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

by Baron Ludwigvon Reizenstein

  When the Hungarian came out of his study about midday and went to the room where the corpse of his child lay, he looked dreadfully disturbed. The certainty that he had murdered so many persons in a single night to no purpose had caused a dreadful upheaval. Not that he regretted his many crimes and atrocities—no, it was only the thought of feeling once more utterly poor and having to live for a while from his wife’s small property that tormented his spirit, and, even if his mind contemplated the undertaking of a new crime, he realized with a shudder that he lacked the strength to bring the plan to completion. He felt exhausted and sated, and if his demon could not reveal to him some fresh stimulus for some sort of crime he would have no alternative but to put a bullet through his brain. Yes, his demon would not even be able to give his spirit its old elasticity with money now—the sated murderer needed an entirely different stimulus. And as this strange father stood for a few moments before his child’s corpse—he was alone, observed by no one, since Frida and Jenny were in the garden picking snow-white roses and magnolias for a memorial wreath—Mephisto laid his thin lips on the murderer’s scar and whispered these words: “Think of Cleveland the peddler, whose horse bit a piece out of your cheek, think of Lydia Prairiefire, and then of the dark shadow on your child’s cheek.” And voice seized the father at the very moment when Jenny and Frida entered with wreaths in their hands. He lowered his head on his child’s face and let out a cry the sisters took to be a cry of pain but which was really nothing but a miserable curse for which he could find no language.

  The body was quietly buried that very day. The prince of Württemberg was the only soul standing at the grave. He had taken on himself the duty of undertaker. He was escorted by no cleric. But as day gave way to night and the cold light of the moon silvered the graves of the cemetery, another soul stood by the little grave weeping bitter tears. “Oh Frida, Frida,” sounded a voice heard only by the moon, “even if I am far from you, I am still close to your child.” And the man leaned down to the fresh grave and embraced it with his arms, as if he were embracing Frida’s child. And if a guardian angel had been at Frida’s side, he would have spoken to her at the precise instant the man embraced the grave: “Go to the cemetery, and there you will find a man at your child’s grave who loves you without your knowing it and whom you have rejected in favor of your husband.” And after Karl had lifted himself from the grave, he looked back at the lovable cottage, in which all the lights had been extinguished except for a single dim lamp.

  This happened three weeks before the day the birthday of the angelic Dudley was celebrated in the residence of Lady Evans-Stuart.

  • • •

  At the very moment they were eagerly discussing the Mantis religiosa and Hiram in the residence on Annunciation Square, a slender young man of astonishing beauty, though with rather delicate features, stepped onto the ferry near the French Market. He had missed the signal for departure twice, despite the fact that he had been near the landing at the front of a little icecream shop. On the boat he moved restlessly back and forth, impatiently stopping occasionally to cast a searching look at the opposite shore. The few passengers who were with him on the deck observed with almost murderous curiosity the beautiful young man with the long blond hair falling to his shoulders and the large, sky-blue eyes. Everyone’s attention was drawn not only by his tall, slender figure but also by the clothes he wore. Other than a short blouse of white silk and a silver belt made up of numberless fine rings, he was without any clothes. He looked as if he had just come from dinner with King Antinous or sitting on the lap of Sardana-palus. A lady who was also on the deck at the time burned with desire at the sight of this mythological figure wandering about naked, violating all the rules of social life.

  Many of our lady readers might disbelieve what we have portrayed. But in order to take away the slightest doubt, they only need ask the owner of the ice-cream shop, whose love of truth is celebrated in the entire city. There were also several passengers who saw the beautiful young man on the deck that day.

  When the boat landed in Algiers, the young man quickly steered his steps to the area where the charming cottage stood. When he arrived at the garden door, he hesitated for a few moments, looking through the slats at the front entrance, whose bright-green louvered doors let light escape through the arched corridor of trees, seeming to invite him to come into the old, familiar cottage as quickly as possible.

  He pressed the latch, but so carefully and softly that the sound made on the inside of the door was only a weak tone that could hardly betray the fact that someone was entering.

  He stood once more in the middle of the shadowy grove, contemplating the flowerbeds on either side of the path, planted in the shape of a heart. They were framed with splendid resedas, whose vibrating buds take on the enchantment of polyandria. In the midst of this bed were mysterious nasturtiums, luxuriantly and pleasingly rising on cross-shaped green trellises with gilded heads, their red-flamed glittering hoods always betraying the presence of a German woman. On the sides stood some lychnis, serving as a transition to all-American flowers, which had their best representatives in the rose-colored Amarillis palustris, the Mirabilis jolappa, or the “four o’-clock.” A sensitive observer would recognize in an instant that the beautiful gardeners had been guided by the idea of asserting the German-American element among the flora. This was a moving contribution to that labor of Tantalus by which plants seek to reconcile themselves with these stubborn bipeds.

