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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  “My God!” Albert thought to himself, “such dreadful self-deception. Poor Jenny! And I, poor devil that I am, to have taken such liberties with an angel unawares!”

  “My Jenny!” he called out, pressing a hot kiss on her shoulder. “My Jenny!” he proclaimed even louder.

  He repeatedly dared to plant a kiss on the alabaster shoulder of Jenny, who lay with her head in his lap, her eyes covered by both her hands. When he began to rise up to take a look around the chamber and seek a way out of his uncontrollable situation, he suddenly felt a tender hand slip under his belt, where the name of his fire company was displayed in white letters, and then he felt his belt being yanked back and forth. When the young fireman looked down, he saw his friend with her eyes fixed on the belt, as if she was trying to decipher the full name of the company, which was unevenly displayed on the surface of the belt. Then Jenny suddenly turned her eyes to him and cried out: “My Emil, you entered a new company and told me nothing about it? Be honest, Emil, why did you keep it from me?”

  Then she sank back into his lap, covering her face with both hands.

  We know quite well that it was warm outside, and that it hadn’t rained in a long time. Louisiana’s sun does not play games when it has really made up its mind to make the earth thirst. The cisterns were utterly empty, and their staves were springing apart in places, despite their iron bindings. The water of “The Father of Waters” is not for drinking, since it is as warm and unhealthy as the saliva of a dying horse. Ice? Oh yes. Stafford & Co. have plenty of ice, and they supply four parishes with it. But that is only for people. Cattle and the soil itself also want water. They thirst just as much as we do. Water lilies dried up and the irises have long since passed away. Palmettos sought out the ancient mud in vain, finding only dried-out, cracked gullies. Don’t anyone tell me that New Orleans is a filthy swamp-hole. Outside the river, where is there even the slightest sign of moisture? You expected a swamp-hole, and instead you find a Sahara, a Sahara of dried-up people and numbed spirits. Run down to the Canal Carondelet and don’t let this journey bother you. Once you’ve walked its length back and forth several times in a day, you will return home a sweating mummy. But your wife and babies will rejoice in the restoring liquid, and they will praise the creator of all the worlds, who conceived Louisiana among the various paradises.

  We know full well that it is this way many a summer.

  Yet this was not summer but winter.

  We know full well how the winter is in Louisiana. They call it spring sanspareil—and spring sanspareil was having its most beautiful day. It was a bit warm, but a delightful breeze wafted through the open window, where Jenny lay in the lap of the handsome fireman, dreaming of her love for Emil.

  Albert sat there as pale as a corpse. One elbow was supported on the sill, his handsome face pressed into his flat hand. Where was his flaming gaze now? Where was the red that had burned on his cheeks only a few moments ago? Why did his tousled hair hang about his pale face like fluttering leaves? Why aren’t his dark locks still combed smooth? Why is he letting his friend lie in his lap so coldly without pressing her to his heart?

  Look, now something strikes him on the ear, giving him a gentle blow.

  It cannot be Jenny, for she was done with teasing him. Further, she was holding onto his neck with her hands with such intensity that he was only able to support himself on his elbow with some effort.

  He carefully turned around and saw in an instant what he wanted to know.

  It was nothing but a paper kite that little Tiberius had been trying to fly on the large field outside the fence of the two sisters’ property. The kite did not want to fly today. The air did not cooperate, either. So the window was as far as it got, jolting our friend for a moment out of his daze before floating slowly down into the garden below.

  “You’re not flying very high today, poor kite!” Albert called to it with a soft, drawn-out voice.

  He pressed his head into his hand once more and again looked as stiff as a corpse in a painting.

  If his belt, which had bound him only a few moments before, had not been lying on the sofa, it would have considerably restricted his breathing.

