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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  Later, when the Romans were subjected by the Germans, many reached Lombardy, Switzerland, and southern Germany.

  In Switzerland they gathered and found a place for their secretive activities, most of all in Meran.10

  Both the Cabots brought along many of them to America, and Sir Walter Raleigh transplanted them to Virginia, where Queen Elizabeth extended them her full favor, protecting them to a surprising degree.

  There are many fables about Elizabeth and Raleigh, and the Chronique Scandaleuse has sought, in vain until now, to plumb the motives that led the Virgin Queen to show disfavor to Sir Walter.

  Until now no one has discovered—or no one has dared to confess—that the cause was her jealousy of Raleigh due to his relationship with a lesbian lady.

  In the Cabinet of Beauties of the new royal palace in Munich is a portrait of this competitor,11 and her surprising resemblance to Orleana can only be the result of an elective affinity, for Lesbos “produces no children.”

  So much for the closer understanding of the mysterious stirring of feeling on the part of our beautiful Orleana.

  Bedchambers where a man seldom or only briefly appears—bedchambers that are not touched even by male servants—bedchambers on whose soft carpet only a woman’s foot ever steps—bedchambers whose beds, sofas, and hangings only the satin of a woman’s robe whispers by: such bedchambers are a hell of torments and pains for a man, as Amor breaks his arrow and throws it at his feet in disgust as he departs. Whoever enters whole departs sick of heart and soul. Drunk in his senses, he thinks of the satin robe that rustles at his knee; he presses his hand on his hot brow, and his senses collapse as his fantasy contemplates what the heavy satin rustles against. It is the veiled image of Isis, the Cathedral of Love, Sensuality itself that is impressed on the whole of nature.

  It is certainly no crime to lift the veil from this image; certainly it is no sin against the holy of holies of femininity to contemplate it; it is certainly no sin against the Holy Spirit to enter this cathedral of love with covered head. Nature herself is responsible for having wandered from the path when she creates flowers whose pistils will not accept masculine pollen, whose pistils in fact leave their flower cups in order to join one with another.

  Quietly, quietly; softly, softly now; close the curtains as tightly as you can; do not speak so loudly, for the walls have ears, too.

  Quietly, quietly; softly, softly, so that the evil world does not hear!

  “Do you really love me, Claudine?”

  “Oh, how the fresh warmth of your proud neck drives me wild!”

  “How your breasts make my blood boil!”

  “Orleana, Orleana, how excitingly loose your clothes are!”

  “Claudine, Claudine, how tightly you are corseted!”

  “Orleana, Orleana, how easily your clothes fall away!”

  “Claudine, Claudine, how difficult it is for me to get these things off of you!”

  “Orleana, how pure and white your shoulders are!”

  “Claudine, where did you get the scars on yours?”

  “Orleana, Orleana—Albert did that.”

  “And you really love me, Claudine?”

  Claudine began:

  I sowed Measured Love12

  In my garden,

  A whole bed full

  I could hardly wait

  Until they came, until they bloomed,

  So I could pluck them

  For my love.

  And when they came

  Sprouting up

  I generously

  Sprinkled them with water.

  Orleana responded:

  Buds hung

  In fullness, soon ready

  Your watering

  Did them good.

  Claudine continued:

  But when I came

  Out one morning

  What did I see—good heavens!

  Oh terror, oh horror!

  The buds lay broken

  Bent on the ground

  I mourned mightily

  For the dear departed.

  Orleana finished:

  Now to your beloved

  You cannot give Measured Love.

  I mourn much for that,

  For her young life.

  As I said, the hermaphrodite Ganymede may enter without hesitation; his presence does not disturb, and it is high time his divine drink moistened their burning lips.

  Come closer, my Ganymede, don’t turn your little nose so high! Almighty Jupiter is long since dead, Olympus is abandoned and empty, the whole race of the gods died out—you must reconcile yourself to serving mortals.

  Come in—you’ll find an old friend; see how loose Cupid flits from one lap to another in his confusion and cannot figure out quite where to begin. You can tell that such visits are a rarity for him!

  Quietly, quietly, softly, softly now, so the evil world does not hear.

  Close the curtains as tight as you can!

  Don’t speak so loudly, for the walls have ears.

  “Do you really love me, Claudine?”

  “Orleana, Orleana, how embarrassed I am!”

  “Claudine, Claudine, how happy I am!”

  “Orleana, my angel, where are you taking me?”

  “Claudine, my little woman, how I want to kiss you!”

  “Orleana, Orleana, I’m really embarrassed.”

  “No, no, my dear little woman, I am only kissing you!”

  “Orleana, oh leave me alone, I ask you so much!”

  “Little Claudine, my little woman, then tremble no more!”

  • • •

  Wherever the law claps love in permanent manacles, where the Church proclaims sensual denial, where false modesty and inherited morality keeps us from giving nature its rights, then we lie down at the warm breasts of Mother Nature, listening to her secrets and surveying with burning eyes the great mechanism in which every gear moans the word Love.

