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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  Then it suddenly appeared as if the moon understood him, for dark shadows spread rapidly on its surface, gradually appearing to form numbers.

  Hiram stood starkly, watching this miraculous game on the silver sickle. Now the numbers formed up one after another, throwing shadows on either side. They stood, black but glittering.

  “You have joined my struggle, symbol of the Crescent City!” Hiram cried out in holy enthusiasm, and in his eyes burned the fire of noble revenge.

  “What do I read on your shining face? That will be the summer of terror:

  Eighteen Fifty-Three!”

  Chapter 1

  ANGEL AND GENIUS

  That is of the god Amor

  A holy cathedral, a temple of love;

  In its tabernacle, like a lamp, burns

  A heart without falseness or fault.

  One of the most frequented churches in New Orleans is the Protestant Episcopal Church—usually called Christ’s Church—on Canal and Dauphine Streets. On certain holidays it successfully competes with the Cathedral and St. Patrick’s Church near the Odd Fellows’ Hall, not to mention St. Joseph’s Church on Common Street, the heavenly refuge of Green Ireland.4 The Episcopal Church’s popularity is due not to a high number of parishioners, since its flock is relatively small in comparison with those of the other religious sects in New Orleans, but rather to the nobility of our pious population. In most recent times, it has become a matter of good tone among the cream of the Creoles to pass through the portal of this church at least every other Sunday. All of the clubs of higher society are represented here, whether their members are believers in the papal or episcopal church. They have particular pews and pay substantial rents for them; the old Pelican Club has two rows, for instance, and for their use it must pay twenty-five hundred dollars a year. This church has always had the most educated and liberal clerics, insofar as a particular confessional coloration permits liberalism at all. McNeal and Ogden are major decorations of the salon, and they throw a rare and enviable aura upon the circle within which they move. The former is a poet, and his Highland verses are to be found in all the boudoirs of our clime. Ogden still held a chair at the Jardin des plantes in Paris ten years ago, where he taught botany and carried out the Jussieu reforms together with those of Serres.5 Both of these priests live now in the Dauphiné, which is what the Creoles call the extension of Dauphine Street starting at Bienville. Their gallantry, barely exceeded by those chivalric abbes in the days of the Kings Louis, goes so far that there is barely an album in which they have not penned a tender remark for its pretty owner or that does not harbor a significant amulet of some sort from them. Strict and conscientious within the limits of their duties, they are the most lovable company outside them. The most respected families of New Orleans trust their daughters’ education and training to them, and their success has been so astonishing that any young lady seeking to be regarded as educated must have received their basic tuition or their more advanced education.

  A high holiday had once more led the haute volée of New Orleans, particularly that of the Second District, to Christ’s Church in great numbers. Since it was just around noon, and the hot sun bore down upon the church, the ladies’ fans were in continuous movement, disturbing the devotions of many a cavalier. Instead of the air freshening a bit with this movement, the crowd was so large that the oppressive heat forced many to leave the church and begin the journey home. Among the many vehicles that stood before the church, there was a splendid carriage whose body rested on the finest, most delicate springs, suspended barely two feet above the ground. The door was decorated with a simple, dark red heraldic shield crossed from right to left by a silver bar. In the divided field there was a black star with a chalice beside it, over which levitated a host. Above the shield was a crown set with nine pearls.6 These arms were repeated several times in the silver bridles of the horses, whose legs and heads attested to their fine breeding. On the high driver’s box sat a Negro in the finest black habit and snow-white gloves; he had shed only the right one in order to remove a knot his whip had developed from use. Another Negro, in the same clothing, was standing at the side of the open door, raising the doorstep, which was covered with soft carpeting.

  “Who might own this splendid vehicle?” asked a young German man who, like so many others, was standing in front of the church to admire the beauties coming from the service. He said this to another bystander who recognized him at first glance.

  “I don’t know myself—probably some French viscount or marquis. These Frenchmen are crazy to put heraldic arms on a coach door in a republic. If I had my way that would come down at once! I cannot understand Americans for putting up with such nonsense. That sort of thing is an offense to our simple republican ways …”

  “Simple republican ways?” the other interrupted him, laughing aloud. “One can see that you’re very green here despite having lived here for seven years, Kaspar. Otherwise you wouldn’t talk such nonsense. Simple republican ways? Who told you that? Where did anyone tell you such silliness? You will still find simplicity in the backwoods of the Far West, and seldom enough there. Their women cannot survive anymore without powder and perfume.”

  “You don’t understand me—I am only talking about the old aristocratic nonsense, those infamous coats of arms—if I had known that they’d be everywhere here, I might as well not have left Germany. By God, my heart turns when I see something like that. I never would have imagined it in a republic.”

  “Let the people paint as many coats of arms on their coaches as they want, that doesn’t concern us at all. But what upsets me is this: you’re one of those hotheads who thinks he has found an aristocrat when he sees a fine shirt and cannot imagine a good republican in any way except with wild, uncombed hair and dirty clothes. This refugee mentality doesn’t work here, Kaspar, especially not in New Orleans. Still, I would be curious to find out who owns this splendid equipment. Let’s ask the nigger up there on the seat.”

