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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  “All of the Hungarian magnates’ sons have that—though they are somewhat too proud and domineering. They are seldom able to bear contradiction, and so they often fall into the most uncomfortable situations.”

  “That is not the way I find him, Constanze. I am convinced that Hungarian officers must be that way and no other. Lajos is exactly as one reads of this nation in books.”

  “It is perhaps as well that he received a good lesson from a desperado’s dagger.”

  “Is that why he has the scar on his face?”

  “As he tells it, he had a duel about a year ago with a half-mad Mexican in Matamoros. It went well, in that neither was able to wound the other. But as they parted the Mexican jumped on Lajos, threw him to the ground, and cut his cheek with the point of a dagger.”

  “That’s just too shameful!”

  Lajos is of the opinion that his opponent was half-mad, since otherwise he would have ended the conflict honorably and not added such a shameful wound.”

  “That is possible—no one in their right mind is that raw and vicious.”

  “I would believe anything of a Mexican. Just look at them, they are a nasty people. I cannot think of a Spaniard or a Mexican without a dagger. When people speak of Mexico, I think at once of the pile of daggers and stilettos they constantly carry around with them.”

  “I didn’t know that, Constanze. When I hear Mexico spoken of, I always think of fine feathery palms and splendid cactus and bounteous garlands of lianas. Now and then I think of Santa Anna with his wooden leg.”

  “You have the tales of the prince of Württemberg to thank for this association.”

  “That is quite possible, Constanze. The prince is utterly enthused and flames when he speaks of Mexico and his Parangas.”

  The carriage now went more slowly.

  Dudley Evans rose a bit from her seat and looked out.

  They were already in Annunciation Square. On the right-hand side, diverging from the church, surrounded by cypresses, oleanders, magnolias, and Weymouth’s pines, stood the residence of Lady Evans-Stuart, Dudley’s mother. From the outside, this house seemed to be only a simple, uncomplicated frame structure produced according to the ordinary American stereotype. But once you set your foot inside, the glimpse of a double ceiling with its accompanying niches revealed a purified taste. Luxury ruled in the furnishings, which did not display the coarse tastes of a moneyed aristocrat but rather the harmonious and sensual culture of an inherited élite who has been handed down her qualities in the purest manner. In short, this was the luxury that unfolds in every direction and does not injure.

  A rather elderly man walked across the green grass of Annunciation Square with a pretty blonde girl on his right hand. They took rapid steps, their eyes turned to the approaching carriage.

  “The prince and Gertrude!” Dudley calls out joyfully, and a pretty pink suffuses the tender, transparent paleness of her cheeks.

  She has the Negro halt the carriage, and she and Constanze get out.

  “Angel and Genius!” the prince of Württemberg declares as he stands before the two friends together with Gertrude.

  “And you, Royal Highness, lead us on to Psyche,” Constanze responded curtly, looking at her little sister, who was holding a small argus butterfly between her soft fingers.

  “Mythology and Christianity,” the prince of Württemberg entoned. They went to déjeuner àla fourchette.7

  Chapter 2

  ON THE FLIGHT TO NINEVEH

  It is sad but all too true that a guardian demon stands more steadfastly at the side of a bad person, guiding the way through vice and crime, than does any guardian angel in helping and protecting a good person. Anyone who knows people will have to confess this time and again, and in a thousand cases there will hardly be one instance in which sin is its own punishment or in which it exacts its own revenge. Whoever relies on these axioms is in no position to do anything good, since this assertion of inevitable recompense preaches indifference to the good and assures security to the evil. Disappointment over the failure of morality to win out is what confuses and obscures the concepts of right and truth. The greatest criminals are certainly those who have never been reached by the arm of Themis,8 since they have always managed to exploit the virtues or vices of those who could harm them. Since they properly believe that they have nothing to fear from the existence of conscience, they capitalize on conscience and press it like an amulet to their cold hearts. While a hasty misdeed delivers many a good person to justice, thousands of crimes will not manage to endanger the freedom and security of such a true criminal. Is it happenstance, or is it a demon protecting them over the course of their lives?

