CHAPTER XXIII.
WEAR AND TEAR
The arrangement for Dr. Sevier to place the loan of fifty dollars on his own books at Richling’s credit naturally brought Narcisse into relation with it.
It was a case of love at first sight. From the moment the record of Richling’s “little quantity” slid from the pen to the page, Narcisse had felt himself betrothed to it by destiny, and hourly supplicated the awful fates to frown not upon the amorous hopes of him unaugmented. Richling descended upon him once or twice and tore away from his embrace small fractions of the coveted treasure, choosing, through a diffidence which he mistook for a sort of virtue, the time of day when he would not see Dr. Sevier; and at the third visitation took the entire golden fleece away with him rather than encounter again the always more or less successful courtship of the scorner of loans.
A faithful suitor, however, was not thus easily shaken off. Narcisse became a frequent visitor at the Richlings’, where he never mentioned money; that part was left to moments of accidental meeting with Richling in the street, which suddenly began to occur at singularly short intervals.
Mary labored honestly and arduously to dislike him – to hold a repellent attitude toward him. But he was too much for her. It was easy enough when he was absent; but one look at his handsome face, so rife with animal innocence, and despite herself she was ready to reward his displays of sentiment and erudition with laughter that, mean what it might, always pleased and flattered him.
“Can you help liking him?” she would ask John. “I can’t, to save my life!”
Had the treasure been earnings, Richling said – and believed – he could firmly have repelled Narcisse’s importunities. But coldly to withhold an occasional modest heave-offering of that which was the free bounty of another to him was more than he could do.
“But,” said Mary, straightening his cravat, “you intend to pay up, and he – you don’t think I’m uncharitable, do you?”
“I’d rather give my last cent than think you so,” replied John. “Still,” – laying the matter before her with both open hands, – “if you say plainly not to give him another cent I’ll do as you say. The money’s no more mine than yours.”
“Well, you can have all my share,” said Mary, pleasantly.
So the weeks passed and the hoard dwindled.
“What has it got down to, now?” asked John, frowningly, on more than one morning as he was preparing to go out. And Mary, who had been made treasurer, could count it at a glance without taking it out of her purse.
One evening, when Narcisse called, he found no one at home but Mrs. Riley. The infant Mike had been stuffed with rice and milk and laid away to slumber. The Richlings would hardly be back in less than an hour.
“I’m so’y,” said Narcisse, with a baffled frown, as he sat down and Mrs. Riley took her seat opposite. “I came to ’epay ’em some moneys which he made me the loan – juz in a fwenly way. And I came to ’epay ’im. The sum-total, in fact – I suppose he nevva mentioned you about that, eh?”
“No, sir; but, still, if” —
“No, and so I can’t pay it to you. I’m so’y. Because I know he woon like it, I know, if he fine that you know he’s been bawing money to me. Well, Misses Wiley, in fact, thass a ve’y fine gen’leman and lady – that Mistoo and Misses Itchlin, in fact?”
“Well, now, Mr. Narcisse, ye’r about right? She’s just too good to live – and he’s not much better – ha! ha!” She checked her jesting mood. “Yes, sur, they’re very peaceable, quiet people. They’re just simply ferst tlass.”
“’Tis t’ue,” rejoined the Creole, fanning himself with his straw hat and looking at the Pope. “And they handsome and genial, as the lite’ati say on the noozpapeh. Seem like they almoze wedded to each otheh.”
“Well, now, sir, that’s the trooth!” She threw her open hand down with emphasis.
“And isn’t that as man and wife should be?”
“Yo’ mighty co’ect, Misses Wiley!” Narcisse gave his pretty head a little shake from side to side as he spoke.
“Ah! Mr. Narcisse,” – she pointed at herself, – “haven’t I been a wife? The husband and wife – they’d aht to jist be each other’s guairdjian angels! Hairt to hairt sur; sperit to sperit. All the rist is nawthing, Mister Narcisse.” She waved her hands. “Min is different from women, sur.” She looked about on the ceiling. Her foot noiselessly patted the floor.
“Yes,” said Narcisse, “and thass the cause that they dwess them dif’ent. To show the dif’ence, you know.”
