in the immanence of arrival into port, and the whole boat +was seized with a panic of preparation, the little convent girl +with the others. Although so immaculate was she in person and +effects that she might have been struck with a landing, as some +good people might be struck with death, at any moment without fear +of results, her trunk was packed and repacked, her satchel arranged +and rearranged, and, the last day, her hair was brushed and plaited +and smoothed over and over again until the very last glimmer of a +curl disappeared. Her dress was whisked, as if for microscopic +inspection; her face was washed; and her finger-nails were scrubbed +with the hard convent nail-brush, until the disciplined little tips +ached with a pristine soreness. And still there were hours to wait, +and still the boat added up delays. But she arrived at last, after +all, with not more than the usual and expected difference between +the actual and the advertised time of arrival.</p> +<p>There was extra blowing and extra ringing, shouting, commanding, +rushing up the gangway and rushing down the gangway. The clerks, +sitting behind tables on the first deck, were plied, in the +twinkling of an eye, with estimates, receipts, charges, +countercharges, claims, reclaims, demands, questions, accusations, +threats, all at topmost voices. None but steamboat clerks could +have stood it. And there were throngs composed of individuals every +one of whom wanted to see the captain first and at once: and those +who could not get to him shouted over the heads of the others; and +as usual he lost his temper and politeness, and began to do what he +termed "hustle."</p> +<p>"Captain! Captain!" a voice called him to where a hand plucked +his sleeve, and a letter was thrust toward him. "The cross, and the +name of the convent." He recognized the envelop of the mother +superior. He read the duplicate of the letter given by the sisters. +He looked at the woman—the mother—casually, then again +and again.</p> +<p>The little convent girl saw him coming, leading some one toward +her. She rose. The captain took her hand first, before the other +greeting, "Good-by, my dear," he said. He tried to add something +else, but seemed undetermined what. "Be a good little girl—" +It was evidently all he could think of. Nodding to the woman behind +him, he turned on his heel, and left.</p> +<p>One of the deck-hands was sent to fetch her trunk. He walked out +behind them, through the cabin, and the crowd on deck, down the +stairs, and out over the gangway. The little convent girl and her +mother went with hands tightly clasped. She did not turn her eyes +to the right or left, or once (what all passengers do) look +backward at the boat which, however slowly, had carried her surely +over dangers that she wot not of. All looked at her as she passed. +All wanted to say good-by to the little convent girl, to see the +mother who had been deprived of her so long. Some expressed +surprise in a whistle; some in other ways. All exclaimed audibly, +or to themselves, "Colored!"</p> +<p>It takes about a month to make the round trip from New Orleans +to Cincinnati and back, counting five days' stoppage in New +Orleans. It was a month to a day when the steamboat came puffing +and blowing up to the wharf again, like a stout dowager after too +long a walk; and the same scene of confusion was enacted, as it had +been enacted twelve times a year, at almost the same wharf for +twenty years; and the same calm, a death calmness by contrast, +followed as usual the next morning.</p> +<p>The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been +delivered, part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. +The captain was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk +was in his office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate +could be heard below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; +for if steamboat crews have a single principle,—and there are +those who deny them any,—it is never to ship twice in +succession on the same boat. It was too early yet for any but +roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers; so early that even the +river was still partly mist-covered; only in places could the +swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along.</p> +<p>"Captain!" A hand plucked at his elbow, as if not confident that +the mere calling would secure attention. The captain turned. The +mother of the little convent girl stood there, and she held the +little convent girl by the hand. "I have brought her to see you," +the woman said. "You were so kind—and she is so quiet, so +still, all the time, I thought it would do her a pleasure."</p> +<p>She spoke with an accent, and with embarrassment; otherwise one +would have said that she was bold and assured enough.</p> +<p>"She don't go nowhere, she don't do nothing but make her crochet +and her prayers, so I thought I would bring her for a little visit +of 'How d' ye do' to you."</p> +<p>There was, perhaps, some inflection in the woman's voice that +might have made known, or at least awakened, the suspicion of some +latent hope or intention, had the captain's ear been fine enough to +detect it. There might have been something in the little convent +girl's face, had his eye been more sensitive—trifle paler, +maybe, the lips a little tighter drawn, the blue ribbon a shade +faded. He may have noticed that, but— And the visit of "How +d' ye do" came to an end.</p> +<p>They walked down the stairway, the woman in front, the little +convent girl—her hand released to shake hands with the +captain—following, across the bared deck, out to the gangway, +over to the middle of it. No one was looking, no one saw more than +a flutter of white petticoats, a show of white stockings, as the +little convent girl went under the water.</p> +<p>The roustabout dived, as the roustabouts always do, after the +drowning, even at the risk of their good-for-nothing lives. The +mate himself jumped overboard; but she had gone down in a +whirlpool. Perhaps, as the pilot had told her whirlpools always +did, it may have carried her through to the underground river, to +that vast, hidden, dark Mississippi that flows beneath the one we +see; for her body was never found.</p> +<a name="GRAND"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER</h3> +<p>As the grandmother related it fresh from the primeval sources +that feed a grandmother's memory, it happened thus:</p> +<p>In the early days of the settlement of Georgia—ah, how +green and rustic appears to us now the world in the early days of +the settlement of Georgia! Sometimes to women, listening to the +stories of their grandmothers, it seems better to have lived then +than now—her grandmother was at that time a young wife. It +was the day of arduous, if not of long, courtship before marriage, +when every wedding celebrated the close of an original romance; and +when young couples, for bridal trips, went out to settle new +States, riding on a pillion generally, with their trousseaux +following as best they could on sumpter mules; to hear the +grandmother describe it made one long to be a bride of those +days.</p> +<p>The young husband had the enumeration of qualities that went to +the making of a man of that period, and if the qualities were in +the proportion of ten physical to one intellectual, it does not +follow that the grandmother's grandfather was not a man of parts. +For, to obtain the hand of his bride, an only child and an heiress, +he had to give test of his mettle by ignoring his fortune, studying +law, and getting his license before marriage, and binding himself +to live the first year afterward on the proceeds of his practice; a +device of the time thought to be a wholesome corrective of the +corrupting influence of over-wealth in young domesticities.</p> +<p>Although he had already chosen the sea for his profession, and +was a midshipman at the time, with more of a reputation for living +than for learning, such was he, and such, it may be said, was the +incentive genius of his choice, that almost before his resignation +as midshipman was accepted, his license as a lawyer was signed. As +for practice, it was currently remarked at his wedding, at the +sight of him flying down the room in the reel with his bride for +partner, that his tongue was as nimble as his heels, and that if he +only turned his attention to criminal practice, there was no man in +the country who would make a better prosecuting attorney for the +State. And with him for prosecuting attorney, it was warranted that +sirrahs the highwaymen would not continue to hold Georgia +judge-and-jury justice in quite such contemptible estimation, and +that the gallows would not be left so long bereft of their +legitimate swingings. As for fees, it was predicted that the young +fellow as he stood, or rather "chassé'd," could snap his +fingers at both his and his bride's trustees.</p> +<p>He did turn his attention to criminal law, was made prosecuting +attorney for the State in his county, and, before his six months +had passed, was convincing the hitherto high and mighty, lordly, +independent knights of the road that other counties in Georgia +furnished more secure pasturage for them.</p> +<p>It was a beautiful spring morning. The young wife bade him a +hearty good-by, and stood in the doorway watching him, gay and +<i>debonair</i>, riding off, on his stout black charger Beetle, in +the direction of the town in which court was to be held that +week.</p> +<p>She herself feeling as full of ambition and work as if she also +were prosecuting attorney, with a perennial spring of eloquence +bubbling in her brain, turned to her domestic duties, and, without +going into the detail of them, it suffices to say that, according +to the grandmother's estimation, one morning's list of duties for a +healthy young bride of that period would shame the week's work of a +syndicate of them to-day. Finding herself nearing the limit of +diminution of several household necessities, and the spring +suggesting the beginning of new ones, she made up her mind to +profit by her husband's absence and the fair weather to make a +trading visit to the neighboring town next day.</p> +<p>So, early in a morning as beautiful as the preceding one, +mounted on her own stanch mare Maid Marion, she ambled down the +green over-hung forest-road, in the vista of which she had watched +her husband disappear the day before; thinking about what she had +to buy, and thinking, no doubt, much more, as brides will, of the +absent lord and master—as brides of those days loved to +consider and denominate their husbands.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="14"></a><img width="443" src= +"images/14.jpg" alt=""TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES.""> +<h5>"TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES."</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Coming into the little town, the freshly painted, swinging +sign-board of the new tavern, "The Honest Georgian," as usual was +the thing to catch her eye; but the instant after what should she +see but Black Beetle hitched to the rack under the tree that +shadowed the hostelry!</p> +<p>It was not decorous; but she was young, and the day of her first +separation from her husband had been so long; and was he not also, +against the firmest of resolutions and plans, hastening back to +her, the separation being too long for him also?</p> +<p>Slipping her foot from the stirrup, she jumped to the ground, +and ran into the tavern. There he stood calling hastily for a +drink; and her heart more than her eyes took in his, to her, +consecrated signalment—the riding-boots, short clothes, blue +coat, cocked hat, ruffles. She crept up behind to surprise him, her +face, with its delight and smiles, beyond her control. She crept, +until she saw his watch-fob dangling against the counter, and then +her heart made a call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another +man was in her husband's clothes, a man with a villainous +countenance! With a scream she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, +dropped his drink, bounded to the door and out, leaped to the back +of Beetle, gave rein and spur, and the black horse made good his +reputation. In a second all was hue-and-cry and pursuit. While men +and horses made, for all they were worth, down the road after +Beetle, she on Maid Marion galloped for her life in the opposite +direction, the direction of the court town whither her husband had +journeyed. The mare's hide made acquaintance with the whip that day +if never before, for not even the willing Maid Marion could keep +pace with the apprehensions on her back.</p> +<p>Scouring with her eyes the highway ahead of her, shooting hawk's +glances into the forest on each side of her, the wife rode through +the distance all, all day, praying that the day might be long +enough, might equal the distance. The sun set, and night began to +fall; but she and Maid Marion were none the less fresh, except in +the heart.</p> +<p>The moon rose straight before them down the road, lighting it +and them through the threatened obscurity. And so they came to +trampled earth and torn grass, and so she uncovered concealed +footsteps, and so, creeping on her hands and knees, she followed +traces of blood, through thicket and glade, into the deep forest, +to a hastily piled hillock of earth, gravel, and leaves. Burrowing +with her hands, she came to it, the naked body of her young +husband, cold and stiff, foully murdered. Maid Marion approached at +her call. She wrapped him in her cloak, and—a young wife of +those times alone would do it—put him in the saddle before +her: the good mare Maid Marion alone knows the rest. In the early +gray dawn, from one highway there rode into the town the baffled +pursuers, from the other the grandmother's grandmother, clasping +the corpse of her husband with arms as stiff as his own; loving +him, so the grandmother used to say, with a love which, if ever +love could do so, would have effected a resurrection.</p> +<a name="OLD"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION</h3> +<p>The news came out in the papers that the old lady had been +restored to her fortune. She had been deprived of it so long ago +that the real manner of her dispossession had become lost, or at +least hidden under the many versions that had been invented to +replace lapses of memory, or to remedy the unpicturesqueness of the +original truth. The face of truth, like the face of many a good +woman, is liable to the accident of ugliness, and the desire to +embellish one as well as the other need not necessarily proceed +from anything more harmful than an overweighted love of the +beautiful.</p> +<p>If the old lady had not been restored to her fortune, her +<i>personalia</i> would have remained in the oblivion which, as one +might say, had accumulated upon everything belonging to her. But +after that newspaper paragraph, there was such a flowering of +memory around her name as would have done credit to a whole +cemetery on All Saints. It took three generations to do justice to +the old lady, for so long and so slow had been her descent into +poverty that a grandmother was needed to remember her setting out +upon the road to it.</p> +<p>She set out as most people do, well provided with money, +diamonds, pretty clothing, handsome residence, equipage, opera-box, +beaus (for she was a widow), and so many, many friends that she +could never indulge in a small party—she always had to give a +grand ball to accommodate them. She made quite an occasion of her +first reverse,—some litigation decided against her,—and +said it came from the court's' having only one ear, and that +preempted by the other party.</p> +<p>She always said whatever she thought, regardless of the +consequences, because she averred truth was so much more +interesting than falsehood. Nothing annoyed her more in society +than to have to listen to the compositions women make as a +substitute for the original truth. It was as if, when she went to +the theater to hear Shakspere and Molière, the actors should +try to impose upon the audience by reciting lines of their own. +Truth was the wit of life and the wit of books. She traveled her +road from affluence so leisurely that nothing escaped her eyes or +her feelings, and she signaled unhesitatingly every stage in +it.</p> +<p>"My dear, do you know there is really such a thing as existence +without a carriage and horses?"—"I assure you it is perfectly +new to me to find that an opera-box is not a necessity. It is a +luxury. In theory one can really never tell the distinction between +luxuries and necessities."—"How absurd! At one time I thought +hair was given us only to furnish a profession to hair-dressers; +just as we wear artificial flowers to support the +flower-makers."—"Upon my word, it is not uninteresting. There +is always some <i>haute nouveauté</i> in economy. The ways +of depriving one's self are infinite. There is wine, +now."—"Not own your residence! As soon not own your tomb as +your residence! My mama used to scream that in my ears. According +to her, it was not <i>comme il faut</i> to board or live in a +rented house. How little she knew!"</p> +<p>When her friends, learning her increasing difficulties, which +they did from the best authority (herself), complimented her, as +they were forced to do, upon her still handsome appearance, pretty +laces, feathers, jewelry, silks, "Fat," she would +answer—"fat. I am living off my fat, as bears do in winter. +In truth, I remind myself of an animal in more ways than one."</p> +<p>And so every one had something to contribute to the conversation +about her—bits which, they said, affection and admiration had +kept alive in their memory.</p> +<p>Each city has its own roads to certain ends, its ways of +Calvary, so to speak. In New Orleans the victim seems ever to walk +down Royal street and up Chartres, or <i>vice versa</i>. One would +infer so, at least, from the display in the shops and windows of +those thorough-fares. Old furniture, cut glass, pictures, books, +jewelry, lace, china—the fleece (sometimes the flesh still +sticking to it) left on the brambles by the driven herd. If there +should some day be a trump of resurrection for defunct fortunes, +those shops would be emptied in the same twinkling of the eye +allowed to tombs for their rendition of property.</p> +<p>The old lady must have made that promenade many, many times, to +judge by the samples of her "fat or fleece" displayed in the +windows. She took to hobbling, as if from tired or sore feet.</p> +<p>"It is nothing," in answer to an inquiry. "Made-to-order feet +learning to walk in ready-made shoes: that is all. One's feet, +after all, are the most unintelligent part of one's body." Tea was +her abomination, coffee her adoration; but she explained: "Tea, you +know, is so detestable that the very worst is hardly worse than the +very best; while coffee is so perfect that the smallest shade of +impurity is not to be tolerated. The truly economical, I observe, +always drink tea." "At one time I thought if all the luxuries of +the world were exposed to me, and but one choice allowed, I should +select gloves. Believe me, there is no superfluity in the world so +easily dispensed with."</p> +<p>As may be supposed, her path led her farther and farther away +from her old friends. Even her intimates became scarce; so much so, +that these observations, which, of course, could be made only to +intimates, became fewer and fewer, unfortunately, for her +circumstances were becoming such that the remarks became +increasingly valuable. The last thing related of her was apropos of +friends.</p> +<p>"My friends! My dear, I cannot tell you just so, on the spur of +the moment, but with a little reflection and calculation I could +tell you, to a picayune, the rent of every friend in the market. +You can lease, rent, or hire them, like horses, carriages, +opera-boxes, servants, by year, month, day, or hour; and the tariff +is just as fixed.</p> +<p>"Christians! Christians are the most discreet people in the +world. If you should ask me what Christianity has most promoted in +the world, I should answer without hesitation, discretion. Of +course, when I say the world I mean society, and when I say +Christianity I mean our interpretation of it. If only duns could be +pastors, and pastors duns! But of course you do not know what duns +are; they are the guardian angels of the creditor, the pursuing +fiends of the debtor."</p> +<p>After that, the old lady made her disappearance under the waves +of that sea into the depths of which it is very improbable that a +single friend ever attempted to pursue her. And there she remained +until the news came that she was restored to fortune.</p> +<p>A week passed, two weeks; no sight or sound of her. It was +during this period that her old friends were so occupied +resuscitating their old friendships for her—when all her +antique sayings and doings became current ball-room and +dinner-table gossip—that she arose from her obscurity like +Cinderella from her ashes, to be decked with every gift that fairy +minds could suggest. Those who had known her intimately made no +effort to conceal their importance. Those who did not know her +personally put forward claims of inherited friendship, and those +who did not know her traditionally or otherwise—the +<i>nouveaux riches</i> and <i>parvenus</i>, who alone feel the +moneyed value of such social connections—began making their +resolutions to capture her as soon as she came in sight of +society.</p> +<p>The old residence was to be re-bought, and refurnished from +France; the <i>avant scène</i> at the opera had been +engaged; the old cook was to be hired back from the club at a +fabulous price; the old balls and the old dinners were to gladden +the city—so said they who seemed to know. Nothing was to be +spared, nothing stinted—at her age, with no child or +relative, and life running short for pleasure. Diamonds, laces, +velvets, champagne, Château Yquem—"Grand Dieu +Seigneur!" the old Creole servants exclaimed, raising their hands +at the enumeration of it.</p> +<p>Where the news came from nobody knew, but everything was +certified and accepted as facts, although, as between women, the +grain of salt should have been used. Impatience waxed, until nearly +every day some one would ring the bell of the old residence, to ask +when the mistress was going to move in. And such affectionate +messages! And people would not, simply could not, be satisfied with +the incomprehensible answers. And then it leaked out. The old lady +was simply waiting for everything to arrive—furniture, +toilets, carriage, etc.—to make a grand <i>entrée</i> +into her old sphere; to come riding on a throne, as it were. And +still the time passed, and she did not come. Finally two of the +clever-heads penetrated the enigma: <i>mauvaise honte</i>, +shyness—so long out of the world, so old; perhaps not sure of +her welcome. So they determined to seek her out.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="15"></a><img width="600" src= +"images/15.jpg" alt="THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY."> +<h5>THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>"We will go to her, like children to a grandmother, etc. The +others have no delicacy of sentiment, etc. And she will thus learn +who really remember, really love her, etc."</p> +<p>Provided with congratulatory bouquets, they set forth. It is +very hard to find a dweller on the very sea-bottom of poverty. +Perhaps that is why the effort is so seldom made. One has to ask at +grocers' shops, groggeries, market-stalls, Chinese restaurants; +interview corner cobblers, ragpickers, gutter children. But nothing +is impossible to the determined. The two ladies overcame all +obstacles, and needled their way along, where under other +circumstances they would not have glanced, would have thought it +improper to glance.</p> +<p>They were directed through an old, old house, out on an old, old +gallery, to a room at the very extreme end.</p> +<p>"Poor thing! Evidently she has not heard the good news yet. We +will be the first to communicate it," they whispered, standing +before the dilapidated, withered-looking door.</p> +<p>Before knocking, they listened, as it is the very wisdom of +discretion to do. There was life inside, a little kind of voice, +like some one trying to hum a song with a very cracked old +throat.</p> +<p>The ladies opened the door. "Ah, my friend!"</p> +<p>"Ah, my friend!"</p> +<p>"Restored!"</p> +<p>"Restored!"</p> +<p>"At last!"</p> +<p>"At last!"</p> +<p>"Just the same!"</p> +<p>"Exactly the same!"</p> +<p>It was which one would get to her first with bouquet and kiss, +competition almost crowding friendship.</p> +<p>"The good news!"</p> +<p>"The good news!"</p> +<p>"We could not stay!"</p> +<p>"We had to come!"</p> +<p>"It has arrived at last!"</p> +<p>"At last it has arrived!"</p> +<p>The old lady was very much older, but still the same.</p> +<p>"You will again have a chance!"</p> +<p>"Restored to your friends!"</p> +<p>"The world!"</p> +<p>"Your luxuries!"</p> +<p>"Your comforts!"</p> +<p>"Comforts! Luxuries!" At last the old lady had an opportunity to +slip in a word. "And friends! You say right."</p> +<p>There was a pause—a pause which held not a small measure +of embarrassment. But the two visitors, although they were women of +the world, and so dreaded an embarrassment more than they did sin, +had prepared themselves even to stand this.</p> +<p>The old lady standing there—she was very much thinner, +very much bent, but still the same—appeared to be looking not +at them, but at their enumeration.</p> +<p>"Comfort! "She opened a pot bubbling on the fire. "Bouillon! A +good five-cent bouillon. Luxury!" She picked up something from a +chair, a handful of new cotton chemises. "Luxury!" She turned back +her bedspread: new cotton sheets. "Did you ever lie in your bed at +night and dream of sheets? Comfort! Luxury! I should say so! And +friends! My dear, look!" Opening her door, pointing to an opposite +gallery, to the yard, her own gallery; to the washing, ironing, +sewing women, the cobbling, chair-making, carpentering men; to the +screaming, laughing, crying, quarreling, swarming children. +"Friends! All friends—friends for fifteen years. Ah, yes, +indeed! We are all glad—elated in fact. As you say. I am +restored."</p> +<p>The visitors simply reported that they had found the old lady, +and that she was imbecile; mind completely gone under stress of +poverty and old age. Their opinion was that she should be +interdicted.</p> +<a name="AFFAIR"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>A DELICATE AFFAIR</h3> +<p>"But what does this extraordinary display of light mean?" +ejaculated my aunt, the moment she entered the parlor from the +dining-room. "It looks like the kingdom of heaven in here! Jules! +Jules!" she called, "come and put out some of the light!"</p> +<p>Jules was at the front door letting in the usual +Wednesday-evening visitor, but now he came running in immediately +with his own invention in the way of a gas-stick,—a piece of +broom-handle notched at the end,—and began turning one tap +after the other, until the room was reduced to complete +darkness.</p> +<p>"But what do you mean now, Jules?" screamed the old lady +again.</p> +<p>"Pardon, madame," answered Jules, with dignity; "it is an +accident. I thought there was one still lighted."</p> +<p>"An accident! An accident! Do you think I hire you to perform +accidents for me? You are just through telling me that it was +accident made you give me both soup and gumbo for dinner +today."</p> +<p>"But accidents can always happen, madame," persisted Jules, +adhering to his position.</p> +<p>The chandelier, a design of originality in its day, gave light +by what purported to be wax candles standing each in a circlet of +pendent crystals. The usual smile of ecstatic admiration spread +over Jules's features as he touched the match to the simulated +wicks, and lighted into life the rainbows in the prisms underneath. +It was a smile that did not heighten the intelligence of his +features, revealing as it did the toothless condition of his +gums.</p> +<p>"What will madame have for her dinner tomorrow," looking +benignantly at his mistress, and still standing under his +aureole.</p> +<p>"Do I ever give orders for one dinner, with the other one still +on my lips?"</p> +<p>"I only asked madame; there is no harm in asking." He walked +away, his long stiff white apron rattling like a petticoat about +him. Catching sight of the visitor still standing at the threshold: +"Oh, madame, here is Mr. Horace. Shall I let him in?"</p> +<p>"Idiot! Every Wednesday you ask me that question, and every +Wednesday I answer the same way. Don't you think I could tell you +when not to let him in without your asking?"</p> +<p>"Oh, well, madame, one never knows; it is always safe to +ask."</p> +<p>The appearance of the gentleman started a fresh subject of +excitement.</p> +<p>"Jules! Jules! You have left that front door unlocked +again!"</p> +<p>"Excuse me," said Mr. Horace; "Jules did not leave the front +door unlocked. It was locked when I rang, and he locked it again +most carefully after letting me in. I have been standing outside +all the while the gas was being extinguished and relighted."</p> +<p>"Ah, very well, then. And what is the news?" She sank into her +arm-chair, pulled her little card-table closer, and began shuffling +the cards upon it for her game of solitaire. "I never hear any +news, you know. She [nodding toward me] goes out, but she never +learns anything. She is as stupid tonight as an empty bottle."</p> +<p>After a few passes her hands, which were slightly tremulous, +regained some of their wonted steadiness and brilliancy of +movement, and the cards dropped rapidly on the table. Mr. Horace, +as he had got into the habit of doing, watched her mechanically, +rather absent-mindedly retailing what he imagined would interest +her, from his week's observation and hearsay. And madame's little +world revolved, complete for her, in time, place, and +personality.</p> +<p>It was an old-fashioned square room with long ceiling, and +broad, low windows heavily curtained with stiff silk brocade, faded +by time into mellowness. The tall white-painted mantel carried its +obligation of ornaments well: a gilt clock which under a glass case +related some brilliant poetical idyl, and told the hours only in an +insignificant aside, according to the delicate politeness of bygone +French taste; flanked by duplicate continuations of the same idyl +in companion candelabra, also under glass; Sèvres, or +imitation Sèvres vases, and a crowd of smaller objects to +which age and rarity were slowly contributing an artistic value. An +oval mirror behind threw replicas of them into another mirror, +receiving in exchange the reflected portrait of madame in her +youth, and in the partial nudity in which innocence was limned in +madame's youth. There were besides mirrors on the other three walls +of the room, all hung with such careful intent for the exercise of +their vocation that the apartment, in spots, extended indefinitely; +the brilliant chandelier was thereby quadrupled, and the furniture +and ornaments multiplied everywhere and most unexpectedly into +twins and triplets, producing such sociabilities among them, and +forcing such correspondences between inanimate objects with such +hospitable insistence, that the effect was full of gaiety and life, +although the interchange in reality was the mere repetition of one +original, a kind of phonographic echo.</p> +<p>The portrait of monsieur, madame's handsome young husband, hung +out of the circle of radiance, in the isolation that, wherever they +hang, always seems to surround the portraits of the dead.</p> +<p>Old as the parlors appeared, madame antedated them by the +sixteen years she had lived before her marriage, which had been the +occasion of their furnishment. She had traveled a considerable +distance over the sands of time since the epoch commemorated by the +portrait. Indeed, it would require almost documentary evidence to +prove that she, who now was arriving at eighty, was the same +Atalanta that had started out so buoyantly at sixteen.</p> +<p>Instead of a cap, she wore black lace over her head, pinned with +gold brooches. Her white hair curled naturally over a low forehead. +Her complexion showed care—and powder. Her eyes were still +bright, not with the effete intelligence of old age, but with +actual potency. She wore a loose black sack flowered in purple, and +over that a black lace mantle, fastened with more gold +brooches.</p> +<p>She played her game of solitaire rapidly, impatiently, and +always won; for she never hesitated to cheat to get out of a tight +place, or into a favorable one, cheating with the quickness of a +flash, and forgetting it the moment afterward.</p> +<p>Mr. Horace was as old as she, but he looked much younger, +although his dress and appearance betrayed no evidence of an effort +in that direction. Whenever his friend cheated, he would invariably +call her attention to it; and as usual she would shrug her +shoulders, and say, "Bah! lose a game for a card!" and pursue the +conversation.</p> +<p>He happened to mention mushrooms—fresh mushrooms. She +threw down her cards before the words were out of his mouth, and +began to call, "Jules! Jules!" Mr. Horace pulled the bell-cord, but +madame was too excitable for that means of communication. She ran +into the antechamber, and put her head over the banisters, calling, +"Jules! Jules!" louder and louder. She might have heard Jules's +slippered feet running from the street into the corridor and +up-stairs, had she not been so deaf. He appeared at the door.</p> +<p>"But where have you been? Here I have been raising the house a +half-hour, calling you. You have been in the street. I am sure you +have been in the street."</p> +<p>"Madame is very much mistaken," answered Jules, with resentful +dignity. He had taken off his white apron of waiter, and was +disreputable in all the shabbiness of his attire as cook. "When +madame forbids me to go into the street, I do not go into the +street. I was in the kitchen; I had fallen asleep. What does madame +desire?" smiling benevolently.</p> +<p>"What is this I hear? Fresh mushrooms in the market!"</p> +<p>"Eh, madame?"</p> +<p>"Fresh mushrooms in the market, and you have not brought me +any!"</p> +<p>"Madame, there are fresh mushrooms everywhere in the market," +waving his hand to show their universality.</p> +<p>"Everybody is eating them—"</p> +<p>"Old Pomponnette," Jules continued, "only this morning offered +me a plate, piled up high, for ten cents."</p> +<p>"Idiot! Why did you not buy them?"</p> +<p>"If madame had said so; but madame did not say so. Madame said, +'Soup, Jules; carrots, rice,'" counting on his fingers.</p> +<p>"And the gumbo?"</p> +<p>"I have explained that that was an accident. Madame said +'Soup,'" enumerating his menu again; "madame never once said +mushrooms."</p> +<p>"But how could I know there were mushrooms in the market? Do I +go to market?"</p> +<p>"That is it!" and Jules smiled at the question thus settled.</p> +<p>"If you had told me there were mushrooms in the market—" +pursued madame, persisting in treating Jules as a reasonable +being.