Crowded Out! and Other Sketches | Page 9

to everybody who might be of
use to me; cabmen, porters, fruit dealers and tobacconists. I found
much to interest me in the various Catholic institutions, and I was
above all very fond of visiting the large, ugly gray building with the air
of a penitentiary about it called the Grey Nunnery. Going through its
corridors one day I took a wrong turning and found I was among some
at least quasi-private rooms. The doors being open I saw that there were
flowers, books, a warm rug on the floor of one and a mirror on the wall
of another. The third I ventured to step inside of, for a really 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 Félicité. 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 Félicité. 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