“Ah! no. It’s not the mortial frame, sur; it’s the sperit. The sperit of man is not the sperit of woman. The sperit of woman is not the sperit of man. Each one needs the other, sur. They needs each other, sur, to purify and strinthen and enlairge each other’s speritu’l life. Ah, sur! Doo not I feel those things, sur?” She touched her heart with one backward-pointed finger, “I doo. It isn’t good for min to be alone – much liss for women. Do not misunderstand me, sur; I speak as a widder, sur – and who always will be – ah! yes, I will – ha! ha! ha!” She hushed her laugh as if this were going too far, tossed her head, and continued smiling.
So they talked on. Narcisse did not stay an hour, but there was little of the hour left when he rose to go. They had passed a pleasant time. The Creole, it is true, tried and failed to take the helm of conversation. Mrs. Riley held it. But she steered well. She was still expatiating on the “strinthenin’” spiritual value of the marriage relation when she, too, stood up.
“And that’s what Mr. and Madam Richlin’s a-doin’ all the time. And they do ut to perfiction, sur – jist to perfiction!”
“I doubt it not, Misses Wiley. Well, Misses Wiley, I bid you au ’evoi’. I dunno if you’ll pummit me, but I am compel to tell you, Misses Wiley, I nevva yeh anybody in my life with such a educated and talented conve’sation like yo’seff. Misses Wiley, at what univussity did you gwaduate?”
“Well, reely, Mister – eh” – she fanned herself with broad sweeps of her purple bordered palm-leaf – “reely, sur, if I don’t furgit the name I – I – I’ll be switched! Ha! ha! ha!”
Narcisse joined in the laugh.
“Thaz the way, sometime,” he said, and then with sudden gravity: “And, by-the-by, Misses Wiley, speakin’ of Mistoo Itchlin, – if you could baw’ me two dollahs an’ a ’alf juz till tomaw mawnin – till I kin sen’ it you fum the office – Because that money I’ve got faw Mistoo Itchlin is in the shape of a check, and anyhow I’m c’owding me a little to pay that whole sum-total to Mistoo Itchlin. I kin sen’ it you firs’ thing my bank open tomaw mawnin.”
Do you think he didn’t get it?
“What has it got down to now?” John asked again, a few mornings after Narcisse’s last visit. Mary told him. He stepped a little way aside, averting his face, dropped his forehead into his hand, and returned.
“I don’t see – I don’t see, Mary – I” —
“Darling,” she replied, reaching and capturing both his hands, “who does see? The rich think they see; but do they, John? Now, do they?”
The frown did not go quite off his face, but he took her head between his hands and kissed her temple.
“You’re always trying to lift me,” he said.
“Don’t you lift me?” she replied, looking up between his hands and smiling.
“Do I?”
“You know you do. Don’t you remember the day we took that walk, and you said that after all it never is we who provide?” She looked at the button of his coat, which she twirled in her fingers. “That word lifted me.”
“But suppose I can’t practice the trust I preach?” he said.
“You do trust, though. You have trusted.”
“Past tense,” said John. He lifted her hands slowly away from him, and moved toward the door of their chamber. He could not help looking back at the eyes that followed him, and then he could not bear their look. “I – I suppose a man mustn’t trust too much,” he said.
“Can he?” asked Mary, leaning against a table.
“Oh, yes, he can,” replied John; but his tone lacked conviction.
“If it’s the right kind?”
Her eyes were full of tears.
“I’m afraid mine’s not the right kind, then,” said John, and passed out into and down the street.
But what a mind he took with him – what torture of questions! Was he being lifted or pulled down? His tastes, – were they rising or sinking? Were little negligences of dress and bearing and in-door attitude creeping into his habits? Was he losing his discriminative sense of quantity, time, distance? Did he talk of small achievements, small gains, and small truths, as though they were great? Had he learned to carp at the rich, and to make honesty the excuse for all penury? Had he these various poverty-marks? He looked at himself outside and inside, and feared to answer. One thing he knew, – that he was having great wrestlings.
He turned his thoughts to Ristofalo. This was a common habit with him. Not only in thought, but in person, he hovered with a positive infatuation about this man of perpetual success.
Lately the Italian had gone out of town, into the country of La Fourche, to buy standing crops of oranges. Richling fed his hope on the possibilities that might follow Ristofalo’s return. His friend would want him to superintend the gathering and shipment of those crops – when they should be ripe – away yonder in November. Frantic thought! A man and his wife could starve to death twenty times before then.
