IV.
HOW beautiful the mornes and azure-shadowed hollows in the jewel
clearness of this perfect morning! Even Pelée wears only her very
lightest head-dress of gauze; and all the wrinklings of her green
robe take unfamiliar tenderness of tint from the early sun. All
the quaint peaking of the colored town—sprinkling the sweep of
blue bay with red and yellow and white-of-cream—
takes a
sharpness in this limpid light as if seen through a diamond lens;
and there above the living green of the familiar hills I can see
even the faces of the statues—the black Christ on his white
cross, and the White Lady of the Morne d'Orange—among curving
palms. … It is all as though the island were donning its utmost
possible loveliness, exerting all its witchery,—seeking by
supremest charm to win back and hold its wandering child,—
Violet-Eyes over there! … She is looking too.
I wonder if she sees the great palms of the Voie du Parnasse,—curving
far away as to bid us adieu, like beautiful bending women. I wonder if
they are not trying to say something to her; and I try myself to
fancy what that something is:—
—"Child, wilt thou indeed abandon all who love thee! …
Listen!—'tis a dim grey land thou goest unto,—a land of bitter
winds,—a land of strange gods,—a land of hardness and
barrenness, where even Nature may not live through half the
cycling of the year! Thou wilt never see us there. … And there,
when thou shalt sleep thy long sleep, child—that land will have
no power to lift thee up;—vast weight of stone will press thee
down forever;—until the heavens be no more thou shalt not
awake! … But here, darling, our loving roots would seek for
thee, would find thee: thou shouldst live again!—we lift, like
Aztec priests, the blood of hearts to the Sun." …