11. MA BONNE.
I.
I CANNOT teach Cyrillia the clock;—I have tried until both of us
had our patience strained to the breaking-point. Cyrillia still
believes she will learn how to tell the time some day or other;—
I am certain that she never will. "Missié," she says, "lézhè pa
aïen pou moin: c'est minitt ka fouté moin yon travail!"—the
hours do not give her any trouble; but the minutes are a
frightful bore! And nevertheless, Cyrillia is punctual as the
sun;—she always brings my coffee and a slice of corossol at five
in the morning precisely. Her clock is the cabritt-bois. The
great cricket stops singing, she says, at half-past four: the
cessation of its chant awakens her.
—"Bonjou', Missié. Coument ou passé lanuitt?"—"Thanks, my daughter,
I slept well."—"The weather is beautiful: if Missié would like to go
to the beach, his bathing-towels are ready."—"Good! Cyrillia; I will
go." … Such is our regular morning conversation.
Nobody breakfasts before eleven o'clock or thereabout; but after an
early sea-bath, one is apt to feel a little hollow during the morning,
unless one take some sort of refreshment. Cyrillia always
prepares something for me on my return from the beach,—either a
little pot of fresh cocoa-water, or a cocoyage, or a mabiyage, or
a bavaroise.
The cocoyage I like the best of all. Cyrillia takes a green
cocoa-nut, slices off one side of it so as to open a
hole, then
pours the opalescent water into a bowl, adds to it a fresh egg, a
little Holland gin, and some grated nutmeg and plenty of sugar.
Then she whips up the mixture into effervescence with her
baton-lélé.
The
baton-lélé is an indispensaple article in every creole
home: it is a thin stick which is cut from a young tree so as to
leave at one end a whorl of branch-stumps sticking out at right
angles like spokes;—by twirling the stem between the hands, the
stumps whip up the drink in a moment.
The mabiyage is less agreeable, but is a popular morning drink
among the poorer classes. It is made with a little white rum and
a bottle of the bitter native root-beer called mabi. The taste
of mabi I can only describe as that of molasses and water
flavored with a little cinchona bark.
The bavaroise is fresh milk, sugar, and a little Holland gin or
rum,—mixed with the baton-lélé until a fine thick foam is
formed. After the cocoyage, I think it is the best drink one can
take in the morning; but very little spirit must be used for any
of these mixtures. It is not until just before the mid-day meal
that one can venture to take a serious stimulant,—yon ti ponch,—
rum and water, sweetened with plenty of sugar or sugar syrup.
The word sucre is rarely used in Martinique,—considering that
sugar is still the chief product;—the word doux, "sweet," is
commonly substituted for it. Doux has, however, a larger range
of meaning: it may signify syrup, or any sort of sweets,—
duplicated into doudoux, it means the corossole fruit as well as
a sweetheart. Ça qui lè doudoux? is the cry of the corossole-seller.
If a negro asks at a grocery store (graisserie) for
sique instead of for doux, it is only because he does not want
it to be supposed that he means syrup;—as a general rule, he
will only use the word sique when referring to quality of sugar
wanted, or to sugar in hogsheads. Doux enters
into domestic
consumption in quite remarkable ways. People put sugar into fresh
milk, English porter, beer, and cheap wine;—they cook various
vegetables with sugar, such as peas; they seem to be particularly
fond of sugar-and-water and of
d'leau-pain,—bread-and-water
boiled, strained, mixed with sugar, and flavored with cinnamon.
The stranger gets accustomed to all this sweetness without evil
results. In a northern climate the consequence would probably be
at least a bilious attack; but in the tropics, where salt fish
and fruits are popularly preferred to meat, the prodigal use of
sugar or sugar-syrups appears to be decidedly beneficial.
… After Cyrillia has prepared my cocoyage, and rinsed the
bathing-towels in fresh-water, she is ready to go to market, and
wants to know what I would like to eat for breakfast. "Anything
creole, Cyrillia;—I want to know what people eat in this
country." She always does her best to please me in this
respect,—almost daily introduces me to some unfamiliar dishes,
something odd in the way of fruit or fish.
II.
CYRILLIA has given me a good idea of the range and character of mangé-Créole,
and I can venture to write something about it after
a year's observation. By mangé-Créole I refer only to the food
of the people proper, the colored population; for the cuisine of
the small class of wealthy whites is chiefly European, and devoid
of local interest:—I might observe, however, that the fashion of
cooking is rather Provençal than Parisian;—rather of southern
than of northern France.
Meat, whether fresh or salt, enters little into the nourishment
of the poorer classes. This is partly, no doubt, because of the
cost of all meats; but it is also due to natural preference for
fruits and fish. When fresh meat is purchased, it is usually to
make a stew or daube;—
probably salt meats are more popular; and
native vegetables and manioc flour are preferred to bread. There
are only two popular soups which are peculiar to the creole
cuisine,—
calalou, a gombo soup, almost precisely similar to that
of Louisiana; and the
soupe-d'habitant, or "country soup." It
is made of yams, carrots, bananas, turnips,
choux-caraïbes,
pumpkins, salt pork, and pimento, all boiled together;—the salt
meat being left out of the composition on Fridays.
The great staple, the true meat of the population, is salt
codfish, which is prepared in a great number of ways. The most
popular and the rudest preparation of it is called "Ferocious"
(férocé); and it is not at all unpalatable. The codfish is
simply fried, and served with vinegar, oil, pimento;—manioc
flour and avocados being considered indispensable adjuncts. As
manioc flour forms a part of almost every creole meal, a word of
information regarding it will not be out of place here. Everybody
who has heard the name probably knows that the manioc root is
naturally poisonous, and that the toxic elements must be removed
by pressure and desiccation before the flour can be made. Good
manioc flour has an appearance like very coarse oatmeal; and is
probably quite as nourishing. Even when dear as bread, it is
preferred, and forms the flour of the population, by whom the
word farine is only used to signify manioc flour: if wheat-flour
be referred to it is always qualified as "French flour" (farine-Fouance).
