My last minute was not inscribed, though, for that day in the book of destiny. The train pulled itself together, and, half leaping and half rolling along, we arrived on the other side of the water. Behind us we heard a terrible noise, a column of water falling back like a huge sheaf. The bridge had given way! For more than a week the trains from the east and the north could not run over this route.
I left the money to our brave engine-driver, but my conscience was by no means tranquil, and for a long time my sleep was disturbed by the most frightful nightmares; and when any of the artistes spoke to me of their child, their mother, or their husband, whom they longed to see once more, I felt myself turn pale; a thrill of deep emotion went through me, and I had the deepest pity for my own self.
When getting out of the train I was more dead than alive from retrospective emotion. I had to submit to receiving a most friendly though fatiguing deputation of my compatriots. Then, loaded with flowers, I climbed into the carriage that was to take me to the hotel. The roads were rivers, and we were on an elevated spot. The lower part of the city, the coachman explained to us in French, with a strong Marseilles accent, was inundated up to the tops of the houses. Hundreds of negroes had been drowned. “Ah, bagasse!” he cried, as he whipped up his horses.
At that period the hotels in New Orleans were squalid—dirty, uncomfortable, black with cockroaches, and as soon as the candles were lighted the bedrooms became filled with large mosquitoes that buzzed round and fell on one’s shoulder, sticking in one’s hair. Oh, I shudder still when I think of it!
At the same time as our company, there was at New Orleans an opera company, the “star” of which was a charming woman, Emilie Ambre, who at one time came very near being Queen of Holland. The country was poor, like all the other American districts where the French were to be found preponderating.
The opera did very poor business, and we did not do excellently either. Six performances would have been ample in that city: we gave eight.
Nevertheless, my sojourn pleased me immensely.
An infinite charm was evolved from it. All these people, so different, black and white, had smiling faces. All the women were graceful. The shops were attractive from the cheerfulness of their windows. The open-air traders under the arcades challenged one another with joyful flashes of wit. The sun, however, did not show itself once. But these people had the sun within themselves.
I could not understand why boats were not used. The horses had water up to their hams, and it would have been impossible even to get into a carriage if the pavements had not been a metre high and occasionally more.
Floods being as frequent as the years, it would be of no use to think of banking up the river or arm of the sea. But circulation was made easy by the high pavements and small movable bridges. The dark children amused themselves catching cray-fish in the streams. (Where did they come from?) And they sold them to passers-by.