She nodded, and the sigh that came out of her narrow heaving chest and her att.i.tude as she sat back in the chair with her palms pressed to her forehead struck him as rather masculine and interesting.
"We lost so much in the depression of "37," she said. "It has to be a good crop. And it is a good crop. Well be picking until January at least."
"Could it happen here, Tante? Could it happen as it did in Saint-Domingue?"
She sat still for a moment as if experiencing a concentration and allowing the new subject its just due.
"Never," she said. "Though how to convince the white population of these southern states, I do not know. We live in the shadow of those times every day. Give me the ledger, mon cher mon cher, you ought to go to bed."
"But how do we live in the shadow?" he rose and put the ledger in front of her.
"Marcel, each year it becomes harder for us, each year there are laws pa.s.sed that seek to restrict us, each year as the abolition forces in the North increase in scope and volume, we are pushed and threatened on all sides. I suppose one would have had to see Saint-Domingue to know that these United States are a world apart, but there are hundreds of small planters and farmers through these backwoods who never saw it and never knew it, and they live in terror of just that sort of uprising. No, if you want my opinion, it will never happen here. Something different has happened here." She rose, shutting the ledger, and put the candle again in his hands. "Take this with you, if you like, I"ve been able to see in the dark all my life."
"But what"s happened, how is it different?" he asked. Of course he had read of atrocities committed in the name of routine discipline on Saint-Domingue plantations of which Louisiana planters would not dream. But he wanted to hear from her. All this knowledge lay about him, all around him, he was blinded by it, and drained and somewhat lost.
She moved into the main hall and toward the delicate curved stairway that led to her attic room.
"Saint-Domingue was settled by unscrupulous men who worked the land only long enough to leave it in the hands of their overseers and live in luxury abroad," she said. "And it was paradise that land. You can"t imagine it, the fruit there to be picked from the trees, the air forever mild, that clean wind from the sea. Fortunes were made too fast; men worked their slaves to death planning with pen and paper the profits of such a system when they could always buy more. This is a different country, it"s gone a different way. People live on the land that they own, slaves have been bred for generation upon generation, domesticated and not by blatant atrocity, but by some system far more subtle and efficient, something akin to the cotton gin and the refining mill in its precision and its relentlessness. No, it could not happen here, because we"ve beaten them, cowed them, and ground them utterly and completely into the dust." and completely into the dust."
Marcel blew out the candle as he stepped onto the porch.
The night was black over the rural country, and alive with an endless sweep of tiny brilliant stars. Beyond the row of crepe myrtles behind the kitchen, he saw a flicker of light in the village of slave cabins he knew to be there. The barest s.n.a.t.c.h of laughter drifted to him on the night air, and it seemed he heard some faint mournful singing but he could not be sure. He had been at Sans Souci Sans Souci a month by this time, and never had he gone near that long row of bungalows, though sometimes from the window of his room in the morning he had looked out on the hundred distant tiny figures making their way through the low fields. The names he"d read from the plantation ledger came back to him, Sanitte, Lestan, Auguste, Mariette, Anton...and he let out a moan to himself in the shadows of the porch looking still at the distant light which suddenly dimmed beyond the branches of the trees and appeared to die out. What was it like there, was there a dreary submission, a sullen misery, such as he had so often seen in Lisette"s face as she stood above the kitchen fire in summer, or was there some measure of peace in the hopelessness? He found himself frantic suddenly, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, unable to continue with these thoughts. a month by this time, and never had he gone near that long row of bungalows, though sometimes from the window of his room in the morning he had looked out on the hundred distant tiny figures making their way through the low fields. The names he"d read from the plantation ledger came back to him, Sanitte, Lestan, Auguste, Mariette, Anton...and he let out a moan to himself in the shadows of the porch looking still at the distant light which suddenly dimmed beyond the branches of the trees and appeared to die out. What was it like there, was there a dreary submission, a sullen misery, such as he had so often seen in Lisette"s face as she stood above the kitchen fire in summer, or was there some measure of peace in the hopelessness? He found himself frantic suddenly, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, unable to continue with these thoughts.
