Free Iron Lace by Lorena Dureau Page B

those new
experiences… sharing them with her… awakening her
to the warm, sensuous woman he sensed she could be!
    The night was warm and sticky, and the small, narrow hall,
though decorated lavishly enough, was poorly ventilated. As he dabbed
at his forehead with his monogrammed handkerchief he wondered why the
citizens of New Orleans persisted in using wood for their buildings
instead of the bricks and tile recommended by the authorities,
especially after the disastrous experiences the city had already had
with fires. What a firetrap the theater was!
    Although the play had been billed as Molière's
Tartuffe
,
it bore little resemblance to any performance Vidal had ever seen of
that work. It soon became a hodgepodge of sudden quotations from
Voltaire, Locke, and Rousseau to generous rounds of applause and
shouted interjections of "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood!" from the
more demonstrative spectators. The audience was obviously as
anti-Spanish as the actors.
    Miguel never ceased to marvel at the laxity of the
authorities there in the colony. Why did they permit such open
expressions of hostility and downright treason to go unchecked? How was
it possible that the words of the most radical philosophers of the day
could be spouted publicly from the officially recognized theater of the
town, while in Spain and the rest of its colonies they were forbidden
by both the Crown and the Church as being too "dangerous and
inflammatory" even to read in the privacy of one's own home, much less
express aloud?
    He remembered how he himself had wrestled with his
conscience when he had finally succumbed to reading some of the works
of those popular French leaders of the Enlightenment while he had been
traveling around Europe. It had been hard for him at first to ignore
the years of strict upbringing in his native land, where such books
could only be circulated clandestinely, since they were on the
ever-growing list of hundreds of similar works banned by the
Inquisition. Even now he didn't dare admit to anyone that he had delved
into such prohibited literature for fear he might be thought a heretic
or a traitor. For one never really knew. The powerful tentacles of La
Suprema stretched out even to the remotest corners of the world. No one
was too far away from the all-knowing eyes and ears of the Holy
Tribunal. Once its interest was aroused, it could be relentless and
pursue a prospective victim for a lifetime, even beyond the grave.
    In his opinion, such zealous persecution was absurd. It
was ridiculous to try to control a man's thoughts. What was in his
heart would always win out in the end, no matter how suppressed he
might momentarily be.
    Miguel was soon roused from his musings. The mood of the
audience was becoming restless. The boisterous slogans and ready
applause that greeted every florid speech made against "tyranny" and in
praise of "freedom and democracy" seemed to inspire the actors to even
greater heights of oratory, and more and more they deliberately added
impromptu lines.
    Of course, Vidal's two intensely French cousins were also
among those who were being swept along on the emotional current of the
moment, and once Monique even let the cry of "
Libert é
!"
escape from her lips as she joined heartily in the applause of an
especially moving speech, but her guardian had quickly put a
restraining hand on her arm and motioned with a discreet finger to his
lips that she should be quiet.
    The atmosphere, however, was beginning to be so rowdy that
Vidal considered walking out on the performance. He hated to cut short
his wards' first theatrical experience, but he could see the
emotionally charged atmosphere was already beginning to affect his
impressionable little cousins, especially Monique, who obviously was being increasingly carried away
by the inflammatory speeches. Most certainly she didn't need anything
else to make her more rebellious than she already was!
    He bent toward her, hat in hand, and whispered that they
had best