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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

“You were spying on me—you stood behind me as I was counting, right?”

  “I admit spying on you, Lajos, but heaven knows, not here—it was not here that I saw where you got those pretty banknotes.”

  “‘Not here,’” the Hungarian thought. “Obviously the Jew saw me counting the notes—but ‘not here’? What does he mean with ‘not here’? perhaps he—but no, that is utterly impossible—no, hell and the devil, that would simply be impossible!”

  “Not here?” the Hungarian now casually asked the Jew.

  “Here as well—but here is not where I saw you get your pretty banknotes, those pretty little things!” the Jew smirked.

  “Speak more clearly, Gabor,” the Hungarian said in a measured tone, as if he wanted to reach some sort of understanding.

  “Where else could I have spied you than in our pretty little mill itself?”

  The Hungarian’s arm that held the Bowie knife started a bit. Yet Gabor’s last words did not come unexpectedly.

  Gabor von Rokavar continued.

  “God’s marvel, Lajos, you did well with our Lady Merlina. God’s marvel, I would not have believed you could be so in love—and how nicely you polished off that little nigger! And the little banknotes you brought out from under the bed—that was the sweetest…”

  The Jew spoke in broken sentences, searching the Hungarian’s face to measure the impact his words were having. Lajos did not look at him at all but rather leaned against a pillar of the porch and ran his eyes over the garden, from which even the last shimmer of moonlight had vanished.

  What was the Hungarian brooding over, while still not missing a word of what the Jew was saying?

  Let’s look into the yard that adjoined the garden, connected to it by a small gate.

  The Hungarian’s eye swept toward this yard and remained for a long time fixed on a particular spot. This yard, which now belonged to the two sisters, had earlier been used by a barrel-maker as a cooperage. There was nothing left to indicate this earlier use but a pond, ten feet long and five feet wide, whose murky water, covered with slime, was enclosed by a brick wall. It could not even be seen by those who did not know it was there, since it was entirely surrounded and covered by nets of weedy vines.

  It had been a hoop-pond—that is, a pond coopers put their binders in to soften them until they had the proper elasticity. This pond stood right by the tall garden fence and was so located that whoever approached it could be seen neither from the cottage nor from any other place but only by one who passed through the gate between the garden and the yard.

  The Hungarian was thinking about this pond.

  “I see,” he turned to Gabor von Rokavar, “you hid somewhere in the mill and saw everything. Although I cannot conceive how you did it, I don’t want to quiz you any further—you can give me a complete account some other time. Here, Gabor, you may have the half of the treasure you asked for—but I will destroy you if you ever attempt to damage me with your foolishness. Mark my words! Here, I will count out the bills.”

  At these words the Hungarian took the bundle of notes out of his pocket, held the lower half fast and fingered through the upper half. When he was ready, he took the half and handed it to Gabor, who grasped at the bills hastily but did not put them away. Instead, he held the notes in his free hand, as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

  Lajos, who was surprised by this, asked him, “Well, perhaps you believe you didn’t get the right number, or that I cheated you? I will give you time to count, as much as you want.”

  Gabor von Rokavar thought about it. Not because he doubted the correct division of the money but because the Hungarian had advised him to count it. Would he use this opportunity to send him into the next world with a thrust of his Bowie knife? Perhaps the Hungarian only seemed to trust Gabor because he thought someone was hiding to see if anything happened to him. Who knows? One can never be too careful, particularly with such a person as Lajos. The Jew weighed all this as the Hungarian advised him to count the notes himself.

  Gabor von Rokavar, who could see at a glance that he had enough money, stepped back a bit and said: “I will review the notes if you throw away your long knife.”

  “I will keep it,” the Hungarian responded. “The Bowie knife cost me three hundred and twenty dollars—gold grip, real steel—hm, hm, you’re truly crazy, aren’t you Gabor?”

  “You could throw it somewhere you could find it when I’m gone,” declared the Jew, who was only now getting nervous.

  “Fearful asp of a Scandonicz!” the Hungarian hissed, throwing his knife away in a broad arc. The Jew’s eyes followed the flight of the knife with joy, seeing it fall on a nearby empty lot beset with half-sprouted grain, wild hemp, and blackberry bushes.

  Gabor did not suspect that the Hungarian was preparing a fate other than death by a Bowie knife. So he permitted himself to believe that the Hungarian would willingly divide everything with him. Despite his cleverness, it did not occur to him that the Hungarian would try to recover the notes, the entire treasure of the mill, from him before he had departed. Once the perilous knife was gone, Gabor trusted the Hungarian—that is, he believed that Lajos would want to use him in the future, since he knew that, other than Abbé Dubreuil (who was not in the mill at the time of the fire), no other clubman was still alive. For what other reason would the Hungarian settle so quickly, if the he did not have something to gain? Only his momentary joy over getting the money could have made the Jew so blind. With much less, or with no money at all, he would have been better prepared. Gabor was reinforced in his misplaced trust when the Hungarian began speaking about Abbé Dubreuil’s plans to take over the property of Mistress Evans. Lajos presented the Jew with advantages they could gain from this, using such glowing terms that Gabor dropped all his suspicions. In the course of conversation, they had walked all the way down the porch steps and were now standing in the garden.

  A pale strip of light was glimmering on the horizon, which still became lost in the dark shadows of the night sky. The thousands of cicadas, frogs, owls, ahingas, and bitterns that present their concerts every night under Louisiana’s sky had hushed, and only a locust performed a duet with a red-striped prairie cricket.

  In the garden itself it was still very dark, since the thickly planted trees and bushes did not allow the thin morning light to peek through. Despite that, it was possible to feel the dawn even in the midst of darkness, whether it was the fresher air or human understanding that betrayed it. Only the white paint on the trunks of some trees, which had been painted to protect them from certain insects, glowed in the fresh, green darkness. Otherwise one could barely see the garden path.

  Gabor became ever more animated in his speech, earning a gentle reproof from the Hungarian, who had to remind him that everyone in the house was asleep.

  “We’ll meet tomorrow at the Hotoohs’,” the Hungarian said with a determined voice, as he brought the Jew to the gate that led into the yard with the pond.

  “Do I get to the road this way? I have to hurry, I need to get home. I was staying with my old landlord behind Thayer’s plantation. I can’t go over to New Orleans yet, and it’s too risky with a rowboat, even if I could find a rowing boy, since I’m carrying such a sweet little nut! The ferry boat is always safer—do I get to the road this way?” the Jew repeated, stretching his neck through the fence gate, into the yard.

  The Hungarian stood behind him.

  “Of course,” he responded, “you’ll cut at least three hundred paces off the walk to Thayer’s plantation.”

  The Jew stepped into the yard.

  The Hungarian was right behind him and to his right.

  He grasped the Jew’s hand, supposedly in farewell, and said again, “Then it is certain, Gabor? Tomorrow at the Hotoohs’ for sure …”

  “I’ll see you,” the Jew assured him.

  The Hungarian released the Jew’s hand and acted as if he were stumbling. “Those damned cows,” he cursed. “There is always one in the way.” Then he led the
Jew along the fence, warning him to be careful not to fall over a cow.

  “God’s marvel,” Gabor responded, “what are cows doing among honest people?” He carefully tested the ground with his feet before he stepped. “God’s marvel, I thought I was about to step on a cow,” he called out again, taking a few more steps.

  They were only a few paces away from the hoop-pond.

  Just before he’d supposedly stumbled over a cow, the Hungarian had taken off his coat and held it by both sides, at the bottom.

  Now, as Gabor went a little way from the fence to avoid the vines that entangled his feet, Lajos threw the coat over Gabor’s head with lightning speed and pressed him against the fence.

  After a few moments, the feet of Gabor von Rokavar ceased twitching.

  The Hungarian had throttled him with all the force of his sinewy hands.

  “That was as good as the Hotoohs’ tar mask,” he said to himself as he unwrapped the coat from the strangled man’s head and put it back on.

