The Mysteries of New Orleans (The Longfellow Series of American Languages and Literatures)

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  Orleana, who had never been touched by any man, and whose own hands shook when she stroked her own body, was beside herself when the Cocker’s coarse hands groped at the very spot where even Cupid had never dared to fly.

  The Cocker simply thought that he had rescued some sweet potatoes with a quick grab; he had no idea that, in Orleana’s eyes, he had committed a dreadful crime.

  And what do my beautiful lady readers think the Cocker did when his cheeks were reddened by the slap of a tender lady’s hand?

  He did not stand up from his chair, did not even shift his weight to one side, but remained rooted to the same place with neck bent forward—he only allowed his hands to drop and grasp the edge of the table.

  He looked as if he were awaiting a second chastisement.

  “White hands do not hurt,” he perhaps intended to say, as he moved his lips up and down.

  But he made no sound.

  How often thoughts and feelings can jump about in a second, making way for other notions, and so, as a result of a bizarre chain of thought, it seemed to the Cocker to be the proper moment to confess his love to Orleana and ask for her hand.

  “Stay here, Betsy!” Orleana called to her departing slave girl, and she sat down in an armchair whose high back protected her from behind.

  In keeping with custom, Betsy placed herself behind the chair.

  The Cocker released his hands from the edge of the table and raised himself up.

  A powerful movement seemed to arise from within him.

  Orleana did not fail to observe this. After the first shock caused by the Cocker’s clumsiness had passed, she had decided to wait for the next episode in this drama, which was why she ordered Betsy to stay in the room.

  “Fräulein, most precious Fräulein,” the Cocker pulled himself together, “since I have made such a poor initial impression on you, and since I have brought your table setting into such disarray due to my lack of consideration, I am asking a thousand times for forgiveness that you had to use your hand to bring me such an inexpressible joy.”

  Orleana was amazed. She had never heard such a courtly and patient acceptance of a slap in her life. She almost felt sympathy for the Cocker.

  “Dearest, most beautiful Fräulein,” he continued, “please at last have pity on me. I have not been able to close my eyes day or night out of fear that you would be taken from me. Oh, I know all about these malignant Frenchmen, who try every possible trick to lead me away from you—but I—I feel something in me like a father feels for his child, what the youngest boy feels for his first love—so I’ll say it right out—I love you, I beseech you, I conjure you, not to keep me away any longer and not to deny me what your faithful compatriot’s heart will pour out to me at the outset—Orleana, dearest, most beloved compatriot—”

  “Herr Hahn,” Orleana interrupted his speech, since the sentiments seemed to be growing too strong, “consider for a moment where you find yourself, and that I did not receive you that you should make some sort of scene here in my presence …”

  The Cocker did not respond with a single word. He stared in despair at his plate, then at Betsy, who still stood at her mistress’s chair back.

  “You must harbor a rather high estimation of your own amiability, Herr Hahn, that you can write a love letter with so little restraint; beyond that, it is puzzling to me that you visit me with the joyful news that you have found in me your life’s companion. A man of such education and appearance as you, sir, could enchant a thousand maidens in an instant. If you have decided that today is to be your wedding day, then I am obviously the first one to be visited on your rounds, and in this case you cannot be discouraged if Fortuna has not let you draw a winner from the urn at the first try. If I ask you not to darken my door again from this day forward or to send me any sort of message, as an educated young man with the world at his feet, you will know how to fulfill this my wish with the greatest proficiency.”

  Either the Cocker did not understand Orleana’s words, or he did not wish to understand them.

  Since he—as he said himself—had just gotten underway, he thought himself entitled to continue until he had gained victory over Orleana.

  With the swiftness of a hickory nut falling from a tree, the Cocker fell on his knee and with an intense embrace grasped to his heart the leg—of the tall armchair, whose soft cushions no longer bore Orleana’s sweet burden.

