Old Creole Days: A Story of Creole Life, Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  MADAME DELPHINE.

  During the first quarter of the present century, the free quadroon casteof New Orleans was in its golden age. Earlier generations--sprung, uponthe one hand, from the merry gallants of a French colonial militaryservice which had grown gross by affiliation with Spanish-Americanfrontier life, and, upon the other hand from comely Ethiopians culledout of the less negroidal types of African live goods, and bought at theship's side with vestiges of quills and cowries and copper wire still intheir head-dresses,--these earlier generations, with scars of battle orprivate rencontre still on the fathers, and of servitude on themanumitted mothers, afforded a mere hint of the splendor that was toresult from a survival of the fairest through seventy-five years devotedto the elimination of the black pigment and the cultivation of hyperianexcellence and nymphean grace and beauty. Nor, if we turn to thepresent, is the evidence much stronger which is offered by the _gens decouleur_ whom you may see in the quadroon quarter this afternoon, with"Ichabod" legible on their murky foreheads through a vain smearing oftoilet powder, dragging their chairs down to the narrow gateway of theirclose-fenced gardens, and staring shrinkingly at you as you pass, like anest of yellow kittens.

  But as the present century was in its second and third decades, the_quadroones_ (for we must contrive a feminine spelling to define thestrict limits of the caste as then established) came forth in splendor.Old travellers spare no terms to tell their praises, their faultlessnessof feature, their perfection of form, their varied styles ofbeauty,--for there were even pure Caucasian blondes among them,--theirfascinating manners, their sparkling vivacity, their chaste and prettywit, their grace in the dance, their modest propriety, their taste andelegance in dress. In the gentlest and most poetic sense they wereindeed the sirens of this land where it seemed "always afternoon"--amomentary triumph of an Arcadian over a Christian civilization, sobeautiful and so seductive that it became the subject of specialchapters by writers of the day more original than correct as socialphilosophers.

  The balls that were got up for them by the male _sang-pur_ were to thatday what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the samenights proved failures through the coincidence. The magnates ofgovernment,--municipal, state, federal,--those of the army, of thelearned professions and of the clubs,--in short, the white malearistocracy in every thing save the ecclesiastical desk,--were there.Tickets were high-priced to insure the exclusion of the vulgar. Nodistinguished stranger was allowed to miss them. They were beautiful!They were clad in silken extenuations from the throat to the feet, andwore, withal, a pathos in their charm that gave them a family likenessto innocence.

  Madame Delphine, were you not a stranger, could have told you all aboutit; though hardly, I suppose, without tears.

  But at the time of which we would speak (1821-22) her day of splendorwas set, and her husband--let us call him so for her sake--was longdead. He was an American, and, if we take her word for it, a man ofnoble heart and extremely handsome; but this is knowledge which we cando without.

  Even in those days the house was always shut, and Madame Delphine'schief occupation and end in life seemed to be to keep well locked upin-doors. She was an excellent person, the neighbors said,--a veryworthy person; and they were, maybe, nearer correct then they knew. Theyrarely saw her save when she went to or returned from church; a small,rather tired-looking, dark quadroone of very good features and a gentlethoughtfulness of expression which would take long to describe: call ita widow's look.

  In speaking of Madame Delphine's house, mention should have been made ofa gate in the fence on the Royal-street sidewalk. It is gone now, andwas out of use then, being fastened once for all by an iron stapleclasping the cross-bar and driven into the post.

  Which leads us to speak of another person.