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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  He appeared happy at the news and hid his suspicion.

  But from then on he kept a sharp eye on his steady customers, as well as on all those who frequented his bar from month to month.

  Until then, he had imputed the growth in numbers of his guests, and hence of his money, to his own charm and good service; now he realized all too well that his guests and all the wealthy foreigners who had found their way to his door had not been drawn by the White Rose but rather the black one.

  Among those his sharp eye observed, a young mulatto particularly stood out. This young man had long been in the service of the governor, and he had a very pleasing appearance. He courted Victoria on every possible occasion, and it even appeared that he had some influence over the domestic arrangements, which Sullivan had failed to notice.

  “Yes,” thought Sullivan, “it appears I have been dividing my income with a third party.”

  Neither Victoria nor her lover suspected the storm gathering over their heads.

  It would soon break.

  Besides his tavern in Marytown, Sullivan owned a finely built summer tavern, in which the splendid ale and porter of Perkin’s Brewery moistened the dry throats of the guests.

  It was a beautiful, mild evening in Indian summer when the residents of Marytown went out in great crowds to enjoy themselves to the music of a German band from Montréal, which Sullivan had hired for the evening, and to do justice by the ale and London porter.

  Despite his many workers, Sullivan was preoccupied fulfilling the wishes of his guests when he noticed that his wife was gone, which especially surprised him on a day when there was so much pressure and things to do.

  The suspicion he had nursed for some time was further nourished and grew to such a degree that he put everything aside to find his Victoria.

  After searching through the entire tavern and the bushes and thickets outside, he turned to go back to the White Rose, traveling so rapidly that he reached it in five minutes.

  When he entered the barroom, he encountered two persons entirely unknown to him, sending up great clouds of bad tobacco smoke from corncob pipes. Since they did not appear to see him, he did not greet them and rushed instinctually to the cellar door, where he saw the faint glimmer of an oil lamp.

  He had barely begun down the steep steps than he saw his wife embracing the young mulatto, begging him to join her plan before it was too late.

  Sullivan held back just in time, though his feet trembled and his legs wavered. When he realized what was afoot, a cold shock ran through his body, and quiet reasoning and courage took the place of irritation and painful tension.

  “We will have no guests in our bedroom tonight,” he heard her say. “It will not be hard to get rid of him with his dagger while he is sleeping. He will come home drunk anyway, and so I’ll have all that much easier a time. You only need to wait in the next room and help me get him out of the way.—Since tomorrow is the day he is to go to Montréal for a week to purchase supplies, no one will miss him, and the rest will take care of itself—consider your child,” she added, raising a finger.

  Anyone can imagine the decision Sullivan made on hearing these words. He intended to sneak away as quietly as he had come, but he slipped on the trapdoor and fell headfirst into the cellar.

  The next day they brought out the bodies of Sullivan and the young mulatto, both pierced by numerous dagger cuts.

  Victoria of the White Rose vanished without a trace.

  Two months after these events, a scene took place in Knoxville, a border town on American territory, the description of which causes the pen to dance the tarantella, as if it had been bitten by that poisonous spider. The pen itself turns against the hand and paralyzes it, a naked dagger wounding the hand that holds it.

  Two murders took place in that little town, one right after the other, and the exquisite details of these crimes stoked popular rage to such an extent that a mob took the woman accused of the deeds, a very pregnant Negro woman, out of the hands of justice to exact the death penalty with their own hands.

  For this purpose, she was barbarically paraded through the streets of Knoxville with a rope around her body and neck, to be hanged from a tree on the outskirts of town.

  The main instigators of this dreadful people’s justice were two Canadians and a young planter’s son from Louisiana; the last of these was the bearer of a famous historic name and the son of a member of the House of Representatives, a Calhounist of the most rabid sort.

  As the victim of this inhuman barbarism was about to be hoisted up, the noose around her neck, the mood of the once raging mob turned around and there appeared to be some effort to free her from the hands of her hangmen—then the aforementioned planter’s son rushed on the poor Negro woman and snapped her into the air.

