The fortunes of Fifi

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“And yourself, Holy Father?” asked Fifi.

“Ah, I was very unlike Barnabas. I was but an ordinary-looking boy, and I often fell asleep while I was sitting by the priest during the sermon, and in full view of the congregation. We had a worthy old priest, who would let me sleep during the sermon, but would pinch me smartly to wake me up when it was over and it was time again to go on the altar. So I devised a way to keep myself awake. I hid a picture book in the sleeve of my cassock, and during the sermon, while the priest who was on the altar had his eyes fixed on the one who was preaching in the pulpit, I slipped out my picture book, and began to look at it stealthily,—but not so stealthily that the priest did not see me, and, quietly reaching over, took it out of my hand and put it in the pocket of his cassock. I plotted revenge, however. Presently, when the priest went up on the altar and is forbidden to leave it, he turned and motioned to me for the water, which it was my duty to have ready. I whispered to him, ‘Give me my picture book, and I will give you the water.’ Of course, he had to give me the picture book, and then I gave him the water. He did not tell my parents on me, wherein he failed in his duty; but he gave me, after mass, a couple of sound slaps—and I played no more tricks on him.”

“Holy Father, you must have been a flesh-and-blood boy,” said Fifi, softly.

The Holy Father laughed—a fresh, youthful laugh, like his voice.

“Formerly I judged myself harshly. Now I know that, though I was not a very good boy, I was not a bad boy. I was not so good a boy as Barnabas. He had no vocation for the priesthood; but in my eighteenth year the wish to be a priest awoke in me. And the hardest of all the separations which my vocation entailed was the parting with Barnabas. He went to Piacenza and became an advocate. He married and died within a year, leaving a young widow and one child—your father. They were well provided for, and the mother’s family took charge of the widow and of the child. But the widow, too, soon died, and only your father was left. I often wished to see him, and my heart yearned like a father’s over him, but I was a poor parish priest, far away from him, and could hear nothing from him. Then in the disorders that followed the French Revolution one lost sight of all that one had ever known and loved. I caused diligent inquiry to be made—I was a bishop then, and could have helped Barnabas’ son—but I could not find a trace of him. He, like Barnabas, had married and died young, leaving an only child—yourself—and, I knew it not! The great whirlpool of the Revolution seemed to swallow up everything. But on the night of my arrival in Paris, as we passed slowly along that narrow street, and I saw your face peering into my carriage, it was as if my Barnabas had come back to me. You are more like him than I believed any child could be like its father. So, when I heard, through the agency of the Emperor, that a young relative of mine, by name Chiaramonti, was in Paris, earning her living, I felt sure it was the young girl who looked into my carriage that night.”

“But I am not earning my living now, Holy Father.”

“So I hear. You have had strange good fortune—good fortune in having done honest work in your poverty, and good fortune in being under the charge of the excellent and respectable Madame Bourcet, since there was no need for you to work.”

“But—” Here Fifi paused and struggled for a moment with herself, then burst out: “I was happier, far, when I was earning my living. The theater was small, and ill lighted, and my wages were barely enough to live upon, and I often was without a fire; but at least I had Cartouche and Toto.”

“And who are Cartouche and Toto?” asked the Holy Father, mildly.

Then Fifi told the story of Cartouche; how brave he was at the bridge of Lodi; how he had befriended her, and stood between her and harm; and, strange to say, the Pope appeared not the least shocked at things that would have paralyzed Madame Bourcet and Louis Bourcet. Fifi told him all about the thirty francs she had saved up for the cloak, and the spending it in buying Toto, and the Holy Father laughed outright. He asked many questions about the theater, and the life of the people there, and agreed with Fifi when she said sagely: