I. --ST. PIERRE, _1887_.
One returning from the country to the city in the Carnival season is
lucky to find any comfortable rooms for rent. I have been happy to
secure one even in a rather retired street,--so steep that it is really
dangerous to sneeze while descending it, lest one lose one's balance and
tumble right across the town. It is not a fashionable street, the Rue
du Morne Mirail; but, after all, there is no particularly fashionable
street in this extraordinary city, and the poorer the neighborhood, the
better one's chance to see something of its human nature.
One consolation is that I have Manm-Robert for a next-door neighbor, who
keeps the best bouts in town (those long thin Martinique cigars of which
a stranger soon becomes fond), and who can relate more queer stories
and legends of old times in the island than anybody else I know of.
Manm-Robert is _yon màchanne lapacotte_, a dealer in such cheap
articles of food as the poor live upon: fruits and tropical vegetables,
manioc-flour, "macadam" (a singular dish of rice stewed with salt
fish--_diri épi coubouyon lamori_), akras, etc.; but her bouts probably
bring her the largest profit--they are all bought up by the békés.
Manm-Robert is also a sort of doctor: whenever anyone in the
neighborhood falls sick she is sent for, and always comes, and very
often cures,--as she is skilled in the knowledge and use of medicinal
herbs, which she gathers herself upon the mornes. But for these services
she never accepts any reuneration: she is a sort of Mother of the poor
in immediate vicinity. She helps everybody, listens to everybody's
troubles, gives everybody some sort of consolation, trusts everybody,
and sees a great deal of the thankless side of human nature without
seeming to feel any the worse for it. Poor as she must really be she
appears to have everything that everybody wants; and will lend anything
to her neighbors except a scissors or a broom, which it is thought
bad-luck to lend. And, finally, if anyybody is afraid of being bewitched
(_quimboisé_) Manm-Robert can furnish him or her with something that
will keep the bewitchment away....
II. _February 15th._
... Ash-Wednesday. The last masquerade will appear this afternoon,
notwithstanding; for the Carnival is in Martinique a day longer than
elsewhere.
All through the country districts since the first week of January there
have been wild festivities every Sunday--dancing on the public highways
to the pattering of tamtams,--African dancing, too, such as is never
seen in St. Pierre. In the city, however, there has been less merriment
than in previous years;--the natural gaiety of the population has been
visibly affected by the advent of a terrible and unfamiliar visitor to
the island,--_La Vérette_: she came by steamer from Colon.
... It was in September. Only two cases had been reported when every
neighboring British colony quarantined against Martinique. Then other
West Indian colonies did likewise. Only two cases of small-pox. "But
there may be two thousand in another month," answered the governors and
the consuls to many indignant protests. Among West Indian populations
the malady has a signification unknown in Europe or the United States:
it means an exterminating plague.
Two months later the little capital of Fort-de-France was swept by the
pestilence as by a wind of death. Then the evil began to spread. It
entered St. Pierre in December, about Christmas time. Last week 173
cases were reported; and a serious epidemic is almost certain. There
were only 8500 inhabitants in Fort-de-France; there are 28,000 in the
three quarters of St. Pierre proper, not including her suburbs; and
there is no saying what ravages the disease may make here.
III.
... Three o'clock, hot and clear.... In the distance there is a heavy
sound of drums, always drawing nearer: _tam!--tam!--tamtamtam!_ The
Grande Rue is lined with expectant multitudes; and its tiny square,--the
Batterie d'Esnotz,--thronged with békés. _Tam!--tam!--tamtamtam!_... In
our own street the people are beginning to gather at door-ways, and peer
out of windows,--prepared to descend to the main thoroughfare at the
first glimpse of the procession.
--"_Oti masque-à?_" Where are the maskers?
It is little Mimi's voice: she is speaking for two besides herself, both
quite as anxious as she to know where the maskers are,--Maurice,
her little fair-haired and blue-eyed brother, three years old; and
Gabrielle, her child-sister, aged four,--two years her junior.
Every day I have been observing the three, playing in the door-way of
the house across the street. Mimi, with her brilliant white skin,
black hair, and laughing black eyes, is the prettiest,--though all are
unusually pretty children. Were it not for the fact that their mother's
beautiful brown hair is usually covered with a violet foulard, you would
certainly believe them white as any children in the world. Now there are
children whom everyone knows to be white, living not very far from here,
but in a much more silent street, and in a rich house full of servants,
children who resemble these as one _fleur-d'amour_ blossom resembles
another;--there is actually another Mimi (though she is not so called
at home) so like this Mimi that you could not possibly tell one from the
other,--except by their dress. And yet the most unhappy experience of
the Mimi who wears white satin slippers was certainly that punishment
given her for having been once caught playing in the street with this
Mimi, who wears no shoes at all. What mischance could have brought them
thus together?--and the worst of it was they had fallen in love with
each other at first sight!... It was not because the other Mimi must not
talk to nice little colored girls, or that this one may not play with
white children of her own age: it was because there are cases.... It
was not because the other children I speak of are prettier or sweeter
or more intelligent than these now playing before me;--or because
the finest microscopist in the world could or could not detect any
imaginable race difference between those delicate satin skins. It was
only because human nature has little changed since the day that Hagar
knew the hate of Sarah, and the thing was grievous in Abraham's sight
because of his son.....
... The father of these children loved them very much: he had provided a
home for them,--a house in the Quarter of the Fort, with an allowance of
two hundred francs monthly; and he died in the belief their future
was secured. But relatives fought the will with large means and shrewd
lawyers, and won!... Yzore, the mother, found herself homeless and
penniless, with three children to care for. But she was brave;--she
abandoned the costume of the upper class forever, put on the douillette
and the foulard,--the attire that is a confession of race,--and went
to work. She is still comely, and so white that she seems only to be
masquerading in that violet head-dress and long loose robe....
--"_Vini ouè!--vini ouè!_" cry the children to one another,--"come and
see!" The drums are drawing near;--everybody is running to the Grande
Rue....
IV.
_Tam!--tam!--tamtamtam!_... The spectacle is interesting from the
Batterie d'Esnotz. High up the Rue Peysette,--up all the precipitous
streets that ascend the mornes,--a far gathering of showy color appears:
the massing of maskers in rose and blue and sulphur-yellow attire....
Then what a _degringolade_ begins!--what a tumbling, leaping, cascading
of color as the troupes descend. Simultaneously from north and south,
from the Mouillage and the Fort, two immense bands enter the Grande
Rue;--the great dancing societies these,--the _Sans-souci_ and the
_Intrépides_. They are rivals; they are the composers and singers of
those Carnival songs,--cruel satires most often, of which the local
meaning is unintelligible to those unacquainted with the incident
inspiring the improvisation,--of which the words are too often coarse or
obscene,--whose burdens will be caught up and re-echoed through all the
burghs of the island. Vile as may be the motive, the satire, the malice,
these chants are preserved for generations by the singular beauty of the
airs; and the victim of a Carnival song need never hope that his failing
or his wrong will be forgotten: it will be sung of long after he is in
his grave.
