[21]Bel ladine, moin ka montré ou ti pièce moin!—ba moin làgent toutt tempe ou ka clairé!"... This little invocation is supposed to have most power when ottered on the first appearance of the new moon.
[21]Bel ladine, moin ka montré ou ti pièce moin!—ba moin làgent toutt tempe ou ka clairé!"... This little invocation is supposed to have most power when ottered on the first appearance of the new moon.
[22]"Guardian-angel, watch over me;—have pity upon my weakness; lie down on my little bed with me; follow me whithersoever I go."... The prayers are always said in French. Metaphysical and theological terms cannot be rendered in the patois; and the authors of creole catechisms have always been obliged to borrow and explain French religious phrases in order to make their texts comprehensible.
[22]"Guardian-angel, watch over me;—have pity upon my weakness; lie down on my little bed with me; follow me whithersoever I go."... The prayers are always said in French. Metaphysical and theological terms cannot be rendered in the patois; and the authors of creole catechisms have always been obliged to borrow and explain French religious phrases in order to make their texts comprehensible.
March 6th.
This morning Manm-Robert brings me something queer,—something hard tied up in a tiny piece of black cloth, with a string attached to hang it round my neck. I must wear it, she says.
—"Ça ça yè, Manm-Robert?"
—"Pou empêché ou pouend laverette" she answers. It is to keep me from catching the verette!... And what is inside it?
—"Toua graines maïs, épi dicamfre." (Three grains of corn, with a bit of camphor!)...
March 8th.
... Rich households throughout the city are almost helpless for the want of servants. One can scarcely obtain help at any price: it is true that young country-girls keep coming into town to fill the places of the dead; but these new-comers fall a prey to the disease much more readily than those who preceded them. And such deaths often represent more than a mere derangement in the mechanism of domestic life. The creole bonne bears a relation to the family of an absolutely peculiar sort,—a relation of which the term "house-servant" does not convey the faintest idea. She is really a member of the household: her association with its life usually begins in childhood, when she is barely strong enough to carry a dobanne of water up-stairs;—and in many cases she has the additional claim of having been born in the house. As a child, she plays with the white children,—shares their pleasures and presents. She is very seldom harshly spoken to, or reminded of the fact that she is a servitor: she has a pet name;—she is allowed much familiarity,—is often permitted to join in conversation when there is no company present, and to express her opinion about domestic affairs. She costs very little to keep; four or five dollars a year will supply her with all necessary clothing;—she rarely wears shoes;—she sleeps on a little straw mattress (paillasse) on the floor, or perhaps upon a paillasse supported upon an "elephant" (léfan)—two thick square pieces of hard mattress placed together so as to form an oblong. She is only a nominal expense to the family; and she is the confidential messenger, the nurse, the chamber-maid, the water-carrier,—everything, in short, except cook and washer-woman. Families possessing a really good bonne would not part with her on any consideration. If she has been brought up in the household, she is regarded almost as a kind of adopted child. If she leave that household to make a home of her own, and have ill-fortune afterwards, she will not be afraid to return with her baby, which will perhaps be received and brought up as she herself was, under the old roof. The stranger may feel puzzled at first by this state of affairs; yet the cause is not obscure. It is traceable to the time of the formation of creole society—to the early period of slavery. Among the Latin races,—especially the French,—slavery preserved in modern times many of the least harsh features of slavery in the antique world,—where the domestic slave, entering thefamillia, actually became a member of it.
March 10th.
... Yzore and her little ones are all in Manm-Robert's shop;—she is recounting her troubles,—fresh troubles: forty-seven francs' worth of work delivered on time, and no money received.... So much I hear as I enter the little boutique myself, to buy a package of "bouts."
—"Assise!" says Manm-Robert, handing me her own chair;—she is always pleased to see me, pleased to chat with me about creole folk-lore. Then observing a smile exchanged between myself and Mimi, she tells the children to bid me good-day:—"Allé di bonjou' Missié-à!"
One after another, each holds up a velvety cheek to kiss. And Mimi, who has been asking her mother the same question over and over again for at least five minutes without being able to obtain an answer, ventures to demand of me on the strength of this introduction:—
—"Missié, oti masque-à?"
—"Y ben fou, pouloss!" the mother cries out;—"Why, the child must be going out of her senses!...Mimi pa 'mbêté moune conm ça!—pa ni piess masque: c'est la-vérette qui ni." (Don't annoy people like that!—there are no maskers now; there is nothing but the verette!)
[You are not annoying me at all, little Mimi; but I would not like to answer your question truthfully. I know where the maskers are,—most of them, child; and I do not think it would be well for you to know. They wear no masks now; but if you were to see them for even one moment, by some extraordinary accident, pretty Mimi, I think you would feel more frightened than you ever felt before.]...
—"Toutt la nuite y k'anni rêvé masque-à," continues Yzore.... I am curious to know what Mimi's dreams are like;—wonder if I can coax her to tell me....
