Balcony Stories | Page 2

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