Although certain flours are regularly advertised as
American in the local papers, they are still farine-Fouance for
the population, who call everything foreign French. American
beer is biè-Fouance; American canned peas, ti-pois-Fouance;
any white foreigner who can talk French is yon béké-Fouance.
Usually the manioc flour is eaten
uncooked: * merely
poured into a plate, with a little water and stirred with
a spoon into a thick paste or mush,—the thicker the better;—
dleau passé farine (more water than manioc flour) is a saying
which describes the condition of a very destitute person. When
not served with fish, the flour is occasionally mixed with
water and refined molasses (
sirop-battrie): this preparation,
which is very nice, is called
cousscaye. There is also a way of
boiling it with molasses and milk into a kind of pudding. This is
called
matêté; children are very fond of it. Both of these
names,
cousscaye and
matêté, are alleged to be of Carib origin:
the art of preparing the flour itself from manioc root is
certainly an inheritance from the Caribs, who bequeathed many
singular words to the creole patois of the French West Indies.
Of all the preparations of codfish with which manioc flour is
eaten, I preferred the lamori-bouilli,—the fish boiled plain,
after having been steeped long enough to remove the excess of
salt; and then served with plenty of olive-oil and pimento. The
people who have no home of their own, or at least no place to
cook, can buy their food already prepared from the màchannes
lapacotte, who seem to make a specialty of macadam (codfish
stewed with rice) and the other two dishes already referred to.
But in every colored family there are occasional feasts of lamori-au-laitt,
codfish stewed with milk and potatoes; lamori-au-grattin,
codfish boned, pounded with toast crumbs, and boiled
with butter, onions, and pepper into a mush;—coubouyon-lamori,
codfish stewed with butter and oil;—bachamelle, codfish boned
and stewed with potatoes, pimentos, oil, garlic, and butter.
Pimento is an essential accompaniment to all these dishes,
whether it be cooked or raw: everything is served with plenty of
pimento,—en pile, en pile piment. Among
the various kinds I
can mention only the
piment-café, or "coffee-pepper," larger but
about the same shape as a grain of Liberian coffee, violet-red at
one end; the
piment-zouèseau, or bird-pepper, small and long and
scarlet;—and the
piment-capresse, very large, pointed at one
end, and bag-shaped at the other. It takes a very deep red color
when ripe, and is so strong that if you only break the pod in a
room, the sharp perfume instantly fills the apartment. Unless
you are as well-trained as any Mexican to eat pimento, you will
probably regret your first encounter with the
capresse.
Cyrillia told me a story about this infernal vegetable.
[_]
* I must mention a surreptitious dish, _chatt_;—needless to say
the cats are not sold, but stolen. It is true that only a small
class of poor people eat cats; but they eat so many cats that
cats have become quite rare in St. Pierre. The custom is purely
superstitious: it is alleged that if you eat cat seven times, or
if you eat seven cats, no witch, wizard, or _quimboiseur_ can ever
do you any harm; and the cat ought to be eaten on Christmas Eve
in order that the meal be perfectly efficacious. … The mystic
number "seven", enters into another and a better creole
superstition;—if you kill a serpent, seven great sins are
forgiven to you: ou ké ni sept grands péchés
effacé.
III.
ZHISTOUÈ PIMENT.
|
PIMENTO STORY.
|
Té ni yon manman qui té ni en pile, en pile yche; et yon jou y pa
té ni aïen pou y té baill yche-là mangé. Y té ka
lévé bon matin-là sans yon sou: y pa sa ça y té
douè fai,—là y té ké
baill latête. Y allé lacaïe macoumè-y, raconté lapeine-y.
Macoumè baill y toua chopine farine-manioc. Y allé
lacaill liautt macoumè, qui baill y yon grand trai piment.
Macoumè-là di y venne trai-piment-à, épi y té pè
acheté lamori,—pisse y ja té ni farine. Madame-là di:
"Mèçi, macoumè;" —y di y bonjou'; épi y allé
lacaïe-y.
|
There was once a mamma who had ever so many children; and one day
she had nothing to give those children to eat. She had got up
very early that morning, without a sou in the world: she did not
know what to do: she was so worried that her head was upset. She
went to the house of a woman-friend, and told her about her
trouble. The friend gave her three chopines [three pints] of
manioc flour. Then she went to the house of another female
friend, who gave her a big trayful of pimentos. The friend told
her to sell that tray of pimentos: then she could buy some
codfish,—since she already had some manioc flour. The good-
wife said: "Thank you, macoumè,"—she bid her good-day, and then
went to her own house.
|
Lhè y rivé àcaïe y limé difè: y metté
canari épi dleau assous difé-a; épi y cassé toutt
piment-là et metté yo adans canari-à assous diré.
|
The moment she got home, she made a fire, and put her canari
[earthen pot] full of water on the fire to boil: then she broke up
all the pimentos and put them into the canari on the fire.
|
Lhè y oue canari-à ka bouï, y pouend baton-lélé, epi y lélé
piment-à.: aloss y ka fai yonne calalou-piment. Lhè calalou-piment-là
té tchouitt, y pouend chaque zassiett yche-li; y metté calalou yo
fouète dans zassiett-là; y metté ta-mari fouète, assou, épi ta-y.
Épi lhè calalou-là té bien fouète, y metté farine nans chaque
zassiett-là. Épi y crié toutt moune vini mangé. Toutt moune vini
metté yo à-tabe.
|
As soon as she saw the canari boiling, she took her baton-lélé,
and beat up all those pimentos: then she made a pimento-calalou.