  The clumsiness with which this was done prevented the noose from tightening quickly, which meant that the victim swung from the shaking limb in dreadful spasms.

  Then the planter’s son made himself a double hangman, climbing the tree, placing his foot on the shoulders of the half-hanged woman, and breaking her neck with his powerful fists.

  At the same instant, a living being emerged from between the legs of the hanged woman, falling into the midst of the horrified mob.

  So the hangman was the midwife of a poor Negro baby! The child was—Sulla. Victoria paid with her life for a crime she had not committed, while she had escaped unpunished for the atrocity she had executed in the cellar of her tavern in Marytown.

  We will not deal with the subsequent complicated events in Sulla’s life, since this brings us to a conclusion and we must take up the threads of our novel once more.

  For the interim, let it be said that Sulla, once he had grown out of boyhood, became one of the most infamous and feared gamblers in Five Points, and he soon dedicated himself to swindles both great and small, from which he earned his keep.

  The acquaintance of a Negress he met on a trip to Buffalo exercised such a dangerous influence over him that, at the age of twenty-one, he felt capable of every crime so long as it produced money.

  A very young mulatto girl, who had run away from her parents at the age of six and possessed an acuteness without equal, became their inseparable companion and aide.

  So we see that Sulla was determined to abuse the good nature and naiveté of Cato and the two women in the most shameful manner.

  Chapter 13

  THE MANUSCRIPT

  Emil unrolled the pages with a trembling hand. He began to read with a soft but understandable voice.

  When a sailor on the high seas encounters the lying image of the Fata Morgana, he drops his hands from the rim of his wheel and gapes in terror at the unknown form that appears to be advancing on his craft. In his mind he already sees his sails upset, his masts splintered, and his ship sinking into the depths of the sea—then all of a sudden, the mists lift from his eyes, a propitious breeze fills his sails, and he sets off for his goal with reinforced courage. The eerie Fata Morgana is soon forgotten; for him there is no more worry—he does not ask whither and why. How different it is with you!

  You, who have thus far run your ship of life right into the rocks of ordinary life, and instead of the Fata Morgana you have seen only the dreadful images of misery and despair. You had no reason to tremble before an unknown peril, and even if you looked death in the face, you laughed it away with wine and kisses.

  Lucy hung with flaming eyes on Emil’s face, which never seemed so beautiful to her than at this moment.

  Emil wrapped his arm more securely around Lucy and continued:

  But from the very moment you were so suddenly taken out of the sphere of your earlier life and effort, without any knowledge of the interconnections of the events that took place, you must often have been tempted to ask, “whither and why?” You already know the secret power of the Mantis religiosa, which I need not explain any further; but by reading these pages again, you will recover the memory it took from you. You will recall images long forgotten, wh
ich will emerge as if from afar, taunting your imagination. But beware of seeking to return to old relationships, or even to recall them in your minds. They will only hold you back from the high goal that I have set for you and toward which you must strive with a holy zeal. In the future, put aside the petty concerns of duty prescribed for less-gifted souls by law and tradition. Since poverty mutilates everything noble, drawing people down into the abyss of filth and vice, and wealth, when carefully earned over time, with great care and concern, only narrows a person and deadens any higher mission, I will leave to you all the millions you will find in the lower chambers of your present residence. I give it to you unearned, and without a drop of your own sweat, so that the concern, labor, and speculation needed to get it will not devour your beauty or the charm of your faces. Only beauty, joined with the treasures of this earth, has the right to enter into the struggle for a higher idea and achieve it. For ugliness, if rich, and beauty, if poor, will only be accompanied by ignoble motives in their actions and undertakings.

  Like a confused wanderer who suddenly sees a light in the distance through the darkness of night, who cheers and runs toward the glittering star of hope with a quick step—that was how Emil and Lucy appeared now, as their darkness was pierced by such a bright beam streaming into their overjoyed and enthusiastic eyes. They understood all too well the tremendous truth of this splendid sentence—only a few moments before, the old man had said much the same to them in person—and they had heard him, but they had not grasped it!

