A RIDE AND A RESCUE
"Douane or Bienville?"
Such was the choice presented by Honoré Grandissime to Joseph
Frowenfeld, as the former on a lively brown colt and the apothecary on a
nervy chestnut fell into a gentle, preliminary trot while yet in the
rue Royale, looked after by that great admirer of both, Raoul
Innerarity.
"Douane?" said Frowenfeld. (It was the street we call Custom-house.)
"It has mud-holes," objected Honoré.
"Well, then, the rue du Canal?"
"The canal--I can smell it from here. Why not rue Bienville?"
Frowenfeld said he did not know. (We give the statement for what it is
worth.)
Notice their route. A spirit of perversity seems to have entered into
the very topography of this quarter. They turned up the rue Bienville
(up is toward the river); reaching the levee, they took their course up
the shore of the Mississippi (almost due south), and broke into a lively
gallop on the Tchoupitoulas road, which in those days skirted that
margin of the river nearest the sunsetting, namely, the _eastern_ bank.
Conversation moved sluggishly for a time, halting upon trite topics or
swinging easily from polite inquiry to mild affirmation, and back again.
They were men of thought, these two, and one of them did not fully
understand why he was in his present position; hence some reticence. It
was one of those afternoons in early March that make one wonder how the
rest of the world avoids emigrating to Louisiana in a body.
"Is not the season early?" asked Frowenfeld.
M. Grandissime believed it was; but then the Creole spring always seemed
so, he said.
The land was an inverted firmament of flowers. The birds were an
innumerable, busy, joy-compelling multitude, darting and fluttering
hither and thither, as one might imagine the babes do in heaven. The
orange-groves were in blossom; their dark-green boughs seemed snowed
upon from a cloud of incense, and a listening ear might catch an
incessant, whispered trickle of falling petals, dropping "as the
honey-comb." The magnolia was beginning to add to its dark and shining
evergreen foliage frequent sprays of pale new leaves and long, slender,
buff buds of others yet to come. The oaks, both the bare-armed and the
"green-robed senators," the willows, and the plaqueminiers, were putting
out their subdued florescence as if they smiled in grave participation
with the laughing gardens. The homes that gave perfection to this beauty
were those old, large, belvidered colonial villas, of which you may
still here and there see one standing, battered into half ruin, high and
broad, among foundries, cotton-and tobacco-sheds, junk-yards, and
longshoremen's hovels, like one unconquered elephant in a wreck of
artillery. In Frowenfeld's day the "smell of their garments was like
Lebanon." They were seen by glimpses through chance openings in lofty
hedges of Cherokee-rose or bois-d'arc, under boughs of cedar or
pride-of-China, above their groves of orange or down their long,
overarched avenues of oleander; and the lemon and the pomegranate, the
banana, the fig, the shaddock, and at times even the mango and the
guava, joined "hands around" and tossed their fragrant locks above the
lilies and roses. Frowenfeld forgot to ask himself further concerning
the probable intent of M. Grandissime's invitation to ride; these
beauties seemed rich enough in good reasons. He felt glad and grateful.
At a certain point the two horses turned of their own impulse, as by
force of habit, and with a few clambering strides mounted to the top of
the levee and stood still, facing the broad, dancing, hurrying,
brimming river.
The Creole stole an amused glance at the elated, self-forgetful look of
his immigrant friend.
"Mr. Frowenfeld," he said, as the delighted apothecary turned with
unwonted suddenness and saw his smile, "I believe you like this better
than discussion. You find it easier to be in harmony with Louisiana than
with Louisianians, eh?"
Frowenfeld colored with surprise. Something unpleasant had lately
occurred in his shop. Was this to signify that M. Grandissime had
heard of it?
"I am a Louisianian," replied he, as if this were a point assailed.
"I would not insinuate otherwise," said M. Grandissime, with a kindly
gesture. "I would like you to feel so. We are citizens now of a
different government from that under which we lived the morning we first
met. Yet"--the Creole paused and smiled--"you are not, and I am glad you
are not, what we call a Louisianian."
Frowenfeld's color increased. He turned quickly in his saddle as if to
say something very positive, but hesitated, restrained himself
and asked:
"Mr. Grandissime, is not your Creole 'we' a word that does much damage?"
The Creole's response was at first only a smile, followed by a
thoughtful countenance; but he presently said, with some suddenness:
"My-de'-seh, yes. Yet you see I am, even this moment, forgetting we are
not a separate people. Yes, our Creole 'we' does damage, and our Creole
'you' does more. I assure you, sir, I try hard to get my people to
understand that it is time to stop calling those who come and add
themselves to the community, aliens, interlopers, invaders. That is what
I hear my cousins, 'Polyte and Sylvestre, in the heat of discussion,
called you the other evening; is it so?"
"I brought it upon myself," said Frowenfeld. "I brought it upon myself."