[Illustration: RUE VICTOR HUGO (FORMERLY GRANDE RUE), ST. PIERRE]
... Ten minutes more, and the entire length of the street is thronged
with a shouting, shrieking, laughing, gesticulating host of maskers.
Thicker and thicker the press becomes;--the drums are silent: all are
waiting for the signal of the general dance. Jests and practical jokes
are being everywhere perpetrated; there is a vast hubbub, made up
of screams, cries, chattering, laughter. Here and there snatches of
Carnival song are being sung:--"_Cambronne, Cambronne_;" or "_Ti fenm-là
doux, li doux, li doux!_ "... "Sweeter than sirup the little woman
is";--this burden will be remembered when the rest of the song passes
out of fashion. Brown hands reach out from the crowd of masks, pulling
the beards and patting the faces of white spectators.... "_Moin connaitt
ou, chè!--moin connaitt ou, doudoux! ba moin ti d'mi franc!_" It is well
to refuse the half-franc,--though you do not know what these maskers
might take a notion to do to-day.... Then all the great drums suddenly
boom together; all the bands strike up; the mad medley kaleidoscopes
into some sort of order; and the immense processional dance begins. From
the Mouillage to the Fort there is but one continuous torrent of sound
and color: you are dazed by the tossing of peaked caps, the waving of
hands, and twinkling of feet;--and all this passes with a huge swing,--a
regular swaying to right and left.... It will take at least an hour
for all to pass; and it is an hour well worth passing. Band after
band whirls by; the musicians all garbed as women or as monks in
canary-colored habits;--before them the dancers are dancing backward,
with a motion as of skaters; behind them all leap and wave hands as in
pursuit. Most of the bands are playing creole airs,--but that of
the _Sans-souci_ strikes up the melody of the latest French song in
vogue,--_Petits amoureux aux plumes_ ("Little feathered lovers"). [17]
Everybody now seems to know this song by heart; you hear children only
five or six years old singing it: there are pretty lines in it, although
two out of its four stanzas are commonplace enough, and it is certainly
the air rather than the words which accounts for its sudden popularity.
V.
... Extraordinary things are happening in the streets through which the
procession passes. Pest-smitten women rise from their beds to costume
themselves,--to mask face already made unrecognizable by the hideous
malady,--and stagger out to join the dancers.... They do this in the Rue
Longchamps, in the Rue St. Jean-de-Dieu, in the Rue Peysette, in the Rue
de Petit Versailles. And in the Rue Ste.-Marthe there are three young
girls sick with the disease, who hear the blowing of the horns and the
pattering of feet and clapping of hands in chorus;--they get up to look
through the slats of their windows on the masquerade,--and the creole
passion of the dance comes upon them. "_Ah!_" cries one,--"_nou ké bien
amieusé nou!--c'est zaffai si nou mò!_" [We will have our fill of fun:
what matter if we die after!] And all mask, and join the rout, and dance
down to the Savane, and over the river-bridge into the high streets of
the Fort, carrying contagion with them!... No extraordinary example,
this: the ranks of the dancers hold many and many a _verrettier_.
VI.
... The costumes are rather disappointing,-though the mummery has some
general characteristics that are not unpicturesquel--for example, the
predominance of crimson and canary-yellow in choice of color, and a
marked predilection for pointed hoods and high-peaked head-dresses, Mock
religious costumes also form a striking element in the general tone
of the display,--Franciscan, Dominican, or Penitent habits,--usually
crimson or yellow, rarely sky-blue. There are no historical costumes,
few eccentricities or monsters: only a few "vampire-bat" head-dresses
abruptly break the effect of the peaked caps and the hoods.... Still
there are some decidedly local ideas in dress which deserve notice,--the
_congo_, the _bébé_ (or _ti-manmaille_), the _ti nègue gouos-sirop_
("little molasses-negro"); and the _diablesse_.
The congo is merely the exact reproduction of the dress worn by workers
on the plantations. For the women, a gray calico shirt and coarse
petticoat of percaline with two coarse handkerchiefs (_mouchoirs
fatas_), one for her neck, and one for the head, over which is worn a
monstrous straw hat;--she walks either barefoot or shod with rude native
sandals, and she carries a hoe. For the man the costume consists of a
gray shirt of Iuugh material, blue canvas pantaloons, a large mouchoir
fatas to tie around his waist, and a _chapeau Bacoué_,--an enormous hat
of Martinique palm-straw. He walks barefooted and carries a cutlass.
The sight of a troupe of young girls _en bébé_, in baby-dress, is
really pretty. This costume comprises only a loose embroidered chemise,
lace-edged pantalettes, and a child's cap; the whole being decorated
with bright ribbbons of various colors. As the dress is short and leaves
much of the lower limbs exposed, there is ample opportunity for display
of tinted stockings and elegant slippers.
The "molasses-negro" wears nothing but a cloth around his loins;--his
whole body and face being smeared with an atrocious mixture of soot and
molasses. He is supposed to represent the original African ancestor.
The _devilesses_ (_diablesses_) are few in number; for it requires a
very tall woman to play deviless. These are robed all in black, with a
white turban and white foulard;--they wear black masks. They also carry
_boms_ (large tin cans), which they allow to fall upon the pavement
and from time to time; and they walk barefoot.... The deviless (in
true Bitaco idiom, "_guiablesse_") represents a singular Martinique
superstition. It is said that sometimes at noonday, a beautiful negress
passes silently through some isolated plantation,--smiling at the
workers in the cane-fields,--tempting men to follow her. But he who
follows her never comes back again; and when a field hand mysteriously
disappears, his fellows say, "_Y té ka ouè la Guiablesse!_"... The
tallest among the devilesses always walks first, chanting the question,
"_Fou ouvè?_" (Is it yet daybreak?) And all the others reply in chorus,
"_Jou pa'ncò ouvè_." (It is not yet day.)
--The masks worn by the multitude include very few grotesques: as a
rule, they are simply white wire masks, having the form of an oval and
regular human face;--and disguise the wearer absolutely, although
they can be through perfectly well from within. It struck me that this
peculiar type of wire mask gave an indescribable tone of ghostliness
to the whole exhibition. It is not in the least comical; it is neither
comely nor ugly; it is colorless as mist,--expressionless, void,--it
lies on the face like a vapor, like a cloud,--creating the idea of a
spectral vacuity behind it....
VII.
