Chapter 9

There is always a little air of mystery about the first communion: not that there is any in reality, but the little ones assume it to render themselves important. The going to early mass, 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--God and her own sex.

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 scraps of paper; consultations; rewritings; copyings; the list of their sins, of all the sins of their lives.

"_Ma chère!_"--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 Pupasse's sins! Oh, but they are long! _Ma chère_, 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 surreptitiously 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 classroom 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. Pupasse lost her sins!

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

The commotion inside that retreat! Pupasse'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, asseveration, assurances, backed by divine and saintly invocations! Pupasse 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.

Pupasse 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 chère_!'" 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 damn 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, Pupasse!"

"_Chère_ Pupasse!"

"_Voyons_, Pupasse!"

"I assure you, Pupasse!"

"On the cross, Pupasse!"

"Ah, Pupasse!"

"We implore you, Pupasse!"

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

Consultations, caucuses, individual appeals, general outbursts. Pupasse 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 Pupasse really could not go to confession without her sins. They all recognized that; they were reasonable, as they assured 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 Pupasse.

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

Pupasse 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.

Poor Pupasse! God solved the dilemma of her education, and madame's increasing sensitiveness about her appearance in the fifth class, by the death of the old grandmother. She went home to the funeral, and never returned--or at least she returned, but only for madame. There was a little scene in the parlor: Pupasse, all dressed in black, with her bag of primary books in her hand, ready and eager to get back to her classes and fools' caps; madame, hesitating between her interests and her fear of ridicule; Madame Joubert, between her loyalty to school and her conscience. Pupasse the only one free and untrammeled, simple and direct.

That little school parlor had been the stage for so many scenes! Madame Joubert detested acting--the comedy, as she called it. There was nothing she punished with more pleasure up in her room. And yet--

"Pupasse, _ma fille_, give me your grammar."

The old battered, primitive book was gotten out of the bag, the string still tied between the leaves for convenience in hanging around the neck.

"Your last punishment: the rule for irregular verbs. Commence!"

"I know it, Madame Joubert; I know it perfectly, I assure you."

"Commence!"

"Irregular verbs--but I assure you I know it--I know it by heart--"

"Commence, _ma fille!_"

"Irregular verbs--irregular verbs--I know it, Madame Joubert--one moment--" and she shook her right hand, as girls do to get inspiration, they say. "Irregular verbs--give me one word, Madame Joubert; only one word!"

"That--"

"Irregular verbs, that--irregular verbs, that--"

"See here, Pupasse; you do not know that lesson any more than a cat does"--Madame Joubert's favorite comparison.

"Yes, I do, Madame Joubert! Yes, I do!"

"Silence!"

"But, Madame Joubert--"

"Will you be silent!"

"Yes, Madame Joubert; only--"

"Pupasse, one more word--and--" Madame Joubert was forgetting her comedy--"Listen, Pupasse, and obey! You go home and learn that lesson. When you know it, you can reënter your class. That is the punishment I have thought of to correct your 'want of attention.'"

That was the way Madame Joubert put it--"want of attention."

Pupasse looked at her--at madame, a silent but potent spectator. To be sent from home because she did not know the rule of the irregular verbs! To be sent from home, family, friends!--for that was the way Pupasse put it. She had been in that school--it may only be whispered--fifteen years. Madame Joubert knew it; so did madame, although they accounted for only four or five years in each class. That school was her home; Madame Joubert--God help her!--her mother; madame, her divinity; fools' caps and turned-up skirts, her life. The old grandmother--she it was who had done everything for her (a _ci-devant_ rag-picker, they say); she it was who was nothing to her.

Madame must have felt something of it besides the loss of the handsome salary for years from the little old withered woman. But conventionality is inexorable; and the St. Denis's great recommendation was its conventionality. Madame Joubert must have felt something of it,--she must have felt something of it,--for why should she volunteer? Certainly madame could not have imposed _that_ upon _her. It must_ have been an inspiration of the moment, or a movement, a _tressaillement_, of the heart.

"Listen, Pupasse, my child. Go home, study your lesson well. I shall come every evening myself and hear it; and as soon as you know it, I shall fetch you back myself. You know I always keep my word."

Keep her word! That she did. Could the inanimate past testify, what a fluttering of fools' caps in that parlor--"Daily Bees," and "Weekly Couriers," by the year-full!

What could Pupasse say or do? It settled the question, as Madame Joubert assured madame, when the tall, thin black figure with the bag of books disappeared through the gate.

Madame Joubert was never known to break her word; that is all one knows about her part of the bargain.

One day, not three years ago, ringing a bell to inquire for a servant, a familiar murmuring fell upon the ear, and an old abécédaire's eyes could not resist the temptation to look through the shutters. There sat Pupasse; there was her old grammar; there were both fingers stopping her ears--as all studious girls do, or used to do; and there sounded the old words composing the rule for irregular verbs.

And you all remember how long it is since we wore funnel-shaped hoop-skirts!