Mam'selle Anastasie
Samson, Erin
284 THE COMMONWEAL July 21, 192) power and victory is made to suffer and love. But vides an object for a...
...At times I felt that she was the memory of man runneth not to the contrary...
...A single settlement on the coast of flash of relief or of anticipated joy appeared to con- an ordinary island would usually permit the parent country sole us...
...still the fingers clung to the doll...
...When whispered that I too still nourished a secret passion the doctor came he found that a cancer was eating for dolls...
...character whose fame is confined to the Iberian Penin- Maeztu looks very hard both at life and at literasula...
...If the Unfortunately, her physical peace was short-lived...
...child's, as it escapes the dark, goblin-haunted stairs It was a doll dressed in the unreal and ornate robes for the cheer and familiarity of the lighted nursery...
...One can poor compendium of the Summa Theologia, and, havwander there without ever getting lost or entangled ing understood perhaps one-fourth of it, feels that in the weeds...
...Such discovery, however, its stubby fingers and brownish spots where the glaze does bestow upon the nation making it the right to follow it has worn off-rested on Mam'selle Anastasie's always- up by occupation...
...and turned to a sailor boy whose hat would not remain But sometimes a stranger has clearer vision than a at the jaunty yet correct angle of eighty degrees...
...She felt `he stiff, jewel- accompanied or soon followed by occupation of the land...
...of dominion into unknown, but adjacent territory...
...once Mademoiselle Batilde found me piecing out the There were moments, after the injections of morpuzzles in her kindergarten...
...She con- too deeply for the surgical knife...
...They are nuns, c f course...
...Mademoiselle the great intellects of the Church...
...She even knew English...
...faction in her eyes...
...It was rather odd-the Infant Jesus of Prague tot- I said that discovery, in the sense of finding a place pretered and fell...
...No some measure of control...
...Certainly, there same, as beautiful as ever...
...Life for school which was run by a cousin of mine...
...I was produce a gemlike brilliance...
...or more of the powers which have commissioned, or intended The end was not sudden...
...For a moment breathing ceased, and then slowly she The European nations made many extravagant claims of rose to light and air...
...barnyard adventures or the seditions in the kinderI felt that I had truly gained her confidence when garten, when I wickedly invaded Mademoiselle a few days later she took me to her own cupboard, Batilde's kingdom, and her minute face-emaciated by where she kept her missal and her knitting yarn, and now-would relax contentedly, reminding me of a drew out from the farthermost corner her treasure...
...If it be more extended, was grey with pain, and beads of perspiration glistened the occupying force should be sufficiently large to exercise on her forehead...
...is useless...
...The disease had rooted its flowers My partial hypocrisy made us friends...
...away her breast...
...Furthermore, the radiantly proud, pronounce "ss-pun," or point to her chipped nose and numerous scars bore witness to an glass of much-watered claret with suppressed excite- eventful past...
...A similar settlement on the coast her head came forward, jerkily, almost mechanically, of a continent would not be sufficient to allow the parent counand then fell back, announcing death...
...and so, unless indeed there is an eternal value, for Romeo and for Juliet, so for Calisto and for unless indeed our actions are all to be measured by Melibea, this mutual egoism is the denial of the love an absolute standard, unless the realities...
...You should have DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION told me...
...The death agony was to commission, explorers to search for it...
...Poor thing...
...She went wI.ite and then red our laps, but our eyes wandering on the highroad, and knocked off the sailor's hat...
...In this story, a story of passionate love, la ture, and, like the best of critics, he makes his interCelestina is a feminine Pandarus, who is to this extent pretations of both more searching in combining them unselfish: that her whole life is devoted to procuring with a certain greatness of his own...
...But vides an object for a passion which is mystical...
...the high, boned net collars, the long skirts How I envy the minds with a clear view ! I particu- of serge are unamendably sad and awkward...
...Their manner must be One decided, however, to forgive her, for she was modest and their attitude, courageous...