... Now comes the band of the _Intrépides_, playing the _bouèné_. It
is a dance melody,--also the name of a _mode_ of dancing, peculiar and
unrestrained;--the dancers advance and retreat face to face; they hug
each other, press together, and separate to embrace again. A very old
dance, this,--of African origin; perhaps the same of which Père Labat
wrote in 1722:--
--"It is not modest. Nevertheless, it has not failed to become so
popular with the Spanish Creoles of America, so much in vogue among
them, that it now forms the chief of their amusements, and that it
enters even into their devotions. They dance it even in their Churches,
in their Processions; and the Nuns seldom fail to dance it Christmas
Night, upon a stage erected in their choir and immediately in front of
their iron grating, which is left open, so that the People may share
in the manifested by these good souls for the birth of the Saviour."...
[18]
VIII.
... Every year, on the last day of the Carnival, a droll ceremony used
to take place called the "Burial of the Bois-bois,"--the bois-bois being
a dummy, a guy, caricaturing the most unpopular thing in city life or in
politics. This bois-bois, after having been paraded with mock
solemnity through all the ways of St. Pierre, was either interred or
"drowned,"--flung into the sea.... And yesterday the dancing societies
had announced their intention to bury a _bois-bois laverette_,--a
manikin that was to represent the plague. But this bois-bois does not
make its appearance. _La Verette_ is too terrible a visitor to be made
fun of, my friends;--you will not laugh at her, because you dare not....
No: there is one who has the courage,--a yellow goblin crying from
behind his wire mask, in imitation of the màchannes: "_Ça qui lè
quatòze graines laverette pou yon sou?_" (Who wants to buy fourteen
verette-spots for a sou?)
Not a single laugh follows that jest.... And just one week from to-day,
poor mocking goblin, you will have a great many more than _quatorze
graines_, which will not cost you even a sou, and which will disguise
you infinitely better than the mask you now wear;--and they will pour
quick-lime over you, ere ever they let you pass through this street
again--in a seven franc coffin!...
IX.
And the multicolored clamoring stream rushes by,--swerves off at last
through the Rue des Ursulines to the Savane,--rolls over the new bridge
of the Roxelane to the ancient quarter of the Fort.
All of a sudden there is a hush, a halt;--the drums stop beating, the
songs cease. Then I see a sudden scattering of goblins and demons and
devilesses in all directions: they run into houses, up alleys,--hide
behind door-ways. And the crowd parts; and straight through it, walking
very quickly, comes a priest in his vestments, preceded by an acolyte
who rings a little bell. _C'est Bon-Dié ka passé!_ ("It is the Good-God
who goes by!") The father is bearing the "viaticum" to some victim of
the pestilence: one must not appear masked as a devil or a deviless in
the presence of the Bon-Die.
He goes by. The flood of maskers recloses behind the ominous
passage;--the drums boom again; the dance recommences; and all the
fantastic mummery ebbs swiftly out of sight.
X.
Night falls;--the maskers crowd to the ball-rooms to dance strange
tropical measures that will become wilder and wilder as the hours pass.
And through the black streets, the Devil makes his last Carnival-round.
By the gleam of the old-fashioned oil lamps hung across the
thoroughfares I can make out a few details of his costume. He is clad
in red, wears a hideous blood-colored mask, and a cap of which the four
sides are formed by four looking-glasses;--the whole head-dress being
surmounted by a red lantern. He has a white wig made of horse-hair, to
make him look weird and old,--since the Devil is older than the world!
Down the street he comes, leaping nearly his own height,--chanting words
without human signification,--and followed by some three hundred boys,
who form the chorus to his chant--all clapping hands together and giving
tongue with a simultaneity that testifies how strongly the sense of
rhythm enters into the natural musical feeling of the African,--a
feeling powerful enough to impose itself upon all Spanish-America, and
there create the unmistakable characteristics of all that is called
"creole music."
--"Bimbolo!"
--"Zimabolo!"
--"Bimbolo!"
--"Zimabolo!"
--"Et zimbolo!"
--"Et bolo-po!"
--sing the Devil and his chorus. His chant is cavernous, abysmal,--booms
from his chest like the sound of a drum beaten in the bottom of a
well.... _Ti manmaille-là, baill moin lavoix!_ ("Give me voice, little
folk,--give me voice!") And all chant after him, in a chanting like
the rushing of many waters, and with triple clapping of hands:--"_Ti
manmaille-là, baill moin lavoix!_"... Then he halts before a dwelling in
the Rue Peysette, and thunders:--
--"_Eh! Marie-sans-dent!--Mi! diabe-là derhò!_"
That is evidently a piece of spite-work: there is somebody living there
against whom he has a grudge....
"_Hey! Marie-without-teeth! look! the Devil is outside!_"
And the chorus catch the clue.
DEVIL.--"_Eh! Marie-sans-dent!_"...
CHORUS.--"_Marie-sans-dent! mi!--diabe-là derhò!_"
D.--"_Eh! Marie-sans-dent!_"'...
C.--"_Marie-sans-dent! mi!--diabe-à derhò!_"
D.--"_Eh! Marie-sans-dent!_"... etc.
[Illustration: QUARTER OF THE FORT, ST. PIERRE (OVERLOOKING THE RIVIÈRE
ROXELANE).]
The Devil at last descends to the main street, always singing the same
song;--follow the chorus to the Savanna, where the rout makes for the
new bridge over the Roxelane, to mount the high streets of the old
quarter of the Fort; and the chant changes as they cross over:--
DEVIL.--"_Oti ouè diabe-là passé lariviè?_" (Where did you see the Devil
going over the river?) And all the boys repeat the words, falling into
another rhythm with perfect regularity and ease:--"_Oti ouè diabe-là
passé lariviè?_"
DEVIL.--"_Oti ouè diabe?_"...
CHORUS.--"_Oti ouè diabe-là passé lariviè?_"
D.--"_Oti ouè diabe?_"
C,--"_Oti ouè diabe-làp passé lariviè?_"
D,-"_Oti ouè diabe?_...etc.
About midnight the return of the Devil and his following arouses me from
sleep:--all are chanting a new refrain, "The Devil and the zombis sleep
anywhere and everywhere!" (_Diabe épi zombi ka dòmi tout-pàtout_.) The
voices of the boys are still clear, shrill, fresh,--clear as a chant
of frogs;--they still clap hanwith a precision of rhythm that is simply
wonderful,--making each time a sound almost exactly like the bursting of
a heavy wave:--
DEVIL.--"_Diable épi zombi_."...
CHORUS.--"_Diable épi zombi ka d'omi tout-pàtout!_"
D.--"_Diable épi zombi_."
C.--"_Diable épi zombi ka dòmi tout-pàtout!_"
D.--"_Diable épi zombi_."...etc.
... What is this after all but the old African method of chanting at
labor, The practice of carrying the burden upon the head left the hands
free for the rhythmic accompaniment of clapping. And you may still
hear the women who load the transatlantic steamers with coal at
Fort-de-France thus chanting and clapping....