When the pimento-calalou was well cooked, she took each one of
the children's plates, and poured their calalou into the plates
to cool it; she also put her husband's out to cool, and her own.
And when the calalou was quite cool, she put some manioc flour
into each of the plates. Then she called to everybody to come
and eat. They all came, and sat down to table.
|
Pouèmiè bouchée mari-à pouend, y rété,—y crié: "Aïe! ouaill! mafenm!"
Fenm-là réponne mari y: "Ouaill! monmari!" Cés ti manmaille-la crie:
"Ouaill! manman!" Manman-à. réponne:—"Ouaill! yches-moin!" …
Yo toutt pouend couri, quitté caïe-là sèle,—épi yo toutt tombé larviè
à touempé bouche yo. Cés ti manmaille-là bouè dleau sitellement jusse
temps yo toutt néyé: té ka rété anni manman-là épi papa-là. Yo té là bó
lariviè, qui té ka pleiré. Moin té ka passé à lhè-à;—moin ka mandé yo:
"Ça zautt ni?"
|
The first mouthful that husband took he stopped and screamed:—"Aïe!
ouaill! my wife!" The woman answered her husband: "Ouaill! my
husband!" The little children all screamed: "Ouaill! mamma !"
Their mamma answered: "Ouaill! my children!" … They all ran
out, left the house empty; and they tumbled into the river to
steep their mouths. Those little children just drank water and
drank water till they were all drowned: there was nobody left
except the mamma and the papa, They stayed there on the river-bank,
and cried. I was passing that way just at that time;—I
asked them: "What ails you people?"
|
Nhomme-là lévé: y baill moin yon sèle coup d'piè, y
voyé moin lautt bo lariviè-ou ouè moin vini pou conté ça
ba ou.
|
That man got up and gave me
just one kick that sent me right across the river; I came here at
once, as you see, to tell you all about it. …
|
IV.
… IT is no use for me to attempt anything like a detailed
description of the fish Cyrillia brings me day after
day from the Place du Fort: the variety seems to be infinite. I have
learned, however, one curious fact which is worth noting: that,
as a general rule, the more beautifully colored fish are the
least palatable, and are sought after only by the poor. The
perroquet, black, with bright bands of red and yellow; the
cirurgien, blue and black; the
patate, yellow and black; the
moringue, which looks like polished granite; the
souri, pink and
yellow; the vermilion
Gouôs-zie; the rosy
sade; the red
Bon-Dié-manié-moin
("the-Good-God-handled-me")—it has two queer
marks as of great fingers; and the various kinds of all-blue
fish,
balaou,
conliou, etc. varying from steel-color to
violet,—these are seldom seen at the tables of the rich. There
are exceptions, of course, to this and all general rules: notably
the
couronné, pink spotted beautifully with black,—a sort of
Redfish, which never sells less than fourteen cents a pound; and
the
zorphie, which has exquisite changing lights of nacreous green
and purple. It is said, however, that the zorphi is sometimes
poisonous, like the
bécunne; and there are many fish which,
although not venomous by nature, have always been considered
dangerous. In the time of Père Dutertre it was believed these
fish ate the apples of the manchineel-tree, washed into the sea
by rains;—to-day it is popularly supposed that they are rendered
occasionally poisonous by eating the barnacles attached to
copper-plating of ships. The
tazard, the
lune, the
capitaine,
the
dorade, the
perroquet, the
couliou, the
congre, various
crabs, and even the
tonne,—all are dangerous unless perfectly
fresh: the least decomposition seems to develop a mysterious
poison. A singular phenomenon regarding the poisoning
occasionally produced by the bécunne and dorade is that the skin
peels from the hands and feet of those lucky enough to survive
the terrible colics, burnings, itchings, and delirium, which are
early symptoms, Happily these accidents are very rare,
since the markets have been properly inspected: in the time of Dr. Rufz,
they would seem to have been very common,—so common that he
tells us he would not eat fresh fish without being perfectly
certain where it was caught and how long it had been out of the
water.
The poor buy the brightly colored fish only when the finer qualities
are not obtainable at low rates; but often and often the catch is
so enormous that half of it has to be thrown back into the sea.
In the hot moist air, fish decomposes very rapidly; it is impossible
to transport it to any distance into the interior; and only the
inhabitants of the coast can indulge in fresh fish,—at least sea-fish.
Naturally, among the laboring class the question of quality is
less important than that of quantity and substance, unless the
fish-market be extraordinarily well stocked. Of all fresh fish,
the most popular is the tonne, a great blue-gray creature whose
flesh is solid as beef; next come in order of preferment the
flying-fish (volants), which often sell as low as four for a
cent;—then the lambi, or sea-snail, which has a very dense and
nutritious flesh;—then the small whitish fish classed as
sàdines;—then the blue-colored fishes according to price,
couliou, balaou, etc.;—lastly, the shark, which sells commonly
at two cents a pound. Large sharks are not edible; the flesh is
too hard; but a young shark is very good eating indeed. Cyrillia
cooked me a slice one morning: it was quite delicate, tasted
almost like veal.
The quantity of very small fish sold is surprising. With ten
sous the family of a laborer can have a good fish-dinner: a pound
of sàdines is never dearer than two sous;—a pint of manioc flour
can be had for the same price; and a big avocado sells for a sou.
This is more than enough food for any one person; and by doubling
the expense one obtains a proportionately
greater quantity—
enough for four or five individuals. The
sàdines are roasted over
a charcoal fire, and flavored with a sauce of lemon, pimento, and
garlic. When there are no
sàdines, there are sure to be
coulious
in plenty,—small
coulious about as long as your little finger:
these are more delicate, and fetch double the price. With four
sous' worth of
coulious a family can have a superb
blaffe. To
make a
blaffe the fish are cooked in water, and served with
pimento, lemon, spices, onions, and garlic; but without oil or
butter. Experience has demonstrated that
coulious make the best
blaffe; and a
blaffe is seldom prepared with other fish.
