Two Years in the French West Indies Part 27

Stephane slowly let himself down, so as to lie nearly all his length in the canoe,--one foot on either side of Maximilien's hips. Then he lay very still for a long time,--so still that Maximilien became uneasy.

--"_Ou ben malade?_" he asked.... Stephane did not seem to hear: his eyes remained closed.

--"Stephane!" cried Maximilien, in alarm,--"Stephane!"

--"_C'est l, papoute_," murmured Stephane, without lifting his eyelids,--"_ca c'est l!--ou pa janmain oue yon bel piece conm ca?_"

(It is gold, little father.... Didst thou ever see a pretty piece like that?... No, thou wilt not beat me, little father?--no, _papoute!_)

--"_Ou ka dmi, Stephane?_"--queried Maximilien, wondering,--"art asleep?"

But Stephane opened his eyes and looked at him so strangely! Never had he seen Stephane look that way before.

--"_C'a ou ni, Stephane?--what ails thee?--ae, Bon-Die, Bon-Die!_"

--"_Bon-Die!_"--muttered Stephane, closing his eyes again at the sound of the great Name,--"He has no color!--He is like the Wind."...

--"Stephane!"...

--"He feels in the dark--He has not eyes."...

--"_Stephane, pa pale ca!!_"

--"He tosses the sea.... He has no face;--He lifts up the dead... and the leaves."...

--"_Ou fou_" cried Maximilien, bursting into a wild fit of sobbing,--"Stephane, thou art mad!"

And all at once he became afraid of Stephane,--afraid of all he said,--afraid of his touch,--afraid of his eyes... he was growing like a _zombi!_

But Stephane's eyes remained closed!--he ceased to speak.

... About them deepened the enormous silence of the sea;--low swung the sun again. The horizon was yellowing: day had begun to fade. Tall Dominica was now half green; but there yet appeared no smoke, no sail, no sign of life.

And the tints of the two vast Shapes that shattered the rim of the light shifted as if evanescing,--shifted like tones of West Indian fishes,--of _pisquette_ and _congre_,--of _caringue_ and _gouos-zie_ and _balaou_.

Lower sank the sun;--cloud-fleeces of orange pushed up over the edge of the west;--a thin warm breath caressed the sea,--sent long lilac shudderings over the flanks of the swells. Then colors changed again: violet richened to purple;--greens blackened softlY;--grays smouldered into smoky gold.

And the sun went down.

VII.

And they floated into the fear of the night together. Again the ghostly fires began to wimple about them: naught else was visible but the high stars. Black hours pa.s.sed. From minute to minute Maximilien cried out:--"_Sucou! sucou!_" Stephane lay motionless and dumb: his feet, touching Maximilien's naked hips, felt singularly cold.

... Something knocked suddenly against the bottom of the canoe,--knocked heavily--making a hollow loud sound. It was not Stephane;--Stephane lay still as a stone: it was from the depth below. Perhaps a great fish pa.s.sing.

It came again,--twice,--shaking the canoe like a great blow. Then Stephane suddenly moved,--drew up his feet a little,--made as if to speak:--"_Ou..._"; but the speech failed at his lips,--ending in a sound like the moan of one trying to call out in sleep;--and Maximilien's heart almost stopped beating.... Then Stephane's limbs straightened again; he made no more movement;--Maximilien could not even hear him breathe.... All the sea had begun to whisper.

A breeze was rising;--Maximilien felt it blowing upon him. All at once it seemed to him that he had ceased to be afraid,--that he did not care what might happen. He thought about a cricket he had one day watched in the harbor,--drifting out with the tide, on an atom of dead bark.--and he wondered what had become of it Then he understood that he himself was the cricket,--still alive. But some boy had found him and pulled off his legs. There they were,--his own legs, pressing against him: he could still feel the aching where they had been pulled off; and they had been dead so long they were now quite cold.... It was certainly Stephane who had pulled them off....

The water was talking to him. It was saying the same thing over and over again,--louder each time, as if it thought he could not hear. But he heard it very well:--"_Bon-Die, li conm vent... li ka touche nou... nou pa save oue li_." (But why had the Bon-Die shaken the wind?) "_Li pa ka tini zie_," answered the water.... _Ouille!_--He might all the same care not to upset folks in the sea!... _Mi!_...