Evidently the Devil is moving very fast; for all the boys are
running;--the pattering of bare feet upon the pavement sounds like
a heavy shower.... Then the chanting grows fainter in distance; the
Devil's immense basso becomes inaudible;--one only distinguishes at
regular intervals the _crescendo_ of the burden,--a wild swelling of
many hundred boy-voices all rising together,--a retreating storm
of rhythmic song, wafted to the ear in gusts, in _raifales_ of
contralto....
XI. _February 17th._
... Yzore is a _calendeuse_.
The calendeuses are the women who make up the beautiful Madras turbans
and color them; for the amazingly brilliant yellow of these head-dresses
is not the result of any dyeing process: they are all painted by hand.
When purchased the Madras is simply a great oblong handkerchief,
having a pale green or pale pink ground, and checkered or plaided
by intersecting bands of dark blue, purple, crimson, or maroon.
The calendeuse lays the Madras upon a broad board placed across her
knees,--then, taking a camel's-hair brush, she begins to fill in the
spaces between the bands with a sulphur-yellow paint, which is always
mixed with gum-arabic. It requires a sure eye, very steady fingers,
and long experience to do this well.... After the Madras has been
"calendered" (_calendé_) and has become quite stiff and dry, it is
folded about the head of the purchaser after the comely Martinique
fashion,--which varies considerably from the modes popular in Guadeloupe
or Cayenne,--is fixed into the form thus obtained; and can thereafter be
taken off or put on without arrangement or disarrangement, like a
cap. The price for calendering a Madras is now two francs and fifteen
sous;--and for making-up the turban, six sous additional, except in
Carnival-time, or upon holiday occasions, when the price rises to
twenty-five sous.... The making-up of the Madras into a turban is called
"tying a head" (_marré yon tête_); and a prettily folded turban is
spoken of as "a head well tied" (_yon tête bien marré_).... However, the
profession of calendeuse is far from being a lucrative one: it is two or
three days' work to calender a single Madras well....
But Yzore does not depend upon calendering alone for a living: she earns
much more by the manufacture of _moresques_ and of _chinoises_ than by
painting Madras turbans.... Everybody in Martinique who can afford it
wears moresques and chinoises. The moresques are large loose comfortable
pantaloons of thin printed calico (_indienne_),--having colored designs
representing birds, frogs, leaves, lizards, flowers, butterflies, or
kittens,--or perhaps representing nothing in particular, being simply
arabesques. The chinoise is a loose body-garment, very much like
the real Chinese blouse, but always of brightly colored calico with
fantastic designs. These things are worn at home during siestas, after
office-hours, and at night. To take a nap during the day with
one's ordinary clothing on means always a terrible drenching
from perspiration, and an after-feeling of exhaustion almost
indescribable--best expressed, perhaps, by the local term: _corps
écrasé_. Therefore, on entering one's room for the siesta, one strips,
puts on the light moresques and the chinoise, and dozes in comfort.
A suit of this sort is very neat, often quite pretty, and very cheap
(costing only about six francs);--the colors do not fade out in washing,
and two good suits will last a year.... Yzore can make two pair of
moresques and two chinoises in a single day upon her machine.
... I have observed there is a prejudice here against treadle
machines;--the creole girls are persuaded they injure the health. Most
of the sewing-machines I have seen among this people are operated by
hand,--with a sort of little crank....
XII. _February 22d._
... Old physicians indeed predicted it; but who believed them?...
It is as though something sluggish and viewless, dormant and deadly, had
been suddenly upstirred to furious life by the wind of robes and tread
of myriad dancing feet,--by the crash of cymbals and heavy vibration
of drums! Within a few days there has been a frightful increase of the
visitation, an almost incredible expansion of the invisible poison: the
number of new cases and of deaths has successively doubled, tripled,
quadrupled....
... Great caldrons of tar are kindled now at night in the more thickly
peopled streets,--about one hundred paces apart, each being tended by
an Indian laborer in the pay of the city: this is done with the idea of
purifying the air. These sinister fires are never lighted but in times
of pestilence and of tempest: on hurricane nights, when enormous waves
roll in from the fathomless sea upon one of the most fearful coasts
in the world, and great vessels are being driven ashore, such is the
illumination by which the brave men of the coast make desperate efforts
to save the lives of shipwrecked men, often at the cost of their own.
[19]
XIII. _February 23d._
A Coffin passes, balanced on the heads of black men. It holds the body
of Pascaline Z----, covered with quick-lime.
She was the prettiest, assuredly, among the pretty shopgirls of the
Grande Rue,--a rare type of _sang-mêlée_. So oddly pleasing, the young
face, that once seen, you could never again dissociate the recollection
of it from the memory of the street. But one who saw it last night
before they poured quick-lime upon it could discern no features,--only a
dark brown mass, like a fungus, too frightful to think about.
... And they are all going thus, the beautiful women of color. In the
opinion of physicians, the whole generation is doomed.... Yet a curious
fact is that the young children of octoroons are suffering least:
these women have their children vaccinated,--though they will not
be vaccinated themselves. I see many brightly colored children, too,
recovering from the disorder: the skin is not pitted, like that of
the darker classes; and the rose-colored patches finally disappear
altogether, leaving no trace.
... Here the sick are wrapped in banana leaves, after having been
smeared with a certain unguent.... There is an immense demand for banana
leaves. In ordinary times these leaves--especially the younger ones,
still unrolled, and tender and soft beyond any fabric possible for man
to make--are used for poultices of all kinds, and sell from one to two
sous each, according to size and quality.
XIV. _February 29th._
... The whites remain exempt from the malady.
One might therefore hastily suppose that liability of contagion would be
diminished in proportion to the excess of white blood over African; but
such is far from being the case;--St. Pierre is losing its handsomest
octoroons. Where the proportion of white to black blood is 116 to 8,
as in the type called _mamelouc_;--or 122 to 4, as in the _quarteronné_
(not to be confounded with the _quarteron_ or quadroon);--or even 127
to 1, as in the _sang-mêlé_, the liability to attack remains the same,
while the chances of recovery are considerably less than in the case
of the black. Some few striking instances of immunity appear to offer
a different basis for argument; but these might be due to the social
position of the individual rather than to any constitutional temper:
wealth and comfort, it must be remembered, have no small prophylactic
value in such times. Still,--although there is reason to doubt whether
mixed races have a constitutional vigor comparable to that of the
original parent-races,--the liability to diseases of this class is
decided less, perhaps, by race characteristics than by ancestral
experience. The white peoples of the world have been practically
inoculated, vaccinated, by experience of centuries;--while among these
visibly mixed or black populations the seeds of the pest find absolutely
fresh soil in which to germinate, and its ravages are therefore scarcely
less terrible than those it made among the American-Indian or the
Polynesian races in other times. Moreover, there is an unfortunate
prejudice against vaccination here. People even now declare that those
vaccinated die just as speedily of the plague as those who have never
been;--and they can cite cases in proof. It is useless to talk to them
about averages of immunity, percentage of liability, etc.;--they have
seen with their own eyes persons who had been well vaccinated die of
the verette, and that is enough to destroy their faith in the system....
