The Witches of New York Part 9

Many of them, as before stated, combine a little spiritualism of the other sort with the clairvoyance, and they can all go into a trance on short notice and rhapsodize with all the fervor if not the eloquence of Mrs. Cora Hatch; they can all do the table-tipping trick, and are up to more rappings than the Rochester Fox girls ever thought of. For these several reasons therefore Mrs. Seymour would be a wife worth having, or at least so thought Johannes as he pondered these truths, and arranged in his mind his plan of attack on the affections of that susceptible lady.

The house No. 110 Spring Street, occupied by Mrs. Seymour for business purposes, is not more seedy in appearance than the majority of half-way decent tenant houses, which all have a decrepit look after they are four or five years old, as though youthful dissipations had made them weak in the joints. From appearances, Mrs. Seymour's house had been more than commonly rakish in its juvenility, but it still had that look of better days departed, which, in the human kind, is peculiar to decayed ministers of the gospel. It is a house where a man on a small salary would apply for cheap board. Hither the inquirer repaired, and shamefacedly knocked at the door, and was admitted by a frowzy, coa.r.s.e, plump, semi-respectable girl, who would have been the better for a washing. She opened the door and the customer entered the reception-room, and had ample time before the appearance of the mistress to take an observation.

The parlor was neatly, though rather scantily furnished, with a rigid economy in the article of chairs. The apartment communicated by folding-doors with another room, whence could be heard an iron noise as of some one sc.r.a.ping a saucepan with a kitchen-spoon.

The frowzy girl disappeared into this retired spot, and in about the s.p.a.ce of time that would be occupied by an enterprising woman in rolling down her sleeves, taking off her ap.r.o.n, and washing her hands, the door opened, and Mrs. Seymour presented herself.

She was a frigid-looking woman, of about 35 years of age, with dark hair and eyes, projecting lips and heavy chin, and was of medium height and size. Her appearance was perhaps lady-like, her movements slow and well considered. She was perfectly self-possessed and calculating, and appeared to cherish no dissatisfaction with herself. Her demeanor, on the whole, was repelling and chilly, and impressed her visitor very much as if some one had slipped a lump of ice down his back and made him sit on it till it melted.

She regarded him with a look of professional suspicion, cast her eye round the room with a quick glance, which instantly inventoried everything therein contained, as though to a.s.sure herself of the safety of any small articles which might be scattered about, and then seated herself with an air of preparedness, as if she was perfectly on guard and not to be taken by surprise by anything that might occur. She volunteered a frozen remark or two about the state of the weather, and then subsided into silence, evidently waiting to hear the object of the visit.

Her appearance and demeanor had instantly frozen out of the voyager's mind all thoughts of marriage; he would as soon have wedded an iceberg, or have taken to his heart of hearts a thermometer with its mercury frozen solid. All he could do was to buy a dollar's worth of her clairvoyance and then get out.

As soon therefore as the first chill had pa.s.sed off, and he had thawed out a few words for immediate use he asked for a little of that commodity.

When as he announced that he desired to know about the present well or ill of some absent friends, and that clairvoyance was the branch of her business which would on this occasion be called into requisition, she rose from her seat, walked to the door, never taking her eyes from the hands and pockets of her customer, and called to some one to come in. In obedience to the summons, the frowzy girl entered; this latter individual, since her first appearance, had taken off her ap.r.o.n and pinned some kind of a collar around her neck, but had not yet found time to comb her hair, which was exceedingly demonstrative, and forced itself upon attention.

Mrs. Seymour seated herself in a rocking-chair and closed her eyes; the plump girl stood behind her and pressed her thumbs firmly upon the temples of Mrs. S. for about two minutes, during which time this latter lady lost every instant something of life and animation, until at last she froze up entirely. Then the frowzy girl made one or two mysterious mesmeric pa.s.ses over the sleeping beauty from her head to her feet, to fix her in the iceberg state; then placing the hand of Mrs. S. in the palm of the customer, she left the room.

The worst of it was that Mrs. Seymour's hand is not an agreeable one to hold; it is cold and flabby, and not suggestive of vitality. Her face, too, had become pallid and corpse-like, and her thin blue lips were not pleasant to regard. Johannes was puzzled; he didn't know what to do with the flabby hand, and how he was to get any information about absent friends from a fast-asleep woman he did not, as yet, exactly comprehend. At this juncture, the lips asked, "Where am I to go to?" The sitter suppressed a sulphurous reply, and subst.i.tuted, "To Minnesota."

