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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  Gertrude whittled at a silver medallion with her father’s penknife, bouncing it on the chest and causing it to ring. She then picked the peeling leather off her shoe soles and threw it in the fireplace.

  “You don’t want to go into service with Mistress Evans, Constanze?” Father interrupted his silence, after pounding out his pipe and placing it on the chest.

  “Constanze will be reasonable,” Melanie interjected with concern.

  “I am sure that a Mistress Evans could be quite pleased with the service of a countess”, Constanze remarked in a clipped tone, laying her index finger aside her short nose. Then she continued, “If this Mistress sets conditions for me, she might well consider whether they would be acceptable to me. She will not be able to use me for ironing or washing, for she has black domestics aplenty who are more practiced in this work than I am. I would be capable of cooking, but these Scots do not like French cuisine. As a chambermaid, helping her with dressing and hair, I could perhaps agree to serve most suitably—at the most I could agree to take such an engagement if Mistress Evans needs a companion. The companion of Princess Alexandra of B* would certainly not be too poor for a Mistress!

  “Constanze, Constanze—don’t stick your nose so high in the air—consider that circumstances compel us to leave aside our usual etiquette, and that it is no shame to serve in this country …”

  “No shame to serve? It’s supposed to be no shame for a white girl to serve in the South, in a slave state? It is all very nice as it’s described in the emigrant guides—but the reality is something else. A servant remains a servant, whether in a republic or a monarchy. Whoever serves might be sought-after, used, well cared-for, if he does his duty—but he is never respected or regarded as the equal of his master. That might do for a man, however it is, he can more easily set himself above it, but I hold it to be downright dishonorable for a girl …”

  “You frighten me, Constanze,” Melanie interrupted in shock, “I cannot understand where you got such a dangerous philosophy—one is dishonorable only when one has committed a dishonorable act that besmirches our conscience and places us in a dubious relationship to human society. But I do not find anything dishonorable in giving in to necessity and forgetting an earlier station in life in order to earn one’s bread by serving others.”

  “Paul de Cock taught her that for sure,” Hugo remarked languidly.

  “I have received instruction from no one in situations where my own understanding tells me what I am to do and what I am to avoid,” Constanze said.

  Melanie stated, “Then your understanding has certainly not told you to avoid making your fortune with the wealthy Scotswoman. Mistress Evans has spoken of you in most positive terms with the prince of Württemberg, and it is your obligation to earn her favor, that she might later find in you a friend. If the prince only knew what has happened to us in his absence and how poor our situation is, he would encourage you to take Mistress Evans’s engagement, for children always heed others more than their own parents.”

  “The prince of Württemberg will not be able to move me to do something I don’t want to do,” Constanze responded stubbornly.

  “If I only knew where His Royal Majesty currently was, I would make him aware of our dreadful circumstances. Is he back in the city?”

  “If His Royal Majesty were here, he would certainly have sought us out,” Melanie remarked thoughtfully. “Oh who would have thought a year ago that we could sink so low!”

  “If only we knew where our dear brothers were, Mother,” Gertrude sighed.

  “If only we could find Jenny and Frida,” Constanze said.

  “But Mother, you said that Emil was in America. Aren’t we in America now?” Amelie remarked.

  “America is very large, my dear child,” Melanie answered, stroking her child’s cheek with her hand.

  “It is inconceivable to me,” Melanie’s husband declared, “that despite our searching and advertising in the newspapers, we have yet to hear anything from our children or from Jenny and Frida.”

  “And that even Prince Paul knows nothing of them, though he said that he had frequently visited them some time ago,” Melanie responded.

  “I really don’t know what I am to think. When we mentioned them, he seemed to speak of them with reticence and move the conversation to another matter. It would be dreadful if we remained without any information about their location. I cannot bear this thought.”

  Melanie’s eyes dampened as her husband spoke these words.

  “If they were no longer alive,” she said, “if they had died here, we would have heard—to pass our days without any hope of reunion is just too dreadful.”

