At the instant he stood with Miss Dudley under the Weymouth’s pine, Lajos has become something like that.
The fact that the two stood, although they were immediately before a superb bench, showed that they had just arrived at this spot. The moon threw its blinding light through a great, open crown of acacia leaves formed by the intertwining and overlapping of branches. Otherwise, everything was covered in the deepest darkness. Beyond this, above this labyrinth of trees and bushes, the garden was as bright as day. Yet we shall exile our pen to the place indicated, the bright crown of acacias, framed in darkness.
“Look, Count, this is my favorite place—without even knowing it, we have arrived here. Isn’t it beautiful and lovely, so hidden and secret? It is only a bit open in that direction, toward the fence, but this opening will also soon vanish, conquered by darkness once the jasmine branches have grown together. That bit of sky above, from which my good old moon looks down, is just enough to make one think of the Creator of this little paradise.”
“Miss, this bench calls us to spend a few minutes in your little paradise.”
With these words, the Hungarian’s eyes looked with gentle persistence on the blue-white, beautiful forehead of his lady.
“How could you say a few minutes? Say the entire night,” Dudley responded with her childish directness.
“In your presence, Miss, I could pass months, years, even my entire life—but alone, not a moment. The little bit of sky that looks down, with which you are satisfied, could never fill my own heart. I feel better in broader, freer surroundings, in the presence of the whole sky. But even that is too narrow for me. There are moments for me when I wish I could rise above the limits of the horizon and look down on the entire globe. And if this were granted me, my unappeasable desire would drive me even further. I would wish I could swing around the zodiac, which would crack under the pressure of my ideas.”
“That is not pious thought, Count, for we must be satisfied with the limited space in which the wisdom of the Creator has placed us. An overweening spirit among men has ruined much on our beautiful earth.”
“You are right, Miss—but who compels us men to take such a high flight?”
When Dudley said nothing, the Hungarian continued.
“Women are most at fault that we men so often harbor perverse thoughts and use our felonious hands to turn a knife against the great spirit of the Universe. Women could easily make us into angels, if they only wished. We men are born troublemakers, and only women are in the position to lead us back to modesty and piety.”
Dudley had seated herself on the bench. The Hungarian had taken a position behind her, leaning over the back. They were only inches away from each other. If the conversation became any livelier, their faces could easily have met.
“I do not understand you completely, Count, but it frightens me nonetheless. My God, what are we women to do to save men from pride? And if heaven has really placed this power in our hands, why have women so neglected their duty to turn men into angels?”
“Because most of them suffer from pride of the heart, just as we do from pride of the spirit,” the Hungarian declaimed in an almost troubled tone. At the same instant he took one point of his moustache in his mouth and bit on it.
“Pride of the heart, Count? Can the heart be prideful as well?”
“To be sure, Miss. A heart is prideful when it prays to itself and holds itself aloof from other hearts.”
“But do women really do that, Count?” Dudley responded, moving a bit closer to the Hungarian as she said it, without meaning to. He stroked the blinding moonlight away from his forehead, letting his long, raven-black hair fall over his face. Now the moon shone on the back of his head, his neck, and his back. He stepped on a frog that had sprung onto the tip of his shoe a moment before, without looking to see what it was.
Outside, in front of the garden fence, Hiram told Cleveland the peddler: “Did you see how he let the hair fall over his face? And do you know why he does that?”
“That is easy to answer, sir. He cannot stand the moonlight.”
Hiram remarked, “This is a foretaste of the fate that awaits him.”
The peddler looked at him with large eyes but asked no further questions, for the couple under the acacia crown captured his total attention.
Dudley had to wait rather long for an answer to her question. She was about to repeat it when the Hungarian began to answer.
“It is painful for me to tell you the truth, Miss,” he said. “Women so eagerly close the shrine of their hearts, and even once they have permitted us entry to this holy temple, their pride drives them to expel us in the next moment with the scourge of egoism. So we must not and cannot become anything other than devils—”
“Count, Count! Do not speak so presumptuously—think of Him who holds sway above us and hears such speech only with pain.”
