Part 27

What is the secret of that horror inspired by the centipede?... It is but very faintly related to our knowledge that the creature is venomous;--the results of the bite are only temporary swelling and a brief fever;--it is less to be feared than the bite of other tropical insects and reptiles which never inspire the same loathing by their aspect. And the shapes of venomous creatures are not always shapes of ugliness. The serpent has elegance of form as well as attractions of metallic tinting;--the tarantula, or the _matoutou-falaise_, have geometrical beauty. Lapidaries have in all ages expended rare skill upon imitations of serpent grace in gold and gems;--a princess would not scorn to wear a diamond spider. But what art could utilize successfully the form of the centipede? It is a form of absolute repulsiveness,--a skeleton-shape half defined:--the suggestion of some old reptile-spine astir, crawling with its fragments of ribs.

No other living thing excites exactly the same feeling produced by the sight of the centipede,--the intense loathing and peculiar fear. The instant you see a centipede you feel it is absolutely necessary to kill it; you cannot find peace in your house while you know that such a life exists in it: perhaps the intrusion of a serpent would annoy and disgust you less. And it is not easy to explain the whole reason of this loathing. The form alone has, of course, something to do with it,--a form that seems almost a departure from natural laws. But the form alone does not produce the full effect, which is only experienced when you see the creature in motion. The true horror of the centipede, perhaps, must be due to the monstrosity of its movement,--multiple and complex, as of a chain of pursuing and inter-devouring lives: there is something about it that makes you recoil, as from a sudden corrupt swarming-out. It is confusing,--a series of contractings and lengthenings and, undulations so rapid as to allow of being only half seen: it alarms also, because the thing seems perpetually about to disappear, and because you know that to lose sight of it for one moment involves the very unpleasant chance of finding it upon you the next,--perhaps between skin and clothing.

But this is not all:--the sensation produced by the centipede is still more complex--complex, in fact, as the visible organization of the creature. For, during pursuit,--whether retreating or attacking, in hiding or fleeing,--it displays a something which seems more than instinct: calculation and cunning,--a sort of malevolent intelligence. It knows how to delude, how to terrify;--it has marvellous skill in feinting;--it is an abominable juggler....

III

I am about to leave my room after breakfast, when little Victoire who carries the meals up-stairs in a wooden tray, screams out:--"_Gadé, Missié! ni bête-ni-pié assous dos ou!_" There is a thousand-footed beast upon my back!

Off goes my coat, which I throw upon the floor;--the little servant, who has a nervous horror of centipedes, climbs upon a chair. I cannot see anything under the coat, nevertheless;--I lift it by the collar, turn it about very cautiously--nothing! Suddenly the child screams again; and I perceive the head close to my hand;--the execrable thing had been hiding in a perpendicular fold of the coat, which I drop only just in time to escape getting bitten. Immediately the centipede becomes invisible. Then I take the coat by one flap, and turn it over very quickly: just as quickly does the centipede pass over it in the inverse direction, and disappear under it again. I have had my first good look at him: he seems nearly a foot long,--has a greenish-yellow hue against the black cloth,--and pink legs, and a violet head;--he is evidently young.... I turn the coat a second time: same disgusting manreuvre. Undulations of livid color flow over him as he lengthens and shortens;--while running his shape is but half apparent; it is only as he makes a half pause in doubling round and under the coat that the panic of his legs becomes discernible. When he is fully exposed they move with invisible rapidity,--like a vibration;--you can see only a sort of pink haze extending about him,--something to which you would no more dare advance your finger than to the vapory halo edging a circular saw in motion. Twice more I turn and re-turn the coat with the same result;--I observe that the centipede always runs towards my hand, until I withdraw it: he feints!

With a stick I uplift one portion of the coat after another; and suddenly perceive him curved under a sleeve,--looking quite small!--how could he have seemed so large a moment ago?... But before I can strike him he has flickered over the cloth again, and vanished; and I discover that he has the power of _magnifying himself_,--dilating the disgust of his shape at will: he invariably amplifies himself to face attack....

It seems very difficult to dislodge him; he displays astonishing activity and cunning at finding wrinkles and folds to hide in. Even at the risk of damaging various things in the pockets, I stamp upon the coat;--then lift it up with the expectation of finding the creature dead. But it suddenly rushes out from some part or other, looking larger and more wicked than ever,--drops to the floor, and charges at my feet: a sortie! I strike at him unsuccessfully with the stick: he retreats to the angle between wainscoting and floor, and runs along it fast as a railroad train,--dodges two or three pokes,--gains the door-frame,--glides behind a hinge, and commences to run over the wall of the stair-way. There the hand of a black servant slaps him dead.

--"Always strike at the head," the servant tells me; "never tread on the tail.... This is a small one: the big fellows can make you afraid if you do not know how to kill them."

... I pick up the carcass with a pair of scissors. It does not look formidable now that it is all contracted;--it is scarcely eight inches long,--thin as card-board, and even less heavy. It has no substantiality, no weight;--it is a mere appearance, a mask, a delusion.... But remembering the spectral, cunning, juggling something which magnified and moved it but a moment ago,--I feel almost tempted to believe, with certain savages, that there are animal shapes inhabited by goblins....

IV

--"Is there anything still living and lurking in old black drains of Thought,--any bigotry, any prejudice, anything in the moral world whereunto the centipede may be likened?"

--"Really, I do not know," replied the friend to whom I had put the question; "but you need only go as far as the vegetable world for a likeness. Did you ever see anything like this?" he added, opening a drawer and taking therefrom something revolting, which, as he pressed it in his hand, looked like a long thick bundle of dried centipedes.

--"Touch them," he said, holding out to me the mass of articulated flat bodies and bristling legs.

--"Not for anything!" I replied, in astonished disgust. He laughed, and opened his hand. As he did so, the mass expanded.

--"Now look," he exclaimed!

Then I saw that all the bodies were united at the tails--grew together upon one thick flat annulated stalk... a plant!--"But here is the fruit," he continued, taking from the same drawer a beautifully embossed ovoid nut, large as a duck's egg, ruddy-colored, and so exquisitely varnished by nature as to resemble a rosewood carving fresh from the hands of the cabinet-maker. In its proper place among the leaves and branches, it had the appearance of something delicious being devoured by a multitude of centipedes. Inside was a kernel, hard and heavy as iron-wood; but this in time, I was told, falls into dust: though the beautiful shell remains always perfect.

Negroes call it the _coco-macaque._

MA BONNE

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:[51] 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.

[Footnote 51: There is record of an attempt to manufacture bread with one part manioc flour to three of wheat flour. The result was excellent; but no serious effort was ever made to put the manioc bread on the market.]

III

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.

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.