Even the priests, who pray their congregations to adopt the only known
safeguard against the disease, can do little against this scepticism.
XV. _March 5th._
... The streets are so narrow in this old-fashioned quarter that even
a whisper is audible across them; and after dark I hear a great many
things,--sometimes sounds of pain, sobbing, despairing cries as Death
makes his round,--sometimes, again, angry words, and laughter, and even
song,--always one melancholy chant: the voice has that peculiar metallic
timbre that reveals the young negress:--
"_Pauv' ti Lélé,
Pauv' ti Lélé!
Li gagnin doulè, doulè, doulè,--
Li gagnin doulè Tout-pàtout!_"
I want to know who little Lélé was, and why she had pains "all
over";--for however artless and childish these creole songs seem, they
are invariably originated by some real incident. And at last somebody
tells me that "poor little Lélé" had the reputation in other years of
being the most unlucky girl in St. Pierre; whatever she tried to do
resulted only in misfortune;--when it was morning she wished it were
evening, that she might sleep and forget; but when the night came she
could not sleep for thinking of the trouble she had had during the day,
so that she wished it were morning....
More pleasant it is to hear the chatting of Yzore's childlren across the
way, after the sun has set, and the stars come out.... Gabrielle always
wants to know what the stars are:--
--"_Ça qui ka clairé conm ça, manman?_" (What is it shines like that?)
And Yzore answers:--
--"_Ça, mafi,--c'est ti limiè Bon-Dié._" (Those are the little lights of
the Good-God.)
--"It is so pretty,--eh, mamma? I want to count them."
--"You cannot count them, child."
--"One-two-three-four-five-six-seven." Gabrielle can only count up to
seven. "_Moin peide!_--I am lost, mamma!"
The moon comes up;--she cries:--"_Mi! manman!--gàdé gouôs difé qui adans
ciel-à!_ Look at the great fire in the sky."
--"It is the Moon, child!... Don't you see St. Joseph in it, carrying a
bundle of wood?"
--"Yes, mamma! I see him!... A great big bundle of wood!"...
But Mimi is wiser in moon-lore: she borrows half a franc from her mother
"to show to the Moon." And holding it up before the silver light, she
sings:--
"Pretty Moon, I show you my little money;--now let me always have money
so long as you shine!" [20]
Then the mother takes them up to bed;--and in a little while there
floats to me, through the open window, the murmur of the children's
evening prayer:--
"Ange-gardien Veillez sur moi; * * * * Ayez pitié de ma faiblesse;
Couchez-vous sur mon petit lit; Suivez-moi sans cesse."... [21]
I can only catch a line here and there.... They do not sleep
immediately;--they continue to chat in bed. Gabrielle wants to know what
a guardian-angel is like. And I hear Mimi's voice replying in creole:--
--"_Zange-gàdien, c'est yon jeine fi, toutt bel_." (The guardian-angel
is a young girl, all beautiful.)
A little while, and there is silence; and I see Yzore come out,
barefooted, upon the moonlit balcony of her little room,--looking up and
down the hushed street, looking at the sea, looking up betimes at
the high flickering of stars,--moving her lips as in prayer.... And,
standing there white-robed, with her rich dark hair loose-falling,
there is a weird grace about her that recalls those long slim figures of
guardian-angels in French religious prints....
XVI. _March 6th_
This morning Manm-Robert brings me something queer,--something hard tied
up in a tiny piece of black cloth, with a string attached to hang it
round my neck. I must wear it, she says,
--"_Ça ça ye, Manm-Robert?_"
--"_Pou empêché ou pouend laverette_," she answers. It to keep me from
catching the _verette_!... And what is inside it?
--"_Toua graines maïs, épi dicamfre_." (Three grains of corn, with a bit
of camphor!)...
XVII. _March 8th_
... Rich households throughout the city are almost helpless for the want
of servants. One can scarcely obtain help at any price: it is true that
young country-girls keep coming into town to fill the places of the
dead; but these new-comers fall a prey to the disease much more readily
than those who preceded them, And such deaths en represent more than a
mere derangement in the mechanism of domestic life. The creole _bonne_
bears a relation to the family of an absolutely peculiar sort,--a
relation of which the term "house-servant" does not convey the faintest
idea. She is really a member of the household: her association with its
life usually begins in childhood, when she is barely strong enough
to carry a dobanne of water up-stairs;--and in many cases she has the
additional claim of having been born in the house. As a child, she plays
with the white children,--shares their pleasures and presents. She is
very seldom harshly spoken to, or reminded of the fact that she is a
servitor: she has a pet name;--she is allowed much familiarity,--is
often permitted to join in conversation when there is no company
present, and to express her opinion about domestic affairs. She costs
very little to keep; four or five dollars a year will supply her with
all necessary clothing;--she rarely wears shoes;--she sleeps on a little
straw mattress (_paillasse_) on the floor, or perhaps upon a paillasse
supported upon an "elephant" (_lèfan_)--two thick square pieces of hard
mattress placed together so as to form an oblong. She is only a nominal
expense to the family; and she is the confidential messenger, the nurse,
the chamber-maid, the water-carrier,--everything, in short, except cook
and washer-woman. Families possessing a really good bonne would not
part with her on any consideration. If she has been brought up in the
house-hold, she is regarded almost as a kind of adopted child. If she
leave that household to make a home of her own, and have ill-fortune
afterwards, she will not be afraid to return with her baby, which will
perhaps be received and brought up as she herself was, under the old
roof. The stranger may feel puzzled at first by this state of affairs;
yet the cause is not obscure. It is traceable to the time of the
formation of creole society--to the early period of slavery. Among the
Latin races,--especially the French,--slavery preserved in modern times
many of the least harsh features of slavery in the antique world,--where
the domestic slave, entering the _familia_, actually became a member of
it.
XVIII. _March 10th._
... Yzore and her little ones are all in Manm-Robert's shop;--she is
recounting her troubles,--fresh troubles: forty-seven francs' worth of
work delivered on time, and no money received.... So much I hear as I
enter the little boutique myself, to buy a package of "_bouts_."
--"_Assise!_" says Manm-Robert, handing me her own hair;--she is always
pleased to see me, pleased to chat lith me about creole folk-lore. Then
observing, a smile exchanged between myself and Mimi, she tells the
children to bid me good-day:--"_Alle di bonjou' Missié-a!_"
One after another, each holds up a velvety cheek to kiss. And Mimi, who
has been asking her mother the same question over and over again for at
least five minutes without being able to obtain an answer, ventures to
demand of me on the strength of this introduction:--
--"_Missié, oti masque-à?_"
--"_Y ben fou, pouloss!_" the mother cries out;--"Why, the child must be
going out of her senses!... _Mimi pa 'mbêté moune conm ça!--pa ni piess
masque: c'est la-vérette qui ni_." (Don't annoy people like that!--there
are no maskers now; there is nothing but the verette!)
