We did mean to go again, but so many striking exteriors and interiors caught the eager eye of the maiden with the easel that we did not have time. The very next day that roving eye stole a peep into another enchanting corridor. Behold a wrecked fountain, long out of commission, with a dilapidated angel or sylph, or armless figure of some kind, clinging to it. There was another artistic temptation, but when she saw a pretty black-eyed girl washing clothes and playing at the same time with a saucy parrot it was simply irresistible. The girl was delighted to pose beside the fountain with Jacko on her finger. Her voluble mamma, en blouse volante, stood on the upper gallery and watched the work and commented, real Creole fashion. It was not a satisfactory bit of painting, but the girl was enraptured to accept it and could not have expressed greater appreciation if it had been a life-size portrait in a gilt frame.
Mamma would be hospitable, would have us see the faded old house, which had been a grand mansion in its day. We saw evidences of that in the very large rooms, the tarnished gilding, and the ample passages and old boudoirs. I think the blouse volante woman must have had chambres garnies, but we saw no evidence of that. She had the daughter play on the one bit of furniture that amounted to anything, the fine piano, which she did quite charmingly. From the rear gallery we could see the top of the Opera House, and she told us they were abonnées, “so her daughter could hear the best music.” This was a glimpse of the old Creole life that I was glad my daughter should have.
Wandering down, what to her was “fascinating” St. Anne Street, behold a narrow alleyway, revealing in the rear sunlight a cistern, only a cistern, but that atmospheric effect was alluring. Up went the easel, out came the color box. The street was absolutely deserted, and we felt quite secure of an uninterrupted half hour; but a swarm of gamins came, apparently from the bowels of the earth, and surrounded us. At a critical moment a woman appeared, also from nowhere, and began to sweep diligently the little half-dark alley. She was transferred to the sketch before she knew what was “going on.” “Mais gar! c’est Pauline, oui, c’est Pauline même,” the little imps declared, as they peered over the artist’s shoulder and saw the figure. That final touch broke all attempts at decorum, and we begged a passing man with a walking cane to put the mob to flight.
“A Queer House Opposite.”
What a delightful reminder of that visit to New Orleans those unfinished sketches are to us now, a quarter of a century after! The one I like best of all hangs in my own room and brings delightfully to mind the day we went way down Chartres Street to the archbishop’s palace. I am not Catholic, and do not remember if it was the beginning or ending of Lent, but a procession of all classes and conditions of the faithful, with all classes and conditions of receptacles, were filing in and out the gateway, getting their annual supply of eau bénite. The lame sacristan who dipped out the holy water from pails into the bottles and mugs became so interested in a sketch my daughter was making, and so busy with a rod driving away inquisitive urchins, that he tired of being constantly interrupted by the eau bénite crowd, so he shut the door of his room. “Trop tard, c’est fini,” he said to some belated, disappointed applicants.
Elise sat inside the gateway and sketched a queer house opposite, gable end to the street, and a balcony way high up that looked like a bird cage hanging from a window, a tiny balcony draped in blooming vines. The sacristan was disappointed that she did not attempt the old convent building, but the perspective from the street did not appeal to the artist, as did that one-sided building that seemed to have turned its back to the street.
When we came in after each day’s delightful tramp my dear Creole friend looked over the sketches and told us of places we must not fail to visit—places she and I knew so well, and neither of us had seen for many, many years.