The Grandissimes

by George Washington Cable

  CHAPTER XVIII

  NEW LIGHT UPON DARK PLACES

  When the long, wakeful night was over, and the doctor gone, Frowenfeldseated himself to record his usual observations of the weather; but hismind was elsewhere--here, there, yonder. There are understandings thatexpand, not imperceptibly hour by hour, but as certain flowers do, bylittle explosive ruptures, with periods of quiescence between. Afterthis night of experiences it was natural that Frowenfeld should find thecircumference of his perceptions consciously enlarged. The daylightshone, not into his shop alone, but into his heart as well. The face ofAurora, which had been the dawn to him before, was now a perfectsunrise, while in pleasant timeliness had come in this Apollo of aHonore Grandissime. The young immigrant was dazzled. He felt a longingto rise up and run forward in this flood of beams. He was unconscious offatigue, or nearly so--would, have been wholly so but for the return byand by of that same dim shadow, or shadows, still rising and dartingacross every motion of the fancy that grouped again the actors in lastnight's scenes; not such shadows as naturally go with sunlight to makeit seem brighter, but a something which qualified the light's perfectionand the air's freshness.

  Wherefore, resolved: that he would compound his life, from this timeforward, by a new formula: books, so much; observation, so much; socialintercourse, so much; love--as to that, time enough for that in thefuture (if he was in love with anybody, he certainly did not know it);of love, therefore, amount not yet necessary to state, but probably(when it should be introduced), in the generous proportion in whichphysicians prescribe _aqua_. Resolved, in other words, without ceasingto be Frowenfeld the studious, to begin at once the perusal of thisnewly found book, the Community of New Orleans. True, he knew he shouldfind it a difficult task--not only that much of it was in a strangetongue, but that it was a volume whose displaced leaves would have to belifted tenderly, blown free of much dust, re-arranged, some tornfragments laid together again with much painstaking, and even thepurport of some pages guessed out. Obviously, the place to commence atwas that brightly illuminated title-page, the ladies Nancanou.

  As the sun rose and diffused its beams in an atmosphere whosetemperature had just been recorded as 50 deg. F., the apothecary steppedhalf out of his shop-door to face the bracing air that came blowing uponhis tired forehead from the north. As he did so, he said to himself:

  "How are these two Honore Grandissimes related to each other, and whyshould one be thought capable of attempting the life of Agricola?"

  The answer was on its way to him.

  There is left to our eyes but a poor vestige of the picturesque viewpresented to those who looked down the rue Royale before the garish daythat changed the rue Enghien into Ingine street, and dropped the 'e'from Royale. It was a long, narrowing perspective of arcades, lattices,balconies, _zaguans_, dormer windows, and blue sky--of low, tiled roofs,red and wrinkled, huddled down into their own shadows; of canvas awningswith fluttering borders, and of grimy lamp-posts twenty feet in height,each reaching out a gaunt iron arm over the narrow street and dangling alamp from its end. The human life which dotted the view displayed avariety of tints and costumes such as a painter would be glad to takejust as he found them: the gayly feathered Indian, the slashed andtinselled Mexican, the leather-breeched raftsmen, the blue-oryellow-turbaned _negresse_, the sugar-planter in white flannel andmoccasins, the average townsman in the last suit of clothes of thelately deceased century, and now and then a fashionable man in thatcostume whose union of tight-buttoned martial severity, swathed throat,and effeminate superabundance of fine linen seemed to offer a sort ofstate's evidence against the pompous tyrannies and frivolities ofthe times.

  The _marchande des calas_ was out. She came toward Joseph's shop,singing in a high-pitched nasal tone this new song:

  "De'tit zozos--ye te assis-- De'tit zozos--si la barrier. De'tit zozos, qui zabotte; Qui ca ye di' mo pas conne.

  "Manzeur-poulet vini simin, Croupe si ye et croque ye; Personn' pli' 'tend' ye zabotte-- De'tit zozos si la barrier."

  "You lak dat song?" she asked, with a chuckle, as she let down from herturbaned head a flat Indian basket of warm rice cakes.

