6. Physiognomy was the popular nineteenth-century “science” that treated external characteristics as indications of human character.
7. Pierre Leroux (1798–1871), was a French philosopher and leading secular humanist.
8. Latin, “The fine art of teaching the method of calculating infinite series.”
9. The House of Atreus was the cursed royal family of Mycene in Homeric Greece. Agamemnon was murdered in his bath by his wife Clytemnestra for having their daughter sacrificed to bring a favorable wind for the Greek fleet to besiege Troy.
10. The German word for cockroach is Schaben, which is punned here with Schwaben, for “Swabians.”
11. Erysipelas is a primary bacterial infection of the skin. See Merck Manual, 16th ed. (New York, 1992), 56, 2417.
12. Sevastopol, a fortress in the western part of Russian Crimea, was a major object of siege by allied forces in the Crimean War, which was then going on (1853–56).
13. An eagle was a ten-dollar gold piece, so a quarter-eagle would be valued at $2.50.
14. Of the 12,151 burials during the epidemic, 2,212 took place in Lafayette Cemetery. See J. S. McFarlane, “A Review of the Yellow Fever,” in List of Interrments in all the Cemeteries of New Orleans From the First of May to the First of November, 1853 (New Orleans: True Delta, 1853), xiv.
15. In the newspaper publication, there was a double row of long dashes, representing the lined-up coffins. This was not done in the book version.
16. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851–52), by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96), was one of the major bestsellers of the 1850s and the definitive abolitionist novel. It inspired innumerable stage performances. In Germany, its popularity persisted into this century, and there is even a subway stop in Berlin named Onkel Toms Hütte.
Epilogue
1. These are the words of “the handwriting on the wall” described in Daniel, 5:25–28, foretelling disaster to those who persist in sin.
2. Mardis Gras was on 28 February in 1854.
* It is a great error, committed even by Washington Irving, to use the term Creole exclusively for those of French blood. If one considers the original meaning of this word, which indicates someone “raised over here,” then it is no contradiction to speak of Spanish, German, and Indian Creoles. Applying the term Creole only to the descendants of the French colonists, as usually happens, reflects poor knowledge of our relationship of races. A child born in Louisiana of German parents is a Creole. So is a child born of the mixture of a white man and an Indian woman—but not the reverse, for only the white color of the father makes a child a Creole.
*This is an arabesque on the sermon mentioned in this chapter, whose content is not given to the reader, even though our omission will draw criticism for violating the journalistic standard that both sides be heard.
†Second arabesque on the aforementioned sermon.
*At the time these words were spoken, Captain Marcy had not yet begun his expedition to find the source of the Red River. That source is still not known. All accounts of it, including that of Alexander von Humboldt and back to those of Lieutenant Pike and Colonel Long from 1803, 1806, and 1812, are unusable.
* Calaboose.
† An instrument that gives a rattling sound, used by the night watch to call for help in emergencies. It is also used as a signal for fires.
‡ Ordinary members of the night watch.
* A flamboyant variation of the fandango, once a favorite dance of the Turks.
*A small stringed instrument that Cupid plays when he is certain of his victory.
*The Virginia nightingale.
* Probably “squares.”
* Probably “south.”
* Probably “New Basin.”
*Hygron (Greek): the moist, happy swimming quality in the eyes of the Medici Venus and the ancient Artemis.
†It was Orleana’s peculiar whim to be addressed as “milady.” She demanded this not only of Betsy but of all who moved in her circle. One cannot put this down to vulgar pride.
* Ganymede’s masculinity was certainly not the reason Zeus loved him. As a god, Zeus could also see him anytime he wished in his Titianesque nightshirt.
* We could not determine whether they have resumed their previous location now that McDonogh has been dead for several years.
*A short, full brush used with stencils. Drumming is the technical term for stenciling.
