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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  His face is turned to the sun.

  On finding himself in the courtyard, the rider dismounted and, his burden on his arm, carefully approached one of the small doors that led through a side passage into the main building.

  The moon had now sunk below the horizon, and deep darkness enshrouded him.

  “I have to turn them out of bed,” he murmured to himself as he tapped his ring seven times on the windowpanes, forming a cross. Then he listened carefully, leaning his left ear against the crack in the window.

  “God preserve us all!” he heard a choked voice. “That is Hiram and his child!”

  “Keep quiet—we’re not letting him in!” whispered a second voice.

  “No! I’ll open the door to him, otherwise he will take his revenge on us!”

  In a few seconds the door groaned and the blanket-wrapped figure entered, still holding his burden on his arm.

  “God preserve us all! Look at you, Hiram! You have a yellow mask over your face.

  “Hiram, Hiram, you are up to no good. You are once more bringing great misery on our city! …”

  Instead of answering, the gigantic, emaciated figure lifted the blanket from his child, and the black inhabitants of the room fled like shadows of the night before the splendor of this gleaming sun.

  Outside the night had vanished; but as the sun-god rode his steed out of the bottoms of the Mississippi, his golden face was bedecked with a black veil.

  Wringing her hands, a pale woman streaked through the streets of New Orleans, prophesying disaster.

  The Queen of the South shuddered herself awake.

  Book I

  Chapter 1

  LUCY WILSON

  It is well known to most people who have lived for a long time in New Orleans that, with the arrival of darkness, no one is permitted to carry a bag or even a small packet on the streets, and only the most impressive credentials will spare one from the hands of the police and a night in the calaboose. It is a wise measure, since no city in the Union provides thieves more opportunities to rob and plunder than does this one.

  Despite this, such illegal activities occur all too often, particularly in the western portions of the Second and Third Districts, since the strictest oversight is often not exercised here and the watch in this region is often in cahoots with the loafers and rowdies; still, this ban does restrain burglary and theft to some extent.

  Just as is the case with all branches of legislation, where people endeavor with energy and slyness to subvert laws in a legal way, this is all the more so with the rules for conduct at night, and there are people in certain classes of society in New Orleans who consider it a great accomplishment to deceive the watch with the greatest possible impertinence or to defy them with limitless boldness.

  One of these practiced violators of the law was a slender, tall young man with a trunk over his shoulder, who had rushed up Royal Street and run right into the arms of a watchman just as he was about to turn onto Orleans Street.

  “How’s it going, Jim?” the young man called out, not allowing himself to give the slightest sign of confusion at this unwelcome encounter. “’Tis almost two years since I saw you last, I’m back from California—don’t want to leave my things on board overnight—here you can’t trust anybody—’tis a damned den, that New Orleans! This loafer-trash would be in the position to take my hard-earned dollars right from under my head—I’d rather take it to my brother-in-law! Well, tomorrow you will be able to visit me first thing—no time now to wait here—you know my apartment, next to Colonel Macpherson!”

  These words, spoken with cleverness, did not fail to have their effect. The watchman actually believed he had encountered an old friend, returned from California, though he could not recall his identity at the moment. The confident, friendly address, the “you can find me next to Colonel Macpherson,” eliminated every possible doubt, so that the idea did not even occur to him that he was being deceived.

  But after this supposed friend from California had called out another loud “Goodbye Jim!” he shot up Orleans Street like a fox being chased by hounds, despite his heavy load, disappearing into a run-down house that looked more like a den for bears or wolves than a dwelling for human beings.

  This house, generally falling apart, had a large gabled roof dating back from the time when the first French had settled, and it was the anchor of a chain of houses or tenements in the French colonial style, which followed one another the length of the street.

  Every stranger developed an odd feeling as he approached these dwellings, looking at their weathered house fronts with their flaking green paint and thinking of their time of origin.

