HONORÉ MAKES SOME CONFESSIONS
"Comment çà va, Raoul?" said Honoré Grandissime; he had come to the shop
according to the proposal contained in his note. "Where is Mr.
Frowenfeld?"
He found the apothecary in the rear room, dressed, but just rising from
the bed at sound of his voice. He closed the door after him; they shook
hands and took chairs.
"You have fever," said the merchant. "I have been troubled that way
myself, some, lately." He rubbed his face all over, hard, with one
hand,' and looked at the ceiling. "Loss of sleep, I suppose, in both of
us; in your case voluntary--in pursuit of study, most likely; in my
case--effect of anxiety." He smiled a moment and then suddenly sobered
as after a pause he said:
"But I hear you are in trouble; may I ask--"
Frowenfeld had interrupted him with almost the same words:
"May I venture to ask, Mr. Grandissime, what--"
And both were silent for a moment.
"Oh," said Honoré, with a gesture. "My trouble--I did not mean to
mention it; 't is an old matter--in part. You know, Mr. Frowenfeld,
there is a kind of tree not dreamed of in botany, that lets fall its
fruit every day in the year--you know? We call it--with reverence--'our
dead father's mistakes.' I have had to eat much of that fruit; a man who
has to do that must expect to have now and then a little fever."
"I have heard," replied Frowenfeld, "that some of the titles under which
your relatives hold their lands are found to be of the kind which the
State's authorities are pronouncing worthless. I hope this is not
the case."
"I wish they had never been put into my custody," said M. Grandissime.
Some new thought moved him to draw his chair closer.
"Mr. Frowenfeld, those two ladies whom you went to see the other
evening--"
His listener started a little:
"Yes."
"Did they ever tell you their history?"
"No, sir; but I have heard it."
"And you think they have been deeply wronged, eh? Come, Mr. Frowenfeld,
take right hold of the acacia-bush." M. Grandissime did not smile.
Frowenfeld winced. "I think they have."
"And you think restitution should be made them, no doubt, eh?"
"I do."
"At any cost?"
The questioner showed a faint, unpleasant smile, that stirred something
like opposition in the breast of the apothecary.
"Yes," he answered.
The next question had a tincture even of fierceness:
"You think it right to sink fifty or a hundred people into poverty to
lift one or two out?"
"Mr. Grandissime," said Frowenfeld, slowly, "you bade me study this
community."
"I adv--yes; what is it you find?"
"I find--it may be the same with other communities, I suppose it is,
more or less--that just upon the culmination of the moral issue it turns
and asks the question which is behind it, instead of the question which
is before it."
"And what is the question before me?"
"I know it only in the abstract."
"Well?"
The apothecary looked distressed.
"You should not make me say it," he objected.
"Nevertheless," said the Creole, "I take that liberty."
"Well, then," said Frowenfeld, "the question behind is Expediency and
the question in front, Divine Justice. You are asking yourself--"
He checked himself.
"Which I ought to regard," said M. Grandissime, quickly. "Expediency, of
course, and be like the rest of mankind." He put on a look of bitter
humor. "It is all easy enough for you, Mr. Frowenfeld, my-de'-seh; you
have the easy part--the theorizing."
He saw the ungenerousness of his speech as soon as it was uttered, yet
he did not modify it.
"True, Mr. Grandissime," said Frowenfeld; and after a pause--"but you
have the noble part--the doing."
"Ah, my-de'-seh!" exclaimed Honoré; "the noble part! There is the
bitterness of the draught! The opportunity to act is pushed upon me, but
the opportunity to act nobly has passed by."
He again drew his chair closer, glanced behind him and spoke low:
"Because for years I have had a kind of custody of all my kinsmen's
property interests, Agricola's among them, it is supposed that he has
always kept the plantation of Aurore Nancanou (or rather of
Clotilde--who, you know, by our laws is the real heir). That is a
mistake. Explain it as you please, call it remorse, pride, love--what
you like--while I was in France and he was managing my mother's
business, unknown to me he gave me that plantation. When I succeeded him
I found it and all its revenues kept distinct--as was but proper--from
all other accounts, and belonging to me. 'Twas a fine, extensive place,
had a good overseer on it and--I kept it. Why? Because I was a coward. I
did not want it or its revenues; but, like my father, I would not offend
my people. Peace first and justice afterwards--that was the principle
on which I quietly made myself the trustee of a plantation and income
which you would have given back to their owners, eh?"
Frowenfeld was silent.
"My-de'-seh, recollect that to us the Grandissime name is a treasure.
And what has preserved it so long? Cherishing the unity of our family;
that has done it; that is how my father did it. Just or unjust, good or
bad, needful or not, done elsewhere or not, I do not say; but it is a
Creole trait. See, even now" (the speaker smiled on one side of his
mouth) "in a certain section of the territory certain men, Creoles" (he
whispered, gravely), "_some Grandissimes among them_, evading the United
States revenue laws and even beating and killing some of the officials:
well! Do the people at large repudiate those men? My-de'-seh, in no
wise, seh! No; if they were _Américains_--but a Louisianian--is a
Louisianian; touch him not; when you touch him you touch all Louisiana!
So with us Grandissimes; we are legion, but we are one. Now,
my-de'-seh, the thing you ask me to do is to cast overboard that old
traditional principle which is the secret of our existence."
