I.
I cannot teach Cyrillia the clock;--I have tried until both of us had
our patience strained to the breaking-point. Cyrillia still believes she
will learn how to tell the time some day or other;--I am certain that
she never will. "_Missié_," she says, "_lézhè pa aïen pou moin: c'est
minitt ka fouté moin yon travail!_"--the hours do not give her any
trouble; but the minutes are a frightful bore! And nevertheless,
Cyrillia is punctual as the sun;--she always brings my coffee and a
slice of corossol at five in the morning precisely. Her clock is the
_cabritt-bois_. The great cricket stops singing, she says, at half-past
four: the cessation of its chant awakens her.
--"_Bonjou', Missié. Coument ou passé lanuitt?_"--"Thanks, my daughter,
I slept well."--"The weather is beautiful: if Missié would like to go
to the beach, his bathing-towels are ready."--"Good! Cyrillia; I will
go."... Such is our regular morning conversation.
Nobody breakfasts before eleven o'clock or thereabout; but after an
early sea-bath, one is apt to feel a little hollow during the morning,
unless one take some sort of refreshment. Cyrillia always prepares
something for me on my return from the beach,--either a little pot of
fresh cocoa-water, or a _cocoyage_, or a _mabiyage_, or a _bavaroise_.
The _cocoyage_ I like the best of all. Cyrillia takes a green cocoa-nut,
slices off one side of it so as to open a hole, then pours the
opalescent water into a bowl, adds to it a fresh egg, a little Holland
gin, and some grated nutmeg and plenty of sugar. Then she whips up the
mixture into effervescence with her _baton-lélé_. The _baton-lélé_ is an
indispensaple article in every creole home: it is a thin stick which is
cut from a young tree so as to leave at one end a whorl of branch-stumps
sticking out at right angles like spokes;--by twirling the stem between
the hands, the stumps whip up the drink in a moment.
The _mabiyage_ is less agreeable, but is a popular morning drink among
the poorer classes. It is made with a little white rum and a bottle of
the bitter native root-beer called _mabi_. The taste of _mabi_ I can
only describe as that of molasses and water flavored with a little
cinchona bark.
The _bavaroise_ is fresh milk, sugar, and a little Holland gin or
rum,--mixed with the baton-lélé until a fine thick foam is formed.
After the _cocoyage_, I think it is the best drink one can take in the
morning; but very little spirit must be used for any of these mixtures.
It is not until just before the mid-day meal that one can venture to
take a serious stimulant,--_yon ti ponch_,--rum and water, sweetened
with plenty of sugar or sugar syrup.
The word _sucre_ is rarely used in Martinique,--considering that sugar
is still the chief product;--the word _doux_, "sweet," is commonly
substituted for it. _Doux_ has, however, a larger range of meaning: it
may signify syrup, or any sort of sweets,--duplicated into _doudoux_, it
means the corossole fruit as well as a sweetheart. _Ça qui lè doudoux?_
is the cry of the corossole-seller. If a negro asks at a grocery store
(_graisserie_) for _sique_ instead of for _doux_, it is only because he
does not want it to be supposed that he means syrup;--as a general rule,
he will only use the word _sique_ when referring to quality of
sugar wanted, or to sugar in hogsheads. _Doux_ enters into domestic
consumption in quite remarkable ways. People put sugar into fresh milk,
English porter, beer, and cheap wine;--they cook various vegetables
with sugar, such as peas; they seem to be particularly fond of
sugar-and-water and of _d'leau-pain_,--bread-and-water boiled, strained,
mixed with sugar, and flavored with cinnamon. The stranger gets
accustomed to all this sweetness without evil results. In a northern
climate the consequence would probably be at least a bilious attack; but
in the tropics, where salt fish and fruits are popularly preferred to
meat, the prodigal use of sugar or sugar-syrups appears to be decidedly
beneficial.
... After Cyrillia has prepared my _cocoyage_, and rinsed the
bathing-towels in fresh-water, she is ready to go to market, and wants
to know what I would like to eat for breakfast. "Anything creole,
Cyrillia;--I want to know what people eat in this country." She always
does her best to please me in this respect,--almost daily introduces me
to some unfamiliar dishes, something odd in the way of fruit or fish.
II.
Cyrillia has given me a good idea of the range and character of
_mangé-Créole_, and I can venture to write something about it after a
year's observation. By _mangé-Créole_ I refer only to the food of the
people proper, the colored population; for the _cuisine_ of the small
class of wealthy whites is chiefly European, and devoid of local
interest:--I might observe, however, that the fashion of cooking is
rather Provençal than Parisian;--rather of southern than of northern
France.
Meat, whether fresh or salt, enters little into the nourishment of the
poorer classes. This is partly, no doubt, because of the cost of all
meats; but it is also due to natural preference for fruits and
fish. When fresh meat is purchased, it is usually to make a stew or
_daube_;--probably salt meats are more popular; and native vegetables
and manioc flour are preferred to bread. There are only two popular
soups which are peculiar to the creole cuisine,--_calalou_, a
gombo soup, almost precisely similar to that of Louisiana; and the
_soupe-d'habitant_, or "country soup." It is made of yams, carrots,
bananas, turnips, _choux-caraïbes_, pumpkins, salt pork, and pimento,
all boiled together;--the salt meat being left out of the composition on
Fridays.
The great staple, the true meat of the population, is salt codfish,
which is prepared in a great number of ways. The most popular and the
rudest preparation of it is called "Ferocious" (_férocé_); and it is
not at all unpalatable. The codfish is simply fried, and served with
vinegar, oil, pimento;--manioc flour and avocados being considered
indispensable adjuncts. As manioc flour forms a part of almost every
creole meal, a word of information regarding it will not be out of place
here. Everybody who has heard the name probably knows that the manioc
root is naturally poisonous, and that the toxic elements must be removed
by pressure and desiccation before the flour can be made. Good manioc
flour has an appearance like very coarse oatmeal; and is probably quite
as nourishing. Even when dear as bread, it is preferred, and forms
the flour of the population, by whom the word _farine_ is only used
to signify manioc flour: if wheat-flour be referred to it is always
qualified as "French flour" (_farine-Fouance_). Although certain flours
are regularly advertised as American in the local papers, they are still
_farine-Fouance_ for the population, who call everything foreign French.