  Spring sanspareil sends down blossoms and flowers like hazelnuts. While Boreas storms through the broad prairies of the West in a snowy garb of white, and the iron horses sleep in solid ice, spring sanspareil is kissing its golden fruits and admiring itself in the metallic mirror of its evergreen leaves. Spring sanspareil is the darling of beautiful women, since it pours out the flowering buds of honeysuckle, whose enchanting fragrance wafts through their bedrooms. One bough of honeysuckle, covered with a thousand blossoms, reaches through the window, waving up and down. Albert doesn’t notice, but Jenny drinks in its fragrance with great intensity. She is still lying with her head on her friend’s shoulder, half dead and utterly ravished by the fragrance of the honeysuckle. It would be better for her to remain ever thus, for when she opens her eyes, she will see to her horror that it is Albert and not Emil.

  Albert now sought to extricate himself from Jenny’s embrace without hurting her. But she was already coming to her senses at the same instant, and she released her hands from about Albert’s neck, raising her head and looking sadly into his face.

  Albert was in the most dreadful situation any lover can find himself. He, who had never shied away from the fire of a feminine eye, now closed his eyes like a person who did not have the courage to look into the abyss that lay before him.

  “Albert, Albert! For heaven’s sake! What have I done? Evil man, why do you have to look so much like my Emil? Open your eyes and let me see my Emil in you for the last time. Yes, yes, the eyes are black as my nun’s habit, and my Emil’s are as blue as the ribbon of my order’s cross—but isn’t your gaze the same? Your hair is so dark, and my Emil is blond—but isn’t it just as soft, doesn’t it flow with the same rich fullness about your neck? Doesn’t your belt surround the same waist, although it is still not that of my Emil? Tell me, tell me, evil man, why you go through my dreams arm in arm with Emil? Tell me, Albert, what would the world say if it knew of this? Would it be able to understand this? Wouldn’t it cry out, ‘Look, she is an adulteress who tries to veil her shame by telling us that her confusion is not culpable’? Oh, the world would only judge the deed and not the imperious commands of nature! So, my Albert, if your Jenny is still dear and precious to you, flee! Flee far away into the world, or, if you don’t feel strong enough to remain close by, never cross over to Algiers again. If your path ever leads you by here, turn your eyes away from the cottage where your friend lives, your friend who will bear your memory to the grave.”

  Albert, who had fallen into a terrifying stupor since his strange catastrophe with Jenny, wept bright tears which ran down his pale cheeks. He stood up and threw himself on his knees at her feet, and she began to rise. He grasped her two hands with stormy haste, leading them to his lips.

  “God forgive me,” he said, “if I received love that belonged to another. Forgive me, my dearest Jenny, for not being strong enough to tear you from your delusion—but it is too sweet to be loved, even if it is at the expense of another heart. Dearest Jenny, I shall fulfill your wishes—today I see you for the last time—but grant me one more kiss on your divine lips before I depart. Splendid woman! Did I ever know love without you?”

  “Albert! Albert!” Jenny replied, the liveliest red on her cheeks, as lively as the blush of a virgin standing before her marriage bed. “Go from this house and no longer tear at the smarting wound of my heart—and if you should ever encounter my Emil on your life’s pilgrimage, you will look without shyness into his beautiful eyes. You will see your own image in him, and—you will forgive your Jenny.”

  “Splendid woman!” Albert cried out in joy. “You are reconciled with the god Cupid—another god might try to impose guilt on you, but he will not be heeded. And now, fare thee well—your splendid image will never vanish from my soul, and if I should ever meet your Emil, I will put my arm
around his slender body and whisper to him, ‘You were with your Jenny without even knowing it…”’

  “Albert, before you leave me forever, one more word: Down below in the garden at the side of the balsam bed is a banana tree. If you search its trunk, you will find the letter E carved under a brief verse. Cut an additional A into it, but in such a way that the E and A are joined together—now fare thee well, and here is this kiss—and this—and this!”

  When Albert went down to the garden, leaving his fireman’s belt behind in the chamber in his confusion, he found the banana tree. On its trunk, about a foot from the ground, half-hidden in the thicket of dark blue foliage, he discovered the following verse: “I know not what inborn charm leads them both/And does not permit them to forget.”