Silence on both sides. The moonlight greedily hovered about the spine of the man who leaned over the back of the bench, often springing to Dudley’s profile so that she moved first one way, then another. Her right hand lay on the back of the bench, under the Hungarian’s face.
Silence on both sides—until Dudley drew back her hand with an anxious cry. “But my God, Count, you are weeping?” she gasped, looking into the Hungarian’s face with confusion.
Tears had fallen on Dudley’s hand; that was why she’d drawn it back so quickly.
Was the Hungarian really weeping? And was he, this person, weeping the first tears in his life?
The author is now poised before a dreadful abyss. One more stroke of the pen and he would depict an angel and a devil coupled in the most infamous act of nature that had ever occurred in such a place.
Outside, in front of the garden, Hiram and Cleveland the peddler turned around, with their backs to the picket fence.
“Fortunately, she will die of yellow fever,” the first said.
Peddler Cleveland folded his arms and shuddered: “Do whatever you want with the fellow. I will have nothing to do with him … he would be capable—”
“Go with me into the salon when the company leaves the garden—I have to have you with me,” Hiram declared, in a tone that unnerved the peddler.
“Why should I go with you, since he will escape us anyway, as you said yourself?”
“Good, then you will be one of the first the plague takes away.”
“Sir, I am beginning to be most afraid of you—”
“You can only save your life by coming along. Your appearance in Lady Evans-Stuart’s salon is necessary to create a scene that will liberate two beautiful women from the distresses of their hearts.”
The peddler shook his head pensively, but he promised to obey.
• • •
Why did the widespread boughs of the Weymouth pine not fall down on him? Why did the locust not put out his eyes with its great, sharp thorn as he left the garden? Could nature observe such a crime and leave it unpunished even for a moment? And you flowers, you roses and magnolias, have you lost all modesty, so that you did not even close your buds when he passed by you? And you armored knight of the flora of Louisiana, the hard-riding cactus—why did you not drive your sharp spears into his brain when you saw him approach? In the old Greek times, the sight of such a crime would have raised up a fury in each leaf, and they would have flogged the murderer; Zeus would have sent his thunder and lightning, or he would have bonded the criminal to a gravestone and sent scornful birds to gnaw at his liver—and Flora? She would have poured out hot tears and ordered all her children to put on mourning for the fallen lily Dudley. But such things do not happen anymore. The modern Jupiter has grown powerless, and Flora has lost all modesty. A remarkable time, this!
But stop—the moon, the moon! What have you and Hiram arranged?
We will learn that later.
In Lady Evans-Stuart’s grand salon, they had finally returned to a more subdued mood after considerable confusion. Dudley, who was reported to have suddenly fainted at th
e Hungarian’s side during her stroll, was taken to her bed and left there with Constanze and Gertrude, neither of whom wished to part from their friend. The prince of Württemberg had climbed into his phaeton without a word—probably in order to make a personal visit to his physician. At least the company in the salon could not explain his sudden disappearance in any other way. The old Scotswoman, who was usually extremely concerned about her child’s welfare, had resumed her duties to her guests as soon as she knew Dudley was in the care of Constanze and Gertrude. She believed that Dudley’s condition was simply a matter of a light, harmless fainting spell, the kind that girls of such sensibility often experience at that age. Despite that, she also sustained herself with the thought that the prince had departed so quickly only in order to return with a physician. Besides, the party was nearing its end anyway. The black domestics moved busily in and out, presenting the last dessert on heavy silver plates. Some of them stood behind the chairs and on both sides of the sofas in order to ward off mosquitos with large fans, as the intense glare of three gaslights drew them in from the garden by the thousands. Mosquitos should never be lacking at a party, for they have the good quality of keeping things going in a lively and entertaining manner, even when the conversation stalls.