Thereupon, without any more definite direction as to what part of that rather extensive territory she was expected to visit, she sent her spirit off, and immediately uttered these words:

"I see two old people, two _very_ old people-one is a man and one is a woman; one of them has been very sick of bilious fever, but is now better, and will soon be quite well again. I can't tell exactly how these people look except that they are very old and both are very grey. They may be husband and wife. I think they are. They are both sitting down now. I also see two young people-one of them is a male and the other a female. The male I do not perceive very plainly, and I cannot make out much about him; he seems to be standing up and looking very sad, but I can't tell you a great deal about him. The female I can see much better, and can make out more about. She is tall, and has dark hair. She appears to be connected in some way to the old people, but I do not think she is related to the young man, though I cannot exactly make out. She is a very agreeable-looking female, rather pretty, I should say, if not positively handsome. She has straight hair and does not wear curls. She is standing up now, and appears to be talking to the young man, who has his back partly turned toward her. I don't quite make out what they are saying. She has had a very severe attack of sickness, but has nearly or quite recovered. She is not, however, what I should call a healthy female, and she will soon have another fit of sickness, which will be worse than the first, and will bring her very low indeed-very near to death. But she will not die then, though she is not what I should call a long-lived person. She will certainly die in six or eight years. What disease she will die of I can't just make out, but it will not be of a lingering character: it will carry her off suddenly. These people are all very anxious about you, as if you was one of their family. They have not heard from you lately, and are looking daily for intelligence from you. They have written to you twice within three months. One of the letters got to this city-a man took it out of the mail. I don't know where he took it out, and I can't exactly describe the man, but a man took it out of the mail.

These people are not satisfied to live where they are now; they are discontented with the country, and will return here in the Spring. They are talking about it now. They would like to come back this Winter, but circ.u.mstances are so that they cannot. You may be sure, however, that you will see them here in the Spring.

There is no doubt of it; they will come here in the Spring. The other letter that I told you of that they had written has got here safe, and is now in the Post-Office. You will find it there if you inquire; you will be sure to get it as soon as you go down to the office."

This was delivered in a very jerky manner, with occasional twitchings of the face and violent claspings of the hand, which her visitor retained, although it gave him a cold sweat to do it.

Johannes, who has friends in Minnesota, and whose questions were therefore all in good faith, tried to get the sleeping female to descend a little more to particulars, to describe individuals or localities minutely enough to be recognised if the descriptions approached the truth; but Mrs. Seymour was not to be caught in this manner. She invariably dodged the question, and dealt only in the most vague and uncertain generalities-giving no description of persons or things that might not have applied with equal accuracy to a hundred other persons or things in that or any other locality. Her a.s.sertions concerning the persons supposed to be her customer's friends did not approach the truth in any one particular; nor was there the slightest shadow of even probability in any single statement she uttered. She is not, however, a woman to lack customers, so long as there remain in the world fools of either s.e.x.

When the inquirer had concluded his questioning, he was somewhat at a loss how to awake the woman from her trance, but she solved that little difficulty herself by opening her eyes (as if she had been wide awake all the time) and calling for the beauteous maiden of the snarly hair, who accordingly appeared and made a few mysterious mesmeric pa.s.ses lengthwise of her sleeping mistress, and awoke her to the necessity of dunning her visitor, which she did instantly and with a relish. He paid the demanded dollar and departed.

CHAPTER X.

Describes Madame Carzo, the Brazilian Astrologist, of No. 151 Bowery, and gives all the romantic adventures of the "Individual"

with that gay South American Naiad.

CHAPTER X.

MADAME CARZO, THE BRAZILIAN ASTROLOGIST, No. 151 BOWERY.

The ill.u.s.trious lady who is the subject of the present chapter, came to the city of New York in 1856, and at once took lodgings and began business in the fortune-telling way. She did well, pecuniarily speaking, for a time, but the details of a visit to her having been published at length in one of the daily journals, she at once retired from the business, and subsided into private life. She is not now extant as a witch, and it is not impossible that she is earning an honester living in other ways.

The newspaper article that convinced her of the error of her ways, and induced her to give up fortune-telling, is the subjoined chapter by the "Individual:"

He meets a Yankee-Brazilian. She is not ill-looking, etc.

Whether the budding beauties of maidenhood are inconsistent with the orgies of witchcraft; whether there be an irreconcilable antagonism between youth and loveliness, and the unknown mysteries of the black art, is a vexed question of some interest.