  A year after Lajos had left Watson’s farm and boarded the Sultana to begin his journey to New Orleans, we saw him as a clubman of the 99th and 100th degree. The subject of this chapter and the following will be the events that happened to him during this time, as well as his activities from this return to the Gulf City until the moment when we hear him being discussed with such esteem by the two women-friends.

  Without hesitating to fill in this gap, we are still tempted to remain silent about a particular serious matter, since divulging it would probably have serious consequences in intimate family circles. But someday a gust of wind from somewhere will lift the veil of its own accord, freeing us of the accusation that we have injured the hearts of the innocent, striking their eyes with blindness.

  When Lajos left the Watson home, deep snow with deep wind-driven drifts, some three to five feet deep, covered the ground, threatening to swallow him up. Along the bayou, from the farmhouse to the bridge leading to St. Louis, there were several hollows that could prove fatal to anyone who did not thoroughly know the lay of the land. Lajos, who knew precisely every nook and cranny of the farm, even all of Bissell’s Island—such a sense for detail of place is instinctual in such characters—avoided these sinkholes with care. He thought he had passed all of them when he jumped the fence and turned in the direction of the bridge. Then he stood and looked back on the farmhouse, as if he were remembering something he had missed on his departure.

  “That dumb little goose would have loved me if I had had enough money,” he mumbled to himself, “but so …”

  He had extended his right foot, and it sank into a ditch the snow had hidden and leveled. The ditch had just been dug, so he had not known about it. He sought in vain to get out, to at least raise his head above the snow so he could cry for help. He flailed through the snow in both directions. A labor of Tantalus! The sinkhole was too broad for him to reach the side and climb up. Death appeared inevitable. He would gladly have sent a curse up to the open air, but the snow pressed on his pale lips, seemingly repaying him for his evil deeds. Then he suddenly felt a hard object on his shoulder that extended all the way down his back. Instinctually he reached back, and his hands grasped a picket barely two inches thick. With the weight of his body he pushed it down several feet, but it also raised him enough for him to taste the cutting air of winter morning.

  A worker employed at the lumbermill barely two paces from the bayou bridge had seen the Hungarian sink into the ground, and he had rushed to the sinkhole with a picket in order to help him. As we have seen, this deus ex machina came just in time, or rather at the wrong time, since it would have been better for this satanic monster to have vanished from the earth in precisely this manner.

  “Now I can breathe adequately—I certainly owe you a drink, since I cannot offer you anything better,” the Hungarian said to his rescuer, who was taken aback by the man’s chilliness.

  “I have no idea how you got here, sir, but I can assure you that you do not need to be concerned about any demonstration of your thanks. I saw your life in peril, and I saved it. That is reward enough,” the lumbermill worker declared.

  “Never mind, I do not have the slightest scruples on this—I owe you a drink, then each will go his own way,” the Hungarian remarked.

  “I can tell from your pronunciation that you
are no Yankee—you are certainly a German—then I am all the happier for rescuing a compatriot,” the worker said, looking into the Hungarian’s pale face, half in marvel, half in dread, for the Hungarian’s eyes burned with offense.

  “No German!” Lajos spit, still in English but bitterly cold, “but not far from it.”

  “Then you are certainly Swiss?”

  “Swiss? Pah! Must a person always be Swiss if he is not a German? I will not respond to that—Swiss and Germans are the scapegoats among the nations.”

  “I cannot understand what you’re trying to say, but it is as if you are trying to irritate me,” the worker declared in a dignified tone.

  “Pah! Let’s leave it at that! I owe you a favor, and that’s that!”

  The German worker, a man still in his best years, shook his head in misgiving over the Hungarian’s strange conduct. He walked alongside of him, wading into the deep snow, for it was early in the day—the walkways had not been cleared and the roads had not been traveled on enough to be used with ease.

  “Here is Farmer’s Home,” the Hungarian said, pointing at an old frame building, “there we can have a drink. Do you know this bar?”

  “Not much, I don’t visit it more than three times a month. The boss doesn’t like us to.”