</p> +<p>"Why did not madame ask me? If madame had asked me, surely I +would have told madame. Yesterday Caesar brought them to the +door—a whole bucketful for twenty-five cents. I had to shut +the door in his face to get rid of him," triumphantly.</p> +<p>"And you brought me yesterday those detestable peas!"</p> +<p>"Ah," shrugging his shoulders, "madame told me to buy what I +saw. I saw peas. I bought them."</p> +<p>"Well, understand now, once for all: whenever you see mushrooms, +no matter what I ordered, you buy them. Do you hear?"</p> +<p>"No, madame. Surely I cannot buy mushrooms unless madame orders +them. Madame's disposition is too quick."</p> +<p>"But I do order them. Stupid! I do order them. I tell you to buy +them every day."</p> +<p>"And if there are none in the market every day?"</p> +<p>"Go away! Get out of my sight! I do not want to see you. Ah, it +is unendurable! I must—I must get rid of him!" This last was +not a threat, as Jules knew only too well. It was merely a habitual +exclamation.</p> +<p>During the colloquy Mr. Horace, leaning back in his arm-chair, +raised his eyes, and caught the reflected portrait of madame in the +mirror before him—the reflection so much softer and prettier, +so much more ethereal, than the original painting. Indeed, seen in +the mirror, that way, the portrait was as refreshing as the most +charming memory. He pointed to it when madame, with considerable +loss of temper, regained her seat.</p> +<p>"It is as beautiful as the past," he explained most unnaturally, +for he and his friend had a horror of looking at the long, long +past, which could not fail to remind them of—what no one +cares to contemplate out of church. Making an effort toward some +determination which a subtle observer might have noticed weighing +upon him all the evening, he added: "And, apropos of the +past—"</p> +<p>"<i>Hein</i>?" interrogated the old lady, impatiently, still +under the influence of her irascibility about the mushrooms.</p> +<p>He moved his chair closer, and bent forward, as if his +communication were to be confidential.</p> +<p>"Ah, bah! Speak louder!" she cried. "One would suppose you had +some secret to tell. What secrets can there be at our age?" She +took up her cards and began to play. There could be no one who +bothered herself less about the forms of politeness.</p> +<p>"Yes, yes," answered Mr. Horace, throwing himself back into his +chair; "what secrets can there be at our age?"</p> +<p>The remark seemed a pregnant one to him; he gave himself up to +it. One must evidently be the age of one's thoughts. Mr. Horace's +thoughts revealed him the old man he was. The lines in his face +deepened into wrinkles; his white mustache could not pretend to +conceal his mouth, worsened by the loss of a tooth or two; and the +long, thin hand that propped his head was crossed with blue, +distended veins. "At the last judgment"—it was a favorite +quotation with him—"the book of our conscience will be read +aloud before the whole company."</p> +<p>But the old lady, deep in her game, paid no more heed to his +quotation than to him. He made a gesture toward her portrait.</p> +<p>"When that was painted, Josephine—"</p> +<p>Madame threw a glance after the gesture. The time was so long +ago, the mythology of Greece hardly more distant! At eighty the +golden age of youth must indeed appear an evanescent myth. Madame's +ideas seemed to take that direction.</p> +<p>"Ah, at that time we were all nymphs, and you all demigods."</p> +<p>"Demigods and nymphs, yes; but there was one among us who was a +god with you all."</p> +<p>The allusion—a frequent one with Mr. Horace—was to +madame's husband, who in his day, it is said, had indeed played the +god in the little Arcadia of society. She shrugged her shoulders. +The truth is so little of a compliment The old gentleman sighed in +an abstracted way, and madame, although apparently absorbed in her +game, lent her ear. It is safe to say that a woman is never too old +to hear a sigh wafted in her direction.</p> +<p>"Josephine, do you remember—in your memory—"</p> +<p>She pretended not to hear. Remember? Who ever heard of her +forgetting? But she was not the woman to say, at a moment's notice, +what she remembered or what she forgot.</p> +<p>"A woman's memory! When I think of a woman's memory—in +fact, I do not like to think of a woman's memory. One can intrude +in imagination into many places; but a woman's memory—"</p> +<p>Mr. Horace seemed to lose his thread. It had been said of him in +his youth that he wrote poetry—and it was said against him. +It was evidently such lapses as these that had given rise to the +accusation. And as there was no one less impatient under sentiment +or poetry than madame, her feet began to agitate themselves as if +Jules were perorating some of his culinary inanities before +her.</p> +<p>"And a man's memory!" totally misunderstanding him. "It is not +there that I either would penetrate, my friend. A man—"</p> +<p>When madame began to talk about men she was prompted by +imagination just as much as was Mr. Horace when he talked about +women. But what a difference in their sentiments! And yet he had +received so little, and she so much, from the subjects of their +inspiration. But that seems to be the way in life—or in +imagination.</p> +<p>"That you should"—he paused with the curious shyness of +the old before the word "love"—"that you two +should—marry—seemed natural, inevitable, at the +time."</p> +<p>Tradition records exactly the same comment by society at the +time on the marriage in question. Society is ever fatalistic in its +comments.</p> +<p>"But the natural—the inevitable—do we not sometimes, +I wonder, perform them as Jules does his accidents?"</p> +<p>"Ah, do not talk about that idiot! An idiot born and bred! I +won't have him about me! He is a monstrosity! I tell his +grandmother that every day when she comes to comb me. What a +farce—what a ridiculous farce comfortable existence has +become with us! Fresh mushrooms in market, and bring me +carrots!"</p> +<p>The old gentleman, partly from long knowledge of her habit, or +from an equally persistent bend of his own, quietly held on to his +idea.</p> +<p>"One cannot tell. It seems so at the time. We like to think it +so; it makes it easier. And yet, looking back on our future as we +once looked forward to it—"</p> +<p>"Eh! but who wants to look back on it, my friend? Who in the +world wants to look back on it?" One could not doubt madame's +energy of opinion on that question to hear her voice. "We have done +our future, we have performed it, if you will. Our future! It is +like the dinners we have eaten; of course we cannot remember the +good without becoming exasperated over the bad: +but"—shrugging her shoulders—"since we cannot beat the +cooks, we must submit to fate," forcing a queen that she needed at +the critical point of her game.</p> +<p>"At sixteen and twenty-one it is hard to realize that one is +arranging one's life to last until sixty, seventy, forever," +correcting himself as he thought of his friend, the dead husband. +If madame had ever possessed the art of self-control, it was many a +long day since she had exercised it; now she frankly began to show +ennui.</p> +<p>"When I look back to that time,"—Mr. Horace leaned back in +his chair and half closed his eyes, perhaps to avoid the expression +of her face,—"I see nothing but lights and flowers, I hear +nothing but music and laughter; and all—lights and flowers +and music and laughter—seem to meet in this room, where we +met so often to arrange our —inevitabilities." The word +appeared to attract him. "Josephine,"—with a sudden change of +voice and manner,—"Josephine, how beautiful you were!"</p> +<p>The old lady nodded her head without looking from her cards.</p> +<p>"They used to say," with sad conviction of the truth of his +testimony—"the men used to say that your beauty was +irresistible. None ever withstood you. None ever could."</p> +<p>That, after all, was Mr. Horace's great charm with madame; he +was so faithful to the illusions of his youth. As he looked now at +her, one could almost feel the irresistibility of which he +spoke.</p> +<p>"It was only their excuse, perhaps; we could not tell at the +time; we cannot tell even now when we think about it. They said +then, talking as men talk over such things, that you were the only +one who could remain yourself under the circumstances; you were the +only one who could know, who could will, under the circumstances. +It was their theory; men can have only theories about such things." +His voice dropped, and he seemed to drop too, into some abysm of +thought.</p> +<p>Madame looked into the mirror, where she could see the face of +the one who alone could retain her presence of mind under the +circumstances suggested by Mr. Horace. She could also have seen, +had she wished it, among the reflected bric-a-brac of the mantel, +the corner of the frame that held the picture of her husband, but +peradventure, classing it with the past which held so many +unavenged bad dinners, she never thought to link it even by a look +with her emotions of the present. Indeed, it had been said of her +that in past, present, and future there had ever been but the one +picture to interest her eyes—the one she was looking at now. +This, however, was the remark of the uninitiated, for the true +passion of a beautiful woman is never so much for her beauty as for +its booty; as the passion of a gamester is for his game, not for +his luck.</p> +<p>"How beautiful <i>she</i> was!"</p> +<p>It was apparently down in the depths of his abysm that he found +the connection between this phrase and his last, and it was +evidently to himself he said it. Madame, however, heard and +understood too; in fact, traced back to a certain period, her +thoughts and Mr. Horace's must have been fed by pretty much the +same subjects. But she had so carefully barricaded certain issues +in her memory as almost to obstruct their flow into her life; if +she were a cook, one would say that it was her bad dinners which +she was trying to keep out of remembrance.</p> +<p>"You there, he there, she there, I there." He pointed to the +places on the carpet, under the chandelier; he could have touched +them with a walking-stick, and the recollection seemed just as +close.</p> +<p>"She was, in truth, what we men called her then; it was her eyes +that first suggested it—Myosotis, the little blue flower, the +for-get-me-not. It suited her better than her own name. We always +called her that among ourselves. How beautiful she was!" He leaned +his head on his hand and looked where he had seen her last—so +long, such an eternity, ago.</p> +<p>It must be explained for the benefit of those who do not live in +the little world where an allusion is all that is necessary to put +one in full possession of any drama, domestic or social, that Mr. +Horace was speaking of the wedding-night of madame, when the bridal +party stood as he described under the chandelier; the bride and +groom, with each one's best friend. It may be said that it was the +last night or time that madame had a best friend of her own sex. +Social gossip, with characteristic kindness, had furnished reasons +to suit all tastes, why madame had ceased that night to have a best +friend of her own sex. If gossip had not done so, society would +still be left to its imagination for information, for madame never +tolerated the smallest appeal to her for enlightenment. What the +general taste seemed most to relish as a version was that madame in +her marriage had triumphed, not conquered; and that the night of +her wedding she had realized the fact, and, to be frank, had +realized it ever since. In short, madame had played then to gain at +love, as she played now to gain at solitaire; and hearts were no +more than cards to her—and, "Bah! Lose a game for a card!" +must have been always her motto. It is hard to explain it +delicately enough, for these are the most delicate affairs in life; +but the image of Myosotis had passed through monsieur's heart, and +Myosotis does mean "forget me not." And madame well knew that to +love monsieur once was to love him always, in spite of jealousy, +doubt, distrust, nay, unhappiness (for to love him meant all this +and more). He was that kind of man, they said, whom women could +love even against conscience. Madame never forgave that moment. Her +friend, at least, she could put aside out of her intercourse; +unfortunately, we cannot put people out of our lives. God alone can +do that, and so far he had interfered in the matter only by +removing monsieur. It was known to notoriety that since her wedding +madame had abandoned, destroyed, all knowledge of her friend. And +the friend? She had disappeared as much as is possible for one in +her position and with her duties.</p> +<p>"What there is in blue eyes, light hair, and a fragile form to +impress one, I cannot tell; but for us men it seems to me it is +blue-eyed, light-haired, and fragile-formed women that are the +hardest to forget."</p> +<p>"The less easy to forget," corrected madammadamehe paid no +attention to the remark.</p> +<p>"They are the women that attach themselves in one's memory. If +necessary to keep from being forgotten, they come back into one's +dreams. And as life rolls on, one wonders about them,—'Is she +happy? Is she miserable? Goes life well or ill with her?'"</p> +<p>Madame played her cards slowly, one would say, for her, +prosaically.</p> +<p>"And there is always a pang when, as one is so wondering, the +response comes,—that is, the certainty in one's heart +responds,—'She is miserable, and life goes ill with her.' +Then, if ever, men envy the power of God."</p> +<p>Madame threw over the game she was in, and began a new one.</p> +<p>"Such women should not be unhappy; they are too fragile, too +sensitive, too trusting. I could never understand the infliction of +misery upon them. I could send death to them, but not—not +misfortune."</p> +<p>Madame, forgetting again to cheat in time, and losing her game, +began impatiently to shuffle her cards for a new deal.</p> +<p>"And yet, do you know, Josephine, those women are the unhappy +ones of life. They seem predestined to it, as others"—looking +at madame's full-charmed portrait—"are predestined to triumph +and victory. They"—unconscious, in his abstraction, of the +personal nature of his simile—"never know how to handle their +cards, and they always play a losing game."</p> +<p>"Ha!" came from madame, startled into an irate ejaculation.</p> +<p>"It is their love always that is sacrificed, their hearts always +that are bruised. One might say that God himself favors the +black-haired ones!"</p> +<p>As his voice sank lower and lower, the room seemed to become +stiller and stiller. A passing vehicle in the street, however, now +and then drew a shiver of sound from the pendent prisms of the +chandelier.</p> +<p>"She was so slight, so fragile, and always in white, with blue +in her hair to match her eyes—and—God knows what in her +heart, all the time. And yet they stand it, they bear it, they do +not die, they live along with the strongest, the happiest, the most +fortunate of us," bitterly; "and"—raising his eyes to his old +friend, who thereupon immediately began to fumble her +cards—"whenever in the street I see a poor, bent, broken +woman's figure, I know, without verifying it any more by a glance, +that it is the wreck of a fair woman's figure; whenever I hear of a +bent, broken existence, I know, without asking any more, that it is +the wreck of a fair woman's life."</p> +<p>Poor Mr. Horace spoke with the unreason of a superstitious +bigot.</p> +<p>"I have often thought, since, in large assemblies, particularly +in weddings, Josephine, of what was going on in the women's hearts +there, and I have felt sorry for them; and when I think of God's +knowing what is in their hearts, I have felt sorry for the men. And +I often think now, Josephine,—think oftener and oftener of +it,—that if the resurrection trumpet of our childhood should +sound some day, no matter when, out there, over the old St. Louis +cemetery, and we should all have to rise from our long rest of +oblivion, what would be the first thing we should do? And though +there were a God and a heaven awaiting us,—by that same God, +Josephine, I believe that our first thought in awakening would be +the last in dying,—confession,—and that our first rush +would be to the feet of one another for forgiveness. For there are +some offenses that must outlast the longest oblivion, and a +forgiveness that will be more necessary than God's own. Then our +hearts will be bared to one another; for if, as you say, there are +no secrets at our age, there can still be less cause for them after +death."</p> +<p>His voice ended in the faintest whisper. The table crashed over, +and the cards flew wide-spread on the floor. Before we could +recover, madame was in the antechamber, screaming for Jules.</p> +<p>One would have said that, from her face, the old lady had +witnessed the resurrection described by Mr. Horace, the rush of the +spirits with their burdens of remorse, the one to the feet of the +other; and she must have seen herself and her husband, with a +unanimity of purpose never apparent in their short married life, +rising from their common tomb and hastening to that other tomb at +the end of the alley, and falling at the feet of the one to whom in +life he had been recreant in love, she in friendship.</p> +<p>Of course Jules answered through the wrong door, rushing in with +his gas-stick, and turning off the gas. In a moment we were +involved in darkness and dispute.</p> +<p>"But what does he mean? What does the idiot mean? He—" It +was impossible for her to find a word to do justice to him and to +her exasperation at the same time.</p> +<p>"Pardon, madame; it is not I. It is the cathedral bell; it is +ringing nine o'clock."</p> +<p>"But—"</p> +<p>"Madame can hear it herself. Listen!" We could not see it, but +we were conscious of the benign, toothless smile spreading over his +face as the bell-tones fell in the room.</p> +<p>"But it is not the gas. I—"</p> +<p>"Pardon, madame; but it is the gas. Madame said, 'Jules, put out +the gas every night when the bell rings.' Madame told me that only +last night. The bell rings: I put out the gas."</p> +<p>"Will you be silent? Will you listen?"</p> +<p>"If madame wishes; just as madame says."</p> +<p>But the old lady had turned to Mr. Horace. "Horace, you have +seen—you know—" and it was a question now of overcoming +emotion. "I—I—I—a carriage, my friend, a +carriage."</p> +<p>"Madame—" Jules interrupted his smile to interrupt +her.</p> +<p>She was walking around the room, picking up a shawl here, a lace +there; for she was always prepared against draughts.</p> +<p>"Madame—" continued Jules, pursuing her.</p> +<p>"A carriage."</p> +<p>"If madame would only listen, I was going to say—but +madame is too quick in her disposition—the carriage has been +waiting since a long hour ago. Mr. Horace said to have it there in +a half hour."</p> +<p>It was then she saw for the first time that it had all been +prepared by Mr. Horace. The rest was easy enough: getting into the +carriage, and finding the place of which Mr. Horace had heard, as +he said, only that afternoon. In it, on her bed of illness, +poverty, and suffering, lay the patient, wasted form of the +beautiful fair one whom men had called in her youth Myosotis.</p> +<p>But she did not call her Myosotis.</p> +<p>"<i>Mon Amour!</i>" The old pet name, although it had to be +fetched across more than half a century of disuse, flashed like +lightning from madame's heart into the dim chamber.</p> +<p>"<i>Ma Divine!</i>" came in counter-flash from the curtained +bed.</p> +<p>In the old days women, or at least young girls, could hazard +such pet names one upon the other. These—think of it!--dated +from the first communion class, the dating period of so much of +friendship.</p> +<p>"My poor Amour!"</p> +<p>"My poor, poor Divine!"</p> +<p>The voices were together, close beside the pillow.</p> +<p>"I—I—" began Divine.</p> +<p>"It could not have happened if God had not wished it," +interrupted poor Amour, with the resignation that comes, alas! only +with the last drop of the bitter cup.</p> +<p>And that was about all. If Mr. Horace had not slipped away, he +might have noticed the curious absence of monsieur's name, and of +his own name, in the murmuring that followed. It would have given +him some more ideas on the subject of woman.</p> +<p>At any rate, the good God must thank him for having one affair +the less to arrange when the trumpet sounds out there over the old +St. Louis cemetery. And he was none too premature; for the old St. +Louis cemetery, as was shortly enough proved, was a near reach for +all three of the old friends.</p> +<a name="PUPASSE"></a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>PUPASSE</h3> +<p>Every day, every day, it was the same overture in Madame +Joubert's room in the Institute St. Denis; the strident:</p> +<p>"Mesdemoiselles; à vos places! Notre Père qui est +dans le ciel—Qui a fait ce bruit?"</p> +<p>"It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse!" The answer invariably was +unanimous.</p> +<p>"But, Madame Joubert,—I assure you, Madame +Joubert,—I could not help it! They know I could not help +it!"</p> +<p>By this time the fresh new fool's cap made from yesterday's +"Bee" would have been pinned on her head.</p> +<p>"Quelle injustice! Quelle injustice!"</p> +<p>This last apostrophe in a high, whining nasal voice, always +procured Pupasse's elevation on the tall three-legged stool in the +corner.</p> +<p>It was a theory of the little girls in the primary class that +Madame Joubert would be much more lenient to their own little +inevitabilities of bad conduct and lessons if Pupasse did not +invariably comb her the wrong way every morning after prayers, by +dropping something, or sniffling, or sneezing. Therefore, while +they distractedly got together books, slates, and copy-books, their +infantile eyes found time to dart deadly reproaches toward the +corner of penitence, and their little lips, still shaped from their +first nourishment, pouted anything but sympathy for the occupant of +it.</p> +<p>Indeed, it would have been a most startling unreality to have +ever entered Madame Joubert's room and not seen Pupasse in that +corner, on that stool, her tall figure shooting up like a post, +until her tall, pointed <i>bonnet d' âne</i> came within an +inch or two of the ceiling. It was her hoop-skirt that best +testified to her height. It was the period of those funnel-shaped +hoop-skirts that spread out with such nice mathematical +proportions, from the waist down, that it seemed they must have +emanated from the brains of astronomers, like the orbits, and +diameters, and other things belonging to the heavenly bodies. +Pupasse could not have come within three feet of the wall with her +hoop-skirt distended. To have forced matters was not to be thought +of an instant. So even in her greatest grief and indignation, she +had to pause before the three-legged black stool, and gather up +steel after steel of her circumference in her hands behind, until +her calico skirt careened and flattened; and so she could manage to +accommodate herself to the limited space of her punishment, the +circles drooping far over her feet as she stood there, looking like +the costumed stick of a baby's rattle.</p> +<p>Her thinness continued into her face, which, unfortunately, had +nothing in the way of toilet to assist it. Two little black eyes +fixed in the sides of a mere fence of a nose, and a mouth with the +shape and expression of all mouths made to go over sharp-pointed +teeth planted very far apart; the smallest amount possible of fine, +dry, black hair—a perfect rat-tail when it was plaited in +one, as almost all wore their hair. But sometimes Pupasse took it +into her head to plait it in two braids, as none but the +thick-haired ventured to wear it. As the little girls said, it was +a petition to Heaven for "eau Quinquina." When Marcelite, the +hair-dresser, came at her regular periods to visit the hair of the +boarders, she would make an effort with Pupasse, plaiting her +hundred hairs in a ten-strand braid. The effect was a half yard of +black worsted galloon; nothing more, or better. Had Pupasse +possessed as many heads as the hydra, she could have "coiffe'd" +them all with fools' caps during one morning's recitations. She +entirely monopolized the "Daily Bee." Madame Joubert was forced to +borrow from "madame" the stale weekly "Courrier des Etats-Unis" for +the rest of the room. From grammar, through sacred history, +arithmetic, geography, mythology, down to dictation, Pupasse could +pile up an accumulation of penitences that would have tasked the +limits of the current day had not recreation been wisely set as a +term which disbarred, by proscription, previous offenses. But even +after recreation, with that day's lessons safely out, punished and +expiated, Pupasse's doom seemed scarcely lightened; there was still +a whole criminal code of conduct to infract. The only difference +was that instead of books, slates, or copy-books, leathern medals, +bearing various legends and mottos, were hung around her +neck—a travestied decoration worse than the books for +humiliation.</p> +<p>The "abécédaires," their torment for the day over, +thankful for any distraction from the next day's lessons, and eager +for any relief from the intolerable ennui of goodness, were +thankful enough now for Pupasse. They naturally watched her in +preference to Madame Joubert, holding their books and slates quite +cunningly to hide their faces. Pupasse had not only the genius, but +that which sometimes fails genius, the means for grimacing: little +eyes, long nose, foolish mouth, and pointed tongue. And she was so +amusing, when Madame Joubert's head was turned, that the little +girls, being young and innocent, would forget themselves and all +burst out laughing. It sounded like a flight of singing birds +through the hot, close, stupid little room; but not so to Madame +Joubert.</p> +<p>"Young ladies! But what does this mean?"</p> +<p>And, terror-stricken, the innocents would call out with one +voice, "It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse who made us laugh!" +There was nothing but fools' caps to be gained by prevaricating, +and there was frequently nothing less gained by confession. And oh, +the wails and the sobs as the innocents would be stood up, one by +one, in their places! Even the pigtails at the backs of their +little heads were convulsed with grief. Oh, how they hated Pupasse +then! When their <i>bonnes</i> came for them at three +o'clock,—washing their tear-stained faces at the cistern +before daring to take them through the streets,—how +passionately they would cry out, the tears breaking afresh into the +wet handkerchiefs:</p> +<p>"It's that Pupasse! It's that <i>vilaine</i> Pupasse!"</p> +<p>To Pupasse herself would be meted out that "peine forte et +dure," that acme of humiliation and disgrace, so intensely horrible +that many a little girl in that room solemnly averred and believed +she would kill herself before submitting to it. Pupasse's +voluminous calico skirt would be gathered up by the hem and tied up +over her head! Oh, the horrible monstrosity on the stool in the +corner then! There were no eyes in that room that had any desire to +look upon it. And the cries and the "Quelle injustice!" that fell +on the ears then from the hidden feelings had all the weirdness of +the unseen, but heard. And all the other girls in the room, in fear +and trembling, would begin to move their lips in a perfect +whirlwind of study, or write violently on their slates, or begin at +that very instant to rule off their copy-books for the next day's +verb.</p> +<p>Pupasse—her name was Marie Pupasse but no one thought of +calling her anything but Pupasse, with emphasis on the first +syllable and sibilance on the last—had no parents only a +grandmother, to describe whom, all that is necessary to say is that +she was as short as Pupasse was tall, and that her face resembled +nothing so much as a little yellow apple shriveling from decay. The +old lady came but once a week, to fetch Pupasse fresh clothes, and +a great brown paper bag of nice things to eat. There was no boarder +in the school who received handsomer bags of cake and fruit than +Pupasse. And although, not two hours before, a girl might have been +foremost in the shrill cry, "It is Pupasse who made the noise! It +is Pupasse who made me laugh!" there was nothing in that paper bag +reserved even from such a one. When the girl herself with native +delicacy would, under the circumstances, judge it discreet to +refuse, Pupasse would plead, "Oh, but take it to give me pleasure!" +And if still the refusal continued, Pupasse would take her bag and +go into the summer-house in the corner of the garden, and cry until +the unforgiving one would relent. But the first offering of the bag +was invariably to the stern dispenser of fools' caps and the +unnamed humiliation of the reversed skirt: Madame Joubert.</p> +<p>Pupasse was in the fifth class. The sixth—the +abécédaires—was the lowest in the school. Green +was the color of the fifth; white—innocence—of the +abécédaires. Exhibition after exhibition, the same +green sash and green ribbons appeared on Pupasse's white muslin, +the white muslin getting longer and longer every year, trying to +keep up with her phenomenal growth; and always, from all over the +room, buzzed the audience's suppressed merriment at Pupasse's +appearance in the ranks of the little ones of nine and ten. It was +that very merriment that brought about the greatest change in the +Institute St. Denis. The sitting order of the classes was reversed. +The first class—the graduates—went up to the top step +of the <i>estrade</i>; and the little ones put on the lowest, +behind the pianos. The graduates grumbled that it was not <i>comme +il faut</i> to have young ladies of their position stepping like +camels up and down those great steps; and the little girls said it +was a shame to hide them behind the pianos after their mamas had +taken so much pains to make them look pretty. But madame +said—going also to natural history for her +comparison—that one must be a rhinoceros to continue the +former routine.</p> +<p>Religion cannot be kept waiting forever on the intelligence. It +was always in the fourth class that the first communion was made; +that is, when the girls stayed one year in each class. But Pupasse +had spent three years in the sixth class, and had already been four +in the fifth, and Madame Joubert felt that longer delay would be +disrespectful to the good Lord. It was true that Pupasse could not +yet distinguish the ten commandments from the seven capital sins, +and still would answer that Jeanne d'Arc was the foundress of the +"Little Sisters of the Poor." But, as Madame Joubert always said in +the little address she made to the catechism class every year +before handing it over to Father Dolomier, God judged from the +heart, and not from the mind.</p> +<p>Father Dolomier—from his face he would have been an able +contestant of <i>bonnets d'âne</i> with Pupasse, if subjected +to Madame Joubert's discipline—evidently had the same method +of judging as God, although the catechism class said they could +dance a waltz on the end of his long nose without his perceiving +it.</p> +<p>There is always a little air of mystery about the first +communion: not that there is any in reality, but the little ones +assume it to render themselves important. The going to early mass, +the holding their dog-eared catechisms as if they were relics, the +instruction from the priest, even if he were only old Father +Dolomier—it all put such a little air of devotion into their +faces that it imposed (as it did every year) upon their companions, +which was a vastly gratifying effect. No matter how young and +innocent she may be, a woman's devotion always seems to have two +aims—God and her own sex.</p> +<p>The week of retreat came. Oh, the week of retreat! That was the +<i>bonne bouche</i> of it all, for themselves and for the others. +It was the same every year. By the time the week of retreat +arrived, interest and mystery had been frothed to the point of +indiscretion; so that the little girls would stand on tiptoe to +peep through the shutters at the postulants inside, and even the +larger girls, to whom first communion was a thing of an infantile +past, would condescend to listen to their reports with ill-feigned +indifference.</p> +<p>As the day of the first communion neared, the day of the general +confession naturally neared too, leading it. And then the little +girls, peeping through the shutters, and holding their breath to +see better, saw what they beheld every year; but it was always new +and awesome—mysterious scribbling in corners with +lead-pencils on scraps of paper; consultations; rewritings; +copyings; the list of their sins, of all the sins of their +lives.</p> +<p>"<i>Ma chère!</i>"—pigtails and sunbonnets hiving +outside would shudder. "Oh, <i>Mon Dieu!</i> To have to confess +all—but <i>all</i> your sins! As for me, it would kill me, +sure!"</p> +<p>And the frightful recoils of their consciences would make all +instantly blanch and cross themselves.</p> +<p>"And look at Pupasse's sins! Oh, but they are long! <i>Ma +chère</i>, but look! But look, I ask you, at them!"</p> +<p>The longest record was of course the most complimentary and +honorable to the possessor, as each girl naturally worked not only +for absolution but for fame.</p> +<p>Between catechisms and instructions Madame Joubert would have +"La Vie des Saints" read aloud, to stimulate their piety and to +engage their thoughts; for the thoughts of first communicants are +worse than flies for buzzing around the forbidden. The lecture must +have been a great quickener of conscience; for they would dare +punishment and cheat Madame Joubert, under her own eyes, in order +surreptitiously to add a new sin to their list. Of course the one +hour's recreation could not afford time enough for observation now, +and the little girls were driven to all sorts of excuses to get out +of the classroom for one moment's peep through the shutters; at +which whole swarms of them would sometimes be caught and sent into +punishment.</p> +<p>Only two days more. Madame Joubert put them through the +rehearsal, a most important part of the preparation, almost as +important as catechism—how to enter the church, how to hold +the candle, how to advance, how to kneel, retire—everything, +in fact.</p> +<p>Only one day more, the quietest, most devotional day of all. +Pupasse lost her sins!</p> +<p>Of course every year the same accident happened to some one. But +it was a new accident to Pupasse. And such a long list!</p> +<p>The commotion inside that retreat! Pupasse's nasal whine, +carrying her lament without any mystery to the outside garden. Such +searching of pockets, rummaging of corners, microscopic examination +of the floor! Such crimination and recrimination, protestation, +asseveration, assurances, backed by divine and saintly invocations! +Pupasse accused companion after companion of filching her sins, +which each after each would violently deny, producing each her own +list from her own pocket,—proof to conviction of innocence, +and, we may say, of guilt also.