Of course he knew the household servants, saw them daily, pretty Toinette who brought his breakfast tray with its small bouquet of roses, and little Narci who groomed his mare. And Celeste who stood at old Gregoire"s arm nightly to hand out the steaming plates as he served the supper just behind Tante Josette"s chair. But they were the scrubbed and comely aristocracy of this little slave nation. What of Sanitte, Lestan, Auguste, Mariette, Anton...backs all but broken by those pounds of cotton, eyes inevitably squinting over a field which had become the wretched measure of the world?
It"s an accident any of us being here or anywhere...it"s all an accident and we don"t care to realize that because it confuses us, overwhelms us, we couldn"t live our lives day to day if we did not tell ourselves lies about cause and effect we couldn"t live our lives day to day if we did not tell ourselves lies about cause and effect. An accident then, his consciousness emerging here among this rich and proper colored elite of New Orleans, an accident, an accident, his mind played with the cadence of the words like a drum. And what if...what if his consciousness had emerged out there? He could not move toward those cabins, not tonight in this enfolding darkness, nor on any night. He could not run the risk of discovering there a system so thorough that it might have crushed him had it ever gotten him in its maw. And this was a small plantation, a human plantation, a vital community in comparison to those vast industrial enterprises that lined the banks of the Mississippi where anonymous slaves were driven like mules. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, hunched as if the air were cool, and turning his back to the village that had vanished with its single light into the dark he made his way around the broad gallery until he settled in a chair at the front of the house. There he could sit back, hands clasped behind his neck, and peer again at the limitless stars.
Only a trace of light gleamed on the distant rippling waters of the river. The trees were monsters against the sky. His mind went swift and free of all distractions to his home, and shot through the small community of the French Quarter like a ghost on tiptoe, surveying all those respectable friends of his, the Lermontants, the Rogets, the Dumanoirs. Christophe in love with his books and his students, Marie dreaming of marriage beneath a flowered tester, and weightless and immediately he returned to this silent rambling house and the generations of this family of the Riviere aux Cannes who had let a layer of dust acc.u.mulate on those secret Saint-Domingue histories, perhaps never dreaming that they were there. How could these be a part of armies clashing on the Plaine du Nord, or wild-eyed hors.e.m.e.n, torch in the wind, thundering through a burning town? My people, my people, my people, he heard the words pa.s.s his lips in the dark, tears flowing silently down his face. I wish, I wish, I wish I knew, I wish I knew what I am.
He had fallen asleep in the chair. The sky was gray over the river when he opened his eyes, and behind him the front doors opened, the porch reverberating with heavy steps. His cousins, Gaston and Pierre, were in their riding boots, their great shining guns over their shoulders. "Come on, Marcel," commenced the usual refrain with the warm clasp of a hand, "we"ve got a mare back there, Marcel, so old and so sleepy you could ride her with your hands behind your back, Narci, get that mare!" Little Narci had just brought their horses around, sleek chestnut geldings, and as they pranced and stomped on the sh.e.l.l path they looked like the most dangerous animals Marcel had yet seen. But some old restraint that had sustained him up until now in this new world was suddenly lost. He gave in.
And by Christmastime he had given himself up entirely, without vanity and with wariness, to the life of a country planter of these parts.
It was hunting twice a week, the exciting crack of the gun, and a peculiar flutter inside him when he saw the duck fall from the sky. Its heart still beat when he took it from the dog"s awesome jaw, and broke the life out of it with his own hand. And fishing now and then with high-booted treks into the swamps to draw up the crawfish on long lines. And a delicious relaxation would come over him in the evenings, the long table aglow with candles where seldom less than fourteen sat down to supper, the conversation easy and languorous like the motion of the overhead punka, that great rectangular wooden fan suspended from the ceiling which moved back and forth, back and forth to the jerks of a drowsy slave child at the distant end of its long rope.