American beer is _biè-Fouance_; American canned peas, _ti-pois-Fouance_;
any white foreigner who can talk French is _yon béké-Fouance_.
Usually the manioc flour is eaten uncooked: [49] merely poured into a
plate, with a little water and stirred with a spoon into a thick paste
or mush,--the thicker the better;--_dleau passé farine_ (more water
than manioc flour) is a saying which describes the condition of a very
destitute person. When not served with fish, the flour is occasionally
mixed with water and refined molasses (_sirop-battrie_): this
preparation, which is very nice, is called _cousscaye_. There is also a
way of boiling it with molasses and milk into a kind of pudding. This
is called _matêté_; children are very fond of it. Both of these names,
_cousscaye_ and _matêté_, are alleged to be of Carib origin: the art of
preparing the flour itself from manioc root is certainly an inheritance
from the Caribs, who bequeathed many singular words to the creole patois
of the French West Indies.
Of all the preparations of codfish with which manioc flour is eaten,
I preferred the _lamori-bouilli_,--the fish boiled plain, after having
been steeped long enough to remove the excess of salt; and then served
with plenty of olive-oil and pimento. The people who have no home of
their own, or at least no place to cook, can buy their food already
prepared from the _màchannes lapacotte_, who seem to make a specialty
of _macadam_ (codfish stewed with rice) and the other two dishes already
referred to. But in every colored family there are occasional feasts
of _lamori-au-laitt_, codfish stewed with milk and potatoes;
_lamori-au-grattin_, codfish boned, pounded with toast crumbs, and
boiled with butter, onions, and pepper into a mush;--_coubouyon-lamori_,
codfish stewed with butter and oil;--_bachamelle_, codfish boned and
stewed with potatoes, pimentos, oil, garlic, and butter.
_Pimento_ is an essential accompaniment to all these dishes, whether
it be cooked or raw: everything is served with plenty of pimento,-_en
pile_, _en pile piment._ Among the various kinds I can mention only the
_piment-café_, or "coffee-pepper," larger but about the same shape as a
grain of Liberian coffee, violet-red at one end; the _piment-zouèseau_,
or bird-pepper, small and long and scarlet;--and the _piment-capresse_,
very large, pointed at one end, and bag-shaped at the other. It takes a
very deep red color when ripe, and is so strong that if you only break
the pod in a room, the sharp perfume instantly fills the apartment.
Unless you are as well-trained as any Mexican to eat pimento, you will
probably regret your first encounter with the _capresse_.
Cyrillia told me a story about this infernal vegetable.
II
ZHISTOUÈ PIMENT.
Té ni yon manman qui té ni en pile, en pile yche; et yon jou y pa té ni
aïen pou y té baill yche-là mangé. Y té ka lévé bon matin-là sans yon
sou: y pa sa ça y té douè fai,--là y té ké baill latête. Y allé
lacaïe macoumè-y, raconté lapeine-y. Macoumè baill y toua chopine
farine-manioc. Y allé lacaill liautt macoumè, qui baill y yon grand
trai piment. Macoumè-là di y venne trai-piment-à, épi y té pè acheté
lamori,--pisse y ja té ni farine. Madame-là di: "Mèçi, macoumè;"--y di y
bonjou'; épi y allé lacaïe-y.
Lhè y rivé àcaïe y limé difè: y metté canari épi dleau assous difé-a;
épi y cassé toutt piment-là et metté yo adans canari-à assous diré.
Lhè y oue canari-à ka bouï, y pouend _baton-lélé_, epi y lélé piment-à:
aloss y ka fai yonne calalou-piment. Lhè calalou-piment-là té tchouitt,
y pouend chaque zassiett yche-li; y metté calalou yo fouète dans
zassiett-là; y metté ta-mari fouète, assou, épi ta-y. Épi lhè calalou-là
té bien fouète, y metté farine nans chaque zassiett-là. Épi y crié toutt
moune vini mangé. Toutt moune vini metté yo à-tabe.
Pouèmiè bouchée mari-à pouend, y rété,--y crié: "Aïe! ouaill! mafenm!"
Fenm-là réponne mari y: "Ouaill! monmari!" Cés ti manmaille-la crie:
"Ouaill! manman!" Manman-à. réponne:--"Ouaill! yches-moin!"... Yo toutt
pouend couri, quitté caïe-là sèle,--épi yo toutt tombé larviè à touempé
bouche yo. Cés ti manmaille-là bouè dleau sitellement jusse temps yo
toutt néyé: té ka rété anni manman-là épi papa-là. Yo té là bò lariviè,
qui té ka pleiré. Moin té ka passé à lhè-à;--moin ka mandé yo: "Ça zautt
ni?"
Nhomme-là lévé: y baill moin yon sèle coup d'piè, y voyé moin lautt bo
lariviè-ou ouè moin vini pou conté ça ba ou.
II.
PIMENTO STORY.
There was once a mamma who had ever so many children; and one day she
had nothing to give those children to eat. She had got up very early
that morning, without a sou in the world: she did not know what to do:
she was so worried that her head was upset. She went to the house of a
woman-friend, and told her about her trouble. The friend gave her three
_chopines_ [three pints] of manioc flour. Then she went to the house
of another female friend, who gave her a big trayful of pimentos. The
friend told her to sell that tray of pimentos: then she could buy some
codfish,--since she already had some manioc flour. The good-wife said:
"Thank you, _macoumè_,"--she bid her good-day, and then went to her own
house.
The moment she got home, she made a fire, and put her _canari_ [earthen
pot] full of water on the fire to boil: then she broke up all the
pimentos and put them into the canari on the fire.
As soon as she saw the canari boiling, she took her _baton-lélé_, and
beat up all those pimentos: then she made a _pimento-calalou_. When the
pimento-calalou was well cooked, she took each one of the children's
plates, and poured their calalou into the plates to cool it; she also
put her husband's out to cool, and her own. And when the calalou was
quite cool, she put some manioc flour into each of the plates. Then
she called to everybody to come and eat. They all came, and sat down to
table.
The first mouthful that husband took he stopped and screamed:--"_Aïe!
ouaill!_ my wife!" The woman answered her husband: "_Ouaill_! my
husband!" The little children all screamed: "_Ouaill!_ mamma!" Their
mamma answered: "_Ouaill!_ my children!"... They all ran out, left the
house empty; and they tumbled into the river to steep their mouths.