Mrs. Riley’s high esteem for John and Mary had risen from the date of the Doctor’s visit, and the good woman thought it but right somewhat to increase the figures of their room-rent to others more in keeping with such high gentility. How fast the little hoard melted away!
And the summer continued on, – the long, beautiful, glaring, implacable summer; its heat quaking on the low roofs; its fig-trees dropping their shrivelled and blackened leaves and writhing their weird, bare branches under the scorching sun; the long-drawn, frying note of its cicada throbbing through the mid-day heat from the depths of the becalmed oak; its universal pall of dust on the myriad red, sleep-heavy blossoms of the oleander and the white tulips of the lofty magnolia; its twinkling pomegranates hanging their apples of scarlet and gold over the garden wall; its little chameleons darting along the hot fence-tops; its far-stretching, empty streets; its wide hush of idleness; its solitary vultures sailing in the upper blue; its grateful clouds; its hot north winds, its cool south winds; its gasping twilight calms; its gorgeous nights, – the long, long summer lingered on into September.
One evening, as the sun was sinking below the broad, flat land, its burning disk reddened by a low golden haze of suspended dust, Richling passed slowly toward his home, coming from a lower part of the town by way of the quadroon quarter. He was paying little notice, or none, to his whereabouts, wending his way mechanically, in the dejected reverie of weary disappointment, and with voiceless inward screamings and groanings under the weight of those thoughts which had lately taken up their stay in his dismayed mind. But all at once his attention was challenged by a strange, offensive odor. He looked up and around, saw nothing, turned a corner, and found himself at the intersection of Trémé and St. Anne streets, just behind the great central prison of New Orleans.
The “Parish Prison” was then only about twenty-five years old; but it had made haste to become offensive to every sense and sentiment of reasonable man. It had been built in the Spanish style, – a massive, dark, grim, huge, four-sided block, the fissure-like windows of its cells looking down into the four public streets which ran immediately under its walls. Dilapidation had followed hard behind ill-building contractors. Down its frowning masonry ran grimy streaks of leakage over peeling stucco and mould-covered brick. Weeds bloomed high aloft in the broken gutters under the scant and ragged eaves. Here and there the pale, debauched face of a prisoner peered shamelessly down through shattered glass or rusted grating; and everywhere in the still atmosphere floated the stifling smell of the unseen loathsomeness within.
Richling paused. As he looked up he noticed a bat dart out from a long crevice under the eaves. Two others followed. Then three – a dozen – a hundred – a thousand – millions. All along the two sides of the prison in view they poured forth in a horrid black torrent, – myriads upon myriads. They filled the air. They came and came. Richling stood and gazed; and still they streamed out in gibbering waves, until the wonder was that anything but a witch’s dream could contain them.
The approach of another passer roused him, and he started on. The step gained upon him – closed up with him; and at the moment when he expected to see the person go by, a hand was laid gently on his shoulder.
“Mistoo Itchlin, I ’ope you well, seh!”
CHAPTER XXIV.
BROUGHT TO BAY
One may take his choice between the two, but there is no escaping both in this life: the creditor – the borrower. Either, but never neither. Narcisse caught step with Richling, and they walked side by side.
“How I learned to mawch, I billong with a fiah comp’ny,” said the Creole. “We mawch eve’y yeah on the fou’th of Mawch.” He laughed heartily. “Thass a ’ime! – Mawch on the fou’th of Mawch! Thass poetwy, in fact, as you may say in a jesting way– ha! ha! ha!”
“Yes, and it’s truth, besides,” responded the drearier man.
“Yes!” exclaimed Narcisse, delighted at the unusual coincidence, “at the same time ’tis the tooth! In fact, why should I tell a lie about such a thing like that? ’Twould be useless. Pe’haps you may ’ave notiz, Mistoo Itchlin, thad the noozpapehs opine us fiahmen to be the gau’dians of the city.”
“Yes,” responded Richling. “I think Dr. Sevier calls you the Mamelukes, doesn’t he? But that’s much the same, I suppose.”