But even as he thought these things, Maximilien became aware that a white, strange, bearded face was looking at him: the Bon-Die was there,--bending over him with a lantern,--talking to him in a language he did not understand. And the Bon-Die certainly had eyes,--great gray eyes that did not look wicked at all. He tried to tell the Bon-Die how sorry he was for what he had been saying about him;--but found he could not utter a word, He felt great hands lift him up to the stars, and lay him down very near them,--just under them. They burned blue-white, and hurt his eyes like lightning:--he felt afraid of them.... About him he heard voices,--always speaking the same language, which he could not understand.... "_Poor little devils!--poor little devils!_" Then he heard a bell ring; and the Bon-Die made him swallow something nice and warm;--and everything became black again. The stars went out!...

... Maximilien was lying under an electric-light on board the great steamer _Rio de Janeiro_, and dead Stephane beside him.... It was four o'clock in the morning.

CHAPTER IX. LA FILLE DE COULEUR.

I.

Nothing else in the picturesque life of the French colonies of the Occident impresses the traveller on his first arrival more than the costumes of the women of color. They surprise the aesthetic sense agreeably;--they are local and special: you will see nothing resembling them among the populations of the British West Indies; they belong to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Desirade, Marie-Galante, and Cayenne,--in each place differing sufficiently to make the difference interesting, especially in regard to the head-dress. That of Martinique is quite Oriental;--more attractive, although less fantastic than the Cayenne coiffure, or the pretty drooping mouchoir of Guadeloupe.

These costumes are gradually disappearing, for various reasons,--the chief reason being of course the changes in the social condition of the colonies during the last forty years. Probably the question of health had also something to do with the almost universal abandonment in Martinique of the primitive slave dress,--_chemise_ and _jupe_,--which exposed its wearer to serious risks of pneumonia; for as far as economical reasons are concerned, there was no fault to find with it: six francs could purchase it when money was worth more than it is now.

The douillette, a long trailing dress, one piece from neck to feet, has taken its place. [35]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MARTINIQUE TURBAN, OR MADRAS CALENDE.]

But there was a luxurious variety of the jupe costume which is disappearing because of its cost; there is no money in the colonies now for such display:--I refer to the celebrated attire of the pet slaves and _belles affranchies_ of the old colonial days. A full costume,--including violet or crimson "petticoat" of silk or satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery and lace; "trembling-pins" of gold (_zepingue tremblant_) to attach the folds of the brilliant Madras turban; the great necklace of three or four strings of gold beads bigger than peas (_collier-choux_); the ear-rings, immense but light as egg-sh.e.l.ls (_zanneaux-a-clous_ or _zanneaux-chenilles_); the bracelets (_portes-bonheur_); the studs (_boutons-a-clous_); the brooches, not only for the turban, but for the chemise, below the folds of the showy silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,--would sometimes represent over five thousand francs expenditure. This gorgeous attire is becoming less visible every year: it is now rarely worn except on very solemn occasions,--weddings, baptisms, first communions, confirmations.

The _da_ (nurse) or "porteuse-de-bapteme" who bears the baby to church holds it at the baptismal font, and afterwards carries it from house to house in order that all the friends of the family may kiss it, is thus attired; but nowadays, unless she be a professional (for there are professional _das_, hired only for such occasions), she usually borrows the jewellery. If tall, young, graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin, the effect of her costume is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin.

I saw one young da who, thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and earthly;--there was an Oriental something in her appearance difficult to describe,--something that made you think of the Queen of Sheba going to visit Solomon. She had brought a merchant's baby, just christened, to receive the caresses of the family at whose house I was visiting; and when it came to my turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice the child: I saw only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange and purple, bending over it, in an illumination of antique gold.... What a da!... She represented really the type of that _belle affranchie_ of other days, against whose fascination special sumptuary laws were made; romantically she imaged for me the supernatural G.o.d-mothers and Cinderellas of the creole fairy-tales. For these become transformed in the West Indian folklore,--adapted to the environment, and to local idealism:--Cinderella, for example, is changed to a beautiful metisse, wearing a quadruple _collier-choux_, _zepingues tremblants_, and all the ornaments of a da. [36] Recalling the impression of that dazzling _da_, I can even now feel the picturesque justice of the fabulist's description of Cinderella's creole costume: _ca te ka baille ou mal zie!_--(it would have given you a pain in your eyes to look at her!)