Here in these enormous rooms Marcel saw for the first time the proper setting for the immense furniture that had crowded the Ste. Marie cottage all of his life, it was for this s.p.a.ce that the great four posters had been built, here the giant sideboard appeared graceful and adequate, and the towering armoires and cabinets in perfect scale. One could grow too accustomed to it, the breeze through the French doors, the last heat of the Indian summer rising toward the high ceiling, and the mingled voices of those pretty cousins, Clementine, Louise, Marguerite, who had taken to driving over more and more often from their father"s plantation since Marcel had arrived.
Marguerite"s voice was pretty. She played the spinet well as he turned the pages for her, mesmerized by the speed of her tiny fingers, and when she occasionally looked up into his eyes, he felt a peculiar weakness all over, something diffuse and romantic and very unlike the pa.s.sion he missed so painfully with Juliet. Her eyes were black, slanted, her hair a collection of perfect finger curls around the ears, the skin teint sauvage teint sauvage, or reddish like that of an Indian, and her full mouth just touched with the color of rose. Once they went to the pigeonnier pigeonnier together, and as they gathered the furry baby birds, he was quite horrified to discover they were taking them to the kitchen for the evening meal. She laughed at him, and kissed his cheek. together, and as they gathered the furry baby birds, he was quite horrified to discover they were taking them to the kitchen for the evening meal. She laughed at him, and kissed his cheek.
It was not all leisure, this life. Everyone worked, in fact, the women constantly with the needle and cutting patterns on the dining table in the afternoon. Tante Josette supervised all the operations of the enterprise, there were the pickings through late December, repairs to a dozen outbuildings, the slaughter of the pigs when winter had at last set in. Gaston and Pierre often fell asleep in their parlor chairs, their rough hands folded on their chest, while Emile burnt the oil late over the books. Marcel wrote letters for anyone and everyone amid the sprawling family that seemed at times to encompa.s.s every plantation in the surrounding parts, and one afternoon, coming in with Gaston from the hunt at Marguerite"s home upriver, found himself very much pressured to take up the education of the little ones of the family in earnest. A tutor was living with Tante Elizabeth but he had his hands full. There were Marguerite"s little brothers, and Tante Josette"s great-grandchildren, a brood of twelve whose names Marcel still confused. So the mornings soon turned to some elementary lessons, until impatient and anxious, Marcel went out to nap in his room.
A painter came in early December as so many had come before, offering to do a pair of portraits for a very small sum and room and board. He was a man of color from New Orleans whom Marcel had never had occasion to meet, and soon the rich smell of his linseed oil filled the lower rooms of the garconniere garconniere and Marcel watched in fascination as the man dipped his brush into the palette of brilliant colors and brought the face of Cousine Elisa to life right before his eyes. He made her mouth too small, less African, and thereby sacrificed something of the sharp beauty of her face. and Marcel watched in fascination as the man dipped his brush into the palette of brilliant colors and brought the face of Cousine Elisa to life right before his eyes. He made her mouth too small, less African, and thereby sacrificed something of the sharp beauty of her face.
But it was the traveling Daguerreotypists who fascinated Marcel even more. He missed the picture salons of New Orleans as much as he missed anything at home, thought constantly of the ill.u.s.trious Jules Lion, or old Picard and his brilliant a.s.sistant, Duval, wondering if the latter had ever managed the capital for a studio of his own. He longed for those expensive sittings, the chatter, the magic, and wondered would he ever be able to afford them again. But here in the country a man came through with his own cart on which the words were painted, Daguerreotypist Salon, and took pictures of all the family which were to be put up on the walls. Another brought his equipment into Marguerite"s home finding a well-lighted room and fixing a blanket for the backdrop to produce an excellent portrait of the three sisters, Marguerite, Louise, and Clementine. But much of this work was woefully inferior to the artistry in New Orleans, and the one great advantage was that when lodged in the house, as they often were, these men talked freely of their adventures, of the pictures they had taken among the Indians out West, or of natural wonders, even the great Niagara Falls. Marcel sent a tolerable "specimen" to Christophe, an oval of himself in riding boots with his gun, describing a wagon salon in detail with notes on his a.n.a.lysis of the man"s technique.