  A white face is seen only here and there in this area, for blackness alone sets the tone here. Whole houses can be rented here for a song, and no one should take too literally the half-torn notes, “chambre garnie” (furnished room), hung over the entrances, since the total furnishing usually consists of a humpback bed with a mosquito net of blue or sulphur yellow. Washing utensils have to be obtained every morning from the landlady—the managers are invariably women, usually widows.

  The renters have to be single men, since these widows will not rent their rooms to a married person or even to a family.

  Many a man who has come into this quarter with his better half to seek a cheaper place of rest has had to depart without success, upset after doors were slammed in his nose and he was heaped with curses. “Seulement pour un garçon!” is the motto here.

  But it is now time for us to return to the house into which we saw our nightbird slip with his luggage.

  This house, which directly fronts Orleans Street, is bordered on two sides by a fence consisting of coarse pickets, but it is overgrown with evergreen climbing vines, which permit no view into the inner space. The moon, which had hitherto been hidden, had just emerged from a black cloud in all its marvelous clarity, radiating a stage of strange coloration and complection.

  In the courtyard is an image of the greatest disorder and neglect: a mess of washbasins, washboards, brooms, coffeepots, broken chairs and tables, a child’s overturned cradle, etc.—all of it in colorful confusion, scattered across the entire courtyard.

  On the gallery, which spread to a tasteless width at the rear of the house, two figures can be discerned: one of them that of the young man we saw enter, the other that of a woman between fifteen and nineteen years of age. She is of striking beauty and surprising height, and she is just now tying a long green scarf, which she has thrown over her head to protect herself from the rising wind. A long white blouse of mousselin de laines, much loved by the fair sex in New Orleans, is almost entirely covered by a ruby red silk shawl whose fringes touch the ground. Her raven black hair covers her shoulders with luxuriant fullness and slides down to her full breasts, only lightly covered, which continually move up and down in response to the slightest movement.

  The dazzling whiteness of her face would lead a superficial observer to conclude that she was of white ancestry, a fact that a finer connoisseur would doubt on seeing the dark cloudiness of her fingernails and the mother-of-pearl coloration at the corners of her eyes.

  And in fact Lucy Wilson—for that was the name of this beautiful woman—is the daughter of a planter on the Grand Bayou Caillon, a few miles from Lake Quitman, who had sired her with his favorite slave and freed her shortly before his own death, in keeping with a provision of his testament.

  Lucy had been ten years old then.

  She then went to Houma, a little town on the Bayou Petit Caillon, where she soon married a free mulatto by the name of Jean Aimé.

  Both of them decided to go to New Orleans together to start a small business. But before she arrived in New Orleans, the inconstant Lucy fell in love with a Frenchman, and on her arrival in the great seaport she ditched poor Jean and vanished with the Frenchman.

  In 1844 we find her living as Madame Wilson in Esplanade Street, owner of an important house that the Americans call the “Mulattoes’ Settlement” on accou
nt of the yellow faces of the girls continually glimpsed through the windows. The upper floor, decorated by an iron verandah, shines with the most brilliant lights on winter nights, and from the street people can see the shadows of dancers sweeping against the red damask curtains. Madame Wilson gave the most magnificent balls, and she always had the best musicians.

  Not everyone was allowed to set foot in the ballroom, and even the privileged were carefully searched to check for a hidden Bowie knife or revolver or any other dangerous weapon. Any that were found had to be handed over to the lady of the house.

  When the Mulattoes’ Settlement, then the most sought-after venue for gallant adventurers in New Orleans and the gathering place of the wildest Don Juans, burned down in 1846, Madame Wilson took the run-down house on Orleans Street, a dramatic contrast to the splendid Mulattoes’ Settlement.

  Even neighbors were unable to say what her source of income might be. Some believed that she held deposits for old, crippled slaves who were useless to their masters and were thus given to persons who would agree to care for them for sums as low as a hundred dollars. Others believed that she made her living stealing small Negro children, whom she was very good at winning over. Most people spoke of her as living by selling her charms, since she was occasionally able to exploit the wealth of a lovesick fool.

  Now we find her together on the gallery of her house with the young man.

  “Emil,” Lucy began, turning to him, “you promised to be here before eight—what kept you so long? Did you perhaps have to make another important visit to Algiers?”

