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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  After the journal described the two fires, it expressed the fear that several lives had probably been lost. A separate editorial promised to report in greater detail the following day.

  At the close, the French-language journal added: “We cannot deny the most profound sympathy for our bold, brave fire companies, whose strength and health have been so abused and tested. These brave young men believe they are sacrificing themselves for the preservation of the property of our fellow citizens, and they do not realize that they stand under the criminal control of certain persons.”

  A German newspaper in the French Quarter, which has an educated and sophisticated readership due to its location, went a little further in an article under the headline “City News”:

  We owe a debt of gratitude to our esteemed colleagues in the French-language press for responding to the dubious theory of the English-language papers that the recent frequent fires are the result of chance by asserting that the fires are the issue of a criminal conspiracy. Yet we must protest that they remain silent about something that is on the tip of their tongues, which is that those arsonists are largely the tools of persons who cannot bear to see a house stand for long once the insurance exceeds its value. The Spanish-language press approaches our own opinion, but it is premature in asserting that these accidents and crimes are the fruits of our republican freedoms.

  The Machiavelli of the Spanish press continues to hide in the purple folds of His Catholic Majesty’s cloak. Haven’t demonstrations by our Cuban patriots made them any wiser?

  PARALIPOMENA

  Pensacola Landing, New Canal

  Headquarters of the Lesbian Women

  Sir!

  In a grail held by the lesbian women on 18 March,24 it was moved and adopted to seek in writing to convince the author of The Mysteries of New Orleans not to fulfill the promise he makes to his esteemed lady readers in the seventh chapter of the second volume, namely to publicize our assemblies and to reveal their intimate nature. We do this because we would be exposed to danger of being attacked by raw intruders and a curious moral proletariat. But since we realize how sacred such promises are that an author makes to such a respected and educated readership, and since we are not so foolish as to demand such a strained delicacy, we shall try to satisfy the public ourselves by touching several points while leaving the most dangerous matters out. Please permit us the following assertions:

  There are very many maidens in New Orleans who could not be moved to take a man at any price, even if he were an Adonis in appearance and a Croesus in wealth. These maidens possess such a hostility against anything that is called a man that they fall into a swoon at the slightest contact. Others abandon themselves to outbreaks of righteous wrath on such occasions. Their conduct is, of course, in keeping with their temperaments, and they know no bounds whenever their dignity is injured. The assumption that we live in clubs of several members is true only insofar as we have several gatherings in isolated places lasting several nights. Otherwise we live in pairs, keeping our households just as the majority of society live together as man and wife. In the eyes of the world, when one of us has chosen a life-companion, we are just good friends, sisters, or simply persons who deeply esteem each other’s qualities.

  The majority of us are of German extraction, but we came into the world on the soil of Louisiana. These German Creole maidens are much honored among us, since they express the peculiar type we represent to the highest degree. They flame with particular intensity for the charms of pretty, young married women, since they see them as a satisfying substitute for the ability to reproduce.

  When such a combination comes about, it is inevitable that children will enter the community, children whose beauty and composure would shame the gods. We are solidly convinced of this, and these presumptions make up a major part of the tradition of our Holy Grail. King Arthur of the Round Table is our ancestor and the Grand Master of our association. Sir Walter Raleigh and the Cabot brothers receive the next level of our adoration and esteem, since they are the ones who transplanted us to the New World and won us entry into the mysterious palmetto boudoir of Louisiana.

  Sir! You are the first and only person who has dared to mention our secretive existence in New Orleans, and this in a work that has charmed the souls of women of spirit and heart. You have touched on the fact that has never before been dealt with in detail, since they had not yet realized that the majority of men are unworthy to unfasten their garters.

  Sir! Please do not say anything further about our occasional gatherings, and we will seek to honor your restraint by serving you the chalice of the Holy Grail and placing you at the same table with Arthur. In the blood that the chalice contains, you will read the tale of woe of that sex which has abandoned the gods.

  Lesbia

  New Orleans, April 1854.

  Book IV

  Prologue

  THE FATA MORGANA OF THE SOUTH

  I

  The bank of the Red River where it receives Cache Creek presented a lively, picturesque scene in April 1852.1 Toward evening, part of a company stationed at Fort Belknap on the Brazos in Texas had pitched tents barely five feet from the edge of the riverbed, and the soldiers were making all possible efforts to settle in comfortably and well. A U.S. flag the size of the ensign carried by a lancers’ regiment fluttered at the entrance of each tent. The tents were of sailcloth, stretched on four poles set crosswise. The humidity of the evening had forced the soldiers to shed their jackets, which were scattered on the wool blankets spread under the tents. Two Delaware Indians, hired as interpreters and guides, were engaged in gathering the dried buffalo excrement within a radius of fifty to a hundred feet of the camp. Once they had filled their bags, they returned to the bivouac and emptied their carefully gathered burden into the great fire they had started as soon as they halted. Then they sat down among the soldiers, passing the pipe from one mouth to another. In return for this service, which the campers did not seem to value very highly, they each were treated to several pulls on a demijohn filled with the best gin Texas had ever produced.