Meanwhile Marcel was meeting more and more of the colored planters. His hunting excursion took him into new houses and new families as various men joined the party, and one morning he was surprised to discover that they were riding north to hunt with two white planters of the Cote Joyeuse Cote Joyeuse. All was amicable and familiar. And later the entire party took supper at the house of a man of color, the white men and colored men at the table together, after which several hands of cards were played. No false formality intruded, there were old jokes familiar to all and tales of other hunts, talk of the crop this year, the lack of rain in the last summer and fall, and how they were all paying for it now. And Marcel studied all this, not quick to trust, and certain that in spite of this camaraderie strict lines here were still drawn.
But it was only one Sunday when Marcel and Tante Josette drove north into Isle Brevelle that Marcel was to grasp the actual size of the colored community all around. They had come to visit the Metoyer family whose plantations were quite famous in these parts. All through this country were colored Metoyers, in fact, and the Catholic church of St. Augustine on the Yucca plantation had been built by that family. And here it was that Tante Josette took Marcel with her to Ma.s.s. Only colored faces made up the congregation with the black slaves out under the spreading eaves adding their beautiful African timbre to the singing, and the only white face was that of the priest.
A curious peace came over Marcel in this church. His thoughts were not of G.o.d, in fact, he was barely conscious of the ceremony, kneeling, rising, murmuring only to please his aunt. But he realized that for months now he had lived almost exclusively among people of color so that the sight of the white Daguerreotypist or the hunters of the Cote Joyeuse Cote Joyeuse had actually presented him with a gentle shock. Even in New Orleans where his people were everywhere in the narrow streets, some eighteen thousand in number, he had never felt this pleasant anonymity, this lovely concord. But what would his pretty had actually presented him with a gentle shock. Even in New Orleans where his people were everywhere in the narrow streets, some eighteen thousand in number, he had never felt this pleasant anonymity, this lovely concord. But what would his pretty cousines cousines think, he wondered, as he watched them return one by one from the Communion rail, their heads bowed, their hands folded, but what would they think if they knew he hadn"t a penny to his name? Name. Do I even have a name? think, he wondered, as he watched them return one by one from the Communion rail, their heads bowed, their hands folded, but what would they think if they knew he hadn"t a penny to his name? Name. Do I even have a name?
But after Ma.s.s as he walked with Tante Josette along the banks of the Cane River, and she told him the history of this family, his thoughts were much changed on this question of name. All of these Metoyers who filled this country known as Isle Brevelle, sprawling over many houses and prosperous plantations, were descended from one freed slave, Marie Therese CoinCoin who had built a small fortune on land granted her in the days of the Spanish and bought the freedom of her children one by one. Even Grandpere Augustin, her eldest, who had built the church of St. Augustine, had not been born free. And had been the grandson of the African-born slaves who had been the parents of Marie Therese, calling her CoinCoin which was, in fact, an African name. These people had not inherited their world, they had created it! These people had not inherited their world, they had created it! Just as Richard Lermontant"s ancestors had created theirs. They had made a life for themselves as gracious and prosperous as that of the white colonists who"d once held them in chains. Just as Richard Lermontant"s ancestors had created theirs. They had made a life for themselves as gracious and prosperous as that of the white colonists who"d once held them in chains.
But that mellow and beautiful day might have pa.s.sed into Marcel"s varied collection of tender impressions of the Cane River along with many others had it not been for another small detail which made its imprint on his mind.
In the late afternoon, he had gone out alone on the back gallery of the big house at Yucca and looked over the land. There were the usual plantation buildings, sights, sounds. But as his eyes swept the familiar landscape, he saw a structure directly behind the main house-that is, right in front of him-that was quite different from the other outbuildings he had seen. Because, though it had an immense sloping roof like many a slave cabin or bungalow, no columns supported this roof and it rose very high, much higher than any he had observed, above the doors below. A short walk about the place revealed it to be even more amazing, for beneath this great roof another complete story to the little house was hidden, its windows peeping out into the shade. Rude beams projecting from the walls held the roof in place. Marcel did not know what to make of it, and riding home that night with Tante Josette was disappointed to hear that she did not know the purpose of the structure or why or how it had been made.
