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.