Those little children just drank water and drank water till they were
all drowned: there was nobody left except the mamma and the papa, They
stayed there on the river-bank, and cried. I was passing that way just
at that time;--I asked them: "What ails you people?" That man got up and
gave me just one kick that sent me right across the river; I came here
at once, as you see, to tell you all about it....
IV.
... It is no use for me to attempt anything like a detailed description
of the fish Cyrillia brings me day after day from the Place du Fort: the
variety seems to be infinite. I have learned, however, one curious fact
which is worth noting: that, as a general rule, the more beautifully
colored fish are the least palatable, and are sought after only by the
poor. The _perroquet_, black, with bright bands of red and yellow;
the _cirurgien_, blue and black; the _patate_, yellow and black; the
_moringue_, which looks like polished granite; the _souri_, pink
and yellow; the vermilion _Gouôs-zie_; the rosy _sade_; the red
_Bon-Dié-manié-moin_ ("the-Good-God-handled-me")--it has two queer marks
as of great fingers; and the various kinds of all-blue fish, _balaou_,
_conliou_, etc. varying from steel-color to violet,--these are seldom
seen at the tables of the rich. There are exceptions, of course, to this
and all general rules: notably the _couronné_, pink spotted beautifully
with black,--a sort of Redfish, which never sells less than fourteen
cents a pound; and the _zorphie_, which has exquisite changing lights
of nacreous green and purple. It is said, however, that the zorphi is
sometimes poisonous, like the _bécunne_; and there are many fish which,
although not venomous by nature, have always been considered dangerous.
In the time of Père Dutertre it was believed these fish ate the apples
of the manchineel-tree, washed into the sea by rains;--to-day it is
popularly supposed that they are rendered occasionally poisonous by
eating the barnacles attached to copper-plating of ships. The _tazard_,
the _lune_, the _capitaine_, the _dorade_, the _perroquet_, the
_couliou_, the _congre_, various crabs, and even the _tonne_,--all
are dangerous unless perfectly fresh: the least decomposition seems
to develop a mysterious poison. A singular phenomenon regarding the
poisoning occasionally produced by the bécunne and dorade is that the
skin peels from the hands and feet of those lucky enough to survive
the terrible colics, burnings, itchings, and delirium, which are early
symptoms, Happily these accidents are very rare, since the markets have
been properly inspected: in the time of Dr. Rufz, they would seem to
have been very common,--so common that he tells us he would not eat
fresh fish without being perfectly certain where it was caught and how
long it had been out of the water.
The poor buy the brightly colored fish only when the finer qualities
are not obtainable at low rates; but often and often the catch is so
enormous that half of it has to be thrown back into the sea. In the hot
moist air, fish decomposes very rapidly; it is impossible to transport
it to any distance into the interior; and only the inhabitants of the
coast can indulge in fresh fish,--at least sea-fish.
Naturally, among the laboring class the question of quality is less
important than that of quantity and substance, unless the fish-market be
extraordinarily well stocked. Of all fresh fish, the most popular is the
_tonne_, a great blue-gray creature whose flesh is solid as beef; next
come in order of preferment the flying-fish (_volants_), which often
sell as low as four for a cent;--then the _lambi_, or sea-snail, which
has a very dense and nutritious flesh;--then the small whitish fish
classed as _sàdines_;--then the blue-colored fishes according to price,
_couliou_, _balaou_, etc.;--lastly, the shark, which sells commonly at
two cents a pound. Large sharks are not edible; the flesh is too hard;
but a young shark is very good eating indeed. Cyrillia cooked me a slice
one morning: it was quite delicate, tasted almost like veal.
[Illustration: OLD MARKET-PLACE OF THE FORT, ST. PIERRE.--(REMOVED IN
1888).]
The quantity of very small fish sold is surprising. With ten sous the
family of a laborer can have a good fish-dinner: a pound of _sàdines_ is
never dearer than two sous;--a pint of manioc flour can be had for the
same price; and a big avocado sells for a sou. This is more than enough
food for any one person; and by doubling the expense one obtains a
proportionately greater quantity--enough for four or five individuals.
The _sàdines_ are roasted over a charcoal fire, and flavored with a
sauce of lemon, pimento, and garlic. When there are no _sàdines_, there
are sure to be _coulious_ in plenty,--small _coulious_ about as long as
your little finger: these are more delicate, and fetch double the price.
With four sous' worth of _coulious_ a family can have a superb _blaffe_.
To make a _blaffe_ the fish are cooked in water, and served with
pimento, lemon, spices, onions, and garlic; but without oil or butter.
Experience has demonstrated that _coulious_ make the best _blaffe_; and
a _blaffe_ is seldom prepared with other fish.
V.
There are four dishes which are the holiday luxuries of the
poor:--_manicou_, _ver-palmiste_, _zandouille_, and _poule-épi-diri_.
[50]
The _manitou_ is a brave little marsupial, which might be called
the opossum of Martinique: it fights, although overmatched, with the
serpent, and is a great enemy to the field-rat. In the market a manicou
sells for two francs and a half at cheapest: it is generally salted
before being cooked.
The great worm, or caterpillar, called _ver-palmiste_ is found in the
heads of cabbage-palms,--especially after the cabbage has been cut out,
and the tree has begun to perish. It is the grub of a curious beetle,
which has a proboscis of such form as suggested the creole appellation,
_léfant_: the "elephant." These worms are sold in the Place du Fort at
two sous each: they are spitted and roasted alive, and are said to taste
like almonds. I have never tried to find out whether this be fact or
fancy; and I am glad to say that few white creoles confess a liking for
this barbarous food.
The _zandouilles_ are delicious sausages made with pig-buff,--and only
seen in the market on Sundays. They cost a franc and a half each; and
there are several women who have an established reputation throughout
\Martinique for their skill in making them. I have tasted some not less
palatable than the famous London "pork-pies." Those of Lamentin are
reputed the best in the island.
But _poule-épi-diri_ is certainly the most popular dish of all: it is
the dearest, as well, and poor people can rarely afford it. In Louisiana
an almost similar dish is called _jimbalaya_: chicken cooked with rice.
