Part 29

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!...

"PA COMBINÉ, CHÈ!"

I

More finely than any term in our tongue does the French word _frisson_ express that faint shiver--as of a ghostly touch thrilling from hair to feet--which intense pleasure sometimes gives, and which is felt most often and most strongly in childhood, when the imagination is still so sensitive and so powerful that one's whole being trembles to the vibration of a fancy. And this electric word best expresses, I think, that long thrill of amazed delight inspired by the first knowledge of the tropic world,--a sensation of weirdness in beauty, like the effect, in child-days, of fairy tales and stories of phantom isles.

For all unreal seems the vision of it. The transfiguration of all things by the stupendous light and the strange vapors of the West Indian sea,--the interorbing of flood and sky in blinding azure,--the sudden spirings of gem-tinted coast from the ocean,--the iris-colors and astounding shapes of the hills,--the unimaginable magnificence of palms,--the high woods veiled and swathed in vines that blaze like emerald: all remind you in some queer way of things half forgotten,--the fables of enchantment. Enchantment it is indeed--but only the enchantment of that Great Wizard, the Sun, whose power you are scarcely beginning to know.

And into the life of the tropical city you enter as in dreams one enters into the life of a dead century. In all the quaint streets--over whose luminous yellow façades the beautiful burning violet of the sky appears as if but a few feet away--you see youth good to look upon as ripe fruit; and the speech of the people is soft as a coo; and eyes of brown girls caress you with a passing look.... Love's world, you may have heard, has few restraints here, where Nature ever seems to cry out, like the swart seller of corossoles:--"_ça qui le doudoux?_"...

How often in some passing figure does one discern an ideal almost realized, and forbear to follow it with untired gaze only when another, another, and yet another, come to provoke the same aesthetic fancy,--to win the same unspoken praise! How often does one long for artist's power to fix the fleeting lines, to catch the color, to seize the whole exotic charm of some special type!... One finds a strange charm even in the timbre of these voices,--these half-breed voices, always with a tendency to contralto, and vibrant as ringing silver. What is that mysterious quality in a voice which has power to make the pulse beat faster, even when the singer is unseen?... do only the birds know?