  Only after a few moments did the Cocker note his considerable error. In shock he looked around the entire room.

  He was alone.

  He was about to marvel at how it could have been possible for him to make such an unpardonable error with the chair leg when Betsy appeared with her mistress’s command to leave the house at once and never again dare to enter her presence again.

  Without considering that he was in the company of a colored woman and that it was contrary to good tone to bow or give excessive compliments, he was unable to find the door due to his many declarations of courtesy and his apologies, and in this manner he soon pushed himself and Betsy against the wall or some piece of furniture or other.

  Betsy, who did not understand a word of German, made every possible effort to explain to the Cocker what her mistress had commanded and how unwelcome he was at this place.

  The Cocker threw another loving glance at the empty chair and bewailed the hardness of his fate as he departed.

  • • •

  “Claudine de Lesuire!” Betsy announced to Orleana a half-hour later, as she prepared to sit down at her piano.

  Orleana stood up and met her friend halfway.

  Chapter 7

  LESBIAN LOVE

  ——You are making me rage——I am going mad——

  Speak, woman, what am I to give you?

  You smile? Aha! Servants! Runners!

  Strike off the Baptist’s head!

  [Queen Pomare]

  She also sees on your shoulder——

  As she covers them with kisses——

  Three little scars, monuments of desire,

  Which he once bit into you.

  [Edith Schwanenhals]

  “It is a real shame, my dear Claudine, that it did not occur to you to visit me an hour earlier.

  My God, what a scene! What a cascade of offenses to the spirit, one after another! Don Juan with all his amiability, all his magic, penetrating play of the eye that could win the heart of any woman in an instant, the slim, blond Don Juan who rules in Madrid and Zaragoza, Seville and Santillana, on the Guadalquivir and Ebro as well as on the Ganges, stealing all of the god Amor’s arrows from his quiver, this Don Juan, this seducer of maidens, terror of husbands—he stood before me, fell to his knees, and saw his power and connections go to naught on account of a chair leg, and all the laurels female adulation and love had wrapped about his brow were torn from his head in an instant. Don Juan has at last found his female conqueror. He will curse the hour, the minute, the second, in which he dared to try for the heart of a German Creole maiden! Don Juan has become a greenhorn in New Orleans.”

  Claudine stared at her friend with wide eyes. She was all the more amazed by the peculiar manner in which Orleana expressed herself, since she had never noticed any inclination on her behalf for Don Juans. On the contrary, she had always been determined to debunk them without mercy and only give them attention when she wished to show the failings and errors of the world of men. Orleana had always found an energetic opponent in Claudine, who always wished to soften with time her prejudice against men. She had never heard Orleana speak that way before. To speak of men in such a tone! To speak so lightly of Amor, quivers, arrows, hearts, pratfalls, without restraint—oh, oh—what had happened to Orleana?

  “I don’t understand you, my dear Orleana …” That was all Claudine had been able to respond to her dithyrambs. Orleana took a folded note out of a tiny drawer in her desk, upon which an address was written, or rather smeared, with large Gothic letters, and she handed it with a smile to Claudine, who stopped after reading a sin
gle line and stared at her friend with astonishment.

  “What does this mean, Orleana, your statements and then this letter—I do not understand you—please, what happened? How did you get this shameful letter—who could have dared to write something like this? Orleana, please explain it to me—I cannot understand it.”

  Orleana, who did not want to test her friend’s patience any further, now explained the entire business of the Cocker in detail. His rude conduct at the threshold of the receiving room, his clumsiness at table, the offense he committed when he fell to his knees—in short, everything that had taken place during the encounter, to the very end, was told to the astonished Claudine.

  Orleana, who thought that recounting this droll love affair had provided the right atmosphere for the evening, was greatly moved when Claudine declared in a mournful tone suited to touch the heart, “My dear Orleana, I believe you were right; men are incapable of valuing a woman’s love—men are all raw in matters of love.”

