Balcony Stories Part 11

would have been pinned on her head.

"Quelle injustice! Quelle injustice!"

This last apostrophe in a high, whining nasal voice, always procured Pupa.s.se's elevation on the tall three-legged stool in the corner.

It was a theory of the little girls in the primary cla.s.s that Madame Joubert would be much more lenient to their own little inevitabilities of bad conduct and lessons if Pupa.s.se 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 Pupa.s.se 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. Pupa.s.se 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 circ.u.mference in her hands behind, until her calico skirt careened and flattened; and so she could manage to accommodate herself to the limited s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sist 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 Pupa.s.se 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 pet.i.tion 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 Pupa.s.se, plaiting her hundred hairs in a ten-strand braid. The effect was a half yard of black worsted galloon; nothing more, or better. Had Pupa.s.se 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, Pupa.s.se could pile up an acc.u.mulation 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, Pupa.s.se'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 Pupa.s.se. They naturally watched her in preference to Madame Joubert, holding their books and slates quite cunningly to hide their faces.

Pupa.s.se 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 Pupa.s.se, madame! It's Pupa.s.se 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 Pupa.s.se 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 pa.s.sionately they would cry out, the tears breaking afresh into the wet handkerchiefs:

"It's that Pupa.s.se! It's that _vilaine_ Pupa.s.se!"

To Pupa.s.se 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. Pupa.s.se'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.

Pupa.s.se--her name was Marie Pupa.s.se but no one thought of calling her anything but Pupa.s.se, 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 Pupa.s.se 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 Pupa.s.se 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 Pupa.s.se. And although, not two hours before, a girl might have been foremost in the shrill cry, "It is Pupa.s.se who made the noise! It is Pupa.s.se 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 circ.u.mstances, judge it discreet to refuse, Pupa.s.se would plead, "Oh, but take it to give me pleasure!" And if still the refusal continued, Pupa.s.se 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.

Pupa.s.se was in the fifth cla.s.s. 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 Pupa.s.se'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 Pupa.s.se'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 Inst.i.tute St. Denis. The sitting order of the cla.s.ses was reversed. The first cla.s.s--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 cla.s.s that the first communion was made; that is, when the girls stayed one year in each cla.s.s. But Pupa.s.se had spent three years in the sixth cla.s.s, 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 Pupa.s.se 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 cla.s.s every year before handing it over to Father Dolomier, G.o.d 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 Pupa.s.se, if subjected to Madame Joubert's discipline--evidently had the same method of judging as G.o.d, although the catechism cla.s.s 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 a.s.sume it to render themselves important. The going to early ma.s.s, 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--G.o.d and her own s.e.x.

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 sc.r.a.ps 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 Pupa.s.se'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 surrept.i.tiously 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 cla.s.sroom 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. Pupa.s.se lost her sins!

Of course every year the same accident happened to some one. But it was a new accident to Pupa.s.se. And such a long list!

The commotion inside that retreat! Pupa.s.se'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, a.s.severation, a.s.surances, backed by divine and saintly invocations! Pupa.s.se 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.

Pupa.s.se 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 d.a.m.n 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, Pupa.s.se!"

"_Chere_ Pupa.s.se!"

"_Voyons_, Pupa.s.se!"

"I a.s.sure you, Pupa.s.se!"

"On the cross, Pupa.s.se!"

"Ah, Pupa.s.se!"

"We implore you, Pupa.s.se!"

The only response--tears, and "I shall tell Madame Joubert."

Consultations, caucuses, individual appeals, general outbursts.

Pupa.s.se 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 Pupa.s.se really could not go to confession without her sins. They all recognized that; they were reasonable, as they a.s.sured 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 Pupa.s.se.

"Console yourself, Pupa.s.se! We will help you, Pupa.s.se! 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 Pupa.s.se'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, Pupa.s.se; here are all our sins. We give them to you; you can have them."

Pupa.s.se 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.