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 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
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! …