  He approached the horse and spoke to the black coachman in the driver’s seat.

  “Please, who owns this wagon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who has hired this lovely carriage?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please, don’t you know your master’s name, damn’d nigger?”

  “Damn’d—” was the coachman’s response.

  Irritated, the German ceased questioning the Negro, for the simple reason that he did not want to embarrass himself any more in front of the bystanders. The black coachman actually appeared to have enjoyed goading the German.

  “How arrogant these niggers are—the fellows are prouder under their yoke of slavery than we Germans are,” the disgusted young man moaned, taking his friend’s arm to get away from there as quickly as possible. The Negro’s nonchalance was truly hard to bear.

  The eyes of the vagabonds standing in front of the church suddenly turned to two ladies coming down the broad stone steps. They went quickly toward the carriage, which had moved right up to the sidewalk.

  The Negro at the door stepped back with a bow as he pulled back the silver handle with his right hand.

  The ladies assisted each other into the coach with mutual gallantry.

  “The most beautiful girls in New Orleans!” declared a Frenchman who looked after the coach as it departed, striking his walking stick several times on the sidewalk.

  “It is just too bad that they are so seldom seen,” another remarked.

  “It is no wonder, since they never go to the theater, to a concert or a fair—they might as well be the T——s. Such jewels should be shown more often,” a third remarked.

  “The one is worth a million, with as many lots as others have hairs on their heads,” an American said.

  The young ladies sat opposite each other in the coach.

  They were of the same age, barely past their seventeenth year. One of them, sitting in the depths of the coach, had light blonde hair, almost golden, which was unfashionab
ly worked into broad braids put back over the ears, enclosing the classic oval of her pale, sorrowing face. These were the lines of a mater dolorosa, only purer and still touched by the rays of youth. In her splendid eyes heaven itself seemed to take its seat, they were of such brilliant, divine blue. But tears hung among the stars of this heaven, which went away only when her soft lashes covered them. The sparkling white of her neck, her tiny, fine hands and feet, her calm and sure posture, everything vouched for her origin in the high aristocracy, declaring that this pearl had been conceived in silk and gold. Her pale yellow barége dress, whose flounces were bordered with satin bands of the palest pink, only went to make this enchanting blonde almost transparent, contrasting dramatically with her mild, spiritual face.

  The young lady who sat opposite her was a striking but refreshing contrast.

  The rich, chestnut-brown hair, whose broad, full waves set off the most charming red of her cheeks, pressed her small crepe hat even further back on her neck, allowing her whole face to radiate its lively magic. Her eyes were the same color as her hair, hiding a rare fire in their pupils that evoked veneration, but as soon as one drew near, the fire would vanish into the distance like a mirage. The features of this warm brunette were not regular, and an artist would never have used them for his model—her face was not beautiful, not in the way that the blonde’s was, but it had plenty to charm and interest. It was modern, interesting, cute. She wore a carmine-red dress of thick gauze with three rows of flounces, the uppermost of which were hardly a hand’s breadth from the indentation of the bodice. This had a narrow belt of chrysoloid green watered silk.

  After they had passed down the full length of Canal Street, the carriage turned into Tchoupitoulas Street.

  The two young ladies had spent their time from the church to the named street sunk in contemplation, as chaste and pure souls are always wont to do after they emerge from a house of God.

  “How I thank you, my good Constanze,” the blonde said, turning to the other lady, who had just restored her gilded marquise comb, which had fallen out of her hair, to its proper place, “that gracious Providence has led you to our house and led you, a guardian angel, to me.”

  “Your thanks are owed to His Royal Highness, Prince Paul of Württemberg—not to me, my dear Dudley! The prince was the protecting spirit who watched you and freed you from the unhappy bonds in which the unworthy abbé held you.”

  “You must have thought me a child, my dear Constanze, when you considered how little I thought for myself.”

  “You had been forbidden to think, dear Dudley—that is not your fault,” Constanze responded in a pained tone.

  They were silent for a few moments, then Constanze said: “Learning to think is always combined with a danger, unfortunately—your head has gained, my friend, but the still quiet of your heart has been disturbed.”

  “See what a child I still am—your words flow clearly and unmistakably, and yet I cannot understand their sense.”

  “It is perhaps just as well if you do not understand, friend of my soul.”

  “I have only thought twice in my entire life. The first time was when heaven took my father, and the second time was when I lost my trust in the abbé.”

  “The first time was to the advantage of your heart; with the second time you lost your heart.”

  “You frighten me, Constanze—I lost, but I bear this loss happily, since heaven returned double to me by giving me your heart.”

  Constanze left her seat and settled next to her friend.

  “You are so good, Dudley, and I have to weep over the betrayal that was made against your pure soul. Come, kiss me!”

  The Negro who had stood by the door of the carriage in front of the church and who had taken his post at the rear as soon as the two women entered, peeked through the little window to observe how the two friends kissed one another by turns on the forehead and the mouth. He smiled and quickly withdrew, so as not to be observed satisfying his curiosity.