...France needs teachers-living victims...
...At first, I think bonnets with jet or even piquant sable cherries, but it I understand perfectly, and then I find that I don't...
...I saw before me no child, no!: even a woman ing new territory, wherever it might be found...
...She liked to hear me chatter about my suppose they would strengthen me...
...Then I was allowed exhorting me to use the Exercises of Saint Ignatius...
...she was ~.stonished...
...She kindergarten mistress, whether she were ill, but she had placed two curly-haired beauties on a chair, and, informed me with much satisfaction that at last half kneeling before them, was speaking out loud, in Mam'selle Anastasie was growing up...
...One Sunday, after Vespers, as Deciding not to retreat, I cleared my throat and we sat at the parlor windows, our spiritual reading in advanced...
...She had gained French, of course...
...They must, somehow, master the art of being "No, really, it isn't done...
...She need not, however, have felt so re- arctic island, for it can scarcely be large enough to be called morseful, as the burden of her presence was soon a continent, is found, undoubtedly it will be claimed by one removed...
...area be a small one, a single individual, acting as representative Once more the agony of dissolution began...
...But and two pearly teeth...
...I brushed off the month's would rediscover the island and claim it for his own sovereign...
...Even lovers, if their love is to For at least he was not a hypocrite : he perverted no live, must adjust the immediate with the eternal, and ideals...
...Exploraplunging into an abyss...
...284 THE COMMONWEAL July 21, 192) power and victory is made to suffer and love...
...The crown was a rather in the room when my kind-hearted cousin could not marvelous achievement, fabricated out of the links of help crying out to little Mam'selle Anastasie 286 THE COMMONWEAL July 21, 1926 "0 ma petite, why did you do it...
...must be some kind of a settlement or military post...
...Her face of his government, may prove adequate...
...When grace and the novice-mistress tiny...
...in the current and not of it...
...But if the problematical side down...
...The Infant Jesus was just the Just what kind of occupation is necessary...
...With at least no visible interest in the games of the infant that she gave a maternal twitch to the pink brocade school...
...She must have had brains, July 21, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 285 after a fashion, for the "Home" had educated her to old rosaries and gilt paper stars...
...She was then infinitely older all land discovered by its own representative, irrespective of than my cousin will ever be...
...When you looked at her minute, ineffectual have formed them into good religious, in little mat- hands trying to grasp a three-pound loaf of bread, ters as well as great-they have learned to straighten when you saw the beady eyes, the tip of a nose that their coiffes without a mirror and not to catch their was an insult to the nasal genus which includes the veils in what-nots-then abruptly they are sent out Cyrano and Bourbon organs, the mouth, like a slit into the world, figuratively blinking after the cloistral begun and left off immediately, you wanted to cry, shade...
...Those last hours new world and Henry VIII commissioned John Cabot to of hers are another cause for my wonder...
...larly venerate those who can say, "She is good, he I met Mademoiselle Anastasie at a small country is bad-this one is wise, that one, weak...
...I asked Mademoiselle Batilde, the them up...
...But now at the end, she had changed the European nations have been intensely interested in acquirabruptly...
...It was only a questinued shy, but discussed her weakness, "The others tion of weeks, perhaps a few months-only a question think me so childish-I fear that I have wasted of lying unarmed and helpless under the beak and too much time over these poor little, poupees...
...It was most unbecoming for a stupid, sidered closed by the exploration and national apportionment first- and second-grade mistress to turn the house up- of Africa...
...Anastasie belonged to France's pathetic flock of black- Now the first time I saw Mam'selle Anastasie I birds, the secularisees...
...You see I am rather black...
...But, for a wonder, Mam'selle Anastasie gave a half-stifled cry: an exI was not quite as stupid as usual aad remarked in- pression of intense pain distorted her features as wardly than an orphan's childhood wa, probably a toy- though a claw had ruthlessly torn across them...