V.
THERE are four dishes which are the holiday luxuries of the
poor:—manicou, ver-palmiste, zandouille, and
poule-épi-diri. *
The manitou is a brave little marsupial, which might be called
the opossum of Martinique: it fights, although overmatched, with
the serpent, and is a great enemy to the field-rat. In the
market a manicou sells for two francs and a half at cheapest: it
is generally salted before being cooked.
The great worm, or caterpillar, called ver-palmiste is found in
the heads of cabbage-palms,—especially after
the cabbage has been
cut out, and the tree has begun to perish. It is the grub of a
curious beetle, which has a proboscis of such form as suggested
the creole appellation,
léfant: the "elephant." These worms are
sold in the Place du Fort at two sous each: they are spitted and
roasted alive, and are said to taste like almonds. I have never
tried to find out whether this be fact or fancy; and I am glad
to say that few white creoles confess a liking for this barbarous
food.
The zandouilles are delicious sausages made with pig-buff,—and
only seen in the market on Sundays. They cost a franc and a half
each; and there are several women who have an established
reputation throughout Martinique for their skill in making them.
I have tasted some not less palatable than the famous London
"pork-pies." Those of Lamentin are reputed the best in the
island.
But poule-épi-diri is certainly the most popular dish of all: it
is the dearest, as well, and poor people can rarely afford it.
In Louisiana an almost similar dish is called jimbalaya: chicken
cooked with rice. The Martiniquais think it such a delicacy that
an over-exacting person, or one difficult to satisfy, is reproved
with the simple question:—"Ça ou lè 'nco-poule.épi-diri?"
(What more do you want, great heavens!—chicken-and-rice?)
Naughty children are bribed into absolute goodness by the promise
of poule-épi-diri:—
—"Aïe! chè, bó doudoux!
Doudoux ba ou poule-épi-diri;
Aïe! chè, bó doudoux!" …
(Aïe, dear! kiss
doudoux!—doudoux has rice-and-chicken for you!
—
aïe, dear! kiss
doudoux!)
How far rice enters into the success of the dish above mentioned I
cannot say; but rice ranks in favor generally
above all cereals;
it is at least six times more in demand than maize.
Diri-doux, rice
boiled with sugar, is sold in prodigious quantities daily,—especially
at the markets, where little heaps of it, rolled in pieces of banana
or
cachibou leaves, are retailed at a cent each.
Diri-aulaitt, a
veritable rice-pudding, is also very popular; but it would weary
the reader to mention one-tenth of the creole preparations into
which rice enters.
[_]
* There is record of an attempt to manufacture bread with one
part manioc flour to three of wheat flour. The result was
excellent; but no serious effort was ever made to put the manioc
bread on the market.
VI.
EVERYBODY eats akras;—they sell at a cent apiece. The akra is a
small fritter or pancake, which may be made of fifty different
things,—among others codfish, titiri, beans, brains, choux-caraïbes,
little black peas (poix-zié-nouè, "black-eyed peas"),
or of crawfish (akra-cribîche). When made of carrots, bananas,
chicken, palm-cabbage, etc. and sweetened, they are called
marinades. On first acquaintance they seem rather greasy for so
hot a climate; but one learns, on becoming accustomed to tropical
conditions, that a certain amount of oily or greasy food is both
healthy and needful.
First among popular vegetables are beans. Red beans are
preferred; but boiled white beans, served cold with vinegar and
plenty of oil, form a favorite salad. Next in order of
preferment come the choux-caraïbes, patates, zignames, camanioc,
and cousscouche: all immense roots,—the true potatoes of the
tropics. The camanioc is finer than the choux-caraïbe, boils
whiter and softer: in appearance it resembles the manioc root
very closely, but has no toxic element. The cousscouche is the
best of all: the finest Irish potato boiled into sparkling flour
is not so good. Most of these roots can be cooked into a sort of
mush, called migan: such as migan-choux, made with the choux-caraïbe;
migan-zignames, made with yams; migan-cousscouche,
etc.,—in which case crabs or shrimps
are usually served with the
migan. There is a particular fondness for the little rosy crab
called
tourlouroux, in patois
touloulou.
Migan is also made
with bread-fruit. Very large bananas or plantains are boiled with
codfish, with
daubes, or meat stews, and with eggs. The bread-
fruit is a fair substitute for vegetables. It must be cooked
very thoroughly, and has a dry potato taste. What is called the
fleu-fouitt-à-pain, or "bread-fruit flower"—a long pod-shaped
solid growth, covered exteriorly with tiny seeds closely set as
pin-heads could be, and having an interior pith very elastic and
resistant,—is candied into a delicious sweetmeat.
VII.
THE consumption of bananas is enormous: more bananas are eaten
than vegetables; and more banana-trees are yearly being
cultivated. The negro seems to recognize instinctively that
economical value of the banana to which attention was long since
called by Humboldt, who estimated that while an acre planted in
wheat would barely support three persons, an acre planted in
banana-trees would nourish fifty.
Bananas and plantains hold the first place among fruits in
popular esteem;—they are cooked in every way, and served with
almost every sort of meat or fish. What we call bananas in the
United States, however, are not called bananas in Martinique, but
figs (figues). Plantains seem to be called bananes. One is
often surprised at popular nomenclature: choux may mean either a
sort of root (choux-caraïbe), or the top of the cabbage-palm;
Jacquot may mean a fish; cabane never means a cabin, but a bed;
crickett means not a cricket, but a frog; and at least fifty
other words have equally deceptive uses. If one desires to speak
of real figs—dried figs—he must say figues-Fouanc (French figs);
otherwise nobody will understand
him. There are many kinds of
bananas here called
figues,—the four most popular are the
figues-bananes, which are plantains, I think; the
figues-makouenga,
which grow wild, and have a red skin; the
figues-pommes
(apple-bananas), which are large and yellow; and the
ti-
figues-desse (little-dessert-bananas), which are to be seen on
all tables in St. Pierre. They are small, sweet, and always
agreeable, even when one has no appetite for other fruits.
