Constance Fenimore Woolson
Page 82
“In Sloane Street” was published in Harper’s Bazar, June 11, 1892, and was not reprinted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
This volume presents the texts of the original printings chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce features of their design and layout. The texts are presented without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of errors corrected, cited by page and line number of the hardcover edition: 133.28, “Why,; 137.26, “And; 179.26, organ.; 183.36, “Come, said; 184.24, pace.; 200.5, “Addios,”; 210.30, perhaps.; 215.22, mits; 243.26, he bearish,; 271.15, it’s; 314.31, suppose?; 316.38, games.”; 322.9, radiance,; 323.7, face,; 333.28, then “cat”; 361.14, I will.; 366.27, Prudence. But; 379.5, ’ain’t; 394.37, Vernueil,; 434.7, Sebastian; 493.40, must?; 494.1, replies; 518.5, Well!”; 536.15, departure.; 639.34, answewed; 668.10, Caralleria; 669.14, to to her; 670.12, ‘no-thank-yer”; 677.12, St. James.
Notes
In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of the hardcover edition (the line count includes headings). Biblical quotations are keyed to the King James Version. Quotations from Shakespeare are keyed to The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). For further biographical background than is provided in the Chronology, see Anne Boyd Rioux, Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist (New York: W. W. Norton, 2016) and The Complete Letters of Constance Fenimore Woolson, ed. Sharon L. Dean (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2012).
CASTLE NOWHERE AND OTHER STORIES
4.14 crash] A coarse weave of absorbent cotton and linen.
4.27 “Santa Margarita”] Saint Margaret of Cortona (1247–1297), patron saint of the orphaned, falsely accused, homeless, mentally ill, midwives, single mothers, and reformed prostitutes.
21.37 gammon] Absurd talk or nonsense.
25.17 Mexico] Here, shorthand for the Mexican-American War, fought from 1846 to 1848.
25.18–19 cloudy heights of Lookout Mountain] In the “battle above the clouds,” fought in heavy mist and rain on November 24, 1863, Union troops under Major General Joseph Hooker (1814–1879) drove Confederate forces from much of Lookout Mountain just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Firing between the opposing sides continued into the night, when the Confederates withdrew the rest of their forces.
25.20–21 the great struggle] The American Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865.
26.8 “O, to escape . . . at rest!”] Cf. Psalm 55:6: “And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.”
27.6 chapters about Balaam and Balak] Numbers 22–24, in which Balak, king of the Moab, asks the Mesopotamian prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites. An angel comes to him and convinces him to bless them instead.
27.7–8 “Let me die . . . be like his.”] Numbers 23:10.
29.6 “une p’tite moue.”] French: a little pout.
30.17–18 Macaulay’s “Ivry.”] Poem by Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) celebrating Henry IV’s Edict of Nantes (1598), which granted religious liberty to the Huguenots, Henry’s French Protestant subjects.
31.31–32 Father Piret . . . the Chenaux] Father Andrew D. J. Piret (1802–1875) was a Belgian-born missionary priest stationed at St. Ann’s church on Mackinac Island who also ministered to the neighboring Native Americans. Piret built his homestead on the Chenaux Islands.
32.19–20 “faut que je m’ fasse belle.”] French: I must make myself beautiful.
33.35 Le Beau Voyager, Les Neiges de la Cloche] The French song titles translate to “The Handsome Voyager” and “The Snows of La Cloche,” the latter a reference to the La Cloche Mountains in Ontario, a southern arm of which extends down to Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay.
34.13–35.6 “‘Marie, enfin . . . le prisonnier.”] An abridged version of “Le Prisonnier de guerre” [The Prisoner of War] by French poet and songwriter Pierre Jean de Béranger (1780–1857). The English translation of 1850 by William Young reads:
“Marie, ’tis late; put by thy work;
The shepherd’s star hath risen!”
“Nay, mother, nay, our village lad
Pines in a foreign prison:
Far off from home on distant sea
He yielded—but the last was he.”
“Spin, spin, poor Marie, spin,
To send the prisoner aid;
Spin, spin poor Marie, spin,
For him who’s captive made!”
“Well, if thou wilt, the lamp I’ll light:
But, child, thy tears still flow!”
“Mother he frets himself to death;
The Briton mocks his woe.
How Adrien loved me, when a boy!
With him about our hearth, what joy!”
“Spin, spin, poor Marie, spin,
To send the prisoner aid;
Spin, spin, poor Marie, spin
For him who’s captive made!”
“Ah, were I not myself too old,
I’d spin, child, for his sake.”
“O mother, send to him I love
All, all that I can make!
Rose bids me to her wedding go—
Hark, there’s the fiddler!—no, no, no!”
“Spin, spin, poor Marie, spin
To send the prisoner aid;
Spin, spin, poor Marie, spin
For him who’s captive made!”
“Draw near the fire to spin, dear child—
With night it grows more cold.”
“Mother, in a floating dungeon groans
Poor Adrien, I’ve been told:
Stretched are his wasted hands in vain
His scanty ration to obtain.”
