Punchinello doll, https://www.rubylane.com/item/719320-TFP-443721523/Antique-Punchinello-Jester-Clown-French-Bisque
A CHRISTMAS STORY.
Once on a time there was a poor grandmother and her poor grandson, who possessed nothing in the world but their affection for each other; and the grandmother was seventy-seven years of age and the grandson was eight. The child was sick, crippled, confined to bed during the entire twelve months, and the old woman was very old, very feeble, so that with the best good will in the world she could not work much.
The old woman was called Mother Antoine and the child was called Mother Antoine’s lad.
Alas! he was going from bad to worse, was Mother Antoine’s lad. The poor boy was consumptive and sickly, and when he was not crying from the dull pain in his hip he was coughing a dry and bloody cough, which brought two bunches of dull violets to his cheeks.
The last time he had been out was Christmas day. On that day Mother Antoine’s had wrapped him up in a big muffler which she had made of her old shawl; she had put on him her two only pairs of stockings to keep his feet warm, and she had taken him to the boulevard, along the little stalls full of toys and dolls that made a splendid, many-colored fairyland.
There was, first and foremost, away down near the Place du Grand opera, a superb punchinello–striped and gilded, almost as tall as the little stunted being himself– which, when one pulled the string, shook gayly its bells and rattles, raised its great funny arms, flung out its legs and looked at you at the same time with its illumined face and almost living grin.
“Oh, how pretty it was, how pretty it was!” Mother Antoine’s lad cried. “It is very dear, mammy, is it not, a fine punchinello like that?”
And the old woman always replied, “Come now, I will buy you one of those when we are richer.”
“And when shall we be richer?”
“Soon, my pet, soon.”
“Then I shall have it, eh? the punchinello’?”
“Yes, yes; you shall have it.”
“For you see, mammy, I am sure that if I had it I should be cured at once.”
This same idea recurred incessantly as though be were possessed by it. And when he was worse than usual–the poor little thing–when his pains racked him fiercest: when his terrible cough shook him as if it would tear the breath out of him, oh, then the desire became more active, more poignant. And she knew this, old Mother Antoine. By dint of promising the punchinello she came to feel that she must keep her promise, and that she had no other way but this to keep her cherub alive a little longer. Yes, he should have it, his punchinello. And he would be cured! She too she herself had ended by believing in this mad hope.
Yes, he should have it. But how? As he said himself with tears of impotent longing, it must cost a deal, a punchinello like that! It was a toy for the rich. At least 20 francs. Perhaps more. Where could she find this gold, she who no longer knew the color even of silver, and who only saw at long, long intervals, a few big copper sous among the alms she received.
She traded off the rags that were given her at the beginning of the winter. She even sold the occasional tickets for bread and meat which she had much trouble to get. She reserved only enough for the little one. She herself fasted. And when he was eating by himself he said to her:
“So you are not hungry, mammy?”
“No,” she answered; “they made me swallow a plate of soup in the cabinetmaker’s shop.”
She had economized in this fashion for three month, and on the day before yesterday she had altogether 9 francs 8 sous. She must have 10 francs.
That day Mother Antoine’s lad was terrible sick.
And her poor neighbors cannot bestow much charity on the old woman, they themselves dying of cold and hunger. No more rags to sell; three tickets for bread and wood; that was all that remained in the garret.
But the little one is so low–so low that he can swallow nothing. What use, then, for bread to-day? For her? Not a word of that. And to-morrow? Ah, tomorrow she will find some. What is wanted at the moment, the necessary, the indispensable thing, is not food, but the punchinello. If he had it, there, now, in his trembling little fingers surely he would be better.
“How pretty it was!” he said with a stilled rattle in his throat. And his eyes grow large; his nostrils, pinched by disease, suddenly quiver, a warm glow comes on his skin, life returns to his pale lips.
“How pretty it was!”
“I am going to get it for you: yes, I am going right away, little one.”
“What, the punchinello?”
“Yes, the punchinello.”
“So, we are rich, mammy?”
“Yes, my pet. look here!”
She shows him her 9 francs 3 sous. It is all in sous–a big heap of them.
The child claps his hands.
“Go quick, mammy; go quick. Do not be long.”
She has gone. No, she will not be long. With her old feeble limbs she first runs about to her neighbors to sell the three tickets, the last ones.
“It is to buy a remedy for the lad,” says she; and she speaks the truth.
Ten francs, she has them at last! She had to waste half an hour on it, but at last she has them. How she hurries on, tottering and stumbling, in spite of the slippery pavement, in spite of the numbing cold that freezes her bones–for she has eaten nothing yesterday , nothing today, and she has put her crusts on the sick child’s bed. She has only a wretched petticoat and a thin jacket over her shift. B-r-r-r. She will go spite of all. She will not go to the first store she comes to. She must go away–away, near the Grand opera. The punchinello, perhaps, is still there this year, and who knows? perhaps it does not cost more than 10 francs.
Yes; it was indeed the same and for 10 francs she got it, by bargaining. She returns, pressing it close to her heart. She too, said:
“How pretty it is!”
Fate is the most terrible of dramatic creators. No one invents such striking effects as reality. The old woman had been away two full hours.
On her return she found the child dead.
Yesterday Mother Antoine’s lad was buried.
Mother Antoine placed in the little coffin, on the shroud made out of a patched gown, the pretty punchinello, covered with dazzling colors, and tinkling bells. Thus the little corpse had its Christmas box. And Mother Antoine prayed for her New Year’s gift–Death,
The Nebraska State Journal [Lincoln NE] 27 December 1889: p. 1
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead and on Twitter @hauntedohiobook. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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