It requires some little time to become accustomed to many
tropical fruits, or at least to find patience as well as
inclination to eat them. A large number, in spite of delicious
flavor, are provokingly stony: such as the ripe guavas, the
cherries, the barbadines; even the corrossole and pomme-cannelle
are little more than huge masses of very hard seeds buried in
pulp of exquisite taste. The sapota, or sapodtilla, is less
characterized by stoniness, and one soon learns to like it. It
has large flat seeds, which can be split into two with the
finger-nail; and a fine white skin lies between these two halves.
It requires some skill to remove entire this little skin, or
pellicle, without breaking it: to do so is said to be a test of
affection. Perhaps this bit of folk-lore was suggested by the
shape of the pellicle, which is that of a heart. The pretty
fille-de-couleur asks her doudoux:—"Ess ou ainmein moin?—
pouloss tiré ti lapeau-là sans cassé-y." Woe to him if he breaks
it! … The most disagreeable fruit is, I think, the pomme-d'Haiti,
or Haytian apple: it is very attractive exteriorly; but
has a strong musky odor and taste which nauseates. Few white
creoles ever eat it.
Of the oranges, nothing except praise can be said; but there are
fruits that look like oranges, and are not oranges, that are far
more noteworthy. There is the chadèque, which grows here to
fully three feet in circumference, and has a sweet pink pulp; and
there is the "forbidden-fruit" (fouitt-défendu), a sort of cross
between
the orange and the chadèque, and superior to both. The
colored people declare that this monster fruit is the same which
grew in Eden upon the fatal tree:
c'est ça mênm qui fai moune ka
fai yche conm ça atouelement! The fouitt-défendu is wonderful,
indeed, in its way; but the fruit which most surprised me on my
first acquaintance with it was the
zabricôt.
—"Ou lè yon zabricôt?" (Would you like an apricot?) Cyrillia
asked me one day. I replied that I liked apricots very much,—
wanted more than one. Cyrillia looked astonished, but said
nothing until she returned from market, and put on the table two
apricots, with the observation:—"Ça ke fai ou malade mangé
toutt ça!" (You will get sick if you eat all that.) I could not
eat even half of one of them. Imagine a plum larger than the
largest turnip, with a skin like a russet apple, solid sweet
flesh of a carrot-red color, and a nut in the middle bigger than
a duck's egg and hard as a rock. These fruits are aromatic as
well as sweet to the taste: the price varies from one to four
cents each, according to size. The tree is indigenous to the
West Indies; the aborigines of Hayti had a strange belief
regarding it. They alleged that its fruits formed the
nourishment of the dead; and however pressed by hunger, an Indian
in the woods would rather remain without food than strip one of
these trees, lest he should deprive the ghosts of their
sustenance. … No trace of this belief seems to exist among the
colored people of Martinique.
Among the poor such fruits are luxuries: they eat more mangoes
than any other fruits excepting bananas. It is rather slobbery
work eating a common mango, in which every particle of pulp is
threaded fast to the kernel: one prefers to gnaw it when alone.
But there are cultivated mangoes with finer and thicker flesh
which can be sliced off, so that the greater part of the fruit
may be eaten without smearing and sucking. Among
grafted varieties the
mangue is quite as delicious as the orange.
Perhaps there are nearly as many varieties of mangoes in
Martinique as there are varieties of peaches with us: I am
acquainted, however, with only a few,—such as the
mango-Bassignac;—
mango-pêche
(or peach-mango);—
mango-vert (green
mango), very large and oblong;—
mango-grêffé;—
mangotine, quite
round and small;—
mango-quinette, very small also, almost egg-shaped;—
mango-Zézé,
very sweet, rather small, and of flattened
form;—
mango-d'or (golden mango), worth half a franc each;—
mango-Lamentin, a highly cultivated variety—and the superb
Reine-Amélie (or Queen Amelia), a great yellow fruit which
retails even in Martinique at five cents apiece.
VIII.
… "OU c'est bonhomme caton?-ou c'est zimage, non?" (Am I a
pasteboard man, or an image, that I do not eat?) Cyrillia wants
to know. The fact is that I am a little overfed; but the
stranger in the tropics cannot eat like a native, and my
abstemiousness is a surprise. In the North we eat a good deal
for the sake of caloric; in the tropics, unless one be in the
habit of taking much physical exercise, which is a very difficult
thing to do, a generous appetite is out of the question.
Cyrillia will not suffer me to live upon mangé-Creole altogether;
she insists upon occasional beefsteaks and roasts, and tries to
tempt me with all kinds of queer delicious, desserts as well,—
particularly those cakes made of grated cocoanut and sugar-syrup
(tablett-coco-rapé) of which a stranger becomes very fond. But,
nevertheless, I cannot eat enough to quiet Cyrillia's fears.
Not eating enough is not her only complaint against me. I am
perpetually doing something or other which shocks her. The
Creoles are the most cautious livers in the world, perhaps;—the
stranger who walks in the sun
without an umbrella, or stands in
currents of air, is for them an object of wonder and compassion.