  One of the Delawares had shot a buffalo the day before, skillfully skinned it, and packed the best cuts in the wagon after rubbing the flesh with the salt and spices available. The buffalo meat was now brought out, and pieces were cut and fried over the fire on a long, wide pewter pan with a narrow rim. Several birds that had been shot were also prepared for eating. A hard ride of five days had given the soldiers such an appetite that they snatched the meat out of the pan half-cooked, bolting it down greedily. They did not forget to take gin in substantial quantities, however. The small birds, feather-stubs still sticking out, were left to the leader of this detachment, who seemed to prefer them to the tough buffalo steaks. This gourmand was Captain Marcy,2 who had received an order barely a month before from the War Department in Washington to pursue the course of the Red River from the confluence of Cache Creek, known to rise in the Wichita Mountains, all the way to its source. This expedition up the Red River was not the first; forty-five years earlier, after the First Consul of France had ceded the vast Louisiana territory to the United States, Captain Sparks had undertaken to follow this American Niger to its source. Even before he could reach the villages of the Pawnee Pigua Indians, he and his men were forced back by a troop of Spanish soldiers, and he was compelled to turn around and regard the expedition as an utter loss. A second expedition, headed by the famous Lieutenant Pike, was sent out the same year by the U.S. government, with no better results. This was in 1806. In 1819 and 1820, another attempt was made to reach the source of the Red River, this time by Colonel Long of the United States Corps of Engineers. He described the situation in his extremely interesting account:*

  We reached a creek flowing in a westerly direction, which we took to be a tributary of the Red River. Accordingly, we followed its course several hundred miles until we found to our distressed surprise that we had explored the Canadian Arm of the Arkansas instead of the Red River. Since our horses had been a
lmost ruined and it was already too late in the season to consider returning to seek the Red River before winter came, we decided to continue our route to the settlements on the Arkansas. We had depended entirely on Pike’s map, which shows the Red River as the source of the Canadian River.

  We see, then, that none of the expeditions sent to explore the Red River had managed to reach its source.

  The Mexicans and the Indians living in the neighboring region have the habit of calling any river whose water has a red appearance the Rio Colorado, or Red River, and it is no wonder in a region covered with red clay how the Canadian River, tinted red, should also have been called Rio Colorado. This explains Alexander von Humboldt’s error in saying that the Red River rises at Natchitoches, about fifty miles east of Santa Fe. There is no doubt that he received this information from the Mexicans. This also explains the misunderstandings of Colonel Long and Lieutenant Pike.

  This was the extent of achievement so far as the search for the Red River’s source was concerned, up to the moment when Captain Marcy and his companions arrived to pitch camp at the confluence of Cache Creek and the Red River.

  Outside a large tent, its entrance covered with double curtains, sat a small, slight man on a simple chair in front of a small table. He had the same sort of oddly marked features one finds among Texas Rangers: he was deeply tanned, with cheekbones so prominent that they threw small shadows on his cheeks. This man’s eyes were light gray but shadowed by dark, full lashes.

  These eyes did not make a soulful impression. No signs of life, heart, and spirit were apparent in these eyes—but they shone like the eagle-eyes of a hunter, displaying the wild nature of a trapper combined with a ruthless routine of applying knowledge and practical understanding in matters of business. In short, this was the true archtype of an Anglo-Saxon raised on the Rio Grande, who participated in wagon-trains such as those Americans and Mexicans use to bring goods from Santa Fe, and who had had a dispute or two with the Tonquewas Tribes.

  The vertical crease that divided both eyebrows and ran toward the center of his large forehead indicated the mathematician, the eclectic researcher of nature, and the surveyor. His whole being reminded one of Colonel Fremont, the pathfinder who crossed the Rockies.

  This man is Captain Marcy.

  On the small table in front of him lay Pike’s old map, the sole authority that this man had to complete his honorable quest for the source of the Red River. In his right hand he held a radial compass, which he often compared with the scale placed at the bottom of the map. He marked off several orientation points and now and then shook his head in dismay.

  The stars in the cloudless sky twinkled like diamonds in the dark purple robes of Ptolemaic kings, appearing all the more numerous because the moon had not yet risen.

  The light of his lantern dimmed, for there was a breeze. The flame only sputtered when one of the Delaware Indians rushed by to retrieve the horses and mules, who dared to wander toward the bluffs as they fed on the splendid vegetation of the soft, fruitful bottomland.

  Two persons sat on a small munitions chest of strong hickory near the table. They had joined the expedition after speaking briefly with Captain Marcy.

  The one had beautiful, rich blond hair and large eyes of heavenly blue, while the other had eyes that competed in blackness with the night. Each was clothed in light summer garb and carried a small straw hat with black ribbons that fell over the rim in back.

  They looked first at the captain, then at his troop of soldiers sitting around the large fire, devouring their buffalo steaks with genuine hunger.

  Captain Marcy left his place and sat next to the two on the munitions chest.