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GUADELOUPE HEAD-DRESS.]

... Even the every-day Martinique costume is slowly changing. Year by year the "calendeuses"--the women who paint and fold the turbans--have less work to do;--the colors of the _douiellette_ are becoming less vivid;--while more and more young colored girls are being _elevees en chapeau_ ("brought up in a hat")--i.e., dressed and educated like the daughters of the whites. These, it must be confessed, look far less attractive in the latest Paris fashion, unless white as the whites themselves: on the other hand, few white girls could look well in _douillette_ and _mouchoir_,--not merely because of color contrast, but because they have not that amplitude of limb and particular cambering of the torso peculiar to the half-breed race, with its large bulk and stature. Attractive as certain coolie women are, I observed that all who have adopted the Martinique costume look badly in it: they are too slender of body to wear it to advantage.

Slavery introduced these costumes, even though it probably did not invent them; and they were necessarily doomed to pa.s.s away with the peculiar social conditions to which they belonged. If the population clings still to its _douillettes_, _mouchoirs_, and _foulards_, the fact is largely due to the cheapness of such attire. A girl can dress very showily indeed for about twenty francs--shoes excepted;--and thousands never wear shoes. But the fashion will no doubt have become cheaper and uglier within another decade.

At the present time, however, the stranger might be sufficiently impressed by the oddity and brilliancy of these dresses to ask about their origin,--in which case it is not likely that he will obtain any satisfactory answer. After long research I found myself obliged to give up all hope of being able to outline the history of Martinique costume,--partly because books and histories are scanty or defective, and partly because such an undertaking would require a knowledge possible only to a specialist. I found good reason, nevertheless, to suppose that these costumes were in the beginning adopted from certain fashions of provincial France,--that the respective fashions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne were patterned after modes still worn in parts of the mother-country. The old-time garb of the _affranchie_--that still worn by the _da_--somewhat recalls dresses worn by the women of Southern France, more particularly about Montpellier.

Perhaps a specialist might also trace back the evolution of the various creole coiffures to old forms of head-dresses which still survive among the French country-fashions of the south and south-west provinces;--but local taste has so much modified the original style as to leave it unrecognizable to those who have never studied the subject. The Martinique fashion of folding and tying the Madras, and of calendering it, are probably local; and I am a.s.sured that the designs of the curious semi-barbaric jewellery were all invented in the colony, where the _collier-choux_ is still manufactured by local goldsmiths. Purchasers buy one, two, or three _grains_, or beads, at a time, and string them only on obtaining the requisite number.... This is the sum of all that I was able to learn on the matter; but in the course of searching various West Indian authors and historians for information, I found something far more important than the origin of the _douillette_ or the _collier-choux_: the facts of that strange struggle between nature and interest, between love and law, between prejudice and pa.s.sion, which forms the evolutional history of the mixed race.

II.

Considering only the French peasant colonist and the West African slave as the original factors of that physical evolution visible in the modern _fille-de-couleur_, it would seem incredible;--for the intercrossing alone could not adequately explain all the physical results. To understand them fully, it will be necessary to bear in mind that both of the original races became modified in their lineage to a surprising degree by conditions of climate and environment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOUNG MULATTRESS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLANTATION COOLIE WOMAN IN MARTINIQUE COSTUME.]

The precise time of the first introduction of slaves into Martinique is not now possible to ascertain,--no record exists on the subject; but it is probable that the establishment of slavery was coincident with the settlement of the island. Most likely the first hundred colonists from St. Christophe, who landed, in 1635, near the bay whereon the city of St. Pierre is now situated, either brought slaves with them, or else were furnished with negroes very soon after their arrival. In the time of Pere Dutertre (who visited the colonies in 1640, and printed his history of the French Antilles at Paris in 1667) slavery was already a flourishing inst.i.tution,--the foundation of the whole social structure.

According to the Dominican missionary, the Africans then in the colony were decidedly repulsive; he describes the women as "hideous"