Cyrillia's complaints about my recklessness in the matter of
hygiene always terminate with the refrain: "
Yo pa fai ça içi"—
(People never do such things in Martinique.) Among such rash acts
are washing one's face or hands while perspiring, taking off
one's hat on coming in from a walk, going out immediately after a
bath, and washing my face with soap. "Oh, Cyrillia! what
foolishness!—why should I not wash my face with soap?" "Because
it will blind you," Cyrillia answers: "
ça ké tchoué limiè zié
ou" (it will kill the light in your eyes). There is no cleaner
person than Cyrillia; and, indeed among the city people, the
daily bath is the rule in all weathers; but soap is never used on
the face by thousands, who, like Cyrillia, believe it will "kill
the light of the eyes."
One day I had been taking a long walk in the sun, and returned so
thirsty that all the old stories about travellers suffering in
waterless deserts returned to memory with new significance;—visions
of simooms arose before me. What a delight to see and to grasp the
heavy, red, thick-lipped dobanne, the water-jar, dewy and cool
with the exudation of the Eau-de-Gouyave which filled it to the
brim,—toutt vivant, as Cyrillia says, "all alive"! There was a
sudden scream,—the water-pitcher was snatched from my hands by
Cyrillia with the question: "Ess ou lè tchoué có-ou?—Saint
Joseph!" (Did I want to kill my body?) … The Creoles use the
word "body" in speaking of anything that can happen to one,—"hurt
one's body," "tire one's body," "marry one's body," "bury one's
body," etc.;—I wonder whether the expression originated in zealous
desire to prove a profound faith in the soul. … Then Cyrillia
made me a little punch with sugar and rum, and told me I must never
drink fresh-water after a walk unless I wanted to kill my body. In
this matter her advice was good. The immediate result
of a cold
drink while heated is a profuse and icy perspiration, during which
currents of air are really dangerous. A cold is not dreaded
here, and colds are rare; but pleurisy is common, and may be the
consequence of any imprudent exposure.
I do not often have the opportunity at home of committing even
an unconscious imprudence; for Cyrillia is ubiquitous, and always
on the watch lest something dreadful should happen to me. She is
wonderful as a house-keeper as well as a cook: there is certainly
much to do, and she has only a child to help her, but she always
seems to have time. Her kitchen apparatus is of the simplest
kind: a charcoal furnace constructed of bricks, a few earthenware
pots (canar), and some grid-irons;—yet with these she can
certainly prepare as many dishes as there are days in the year.
I have never known her to be busy with her canari for more than
an hour; yet everything is kept in perfect order. When she is
not working, she is quite happy in sitting at a window, and
amusing herself by watching the life of the street,—or playing
with a kitten, which she has trained so well that it seems to
understand everything she says.
IX.
WITH darkness all the population of the island retire to their
homes;—the streets become silent, and the life of the day is
done. By eight o'clock nearly all the windows are closed, and
the lights put out;—by nine the people are asleep. There are no
evening parties, no night amusements, except during rare
theatrical seasons and times of Carnival; there are no evening
visits: active existence is almost timed by the rising and
setting of the sun. … The only pleasure left for the stranger
of evenings is a quiet smoke on his balcony or before his door:
reading is out of the question, partly because books are
rare, partly because lights are bad, partly because insects throng
about every lamp or candle. I am lucky enough to have a balcony,
broad enough for a rocking-chair; and sometimes Cyrillia and the
kitten come to keep me company before bedtime. The kitten climbs
on my knees; Cyrillia sits right down upon the balcony.
One bright evening, Cyrillia was amusing herself very much by
watching the clouds: they were floating high; the moonlight made
them brilliant as frost. As they changed shape under the
pressure of the trade-wind, Cyrillia seemed to discover wonderful
things in them: sheep, ships with sails, cows, faces, perhaps
even zombis.
—"Travaill Bon-Dié joli,—anh?" (Is not the work of the Good-God
pretty?) she said at last. … "There was Madame Remy, who used
to sell the finest foulards and Madrases in St. Pierre;—she used
to study the clouds. She drew the patterns of the clouds for her
foulards: whenever she saw a beautiful cloud or a beautiful
rainbow, she would make a drawing of it in color at once; and
then she would send that to France to have foulards made just
like it. … Since she is dead, you do not see any more pretty
foulards such as there used to be." …
—"Would you like to look at the moon with my telescope,
Cyrillia?" I asked. "Let me get it for you."
—"Oh no, no!" she answered, as if shocked.
—"Why?"
—"Ah! faut pa gàdé baggaïe Bon-Dié conm ça!" (It is not right to
look at the things of the Good-God that way.)
I did not insist. After a little silence, Cyrillia resumed:—
—"But I saw the Sun and the Moon once fighting together: that
was what people call an eclipse,—is not that the word? … They
fought together a long time: I was looking at them. We put a
terrine full of water on the ground, and looked into the water
to see them. And
the Moon is stronger than the Sun!—yes, the
Sun was obliged to give way to the Moon. … Why do they fight
like that ?"
—"They don't, Cyrillia."
—"Oh yes, they do. I saw them! … And the Moon is much
stronger than the Sun!"
I did not attempt to contradict this testimony of the eyes.
Cyrillia continued to watch the pretty clouds. Then she said:
—"Would you not like to have a ladder long enough to let you
climb up to those clouds, and see what they are made of?"
—"Why, Cyrillia, they are only vapor,—brume: I have been in
clouds."
She looked at me in surprise, and, after a moment's silence,
asked, with an irony of which I had not supposed her capable:—
—"Then you are the Good-God?"
—"Why, Cyrillia, it is not difficult to reach clouds. You see
clouds always upon the top of the Montagne Pelée;—people go
there. I have been there—in the clouds."
—"Ah! those are not the same clouds: those are not the clouds
of the Good-God. You cannot touch the sky when you are on the
Morne de la Croix."
—"My dear Cyrillia, there is no sky to touch. The sky is only
an appearance."
—"Anh, anh, anh! No sky!—you say there is no sky? … Then,
what is that up there ?"