"Ah!" interrupted M. Grandissime, with a broad smile, "excuse me--I am
fully prepared to believe it. But the charge is a false one. I told them
so. My-de'-seh--I know that a citizen of the United States in the United
States has a right to become, and to be called, under the laws governing
the case, a Louisianian, a Vermonter, or a Virginian, as it may suit his
whim; and even if he should be found dishonest or dangerous, he has a
right to be treated just exactly as we treat the knaves and ruffians who
are native born! Every discreet man must admit that."
"But if they do not enforce it, Mr. Grandissime," quickly responded the
sore apothecary, "if they continually forget it--if one must surrender
himself to the errors and crimes of the community as he finds it--"
The Creole uttered a low laugh.
"Party differences, Mr. Frowenfeld; they have them in all countries."
"So your cousins said," said Frowenfeld.
"And how did you answer them?"
"Offensively," said the apothecary, with sincere mortification.
"Oh! that was easy," replied the other, amusedly; "but how?"
"I said that, having here only such party differences as are common
elsewhere, we do not behave as they elsewhere do; that in most civilized
countries the immigrant is welcome, but here he is not. I am afraid I
have not learned the art of courteous debate," said Frowenfeld, with a
smile of apology.
"'Tis a great art," said the Creole, quietly, stroking his horse's neck.
"I suppose my cousins denied your statement with indignation, eh?"
"Yes; they said the honest immigrant is always welcome."
"Well, do you not find that true?"
"But, Mr. Grandissime, that is requiring the immigrant to prove his
innocence!" Frowenfeld spoke from the heart. "And even the honest
immigrant is welcome only when he leaves his peculiar opinions behind
him. Is that right, sir?"
The Creole smiled at Frowenfeld's heat.
"My-de'-seh, my cousins complain that you advocate measures fatal to the
prevailing order of society."
"But," replied the unyielding Frowenfeld, turning redder than ever,
"that is the very thing that American liberty gives me the
right--peaceably--to do! Here is a structure of society defective,
dangerous, erected on views of human relations which the world is
abandoning as false; yet the immigrant's welcome is modified with the
warning not to touch these false foundations with one of his fingers."
"Did you tell my cousins the foundations of society here are false?"
"I regret to say I did, very abruptly. I told them they were privately
aware of the fact."
"You may say," said the ever-amiable Creole, "that you allowed debate to
run into controversy, eh?"
Frowenfeld was silent; he compared the gentleness of this Creole's
rebukes with the asperity of his advocacy of right, and felt humiliated.
But M. Grandissime spoke with a rallying smile.
"Mr. Frowenfeld, you never make pills with eight corners eh?"
"No, sir." The apothecary smiled.
"No, you make them round; cannot you make your doctrines the same way?
My-de'-seh, you will think me impertinent; but the reason I speak is
because I wish very much that you and my cousins would not be offended
with each other. To tell you the truth, my-de'-seh, I hoped to use you
with them--pardon my frankness."
"If Louisiana had more men like you, M. Grandissime," cried the
untrained Frowenfeld, "society would be less sore to the touch."
"My-de'-seh," said the Creole, laying his hand out toward his companion
and turning his horse in such a way as to turn the other also, "do me
one favor; remember that it _is_ sore to the touch."
The animals picked their steps down the inner face of the levee and
resumed their course up the road at a walk.
"Did you see that man just turn the bend of the road, away yonder?" the
Creole asked.
"Yes."
"Did you recognize him?"
"It was--my landlord, wasn't it?"
"Yes. Did he not have a conversation with you lately, too?"
"Yes, sir; why do you ask?"
"It has had a bad effect on him. I wonder why he is out here on foot?"
The horses quickened their paces. The two friends rode along in silence.
Frowenfeld noticed his companion frequently cast an eye up along the
distant sunset shadows of the road with a new anxiety. Yet, when M.
Grandissime broke the silence it was only to say:
"I suppose you find the blemishes in our state of society can all be
attributed to one main defect, Mr. Frowenfeld?"
Frowenfeld was glad of the chance to answer:
"I have not overlooked that this society has disadvantages as well as
blemishes; it is distant from enlightened centres; it has a language and
religion different from that of the great people of which it is now
called to be a part. That it has also positive blemishes of organism--"
"Yes," interrupted the Creole, smiling at the immigrant's sudden
magnanimity, "its positive blemishes; do they all spring from one
main defect?"
"I think not. The climate has its influence, the soil has its
influence--dwellers in swamps cannot be mountaineers."
"But after all," persisted the Creole, "the greater part of our troubles
comes from--"
"Slavery," said Frowenfeld, "or rather caste."
"Exactly," said M. Grandissime.
"You surprise me, sir," said the simple apothecary. "I supposed you
were--"
"My-de'-seh," exclaimed M. Grandissime, suddenly becoming very earnest,
"I am nothing, nothing! There is where you have the advantage of me. I
am but a _dilettante_, whether in politics, in philosophy, morals, or
religion. I am afraid to go deeply into anything, lest it should make
ruin in my name, my family, my property."
