Part 29 (1/2)
”My-de'-seh, yes. Yet you see I am, even this moment, forgetting we are not a separate people. Yes, our Creole 'we' does damage, and our Creole 'you' does more. I a.s.sure you, sir, I try hard to get my people to understand that it is time to stop calling those who come and add themselves to the community, aliens, interlopers, invaders. That is what I hear my cousins, 'Polyte and Sylvestre, in the heat of discussion, called you the other evening; is it so?”
”I brought it upon myself,” said Frowenfeld. ”I brought it upon myself.”
”Ah!” interrupted M. Grandissime, with a broad smile, ”excuse me--I am fully prepared to believe it. But the charge is a false one. I told them so. My-de'-seh--I know that a citizen of the United States in the United States has a right to become, and to be called, under the laws governing the case, a Louisianian, a Vermonter, or a Virginian, as it may suit his whim; and even if he should be found dishonest or dangerous, he has a right to be treated just exactly as we treat the knaves and ruffians who are native born! Every discreet man must admit that.”
”But if they do not enforce it, Mr. Grandissime,” quickly responded the sore apothecary, ”if they continually forget it--if one must surrender himself to the errors and crimes of the community as he finds it--”
The Creole uttered a low laugh.
”Party differences, Mr. Frowenfeld; they have them in all countries.”
”So your cousins said,” said Frowenfeld.
”And how did you answer them?”
”Offensively,” said the apothecary, with sincere mortification.
”Oh! that was easy,” replied the other, amusedly; ”but how?”
”I said that, having here only such party differences as are common elsewhere, we do not behave as they elsewhere do; that in most civilized countries the immigrant is welcome, but here he is not. I am afraid I have not learned the art of courteous debate,” said Frowenfeld, with a smile of apology.
”'Tis a great art,” said the Creole, quietly, stroking his horse's neck.
”I suppose my cousins denied your statement with indignation, eh?”
”Yes; they said the honest immigrant is always welcome.”
”Well, do you not find that true?”
”But, Mr. Grandissime, that is requiring the immigrant to prove his innocence!” Frowenfeld spoke from the heart. ”And even the honest immigrant is welcome only when he leaves his peculiar opinions behind him. Is that right, sir?”
The Creole smiled at Frowenfeld's heat.
”My-de'-seh, my cousins complain that you advocate measures fatal to the prevailing order of society.”
”But,” replied the unyielding Frowenfeld, turning redder than ever, ”that is the very thing that American liberty gives me the right--peaceably--to do! Here is a structure of society defective, dangerous, erected on views of human relations which the world is abandoning as false; yet the immigrant's welcome is modified with the warning not to touch these false foundations with one of his fingers.”
”Did you tell my cousins the foundations of society here are false?”
”I regret to say I did, very abruptly. I told them they were privately aware of the fact.”
”You may say,” said the ever-amiable Creole, ”that you allowed debate to run into controversy, eh?”
Frowenfeld was silent; he compared the gentleness of this Creole's rebukes with the asperity of his advocacy of right, and felt humiliated.
But M. Grandissime spoke with a rallying smile.
”Mr. Frowenfeld, you never make pills with eight corners eh?”
”No, sir.” The apothecary smiled.
”No, you make them round; cannot you make your doctrines the same way?