—"That is air, Cyrillia, beautiful blue air."
—"And what are the stars fastened to?"
—"To nothing. They are suns, but so much further away than our
sun that they look small."
—"No, they are not suns! They have not the same form as the
sun … You must not say there is no sky: it is wicked! But you
are not a Catholic!"
—"My dear Cyrillia, I don't see what that has to do with the
sky."
—"Where does the Good-God stay, if there be no sky? And where is
heaven?—,and where is hell?"
—"Hell in the sky, Cyrillia?"
—"The Good-God made heaven in one part of the sky, and hell in
another part, for bad people. … Ah! you are a Protestant;—you
do not know the things of the Good-God! That is why you talk like
that."
—"What is a Protestant, Cyrillia?"
—"You are one. The Protestants do not believe in religion,—do
not love the Good-God."
—"Well, I am neither a Protestant nor a Catholic, Cyrillia."
—"Oh! you do not mean that; you cannot be a maudi, an accursed.
There are only the Protestants, the Catholics, and the accursed.
You are not a maudi, I am sure, But you must not say there is no
sky" …
—"But, Cyrillia"—
—"No: I will not listen to you:—you are a Protestant. Where
does the rain come from, if there is no sky," …
—"Why, Cyrillia, … the clouds" …
—"No, you are a Protestant. … How can you say such things?
There are the Three Kings and the Three Valets,—the beautiful
stars that come at Christmas-time,—there, over there—all
beautiful, and big, big, big! … And you say there is no sky!"
—"Cyrillia, perhaps I am a maudi."
—"No, no! You are only a Protestant. But do not tell me there
is no sky: it is wicked to say that!"
—"I won't say it any more, Cyrillia—there! But I will say there
are no zombis."
—"I know you are not a maudi;—you have been baptized."
—"How do you know I have been baptized?"
—"Because, if you had not been baptized you would see zombis all
the time, even in broad day. All children who are not baptized
see zombis." …
X.
CYRILLA's solicitude for me extends beyond the commonplaces of
hygiene and diet into the uncertain domain of matters ghostly.
She fears much that something might happen to me through the
agency of wizards, witches (sociès), or zombis. Especially
zombis. Cyrillia's belief in zombis has a solidity that renders
argument out of the question. This belief is part of her inner
nature,—something hereditary, racial, ancient as Africa, as
characteristic of her people as the love of rhythms and melodies
totally different from our own musical conceptions, but
possessing, even for the civilized, an inexplicable emotional
charm.
Zombi!—the word is perhaps full of mystery even for those who
made it. The explanations of those who utter it most often are
never quite lucid: it seems to convey ideas darkly impossible to
define,—fancies belonging to the mind of another race and
another era,—unspeakably old. Perhaps the word in our own
language which offers the best analogy is "goblin": yet the one
is not fully translated by the other. Both have, however, one
common ground on which they become indistinguishable,—that
region of the supernatural which is most primitive and most
vague; and the closest relation between the savage and the
civilized fancy may be found in the fears which we call
childish,—of darkness, shadows, and things dreamed. One form of
the zombi-belief—akin to certain ghostly superstitions held by
various primitive races—would seem to have been suggested by
nightmare,—that form of nightmare in which familiar persons
become slowly and hideously
transformed into malevolent beings.
The
zombi deludes under the appearance of a travelling companion,
an old comrade—like the desert spirits of the Arabs—or even
under the form of an animal. Consequently the creole negro fears
everything living which he meets after dark upon a lonely road,—
a stray horse, a cow, even a dog; and mothers quell the
naughtiness of their children by the threat of summoning a zombi-cat
or a zombi-creature of some kind. "
Zombi ké nana ou" (the
zombi will gobble thee up) is generally an effectual menace in
the country parts, where it is believed zombis may be met with
any time after sunset. In the city it is thought that their
regular hours are between two and four o'clock in the morning.
At least so Cyrillia says:—
—"Dèezhè, toua-zhè-matin: c'est lhè zombi. Yo ka sóti dèzhè,
toua zhè: c'est lhè yo. A quattrhè yo ka rentré;—angelus ka
sonné." (At four o'clock they go back where they came from,
before the Angelus rings.) Why?
—"C'est pou moune pas joinne yo dans larue." (So that people may
not meet with them in the street), Cyrillia answers.
—"Are they afraid of the people, Cyrillia ?" I asked.
—"No, they are not afraid; but they do not want people to know
their business" (pa lè moune ouè zaffai yo).
Cyrillia also says one must not look out of the window when a
dog howls at night. Such a dog may be a mauvais vivant (evil
being): "If he sees me looking at him he will say, 'Ou tropp
quirièse quittée cabane ou pou gàdé zaffai lezautt.'" (You are too
curious to leave your bed like that to look at other folks'
business.)
—"And what then, Cyrillia?"
—"Then he will put out your eyes,—y ké coqui zié ou,—make you
blind."
—"But, Cyrillia," I asked one day, "did you ever see any
zombis?"
—"How? I often see them! … They walk about the room at night;
—they walk like people. They sit in the rocking-chairs and rock
themselves very softly, and look at me. I say to them:—'What do
you want here?—I never did any harm to anybody. Go away!' Then
they go away."
—"What do they look like?"
—"Like people,—sometimes like beautiful people (bel moune). I
am afraid of them. I only see them when there is no light
burning. While the lamp bums before the Virgin they do not come.
But sometimes the oil fails, and the light dies."
In my own room there are dried palm leaves and some withered
flowers fastened to the wall. Cyrillia put them there. They
were taken from the reposoirs (temporary altars) erected for the
last Corpus Christi procession: consequently they are blessed,
and ought to keep the zombis away. That is why they are fastened
to the wall, over my bed.
