Creole Sketches/A Creole Type
A CREOLE TYPE[1]
It is a little curious how the old Creole element preserves its ancient customs and manners in the very heart of the changes that are going on about it. At half-past nine or ten o'clock the American city is all alive — a blaze of gas and a whirl of pleasure. The old French town is asleep; the streets are deserted; and the shadow of a pedestrian makes a moving black speck against the moonlight on the pavement only at long intervals. Creoledom wakes up as slowly and cautiously as possible; and has not fairly begun to enter upon the business of the day until the sun has warmed the streets. The comparatively new generation of American citizens, when brought into contact with this older population, is utterly unable to understand the difference of character; and shuns as much as possible the transaction of business with it — which contents the Creoles perfectly well. They seem to tolerate those who understand them, and to abominate those who do not, and propose to live in the good old way as long as possible — marrying and giving in marriage, aiding one another in a good brotherly way, and keeping themselves to themselves. If there is one virtue they possess remarkably, it is the virtue of minding their own affairs — which, alas! cannot always be said of all other people who dwell in New Orleans.
Nothing, perhaps, can be funnier than the contrast of character brought out by the attempt of a stiff-mannered stranger to do business with a typical Creole, especially if the latter be of the fair sex. Let us imagine, for example, the episode of renting a house to a foreigner — somebody whom chance or curiosity has prompted to seek quarters in the old-fashioned part of the city. The stranger is a little phlegmatic; the woman is as much the opposite as any human being could well be — a little dark, tropically dark, but quite attractive, with magnetic eyes, an electric tongue, and an utter indifference to those ordinary feelings which prompt landladies to play the agreeable; — proud as a queen, and quite as determined to show her own individuality as the stranger is to conceal his own. She has a nice little house; and the stranger would like to rent it. She would also like to rent it; but only according to her own original idea of conditions, and she would never think of concealing her inmost feelings on the subject. She is determined that nobody shall impose upon her, and that fact she proposes to explain very forcibly forthwith; the stranger appears to be a good sort of man, but appearances are so deceitful in this wicked world!
She — "Ah, yes, monsieur, I have a nice little house. Let me beg of you to wait a moment until I open the other door, so that you can enter my parlor."
He — "But what is the rent of the house?"
She — (in a voice sweeter than the sweetest honey) — "One minute! —this way, monsieur — come in; be seated, if you please."
He — "But what is the rent of —"
She (shutting the door, and placing herself before it like a statue of animated bronze, and suddenly changing the sweet voice for a deep and extraordinarily vibrant alto) — "Ah, now, monsieur, let us at once understand one another. I have a nice little house. Good! You want a nice little house. Good! Let us understand one another. In the first place, I do not rent my house to everybody, monsieur. Oh, no, no, No!!" (crescendo).
He — "But what is the rent of —"
She — (imperiously, terrifying him into silence with a flash of her black eyes) — "Do not interrupt me, monsieur. Three things I require from a tenant. Do you know what the first is? No? — then I will tell you. Cash, Cash, Cash! (crescendo) — right here in my hand — in advance — ah, yes, all the time in advance."
He (very timidly) — "Yes, certainly — I know — of course! — I expected; — but what is —"
She (in a voice like the deepest tone of a passionately agitated harp) — "Attends, donc, monsieur. The second thing which I require from a tenant is a guarantee that he will stay. Ah, yes! I am not one of those who rent houses for a week, or a month, or six months, Mon Dieu, non! I must have people who stay, stay, stay (pianissimo); and they must stay a long, long time. You must not come to me if you want a house only for —"
He (with a last and desperate effort, which happens to be partially successful) — "O madam, I want to stay for a number of years in the house, if I take it; but I cannot take it until I have seen it."
She — "You shall see it, monsieur, you shall see it (parenthetically). Now the third thing which I require from a tenant is absolute cleanliness, absolute, absolute! No spitting on the walls, no dirt upon the doors, no grease upon the planking, no cochonnerie in the yard. You understand me, monsieur? Yes! — you shall see the house: these are the keys."
He — "But what is the rent of —"
She — (frightening him into motionlessness by a sudden gypsy-like gesture) "Ah, monsieur, but I cannot trust you with these keys. No; my servant shall go with you. I cannot have all the doors of my house left open. No; I have had too much experience. My servant shall go with you. She shall bring me back my keys. Marie! come here! Go, monsieur, see the house!"
He — (resignedly) "Thanks, but may I ask what is — "
She (with a superb gesture of withering disgust and another of terrible determination) — "Do you not know, sir, that I would rather shut the house up until the last day of the world than rent it to the canaille! Ah! the canaille! Monsieur! Ah! the canaille, the canaille!"
(These last words, with an inexpressible look of horror upon her face, which would make the stranger laugh if he were not afraid to laugh.)
He — "And the rent is —"
She (sweetly as a rose-fed nightingale) —"Twenty-five dollars to a responsible party, monsieur."
The stranger is by this time fairly mesmerized. He has listened to a sermon, heard an oration, received a reproof, watched a most marvelous piece of natural acting by a beautiful woman, and felt his own will and purpose completely crushed out of him by the superior vitality and will-power of this wonderful creature, whose gestures, graceful as a bayadère's, seemed to weave a spell of magnetism about him. He sees the house; pays faithfully in advance; gives proper recommendations; and never forgets the three requisites which his landlady taught him as forcibly as though she had burned the words into his brain with a red-hot iron.
- ↑ Item, May 6, 1879.