  "What does it mean?"

  She laughed again--more than the questioner could see occasion for.

  "Dat mean--two lill birds; dey was sittin' on de fence an' gabblin'togeddah, you know, lak you see two young gals sometime', an' you can'tmek out w'at dey sayin', even ef dey know demself? H-ya! Chicken-hawkcome 'long dat road an' jes' set down an' munch 'em, an' nobody can't nomo' hea' deir lill gabblin' on de fence, you know."

  Here she laughed again.

  Joseph looked at her with severe suspicion, but she found refuge inbenevolence.

  "Honey, you ought to be asleep dis werry minit; look lak folks beena-worr'in' you. I's gwine to pick out de werry bes' _calas_ I's gotfor you."

  As she delivered them she courtesied, first to Joseph and then, lowerand with hushed gravity, to a person who passed into the shop behindhim, bowing and murmuring politely as he passed. She followed thenew-comer with her eyes, hastily accepted the price of the cakes,whispered, "Dat's my mawstah," lifted her basket to her head and wentaway. Her master was Frowenfeld's landlord.

  Frowenfeld entered after him, calas in hand, and with a grave"Good-morning, sir."

  "--m'sieu'," responded the landlord, with a low bow.

  Frowenfeld waited in silence.

  The landlord hesitated, looked around him, seemed about to speak,smiled, and said, in his soft, solemn voice, feeling his way word byword through the unfamiliar language:

  "Ah lag to teg you apar'."

  "See me alone?"

  The landlord recognized his error by a fleeting smile.

  "Alone," said he.

  "Shall we go into my room?"

  "_S'il vous plait, m'sieu'_."

  Frowenfeld's breakfast, furnished by contract from a neighboringkitchen, stood on the table. It was a frugal one, but more comfortablethan formerly, and included coffee, that subject of just pride in Creolecookery. Joseph deposited his _calas_ with these things and made hasteto produce a chair, which his visitor, as usual, declined.

  "Idd you' bregfuz, m'sieu'."

  "I can do that afterward," said Frowenfeld; but the landlord insistedand turned away from him to look up at the books on the wall, preciselyas that other of the same name had done a few weeks before.

  Frowenfeld, as he broke his loaf, noticed this, and, as the landlordturned his face to speak, wondered that he had not before seen thecommon likeness.

  "Dez stog," said the sombre man.

  "What, sir? Oh!--dead stock? But how can the materials of an educationbe dead stock?"

  The landlord shrugged. He would not argue the point. One American traitwhich the Creole is never entirely ready to encounter is this gratuitousYankee way of going straight to the root of things.

  "Dead stock in a mercantile sense, you mean," continued the apothecary;"but are men right in measuring such things only by their presentmarket value?"

  The landlord had no reply. It was little to him, his manner intimated;his contemplation dwelt on deeper flaws in human right and wrong;yet--but it was needless to discuss it. However, he did speak.

  "Ah was elevade in Pariz."

  "Educated in Paris," exclaimed Joseph, admiringly. "Then you certainlycannot find your education dead stock."

  The grave, not amused, smile which was the landlord's only rejoinder,though perfectly courteous, intimated that his tenant was sailing overdepths of the question that he was little aware of. But the smile in amoment gave way for the look of one who was engrossed withanother subject.

  "M'sieu'," he began; but just then Joseph made an apologetic gesture andwent forward to wait upon an inquirer after "Godfrey's Cordial;" forthat comforter was known to be obtainable at "Frowenfeld's." Thebusiness of the American drug-store was daily increasing. WhenFrowenfeld returned his landlord stood ready to address him, with theair of having decided to make short of a matter.


  "M'sieu' ----"

  "Have a seat, sir," urged the apothecary.

  His visitor again declined, with his uniform melancholy grace. He drewclose to Frowenfeld.

  "Ah wand you mague me one _ouangan_," he said.

  Joseph shook his head. He remembered Doctor Keene's expressed suspicionconcerning the assault of the night before.