* In more recent times, under the management of A. Cambre, the Louisiana Ballroom—at the corner of Esplanade and Victory Streets, of course—is no longer under such a strict police control, since a more select public has come to occupy its halls. They no longer admit sailors and shoreboys in red shirts and broad workers’ trousers. Those are restricted to the Hamburg Mill and Old Jack. Despite that, one cannot always prevent the sons of Neptune from smuggling themselves in, and their rowdiness with them. This restriction to the elite does not, however, apply to the ladies. And properly so, for our lovely women of Orleans are welcome everywhere, whether they are prostitutes or pastors’ daughters. The most brilliant of the current fancy-dress balls is the “Masquerade Quadroon Ball,” but it is at the same time the most scandalous. Madame P *’s balls on the Bayou Road are an analogue to these Masquerade Quadroon Balls, where the grand feminine world of New Orleans, otherwise presented only at the balls in the St. Charles Hotel, clandestinely bathes in the lustful lake of Venus Vulgivaga.
*It begins with the following famous lines: En mon triste et doux chant,/D’un ton fort lamentable,/Je jette un oeil tranchant/De perte irreparable;/Et un soupirs cuisans/Passent mes meillieurs ans. [Ed.: In my sad and soft song,/Of a tone quite sad,/I throw a cutting eye/of irreparable loss;/And in poignant sighs/My best years pass.]
* Pasithea, the Grace of Sleep in Homer and Anacreon.
*Our city was first divided into four wards in 1792 by the governor of the province, Baron de Carondelet, who was responsible for several “improvements” in the city at that time. Thus there was the first street lighting in 1793 (gas lighting did not arrive until 1834, the same time as the water works). That same year, our watchmen were mobilized. Baron de Carondelet also had two forts built in 1793, one at the foot of Canal Street and the other at the place where the mint now stands, as well as many other innovations.
*A zambo Negro is the offspring of a Negro and a female mulatto. A zambo negresse is the non plus ultra, a ragingly insatiable sensual being. Owing to the crossing of the colored blood, one can call a zambo negresse “man-crazy” with emphasis. The other shadings vary in sensuality according to the following sequence: zambo, resulting from the impregnation of an Indian woman by a Negro; mulatto, the child of a white man and a Negro woman; dark mulatto, the child of a Negro and a mestiza; mestizo, the child of a white and an Indian woman (also possible with a colored quinteroon—otherwise a pale mestizo); chino, the child of an Indian and a Negro woman; copperchino, through colored inheritance on the male side; quadroon, the child of a white man and a female mulatto; zambo chino, the child of a Negro and a chino woman; pale chino zambo, unnatural coloration of the dominant shade; Creole (in its colored variety), the child of a white man and a mestiza; black mulatto, the child of a Negro and a quinteroon; dark chino, produced by the impregnation of a mulatto woman by an Indian of good race; dark zamba, the child of a mulatto woman and a zamba; chino chola, child of an Indian and a chino; and pale chino zambo chola, a colored creation with a dreadful confusion of species (a pitiful race).
*You will recall that in 1851, when a mob destroyed the Spaniards’ cigar stores, cards of this description were discovered behind a smashed compositor’s chest in the office of the Spanish newspaper La Patria, which had such a baleful role in the Cuba affair. These cards were thought to belong to a royalist club. They actually belonged to a compositor of the Patria, also an engraver, who was supplying Merlina through a go-between. [Ed.: This riot is described in the last book of Emil Klauprecht’s novel, Cincinnati (1854–55); see the edition translated by Steven Rowan, edited by Do
n Heinrich Tolzmann (New York: Lang, 1996), 573.]
*One has only to think of the two pipi from Sinigaglia who took the present Emperor of the French, Louis Napoleon, along with them to New York, and who, because they had not been treated with respect, wove that shameful plot of revenge against a brothel which nearly landed Bonaparte in the Tombs. [Ed.: “The Tombs” is the popular name for the municipal holdover prison of New York City.]
*This is a reference to a paragraph in the Vorpœezy Tripartitum.
† The arsonist is playing on article 2, paragraph 5 of the corpus Juris Hungaria, which speaks of the famous juramentum, the oath of the king: Fines regni nostri Hungaria et qua ad illud quanque juro et titulo pertinet, non abalienabimus nec minuemus, etc. [Ed.: We shall neither alienate nor diminish the limits of our kingdom of Hungary nor whatever pertains to its rights and titles.]