  “If you survive the trial by fire and keep your beauty from harm, when I return in five years, I shall introduce you to a place that will make you immortal unto all generations,” Emil repeated the words the old man had said to them in solemn tones.

  “For it is yours to shatter chains and free the South from its shame,” Lucy repeated in holy enthusiasm.

  After she had brushed a lock of her dark hair from her eyes, she began to read.

  By the time Lucy had completed the following portion of the manuscript, it was already well after midnight.

  What Emil learned from Lucy’s lips clearly and solidly filled in the gap from that earlier night until their residence in the Atchafalaya Bank, and from that moment the Mantis religiosa had lost its power over them.

  In the last line stood the name Hiram.

  Emil and Lucy stared at this name wordlessly; it was as mysterious to them as a hieroglyph, and yet it seemed to them they had heard this name before.

  (PREPARED FROM THE OLD MAN’S MANUSCRIPT)

  I. The End of the Night of Masquerade

  Even before Emil’s feet had touched the ground, he was grasped from behind by the powerful arms of the sergeant of the night watch and ordered to accompany him without protest.

  “You are known, señor, and whatever you intend to do in this masquerade you will be so good as to inform our esteemed recorder in the morning,” he said in a courteous tone, quite at odds with his powerful fists. It was Luis Montes, the sergeant of the night watch in the Second District.

  “You are known as well, Mister Luis, and I have as much of a right to ask you to accompany me,” Emil responded testily. “If you don’t let me go,” he continued, raising his voice, “then tomorrow everyone in the city will know that Mister Luis, the mighty and strict sergeant of the night watch in the Second District, threw a young man having a joke by dressing in his girlfriend’s clothes into the city privy,* out of jealousy …”

  Mister Luis, who knew Emil quite well as a troublemaker, and who feared a personal conflict, reached under his cloak for his maritze† to call some privates‡ if need be.

  Emil perceived this. With unbelievable agility he pulled his right arm from the sergeant’s fists to prevent him from sounding his maritze—then, before Emil’s astounded eyes, Mister Luis fell to the ground as if struck by lightning. In the same instant, Emil saw an old, tall, gaunt figure looming over him, who signaled to him to drag the fallen man into the next alley and leave him to his fate.

  Emil mechanically followed the stranger’s directions.

  Then, once he had recovered from the first shock, Emil asked his rescuer what had happened.

  Instead of offering an answer, the figure took him by the hand and drew him forward.

  Emil began to feel strange—for, after they had taken a few steps, the stranger ordered him to lay his own arm in his, and he covered Emil’s face with a shawl.

  Emil, who had apparently forgotten that he was in women’s clothes, came to with a start. The conduct of the stranger appeared to him natural enough, if Emil was thought to be a lady. It occured to him for an instant that this old man might demand some recompense for his cavalier service, and he would have laughed out loud if he had not caught the stranger’s eye, which looked into his face with bitter earnest.

  “I know quite well what’s going on with you,” he said, interrupting the silence. “If you think I take you for a lady, you are much mistaken, and so I advise you to restrain your overheated imagination. Despite your masquerade, I knew you just as well as did Señor Luis, who now lies dead in the alley.”

  “Dead?” Emil repeated, pale with terror. “Whatever led you to kill him … ?”

  “Yes, Señor Montes is dead,” he interrupted soberly, “and I tell you, young man, he earned his death.”

  The old man said this in an earnest, harsh tone, inspecting Emil’s face right through the veil.

  “But dead—dead! Impossible—really dead, then? Consider, if they find him in the vicinity of Madame Wilson’s house, if they’ve seen me—seen you—but no one knows you—but me—but what caused you to do that?”

  Thus Emil maundered, failing to give his words the clarity appropriate for one of life’s serious moments.

