Balcony Stories | Page 8

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, passion��ment, 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. _Passion��ment_ 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.
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"'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