  “You should go to the consul tomorrow, shouldn’t you, Father?” Hugo asked.

  “I don’t expect much from my visit to the consul. He assured me a week ago that he would do everything in his power to find out where they are. But as is the case with many businessmen, he easily forgets to pursue another’s interests when they are not exactly in his area of work. But I will be certain to go to the consulate tomorrow, and I will ask again at the German Society.”

  “The German Society will care even less for our sorrows and concerns,” Hugo declared in a distressed tone, glancing down at his bad arm, “When I think how they snubbed me when I pressingly asked them for some sort of job, it makes me want to do them some harm if I could.”

  Melanie responded, “Fi, Hugo, soften your words—such rawness does not befit a young man of education. The good people cannot store up jobs or supply support for the thousands who ask their help. That would be asking too much. The German Society does what it can even if it is only possible to find positions for a few out of the many. You must not place your expectations too high or demand the impossible. Considering the immense claims made on the German Society, you cannot blame them for often being touchy or irritable with those who make great demands.

  “Such corporations are always in an uncomfortable situation in the face of those needing help and advice. One should not continually stress the downside of this association without recalling its accomplishments and efforts. How broad is the area it covers? Where are limits set to its work? Where does it cease to be a supporter and advisor? And in what situations can one expect it to grant us support and participate in family interests? Hugo, if the German Society could offer you nothing at that time other than to advise you to take work as a deckhand, it has already done its duty so far as I’m concerned. It is too bad that you scalded your hand on this occasion, but it would be very unjust to blame the German Society for that and to deprecate its accomplishments.”

  Melanie fell silent and laid Suzie, now asleep, back in the hatbox, kissing her youngest on her closed eyelids.

  Hugo was still fuming about the German Society, but he did not dare to contradict his mother. Perhaps he feared a severe rebuke from his father.

  Constanze, who had been thinking about a good bed, now turned to Hugo and said: “You know, brother, I have just had a fine idea. Guess what?”

  “How can I guess what you’ve thought up? You girls think too much anyway, and one could spend his whole life guessing what it is. Just tell me what you’ve come up with—it’s too boring to take the time to guess what it is. I am not in the mood to do riddles or charades. Tell me what’s on your mind!”

  “I’m not going to tell you, Hugo—you have to guess!”

  “Have you perhaps decided to accept Mistress Evans’s engagement?”

  “No. Now you can guess again, and if you don’t guess correctly you won’t learn.”

  “Do you want to take your gold bracelet to the pawnshop in order to buy a good bed?”

  “You almost guessed it this time—you are almost there—so, for the last time! Get yourself together, Hugo!”

  “Yes, what should I say—let me think a moment.”

  “No, no, that doesn’t work, then it would not be an art.”

  “Is it perhaps … is it?”

  “Hurry up. By the time I
count twenty-five …”

  “Would you give me a kiss, Little Constanze?”

  “Not correct, Brother, but if you give me a kiss, I’ll tell you what I thought.”

  The parents smiled and waited to hear what their daughter’s secret might be.

  Only Amelie seemed to have something against it, for when Hugo went to his sister to compensate for his failed guess with a kiss, she rushed to Constanze and whined: “You should give me a kiss first. Hugo doesn’t need one. He was so mean, too, wasn’t he Father? Wasn’t he, Mother?”

  As Constanze leaned down to kiss her little sister, Hugo approached and gave Constanze three kisses, one right after another—one on the mouth, one on the forehead, and the third in midair between the lips of Constanze and little Amelie. Amelie was quite upset with her brother, and she pulled her sister down to the floor and held her tight.

  “Now I’ll tell you,” Constanze laughed after shaking loose from Amelie. “Do you know what, Brother? You could just go over to Live Oak Square and ask Mr. Anderson to let you take some moss from his huge trees so that we could have a good night’s rest.”

  “So we all will have good beds, Constanze?” Gertrude enthused.