  “I believe it is the same mysterious man who stood before the Inquisition of Louisiana in Baron de Carondelet’s time, and when they were about to pronounce sentence, he suddenly vanished,” the captain began. “It is necessary to reach the source—if we found the Mantis religiosa, whose existence you describe, the South would be freed of a great burden. Even if this plant covered thousands of acres, it could be eradicated in a short time.” Those he addressed remained silent, seeming to brood over something at the same time.

  The captain continued: “Your old man’s power does not appear to reach so far as to be able to hinder our undertaking, and if you have reason to believe, as you say, that he is no longer alive, then we can reach our goal with all the greater certainty.” Turning to the person with the light blond hair and sky-blue eyes, he said, “You will yet be a credit to our army, and perhaps a German hero will soon join the pantheon of our great republic, between Washington and Lafayette.”

  “I will never be that!” was the shy response.

  “Why not? The corps of cadets at West Point will train you to be a fine soldier in the course of two years—have no doubt of your military ability. Believe me, you have taken the wrong path of life up until now, and you have not recognized the true mission Providence has marked out for you.”

  “Captain Marcy, I and my companion are bound by a fearsome oath—even if we have wasted in frivolity the millions the old man gave us instead of supporting propaganda to free the helots from their bonds, I cannot understand how I could enter the service of a government that persecutes that propaganda on all sides and pursues it to death.”

  “And the Mantis religiosa was the means of revenge for your propagandists, and their dreadful influence would not be suppressed until they had won their victory—and yet you told us of this marvelous plant? Wasn’t your silence on this included in the oath?”

  “No!” was the answer.

  “Yes!” came an uncanny sound from the banks of the Red River.

  The two fell into each other’s arms with a cry of terror.

  The captain stood up in shock and advanced toward them.

  II

  Like a priestess of Vesta, earnest and chaste, the evening approached the hour when it traffics most happily with spirits, communing with them for joy or sorrow and preparing for the coming morning. On the highest plateau of a mesa stood the burning sickle of the waxing moon, spreading its light on the endless ocean of prairie, from whose bosom rises the mysterious source of the Red River.3

  Panthers and jaguars emerged from hiding and gazed, intoxicated, at the moonlit plains. Softly and thoughtfully they stepped, as if they feared to tear the innumerable blossoms under their claws. Colorful butterflies flew, their wings heavy and cumbersome, through quiet air, finally sinking, exhausted, in the grass. They had already plunged their snouts into the blossoms and greedily sucked their narcotic nectar. Tiny emerald-green snakes rose up and hissed at the lightning bugs circling their heads, as if mocking them.

  Only the murmur of the Red River’s source, springing out of the prairie-ocean then emerging once more in the midst of a canyon, interrupted the solemn, majestic silence of the night.

  A man and a woman stepped out of the darkness of the canyon.

  They crossed the moon-silvered area, often stooping to look at the pinkish-red blossoms that had only opened today.

  “Mantis religiosa!” the man called out in a solemn tone, plucking a blossom.

  “You die this year without seeds, in order to carry them a millionfold the following year.”

  “Hiram, I honor your noble wrath, but please do not visit the unhappy city once more with this dreadful disease,” the woman said, wringing her hands in supplication. “Think, many of our people die along with the whites, and they would curse you if they knew their murderer.”

  “Diana Robert, it is my will, and you know that it will not be altered by any woman’s voice. How you have disappointed me! Just as have Emil and Lucy, on whom I set all my hopes. The throttling angel will massacre all he can, and he will not spare your own blood. Leave here this very moment and go to the lower rooms of the Atchafalaya Bank in New Orleans, where your relatives and friends are now living. Tell them that when Hiram visits and they see his yellow mask, the city will tremble and weep. You know the way we took, and nothing must keep
you, since the slightest delay could cost you your life.”

  “But Hiram! The whole, long way on foot?”

  “You may ride my other pony, Diana Robert, it will take you home safe and secure through the canebrakes and palmetto swamps.”

  Diana Robert returned to the canyon, downhearted.

  Hiram looked after the departing woman for a long time. Then he turned his gaunt face, paled by troubles, toward the mesa, from whose highest level the waxing crescent of the moon was rising.

  He spread out his arms horizontally, like a cross that had defied storm and weather to somehow retain its shape.

  “Waxing moon! Symbol of the Crescent City!” he cried out, so loud that he seemed to want to be heard by the stars themselves. “How long will you continue to shine on the colorful hustle and bustle in the streets of New Orleans? You will kiss the gravedigger’s hungry hands, and your glimmering light will hang on the spokes of the hearses. O Moon, you always remain the same, whether your light bathes a corpse or the thriving children of pure nature. You alone are happy, Moon, for your face is always cheerful and peaceful, and you are never depressed by the crimes and atrocities of people. Enviable vassal of the great spirit of worlds, loveliest diamond in the diadem of heaven! Moon, if only I could change places with you and have your cheer and your smile forever! If Hiram, the Circling Cross of the South, could win you as an ally in his holy struggle, your sickle would harvest the heads of his enemies and sever the chains of the helots!”