_April 13th._
... Still the vérette does not attack the native whites. But the whole
air has become poisoned; the sanitary condition of the city becomes
unprecedentedly bad; and a new epidemic makes its appearance,--typhoid
fever. And now the békés begin to go, especially the young and strong;
and bells keep sounding for them, and the tolling bourdon fills the city
with its enormous hum all day and far into the night. For these are
rich; and the high solemnities of burial are theirs--the coffin of
acajou, and the triple ringing, and the Cross of Gold to be carried
before them as they pass to their long sleep under the palms,--saluted
for the last time by all the population of St. Pierre, standing
bareheaded in the sun....
... Is it in times like these, when all the conditions are febrile, that
one is most apt to have queer dreams?
Last night it seemed to me that I saw that Carnival dance again,--the
hooded musicians, the fantastic torrent of peaked caps, and the spectral
masks, and the swaying of bodies and waving of arms,--but soundless as a
passing of smoke. There were figures I thought I knew;--hands I had
somewhere seen reached out and touched me in silence;--and then, all
suddenly, a Viewless Something seemed to scatter the shapes as leaves
are blown by a wind.... And waking, I thought I heard again,--plainly as
on that last Carnival afternoon,--the strange cry of fear:--"_C'est
Bon-Dié ka passé!_"...