“Spin, spin, poor Marie, spin
To send the prisoner aid;
Spin, spin, poor Marie, spin
For him who’s captive made!”
37.16 ‘The Harp that once—’] “The Harp that Once through Tara’s Halls,” an Irish song whose lyrics were written by Thomas Moore (1779–1852) and the piano accompaniment by Sir John Andrew Stevenson (1761–1833).
38.21 “Moi? C’est aut’ chose,”] French: Me? That’s another thing.
38.29 the Prince of the Powers of the Air] The devil; see Ephesians 2:2.
39.3 “Ce n’est rien] French: It’s nothing.
39.7–8 Féroce, O féroce . . . c’est joli, ça!”] French: Ferocious, oh ferocious, like a werewolf! Ah, it’s so pretty.
41.39 ordered to Florida] Probably a reference to the Third Seminole War (1858–1868), the last of the wars fought between the U.S. Army and the Seminoles.
42.1 Valley of the Shadow of Death] See Psalm 23:4.
47.25–26 “Oui, mon cousin . . . fête de Saint André.”] Jeannette and her cousin, Baptiste, have set their wedding date on the feast of St. Andrew, November 30.
47.33 “Je vous abhorre; je vous déteste,”] French: I hate you; I detest you.
47.36 Allez-vous-en, traître!”] French: Leave, you traitor!
48.14 Ah, mon Baptiste, où es-tu?] French: Oh, my Baptiste, where are you?
48.17 Je suis femme, moi!”] French: I am a woman!
50.12–13 glow-worm lamps] Lamps containing adult lightning bugs or their luminescent larvae.
50.32 “Western Reserve.”] A tract of land in the northeast corner of Ohio reserved by Connecticut when that state ceded the rest of its western land claims to the United States in 1786. Connecticut transferred jurisdiction over the reserve to the federal government in 1800, and it became part
of the newly created Ohio Territory.
50.33–51.2 “Fire Lands,” . . . “One-Leg Creek.”] Places in northeastern Ohio. Located in the Western Reserve, the “Fire Lands” were given as financial restitution to Connecticut residents whose homes were burned by British troops in the Revolutionary War. The “Donation Grant” refers to land given by Congress to the Ohio Company in 1792. The “Salt Section” of northeastern Ohio is rich in underlying salt rock. Situated along the Scioto River and the city of Columbus, the “Refugee’s Tract” was granted by Congress to Canadians who had lost property during the Revolutionary War (as a result of their support of American revolutionaries). The “Moravian Lands” were granted to Moravian missionaries in 1787. “One-Leg Creek” is a tributary of the Tuscarawas River.
52.1 Käse-lab] Or Käselaib. German: a wheel of cheese.
52.5 the Community] Zoar, a communal society approximately seventy-five miles south of Cleveland, founded in 1817 by German dissenters from the Lutheran Church. The Zoar commune was dissolved in 1898.
52.32–35 the M.B.’s . . . Mound-Builders] The Mound-Builders of the Great Lakes region, living roughly 2,000 years ago, who built large mounds for burial and ceremonial purposes.
53.12 C––––] Cleveland.
54.4–5 list slippers] Slippers made from tightly woven cloth, which would not fray.
55.22 Sandy] Sandusky, Ohio, a town on the shores of Lake Erie, between Cleveland and Toledo.
55.27 Queen of Sheby] In the Bible, the Queen of Sheba came bearing great gifts when she traveled with her retinue to Jerusalem to see King Solomon of Israel. See 1 Kings 10:1–13.
56.7 Judy, Ruth, Esthy] Heroines of the Old Testament. Judith saved her people by seducing and beheading Holofernes. Ruth refused to leave her mother-in-law after her husband’s death. And Esther saved the Jews by persuading her husband, the Persian king Xerxes, to reverse his edict to have them all killed.
56.23 chany] China, porcelain dishes.
57.15 “Où la vanité va-t-elle se nicher?”] French: Where will vanity settle?
58.5–6 “Ich weisz nicht . . . traurig bin,”] From the German poem “Die Lorelei” (1824) by Henrich Heine: “I don’t know what it means / That I am so sad.”
58.18–19 “She is quite sure . . . her day.”] Cf. Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Maud (1855): “Before I am quite sure / That there is no one to love me; / Then let come what may / To a life that has been so sad, / I shall have had my day.”
58.22 “A man’s a man . . . a woman too,”] Allusion to Robert Burns’s popular poem about a poor man’s dignity, “A Man’s a Man for A’ That” (1795), which was also a popular song. Burns makes no reference to women.
62.9 kobold] In German folklore, a spirit that haunts the home and is often invisible but can take the form of an animal.
63.34 rose of Sharon] See Song of Solomon 2:1.
64.18 “Tuscarora] Native American people of the Iroquois League, originally from the Great Lakes region.
65.19 “Dux nascitur] Latin: born leader.
70.14–15 the Community of German Separatists] See note 52.5.