The company had taken its earlier places. Only those seats occupied by the prince and the three maidens were vacant. So the Hungarian won a place next to Frida. He appeared so placid and cool that even the old Scotswoman began to complain.
“You men are as unfathomable as the depths of the ocean,” she said, turning to him. “One would believe, Count, that you were the most indolent man in the world.”
“You did me an injustice, Madame, if you ever harbored any doubt about that. I feel myself losing interest more from day to day, and I do better in the company of cretins than in that of spirited persons, in which I now find myself.” He put on his black gloves as he spoke, acting out his intention by his manner. “It’s late, shall we go?”
“You speak strangely, Count, so strangely that I scarcely know whether to be candid with you.”
A Negro entered and announced that two gentlemen where in the waiting room, pressing Madame for permission to enter the salon.
“This is a very unusual time to make visits,” Lady Evans-Stuart said, turning to her guests. Then she asked the Negro who the guests were.
“They have not mentioned their names, Madame,” was the reply.
“Quite mysterious,” Captain Marcy remarked.
“A fool of a Negro,” the baroness de Saint Marie softly said to her niece, Claudine, “the fellow announces visitors and doesn’t even ask their names.”
Countess Jenny turned to Captain Marcy.
“You shall see, Captain, it is none other than the prince with a physician—he loves jokes of that sort.”
Lady Evans-Stuart sent the Negro back to ask after the names of the two gentlemen. He returned in a moment and announced: “Uriah Hiram and Sam Cleveland.”
The old Scotswoman shook her head and said in a drawl, “Uriah Hiram and Sam Cleveland? Utterly unknown to me.”
“That is certainly the Hiram with the Mantis religiosa,” Claudine de Lesuire remarked.
“Don’t ask for trouble, baroness,” Captain Marcy remarked in a joking manner, “who knows, who knows?”
Lady Evans-Stuart smiled over this observation, but she was still unpleasantly moved by the similarity of the visitor’s name to that of the man who had provided so much material for conversation. The same feeling crept up on both the baroness de Saint Marie and Countess Jenny.
Everything passed by Frida unheard. A mute madness that the guests had taken as deep mourning had sent her spirit into other regions for the last two hours.
Either the Hungarian had not been paying attention when the Negro spoke Cleveland’s name or the Negro had spoken unclearly; otherwise, one would have expected to see some change, even slight, on his face at the mention of the name. Yet he only mockingly observed: “It is really too bad that his Royal Majesty is not here, he could turn this Uriah Hiram into Hiram the Cagliostro for our entertainment.”
“Should we have the mysterious guests enter?” the Scotswoman turned to the guests, and then, turning specifically to the captain, she asked him: “What do you think of this, Captain Marcy?”
“I believe we could risk it,” he declared with a smile. “We can hope that the mystery might resolve itself into a joyous surprise.”
“Silly nonsense from this Yankee,” the Hungarian mumbled to himself, “disgusting formalism!”
The two gentlemen may enter!” Lady Evans-Stuart commanded the Negro.
He left the salon.
Even before the Negro brought his mistress’s approval, Hiram said to Cleveland the peddler: “If they deny me entrance, we will go in without permission. Otherwise, remain here until I call for you.”
“I am curious how everything will come out. You have brought me into a dubious situation, so I hope that you will try to make it good again,” the peddler responded, not yet clear whether he should hold Hiram to be an ordinary necromancer or a being gifted with supernatural powers. He would have been happiest if the mysterious man had left the old Scotswoman’s house with him at once, for the mere thought that he was approaching the Hungarian horrified him. Since Hiram had allowed him to see the dreadful scene in the garden under the Weymouth’s pine, he had been immeasurably frightened of his attacker, whom he would have been just as happy to let off unpunished. When the Negro brought Lady Evans-Stuart’s answer, Hiram reminded the amazed and distressed peddler that he was not to appear until called.