  “How much has changed in the two years I was gone! What innovations! How beautiful and large the trees have grown, which were hardly taller than I was when I left, and now there is an elegant cover for the cistern instead of narrow, uneven boards—and now I see there is also a new kitchen-house. Albert certainly made the plans for that! Everything is so peaceful and still—my Jenny is certainly taking her afternoon nap with Frida, and perhaps—but may I hope this? Perhaps she is dreaming of her Emil! Oh Jenny, Jenny, had we never set foot on this fateful soil, we would still rather have been driven eternally across the wild seas, even if the Gutenberg had never reached its destination … and so? Oh God, you will accuse me of infidelity, my Jenny—but the Almighty knows that I have always borne you in my heart and that only an unavoidable fate ever drove me to leave you—”

  In the midst of these musings, Emil was suddenly interrupted by a noise from very near.

  It was the saucy cook, who was at work picking some eggplants, and when she saw Emil naked before her, she turned red all over, broke through the bushes and cedar branches, and fled to the new kitchen annex.

  Amazingly enough, Emil did not consider why the saucy cook had fled from him like a startled deer. Even as the slatternly being fled, he recognized her as a useful spirit the sisters must have engaged during his absence from the lovable cottage. Since he feared that the dumb thing would sound the alarm and bring out everyone in the house, which would rob him of the fun of presenting himself in melancholy serenity, he rushed to the kitchen to find some way to stop the cook’s little mouth—if it is possible to speak of anyone from the Lüneburg Heath as having a little mouth—in time.

  Everything was peaceful and quiet. It was cool in the garden, since the rays of the sun could not break through the thick darkness of the trees and bushes. The Mirabilis jalappa had reopened its blooms—a sign that it was after four. Such a flower clock never deceives.

  “Is your mistress at home?” Emil asked the saucy cook, who had tried in vain to prop her body behind the kitchen door, which could only be locked from outside. The sisters had regarded it as unnecessary to provide a latch on the inside.

  “No one is at home—go away,” Urschl replied as she crept under the kitchen table, where she held her apron in front of her face, knowing the door would give way to a strong push from outside.

  “March out of here! If the ladies came, they would wonder what brought us together, you unclothed man, you!” Urschl shouted from under the table, as she continued to hold her apron in front of her fac
e.

  It took a great deal of persuading on Emil’s part to convince the saucy cook that he was the master of the house and that the Countess Jenny was his wife. Once he had brought Miss Urschl that far, she no longer had the slightest doubt, for while cleaning she had often seen and admired his silhouette, which hung in the drawing room above the mantel; it was his spitting image.

  She no longer said “You unclothed man, you,” but began addressing him quite courteously as “Count.” She crept from her hiding place and shut her little mouth out of sheer amazement and marvel. Now red as a cherry, then as pale as a Barataria oyster, now as hot as a glowing meerschaum pipe-head, then cold as pineapple sherbet—she changed color and temperature as Emil questioned her. Incidentally, she always stood with her face half turned away, only casting a furtive eye now and then at the bon-bons of her count and master, bedecked in silky golden down. This is what passes for modesty in modern times, and thus repressed nature has its revenge.

  What Emil learned from Urschl was that his parents had been here and, in fact, that they were now across the lake; further, he learned that Lajos had returned, and that the Hungarian’s child had been buried three weeks ago, which filled him with a strange mixture of joy and sorrow. It was amazing enough to him that his parents had been so long in America and only now had sought out Jenny and Frida. It particularly surprised him that the prince of Württemberg, who, according to Urschl, had been in the city at the time of their arrival in New Orleans, had kept the whereabouts of Jenny and Frida a secret from his parents and siblings. He learned from the cook that only Constanze and Gertrude had seen the two sisters so far; the reunion with the others was supposed to take place in two days, across the lake. Emil naturally decided at once to join the trip across the lake, but he was tormented by the thought of his earlier relationship with Madame Wilson and his years-long absence from his spouse. It was either by accident or due to delicate caution that Urschl made no mention of Jenny’s confinement in Pass Christian.

  “The departure is to be the day after tomorrow?” Emil asked the cook, although he had already asked that several times before. The cook confirmed it with a light nod of the head; then she said: “That will be a pleasure, Count, when you go over to the whole grand society there! I can hardly wait for the wonderful life. It is too boring here—year in, year out, we don’t see a person, at the most the prince of Württemberg, and he’s no fun.”

  “Don’t you like the prince of Württemberg?”

  “Yes, yes—as you like it—but I would rather have young, handsome masters around me,” Urschl responded, looking rather intensely at her master.

  “Aha!” Emil thought to himself. “That’s the way it is! The little one seems to me to be a Romantic.”

  It had become clear that the saucy cook had something in her mind, despite her earlier display of modesty.

  Emil suddenly thought of Tiberius and asked: “Tiberius has certainly gone with the ladies? How goes it with the little darkey?”