It lingered in his mind. It was reminiscent of buildings he had seen in some old book, engravings that he could not quite resurrect from memory, and sometime during the night he realized he had seen this same form in pictures of the wilds of Africa in the accounts of British travelers that Anna Bella so loved to read. Africa. The house had seemed like something built for such a climate-how that immense mushroom roof would have cooled the rooms within!-and there had been no evidence of metal in the construction anywhere, except perhaps the hinges on the blue painted doors. What slave had built that structure, what slave had remembered such a house in Africa which might even have been his home? This perplexed Marcel, for one transcendent feature of this house had added to its singular impression: it was very beautiful. It seemed finer than those other cabins whose roofs were supported by posts from the ground.
And as he thought of it, Jean Jacques" words of years ago came back to him, Jean Jacques" long description of the fine quality of that African sculpture made in the cabins of his old home in Saint-Domingue. Suddenly Marcel was burning to return to Yucca, to ask anyone and everyone about that curious little house. And he felt, as he fell asleep, more acutely than ever the loss of Jean Jacques. He wanted to show this house to Jean Jacques, to take him under that soaring roof, he wanted to talk to Jean Jacques about how this house had been built. Oh, how Rudolphe and Richard had teased him that summer when Marcel had been so obsessed with the craft of a simple chair, a table, the way that a staircase climbed the wall. But the miracle had never dimmed, not with Jean Jacques" death, or with the development of Marcel"s mind. And it seemed to him the greatest of cruelties now that he hadn"t even the talent to sketch the African house from memory, and dared not return to Yucca to draw a picture of it for fear that others might see. And then his mind roamed freely in half sleep with a delightful possibility, that of capturing one of the country Daguerreotypists to make a picture of the house for him when the light was just right. What a treasure that would be among his collection of plates that glinted on the bedroom wall at home.
Home. An ugly reality awakened him. Monsieur Philippe had returned to the cottage, and Marcel, when in the name of G.o.d would he see his room again? And why in the name of G.o.d hadn"t he bought the magic box, the Daguerre camera, during that millennium when he had been a rich young man, his father filling his pockets with ten-dollar bills? He could have had it, that wonderful instrument to fix all that he could never draw, precisely as the eye saw it, as the eye chose to place it in the frame. But that was gone, wasn"t it, the young gentleman who was forever hanging over Duval"s shoulder with ten dollars for a whole plate whenever he chose. Sheer exhaustion called him back to the African house, and the gentle drifting into sleep commenced again. He found himself in Christophe"s cla.s.sroom, in the midst of one of those familiar lectures in which Christophe was striving to make the point anew: the world is filled with varying standards of beauty and civilization so that the edicts of one small time and place must never be accepted as supreme. Ah, he must ask about the African house, he must discover...
But there was much to be done the next day.
He was determined that his little charges would be able to read their French well for their grandmother before he was called back to New Orleans, and he had promised to help Marguerite copy out some poetry from a borrowed book. He liked Marguerite but was a little afraid of her, of that luscious and familial affection which she so easily displayed. So he forgot about the African house, and did not think of it until years after, knowing no more then of its origins than he did now.
Christmas had been heaven at Sans Souci Sans Souci. Days before, the slaves had made the effigy of a cow, marked with all the cuts of beef, and when this was mounted on a pole, shot at the animal to win the cuts as presents for their Christmas table, all this in a ceremony known as the papagai papagai. The plantation rang with music within the great house and without, and all the family round came together for dancing, and on the solemn night itself they made the long carriage ride to the church of St. Augustine for Midnight Ma.s.s.
Marguerite had made a long knitted scarf for Marcel, and sometime in the hours after midnight on New Year"s Day, when he was sick of the sweet punch and had gone to the pantry himself to see if there wasn"t just one more bottle of vintage claret, Marguerite had pressed close to him, offering her tender child mouth for him to kiss. She was soft as a baby, and he felt shame afterwards, and resolved not to be alone with her again before he left.