70.26 Der Fliegende Holländer] “The Flying Dutchman,” a German-language opera of 1843 by Richard Wagner, based on Henrich Heine’s retelling of the seventeenth-century maritime legend of the doomed ghost ship. In Wagner’s opera, the Dutchman must wander the seas deathlessly until he finds a wife.
71.23–24 “The One Hundred and Seventh Regiment, O. V. I.] The 107th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, comprised mostly of German Americans, was organized at Cleveland, Ohio, and mustered out of service at Charleston, South Carolina, on July 10, 1865. The 107th, also known as the 5th German Regiment, participated in numerous battles, including Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.
73.8 the Scriptural phrase . . . milk and honey.”] The phrase first appears in Exodus 3:8.
73.10 Wirtshaus] German: tavern.
74.32 Jean Paul . . . the only] Jean Paul, the pen name of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter (1763–1825), German Romantic novelist and humorist, who was called “Jean Paul der Einzige,” or “Jean Paul the Only.”
75.8 veilchen] German: violet.
75.17 verliebte] German: beloved.
76.18 verlobt] German: engaged.
78.33–35 The statue . . . Pygmalion suffice?] In Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his own sculptures. Taking pity on the sculptor, Aphrodite brought the statue to life.
79.37 cap-à-pie] Middle French: head to foot.
80.11–12 “Ruhe ist . . . haben kann,”—] From a hymn (“Ruhe ist das beste Gut”) by the German Lutheran theologian and poet Johann Caspar Schade (1666–1698).
84.37 “Das macht nichts,”] German: That doesn’t matter.
95.27–28 “In the kingdom . . . Annabel Lee,”] The narrator paraphrases lines from Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” (1849).
103.15 crash] See note 4.14.
104.5–17 “The heavens declare . . . Wait—wait.”] Adapted from Psalms 19:1, 19:5, 30:5, 65:8, and 102:6–7.
105.18 Napoleon on St. Helena] After the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was defeated at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, he was imprisoned on Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean until his death in 1821.
105.31–34 “‘The moping bittern . . . the water-lily,’”] Slightly altered lines from the English poet Thomas Hood’s “The Haunted House” (1844).
108.29 Faust] The opera Faust (1859) by French composer Charles Gounod, with libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on the German legend of a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.
109.10 Te Deum] A Latin Christian hymn of thanks to God.
110.38 “Much learning . . . farmer mad.”] Cf. Acts 26:24.
111.22 Prime] William Cowper Prime (1825–1905), American writer known for the book I Go A-Fishing (1873).
112.12–15 Bret Harte’s “Melons, . . . American youth.”] Bret Harte’s story “Melons” (1870) features a boy whistling “John Brown’s Body,” a popular Union song about the abolitionist who tried to spark slave insurrections across the South. Julia Ward Howe wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (1862) for the same tune.
114.4 delaine] A dress made of high-grade wool from delaine sheep.
116.7–8 “He came flying . . . wind,”] Psalms 18:10.
116.8 Hebrew poet] King David, to whom many of the Psalms are attributed.
117.28–29 “folded their tents . . . stolen away.”] See the concluding lines of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Day is Done” (1845).
118.7–9 “close to . . . Bacon got up the phrase] There is no evidence that the philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626) coined the phrase “close to the great heart of nature.”
120.18 Northwest and Hudson Bay Companies] The North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, competing fur-trading companies in British North America forced to merge in 1821 by the British government after a series of skirmishes between the two companies.
121.30 bateaux] Broad flat-bottomed boats, the primary means of transporting men, supplies, and goods in colonial North America and during the fur trade.
124.28 Portage] The mining settlement at Portage Lake, part of the Keweenaw Waterway leading to Lake Superior on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Portage mine, opened in 1853, was one of many along its shores in the nineteenth century.
124.37 Fort William] Fort erected in 1803 by the North West Company at the mouth of the Kaministiquia River, on the Canadian side of Lake Superior.
125.8–9 Burnt-Wood River] The Bois Brule River, which empties into Lake Superior on the north shore of Wisconsin, about thirty miles east of the town
of Superior. The Ojibwa people called the river “Wisakoda,” which translates to “burnt woods” or (in French) “bois brûlé.”
125.37 ‘Adeste Fideles.’] The Latin Christmas carol translated into English by Frederick Oakeley in 1841 as “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”
128.35 ‘The minute gun . . . at sea,’] Refrain from the duet “The Minute Gun at Sea” (1814) by English composer M. P. King (1773–1823).
130.29–30 “‘Now thank we . . . hands and voices,’] The opening lines to the hymn “Now Thank We All Our God” (1856), translated by Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878) from the German hymn “Nun danket alle Gott” (c. 1636) by Martin Rinkart (1586–1649).
131.15 voyageurs] French Canadian boatmen who transported furs, often legendary figures in music and folklore.
RODMAN THE KEEPER AND OTHER STORIES
143.2–21 The long years . . . be alive!] Excerpts of the first and seventh stanzas of American poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich’s poem “Spring in New England,” first published in The Atlantic Monthly in June 1875.