  There is rejoicing in all the spheres, the fanfares of the universe resound, wherever love celebrates its triumph. But lightning bolts flash from dark clouds whenever tyrannical law and usurped morality seek to compel the children of earth to smother their vitality and entomb their feelings.

  How small and pitiful the nattering of parties seems, how petty the drama even of our own revolution, against the titanic struggle of sensuality against law and morality.

  “Revolution!” the nun cries out in her sleep, throwing her rosary in the face of the Madonna.

  “Revolution!” the priest of the sole-salvific Church mutters as he rips his scapular into shreds.

  “Revolution!” thunders the proletarian when he beholds the fair daughter of Pharaoh.

  “Revolution!” the slave rattles, when he sees the white child of the planter walking through the dark passageway of cypresses.

  “Revolution!” the horse whinnies, mutilated by greed.

  “Revolution!” the steer roars, cursing its tormentors under the yoke on its shoulders.

  “Revolution!” the women of Lesbos would storm, if we were to rebuke their love.

  • • •

  New Orleans is the Meran of the United States for lesbian ladies, where they hold their mysterious gatherings, unhindered and unseen by the Argus-eyes of morality until now. Strangely enough, as everywhere else, they reside only alongside bodies of water, since their norms hold that they cannot do without the nearness of water. So we find them in clubs of twelve to fifteen on the Hercules Quay, along the Pensacola Landing, and all along the entire left side of the New Basin.

  They have lost their earlier location on Lake Pontchartrain. They were driven out, in part by the efforts of F*, in part through the efforts of old McDonogh.*

  My esteemed lady readers will visit one of these settlements in the third volume and be convinced that lesbian ladies are not as bad as most, and that they are as decent and well mannered as the rest of the world of women, after their fashion.

  It was three o’clock when Cupid fluttered through the shu
tters, through which a cooling west wind blew over the slumbering women-friends.

  The moon smiled knavishly and the stars glittered with delight as they spotted Cupid flying down Toulouse Street, blushing red from head to foot, with flaccid bow and empty quiver.

  Chapter 8

  ALBERT

  Albert took on an entirely different way of life after separating from Claudine. If he had once been active and tireless in his efforts to secure their keep, now his temperament veered in the utterly opposite direction: whereas he had previously applied his powers to fulfilling his duties and perfecting his talents, he now set out on the uncertain course of a roué and wallowed in intoxication of the senses, only interrupted when compelled to rehabilitate himself and go back “into production.” He had lost his financially remunerative position as a draftsman with the large construction project on Customhouse Street, since the architect in charge was persuaded by his frequent absences to engage another young man with as pleasant an appearance and as considerable a talent. So Albert resorted to earning his money from irregular work with various architectural and surveying offices: one week he drew in Bank’s Arcade, the other at Reynold’s, and often he worked under Captain Lafarell at A. Knell and Keathing, for an amount that was a stark contrast with what he had earned earlier.

  He had rejected Claudine’s offer to have her aunt grant him a yearly payment of seven hundred dollars, for despite his excesses he was still sensitive enough not to take money from a woman who had decided to separate from him. Claudine had tried time and again to offer him some of her aunt’s money, which would not simply save him from temporary embarrassment but also secure him a carefree existence for several years—but Albert always declined.

  This would be the proper moment to describe an occupation eminently suited to an educated man lacking a trade or any other means to make money without hard labor. With good luck and opportunity, it can even lead to a respectable income. I mean what is called plan-making, which is to present buildings and properties the owners want to sell to the public on sheets of paper, decorated with considerable coloration. New Orleans has two central markets for this occupation in the Second District, the first in the St. Louis Exchange Alley, which is so crammed with lithographers, bookbinders, booksellers, book peddlers, book printers, job printers, architects, civil engineers, surveyors, and “working” or “stout” draftsmen, stuffed into every last corner, that the few remaining traders in canaries and birdseed, hatters, lawyers, “quatre-colonnes,” and such can hardly breathe. The plans of lots and houses that are prepared here have their showplace or gallery in the rotunda of the St. Louis Hotel, where they are described as “à la french.”13

  The general emporium for these plans, however, remains Bank’s Arcade, where some of them cover the walls of the great barrooms and others are displayed on green-colored stands at floor level or on platforms four feet high.

  Yet the grand barroom of Bank’s Arcade Hotel is a mere vestibule to the true shrine of art and good taste, unfolding in the most beautiful and fitting way. That residence of the muses is none other than the office of the auctioneers Beard and May, where one enters into a veritable garden of house and lot plans, whose avatars have either already been sold or long for their imminent auctioning. The massive expansion of Beard’s business, as the best-known and most widely famed auctioneer, not just in New Orleans but in the whole South—perhaps in the entire United States—means that the efforts of architects and draftsmen are concentrated here. Here an entire trade is dedicated to selling houses and lots by means of these plans, a craft found nowhere else in the United States, save for Leffingwell and Elliott in St. Louis.14 It works this way: When the owner of a property or a house wants to sell his property as soon as possible, he goes to the office of the auctioneers Beard and May and orders a plan that will represent as precisely as possible the area and outline of his house and the situation of the lot for sale. Mr. Beard immediately walks upstairs and orders the desired plan from an architect. Once this is completed, his house nigger and personal marshal, Jim, takes it and hangs it either on the walls or on green display stands in the barroom of the Arcade. Here the plans are checked by those seeking to buy, who often discover all too late their error in buying a house based on a painting.