...She looked at us not be defended...
...original discoverer of an island, and if another country were...
...Each country at first attempted to claim gravely, even sternly...
...Her in touch both with mysticism and with humanism...
...For he is both pleasure for others rather than for herself...
...dust which had settled on the pompous cloak and Eventually, the nations recognized that mere discovery of placed the Infant in her hands, which reached up for uncivilized land did not establish title thereto, unless it was it from under the covers...
...There was nothing strange fowl...
...Romeo Don Juan, showing Spain in the mood of one who compared Juliet to the beauties of earth...
...At the end of about ten minutes she started, to claim the whole island...
...She did not smile in the but is uncivilized and belongs to no civilized nation, any such possession of her treasure, but there was a quiet satis- nation may step in and acquire it by occupation...
...Her cold fingers passed over the painted deed, discovery, in the sense of finding a place previously unknown, is not necessary at all...
...MAM'SELLE ANASTASIE By ERIN SAMSON PERHAPS the clever readers of t is thoughtful habit for a nondescript, unfashionable garment of periodical can help me out...
...of the world which makes it, and since the wages of sin is death, are one in the scheme of absolute reality, the mood the everlasting garden of their pleasures is no other of Don Juan, like the mood of Nietzsche, was right...
...she has attained the shining heights where commune This time a person bothers me...
...The result of this practice was just what anyone Infant Jesus of Prague...
...Outside the polar area, hardly any part of the earth remains without an owner...
...which claims were subsequently relinquished because they could She could not, or would not, speak...
...Nothing, of surprised to find Mam'selle Anastasie in the midst of course, was changed...
...He leads his country to satisfaction takes another form, that of profit, of self- a scheme of administrative reform by proposing to interest...
...The hands had try to claim the entire continent but would justify a claim to the territory immediately dominated by the settlement and opened in the last movement, releasing their hold...
...character which is representative of the Spanish peas- he gives romance to the ideal of efficiency by bringing it ant, and indeed of all peasantries, of all business...
...Until then discover countries "then unknown to Christian people" and she had suffered patiently, but as I have seen wise to take possession of them in the name of the king of England, children do...
...The rest of the week she was a then that her birdlike eyes positively shot forth fire normal young secularisee...
...That studded brocade and touched the pap :r stars on the has remained the substantial rule up to the present day...
...So I audaciously put an arrr around her and Crumpling up, she fell against my cousin...
...her eyes closed, the nerves on tion, in ancient days, consisted largely in pushing the limits each side of the face quivered, in horrified revulsion...
...constant companion...
...Some may valiantly trim their pudding-shaped stupid about people and things...
...Again the noble tat- My cousin and the others could hardly dissimulate ters of the Comtesse had been happily utilized...
...Before that in pain...
...less one...
...I to visit her...
...Why had she been such a fool as cloak had been wired so that it would stand out with to conceal her ill...
...I am sorry to say be a primary-school teacher...
...This question was conshe gave them...
...Then he she seemed to fall into a slight doze, but all at once would fill his water-casks and sail away, leaving the island she looked up and called my name...
...Incrown...
...Maeztu sees in her the Jewess, but it is a her the highest standard both of duties and of dues...
...prolonged and acute...
...By DANIEL J. McKENNA I expected Mam'selle Anastasie to look confused and contrite-she had always been in awe of the Directice THE contemporary search for a body of land in the vicin-but this time she remained calm and her eyes did ity of the north pole reopens an old question of internot leave my cousin's face...
...But my friend of the dolls did look pale and in that, for she had been left behind in order to pack unusually sober...
...It took me so long to make them, no more childish parade of her learning, no moreand out of the Comtesse's old ball gown too...
...And then I revisited the school at the insistent the parish hall for the coming bazaar, I pottered about pleas of my cousin, who thoroughly enjoyed displaying in relieved solitude...
...It was Jesus of Prague...
...I vowed that I recognized every a bright array of toys...
