Two Years in the French West Indies Part 19

"Ange-gardien Veillez sur moi; * * * * Ayez pitie de ma faiblesse; Couchez-vous sur mon pet.i.t lit; Suivez-moi sans cesse."... [21]

I can only catch a line here and there.... They do not sleep immediately;--they continue to chat in bed. Gabrielle wants to know what a guardian-angel is like. And I hear Mimi's voice replying in creole:--

--"_Zange-gadien, c'est yon jeine fi, toutt bel_." (The guardian-angel is a young girl, all beautiful.)

A little while, and there is silence; and I see Yzore come out, barefooted, upon the moonlit balcony of her little room,--looking up and down the hushed street, looking at the sea, looking up betimes at the high flickering of stars,--moving her lips as in prayer.... And, standing there white-robed, with her rich dark hair loose-falling, there is a weird grace about her that recalls those long slim figures of guardian-angels in French religious prints....

XVI. _March 6th_

This morning Manm-Robert brings me something queer,--something hard tied up in a tiny piece of black cloth, with a string attached to hang it round my neck. I must wear it, she says,

--"_ca ca ye, Manm-Robert?_"

--"_Pou empeche ou pouend laverette_," she answers. It to keep me from catching the _verette_!... And what is inside it?

--"_Toua graines mas, epi dicamfre_." (Three grains of corn, with a bit of camphor!)...

XVII. _March 8th_

... Rich households throughout the city are almost helpless for the want of servants. One can scarcely obtain help at any price: it is true that young country-girls keep coming into town to fill the places of the dead; but these new-comers fall a prey to the disease much more readily than those who preceded them, And such deaths en represent more than a mere derangement in the mechanism of domestic life. The creole _bonne_ bears a relation to the family of an absolutely peculiar sort,--a relation of which the term "house-servant" does not convey the faintest idea. She is really a member of the household: her a.s.sociation with its life usually begins in childhood, when she is barely strong enough to carry a dobanne of water up-stairs;--and in many cases she has the additional claim of having been born in the house. As a child, she plays with the white children,--shares their pleasures and presents. She is very seldom harshly spoken to, or reminded of the fact that she is a servitor: she has a pet name;--she is allowed much familiarity,--is often permitted to join in conversation when there is no company present, and to express her opinion about domestic affairs. She costs very little to keep; four or five dollars a year will supply her with all necessary clothing;--she rarely wears shoes;--she sleeps on a little straw mattress (_pailla.s.se_) on the floor, or perhaps upon a pailla.s.se supported upon an "elephant" (_lefan_)--two thick square pieces of hard mattress placed together so as to form an oblong. She is only a nominal expense to the family; and she is the confidential messenger, the nurse, the chamber-maid, the water-carrier,--everything, in short, except cook and washer-woman. Families possessing a really good bonne would not part with her on any consideration. If she has been brought up in the house-hold, she is regarded almost as a kind of adopted child. If she leave that household to make a home of her own, and have ill-fortune afterwards, she will not be afraid to return with her baby, which will perhaps be received and brought up as she herself was, under the old roof. The stranger may feel puzzled at first by this state of affairs; yet the cause is not obscure. It is traceable to the time of the formation of creole society--to the early period of slavery. Among the Latin races,--especially the French,--slavery preserved in modern times many of the least harsh features of slavery in the antique world,--where the domestic slave, entering the _familia_, actually became a member of it.

XVIII. _March 10th._

... Yzore and her little ones are all in Manm-Robert's shop;--she is recounting her troubles,--fresh troubles: forty-seven francs' worth of work delivered on time, and no money received.... So much I hear as I enter the little boutique myself, to buy a package of "_bouts_."

--"_a.s.sise!_" says Manm-Robert, handing me her own hair;--she is always pleased to see me, pleased to chat lith me about creole folk-lore. Then observing, a smile exchanged between myself and Mimi, she tells the children to bid me good-day:--"_Alle di bonjou' Missie-a!_"

One after another, each holds up a velvety cheek to kiss. And Mimi, who has been asking her mother the same question over and over again for at least five minutes without being able to obtain an answer, ventures to demand of me on the strength of this introduction:--

--"_Missie, oti masque-a?_"

--"_Y ben fou, pouloss!_" the mother cries out;--"Why, the child must be going out of her senses!... _Mimi pa 'mbete moune conm ca!--pa ni piess masque: c'est la-verette qui ni_." (Don't annoy people like that!--there are no maskers now; there is nothing but the verette!)

[You are not annoying me at all, little Mimi; but I would not like to answer your question truthfully. I know where the maskers are,--most of them, child; and I do not think it would be well for you to know. They wear no masks now; but if you were to see them for even one moment, by some extraordinary accident, pretty Mimi, I think you would feel more frightened than you ever felt before.]...

--"_Toutt lanuite y k'anni reve masque-a_," continues Yzore.... I am curious to know what Mimi's dreams are like;--wonder if I can coax her to tell me....

XIX.

... I have written Mimi's last dream from the child's dictation:-- [22]

--"I saw a ball," she says, "I was dreaming: I saw everybody dancing with masks on;--I was looking at them, And all at once I saw that the folks who were dancing were all made of pasteboard. And I saw a commandeur: he asked me what I was doing there, I answered him: 'Why, I saw a ball, and I came to look--what of it?' He answered me:--'Since you are so curious to come and look at other folks' business, you will have to stop here and dance too!' I said to him:--'No! I won't dance with people made of pasteboard;--I am afraid of them!'...And I ran and ran and ran,--I was so much afraid. And I ran into a big garden, where I saw a big cherry-tree that had only leaves upon it; and I saw a man sitting under the cherry-tree, He asked me:--'What are you doing here?' I said to him:--'I am trying to find my way out,' He said:--'You must stay here.' I said:--'No, no!'--and I said, in order to be able to get away:--'Go up there!--you will see a fine ball: all pasteboard people dancing there, and a pasteboard commandeur commanding them!'... And then I got so frightened that I awoke."...