“Same thing,” replied the Creole. “We combad the fiah fiend. You fine that building ve’y pitto’esque, Mistoo Itchlin?” He jerked his thumb toward the prison, that was still pouring forth its clouds of impish wings. “Yes? ’Tis the same with me. But I tell you one thing, Mistoo Itchlin, I assu’ you, and you will believe me, I would ’atheh be lock’ outside of that building than to be lock’ inside of the same. ’Cause – you know why? ’Tis ve’y ’umid in that building. An thass a thing w’at I believe, Mistoo Itchlin; I believe w’en a building is v’ey ’umid it is not ve’y ’ealthsome. What is yo’ opinion consunning that, Mistoo Itchlin?”
“My opinion?” said Richling, with a smile. “My opinion is that the Parish Prison would not be a good place to raise a family.”
Narcisse laughed.
“I thing yo’ opinion is co’ect,” he said, flatteringly; then growing instantly serious, he added, “Yesseh, I think you’ about a-’ight, Mistoo Itchlin; faw even if ’twas not too ’umid, ’twould be too confining, in fact, – speshly faw child’en. I dunno; but thass my opinion. If you ah p’oceeding at yo’ residence, Mistoo Itchlin, I’ll juz continue my p’omenade in yo’ society – if not intooding” —
Richling smiled candidly. “Your company’s worth all it costs, Narcisse. Excuse me; I always forget your last name – and your first is so appropriate.” It was worth all it cost, though Richling could ill afford the purchase. The young Latin’s sweet, abysmal ignorance, his infantile amiability, his artless ambition, and heathenish innocence started the natural gladness of Richling’s blood to effervescing anew every time they met, and, through the sheer impossibility of confiding any of his troubles to the Creole, made him think them smaller and lighter than they had just before appeared. The very light of Narcisse’s countenance and beauty of his form – his smooth, low forehead, his thick, abundant locks, his faintly up-tipped nose and expanded nostrils, his sweet, weak mouth with its impending smile, his beautiful chin and bird’s throat, his almond eyes, his full, round arm, and strong thigh – had their emphatic value.
So now, Richling, a moment earlier borne down by the dreadful shadow of the Parish Prison, left it behind him as he walked and laughed and chatted with his borrower. He felt very free with Narcisse, for the reason that would have made a wiser person constrained, – lack of respect for him.
“Mistoo Itchlin, you know,” said the Creole, “I like you to call me Nahcisse. But at the same time my las’ name is Savillot.” He pronounced it Sav-veel-yo. “Thass a somewot Spanish name. That double l got a twist in it.”
“Oh, call it Papilio!” laughed Richling.
“Papillon!” exclaimed Narcisse, with delight. “The buttehfly! All a-’ight; you kin juz style me that! ’Cause thass my natu’e, Mistoo Itchlin; I gatheh honey eve’y day fum eve’y opening floweh, as the bahd of A-von wemawk.”
So they went on.
Ad infinitum? Ah, no! The end was just as plainly in view to both from the beginning as it was when, at length, the two stepping across the street gutter at the last corner between Richling and home, Narcisse laid his open hand in his companion’s elbow, and stopped, saying, as Richling turned and halted with a sudden frown of unwillingness: —
“I tell you ’ow ’tis with me, Mistoo Itchlin, I’ve p’oject that manneh myseff; in weading a book – w’en I see a beaucheouz idee, I juz take a pencil” – he drew one from his pocket – “check! I check it. So w’en I wead the same book again, then I take notiz I’ve check that idee and I look to see what I check it faw. ’Ow you like that invention, eh?”
“Very simple,” said Richling, with an unpleasant look of expectancy.
“Mistoo Itchlin,” resumed the other, “do you not fine me impooving in my p’onouncement of yo’ lang-widge? I fine I don’t use such bad land-widge like biffo. I am shue you muz’ ’ave notiz since some time I always soun’ that awer in yo’ name. Mistoo Itchlin, will you ’ave that kin’ness to baw me two-an-a-’alf till the lass of that month?”
Richling looked at him a moment in silence, and then broke into a short, grim laugh.
“It’s all gone. There’s no more honey in this flower.” He set his jaw as he ceased speaking. There was a warm red place on either cheek.
“Mistoo Itchlin,” said Narcisse, with sudden, quavering fervor, “you kin len’ me two dollahs! I gi’e you my honah the moze sacwed of a gen’leman, Mistoo Itchlin, I nevvah hass you ag’in so long I live!” He extended a pacifying hand. “One moment, Mistoo Itchlin, – one moment, – I implo’ you, seh! I assu’ you, Mistoo Itchlin, I pay you eve’y cent in the worl’ on the laz of that month? Mistoo Itchlin, I am in indignan’ circumstan’s. Mistoo Itchlin, if you know the distwess – Mistoo Itchlin, if you know – ’ow bad I ’ate to baw!” The tears stood in his eyes. “It nea’ly kill me to b – ” Utterance failed him.