  "I do not understand you, sir; what is that?"

  "You know."

  The landlord offered a heavy, persuading smile.

  "An unguent? Is that what you mean--an ointment?"

  "M'sieu'," said the applicant, with a not-to-be-deceived expression,"_vous etes astrologue--magicien--"

  "God forbid!"

  The landlord was grossly incredulous.

  "You godd one 'P'tit Albert.'"

  He dropped his forefinger upon an iron-clasped book on the table, whosetitle much use had effaced.

  "That is the Bible. I do not know what the Tee Albare is!"

  Frowenfeld darted an aroused glance into the ever-courteous eyes of hisvisitor, who said without a motion:

  "You di'n't gave Agricola Fusilier _une ouangan, la nuit passe_?"

  "Sir?"

  "Ee was yeh?--laz nighd?"

  "Mr. Fusilier was here last night--yes. He had been attacked by anassassin and slightly wounded. He was accompanied by his nephew, who, Isuppose, is your cousin: he has the same name."

  Frowenfeld, hoping he had changed the subject, concluded with apropitiatory smile, which, however, was not reflected.

  "Ma bruzzah," said the visitor.

  "Your brother!"

  "Ma whide bruzzah; ah ham nod whide, m'sieu'."

  Joseph said nothing. He was too much awed to speak; the ejaculationthat started toward his lips turned back and rushed into his heart, andit was the quadroon who, after a moment, broke the silence:

  "Ah ham de holdez son of Numa Grandissime."

  "Yes--yes," said Frowenfeld, as if he would wave away somethingterrible.

  "Nod sell me--_ouangan_?" asked the landlord, again.

  "Sir," exclaimed Frowenfeld, taking a step backward, "pardon me if Ioffend you; that mixture of blood which draws upon you the scorn of thiscommunity is to me nothing--nothing! And every invidious distinctionmade against you on that account I despise! But, sir, whatever may beeither your private wrongs, or the wrongs you suffer in common with yourclass, if you have it in your mind to employ any manner of secret artagainst the interests or person of any one--"

  The landlord was making silent protestations, and his tenant, lost in awilderness of indignant emotions, stopped.

  "M'sieu'," began the quadroon, but ceased and stood with an expressionof annoyance every moment deepening on his face, until he finally shookhis head slowly, and said with a baffled smile: "Ah can nodspig Engliss."

  "Write it," said Frowenfeld, lifting forward a chair.

  The landlord, for the first time in their acquaintance, accepted aseat, bowing low as he did so, with a demonstration of profoundgratitude that just perceptibly heightened his even dignity. Paper,quills, and ink were handed down from a shelf and Joseph retiredinto the shop.

  Honore Grandissime, f.m.c. (these initials could hardly have come intouse until some months later, but the convenience covers the sin of theslight anachronism), Honore Grandissime, free man of color, entered fromthe rear room so silently that Joseph was first made aware of hispresence by feeling him at his elbow. He handed the apothecary--but afew words in time, lest we misjudge.