  “I wouldn’t care a damn about my boss,” Lajos declared. “If you offer those scoundrels a finger they take the whole hand.”

  “You’ll not get very far so long as you’re compelled to work.”

  “Who told you I work?”

  “Your arms are strong enough, and that coat is more suitable for a farmer than for a do-nothing.”

  “Isn’t your boss a do-nothing who makes you work like a dog so that he can lie about on a bearskin? You’re the ox on his treadmill, and if you don’t measure up, he shows you the rod.”

  “It isn’t that bad, sir. If you don’t have the freedom to quit working, there is nothing you can do; even if my boss is a do-nothing, I couldn’t care less, so long as he pays me decently.”

  They entered the barroom of Farmer’s Home.

  The bar called Farmer’s Home was an old two-storied frame building belonging to a former official of the Elector of Hesse who had left Germany in the thirties and, after good and bad experiences in various parts of the Union, had settled down to earn a living in St. Louis. What he tried did not turn out well, and he soon sank so low that he had only twenty dollars left. One day he wandered, disconsolate, through the streets of St. Louis, playing with the thought of leaving town with the money he still had and taking a boat up the river, when he was suddenly drawn to signs of the Missouri Lottery displayed from an office, inviting him to come in and try his luck. He bought several half-shares and full-shares up to the amount of fifteen dollars, since it seemed too extreme to put his whole fortune on a single share. He passed the rest of the day with the greatest impatience. What was he to do if he won nothing? Hadn’t he robbed himself of what he needed to travel on? These thoughts tormented but did not destroy him. In fact, the closer the time of the drawing came, the more enthusiastically he built castles in the air. They burst at once like soap bubbles, then he built new ones, painted in the brightest colors. At last came the moment when his luck was to be decided. He did not dare to be present at the fatal drawing. When the board with the new winning numbers was put out, he approached it several times without having the heart to look and see if he’d won Fortuna’s gift. Finally he had to do it, and a quick glance at the large red numbers of the winners caused him to stagger back several steps. The joy of what he had seen transformed his face into that of the most fortunate of men. He had won the solid sum of nine thousand dollars! Nine thousand dollars, so suddenly received, is not to be sniffed at, particularly when one is in such a critical position as to have seen one’s purse of twenty dollars decimated, as was the case with our Hessian official. On top of that, it is very hard for anyone in the ordinary course of things to come into possession of this sum, especially a German bureaucrat in America!

  The first decision our lucky man made was not to leave St. Louis, and the second was to realize a long-treasured idea to marry. The object of his most intense desires was the daughter of a starch manufacturer in St. Louis who had an important operation on South Second Street, across from the convent. The hard-hearted father, who had been unwilling to release his daughter under the earlier conditions, now had nothing against it whatsoever, particularly once the happy suitor provided two thousand dollars in cash for his business. The starch manufacturer did his best to make his son-in-law into a settled citizen of St. Louis, trying to convince him to establish a solid household. But our former Hessian official had no desire to go into partnership. Perhaps he thought he was weak in starch. The social situation of his wife somewhat resembled that of his previous wife, who had been a linen supplier to a princely court and had died in Germany. Since he had loved his first wife with all the fire of an inflamed lawyer, the best prospects existed for the second match. For several months it went quite well. They loved each other, and they both were interested in the income at their confectionery on Franklin Avenue. Ice cream, soda, mead, pineapple sherbet, candies, and pies sold well, and it seemed there was little else needed to provide the foundation for a substantial fortune. But the gods willed it otherwise.