* It is well known that Merlina Dufresne got her wines directly from French ships and that her champagne was not just sparkling Franconian and her Bordeaux not faked with Brazil wood. Her varietal wines, such as Port, Madeira, and the like, were from pure sources. But once the Hungarian surprised her with the first bottle of Tokay, she put all the others aside. One can only speculate how much money the Hungarian paid to get this noble drink, since true Tokay is drunk only in the Viennese Hofburg. What is sold in Austria and Hungary under the name Tokay is nothing but a more or less fine example of “Ruster Ausbruch” [Ed.: rotgut].
*Hotooh is a word of dread for all those colored people of New Orleans who are not actually members of this association. The grossest mistreatment and blows they have to endure from overseers and nigger-drivers do not frighten them as much as what happens when a Hotooh from New Orleans is set on them. In the same way, Negro women silence their children with the word Hotooh, in the same way that the threat of “Schwarze Peter” or, more recently, “Hecker,” stills children in Germany. The secret association of the Hotoohs, composed for the most part of pale mestizos and colored quinteroons, originally had a less dangerous purpose. One often hears from their lips phrases such as black nigger and yellow Creole pony, and, in their circle, one will discover a disdain toward darker shadings. A colored aristocracy has arisen among them which is no worse than the aristocracy of birth or money when it comes to snobbishness.
* Recall from the first volume that Sulla was from New England. The legal status of free blacks could be abused in the South. That was the case with a black man named Bacon from New Hampshire, who was sold to Alexandria on the Red River in 1851.
*It is one of the maladjustments of our time that lyricism has been allowed to alter the character of the novel. People have felt themselves compelled to this because a truly objective conception appears to be the monopoly of genius, and the innumerable proletariat of the spirit need a precise commentary in order to understand anything. Hannibal is at the gates!
* We do not dare to publish the hierarchy of misdemeanors and crimes Lajos had behind him when he first stepped onto the hospitable American soil. This is because it would then be easy to trace his family name, and we have a close friend of this family still in Debreczin. From his own account, we will take one citation that is telling enough to show that he did not suddenly become what we see here. In 1848, when Herr Schell still had his beerhouse and Mr.—pape entertained the merry company with his singing, enchanting people here and there in his black velvet jacket and long golden locks, Herr Viereck would show up to declaim every evening and grimace at the company. It was around then that the host held his lotteries, offering both Yankee notions and German cockades as prizes. It was then and there, when Mr. A. J. still performed, when he whacked Mr.—pape on the head with his hollow seal ring, when everything was spirited and happy, a pale, quiet man in the most dignified cavalier clothes drew everyone’s attention. When the merry company there got him very drunk, he told the story of how, as a child of only five or six, he had snuck into the bedroom of his sisters, set nettles on their eyelids, stuck them with needles, and cut them in the clitoris with a penknife. This man was Lajos, who then owned a cigar store. After he went bankrupt, he suddenly abandoned both New Orleans and his wife. What was his name then? He bore a German name then, a perfect translation of his Hungarian one.
* It should be recalled that a tar mask was found in the possession of the infamous schoolmaster Dyson when he was arrested last summer (1853). Its purpose was never explained. How did Dyson come into possession of such a mask? Who taught him how to use it? The Hotoohs, who have already been mentioned, are supposed to use this dreadful instrument of murder.
* Seamen predict misfortune when a seagull shows itself in sweet water. The same is true of the silver sprick. This bird is snow-white with standing pink feathers at the base of the beak. When breeding, they make a cry like that of a peacock. This excites a particularly eerie feeling when heard late at night. These are often encountered at Cape St. Henry, in Haiti, where they hang their nests on the side of Coabore.
*The following words are from Captain Marcy’s account to the Geographic Society of New York on 22 March 1853. [Ed.: Reizenstein probably refers to the American Geographical and Statistical Society of New York, established in 1852. See Arthur A. Brooks, Index to the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, 1852–1915 (New York: American Geographical Society, 1918).]
