PÈRE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company Copyright, 1873, 1885, and 1901 Near the Levée, and not far from the old French Cathedral in the Placed'Armes, at New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, thirty feet in height, spreading its broad leaves in the alien air as hardily as if its sinuousroots were sucking strength from their native earth. Sir Charles Lyell, in his Second Visit to the United States, mentionsthis exotic: "The tree is seventy or eighty years old; for Père Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, who died about twenty years ago, told Mr. Bringier that he planted it himself, when he was young. In his will heprovided that they who succeeded to this lot of ground should forfeit itif they cut down the palm. " Wishing to learn something of Père Antoine's history, Sir Charles Lyellmade inquiries among the ancient créole inhabitants of the faubourg. That the old priest, in his last days, became very much emaciated, thathe walked about the streets like a mummy, that he gradually dried up, and finally blew away, was the meagre and unsatisfactory result of thetourist's investigations. This is all that is generally told of PèreAntoine. In the summer of 1861, while New Orleans was yet occupied bythe Confederate forces, I met at Alexandria, in Virginia, a lady fromLouisiana--Miss Blondeau by name--who gave me the substance of thefollowing legend touching Père Antoine and his wonderful date-palm. Ifit should appear tame to the reader, it will be because I am not habitedin a black ribbed-silk dress, with a strip of point-lace around mythroat, like Miss Blondeau; it will be because I lack her eyes and lipsand Southern music to tell it with. When Père Antoine was a very young man, he had a friend whom he lovedas he loved his life. Emile Jardin returned his passion, and the two, on account of their friendship, became the marvel of the city where theydwelt. One was never seen without the other; for they studied, walked, ate, and slept together. Thus began Miss Blondeau, with the air of Fiammetta telling herprettiest story to the Florentines in the garden of Boccaccio. Antoine and Emile were preparing to enter the Church; indeed, they hadtaken the preliminary steps, when a circumstance occurred which changedthe color of their lives. A foreign lady, from some nameless island inthe Pacific, had a few months before moved into their neighborhood. Thelady died suddenly, leaving a girl of sixteen or seventeen, entirelyfriendless and unprovided for. The young men had been kind to the womanduring her illness, and at her death--melting with pity at the forlornsituation of Anglice, the daughter--swore between themselves to love andwatch over her as if she were their sister. Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty that made other women seem tamebeside her; and in the course of time the young men found themselvesregarding their ward not so much like brothers as at first. In brief, they found themselves in love with her. They struggled with their hopeless passion month after month, neitherbetraying his secret to the other; for the austere orders which theywere about to assume precluded the idea of love and marriage. Until thenthey had dwelt in the calm air of religious meditations, unmovedexcept by that pious fervor which in other ages taught men to brave thetortures of the rack and to smile amid the flames. But a blonde girl, with great eyes and a voice like the soft notes of a vesper hymn, hadcome in between them and their ascetic dreams of heaven. The ties thathad bound the young men together snapped silently one by one. At lasteach read in the pale face of the other the story of his own despair. And she? If Anglice shared their trouble, her face told no story. It waslike the face of a saint on a cathedral window. Once, however, as shecame suddenly upon the two men and overheard words that seemed to burnlike fire on the lip of the speaker, her eyes grew luminous for aninstant. Then she passed on, her face as immobile as before in itssetting of wavy gold hair. "Entre or et roux Dieu fit ses longs cheveux. " One night Emile and Anglice were missing. They had flown--but whither, nobody knew, and nobody, save Antoine, cared. It was a heavy blow toAntoine--for he had himself half resolved to confess his love to Angliceand urge her to fly with him. A strip of paper slipped from a volume on Antoine's prie-dieu, andfluttered to his feet. "_Do not be angry, _" said the bit of paper, piteously; "_forgive us, forwe love_. " (Par-donnez-nous, car nous aimons. ) Three years went by wearily enough. Antoine had entered the Church, andwas already looked upon as a rising man; but his face was pale and hisheart leaden, for there was no sweetness in life for him. Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered with outlandishpostmarks, was brought to the young priest--a letter from Anglice. Shewas dying;--would he forgive her? Emile, the year previous, had fallen avictim to the fever that raged on the island; and their child, Anglice, was likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged Antoine to takecharge of the child until she was old enough to enter the convent of theSacré-Cour. The epistle was finished hastily by another hand, informingAntoine of Madame Jardin's death; it also told him that Anglice had beenplaced on board a vessel shortly to leave the island for some Westernport. The letter, delayed by storm and shipwreck, was hardly read and weptover when little Anglice arrived. On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy and surprise--she was solike the woman he had worshipped. The passion that had been crowded down in his heart broke out andlavished its rich-ness on this child, who was to him not only theAnglice of years ago, but his friend Emile Jardin also. Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of her mother--the bending, willowy form, the rich tint of skin, the large tropical eyes, that hadalmost made Antoine's sacred robes a mockery to him. For a month or two Anglice was wildly unhappy in her new home. Shetalked continually of the bright country where she was born, the fruitsand flowers and blue skies, the tall, fan-like trees, and the streamsthat went murmuring through them to the sea. Antoine could not pacifyher. By and by she ceased to weep, and went about the cottage in a weary, disconsolate way that cut Antoine to the heart. A long-tailed paroquet, which she had brought with her in the ship, walked solemnly behind herfrom room to room, mutely pining, it seemed, for those heavy orient airsthat used to ruffle its brilliant plumage. Before the year ended, he noticed that the ruddy tinge had faded fromher cheek, that her eyes had grown languid, and her slight figure morewillowy than ever. A physician was consulted. He could discover nothing wrong with thechild, except this fading and drooping. He failed to account for that. It was some vague disease of the mind, he said, beyond his skill. So Anglice faded day after day. She seldom left the room now. At lastAntoine could not shut out the fact that the child was passing away. Hehad learned to love her so! "Dear heart, " he said once, "what is't ails thee?" "Nothing, mon père, " for so she called him. The winter passed, the balmy spring had come with its magnolia bloomsand orange blossoms, and Anglice seemed to revive. In her small bamboochair, on the porch, she swayed to and fro in the fragrant breeze, witha peculiar undulating motion, like a graceful tree. At times something seemed to weigh upon her mind. Antoine observed it, and waited. Finally she spoke. "Near our house, " said little Anglice--"near our house, on the island, the palm-trees are waving under the blue sky. Oh, how beautiful! I seemto lie beneath them all day long. I am very, very happy. I yearned forthem so much that I grew ill--don't you think it was so, mon père?" "Hélas, yes!" exclaimed Antoine, suddenly. "Let us hasten to thosepleasant islands where the palms are waving. " Anglice smiled. "I am going there, mon père. " A week from that evening the wax candles burned at her feet andforehead, lighting her on the journey. All was over. Now was Antoine's heart empty. Death, like another Emile, had stolen his new Anglice. He had nothing to do but to lay the blightedflower away. Père Antoine made a shallow grave in his garden, and heaped the freshbrown mould over his idol. In the tranquil spring evenings, the priest was seen sitting by themound, his finger closed in the unread breviary. The summer broke on that sunny land; and in the cool morning twilight, and after nightfall, Antoine lingered by the grave. He could never bewith it enough. One morning he observed a delicate stem, with two curiously shapedemerald leaves, springing up from the centre of the mound. At first hemerely noticed it casually; but presently the plant grew so tall, and was so strangely unlike anything he had ever seen before, that heexamined it with care. How straight and graceful and exquisite it was! When it swung to and frowith the summer wind, in the twilight, it seemed to Antoine as if littleAnglice were standing there in the garden. The days stole by, and Antoine tended the fragile shoot, wondering whatmanner of blossom it would unfold, white, or scarlet, or golden. OneSunday, a stranger, with a bronzed, weather-beaten face like a sailor's, leaned over the garden rail, and said to him, "What a fine young date-palm you have there, sir!" "Mon Dieu!" cried Père Antoine starting, "and is it a palm?" "Yes, indeed, " returned the man. "I did n't reckon the tree wouldflourish in this latitude. " "Ah, mon Dieu!" was all the priest could say aloud; but he murmured tohimself, "Bon Dieu, vous m'avez donné cela!" If Père Antoine loved the tree before, he worshipped it now. He wateredit, and nurtured it, and could have clasped it in his arms. Here wereEmile and Anglice and the child, all in one! The years glided away, and the date-palm and the priest grewtogether--only one became vigorous and the other feeble. Père Antoinehad long passed the meridian of life. The tree was in its youth. It nolonger stood in an isolated garden; for pretentious brick and stuccohouses had clustered about Antoine's cottage. They looked down scowlingon the humble thatched roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd himoff his land. But he clung to it like lichen and refused to sell. Speculators piled gold on his doorsteps, and he laughed at them. Sometimes he was hungry, and cold, and thinly clad; but he laughed nonethe less. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" said the old priest's smile. Père Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but he could situnder the pliant, caressing leaves of his palm, loving it like an Arab;and there he sat till the grimmest of speculators came to him. But evenin death Père Antoine was faithful to his trust. The owner of that land loses it if he harm the date-tree. And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a beautiful, dreamystranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy to the eye, theincense of whose breath makes the air enamored. May the hand wither thattouches her ungently! "_Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice_, " said Miss Blondeautenderly.