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For it now became for the moment the foremost necessity of his life to show, to that minute fraction of the earth's population which our terror misnames "the world," that a man may leap forth hatless and bleeding from the house of a New Orleans quadroon into the open street and yet be pure white within. Would it answer to tell the truth?
The traveller in the south must often have remarked that peculiar air of refinement, that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many cases to be a particular gift to the quadroon and mulatto women. These natural graces in the quadroon are often united with beauty of the most dazzling kind, and in almost every case with a personal appearance prepossessing and agreeable.
Now and then, in the days when slavery still existed in the Southern States of America, mulatto and quadroon slaves might have been found who in point of appearance and accomplishments were scarcely different from their owners. But there was always a taint, or what was reckoned as a taint, of negro blood in the men and women so situated.
He could feel for Clotel, for he, like her, had been separated from near and dear relatives, and often tried to console the poor woman. One day the quadroon observed to him that her hair was growing out again. "Yes," replied William, "you look a good deal like a man with your short hair." "Oh," rejoined she, "I have often been told that I would make a better looking man than a woman.
But he had left behind him a dearer treasure; for there runs through all his eccentric narrative a single thread of pure romance, in his love for his beautiful quadroon wife and his only son. Within a month after his arrival in the colony, our susceptible ensign first saw Joanna, a slave-girl of fifteen, at the house of an intimate friend.
I believe a quadroon and white make the mustee or one-eighth black, and the mustee and white the mustafina, or one-sixteenth black. After that, they are whitewashed, and considered as Europeans.
Crawford, a teller in one of the banks, had just been married, and wanted a maid-servant for his wife; and passing through the market in the early part of the day, was pleased with the young slave's appearance and purchased her, and in his dwelling the quadroon found a much better home than often falls to the lot of a slave sold in the New Orleans market.
The youngsters came tumbling up the steps, the quadroon following at the respectful distance which they required her to observe. Mrs. Pontellier made them carry her paints and things into the house. She sought to detain them for a little talk and some pleasantry. But they were greatly in earnest. They had only come to investigate the contents of the bonbon box.
But at the glance he experienced a strange repulsion and started, as if awakening from a fevered sleep, abruptly stopping in the dance, his arm falling to his side. The girl looked at him half-shyly, half-boldly, and the very beauty of her eyes the deep, lustrous orbs of a quadroon smote him mockingly.
"Your mistress's quadroon maid, who came to my brother this morning, and who has made her deposition in due form." "And who is as false as hell," I cried out passionately, "in every word she says against my mistress and against me." "I hope no, I will go further, and say I believe she is false," said Mr. Philip. "But her perjury must be proved, and the necessary examination must take place.
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