V.
… EXTRAORDINARY things are happening in the streets through
which the procession passes. Pest-smitten women rise from their
beds to costume themselves,—to mask face already made
unrecognizable by the hideous malady,—and stagger out to join
the dancers. … They do this in the Rue Longchamps, in the Rue
St. Jean-de-Dieu, in the Rue Peysette, in the Rue de Petit
Versailles. And in the Rue Ste.-Marthe there are three young
girls sick with the disease, who hear the blowing of the horns
and the pattering of feet and clapping of hands in chorus;—they
get up to look through the slats of their windows on the
masquerade,—and the creole passion of the dance comes upon them.
"
Ah!" cries one,—"
nou ké bien amieusé nou!—c'est zaffai si
nou mó!" [We will have our fill of fun: what matter if we die
after!] And all mask, and join the rout, and dance down to the
Savane, and over the river-bridge into the high streets of the
Fort, carrying contagion with them! … No extraordinary example,
this: the ranks of the dancers hold many and many a
verrettier.