  He was seized by an unspeakable anxiety. He attempted to get ahold of himself, in vain, to explain the episode as an ordinary fact of life—but he failed. Revulsion and terror gained the upper hand over his usual belittling frivolity.

  He walked alongside the old man for a long time, always keeping an arm under his, saying not a word.

  He did not even notice that he was already going along the levee of the Third Municipality, so that on their right side the masts and decks groaned and creaked, and the riverbank guards along the Mississippi sent their dark red glow up into the black coils of the clouds, which floated heavy and oppressive above their heads.

  An intermittant sharp breeze shook the lanterns so violently that the gas flames only shed an uncertain glow, warning men to be careful of their hats.

  Rousing song streamed from the barrooms, and with heedless cries the shoreboys and the sailors—who had only yesterday escaped the perils of the deep—wallowed in prayer to the American demigod, “Old Irish Whiskey,” now and then throwing a significant glance at a tambourine girl, who raised the revelry yet another notch with her song and play. Many a picayune flew into her tambourine or her extended apron.

  The watchmen beat their iron-bound billies on the sidewalks, making them echo a hundredfold throughout the city.

  The old man stopped and let his arm part from Emil’s.

  “Now we are at the Hamburg Mill,” he said. “Would you do me and yourself the pleasure of calling Lucy out—but—let’s wait a moment, she’s in the middle of a dance.”

  “Here, get up on this stoop and look through the gap in the curtain—you can see her—pay good attention to her—you see her in her frivolity for the last time.”

  Emil stepped onto the stoop and peered through the gap in the knitted curtain.

  He saw Lucy in her masquerade, dancing joyously with a young Creole girl, seized in a saraband.*

  The saraband was now at an end.

  The old man signaled to Emil to go into the dance hall and return with Lucy.

  While Emil pressed his way through the exhausted dancers, Lucy advanced toward Emil, dressed (we must recall) as a gentleman, hand in hand with the young Creole. She took one look at him and was shaken, then stared at him; then she fell into hi
s arms as if she was insane, pushing back his bonnet and shawl, marveling at his coiffeur. Then she began to laugh, kissing him repeatedly without paying any attention to the people standing around, drawn by this strange show. They quickly formed into a circle around the couple.

  “Didn’t I just tell you that this young, pretty gentleman was Madame Wilson?” a young French steersman said to his plump little Alsatian blonde, who hung on his arms half drunk.

  “She is still the lusty Madame Wilson of the Mulatto’s Settlement,” he continued. “I’ll be damned if there is as beautiful a woman in the whole Parish of New Orleans—look, look, honey—those splendid sparkling black eyes—damn, a man could go quite mad seeing her like that—look, look, how nicely those trousers fit her …”

  Fortunately, the fat little Alsatian had such a heavy head from dancing, and perhaps also from drinking, that she didn’t hear her beau’s ungallant words.

  Lucy’s flamboyant behavior set Emil in considerable distress. How could he convince Lucy to leave the hall at the command of the stranger? Command? Yes indeed, it had been a command to him, for the man had such a lordly manner that Emil really believed he had to obey. An unexplainable intimation told him that he no longer belonged to himself, that he now had a master who would guide his steps and deeds from now on.

  Emil was often a dreamer of the most extreme sort, and dreamers are inclined to superstition. The sudden appearance of the old man, in an instant, at the second when the situation with the sergeant was getting serious, had made him subservient to the stranger.

  What was to be done now? The celebrants pressed ever closer to the two and appeared to be watching this strange scene with intense interest. He surely couldn’t take Lucy’s arm and head for the door, and even if he did, the entire swarm of the curious and the drunk would rush after them—and the old man? … These thoughts were crowding Emil’s brain as the doors opened, the old man stepped to the threshold, and his awe-inspiring voice cut through murmur, laughter, and yelling. At the sound of this powerful voice, the guests scattered, turning away from Emil and Lucy to stare at the weird visitor. He called out into the crowd: “Lucy Wilson! I have a word to speak with you!”