FROWENFELD MAKES AN ARGUMENT
On the afternoon of the same day on which Frowenfeld visited the house
of the philosophe, the weather, which had been so unfavorable to his
late plans, changed; the rain ceased, the wind drew around to the south,
and the barometer promised a clear sky. Wherefore he decided to leave
his business, when he should have made his evening weather notes, to the
care of M. Raoul Innerarity, and venture to test both Mademoiselle
Clotilde's repellent attitude and Aurora's seeming cordiality at Number
19 rue Bienville.
Why he should go was a question which the apothecary felt himself but
partially prepared to answer. What necessity called him, what good was
to be effected, what was to happen next, were points he would have liked
to be clear upon. That he should be going merely because he was invited
to come--merely for the pleasure of breathing their atmosphere--that he
should be supinely gravitating toward them--this conclusion he
positively could not allow; no, no; the love of books and the fear of
women alike protested.
True, they were a part of that book which is pronounced "the proper
study of mankind,"--indeed, that was probably the reason which he
sought: he was going to contemplate them as a frontispiece to that
unwriteable volume which he had undertaken to con. Also, there was a
charitable motive. Doctor Keene, months before, had expressed a deep
concern regarding their lack of protection and even of daily provision;
he must quietly look into that. Would some unforeseen circumstance shut
him off this evening again from this very proper use of time and
opportunity?
As he was sitting at the table in his back room, registering his sunset
observations, and wondering what would become of him if Aurora should be
out and that other in, he was startled by a loud, deep voice exclaiming,
close behind him:
"_Eh, bien! Monsieur le Professeur!_"
Frowenfeld knew by the tone, before he looked behind him, that he would
find M. Agricola Fusilier very red in the face; and when he looked, the
only qualification he could make was that the citizen's countenance was
not so ruddy as the red handkerchief in which his arm was hanging.
"What have you there?" slowly continued the patriarch, taking his free
hand off his fettered arm and laying it upon the page as Frowenfeld
hurriedly rose, and endeavored to shut the book.
"Some private memoranda," answered the meteorologist, managing to get
one page turned backward, reddening with confusion and indignation, and
noticing that Agricola's spectacles were upside down.
"Private! Eh? No such thing, sir! Professor Frowenfeld, allow me" (a
classic oath) "to say to your face, sir, that you are the most brilliant
and the most valuable man--of your years--in afflicted Louisiana! Ha!"
(reading:) "'Morning observation; Cathedral clock, 7 A.M. Thermometer 70
degrees.' Ha! 'Hygrometer l5'--but this is not to-day's weather? Ah! no.
Ha! 'Barometer 30.380.' Ha! 'Sky cloudy, dark; wind, south, light.' Ha!
'River rising.' Ha! Professor Frowenfeld, when will you give your
splendid services to your section? You must tell me, my son, for I ask
you, my son, not from curiosity, but out of impatient interest."
"I cannot say that I shall ever publish my tables," replied the "son,"
pulling at the book.
"Then, sir, in the name of Louisiana," thundered the old man, clinging
to the book, "I can! They shall be published! Ah! yes, dear Frowenfeld.
The book, of course, will be in French, eh? You would not so affront the
most sacred prejudices of the noble people to whom you owe everything as
to publish it in English? You--ah! have we torn it?"
"I do not write French," said the apothecary, laying the torn edges
together.
"Professor Frowenfeld, men are born for each other. What do I behold
before me? I behold before me, in the person of my gifted young friend,
a supplement to myself! Why has Nature strengthened the soul of Agricola
to hold the crumbling fortress of this body until these eyes--which were
once, my dear boy, as proud and piercing as the battle-steed's--have
become dim?"
Joseph's insurmountable respect for gray hairs kept him standing, but
he did not respond with any conjecture as to Nature's intentions, and
there was a stern silence.
The crumbling fortress resumed, his voice pitched low like the beginning
of the long roll. He knew Nature's design.
"It was in order that you, Professor Frowenfeld, might become my vicar!
Your book shall be in French! We must give it a wide scope! It shall
contain valuable geographical, topographical, biographical, and
historical notes. It shall contain complete lists of all the officials
in the province (I don't say territory, I say province) with their
salaries and perquisites; ah! we will expose that! And--ha! I will write
some political essays for it. Raoul shall illustrate it. Honoré shall
give you money to publish it. Ah! Professor Frowenfeld, the star of your
fame is rising out of the waves of oblivion! Come--I dropped in
purposely to ask you--come across the street and take a glass of
_taffia_ with Agricola Fusilier."
This crowning honor the apothecary was insane enough to decline, and
Agricola went away with many professions of endearment, but secretly
offended because Joseph had not asked about his wound.
All the same the apothecary, without loss of time, departed for the
yellow-washed cottage, Number 19 rue Bienville.
"To-morrow, at four P.M.," he said to himself, "if the weather is
favorable, I ride with M. Grandissime."