[You are not annoying me at all, little Mimi; but I would not like to
answer your question truthfully. I know where the maskers are,--most of
them, child; and I do not think it would be well for you to know. They
wear no masks now; but if you were to see them for even one moment, by
some extraordinary accident, pretty Mimi, I think you would feel more
frightened than you ever felt before.]...
--"_Toutt lanuite y k'anni rêvé masque-à_," continues Yzore.... I am
curious to know what Mimi's dreams are like;--wonder if I can coax her
to tell me....
XIX.
... I have written Mimi's last dream from the child's dictation:-- [22]
--"I saw a ball," she says, "I was dreaming: I saw everybody dancing
with masks on;--I was looking at them, And all at once I saw that
the folks who were dancing were all made of pasteboard. And I saw a
commandeur: he asked me what I was doing there, I answered him: 'Why, I
saw a ball, and I came to look--what of it?' He answered me:--'Since you
are so curious to come and look at other folks' business, you will have
to stop here and dance too!' I said to him:--'No! I won't dance with
people made of pasteboard;--I am afraid of them!'...And I ran and ran
and ran,--I was so much afraid. And I ran into a big garden, where I saw
a big cherry-tree that had only leaves upon it; and I saw a man sitting
under the cherry-tree, He asked me:--'What are you doing here?' I said
to him:--'I am trying to find my way out,' He said:--'You must stay
here.' I said:--'No, no!'--and I said, in order to be able to get
away:--'Go up there!--you will see a fine ball: all pasteboard people
dancing there, and a pasteboard commandeur commanding them!'... And then
I got so frightened that I awoke."...
... "And why were you so afraid of them, Mimi?" I ask.
--"_Pace yo té toutt vide endedans!_" answers Mimi. (_Because they were
all hollow inside_!)
XX. _March 19th._
... The death-rate in St. Pierre is now between three hundred and fifty
and four hundred a month. Our street is being depopulated. Every day men
come with immense stretchers,--covered with a sort of canvas awning,--to
take somebody away to the _lazaretto_. At brief intervals, also, coffins
are carried into houses empty, and carried out again followed by women
who cry so loud that their sobbing can be heard a great way off.
... Before the visitation few quarters were so densely peopled: there
were living often in one small house as many as fifty. The poorer
classes had been accustomed from birth to live as simply as
animals,--wearing scarcely any clothing, sleeping on bare floors,
exposing themselves to all changes of weather, eating the cheapest and
coarsest food. Yet, though living under such adverse conditions, no
healthier people could be found, perhaps, in the world,--nor a more
cleanly. Every yard having its fountain, almost everybody could bathe
daily,--and with hundreds it was the custom to enter the river every
morning at daybreak, or to take a swim in the bay (the young women here
swim as well as the men)....
But the pestilence, entering among so dense and unprotected a life,
made extraordinarily rapid havoc; and bodily cleanliness availed
little against the contagion. Now all the bathing resorts are
deserted,--because the lazarettos infect the bay with refuse, and
because the clothing of the sick is washed in the Roxelane.
... Guadeloupe, the sister colony, now sends aid;--the sum total is less
than a single American merchant might give to a charitable undertaking:
but it is a great deal for Guadeloupe to give. And far Cayenne sends
money too; and the mother-country will send one hundred thousand francs.
XXI. _March 20th._
... The infinite goodness of this colored population to one another
is something which impresses with astonishment those accustomed to the
selfishness of the world's great cities. No one is suffered to go to
the pest-house who has a bed to lie upon, and a single relative or
tried friend to administer remedies;--the multitude who pass through the
lazarettos are strangers,--persons from the country who have no home of
their own, or servants who are not permitted to remain sick in houses of
employers.... There are, however, many cases where a mistress will not
suffer her bonne to take the risks of the pest-house,--especially in
families where there are no children: the domestic is carefully nursed;
a physician hired for her, remedies purchased for her....
But among the colored people themselves the heroism displayed is
beautiful, is touching,--something which makes one doubt all accepted
theories about the natural egotism of mankind, and would compel the most
hardened pessimist to conceive a higher idea of humanity. There is never
a moment's hesitation in visiting a stricken individual: every relative,
and even the most intimate friends of every relative, may be seen
hurrying to the bedside. They take turns at nursing, sitting up all
night, securing medical attendance and medicines, without ever thought
of the danger,--nay, of the almost absolute certainty of contagion. If
the patient have no means, all contribute: what the sister or brother
has not, the uncle or the aunt, the godfather or godmother, the cousin,
brother-in-law or sister-in-law, may be able to give. No one dreams of
refusing money or linen or wine or anything possible to give, lend, or
procure on credit. Women seem to forget that they are beautiful, that
they are young, that they are loved,--forget everything but sense of
that which they hold to be duty. You see young girls of remarkably
elegant presence,--young colored girls well educated and
_élevées-en-chapeau_ [23] (that is say, brought up like white creole
girls, dressed and accomplished like them), voluntarily leave rich homes
to nurse some poor mulatress or capresse in the indigent quarters of the
town, because the sick one happens to be a distant relative. They will
not trust others to perform this for them;--they feel bound to do it in
person. I heard such a one say, in reply to some earnest protest about
thus exposing herself (she had never been vaccinated);--"_Ah! quand il
s'agit du devoir, la vie ou la mort c'est pour moi la même chose_."
... But without any sanitary law to check this self-immolation, and with
the conviction that in the presence of duty, or what is believed to be
duty, "life or death is same thing," or ought to be so considered,--you
can readily imagine how soon the city must become one vast hospital.
XXII.
... By nine o'clock, as a general rule, St. Pierre becomes silent:
everyone here retires early and rises with the sun. But sometimes, when
the night is exceptionally warm, people continue to sit at their doors
and chat until a far later hour; and on such a night one may hear and
see curious things, in this period of plague....
It is certainly singular that while the howling of a dog at night has no
ghastly signification here (nobody ever pays the least attention to the
sound, however hideous), the moaning and screaming of cats is believed
to bode death; and in these times folks never appear to feel too sleepy
to rise at any hour and drive them away when they begin their cries....
To-night--a night so oppressive that all but the sick are sitting
up--almost a panic is created in our street by a screaming of cats;--and
long after the creatures have been hunted out of sight and hearing,
everybody who has a relative ill with the prevailing malady continues to
discuss the omen with terror.