  These words were spoken in a strong voice as she aimed her flashing eyes at his face, turning the corners of her mouth down in a mocking frown.

  Visible embarrassment was printed on the facial expression of the young man. He seemed to consider something for a moment, for he passed his hand across his forehead, stamping a foot on the floor.

  “That is your German character, Emil,” Lucy continued, “since I do not have the best of reputations, people have pangs of conscience over me. Pangs of conscience, Emil! What connection does that have with your life otherwise?—That’s how all you Germans are! On the one hand, you commit error after error, and on the other hand you fall into endless depression without being able to decide to do better. It is as if you commit sins entirely in order to have new material for worry and self-torment. Your brother was like that, even before he had the great misfortune that led to his death. He would be as easy-going as a Gascon market woman, and then—suddenly—at a wonderful party at our settlement, where everyone was dedicated to providing happy and joyous faces, he would hang his head and pursue his unhappy reveries—if you want to improve yourself, good! Go ahead, give up your unclean source of income and work along with the niggers on the plantations of proud, nasty Creoles. There you’ll have a golden life—an unending source of enjoyment of all kinds! Then every evening you’ll have the fine consolation of having earned your bread the whole day by the sweat of your brow, in keeping with the prescriptions of the Bible—oh, how blessed!”

  “You speak as sanctimoniously as a Father of the Church,” Emil responded without much thought.

  “Still, Emil,” Lucy continued, “whatever you want, want it whole; halfways have always disgusted me, whether in virtue or in vice. If I were a judge, I would only punish moderation—consistent, systematic scoundrels would have nothing to fear from me! Moderation is the greatest crime, and it should be punished the most severely.

  “I would like to get to know your parents; you said they were coming across the ocean.”

  “Leave my parents alone!” Emil responded darkly.

  He leaned against a post of the gallery, now seeming to inspect Lucy’s beautiful breasts, then seeming to drift off into another world of his own thoughts.

  It surprised Lucy that Emil, who in the past had always fallen into a rage when he was the object of such preaching and irony, now kept his peace and let all the references directed at him pass by. She was also surprised that he did not precipitate another one of those scenes in which they grew upset with each another only in order to enjoy the excitement of reconciliation. And what exactly was it that she was trying to accomplish with her harsh words? She loved the ecstasy. The rancor soon dissolved into oaths and kisses. To her, ordinary wooing and fondling were repellent; she scorned the individually launched rockets of a languorous encounter—with her powerful sensuality, she could only find satisfaction in a full barrage.

  She was about to give her mute friend a new provocation to break his peace, but he abandoned his previous position with the words “Tonight I still have a duty to perform!” and ran off in haste.

  “Fool!” Lucy thought to herself as she watched him go down the stairs as swift as an arrow. “He still has a duty to perform!—For whom? For his sentimental wife, or the pale shadow of his mistress?—Fool, robbing himself of such a beautiful night and preferring to go lie in official arms!—Pah, I concern myself too much for these German vagabonds—he is not worth the love of a real woman!”

  She stood moaning for a few moments, closing her marvelous eyes as she tended to do in the divine play of an assignation, then opening them wide to spew lightning, bold as an infuriated maenad.

  Was she tormented by injured pride or jealousy? Was it the hellish suffering of a supernatural sexual intoxication that raged in her? What could be the source of the flames that shot lightning from her eyes?

  Lucy was as cold, sly, calculating, and sleek as a snake; she loved gold, she loved intrigue—but often she was stormy and unrestrained, particularly when she was prepared to enjoy an act of love.

  So she had prepared for her friend’s arrival today; for certain reasons she had even had him haul his necessities to her house under cover of darkness. She had so prepared herself all the day for the joys of this night that she now found it unbearable to have to renounce them due to her friend’s stupid turn of mood or moral scruple. She had to divert herself. To the theater—St. Charles? Variétés? The French Opera? To the ball at the Hamburg Mill? Louisiana Ball? Fandango in Frenchmen Street?

