Honorine

“ Yes, dear, my affection is neither mean nor grasping; it is one of those which will never let any annoyance last long enough to pucker the brow of the child it worships. What can you think of the companion of your childhood, Honorine, if you believe him capable of accepting kisses given in trembling, of living between delight and anxiety? Do not fear that you will be exposed to the laments of a suppliant passion ”

“ I have made inquiries, and understand that her conduct is good.”
“That is more than can be said of all the village girls of her age,” added the dowager duchess.
“That is only too true,” said the Duke. “The peasant classes are growing more and more demoralized. I will tell you of some terrible instances, General, but as for little Honorine, she is innocence itself.”
While the foregoing conversation was being held on the threshold of the church, Honorine had rejoined Isidore in the copses of La Guerche. ”

“ Love must have its daily food. And ought I not to protect this child, whose guilt was the outcome of my imprudence, against fresh disaster—to fulfil my part, in short, as a guardian angel?—At the age of seven months her infant died, happily for her and for me. For nine months more my wife lay between life and death, deserted at the time when she most needed a manly arm; but this arm,’ said he, holding out his own with a gesture of angelic dignity, ‘was extended over her head. Honorine was nursed as she would have been in her own home. ”

“ I call our shepherdess Honorine even though perhaps not infallibly naming the sociable soubrette who might, with all her gay bold confidence, have been an official inspectress in person, and to whose easy care or, more particularly, expert sensibility and candour of sympathy and curiosity, our flock was freely confided. If she wasn't Honorine she was Clémentine or Augustine—which is a trifle ”

“ Honorine inspired devotion, chivalrous devotion, regardless of reward. A man on seeing her must say to himself:
"'Think, and I will divine your thought; speak, and I will obey. If my life, sacrificed in torments, can procure you one day's happiness, take my life, I will smile like a martyr at the stake, for I shall offer that day to God, as a token to which a father responds on recognizing a gift to his child.' Many women study their expression, and succeed in producing effects similar to those which would have struck you at first sight of the Countess ”

“ Honorine, whom nothing ever restrained when once she took a fancy into her head, having one day found the park-gate open, thought it would be very pleasant to go and walk upon the high road. Eudoxia was alone with her at the time, and feeling how improper it was to act in this manner, she entreated her to return. Perceiving some one approaching, and trembling lest Honorine should be noticed, she ventured, in order to call her back, to pass the threshold of the gate herself, and standing quite close to the railing, she exclaimed,
"Honorine, my dear Honorine, come back! ”

“ Yet some lingering sense of allegiance to the last great family that gave rulers to the empire perpetuated their names in the countries where they had reigned; and the Welsh Ynyr long remained as a relic of Honorius, in Wales. Honorine was a Neustrian maiden, slain in a Danish invasion, and regarded as a martyr; so that Honorine prevails in France and Germany, and one of the favourite modern Irish names, is Onora, Honor, or in common usage, Norah.
Russia has the masculine as Gonorij; Lithuania, the feminine cut down into Arri. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Droll enough, as I win them again, these queer dim plays of consciousness: my sense that my innocent companions, Honorine en tête, would have done anything or everything for the richest ruby, and that though one couldn't one's self be decently dead to that richness one didn't at all know what "anything" might be or in the least what "everything" was. The gushing cousins, at the same time, assuredly knew still less of that, and Honorine's brave gloss of a whole range alike of possibilities and actualities was in itself a true social grace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Honorine started like a frightened doe, sprang to a few paces off, walked down the garden, turned about, remained standing for some minutes, and finally went in to sit alone in the drawing-room, where I joined her, after giving her time to get accustomed to the pain of this poniard thrust.
“‘You—a friend? Say rather a traitor! A spy, perhaps, sent by my husband.’
“Instinct in women is as strong as the perspicacity of great men. ”

“ Let us not, like the unbelievers, form hasty conclusions, prompted by passion. In the matter of miracles, the Church exercises the greatest caution; she requires proofs, indisputable proofs.”
M. Lerond asked whether it were possible to obtain the photographs which portrayed the image of the Blessed Virgin in the eyes of little Honorine Porrichet, and the Duke promised to write on the subject to the photographer, whose studio, he thought, was in the Place Saint-Exupère.
“Anyhow,” put in Madame de Brécé, “little Honorine is a very good, nice little girl. ”

“ God only knows how much we love the confidant of our love when she who inspired it is no more.
"'That man,' said Octave, 'holds a charm and wears an aureole.' the Count went to the prow and looked down on the Mediterranean. It happened to be fine, and, moved no doubt by the spectacle, he spoke these last words: 'Ought we not, in the interests of human nature, to inquire what is the irresistible power which leads us to sacrifice an exquisite creature to the most fugitive of all pleasures, and in spite of our reason? In my conscience I heard cries. Honorine was not alone in her anguish. ”

“ Thus," she added, laughing, "I do not despair of seeing you indulgent towards these young ladies, if one day you discover by the same means, that it is difficult not to be an arguer, like Julia; a story-teller, like Adèle; and a lover of mischief, like Honorine."
"As to that mamma," replied Eudoxia, warmly, "that is what I shall never learn." ”