He laughed unpleasantly.
The question darted into Frowenfeld's mind, whether this might not be a
hint of the matter that M. Grandissime had been trying to see him about.
"Mr. Grandissime," he said, "I can hardly believe you would neglect a
duty either for family, property, or society."
"Well, you mistake," said the Creole, so coldly that Frowenfeld colored.
They galloped on. M. Grandissime brightened again, almost to the degree
of vivacity. By and by they slackened to a slow trot and were silent.
The gardens had been long left behind, and they were passing between
continuous Cherokee-rose hedges on the right and on the left, along that
bend of the Mississippi where its waters, glancing off three miles above
from the old De Macarty levee (now Carrollton), at the slightest
opposition in the breeze go whirling and leaping like a herd of
dervishes across to the ever-crumbling shore, now marked by the little
yellow depot-house of Westwego. Miles up the broad flood the sun was
disappearing gorgeously. From their saddles, the two horsemen feasted on
the scene without comment.
But presently, M. Grandissime uttered a low ejaculation and spurred his
horse toward a tree hard by, preparing, as he went, to fasten his rein
to an overhanging branch. Frowenfeld, agreeable to his beckon, imitated
the movement.
"I fear he intends to drown himself," whispered M. Grandissime, as they
hurriedly dismounted.
"Who? Not--"
"Yes, your landlord, as you call him. He is on the flatboat; I saw his
hat over the levee. When we get on top the levee, we must get right into
it. But do not follow him into the water in front of the flat; it is
certain death; no power of man could keep you from going under it."
The words were quickly spoken; they scrambled to the levee's crown. Just
abreast of them lay a flatboat, emptied of its cargo and moored to the
levee. They leaped into it. A human figure swerved from the onset of the
Creole and ran toward the bow of the boat, and in an instant more would
have been in the river.
"Stop!" said Frowenfeld, seizing the unresisting f.m.c. firmly by the
collar.
Honoré Grandissime smiled, partly at the apothecary's brief speech, but
much more at his success.
"Let him go, Mr. Frowenfeld," he said, as he came near.
The silent man turned away his face with a gesture of shame.
M. Grandissime, in a gentle voice, exchanged a few words with him, and
he turned and walked away, gained the shore, descended the levee, and
took a foot-path which soon hid him behind a hedge.
"He gives his pledge not to try again," said the Creole, as the two
companions proceeded to resume the saddle. "Do not look after him."
(Joseph had cast a searching look over the hedge.)
They turned homeward.
"Ah! Mr. Frowenfeld," said the Creole, suddenly, "if the _immygrant_
has cause of complaint, how much more has _that_ man! True, it is only
love for which he would have just now drowned himself; yet what an
accusation, my-de'-seh, is his whole life against that 'caste' which
shuts him up within its narrow and almost solitary limits! And yet, Mr.
Frowenfeld, this people esteem this very same crime of caste the holiest
and most precious of their virtues. My-de'-seh, it never occurs to us
that in this matter we are interested, and therefore disqualified,
witnesses. We say we are not understood; that the jury (the civilized
world) renders its decision without viewing the body; that we are judged
from a distance. We forget that we ourselves are too _close_ to see
distinctly, and so continue, a spectacle to civilization, sitting in a
horrible darkness, my-de'-seh!" He frowned.
"The shadow of the Ethiopian," said the grave apothecary.
M. Grandissime's quick gesture implied that Frowenfeld had said the very
word.
"Ah! my-de'-seh, when I try sometimes to stand outside and look at it, I
am _ama-aze_ at the length, the blackness of that shadow!" (He was so
deeply in earnest that he took no care of his English.) "It is the
_Némésis_ w'ich, instead of coming afteh, glides along by the side of
this morhal, political, commercial, social mistake! It blanches,
my-de'-seh, ow whole civilization! It drhags us a centurhy behind the
rhes' of the world! It rhetahds and poisons everhy industrhy we
got!--mos' of all our-h immense agrhicultu'e! It brheeds a thousan'
cusses that nevva leave home but jus' flutter-h up an' rhoost,
my-de'-seh, on ow _heads_; an' we nevva know it!--yes, sometimes some of
us know it."
He changed the subject.
They had repassed the ruins of Fort St. Louis, and were well within the
precincts of the little city, when, as they pulled up from a final
gallop, mention was made of Doctor Keene. He was improving; Honoré had
seen him that morning; so, at another hour, had Frowenfeld. Doctor Keene
had told Honoré about Palmyre's wound.
"You was at her house again this morning?" asked the Creole.
"Yes," said Frowenfeld.
M. Grandissime shook his head warningly.
"'Tis a dangerous business. You are almost sure to become the object of
slander. You ought to tell Doctor Keene to make some other arrangement,
or presently you, too, will be under the--" he lowered his voice, for
Frowenfeld was dismounting at the shop door, and three or four
acquaintances stood around--"under the 'shadow of the Ethiopian.'"