  “How am I to understand that? What made you so reflective all of a sudden?”

  When Claudine fell silent, a tear in her eye, Orleana continued:

  “Your silence disturbs me, my dear friend. How does it happen that you, who were so happy only a short time ago, have suddenly abandoned marveling at and beseeching men and now can level such a harsh condemnation against them? But I will no longer press you or storm your soul with troublesome questions, my good Claudine—for your silence and the tears in your eyes tell me that I must be silent if my friend has decided to harbor care in her heart and not reveal it even to her Orleana.”

  “Am I that to you?” Claudine now interjected vigorously. “And this at the very moment when my heart tells me that I must cut myself off from the entire world and live only for my Orleana—Orleana, Orleana, if you only knew what I still felt for you when I stood at the altar with Albert and you handed me the bridal crown! Orleana, perhaps it is heaven’s revenge for a crime that I took then only as an innocent child’s game, and only now that I have separated from my husband do I think of this cri … oh no, no—Orleana, it could not have been a crime that I love you—no, no, no, Orleana—”

  “Claudine, Claudine!” Orleana interrupted with a blush, “Do you really love me? Oh, so I did not err after all—how often I trembled when I was near to you—and when once you draped your arm around my neck. Oh Claudine! If it had been a man, I would have remained as cold as marble—Orleana has never trembled in the presence of a man—and she will tremble in the presence of none in the future. Orleana loves her femininity too much to give it to any other than a female friend, to her Claudine—wait a moment,” Orleana interrupted herself with a thought, “Didn’t you say you have separated from your husband—or did I hear incorrectly?”

  Claudine blushed and paled by turns as she placed her hands in Orleana’s and described the events of that evening, when Albert had damaged her dignity as spouse so thoroughly through a flippant phrase that he’d caused a break no man on this earth could heal.

  As we already know, Claudine did not appear at breakfast on the morning after that fateful night, so Albert had to eat alone. On the same morning, as Albert was rushing to Algiers to visit the two sisters, Claudine’s maid took her note on the way to the market and delivered it punctually to her aunt on Bourbon Street. The elderly Baroness Alma de St. Marie-Église rushed at once to her niece, finding her still in bed.

  Claudine’s lines so astounded the old lady and so piqued her curiosity that she could not wait until Claudine came by at the appointed hour but decided to rush there herself. She could not even wait at home while the horses were harnessed. She, who had not set foot on the street in several years except to mount a carriage, rushed like a young girl to the street where her niece lived. She found her still in bed, as mentioned, half awake, in the deepest negligée, her hair loose, tangled, and tossed across her naked upper body.

  The maid, who had eagerly been following the development of this drama, was sent away by Claudine, who did not want an observer who might not be trustworthy or who, in any case, would learn too much at once.

  One can well imagine the distress the elderly lady felt when Claudine told her in short, decisive words the cause for her note. The old baroness applied all her arts of persuasion to convince her niece to forgive her loveless husband and take him in her arms again.

  “‘Marriage is the grave of love!’—What was he trying to say with that? Nothing at all, my dear child—your Albert loves you as much now as he ever did, and he had no purpose at all when he pronounced this fatuity to you. Albert is one of those young, thoughtless fools—there are thousands of them. They want to know everything, perceive everything, try everything, and in the end they know nothing at all. He got this silly saying from some writer, or perhaps he heard it from some oversmart moneyman, and he thought to impress you the other night. Albert? What does your Albert know about marriage? The two of you know nothing of the troubles and stresses that come in married life. What does Albert, what do you yourself know about marriage? You have only been married a few months! I lived thirty-five years with Monsieur de Saint-Marie—I can assure you, my dear, unsophisticated child, that it is not all that fatal for a husband not to love you as much as a girl would like. And yet Monsieur de Saint-Marie was not a man who one could say neglected his spouse. Live with each other five or ten years and you will not become upset over some thoughtless, frivolous saying. You do not yet know men, my unsophisticated little Claudine—the more they complain, the more they love. A man who is always carrying you around by your hands, praying to you like a god, speaking courteously to you night and day, constantly seeking to pander to your vanity and your heart, is not worth much in marriage. Such a man should never be trusted. He would only be doing it to mislead you for some purpose or to do things behind your back, so that when you find it out, your lot would be anything but enviable.

