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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  How much good could Lajos and Merlina Dufresne have done for the world! The one, if her skin color had not condemned her to a fixed relationship with the Caucasian race, the other, if he had turned his excess of hyena instinct against the enemies of the common good! The Hungarian Count Lajos Est***, once a chivalric, polished hussar officer and son of one of the oldest magnate houses—here on the soil of a republic became a habitual murderer and arsonist. Even more, for ten dollars he betrayed a poor soldier who had fled the compulsion of Uncle Sam and trusted him with the story of his desertion.*

  The scenes that now follow should be taken in the sense indicated above by the feminine elite of my respected circle of readers, and we will not be accused of overstressing the complexity of their spirits or of besmirching the purity of their character.

  It is still a great good fortune that, even when a man is dressed like a Philistine, the genius of woman offers her arm as that of the falconer, and she gives him a sure lead.

  “For the last time, Merlina! Tell me, do you want to or not? I have no desire to pass days or months in pining or wallowing in sentimentality like a boy in his fledgling years. The devil with your love, then, if I have to quibble for it. Do you want to or not, Merlina? You know I have no time to waste.”

  “No time?” Merlina asked, raising her head out of the Hungarian’s lap. She did not turn her head to face his but cast a hair-raising glance at the place where Sulla was hidden.

  “You know that Tiberius will only wait in the rowboat until three to take me across to Algiers. If I come later, he will leave the bank without me, and you know that I have to be with my wife before the night is over—rather, you don’t know it—but I have to be there at three, for special reasons.”

  “And for special reasons I have to ask you to leave me alone now,” the zambo negresse responded in an intensified tone.

  At this instant several powerful sneezes emanated from under the bed. It was too close, too clear, to think that it came from outside the room.

  As if shocked by a galvanic battery, the Hungarian leaped into the air and landed so hard with his knee on the head of the zambo negresse that her upper body lost its balance and fell forward.

  In the same instant a figure slipped out from under the bed, slick as an eel, remaining hidden by the mosquito netting as he reached behind the pillow and drew out both the dagger and the pistol.

  Since these weapons were in the light, the Hungarian saw the flash of the dagger and the metallic shine of the pistol barrel.

  Merlina lay with her head on the floor and crept toward the bed, her hands advanced and fingers spread.

  The Hungarian reached into his right trousers pocket to be sure that he still had the room key.

  He backed up a few steps and looked at the zambo negresse, then at the bed from which the sneeze had come.

  The figure had planted itself directly behind the mosquito netting, and the camphene lamp hanging in the middle of the room threw the shadow of this figure three times larger behind it.

  With a glance the Hungarian was able to recognize the shadow of a Negro head, with its woolly hair.

  The zambo negresse also saw the shadow in the same instant. Quick as a tiger-cat, she rose from the floor, sprang to the top of the bed, and instinctively reached under the pillow.

  But the dagger and the pistol were already in other hands.

  “Hell and damnation! Are there wild boars in the bushes here? A black buck and a brown sow! A fatal pleasure indeed, going hunting for boar without weapons!” the Hungarian remarked in a bitterly cold, harsh tone as he advanced decisively on the bed.

  The zambo negresse had stationed herself with her back to the part of the wall where the head of the bed extended. Her eyes flew left and right. With her right hand she held the five-sided column of the master bed. Her left hand seemed undecided.

  Sulla alone knew his true situation. Since fortune had put that fatal note into his hands, he knew what the Hungarian and Merlina intended with him. Merlina, who did not have the faintest notion that Sulla knew of the conspiracy against him, and Lajos, who saw only a competitor before him—both were in the dark as to the meaning of their encounter. Instead of the two of them joining against the Negro, since they were coconspirators against him, Lajos thought of both Merlina and Sulla as opponents, seeing not only a competitor but also the falseness of the zambo negresse. Sulla, meanwhile, directed all his wrath against both Lajos and Merlina.

