Jean at the beginning of her first mild reproaches sought gently to argue with her. He tried to convince her of the charm of the old ways, to prove to her that maximum happiness for them would come not with larger resources that created new anxieties but only in the easygoing undisturbed lethargy of his old life.
“What difference does it make if André or Raoul or Emile have finer carriages than we?—have more money in the bank?—does that mean they are happier than we? No—no—chère Marie! Happiness cannot be bought with dollars—look at the Americans north of Canal Street and you’ll see I am right. They scramble and fight and scheme to gain a few dollars and when they have them what do they do? They fight and scramble and scheme for more!”
At the outset she let the discussion end there. But soon she began trying to point out that such a philosophy denoted only laziness—even absurdity. Jean, in turn, met her growing irritation with silence accompanied by a satisfied smile such as a parent would bestow on a child’s foolish remarks. It seemed to say to her: “Silly woman, you are so much in error, it’s useless even to discuss the matter with you—you couldn’t understand if you tried.”
Had Jean sought the manner which most surely would infuriate Mary, he could have found none so efficacious as this. Slowly at first, then with increasing vigour, she argued, pleaded with him, scorned or ridiculed his easygoing ways. She found him adamant and her irritation rapidly changed to excoriation. Morning, noon and night she nagged him. She wrote her father, who had invested heavily in an industrial insurance company operated by Negroes in Atlanta. His judgment vindicated, Mr. Robertson used his influence, and Jean received a flattering offer to associate himself with the Atlanta company. As a belated wedding present Mr. Robertson offered them a home in Atlanta, furnished and ready for immediate occupancy.
Then the real struggle began. Mary might not have succeeded even though easygoing Jean was becoming almost frantic at her eternal nagging. He yet loved her and she gave him no cause for divorce, even if such a way out of his dilemma had ever occurred to him, that would have been approved by the Catholic Church.
Two things began to make him weaken. The first of these and of slighter influence was that Mary’s darkness of skin prevented him from eating at the old restaurants, Antoine’s, Delatoire’s, Mme. Begue’s. He and Margot and Mimi had often gone there in the old days and without trouble though the proprietors and waiters and the regular patrons knew of his Negro blood. He and Mary had gone once or twice until slight but unmistakable hints had been given him that he was welcome but his wife—“We are most sorry but our American guests, on whose continued patronage we are largely dependent, object to une femme de couleur.”
There were stormy, very stormy scenes. Jean, his white hair and waxed moustache and goatee bristling, his face an apoplectic crimson, refused to listen to the profuse apologies, strode, shoulders back, head high in the air, from the places, vowing “never again to darken your doors, sir!” This vow he kept and the old places knew him no more.
Of greater moment, even, were the changes in the Creole quarter. The old families were dying off, poverty was forcing others to sell their homes. One by one the old houses were razed by boisterous, unfeeling house-wreckers and in their places were going up cheap, viciously plain and garishly ornate apartment houses. One by one the old places disappeared. Graceful lines of sloping roofs were replaced by harshly severe brick or wooden eaves, leaded glass dim with years was ruthlessly removed for plain sashes turned out by thousands by unimaginative factory hands, newel posts of carved brass and delicate balustrades of ancient mahogany were thrown away and in their stead came cheap pine ones, all carved alike.
The new houses were filled by new people, as cheap and noisy and brazen as their homes. Tenants of six months thought themselves old residents and, compared to their neighbours, they were. But to Jean and his diminishing acquaintances of an older day, they were noisily vulgar aliens and barbarians. Strident, unpleasant voices rose in ever increasing numbers and volume so that no longer could one enjoy the stroll of an evening through the once quiet streets.
“It can’t be worse even in Atlanta,” said Jean to Mimi sorrowfully one day. “I can’t stand to see the changes any longer—it’s too much like watching at the bedside of a dearly loved one who rapidly wastes away from a loathsome disease.”
Then did Mimi know they would someday soon leave New Orleans never to return. The prospect at times frightened her—at times, with the venturesomeness of eager youth, she looked forward to new faces, new scenes, new experiences. …
“Good morning, Mme. Daquin,” was Mimi’s greeting to her stepmother as she entered the dining-room and slipped into her place at the table.
“Morning? It’s nearer afternoon,” acidulously replied Mme. Daquin. Jean winced and looked appealingly at Mimi.
“You’re as shiftless and slow as your father,” continued Mary. “You know we’ll be busy as can be with packing all this junk your father insists we take to Atlanta—”
“Junk?” Mimi inquired with suspicious sweetness.
“That’s what I said and that’s what I mean. Junk! J‑u‑n‑k! I’m going to get rid of some of this worn-out fantastic stuff and get me some nice fresh oak. Mahogany’s too gloomy and funeral-like.”
“I suppose you’d like to throw away that bed you sleep in—over two hundred years old and brought from France—and get a nice, shiny brass one?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do—”
“You’ll do nothing—” burst out Mimi, but at a sign from Jean she stopped talking. The meal was finished in silence. Mary, her broad face, deep brown of colour