  Either they envied the fine couple in their busy happiness, or they wanted to put the Hessian official through some sort of ordeal. But their lives were to be disrupted by an entirely innocent book, Introduction to Swimming, Particularly on the Back and Treading Water. One day, when the shop lacked paper for wrapping sweets, the young woman encountered this book in her husband’s book locker as she was ripping out pages for this purpose. Her eyes fell on several woodcut illustrations showing male and female swimmers. This drew her into reading, and soon this pastry baker fell into the obsession that she should become an excellent swimmer. She wanted her husband, who she knew was a good swimmer in his own right, to support her in her efforts. Since he loved her, he agreed at once. Our bureaucrat took her to the water and taught her the art of swimming as best he knew how. After six weeks she had made such progress, particularly in the back float, that she already excelled her teacher. Who was more pleased than our bureaucrat? Whereas he had once been bored swimming by himself, now he had the loveliest companion in the world. All of his dreams of naiads and sirens were now literally fulfilled. The mania for swimming that had swept up his Little Obsessive, as he always called his wife in all tenderness, soon drew other followers, who made a lot of work for him. And the confectionery? It suffered from this madness for bathing. Whereas she had once taken care of everything herself, now she passed the work to other hands. The young woman wanted nothing so much as to talk about swimming, while the husband, who saw the business approaching ruin with every passing day, said not a word to his Little Obsessive. If he ever said anything, it was a gentle hint. More than a year passed. She had become a champion swimmer, but the confectionery had suffered a great deal. The hopes that our bureaucrat had harbored for the winter season were washed away. Since his Little Obsessive was no longer able to bathe in the river, she sought a replacement at home.

  The first thing the Little Obsessive did to develop her nautical power was order a monster tub. This measured ten feet, three inches long, four feet, seven inches wide, and a disproportionate seven feet deep. Since the Little Obsessive measured all of four feet and a bit more in height, she had to pull over a table in order to climb into and out of the immense tub. The water was three feet above her head when she stood on the bottom, so handholds of gutta-percha had been made and placed about so she could pull herself above the surface and climb out. Two faucets above the tub provided hot and cold water. Under these conditions, the Little Obsessive had pursued her passion with great success for two months, and she had never appeared so beautiful, healthy or more at her best. The Hessian bureaucrat, however, experienced bad days and worse nights. Often she jumped up in the middle of the night, waking her husband, the pa
stry chef, his sister the counter clerk, the cook, and even the drowsy young man who had to sleep in the shop to guard at night. She would drive them all to arrange her bath, or (to use an Americanism) to “fix” it. What good were her husband’s protests against these midnight uproars? He was preaching to deaf ears. Little Obsessive had it in her head to mobilize the entire house whenever she desired to bathe in the middle of the night. Since all complaints, even threats, produced nothing, her tormented husband was compelled to resign himself to his fate with all the patience of a true Christian. But he did not cease trying to figure out escapes and ways to put an end to this nonsense. Little Obsessive was no longer of any use in the shop, for her lack of attention led to the worst stupidities. If anyone came and bought a cake and she received, say, a five dollar bill, the buyer would wait in vain for the proper change. It often led to a real scandal. The uproar would draw a crowd that would eagerly follow the course of events or take sides. Little Obsessive would declare that she had determined to give no change because she was collecting to create a swimming school on the Meramec River next year, where anyone who came could swim for free. Of course, no one was satisfied with this.

  She was cited, and, since she continued to be adamant in court, she was held to be insane, so her husband had to pay the money out of his own pocket, together with substantial court costs. It is remarkable that it never occurred to our bureaucrat to separate from his Little Obsessive. At least he was never heard to consider it aloud. Why the father-in-law, the starch manufacturer on South Second Street, closed his eyes to what was going on remains a mystery. So Little Obsessive found herself in a nautical mood on Christmas Eve, when the shop was filled with customers. For a change she wanted to prepare her bath by herself. After she had filled the tub with cold water so that about two feet of water filled the bottom, she turned it off and jumped in. Then she pulled herself up on the gutta-percha and opened the other faucet, which let in boiling hot water. In order not to scald herself, she stationed herself at the opposite side of the tub and watched the water stream in. After a few minutes she found it necessary to raise herself in order to turn off the faucet and turn on the other one. But when she gave it her best try, the handhold broke and she fell back into the tub. The hot water now rose to the level of her breasts. In desperation, she tried to get up to the faucets, but to no avail. She always fell back down. She screamed with all her strength, but no one seemed to hear her. Hence she met a dreadful death, and help came only after the water ran over the edge of the tub and flooded into the confectionery next door. Only then did they drag the unfortunate woman out of the monster tub, terribly scalded.