  “That’s a smart child, our Gertrude,” Melanie quietly said to her husband, “if only we could get her to school soon. She’s learning nothing at home no matter how hard we try.”

  “You’ll have a bed, Gertrude,” Constanze consoled her.

  “What about Amelie, too, Sister?” Hugo remarked, looking at his sister.

  “Amelie? I would rather she found my ring,” Constanze responded.

  “But Constanze! Don’t make such trouble with Amelie—look at the poor child, how she’s crying,” the good mother admonished. Now Amelie really began to weep, holding both hands over her eyes and heading for the corner.

  “But who will help me gather the moss, if we get permission from Mr. Anderson? I cannot do it alone, as you see, Constanze. Also, I have to be careful not to make my arm worse.”

  “Nothing simpler!” Constanze responded. “I will accompany you over there. You climb up the tree and throw the moss down to me—then we’ll haul it here together. Aunty can stuff the mattresses.”

  “Let Gertrude do it,” Aunty Celestine objected, “I have to finish this collar—you’ll do it, Gertrude, won’t you?”

  Gertrude nodded positively.

  Hugo left the room with his sister and went across the street to Live Oak Square.

  Chapter 2

  UNDER THE LIVE OAKS

  For several years an effort has been under way to change French street names, either by translating them into English or completely renaming them in English, or by shifting the names from one street to another. In this way, the earlier Rue Douaine is now Customhouse Street; Quatrième Barracks, the earlier Place d’Armes—bordered by the Maisons de Pontalba, the cathedral, the courthouse and the levee—is now Jackson Square, so that the Place d’Armes had to migrate to Rampart Street, where General Jackson was earlier to be found. Often this exchange of French terms for English ones has robbed the streets of their original character and given rise to an entirely false picture of the original quarters. This is particularly the case with Frenchmen Street in the Third Municipality. What is there about the name “Frenchmen Street” to recall the old Rue des Français, where five grenadiers of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte built their houses next to one another, bestowing on the pompous club of houses the title of “Emperor’s City” in honor of their leader? Two of these houses still stand, today quite weathered and deteriorated, but Frenchmen Street will tolerate no false pride and has become utterly American. Anyone may look into these houses, with their long, gabled roofs, at the rooms where the remnant of the guard once lounged, smoking their short pipes and talking of Austerlitz and Marengo. A tailor lives in one of them, and he thinks neither about the Old Guard nor of the Prometheus of St. Helena. A German cobbler has been living in the other for a good ten years, and on his greasy walls hang neither Napoleon nor Josephine, neither the king of Rome nor that of Monthalon, but rather Hecker, Bassermann, Kinkel, and Kossuth, the girls on the barricades, and Jenny Lind—these are the heroes and darlings he displays. How times change!

  Thankfully, the banal Presbyterianism of our present-day Anglo-Saxons has still not quite had its way with the Third Municipality, so it has not been able to rob us of the lovely name Rue d’Amour. But what does the future hold? Perhaps our children will know nothing of the Rue d’Amour, and in its place the council will have put some heathen name like “Yankee-Doodle-Dandy Street.” This drive to Americanize everything could easily degenerate to vandalism in any city other than New Orleans. We certainly recognize changes when they contribute to the glory, prosperity, and greatness of a city. We applaud all the creations of this latter day, but at the same time we have so much respect for historical memory and tradition that we are extremely uncomfortable when a change that is not an improvement is made. When this happens, we must condemn such alterations as a vain nationalist farce.

  As is well known, New Orleans was only divided into three corporations, called municipalities, in 1836.* These municipalities are now united into one corporation, together with the city previously known as Lafayette.2 The amalgamation of the municipalities into a city corporation produced the term districts, which are not truly analogous to municipalities.

  The word municipality has something so characteristic of the French quarters that the present designation simply doesn’t fit.

  One obsession of Americans that cannot be criticized is that they name not only cities but also streets after famous men, great writers, war heroes, and the like. To be sure, this baptism often takes place in an odd manner, since the names are given before the places themselves are actually in existence. Many streets owe their names to mere chance.