... "And why were you so afraid of them, Mimi?" I ask.

--"_Pace yo te toutt vide endedans!_" answers Mimi. (_Because they were all hollow inside_!)

XX. _March 19th._

... The death-rate in St. Pierre is now between three hundred and fifty and four hundred a month. Our street is being depopulated. Every day men come with immense stretchers,--covered with a sort of canvas awning,--to take somebody away to the _lazaretto_. At brief intervals, also, coffins are carried into houses empty, and carried out again followed by women who cry so loud that their sobbing can be heard a great way off.

... Before the visitation few quarters were so densely peopled: there were living often in one small house as many as fifty. The poorer cla.s.ses 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 coa.r.s.est food. Yet, though living under such adverse conditions, no healthier people could be found, perhaps, in the world,--nor a more cleanly. Every yard having its fountain, almost everybody could bathe daily,--and with hundreds it was the custom to enter the river every morning at daybreak, or to take a swim in the bay (the young women here swim as well as the men)....

But the pestilence, entering among so dense and unprotected a life, made extraordinarily rapid havoc; and bodily cleanliness availed little against the contagion. Now all the bathing resorts are deserted,--because the lazarettos infect the bay with refuse, and because the clothing of the sick is washed in the Roxelane.

... Guadeloupe, the sister colony, now sends aid;--the sum total is less than a single American merchant might give to a charitable undertaking: but it is a great deal for Guadeloupe to give. And far Cayenne sends money too; and the mother-country will send one hundred thousand francs.

XXI. _March 20th._

... The infinite goodness of this colored population to one another is something which impresses with astonishment those accustomed to the selfishness of the world's great cities. No one is suffered to go to the pest-house who has a bed to lie upon, and a single relative or tried friend to administer remedies;--the mult.i.tude who pa.s.s through the lazarettos are strangers,--persons from the country who have no home of their own, or servants who are not permitted to remain sick in houses of employers.... There are, however, many cases where a mistress will not suffer her bonne to take the risks of the pest-house,--especially in families where there are no children: the domestic is carefully nursed; a physician hired for her, remedies purchased for her....

But among the colored people themselves the heroism displayed is beautiful, is touching,--something which makes one doubt all accepted theories about the natural egotism of mankind, and would compel the most hardened pessimist to conceive a higher idea of humanity. There is never a moment's hesitation in visiting a stricken individual: every relative, and even the most intimate friends of every relative, may be seen hurrying to the bedside. They take turns at nursing, sitting up all night, securing medical attendance and medicines, without ever thought of the danger,--nay, of the almost absolute certainty of contagion. If the patient have no means, all contribute: what the sister or brother has not, the uncle or the aunt, the G.o.dfather or G.o.dmother, the cousin, brother-in-law or sister-in-law, may be able to give. No one dreams of refusing money or linen or wine or anything possible to give, lend, or procure on credit. Women seem to forget that they are beautiful, that they are young, that they are loved,--forget everything but sense of that which they hold to be duty. You see young girls of remarkably elegant presence,--young colored girls well educated and _elevees-en-chapeau_ [23] (that is say, brought up like white creole girls, dressed and accomplished like them), voluntarily leave rich homes to nurse some poor mulatress or capresse in the indigent quarters of the town, because the sick one happens to be a distant relative. They will not trust others to perform this for them;--they feel bound to do it in person. I heard such a one say, in reply to some earnest protest about thus exposing herself (she had never been vaccinated);--"_Ah! quand il s'agit du devoir, la vie ou la mort c'est pour moi la meme chose_."

... But without any sanitary law to check this self-immolation, and with the conviction that in the presence of duty, or what is believed to be duty, "life or death is same thing," or ought to be so considered,--you can readily imagine how soon the city must become one vast hospital.

XXII.

... By nine o'clock, as a general rule, St. Pierre becomes silent: everyone here retires early and rises with the sun. But sometimes, when the night is exceptionally warm, people continue to sit at their doors and chat until a far later hour; and on such a night one may hear and see curious things, in this period of plague....

It is certainly singular that while the howling of a dog at night has no ghastly signification here (n.o.body ever pays the least attention to the sound, however hideous), the moaning and screaming of cats is believed to bode death; and in these times folks never appear to feel too sleepy to rise at any hour and drive them away when they begin their cries....

To-night--a night so oppressive that all but the sick are sitting up--almost a panic is created in our street by a screaming of cats;--and long after the creatures have been hunted out of sight and hearing, everybody who has a relative ill with the prevailing malady continues to discuss the omen with terror.

... Then I observe a colored child standing bare-footed in the moonlight, with her little round arms uplifted and hands joined above her head. A more graceful little figure it would be hard to find as she appears thus posed; but, all unconsciously, she is violating another superst.i.tion by this very att.i.tude; and the angry mother shrieks:--

--"_Ti manmaille-la!--tire lanmain-ou a.s.sous tete-ou, foute! p.i.s.se moin enc la!... Espere moin alle lazarett avant mette lanmain conm ca!_"

(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!)