  * * * * *

  The father of the two Honores was that Numa Grandissime--that merechild--whom the Grand Marquis, to the great chagrin of the De Grapions,had so early cadetted. The commission seems not to have been thrownaway. While the province was still in first hands, Numa's was a shiningname in the annals of Kerlerec's unsatisfactory Indian wars; and in 1768(when the colonists, ill-informed, inflammable, and long ill-governed,resisted the transfer of Louisiana to Spain), at a time of life whenmost young men absorb all the political extravagances of their day, hehad stood by the side of law and government, though the popular cry wasa frenzied one for "liberty." Moreover, he had held back his wholechafing and stamping tribe from a precipice of disaster, and had securedvaluable recognition of their office-holding capacities from thatreally good governor and princely Irishman whose one act of summaryvengeance upon a few insurgent office-coveters has branded him inhistory as Cruel O'Reilly. But the experience of those days turned Numagray, and withal he was not satisfied with their outcome. In the midstof the struggle he had weakened in one manly resolve--against his willhe married. The lady was a Fusilier, Agricola's sister, a person of rareintelligence and beauty, whom, from early childhood, the secret counselsof his seniors had assigned to him. Despite this, he had said he wouldnever marry; he made, he said, no pretensions to severeconscientiousness, or to being better than others, but--as between hisMaker and himself--he had forfeited the right to wed, they all knew how.But the Fusiliers had become very angry and Numa, finding strife aboutto ensue just when without unity he could not bring an undivided clanthrough the torrent of the revolution, had "nobly sacrificed a littlesentimental feeling," as his family defined it, by breaking faith withthe mother of the man now standing at Joseph Frowenfeld's elbow, and whowas then a little toddling boy. It was necessary to save the party--nay,that was a slip; we should say, to save the family; this is not aparable. Yet Numa loved his wife. She bore him a boy and a girl, twins;and as her son grew in physical, intellectual, and moral symmetry, heindulged the hope that--the ambition and pride of all the variousGrandissimes now centering in this lawful son, and all strife beinglulled--he should yet see this Honore right the wrongs which he had notquite dared to uproot. And Honore inherited the hope and began to makeit an intention and aim even before his departure (with his half-brotherthe other Honore) for school in Paris, at the early age of fifteen. Numasoon after died, and Honore, after various fortunes in Paris, London,and elsewhere, in the care, or at least company, of a pious uncle inholy orders, returned to the ancestral mansion. The father's will--bythe law they might have set it aside, but that was not their way--leftthe darker Honore the bulk of his fortune, the younger a competency. Thelatter--instead of taking office, as an ancient Grandissime should havedone--to the dismay and mortification of his kindred, establishedhimself in a prosperous commercial business. The elder bought houses andbecame a _rentier_.

  * * * * *

  The landlord handed the apothecary the following writing:

  MR. JOSEPH FROWENFELD:

  Think not that anybody is to be either poisoned by me nor yet to be made a sufferer by the exercise of anything by me of the character of what is generally known as grigri, otherwise magique. This, sir, I do beg your permission to offer my assurance to you of the same. Ah, no! it is not for that! I am the victim of another entirely and a far differente and dissimilar passion, _i.e._, Love. Esteemed sir, speaking or writing to you as unto the only man of exclusively white blood whom I believe is in Louisiana willing to do my dumb, suffering race the real justice, I love Palmyre la Philosophe with a madness which is by the human lips or tongues not possible to be exclaimed (as, I may add, that I have in the same like manner since exactley nine years and seven months and some days). Alas! heavens! I can't help it in the least particles at all! What, what shall I do, for ah! it is pitiful! She loves me not at all, but, on the other hand, is (if I suspicion not wrongfully) wrapped up head and ears in devotion of one who does not love her, either, so cold and incapable of appreciation is he. I allude to Honore Grandissime.

  Ah! well do I remember the day when we returned--he and me--from the France. She was there when we landed on that levee, she was among that throng of kindreds and domestiques, she shind like the evening star as she stood there (it was the first time I saw her, but she was known to him when at fifteen he left his home,
but I resided not under my own white father's roof--not at all--far from that). She cried out "A la fin to vini!" and leap herself with both resplendant arm around his neck and kist him twice on the one cheek and the other, and her resplendant eyes shining with a so great beauty.

  If you will give me a _poudre d'amour_ such as I doubt not your great knowledge enable you to make of a power that cannot to be resist, while still at the same time of a harmless character toward the life or the health of such that I shall succeed in its use to gain the affections of that emperice of my soul, I hesitate not to give you such price as it may please you to nominate up as high as to $l,000--nay, more. Sir, will you do that?

  I have the honor to remain, sir,

  Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

  H. Grandissime.

  Frowenfeld slowly transferred his gaze from the paper to his landlord'sface. Dejection and hope struggled with each other in the gaze that wasreturned; but when Joseph said, with a countenance full of pity, "I haveno power to help you," the disappointed lover merely looked fixedly fora moment in the direction of the street, then lifted his hat toward hishead, bowed, and departed.