  Here one can often find gatherings of the Nestors of draftsmanship, reviewing with great zeal achievements and advancements in the realm of architecture, surveying, and so on. Dr. Engelhardt, Hübner, Walther, Niemayer, and Neumayer already have generations of drawing behind them, so that they enjoy precedence over their colleagues in art and criticism. In the painting of landscapes, the ideal is Keathing’s full, juicy burst of color from his drumming-brush.*

  This describes Albert’s present occupation.

  He was living in the very same apartment in which he had spent that traumatic night after the honeymoon, which had caused the decisive split for both of them.

  Other than a few necessary feminine properties and utensils that Claudine had taken with her to her aunt, everything remained in the same order as before. Nothing indicated that a woman was lacking, for one could see the same organization and punctuality that had prevailed before.

  The porcelain figurines and various other knickknacks still stood on the shelves, arranged just as Claudine had left them.

  The young maid, whom Albert had kept, made sure that nothing gathered dust. Every day she carefully took up the knickknacks, dusted every porcelain figurine, every dish and flower basket, and placed everything back in the same sequence.

  She did this as a result of Albert’s specific order.

  Bridget, which was the maid’s name, had an easy time of it, and she had nothing else to do but to cook for herself, for Albert rarely came home at all. It was seldom that he slept in his own bed even once in any particular week.

  Although he saw that he would have had to be a capitalist to afford the expenditures that his irregular, disorderly way of life demanded, besides maintaining an unused apartment with a servant he still insisted on not renting the rooms his wife had occupied to anyone else.

  For this purpose he made a very peculiar contract with the Irishman who owned the house, a contract that no Yankee would ever have accepted.

  We will come back to that later.

  On the evening in which Claudine lay in Orleana’s arms, Albert was attending the opening of the “Louisiana Ball,” which had never been as brilliantly arranged as it was now.

  The merry company entered the temple of Terpsichore already somewhat heated, for they had passed through several barrooms, oyster shops, billiard parlors, and cafés, and whenever one of them assured the other that it was high time to visit the ball, the reply was that it was better to have a few more drinks, since the night was long enough and no one wanted to grind shoe leather for six or seven hours.

  Thus they finally arrived at the stairs leading to the ballroom, not because of a specific decision but because the scarlet thread that had led them through innumerable barrooms had its end there. It would never occur to a determined roué to appear at the Louisiana Ball in a ball-costume. Light, modest clothing and a few eagles in the wallet—that was all he needed. As a precaution, one also kept a small dagger ready and well hidden, since sailors, mates, and river boys could be dangerous rivals for the pretty dancers.

  “Gentlemen, come back if you will—I have the strictest order to search everyone who enters to make sure they are not carrying weapons,” the porter called after the merry company as they stormed up the stairway to the ballroom.

  “You’re being absolutely pedantic again today, Monsieur Dufleur,” Albert replied, as he halted his friends and had them submit to the usual frisking.

  “Submit quietly,” the Frenchman whispered to them, “I am not being all that thorough; besides, you Germans are not all that dangerous. You only bring weapons to impress the girls—if there is trouble, you’re always smart enough to give in or beat it in time. You know I just have to act as if I’m doing my job, since t
hat fellow over there”—he motioned at the head porter with his little lynx-eyes—“is very serious about it.”

  After Dufleur’s frank explanation, only a boor would have objected to being searched from top to bottom.

  “I felt your little stiletto,” the porter whispered to Albert, “but it doesn’t matter—I’m just telling you so you don’t think I’m too dumb to detect it. But I’ll give you a piece of advice, don’t stick it in your shoe in the future. It could happen that I wouldn’t be here, and that fellow over there would never give it back—’t’would just be too bad for your little knife, which must have cost twenty piasters.”

  “Twenty?” Albert replied with a low voice, “what are you thinking, Dufleur? You couldn’t get it for fifty.”

  After the porter had done the same honors with Albert’s colleagues, the troop stormed up the broad staircase.

  The last notes of an egregiously awful polka were sounding in the ballroom. The band members, consisting entirely of Germans, were laying away their instruments, and each was hosting the first girl who fell into his hands.

  The break was being filled by a “sevens’ dance,” which the sailors of the Isaac Newton had hastily arranged. The second mate had commandeered a violin from one of the musicians and began playing a dance, with less than imposing virtuosity.

  Three cute little levee-ladies inserted themselves as swiftly as arrows between each two dancers, and when they changed partners they were tossed and caught by the dancer opposite.

  “Halloo, hey, Mary! Up and down! Now you, then me, now to me, then to you! Halloo, hey girls! Now up, then down! Now to me and then to you!” And so the dance went on in this way, tirelessly; it was truly amazing how these drunken heroes of the sea and the levee-ladies could keep it up so long.