  This is the case with Washington Avenue.

  This street received its name because a former horseback peddler pitched his booth here and sold people nothing but pictures of George Washington.

  Climb onto a Magazine Street omnibus on Canal Street and tell the driver you want to stop at Washington Avenue. If the driver is not an ass and has nothing else on his mind, he will stop his horse at the designated place, and, once you’ve paid your picayune or presented a ticket, depending on the situation, you will dismount, turn to the right, and come to Live Oak Square, which owes its name to the imposing live oak trees on Mr. Anderson’s property.

  Live Oak Tree! Called Moosbaum by the sons of Arminius, you are the sole poetry here, other than the beautiful daughters of Louisiana! Your palms, Louisiana, where are they to be found? Your palmettos are not good enough for us; they are the grubby orphan of the fern family under which dromedaries kneel and the Bedouin embrace their girls. Louisiana, was your architect so stupid as not to allow your skies to be borne by the slim, tall columns of the palm? Didn’t he know better than to supply only crippled palmettos, which feed on mud their entire lives? Dear Louisiana, you have misled us in the Old World with the tales of how slim and tall your palms are, and how majestic their crowns! But we forgive you the lie, for your live oaks are even prettier than the palms of Guyana!

  Live Oak Tree! You are not the lime tree about which the children of a village dance. No Philistine dares to linger in your vicinity, for your poetry would scare him away and leave him unsettled for the rest of his life. He would realize that you are nothing like an oak in the Teutoburger Forest. He would jump back when your long beard blows in his face! Live Oak Tree, what splendid poetry to sit in your shadow with the daughters of Sodom!

  Live Oak Tree! If only our Grabbe3 had known you, he would not have fooled with the Drachenfels near Düsseldorf—he would certainly have completed his “Don Juan and Faust” in your company. Old giant live oak, you look ill and your long hair has paled. Are you perhaps mourning for your departed brethren, who have been cut down by the sons of civilization and stacked into lumber parks? You look so confused, my live oak, come, let us comb your long
hair!

  As with everything else, so must the live oak serve the Yankee in his speculation. Do not believe that he has the least regard for this tree, that he loves it only half as much as his wife and children. The live oak is no more and no less to him than another tree, and he would be perfectly capable of sawing down one limb after another if each branch would earn him the worth of a lot or a hundredth of a lot. Are you friends of beautiful gardens, fine trees, lovely oleanders, good lilacs, and fairlylike cinchonas? Just don’t let us know—we won’t believe it. And should there be one among you who is moved even a little bit by the blooming of a hydrangea, you may rest assured that this rose will bestow a fine basketful on you, for she wants nothing to do with the heroes of business.

  So it is a common routine for speculators to set at a higher price for a lot if a live oak tree stands on it. Naturally this is the case only with properties on which the homes of our businesspeople stand.

  Therefore the great live oaks on Mr. Anderson’s property bestow on it no small value.

  The home of Mr. Anderson, born a Swede and once a sailor, consists of a narrow two-story frame house with dirty, peeling window frames, boards raw and gray with age, and a small built-on kitchen. Above his roof hang yards of moss from a live oak, whose thick trunk stands far away within the fence. When the east wind blows or a breeze from the Gulf wafts through the hanging tangles and garlands of this moss, they tap on the house windows or flit like the gray hair of an old man in the wind, without leaving the place nature has anchored them.

  Anderson owned a large milk business, and he had had a stall built next door for this purpose that took up nearly the full depth of the lot. It contained his kitchen and the horses and milk-carts necessary for his business. To the left of this stall was a boiler of considerable size, set on a ring wall of bricks, to cook his animals’ feed—made from a mixture of bran, beans, and pea pods. A great number of fowl are always flocking around this boiler, finding the spilled and dried feed splendid nourishment. Two large dogs press their bodies against the warmth of this wall when the weather is wet and cool. The area between the house and the stall contains several shanties, where Anderson’s workers live.