“ She thought of all the happiness that she had missed during the fourteen years of her childless motherhood, wearing her mourning for a son who was alive. All the cares that a mother lavishes upon the little creature newborn into the world, all the pride that she feels at seeing him grow and hearing him speak, all that delights a mother and uplifts her and makes her heart overflow with daily renewed affection: all this she had never known.
“We are half-way across,” said Honorine. ”

“ Eudoxia embraced her mother with transport; she was so happy and proud at being placed by her on the same level with herself. "But, mamma," she said, "although we say nothing to Madame de Croissy, we might at least explain the truth to the others."
"Would you then let them know that Honorine had the cowardice to allow you to bear the blame of a fault which she herself had committed? Would you wish to be weak in your turn? ”

“ Your not accusing Honorine was an act of simple kind [Pg 184] ness merely; many others would have done as much; if you stop at this point, you have no right to consider yourself more generous than others."
"Mamma, this pleasure then must be very dearly purchased?"
"My child, it is only granted to those who have sufficient resolution to sacrifice every other pleasure to it."
Eudoxia, strengthened by her mother's words, returned with her resolutely to the drawing-room, where pardon had already been obtained for Honorine, whom Madame de Croissy would have sent to dine by herself in her own room. ”

“ Honorine has her little house, a garden, and a splendid hothouse, for a rent of five hundred francs a year. There she lives under the name of her housekeeper, Madame Gobain, the old woman of impeccable discretion whom I was so lucky as to find, and whose affection Honorine has won. But her zeal, like that of the gardener, is kept hot by the promise of reward at the moment of success. The porter and his wife cost me dreadfully dear for the same reasons. However, for three years Honorine has been happy, believing that she owes to her own toil all the luxury of flowers, dress, and comfort. ”

“ Adèle regarded an untruth as the simplest thing in the world; she told falsehoods [Pg 160] in sport; she told them in earnest; she even told them at the very moment in which she might have been convicted of the fallacy of her assertions.
As to Honorine, she was a perfect wild colt, without discipline, without reflection; never for a moment dreaming that her fancies could meet with the slightest opposition, nor that those things which gave her pleasure could be attended with any inconvenience. ”

“ Madame de Croissy caught one of these glances, and was led to notice her granddaughters.
"Have the kindness to continue your work, young ladies," she said to them, very harshly. "Do you not see how much you shock Mademoiselle Eudoxia?"
Adèle and Honorine pretended to go on with their work, and Eudoxia, greatly confused, cast down her eyes, and did not dare to raise them again during the time they remained in the drawing-room. When they had retired to their own apartment, Madame d'Aubonne observed,
"You were very much occupied with those young ladies."
"Oh! mamma, they were so foolish." ”

“ I have fits of collapse comparable to those of a consumptive patient, moods of wild hilarity, terrors as of a murderer who meets a sergeant of police. In short, my life is a continual paroxysm of fears, joy, and dejection.
"'As to the drama—it is this. You imagine that I am occupied with the Council of State, the Chamber, the Courts, Politics.—Why, dear me, seven hours at night are enough for all that, so much are my faculties overwrought by the life I lead! Honorine is my real concern. To recover my wife is my only study ”

“ Now it happened that there was a faithful servant who was quite sure that Honoria was not crazy. When Honoria told her of the words which the king must say before he kissed her this servant tried to think of some way to help her. She was very angry at the fact that there was a new queen.
One day she went to the queen and said: "Queen Honoria who is shut up in the dark cell underneath the palace is much more clever than you are." ”

“ That day Honoria had on her prettiest moss-green dress and the king thought her the loveliest maiden he had ever seen. He stopped to chat with her.
"Do you live here in the forest all alone?" he asked.
"No, I keep house for my seven brothers," was Honoria's answer.
"What a lovely little housekeeper!" cried the king. "Marry me and come to live in the royal palace!"
"I must ask my brothers first," responded Honoria. "I will tell you to-morrow what they say."
That night when the seven dwarfs came home Honoria told them about her visit from the king.
"How can we spare our big sister?" ”

“ An event of Christmas, after church, was the dinner of which Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary and Honora partook with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury, who had been a Leffingwell, and was a first cousin of Honora's father. Honora loved the atmosphere of the massive, yellow stone house in Wayland Square, with its tall polished mahogany doors and thick carpets, with its deferential darky servants, some of whom had been the slaves of her great uncle. To Honora, gifted with imagination, the house had an odour all its own; a rich, clean odour significant, in later life, of wealth and luxury and spotless housekeeping. ”

“ What is your ambition, Miss Honor?”
“I wish to be a sennerin of the Alps!”
Singular it is, that so often a strange hand is needed to turn the key of a heart! Not to Madame or Soeur Séraphine, the friends of all her child-life; not to Stephanie or Vivette, her friends and intimates; not—no, not even to the mountain friends themselves, toward whom her heart was constantly yearning, could Honor have opened the door of her longing hope; but here was a bright-eyed stranger, who with a glance, a few kindly questions, plucked out the heart of her mystery. ”

“ Tears of joy glistened in the eyes of the Christians. Honorius murmured a few words of silent thankfulness and prayer. After which he drew forth a manuscript, which he handled with tender care.
"Here," said he, "beloved youth, is the word of life which came from God, which brings such peace and joy to man. In this we can find all that the soul desires. In these divine words we learn that which we can find no where else; and though the mind may brood over it for a lifetime, yet the extent of its glorious truths can never be reached."
Then Honorius opened the book and began to tell of Jesus. ”