Balcony Stories Part 10

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 G.o.d."

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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"It is their love always that is sacrificed, their hearts always that are bruised. One might say that G.o.d himself favors the black-haired ones!"

As his voice sank lower and lower, the room seemed to become stiller and stiller. A pa.s.sing vehicle in the street, however, now and then drew a s.h.i.+ver 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--G.o.d 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 superst.i.tious bigot.

"I have often thought, since, in large a.s.semblies, 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d and a heaven awaiting us,--by that same G.o.d, 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 G.o.d'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 friends.h.i.+p.

Of course Jules answered through the wrong door, rus.h.i.+ng 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 cla.s.s, the dating period of so much of friends.h.i.+p.

"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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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.

PUPa.s.sE

Every day, every day, it was the same overture in Madame Joubert's room in the Inst.i.tute St. Denis; the strident:

"Mesdemoiselles; a vos places! Notre Pere qui est dans le ciel--Qui a fait ce bruit?"

"It's Pupa.s.se, madame! It's Pupa.s.se!" The answer invariably was unanimous.

"But, Madame Joubert,--I a.s.sure 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"