Crescent City Read Online Free PDF

across the world, it was miraculous, too, but in a different way. His eyes were alert. Nothing escaped him. He had great expectations.
    Having been told that French was the spoken language in New Orleans, he had immediately set himself and his sister to learning it. Among the small company of passengers—a pair of Paris bankers with their fashionable, vivacious wives, and a group of nuns on their way to a convent in New Orleans—were a father and son returning from a European trip to their home in Charleston. The father, Simon Carvalho, was a physician. Gabriel, the son, was David’s age. He was an attractive boy with even features and a reserved manner. Unlike David, he moved deliberately and slowly. Yet he had been friendly enough to suggest that he teach French to the Raphael pair. David was greatly in awe of him and his knowledge.
    “He knows so much. I’ll never catch up with all that Latin and science. And he’s six months younger than I am, too,” David complained to Ferdinand.
    “Well, with the advantages he’s had, no wonder. But you’ll catch up, I’m confident you will.”
    Ferdinand had found out about the family on the first day of the voyage, almost before they had left the harbor.
    “They’re Sephardic Jews. Came to South Carolina from Spain via Brazil generations ago. In 1697, I think the doctor said. He has a married daughter living in New Orleans, Rosa and Henry de Rivera. People of substance. Accustomed to wealth. Quiet in their tastes, although they own the best of everything,” he concluded with satisfaction.
    It pleased his father, David saw, to be acquainted with important people. This bothered David. He saw it as a sign of weakness, and he didn’t want to seeweakness in his father. At the same time he was ashamed of his own disloyalty for having such a thought.
    “You’re making good progress with Gabriel, so I see, or rather, so I hear,” Dr. Carvalho remarked to David one day. “Pretty soon I won’t need to speak in German to you anymore. You seem to understand almost anything I say in French. Perhaps you could persuade my son to start you on English, too.”
    “Oh,” Ferdinand said, “they won’t need English in New Orleans. We’ve twice as many French speakers there as English speakers. It’s considered rude to speak English at home, even when you know how.”
    Dr. Carvalho replied, “That will change. It is already changing. My daughter tells me the city is fast filling up with Americans.”
    “I thought everybody there was an American!” David exclaimed.
    “That’s just an expression,” Ferdinand told him. “It refers to people from other parts of the United States. Creoles have French or Spanish ancestors. And, socially speaking, they’re the summit. A so-called ‘American’ of my acquaintance told me that the proudest day of his mother’s life was the first time she was invited into a Creole home.”
    Dr. Carvalho responded politely. “Is that so?”
    “Yes. She was invited for
café noir
one afternoon and she understood she was being honored. Creoles prefer to keep to themselves, among their own.”
    The other man smiled. “Artificial differences.”
    Again David felt the quick heat of embarrassment, as if the doctor’s remark, mild as it was, had been a reproof to Ferdinand. And, troubled, he looked away, out to the placid sea, which was at the moment barely moving, slowly tilting like liquid in a cup. The sight ofit was soothing. The rigging hummed in the wind, vibrating like a violin.
    Ferdinand rubbed his hands together. “It won’t be long before you’ll be home in Charleston, Doctor. After that, it’s down the coast for us, into the Gulf and home.” He took a deep, audible breath. “Ah, glorious! Glorious! This freedom you feel on the ocean! Who could believe we left Europe way back there only a few weeks ago? It’s hard to remember that Europe exists at all!”
    From the lower deck came a babble and rumble of voices. Everyone looked down to