Nobody could be kinder to animals than Cyrillia usually shows
herself to be: all the domestic animals in the neighborhood
impose upon her;—various dogs and cats steal from her
impudently, without the least fear of being beaten. I was
therefore very much surprised to see her one evening catch a
flying beetle that approached the light, and deliberately put its
head in the candle-flame. When I asked her how she could be so
cruel, she replied:—
—"Ah ou pa connaitt choïe pays-ci." (You do not know Things
in this country.)
The Things thus referred to I found to be supernatural Things.
It is popularly believed that certain winged creatures which
circle about candles at night may be engagés or envoyés—wicked
people having the power of transformation, or even zombis "sent"
by witches or wizards to do harm. "There was a woman at
Tricolore,"
Cyrillia says, "who used to sew a great deal at night;
and a big beetle used to come into her room and fly about the candle, and
and bother her very much. One night she managed to get hold of it,
and she singed its head in the candle. Next day, a woman who
was her neighbor came to the house with her head all tied up.
'
Ah! macoumè,' asked the sewing-woman, '
ça ou ni dans guiôle-ou?'
And the other answered, very angrily, '
Ou ni toupet mandé moin ça
moin ni dans guiôle moin!—et cété ou qui té brilé guiôle moin
nans chandelle-ou hiè-souè.'" (You have the impudence to ask what
is the matter with my mouth! and you yourself burned my mouth in
your candle last night.)
Early one morning, about five o'clock, Cyrillia, opening the
front door, saw a huge crab walking down the street. Probably it
had escaped from some barrel; for it is customary here to keep
live crabs in barrels and fatten them,—feeding them with maize,
mangoes, and, above all, green peppers: nobody likes to cook
crabs as soon as caught; for they may have been eating manchineel
apples at the river-mouths. Cyrillia uttered a cry of dismay on
seeing that crab; then I heard her talking to herself:—"I touch
it?—never! it can go about its business. How do I know it is
not an arranged crab (yon crabe rangé), or an envoyé?—since
everybody knows I like crabs. For two sous I can buy a fine crab
and know where it comes from." The crab went on down the street:
everywhere the sight of it created consternation; nobody dared
to touch it; women cried out at it, "Miserabe!—envoyé Satan!—
allez, maudi!"—some threw holy water on the crab. Doubtless it
reached the sea in safety. In the evening Cyrillia said: "I
think that crab was a little zombi;—I am going to burn a light
all night to keep it from coming back."
Another day, while I was out, a negro to whom I had lent two
francs came to the house, and paid his debt.
Cyrillia told me when
I came back, and showed me the money carefully enveloped in a
piece of brown paper; but said I must not touch it,—she would
get rid of it for me at the market. I laughed at her fears; and
she observed: "You do not know negroes, Missié!—negroes are
wicked, negroes are jealous! I do not want you to touch that
money, because I have not a good opinion about this affair."
After I began to learn more of the underside of Martinique
life, I could understand the source and justification of many
similar superstitions in simple and uneducated minds. The negro
sorcerer is, at worst, only a poisoner; but he possesses a very
curious art which long defied serious investigation, and in the
beginning of the last century was attributed, even by whites, to
diabolical influence. In 1721, 1723, and 1725, several negroes
were burned alive at the stake as wizards in league with the
devil. It was an era of comparative ignorance; but even now
things are done which would astonish the most sceptical and
practical physician. For example, a laborer discharged from a
plantation vows vengeance; and the next morning the whole force
of hands—the entire atelier—are totally disabled from work.
Every man and woman on the place is unable to walk; everybody has
one or both legs frightfully swollen. Yo te ka pilé malifice:
they have trodden on a "malifice." What is the "malifice"? All
that can be ascertained is that certain little prickly seeds have
been scattered all over the ground, where the barefooted workers
are in the habit of passing. Ordinarily, treading on these seeds
is of no consequence; but it is evident in such a case that they
must have been prepared in a special way,—soaked in some poison,
perhaps snake-venom. At all events, the physician deems it
safest to treat the inflammations after the manner of snake
wounds; and after many days the hands are perhaps able to resume
duty.
XI.
WHILE Cyrillia is busy with her canari, she talks to herself or
sings. She has a low rich voice,—sings strange things, things
that have been forgotten by this generation,—creole songs of the
old days, having a weird rhythm and fractions of tones that are
surely African. But more generally she talks to herself, as all
the Martiniquaises do: it is a continual murmur as of a stream.
At first I used to think she was talking to somebody else, and
would call out:—
—"Épi quiless moune ça ou ka pàlé-à?"
But she would always answer:—"Moin ka pàlé anni có moin" (I am
only talking to my own body), which is the creole expression for
talking to oneself.
—"And what are you talking so much to your own body about,
Cyrillia?"
—"I am talking about my own little affairs" (ti zaffai-moin). …
That is all that I could ever draw from her.
But when not working, she will sit for hours looking out of the
window. In this she resembles the kitten: both seem to find the
same silent pleasure in watching the street, or the green heights
that rise above its roofs,—the Morne d'Orange. Occasionally at
such times she will break the silence in the strangest way, if she
thinks I am not too busy with my papers to answer a question:—
—"Missié?"—timidly.
—"Eh?"
—"Di moin, chè, ti manmaille dans pays ou, toutt piti, piti,—ess
ça pàlé Anglais?" (Do the little children in my country—the
very, very little children—talk English?)
—"Why, certainly, Cyrillia."
—"Toutt piti, piti?"—with growing surprise.
—"Why, of course!"
—"C'est drôle, ça" (It is queer, that!) She cannot understand it.
—"And the little manmaille in Martinique, Cyrillia—toutt
piti,piti,—don't they talk creole?"
—"'Oui; mais toutt moune ka pâlé nègue: ça facile." (Yes; but
anybody can talk negro—that is easy to learn.)
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! …