So one week after New Years, when he was still carrying Christophe"s letter of two days before, and reading it over and over, and feeling impotent that he could not be with Cecile and Marie in New Orleans, he was quite surprised to find his aunt one morning at her desk with a grave expression, saying to him, "Sit down, Marcel, I want to talk to you about your cousin, Marguerite."
She had a letter in her hands. At first he thought perhaps it was something more from Christophe. But after folding it neatly, she laid it aside and told him to close the parlor doors.
"Tante, I meant no disrespect for her," Marcel said. After all, this was just an innocent kiss. But what if her aunts had seen them, this penniless ne"er-do-well from New Orleans with their precious and pretty little girl.
His aunt"s face was particularly tired this morning, and she flexed her fingers stiffly before turning in her chair so that she could see him.
"I have some news for you from home, but with your permission, let me put that aside," she said. "And I promise to be brief. You"ve made an excellent impression here, Marcel, you are much liked and much admired, and I think you know you could make a tolerable living as a schoolteacher in these parts."
He couldn"t conceal the expression on his face. This wasn"t the life he wanted, he had taught the children because their parents had wanted it, and it was all he had to offer.
"But there are other avenues open to you, and I should like to get directly to the point. Marguerite"s father owns two plantations upriver, some 150 acres of cultivated land. The man is willing to settle one-fourth of that land on you, and to build a house upon it for you, should you enter into marriage with Marguerite."
"Marriage? With Marguerite!" Marcel was stunned. "But does he know my circ.u.mstances, that I could bring nothing to this marriage?"
"Marcel, you bring a gentleman"s education and breeding, and a gentleman"s honor. That would be quite enough."
She waited, then went on.
"Marcel, don"t you see, ours is a small community, and we have intermarried over and over, and perhaps too much. My son married his second cousin, my grandsons were second and third cousins to their wives, and so it will probably go with their children as well..." But when she said this last about the grandchildren, a distress distracted her so that she made a little gesture of opening her eyes wide as if to clear them. "But let me make it simple. There are not many eligible men here for Marguerite to marry, and all of us would look with favor on this match. You need not give your answer now, Marcel. There"s no doubt in my mind that you could manage a plantation, that you could learn the cultivation of cotton, the management of the slaves. You"d be under more of a watchful eye than you"d want, besides." She sighed as though reciting all this more from duty than anything else. "You"d have your own home. You would be the master on your own land."
She displayed no enthusiasm whatsoever and Marcel was perplexed. Surely she wasn"t trying to convince him.
"Do you you approve?" he asked. approve?" he asked.
Again she appeared distressed, distracted.
"Is it what you want, Marcel?" she asked.
"Tante, I can"t stay here. I don"t need to think it over. Oh, it"s tempting, it"s beautiful." He was feeling that peace again that he"d felt so strongly in the church of St. Augustine, that sense of community where one would never encounter a white face without the community"s strength to bolster him, the community"s warmth.
"I have to go home," Marcel said. "I have to go back to New Orleans to whatever future I can make there. I don"t know what I will do or how I will do it, but it"s the city to which I belong, with all its strife and its challenges."
And all its vicious injustice, too.
"When I came here, I brought with me a little book," he went on. "I believe I showed it to you, it was the first issue of a literary journal, published by men of color entirely. Christophe"s sent me several numbers of it since."
"Marcel," she sighed. "Poetry doesn"t mean anything in this world, it never has meant anything and it never will. If men of color in New Orleans write poetry it"s because they can do precious little else! Don"t give me that wounded look, that proud expression. It"s true and you know it. What future has a man of color in New Orleans?"
"I don"t know," he said quietly. "And this little quarterly, it may have no significance as you"ve said, but I respect it. I respect it! And all my life I"ve been searching for something to respect. All my life I"ve been trying to understand what really matters, and I tell you, this book, L"Alb.u.m litteraire L"Alb.u.m litteraire, matters. And there are other things that matter...Christophe"s school, the business that Rudolphe Lermontant has built...I don"t want to enumerate these things, I don"t want to be placed in a position of having to defend them. This country"s beautiful, Tante, and I should like nothing better than to let it enfold me and protect me so that I could pretend all the world was people of color, but I can"t do it. I can"t cut myself off from what I perceive to be the real world. So I have to go home."
