Then we saw steeples, a dome; then the masts of numerous vessels, and steamboats, and tall chimneys.  Then we reached the levee of the city.  The boat was fastened, and I walked upon the streets of New Orleans.  The heat was no greater than I had felt in Illinois.  And at night a breeze stirred briskly from the harbor and the gulf beyond.  This city of 50,000 people had immediate fascination for me.

In the evening I went to the Place d’Armes where a military band was playing.  There were races during the day just out of town.  The cafes were filled with people smoking and drinking, playing billiards and dominoes.  Ladies in gay costumes sat in the balconies, making observations on the scene, the players, the passersby.  French was spoken everywhere.  And everywhere was the creole beauty, with black eyes and long silken lashes, and light skin faintly suffused with rose.  I plunged into these festivities in order to forget Dorothy.

I went to the Spanish Cathedral the next day, and saw on the porch groups of gray-haired negroes waiting for alms.  There were candles on the altar, paintings of the stations of the cross on the pillars, and confessional closets near the door.  And here the lovely creole knelt side by side with pure black descendants of the African negro.

Not anywhere did I see the negro treated worse than in Illinois, except on one occasion.  I was loitering on the dock looking at the steamboats being loaded by slaves.  A negro driving a wagon almost collided with a wagon being driven by a white man.  I saw the whole of it.  The white man was at fault.  Yet he began to curse the negro, who laughingly spoke the truth, that the white man had suddenly veered.  With that a man, apparently an officer of some sort, stepped from a patrol box carrying a rifle and with an oath and a vile epithet commanded the negro to drive on.  And he did quickly and without returning a word.  There was something about the injustice of this that aroused my resentment.  It was a partiality that had nothing to do with the circumstances, but only with the persons.

I visited the slave market and again saw the auctioning of human beings, some as light of color as Zoe and of as much breeding.  Again I began to speculate on Zoe’s future.  What would become of her?  How would her fate tangle itself with mine?  If Douglas had taken an impetus in life from his uncle’s failure to educate him, what direction had my life been given by my father’s marriage and Zoe?  Already I had killed a man for Zoe’s sake; and I had been rejected by Dorothy because of Zoe, or because of the circumstances which Zoe had created around my life.