... I have written Mimi's last dream from the child's dictation:—[23]
—"I saw a ball," she says. "I was dreaming: I saw everybody dancing with masks on;—I was looking at them. And all at once I saw that the folks who were dancing were all made of pasteboard. And I saw a commandeur: he asked me what I was doing there. I answered him: 'Why, I saw a ball, and I came to look—what of it?' He answered me:—'Since you are so curious to come and look at other folks' business, you will have to stop here and dance too!' I said to him:—'No! I won't dance with people made of pasteboard;—I am afraid of them!'... And I ran and ran and ran,—I was so much afraid. And I ran into a big garden, where I saw a big cherry-tree that had only leaves upon it; and I saw a man sitting under the cherry-tree. He asked me:—'What are you doing here?' I said to him:—'I am trying to find my way out.' He said:—'You must stay here.' I said:—'No, no!'—and I said, in order to be able to get away:—'Go up there!—you will see a fine ball: all pasteboard people dancing there, and a pasteboard commandeur commanding them!'... And then I got so frightened that I awoke."...
... "And why were you so afraid of them, Mimi?" I ask.
—"Pace yo té toutt vide endedans!" answers Mimi. (Because they were all hollow inside!)
[23]—"Moin té ouè yon bal;—moin rêvé: moin té ka ouè toutt moune ka dansé masqué; moin té ka gàdé. Et toutt-à-coup moin ka ouè c'est bonhomme-càton ka dansé. Et main ka ouè yon Commandè: y ka mandé moin ça moin ka fai là. Moin reponne y conm ça:—'Moin ouè yon bal, moin gàdé-coument!' Y ka réponne moin:—'Pisse ou si quirièse pou vini gàdé baggaïe moune, faut rété là pou dansé 'tou.' Moin réponne y:—'Non! moin pa dansé épi bonhomme-càton!—moin pè!'... Et moin ka couri, moin ka couri, main ka couri à fòce moin te ni pè. Et moin rentré adans grand jàdin; et moin ouè gouôs pié-cirise qui té chàgé anni feuill; et moin ka ouè yon nhomme assise enba cirise-à. Y mandé moin:—'Ça ou ka fai là?' Moin di y:—'Moin ka châché chimin pou moin allé.' Y di moin:—'Faut rété içitt.' Et moin di y:—'Non!'—et pou chappé cò moin, moin di y:—'Allé enhaut-là: ou ké ouè yon bel bal,—toutt bonhomme-càton ka dansé, épi yon Commande-en-càton ka coumandé yo.'... Epi moin levé, à fòce moin té pè."...
[23]—"Moin té ouè yon bal;—moin rêvé: moin té ka ouè toutt moune ka dansé masqué; moin té ka gàdé. Et toutt-à-coup moin ka ouè c'est bonhomme-càton ka dansé. Et main ka ouè yon Commandè: y ka mandé moin ça moin ka fai là. Moin reponne y conm ça:—'Moin ouè yon bal, moin gàdé-coument!' Y ka réponne moin:—'Pisse ou si quirièse pou vini gàdé baggaïe moune, faut rété là pou dansé 'tou.' Moin réponne y:—'Non! moin pa dansé épi bonhomme-càton!—moin pè!'... Et moin ka couri, moin ka couri, main ka couri à fòce moin te ni pè. Et moin rentré adans grand jàdin; et moin ouè gouôs pié-cirise qui té chàgé anni feuill; et moin ka ouè yon nhomme assise enba cirise-à. Y mandé moin:—'Ça ou ka fai là?' Moin di y:—'Moin ka châché chimin pou moin allé.' Y di moin:—'Faut rété içitt.' Et moin di y:—'Non!'—et pou chappé cò moin, moin di y:—'Allé enhaut-là: ou ké ouè yon bel bal,—toutt bonhomme-càton ka dansé, épi yon Commande-en-càton ka coumandé yo.'... Epi moin levé, à fòce moin té pè."...
Mardi 19th.
... The death-rate in St. Pierre is now between three hundred and fifty and four hundred a month. Our street is being depopulated. Every day men come with immense stretchers,—covered with a sort of canvas awning,—to take somebody away to thelazaretto.At brief intervals, also, coffins are carried into houses empty, and carried out again followed by women who cry so loud that their sobbing can be heard a great way off.
... Before the visitation few quarters were so densely peopled: there were living often in one small house as many as fifty. The poorer classes had been accustomed from birth to live as simply as animals,—wearing scarcely any clothing, sleeping on bare floors, exposing themselves to all changes of weather, eating the cheapest and coarsest food. Yet, though living under such adverse conditions, no healthier people could be found, perhaps, in the world,—nor a more cleanly. Every yard having its fountain, almost everybody could bathe daily,—and with hundreds it was the custom to enter the river every morning at daybreak or to take a swim in the bay (the young women here swim as well as the men).... But the pestilence, entering among so dense and unprotected a life, made extraordinarily rapid havoc; and bodily cleanliness availed little against the contagion. Now all the bathing resorts are deserted,—because the lazarettos infect the bay with refuse, and because the clothing of the sick is washed in the Roxelane.
... Guadeloupe, the sister colony, now sends aid;—the sum total is less than a single American merchant might give to a charitable undertaking: but it is a great deal for Guadeloupe to give. And far Cayenne sends money too; and the mother-country will send one hundred thousand francs.
March 20th.
... The infinite goodness of this colored population to one another is something which impresses with astonishment those accustomed to the selfishness of the world's great cities. No one is suffered to go to the pesthouse who has a bed to lie upon, and a single relative or tried friend to administer remedies;—the multitude who pass through the lazarettos are strangers,—persons from the country who have no home of their own, or servants who are not permitted to remain sick in houses of employers.... There are, however, many cases where a mistress will not suffer her bonne to take the risks of the pest-house,—especially in families where there are no children: the domestic is carefully nursed; a physician hired for her, remedies purchased for her....