She appeared thoughtful and then she said, "I have been alive too long."
"Don"t say that, Tante!" he said. He did not remember it now, but these were the words Jean Jacques had used the night before he died.
"Why not?" she said. She began to murmur as if he weren"t there..."Picture the Plaine du Nord where I was born, that splendid island, and La Belle France when I first went there, and this rude country when Monsieur Villier first brought me to this stretch of swamp and told me he"d make it our home. I don"t believe in anything.
"I tell you after what I have seen in my life of Saint-Domingue and this place, I don"t know what a man of color can do anywhere in the world. I don"t know. We are a doomed people, Marcel. Whether you stay here or go to New Orleans it makes no difference finally. Oh, I don"t tell my grandchildren these things. I tell them the world is a good place, that in their time they will enjoy a greater measure of equality with the whites than we do now. But this is a lie. There"s no equality. And there never will be. Our only hope is to hold onto our land here, to buy and to cultivate more land so that we can keep our community as a world apart. Because the white Anglo-Saxon heart is so hardened against us that there"s no hope for our descendants as the Anglo-Saxon takes over, as he supplants the French and the Spanish families around us who understood us and respected us. No, there is only one hope and that is for our descendants to pa.s.s when they can into the white race. And with each one who pa.s.ses, we are diminished, our world and our cla.s.s dies. That"s what we are, Marcel, a dying people, if we are a people at all, flowers of the French and the Spanish and the African, and the Americans have put their boot in our face."
"Tante, stop this! What about the here and now?"
"Here and now, here and now? Each year it grows worse, the prejudice, the laws that restrict us. We live in a fool"s paradise here, shut off from the world on our plantations, but the world is right there, outside. You don"t know the reverses we suffered, all of us, in the depression of "37, and you do not know the constant struggle with the land itself. You don"t know the mortgages that underlie some of the prosperity you see. This "here and now" is fragile, indeed, for us and when it crumbles, what awaits us but the American Southland which is encroaching on all of us more day after day.
"Oh, I know how you feel, Marcel, you"re a European in your heart and mind. That"s what you"ve been all your young life, a European. But you must understand that the only integrity that you can claim for that image of yourself is in the sanctuary of your own mind. I tell you, the worst hatred is racial hatred, the worst wars are racial wars, I see no end to it at hand."
"I am a man," Marcel said quietly, his voice thickened, the picture of her at the desk slightly blurred. "A man!" man!"
It seemed his tone pulled her back. Into some awareness of the room about her. She was looking at him. She was perplexed. "Well," she said with raised eyebrows. "In all these years, with all my p.r.o.nouncements I have never made anyone cry." She laughed dryly. "Perhaps it"s a reason to go on living after all."
He did not answer.
He was aware that ever since he could remember, one illusion after another had been shattered. The world was never what it seemed. And yet again, here on the Cane River, he had been drawn into another illusion, of peace and solidarity and something inviolate, only to learn from this wise woman that this too was but an illusion sustained day in and day out by a collective act of faith. Perhaps he had gone about it in the wrong way over and over again. Nothing was anything until someone defined it. Nothing was inevitable. Nothing was inviolate. Everything existed, perhaps, by an act of faith, and we were always in the midst of creating our world, complete with the trappings of tradition that was nothing more than an invention like all the rest.
And for the first time it occurred to him that the world of the white Southerner with all its doors shut in the colored man"s face might also be fragile, also dependent on the same enormous act of collective faith. It didn"t seem so. It seemed the one aspect of this world not subject to change. He smiled.
"I admire your decision," Tante Josette said, her eyes on the windows beyond him. "I was old when I came here. I found a refuge in this country, a place where I could lay my head down. But you"re too young for that. I admire you that you choose to go home." She flexed her hands again, slowly, as if the pain in the joints was bad, and then she lifted the letter she had put aside earlier, and opened it.
"But you cannot go now," she said. "I don"t know how long your mother wishes you to remain here, or why, but she is adamant that you must not come home until she sends for you, though what I am about to tell you will certainly prove a trial."