The Martiniquais think it such a delicacy that an over-exacting person,
or one difficult to satisfy, is reproved with the simple question:--"_Ça
ou lè 'nco-poule, épi-diri?_" (What more do you want, great
heavens!--chicken-and-rice?) Naughty children are bribed into absolute
goodness by the promise of poule-épi-diri:--
--"_Aïe! chè, bò doudoux!
Doudoux ba ou poule-épi-diri;
Aïe! chè, bò doudoux!_"...
(Aïe, dear! kiss _doudoux!--doudoux_ has rice-and-chicken for
you!--_aïe_, dear! kiss _doudoux!_)
How far rice enters into the success of the dish above mentioned I
cannot say; but rice ranks in favor generally above all cereals; it is
at least six times more in demand than maize. _Diri-doux_, rice boiled
with sugar, is sold in prodigious quantities daily,--especially at
the markets, where little heaps of it, rolled in pieces of banana
or _cachibou_ leaves, are retailed at a cent each. _Diri-aulaitt_, a
veritable rice-pudding, is also very popular; but it would weary the
reader to mention one-tenth of the creole preparations into which rice
enters.
VI.
Everybody eats _akras_;--they sell at a cent apiece. The akra is a small
fritter or pancake, which may be made of fifty different things,--among
others codfish, titiri, beans, brains, _choux-caraïbes_, little
black peas (_poix-zié-nouè_, "black-eyed peas"), or of crawfish
(_akra-cribîche_). When made of carrots, bananas, chicken, palm-cabbage,
etc. and sweetened, they are called _marinades_. On first acquaintance
they seem rather greasy for so hot a climate; but one learns, on
becoming accustomed to tropical conditions, that a certain amount of
oily or greasy food is both healthy and needful.
First among popular vegetables are beans. Red beans are preferred; but
boiled white beans, served cold with vinegar and plenty of oil, form a
favorite salad. Next in order of preferment come the _choux-caraïbes_,
_patates_, _zignames_, _camanioc_, and _cousscouche_: all immense
roots,--the true potatoes of the tropics. The camanioc is finer than the
choux-caraïbe, boils whiter and softer: in appearance it resembles the
manioc root very closely, but has no toxic element. The cousscouche is
the best of all: the finest Irish potato boiled into sparkling flour
is not so good. Most of these roots can be cooked into a sort of mush,
called _migan_: such as _migan-choux_, made with the choux-caraïbe;
_migan-zignames_, made with yams; _migan-cousscouche_, etc.,--in which
case crabs or shrimps are usually served with the _migan_. There is a
particular fondness for the little rosy crab called _tourlouroux_, in
patois _touloulou_. _Migan_ is also made with bread-fruit. Very large
bananas or plantains are boiled with codfish, with _daubes_, or
meat stews, and with eggs. The bread-fruit is a fair substitute for
vegetables. It must be cooked very thoroughly, and has a dry potato
taste. What is called the _fleu-fouitt-à-pain_, or "bread-fruit
flower"--a long pod-shaped solid growth, covered exteriorly with tiny
seeds closely set as pin-heads could be, and having an interior pith
very elastic and resistant,--is candied into a delicious sweetmeat.
VII.
The consumption of bananas is enormous: more bananas are eaten than
vegetables; and more banana-trees are yearly being cultivated. The negro
seems to recognize instinctively that economical value of the banana to
which attention was long since called by Humboldt, who estimated that
while an acre planted in wheat would barely support three persons, an
acre planted in banana-trees would nourish fifty.
Bananas and plantains hold the first place among fruits in popular
esteem;--they are cooked in every way, and served with almost every sort
of meat or fish. What we call bananas in the United States, however, are
not called bananas in Martinique, but figs (_figues_). Plantains seem
to be called _bananes_. One is often surprised at popular nomenclature:
_choux_ may mean either a sort of root (_choux-caraïbe_), or the top
of the cabbage-palm; _Jacquot_ may mean a fish; _cabane_ never means
a cabin, but a bed; _crickett_ means not a cricket, but a frog; and at
least fifty other words have equally deceptive uses. If one desires
to speak of real figs--dried figs--he must say _figues-Fouanc_ (French
figs); otherwise nobody will understand him. There are many kinds
of bananas here called _figues_,--the four most popular are the
_figues-bananes_, which are plantains, I think; the _figues-makouenga_,
which grow wild, and have a red skin; the _figues-pommes_
(apple-bananas), which are large and yellow; and the _ti-figues-desse_
(little-dessert-bananas), which are to be seen on all tables in St.
Pierre. They are small, sweet, and always agreeable, even when one has
no appetite for other fruits.
It requires some little time to become accustomed to many tropical
fruits, or at least to find patience as well as inclination to eat them.
A large number, in spite of delicious flavor, are provokingly stony:
such as the ripe guavas, the cherries, the barbadines; even the
corrossole and _pomme-cannelle_ are little more than huge masses of
very hard seeds buried in pulp of exquisite taste. The _sapota_, or
_sapodtilla_, is less characterized by stoniness, and one soon learns to
like it. It has large flat seeds, which can be split into two with the
finger-nail; and a fine white skin lies between these two halves. It
requires some skill to remove entire this little skin, or pellicle,
without breaking it: to do so is said to be a test of affection. Perhaps
this bit of folk-lore was suggested by the shape of the pellicle, which
is that of a heart. The pretty fille-de-couleur asks her doudoux:--"_Ess
ou ainmein moin?--pouloss tiré ti lapeau-là sans cassé-y_." Woe to
him if he breaks it!... The most disagreeable fruit is, I think, the
_pomme-d'Haiti_, or Haytian apple: it is very attractive exteriorly;
but has a strong musky odor and taste which nauseates. Few white creoles
ever eat it.
Of the oranges, nothing except praise can be said; but there are
fruits that look like oranges, and are not oranges, that are far more
noteworthy. There is the _chadèque_, which grows here to fully three
feet in circumference, and has a sweet pink pulp; and there is the
"forbidden-fruit" (_fouitt-défendu_), a sort of cross between the orange
and the chadèque, and superior to both. The colored people declare that
this monster fruit is the same which grew in Eden upon the fatal tree:
_c'est ça mênm qui fai moune ka fai yche conm ça atouelement!_ The
fouitt-défendu is wonderful, indeed, in its way; but the fruit which
most surprised me on my first acquaintance with it was the _zabricôt_.