But among the colored people themselves the heroism displayed is beautiful, is touching,—something which makes one doubt all accepted theories about the natural egotism of mankind, and would compel the most hardened pessimist to conceive a higher idea of humanity. There is never a moment's hesitation in visiting a stricken individual: every relative, and even the most intimate friends of every relative, may be seen hurrying to the bedside. They take turns at nursing, sitting up all night, securing medical attendance and medicines, without ever a thought of the danger,—nay, of the almost absolute certainty of contagion. If the patient have no means, all contribute: what the sister or brother has not, the uncle or the aunt, the godfather or godmother, the cousin, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law, may be able to give. No one dreams of refusing money or linen or wine or anything possible to give, lend, or procure on credit. Women seem to forget that they are beautiful, that they are young, that they are loved,—to forget everything but the sense of that which they hold to be duty. You see young girls of remarkably elegant presence,—young colored girls well educated andélevées-en-chapeau[24](that is to say, brought up like white creole girls, dressed and accomplished like them), voluntarily leave rich homes to nurse some poor mulatress or capresse in the indigent quarters of the town, because the sick one happens to be a distant relative. They will not trust others to perform this for them;—they feel bound to do it in person. I heard such a one say, in reply to some earnest protest about thus exposing herself (she had never been vaccinated):—"Ah! quand il s'agit du devoir, la vie ou la mort c'est pour moi la même chose."
... But without any sanitary law to check this self-immolation, and with the conviction that in the presence of duty, or what is believed to be duty, "life or death is the same thing," or ought to be so considered,—you can readily imagine how soon the city must become one vast hospital.
[24]Lit.,—"brought-up-in-a-hat." To wear the madras is to acknowledge oneself of color;—to follow the European style of dressing the hair and adopt the costume of the white creoles indicate a desire to affiliate with the white class.
[24]Lit.,—"brought-up-in-a-hat." To wear the madras is to acknowledge oneself of color;—to follow the European style of dressing the hair and adopt the costume of the white creoles indicate a desire to affiliate with the white class.
... By nine o'clock, as a general rule, St. Pierre becomes silent: every one here retires early and rises with the sun. But sometimes, when the night is exceptionally warm, people continue to sit at their doors and chat until a far later hour; and on such a night one may hear and see curious things, in this period of plague....
It is certainly singular that while the howling of a dog at night has no ghastly signification here (nobody ever pays the least attention to the sound, however hideous), the moaning and screaming of cats is believed to bode death; and in these times folks never appear to feel too sleepy to rise at any hour and drive them away when they begin their cries.... To-night—a night so oppressive that all but the sick are sitting up—almost a panic is created in our street by a screaming of cats;—and long after the creatures have been hunted out of sight and hearing, everybody who has a relative ill with the prevailing malady continues to discuss the omen with terror.
... Then I observe a colored child standing barefooted in the moonlight, with her little round arms uplifted and hands joined above her head. A more graceful little figure it would be hard to find as she appears thus posed; but, all unconsciously, she is violating another superstition by this very attitude; and the angry mother shrieks:—
—"Ti manmaille-là!—tiré lanmain-ou assous tête-ou, foute! pisse moin encò là!... Espéré moin allé lazarett avant metté lanmain conm ça!" (Child, take down your hands from your head... because I am here yet! Wait till I go to the lazaretto before you put up your hands like that!)
For it was the savage, natural, primitive gesture of mourning,—of great despair.
... Then all begin to compare their misfortunes, to relate their miseries;—they say grotesque things,—even make jests about their troubles. One declares:—
—"Si moin té ka venne chapeau, à fòce moin ni malhè, toutt manman sé fai yche yo sans tête." (I have that ill-luck, that if I were selling hats all the mothers would have children without heads!)
—Those who sit at their doors, I observe, do not sit, as a rule, upon the steps, even when these are of wood. There is a superstition which checks such a practice. "Si ou assise assous pas-lapòte, ou ké pouend doulè toutt moune." (If you sit upon the door-step, you will take the pain of all who pass by.)
March 30th.
Good Friday....
The bells have ceased to ring,—even the bells for the dead; the hours are marked by cannon-shots. The ships in the harbor form crosses with their spars, turn their flags upside down. And the entire colored population put on mourning:—it is a custom among them centuries old.
You will not perceive a single gaudy robe to-day, a single calendered Madras: not a speck of showy color is visible through all the ways of St. Pierre. The costumes donned are all similar to those worn for the death of relatives: either full mourning,—a black robe with violet foulard, and dark violet-banded headkerchief; or half-mourning,—a dark violet robe with black foulard and turban;—the half-mourning being worn only by those who cannot afford the more sombre costume. From my window I can see long processions climbing the mornes about the city, to visit the shrines and crucifixes, and to pray for the cessation of the pestilence.
... Three o'clock. Three cannon-shots shake the hills: it is the supposed hour of the Saviour's death. All believers—whether in the churches, on the highways, or in their homes—bow down and kiss the cross thrice, or, if there be no cross, press their lips three times to the ground or the pavement, and utter those three wishes which if expressed precisely at this traditional moment will surely, it is held, be fulfilled. Immense crowds are assembled before the crosses on the heights, and about the statue of Notre Dame de la Garde.