  “My dear friend,” Miss Dudley Evans began once more, placing her right hand in Constanze’s left, “when I think of that hour when the prince of Württemberg brought you to our house and you were received so lovingly by my mother, I always feel a pang, since I can hardly forgive His Royal Majesty for not having had the stroke of genius sooner to make your lovely family known to us. Warm sympathy and certain interest would have chased away my unhappiness.”

  “The sympathy was there, even if it was late. Who knows what would have become of me, my parents, and my siblings, if the prince had been traveling a few months more, or if he had not accidentally met Gertrude?”

  Miss Dudley wore a pleased smile as Constanze spoke these last words.

  “You’re smiling, my Dudley, oh how glad I am to see that! You are thinking about that droll business about the coffee-picking that the prince once told you of in his charming manner?”

  “It’s a good guess, my dear Constanze—I was just thinking of your little sister and what she was doing when we came home.”

  “As well as of her genius at coffee-picking,” the old count’s daughter said, smiling puckishly.

  “Yes, I never forgot that. I have heard it told twenty times already, even more thoroughly and more precisely than by His Royal Highness. At first your little sister cast her eyes to the ground when I touched on this theme—now she often raises the matter herself.”

  “Gertrude has never been happier and more lovable than she is now, Dudley. She prays to you as if you were a saint. Yesterday she showed me a garter and asked me who owned it. When I mentioned you, she embraced me and acted utterly foolish.”

  “Because she had found one of my garters?”

  “Yes. She said that you lost it by the large agave in the bower. She saw it right away, but she said nothing, and when you left she picked it up and hid it in a box. She decided that if you asked about it, she would not give it back to you.”

  “But what did your little sister do with the garter?”

  “She kept it as a memento.”

  “A memento of me? Then I must give her something better, Constanze.”

  “It depends on whether another memento would please her as much. For her the charm is the fact that you know nothing about it.”

  “But I know now.”

  “But she thinks that you don’t know.”

  Dudley Evans was silent for a moment and looked at the count’s daughter with tender eyes. She extended her hand to her friend again.

  “Do you know, Constanze,” Dudley said with a lively accent, “when we get home I shall act as if I’m searching for something.”

  “That’s good, Dudley. Gertrude will offer her assistance, and when you say you are looking for the garter, her troubled conscience will soon betray her.”

  “I am curious how she will act.”

  “Certainly in an original manner, as ever.”

  “I will demand the garter from her if she confesses taking it.”

  “She will confess her error, but she will not give it back to you.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes, I know her all too well—she would die if you insisted on it.”

  “Why so?”

  “To be sure, she is just that remarkable a child.”

  “Oh, how sweet you both are! I could never do without you both. The very thought that we could ever be separated really makes me sad.”

  “I feel the same way, my dear friend, a separation from you seems impossible to me.”

  “I have to be upset with His Royal Highness whenever he takes Gertrude away from me in order to show her a pretty butterfly or a glittering bug, even though I am a bit jealous about the fact that he lets her keep the insects she finds.”

  “Isn’t it true that the house on the Bayou Road where the prince resides once belonged to your mother?”

  “Yes, my father had it built four years ago. For that reason she would sell it to no one other than the prince, which seems entirely natural to me.”

&
nbsp; “But what if he sells it again?”

  “He cannot and will not, for he received it only with the promise that he would either live there himself or return it to mother. I would not entrust it to anyone else, least of all to an American, who would have no idea what to do with the lovely magnolias and cypresses.”

  “Dear Constanze,” the blonde said jokingly, raising her index finger, “I was born on this soil as well.”

  “That’s an entirely different matter, since your mother and father were both born in Scotland, so you are not precisely an American, thank God.”

  “You say ‘thank God,’ Constanze? Is it something bad to be an American?

  “Yes, since they lack heart and character.”

  “I never noticed.”

  “Because you never thought about it.”

  “You are cruel, Constanze.”

  “I did not want to offend you, Dudley, pardon me.”

  Dudley Evans knocked to signal the driver, giving the coachman a sign to travel faster. He immediately drove his horses forward.

  “This is an ugly street,” she said, “and the sun is unbearable. Your parents and siblings will love it across the lake—the air that blows there is healthier and cooler. We have to stay here another fourteen days. They will be all the more surprised when we bring Frida and Jenny. How your parents will rejoice to be able to embrace them again, after longing for them for such a while.”

  “If only the prince could manage to find my brother Emil as well. Poor Jenny is sometimes entirely disconsolate.”

  “Dear God will bring us these joys, too,” Dudley responded with a hopeful look in her eyes.

  “How do you like Frida’s husband, my friend?”

  “Quite a bit. He has an interesting, noble appearance.”

  “And a handsome face, although it is marred by a broad scar.”

  “I had not noticed.”

  “You hadn’t? You just said that he had an interesting, noble appearance.”

  “Yes, his attitude and manners please me. You can tell by looking at him that he has enjoyed an excellent education.”