... Sundown approaches: the light has turned a rich yellow;--long black
shapes lie across the curving road, shadows of balisier and palm,
shadows of tamarind and Indian-reed, shadows of ceiba and giant-fern.
And the porteuses are coming down through the lights and darknesses of
the way horn far Grande Anse, to halt a moment in this little village.
They are going to sit down on the road-side here, before the house of
the baker; and there is his great black workman, Jean-Marie, looking for
them from the door-way, waiting to relieve them of their loads....
Jean-Marie is the strongest man in all the Champ-Flore: see what a
torso,--as he stands there naked to the waist!... His day's work is
done; but he likes to wait for the girls, though he is old now, and has
sons as tall as himself. It is a habit: some say that he had a daughter
once,--a porteuse like those coming, and used to wait for her thus at
that very door-way until one evening that she failed to appear, and
never returned till he carried her home in his arms dead,--striken by a
serpent in some mountain path where there was none to aid.... The roads
were not as good then as now.
... Here they come, the girls--yellow, red, black. See the flash of the
yellow feet where they touch the light! And what impossible tint the red
limbs take in the changing glow!... Finotte, Pauline, Médelle,--all
together, as usual,--with Ti-Clé trotting behind, very tired.... Never
mind, Ti-Clé!--you will outwalk your cousins when you are a few years
older,--pretty Ti-Clé.... Here come Cyrillia and Zabette, and Féfé
and Dodotte and Fevriette. And behind them are coming the two
_chabines_,--golden girls: the twin-sisters who sell silks and threads
and foulards; always together, always wearing robes and kerchiefs of
similar color,--so that you can never tell which is Lorrainie and which
Édoualise.
And all smile to see Jean-Marie waiting for them, and to hear his deep
kind voice calling, "_Coument ou yé chè? coument ou kallé?_"... (How
art thou, dear?--how goes it with thee?)
And they mostly make answer, "_Toutte douce, chè,--et ou?_" (All
sweetly, dear,--and thou?) But some, overweary, cry to him, "_Ah!
déchâgê moin vite, chè! moin lasse, lasse!_" (Unload me quickly,
dear; for I am very, very weary.) Then he takes off their burdens, and
fetches bread for them, and says foolish little things to make them
laugh. And they are pleased, and laugh, just like children, as they sit
right down on the road there to munch their dry bread.
... So often have I watched that scene!... Let me but close my eyes one
moment, and it will come back to me,--through all the thousand
miles,--over the graves of the days....
Again I see the mountain road in the yellow glow, banded with umbrages
of palm. Again I watch the light feet coming,--now in shadow, now in
sun,--soundlessly as falling leaves. Still I can hear the voices crying,
"_Ah! déchâgê moin vite, chè!--moin lasse!_"--and see the mighty
arms outreach to take the burdens away.
[Illustration: LES PORTEUSES
"_Again I see the mountain road in the yellow glow.
... Again I watch the light feet coming,--now in
shadow, now in sun,--soundless as falling leaves._"]
... Only, there is a change,--I know not what!... All vapory the road
is, and the fronds, and the comely coming of feet of the bearers, and
even this light of sunset,--sunset that is ever larger and nearer to us
than dawn, even as death than birth. And the weird way appeareth a way
whose dust is the dust of generations;--and the Shape that waits is
never Jean-Marie, but one darker and stronger;--and these are surely
voices of tired souls who cry to Thee, thou dear black Giver of the
perpetual rest, "_Ah! déchâgé moin vite, chè!--moin lasse!_"
[Illustration]