He almost saw his books and instruments look up at him reproachfully.
The ladies were at home. Aurora herself opened the door, and Clotilde
came forward from the bright fireplace with a cordiality never before so
unqualified. There was something about these ladies--in their simple,
but noble grace, in their half-Gallic, half-classic beauty, in a jocund
buoyancy mated to an amiable dignity--that made them appear to the
scholar as though they had just bounded into life from the garlanded
procession of some old fresco. The resemblance was not a little helped
on by the costume of the late Revolution (most acceptably chastened and
belated by the distance from Paris). Their black hair, somewhat heavier
on Clotilde's head, where it rippled once or twice, was knotted _en
Grecque_, and adorned only with the spoils of a nosegay given to
Clotilde by a chivalric small boy in the home of her music scholar.
"We was expectin' you since several days," said Clotilde, as the three
sat down before the fire, Frowenfeld in a cushioned chair whose
moth-holes had been carefully darned.
Frowenfeld intimated, with tolerable composure, that matters beyond his
control had delayed his coming, beyond his intention.
"You gedd'n' ridge," said Aurora, dropping her wrists across each other.
Frowenfeld, for once, laughed outright, and it seemed so odd in him to
do so that both the ladies followed his example. The ambition to be rich
had never entered his thought, although in an unemotional, German way,
he was prospering in a little city where wealth was daily pouring in,
and a man had only to keep step, so to say, to march into possessions.
"You hought to 'ave a mo' larger sto' an' some clerque," pursued Aurora.
The apothecary answered that he was contemplating the enlargement of his
present place or removal to a roomier, and that he had already employed
an assistant.
"Oo it is, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?"
Clotilde turned toward the questioner a remonstrative glance.
"His name," replied Frowenfeld, betraying a slight embarrassment,
"is--Innerarity; Mr. Raoul Innerarity; he is--"
"Ee pain' dad pigtu' w'at 'angin' in yo' window?"
Clotilde's remonstrance rose to a slight movement and a murmur.
Frowenfeld answered in the affirmative, and possibly betrayed the faint
shadow of a smile. The response was a peal of laughter from both ladies.
"He is an excellent drug clerk," said Frowenfeld defensively.
Whereat Aurora laughed again, leaning over and touching Clotilde's knee
with one finger.
"An' excellen' drug cl'--ha, ha, ha! oh!"
"You muz podden uz, M'sieu' Frowenfel'," said Clotilde, with forced
gravity.
Aurora sighed her participation in the apology; and, a few moments
later, the apothecary and both ladies (the one as fond of the abstract
as the other two were ignorant of the concrete) were engaged in an
animated, running discussion on art, society, climate, education,--all
those large, secondary _desiderata_ which seem of first importance to
young ambition and secluded beauty, flying to and fro among these
subjects with all the liveliness and uncertainty of a game of
pussy-wants-a-corner.
Frowenfeld had never before spent such an hour. At its expiration, he
had so well held his own against both the others, that the three had
settled down to this sort of entertainment: Aurora would make an
assertion, or Clotilde would ask a question; and Frowenfeld, moved by
that frankness and ardent zeal for truth which had enlisted the early
friendship of Dr. Keene, amused and attracted Honoré Grandissime, won
the confidence of the f.m.c., and tamed the fiery distrust and enmity of
Palmyre, would present his opinions without the thought of a reservation
either in himself or his hearers. On their part, they would sit in deep
attention, shielding their faces from the fire, and responding to
enunciations directly contrary to their convictions with an occasional
"yes-seh," or "ceddenly," or "of coze," or,--prettier affirmation
still,--a solemn drooping of the eyelids, a slight compression of the
lips, and a low, slow declination of the head.
"The bane of all Creole art-effort"--(we take up the apothecary's words
at a point where Clotilde was leaning forward and slightly frowning in
an honest attempt to comprehend his condensed English)--"the bane of all
Creole art-effort, so far as I have seen it, is amateurism."
"Amateu--" murmured Clotilde, a little beclouded on the main word and
distracted by a French difference of meaning, but planting an elbow on
one knee in the genuineness of her attention, and responding with a bow.
"That is to say," said Frowenfeld, apologizing for the homeliness of his
further explanation by a smile, "a kind of ambitious indolence that lays
very large eggs, but can neither see the necessity for building a nest
beforehand, nor command the patience to hatch the eggs afterward."
"Of coze," said Aurora.
"It is a great pity," said the sermonizer, looking at the face of
Clotilde, elongated in the brass andiron; and, after a pause: "Nothing
on earth can take the place of hard and patient labor. But that, in this
community, is not esteemed; most sorts of it are contemned; the humbler
sorts are despised, and the higher are regarded with mingled patronage
and commiseration. Most of those who come to my shop with their efforts
at art hasten to explain, either that they are merely seeking pastime,
or else that they are driven to their course by want; and if I advise
them to take their work back and finish it, they take it back and never
return. Industry is not only despised, but has been degraded and
disgraced, handed over into the hands of African savages."