--"_Ou lè yon zabricôt?_" (Would you like an apricot?) Cyrillia asked
me one day. I replied that I liked apricots very much,--wanted more than
one. Cyrillia looked astonished, but said nothing until she
returned from market, and put on the table _two_ apricots, with the
observation:--"_Ça ke fai ou malade mangé toutt ça!_" (You will get sick
if you eat all that.) I could not eat even half of one of them. Imagine
a plum larger than the largest turnip, with a skin like a russet apple,
solid sweet flesh of a carrot-red color, and a nut in the middle bigger
than a duck's egg and hard as a rock. These fruits are aromatic as well
as sweet to the taste: the price varies from one to four cents each,
according to size. The tree is indigenous to the West Indies; the
aborigines of Hayti had a strange belief regarding it. They alleged that
its fruits formed the nourishment of the dead; and however pressed by
hunger, an Indian in the woods would rather remain without food than
strip one of these trees, lest he should deprive the ghosts of their
sustenance.... No trace of this belief seems to exist among the colored
people of Martinique.
[Illustration: BREAD-FRUIT TREE.]
Among the poor such fruits are luxuries: they eat more mangoes than
any other fruits excepting bananas. It is rather slobbery work eating
a common mango, in which every particle of pulp is threaded fast to
the kernel: one prefers to gnaw it when alone. But there are cultivated
mangoes with finer and thicker flesh which can be sliced off, so that
the greater part of the fruit may be eaten without smearing and sucking.
Among grafted varieties the _mangue_ is quite as delicious as the
orange. Perhaps there are nearly as many varieties of mangoes in
Martinique as there are varieties of peaches with us: I am acquainted,
however, with only a few,--such as the _mango-Bassignac_;--_mango-pêche_
(or peach-mango);--_mango-vert_ (green mango), very large
and oblong;--_mango-grêffé_;--_mangotine_, quite round
and small;--_mango-quinette_, very small also, almost
egg-shaped;--_mango-Zézé_, very sweet, rather small, and of
flattened form;--_mango-d'or_ (golden mango), worth half a franc
each;--_mango-Lamentin_, a highly cultivated variety--and the superb
_Reine-Amélie_ (or Queen Amelia), a great yellow fruit which retails
even in Martinique at five cents apiece.
VIII.
... "_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.
IX.
With darkness all the population of the island retire to their
homes;--the streets become silent, and the life of the day is done.
By eight o'clock nearly all the windows are closed, and the lights put
out;--by nine the people are asleep. There are no evening parties, no
night amusements, except during rare theatrical seasons and times of
Carnival; there are no evening visits: active existence is almost timed
by the rising and setting of the sun.... The only pleasure left for the
stranger of evenings is a quiet smoke on his balcony or before his door:
reading is out of the question, partly because books are rare, partly
because lights are bad, partly because insects throng about every lamp
or candle. I am lucky enough to have a balcony, broad enough for a
rocking-chair; and sometimes Cyrillia and the kitten come to keep me
company before bedtime. The kitten climbs on my knees; Cyrillia sits
right down upon the balcony.
One bright evening, Cyrillia was amusing herself very much by watching
the clouds: they were floating high; the moonlight made them brilliant
as frost. As they changed shape under the pressure of the trade-wind,
Cyrillia seemed to discover wonderful things in them: sheep, ships with
sails, cows, faces, perhaps even _zombis_.
--"_Travaill Bon-Dié joli,--anh?_" (Is not the work of the Good-God
pretty?) she said at last.... "There was Madame Remy, who used to sell
the finest _foulards_ and Madrases in St. Pierre;--she used to study the
clouds. She drew the patterns of the clouds for her _foulards_: whenever
she saw a beautiful cloud or a beautiful rainbow, she would make a
drawing of it in color at once; and then she would send that to France
to have _foulards_ made just like it.... Since she is dead, you do not
see any more pretty _foulards_ such as there used to be."...
--"Would you like to look at the moon with my telescope, Cyrillia?" I
asked. "Let me get it for you."
--"Oh no, no!" she answered, as if shocked.
--"Why?"
--"_Ah! faut pa gàdé baggaïe Bon-Dié conm ça!_" (It is not right to look
at the things of the Good-God that way.)
I did not insist. After a little silence, Cyrillia resumed:--
--"But I saw the Sun and the Moon once fighting together: that was what
people call an _eclipse_,--is not that the word?... They fought together
a long time: I was looking at them. We put a _terrine_ full of water
on the ground, and looked into the water to see them. And the Moon is
stronger than the Sun!--yes, the Sun was obliged to give way to the
Moon.... Why do they fight like that?"
--"They don't, Cyrillia."
--"Oh yes, they do. I saw them!... And the Moon is much stronger than
the Sun!"
I did not attempt to contradict this testimony of the eyes. Cyrillia
continued to watch the pretty clouds. Then she said:--"Would you not
like to have a ladder long enough to let you climb up to those clouds,
and see what they are made of?"
--"Why, Cyrillia, they are only vapor,--brume: I have been in clouds."
She looked at me in surprise, and, after a moment's silence, asked, with
an irony of which I had not supposed her capable:--
--"Then you are the Good-God?"
--"Why, Cyrillia, it is not difficult to reach clouds. You see clouds
always upon the top of the Montagne Pelée;--people go there. I have been
there--in the clouds."
--"Ah! those are not the same clouds: those are not the clouds of the
Good-God. You cannot touch the sky when you are on the Morne de la
Croix."
--"My dear Cyrillia, there is no sky to touch. The sky is only an
appearance."
--"_Anh, anh, anh!_ No sky!--you say there is no sky?... Then, what is
that up there?"
--"That is air, Cyrillia, beautiful blue air."
--"And what are the stars fastened to?"
--"To nothing. They are suns, but so much further away than our sun that
they look small."
--"No, they are not suns! They have not the same form as the sun... You
must not say there is no sky: it is wicked! But you are not a Catholic!"
--"My dear Cyrillia, I don't see what that has to do with the sky."
--"Where does the Good-God stay, if there be no sky? And where is
heaven?--and where is hell?"
--"Hell in the sky, Cyrillia?"
--"The Good-God made heaven in one part of the sky, and hell in another
part, for bad people.... Ah! you are a Protestant;--you do not know the
things of the Good-God! That is why you talk like that."
--"What is a Protestant, Cyrillia?"