  He took the money, as well as a wallet he found,* so he could examine the contents in daylight. Then he seemed to hear a piercing shriek from the cottage. He turned and listened, but everything fell silent and he assumed it was some nocturnal beast that had been taken by a predatory bird.

  He lowered the body into the pond and restored the order of the bushes and mustang grass that had been disturbed.

  When the Hungarian returned to the cottage and entered his wife’s room through the drawing room, he stumbled upon a dreadful scene. Jenny rushed to him at the sound of his footsteps, terrified and pale. She pulled the Hungarian into the bedroom, where the new lamp shed its peaceful colored light from the mantel of the fireplace.

  The Hungarian was slightly irritated, as he thought that Frida and her sister had seen or heard something. He perceived at once that he was wrong.

  It was something utterly different that caused them to look so terrified and distressed.

  After the Hungarian had left and Frida had ushered her sister into the bedroom, they had remained awake for a while awaiting the Hungarians return. When he did not come back, Frida assumed he was going to remain on the porch until the break of day, which he often did, despite his wife’s efforts to dissuade him.

  Jenny had lain down with her sister, and they quickly went to sleep.

  They might have been slumbering no longer than half an hour before they were awakened by an unusual cry from the baby. When they looked into the cradle, they saw that the child had pulled aside the mosquito netting and wrapped himself in it. In an instant, Frida leaped from her bed to the child. Jenny had half her body out of the bed. But who could describe their terror when they touched the wet, cold body of a rat, stretched out on her child’s neck, which would not move despite all their beating and shrieking?

  A dreadful cry escaped from the breast of the unhappy mother.

  With the wrath of a lioness whose young are in danger, she ripped the ruined mosquito netting to bits and grabbed for the rat.

  But new, indescribable terror!

  The teeth of the rat were fastened in her child’s neck.

  Jenny also came to the cradle, but she fainted at once.

  Frida could not pull the rat away, since that would only worsen her child’s situation.

  Her whole body shaking with rage, the usually calm Frida gnashed her teeth and displayed the eyes of a Fury—despite her pretty blue eyes, her golden hair.

  She had once heard that rats feared Greek fire, and that they fled at the sight of it, never to return.

  It occurred to her, couldn’t the colored lenses of the lamp attachment do the same service?

  A flash of thought. In an instant—it was done.

  When Frida held the lamp up to the rat’s eyes, it left its victim and scurried across the cradle onto the floor.

  Frida let the lamp fall and threw herself on her child, showering it with a thousand kisses.

  When she arose, she saw Jenny before her, pale as the idol of death. She could not speak, but she had seen everything.

  The lamp stood quietly and discreetly on the mantel of the fireplace, as if it had not the slightest guilt.

  Neither Jenny nor Frida had picked it up from the floor and put it back in its place.

  The child slept forever.

  Then the two sisters had rushed out to find the Hungarian, and that is how he found things.

  The cold scoundrel’s knees buckled as he stood before the dead child. Perhaps, for the first time in his life, something moved in his heart which could be called decent human feeling. He could not weep—as ever. Nature had denied him this since birth. The murderer had never wept as a child.

  • • •

  On the evening of the very day we accompanied Countess Constanze and Miss Dudley from Christ’s Church to their home, Lady Evans-Stuart and the prince of Württemberg were in a conversation that has much to offer us and that also tells us something of the present situation of Abbé Dubreuil. We will join the last moments of this conversation, which will be very interesting for our lady readers.

  The old Scotswoman was just closing a rather large letter that she had been reading through with close attention. On the envelope that lay in her lap, one could see the broken seal of a count, and the address read: “To his Royal Highness, Prince Paul of Wuertemberg, New Orleans, Louisiana, U. St.”

  Lady Evans-Stuart shoved the letter back in the envelope after folding and laid it on the alabaster bureau standing next to her.