“My friend,” began Richling.
“Mistoo Itchlin,” exclaimed Narcisse, dashing away the tears and striking his hand on his heart, “I am yo’ fwend, seh!”
Richling smiled scornfully. “Well, my good friend, if you had ever kept a single promise made to me I need not have gone since yesterday without a morsel of food.”
Narcisse tried to respond.
“Hush!” said Richling, and Narcisse bowed while Richling spoke on. “I haven’t a cent to buy bread with to carry home. And whose fault is it? Is it my fault – or is it yours?”
“Mistoo Itchlin, seh” —
“Hush!” cried Richling, again; “if you try to speak before I finish I’ll thrash you right here in the street!”
Narcisse folded his arms. Richling flushed and flashed with the mortifying knowledge that his companion’s behavior was better than his own.
“If you want to borrow more money of me find me a chance to earn it!” He glanced so suddenly at two or three street lads, who were the only on-lookers, that they shrank back a step.
“Mistoo Itchlin,” began Narcisse, once more, in a tone of polite dismay, “you aztonizh me. I assu’ you, Mistoo Itchlin” —
Richling lifted his finger and shook it. “Don’t you tell me that, sir! I will not be an object of astonishment to you! Not to you, sir! Not to you!” He paused, trembling, his anger and his shame rising together.
Narcisse stood for a moment, silent, undaunted, the picture of amazed friendship and injured dignity, then raised his hat with the solemnity of affronted patience and said: —
“Mistoo Itchlin, seein’ as ’tis you, a puffic gen’leman, ’oo is not goin’ to ’efuse that satisfagtion w’at a gen’leman, always a-’eady to give a gen’leman, – I bid you – faw the pwesen’ – good-evenin’, seh!” He walked away.
Richling stood in his tracks dumfounded, crushed. His eyes followed the receding form of the borrower until it disappeared around a distant corner, while the eye of his mind looked in upon himself and beheld, with a shame that overwhelmed anger, the folly and the puerility of his outburst. The nervous strain of twenty-four hours’ fast, without which he might not have slipped at all, only sharpened his self-condemnation. He turned and walked to his house, and all the misery that had oppressed him before he had seen the prison, and all that had come with that sight, and all this new shame, sank down upon his heart at once. “I am not a man! I am not a whole man!” he suddenly moaned to himself. “Something is wanting – oh! what is it?” – he lifted his eyes to the sky, – “what is it?” – when in truth, there was little wanting just then besides food.
He passed in at the narrow gate and up the slippery alley. Nearly at its end was the one window of the room he called home. Just under it – it was somewhat above his head – he stopped and listened. A step within was moving busily here and there, now fainter and now plainer; and a voice, the sweetest on earth to him, was singing to itself in its soft, habitual way.
He started round to the door with a firmer tread. It stood open. He halted on the threshold. There was a small table in the middle of the room, and there was food on it. A petty reward of his wife’s labor had brought it there.
“Mary,” he said, holding her off a little, “don’t kiss me yet.”
She looked at him with consternation. He sat down, drew her upon his lap, and told her, in plain, quiet voice, the whole matter.
“Don’t look so, Mary.”
“How?” she asked, in a husky voice and with flashing eye.
“Don’t breathe so short and set your lips. I never saw you look so, Mary, darling!”
She tried to smile, but her eyes filled.
“If you had been with me,” said John, musingly, “it wouldn’t have happened.”
“If – if” – Mary sat up as straight as a dart, the corners of her mouth twitching so that she could scarcely shape a word, – “if – if I’d been there, I’d have made you whip him!” She flouted her handkerchief out of her pocket, buried her face in his neck, and sobbed like a child.
“Oh!” exclaimed the tearful John, holding her away by both shoulders, tossing back his hair and laughing as she laughed, – “Oh! you women! You’re all of a sort! You want us men to carry your hymn-books and your iniquities, too!”
She laughed again.
“Well, of course!”
And they rose and drew up to the board.