  He found the E under this verse. “Emil, I don’t know how to tell you anything about the magical compulsion that your native soil still has over you,” the young architect whispered to himself. “You have Jenny to thank that your homeland still thinks of you at all. Poor Emil!”

  When Albert finally turned his back on the lovable cottage, A and E stood indivisibly entwined.

  Chapter 7

  COMPLICATIONS AND REVELATIONS

  That was how matters stood when the Hungarian arrived in New Orleans on board the Sultana. He eschewed surprise and thought it more fitting to prepare his spouse for his appearance with a few lines directed to her. Frida’s reception of him after his two-year absence was heartier than one would have expected in view of her character. The Hungarian played the penitent so perfectly that Frida forgot all her hostility and forgave the cad completely. Since his hopes about his wife’s pecuniary situation had been fulfilled to a degree, which had been his motive for returning in the first place, he found it good to place himself voluntarily under his wife’s auspices so long as there was nothing better. This was in order to stifle all distrust his wife might harbor. His calculation achieved complete victory, and he had to admit that he had been correct as ever—he was by no means tossing his hook into an empty pond. Poor Frida! She gave him her undivided trust once more and even engaged in private reveries about happy days to come. There were only two matters she could never settle, and they tormented and irritated her. The first was why Jenny was so closed and silent to her and why she permitted not a glimpse of what was in her heart—something that had never happened before. She thought for a while that Albert had some part in the secret cares of her dear sister, particularly since she had happened upon the banana tree, with its A and E joined together. But then, when the conversation touched on Emil and she noted Jenny’s moist eyes, she assumed the source of Jenny’s limitless melancholy was her longing for her faithless husband, who had not sent a word.

  The other point that saddened her and often stimulated her anxiety was the fact that Lajos had experienced the same mysterious encounter with her Doppelgänger. The episode in one of the staterooms at the Planters House in St. Louis, which the Hungarian had related to her—though with significant alterations—had been just the thing to confuse her practical and placid senses and to draw her into eerie speculations. Cousin Karl’s letter, which had reached its addressee shortly after the Hungarian had arrived in New Orleans, completely failed in its purpose and even detracted from the reputation of the man who had previously stood so high in Frida’s estimation, whose solid and reasonable suggestions had always been received with unlimited veneration. Furthermore, her husband’s intimations and seemingly well-founded assertions about the dueling affair were calculated to chase every inclination toward Cousin Karl from her heart. After Lajos’s prevarications, she could not believe that a man such as Karl, who could write such a heartless letter and challenge her husband to a duel on a whim, could ever have been her friend.

  The Hungarian, who had reason to fear a visit from Karl after his return from St. Louis, mustered all his slyness to avoid a meeting. Little Tiberius received the strictest order to send Cousin Karl away any time he came to visit. Although obedience was not one of the black scoundrel’s greatest virtues, in this case he followed the Hungarian’s commands to the letter by showing the door to Master Karl, who had often punished him harshly. During this period, the lovable cottage was so enclosed and guarded from all angles that one would suppose that its beautiful occupants were being held in close confinement. This was true for Jenny in a certain sense, since her frequent indisposition led her to cease her piano instruction and stay at home. Frida only came home during the midday hours, after which she went back to her duties and returned only after five in the evening. Tiberius had to escort her over. On one of these passages to her school, she encountered Cousin Karl. Karl greeted her warmly, with all the friendliness he could muster. Frida did not respond with a greeting, instead acting as if she had not seen him. Tiberius was then able to grant a malicious smile to his former persecutor, keeping his cap solidly on his head. Karl, who had experienced more than one such encounter by now, and who had become irritated by repeated rejection, could not misinterpret this episode. He was correct in seeing Lajos as the source of the disturbance, and he believed he had been slandered to a grand degree. Karl was a decisive man, and once he undertook to do something he did not rest until he had succeeded. Yet he was somehow too reserved a man of the world to raise a scandal to get what he wanted. Since he always chose the straight and honorable path, he always lost. In keeping with his nature, he wrote his cousin Frida a letter in which he asked in the friendliest manner the reason for her sudden estrangement and hostility to him, and he requested that she not leave him any longer in an uncertainty that tormented him day and night. The letter was so well composed, so truly and decently written, that it could not have failed in its mission if Frida had seen it. But Tiberius, who was given the letter, betrayed its author. Tiberius passed the letter to the Hungarian, who did not hesitate to do what the situation demanded. As requested, Karl received a response in two days. But what sort of response? He wept bright tears as he read it. Tiberius had brought it to his office and vanished without giving any answer or greeting. Karl was so distressed that he went to his superior at once and asked to be relieved. The letter had been dictated to Frida by her husband, and it was intended to bring about a definitive break.