  “It appears that you are right, Prince,” Lady Evans-Stuart told Prince Paul of Württemberg in French. “It is indeed the same Abbé Dubreuil who committed the infamous crime against Aunt Celestine. His papal mission to Magdeburg took place in the same precise time.” The old Scotswoman continued with great agitation, “Oh, that I should have to endure such from a priest in these last days of my life, a priest who belongs to a church to which I have given all my honor and veneration since childhood!”

  “Calm yourself, Madame,” the prince responded in a warm, sympathetic tone. “We are proud of having saved the life—the life and the innocence of your angelic child.”

  “And I had suspected nothing, utterly nothing!” Lady Evans declared in long, drawn-out words.

  “And on the day the abbé was to go to confession with your child—you were irritated with me when I asked that it be prevented,” the prince commented calmly.

  “Do you really believe that the abbé would have done the same with my child? … It is dreadful to think of.”

  “Madame, it would have happened—he made the same preparations with Aunty Celestine—you have read the letter …”

  “I am writing to Rio de Janeiro today … he is supposed to have fled there with some money entrusted to him by the bishop.”

  “Are you sure, Prince?”

  “He was seen on a ship sailing for Rio.”

  “May the revenge of heaven, which he has so offended, pursue him,” the old Scotswoman said with all the fire of her religious feelings.

  Both were silent for a few moments.

  Lady Evans-Stuart took up the conversation first.

  “But Prince, to come back to the count’s family again—as good a heart as you have and as charitable a sensibility, it was still mean of you to keep Jenny out of the arms of her parents-in-law for so long.”

  “I have adequate grounds for this,” the prince said secretively.

  “You are always bearing mysteries, Prince,” the old Scotswoman said.

  “Secrets—no mysteries!” the prince cried out in a lively manner.

  “But tell me, Prince, Lady Evans-Stuart continued, “how did it happen that Count Lajos * is in such bad graces with his wife’s cousin?”

  “I cannot really give you a satisfying answer on this, Madame. Count Lajos * is a very respectable, solid man—I have nothing against him. He pleases me through and through, and, like all Hungarian nobles, he has something very attractive about him. Unfortunately, I meet him very seldom, for he is
busy every day and often late into the night.”

  Lady Evans-Stuart leaned a bit toward the prince and whispered softly: “Wasn’t Count Lajos * untrue to his wife once? Such is told in certain circles.”

  “Not that I know,” the prince responded.

  “More mysteries, or secrets—as you prefer, Prince,” the old Scotswoman remarked.

  Then, when the prince made no response, she continued.

  “Didn’t the count abandon his wife for two years? Confess it, Prince, you know, you know, you must know—”

  “Yes, so far as I know, he was gone for two years. Some circumstances unknown to me might have compelled him—in any case, I can assure you, Madame, that there is no more loyal or solid man anywhere.”

  “As they say,” the Scotswoman continued, “he was supposed to have been engaged for a long time in a factory. That amazes me—a Hungarian nobleman, from such an old house …”

  “Madame,” the prince responded, “Count Lajos * is far above such scruples.”

  “Perhaps he is playing the role of a Cincinnatus,” Lady Evans opined, “waiting until someone calls him from his factory, as from a plow, to take the dictatorship. His fatherland has not yet played its hand.”

  “Madame, you could be right,” the prince declared, laughing maliciously, “but I would not risk my health in a factory on such a hope.”

  “So in fourteen days, Prince, you will accompany us across the lake. You and Count Lajos * will be able to perform your offices as cavaliers among the ladies.”

  “It is still unclear whether Count Lajos * will come,” the prince said. “Since the death of his first and only son he is very depressed.”

  “The trip across the Lake can only help his mood, then,” the old Scotswoman responded.

  “I will do my best to convince him to join the expedition,” the prince said.

  “Since he does not yet know the parents-in-law of his wife’s sister, Count Lajos * would have all the more reason to come along.”

  “That would be the only thing that would move him to go,” the prince said earnestly. “I shall try.”

  As the prince took leave of the old Scotswoman, he said to her with concern: “Madame, do not delay your departure any longer than you have already planned. There could be serious consequences.”