CHAPTER XLIV
BAD FOR CHARLIE KEENE
On the same evening of which we have been telling, about the time thatAurora and Clotilde were dropping their last tear of joy over thedocument of restitution, a noticeable figure stood alone at the cornerof the rue du Canal and the rue Chartres. He had reached there andpaused, just as the brighter glare of the set sun was growing dim abovethe tops of the cypresses. After walking with some rapidity of step, hehad stopped aimlessly, and laid his hand with an air of weariness upon arotting China-tree that leaned over the ditch at the edge of theunpaved walk.
"Setting in cypress," he murmured. We need not concern ourselves as tohis meaning.
One could think aloud there with impunity. In 1804, Canal street wasthe upper boundary of New Orleans. Beyond it, to southward, the openplain was dotted with country-houses, brick-kilns, clumps of live-oakand groves of pecan. At the hour mentioned the outlines of these objectswere already darkening. At one or two points the sky was reflected frommarshy ponds. Out to westward rose conspicuously the old house andwillow-copse of Jean Poquelin. Down the empty street or road, whichstretched with arrow-like straightness toward the northwest, thedraining-canal that gave it its name tapered away between occasionaloverhanging willows and beside broken ranks of rotting palisades, itsfoul, crawling waters blushing, gilding and purpling under the swiftlywaning light, and ending suddenly in the black shadow of the swamp. Theobserver of this dismal prospect leaned heavily on his arm, and cast hisglance out along the beautified corruption of the canal. His eye seemedquickened to detect the smallest repellant details of the scene; everycypress stump that stood in, or overhung, the slimy water; every ruinedindigo-vat or blasted tree, every broken thing, every bleached bone ofox or horse--and they were many--for roods around. As his eye passedthem slowly over and swept back again around the dreary view, he sighedheavily and said: "Dissolution," and then again--"Dissolution! order ofthe day--"
A secret overhearer might have followed, by these occasionalexclamatory utterances, the course of a devouring trouble prowling upand down through his thoughts, as one's eye tracks the shark by theoccasional cutting of his fin above the water.
He spoke again:
"It is in such moods as this that fools drown themselves."
His speech was French. He straightened up, smote the tree softly withhis palm, and breathed a long, deep sigh--such a sigh, if the very truthbe told, as belongs by right to a lover. And yet his mind did notdwell on love.
He turned and left the place; but the trouble that was plowing hitherand thither through the deep of his meditations went with him. As heturned into the rue Chartres it showed itself thus:
"Right; it is but right;" he shook his head slowly--"it is but right."
In the rue Douane he spoke again:
"Ah! Frowenfeld"--and smiled unpleasantly, with his head down.
And as he made yet another turn, and took his meditative way down thecity's front, along the blacksmith's shops in the street afterwardcalled Old Levee, he resumed, in English, and with a distinctness thatmade a staggering sailor halt and look after him:
"There are but two steps to civilization, the first easy, the seconddifficult; to construct--to reconstruct--ah! there it is! the tearingdown! The tear'--"
He was still, but repeated the thought by a gesture of distress turnedinto a slow stroke of the forehead.
"Monsieur Honore Grandissime," said a voice just ahead.
"_Eh, bien_?"
At the mouth of an alley, in the dim light of the streep lamp, stood thedark figure of Honore Grandissime, f.m.c., holding up the looselyhanging form of a small man, the whole front of whose clothing wassaturated with blood.
"Why, Charlie Keene! Let him down again, quickly--quickly; do not holdhim so!"
"Hands off," came in a ghastly whisper from the shape.
"Oh, Chahlie, my boy--"
"Go and finish your courtship," whispered the doctor.
"Oh Charlie, I have just made it forever impossible!"
"Then help me back to my bed; I don't care to die in the street."
The Grandissimes Page 45