The strange true stories we have thus far told have all been matter of
public or of private record. Pages of history and travel, law reports,
documents of court, the testimony of eye-witnesses, old manuscripts and
letters, have insured to them the full force and charm of their reality.
But now we must have it clearly and mutually understood that here is one
the verity of which is vouched for stoutly, but only by tradition. It is
very much as if we had nearly finished a strong, solid stone house and
would now ask permission of our underwriters to add to it at the rear a
small frame lean-to.
It is a mere bit of lawyers' table-talk, a piece of after-dinner property.
It originally belonged, they say, to Judge Collins of New Orleans, as I
believe we have already mentioned; his by right of personal knowledge. I
might have got it straight from him had I heard of it but a few years
sooner. His small, iron-gray head, dark, keen eyes, and nervous face and
form are in my mind's eye now, as I saw him one day on the bench
interrupting a lawyer at the bar and telling him in ten words what the
lawyer was trying to tell in two hundred and fifty.
That the judge's right to this story was that of discovery, not of
invention, is well attested; and if he or any one else allowed fictitious
embellishments to gather upon it by oft telling of it in merry hours, the
story had certainly lost all such superfluities the day it came to me, as
completely as if some one had stolen its clothes while it was in swimming.
The best I can say is that it came unmutilated, and that I have done only
what any humane person would have done--given it drapery enough to cover
its nakedness.
To speak yet plainer, I do not, even now, put aside, abridge, or alter a
single _fact_; only, at most, restore one or two to spaces that indicate
just what has dropped out. If a dentist may lawfully supply the place of a
lost tooth, or an old beau comb his hair skillfully over a bald spot, then
am I guiltless. I make the tale not less, and only just a trifle more,
true; not more, but only a trifle less, strange. And this is it:
In 1855 this Attalie Brouillard--so called, mark you, for present
convenience only--lived in the French quarter of New Orleans; I think they
say in Bienville street, but that is no matter; somewhere in the _vieux
carré_ of Bienville's original town. She was a worthy woman; youngish,
honest, rather handsome, with a little money--just a little; of attractive
dress, with good manners, too; alone in the world, and--a quadroon. She
kept furnished rooms to rent--as a matter of course; what would she do?
Hence she was not so utterly alone in the world as she might have been.
She even did what Stevenson says is so good, but not so easy, to do, "to
keep a few friends, but these without capitulation." For instance there
was Camille Ducour. That was not his name; but as we have called the woman
A.B., let the man be represented as C.D.
He, too, was a quadroon; an f.m.c.[30] His personal appearance has not been
described to us, but he must have had one. Fancy a small figure, thin, let
us say, narrow-chested, round-shouldered, his complexion a dull clay color
spattered with large red freckles, his eyes small, gray, and close
together, his hair not long or bushy, but dense, crinkled, and hesitating
between a dull yellow and a hot red; his clothes his own and his linen
last week's.
He is said to have been a shrewd fellow; had picked up much practical
knowledge of the law, especially of notarial business, and drove a smart
trade giving private advice on points of law to people of his caste. From
many a trap had he saved his poor clients of an hour. Out of many a danger
of their own making had he safely drawn them, all unseen by, though not
unknown to, the legitimate guild of judges, lawyers, and notaries out of
whose professional garbage barrel he enjoyed a sort of stray dog's
privilege of feeding.
His meetings with Attalie Brouillard were almost always on the street and
by accident. Yet such meetings were invariably turned into pleasant visits
in the middle of the sidewalk, after the time-honored Southern fashion.
Hopes, ailments, the hardness of the times, the health of each one's
"folks," and the condition of their own souls, could not be told all in a
breath. He never failed, when he could detain her no longer, to bid her
feel free to call on him whenever she found herself in dire need of a wise
friend's counsel. There was always in his words the hint that, though he
never had quite enough cash for one, he never failed of knowledge and
wisdom enough for two. And the gentle Attalie believed both clauses of his
avowal.
Attalie had another friend, a white man.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] Free man of color.