Odalie
Now and then Carnival time comes at the time of the good Saint
Valentine, and then sometimes it comes as late as the warm days
in March, when spring is indeed upon us, and the greenness of the
grass outvies the green in the royal standards.
Days and days before the Carnival proper, New Orleans begins to
take on a festive appearance. Here and there the royal flags
with their glowing greens and violets and yellows appear, and
then, as if by magic, the streets and buildings flame and burst
like poppies out of bud, into a glorious refulgence of colour
that steeps the senses into a languorous acceptance of warmth and
beauty.
On Mardi Gras day, as you know, it is a town gone mad with folly.
A huge masked ball emptied into the streets at daylight; a
meeting of all nations on common ground, a pot-pourri of every
conceivable human ingredient, but faintly describes it all.
There are music and flowers, cries and laughter and song and
joyousness, and never an aching heart to show its sorrow or dim
the happiness of the streets. A wondrous thing, this Carnival!
But the old cronies down in Frenchtown, who know everything, and
can recite you many a story, tell of one sad heart on Mardi Gras
years ago. It was a woman's, of course; for "Il est toujours les
femmes qui sont malheureuses," says an old proverb, and perhaps
it is right. This woman--a child, she would be called elsewhere,
save in this land of tropical growth and precocity--lost her
heart to one who never knew, a very common story, by the way, but
one which would have been quite distasteful to the haughty judge,
her father, had he known.
Odalie was beautiful. Odalie was haughty too, but gracious
enough to those who pleased her dainty fancy. In the old French
house on Royal Street, with its quaint windows and Spanish
courtyard green and cool, and made musical by the plashing of the
fountain and the trill of caged birds, lived Odalie in
convent-like seclusion. Monsieur le Juge was determined no hawk
should break through the cage and steal his dove; and so, though
there was no mother, a stern duenna aunt kept faithful watch.
Alas for the precautions of la Tante! Bright eyes that search for
other bright eyes in which lurks the spirit of youth and mischief
are ever on the look-out, even in church. Dutifully was Odalie
marched to the Cathedral every Sunday to mass, and Tante Louise,
nodding devoutly over her beads, could not see the blushes and
glances full of meaning, a whole code of signals as it were, that
passed between Odalie and Pierre, the impecunious young clerk in
the courtroom.
Odalie loved, perhaps, because there was not much else to do.
When one is shut up in a great French house with a grim sleepy
tante and no companions of one's own age, life becomes a dull
thing, and one is ready for any new sensation, particularly if in
the veins there bounds the tempestuous Spanish-French blood that
Monsieur le Juge boasted of. So Odalie hugged the image of her
Pierre during the week days, and played tremulous little
love-songs to it in the twilight when la Tante dozed over her
devotion book, and on Sundays at mass there were glances and
blushes, and mayhap, at some especially remembered time, the
touch of finger-tips at the holy-water font, while la Tante
dropped her last genuflexion.
Then came the Carnival time, and one little heart beat faster, as
the gray house on Royal Street hung out its many-hued flags, and
draped its grim front with glowing colours. It was to be a time
of joy and relaxation, when every one could go abroad, and in the
crowds one could speak to whom one chose. Unconscious plans
formulated, and the petite Odalie was quite happy as the time
drew near.
"Only think, Tante Louise," she would cry, "what a happy time it
is to be!"
But Tante Louise only grumbled, as was her wont.
It was Mardi Gras day at last, and early through her window
Odalie could hear the jingle of folly bells on the maskers'
costumes, the tinkle of music, and the echoing strains of songs.
Up to her ears there floated the laughter of the older maskers,
and the screams of the little children frightened at their own
images under the mask and domino. What a hurry to be out and in
the motley merry throng, to be pacing Royal Street to Canal
Street, where was life and the world!
They were tired eyes with which Odalie looked at the gay pageant
at last, tired with watching throng after throng of maskers, of
the unmasked, of peering into the cartsful of singing minstrels,
into carriages of revellers, hoping for a glimpse of Pierre the
devout. The allegorical carts rumbling by with their important
red-clothed horses were beginning to lose charm, the disguises
showed tawdry, even the gay-hued flags fluttered sadly to Odalie.
Mardi Gras was a tiresome day, after all, she sighed, and Tante
Louise agreed with her for once.
Six o'clock had come, the hour when all masks must be removed.
The long red rays of the setting sun glinted athwart the
many-hued costumes of the revellers trooping unmasked homeward to
rest for the night's last mad frolic.
Down Toulouse Street there came the merriest throng of all.
Young men and women in dainty, fairy-like garb, dancers, and
dresses of the picturesque Empire, a butterfly or two and a dame
here and there with powdered hair and graces of olden time.
Singing with unmasked faces, they danced toward Tante Louise and
Odalie. She stood with eyes lustrous and tear-heavy, for there
in the front was Pierre, Pierre the faithless, his arms about the
slender waist of a butterfly, whose tinselled powdered hair
floated across the lace ruffles of his Empire coat.
"Pierre!" cried Odalie, softly. No one heard, for it was a mere
faint breath and fell unheeded. Instead the laughing throng
pelted her with flowers and candy and went their way, and even
Pierre did not see.
You see, when one is shut up in the grim walls of a Royal Street
house, with no one but a Tante Louise and a grim judge, how is
one to learn that in this world there are faithless ones who may
glance tenderly into one's eyes at mass and pass the holy water
on caressing fingers without being madly in love? There was no
one to tell Odalie, so she sat at home in the dull first days of
Lent, and nursed her dear dead love, and mourned as women have
done from time immemorial over the faithlessness of man. And
when one day she asked that she might go back to the Ursulines'
convent where her childish days were spent, only to go this time
as a nun, Monsieur le Juge and Tante Louise thought it quite the
proper and convenient thing to do; for how were they to know the
secret of that Mardi Gras day?
-THE END-
Alice Dunbar's short story: Odalie
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