...It seems that only on Sundays she reserved her linguistic masterpiece for the evening and feast-days did Mam'selle accord herself the bliss recreation when we paraded up and down the garden of contemplating the doubtful beauty of her Infant and made occasional visits to the barnyard...
...Why, claws of an untiring vulture...
...but as tion...
...The their impatience...
...It was not long, however, before I returned to the I should probably have contir:ued to dislike high sophistication of the undergraduate world, and Mam'selle Anastasie, had I not discovered her secret...
...It was almost suicidal...
...as she cried, "chick-hen...
...forgot about Mam'selle Anastasie for more than a One afternoon, when the others were busy decorating year...
...any actual occupation of the land...
...of the Infant Jesus of Prague...
...Calisto in a crisis of ideals diverts himself with pleasure, ex- sees in Melibea the mystery of divine love...
...than the graveyard...
...I arrived them becomes a charming formal garde:l where paths in that extremely rural environment with the splendid intersect and meet at given points, an l where even conceit of a college student who has read a rather the mazes have their mathematical formula...
...For example, a Spanish After the prayers for the dying had been recited, sea-captain, sailing by a previously unknown island, would land and claim it in the name of his sovereigns...
...they disliked her...
...bring the song of their joy into harmony with the La Celestina, Don Ramiro's third character, is a whirring tune of the planets...
...On entering a class-room I was to the provincials her urban connections...
...he is object is to make a profit out of what she provides for more practical, in fact, because he knows, as Raymond other people's satisfaction...
...A French or English sea-captain, neither knowQuickly I asked for the key to the cupboard and ing nor caring about the previous discovery of the Spaniard, took down the gaudy doll...
...Like all presses the spirit of the war-weary, of those who romantic lovers, these two long for life together in thought that humanism was enough and saw it fail, a lonely Eden, far from earth and far from heaven, saw power and patriotism become their own destruc- where they may think only of one another...
...she was like a man, a soldier marching dog- time, the matter was of small moment, since the only land available was that which had been known "from a time when gedly into a firing line...
...She wanted her deserted...
...But the interest of her Lull knew, both that "he who loves not lives not" and career is that in giving Melibea to Ca listo, she pro- that "he who lives by the life can never die...
...She said quite firmly, "Not national law, namely, the right of a nation to acquire hitherto always," and, after a pause, apologized for the trouble unknown and unowned territory...
...Not least are only twenty and an orphan, whose knowledge of life their sartorial trials: they exchange an interesting was purely institutional...
...Mademoithe pyramidal splendor of the original, and splinters selle Batilde declared that the good Lord would only of varicolored glass had been sewn in the folds to forgive her because she was so simple-minded...
...in poise and dignity, she controlled her class, she was "My dears, you must be good at the fair, and don't quiet in recreation as a young secularisee should besoil your frocks...
...The muscles relaxed somewhat, ownership in the early days of American exploration, many of and the eyes opened to the room and taose about her...
...I should not have been allowed Since the days when Columbus unwittingly discovered a to assist had she not asked for me...
...I have no deep-rooted objection to keep their vows, but they lack all the outward glamor small, fragile human beings, but she was ludicrously of their vocation...
...They were sweet, weren't they...
...But phine, when pain released its hold, and Mam'selle then she has a great mind-and soul, She is always Anastasie breathed more freely...
...Her own a Spaniard and a European...
...one hand-you know a doll's hand with viously unknown, is not necessary...
...would expect...
...If the land is known to exist, cheeks and chipped nose...
...If the United States were to become the small, and now, shriveled, bloodless lips...
...to such land as the settlement might need for its future growth...
...But it still preserved its long lashes ment, and inform the table, "Ca, c'est vine...
...that no doll ever possessed a face more devoid of inthat is, she would hold up a spoon, and, her face telligence and human dignity...
...but she was playing with the dolls...
Vol. 4 • July 1926 • No. 11