</p> +<p>Pupasse declared they had niched it to copy, because her list +was the longest and most complete. She could not go to confession +without her sins; she could not go to communion without confession. +The tears rolled down her long thin nose unchecked, for she never +could remember to use her handkerchief until reminded by Madame +Joubert.</p> +<p>She had committed it to memory, as all the others had done +theirs; but how was she to know without the list if she had not +forgotten something? And to forget one thing in a general +confession they knew was a mortal sin.</p> +<p>"I shall tell Madame Joubert! I shall tell Madame Joubert!"</p> +<p>"<i>Ma chère</i>!'" whispered the little ones outside. +"Oh, but look at them! <i>Elles font les quatre cents coups</i>!" +which is equivalent to "cutting up like the mischief."</p> +<p>And with reason. As if such an influx of the world upon them at +this moment were not sufficient of itself to damn them. But to tell +Madame Joubert! With all their dresses made and ready, wreaths, +veils, candles, prayer-books, picture-cards, mother-of-pearl +prayer-beads, and festival breakfasts with admiring family and +friends prepared. Tell Madame Joubert! She would simply cancel it +all. In a body they chorused:</p> +<p>"But, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"<i>Chère</i> Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"<i>Voyons</i>, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"I assure you, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"On the cross, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"Ah, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>"We implore you, Pupasse!"</p> +<p>The only response—tears, and "I shall tell Madame +Joubert."</p> +<p>Consultations, caucuses, individual appeals, general outbursts. +Pupasse stood in the corner. Curiously, she always sought refuge in +the very sanctum of punishment, her face hidden in her bended arms, +her hoops standing out behind, vouchsafing nothing but tears, and +the promise to tell Madame Joubert. And three o'clock approaching! +And Madame Joubert imminent! But Pupasse really could not go to +confession without her sins. They all recognized that; they were +reasonable, as they assured her.</p> +<p>A crisis quickens the wits. They heard the cathedral clock +strike the quarter to three. They whispered, suggested, +argued—bunched in the farthest corner from Pupasse.</p> +<p>"Console yourself, Pupasse! We will help you, Pupasse! Say no +more about it! We will help you!"</p> +<p>A delegate was sent to say that. She was only four feet and a +half high, and had to stand on tiptoe to pluck the six-foot +Pupasse's dress to gain her attention.</p> +<p>And they did help her generously. A new sheet of fool's-cap was +procured, and torn in two, lengthwise, and pinned in a long strip. +One by one, each little girl took it, and, retiring as far as +possible, would put her hand into her pocket, and, extracting her +list, would copy it in full on the new paper. Then she would fold +it down, and give it to the next one, until all had written.</p> +<p>"Here, Pupasse; here are all our sins. We give them to you; you +can have them."</p> +<p>Pupasse was radiant; she was more than delighted, and the more +she read the better pleased she was. Such a handsome long list, and +so many sins she had never thought of—never dreamed of! She +set herself with zeal to commit them to memory. But a hand on the +door—Madame Joubert! You never could have told that those +little girls had not been sitting during the whole time, with their +hands clasped and eyes cast up to the ceiling, or moving their lips +as the prayer-beads glided through their fingers. Their versatility +was really marvelous.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a name="16"></a><img width="500" src= +"images/16.jpg" alt="THE FIRST COMMUNION."> +<h5>THE FIRST COMMUNION.</h5> +</div> +<hr> +<p>Poor Pupasse! God solved the dilemma of her education, and +madame's increasing sensitiveness about her appearance in the fifth +class, by the death of the old grandmother. She went home to the +funeral, and never returned—or at least she returned, but +only for madame. There was a little scene in the parlor: Pupasse, +all dressed in black, with her bag of primary books in her hand, +ready and eager to get back to her classes and fools' caps; madame, +hesitating between her interests and her fear of ridicule; Madame +Joubert, between her loyalty to school and her conscience. Pupasse +the only one free and untrammeled, simple and direct.</p> +<p>That little school parlor had been the stage for so many scenes! +Madame Joubert detested acting—the comedy, as she called it. +There was nothing she punished with more pleasure up in her room. +And yet—</p> +<p>"Pupasse, <i>ma fille</i>, give me your grammar."</p> +<p>The old battered, primitive book was gotten out of the bag, the +string still tied between the leaves for convenience in hanging +around the neck.</p> +<p>"Your last punishment: the rule for irregular verbs. +Commence!"</p> +<p>"I know it, Madame Joubert; I know it perfectly, I assure +you."</p> +<p>"Commence!"</p> +<p>"Irregular verbs—but I assure you I know it—I know +it by heart—"</p> +<p>"Commence, <i>ma fille!</i>"</p> +<p>"Irregular verbs—irregular verbs—I know it, Madame +Joubert—one moment—" and she shook her right hand, as +girls do to get inspiration, they say. "Irregular verbs—give +me one word, Madame Joubert; only one word!"</p> +<p>"That—"</p> +<p>"Irregular verbs, that—irregular verbs, that—"</p> +<p>"See here, Pupasse; you do not know that lesson any more than a +cat does"—Madame Joubert's favorite comparison.</p> +<p>"Yes, I do, Madame Joubert! Yes, I do!"</p> +<p>"Silence!"</p> +<p>"But, Madame Joubert—"</p> +<p>"Will you be silent!"</p> +<p>"Yes, Madame Joubert; only—"</p> +<p>"Pupasse, one more word—and—" Madame Joubert was +forgetting her comedy—"Listen, Pupasse, and obey! You go home +and learn that lesson. When you know it, you can reënter your +class. That is the punishment I have thought of to correct your +'want of attention.'"</p> +<p>That was the way Madame Joubert put it—"want of +attention."</p> +<p>Pupasse looked at her—at madame, a silent but potent +spectator. To be sent from home because she did not know the rule +of the irregular verbs! To be sent from home, family, friends!--for +that was the way Pupasse put it. She had been in that +school—it may only be whispered—fifteen years. Madame +Joubert knew it; so did madame, although they accounted for only +four or five years in each class. That school was her home; Madame +Joubert—God help her!--her mother; madame, her divinity; +fools' caps and turned-up skirts, her life. The old +grandmother—she it was who had done everything for her (a +<i>ci-devant</i> rag-picker, they say); she it was who was nothing +to her.</p> +<p>Madame must have felt something of it besides the loss of the +handsome salary for years from the little old withered woman. But +conventionality is inexorable; and the St. Denis's great +recommendation was its conventionality. Madame Joubert must have +felt something of it,—she must have felt something of +it,—for why should she volunteer? Certainly madame could not +have imposed <i>that</i> upon <i>her. It must</i> have been an +inspiration of the moment, or a movement, a <i>tressaillement</i>, +of the heart.</p> +<p>"Listen, Pupasse, my child. Go home, study your lesson well. I +shall come every evening myself and hear it; and as soon as you +know it, I shall fetch you back myself. You know I always keep my +word."</p> +<p>Keep her word! That she did. Could the inanimate past testify, +what a fluttering of fools' caps in that parlor—"Daily Bees," +and "Weekly Couriers," by the year-full!</p> +<p>What could Pupasse say or do? It settled the question, as Madame +Joubert assured madame, when the tall, thin black figure with the +bag of books disappeared through the gate.</p> +<p>Madame Joubert was never known to break her word; that is all +one knows about her part of the bargain.</p> +<p>One day, not three years ago, ringing a bell to inquire for a +servant, a familiar murmuring fell upon the ear, and an old +abécédaire's eyes could not resist the temptation to +look through the shutters. There sat Pupasse; there was her old +grammar; there were both fingers stopping her ears—as all +studious girls do, or used to do; and there sounded the old words +composing the rule for irregular verbs.</p> +<p>And you all remember how long it is since we wore funnel-shaped +hoop-skirts!</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Balcony Stories, by Grace E. 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King + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Balcony Stories + +Author: Grace E. King + +Release Date: March 8, 2004 [EBook #11514] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BALCONY STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Bradley Norton and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +BALCONY STORIES + +BY + +GRACE KING + + +1892 + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE BALCONY + +A DRAMA OF THREE + +LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE + +MIMI'S MARRIAGE + +THE MIRACLE CHAPEL + +THE STORY OF A DAY + +ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE + +A CRIPPLED HOPE + +"ONE OF US" + +THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL + +GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER + +THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION + +A DELICATE AFFAIR + +PUPASSE + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS" + +"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT SNAIL, WITH MY +MAIL?" + +CHAMPIGNY + +"I WEPT, I WEPT, I WEPT" + +"HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW" + +"ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION" + +"THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!" + +"THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT" + +"LITTLE MAMMY" + +"TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS" + +THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY + +WATCHING A LANDING + +"TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES" + +THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY + +THE FIRST COMMUNION + + + + +BALCONY STORIES + + + + +THE BALCONY + + +There is much of life passed on the balcony in a country where the +summer unrolls in six moon-lengths, and where the nights have to come +with a double endowment of vastness and splendor to compensate for the +tedious, sun-parched days. + +And in that country the women love to sit and talk together of summer +nights, on balconies, in their vague, loose, white garments,--men +are not balcony sitters,--with their sleeping children within easy +hearing, the stars breaking the cool darkness, or the moon making a +show of light--oh, such a discreet show of light!--through the vines. +And the children inside, waking to go from one sleep into another, +hear the low, soft mother-voices on the balcony, talking about this +person and that, old times, old friends, old experiences; and it seems +to them, hovering a moment in wakefulness, that there is no end of the +world or time, or of the mother-knowledge; but, illimitable as it +is, the mother-voices and the mother-love and protection fill it +all,--with their mother's hand in theirs, children are not afraid even +of God,--and they drift into slumber again, their little dreams +taking all kinds of pretty reflections from the great unknown horizon +outside, as their fragile soap-bubbles take on reflections from the +sun and clouds. + +Experiences, reminiscences, episodes, picked up as only women know how +to pick them up from other women's lives,--or other women's destinies, +as they prefer to call them,--and told as only women know how to +relate them; what God has done or is doing with some other woman whom +they have known--that is what interests women once embarked on their +own lives,--the embarkation takes place at marriage, or after the +marriageable time,--or, rather, that is what interests the women who +sit of summer nights on balconies. For in those long-moon countries +life is open and accessible, and romances seem to be furnished real +and gratis, in order to save, in a languor-breeding climate, the +ennui of reading and writing books. Each woman has a different way of +picking up and relating her stories, as each one selects different +pieces, and has a personal way of playing them on the piano. + +Each story _is_ different, or appears so to her; each has some unique +and peculiar pathos in it. And so she dramatizes and inflects it, +trying to make the point visible to her apparent also to her hearers. +Sometimes the pathos and interest to the hearers lie only in +this--that the relater has observed it, and gathered it, and finds it +worth telling. For do we not gather what we have not, and is not our +own lacking our one motive? It may be so, for it often appears so. + +And if a child inside be wakeful and precocious it is not dreams +alone that take on reflections from the balcony outside: through the +half-open shutters the still, quiet eyes look across the dim forms +on the balcony to the star-spangled or the moon-brightened heavens +beyond; while memory makes stores for the future, and germs are sown, +out of which the slow, clambering vine of thought issues, one day, to +decorate or hide, as it may be, the structures or ruins of life. + + + + +A DRAMA OF THREE + + +It was a regular dramatic performance every first of the month in the +little cottage of the old General and Madame B----. + +It began with the waking up of the General by his wife, standing at +the bedside with a cup of black coffee. + +"He! Ah! Oh, Honorine! Yes; the first of the month, and +affairs--affairs to be transacted." + +On those mornings when affairs were to be transacted there was not +much leisure for the household; and it was Honorine who constituted +the household. Not the old dressing-gown and slippers, the old, old +trousers, and the antediluvian neck-foulard of other days! Far from +it. It was a case of warm water (with even a fling of cologne in it), +of the trimming of beard and mustache by Honorine, and the black +broadcloth suit, and the brown satin stock, and that _je ne sais quoi +de degage_ which no one could possess or assume like the old General. +Whether he possessed or assumed it is an uncertainty which hung over +the fine manners of all the gentlemen of his day, who were kept +through their youth in Paris to cultivate _bon ton_ and an education. + +It was also something of a gala-day for Madame la Generale too, as it +must be a gala-day for all old wives to see their husbands pranked +in the manners and graces that had conquered their maidenhood, and +exhaling once more that ambrosial fragrance which once so well +incensed their compelling presence. + +Ah, to the end a woman loves to celebrate her conquest! It is the last +touch of misfortune with her to lose in the old, the ugly, and the +commonplace her youthful lord and master. If one could look under the +gray hairs and wrinkles with which time thatches old women, one would +be surprised to see the flutterings, the quiverings, the thrills, the +emotions, the coals of the heart-fires which death alone extinguishes, +when he commands the tenant to vacate. + +Honorine's hands chilled with the ice of sixteen as she approached +scissors to the white mustache and beard. When her finger-tips brushed +those lips, still well formed and roseate, she felt it, strange to +say, on her lips. When she asperged the warm water with cologne,--it +was her secret delight and greatest effort of economy to buy this +cologne,--she always had one little moment of what she called +faintness--that faintness which had veiled her eyes, and chained her +hands, and stilled her throbbing bosom, when as a bride she came from +the church with him. It was then she noticed the faint fragrance of +the cologne bath. Her lips would open as they did then, and she would +stand for a moment and think thoughts to which, it must be confessed, +she looked forward from month to month. What a man he had been! In +truth he belonged to a period that would accept nothing less from +Nature than physical beauty; and Nature is ever subservient to the +period. If it is to-day all small men, and to-morrow gnomes and +dwarfs, we may know that the period is demanding them from Nature. + +When the General had completed--let it be called no less than the +ceremony of--his toilet, he took his chocolate and his _pain de +Paris_. Honorine could not imagine him breakfasting on anything but +_pain de Paris._ Then he sat himself in his large arm-chair before his +escritoire, and began transacting his affairs with the usual-- + +"But where is that idiot, that dolt, that sluggard, that snail, with +my mail?" Honorine, busy in the breakfast-room: + +[Illustration: "WHERE IS THAT IDIOT, THAT DOLT, THAT SLUGGARD, THAT +SNAIL, WITH MY MAIL?"] + +"In a moment, husband. In a moment." + +"But he should be here now. It is the first of the month, it is nine +o'clock, I am ready; he should be here." + +"It is not yet nine o'clock, husband." + +"Not yet nine! Not yet nine! Am I not up? Am I not dressed? Have I not +breakfasted before nine?" + +"That is so, husband. That is so." Honorine's voice, prompt in +cheerful acquiescence, came from the next room, where she was washing +his cup, saucer, and spoon. + +"It is getting worse and worse every day. I tell you, Honorine, Pompey +must be discharged. He is worthless. He is trifling. Discharge him! +Discharge him! Do not have him about! Chase him out of the yard! Chase +him as soon as he makes his appearance! Do you hear, Honorine?" + +"You must have a little patience, husband." + +It was perhaps the only reproach one could make to Madame Honorine, +that she never learned by experience. + +"Patience! Patience! Patience is the invention of dullards and +sluggards. In a well-regulated world there should be no need of such a +thing as patience. Patience should be punished as a crime, or at +least as a breach of the peace. Wherever patience is found police +investigation should be made as for smallpox. Patience! Patience! I +never heard the word--I assure you, I never heard the word in Paris. +What do you think would be said there to the messenger who craved +patience of you? Oh, they know too well in Paris--a rataplan from the +walking-stick on his back, that would be the answer; and a, 'My good +fellow, we are not hiring professors of patience, but legs.'" + +"But, husband, you must remember we do not hire Pompey. He only does +it to oblige us, out of his kindness." + +"Oblige us! Oblige me! Kindness! A negro oblige me! Kind to me! That +is it; that is it. That is the way to talk under the new regime. It is +favor, and oblige, and education, and monsieur, and madame, now. What +child's play to call this a country--a government! I would not be +surprised"--jumping to his next position on this ever-recurring first +of the month theme--"I would not be surprised if Pompey has failed to +find the letter in the box. How do I know that the mail has not +been tampered with? From day to day I expect to hear it. What is to +prevent? Who is to interpose? The honesty of the officials? Honesty of +the officials--that is good! What a farce--honesty of officials! That +is evidently what has happened. The thought has not occurred to me in +vain. Pompey has gone. He has not found the letter, and--well; that is +the end." + +But the General had still another theory to account for the delay in +the appearance of his mail which he always posed abruptly after the +exhaustion of the arraignment of the post-office. + +"And why not Journel?" Journel was their landlord, a fellow of means, +but no extraction, and a favorite aversion of the old gentleman's. +"Journel himself? You think he is above it, _he_? You think Journel +would not do such a thing? Ha! your simplicity, Honorine--your +simplicity is incredible. It is miraculous. I tell you, I have known +the Journels, from father to son, for--yes, for seventy-five years. +Was not his grandfather the overseer on my father's plantation? I was +not five years old when I began to know the Journels. And this fellow, +I know him better than he knows himself. I know him as well as God +knows him. I have made up my mind. I have made it up carefully that +the first time that letter fails on the first of the month I +shall have Journel arrested as a thief. I shall land him in the +penitentiary. What! You think I shall submit to have my mail tampered +with by a Journel? Their contents appropriated? What! You think there +was no coincidence in Journel's offering me his post-office box just +the month--just the month, before those letters began to arrive? You +think he did not have some inkling of them? Mark my words, Honorine, +he did--by some of his subterranean methods. And all these five years +he has been arranging his plans--that is all. He was arranging theft, +which no doubt has been consummated to-day. Oh, I have regretted it--I +assure you I have regretted it, that I did not promptly reject his +proposition, that, in fact, I ever had anything to do with the +fellow." + +It was almost invariably, so regularly do events run in this +world,--it was almost invariably that the negro messenger made his +appearance at this point. For five years the General had perhaps +not been interrupted as many times, either above or below the last +sentence. The mail, or rather the letter, was opened, and the usual +amount--three ten-dollar bills--was carefully extracted and counted. +And as if he scented the bills, even as the General said he did, +within ten minutes after their delivery, Journel made his appearance +to collect the rent. + +It could only have been in Paris, among that old retired nobility, who +counted their names back, as they expressed it, "au de ca du deluge," +that could have been acquired the proper manner of treating a +"roturier" landlord: to measure him with the eyes from head to foot; +to hand the rent--the ten-dollar bill--with the tips of the fingers; +to scorn a look at the humbly tendered receipt; to say: "The cistern +needs repairing, the roof leaks; I must warn you that unless such +notifications meet with more prompt attention than in the past, +you must look for another tenant," etc., in the monotonous tone of +supremacy, and in the French, not of Journel's dictionary, nor of +the dictionary of any such as he, but in the French of Racine and +Corneille; in the French of the above suggested circle, which inclosed +the General's memory, if it had not inclosed--as he never tired of +recounting--his star-like personality. + +A sheet of paper always infolded the bank-notes. It always bore, in +fine but sexless tracery, "From one who owes you much." + +There, that was it, that sentence, which, like a locomotive, bore the +General and his wife far on these firsts of the month to two opposite +points of the horizon, in fact, one from the other--"From one who owes +you much." + +The old gentleman would toss the paper aside with the bill receipt. +In the man to whom the bright New Orleans itself almost owed its +brightness, it was a paltry act to search and pick for a debtor. +Friends had betrayed and deserted him; relatives had forgotten him; +merchants had failed with his money; bank presidents had stooped to +deceive him; for he was an old man, and had about run the gamut of +human disappointments--a gamut that had begun with a C major of trust, +hope, happiness, and money. + +His political party had thrown him aside. Neither for ambassador, +plenipotentiary, senator, congressman, not even for a clerkship, could +he be nominated by it. Certes! "From one who owed him much." He had +fitted the cap to a new head, the first of every month, for five +years, and still the list was not exhausted. Indeed, it would have +been hard for the General to look anywhere and not see some one whose +obligations to him far exceeded this thirty dollars a month. Could he +avoid being happy with such eyes? + +But poor Madame Honorine! She who always gathered up the receipts, and +the "From one who owes you much"; who could at an instant's warning +produce the particular ones for any month of the past half-decade. +She kept them filed, not only in her armoire, but the scrawled +papers--skewered, as it were, somewhere else--where women from time +immemorial have skewered such unsigned papers. She was not original in +her thoughts--no more, for the matter of that, than the General was. +Tapped at any time on the first of the month, when she would pause +in her drudgery to reimpale her heart by a sight of the written +characters on the scrap of paper, her thoughts would have been found +flowing thus, "One can give everything, and yet be sure of nothing." + +When Madame Honorine said "everything," she did not, as women in such +cases often do, exaggerate. When she married the General, she in +reality gave the youth of sixteen, the beauty (ah, do not trust the +denial of those wrinkles, the thin hair, the faded eyes!) of an angel, +the dot of an heiress. Alas! It was too little at the time. Had she in +her own person united all the youth, all the beauty, all the wealth, +sprinkled parsimoniously so far and wide over all the women in this +land, would she at that time have done aught else with this than +immolate it on the burning pyre of the General's affection? "And yet +be sure of nothing." + +It is not necessary, perhaps, to explain that last clause. It is very +little consolation for wives that their husbands have forgotten, when +some one else remembers. Some one else! Ah! there could be so many +some one Else's in the General's life, for in truth he had been +irresistible to excess. But this was one particular some one else who +had been faithful for five years. Which one? + +When Madame Honorine solves that enigma she has made up her mind how +to act. + +As for Journel, it amused him more and more. He would go away from the +little cottage rubbing his hands with pleasure (he never saw Madame +Honorine, by the way, only the General). He would have given far more +than thirty dollars a month for this drama; for he was not only rich, +but a great _farceur_. + + + + +LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE + + +That was what she was called by everybody as soon as she was seen or +described. Her name, besides baptismal titles, was Idalie Sainte Foy +Mortemart des Islets. When she came into society, in the brilliant +little world of New Orleans, it was the event of the season, and after +she came in, whatever she did became also events. Whether she went, or +did not go; what she said, or did not say; what she wore, and did not +wear--all these became important matters of discussion, quoted as much +or more than what the president said, or the governor thought. And +in those days, the days of '59, New Orleans was not, as it is now, a +one-heiress place, but it may be said that one could find heiresses +then as one finds type-writing girls now. + +Mademoiselle Idalie received her birth, and what education she had, on +her parents' plantation, the famed old Reine Sainte Foy place, and +it is no secret that, like the ancient kings of France, her birth +exceeded her education. + +It was a plantation, the Reine Sainte Foy, the richness and luxury of +which are really well described in those fervid pictures of tropical +life, at one time the passion of philanthropic imaginations, excited +and exciting over the horrors of slavery. Although these pictures were +then often accused of being purposely exaggerated, they seem now to +fall short of, instead of surpassing, the truth. Stately walls, acres +of roses, miles of oranges, unmeasured fields of cane, colossal +sugar-house--they were all there, and all the rest of it, with the +slaves, slaves, slaves everywhere, whole villages of negro cabins. And +there were also, most noticeable to the natural, as well as to +the visionary, eye--there were the ease, idleness, extravagance, +self-indulgence, pomp, pride, arrogance, in short the whole +enumeration, the moral _sine qua non_, as some people considered it, +of the wealthy slaveholder of aristocratic descent and tastes. + +What Mademoiselle Idalie cared to learn she studied, what she did not +she ignored; and she followed the same simple rule untrammeled in her +eating, drinking, dressing, and comportment generally; and whatever +discipline may have been exercised on the place, either in fact or +fiction, most assuredly none of it, even so much as in a threat, +ever attended her sacred person. When she was just turned sixteen, +Mademoiselle Idalie made up her mind to go into society. Whether she +was beautiful or not, it is hard to say. It is almost impossible +to appreciate properly the beauty of the rich, the very rich. The +unfettered development, the limitless choice of accessories, the +confidence, the self-esteem, the sureness of expression, the +simplicity of purpose, the ease of execution--all these produce a +certain effect of beauty behind which one really cannot get to measure +length of nose, or brilliancy of eye. This much can be said: there was +nothing in her that positively contradicted any assumption of beauty +on her part, or credit of it on the part of others. She was very tall +and very thin with small head, long neck, black eyes, and abundant +straight black hair,--for which her hair-dresser deserved more praise +than she,--good teeth, of course, and a mouth that, even in prayer, +talked nothing but commands; that is about all she had _en fait +d'ornements_, as the modesties say. It may be added that she walked as +if the Reine Sainte Foy plantation extended over the whole earth, and +the soil of it were too vile for her tread. Of course she did not buy +her toilets in New Orleans. Everything was ordered from Paris, and +came as regularly through the custom-house as the modes and robes to +the milliners. She was furnished by a certain house there, just as one +of a royal family would be at the present day. As this had lasted from +her layette up to her sixteenth year, it may be imagined what took +place when she determined to make her debut. Then it was literally, +not metaphorically, _carte blanche_, at least so it got to the ears of +society. She took a sheet of note-paper, wrote the date at the top, +added, "I make my debut in November," signed her name at the extreme +end of the sheet, addressed it to her dressmaker in Paris, and sent +it. + +It was said that in her dresses the very handsomest silks were +used for linings, and that real lace was used where others put +imitation,--around the bottoms of the skirts, for instance,--and silk +ribbons of the best quality served the purposes of ordinary tapes; and +sometimes the buttons were of real gold and silver, sometimes set +with precious stones. Not that she ordered these particulars, but the +dressmakers, when given _carte blanche_ by those who do not condescend +to details, so soon exhaust the outside limits of garments that +perforce they take to plastering them inside with gold, so to speak, +and, when the bill goes in, they depend upon the furnishings to carry +out a certain amount of the contract in justifying the price. And it +was said that these costly dresses, after being worn once or twice, +were cast aside, thrown upon the floor, given to the negroes--anything +to get them out of sight. Not an inch of the real lace, not one of the +jeweled buttons, not a scrap of ribbon, was ripped off to save. And it +was said that if she wanted to romp with her dogs in all her finery, +she did it; she was known to have ridden horseback, one moonlight +night, all around the plantation in a white silk dinner-dress flounced +with Alencon. And at night, when she came from the balls, tired, tired +to death as only balls can render one, she would throw herself down +upon her bed in her tulle skirts,--on top, or not, of the exquisite +flowers, she did not care,--and make her maid undress her in that +position; often having her bodices cut off her, because she was too +tired to turn over and have them unlaced. + +That she was admired, raved about, loved even, goes without saying. +After the first month she held the refusal of half the beaux of New +Orleans. Men did absurd, undignified, preposterous things for her; and +she? Love? Marry? The idea never occurred to her. She treated the +most exquisite of her pretenders no better than she treated her Paris +gowns, for the matter of that. She could not even bring herself to +listen to a proposal patiently; whistling to her dogs, in the middle +of the most ardent protestations, or jumping up and walking away with +a shrug of the shoulders, and a "Bah!" + +[Illustration: "WALKING AWAY WITH A SHRUG OF THE SHOULDERS."] + +Well! Every one knows what happened after '59. There is no need to +repeat. The history of one is the history of all. But there was this +difference--for there is every shade of difference in misfortune, as +there is every shade of resemblance in happiness. Mortemart des Islets +went off to fight. That was natural; his family had been doing that, +he thought, or said, ever since Charlemagne. Just as naturally he was +killed in the first engagement. They, his family, were always +among the first killed; so much so that it began to be considered +assassination to fight a duel with any of them. All that was in the +ordinary course of events. One difference in their misfortunes lay +in that after the city was captured, their plantation, so near, +convenient, and rich in all kinds of provisions, was selected to +receive a contingent of troops--a colored company. If it had been a +colored company raised in Louisiana it might have been different; and +these negroes mixed with the negroes in the neighborhood,--and negroes +are no better than whites, for the proportion of good and bad among +them,--and the officers were always off duty when they should have +been on, and on when they should have been off. + +One night the dwelling caught fire. There was an immediate rush to +save the ladies. Oh, there was no hesitation about that! They were +seized in their beds, and carried out in the very arms of their +enemies; carried away off to the sugar-house, and deposited there. No +danger of their doing anything but keep very quiet and still in their +_chemises de nuit_, and their one sheet apiece, which was about all +that was saved from the conflagration--that is, for them. But it must +be remembered that this is all hearsay. When one has not been present, +one knows nothing of one's own knowledge; one can only repeat. It has +been repeated, however, that although the house was burned to +the ground, and everything in it destroyed, wherever, for a year +afterward, a man of that company or of that neighborhood was found, +there could have been found also, without search-warrant, property +that had belonged to the Des Islets. That is the story; and it is +believed or not, exactly according to prejudice. + +How the ladies ever got out of the sugar-house, history does not +relate; nor what they did. It was not a time for sociability, either +personal or epistolary. At one offensive word your letter, and you, +very likely, examined; and Ship Island for a hotel, with soldiers for +hostesses! Madame Des Islets died very soon after the accident--of +rage, they say; and that was about all the public knew. + +Indeed, at that time the society of New Orleans had other things +to think