... "_Ou c'est bonhomme caton?-ou c'est zimage, non?_" (Am I a
pasteboard man, or an image, that I do not eat?) Cyrillia wants to know.
The fact is that I am a little overfed; but the stranger in the tropics
cannot eat like a native, and my abstemiousness is a surprise. In the
North we eat a good deal for the sake of caloric; in the tropics, unless
one be in the habit of taking much physical exercise, which is a very
difficult thing to do, a generous appetite is out of the question.
Cyrillia will not suffer me to live upon _mangé-Creole_ altogether; she
insists upon occasional beefsteaks and roasts, and tries to tempt me
with all kinds of queer delicious, desserts as well,--particularly those
cakes made of grated cocoanut and sugar-syrup (_tablett-coco-rapé_)
of which a stranger becomes very fond. But, nevertheless, I cannot eat
enough to quiet Cyrillia's fears.
Not eating enough is not her only complaint against me. I am perpetually
doing something or other which shocks her. The Creoles are the most
cautious livers in the world, perhaps;--the stranger who walks in the
sun without an umbrella, or stands in currents of air, is for them
an object of wonder and compassion. Cyrillia's complaints about my
recklessness in the matter of hygiene always terminate with the refrain:
"_Yo pa fai ça içi_"--(People never do such things in Martinique.) Among
such rash acts are washing one's face or hands while perspiring, taking
off one's hat on coming in from a walk, going out immediately after
a bath, and washing my face with soap. "Oh, Cyrillia! what
foolishness!--why should I not wash my face with soap? Because it will
blind you," Cyrillia answers: "_ça ké tchoué limiè zié ou_" (it will
kill the light in your eyes). There is no cleaner person than Cyrillia;
and, indeed among the city people, the daily bath is the rule in all
weathers; but soap is never used on the face by thousands, who, like
Cyrillia, believe it will "kill the light of the eyes."
One day I had been taking a long walk in the sun, and returned so
thirsty that all the old stories about travellers suffering in waterless
deserts returned to memory with new significance;--visions of simooms
arose before me. What a delight to see and to grasp the heavy, red,
thick-lipped _dobanne_, the water-jar, dewy and cool with the exudation
of the _Eau-de-Gouyave_ which filled it to the brim,--_toutt vivant_,
as Cyrillia says, "all alive"! There was a sudden scream,--the
water-pitcher was snatched from my hands by Cyrillia with the question:
"_Ess ou lè tchoué cò-ou?--Saint Joseph!_" (Did I want to kill my
body?)... The Creoles use the word "body" in speaking of anything that
can happen to one,--"hurt one's body, tire one's body, marry
one's body, bury one's body," etc.;--I wonder whether the expression
originated in zealous desire to prove a profound faith in the soul....
Then Cyrillia made me a little punch with sugar and rum, and told me
I must never drink fresh-water after a walk unless I wanted to kill my
body. In this matter her advice was good. The immediate result of a
cold drink while heated is a profuse and icy perspiration, during which
currents of air are really dangerous. A cold is not dreaded here, and
colds are rare; but pleurisy is common, and may be the consequence of
any imprudent exposure.
I do not often have the opportunity at home of committing even an
unconscious imprudence; for Cyrillia is ubiquitous, and always on the
watch lest something dreadful should happen to me. She is wonderful as
a house-keeper as well as a cook: there is certainly much to do, and
she has only a child to help her, but she always seems to have time.
Her kitchen apparatus is of the simplest kind: a charcoal furnace
constructed of bricks, a few earthenware pots (_canar_), and some
grid-irons;--yet with these she can certainly prepare as many dishes as
there are days in the year. I have never known her to be busy with her
_canari_ for more than an hour; yet everything is kept in perfect order.
When she is not working, she is quite happy in sitting at a window, and
amusing herself by watching the life of the street,--or playing with
a kitten, which she has trained so well that it seems to understand
everything she says.