‘’Tis the land of the East, ’tis the clime of the sun,
Can he smile on the deeds that his children have done?’
… Capital!” again roared Mr. Lafitte, rubbing his gleeful hands, “Italy the land of the East! That’s a regular blunderbuss of a quotation, and therefore in exquisite keeping. Oh, upon my soul, that comes in finely! But fire away, Lafitte, you delicious dog. Let’s see now… What makes the criminality of this shameful woman’s conduct more inexcusable and inexplicable is the fact that she had lived for years in the most perfect harmony with her amiable and estimable husband, receiving from him the most unvarying tenderness, and to the eye of every person most familiar with their domestic life, evidently the happiest of the happy. We have it from the most reliable sources that no cloud ever appeared to mar the horizon of their home, and among their intimate friends, the courtesy and almost uxorious tenderness of his demeanor toward her, was absolutely proverbial. But why seek to trace the causes of this base and ungrateful treachery? Alas! since Eve listened to the temptings of the serpent, how many of the sex have sacrificed their conjugal Eden for the bleak wilderness of illicit love! Frailty, thy name is woman!”…
Mr. Lafitte stopped, and with another ptchih, went off into a fit of infernal merriment, wagging his head from side to side in the frenzy of his glee.
“That’s the way they do it!” he exclaimed, resuming. “Lord, I ought to be an editor! I was cut out for a high-pressure moral editor of the purest water! The blasted idiots—that’s the way they roll it out whenever one of these inexcusable and inexplicable cases of shameful criminality on the woman’s side, and heavenly love and tenderness on the man’s side, or vice versâ, come to their confounded eyes! The owls—the bats—the insufferable fraternity of asses! Lord, Lord! how often I’ve laughed till I ached over their moral gabble, thinking all the while of the sweet little hell the women or the men they were pitching into had cut away from, and which the witless ninnies hadn’t brains enough to fancy! And then their tender sympathy to the bereaved one—hold on—let me fancy how they’ll touch me off?… We proffer to the bereaved husband, in his sad affliction, our tenderest sympathy, and may God who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, give him strength to bear this terrible trial which has thus desolated the sanctuary of his lonely and forsaken home … and so forth, and so forth, and so forth. Yes, that’s the way they’ll pour the oil of healing into my aching wounds! Oh, but it’ll be touching. And then society—what sympathy I’ll have from society. I must be in New Orleans a few weeks to enjoy my affliction. How melancholy I’ll look—how interesting! And all the old ladies flocking around me with such doleful and tender faces, and oh, Mr. Lafitte, we feel so sorry for you, and oh, Mr. Lafitte, we read that beautiful article in the paper this morning, and it was so sweet and so noble and so high-toned, and so this, that, and the other. And the young ladies ogling me with melancholy eyes, and whispering to each other, oh, isn’t he handsome, and oh, isn’t he interesting, and oh, doesn’t he bear it beautifully, and how much did you say he was worth?—and dying to become Mrs. Lafitte, number two, every fool of them. And then the Friends of Virtue, men and women, young and old, in solid column, pitching into Josephine, and scandalizing her sky-high, and raking up everything she ever said or did, and twisting it against her. Oh, but it will be sweet! Sweeter than to have Raynal’s blood on my hands—the dog! Then when the grand hallali begins to die out, I’ll apply for my divorce, and revive it all once more. Ah, delicious! And then by and by, perhaps, I’ll marry again—some queen of a girl dead in love with the rich Mr. Lafitte, the handsome Mr. Lafitte, the gentle and courteous Mr. Lafitte, with the steel claw in the velvet paw. Ah! and if Fatima isn’t docile, Bluebeard will take her into the Blue Chamber where Josephine had a little private experience. Good, good! Lafitte, you gay dog, you are positively witty!”
Wagging his wicked head to himself, he walked slowly up and down, laughing softly and smoothly, with his face bent toward the carpet. He stopped his walk in a minute or two, and the smile on his visage faded slowly into a look of sullen and evil moodiness.
“The revenge is sweet,” he muttered, “but there is gall in it. She has escaped from her hell with me, and she will be happy with Raynal. Yes, there in that lovely Italy, far away from all the howls of the slandering curs, she will be happy with Raynal. For he loves her, and they are both young still, and she is beautiful, and will be fond and sweet, and he is tender to women, and manly—bah! I hate him!”
He walked up and down in silence for a few minutes, with an evil and moody face, and finally paused with his gloomy eyes fixed on vacancy.
“People will rave at them,” he muttered, “but what matter is it what people will say! Fools! Look at it. What was she? The prey of my lust—the victim of my cruelty. God! I will not lie to myself whoever else I lie to! That is just what she was. I won her, a young, inexperienced, innocent girl—she lived with me as she did, and they call it holy matrimony. She flies now from lust and cruelty to love and tenderness, and they call it adultery. Oh, world, world, world! Should I have been what I am, if you had not been what you are! Damn you! you have ruined me!—from my very cradle you have ruined me! I hate you—I despise you—I have grown up hating and despising you—soured, and corrupted, and depraved by you—and I shall be glad when this wretched candle of a life goes out in the blackness of darkness forever. Well, well! Be happy, Josephine, with your Raynal. I hate you both, and what I can do to harm you I will.”
He sat down near the table, and leaned his head on his hand. As he did so, a tap came to the door.