  The Hungarian did not know whom to turn against first. Contrary to his usual practice, he was carrying no weapons today. He knew about the dagger and the pistol under the pillow—but he had already seen them in the hands of the other man. The key, which he now took from his trouser pocket, was his sole weapon.

  There was a fearful pause.

  The Hungarian stood solid and sure, the key in his clenched fist, barely a step away from Merlina, who was shaking with rage. Her right hand was still wrapped about the bedpost.

  The Negro stood as before, so that neither Merlina nor Lajos could see him, since the mosquito netting gathered on the left side of the bed threw a shadow that covered him.

  The Hungarian, who had lost sight of the shadow the Negro threw on the wall as he advanced on the bed, leaned forward and saw the shadow of a raised arm with a drawn dagger, together with a pistol, which rose and fell along with the other arm.

  He had made his decision in a flash, a decision that would have to be carried out just as quickly if he was at least to save his life, now in the balance. The rapid carrying out of his plan might win him the means to revenge himself properly, perhaps purchasing the life of one person through the death of the other.

  He leaped with a single bound onto the bed, tearing through the mosquito netting and falling on the surprised Sulla, knocking him to the floor with the weight of his body and the power of his attack.

  He fell to the floor with the Negro, ending up atop him.

  The Negro almost managed, with Herculean effort, to turn the Hungarian to the side. But as he mangled the Hungarian, biting him on his cheek, the raging pain inflicted on the now thrice-bitten cheek caused the Hungarian’s muscles to exert superhuman force. He assaulted the Negro by turning his arm and pounding him in the mouth with an elbow, so that Sulla turned up his eyes in agony, groaning faintly.

  When Merlina saw this, she wrapped her legs around the column of the bed, climbed to the top, and struck the laths of the uppermost board of the thin wall, pulling the board itself out and slipping through into the neighboring dormitory.

  Here she roused all the girls from their beds, and, bringing an ax from the wood bin, she called to them.

  “Death or Merlina! Cats, follow me!”

  This will not be the first place to remark that Lady Merlina’s cats were not able to get themselves properly dressed all that quickly. The whole troop of pale mestizas and dark mulattos was on its feet immediately after the first call. Even the two cholas who were in an advanced interesting condition joined up. They wore knitted night-jackets over their abdomens, in keeping with their hopeful situation, so that they were less exposed to a chill than the others, whose entire uniform consisted of a white shirt with a tie at the top that could be widened or narrowed according to wish.

  “Cats, follow me!” Lady Merlina’s familiar voice sounded time and again, as some of those still overcome with sleep rubbed their eyes and tried to burrow under the covers. The details of what they were doing is superfluous here, since those initiated into relations between the races know full well that in the fruitful body of a chola things happen that only a god is in a position to explain.

  The haste in which the girls were roused by their mistress hindered them in choosing even the most minimal clothing. For that reason there were neither stockings nor shoes, and the few who practiced the evil custom of sleeping without a nightshirt were lacking even that covering. Those who wore the aformentioned knit jackets constituted the dress circle in this dark, naked chaos, where colors competed with one ano
ther in all possible variations. This wild nakedness now advanced, with the Lady Merlina and the pale mestiza Semiramis in the vanguard, toward the door of the bedroom.

  Just a few blows with the ax, and entry was gained despite the locked door.

  Merlina’s cats followed their mistress automatically, only discovering what was afoot when they spied Lajos and the Negro.

  The Hungarian had meanwhile raised himself from the floor, and he stood on the Negro’s breast, which no longer showed the slightest sign of life. His face was as pale as death, for Negroes become pale, too, when life has flown. But this paleness is similar to that of old oil paintings that have lost their varnish and whose dulled pigments allow the naked canvas to shine through. That is how the dark, shiny surface had changed.

  Lajos held the pistol in his right hand, ready to shoot. His index finger lay on the trigger, and it was only owing to the Hungarian’s utter calm and coldness that the cocked hammer did not fire. With the slightest vibration of the finger, the person in front of the barrel would have been dead. The Hungarian’s left hand held the dagger. The handle had been bent back on both sides and wrenched loose from the guard. The tip had been broken. But the sharpness of the double-blade would still permit him to strike it in to the hilt.