--"You are one. The Protestants do not believe in religion,--do not love
the Good-God."
--"Well, I am neither a Protestant nor a Catholic, Cyrillia."
--"Oh! you do not mean that; you cannot be a _maudi_, an accursed. There
are only the Protestants, the Catholics, and the accursed. You are not a
_maudi_, I am sure, But you must not say there is no sky"...
--"But, Cyrillia"--
--"No: I will not listen to you:--you are a Protestant. Where does the
rain come from, if there is no sky,"...
--"Why, Cyrillia,... the clouds"...
--"No, you are a Protestant.... How can you say such things? There are
the Three Kings and the Three Valets,--the beautiful stars that come
at Christmas-time,--there, over there--all beautiful, and big, big,
big!... And you say there is no sky!"
--"Cyrillia, perhaps I am a _maudi_."
--"No, no! You are only a Protestant. But do not tell me there is no
sky: it is wicked to say that!"
--"I won't say it any more, Cyrillia--there! But I will say there are no
_zombis_."
--"I know you are not a _maudi_;--you have been baptized."
--"How do you know I have been baptized?"
--"Because, if you had not been baptized you would see _zombis_ all
the time, even in broad day. All children who are not baptized see
_zombis_."...
X.
Cyrilla's solicitude for me extends beyond the commonplaces of hygiene
and diet into the uncertain domain of matters ghostly. She fears much
that something might happen to me through the agency of wizards, witches
(_sociès_), or _zombis_. Especially zombis. Cyrillia's belief in zombis
has a solidity that renders argument out of the question. This belief
is part of her inner nature,--something hereditary, racial, ancient
as Africa, as characteristic of her people as the love of rhythms
and melodies totally different from our own musical conceptions, but
possessing, even for the civilized, an inexplicable emotional charm.
_Zombi!_--the word is perhaps full of mystery even for those who made
it. The explanations of those who utter it most often are never quite
lucid: it seems to convey ideas darkly impossible to define,--fancies
belonging to the mind of another race and another era,--unspeakably old.
Perhaps the word in our own language which offers the best analogy is
"goblin": yet the one is not fully translated by the other. Both have,
however, one common ground on which they become indistinguishable,--that
region of the supernatural which is most primitive and most vague; and
the closest relation between the savage and the civilized fancy may be
found in the fears which we call childish,--of darkness, shadows, and
things dreamed. One form of the _zombi_-belief--akin to certain ghostly
superstitions held by various primitive races--would seem to have
been suggested by nightmare,--that form of nightmare in which familiar
persons become slowly and hideously transformed into malevolent beings.
The _zombi_ deludes under the appearance of a travelling companion, an
old comrade--like the desert spirits of the Arabs--or even under the
form of an animal. Consequently the creole negro fears everything living
which he meets after dark upon a lonely road,--a stray horse, a cow,
even a dog; and mothers quell the naughtiness of their children by
the threat of summoning a zombi-cat or a zombi-creature of some kind.
"_Zombi ké nana ou_" (the zombi will gobble thee up) is generally an
effectual menace in the country parts, where it is believed zombis may
be met with any time after sunset. In the city it is thought that their
regular hours are between two and four o'clock in the morning. At least
so Cyrillia says:--
--"Dèezhè, toua-zhè-matin: c'est lhè zombi. Yo ka sòti dèzhè, toua zhè:
c'est lhè yo. A quattrhè yo ka rentré;--angelus ka sonné." (At four
o'clock they go back where they came from, before the _Angelus_ rings.)
Why?
--"_C'est pou moune pas joinne yo dans larue_." (So that people may not
meet with them in the street), Cyrillia answers.
--"Are they afraid of the people, Cyrillia?" I asked.
--"No, they are not afraid; but they do not want people to know their
business" (_pa lè moune ouè zaffai yo_).
Cyrillia also says one must not look out of the window when a dog howls
at night. Such a dog may be a _mauvais vivant_ (evil being): "If he sees
me looking at him he will say, '_Ou tropp quirièse quittée cabane ou pou
gàdé zaffai lezautt_.'" (You are too curious to leave your bed like that
to look at other folks' business.)
--"And what then, Cyrillia?"
--"Then he will put out your eyes,--_y ké coqui zié ou_,--make you
blind."
--"But, Cyrillia," I asked one day, "did you ever see any zombis?"
--"How? I often see them!... They walk about the room at night;--they
walk like people. They sit in the rocking-chairs and rock themselves
very softly, and look at me. I say to them:--'What do you want here?--I
never did any harm to anybody. Go away!' Then they go away."
--"What do they look like?"
--"Like people,--sometimes like beautiful people (_bel moune_). I am
afraid of them. I only see them when there is no light burning. While
the lamp bums before the Virgin they do not come. But sometimes the oil
fails, and the light dies."
In my own room there are dried palm leaves and some withered flowers
fastened to the wall. Cyrillia put them there. They were taken from
the _reposoirs_ (temporary altars) erected for the last Corpus Christi
procession: consequently they are blessed, and ought to keep the zombis
away. That is why they are fastened to the wall, over my bed.
Nobody could be kinder to animals than Cyrillia usually shows herself
to be: all the domestic animals in the neighborhood impose upon
her;--various dogs and cats steal from her impudently, without the least
fear of being beaten. I was therefore very much surprised to see her
one evening catch a flying beetle that approached the light, and
deliberately put its head in the candle-flame. When I asked her how she
could be so cruel, she replied:--
--"_Ah ou pa connaitt choïe pays-ci_." (You do not know Things in this
country.)
The Things thus referred to I found to be supernatural Things. It is
popularly believed that certain winged creatures which circle about
candles at night may be _engagés_ or _envoyés_--wicked people having the
power of transformation, or even zombis "sent" by witches or wizards to
do harm. "There was a woman at Tricolore," Cyrillia says, "who used to
sew a great deal at night; and a big beetle used to come into her room
and fly about the candle, and and bother her very much. One night she
managed to get hold of it, and she singed its head in the candle. Next
day, a woman who was her neighbor came to the house with her head
all tied up. '_Ah! macoumè_,' asked the sewing-woman, '_ça ou ni dans
guiôle-ou?_' And the other answered, very angrily, '_Ou ni toupet mandé
moin ça moin ni dans guiôle moin!--et cété ou qui té brilé guiôle moin
nans chandelle-ou hiè-souè_.'" (You have the impudence to ask what
is the matter with my mouth! and you yourself burned my mouth in your
candle last night.)