"Doze Creole' is _lezzy_," said Aurora.
"That is a hard word to apply to those who do not _consciously_ deserve
it," said Frowenfeld; "but if they could only wake up to the fact,--find
it out themselves--"
"Ceddenly," said Clotilde.
"'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Aurora, leaning her head on one side, "some
pipple thing it is doze climade; 'ow you lag doze climade?"
"I do not suppose," replied the visitor, "there is a more delightful
climate in the world."
"Ah-h-h!"--both ladies at once, in a low, gracious tone of
acknowledgment.
"I thing Louisiana is a paradize-me!" said Aurora. "W'ere you goin' fin'
sudge a h-air?" She respired a sample of it. "W'ere you goin' fin' sudge
a so ridge groun'? De weed' in my bag yard is twenny-five feet 'igh!"
"Ah! maman!"
"Twenty-six!" said Aurora, correcting herself. "W'ere you fin' sudge a
reever lag dad Mississippi? _On dit_," she said, turning to Clotilde,
"_que ses eaux ont la propriété de contribuer même à multiplier l'espèce
humaine_--ha, ha, ha!"
Clotilde turned away an unmoved countenance to hear Frowenfeld.
Frowenfeld had contracted a habit of falling into meditation whenever
the French language left him out of the conversation.
"Yes," he said, breaking a contemplative pause, "the climate is _too_
comfortable and the soil too rich,--though I do not think it is entirely
on their account that the people who enjoy them are so sadly in arrears
to the civilized world." He blushed with the fear that his talk was
bookish, and felt grateful to Clotilde for seeming to understand
his speech.
"W'ad you fin' de rizzon is, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?" she asked.
"I do not wish to philosophize," he answered.
"_Mais_, go hon." "_Mais_, go ahade," said both ladies, settling
themselves.
"It is largely owing," exclaimed Frowenfeld, with sudden fervor, "to a
defective organization of society, which keeps this community, and will
continue to keep it for an indefinite time to come, entirely unprepared
and disinclined to follow the course of modern thought."
"Of coze," murmured Aurora, who had lost her bearings almost at the
first word.
"One great general subject of thought now is human rights,--universal
human rights. The entire literature of the world is becoming tinctured
with contradictions of the dogmas upon which society in this section is
built. Human rights is, of all subjects, the one upon which this
community is most violently determined to hear no discussion. It has
pronounced that slavery and caste are right, and sealed up the whole
subject. What, then, will they do with the world's literature? They will
coldly decline to look at it, and will become, more and more as the
world moves on, a comparatively illiterate people."
"Bud, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Clotilde, as Frowenfeld paused--Aurora
was stunned to silence,--"de Unitee State' goin' pud doze nigga'
free, aind it?"
Frowenfeld pushed his hair hard back. He was in the stream now, and
might as well go through.
"I have heard that charge made, even by some Americans. I do not know.
But there is a slavery that no legislation can abolish,--the slavery of
caste. That, like all the slaveries on earth, is a double bondage. And
what a bondage it is which compels a community, in order to preserve its
established tyrannies, to walk behind the rest of the intelligent world!
What a bondage is that which incites a people to adopt a system of
social and civil distinctions, possessing all the enormities and none of
the advantages of those systems which Europe is learning to despise!
This system, moreover, is only kept up by a flourish of weapons. We have
here what you may call an armed aristocracy. The class over which these
instruments of main force are held is chosen for its servility,
ignorance, and cowardice; hence, indolence in the ruling class. When a
man's social or civil standing is not dependent on his knowing how to
read, he is not likely to become a scholar."
"Of coze," said Aurora, with a pensive respiration, "I thing id is doze
climade," and the apothecary stopped, as a man should who finds himself
unloading large philosophy in a little parlor.
"I thing, me, dey hought to pud doze quadroon' free?" It was Clotilde
who spoke, ending with the rising inflection to indicate the tentative
character of this daringly premature declaration.
Frowenfeld did not answer hastily.
"The quadroons," said he, "want a great deal more than mere free papers
can secure them. Emancipation before the law, though it may be a right
which man has no right to withhold, is to them little more than a
mockery until they achieve emancipation in the minds and good will of
the people--'the people,' did I say? I mean the ruling class." He
stopped again. One must inevitably feel a little silly, setting up
tenpins for ladies who are too polite, even if able, to bowl them down.
Aurora and the visitor began to speak simultaneously; both apologized,
and Aurora said:
"'Sieur Frowenfel', w'en I was a lill girl,"--and Frowenfeld knew that
he was going to hear the story of Palmyre. Clotilde moved, with the
obvious intention to mend the fire. Aurora asked, in French, why she did
not call the cook to do it, and Frowenfeld said, "Let me,"--threw on
some wood, and took a seat nearer Clotilde. Aurora had the floor.