The Bayou St. John slowly makes its dark-hued way through reedsand rushes, high banks and flat slopes, until it casts itself intothe turbulent bosom of Lake Pontchartrain. It is dark, like thepassionate women of Egypt; placid, like their broad brows; deep,silent, like their souls. Within its bosom are hidden romances andstories, such as were sung by minstrels of old. From the source tothe mouth is not far distant, visibly speaking, but in the life ofthe bayou a hundred heart-miles could scarce measure it. Just whereit winds about the northwest of the city are some of its mostbeautiful bits, orange groves on one side, and quaint old Spanishgardens on the other. Who cares that the bridges are modern, andthat here and there pert boat-houses rear their prim heads? It isthe bayou, even though it be invaded with the ruthless vandalism ofthe improving idea, and can a boat-house kill the beauty of amoss-grown centurion of an oak with a history as old as the city?Can an iron bridge with tarantula piers detract from the song of amocking-bird in a fragrant orange grove? We know that farther out,past the Confederate Soldiers' Home,--that rose-embowered, ramblingplace of gray-coated, white-haired old men with broken hearts for alost cause,--it flows, unimpeded by the faintest conception of man,and we love it all the more that, like the Priestess of Isis, it iscalm-browed, even in indignity. To its banks at the end of Moss Street, one day there came a manand a maiden. They were both tall and lithe and slender, with theagility of youth and fire. He was the final concentration of theessence of Spanish passion filtered into an American frame; she, arepressed Southern exotic, trying to fit itself into the niches ofa modern civilisation. Truly, a fitting couple to seek the bayoubanks. They climbed the levee that stretched a feeble check to watersthat seldom rise, and on the other side of the embankment, at thebrink of the river, she sat on a log, and impatiently pulled offthe little cap she wore. The skies were gray, heavy, overcast, withan occasional wind-rift in the clouds that only revealed new depthsof grayness behind; the tideless waters murmured a faint rippleagainst the logs and jutting beams of the breakwater, and wereanswered by the crescendo wail of the dried reeds on the otherbank,--reeds that rustled and moaned among themselves for thegolden days of summer sunshine. He stood up, his dark form a slender silhouette against the sky;she looked upward from her log, and their eyes met with anexquisite shock of recognising understanding; dark eyes into darkeyes, Iberian fire into Iberian fire, soul unto soul: it wasenough. He sat down and took her into his arms, and in the eeriemurmur of the storm coming they talked of the future. "And then I hope to go to Italy or France. It is only there,beneath those far Southern skies, that I could ever hope to attainto anything that the soul within me says I can. I have wasted somuch time in the mere struggle for bread, while the powers of ahigher calling have clamoured for recognition and expression. Iwill go some day and redeem myself." She was silent a moment, watching with half-closed lids adejected-looking hunter on the other bank, and a lean dog whotrailed through the reeds behind him with drooping tail. Then sheasked: "And I--what will become of me?"
"You, Athanasia? There is a great future before you, littlewoman, and I and my love can only mar it. Try to forget me and goyour way. I am only the epitome of unhappiness andill-success." But she laughed and would have none of it. Will you ever forget that day, Athanasia? How the little gamins,Creole throughout, came half shyly near the log, fishing, andexchanging furtive whispers and half-concealed glances at thesilent couple. Their angling was rewarded only by a little blackwater-moccasin that wriggled and forked its venomous red tongue inan attempt to exercise its death-dealing prerogative. ThisAthanasia insisted must go back into its native black waters, andpaid the price the boys asked that it might enjoy its freedom. Thegamins laughed and chattered in their soft patois; the Don smiledtenderly upon Athanasia, and she durst not look at the reeds as shetalked, lest their crescendo sadness yield a foreboding. Just thena wee girl appeared, clad in a multi-hued garment, evidently asister to the small fishermen. Her keen black eyes set in a duskyface glanced sharply and suspiciously at the group as she clamberedover the wet embankment, and it seemed the drizzling mist grewcolder, the sobbing wind more pronounced in its prophetic wail.Athanasia rose suddenly. "Let us go," she said; "the eternalfeminine has spoiled it all." The bayou flows as calmly, as darkly, as full of hidden passionsas ever. On a night years after, the moon was shining upon it witha silvery tenderness that seemed brighter, more caressinglylingering than anywhere within the old city. Behind, there rose thespires and towers; before, only the reeds, green now, and soft intheir rustlings and whisperings for the future. False reeds! Theytell themselves of their happiness to be, and it all ends in drystalks and drizzling skies. The mocking-bird in the fragrant orangegrove sends out his night song, and blends it with the cricket'schirp, as the blossoms of orange and magnolia mingle their perfumewith the earthy smell of a summer rain just blown over. Perfect inits stillness, absolute in its beauty, tenderly healing in itssuggestion of peace, the night in its clear-lighted, cloudlesssweetness enfolds Athanasia, as she stands on the levee and gazesdown at the old log, now almost hidden in the luxuriant grass. "It was the eternal feminine that spoiled our dream that day asit spoiled the after life, was it not?" But the Bayou St. John did not answer. It merely gathered intoits silent bosom another brokenhearted romance, and floweddispassionately on its way.