Early one morning, about five o'clock, Cyrillia, opening the front door,
saw a huge crab walking down the street. Probably it had escaped from
some barrel; for it is customary here to keep live crabs in barrels and
fatten them,--feeding them with maize, mangoes, and, above all, green
peppers: nobody likes to cook crabs as soon as caught; for they may have
been eating manchineel apples at the river-mouths. Cyrillia uttered
a cry of dismay on seeing that crab; then I heard her talking to
herself:--"_I_ touch it?--never! it can go about its business. How do
I know it is not _an arranged crab_ (_yon crabe rangé_), or an
_envoyé_?--since everybody knows I like crabs. For two sous I can buy
a fine crab and know where it comes from." The crab went on down the
street: everywhere the sight of it created consternation; nobody dared
to touch it; women cried out at it, "_Miserabe!--envoyé Satan!--allez,
maudi!_"--some threw holy water on the crab. Doubtless it reached the
sea in safety. In the evening Cyrillia said: "I think that crab was
a little zombi;--I am going to burn a light all night to keep it from
coming back."
Another day, while I was out, a negro to whom I had lent two francs came
to the house, and paid his debt Cyrillia told me when I came back, and
showed me the money carefully enveloped in a piece of brown paper; but
said I must not touch it,--she would get rid of it for me at the market.
I laughed at her fears; and she observed: "You do not know negroes,
Missié!--negroes are wicked, negroes are jealous! I do not want you to
touch that money, because I have not a good opinion about this affair."
After I began to learn more of the underside of Martinique life, I could
understand the source and justification of many similar superstitions
in simple and uneducated minds. The negro sorcerer is, at worst, only a
poisoner; but he possesses a very curious art which long defied serious
investigation, and in the beginning of the last century was attributed,
even by whites, to diabolical influence. In 1721, 1723, and 1725,
several negroes were burned alive at the stake as wizards in league with
the devil. It was an era of comparative ignorance; but even now
things are done which would astonish the most sceptical and practical
physician. For example, a laborer discharged from a plantation vows
vengeance; and the next morning the whole force of hands--the entire
atelier--are totally disabled from work. Every man and woman on the
place is unable to walk; everybody has one or both legs frightfully
swollen. _Yo te ka pilé malifice_: they have trodden on a "malifice."
What is the "malifice"? All that can be ascertained is that certain
little prickly seeds have been scattered all over the ground, where the
barefooted workers are in the habit of passing. Ordinarily, treading on
these seeds is of no consequence; but it is evident in such a case that
they must have been prepared in a special way,--soaked in some poison,
perhaps snake-venom. At all events, the physician deems it safest to
treat the inflammations after the manner of snake wounds; and after many
days the hands are perhaps able to resume duty.
XI.
While Cyrillia is busy with her _canari_, she talks to herself or sings.
She has a low rich voice,--sings strange things, things that have been
forgotten by this generation,--creole songs of the old days, having a
weird rhythm and fractions of tones that are surely African. But more
generally she talks to herself, as all the Martiniquaises do: it is
a continual murmur as of a stream. At first I used to think she was
talking to somebody else, and would call out:--
--"_Épi quiless moune ça ou ka pàlé-à?_"
But she would always answer:--"_Moin ka pàlé anni cò moin_" (I am only
talking to my own body), which is the creole expression for talking to
oneself.
--"And what are you talking so much to your own body about, Cyrillia?"
--"I am talking about my own little affairs" (_ti zaffai-moin_).... That
is all that I could ever draw from her.
But when not working, she will sit for hours looking out of the window.
In this she resembles the kitten: both seem to find the same silent
pleasure in watching the street, or the green heights that rise above
its roofs,--the Morne d'Orange. Occasionally at such times she will
break the silence in the strangest way, if she thinks I am not too busy
with my papers to answer a question:--
--"_Missié?_"--timidly.
--"Eh?"
--"_Di moin, chè, ti manmaille dans pays ou, toutt piti, piti,--ess ça
pàlé Anglais?_" (Do the little children in my country--the very, very
little children--talk English?)
--"Why, certainly, Cyrillia."
--"_Toutt piti, piti?_"--with growing surprise.
--"Why, of course!"
--"_C'est drôle, ça_" (It is queer, that!) She cannot understand it.
--"And the little _manmaille_ in Martinique, Cyrillia--_toutt
piti, piti_,--don't they talk creole?"
--"'_Oui; mais toutt moune ka pâlé nègue: ça facile_." (Yes; but anybody
can talk negro--that is easy to learn.)
XII.
Cyrillia's room has no furniture in it: the Martinique bonne lives as
simply and as rudely as a domestic animal. One thin mattress covered
with a sheet, and elevated from the floor only by a léfant, forms her
bed. The _léfant_, or "elephant," is composed of two thick square pieces
of coarse hard mattress stuffed with shavings, and placed
end to end. Cyrillia has a good pillow, however,--_bourré épi
flêches-canne_,--filled with the plumes of the sugar-cane. A cheap
trunk with broken hinges contains her modest little wardrobe: a few
_mouchoirs_, or kerchiefs, used for head-dresses, a spare _douillette_,
or long robe, and some tattered linen. Still she is always clean, neat,
fresh-looking. I see a pair of sandals in the corner,--such as the women
of the country sometimes wear--wooden soles with a leather band for the
instep, and two little straps; but she never puts them on. Fastened to
the wall are two French prints--lithographs: one representing Victor
Hugo's _Esmeralda_ in prison with her pet goat; the other, Lamartine's
_Laurence_ with her fawn. Both are very old and stained and bitten by
the _bête-à-ciseau_, a species of _lepisma_, which destroys books
and papers, and everything it can find exposed. On a shelf are two
bottles,--one filled with holy water; another with _tafia camphrée_
(camphor dissolved in tafia), which is Cyrillia's sole remedy for colds,
fevers, headaches--all maladies not of a very fatal description. There
are also a little woollen monkey, about three inches high--the
dusty plaything of a long-dead child;--an image of the Virgin, even
smaller;--and a broken cup with fresh bright blossoms in it, the
Virgin's flower-offering;--and the Virgin's invariable lamp--a
night-light, a little wick floating on olive-oil in a tiny glass.