... Then I observe a colored child standing bare-footed in the
moonlight, with her little round arms uplifted and hands joined above
her head. A more graceful little figure it would be hard to find as she
appears thus posed; but, all unconsciously, she is violating another
superstition by this very attitude; and the angry mother shrieks:--
--"_Ti manmaille-là!--tiré lanmain-ou assous tête-ou, foute! pisse moin
encò là!... Espéré moin allé lazarett avant metté lanmain conm ça!_"
(Child, take down your hands from your head... because I am here yet!
Wait till I go to the lazaretto before you put up your hands like that!)
For it was the savage, natural, primitive gesture of mourning,--of great
despair.
... Then all begin to compare their misfortunes, to relate their
miseries;--they say grotesque things,--even make jests about their
troubles. One declares:--
--"_Si moin té ka venne chapeau, à fòce moin ni malhè, toutt manman sé
fai yche yo sans tête._" (I have that ill-luck, that if I were selling
hats all the mothers would have children without heads!)
--Those who sit at their doors, I observe, do not sit, a rule, upon the
steps, even when these are of wood. There is a superstition which checks
such a practice. "_Si ou assise assous pas-lapòte, ou ké pouend doulè
toutt moune_." (If you sit upon the door-step, you will take the pain of
all who pass by.)
XXIII. _March 30th._
Good Friday....
The bells have ceased to ring,--even the bells for the dead; the hours
are marked by cannon-shots. The ships in the harbor form crosses with
their spars, turn their flags upside down. And the entire colored
population put on mourning:--it is a custom among them centuries old.
You will not perceive a single gaudy robe to-day, a single calendered
Madras: not a speck of showy color visible through all the ways of St.
Pierre. The costumes donned are all similar to those worn for the death
relatives: either full mourning,--a black robe with violet foulard, and
dark violet-banded headkerchief; or half-mourning,--a dark violet robe
with black foulard and turban;--the half-mourning being worn only by
those who cannot afford the more sombre costume. From my winndow I can
see long processions climbing the mornes about the city, to visit the
shrines and crucifixes, and to pray for the cessation of the pestilence.
... Three o'clock. Three cannon-shots shake the hill: it is the supposed
hour of the Saviour's death. All believers--whether in the churches, on
the highways, or in their homes--bow down and kiss the cross thrice, or,
if there be no cross, press their lips three times to the ground or the
pavement, and utter those three wishes which if expressed precisely at
this traditional moment will surely, it is held, be fulfilled. Immense
crowds are assembled before the crosses on the heights, and about the
statue of Notre Dame de la Garde.
... There is no hubbub in the streets; there is not even the customary
loud weeping to be heard as the coffins go by. One must not complain
to-day, nor become angry, nor utter unkind words,--any fault committed
on Good Friday is thought to obtain a special and awful magnitude in the
sight of Heaven.... There is a curious saying in vogue here. If a son or
daughter grow up vicious,--become a shame to the family and a curse
to the parents,--it is observed of such:--"_Ça, c'est yon péché
Vendredi-Saint!_" (Must be a _Good-Friday sin!_)
There are two other strange beliefs connected with Good Friday. One is
that it always rains on that day,--that the sky weeps for the death
of the Saviour; and that this rain, if caught in a vessel, will never
evaporate or spoil, and will cure all diseases.
The other is that only Jesus Christ died precisely at three o'clock.
Nobody else ever died exactly at that hour;--they may die a second
before or a second after three, but never exactly at three.
XXIV. _March 31st._
... Holy Saturday morning;--nine o'clock. All the bells suddenly ring
out; the humming of the bourdon blends with the thunder of a hundred
guns: this is the _Gloria!_... At this signal it is a religious custom
for the whole coast-population to enter the sea, and for those living
too far from the beach to bathe in the rivers. But rivers and sea are
now alike infected;--all the linen of the lazarettos has been washed
therein; and to-day there are fewer bathers than usual.
But there are twenty-seven burials. Now they are ring the dead two
together: the cemeteries are over-burdened....
XXV.
... In most of the old stone houses you will occasionally see spiders
of terrifying size,--measuring across perhaps as much as six inches from
the tip of one out-stretched leg to the tip of its opposite fellow, as
they cling to the wall. I never heard of anyone being bitten by them;
and among the poor it is deemed unlucky to injure or drive them away....
But early this morning Yzore swept her house clean, and ejected through
door-way quite a host of these monster insects. Manm-Robert is quite
dismayed:--
--"_Fesis-Maïa!_--ou 'lè malhè encò pou fai ça, chè?" (You want to have
still more bad luck, that you do such a thing?)
And Yzore answers:--
--"_Toutt moune içitt pa ni yon sou!--gouôs conm ça fil zagrignin, et
moin pa menm mangé! Epi laverette encò.... Moin couè toutt ça ka pòté
malhè!_" (No one here has a sou!--heaps of cobwebs like that, and
nothing to eat yet; and the verette into the bargain... I think those
things bring bad luck.)
--"Ah! you have not eaten yet!" cries Manm-Robert. "_Vini épi moin!_"
(Come with me!)
And Yzore--already feeling a little remorse for her treatment of the
spiders--murmurs apologetically as she crosses over to Manm-Robert's
little shop:--"_Moin pa tchoué yo; moin chassé yo--ké vini encò_." (I
did not kill them; I only put them out;--they will come back again.)
But long afterwards, Manm-Robert remarked to me that they never went
back....
XXVI. _April 5th._
--"_Toutt bel bois ka allé_," says Manm-Robert. (All the beautiful trees
are going.)... I do not understand.
--"_Toutt bel bois--toutt bel moune ka alle_," she adds,
interpretatively. (All the "beautiful trees,"--all the handsome
people,--are passing away.)... As in the speech of the world's primitive
poets, so in the creole patois is a beautiful woman compared with a
comely tree: nay, more than this, the name of the object is actually
substituted for that of the living being. _Yon bel bois_ may mean a fine
tree: it more generally signifies a graceful woman: this is the very
comparison made by Ulysses looking upon Nausicaa, though more naively
expressed. ... And now there comes to me the recollection of a creole
ballad illustrating the use of the phrase,--a ballad about a youth of
Fort-de-France sent to St. Pierre by his father to purchase a stock of
dobannes, [24] who, falling in love with a handsome colored girl, spent
all his father's money in buying her presents and a wedding outfit:--
"Moin descenne Saint-Piè Acheté dobannes Auliè ces dobannes C'est yon
_bel-bois_ moin mennein monté!"
("I went down to Saint-Pierre to buy dobannes: instead of the dobannes,
'tis a pretty tree--a charming girl--that I bring back with me")
--"Why, who is dead now, Manm-Robert?"
--"It is little Marie, the porteuse, who has got the verette. She is
gone to the lazaretto."
XXVII. _April 7th._
--_Toutt bel bois ka allé_.... News has just come that Ti Marie died
last night at the lazaretto of the Fort: she was attacked by what they
call the _lavérette-pouff_,--a form of the disease which strangles its
victim within a few hours.
