MA BONNE. Two Years in the French West Indies | ||
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
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
—"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
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 pótrai 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
—"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! …
MA BONNE. Two Years in the French West Indies | ||