about than the fate of the Des Islets. As for _la grande +demoiselle_, she had prepared for her own oblivion in the hearts of +her female friends. And the gentlemen,--her _preux chevaliers_,--they +were burning with other passions than those which had driven them to +her knees, encountering a little more serious response than "bahs" and +shrugs. And, after all, a woman seems the quickest thing forgotten +when once the important affairs of life come to men for consideration. + +It might have been ten years according to some calculations, or ten +eternities,--the heart and the almanac never agree about time,--but +one morning old Champigny (they used to call him Champignon) was +walking along his levee front, calculating how soon the water would +come over, and drown him out, as the Louisianians say. It was before a +seven-o'clock breakfast, cold, wet, rainy, and discouraging. The road +was knee-deep in mud, and so broken up with hauling, that it was like +walking upon waves to get over it. A shower poured down. Old Champigny +was hurrying in when he saw a figure approaching. He had to stop to +look at it, for it was worth while. The head was hidden by a green +barege veil, which the showers had plentifully besprinkled with dew; a +tall, thin figure. Figure! No; not even could it be called a figure: +straight up and down, like a finger or a post; high-shouldered, and +a step--a step like a plow-man's. No umbrella; no--nothing more, in +fact. It does not sound so peculiar as when first related--something +must be forgotten. The feet--oh, yes, the feet--they were like +waffle-irons, or frying-pans, or anything of that shape. + +Old Champigny did not care for women--he never had; they simply did +not exist for him in the order of nature. He had been married once, +it is true, about a half century before; but that was not reckoned +against the existence of his prejudice, because he was _celibataire_ +to his finger-tips, as any one could see a mile away. But that woman +_intrigue'd_ him. + +He had no servant to inquire from. He performed all of his own +domestic work in the wretched little cabin that replaced his old home. +For Champigny also belonged to the great majority of the _nouveaux +pauvres_. He went out into the rice-field, where were one or two +hands that worked on shares with him, and he asked them. They knew +immediately; there is nothing connected with the parish that a +field-hand does not know at once. She was the teacher of the colored +public school some three or four miles away. "Ah," thought Champigny, +"some Northern lady on a mission." He watched to see her return in the +evening, which she did, of course; in a blinding rain. Imagine the +green barege veil then; for it remained always down over her face. + +[Illustration: CHAMPIGNY.] + +Old Champigny could not get over it that he had never seen her before. +But he must have seen her, and, with his abstraction and old age, not +have noticed her, for he found out from the negroes that she had been +teaching four or five years there. And he found out also--how, is not +important--that she was Idalie Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. _La +grande demoiselle_! He had never known her in the old days, owing to +his uncomplimentary attitude toward women, but he knew of her, +of course, and of her family. It should have been said that his +plantation was about fifty miles higher up the river, and on the +opposite bank to Reine Sainte Foy. It seemed terrible. The old +gentleman had had reverses of his own, which would bear the telling, +but nothing was more shocking to him than this--that Idalie Sainte +Foy Mortemart des Islets should be teaching a public colored school +for--it makes one blush to name it--seven dollars and a half a month. +For seven dollars and a half a month to teach a set of--well! He found +out where she lived, a little cabin--not so much worse than his own, +for that matter--in the corner of a field; no companion, no servant, +nothing but food and shelter. Her clothes have been described. + +Only the good God himself knows what passed in Champigny's mind on +the subject. We know only the results. He went and married _la grande +demoiselle_. How? Only the good God knows that too. Every first of the +month, when he goes to the city to buy provisions, he takes her with +him--in fact, he takes her everywhere with him. + +Passengers on the railroad know them well, and they always have a +chance to see her face. When she passes her old plantation _la grande +demoiselle_ always lifts her veil for one instant--the inevitable +green barege veil. What a face! Thin, long, sallow, petrified! And the +neck! If she would only tie something around the neck! And her plain, +coarse cottonade gown! The negro women about her were better dressed +than she. + +Poor old Champignon! It was not an act of charity to himself, no +doubt cross and disagreeable, besides being ugly. And as for love, +gratitude! + + + + +MIMI'S MARRIAGE + + +This how she told about it, sitting in her little room,--her bridal +chamber,--not larger, really not larger than sufficed for the bed +there, the armoire here, the bureau opposite, and the washstand behind +the door, the corners all touching. But a nice set of furniture, quite +_comme il faut_,--handsome, in fact,--as a bride of good family should +have. And she was dressed very prettily, too, in her long white +_negligee_, with plenty of lace and ruffles and blue ribbons,--such as +only the Creole girls can make, and brides, alas! wear,--the pretty +honeymoon costume that suggests, that suggests--well! to proceed. "The +poor little cat!" as one could not help calling her, so _mignonne_, +so blond, with the pretty black eyes, and the rosebud of a +mouth,--whenever she closed it,--a perfect kiss. + +"But you know, Louise," she said, beginning quite seriously at the +beginning, "papa would never have consented, never, never--poor papa! +Indeed, I should never have asked him; it would only have been one +humiliation more for him, poor papa! So it was well he was dead, if +it was God's will for it to be. Of course I had my dreams, like +everybody. I was so blond, so blond, and so small; it seemed like a +law I should marry a _brun_, a tall, handsome _brun_, with a mustache +and a fine barytone voice. That was how I always arranged it, and--you +will laugh--but a large, large house, and numbers of servants, and a +good cook, but a superlatively good cuisine, and wine and all that, +and long, trailing silk dresses, and theater every night, and voyages +to Europe, and--well, everything God had to give, in fact. You know, I +get that from papa, wanting everything God has to give! Poor papa! It +seemed to me I was to meet him at any time, my handsome _brun_. I used +to look for him positively on my way to school, and back home again, +and whenever I would think of him I would try and walk so prettily, +and look so pretty! _Mon Dieu!_ I was not ten years old yet! And +afterward it was only for that that I went into society. What should +girls go into society for otherwise but to meet their _brun_ or their +blond? Do you think it is amusing, to economize and economize, and sew +and sew, just to go to a party to dance? No! I assure you, I went into +society only for that; and I do not believe what girls say--they go +into society only for that too. + +"You know at school how we used to _tirer la bonne aventure._[1] Well, +every time he was not _brun, riche, avenant_, Jules, or Raoul, or Guy, +I simply would not accept it, but would go on drawing until I obtained +what I wanted. As I tell you, I thought it was my destiny. And when I +would try with a flower to see if he loved me,--_Il m'aime, un peu, +beaucoup, passionement, pas du tout_,--if it were _pas du tout_, I +would always throw the flower away, and begin tearing off the leaves +from another one immediately. _Passionement_ was what I wanted, and I +always got it in the end. + +[Footnote 1: _La bonne aventure_ is or was generally a very much +battered foolscap copy-book, which contained a list of all possible +elements of future (school-girl) happiness. Each item answered a +question, and had a number affixed to it. To draw one's fortune +consisted in asking question after question, and guessing a number, +a companion volunteering to read the answers. To avoid cheating, the +books were revised from time to time, and the numbers changed.] + +"But papa, poor papa, he never knew anything of that, of course. He +would get furious when any one would come to see me, and sometimes, +when he would take me in society, if I danced with a 'nobody,'--as he +called no matter whom I danced with,--he would come up and take me +away with such an air--such an air! It would seem that papa thought +himself better than everybody in the world. But it went worse and +worse with papa, not only in the affairs of the world, but in health. +Always thinner and thinner, always a cough; in fact, you know, I am a +little feeble-chested myself, from papa. And Clementine! Clementine +with her children--just think, Louise, eight! I thank God my mama had +only me, if papa's second wife had to have so many. And so naughty! I +assure you, they were all devils; and no correction, no punishment, no +education--but you know Clementine! I tell you, sometimes on account +of those children I used to think myself in 'ell [making the Creole's +attempt and failure to pronounce the h], and Clementine had no pride +about them. If they had shoes, well; if they had not shoes, well +also. + +[Illustration] + +"'But Clementine!' I would expostulate, I would pray-- + +"'But do not be a fool, Mimi,' she would say. 'Am I God? Can I do +miracles? Or must I humiliate your papa?' + +"That was true. Poor papa! It would have humiliated papa. When he had +money he gave; only it was a pity he had no money. As for what he +observed, he thought it was Clementine's negligence. For, it is true, +Clementine had no order, no industry, in the best of fortune as in the +worst. But to do her justice, it was not her fault this time, only she +let him believe it, to save his pride; and Clementine, you know, has a +genius for stories. I assure you, Louise, I was desperate. I prayed to +God to help me, to advise me. I could not teach--I had no education; I +could not go into a shop--that would be dishonoring papa--and _enfin_, +I was too pretty. 'And proclaim to the world,' Clementine would cry, +'that your papa does not make money for his family.' That was true. The +world is so malicious. You know, Louise, sometimes it seems to me +the world is glad to hear that a man cannot support his family; it +compliments those who can. As if papa had not intelligence, and honor, +and honesty! But they do not count now as in old times, 'before the +war.' + +"And so, when I thought of that, I laughed and talked and played the +thoughtless like Clementine, and made bills. We made bills--we had +to--for everything; we could do that, you know, on our old name and +family. But it is too long! I am sure it is too long and tiresome! +What egotism on my part! Come, we will take a glass of anisette, and +talk of something else--your trip, your family. No? no? You are only +asking me out of politeness! You are so _aimable_, so kind. Well, if +you are not _ennuyee_--in fact, I want to tell you. It was too long +to write, and I detest a pen. To me there is no instrument of torture +like a pen. + +"Well, the lady next door, she was an American, and common, very +common, according to papa. In comparison to us she had no family +whatever. Our little children were forbidden even to associate with +her little children. I thought that was ridiculous--not that I am a +democrat, but I thought it ridiculous. But the children cared; they +were so disobedient and they were always next door, and they always +had something nice to eat over there. I sometimes thought Clementine +used to encourage their disobedience, just for the good things they +got to eat over there. But papa was always making fun of them; you +know what a sharp tongue he had. The gentleman was a clerk; and, +according to papa, the only true gentlemen in the world had family +and a profession. We did not dare allow ourselves to think it, but +Clementine and I knew that they, in fact, were in more comfortable +circumstances than we. + +"The lady, who also had a great number of children, sent one day, with +all the discretion and delicacy possible, and asked me if I would +be so kind as to--guess what, Louise! But only guess! But you never +could! Well, to darn some of her children's stockings for her. It was +God who inspired her, I am sure, on account of my praying so much to +him. You will be shocked, Louise, when I tell you. It sounds like a +sin, but I was not in despair when papa died. It was a grief,--yes, +it seized the heart, but it was not despair. Men ought not to be +subjected to the humiliation of life; they are not like women, you +know. We are made to stand things; they have their pride,--their +_orgueil_, as we say in French,--and that is the point of honor with +some men. And Clementine and I, we could not have concealed it much +longer. In fact, the truth was crying out everywhere, in the children, +in the house, in our own persons, in our faces. The darning did not +provide a superfluity, I guarantee you! + +"Poor papa! He caught cold. He was condemned from the first. And so +all his fine qualities died; for he had fine qualities--they were too +fine for this age, that was all. Yes; it was a kindness of God to take +him before he found out. If it was to be, it was better. Just so with +Clementine as with me. After the funeral--crack! everything went to +pieces. We were at the four corners for the necessaries of life, and +the bills came in--my dear, the bills that came in! What memories! +what memories! Clementine and I exclaimed; there were some bills that +we had completely forgotten about. The lady next door sent her brother +over when papa died. He sat up all night, that night, and he assisted +us in all our arrangements. And he came in afterward, every evening. +If papa had been there, there would have been a fine scene over it; he +would have had to take the door, very likely. But now there was no one +to make objections. And so when, as I say, we were at the four corners +for the necessaries of life, he asked Clementine's permission to ask +me to marry him. + +"I give you my word, Louise, I had forgotten there was such a thing as +marriage in the world for me! I had forgotten it as completely as the +chronology of the Merovingian dynasty, alas! with all the other school +things forgotten. And I do not believe Clementine remembered there was +such a possibility in the world for me. _Mon Dieu!_ when a girl is +poor she may have all the beauty in the world--not that I had beauty, +only a little prettiness. But you should have seen Clementine! She +screamed for joy when she told me. Oh, there was but one answer +according to her, and according to everybody she could consult, in her +haste. They all said it was a dispensation of Providence in my favor. +He was young, he was strong; he did not make a fortune, it was true, +but he made a good living. And what an assistance to have a man in +the family!--an assistance for Clementine and the children. But the +principal thing, after all, was, he wanted to marry me. Nobody had +ever wanted that before, my dear! + +"Quick, quick, it was all arranged. All my friends did something for +me. One made my _peignoirs_ for me, one this, one that--_ma foi!_ +I did not recognize myself. One made all the toilet of the bureau, +another of the bed, and we all sewed on the wedding-dress together. +And you should have seen Clementine, going out in all her great +mourning, looking for a house, looking for a servant! But the wedding +was private on account of poor papa. But you know, Loulou, I had never +time to think, except about Clementine and the children, and when I +thought of all those poor little children, poor papa's children, I +said 'Quick, quick,' like the rest. + +"It was the next day, the morning after the wedding, I had time to +think. I was sitting here, just as you see me now, in my pretty new +_negligee_. I had been looking at all the pretty presents I have +shown you, and my trousseau, and my furniture,--it is not bad, as +you see,--my dress, my veil, my ring, and--I do not know--I do not +know--but, all of a sudden, from everywhere came the thought of my +_brun_, my handsome _brun_ with the mustache, and the _bonne aventure, +ricke, avenant_, the Jules, Raoul, Guy, and the flower leaves, and +'_il m'aime, un pen, beaucoup, pas du tout,' passionnement_, and the +way I expected to meet him walking to and from school, walking as if +I were dancing the steps, and oh, my plans, my plans, my plans,--silk +dresses, theater, voyages to Europe,--and poor papa, so fine, so tall, +so aristocratic. I cannot tell you how it all came; it seized my +heart, and, _mon Dieu!_ I cried out, and I wept, I wept, I wept. How +I wept! It pains me here now to remember it. Hours, hours it lasted, +until I had no tears in my body, and I had to weep without them, with +sobs and moans. But this, I have always observed, is the time for +reflection--after the tears are all out. And I am sure God himself +gave me my thoughts. 'Poor little Mimi!' I thought, '_fi done_! You +are going to make a fool of yourself now when it is all over, because +why? It is God who manages the world, and not you. You pray to God to +help you in your despair, and he has helped you. He has sent you a +good, kind husband who adores you; who asks only to be a brother to +your sisters and brothers, and son to Clementine; who has given you +more than you ever possessed in your life--but because he did not come +out of the _bonne aventure_--and who gets a husband out of the +_bonne aventure?_--and would your _brun_ have come to you in your +misfortune?' I am sure God inspired those thoughts in me. + +[Illustration: "I wept, I wept, I wept."] + +"I tell you, I rose from that bed--naturally I had thrown myself upon +it. Quick I washed my face, I brushed my hair, and, you see these bows +of ribbons,--look, here are the marks of the tears,--I turned them. +_He,_ Loulou, it occurs to me, that if you examined the blue bows on +a bride's _negligee_, you might always find tears on the other side; +for do they not all have to marry whom God sends? and am I the only +one who had dreams? It is the end of dreams, marriage; and that is the +good thing about it. God lets us dream to keep us quiet, but he knows +when to wake us up, I tell you. The blue bows knew! And now, you see, +I prefer my husband to my _brun_; in fact, Loulou, I adore him, and I +am furiously jealous about him. And he is so good to Clementine and +the poor little children; and see his photograph--a blond, and not +good-looking, and small! + +"But poor papa! If he had been alive, I am sure he never would have +agreed with God about my marriage." + + + + +THE MIRACLE CHAPEL + + +Every heart has a miracle to pray for. Every life holds that which +only a miracle can cure. To prove that there have never been, that +there can never be, miracles does not alter the matter. So long as +there is something hoped for,--that does not come in the legitimate +channel of possible events,--so long as something does come not to be +hoped or expected in the legitimate channel of possible events, just +so long will the miracle be prayed for. + +The rich and the prosperous, it would seem, do not depend upon God so +much, do not need miracles, as the poor do. They do not have to pray +for the extra crust when starvation hovers near; for the softening of +an obdurate landlord's heart; for strength in temptation, light in +darkness, salvation from vice; for a friend in friendlessness; for +that miracle of miracles, an opportunity to struggling ambition; for +the ending of a dark night, the breaking of day; and, oh! for God's +own miracle to the bedside-watchers--the change for the better, when +death is there and the apothecary's skill too far, far away. The poor, +the miserable, the unhappy, they can show their miracles by the score; +that is why God is called the poor man's friend. He does not mind, so +they say, going in the face of logic and reason to relieve them; for +often the kind and charitable are sadly hampered by the fetters of +logic and reason, which hold them, as it were, away from their own +benevolence. + +But the rich have their miracles, no doubt, even in that beautiful +empyrean of moneyed ease in which the poor place them. Their money +cannot buy all they enjoy, and God knows how much of their sorrow it +assuages. As it is, one hears now and then of accidents among them, +conversions to better thoughts, warding off of danger, rescue of life; +and heirs are sometimes born, and husbands provided, and fortunes +saved, in such surprising ways, that even the rich, feeling their +limitations in spite of their money, must ascribe it privately if not +publicly to other potencies than their own. These cathedral _tours +de force_, however, do not, if the truth be told, convince like the +miracles of the obscure little chapel. + +There is always a more and a most obscure little miracle chapel, and +as faith seems ever to lead unhesitatingly to the latter one, there is +ever rising out of humility and obscurity, as in response to a demand, +some new shrine, to replace the wear and tear and loss of other +shrines by prosperity. For, alas! it is hard even for a chapel to +remain obscure and humble in the face of prosperity and popularity. +And how to prevent such popularity and prosperity? As soon as the +noise of a real miracle in it gets abroad, every one is for hurrying +thither at once with their needs and their prayers, their candles +and their picayunes; and the little miracle chapel, perhaps despite +itself, becomes with mushroom growth a church, and the church a +cathedral, from whose resplendent altars the cheap, humble ex-voto +tablets, the modest beginnings of its ecclesiastical fortunes, are +before long banished to dimly lighted lateral shrines. + +The miracle chapel in question lay at the end of a very confusing but +still intelligible route. It is not in truth a chapel at all, but a +consecrated chamber in a very small, very lowly cottage, which stands, +or one might appropriately, if not with absolute novelty, say which +kneels, in the center of a large garden, a garden primeval in +rusticity and size, its limits being defined by no lesser boundaries +than the four intersecting streets outside, and its culture showing +only the careless, shiftless culture of nature. The streets outside +were miracles themselves in that, with their liquid contents, they +were streets and not bayous. However, they protected their island +chapel almost as well as a six-foot moat could have done. There was a +small paved space on the sidewalk that served to the pedestrian as an +indication of the spot in the tall, long, broad fence where a gate +might be sought. It was a small gate with a strong latch. It required +a strong hand to open it. At the sound of the click it made, the +little street ragamuffin, who stood near, peeping through the fence, +looked up. He had worked quite a hole between the boards with his +fingers. Such an anxious expression passed over his face that even +a casual passer-by could not help relieving it by a question--any +question: + +"Is this the miracle chapel, little boy?" + +"Yes, ma'am; yes." Then his expression changed to one of eagerness, +yet hardly less anxious. + +"Here. Take this--" + +He did not hold out his hand, the coin had to seek it. At its touch he +refused to take it. + +"I ain't begging." + +"What are you looking at so through the fence?" He was all sadness +now. + +"Just looking." + +"Is there anything to see inside?" + +He did not answer. The interrogation was repeated. + +"I can't see nothing. I'm blind," putting his eyes again to the hole, +first one, then the other. + +"Come, won't you tell me how this came to be a miracle chapel?" + +"Oh, ma'am,"--he turned his face from the fence, and clasped his hands +in excitement,--"it was a poor widow woman who come here with her baby +that was a-dying, and she prayed to the Virgin Mary, and the Virgin +Mary made the baby live--" + +He dropped his voice, the words falling slower and slower. As he +raised his face, one could see then that he was blind, and the +accident that had happened to him, in fording the street. What +sightless eyes! What a wet, muddy little skeleton! Ten? No; hardly ten +years of age. + +"The widow woman she picked up her baby, and she run down the walk +here, and out into the street screaming--she was so glad,"--putting +his eyes to the peep-hole again,--"and the Virgin Mary come down the +walk after her, and come through the gate, too; and that was all she +seed--the widow woman." + +"Did you know the widow woman?" + +He shook his head. + +"How do you know it?" + +"That was what they told me. And they told me, the birds all begun to +sing at once, and the flowers all lighted up like the sun was shining +on them. They seed her. And she come down the walk, and through the +gate," his voice lowering again to a whisper. + +Aye, how the birds must have sung, and the flowers shone, to the +widowed mother as she ran, nay, leaped, down that rose-hedged walk, +with her restored baby clasped to her bosom! + +"_They_ seed her," repeated the little fellow. "And that is why you +stand here--to see her, too?" + +His shoulder turned uneasily in the clasp upon it. + +"They seed her, and they ain't got no eyes." + +"Have you no mother?" + +"Ain't never had no mother." A thought struck him. "Would that count, +ma'am? Would that count? The little baby that was dying--yes, ma'am, +it had a mother; and it's the mothers that come here constant with +their children; I sometimes hear 'em dragging them in by the hand." + +"How long have you been coming here?" + +"Ever since the first time I heard it, ma'am." + +Street ragamuffins do not cry: it would be better if they did so, when +they are so young and so blind; it would be easier for the spectator, +the auditor. + +"They seed her--I might see her ef--ef I could see her once--ef--ef +I could see anything once." His voice faltered; but he stiffened it +instantly. "She might see me. She can't pass through this gate without +seeing me; and--and--ef she seed me--and I didn't even see her--oh, +I'm so tired of being blind!" + +"Did you never go inside to pray?" How embarrassing such a question +is, even to a child! + +"No, ma'am. Does that count, too? The little baby didn't pray, the +flowers didn't go inside, nor the birds. And they say the birds broke +out singing all at once, and the flowers shined, like the sun was +shining on 'em--like the sun was shining in 'em," he corrected +himself. "The birds they can see, and the flowers they can't see, and +they seed her." He shivered with the damp cold--and perhaps too with +hunger. + +"Where do you live?" + +He wouldn't answer. + +"What do you live on?" + +He shook his head. + +"Come with me." He could not resist the grasp on his shoulder, and the +firm directing of his bare, muddy feet through the gate, up the walk, +and into the chamber which the Virgin found that day. He was turned to +the altar, and pressed down on his knees. + +One should not look at the face of a blind child praying to the Virgin +for sight. Only the Virgin herself should see that--and if she once +saw that little boy! There were hearts, feet, hands, and eyes enough +hanging around to warrant hope at least, if not faith; the effigies of +the human aches and pains that had here found relief, if not surcease; +feet and hands beholden to no physician for their exorcism of +rheumatism; eyes and ears indebted to no oculist or aurist; and the +hearts,--they are always in excess,--and, to the most skeptical, there +is something sweetly comforting in the sight of so many cured hearts, +with their thanks cut deep, as they should be, in the very marble +thereof. Where the bed must have stood was the altar, rising by easy +gradations, brave in ecclesiastical deckings, to the plaster figure of +her whom those yearning hearts were seeing, whom those murmuring lips +were addressing. Hearts must be all alike to her at such a distance, +but the faces to the looker-on were so different. The eyes straining +to look through all the experiences and troubles that their life has +held to plead, as only eyes can plead, to one who can, if she will, +perform their miracle for them. And the mouths,--the sensitive human +mouths,--each one distorted by the tragedy against which it was +praying. + +Their miracles! their miracles! what trifles to divinity! Perhaps +hardly more to humanity! How far a simple looker-on could supply them +if so minded! Perhaps a liberal exercise of love and charity by not +more than half a dozen well-to-do people could answer every prayer in +the room! But what a miracle that would be, and how the Virgin's heart +would gladden thereat, and jubilate over her restored heart-dying +children, even as the widowed mother did over her one dying babe! + +And the little boy had stopped praying. The futility of it--perhaps +his own impotence--had overcome him. He was crying, and past the shame +of showing it--crying helplessly, hopelessly. Tears were rolling out +of his sightless eyes over his wordless lips. He could not pray; he +could only cry. What better, after all, can any of us do? But what +a prayer to a woman--to even the plaster figure of a woman! And the +Virgin did hear him; for she had him taken without loss of a moment to +the hospital, and how easy she made it for the physician to remove the +disability! To her be the credit. + + + + +THE STORY OF A DAY + + +It is really not much, the story; it is only the arrangement of it, as +we would say of our dresses and our drawing-rooms. + +It began with the dawn, of course; and the skiff for our voyage, +silvered with dew, waiting in the mist for us, as if it had floated +down in a cloud from heaven to the bayou. When repeated, this sounds +like poor poetry; but that is the way one thinks at day dawn, when the +dew is yet, as it were, upon our brains, and our ideas are still half +dreams, and our waking hearts, alas! as innocent as waking babies +playing with their toes. + +Our oars waked the waters of the bayou, as motionless as a sleeping +snake under its misty covert--to continue the poetical language or +thought. The ripples ran frightened and shivering into the rooty +thicknesses of the sedge-grown banks, startling the little birds +bathing there into darting to the nearest, highest rush-top, where, +without losing their hold on their swaying, balancing perches, they +burst into all sorts of incoherent songs, in their excitement to +divert attention from the near-hidden nests: bird mothers are so much +like women mothers! + +It soon became day enough for the mist to rise. The eyes that saw it +ought to be able to speak to tell fittingly about it. + +Not all at once, nor all together, but a thinning, a lifting, a +breaking, a wearing away; a little withdrawing here, a little +withdrawing there; and now a peep, and now a peep; a bride lifting her +veil to her husband! Blue! White! Lilies! Blue lilies! White lilies! +Blue and white lilies! And still blue and white lilies! And still! And +still! Wherever the veil lifted, still and always the bride! + +Not in clumps and bunches, not in spots and patches, not in banks, +meadows, acres, but in--yes; for still it lifted beyond and beyond and +beyond; the eye could not touch the limit of them, for the eye can +touch only the limit of vision; and the lilies filled the whole +sea-marsh, for that is the way spring comes to the sea-marshes. + +The sedge-roots might have been unsightly along the water's edge, +but there were morning-glories, all colors, all shades--oh, such +morning-glories as we of the city never see! Our city morning-glories +must dream of them, as we dream of angels. Only God could be so +lavish! Dropping from the tall spear-heads to the water, into the +water, under the water. And then, the reflection of them, in all their +colors, blue, white, pink, purple, red, rose, violet! + +To think of an obscure little Acadian bayou waking to flow the +first thing in the morning not only through banks of new-blown +morning-glories, but sown also to its depths with such reflections as +must make it think itself a bayou in heaven, instead of in Paroisse +St. Martin. Perhaps that is the reason the poor poets think themselves +poets, on account of the beautiful things that are only reflected into +their minds from what is above? Besides the reflections, there were +alligators in the bayou, trying to slip away before we could see them, +and watching us with their stupid, senile eyes, sometimes from under +the thickest, prettiest flowery bowers; and turtles splashing into +the water ahead of us; and fish (silver-sided perch), looking like +reflections themselves, floating through the flower reflections, +nibbling their breakfast. + +Our bayou had been running through swamp only a little more solid than +itself; in fact, there was no solidity but what came from the roots of +grasses. Now, the banks began to get firmer, from real soil in them. +We could see cattle in the distance, up to their necks in the lilies, +their heads and sharp-pointed horns coming up and going down in the +blue and white. Nothing makes cattle's heads appear handsomer, with +the sun just rising far, far away on the other side of them. +The sea-marsh cattle turned loose to pasture in the lush spring +beauty--turned loose in Elysium! + +But the land was only partly land yet, and the cattle still cattle to +us. The rising sun made revelations, as our bayou carried us through a +drove in their Elysium, or it might have always been an Elysium to +us. It was not all pasturage, all enjoyment. The rising and falling +feeding head was entirely different, as we could now see, from the +rising and falling agonized head of the bogged--the buried alive. +It is well that the lilies grow taller and thicker over the more +treacherous places; but, misery! misery! not much of the process was +concealed from us, for the cattle have to come to the bayou for +water. Such a splendid black head that had just yielded breath! The +wide-spreading ebony horns thrown back among the morning-glories, the +mouth open from the last sigh, the glassy eyes staring straight at the +beautiful blue sky above, where a ghostly moon still lingered, the +velvet neck ridged with veins and muscles, the body already buried in +black ooze. And such a pretty red-and-white-spotted heifer, lying on +her side, opening and shutting her eyes, breathing softly in meek +resignation to her horrible calamity! And, again, another one was +plunging and battling in the act of realizing her doom: a fierce, +furious, red cow, glaring and bellowing at the soft, yielding +inexorable abysm under her, the bustards settling afar off, and her +own species browsing securely just out of reach. + +They understand that much, the sea-marsh cattle, to keep out of reach +of the dead combatant. In the delirium of anguish, relief cannot be +distinguished from attack, and rescue of the victim has been proved to +mean goring of the rescuer. + +The bayou turned from it at last, from our beautiful lily world about +which our pleasant thoughts had ceased to flow even in bad poetry. + +Our voyage was for information, which