  Every imaginable enjoyment passed before her fantasy—but she could decide on nothing.

  If she was to enjoy herself tonight, then it was necessary that Emil be her cavaliere servente. McDonogh himself would not have been able to gain entry to her tonight,1 even if he were to weigh out his words in gold. All at once a baroque thought crossed her mind. She stepped back from the gallery into the room where Emil’s trunk stood, and she tried to open it.

  She was unable to do so. Recklessly giving in to her mood, she took a hatchet and split the lid in two.

  Pieces of clothing, underwear, haberdashery, lacquered shoes—everything was torn from the trunk in haste, spread over the carpet, inspected and inspected again.

  “So! That would be the proper wardrobe for me!” she cried as if mad, once she had set aside a complete man’s outfit. “Everyone in the city recognizes him in these clothes; his wife recognizes him in this suit, and so does his pale shadow!—Wait, Emil, Lucy will have her revenge on you yet today!—Your sense of duty will cost you plenty!”

  She stripped quickly, and in a few moments a second Emil stood in front of the mirror. She lacked only the blond hair and the comfortless German eyes.

  “I shall meet you yet, somewhere or other,” she said to herself, as she left the house and passed down Orleans Street, a polished dandy.

  Chapter 2

  THE MASQUERADE

  Lucy had no idea that, at the very moment she closed the courtyard door and left her house, she had been spotted and recognized by the very person for whom she was staging this carnival game.

  Enthralled by the sweet obsession to play a truly great trick, she went her way.

  Emil had in fact gone nearly halfway to his intended destination after leaving Lucy so precipitously, but then he had turned around and rushed back up Orleans Street.

  He was one of those men who makes a decision quickly but is as likely to t
hrow it aside just as quickly. Despite the fact that he had been glowing a few moments before to conscientiously fulfill some sort of obligation, he had now cooled off, and his thoughts drew him back to Lucy.

  He inhaled deeply. Then he proceeded with slow steps, retracing the path he had taken in such a rush.

  “She will laugh me to scorn,” he said half to himself, “that she has always managed to triumph over my heart in all the accidents of life!

  “What will my poor wife say when I keep my promises so poorly? Still—that could just as well take place some other time—she was able to live without seeing me for half a year, so her heart won’t break this time. The prince of W2 will be able to console her.”

  He sought to excuse himself in this and similar ways, in order to give free rein to his feelings for Lucy Wilson.

  “How’s it going, old boy?” a powerful voice greeted him in the midst of his revery. It came from a jovial young man who was shaking his hand in a rather abrupt manner. “Why does one see you so seldom these days?” he continued, “Where are you hiding yourself? What drives you about all the long night?—Only yesterday people were asking about you at Cassidy’s3—I can assure you this, that Cassidy still has the best oysters in New Orleans—come along—first I have to pick up a nice pretty child—come on, come on, accompany me to her—We’ll take her along to the Ladies’ Salon and have a big meal of oysters and London porter—take one of these cigars—by jingo, Laborde and Caballero do have the best cigars in New Orleans—a damned fine leaf, that—huh?”4

  Emil took the cigar, lit it on that of his talkative friend, but put the lit end in his mouth.

  He corrected his error quickly, without his comrade noticing, with as much finesse as if he had not burned his lip.

  “Yes, and just imagine, Eliza ran off last week with three hundred dollars. A pretty little sum, that—what? But I did not grow any gray hairs over that, I earn as much in two times twenty-four hours—one of us is not so green as to torment himself for weeks over a pittance of fifty dollars—Isn’t that a pittance for a whole week of work?—what?—Yes, and just think, old buddy, we just gypped a couple perfect greenhorns, one of them had only been in America, that is, New Orleans, for two weeks (for one of us New Orleans is America)—and one of the greenhorns is a splendid youngman—has all his pockets filled with gold! He cannot live without me now—he is of the opinion that he is fortunate to have found such a good friend immediately on his arrival in America—tell me, old friend, isn’t that extraordinarily lovable and childish—no, there is nothing nicer than Germania’s sons—you can always find heart and poetry with them.”