"_I_ ask you?"
"Ah, bah! you know you expect it. Ah! but you do not know the uproar
such an action would make. And no 'noble part' in it, my-de'-seh,
either. A few months ago--when we met by those graves--if
I had acted then, my action would have been one of pure--even
violent--_self_-sacrifice. Do you remember--on the levee, by the Place
d'Armes--me asking you to send Agricola to me? I tried then to speak of
it. He would not let me. Then, my people felt safe in their land-titles
and public offices; this restitution would have hurt nothing but pride.
Now, titles in doubt, government appointments uncertain, no ready
capital in reach for any purpose, except that which would have to be
handed over with the plantation (for to tell you the fact, my-de'-seh,
no other account on my books has prospered), with matters changed in
this way, I become the destroyer of my own flesh and blood! Yes, seh!
and lest I might still find some room to boast, another change moves me
into a position where it suits me, my-de'-seh, to make the restitution
so fatal to those of my name. When you and I first met, those ladies
were as much strangers to me as to you--as far as I _knew_. Then, if I
had done this thing--but now--now, my-de'-seh, I find myself in love
with one of them!"
M. Grandissime looked his friend straight in the eye with the frowning
energy of one who asserts an ugly fact.
Frowenfeld, regarding the speaker with a gaze of respectful attention,
did not falter; but his fevered blood, with an impulse that started him
half from his seat, surged up into his head and face; and then--
M. Grandissime blushed.
In the few silent seconds that followed, the glances of the two friends
continued to pass into each other's eyes, while about Honoré's mouth
hovered the smile of one who candidly surrenders his innermost secret,
and the lips of the apothecary set themselves together as though he were
whispering to himself behind them, "Steady."
"Mr. Frowenfeld," said the Creole, taking a sudden breath and waving a
hand, "I came to ask about _your_ trouble; but if you think you have any
reason to withhold your confidence--"
"No, sir; no! But can I be no help to you in this matter?"
The Creole leaned back smilingly in his chair and knit his fingers.
"No, I did not intend to say all this; I came to offer my help to you;
but my mind is full--what do you expect? My-de'-seh, the foam must come
first out of the bottle. You see"--he leaned forward again, laid two
fingers in his palm and deepened his tone--"I will tell you: this
tree--'our dead father's mistakes'--is about to drop another rotten
apple. I spoke just now of the uproar this restitution would make; why,
my-de'-seh, just the mention of the lady's name at my house, when we
lately held the _fête de grandpère_, has given rise to a quarrel which
is likely to end in a duel."
"Raoul was telling me," said the apothecary.
M. Grandissime made an affirmative gesture.
"Mr. Frowenfeld, if you--if any one--could teach my people--I mean my
family--the value of peace (I do not say the duty, my-de'-seh; a
merchant talks of values); if you could teach them the value of peace, I
would give you, if that was your price"--he ran the edge of his left
hand knife-wise around the wrist of his right--"that. And if you would
teach it to the whole community--well--I think I would not give my head;
maybe you would." He laughed.
"There is a peace which is bad," said the contemplative apothecary.
"Yes," said the Creole, promptly, "the very kind that I have been
keeping all this time--and my father before me!"
He spoke with much warmth.
"Yes," he said again, after a pause which was not a rest, "I often see
that we Grandissimes are a good example of the Creoles at large; we have
one element that makes for peace; that--pardon the
self-consciousness--is myself; and another element that makes for
strife--led by my uncle Agricola; but, my-de'-seh, the peace element is
that which ought to make the strife, and the strife element is that
which ought to be made to keep the peace! Mr. Frowenfeld, I propose to
become the strife-maker; how then, can I be a peacemaker at the same
time? There is my diffycultie."
"Mr. Grandissime," exclaimed Frowenfeld, "if you have any design in view
founded on the high principles which I know to be the foundations of all
your feelings, and can make use of the aid of a disgraced man, use me."
"You are very generous," said the Creole, and both were silent. Honoré
dropped his eyes from Frowenfeld's to the floor, rubbed his knee with
his palm, and suddenly looked up.
"You are innocent of wrong?"
"Before God."
"I feel sure of it. Tell me in a few words all about it. I ought to be
able to extricate you. Let me hear it."
Frowenfeld again told as much as he thought he could, consistently with
his pledges to Palmyre, touching with extreme lightness upon the part
taken by Clotilde.
"Turn around," said M. Grandissime at the close; "let me see the back of
your head. And it is that that is giving you this fever, eh?"
"Partly," replied Frowenfeld; "but how shall I vindicate my innocence? I
think I ought to go back openly to this woman's house and get my hat. I
was about to do that when I got your note; yet it seems a feeble--even
if possible--expedient."
"My friend," said Honoré, "leave it to me. I see your whole case, both
what you tell and what you conceal. I guess it with ease. Knowing
Palmyre so well, and knowing (what you do not) that all the voudous in
town think you a sorcerer, I know just what she would drop down and beg
you for--a _ouangan_, ha, ha! You see? Leave it all to me--and your hat
with Palmyre, take a febrifuge and a nap, and await word from me."
"And may I offer you no help in your difficulty?" asked the apothecary,
as the two rose and grasped hands.
"Oh!" said the Creole, with a little shrug, "you may do anything you
can--which will be nothing."