... There is no hubbub in the streets; there is not even the customary loud weeping to be heard as the coffins go by. One must not complain to-day, nor become angry, nor utter unkind words,—any fault committed on Good Friday is thought to obtain a special and awful magnitude in the sight of Heaven.... There is a curious saying in vogue here. If a son or daughter grows up vicious,—become a shame to the family and a curse to the parents,—it is observed of such:—"Ça, c'est yon péché Vendredi-Saint!" (Must be aGood-Friday sin!)
There are two other strange beliefs connected with Good Friday. One is that it always rains on that day,—that the sky weeps for the death of the Saviour; and that this rain, if caught in a vessel, will never evaporate or spoil, and will cure all diseases.
The other is that only Jesus Christ died precisely at three o'clock. Nobody else ever died exactly at that hour;—they may die a second before or a second after three, but never exactly at three.
Mardi 31st.
... Holy Saturday morning;—nine o'clock. All the bells suddenly ring out; the humming of the bourdon blends with the thunder of a hundred guns: this is theGloria!... At this signal it is a religious custom for the whole coast-population to enter the sea, and for those living too far from the beach to bathe in the rivers. But rivers and sea are now alike infected;—all the linen of the lazarettos has been washed therein; and to-day there are fewer bathers than usual.
But there are twenty-seven burials. Now they are burying the dead two together: the cemeteries are overburdened....
... In most of the old stone houses you will occasionally see spiders of terrifying size,—measuring across perhaps as much as six inches from the tip of one outstretched leg to the tip of its opposite fellow, as they cling to the wall. I never heard of any one being bitten by them; and among the poor it is deemed unlucky to injure or drive them away.... But early this morning Yzore swept her house clean, and ejected through the door-way quite a host of these monster insects. Manm-Robert is quite dismayed:—
—"Jesis-Maïa!—ou 'lè malhè éncò fou fai ça, chè?" (You want to have still more bad luck, that you do such a thing?)
And Yzore answers:—
—"Toutt moune içitt pa ni yon soul—ça fil zagrignin, et moin pa menm mangé! Epi laverette encò.... Main couè toutt ça ka pòté malhè!" (No one here has a sou!—heaps of cobwebs like that, and nothing to eat yet; and the verette into the bargain.... I think those things bring bad luck.)
—"Ah! you have not eaten yet!" cries Manm-Robert. "Vini épi moin!" (Come with me!)
And Yzore—already feeling a little remorse for her treatment of the spiders—murmurs apologetically as she crosses over to Manm-Robert's little shop:—"Moin pa tchoué yo; moin chassé yo—ké vini encò." (I did not kill them; I only put them out;—they will come back again.)
But long afterwards, Manm-Robert remarked to me that they never went back....
April 5th.
—"Toutt bel bois ka allé," says Manm-Robert. (All the beautiful trees are going.)... I do not understand.
—"Toutt bel bois—toutt bel moune ka allé," she adds, interpretatively. (All the "beautiful trees,"—all the handsome people,—are passing away.)... As in the speech of the world's primitive poets, so in the creole patois is a beautiful woman compared with a comely tree: nay, more than this, the name of the object is actually substituted for that of the living being.Yon bel boismay mean a fine tree: it more generally signifies a graceful woman: this is the very comparison made by Ulysses looking upon Nausicas, though more naïvely expressed.... And now there comes to me the recollection of a creole ballad illustrating the use of the phrase,—a ballad about a youth of Fort-de-France sent to St. Pierre by his father to purchase a stock of dobannes,[25]who, falling in love with a handsome colored girl, spent all his father's mopey in buying her presents and a wedding outfit:—
"Moin descenne Saint-PièAcheté dobannesAuliè ces dobannesC'est yonbel-boismoin mennein monté!"
("I went down to Saint-Pierre to buy dobannes: instead of the dobannes, 'tis a pretty tree—a charming girl—that I bring back with me.")
—"Why, who is dead now, Manm-Robert?"
—"It is little Marie, the porteuse, who has got the vérette. She is gone to the lazaretto."
[25]Red earthen-ware jars for keeping drinking-water cool. The origin of the word is probably to be sought in the name of the town, near Marseilles, where they are made,—"Aubagne."
[25]Red earthen-ware jars for keeping drinking-water cool. The origin of the word is probably to be sought in the name of the town, near Marseilles, where they are made,—"Aubagne."
April 7th.
—Toutt bel bois ka allé.... News has just come that Ti Marie died last night at the lazaretto of the Fort: she was attacked by what they call thelavérette-pouff,—a form of the disease which strangles its victim within a few hours.
Ti Marie was certainly the neatest little màchanne I ever knew. Without being actually pretty, her face had a childish charm which made it a pleasure to look at her;—and she had a clear chocolate-red skin, a light compact little figure, and a remarkably symmetrical pair of little feet which had never felt the pressure of a shoe. Every morning I used to hear her passing cry, just about daybreak:—"Qui 'lè café?—qui 'lè sirop?" (Who wants coffee?—who wants syrup?) She looked about sixteen, but was a mother. "Where is her husband?" I ask. "Nhomme-y mò laverette 'tou." (Her man died of the verette also.) "And the little one, heryche? Y lazarett." (At the lazaretto.)... But only those without friends or relatives in the city are suffered to go to the lazaretto;—Ti Marie cannot have been of St. Pierre?
