Part 18

... 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 pesthouse 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 a 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,--to forget everything but the 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_[24] (that is to 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 the same thing," or ought to be so considered,--you can readily imagine how soon the city must become one vast hospital.

[Footnote 24: Lit.,--"brought-up-in-a-hat." To wear the madras is to acknowledge oneself of color;--to follow the European style of dressing the hair and adopt the costume of the white creoles indicate a desire to affiliate with the white class.]

XXII

... By nine o'clock, as a general rule, St. Pierre becomes silent: every one 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 barefooted 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, as 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 is visible through all the ways of St. Pierre. The costumes donned are all similar to those worn for the death of 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 window 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 hills: 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 grows 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

_Mardi 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 burying the dead two together: the cemeteries are overburdened....

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 outstretched leg to the tip of its opposite fellow, as they cling to the wall. I never heard of any one 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 the door-way quite a host of these monster insects. Manm-Robert is quite dismayed:--

--"_Jesis-Maïa!--ou 'lè malhè éncò fou 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 soul--ça fil zagrignin, et moin pa menm mangé! Epi laverette encò.... Main 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 allé_," 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 Nausicas, though more naïvely 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,[25] who, falling in love with a handsome colored girl, spent all his father's mopey 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 vérette. She is gone to the lazaretto."

[Footnote 25: Red earthen-ware jars for keeping drinking-water cool. The origin of the word is probably to be sought in the name of the town, near Marseilles, where they are made,--"Aubagne."]

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 Manm-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_,[26] etc. 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 noué_," she says;--"_moin ouôuge: ou fai moin nouè nans pàtrait-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--_noué conm poule-zo-nouè_ ("black as a blackboned hen!")

... And this red race is disappearing from St. Pierre--doubtless also from other plague-striken centres.

[Footnote 26: I may cite in this relation one stanza of a creole song--very popular in St. Pierre--celebrating the charms of a little capresse:--

"Moin toutt jeine, Goufa, gouàs, vaillant, Peau di chapoti Ka fai plaisi;-- Lapeau moin Li bien poli; Et moin ka plai Mêmn toutt nhomme grave!"

--Which might be freely rendered thus:--

"I am dimpled, young, Round-limbed, and strong, With sapota-skin That is good to see: All glossy-smooth Is this skin of mine; And the gravest men Like to look to me!"]

XXIX

_April 10th._

... Manm-Robert is much annoyed and puzzled because the American steamer--the _bom-mangé_, as she calls it--does not come. It used to bring regularly so many barrels of potatoes and beans, so much lard and cheese and 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 of 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 the 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 declared 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 the 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:--

--"_Aid, mon chè, c'est Yzore qui ni lavérette!_"

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 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 soon.... All the furniture is to be sold at auction to pay the 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 of the 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!--quitté main châché papa-ou qui adans cimétiè pou vint 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!)

LES BLANCHISSEUSES

I