  “Tiberius? Him? He hasn’t been here for fourteen days. It’s good he’s gone—this eternal carousing, the teasing, and the cursing—the life could get quite tiresome after a while. He will soon see that he never had it so good as here. He did precisely what he wanted—I couldn’t stand him from the start—no, no, I really have to say that I am very glad that he is finally gone—”

  This chatterbox, who, if she did not soon find a man, would have all the potential to become a dreadful Megaera, would have kept on berating and degrading her former black beau, once so beloved, if Emil had not interrupted her. “But where is Tiberius, then, if he isn’t here?” he asked in an insistent tone without inquiring into Urschl’s outpouring.

  “They have sold him to Monsieur Delachaise’s plantation,” the bold cook abruptly declared.

  “Sold?” Emil repeated questioningly, by which one could tell that he was somewhat upset.

  “Yes, yes, sold!” she intoned with even more rudeness than before.

  One might recall that Tiberius had been a surprise gift from Emil to his wife on her first birthday in the New World. Emil was thus disturbed that his present had passed into other hands in such a prosaic manner, since he flattered himself that she would not have parted with it, a remembrance of him, at any price. This news delivered a painful blow, not so much to his heart as to his pride. To understand this correctly, one must know about certain practices among the Creoles, to which Emil had accustomed his German character immediately after arriving in New Orleans and which he bore on the whole in a quite proper manner.

  It was fortunate for Jenny and her sister, by the way, that he was not yet so involved with Madame Wilson then, so that he had the fine tact to choose a Tiberius instead of a Tiberia. But we will briefly explain how Jenny came to give Tiberius away.

  After the day that Mephisto had inspired Lajos at his child’s coffin to seek out Cleveland the peddler and his mare Lydia Prairiefire, and after he had found them and could begin to destroy them, the Hungarian became most depressed. A thousand plans crossed his brain, but all of them were cast aside as useless. He knew where the mare was, since she was still with Oliver Dubois on St. Charles Street. He had convinced himself of it a few times himself by going into the livery hall, supposedly to look over the horses and choose one to ride. Once he even thought Lydia had recognized him, since when he came too close, she let out such a neigh that the other horses shook their manes in horror and tried to break loose. The Hungarian was shaken, not on account of the mare’s unnatural howl but because one of the horsemen looked him over from head to foot with distrust, as if trying to determine if he had somehow attacked Lydia to cause her let out such dreadful neighing. The horseman perhaps knew from experience that there were persons who took pleasure in sneaking into the stalls and driving the horses mad through dreadful, despicable means. Let’s just recall how the Italian Lombardi used his secretive “elbow” and “little powder.” The Hungarian never set foot in Oliver Dubois’s livery stable again, and he also quit seeking information there about Cleveland, the peddler from Illinois.

  During these days, the decision was made to cross the lake in the company of the prince of Württemberg and the Evans family, a plan that was hurried all the more by the fact that the fever had already taken a bad turn in the city. The Hungarian, who at first had decided to remain in New Orleans, was persuaded by the prince of Württemberg and the two sisters to promise to join them. Jenny’s child, of course, could not come along, so the prince placed it under the sure care of his housekeeper, at his residence on Bayou Road. Jenny wanted to devote her last full day before departure entirely to her child. When the Hungarian had finally decided to go along, there sounded once more in him the old refrain: Money! Money! In order to shine across the Lake, he would need money, a lot of money. He still had several thousand dollars in arson money to collect; but how could he dare to do so, since the creditors of the mill knew full well that Madame Merlina and the clubmen had died in the flames? Why wasn’t he satisfied to get off scot-free? How could he threaten them by himself and force them to pay? It was just as well for both sides to be silent. Then his eye fell on Tiberius. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to sell him, he thought. No sooner thought than done! He besieged Frida and Jenny until they finally gave their consent. He took Tiberius the very next day to the auction in Bank’s Arcade, where Monsieur de Delachaise bought him for nine hundred dollars. Jenny and Frida still suffered too much from the terrors of that night to consider asking too many questions about the use of the money. They gave the Hungarian free rein with it.

  We are now back with Emil and the saucy cook.

  Only a little while ago, when she had spied Emil’s mythological nudity as she’d been picking eggplants, she had turned red from head to toe and run into the kitchen annex. Then, a few moments later, she became rather cheekier, and she did not shy away from—if rather furtively—catching a glimpse of her master’s beautiful bon-bons. And now, as Emil strode toward the marvelous house, she made desper
ate, distressed faces. The attitude she struck in the kitchen doorway would have done justice to that which the queen of Carthage displayed as she saw the anchor lifted on the ship that bore away Aeneas. Whoever could have seen the slovenly, saucy cook at this moment would have recognized her for an instant as the modern Dido. But, one might protest, how could this Dido-Urschl make such pretensions, and what gave her the right to be so desperate at Emil’s departure? Dido-Urschl was experienced enough to know that certain liberties, of which a cook might dream in the kitchen, had no force outside her bailiwick. Under the long, high wash-table there was a laundry basket filled with linen right from the line. She threw herself in on her bottom, not even thinking that this extravagant action had no point. So we leave her and follow Emil.