might be obtained at a certain +habitation; if not there, at a second one, or surely at a third and +most distant settlement. + +The bayou narrowed into a canal, then widened into a bayou again, and +the low, level swamp and prairie advanced into woodland and forest. +Oak-trees began, our beautiful oak-trees! Great branches bent down +almost to the water,--quite even with high water,--covered with +forests of oak, parasites, lichens, and with vines that swept our +heads as we passed under them, drooping now and then to trail in the +water, a plaything for the fishes, and a landing-place for amphibious +insects. The sun speckled the water with its flickering patterns, +showering us with light and heat. We have no spring suns; our sun, +even in December, is a summer one. + +And so, with all its grace of curve and bend, and so--the description +is longer than the voyage--we come to our first stopping-place. To the +side, in front of the well-kept fertile fields, like a proud little +showman, stood the little house. Its pointed shingle roof covered it +like the top of a chafing-dish, reaching down to the windows, which +peeped out from under it like little eyes. + +A woman came out of the door to meet us. She had had time during our +graceful winding approach to prepare for us. What an irrevocable +vow to old maidenhood! At least twenty-five, almost a possible +grandmother, according to Acadian computation, and well in the grip +of advancing years. She was dressed in a stiff, dark red calico gown, +with a white apron. Her black hair, smooth and glossy under a varnish +of grease, was plaited high in the back, and dropped regular ringlets, +six in all, over her forehead. That was the epoch when her calamity +came to her, when the hair was worn in that fashion. A woman seldom +alters her coiffure after a calamity of a certain nature happens +to her. The figure had taken a compact rigidity, an unfaltering +inflexibility, all the world away from the elasticity of matronhood; +and her eyes were clear and fixed like her figure, neither falling, +nor rising, nor puzzling under other eyes. Her lips, her hands, her +slim feet, were conspicuously single, too, in their intent, neither +reaching, nor feeling, nor running for those other lips, hands, and +feet which should have doubled their single life. + +That was Adorine Merionaux, otherwise the most industrious Acadian and +the best cottonade-weaver in the parish. It had been short, her story. +A woman's love is still with those people her story. She was thirteen +when she met him. That is the age for an Acadian girl to meet him, +because, you know, the large families--the thirteen, fourteen, +fifteen, twenty children--take up the years; and when one wishes +to know one's great-great-grandchildren (which is the dream of the +Acadian girl) one must not delay one's story. + +She had one month to love him in, and in one week they were to have +the wedding. The Acadians believe that marriage must come _au point_, +as cooks say their sauces must be served. Standing on the bayou-bank +in front of the Merionaux, one could say "Good day" with the eyes to +the Zeverin Theriots--that was the name of the parents of the young +bridegroom. Looking under the branches of the oaks, one could see +across the prairie,--prairie and sea-marsh it was,--and clearly +distinguish another little red-washed house like the Merionaux, with +a painted roof hanging over the windows, and a staircase going up +outside to the garret. With the sun shining in the proper direction, +one might distinguish more, and with love shining like the sun in the +eyes, one might see, one might see--a heart full. + +It was only the eyes, however, which could make such a quick voyage to +the Zeverin Theriots; a skiff had a long day's journey to reach them. +The bayou sauntered along over the country like a negro on a Sunday's +pleasuring, trusting to God for time, and to the devil for means. + +Oh, nothing can travel quickly over a bayou! Ask any one who has +waited on a bayou-bank for a physician or a life-and-death message. +Thought refuses to travel and turn and double over it; thought, like +the eye, takes the shortest cut--straight over the sea-marsh; and in +the spring of the year, when the lilies are in bloom, thought could +not take a more heavenly way, even from beloved to beloved. + +It was the week before marriage, that week when, more than one's whole +life afterward, one's heart feels most longing--most--well, in fact, +it was the week before marriage. From Sunday to Sunday, that was all +the time to be passed. Adorine--women live through this week by +the grace of God, or perhaps they would be as unreasonable as the +men--Adorine could look across the prairie to the little red roof +during the day, and could think across it during the night, and get +up before day to look across again--longing, longing all the time. +Of course one must supply all this from one's own imagination or +experience. + +But Adorine could sing, and she sang. One might hear, in a favorable +wind, a gunshot, or the barking of a dog from one place to the other, +so that singing, as to effect, was nothing more than the voicing of +her looking and thinking and longing. + +When one loves, it is as if everything was known of and seen by the +other; not only all that passes in the head and heart, which would +in all conscience be more than enough to occupy the other, but the +talking, the dressing, the conduct. It was then that the back hair was +braided and the front curled more and more beautifully every day, and +that the calico dresses became stiffer and stiffer, and the white +crochet lace collar broader and lower in the neck. At thirteen she was +beautiful enough to startle one, they say, but that was nothing; she +spent time and care upon these things, as if, like other women, her +fate seriously depended upon them. There is no self-abnegation like +that of a woman in love. + +It was her singing, however, which most showed that other existence +in her existence. When she sang at her spinning-wheel or her loom, or +knelt battling clothes on the bank of the bayou, her lips would kiss +out the words, and the tune would rise and fall and tremble, as if +Zepherin were just across there, anywhere; in fact, as if every blue +and white lily might hide an ear of him. + +It was the time of the new moon, fortunately, when all sit up late in +the country. The family would stop in their talking about the +wedding to listen to her. She did not know it herself, but it--the +singing--was getting louder and clearer, and, poor little thing, it +told everything. And after the family went to bed they could still +hear her, sitting on the bank of the bayou, or up in her window, +singing and looking at the moon traveling across the lily prairie--for +all its beauty and brightness no more beautiful and bright than a +heart in love. + +It was just past the middle of the week, a Thursday night. The moon +was so bright the colors of the lilies could be seen, and the singing, +so sweet, so far-reaching--it was the essence of the longing of love. +Then it was that the miracle happened to her. Miracles are always +happening to the Acadians. She could not sleep, she could not stay in +bed. Her heart drove her to the window, and kept her there, and--among +the civilized it could not take place, but here she could sing as she +pleased in the middle of the night; it was nobody's affair, nobody's +disturbance. "Saint Ann! Saint Joseph! Saint Mary!" She heard her song +answered! She held her heart, she bent forward, she sang again. Oh, +the air was full of music! It was all music! She fell on her knees; +she listened, looking at the moon; and, with her face in her hands, +looking at Zepherin. It was God's choir of angels, she thought, and +one with a voice like Zepherin! Whenever it died away she would sing +again, and again, and again-- + +[Illustration: "HER HEART DROVE HER TO THE WINDOW".] + +But the sun came, and the sun is not created, like the moon, for +lovers, and whatever happened in the night, there was work to be done +in the day. Adorine worked like one in a trance, her face as radiant +as the upturned face of a saint. They did not know what it was, or +rather they thought it was love. Love is so different out there, they +make all kinds of allowances for it. But, in truth, Adorine was +still hearing her celestial voices or voice. If the cackling of the +chickens, the whir of the spinning-wheel, or the "bum bum" of the loom +effaced it a moment, she had only to go to some still place, round +her hand over her ear, and give the line of a song, and--it was +Zepherin--Zepherin she heard. + +She walked in a dream until night. When the moon came up she was at +the window, and still it continued, so faint, so sweet, that answer to +her song. Echo never did anything more exquisite, but she knew nothing +of such a heathen as Echo. Human nature became exhausted. She fell +asleep where she was, in the window, and dreamed as only a bride can +dream of her groom. When she awoke, "Adorine! Adorine!" the beautiful +angel voices called to her; "Zepherin! Zepherin!" she answered, as if +she, too, were an angel, signaling another angel in heaven. It was too +much. She wept, and that broke the charm. She could hear nothing more +after that. All that day was despondency, dejection, tear-bedewed +eyes, and tremulous lips, the commonplace reaction, as all know, of +love exaltation. Adorine's family, Acadian peasants though they were, +knew as much about it as any one else, and all that any one knows +about it is that marriage is the cure-all, and the only cure-all, for +love. + +[Illustration: "ALL THAT DAY WAS DESPONDENCY, DEJECTION."] + +And Zepherin? A man could better describe his side of that week; for +it, too, has mostly to be described from imagination or experience. +What is inferred is that what Adorine longed and thought and looked +in silence and resignation, according to woman's way, he suffered +equally, but in a man's way, which is not one of silence or +resignation,--at least when one is a man of eighteen,--the last +interview, the near wedding, her beauty, his love, her house in sight, +the full moon, the long, wakeful nights. + +He took his pirogue; but the bayou played with his impatience, +maddened his passion, bringing him so near, to meander with him again +so far away. There was only a short prairie between him and ----, a +prairie thick with lily-roots--one could almost walk over their +heads, so close, and gleaming in the moonlight. But this is all only +inference. + +The pirogue was found tethered to the paddle stuck upright in the soft +bank, and--Adorine's parents related the rest. Nothing else was found +until the summer drought had bared the swamp. + +There was a little girl in the house when we arrived--all else were in +the field--a stupid, solemn, pretty child, the child of a brother. How +she kept away from Adorine, and how much that testified! + +It would have been too painful. The little arms around her neck, the +head nestling to her bosom, sleepily pressing against it. And the +little one might ask to be sung to sleep. Sung to sleep! + +The little bed-chamber, with its high mattressed bed, covered with +the Acadian home-spun quilt, trimmed with netting fringe, its bit of +mirror over the bureau, the bottle of perfumed grease to keep the +locks black and glossy, the prayer-beads and blessed palms hanging +on the wall, the low, black polished spinning-wheel, the loom,--the +_metier d' Adorine_ famed throughout the parish,--the ever goodly +store of cotton and yarn hanks swinging from the ceiling, and the +little square, open window which looked under the mossy oak-branches +to look over the prairie; and once again all blue and white +lilies--they were all there, as Adorine was there; but there was +more--not there. + + + + +ANNE MARIE AND JEANNE MARIE + + +Old Jeanne Marie leaned her hand against the house, and the tears +rolled down her cheeks. She had not wept since she buried her last +child. With her it was one trouble, one weeping, no more; and her +wrinkled, hard, polished skin so far had known only the tears that +come after death. The trouble in her heart now was almost exactly like +the trouble caused by death; although she knew it was not so bad as +death, yet, when she thought of this to console herself, the tears +rolled all the faster. She took the end of the red cotton kerchief +tied over her head, and wiped them away; for the furrows in her face +did not merely run up and down--they ran in all directions, and +carried her tears all over her face at once. She could understand +death, but she could not understand this. + +It came about in this way: Anne Marie and she lived in the little +red-washed cabin against which she leaned; had lived there alone with +each other for fifty years, ever since Jeanne Marie's husband had died, +and the three children after him, in the fever epidemic. + +The little two-roomed cabin, the stable where there used to be a cow, +the patch of ground planted with onions, had all been bought and paid +for by the husband; for he was a thrifty, hard-working Gascon, and had +he lived there would not have been one better off, or with a larger +family, either in that quarter or in any of the red-washed +suburbs with which Gascony has surrounded New Orleans. His women, +however,--the wife and sister-in-law,--had done their share in the +work: a man's share apiece, for with the Gascon women there is no +discrimination of sex when it comes to work. + +And they worked on just the same after he died, tending the cow, +digging, hoeing, planting, watering. The day following the funeral, by +daylight Jeanne Marie was shouldering around the yoke of milk-cans to +his patrons, while Anne Marie carried the vegetables to market; and so +on for fifty years. + +They were old women now,--seventy-five years old,--and, as they +expressed it, they had always been twins. In twins there is always one +lucky and one unlucky one: Jeanne Marie was the lucky one, Anne Marie +the unlucky one. So much so, that it was even she who had to catch the +rheumatism, and to lie now bedridden, months at a time, while Jeanne +Marie was as active in her sabots as she had ever been. + +In spite of the age of both, and the infirmity of one, every Saturday +night there was some little thing to put under the brick in the +hearth, for taxes and license, and the never-to-be-forgotten funeral +provision. In the husband's time gold pieces used to go in, but they +had all gone to pay for the four funerals and the quadrupled doctor's +bill. The women laid in silver pieces; the coins, however, grew +smaller and smaller, and represented more and more not so much the +gain from onions as the saving from food. + +It had been explained to them how they might, all at once, make a +year's gain in the lottery; and it had become their custom always, at +the end of every month, to put aside one silver coin apiece, to buy a +lottery ticket with--one ticket each, not for the great, but for the +twenty-five-cent, prizes. Anne Marie would buy hers round about the +market; Jeanne Marie would stop anywhere along her milk course and buy +hers, and they would go together in the afternoon to stand with the +little crowd watching the placard upon which the winning numbers were +to be written. And when they were written, it was curious, Jeanne +Marie's numbers would come out twice as often as Anne Marie's. Not +that she ever won anything, for she was not lucky enough to have them +come out in the order to win; they only came out here and there, +singly: but it was sufficient to make old Anne Marie cross and ugly +for a day or two, and injure the sale of the onion-basket. When she +became bedridden, Jeanne Marie bought the ticket for both, on the +numbers, however, that Anne Marie gave her; and Anne Marie had to lie +in bed and wait, while Jeanne Marie went out to watch the placard. + +One evening, watching it, Jeanne Marie saw the ticket-agent write out +the numbers as they came on her ticket, in such a way that they drew +a prize--forty dollars. + +When the old woman saw it she felt such a happiness; just as she used +to feel in the old times right after the birth of a baby. She thought +of that instantly. Without saying a word to any one, she clattered +over the _banquette_ as fast as she could in her sabots, to tell the +good news to Anne Marie. But she did not go so fast as not to have +time to dispose of her forty dollars over and over again. Forty +dollars! That was a great deal of money. She had often in her mind, +when she was expecting a prize, spent twenty dollars; for she had +never thought it could be more than that. But forty dollars! A new +gown apiece, and black silk kerchiefs to tie over their heads instead +of red cotton, and the little cabin new red-washed, and soup in the +pot, and a garlic sausage, and a bottle of good, costly liniment for +Anne Marie's legs; and still a pile of gold to go under the +hearth-brick--a pile of gold that would have made the eyes of the +defunct husband glisten. + +She pushed open the picket-gate, and came into the room where her +sister lay in bed. + +"Eh, Anne Marie, my girl," she called in her thick, pebbly voice, +apparently made purposely to suit her rough Gascon accent; "this time +we have caught it!" + +[Illustration: "THIS TIME WE HAVE CAUGHT IT!"] + +"Whose ticket?" asked Anne Marie, instantly. + +In a flash all Anne Marie's ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's mind; +how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne Marie's +faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of her lottery +numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the catching of +the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, as she looked +at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over Jeanne Marie of her +sister's not being able, in all her poor old seventy-five years of +life, to remember the pressure of the arms of a husband about her +waist, nor the mouth of a child on her breast. + +As soon as Anne Marie had asked her question, Jeanne Marie answered +it. + +"But your ticket, _Coton-Mai!_"[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Coton-Mai_ is an innocent oath invented by the good, +pious priest as a substitute for one more harmful.] + +"Where? Give it here! Give it here!" + +The old woman, who had not been able to move her back for weeks, sat +bolt upright in bed, and stretched out her great bony fingers, with +the long nails as hard and black as rake-prongs from groveling in the +earth. + + +Jeanne Marie poured the money out of her cotton handkerchief into +them. + +Anne Marie counted it, looked at it; looked at it, counted it; and +if she had not been so old, so infirm, so toothless, the smile that +passed over her face would have made it beautiful. + +Jeanne Marie had to leave her to draw water from the well to water the +plants, and to get her vegetables ready for next morning. She felt +even happier now than if she had just had a child, happier even than +if her husband had just returned to her. + +"Ill luck! _Coton-Mai!_ Ill luck! There's a way to turn ill luck!" +And her smile also should have beautified her face, wrinkled and ugly +though it was. + +She did not think any more of the spending of the money, only of the +pleasure Anne Marie would take in spending it. + +The water was low in the well, and there had been a long drought. +There are not many old women of seventy-five who could have watered so +much ground as abundantly as she did; but whenever she thought of the +forty dollars and Anne Marie's smile she would give the thirsting +plant an extra bucketful. + +The twilight was gaining. She paused. "_Coton-Mai_" she exclaimed +aloud. "But I must see the old woman smile again over her good luck." + +Although it was "my girl" face to face, it was always "the old woman" +behind each other's back. + +There was a knot-hole in the plank walls of the house. In spite of +Anne Marie's rheumatism they would never stop it up, needing it, they +said, for light and air. Jeanne Marie slipped her feet out of her +sabots and crept easily toward it, smiling, and saying "_Coton-Mai_!" +to herself all the way. She put her eye to the hole. Anne Marie was +not in the bed, she who had not left her bed for two months! Jeanne +Marie looked through the dim light of the room until she found her. + +Anne Marie, in her short petticoat and nightsack, with bare legs +and feet, was on her knees in the corner, pulling up a plank, +hiding--peasants know hiding when they see it--hiding her money +away--away--away from whom?--muttering to herself and shaking her old +grayhaired head. Hiding her money away from Jeanne Marie! + +And this was why Jeanne Marie leaned her head against the side of the +house and wept. It seemed to her that she had never known her twin +sister at all. + + + + +A CRIPPLED HOPE + + +You must picture to yourself the quiet, dim-lighted room of a +convalescent; outside, the dreary, bleak days of winter in a sparsely +settled, distant country parish; inside, a slow, smoldering log-fire, +a curtained bed, the infant sleeping well enough, the mother wakeful, +restless, thought-driven, as a mother must be, unfortunately, +nowadays, particularly in that parish, where cotton worms and +overflows have acquired such a monopoly of one's future. + +[Illustration: "THE QUIET, DIM-LIGHTED ROOM OF A CONVALESCENT."] + +God is always pretty near a sick woman's couch; but nearer even than +God seems the sick-nurse--at least in that part of the country, under +those circumstances. It is so good to look through the dimness and +uncertainty, moral and physical, and to meet those little black, +steadfast, all-seeing eyes; to feel those smooth, soft, all-soothing +hands; to hear, across one's sleep, that three-footed step--the +flat-soled left foot, the tiptoe right, and the padded end of +the broomstick; and when one is so wakeful and restless and +thought-driven, to have another's story given one. God, depend upon +it, grows stories and lives as he does herbs, each with a mission of +balm to some woe. + +She said she had, and in truth she had, no other name than "little +Mammy"; and that was the name of her nature. Pure African, but bronze +rather than pure black, and full-sized only in width, her growth +having been hampered as to height by an injury to her hip, which +had lamed her, pulling her figure awry, and burdening her with a +protuberance of the joint. Her mother caused it by dropping her when a +baby, and concealing it, for fear of punishment, until the dislocation +became irremediable. All the animosity of which little Mammy was +capable centered upon this unknown but never-to-be-forgotten mother of +hers; out of this hatred had grown her love--that is, her destiny, a +woman's love being her destiny. Little Mammy's love was for children. + +The birth and infancy (the one as accidental as the other, one would +infer) took place in--it sounds like the "Arabian Nights" now!--took +place in the great room, caravansary, stable, behind a negro-trader's +auction-mart, where human beings underwent literally the daily buying +and selling of which the world now complains in a figure of speech--a +great, square, dusty chamber where, sitting cross-legged, leaning +against the wall, or lying on foul blanket pallets on the floor, the +bargains of to-day made their brief sojourn, awaiting transformation +into the profits of the morrow. + +The place can be pointed out now, is often pointed out; but no emotion +arises at sight of it. It is so plain, so matter-of-fact an edifice +that emotion only comes afterward in thinking about it, and then in +the reflection that such an edifice could be, then as now, plain and +matter-of-fact. + +For the slave-trader there was no capital so valuable as the physical +soundness of his stock; the moral was easily enough forged or +counterfeited. Little Mammy's good-for-nothing mother was sold as +readily as a vote, in the parlance of to-day; but no one would pay +for a crippled baby. The mother herself would not have taken her as +a gift, had it been in the nature of a negro-trader to give +away anything. Some doctoring was done,--so little Mammy heard +traditionally,--some effort made to get her marketable. There were +attempts to pair her off as a twin sister of various correspondencies +in age, size, and color, and to palm her off, as a substitute, +at migratory, bereaved, overfull breasts. Nothing equaled a +negro-trader's will and power for fraud, except the hereditary +distrust and watchfulness which it bred and maintained. And so, in the +even balance between the two categories, the little cripple remained a +fixture in the stream of life that passed through that back room, +in the fluxes and refluxes of buying and selling; not valueless, +however--rely upon a negro-trader for discovering values as +substitutes, as panaceas. She earned her nourishment, and Providence +did not let it kill the little animal before the emancipation of +weaning arrived. + +[Illustration: "LITTLE MAMMY."] + +How much circumstances evoked, how much instinct responded, belongs to +the secrets which nature seems to intend keeping. As a baby she had +eyes, attention, solely for other babies. One cannot say while she was +still crawling, for she could only crawl years after she should have +been walking, but, before even precocious walking-time, tradition or +the old gray-haired negro janitor relates, she would creep from baby +to baby to play with it, put it to sleep, pat it, rub its stomach (a +negro baby, you know, is all stomach, and generally aching stomach at +that). And before she had a lap, she managed to force one for some +ailing nursling. It was then that they began to call her "little +Mammy." In the transitory population of the "pen" no one stayed long +enough to give her another name; and no one ever stayed short enough +to give her another one. + +Her first recollection of herself was that she could not walk--she was +past crawling; she cradled herself along, as she called sitting down +flat, and working herself about with her hands and her one strong +leg. Babbling babies walked all around her,--many walking before they +babbled,--and still she did not walk, imitate them as she might and +did. She would sit and "study" about it, make another trial, fall; +sit and study some more, make another trial, fall again. Negroes, who +believe that they must give a reason for everything even if they have +to invent one, were convinced that it was all this studying upon her +lameness that gave her such a large head. + +And now she began secretly turning up the clothes of every negro +child that came into that pen, and examining its legs, and still more +secretly examining her own, stretched out before her on the ground. +How long it took she does not remember; in fact, she could not have +known, for she had no way of measuring time except by her thoughts and +feelings. But in her own way and time the due process of deliberation +was fulfilled, and the quotient made clear that, bowed or not, all +children's legs were of equal length except her own, and all were +alike, not one full, strong, hard, the other soft, flabby, wrinkled, +growing out of a knot at the hip. A whole psychological period +apparently lay between that conclusion and--a broom-handle +walking-stick; but the broomstick came, as it was bound to +come,--thank heaven!--from that premise, and what with stretching one +limb to make it longer, and doubling up the other to make it shorter, +she invented that form of locomotion which is still carrying her +through life, and with no more exaggerated leg-crookedness than many +careless negroes born with straight limbs display. This must have been +when she was about eight or nine. Hobbling on a broomstick, with, no +doubt, the same weird, wizened face as now, an innate sense of the +fitness of things must have suggested the kerchief tied around her big +head, and the burlaps rag of an apron in front of her linsey-woolsey +rag of a gown, and the bit of broken pipe-stem in the corner of her +mouth, where the pipe should have been, and where it was in after +years. That is the way she recollected herself, and that is the way +one recalls her now, with a few modifications. + +The others came and went, but she was always there. It wasn't long +before she became "little Mammy" to the grown folks too; and the +newest inmates soon learned to cry: "Where's little Mammy?" "Oh, +little Mammy! little Mammy! Such a misery in my head [or my back, or +my stomach]! Can't you help me, little Mammy?" It was curious what a +quick eye she had for symptoms and ailments, and what a quick ear +for suffering, and how apt she was at picking up, remembering, and +inventing remedies. It never occurred to her not to crouch at the +head or the foot of a sick pallet, day and night through. As for the +nights, she said she dared not close her eyes of nights. The room they +were in was so vast, and sometimes the negroes lay so thick on the +floor, rolled in their blankets (you know, even in the summer they +sleep under blankets), all snoring so loudly, she would never have +heard a groan or a whimper any more than they did, if she had slept, +too. And negro mothers are so careless and such heavy sleepers. All +night she would creep at regular intervals to the different pallets, +and draw the little babies from under, or away from, the heavy, inert +impending mother forms. There is no telling how many she thus saved +from being overlaid and smothered, or, what was worse, maimed and +crippled. + +Whenever a physician came in, as he was sometimes called, to look at +a valuable investment or to furbish up some piece of damaged goods, +she always managed to get near to hear the directions; and she +generally was the one to apply them also, for negroes always would +steal medicines most scurvily one from the other. And when death at +times would slip into the pen, despite the trader's utmost alertness +and precautions,--as death often "had to do," little Mammy said,--when +the time of some of them came to die, and when the rest of the +negroes, with African greed of eye for the horrible, would press +around the lowly couch where the agonizing form of a slave lay +writhing out of life, she would always to the last give medicines, +and wipe the cold forehead, and soothe the clutching, fearsome hands, +hoping to the end, and trying to inspire the hope that his or her +"time" had not come yet; for, as she said, "Our time doesn't come just +as often as it does come." + +And in those sad last offices, which somehow have always been under +reproach as a kind of shame, no matter how young she was, she was +always too old to have the childish avoidance of them. On the +contrary, to her a corpse was only a kind of baby, and she always +strove, she said, to make one, like the other, easy and comfortable. + +And in other emergencies she divined the mysteries of the flesh, as +other precocities divine the mysteries of painting and music, and so +become child wonders. + +Others came and went. She alone remained there. Babies of her +babyhood--the toddlers she, a toddler, had nursed--were having babies +themselves now; the middle-aged had had time to grow old and die. +Every week new families were coming into the great back chamber; every +week they passed out: babies, boys, girls, buxom wenches, stalwart +youths, and the middle-aged--the grave, serious ones whom misfortune +had driven from their old masters, and the ill-reputed ones, the +trickish, thievish, lazy, whom the cunning of the negro-trader alone +could keep in circulation. All were marketable, all were bought and +sold, all passed in one door and out the other--all except her, little +Mammy. As with her lameness, it took time for her to recognize, to +understand, the fact. She could study over her lameness, she could in +the dull course of time think out the broomstick way of palliation. +It would have been almost better, under the circumstances, for God to +have kept the truth from her; only--God keeps so little of the truth +from us women. It is his system. + +Poor little thing! It was not now that her master _could_ not sell +her, but he _would_ not! Out of her own intelligence she had forged +her chains; the lameness was a hobble merely in comparison. She had +become too valuable to the negro-trader by her services among his +crew, and offers only solidified his determination not to sell her. +Visiting physicians, after short acquaintance with her capacities, +would offer what were called fancy prices for her. Planters who heard +of her through their purchases would come to the city purposely to +secure, at any cost, so inestimable an adjunct to their plantations. +Even ladies--refined, delicate ladies--sometimes came to the pen +personally to back money with influence. In vain. Little Mammy was +worth more to the negro-trader, simply as a kind of insurance against +accidents, than any sum, however glittering the figure, and he was no +ignorant expert in human wares. She can tell it; no one else can for +her. Remember that at times she had seen the streets outside. Remember +that she could hear of the outside world daily from the passing +chattels--of the plantations, farms, families; the green fields, +Sunday woods, running streams; the camp-meetings, corn-shuckings, +cotton-pickings, sugar-grindings; the baptisms, marriages, funerals, +prayer-meetings; the holidays and holy days. Remember that, whether +for liberty or whether for love, passion effloresces in the human +being--no matter when, where, or how--with every spring's return. +Remember that she was, even in middle age, young and vigorous. But no; +do not remember anything. There is no need to heighten the coloring. + +It would be tedious to relate, although it was not tedious to hear her +relate it, the desperations and hopes of her life then. Hardly a day +passed that she did not see, looking for purchases (rummaging among +goods on a counter for bargains), some master whom she could have +loved, some mistress whom she could have adored. Always her favorite +mistresses were there--tall, delicate matrons, who came themselves, +with great fatigue, to select kindly-faced women for nurses; +languid-looking ladies with smooth hair standing out in wide +_bandeaux_ from their heads, and lace shawls dropping from their +sloping shoulders, silk dresses carelessly held up in thumb and finger +from embroidered petticoats that were spread out like tents over huge +hoops which covered whole groups of swarming piccaninnies on the dirty +floor; ladies, pale from illnesses that she might have nursed, and +over-burdened with children whom she might have reared! And not a lady +of that kind saw her face but wanted her, yearned for her, pleaded for +her, coming back secretly to slip silver, and sometimes gold, pieces +into her hand, patting her turbaned head, calling her "little Mammy" +too, instantly, by inspiration, and making the negro-trader give them, +with all sorts of assurances, the refusal of her. She had no need for +the whispered "Buy me, master!" "Buy me, mistress!" "You'll see how I +can work, master!" "You'll never be sorry, mistress!" of the others. +The negro-trader--like hangmen, negro-traders are fitted by nature for +their profession--it came into his head--he had no heart, not even a +negro-trader's heart--that it would be more judicious to seclude her +during these shopping visits, so