—"No: she was from Vauclin," answers Manm-Robert. "You do not often see pretty red girls who are natives of St. Pierre. St. Pierre has prettysang-mêlées.The pretty red girls mostly come from Vauclin. The yellow ones, who are really bel-bois, are from Grande Anse: they are banana-colored people there. At Gros-Morne they are generally black."...
... It appears that the red race here, the racecapresse, is particularly liable to the disease. Every family employing capresses for house-servants loses them;—one family living at the next corner has lost four in succession....
The tint is a cinnamon or chocolate color;—the skin is naturally clear, smooth, glossy: it is of the capresse especially that the term "sapota-skin" (peau-chapoti) is used,—coupled with all curious creole adjectives to express what is comely,—jojoll, beaujoll,[26]etc. The hair is long, but bushy; the limbs light and strong, and admirably shaped.... I am told that when transported to a colder climate, the capre or capresse partly loses this ruddy tint. Here, under the tropic sun, it has a beauty only possible to imitate in metal.... And because photography cannot convey any idea of this singular color, the capresse hates a photograph.—"Moin pas noué," she says;—"moin ouôuge: ou fai moin nouè nans pàtrait-à." (I am not black: I am red:—you make me black in that portrait.) It is difficult to make her pose before the camera: she is red, as she avers, beautifully red; but the malicious instrument makes her gray or black—noué conm poule-zo-nouè("black as a blackboned hen!")
... And this red race is disappearing from St. Pierre —doubtless also from other plague-striken centres.
[26]I may cite in this relation one stanza of a creole song—very popular in St. Pierre—celebrating the charms of a little capresse:—"Moin toutt jeine,Goufa, gouàs, vaillant,Peau di chapotiKa fai plaisi;—Lapeau moinLi bien poli;Et moin ka plaiMêmn toutt nhomme grave!"—Which might be freely rendered thus:—"I am dimpled, young,Round-limbed, and strong,With sapota-skinThat is good to see:All glossy-smoothIs this skin of mine;And the gravest menLike to look to me!"
[26]I may cite in this relation one stanza of a creole song—very popular in St. Pierre—celebrating the charms of a little capresse:—
"Moin toutt jeine,Goufa, gouàs, vaillant,Peau di chapotiKa fai plaisi;—Lapeau moinLi bien poli;Et moin ka plaiMêmn toutt nhomme grave!"
—Which might be freely rendered thus:—
"I am dimpled, young,Round-limbed, and strong,With sapota-skinThat is good to see:All glossy-smoothIs this skin of mine;And the gravest menLike to look to me!"
April 10th.
... Manm-Robert is much annoyed and puzzled because the American steamer—thebom-mangé, as she calls it—does not come. It used to bring regularly so many barrels of potatoes and beans, so much lard and cheese and garlic and dried pease—everything, almost of which she keeps a stock. It is now nearly eight weeks since the cannon of a New York steamer aroused the echoes of the harbor. Every morning Manm-Robert has been sending out her little servant Louis to see if there is any sign of the American packet:—"Allé ouè Batterie d'Esnotz si bom-mangé-à pas vini." But Louis always returns with the same rueful answer:—
—"Manm-Robert, pa ni piess bom-mangé" (there is not so much as a bit of abom-mangé).
... "No more American steamers for Martinique:" that is the news received by telegraph! The disease has broken out among the shipping; the harbors have been declared infected. United States mail-packets drop their Martinique mails at St. Kitt's or Dominica, and pass us by. There will be suffering now among the canotiers, the caboteurs, all those who live by stowing or unloading cargo;—great warehouses are being closed up, and strong men discharged, because there will be nothing for them to do.
... They are burying twenty-fiveverettiersper day in the city.
But never was this tropic sky more beautiful;—never was this circling sea more marvellously blue;—never were the mornes more richly robed in luminous green, under a more golden day.... And it seems strange that Nature should remain so lovely....
... Suddenly it occurs to me that I have not seen Yzore nor her children for some days; and I wonder if they have moved away.... Towards evening, passing by Manm-Robert's, I ask about them. The old woman answers me very gravely:—
—"Aid, mon chè, c'est Yzore qui ni lavérette!"
The mother has been seized by the plague at last. But Manm-Robert will look after her; and Manm-Robert has taken charge of the three little ones, who are not now allowed to leave the house, for fear some one should tell them what it were best they should not know....Pauv ti manmaille!
April 13th.
... Still the vérette does not attack the native whites. But the whole air has become poisoned; the sanitary condition of the city becomes unprecedentedly bad; and a new epidemic makes its appearance,—typhoid fever. And now the békés begin to go, especially the young and strong; and bells keep sounding for them, and the tolling bourdon fills the city with its enormous hum all day and far into the night. For these are rich; and the high solemnities of burial are theirs—the coffin of acajou, and the triple ringing, and the Cross of Gold to be carried before them as they pass to their long sleep under the palms,—saluted for the last time by all the population of St. Pierre, standing bareheaded in the sun....
... Is it in times like these, when all the conditions are febrile, that one is most apt to have queer dreams?