Can't a woman be supposed to indulge in a little devilment before her hair turns grey, and her teeth fall out? and is it impossible for her to have reliable and trustworthy dealings with Old Scratch until she is wrinkled and withered?

That's what I want to know.

And I am very naturally urged to the inquiry by the observation that every professional witch in New York calls herself a "Madame." There is not a "Miss" or a "Mademoiselle," in the whole batch. They all make a pretence of being widows, or wives at the very least, as if a certain amount of matrimonial tribulation was indispensable to their accomplishment in the arts of sorcery and magic. The only exception to this rule is found in the person of a female calling herself "The Gipsy Girl," who is otherwheres mentioned, and in _her_ case the several agencies of nature, rum, and small-pox have made her so strikingly ugly that old age could not add a single other trait of repulsiveness to her excruciating features.

Now this is all a sad mistake. Let some young and undeniably pretty girl go into the business, and she'd soon get a run of exclusive customers who would stand any price and pay without grumbling. If the original Satan should refuse to recognise her eligibility, and should decline to furnish her with the requisite quant.i.ty of diabolic knowledge to set her up in business, she could easily find an opposition devil who would provide her stock in trade, and possibly at something less than the usual rates.

I'll be bound that Lucifer doesn't monopolize the whole trade in witchcraft, and pocket all the profits himself; for if some of the numerous clerks in his employ haven't yet learned the trick of stealing the stock and selling it at a reduced price, then the young gentlemen of our earthly mercantile houses are a good deal up-to-snuffer than the virtuous demons of Mr. Satan's establishment. This last-named dealer generally demands the soul of the contracting party in return for the powers and privileges conferred; and in very many cases he must get decidedly the worst of the bargain, for some of his precious adopted children never had soul enough to pay for the ink to sign it away with; but there is no doubt, in case a brisk compet.i.tion should arise for customers, that some of his cashiers and head-clerks would contrive to under-sell him even at this price.

The person who is so very anxious to effect this desirable consummation, and to bring on a crop of young and pretty witches to supersede the grizzled ones of this present generation was Johannes, who had of late been getting rather sick of the "Madames," and would prefer, if possible, to have the rest of his fortunes told by ladies of tenderer age, and greater inexperience in the ways of the world.

However, he was not the man to be deterred, in his pursuit of wisdom, by the age and ugliness, grey hairs, wrinkles, false teeth, _no_ teeth, dirt, ignorance, and imbecility he had encountered, and he was determined to go on to the very end and see if these are the sum total of modern witchcraft.

And then _duns_ came o'er the spirit of his dream, and fond visions of sundry small debts, paid by magic and a wife, as soon as he should succeed in finding the wife who had the magic, floated across his hard-up brain, and encouraged him to perseverance in his matrimonial quest. And when he had won that invaluable lady, he would stuff his mattress with receipted bills, and cram his pillow with cancelled notes, lie down to pleasant dreams, and awake to ready cash.

Sweet thought!

So he made ready to visit the humble abode of MADAME CARZO, THE BRAZILIAN ASTROLOGIST, _No. 151 Bowery_.

To say that he discovered, in this lady, the ideal of his search, that he found her handsome, intelligent, learned in the stars and thoroughly posted in the other branches of her trade, would be to antic.i.p.ate. Suffice to say that boa-constrictors, half-naked savages, dye-woods, Jesuit's bark, c.o.c.katoos, scorpions and ring-tailed monkeys, are not, as he had hitherto supposed, the only contributions to the happiness of mankind afforded by South America, for the Province of Brazil grows fortune-tellers of a very superior quality as to respectability and neatness of appearance. A Brazilian witch was something new, and without stopping to inquire how she had strayed so far away from home, he immediately argued that that single fact was decidedly in her favor. Thus ran the logic:

If there be any diabolism in modern witchcraft, the practisers thereof who have received their education in tropical lat.i.tudes ought to be the most worthy of credence and belief, inasmuch as the temperature of their places of residence seems to afford a supposition that they live nearer head-quarters, and are, therefore, most likely to receive information by the shortest routes.

By the time he arrived at the spot where the great astrologist condescended to abide, he had, by this course of reasoning, convinced himself that he ought to place implicit confidence in any revelations of the future made by the mysterious woman who advertised herself and her calling, daily in the papers as follows:

"MADAME CARZO, the gifted Brazilian Astrologist, tells the fate of every person who visits her with wonderful accuracy, about love, marriage, business, property, losses, things stolen, luck in lotteries, absent friends, at No. 151 Bowery, corner of Broome."

The South American lady had located her mysterious self in a fragrant spot.