  Merlina was stunned. She looked first at the Hungarian, then at the Negro.

  Lajos looked at her calmly. Then his lips curled back into an ice-cold smile.

  Thick, black drops of blood stood on his cheek. The Negro’s teeth had torn deeply into the old scar and stripped away the epidermis even across the bridge of the nose.

  Most of the cats appeared indifferent and untouched by this dreadful drama in front of their eyes. Only a few shrank back in fear. Among the latter were the pregnant cholas.

  The pale mestiza Semiramis leaned down and looked carefully in the Negro’s face. She glanced questioningly at Merlina, as if she expected some sort of order.

  “You killed Sulla, Lajos? Sulla was innocent!” the zambo negresse said in a wild cry. She placed the ax on her shoulder.

  The cholas, who had pulled back, now drew nearer.

  “Whether innocent or guilty, it’s all the same—the black dog is finished and that’s it!” the Hungarian replied.

  “I made a fool of Sulla and enticed him here—I wanted to extract his papers—he carried them in his left vest pocket.”

  “The black dog was ready for a wedding. With that black frock coat and his white vest, he will make his bride happy.”

  The Hungarian noted a slight movement beneath his feet. Had the Negro’s breast moved, or was Lajos getting giddy from standing on this body? He looked down and stepped more firmly on his breast. His position was uncertain. The breast did seem to heave.

  He looked more carefully at the Negro’s face. The wide-open eyes were without sparkle or life. No breath came from the blue lips. And yet the breast did move.

  The Hungarian became irritated. He stepped on the Negro’s neck with his right foot, while his left remained where it had been before.

  This light motion was the result of a crass illusion.

  The Hungarian turned the Negro’s face to the floor.

  His manners did not betray the least hesitation.

  “Drive the cats back to their nests—we will celebrate our honeymoon, my panthress!” the Hungarian now said in a cheerful voice, and his face took on a certain liveliness. He let his arms drop, and he pointed the barrel of the pistol at the floor. He threw the dagger on the top of the master bed.

  These words wrought a wonderful change in Merlina. A dark red passed across her face, all the way to the Cupid’s fold of her lip. Her whole body appeared to be bathed in flames, and in her pupils gleamed the golden shaft of a panther-driven chariot, like a comet passing through the dark ocean of the evening sky. The teamsters were the Lady Venus and Cupid.

  The zambo negresse, who burned for Lajos in a truly demonic manner and was perfectly capable of surrendering utterly to her sensuality if it were released at the right moment—Merlina, the sixteen-year-old wildcat, whom Lajos so fittingly called his panther—Merlina, who had only teased her victims heretofore, often letting them bleed to death unattended—Merlina, who despite her amorality had not loosened her belt for any man, who was cold and thoughtful when others flamed and burned for her—Merlina, who could only be moved by an extraordinary and terrible episode to give away what she had guarded like the golden fleece despite her murderlust and cruelty, that which she often had struggled to preserve by might and main—this same wildcat, that very panther, panted and glowed to surrender to the man she had so often fooled and cruelly rejected.

  The Hungarian had only a mild tremor as he turned from the Negro’s body in order to claim in the arms of the zambo negresse what her eyes foretold would come to him.

  If Merlina had been able to read his thoughts, she would have pushed him away in dread and rage. The very arms that sought to embrace him would have been transformed into serpents.

  Merlina’s cats departed the bedroom at Lajos’s nod, after the pale Mestiza Semiramis received the order to stand watch at the door, to be relieved by a chola if necessary.

  “Leave Sulla where he is, my Lajos!” the zambo negresse told the Hungarian as he lifted the Negro’s corpse in order to drag it out.

  “Leave him there, my Lajos,” she repeated, “Sulla, though dead, has earned the right to observe our happiness—look, look how he shows his teeth and glares at us so intensely!”