Last night it seemed to me that I saw that Carnival dance again,—the hooded musicians, the fantastic torrent of peaked caps, and the spectral masks, and the swaying of bodies and waving of arms,—but soundless as a passing of smoke. There were figures I thought I knew;—hands I had somewhere seen reached out and touched me in silence;—and then, all suddenly, a Viewless Something seemed to scatter the shapes as leaves are blown by a wind.... And waking, I thought I heard again,—plainly as on that last Carnival afternoon,—the strange cry of fear:—"C'est Bon-Dié ka passé!"...
April 20th.
... Very early yesterday morning Yzore was carried away under a covering of quick-lime: the children do not know; Manm-Robert took heed they should not see. They have been told their mother has been taken to the country to get well,—that the doctor will bring her back soon.... All the furniture is to be sold at auction to pay the debts;—the landlord was patient, he waited four months; the doctor was kindly: but now these must have their due. Everything will be bidden off, except the chapelle, with its Virgin and angels of porcelain:yo pa ka pè venne Bon-Dié(the things of the Good-God must not be sold). And Manm-Robert will take care of the little ones.
The bed—a relic of former good-fortune,—a great Martinique bed of carved heavy native wood,—a lit-à-bateau(boat-bed), so called because shaped almost like a barge, perhaps—will surely bring three hundred francs;—the armoire, with its mirror doors, not less than two hundred and fifty. There is little else of value: the whole will not fetch enough to pay all the dead owes.
April 28th.
—Tam-tam-tam!—tam-tam-tam!... It is the booming of the auction-drum from the Place: Yzore's furniture is about to change hands.
The children start at the sound, so vividly associated in their minds with the sights of Carnival days, with the fantastic mirth of the great processional dance: they run to the sunny street, calling to each other,—Vini ouè!—they look up and down. But there is a great quiet in the Rue du Morne Mirail;—the street is empty.
... Manm-Robert enters very weary: she has been at the sale, trying to save something for the children, but the prices were too high. In silence she takes her accustomed seat at the worn counter of her little shop; the young ones gather about her, caress her;—Mimi looks up laughing into the kind brown face, and wonders why Manm-Robert will not smile. Then Mimi becomes afraid to ask where the maskers are,—why they do not come. But little Maurice, bolder and less sensitive, cries out:—
—"Manm-Robert, oti masque-à?"
Manm-Robert does not answer;—she does not hear. She is gazing directly into the young faces clustered about her knee,—yet she does not see them: she sees far, far beyond them,—into the hidden years. And, suddenly, with a savage tenderness in her voice, she utters all the dark thought of her heart for them:—
—"Toua ti blancs sans lesou!—quitté main châché papa-ou qui adans cimétiè pou vint pouend ou tou!" (Ye three little penniless white ones!—let me go call your father, who is in the cemetery, to come and take you also away!)
Whoever stops for a few months in St. Pierre is certain, sooner or later, to pass an idle half-hour in that charming place of Martinique idlers,—the beautiful Savane du Fort,—and, once there, is equally certain to lean a little while over the mossy parapet of the river-wall to watch theblanchisseusesat work. It has a curious interest, this spectacle of primitive toil: the deep channel of the Roxelane winding under the palm-crowned heights of the Fort; the blinding whiteness of linen laid out to bleach for miles upon the huge bowlders of porphyry and prismatic basalt; and the dark bronze-limbed women, with faces hidden under immense straw hats, and knees in the rushing torrent,—all form a scene that makes one think of the earliest civilizations. Even here, in this modern colony, it is nearly three centuries old; and it will probably continue thus at the Rivière des Blanchisseuses for fully another three hundred years. Quaint as certain weird Breton legends whereof it reminds you,—especially if you watch it before daybreak while the city sleeps,—this fashion of washing is not likely to change. There is a local prejudice against new methods, new inventions, new ideas;—several efforts at introducing a less savage style of washing proved unsuccessful; and an attempt to establish a steam-laundry resulted in failure. The public were quite contented with the old ways of laundrying, and saw no benefits to be gained by forsaking them;—while the washers and ironers engaged by the laundry proprietor at higher rates than they had ever obtained before soon wearied of in-door work, abandoned their situations, and returned with a sense of relief to their ancient way of working out in the blue air and the wind of the hills, with their feet in the mountain-water and their heads in the awful sun.
... It is one of the sights of St. Pierre,—this daily scene at the River of the Washerwomen: everybody likes to watch it;—the men, because among the blanchisseuses there are not a few decidedly handsome girls; the women, probably because a woman feels always interested in woman's work. All the white bridges of the Roxelane are dotted with lookers-on during fine days, and particularly in the morning, when every bonne on her way to and from the market stops a moment to observe or to greet those blanchisseuses whom she knows. Then one hears such a calling and clamoring,—such an intercrossing of cries from the bridge to the river, and the river to the bridge.... "Ouill! Noémi!" ... "Coument ou yé, chè?"... "Eh! Pascaline!"... "Bonjou', Youtte!—Dédé!—Fifi!—Henrillia!"... "Coument ou kallé, Cyrillia?"... "Toutt douce, chè!—et Ti Mémé?"... "Y bien;—oti Ninotte?"... "Bo ti manmaille pou moin, chè—ou tanne?"... But the bridge leading to the market of the Fort is the poorest point of view; for the better classes of blanchisseuses are not there: only the lazy, the weak, or non-professionals—house-servants, who do washing at the river two or three times a month as part of their family-service—are apt to get so far down. The experienced professionals and early risers secure the best places and choice of rocks; and among the hundreds at work you can discern something like a physical gradation. At the next bridge the women look better, stronger; more young faces appear; and the further you follow the river-course towards the Jardin des Plantes, the more the appearance of the blanchisseuses improves,—so that within the space of a mile you can see well exemplified one natural law of life's struggle,—the best chances to the best constitutions.