  After three months in Algiers, the Hungarian suddenly abandoned his orderly way of life and began spending his time in the Third District, where he often passed the hours until late into the night. He told his wife that he had become foreman at a soda factory and that he had an obligation to keep the night watch at the factory at least three nights a week. Since he had stopped asking his wife for money and began making a regular contribution of no small amount, Frida did not have the slightest doubt about his story. She was quietly pleased over her husband’s sense of enterprise, and she only wished from the bottom of her heart that Emil would return and push away the dark clouds resting on Jenny’s brow. But before we go any further, we have to unroll a small moral panorama of New Orleans before the attentive reader. We shall step carefully so as not to break any shells.

  Just as New Orleans has an entirely different physiognomy from all the other cities in the Union, it also contains within itself several distinct types. There are three of these types, clearly distinguished according to district. Whoever crosses Felicity Road from Lafayette will remark at once that the modern Anglo-Saxon is in charge, that is, that he is in the First District. To convince oneself of this, one does not even need to look up. All one needs to do is to observe the long shadows on the ground—long legs and thin, stretched necks with protruding Adam’s apples are to be found in abundance. It is no marvel that the moral condition of this district is better than is the case in the Second and Third Districts, for wherever long legs and cadaverous necks are to be found, Lady Venus is not inclined to stay.

  Once a person has Julia Street behind him, he is in a region where every cross-street sees an increase in long-leggedness, until the long legs reach such a degree, particularly on Tchoupitoulas Street, that one flees head over heels a
cross Canal Street. But he would not be completely safe yet, and if he has the misfortune of wandering into the Gem, across from the post office, the long legs and scrawny necks would reappear in force—but for the last time, since the Gem is the last outpost of this type. There are only two streets in the First District that suffer bad reputations. They are Gravier Street and Perdido Street (“street of the lost”). Long-leggedness only appears on these streets when those afflicted with it are in the process of collecting rent from fallen angels. Whole blocks were constructed for this ambiguous speculation. Whether the speculation by our nabobs and Croesuses on the surplus value of prostitutes improves the moral climate of the district is an open question.

  In the Second District, the First Municipality of happy memory, the skin color grows browner, the hair shinier, the eyes darker and more curious, the necks shorter and fuller, the noses shorter, and (since elegance and gallantry have brought chewing tobacco into discredit) the teeth whiter. They laugh, joke, and play literary games more often, and their vests and trousers have burn-holes from paper cigars or cigarilos. Moustaches are in finest flower there, as for a long time the male residents have been ashamed to show themselves with naked faces among the beautiful, dark-eyed tulips. It would be unheard of for a man without a moustache to win a hearing from the lady of his heart here. For in this district only moustaches descend into the laps of the fair. The thermometers of morality are Chartres, Royal, Toulouse, Orleans and Dauphine Streets. If the mercury rises here, it also rises on the other streets. If they are doing poorly, then all languish. Bienville Street is the most guiltless of them all, for there are many Teutons on this street who remain loyal to their little wives and educate their children with rural values and morality, insofar as they do not allow themselves to be ruined and seduced by the French. The lion of this district is domino a la poudre.