When the Negro saw Hiram depart the waiting room alone, he said to the peddler: “Milady wishes to speak with both gentlemen.”
“I know,” the peddler replied as he settled in a rocking chair.
The Negro, to whom this conduct seemed strange, and whose suspicions had already been raised by the doubts openly expressed in the salon, left the waiting room but did not let the gentleman in the rocking chair out of his sight for a moment, observing him from the vantage point of his adjoining servant closet.
When Hiram entered the grand salon, everyone rose, with the exception of the Hungarian, who lay more than he sat in his armchair, in a noble manner, though even he made a half-bow from his seat.
That was how imposing the stranger was.
Lady Evans-Stuart left her place on the sofa and approached him, greeting him with an invitation to be seated.
“My name is Uriah Hiram, Madame.”
“And what do you want?”
At this she seated herself on the sofa once more, next to her the new arrival. He had seated himself in the place the prince of Württemberg had been.
“I have taken the liberty—”
“Quite well, sir—”
“—upon my visit to the famed city of New Orleans, to visit the residence of Lady Evans, from the famous House of Stuart—”
“Quite flattering, sir,” the old Scotswoman interrupted, raising her head a bit higher.
The Hungarian’s eyes buzzed like two large lightning bugs about the gigantic, gaunt figure of the new arrival. They soon fell upon Hiram’s pale, powerful forehead, and they appeared to measure his entire figure from that base, soon whirring though his bleached hair, now gaping into his eyes.
We want to interpret this play of lightning bugs as quickly as possible.
As soon as Hiram had appeared, the Hungarian’s brain became so distressed that it had to surrender. Although, as we know, Hiram wore neither his green glasses nor his long French colonist’s mantle, the sharp eyes of the Hungarian could still recognize the man who had so overwhelmed him at dominos in that café on Chartres Street and revealed to him in his own study the worthlessness of the treasure of the mill. What the Hungarian was deciding, what he was going to do in response to this uncanny visit—we will leave that to the devilish laugh that his brain now vomited forth.
“But this is only one,” Claudine said to her aunt in a
barely audible voice. “Two were announced.” That was also what the baroness de Saint Marie recalled.
“—I wished to see for myself the residence of Lady Evans, from the famed House of Stuart, and on this occasion to ask the permission to see Lady Evans-Stuart with my own eyes,” the old man continued, allowing the manner of a monseigneur to emerge clearly as he spoke.
The old Scotswoman responded.
“You are certainly not of this country, sir. Your manners as well as your entire attire remind us of portraits of the old Knights of Malta, truly preserved for us by the brush of a Venetian artist.”
Lady Evans-Stuart, struck by Hiram’s grand fineness, did not want to lag behind him in conduct, and in order to determine Hiram’s estate and ancestry without asking him directly, she had hit on the comparison with portraits of the Maltese.
Hiram understood this sign quite well.
“There were times,” he said, “when I much resembled a Maltese. Once the Cross of Calatrava glistened on my left breast—”
An unspeakable emotion took control of the old Scotswoman with these words of Hiram. Who knows how, but she had to think in all earnestness of the Hiram who had been such a lively topic of conversation not long ago. The captain thought so at once. The Hungarian thought only that his man was here. The notion that this might be the same Hiram Cagliostro did not occur to him.
“A knight of the Order of Calatrava!” the old Scotswoman cried out in marvel. “The Cross of the Order of Calatrava has been buried for a good hundred years.”
“Almost a hundred years,” Hiram responded. “When Louisiana came to the crown of Spain in 1763, one knight of Calatrava sailed to New Orleans to escape persecution in his homeland. He was also the last of his order.”
“And his name?” Lady Evans-Stuart asked.
“Uriah Hiram,” the mysterious old man declaimed with a firm voice. “I was then about one hundred sixty years old.”
The Mysteries of New Orleans (The Longfellow Series of American Languages and Literatures) Page 65