to speak. She could not have had any +hopes then at all; it must have been all desperations. + +That auction-block, that executioner's block, about which so much has +been written--Jacob's ladder, in his dream, was nothing to what that +block appeared nightly in her dreams to her; and the climbers up and +down--well, perhaps Jacob's angels were his hopes, too. + +At times she determined to depreciate her usefulness, mar her value, +by renouncing her heart, denying her purpose. For days she would +tie her kerchief over her ears and eyes, and crouch in a corner, +strangling her impulses. She even malingered, refused food, became +dumb. And she might have succeeded in making herself salable through +incipient lunacy, if through no other way, had she been able to +maintain her role long enough. But some woman or baby always was +falling into some emergency of pain and illness. + +How it might have ended one does not like to think. Fortunately, one +does not need to think. + +There came a night. She sat alone in the vast, dark caravansary--alone +for the first time in her life. Empty rags and blankets lay strewn +over the floor, no snoring, no tossing in them more. A sacrificial +sale that day had cleared the counters. Alarm-bells rang in the +streets, but she did not know them for alarm-bells; alarm brooded in +the dim space around her, but she did not even recognize that. Her +protracted tension of heart had made her fear-blind to all but one +peradventure. + +Once or twice she forgot herself, and limped over to some heap to +relieve an imaginary struggling babe or moaning sleeper. Morning came. +She had dozed. She looked to see the rag-heaps stir; they lay as still +as corpses. The alarm-bells had ceased. She looked to see a new gang +enter the far door. She listened for the gathering buzzing of voices +in the next room, around the auction-block. She waited for the trader. +She waited for the janitor. At nightfall a file of soldiers entered. +They drove her forth, ordering her in the voice, in the tone, of +the negro-trader. That was the only familiar thing in the chaos of +incomprehensibility about her. She hobbled through the auction-room. +Posters, advertisements, papers, lay on the floor, and in the +torch-light glared from the wall. Her Jacob's ladder, her +stepping-stone to her hopes, lay overturned in a corner. + +You divine it. The negro-trader's trade was abolished, and he had +vanished in the din and smoke of a war which he had not been entirely +guiltless of producing, leaving little Mammy locked up behind him. Had +he forgotten her? One cannot even hope so. She hobbled out into the +street, leaning on her nine-year-old broomstick (she had grown only +slightly beyond it; could still use it by bending over it), her head +tied in a rag kerchief, a rag for a gown, a rag for an apron. + +Free, she was free! But she had not hoped for freedom. The plantation, +the household, the delicate ladies, the teeming children,--broomsticks +they were in comparison to freedom, but,--that was what she had asked, +what she had prayed for. God, she said, had let her drop, just as her +mother had done. More than ever she grieved, as she crept down +the street, that she had never mounted the auctioneer's block. An +ownerless free negro! She knew no one whose duty it was to help her; +no one knew her to help her. In the whole world (it was all she had +asked) there was no white child to call her mammy, no white lackey or +gentleman (it was the extent of her dreams) beholden to her as to a +nurse. And all her innumerable black beneficiaries! Even the janitor, +whom she had tended as the others, had deserted her like his white +prototype. + +She tried to find a place for herself, but she had no indorsers, no +recommenders. She dared not mention the name of the negro-trader; it +banished her not only from the households of the whites, but from +those of the genteel of her own color. And everywhere soldiers +sentineled the streets--soldiers whose tone and accent reminded her of +the negro-trader. + +Her sufferings, whether imaginary or real, were sufficiently acute to +drive her into the only form of escape which once had been possible to +friendless negroes. She became a runaway. With a bundle tied to the +end of a stick over her shoulder, just as the old prints represent it, +she fled from her homelessness and loneliness, from her ignoble past, +and the heart-disappointing termination of it. Following a railroad +track, journeying afoot, sleeping by the roadside, she lived on until +she came to the one familiar landmark in life to her--a sick woman, +but a white one. And so, progressing from patient to patient (it was a +time when sick white women studded the country like mile-posts), she +arrived at a little town, a kind of a refuge for soldiers' wives and +widows. She never traveled further. She could not. Always, as in the +pen, some emergency of pain and illness held her. + +That is all. She is still there. The poor, poor women of that stricken +region say that little Mammy was the only alleviation God left them +after Sheridan passed through; and the richer ones say very much the +same thing-- + +But one should hear her tell it herself, as has been said, on a cold, +gloomy winter day in the country, the fire glimmering on the hearth; +the overworked husband in the fields; the baby quiet at last; the +mother uneasy, restless, thought-driven; the soft black hand rubbing +backward and forward, rubbing out aches and frets and nervousness. + +The eyelids droop; the firelight plays fantasies on the bed-curtains; +the ear drops words, sentences; one gets confused--one sleeps--one +dreams. + + + + +"ONE OF US" + + +At the first glance one might have been inclined to doubt; but at +the second anybody would have recognized her--that is, with a little +mental rehabilitation: the bright little rouge spots in the hollow of +her cheek, the eyebrows well accentuated with paint, the thin lips +rose-tinted, and the dull, straight hair frizzed and curled and +twisted and turned by that consummate rascal and artist, the official +beautifier and rectifier of stage humanity, Robert, the opera +_coiffeur_. Who in the world knows better than he the gulf between +the real and the ideal, the limitations between the natural and the +romantic? + +Yes, one could see her, in that time-honored thin silk dress of hers +stiffened into brocade by buckram underneath; the high, low-necked +waist, hiding any evidences of breast, if there were such evidences to +hide, and bringing the long neck into such faulty prominence; and the +sleeves, crisp puffs of tulle divided by bands of red velvet, through +which the poor lean arm runs like a wire, stringing them together like +beads. Yes, it was she, the whilom _dugazon_ of the opera troupe. +Not that she ever was a _dugazon_, but that was what her voice once +aspired to be: a _dugazon manquee_ would better describe her. + +What a ghost! But they always appeared like mere evaporations of +real women. For what woman of flesh and blood can seriously maintain +through life the role of sham attendant on sham sensations, and play +public celebrant of other women's loves and lovers, singing, or rather +saying, nothing more enlivening than: "Oh, madame!" and "Ah, madame!" +and "_Quelle ivresse!_" or "_Quelle horreur!_" or, in recitative, +detailing whatever dreary platitudes and inanities the librettist and +Heaven connive to put upon the tongues of confidantes and attendants? + +[Illustration: "TO POSE IN ABJECT PATIENCE AND AWKWARDNESS."] + +Looking at her--how it came over one! The music, the lights, the +scene; the fat soprano confiding to her the fact of the "amour +extreme" she bears for the tenor, to which she, the _dugazon_, does +not even try to listen; her eyes wandering listlessly over the +audience. The calorous secret out, and in her possession, how she +stumbles over her train to the back of the stage, there to pose in +abject patience and awkwardness, while the gallant baritone, touching +his sword, and flinging his cape over his shoulder, defies the world +and the tenor, who is just recovering from his "ut de poitrine" behind +the scenes. + +She was talking to me all the time, apologizing for the intrusion, +explaining her mission, which involved a short story of her life, as +women's intrusions and missions usually do. But my thoughts, also as +usual, distracted me from listening, as so often they have distracted +me from following what was perhaps more profitable. + +The composer, of course, wastes no music upon her; flinging to her +only an occasional recitative in two notes, but always ending in a +reef of a scale, trill, or roulade, for her to wreck her voice on +before the audience. The _chef d'orchestre_, if he is charitable, +starts her off with a contribution from his own lusty lungs, and then +she--oh, her voice is always thinner and more osseous than her arms, +and her smile no more graceful than her train! + +As well think of the simulated trees, water-falls, and chateaux +leaving the stage, as the _dugazon_! One always imagines them singing +on into dimness, dustiness, unsteadiness, and uselessness, until, like +any other piece of stage property, they are at last put aside and +simply left there at the end of some season--there seems to be a +superstition against selling or burning useless and dilapidated stage +property. As it came to me, the idea was not an impossibility. +The last representation of the season is over. She, tired beyond +judgment--haply, beyond feeling--by her tireless role, sinks upon her +chair to rest in her dressing-room; sinks, further, to sleep. She has +no maid. The troupe, hurrying away to France on the special train +waiting not half a dozen blocks away, forget her--the insignificant +are so easily forgotten! The porter, more tired, perhaps, than any +one of the beautiful ideal world about him, and savoring already in +advance the good onion-flavored _grillade_ awaiting him at home, locks +up everything fast and tight; the tighter and faster for the good +fortnight's vacation he has promised himself. + +No doubt if the old opera-house were ever cleaned out, just such a +heap of stiff, wire-strung bones would be found, in some such hole +as the _dugazon's_ dressing-room, desiccating away in its last +costume--perhaps in that very costume of _Inez_; and if one were +venturesome enough to pass Allhallowe'en there, the spirit of those +bones might be seen availing itself of the privilege of unasperged +corpses to roam. Not singing, not talking--it is an anachronism to say +that ghosts talk: their medium of communication must be pure thought; +and one should be able to see their thoughts working, just as one sees +the working of the digestive organs in the clear viscera of +transparent animalcule. The hard thing of it is that ghosts are +chained to the same scenes that chained their bodies, and when they +sleep-walk, so to speak, it must be through phases of former +existence. What a nightmare for them to go over once again the lived +and done, the suffered and finished! What a comfort to wake up and +find one's self dead, well dead! + +I could have continued and put the whole opera troupe in "costume de +ghost," but I think it was the woman's eyes that drew me back to her +face and her story. She had a sensible face, now that I observed her +naturally, as it were; and her hands,--how I have agonized over those +hands on the stage!--all knuckles and exaggerated veins, clutching her +dress as she sang, or, petrified, outstretched to _Leonore's_ "Pourquoi +ces larmes?"--her hands were the hands of an honest, hard-working +woman who buckrams her own skirts, and at need could scrub her own +floor. Her face (my description following my wandering glance)--her +face was careworn, almost to desuetude; not dissipation-worn, as, +alas! the faces of the more gifted ladies of opera troupes too often +are. There was no fattening in it of pastry, truffles, and bonbons; +upon it none of the tracery left by nightly champagne tides and +ripples; and consequently her figure, under her plain dress, had not +that for display which the world has conventioned to call charms. +Where a window-cord would hardly have sufficed to girdle _Leonore_, a +necklace would have served her. She had not beauty enough to fear the +flattering dangers of masculine snares and temptations,--or there may +have been other reasons,--but as a wife--there was something about her +that guaranteed it--she would have blossomed love and children as a +fig-tree does figs. + +In truth, she was just talking about children. The first part of her +story had passed: her birthplace, education, situation; and now she +was saying: + +"I have always had the temptation, but I have always resisted it. +Now,"--with a blush at her excuse,--"it may be your spring weather, +your birds, your flowers, your sky--and your children in the streets. +The longing came over me yesterday: I thought of it on the stage, +I thought of it afterward--it was better than sleeping; and this +morning"--her eyes moistened, she breathed excitedly--"I was +determined. I gave up, I made inquiry, I was sent to you. Would it be +possible? Would there be any place" ("any role," she said first) "in +any of your asylums, in any of your charitable institutions, for me? +I would ask nothing but my clothes and food, and very little of that; +the recompense would be the children--the little girl children," with +a smile--can you imagine the smile of a woman dreaming of children +that might be? "Think! Never to have held a child in my arms more than +a moment, never to have felt a child's arms about my neck! Never to +have known a child! Born on a stage, my mother born on a stage!" Ah, +there were tragic possibilities in that voice and movement! "Pardon, +madam. You see how I repeat. And you must be very wearied hearing +about me. But I could be their nurse and their servant. I would bathe +and dress them, play with them, teach them their prayers; and when +they are sick they would see no difference. They would not know but +what their mother was there!" + +Oh, she had her program all prepared; one could see that. + +"And I would sing to them--no! no!" with a quick gesture, "nothing +from the stage; little songs and lullabys I have picked up +traveling around, and," hesitating, "little things I have composed +myself--little things that I thought children would like to hear some +day." What did she not unconsciously throw into those last words? "I +dream of it," she pursued, talking with as little regard to me as +on the stage she sang to the prima donna. "Their little arms, their +little faces, their little lips! And in an asylum there would be so +many of them! When they cried and were in trouble I would take them in +my lap, and I would say to them, with all sorts of tenderness--" She +had arranged that in her program, too--all the minutiae of what she +would say to them in their distress. But women are that way. When once +they begin to love, their hearts are magnifying-lenses for them to +feel through. "And my heart hungers to commence right here, now, at +once! It seems to me I cannot wait. Ah, madam, no more stage, no more +opera!" speaking quickly, feverishly. "As I said, it may be your +beautiful spring, your flowers, your birds, and your numbers of +children. I have always loved that place most where there are most +children; and you have more children here than I ever saw anywhere. +Children are so beautiful! It is strange, is it not, when you consider +my life and my rearing?" + +Her life, her rearing, how interesting they must have been! What a +pity I had not listened more attentively! + +"They say you have much to do with asylums here." + +Evidently, when roles do not exist in life for certain characters, God +has to create them. And thus He had to create a role in an asylum for +my friend, for so she became from the instant she spoke of children +as she did. It was the poorest and neediest of asylums; and the poor +little orphaned wretches--but it is better not to speak of them. How +can God ever expect to rear children without their mothers! + +But the role I craved to create for my friend was far different--some +good, honest bourgeois interior, where lips are coarse and cheeks are +ruddy, and where life is composed of real scenes, set to the real +music of life, the homely successes and failures, and loves and hates, +and embraces and tears, that fill out the orchestra of the heart; +where romance and poetry abound _au naturel_; and where--yes, where +children grow as thick as nature permits: the domestic interior of the +opera porter, for instance, or the clockmaker over the way. But what +a loss the orphan-asylum would have suffered, and the dreary lacking +there would have been in the lives of the children! For there must +have been moments in the lives of the children in that asylum when +they felt, awake, as they felt in their sleep when they dreamed their +mothers were about them. + + + + +THE LITTLE CONVENT GIRL + +She was coming down on the boat from Cincinnati, the little convent +girl. Two sisters had brought her aboard. They gave her in charge of +the captain, got her a state-room, saw that the new little trunk was +put into it, hung the new little satchel up on the wall, showed her +how to bolt the door at night, shook hands with her for good-by +(good-bys have really no significance for sisters), and left her +there. After a while the bells all rang, and the boat, in the awkward +elephantine fashion of boats, got into midstream. The chambermaid +found her sitting on the chair in the state-room where the sisters +had left her, and showed her how to sit on a chair in the saloon. And +there she sat until the captain came and hunted her up for supper. +She could not do anything of herself; she had to be initiated into +everything by some one else. + +She was known on the boat only as "the little convent girl." Her name, +of course, was registered in the clerk's office, but on a steamboat no +one thinks of consulting the clerk's ledger. It is always the little +widow, the fat madam, the tall colonel, the parson, etc. The captain, +who pronounced by the letter, always called her the little _convent_ +girl. She was the beau-ideal of the little convent girl. She never +raised her eyes except when spoken to. Of course she never spoke +first, even to the chambermaid, and when she did speak it was in the +wee, shy, furtive voice one might imagine a just-budding violet to +have; and she walked with such soft, easy, carefully calculated steps +that one naturally felt the penalties that must have secured +them--penalties dictated by a black code of deportment. + +[Illustration: THE SISTERS BID HER GOOD-BY.] + +She was dressed in deep mourning. Her black straw hat was trimmed with +stiff new crape, and her stiff new bombazine dress had crape collar +and cuffs. She wore her hair in two long plaits fastened around her +head tight and fast. Her hair had a strong inclination to curl, but +that had been taken out of it as austerely as the noise out of her +footfalls. Her hair was as black as her dress; her eyes, when one saw +them, seemed blacker than either, on account of the bluishness of the +white surrounding the pupil. Her eyelashes were almost as thick as the +black veil which the sisters had fastened around her hat with an extra +pin the very last thing before leaving. She had a round little face, +and a tiny pointed chin; her mouth was slightly protuberant from the +teeth, over which she tried to keep her lips well shut, the effort +giving them a pathetic little forced expression. Her complexion was +sallow, a pale sallow, the complexion of a brunette bleached in +darkened rooms. The only color about her was a blue taffeta ribbon +from which a large silver medal of the Virgin hung over the place +where a breast pin should have been. She was so little, so little, +although she was eighteen, as the sisters told the captain; otherwise +they would not have permitted her to travel all the way to New Orleans +alone. + +Unless the captain or the clerk remembered to fetch her out in front, +she would sit all day in the cabin, in the same place, crocheting +lace, her spool of thread and box of patterns in her lap, on the +handkerchief spread to save her new dress. Never leaning back--oh, no! +always straight and stiff, as if the conventual back board were there +within call. She would eat only convent fare at first, notwithstanding +the importunities of the waiters, and the jocularities of the captain, +and particularly of the clerk. Every one knows the fund of humor +possessed by a steamboat clerk, and what a field for display the table +at meal-times affords. On Friday she fasted rigidly, and she never +began to eat, or finished, without a little Latin movement of the lips +and a sign of the cross. And always at six o'clock of the evening she +remembered the angelus, although there was no church bell to remind +her of it. + +She was in mourning for her father, the sisters told the captain, +and she was going to New Orleans to her mother. She had not seen +her mother since she was an infant, on account of some disagreement +between the parents, in consequence of which the father had brought +her to Cincinnati, and placed her in the convent. There she had been +for twelve years, only going to her father for vacations and holidays. +So long as the father lived he would never let the child have any +communication with her mother. Now that he was dead all that was +changed, and the first thing that the girl herself wanted to do was to +go to her mother. + +The mother superior had arranged it all with the mother of the girl, +who was to come personally to the boat in New Orleans, and receive her +child from the captain, presenting a letter from the mother superior, +a facsimile of which the sisters gave the captain. + +It is a long voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans, the rivers doing +their best to make it interminable, embroidering themselves _ad +libitum_ all over the country. Every five miles, and sometimes +oftener, the boat would stop to put off or take on freight, if not +both. The little convent girl, sitting in the cabin, had her +terrible frights at first from the hideous noises attendant on these +landings--the whistles, the ringings of the bells, the running to and +fro, the shouting. Every time she thought it was shipwreck, death, +judgment, purgatory; and her sins! her sins! She would drop her +crochet, and clutch her prayer-beads from her pocket, and relax the +constraint over her lips, which would go to rattling off prayers with +the velocity of a relaxed windlass. That was at first, before the +captain took to fetching her out in front to see the boat make a +landing. Then she got to liking it so much that she would stay all day +just where the captain put her, going inside only for her meals. She +forgot herself at times so much that she would draw her chair a little +closer to the railing, and put up her veil, actually, to see better. +No one ever usurped her place, quite in front, or intruded upon her +either with word or look; for every one learned to know her shyness, +and began to feel a personal interest in her, and all wanted the +little convent girl to see everything that she possibly could. + +[Illustration: WATCHING A LANDING.] + +And it was worth seeing--the balancing and _chasseeing_ and waltzing +of the cumbersome old boat to make a landing. It seemed to be +always attended with the difficulty and the improbability of a new +enterprise; and the relief when it did sidle up anywhere within +rope's-throw of the spot aimed at! And the roustabout throwing the +rope from the perilous end of the dangling gang-plank! And the +dangling roustabouts hanging like drops of water from it--dropping +sometimes twenty feet to the land, and not infrequently into the river +itself. And then what a rolling of barrels, and shouldering of sacks, +and singing of Jim Crow songs, and pacing of Jim Crow steps; and black +skins glistening through torn shirts, and white teeth gleaming through +red lips, and laughing, and talking and--bewildering! entrancing! +Surely the little convent girl in her convent walls never dreamed of +so much unpunished noise and movement in the world! + +The first time she heard the mate--it must have been like the first +time woman ever heard man--curse and swear, she turned pale, and ran +quickly, quickly into the saloon, and--came out again? No, indeed! +not with all the soul she had to save, and all the other sins on her +conscience. She shook her head resolutely, and was not seen in her +chair on deck again until the captain not only reassured her, but +guaranteed his reassurance. And after that, whenever the boat was +about to make a landing, the mate would first glance up to the guards, +and if the little convent girl was sitting there he would change his +invective to sarcasm, and politely request the colored gentlemen not +to hurry themselves--on no account whatever; to take their time about +shoving out the plank; to send the rope ashore by post-office--write +him when it got there; begging them not to strain their backs; calling +them mister, colonel, major, general, prince, and your royal highness, +which was vastly amusing. At night, however, or when the little +convent girl was not there, language flowed in its natural curve, the +mate swearing like a pagan to make up for lost time. + +The captain forgot himself one day: it was when the boat ran aground +in the most unexpected manner and place, and he went to work to +express his opinion, as only steamboat captains can, of the pilot, +mate, engineer, crew, boat, river, country, and the world in general, +ringing the bell, first to back, then to head, shouting himself +hoarser than his own whistle--when he chanced to see the little black +figure hurrying through the chaos on the deck; and the captain stuck +as fast aground in midstream as the boat had done. + +In the evening the little convent girl would be taken on the upper +deck, and going up the steep stairs there was such confusion, to keep +the black skirts well over the stiff white petticoats; and, coming +down, such blushing when suspicion would cross the unprepared face +that a rim of white stocking might be visible; and the thin feet, +laced so tightly in the glossy new leather boots, would cling to each +successive step as if they could never, never make another venture; +and then one boot would (there is but that word) hesitate out, and +feel and feel around, and have such a pause of helpless agony as if +indeed the next step must have been wilfully removed, or was nowhere +to be found on the wide, wide earth. + +It was a miracle that the pilot ever got her up into the pilot-house; +but pilots have a lonely time, and do not hesitate even at miracles +when there is a chance for company. He would place a box for her to +climb to the tall bench behind the wheel, and he would arrange the +cushions, and open a window here to let in air, and shut one there to +cut off a draft, as if there could be no tenderer consideration in +life for him than her comfort. And he would talk of the river to her, +explain the chart, pointing out eddies, whirlpools, shoals, depths, +new beds, old beds, cut-offs, caving banks, and making banks, as +exquisitely and respectfully as if she had been the River Commission. + +It was his opinion that there was as great a river as the Mississippi +flowing directly under it--an underself of a river, as much a +counterpart of the other as the second story of a house is of the +first; in fact, he said they were navigating through the upper story. +Whirlpools were holes in the floor of the upper river, so to speak; +eddies were rifts and cracks. And deep under the earth, hurrying +toward the subterranean stream, were other streams, small and +great, but all deep, hurrying to and from that great mother-stream +underneath, just as the small and great overground streams hurry to +and from their mother Mississippi. It was almost more than the little +convent girl could take in: at least such was the expression of her +eyes; for they opened as all eyes have to open at pilot stories. And +he knew as much of astronomy as he did of hydrology, could call the +stars by name, and define the shapes of the constellations; and she, +who had studied astronomy at the convent, was charmed to find that +what she had learned was all true. It was in the pilot-house, one +night, that she forgot herself for the first time in her life, and +stayed up until after nine o'clock. Although she appeared almost +intoxicated at the wild pleasure, she was immediately overwhelmed +at the wickedness of it, and observed much more rigidity of conduct +thereafter. The engineer, the boiler-men, the firemen, the stokers, +they all knew when the little convent girl was up in the pilot-house: +the speaking-tube became so mild and gentle. + +With all the delays of river and boat, however, there is an end to the +journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The latter city, which at one +time to the impatient seemed at the terminus of the never, began, +all of a sudden, one day to make its nearingness felt; and from that +period every other interest paled before the interest in the immanence +of arrival into port, and the whole boat was seized with a panic of +preparation, the little convent girl with the others. Although so +immaculate was she in person and effects that she might have been +struck with a landing, as some good people might be struck with death, +at any moment without fear of results, her trunk was packed and +repacked, her satchel arranged and rearranged, and, the last day, her +hair was brushed and plaited and smoothed over and over again until +the very last glimmer of a curl disappeared. Her dress was whisked, +as if for microscopic inspection; her face was washed; and her +finger-nails were scrubbed with the hard convent nail-brush, until +the disciplined little tips ached with a pristine soreness. And still +there were hours to wait, and still the boat added up delays. But she +arrived at last, after all, with not more than the usual and expected +difference between the actual and the advertised time of arrival. + +There was extra blowing and extra ringing, shouting, commanding, +rushing up the gangway and rushing down the gangway. The clerks, +sitting behind tables on the first deck, were plied, in the twinkling +of an eye, with estimates, receipts, charges, countercharges, claims, +reclaims, demands, questions, accusations, threats, all at topmost +voices. None but steamboat clerks could have stood it. And there were +throngs composed of individuals every one of whom wanted to see the +captain first and at once: and those who could not get to him shouted +over the heads of the others; and as usual he lost his temper and +politeness, and began to do what he termed "hustle." + +"Captain! Captain!" a voice called him to where a hand plucked his +sleeve, and a letter was thrust toward him. "The cross, and the name +of the convent." He recognized the envelop of the mother superior. He +read the duplicate of the letter given by the sisters. He looked at +the woman--the mother--casually, then again and again. + +The little convent girl saw him coming, leading some one toward her. +She rose. The captain took her hand first, before the other greeting, +"Good-by, my dear," he said. He tried to add something else, but +seemed undetermined what. "Be a good little girl--" It was evidently +all he could think of. Nodding to the woman behind him, he turned on +his heel, and left. + +One of the deck-hands was sent to fetch her trunk. He walked out +behind them, through the cabin, and the crowd on deck, down the +stairs, and out over the gangway. The little convent girl and her +mother went with hands tightly clasped. She did not turn her eyes to +the right or left, or once (what all passengers do) look backward at +the boat which, however slowly, had carried her surely over dangers +that she wot not of. All looked at her as she passed. All wanted to +say good-by to the little convent girl, to see the mother who had been +deprived of her so long. Some expressed surprise in a whistle; some +in other ways. All exclaimed audibly, or to themselves, "Colored!" + +It takes about a month to make the round trip from New Orleans to +Cincinnati and back, counting five days' stoppage in New Orleans. It +was a month to a day when the steamboat came puffing and blowing up to +the wharf again, like a stout dowager after too long a walk; and the +same scene of confusion was enacted, as it had been enacted twelve +times a year, at almost the same wharf for twenty years; and the +same calm, a death calmness by contrast, followed as usual the next +morning. + +The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been delivered, +part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped. The captain +was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk was in his +office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate could be heard +below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; for if steamboat +crews have a single principle,--and there are those who deny them +any,--it is never to ship twice in succession on the same boat. It was +too early yet for any but roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers; +so early that even the river was still partly mist-covered; only in +places could the swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along. + +"Captain!" A hand plucked at his elbow, as if not confident that the +mere calling would secure attention. The captain turned. The mother of +the little convent girl stood there, and she held the little convent +girl by the hand. "I have brought her to see you," the woman said. +"You were so kind--and she is so quiet, so still, all the time, I +thought it would do her a pleasure." + +She spoke with an accent, and with embarrassment; otherwise one would +have said that she was bold and assured enough. + +"She don't go nowhere, she don't do nothing but make her crochet and +her prayers, so I thought I would bring her for a little visit of 'How +d' ye do' to you." + +There was, perhaps, some inflection in the woman's voice that might +have made known, or at least awakened, the suspicion of some latent +hope or intention, had the captain's ear been fine enough to detect +it. There might have been something in the little convent girl's face, +had his eye been more sensitive--trifle paler, maybe, the lips a +little tighter drawn, the blue ribbon a shade faded. He may have +noticed that, but-- And the visit of "How d' ye do" came to an end. + +They walked down the stairway, the woman in front, the little convent +girl--her hand released to shake hands with the captain--following, +across the bared deck, out to the gangway, over to the middle of +it. No one was looking, no one saw more than a flutter of white +petticoats, a show of white stockings, as the little convent girl went +under the water. + +The roustabout dived, as the roustabouts always do, after the +drowning, even at the risk of their good-for-nothing lives. The mate +himself jumped overboard; but she had gone down in a whirlpool. +Perhaps, as the pilot had told her whirlpools always did, it may have +carried her through to the underground river, to that vast, hidden, +dark Mississippi that flows beneath the one we see; for her body was +never