  “Help me prop him up against the wall—he will be sensible enough to stay up and not fall down. How nice his black frock-coat looks—come, Sulla, let’s loosen your cravat so you may breathe better, silly fellow! Why did you have to die before I could sell you? Mr. Bartlett will mourn for the lovely nigger who ran away from him into hell. There, there, my esteemed barkeeper of the mill, stay here and watch us carefully. Dumb bumpkin, why did you have to bite my poor cheek and soil your lovely white cravat? Look here, there are blood spots on your lovely white vest. Don’t show your teeth so boldly, my poor little nigger—you have no idea how dumb it looks when a dead beast still puts on a show—there, there, just keep quiet and don’t run away!”

  Merlina greedily lapped up these words, quietly marveling at the Hungarian’s good mood.

  They helped each other set the Negro against the wall. But each time they thought he would stand up, his legs slipped away and he slid back down to the floor.

  They tried several times, but always in vain.

  “If I had my rifle here, I would stick it into his mouth and jam it through to his stomach—he would have been happy to stand up then.”

  Another attempt to get the corpse to stand up failed.

  Whenever they believed that they had succeeded, he always fell back to the floor. His head continued to be held high and a bit bent back. His fists were still tight.

  The Hungarian, who held the Negro’s body for one last try to place him erect against the wall, happened to reach into the vest pocket and detect a piece of paper.

  He let the troublesome corpse fall and reached for the vest pocket.

  It was the Negro’s celebrated papers, which Merlina had promised to steal.

  As he took these papers out, a narrow note fell, open, to the floor.

  Merlina had climbed onto the bed to bring the mosquito netting into order.

  She was just emerging. Only her head and shoulders were still hidden under the cover as she arranged the pillows and covers, thinking only of the Hungarian’s love.

  Only a glance was needed for the Hungarian to see that it was the note he had sent Merlina from Mobile. It brought him suddenly out of his Satanic calm.

  His forehead burned like a blast furnace, and his hairy chest rose in wild heaves.

  “Betrayed again!” he cried out in a terrified tone, leaping at the zambo negresse.

  He grabbed her by the arms, bringing his face close to hers, staring directly into her eyes.

  “What is the matter with you, my Lajos
? My Lajos, my Lajos!” She screamed.

  “Yes, infamous serpent—your Lajos is here—he will embrace you with his love, and you will receive as a corpse what you had promised him alive. I would have liked to embrace you trustingly, properly, tenderly, and humanly, my panther, but I cannot trust you alive, so it will be as a corpse.”

  The Hungarian’s face transformed itself into a dreadful mask as he spoke these words. His eyes were bloodshot and had taken on the fell blue shimmer a hyena displays when it falls upon corpses from an opened grave.

  It must be recalled that Sulla had found that note as he was searching through Merlina’s bed.

  On glimpsing this note, the Hungarian inevitably thought that he had been betrayed. Who but Merlina could have given the Negro the note, making him aware of the conspiracy that threatened his freedom? Then had Sulla been initiated into all the secrets? So he, the head of the mill, had stood under the control of a black barkeeper without even suspecting it? And what could Merlina and Sulla have been planning against him? Were they even laying plans to get rid of him? Did they fear him at all? Or had they used him to carry out innumerable crimes and atrocities whose harvest had once flowed into the coffers of the Mill?

  Merlina’s conduct at Sulla’s death? And now? So different! Hadn’t Merlina turned to him because she saw that no more deals could be made with the dead Negro?

  These thoughts coursed through the Hungarian’s brain with the rapidity of a lightning-bolt.

  ……………………………………………….23

  Merlina no longer knew what was happening to her when the Hungarian’s long black hair fell about her neck, and he gazed down on her with half-closed eyes.

  Semiramis, who had been delegated to stand guard outside the door of the bedroom, had been watching this hair-raising episode from beginning the end with the curiosity peculiar to her race, and she was barely able to suppress a cry of terror. She turned her back on the tragedy whose course she had followed up to this point and stared at the floor, moaning to herself.