You might also observe, if you watch long enough, that among the blanchisseuses there are few sufficiently light of color to be classed as bright mulâtresses;—the majority are black or of that dark copper-red race which is perhaps superior to the black creole in strength and bulk; for it requires a skin insensible to sun as well as the toughest of constitutions to be a blanchisseuse. A porteuse can begin to make long trips at nine or ten years; but no girl is strong enough to learn the washing-trade until she is past twelve. The blanchisseuse is the hardest worker among the whole population;—her daily labor is rarely less than thirteen hours; and during the greater part of that time she is working in the sun, and standing up to her knees in water that descends quite cold from the mountain peaks. Her labor makes her perspire profusely; and she can never venture to cool herself by further immersion without serious danger of pleurisy. The trade is said to kill all who continue at it beyond a certain number of years:—"Nou ka mò toutt dleau" (we all die of the water), one told me, replying to a question. No feeble or light-skinned person can attempt to do a single day's work of this kind without danger; and a weak girl, driven by necessity to do her own washing, seldom ventures to go to the river. Yet I saw an instance of such rashness one day. A pretty sang-mêlée, perhaps about eighteen or nineteen years old,—whom I afterwards learned had just lost her mother and found herself thus absolutely destitute,—began to descend one of the flights of stone steps leading to the river, with a small bundle upon her head; and two or three of the blanchisseuses stopped their work to look at her. A tall capresse inquired mischievously:—
LES BLANCHISSEUSES"Their daily labor is rarely less than thirteen hours,—during the greater part of the time in the sun and up to their knees in water that descends quite cold from the mountain peaks."
LES BLANCHISSEUSES"Their daily labor is rarely less than thirteen hours,—during the greater part of the time in the sun and up to their knees in water that descends quite cold from the mountain peaks."
—"Ou vini pou pouend yon bain?" (Coming to take a bath?) For the river is a great bathing-place.
—"Non; moin vini lavé." (No; I am coming to wash.)
—"Aïe! aïe! aïe!—y vini lavé!"... And all within hearing laughed together. "Are you crazy, girl?—ess ou fou?" The tall capresse snatched the bundle from her, opened it, threw a garment to her nearest neighbor, another to the next one, dividing the work among a little circle of friends, and said to the stranger, "Non ké lavé toutt ça ba ou bien vite chè,—va, amisé ou!" (We'll wash this for you very quickly, dear—go and amuse yourself!) These kind women even did more for the poor girl;—they subscribed to buy her a good breakfast, when the food-seller—the màchanne-mangé—made her regular round among them, with fried fish and eggs and manioc flour and bananas.
All of the multitude who wash clothing at the river are not professional blanchisseuses. Hundreds of women, too poor to pay for laundrying, do their own work at the Roxelane;—and numerous bonnes there wash the linen of their mistresses as a regular part of their domestic duty. But even if the professionals did not always occupy a certain well-known portion of the channel, they could easily be distinguished from others by their rapid and methodical manner of work, by the ease with which immense masses of linen are handled by them, and, above all, by their way of whipping it against the rocks. Furthermore, the greater number of professionals are likewise teachers, mistresses (bou'geoises), and have their apprentices beside them,—young girls from twelve to sixteen years of age. Among theseapprenti, as they are called in the patois, there are many attractive types, such as idlers upon the bridges like to look at.
If, after one year of instruction, the apprentice fails to prove a good washer, it is not likely she will ever become one; and there are some branches of the trade requiring a longer period of teaching and of practice. The young girl first learns simply to soap and wash the linen in the river, which operation is called "rubbing" (frottéin creole);—after she can do this pretty well, she is taught the curious art of whipping it (fessé). You can hear the sound of the fessé a great way off, echoing and re-echoing among the mornes: it is not a sharp smacking noise, as the name might seem to imply, but a heavy hollow sound exactly like that of an axe splitting dry timber. In fact, it so closely resembles the latter sound that you are apt on first hearing it to look up at the mornes with the expectation of seeing woodmen there at work. And it is not made by striking the linen with anything, but only by lashing it against the sides of the rocks.... After a piece has been well rubbed and rinsed, it is folded up into a peculiar sheaf-shape, and seized by the closely gathered end for the fessé. Then the folding process is repeated on the reverse, and the other end whipped. This process expels suds that rinsing cannot remove: it must be done very dexterously to avoid tearing or damaging the material. By an experienced hand the linen is never torn; and even pearl and bone buttons are much less often broken than might be supposed. The singular echo is altogether due to the manner of folding the article for the fessé.
After this, all the pieces are spread out upon the rocks, in the sun, for the "first bleaching" (poumèmiè lablanie). In the evening they are gathered into large wooden trays or baskets, and carried to what is called the "lye-house" (locaïe lessive)—overlooking the river from a point on the Fort bank opposite to the higher end of the Savane. Here each blanchisseuse hires a small or a large vat, or even several,—according to the quantity of work done,—at two, three or ten sous, and leaves her washing to steep in lye (couléis the creole word used) during the night. There are watchmen to guard it. Before daybreak it is rinsed in warm water; then it is taken back to the river,—is rinsed again, bleached again, blued and starched. Then it is ready for ironing. To press and iron well is the most difficult part of the trade. When an apprentice is able to iron a gentleman's shirt nicely, and a pair of white pantaloons, she is considered to have finished her time;—she becomes a journey-woman (ouvouïyé).