I know that Cyrillia must have bought these flowers--they are garden
flowers--at the Marchè du Fort. There are always old women sitting there
who sell nothing else but bouquets for the Virgin,--and who cry out to
passers-by:--"_Gagné ti bouquet pou Viège-ou, chè!_... Buy a nosegay,
dear, for your Virgin;--she is asking you for one;--give her a little
one, _chè cocott_."... Cyrillia says you must not smell the flowers you
give the Virgin: it would be stealing from her.... The little lamp is
always lighted at six o'clock. At six o'clock the Virgin is supposed to
pass through all the streets of St. Pierre, and wherever a lamp burns
before her image, she enters there and blesses that house. "_Faut limé
lampe ou pou fai la-Viège passé dans caïe-ou_," says Cyrillia. (You must
light the lamp to make the Virgin come into your house.)... Cyrillia
often talks to her little image, exactly as if it were a baby,--calls it
pet names,--asks if it is content with the flowers.
This image of the Virgin is broken: it is only half a Virgin,--the upper
half. Cyrillia has arranged it so, nevertheless, that had I not been
very inquisitive I should never have divined its mishap. She found a
small broken powder-box without a lid,--probably thrown negligently out
of a boudoir window by some wealthy beauty: she filled this little box
with straw, and fixed the mutilated image upright within it, so that you
could never suspect the loss of its feet. The Virgin looks very funny,
thus peeping over the edge of her little box,--looks like a broken toy,
which a child has been trying to mend. But this Virgin has offerings
too: Cyrillia buys flowers for her, and sticks them all round her,
between the edge of the powder-box and the straw. After all, Cyrillia's
Virgin is quite as serious a fact as any image of silver or of ivory in
the homes of the rich: probably the prayers said to her are more simply
beautiful, and more direct from the heart, than many daily murmured
before the _chapelles_ of luxurious homes. And the more one looks at it,
the more one feels that it were almost wicked to smile at this little
broken toy of faith.
--"Cyrillia, _mafi_," I asked her one day, after my discovery of the
little Virgin,--"would you not like me to buy a _chapelle_ for you?"
The _chapelle_ is the little bracket-altar, together with images and
ornaments, to be found in every creole bedroom.
--"_Mais non, Missié_," she answered, smiling, "_moin aimein ti Viège
moin, pa lè gagnin dautt_. I love my little Virgin: do not want any
other. I have seen much trouble: she was with me in my trouble;--she
heard my prayers. It would be wicked for me to throw her away. When I
have a sou to spare, I buy flowers for her;--when I have no money, I
climb the mornes, and pick pretty buds for her.... But why should Missié
want to buy me a _chapelle?_--Missié is a Protestant?"
--"I thought it might give you pleasure, Cyrillia."
--"No, Missié, I thank you; it would not give me pleasure. But Missié
could give me something else which would make me very happy--I often
thought of asking Missié...but--"
--"Tell me what it is, Cyrillia."
She remained silent a moment, then said:--
--"Missié makes photographs...."
--"You want a photograph of yourself, Cyrillia?"
--"Oh! no, Missié, I am too ugly and too old. But I have a daughter. She
is beautiful--_yon bel bois_,--like a beautiful tree, as we say here. I
would like so much to have her picture taken."
A photographic instrument belonging to a clumsy amateur suggested this
request to Cyrillia. I could not attempt such work successfully; but I
gave her a note to a photographer of much skill; and a few days later
the portrait was sent to the house. Cyrillia's daughter was certainly a
comely girl,--tall and almost gold-colored, with pleasing features; and
the photograph looked very nice, though less nice than the original.
Half the beauty of these people is a beauty of tint,--a tint so
exquisite sometimes that I have even heard white creoles declare
no white complexion compares with it: the greater part of the charm
remaining is grace,--the grace of movement; and neither of these can be
rendered by photography. I had the portrait framed for Cyrillia, to hang
up beside her little pictures.
When it came, she was not in; I put it in her room, and waited to see
the effect. On returning, she entered there; and I did not see her for
so long a time that I stole to the door of the chamber to observe her.
She was standing before the portrait,--looking at it, talking to it as
if it were alive. "_Yche moin, yche moin!... Oui! ou toutt bel!--yche
moin bel_." (My child, my child!... Yes, thou art all beautiful: my
child is beautiful.) All at once she turned--perhaps she noticed
my shadow, or felt my presence in some way: her eyes were wet;--she
started, flushed, then laughed.
--"Ah! Missié, you watch me;--_ou guette moin_.... But she is my child.
Why should I not love her?... She looks so beautiful there."
--"She is beautiful, Cyrillia;--I love to see you love her."
She gazed at the picture a little longer in silence;--then turned to me
again, and asked earnestly:--
--"_Pouki yo ja ka fai pòtrai palé--anh?... pisse yo ka tiré y toutt
samm ou: c'est ou-menm!... Yo douè fai y palé 'tou_."
(Why do they not make a portrait talk,--tell me? For they draw it just
all like you!--it is yourself: they ought to make it talk.)
--"Perhaps they will be able to do something like that one of these
days, Cyrillia."
--"Ah! that would be so nice. Then I could talk to her. _C'est yon bel
moune moin fai--y bel, joli moune!... Moin sé causé épi y_."...
... And I, watching her beautiful childish emotion, thought:--Cursed
be the cruelty that would persuade itself that one soul may be
like another,--that one affection may be replaced by another,--that
individual goodness is not a thing apart, original, untwinned on earth,
but only the general characteristic of a class or type, to be sought and
found and utilized at will!...
Self-curséd he who denies the divinity of love! Each heart, each brain
in the billions of humanity,--even so surely as sorrow lives,--feels and
thinks in some special way unlike any other; and goodness in each
has its unlikeness to all other goodness,--and thus its own infinite
preciousness; for however humble, however small, it is something all
alone, and God never repeats his work. No heart-beat is cheap, no
gentleness is despicable, no kindness is common; and Death, in removing
a life--the simplest life ignored,--removes what never will reappear
through the eternity of eternities,--since every being is the sum of
a chain of experiences infinitely varied from all others.... To some
Cyrillia's happy tears might bring a smile: to me that smile would seem
the unforgivable sin against the Giver of Life!...