He snapped out of his reverie. "What now?"
"Monsieur Philippe died two nights ago in your mother"s house."
VOLUME.
THREE
PART ONE.
I.
THIS HAD TAKEN A AGLAE by surprise, this apparent physical inability to set foot into the room. She had short patience for such temperamental nonsense in others and feared some excess of emotion for which she was completely unprepared. But it had happened this way. She had gone down the stairs, and approaching the parlor doors she had been unable to go in. Miss Betsy was crying. She had her arm curled under her face and leaning on a table cried, while her Tante Antoinette stroked her hair. And the room was filled with black-dressed men and women, Philippe"s brothers among them, who had turned to face Aglae at once as she stood there in the main hall. And beyond, along the far wall, stood the coffin with silver handles amid a veritable garden of fragrant flowers. She could see nothing of Philippe"s face. by surprise, this apparent physical inability to set foot into the room. She had short patience for such temperamental nonsense in others and feared some excess of emotion for which she was completely unprepared. But it had happened this way. She had gone down the stairs, and approaching the parlor doors she had been unable to go in. Miss Betsy was crying. She had her arm curled under her face and leaning on a table cried, while her Tante Antoinette stroked her hair. And the room was filled with black-dressed men and women, Philippe"s brothers among them, who had turned to face Aglae at once as she stood there in the main hall. And beyond, along the far wall, stood the coffin with silver handles amid a veritable garden of fragrant flowers. She could see nothing of Philippe"s face.
And then it happened. She could not move. She could not, simply could not, enter the room. And she had turned much like a marionette, she imagined, and made her way up the stairs. People had spoken to her, her sisters, little Rowena from the kitchen who was proving to be such an attentive maid. But she had been unable to answer. Unable, imagine that. She had felt a tension in the muscles of her face. She could not open her mouth. So sitting in her room now, her elbows on her leather-top desk, fingers meshed, she stared straight forward, and was barely conscious that Vincent had come in behind her. It would be a fine thing if Vincent should speak to her and she would not be able to answer. With a gesture of impatience, she emphatically turned her head.
"Aglae," he said softly. He stood at the back of her chair.
A series of items pa.s.sed through her mind, items of information to which she returned again and again. And without emotion, without emotion! This physical inability to speak was insane. That he had died in the bed of his colored mistress. That she had run out screaming into the street. That the body was so malnourished the face had darkened and collapsed. That it was the noteworthy skill of that colored undertaker, Lermontant, who had many rich white clients, which had restored the face so that the coffin might be open after all. That this mistress lived in the Rue St. Anne, and had two quadroon children! That she had been Philippe"s mistress for some eighteen years! That Felix, their coachman had resided there and here with the master for some eighteen years!
She shut her eyes and said quite plainly, "Philippe Ferronaire! To die like that! Philippe Ferronaire!"
"Aglae, if you are to blame yourself for this I will not allow it," Vincent said. "If you had not moved to take the reins of this plantation when you did, we might very well have lost it! Do you understand?"
Again she made that characteristic gesture of impatience with a slight scornful sound.
It seemed the motion was eternal. She could hear the clock ticking. And one carriage after another stopping below. Wind tugged at the French windows, and a frost obscured the sky beyond. Aglae had always liked the sound of a clock ticking.
"Did he die in this woman"s arms?"
They had not discussed it, she had not discussed it with any man, it was from women that she got the story, her sister, Agnes Marie, and her maids.
She heard his proper sigh. He didn"t want to speak of it, more properly, he did not want for her to speak of it.
"Did he die in this woman"s arms!"
"In his sleep," Vincent said.
"And she awoke then to find him?"
"Yes."
She sat back.
"Did you see her?"
He had gone to get the body. The Lermontants had had the body, surely they didn"t lay him out in that woman"s house!
"Briefly, I saw her." He sighed. "Aglae, I went to the house so that you might never have to think of the house, so that you might never have to mention it. I went to the house to make certain that everything was as I had heard it. Do you understand? So that none of it would reach your ears? So that there would be no unfinished..."
"I should like to know your impression of her, Vincent, you may leave off the rest."