Crowded Out! and Other Sketches | Page 9

beautiful Madonna and child confronted me at the door. The next moment I saw what I had not expected to see--a parrot in a cage suspended from the window! I made quite sure that it was not the parrot before I went up to it. It was asleep and appeared to be all over of a dull grey color, to match the Nuns, one might have said. I stood for quite a little while regarding it. Suddenly it stirred, shook itself, awoke and seeing me, immediately broke out into frantic shrieks to the old refrain "And for goodness sake don't say I told you."
So it was the parrot after all! Of that I felt sure, despite the changed color, not only because of the same words being repeated--two birds might easily learn the same song, but because of the bird's manner. For I felt certain that the thing knew me, recognized me, as we say of human beings or of dogs and horses. I felt an extraordinary sensation coming over me and sat down for a moment. I seemed literally to be in the presence of something incomprehensible as I watched the poor excited bird beating about and singing in that way. The words of the song became painfully and awfully significant-- "for goodness sake don't say I told you!" They were an appeal to my pity, to my sense of honor, to my power of secrecy, for I felt convinced that the bird had seen something--in fact that, to use De Kock's convenient if ambiguous phrase, something had happened! Then to think of its recognizing me too, after so long an interval! What an extraordinary thing to do! But I remembered, and hope I shall never forget, how exceeding small do the mills of the gods grind for poor humanity. I would have examined the creature at once more closely had not two of the nuns appeared with pious hands lifted in horror at the noise. They knew me slightly but affected displeasure at the present moment.
"Who owns this bird?" said I. It was still screaming.
"The good Sister F��licit��. It is her room."
"Can I see her?"
"Ah! non. She is ill, so very ill. She will not live long, cette pauvre soeur!"
I reflected. "Will you give her this paper without fail when I have written upon it what I wish?"
"_Mais oui, Monsieur_!"
In the presence of the two holy women standing with their hands devoutly crossed, and of the parrot whom I silenced as well as I could, and in truth I appeared to have some influence over the creature, I wrote the following upon a leaf torn out of my scratch-book: "To the Soeur F��licit��. A gentleman who, if he has not made a great mistake, saw you once when you were Mdme. Martinetti, asks you now if in what may be your last moments, you have anything to tell, anything to declare, or anybody to pardon. He would also ask-- what _was done to the parrot_? He, with his friend M. De Kock, were at your house in New York the night your husband disappeared."
"Give her that," said I to the waiting sister, "and I will come to see how she is to-morrow."
That night, however, she died, and when I reached the nunnery next day it was only to be told that she had read my note and with infinite difficulty written an answer to it.
"I am sorry I should have perhaps hastened her end," said I. "Before you give it to me, will you permit me to see her?"
"_Mais oui, Monsieur_, if monsieur will come this way."
Until I gazed upon the dead I did not feel quite sure of the identity of this pious Sister of Charity. But I only needed to look once upon the ghastly pallor, the ugly lip mark and the long slender figure on the bed before me to recognize her who had once been Mdme. Martinetti.
"And now for the paper," I said.
"It will be in the room that was hers, if monsieur will accompany." We walked along several corridors till we reached the room in which hung the parrot, I quite expected it to fly at me again and try to get rid of its miserable secret But no! It sat on its stick, perfectly quiet and rational.
"I cannot find dat paper, it is very strange!" muttered the good sister, turning everything over and over. A light wind playing about the room had perhaps blown it into some corner. I assisted her in the search.
"It surely was in an envelope?" I said to the innocent woman.
"Yes monsieur, yes, and with a seal, for I got the _cire_--you call it _wax_--myself and held it for her, la bonne soeur."
"It is not always wise to leave such letters about," I put in as meekly as