Ti Marie was certainly the neatest little màchanne I ever knew. Without
being actually pretty, her face had a childish charm which made it a
pleasure to look at her;--and she had a clear chocolate-red skin, a
light compact little figure, and a remarkably symmetrical pair of little
feet which had never felt the pressure of a shoe. Every morning I used
to hear her passing cry, just about daybreak:--"_Qui 'lè café?--qui 'lè
sirop?_" (Who wants coffee?--who wants syrup?) She looked about sixteen,
but was a mother. "Where is her husband?" I ask. "_Nhomme-y mò laverette
'tou_." (Her man died of the verette also.) "And the little one, her
_yche_?" "Y lazarett." (At the lazaretto.)... But only those
without friends or relatives in the city are suffered to go to the
lazaretto;--Ti Marie cannot have been of St. Pierre?
--"No: she was from Vauclin," answers Manrn-Robert. "You do not often
see pretty red girls who are natives of St. Pierre. St. Pierre has
pretty _sang-mêlées_. The pretty red girls mostly come from Vauclin. The
yellow ones, who are really _bel-bois_, are from Grande Anse: they are
banana-colored people there. At Gros-Morne they are generally black."...
XXVIII.
... It appears that the red race here, the _race capresse_, is
particularly liable to the disease. Every family employing capresses
for house-servants loses them;--one family living at the next corner has
lost four in succession....
The tint is a cinnamon or chocolate color;--the skin is naturally
clear, smooth, glossy: it is of the capresse especially that the term
"sapota-skin" (_peau-chapoti_) is used,--coupled with all curious creole
adjectives to express what is comely,--_jojoll, beaujoll_, etc. [25]
The hair is long, but bushy; the limbs light and strong, and admirably
shaped.... I am told that when transported to a colder climate, the
capre or capresse partly loses this ruddy tint. Here, under the tropic
sun, it has a beauty only possible to imitate in metal.... And because
photography cannot convey any idea of this singular color, the capresse
hates a photograph.--"_Moin pas nouè_," she says;--"_moin ouôuge: ou
fai moin nouè nans pòtrait-à_." (I am not black: I am red:--you make
me black in that portrait.) It is difficult to make her pose before the
camera: she is red, as she avers, beautifully red; but the malicious
instrument makes her gray or black--_nouè conm poule-zo-nouè_ ("black as
a black-boned hen!")
... And this red race is disappearing from St. Pierre--doubtless also
from other plague-stricken centres.
XXIX. _April 10th._
Manm-Robert is much annoyed and puzzled because the American
steamer--the _bom-mangé_, as she calls does not come. It used to bring
regularly so many barrels of potatoes and beans, so much lard and cheese
garlic and dried pease--everything, almost, of which she keeps a stock.
It is now nearly eight weeks since the cannon of a New York steamer
aroused the echoes the harbor. Every morning Manm-Robert has been
sending out her little servant Louis to see if there is any sign of
the American packet:--"_Allé ouè Batterie d' Esnotz si bom-mangé-à pas
vini_." But Louis always returns with same rueful answer:--
--"_Manm-Robert, pa ni piess bom-mangé_" (there is not so much as a bit
of a _bom-mangé_).
... "No more American steamers for Martinique:" that is the news
received by telegraph! The disease has broken out among the shipping;
the harbors have been delared infected. United States mail-packets drop
their Martinique mails at St. Kitt's or Dominica, and pass us by. There
will be suffering now among the _canotiers_, the _caboteurs_, all those
who live by stowing or unloading cargo;--great warehouses are being
closed up, and strong men discharged, because there will be nothing for
them to do.
... They are burying twenty-five _verettiers_ per day in city.
But never was this tropic sky more beautiful;--never was this circling
sea more marvellously blue;--never were the mornes more richly robed in
luminous green, under a more golden day.... And it seems strange that
Nature should remain so lovely....
... Suddenly it occurs to me that I have not seen Yzore nor her children
for some days; and I wonder if they have moved away.... Towards evening,
passing by Manm-Robert's, I ask about them. The old woman answers me
very gravely:--
--"_Atò, mon chè, c'est Yzore qui ni laverette!_"
The mother has been seized by the plague at last. But Manm-Robert will
look after her; and Manm-Robert has taken charge of the three little
ones, who are not now allowed to leave the house, for fear some one
should tell them what it were best they should not know.... _Pauv ti
manmaille!_
XXX. _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 the 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!_"...
XXXI. _April 20th._
Very early yesterday morning Yzore was carried away under a covering of
quick-lime: the children do not know; Manm-Robert took heed they should
not see. They have been told their mother has been taken to the country
to get well,--that the doctor will bring her back.... All the furniture
is to be sold at auction to debts;--the landlord was patient, he waited
four months; the doctor was kindly: but now these must have their due.
Everything will be bidden off, except the chapelle, with its Virgin
and angels of porcelain: _yo pa ka pè venne Bon-Dié_ (the things of the
Good-God must not be sold). And Manm-Robert will take care little ones.
The bed--a relic of former good-fortune,--a great Martinique bed of
carved heavy native wood,--a _lit-à-bateau_ (boat-bed), so called
because shaped almost like a barge, perhaps--will surely bring three
hundred francs;--the armoire, with its mirror doors, not less than two
hundred and fifty. There is little else of value: the whole will not
fetch enough to pay all the dead owes.
XXXII. _April 28th._
_--Tam-tam-tam!--tam-tam-tam!_... It is the booming of the auction-drum
from the Place: Yzore's furniture is about to change hands.
The children start at the sound, so vividly associated in their minds
with the sights of Carnival days, with the fantastic mirth of the
great processional dance: they run to the sunny street, calling to each
other.--_Vini ouè!_--they look up and down. But there is a great quiet
in the Rue du Morne Mirail;--the street is empty.
... Manm-Robert enters very weary: she has been at the sale, trying
to save something for the children, but the prices were too high. In
silence she takes her accustomed seat at the worn counter of her little
shop; the young ones gather about her, caress her;--Mimi looks up
laughing into the kind brown face, and wonders why Manm-Robert will not
smile. Then Mimi becomes afraid to ask where the maskers are,--why they
do not come, But little Maurice, bolder and less sensitive, cries out:--
--"_Manm-Robert, oti masque-à?_"
Manm-Robert does not answer;--she does not hear. She is gazing directly
into the young faces clustered about her knee,--yet she does not see
them: she sees far, far beyond them,--into the hidden years. And,
suddenly, with a savage tenderness in her voice, she utters all the dark
thought of her heart for them:--
--"_Toua ti blancs sans lesou!--qutitté moin châché papaou qui adans
cimétiè pou vini pouend ou tou!_" (Ye three little penniless white
ones!--let me go call your father, who is in the cemetery, to come and
take you also away!)