found. + + + + +GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER + + +As the grandmother related it fresh from the primeval sources that +feed a grandmother's memory, it happened thus: + +In the early days of the settlement of Georgia--ah, how green and +rustic appears to us now the world in the early days of the settlement +of Georgia! Sometimes to women, listening to the stories of their +grandmothers, it seems better to have lived then than now--her +grandmother was at that time a young wife. It was the day of arduous, +if not of long, courtship before marriage, when every wedding +celebrated the close of an original romance; and when young couples, +for bridal trips, went out to settle new States, riding on a pillion +generally, with their trousseaux following as best they could on +sumpter mules; to hear the grandmother describe it made one long to be +a bride of those days. + +The young husband had the enumeration of qualities that went to the +making of a man of that period, and if the qualities were in the +proportion of ten physical to one intellectual, it does not follow +that the grandmother's grandfather was not a man of parts. For, to +obtain the hand of his bride, an only child and an heiress, he had to +give test of his mettle by ignoring his fortune, studying law, and +getting his license before marriage, and binding himself to live the +first year afterward on the proceeds of his practice; a device of the +time thought to be a wholesome corrective of the corrupting influence +of over-wealth in young domesticities. + +Although he had already chosen the sea for his profession, and was a +midshipman at the time, with more of a reputation for living than for +learning, such was he, and such, it may be said, was the incentive +genius of his choice, that almost before his resignation as midshipman +was accepted, his license as a lawyer was signed. As for practice, it +was currently remarked at his wedding, at the sight of him flying down +the room in the reel with his bride for partner, that his tongue was +as nimble as his heels, and that if he only turned his attention to +criminal practice, there was no man in the country who would make +a better prosecuting attorney for the State. And with him for +prosecuting attorney, it was warranted that sirrahs the highwaymen +would not continue to hold Georgia judge-and-jury justice in quite +such contemptible estimation, and that the gallows would not be left +so long bereft of their legitimate swingings. As for fees, it was +predicted that the young fellow as he stood, or rather "chasse'd," +could snap his fingers at both his and his bride's trustees. + +He did turn his attention to criminal law, was made prosecuting +attorney for the State in his county, and, before his six months +had passed, was convincing the hitherto high and mighty, lordly, +independent knights of the road that other counties in Georgia +furnished more secure pasturage for them. + +It was a beautiful spring morning. The young wife bade him a hearty +good-by, and stood in the doorway watching him, gay and _debonair_, +riding off, on his stout black charger Beetle, in the direction of the +town in which court was to be held that week. + +She herself feeling as full of ambition and work as if she also were +prosecuting attorney, with a perennial spring of eloquence bubbling in +her brain, turned to her domestic duties, and, without going into +the detail of them, it suffices to say that, according to the +grandmother's estimation, one morning's list of duties for a healthy +young bride of that period would shame the week's work of a syndicate +of them to-day. Finding herself nearing the limit of diminution of +several household necessities, and the spring suggesting the beginning +of new ones, she made up her mind to profit by her husband's absence +and the fair weather to make a trading visit to the neighboring town +next day. + +[Illustration: "TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES."] + +So, early in a morning as beautiful as the preceding one, mounted on +her own stanch mare Maid Marion, she ambled down the green over-hung +forest-road, in the vista of which she had watched her husband +disappear the day before; thinking about what she had to buy, and +thinking, no doubt, much more, as brides will, of the absent lord and +master--as brides of those days loved to consider and denominate their +husbands. + +Coming into the little town, the freshly painted, swinging sign-board +of the new tavern, "The Honest Georgian," as usual was the thing to +catch her eye; but the instant after what should she see but Black +Beetle hitched to the rack under the tree that shadowed the hostelry! + +It was not decorous; but she was young, and the day of her first +separation from her husband had been so long; and was he not also, +against the firmest of resolutions and plans, hastening back to her, +the separation being too long for him also? + +Slipping her foot from the stirrup, she jumped to the ground, and ran +into the tavern. There he stood calling hastily for a drink; and +her heart more than her eyes took in his, to her, consecrated +signalment--the riding-boots, short clothes, blue coat, cocked hat, +ruffles. She crept up behind to surprise him, her face, with its +delight and smiles, beyond her control. She crept, until she saw his +watch-fob dangling against the counter, and then her heart made a +call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another man was in her +husband's clothes, a man with a villainous countenance! With a scream +she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, dropped his drink, bounded to +the door and out, leaped to the back of Beetle, gave rein and spur, +and the black horse made good his reputation. In a second all was +hue-and-cry and pursuit. While men and horses made, for all they were +worth, down the road after Beetle, she on Maid Marion galloped for +her life in the opposite direction, the direction of the court town +whither her husband had journeyed. The mare's hide made acquaintance +with the whip that day if never before, for not even the willing Maid +Marion could keep pace with the apprehensions on her back. + +Scouring with her eyes the highway ahead of her, shooting hawk's +glances into the forest on each side of her, the wife rode through +the distance all, all day, praying that the day might be long enough, +might equal the distance. The sun set, and night began to fall; but +she and Maid Marion were none the less fresh, except in the heart. + +The moon rose straight before them down the road, lighting it and them +through the threatened obscurity. And so they came to trampled earth +and torn grass, and so she uncovered concealed footsteps, and so, +creeping on her hands and knees, she followed traces of blood, through +thicket and glade, into the deep forest, to a hastily piled hillock of +earth, gravel, and leaves. Burrowing with her hands, she came to it, +the naked body of her young husband, cold and stiff, foully murdered. +Maid Marion approached at her call. She wrapped him in her cloak, +and--a young wife of those times alone would do it--put him in the +saddle before her: the good mare Maid Marion alone knows the rest. In +the early gray dawn, from one highway there rode into the town the +baffled pursuers, from the other the grandmother's grandmother, +clasping the corpse of her husband with arms as stiff as his own; +loving him, so the grandmother used to say, with a love which, if ever +love could do so, would have effected a resurrection. + + + + +THE OLD LADY'S RESTORATION + + +The news came out in the papers that the old lady had been restored +to her fortune. She had been deprived of it so long ago that the real +manner of her dispossession had become lost, or at least hidden under +the many versions that had been invented to replace lapses of memory, +or to remedy the unpicturesqueness of the original truth. The face of +truth, like the face of many a good woman, is liable to the accident +of ugliness, and the desire to embellish one as well as the other +need not necessarily proceed from anything more harmful than an +overweighted love of the beautiful. + +If the old lady had not been restored to her fortune, her _personalia_ +would have remained in the oblivion which, as one might say, had +accumulated upon everything belonging to her. But after that newspaper +paragraph, there was such a flowering of memory around her name as +would have done credit to a whole cemetery on All Saints. It took +three generations to do justice to the old lady, for so long and so +slow had been her descent into poverty that a grandmother was needed +to remember her setting out upon the road to it. + +She set out as most people do, well provided with money, diamonds, +pretty clothing, handsome residence, equipage, opera-box, beaus (for +she was a widow), and so many, many friends that she could never +indulge in a small party--she always had to give a grand ball +to accommodate them. She made quite an occasion of her first +reverse,--some litigation decided against her,--and said it came from +the court's' having only one ear, and that preempted by the other +party. + +She always said whatever she thought, regardless of the consequences, +because she averred truth was so much more interesting than falsehood. +Nothing annoyed her more in society than to have to listen to the +compositions women make as a substitute for the original truth. It was +as if, when she went to the theater to hear Shakspere and Moliere, +the actors should try to impose upon the audience by reciting lines +of their own. Truth was the wit of life and the wit of books. She +traveled her road from affluence so leisurely that nothing escaped her +eyes or her feelings, and she signaled unhesitatingly every stage in +it. + +"My dear, do you know there is really such a thing as existence +without a carriage and horses?"--"I assure you it is perfectly new to +me to find that an opera-box is not a necessity. It is a luxury. In +theory one can really never tell the distinction between luxuries and +necessities."--"How absurd! At one time I thought hair was given +us only to furnish a profession to hair-dressers; just as we wear +artificial flowers to support the flower-makers."--"Upon my word, +it is not uninteresting. There is always some _haute nouveaute_ in +economy. The ways of depriving one's self are infinite. There is wine, +now."--"Not own your residence! As soon not own your tomb as your +residence! My mama used to scream that in my ears. According to her, +it was not _comme il faut_ to board or live in a rented house. +How little she knew!" + +When her friends, learning her increasing difficulties, which they did +from the best authority (herself), complimented her, as they were +forced to do, upon her still handsome appearance, pretty laces, +feathers, jewelry, silks, "Fat," she would answer--"fat. I am living +off my fat, as bears do in winter. In truth, I remind myself of an +animal in more ways than one." + +And so every one had something to contribute to the conversation about +her--bits which, they said, affection and admiration had kept alive in +their memory. + +Each city has its own roads to certain ends, its ways of Calvary, so +to speak. In New Orleans the victim seems ever to walk down Royal +street and up Chartres, or _vice versa_. One would infer so, at least, +from the display in the shops and windows of those thorough-fares. +Old furniture, cut glass, pictures, books, jewelry, lace, china--the +fleece (sometimes the flesh still sticking to it) left on the +brambles by the driven herd. If there should some day be a trump of +resurrection for defunct fortunes, those shops would be emptied in +the same twinkling of the eye allowed to tombs for their rendition of +property. + +The old lady must have made that promenade many, many times, to judge +by the samples of her "fat or fleece" displayed in the windows. She +took to hobbling, as if from tired or sore feet. + +"It is nothing," in answer to an inquiry. "Made-to-order feet learning +to walk in ready-made shoes: that is all. One's feet, after all, are +the most unintelligent part of one's body." Tea was her abomination, +coffee her adoration; but she explained: "Tea, you know, is so +detestable that the very worst is hardly worse than the very best; +while coffee is so perfect that the smallest shade of impurity is not +to be tolerated. The truly economical, I observe, always drink tea." +"At one time I thought if all the luxuries of the world were exposed +to me, and but one choice allowed, I should select gloves. Believe me, +there is no superfluity in the world so easily dispensed with." + +As may be supposed, her path led her farther and farther away from her +old friends. Even her intimates became scarce; so much so, that these +observations, which, of course, could be made only to intimates, +became fewer and fewer, unfortunately, for her circumstances were +becoming such that the remarks became increasingly valuable. The last +thing related of her was apropos of friends. + +"My friends! My dear, I cannot tell you just so, on the spur of the +moment, but with a little reflection and calculation I could tell you, +to a picayune, the rent of every friend in the market. You can lease, +rent, or hire them, like horses, carriages, opera-boxes, servants, by +year, month, day, or hour; and the tariff is just as fixed. + +"Christians! Christians are the most discreet people in the world. If +you should ask me what Christianity has most promoted in the world, I +should answer without hesitation, discretion. Of course, when I say +the world I mean society, and when I say Christianity I mean our +interpretation of it. If only duns could be pastors, and pastors duns! +But of course you do not know what duns are; they are the guardian +angels of the creditor, the pursuing fiends of the debtor." + +After that, the old lady made her disappearance under the waves of +that sea into the depths of which it is very improbable that a single +friend ever attempted to pursue her. And there she remained until the +news came that she was restored to fortune. + +A week passed, two weeks; no sight or sound of her. It was during this +period that her old friends were so occupied resuscitating their old +friendships for her--when all her antique sayings and doings became +current ball-room and dinner-table gossip--that she arose from her +obscurity like Cinderella from her ashes, to be decked with every gift +that fairy minds could suggest. Those who had known her intimately +made no effort to conceal their importance. Those who did not know her +personally put forward claims of inherited friendship, and those who +did not know her traditionally or otherwise--the _nouveaux riches_ +and _parvenus_, who alone feel the moneyed value of such social +connections--began making their resolutions to capture her as soon as +she came in sight of society. + +The old residence was to be re-bought, and refurnished from France; +the _avant scene_ at the opera had been engaged; the old cook was to +be hired back from the club at a fabulous price; the old balls and the +old dinners were to gladden the city--so said they who seemed to know. +Nothing was to be spared, nothing stinted--at her age, with no child +or relative, and life running short for pleasure. Diamonds, laces, +velvets, champagne, Chateau Yquem--"Grand Dieu Seigneur!" the old +Creole servants exclaimed, raising their hands at the enumeration of +it. + +Where the news came from nobody knew, but everything was certified +and accepted as facts, although, as between women, the grain of salt +should have been used. Impatience waxed, until nearly every day some +one would ring the bell of the old residence, to ask when the mistress +was going to move in. And such affectionate messages! And people would +not, simply could not, be satisfied with the incomprehensible answers. +And then it leaked out. The old lady was simply waiting for everything +to arrive--furniture, toilets, carriage, etc.--to make a grand +_entree_ into her old sphere; to come riding on a throne, as it were. +And still the time passed, and she did not come. Finally two of the +clever-heads penetrated the enigma: _mauvaise honte_, shyness--so long +out of the world, so old; perhaps not sure of her welcome. So they +determined to seek her out. + +[Illustration: THE ROOM IN THE OLD GALLERY.] + +"We will go to her, like children to a grandmother, etc. The others +have no delicacy of sentiment, etc. And she will thus learn who really +remember, really love her, etc." + +Provided with congratulatory bouquets, they set forth. It is very hard +to find a dweller on the very sea-bottom of poverty. Perhaps that is +why the effort is so seldom made. One has to ask at grocers' shops, +groggeries, market-stalls, Chinese restaurants; interview corner +cobblers, ragpickers, gutter children. But nothing is impossible to +the determined. The two ladies overcame all obstacles, and needled +their way along, where under other circumstances they would not have +glanced, would have thought it improper to glance. + +They were directed through an old, old house, out on an old, old +gallery, to a room at the very extreme end. + +"Poor thing! Evidently she has not heard the good news yet. We will +be the first to communicate it," they whispered, standing before the +dilapidated, withered-looking door. + +Before knocking, they listened, as it is the very wisdom of discretion +to do. There was life inside, a little kind of voice, like some one +trying to hum a song with a very cracked old throat. + +The ladies opened the door. "Ah, my friend!" + +"Ah, my friend!" + +"Restored!" + +"Restored!" + +"At last!" + +"At last!" + +"Just the same!" + +"Exactly the same!" + +It was which one would get to her first with bouquet and kiss, +competition almost crowding friendship. + +"The good news!" + +"The good news!" + +"We could not stay!" + +"We had to come!" + +"It has arrived at last!" + +"At last it has arrived!" + +The old lady was very much older, but still the same. + +"You will again have a chance!" + +"Restored to your friends!" + +"The world!" + +"Your luxuries!" + +"Your comforts!" + +"Comforts! Luxuries!" At last the old lady had an opportunity to slip +in a word. "And friends! You say right." + +There was a pause--a pause which held not a small measure of +embarrassment. But the two visitors, although they were women of the +world, and so dreaded an embarrassment more than they did sin, had +prepared themselves even to stand this. + +The old lady standing there--she was very much thinner, very much +bent, but still the same--appeared to be looking not at them, but at +their enumeration. + +"Comfort!" She opened a pot bubbling on the fire. "Bouillon! A good +five-cent bouillon. Luxury!" She picked up something from a chair, +a handful of new cotton chemises. "Luxury!" She turned back her +bedspread: new cotton sheets. "Did you ever lie in your bed at night +and dream of sheets? Comfort! Luxury! I should say so! And friends! My +dear, look!" Opening her door, pointing to an opposite gallery, to +the yard, her own gallery; to the washing, ironing, sewing women, the +cobbling, chair-making, carpentering men; to the screaming, laughing, +crying, quarreling, swarming children. "Friends! All friends--friends +for fifteen years. Ah, yes, indeed! We are all glad--elated in fact. +As you say. I am restored." + +The visitors simply reported that they had found the old lady, and +that she was imbecile; mind completely gone under stress of poverty +and old age. Their opinion was that she should be interdicted. + + + + +A DELICATE AFFAIR + + +"But what does this extraordinary display of light mean?" ejaculated +my aunt, the moment she entered the parlor from the dining-room. "It +looks like the kingdom of heaven in here! Jules! Jules!" she called, +"come and put out some of the light!" + +Jules was at the front door letting in the usual Wednesday-evening +visitor, but now he came running in immediately with his own invention +in the way of a gas-stick,--a piece of broom-handle notched at the +end,--and began turning one tap after the other, until the room was +reduced to complete darkness. + +"But what do you mean now, Jules?" screamed the old lady again. + +"Pardon, madame," answered Jules, with dignity; "it is an accident. I +thought there was one still lighted." + +"An accident! An accident! Do you think I hire you to perform +accidents for me? You are just through telling me that it was accident +made you give me both soup and gumbo for dinner today." + +"But accidents can always happen, madame," persisted Jules, adhering +to his position. + +The chandelier, a design of originality in its day, gave light by what +purported to be wax candles standing each in a circlet of pendent +crystals. The usual smile of ecstatic admiration spread over Jules's +features as he touched the match to the simulated wicks, and lighted +into life the rainbows in the prisms underneath. It was a smile that +did not heighten the intelligence of his features, revealing as it did +the toothless condition of his gums. + +"What will madame have for her dinner tomorrow," looking benignantly +at his mistress, and still standing under his aureole. + +"Do I ever give orders for one dinner, with the other one still on my +lips?" + +"I only asked madame; there is no harm in asking." He walked away, his +long stiff white apron rattling like a petticoat about him. Catching +sight of the visitor still standing at the threshold: "Oh, madame, +here is Mr. Horace. Shall I let him in?" + +"Idiot! Every Wednesday you ask me that question, and every Wednesday +I answer the same way. Don't you think I could tell you when not to let +him in without your asking?" + +"Oh, well, madame, one never knows; it is always safe to ask." + +The appearance of the gentleman started a fresh subject of excitement. + +"Jules! Jules! You have left that front door unlocked again!" + +"Excuse me," said Mr. Horace; "Jules did not leave the front door +unlocked. It was locked when I rang, and he locked it again most +carefully after letting me in. I have been standing outside all the +while the gas was being extinguished and relighted." + +"Ah, very well, then. And what is the news?" She sank into her +arm-chair, pulled her little card-table closer, and began shuffling +the cards upon it for her game of solitaire. "I never hear any news, +you know. She [nodding toward me] goes out, but she never learns +anything. She is as stupid tonight as an empty bottle." + +After a few passes her hands, which were slightly tremulous, regained +some of their wonted steadiness and brilliancy of movement, and the +cards dropped rapidly on the table. Mr. Horace, as he had got into +the habit of doing, watched her mechanically, rather absent-mindedly +retailing what he imagined would interest her, from his week's +observation and hearsay. And madame's little world revolved, complete +for her, in time, place, and personality. + +It was an old-fashioned square room with long ceiling, and broad, low +windows heavily curtained with stiff silk brocade, faded by time into +mellowness. The tall white-painted mantel carried its obligation of +ornaments well: a gilt clock which under a glass case related some +brilliant poetical idyl, and told the hours only in an insignificant +aside, according to the delicate politeness of bygone French taste; +flanked by duplicate continuations of the same idyl in companion +candelabra, also under glass; Sevres, or imitation Sevres vases, and +a crowd of smaller objects to which age and rarity were slowly +contributing an artistic value. An oval mirror behind threw replicas +of them into another mirror, receiving in exchange the reflected +portrait of madame in her youth, and in the partial nudity in which +innocence was limned in madame's youth. There were besides mirrors on +the other three walls of the room, all hung with such careful intent +for the exercise of their vocation that the apartment, in spots, +extended indefinitely; the brilliant chandelier was thereby +quadrupled, and the furniture and ornaments multiplied everywhere +and most unexpectedly into twins and triplets, producing such +sociabilities among them, and forcing such correspondences between +inanimate objects with such hospitable insistence, that the effect was +full of gaiety and life, although the interchange in reality was the +mere repetition of one original, a kind of phonographic echo. + +The portrait of monsieur, madame's handsome young husband, hung out +of the circle of radiance, in the isolation that, wherever they hang, +always seems to surround the portraits of the dead. + +Old as the parlors appeared, madame antedated them by the sixteen +years she had lived before her marriage, which had been the occasion +of their furnishment. She had traveled a considerable distance over +the sands of time since the epoch commemorated by the portrait. +Indeed, it would require almost documentary evidence to prove that +she, who now was arriving at eighty, was the same Atalanta that had +started out so buoyantly at sixteen. + +Instead of a cap, she wore black lace over her head, pinned with gold +brooches. Her white hair curled naturally over a low forehead. Her +complexion showed care--and powder. Her eyes were still bright, not +with the effete intelligence of old age, but with actual potency. She +wore a loose black sack flowered in purple, and over that a black lace +mantle, fastened with more gold brooches. + +She played her game of solitaire rapidly, impatiently, and always won; +for she never hesitated to cheat to get out of a tight place, or +into a favorable one, cheating with the quickness of a flash, and +forgetting it the moment afterward. + +Mr. Horace was as old as she, but he looked much younger, although +his dress and appearance betrayed no evidence of an effort in that +direction. Whenever his friend cheated, he would invariably call her +attention to it; and as usual she would shrug her shoulders, and say, +"Bah! lose a game for a card!" and pursue the conversation. + +He happened to mention mushrooms--fresh mushrooms. She threw down +her cards before the words were out of his mouth, and began to call, +"Jules! Jules!" Mr. Horace pulled the bell-cord, but madame was +too excitable for that means of communication. She ran into the +antechamber, and put her head over the banisters, calling, "Jules! +Jules!" louder and louder. She might have heard Jules's slippered feet +running from the street into the corridor and up-stairs, had she not +been so deaf. He appeared at the door. + +"But where have you been? Here I have been raising the house a +half-hour, calling you. You have been in the street. I am sure you +have been in the street." + +"Madame is very much mistaken," answered Jules, with resentful +dignity. He had taken off his white apron of waiter, and was +disreputable in all the shabbiness of his attire as cook. "When madame +forbids me to go into the street, I do not go into the street. I was +in the kitchen; I had fallen asleep. What does madame desire?" smiling +benevolently. + +"What is this I hear? Fresh mushrooms in the market!" + +"Eh, madame?" + +"Fresh mushrooms in the market, and you have not brought me any!" + +"Madame, there are fresh mushrooms everywhere in the market," waving +his hand to show their universality. + +"Everybody is eating them--" + +"Old Pomponnette," Jules continued, "only this morning offered me a +plate, piled up high, for ten cents." + +"Idiot! Why did you not buy them?" + +"If madame had said so; but madame did not say so. Madame said, 'Soup, +Jules; carrots, rice,'" counting on his fingers. + +"And the gumbo?" + +"I have explained that that was an accident. Madame said 'Soup,'" +enumerating his menu again; "madame never once said mushrooms." + +"But how could I know there were mushrooms in the market? Do I go to +market?" + +"That is it!" and Jules smiled at the question thus settled. + +"If you had told me there were mushrooms in the market--" pursued +madame, persisting in treating Jules as a reasonable being. + +"Why did not madame ask me? If madame had asked me, surely I would +have told madame. Yesterday Caesar brought them to the door--a whole +bucketful for twenty-five cents. I had to shut the door in his face to +get rid of him," triumphantly. + +"And you brought me yesterday those detestable peas!" + +"Ah," shrugging his shoulders, "madame told me to buy what I saw. I +saw peas. I bought them." + +"Well, understand now, once for all: whenever you see mushrooms, no +matter what I ordered, you buy them. Do you hear?" + +"No, madame. Surely I cannot buy mushrooms unless madame orders them. +Madame's disposition is too quick." + +"But I do order them. Stupid! I do order them. I tell you to buy them +every day." + +"And if there are none in the market every day?" + +"Go away! Get out of my sight! I do not want to see you. Ah, it is +unendurable! I must--I must get rid of him!" This last was not +a threat, as Jules knew only too well. It was merely a habitual +exclamation. + +During the colloquy Mr. Horace, leaning back in his arm-chair, raised +his eyes, and caught the reflected portrait of madame in the mirror +before him--the reflection so much softer and prettier, so much more +ethereal, than the original painting. Indeed, seen in the mirror, that +way, the portrait was as refreshing as the most charming memory. He +pointed to it when madame, with considerable loss of temper, regained +her seat. + +"It is as beautiful as the past," he explained most unnaturally, for +he and his friend had a horror of looking at the long, long past, +which could not fail to remind them of--what no one cares to +contemplate out of church. Making an effort toward some determination +which a subtle observer might have noticed weighing upon him all the +evening, he added: "And, apropos of the past--" + +"_Hein_?" interrogated the old lady, impatiently, still under the +influence of her irascibility about the mushrooms. + +He moved his chair closer, and bent forward, as if his communication +were to be confidential. + +"Ah, bah! Speak louder!" she cried. "One would suppose you had some +secret to tell. What secrets can there be at our age?" She took up her +cards and began to play. There could be no one who bothered herself +less about the forms of politeness. + +"Yes, yes," answered Mr. Horace, throwing himself back into his chair; +"what secrets can there be at our age?" + +The remark seemed a pregnant one to him; he gave himself up to it. One +must evidently be the age of one's thoughts. Mr. Horace's thoughts +revealed him the old man he was. The lines in his face deepened into +wrinkles; his white mustache could not pretend to conceal his mouth, +worsened by the loss of a tooth or two; and the long, thin hand that +propped his head was crossed with blue, distended veins. "At the last +judgment"--it was a favorite quotation with him--"the book of our +conscience will be read aloud before the whole company." + +But the old lady, deep in her game, paid no more heed to his quotation +than to him. He made a gesture toward her portrait. + +"When that was painted, Josephine--" + +Madame threw a glance after the gesture. The time was so long ago, the +mythology of Greece hardly more distant! At eighty the golden age of +youth must indeed appear an evanescent myth. Madame's ideas seemed to +take that direction. + +"Ah, at that time we were all nymphs, and you all demigods." + +"Demigods and nymphs, yes; but there was one among us who was a god +with you all." + +The allusion--a frequent one with Mr. Horace--was to madame's husband, +who in his day, it is said, had indeed played the god in the little +Arcadia of society. She shrugged her shoulders. The truth is so little +of a compliment The old gentleman sighed in an abstracted way, and +madame, although apparently absorbed in her game, lent her ear. It is +safe to say that a woman is never too old to hear a sigh wafted in her +direction. + +"Josephine, do you remember--in your memory--" + +She pretended not to hear. Remember? Who ever heard of her forgetting? +But she was not the woman to say, at a moment's notice, what she +remembered or what she forgot. + +"A woman's memory! When I think of a woman's memory--in fact, I do not +like to think of a woman's memory. One can intrude in imagination into +many places; but a woman's memory--" + +Mr. Horace seemed to lose his thread. It had been said of him in +his youth that he wrote poetry--and it was said against him. It was +evidently such lapses as these that had given rise to the accusation. +And as there was no one less impatient under sentiment or poetry +than madame, her feet began to agitate themselves as if Jules were +perorating some of his culinary inanities before her. + +"And a man's memory!" totally misunderstanding him. "It is not there +that I either would penetrate, my friend. A man--" + +When madame began to talk about men she was prompted by imagination +just as much as was Mr. Horace when he talked about women. But what a +difference in their sentiments! And yet he had received so little, and +she so much, from the subjects of their inspiration. But that seems to +be the way in life--or in imagination. + +"That you should"--he paused with the curious shyness of the old +before the word "love"--"that you two should--marry--seemed natural, +inevitable, at the time." + +Tradition records exactly the same comment by society at the time on +the marriage in question. Society is ever fatalistic in its comments. + +"But the natural--the inevitable--do we not sometimes, I wonder, +perform them as Jules does his accidents?" + +"Ah, do not talk about that idiot! An idiot born and bred! I won't +have him about me! He is a monstrosity! I tell his grandmother that +every day when she comes to comb me. What a farce--what a ridiculous +farce comfortable existence has become with us! Fresh mushrooms in +market, and bring me carrots!" + +The old gentleman, partly from long knowledge of her habit, or from an +equally persistent bend of his own, quietly held on to his idea. + +"One cannot tell. It seems so at the time. We like to think it so; it +makes it easier. And yet, looking back on our future as we once looked +forward to it--" + +"Eh! but who wants to look back on it, my friend? Who in the world +wants to look back on it?" One could not doubt madame's energy of +opinion on that question to hear her voice. "We have done our future, +we have performed it, if you will. Our future! It is like the dinners +we have eaten; of course we cannot remember the good without becoming +exasperated over the bad: but"--shrugging her shoulders--"since we +cannot beat the cooks, we must submit to fate," forcing a queen that +she needed at the critical point of her game. + +"At sixteen and twenty-one it is hard to realize that one is arranging +one's life to last until sixty, seventy, forever," correcting himself +as he thought of his friend, the dead husband. If madame had ever +possessed the art of self-control, it was many a long day since she +had exercised it; now she frankly began to show ennui. + +"When I look back to that time,"--Mr. Horace leaned back in his chair +and half closed his eyes, perhaps to avoid the expression of her +face,--"I see nothing but lights and flowers, I hear nothing but music +and laughter; and all--lights and flowers and music and laughter--seem +to meet in this