* On the same spot, Judah Touro had a splendid structure built that occupies the entire front of the block along St. Charles Street, universally known as Touro’s Row. It might interest many of our readers to know the rents Mr. Touro draws from this building, which are guaranteed for some years. Messrs. Bullitt, Miller, & Co. pay $3,500 a year (running until 31 July 1857); J. H. Ashbridge & Co. pay $2,500 (until 31 August 1857); Mr. Gregor & Co. pay $2,500 (until 31 July 185-); Schmidt & Co. pay $2,500 (until 30 September 1857); Messrs. Chin and Bolton pay $2,500 (until 31 August 1857); and W. Simpson pays $4,500 (until 30 September 1858). None of the other shops in the building rents for less than $1,500, so Mr. Touro receives an annual income of $25,000 from a single building. And what did the Unitarian church get? The prayer stools and choir stalls? We really don’t know.
*A letter that the Hungarian found in Gabor’s wallet from Frida’s Doppelgänger, whom we know from the Planters House in St. Louis and from Jenny’s story, can be added here in a note, since it does not shed any light on this mysterious marital association. Who was the Lajos she mentions in the following lines? Who was she? What relationship did she have with Gabor? Could the cowardly, cunning Jew have written the lines the Hungarian found in the Doppelgänger’s album? Perhaps we shall be able to shed some light on it in the future, but for now we have no way of doing so.
The letter in question read:
Herr von Rokavar!
Since my arrival in Milwaukee at least three weeks have passed, and Lajos has yet to appear. I can explain his inconstancy all the less since he promised me in St. Louis by all that’s holy to come in a few days. As a result, I find myself in the most dreadful situation imaginable, since I left him my jewels, my money—my everything. I will tell you at the first opportunity of the awful thing that happened to me in my hotel in St. Louis, since I am presently too distressed and depressed. I will tell you only so much for now, that a Doppelgänger of my Lajos, a true devil in human form, attacked me in the most terrible way. I cannot tell you how I am suffering when I imagine the evil results that can come from the visit of this Doppelgänger. I tremble at the mere thought, and it makes me as cold as if I were touching a corpse. Advise me, Herr von Rokavar, of what I should do if Lajos does not appear, but also purge from yourself every hope of ever being mine again.
Your well-meaning friend Frida
* It would be easy to give in to temptation and make a complete portrayal of the economy of the Charity Hospital during the epidemic if it would not somewhat distract from the course of our work. Although certain facts that are at our disposal to publish would challenge belief, they would still not be exaggerated. It appears that people were happy to neglect in
the most shameful way those with no means. In a few rare cases, a sense of decency alone led to better treatment of the sick. The meticulous care that was expended on the sick poor is shown by the complaints of so many of those who had the good fortune to survive and leave the institution. We will risk posing the question indirectly: perhaps so much property disappeared so that the deficit would be as small as possible at the final accounting? This question seems rather out of turn, and if anyone could be found who could answer with “yes,” he studiously observes the silence of a Trappist. Being pressing would only make the matter worse. A poor German brought to the hospital had his bag broken into as he lay in his sickbed, and he was robbed of his possessions down to his last cent. It happened that he recovered his health despite his poor treatment, and the unfortunate left the hospital as thoroughly depleted as if he had fallen into the hands of highway robbers rather than into the hands of an institution of public welfare. There are even some who use acts of violence, offensive to every noble instinct, to extort bribes. Such acts of exploitation are the source for the many recurrences those unfortunates experience, since they lack all means to obtain the further care so needed by those recovering from an illness. It is true that there are three asylums for poor convalescents, but their facilities are so poor and the conditions of entry so tyrannically high that they are of no use. If one considers the enormous sums collected for the “sufferers” from all parts of the Union that have streamed into New Orleans, one must truly be amazed that so much need and misery still prevail. Why is this so? We hope that this question will be answered to the benefit of the suffering in a future summer of terror. It would be sad if this did not happen.
The Mysteries of New Orleans (The Longfellow Series of American Languages and Literatures) Page 77