  “Look, dumb, silly little Claudine, see how pointlessly you martyr yourself. If Albert didn’t love you, he would never have said something of that sort; he certainly wanted to put your love to the test. Oh, I could give you enough other examples of this! How dreadfully Monsieur de Saint-Marie, my late husband, treated me oftentimes! And did he love me any less? No, my child, to the last moment he bore his Alma in his heart. So calm down and let me hear no more of your unhappy decision. You would certainly deeply regret it in the future if you sacrificed your heart’s peace due to a mere whim or rudeness on the part of your husband. Make up and love each other as emphatically as before, and don’t bother me over such a silly matter—will you promise me that, little Claudine?”

  These and other efforts by her aunt could not shake Claudine’s decision. In the end the half-disgusted Baroness gave her consent to a separation of the two spouses, but with the condition that she be able to speak with Albert about it.

  Several days later Albert paid the old lady a visit that ended so badly she poured out all her wrath on him, and she now insisted that the divorce take place as soon as possible.

  Once the necessary preparations for this had been made and the legal act of divorce obtained, Claudine moved in with her aunt, and Albert lived alone in the same home where he had once passed such fine, sweet hours in the arms of his spouse.

  Orleana, who was living at the time in Ocean Springs, on the high bluffs overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, had not received any news at all from her friend on this matter. It would be difficult to discover the motive for Claudine’s neglecting to do this. Perhaps she thought it more proper to tell Orleana of her troubles on her return.

  And so we find the poor sufferer today with her Orleana.

  • • •

  Softly, softly! Quiet, quiet now! Trust not the night—close the curtains as tightly as possible; don’t talk so openly, for the walls have ears.

  Softly, softly! Quietly, quietly, so the evil world cannot hear!

  Rubens, Rembrandt, Raphael Santio of Urbino, lend me your brushes; Beethoven, let a fugue vibrate with the force of
a rocket through my veins and seethe my blood; you, land of the Nibelungs, send me your fiery wines; Canova, give me the mallet you used to make your Paris—or better—Paris, give me your apple, that I may lay it between Orleana and Claudine. You, Pallas Athena, step aside for a moment, for your armor weighs down your bosom too much. Priapus may leave, too—for here you will find no man at all!

  Yet, if it pleases you, my hermaphrodite Ganymede,* come and serve your ambrosia to Orleana and Claudine!

  “Do you really love me, Claudine?”

  “How beautiful you are, Orleana!”

  “How beautiful is your dark blonde hair, your blue eyes!”

  “How splendid your raven black hair and the midnight of your eyes!”

  “How sweet and supple your waist is!”

  “How proud and majestic your stature!”

  “How small your white hands are!”

  “How heavenly pure your arm is, that no man has ever touched!”

  “Claudine, this delicate paleness of your face!”

  “Orleana, the beautiful blush on your fresh cheeks!”

  “Claudine, how harmonious, how moving your voice is!”

  “Orleana, how inspiring your words are!”

  “Do you really love me, Claudine?”

  A believable writer from ancient Greek times tells us that on the isle of Lesbos there once lived women who did not allow themselves to be touched by any man, since a whim of nature had given them the gift of being sufficient unto themselves.

  If any maid in the broad region of Greece was blessed with this gift, she rushed to this island to seek a companion for life. When the Romans became lords of Hellas, they transported these women to the City of the Seven Hills and exploited them as slaves, compelling them to assist in the baths.

  They only lived free in a few places in Greater Greece, enjoying there the same rights no one had disputed on their island.