room, where we met so often to arrange +our--inevitabilities." The word appeared to attract him. +"Josephine,"--with a sudden change of voice and manner,--"Josephine, +how beautiful you were!" + +The old lady nodded her head without looking from her cards. + +"They used to say," with sad conviction of the truth of his +testimony--"the men used to say that your beauty was irresistible. +None ever withstood you. None ever could." + +That, after all, was Mr. Horace's great charm with madame; he was so +faithful to the illusions of his youth. As he looked now at her, one +could almost feel the irresistibility of which he spoke. + +"It was only their excuse, perhaps; we could not tell at the time; we +cannot tell even now when we think about it. They said then, talking +as men talk over such things, that you were the only one who could +remain yourself under the circumstances; you were the only one who +could know, who could will, under the circumstances. It was their +theory; men can have only theories about such things." His voice +dropped, and he seemed to drop too, into some abysm of thought. + +Madame looked into the mirror, where she could see the face of the one +who alone could retain her presence of mind under the circumstances +suggested by Mr. Horace. She could also have seen, had she wished it, +among the reflected bric-a-brac of the mantel, the corner of the frame +that held the picture of her husband, but peradventure, classing it +with the past which held so many unavenged bad dinners, she never +thought to link it even by a look with her emotions of the present. +Indeed, it had been said of her that in past, present, and future +there had ever been but the one picture to interest her eyes--the +one she was looking at now. This, however, was the remark of the +uninitiated, for the true passion of a beautiful woman is never so +much for her beauty as for its booty; as the passion of a gamester is +for his game, not for his luck. + +"How beautiful _she_ was!" + +It was apparently down in the depths of his abysm that he found the +connection between this phrase and his last, and it was evidently to +himself he said it. Madame, however, heard and understood too; in +fact, traced back to a certain period, her thoughts and Mr. Horace's +must have been fed by pretty much the same subjects. But she had +so carefully barricaded certain issues in her memory as almost to +obstruct their flow into her life; if she were a cook, one would +say that it was her bad dinners which she was trying to keep out of +remembrance. + +"You there, he there, she there, I there." He pointed to the places on +the carpet, under the chandelier; he could have touched them with a +walking-stick, and the recollection seemed just as close. + +"She was, in truth, what we men called her then; it was her eyes +that first suggested it--Myosotis, the little blue flower, the +for-get-me-not. It suited her better than her own name. We always +called her that among ourselves. How beautiful she was!" He leaned his +head on his hand and looked where he had seen her last--so long, such +an eternity, ago. + +It must be explained for the benefit of those who do not live in the +little world where an allusion is all that is necessary to put one in +full possession of any drama, domestic or social, that Mr. Horace was +speaking of the wedding-night of madame, when the bridal party stood +as he described under the chandelier; the bride and groom, with each +one's best friend. It may be said that it was the last night or time +that madame had a best friend of her own sex. Social gossip, with +characteristic kindness, had furnished reasons to suit all tastes, why +madame had ceased that night to have a best friend of her own sex. If +gossip had not done so, society would still be left to its imagination +for information, for madame never tolerated the smallest appeal to her +for enlightenment. What the general taste seemed most to relish as a +version was that madame in her marriage had triumphed, not conquered; +and that the night of her wedding she had realized the fact, and, to +be frank, had realized it ever since. In short, madame had played then +to gain at love, as she played now to gain at solitaire; and hearts +were no more than cards to her--and, "Bah! Lose a game for a card!" +must have been always her motto. It is hard to explain it delicately +enough, for these are the most delicate affairs in life; but the image +of Myosotis had passed through monsieur's heart, and Myosotis does +mean "forget me not." And madame well knew that to love monsieur once +was to love him always, in spite of jealousy, doubt, distrust, nay, +unhappiness (for to love him meant all this and more). He was that +kind of man, they said, whom women could love even against conscience. +Madame never forgave that moment. Her friend, at least, she could put +aside out of her intercourse; unfortunately, we cannot put people out +of our lives. God alone can do that, and so far he had interfered in +the matter only by removing monsieur. It was known to notoriety that +since her wedding madame had abandoned, destroyed, all knowledge of +her friend. And the friend? She had disappeared as much as is possible +for one in her position and with her duties. + +"What there is in blue eyes, light hair, and a fragile form to impress +one, I cannot tell; but for us men it seems to me it is blue-eyed, +light-haired, and fragile-formed women that are the hardest to +forget." + +"The less easy to forget," corrected madam. He paid no attention +to the remark. + +"They are the women that attach themselves in one's memory. If +necessary to keep from being forgotten, they come back into one's +dreams. And as life rolls on, one wonders about them,--'Is she happy? +Is she miserable? Goes life well or ill with her?'" + +Madame played her cards slowly, one would say, for her, prosaically. + +"And there is always a pang when, as one is so wondering, the response +comes,--that is, the certainty in one's heart responds,--'She is +miserable, and life goes ill with her.' Then, if ever, men envy the +power of God." + +Madame threw over the game she was in, and began a new one. + +"Such women should not be unhappy; they are too fragile, too +sensitive, too trusting. I could never understand the infliction +of misery upon them. I could send death to them, but not--not +misfortune." + +Madame, forgetting again to cheat in time, and losing her game, began +impatiently to shuffle her cards for a new deal. + +"And yet, do you know, Josephine, those women are the unhappy ones of +life. They seem predestined to it, as others"--looking at madame's +full-charmed portrait--"are predestined to triumph and victory. +They"--unconscious, in his abstraction, of the personal nature of his +simile--"never know how to handle their cards, and they always play a +losing game." + +"Ha!" came from madame, startled into an irate ejaculation. + +"It is their love always that is sacrificed, their hearts always that +are bruised. One might say that God himself favors the black-haired +ones!" + +As his voice sank lower and lower, the room seemed to become stiller +and stiller. A passing vehicle in the street, however, now and then +drew a shiver of sound from the pendent prisms of the chandelier. + +"She was so slight, so fragile, and always in white, with blue in her +hair to match her eyes--and--God knows what in her heart, all the +time. And yet they stand it, they bear it, they do not die, they live +along with the strongest, the happiest, the most fortunate of us," +bitterly; "and"--raising his eyes to his old friend, who thereupon +immediately began to fumble her cards--"whenever in the street I see +a poor, bent, broken woman's figure, I know, without verifying it +any more by a glance, that it is the wreck of a fair woman's figure; +whenever I hear of a bent, broken existence, I know, without asking +any more, that it is the wreck of a fair woman's life." + +Poor Mr. Horace spoke with the unreason of a superstitious bigot. + +"I have often thought, since, in large assemblies, particularly in +weddings, Josephine, of what was going on in the women's hearts there, +and I have felt sorry for them; and when I think of God's knowing what +is in their hearts, I have felt sorry for the men. And I often think +now, Josephine,--think oftener and oftener of it,--that if the +resurrection trumpet of our childhood should sound some day, no matter +when, out there, over the old St. Louis cemetery, and we should all +have to rise from our long rest of oblivion, what would be the first +thing we should do? And though there were a God and a heaven awaiting +us,--by that same God, Josephine, I believe that our first thought in +awakening would be the last in dying,--confession,--and that our first +rush would be to the feet of one another for forgiveness. For there +are some offenses that must outlast the longest oblivion, and a +forgiveness that will be more necessary than God's own. Then our +hearts will be bared to one another; for if, as you say, there are +no secrets at our age, there can still be less cause for them after +death." + +His voice ended in the faintest whisper. The table crashed over, and +the cards flew wide-spread on the floor. Before we could recover, +madame was in the antechamber, screaming for Jules. + +One would have said that, from her face, the old lady had witnessed +the resurrection described by Mr. Horace, the rush of the spirits with +their burdens of remorse, the one to the feet of the other; and she +must have seen herself and her husband, with a unanimity of purpose +never apparent in their short married life, rising from their common +tomb and hastening to that other tomb at the end of the alley, and +falling at the feet of the one to whom in life he had been recreant in +love, she in friendship. + +Of course Jules answered through the wrong door, rushing in with his +gas-stick, and turning off the gas. In a moment we were involved in +darkness and dispute. + +"But what does he mean? What does the idiot mean? He--" It was +impossible for her to find a word to do justice to him and to her +exasperation at the same time. + +"Pardon, madame; it is not I. It is the cathedral bell; it is ringing +nine o'clock." + +"But--" + +"Madame can hear it herself. Listen!" We could not see it, but we were +conscious of the benign, toothless smile spreading over his face as +the bell-tones fell in the room. + +"But it is not the gas. I--" + +"Pardon, madame; but it is the gas. Madame said, 'Jules, put out the +gas every night when the bell rings.' Madame told me that only last +night. The bell rings: I put out the gas." + +"Will you be silent? Will you listen?" + +"If madame wishes; just as madame says." + +But the old lady had turned to Mr. Horace. "Horace, you have seen--you +know--" and it was a question now of overcoming emotion. "I--I--I--a +carriage, my friend, a carriage." + +"Madame--" Jules interrupted his smile to interrupt her. + +She was walking around the room, picking up a shawl here, a lace +there; for she was always prepared against draughts. + +"Madame--" continued Jules, pursuing her. + +"A carriage." + +"If madame would only listen, I was going to say--but madame is too +quick in her disposition--the carriage has been waiting since a long +hour ago. Mr. Horace said to have it there in a half hour." + +It was then she saw for the first time that it had all been prepared +by Mr. Horace. The rest was easy enough: getting into the carriage, +and finding the place of which Mr. Horace had heard, as he said, only +that afternoon. In it, on her bed of illness, poverty, and suffering, +lay the patient, wasted form of the beautiful fair one whom men had +called in her youth Myosotis. + +But she did not call her Myosotis. + +"_Mon Amour!_" The old pet name, although it had to be fetched across +more than half a century of disuse, flashed like lightning from +madame's heart into the dim chamber. + +"_Ma Divine!_" came in counter-flash from the curtained bed. + +In the old days women, or at least young girls, could hazard such pet +names one upon the other. These--think of it!--dated from the first +communion class, the dating period of so much of friendship. + +"My poor Amour!" + +"My poor, poor Divine!" + +The voices were together, close beside the pillow. + +"I--I--" began Divine. + +"It could not have happened if God had not wished it," interrupted +poor Amour, with the resignation that comes, alas! only with the last +drop of the bitter cup. + +And that was about all. If Mr. Horace had not slipped away, he might +have noticed the curious absence of monsieur's name, and of his own +name, in the murmuring that followed. It would have given him some +more ideas on the subject of woman. + +At any rate, the good God must thank him for having one affair the +less to arrange when the trumpet sounds out there over the old St. +Louis cemetery. And he was none too premature; for the old St. Louis +cemetery, as was shortly enough proved, was a near reach for all three +of the old friends. + + + + +PUPASSE + + +Every day, every day, it was the same overture in Madame Joubert's +room in the Institute St. Denis; the strident: + +"Mesdemoiselles; a vos places! Notre Pere qui est dans le ciel--Qui a +fait ce bruit?" + +"It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse!" The answer invariably was +unanimous. + +"But, Madame Joubert,--I assure you, Madame Joubert,--I could not help +it! They know I could not help it!" + +By this time the fresh new fool's cap made from yesterday's "Bee" +would have been pinned on her head. + +"Quelle injustice! Quelle injustice!" + +This last apostrophe in a high, whining nasal voice, always procured +Pupasse's elevation on the tall three-legged stool in the corner. + +It was a theory of the little girls in the primary class that Madame +Joubert would be much more lenient to their own little inevitabilities +of bad conduct and lessons if Pupasse did not invariably comb her +the wrong way every morning after prayers, by dropping something, +or sniffling, or sneezing. Therefore, while they distractedly got +together books, slates, and copy-books, their infantile eyes found +time to dart deadly reproaches toward the corner of penitence, and +their little lips, still shaped from their first nourishment, pouted +anything but sympathy for the occupant of it. + +Indeed, it would have been a most startling unreality to have ever +entered Madame Joubert's room and not seen Pupasse in that corner, on +that stool, her tall figure shooting up like a post, until her tall, +pointed _bonnet d' ane_ came within an inch or two of the ceiling. +It was her hoop-skirt that best testified to her height. It was the +period of those funnel-shaped hoop-skirts that spread out with such +nice mathematical proportions, from the waist down, that it seemed +they must have emanated from the brains of astronomers, like the +orbits, and diameters, and other things belonging to the heavenly +bodies. Pupasse could not have come within three feet of the wall with +her hoop-skirt distended. To have forced matters was not to be thought +of an instant. So even in her greatest grief and indignation, she had +to pause before the three-legged black stool, and gather up steel +after steel of her circumference in her hands behind, until her calico +skirt careened and flattened; and so she could manage to accommodate +herself to the limited space of her punishment, the circles drooping +far over her feet as she stood there, looking like the costumed stick +of a baby's rattle. + +Her thinness continued into her face, which, unfortunately, had +nothing in the way of toilet to assist it. Two little black eyes fixed +in the sides of a mere fence of a nose, and a mouth with the shape and +expression of all mouths made to go over sharp-pointed teeth planted +very far apart; the smallest amount possible of fine, dry, black +hair--a perfect rat-tail when it was plaited in one, as almost all +wore their hair. But sometimes Pupasse took it into her head to plait +it in two braids, as none but the thick-haired ventured to wear it. +As the little girls said, it was a petition to Heaven for "eau +Quinquina." When Marcelite, the hair-dresser, came at her regular +periods to visit the hair of the boarders, she would make an effort +with Pupasse, plaiting her hundred hairs in a ten-strand braid. The +effect was a half yard of black worsted galloon; nothing more, or +better. Had Pupasse possessed as many heads as the hydra, she could +have "coiffe'd" them all with fools' caps during one morning's +recitations. She entirely monopolized the "Daily Bee." Madame Joubert +was forced to borrow from "madame" the stale weekly "Courrier des +Etats-Unis" for the rest of the room. From grammar, through sacred +history, arithmetic, geography, mythology, down to dictation, Pupasse +could pile up an accumulation of penitences that would have tasked the +limits of the current day had not recreation been wisely set as a term +which disbarred, by proscription, previous offenses. But even after +recreation, with that day's lessons safely out, punished and expiated, +Pupasse's doom seemed scarcely lightened; there was still a whole +criminal code of conduct to infract. The only difference was that +instead of books, slates, or copy-books, leathern medals, bearing +various legends and mottos, were hung around her neck--a travestied +decoration worse than the books for humiliation. + +The "abecedaires," their torment for the day over, thankful for any +distraction from the next day's lessons, and eager for any relief +from the intolerable ennui of goodness, were thankful enough now for +Pupasse. They naturally watched her in preference to Madame Joubert, +holding their books and slates quite cunningly to hide their faces. +Pupasse had not only the genius, but that which sometimes fails +genius, the means for grimacing: little eyes, long nose, foolish +mouth, and pointed tongue. And she was so amusing, when Madame +Joubert's head was turned, that the little girls, being young and +innocent, would forget themselves and all burst out laughing. It +sounded like a flight of singing birds through the hot, close, stupid +little room; but not so to Madame Joubert. + +"Young ladies! But what does this mean?" + +And, terror-stricken, the innocents would call out with one voice, +"It's Pupasse, madame! It's Pupasse who made us laugh!" There was +nothing but fools' caps to be gained by prevaricating, and there was +frequently nothing less gained by confession. And oh, the wails and +the sobs as the innocents would be stood up, one by one, in their +places! Even the pigtails at the backs of their little heads were +convulsed with grief. Oh, how they hated Pupasse then! When their +_bonnes_ came for them at three o'clock,--washing their tear-stained +faces at the cistern before daring to take them through the +streets,--how passionately they would cry out, the tears breaking +afresh into the wet handkerchiefs: + +"It's that Pupasse! It's that _vilaine_ Pupasse!" + +To Pupasse herself would be meted out that "peine forte et dure," that +acme of humiliation and disgrace, so intensely horrible that many a +little girl in that room solemnly averred and believed she would kill +herself before submitting to it. Pupasse's voluminous calico skirt +would be gathered up by the hem and tied up over her head! Oh, the +horrible monstrosity on the stool in the corner then! There were no +eyes in that room that had any desire to look upon it. And the cries +and the "Quelle injustice!" that fell on the ears then from the hidden +feelings had all the weirdness of the unseen, but heard. And all the +other girls in the room, in fear and trembling, would begin to move +their lips in a perfect whirlwind of study, or write violently +on their slates, or begin at that very instant to rule off their +copy-books for the next day's verb. + +Pupasse--her name was Marie Pupasse but no one thought of calling +her anything but Pupasse, with emphasis on the first syllable and +sibilance on the last--had no parents only a grandmother, to describe +whom, all that is necessary to say is that she was as short as Pupasse +was tall, and that her face resembled nothing so much as a little +yellow apple shriveling from decay. The old lady came but once a week, +to fetch Pupasse fresh clothes, and a great brown paper bag of nice +things to eat. There was no boarder in the school who received +handsomer bags of cake and fruit than Pupasse. And although, not two +hours before, a girl might have been foremost in the shrill cry, "It +is Pupasse who made the noise! It is Pupasse who made me laugh!" there +was nothing in that paper bag reserved even from such a one. When the +girl herself with native delicacy would, under the circumstances, +judge it discreet to refuse, Pupasse would plead, "Oh, but take it to +give me pleasure!" And if still the refusal continued, Pupasse would +take her bag and go into the summer-house in the corner of the garden, +and cry until the unforgiving one would relent. But the first offering +of the bag was invariably to the stern dispenser of fools' caps and +the unnamed humiliation of the reversed skirt: Madame Joubert. + +Pupasse was in the fifth class. The sixth--the abecedaires--was +the lowest in the school. Green was the color of the fifth; +white--innocence--of the abecedaires. Exhibition after exhibition, the +same green sash and green ribbons appeared on Pupasse's white muslin, +the white muslin getting longer and longer every year, trying to keep +up with her phenomenal growth; and always, from all over the room, +buzzed the audience's suppressed merriment at Pupasse's appearance +in the ranks of the little ones of nine and ten. It was that very +merriment that brought about the greatest change in the Institute +St. Denis. The sitting order of the classes was reversed. The first +class--the graduates--went up to the top step of the _estrade_; and +the little ones put on the lowest, behind the pianos. The graduates +grumbled that it was not _comme il faut_ to have young ladies of their +position stepping like camels up and down those great steps; and the +little girls said it was a shame to hide them behind the pianos after +their mamas had taken so much pains to make them look pretty. But +madame said--going also to natural history for her comparison--that +one must be a rhinoceros to continue the former routine. + +Religion cannot be kept waiting forever on the intelligence. It was +always in the fourth class that the first communion was made; that is, +when the girls stayed one year in each class. But Pupasse had spent +three years in the sixth class, and had already been four in +the fifth, and Madame Joubert felt that longer delay would be +disrespectful to the good Lord. It was true that Pupasse could not +yet distinguish the ten commandments from the seven capital sins, and +still would answer that Jeanne d'Arc was the foundress of the "Little +Sisters of the Poor." But, as Madame Joubert always said in the little +address she made to the catechism class every year before handing it +over to Father Dolomier, God judged from the heart, and not from the +mind. + +Father Dolomier--from his face he would have been an able contestant +of _bonnets d'ane_ with Pupasse, if subjected to Madame Joubert's +discipline--evidently had the same method of judging as God, although +the catechism class said they could dance a waltz on the end of his +long nose without his perceiving it. + +There is always a little air of mystery about the first communion: not +that there is any in reality, but the little ones assume it to render +themselves important. The going to early mass, the holding their +dog-eared catechisms as if they were relics, the instruction from the +priest, even if he were only old Father Dolomier--it all put such a +little air of devotion into their faces that it imposed (as it did +every year) upon their companions, which was a vastly gratifying +effect. No matter how young and innocent she may be, a woman's +devotion always seems to have two aims--God and her own sex. + +The week of retreat came. Oh, the week of retreat! That was the _bonne +bouche_ of it all, for themselves and for the others. It was the same +every year. By the time the week of retreat arrived, interest and +mystery had been frothed to the point of indiscretion; so that the +little girls would stand on tiptoe to peep through the shutters at the +postulants inside, and even the larger girls, to whom first communion +was a thing of an infantile past, would condescend to listen to their +reports with ill-feigned indifference. + +As the day of the first communion neared, the day of the general +confession naturally neared too, leading it. And then the little +girls, peeping through the shutters, and holding their breath to see +better, saw what they beheld every year; but it was always new and +awesome--mysterious scribbling in corners with lead-pencils on scraps +of paper; consultations; rewritings; copyings; the list of their sins, +of all the sins of their lives. + +"_Ma chere!_"--pigtails and sunbonnets hiving outside would shudder. +"Oh, _Mon Dieu!_ To have to confess all--but _all_ your sins! As for +me, it would kill me, sure!" + +And the frightful recoils of their consciences would make all +instantly blanch and cross themselves. + +"And look at Pupasse's sins! Oh, but they are long! _Ma chere_, but +look! But look, I ask you, at them!" + +The longest record was of course the most complimentary and honorable +to the possessor, as each girl naturally worked not only for +absolution but for fame. + +Between catechisms and instructions Madame Joubert would have "La Vie +des Saints" read aloud, to stimulate their piety and to engage their +thoughts; for the thoughts of first communicants are worse than flies +for buzzing around the forbidden. The lecture must have been a great +quickener of conscience; for they would dare punishment and cheat +Madame Joubert, under her own eyes, in order surreptitiously to add a +new sin to their list. Of course the one hour's recreation could not +afford time enough for observation now, and the little girls were +driven to all sorts of excuses to get out of the classroom for one +moment's peep through the shutters; at which whole swarms of them +would sometimes be caught and sent into punishment. + +Only two days more. Madame Joubert put them through the rehearsal, +a most important part of the preparation, almost as important as +catechism--how to enter the church, how to hold the candle, how to +advance, how to kneel, retire--everything, in fact. + +Only one day more, the quietest, most devotional day of all. Pupasse +lost her sins! + +Of course every year the same accident happened to some one. But it +was a new accident to Pupasse. And such a long list! + +The commotion inside that retreat! Pupasse's nasal whine, carrying her +lament without any mystery to the outside garden. Such searching of +pockets, rummaging of corners, microscopic examination of the floor! +Such crimination and recrimination, protestation, asseveration, +assurances, backed by divine and saintly invocations! Pupasse accused +companion after companion of filching her sins, which each after +each would violently deny, producing each her own list from her own +pocket,--proof to conviction of innocence, and, we may say, of guilt +also. + +Pupasse declared they had niched it to copy, because her list was the +longest and most complete. She could not go to confession without her +sins; she could not go to communion without confession. The tears +rolled down her long thin nose unchecked, for she never could remember +to use her handkerchief until reminded by Madame Joubert. + +She had committed it to memory, as all the others had done theirs; +but how was she to know without the list if she had not forgotten +something? And to forget one thing in a general confession they knew +was a mortal sin. + +"I shall tell Madame Joubert! I shall tell Madame Joubert!" + +"_Ma chere_!'" whispered the little ones outside. "Oh, but look at +them! _Elles font les quatre cents coups_!" which is equivalent to +"cutting up like the mischief." + +And with reason. As if such an influx of the world upon them at this +moment were not sufficient of itself to damn them. But to tell Madame +Joubert! With all their dresses made and ready, wreaths, veils, +candles, prayer-books, picture-cards, mother-of-pearl prayer-beads, +and festival breakfasts with admiring family and friends prepared. +Tell Madame Joubert! She would simply cancel it all. In a body they +chorused: + +"But, Pupasse!" + +"_Chere_ Pupasse!" + +"_Voyons_, Pupasse!" + +"I assure you, Pupasse!" + +"On the cross, Pupasse!" + +"Ah, Pupasse!" + +"We implore you, Pupasse!" + +The only response--tears, and "I shall tell Madame Joubert." + +Consultations, caucuses, individual appeals, general outbursts. +Pupasse stood in the corner. Curiously, she always sought refuge in +the very sanctum of punishment, her face hidden in her bended arms, +her hoops standing out behind, vouchsafing nothing but tears, and the +promise to tell Madame Joubert. And three o'clock approaching! And +Madame Joubert imminent! But Pupasse really could not go to confession +without her sins. They all recognized that; they were reasonable, as +they assured her. + +A crisis quickens the wits. They heard the cathedral clock strike the +quarter to three. They whispered, suggested, argued--bunched in the +farthest corner from Pupasse. + +"Console yourself, Pupasse! We will help you, Pupasse! Say no more +about it! We will help you!" + +A delegate was sent to say that. She was only four feet and a half +high, and had to stand on tiptoe to pluck the six-foot Pupasse's dress +to gain her attention. + +And they did help her generously. A new sheet of fool's-cap was +procured, and torn in two, lengthwise, and pinned in a long strip. One +by one, each little girl took it, and, retiring as far as possible, +would put her hand into her pocket, and, extracting her list, would +copy it in full on the new paper. Then she would fold it down, and +give it to the next one, until all had written. + +"Here, Pupasse; here are all our sins. We give them to you; you can +have them." + +Pupasse was radiant; she was more than delighted, and the more she +read the better pleased she was. Such a handsome long list, and so +many sins she had never thought of--never dreamed of! She set herself +with zeal to commit them to memory. But a hand on the door--Madame +Joubert! You never could have told that those little girls had not +been sitting during the whole time, with their hands clasped and eyes +cast up to the ceiling, or moving their lips as the prayer-beads +glided through their fingers. Their versatility was really marvelous. + +[Illustration: THE FIRST COMMUNION.] + +Poor Pupasse! God solved the dilemma of her education, and madame's +increasing sensitiveness about her appearance in the fifth class, by +the death of the old grandmother. She went home to the funeral, and +never returned--or at least she returned, but only for madame. There +was a little scene in the parlor: Pupasse, all dressed in black, with +her bag of primary books in her hand, ready and eager to get back to +her classes and fools' caps; madame, hesitating between her interests +and her fear of ridicule; Madame Joubert, between her loyalty to +school and her conscience. Pupasse the only one free and untrammeled, +simple and direct. + +That little school parlor had been the stage for so many scenes! +Madame Joubert detested acting--the comedy, as she called it. There +was nothing she punished with more pleasure up in her room. And +yet-- + +"Pupasse, _ma fille_, give me your grammar." + +The old battered, primitive book was gotten out of the bag, the string +still tied between the leaves for convenience in hanging around the +neck. + +"Your last punishment: the rule for irregular verbs. Commence!" + +"I know it, Madame Joubert; I know it perfectly, I assure you." + +"Commence!" + +"Irregular verbs--but I assure you I know it--I know it by heart--" + +"Commence, _ma fille!_" + +"Irregular verbs--irregular verbs--I know it, Madame Joubert--one +moment--" and she shook her right hand, as girls do to get +inspiration, they say. "Irregular verbs--give me one word, Madame +Joubert; only one word!" + +"That--" + +"Irregular verbs, that--irregular verbs, that--" + +"See here, Pupasse; you do not know that lesson any more than a cat +does"--Madame Joubert's favorite comparison. + +"Yes, I do, Madame Joubert! Yes, I do!" + +"Silence!" + +"But, Madame Joubert--" + +"Will you be silent!" + +"Yes, Madame Joubert; only--" + +"Pupasse, one more word--and--" Madame Joubert was forgetting her +comedy--"Listen, Pupasse, and obey! You go home and learn that lesson. +When you know it, you can reenter your class. That is the punishment I +have thought of to correct your 'want of attention.'" + +That was the way Madame Joubert put it--"want of attention." + +Pupasse looked at her--at madame, a silent but potent spectator. To +be sent from home because she did not know the rule of the irregular +verbs! To be sent from home, family, friends!--for that was the +way Pupasse put it. She had been in that school--it may only be +whispered--fifteen years. Madame Joubert knew it; so did madame, +although they accounted for only four or five years in each class. +That school was her home; Madame Joubert--God help her!--her mother; +madame, her divinity; fools' caps and turned-up skirts, her life. +The old grandmother--she it was who had done everything for her (a +_ci-devant_ rag-picker, they say); she it was who was nothing to her. + +Madame must have felt something of it besides the loss of the +handsome salary for years from the little old withered woman. +But conventionality is inexorable; and the St. Denis's great +recommendation was its conventionality. Madame Joubert must have felt +something of it,--she must have felt something of it,--for why should +she volunteer? Certainly madame could not have imposed _that_ upon +_her. It must_ have been an inspiration of the moment, or a movement, +a _tressaillement_, of the heart. + +"Listen, Pupasse, my child. Go home, study your lesson well. I shall +come every evening myself and hear it; and as soon as you know it, I +shall fetch you back myself. You know I always keep my word." + +Keep her word! That she did. Could the inanimate past testify, what a +fluttering of fools' caps in that parlor--"Daily Bees," and "Weekly +Couriers," by the year-full! + +What could Pupasse say or do? It settled the question, as Madame +Joubert assured madame, when the tall, thin black figure with the bag +of books disappeared through the gate. + +Madame Joubert was never known to break her word; that is all one +knows about her part of the bargain. + +One day, not three years ago, ringing a bell to inquire for a servant, +a familiar murmuring fell upon the ear, and an old abecedaire's eyes +could not resist the temptation to look through the shutters. There +sat Pupasse; there was her old grammar; there were both fingers +stopping her ears--as all studious girls do, or used to do; and there +sounded the old words composing the rule for irregular verbs. + +And you all remember how long it is since we wore funnel-shaped +hoop-skirts! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Balcony Stories, by Grace E. 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