The corner of Bowery and Broome Street and vicinity seems to have some kind of a const.i.tutional disorder, and it relieves itself by a cutaneous eruption of low rum shops and pustulous beer saloons, which always look as if they ought to be squeezed and rubbed with ointment of red lead. To an observing person it appears as if the city wanted to scratch itself in that particular part to relieve the local irritation, and then ought, for the sake of its general health, to take a large dose of brimstone immediately afterward.

The liquors sold at these places are those pure and healthful beverages, "warranted to kill at forty rods," and are the very drinks with which a convivial, but revengeful man, would wish to regale his friend against whom he held a secret grudge. Why Madame Carzo had chosen this particular locality, does not appear; perhaps because the liquor was cheap and the rent low.

Certain it is that there she sat, at a window overlooking the Bowery, in full view of all the pedestrians in the street and the pa.s.sengers in the 4th Avenue Railroad.

Madame Carzo was, doubtless, deeply attached to her old Brazilian home, and loved to surround herself with circ.u.mstances and things that would constantly and vividly recall pleasant memories of her southern country. Cherishing, probably, kindly and regretful remembrances of the harmless reptiles of her own Brazilian forests, she had taken up her abode in the very thick of the Bowery bar-rooms, as the only things afforded by our frigid climate, at all approaching in life-destroying malignity the speedier venoms to which she had been accustomed in her delightful southern home. First-rate facilities for drugging a man into a state of crazy madness are offered at the bar across the way; he may swill himself into a condition of beastly stupidity with lager beer from next door below; he may be pleasantly poisoned by degrees with the drugged alcohol, in various forms, which is sold next door above; or he may be more speedily disposed of with a couple of doses of "doctored" whiskey from the festering den just round the corner. Lucrezia Borgia was a novice, a mere babe in toxicology. New York wholesale liquor dealers could teach her the alphabet in the fine art of slow poisoning. She would no longer need the subtle chemistry of the Borgias; she could learn of them to poison wholesale and to do the work by labor-saving machinery.

Johannes, resolved that if he should marry the astrologist he would move out of the neighborhood, and take a house in a cleaner part of the city, for he felt that if he had to do even the courting here, he would have to fumigate himself after every visit to his lady-love as though he had just come out of a yellow-fever ship. He knew that if he should chance to meet the Health Officer in the street after a two hours' stay in that locality, that trusty official would, from the unhealthy smell of his coat, quarantine him for forty days, and put him up to his neck in a barrel of chloride of lime every morning.

But a full-fledged Cupid is a plucky animal, and not easily killed by anything no more tangible than smell, and the particular Cupid that had possession of the voyager's heart came of a long-suffering breed, and was equal to almost any emergency.

So as Johannes did not feel his ardent pa.s.sion die, or even turn sick at the stomach, he thought he could manage to get through.

If he couldn't get along any other way, he could fill his pockets with brimstone matches, and his boots full of blue vitriol. Or he could carry a bunch of Chinese fire-crackers in his hat, and touch them off on the sly whenever he felt himself in need of a healthy smell. Then he could wash himself all over in lime-water, and drink a quart or so of some liquid disinfectant every time he came away. So he went ahead.

Madame Carzo, the Brazilian interpreter of Yankee fate and fortunes, lives in the third story of the house No. 151 Bowery, with her sister, a girl of about fifteen years of age. The two occupy themselves with plain sewing, except when the Madame is overhauling the future and taking a look at the hereafter of some anxious inquirer, who pays her as much for the reliable information she imparts in three minutes, as she would charge him for making three shirts. The inquirer gave his customary modest ring at the door, and was admitted with as little question as if he had been the taxes, the Croton water, or the gas. Up the two flights of stairs walked the gentleman in the pursuit of witchcraft, gave a bashful knock at the door, at the side of which was painted, on a small bit of pasteboard, "Madame Carzo"-repented of his temerity before the echo of the knock had died away, but was admitted into the room before his repentance had time to develop itself into running away.

A shabby-looking girl, with her hair in as much confusion as if the city had contracted to keep it straight, with one ear-ring in her ear, and the other on the table, with her shoes down at the heel, her dress unhooked behind, and her breast-pin wrong side up, was the model young woman who had answered the knock. She had evidently been engaged in an animated single combat with another young woman, of about the same quality and age, who was seated on a low stool in the corner, for she instantly renewed hostilities by stabbing her antagonist in the arm with a needle, tapping her on the head with a thimble, and kicking her pin-cushion under the table, so she could not recover it without crawling on her hands and knees.