Even in a country where wages are almost incredibly low, the blanchisseuse earns considerable money. There is no fixed scale of prices: it is even customary to bargain with these women beforehand. Shirts and white pantaloons figure at six and eight cents in laundry bills; but other washing is much cheaper. I saw a lot of thirty-three pieces—including such large ones as sheets, bed-covers, and several douillettes (the long Martinique trailing robes of one piece from neck to feet)—for which only three francs was charged. Articles are frequently stolen or lost by house-servants sent to do washing at the river; but very seldom indeed by the regular blanchisseuses. Few of them can read or write or understand owners' marks on wearing apparel; and when you see at the river the wilderness of scattered linen, the seemingly enormous confusion, you cannot understand how these women manage to separate and classify it all. Yet they do this admirably,—and for that reason perhaps more than any other, are able to charge fair rates;—it is false economy to have your washing done by the house-servant;—with the professionals your property is safe. And cheap as her rates are, a good professional can make from twenty-five to thirty francs a week; averaging fully a hundred francs a month,—as much as many a white clerk can earn in the stores of St. Pierre, and quite as much (considering local differences in the purchasing power of money) as $60 per month would represent in the United States.
Probably the ability to earn large wages often tempts the blanchisseuse to continue at her trade until it kills her. The "water-disease," as she calls it (maladie-dleau), makes its appearance after middle-life: the feet, lower limbs, and abdomen swell enormously, while the face becomes almost fleshless;—then, gradually tissues give way, muscles yield, and the whole physical structure crumbles.
Nevertheless, the blanchisseuse is essentially a sober liver,—never a drunkard. In fact, she is sober from rigid necessity: she would not dare to swallow one mouthful of spirits while at work with her feet in the cold water;—everybody else in Martinique, even the little children, can drink rum; the blanchisseuse cannot unless she wishes to die of a congestion. Her strongest refreshment ismabi,—a mild, effervescent, and, I think, rather disagreeable, beer made from molasses.
Always before daybreak they rise to work, while the vapors of the monies fill the air with scent of mouldering vegetation,—clayey odors,—grassy smells: there is only a faint gray light, and the water of the river is very chill. One by one they arrive, barefooted, under their burdens built up tower-shape on their trays;—silently as ghosts they descend the steps to the river-bed, and begin to unfold and immerse their washing. They greet each other as they come, then become silent again; there is scarcely any talking: the hearts of all are heavy with the heaviness of the hour. But the gray light turns yellow; the sun climbs over the peaks: light changes the dark water to living crystal; and all begin to chatter a little. Then the city awakens; the currents of its daily life circulate again,—thinly and slowly at first, then swiftly and strongly,—up and down every yellow street, and through the Savane, and over the bridges of the river. Passers-by pause to look down, and cry "bonjou', chè!" Idle men stare at some pretty washer, till she points at them and cries:—"Godé Missié-à ka guetté nou!—anh!—anh!—anh!" And all the others look up and repeat the groan—"anh!—anh!—anh!" till the starers beat a retreat. The air grows warmer; the sky blue takes fire: the great light makes joy for the washers; they shout to each other from distance to distance, jest, laugh, sing.
Gusty of speech these women are: long habit of calling to one another through the roar of the torrent has given their voices a singular sonority and force: it is well worth while to hear them sing. One starts the song,—the next joins her; then another and another, till all the channel rings with the melody from the bridge of the Jardin des Plantes to the Pont-bois:—
"C'est moin qui té ka lavé,Passé, raccommodé:Y té néf hè disouèOu metté moin derhò,—Yche moin assous bouas moin;—Laplie té ka tombé—Léfan moin assous tète moin!Doudoux, ou m'abandonne!Moin pa ni pèsonne pou soigné moin."[27]
... A melancholy chant—originally a Carnival improvisation made to bring public shame upon the perpetrator of a cruel act;—but it contains the story of many of these lives—the story of industrious affectionate women temporarily united to brutal and worthless men in a country where legal marriages are rare. Half of the creole songs which I was able to collect during a residence of nearly two years in the island touch upon the same sad theme. Of these, "Chè Manman Moin," a great favorite still with the older blanchisseuses, has a simple pathos unrivalled, I believe, in the oral literature of this people. Here is an attempt to translate its three rhymeless stanzas into prose; but the childish sweetness of the patois original is lost:—
... "Dear mamma, once you were young like I;—dear papa, you also have been young;—dear great elder brother, you too have been young. Ah! let me cherish this sweet friendship!—so sick my heart is—yes, 'tis very, very ill, this heart of mine: love, only love can make it well again."...
"O cursed eyes he praised that led me to him! O cursed lips of mine which ever repeated his name! O cursed moment in which I gave up my heart to the ingrate who no longer knows how to love."...
"Doudoux, you swore to me by Heaven!—doudoux, you swore to me by your faith!... And now you cannot come to me?... Oh! my heart is withering with pain!... I was passing by the cemetery;—I saw my name upon a stone—all by itself. I saw two white roses; and in a moment one faded and fell before me.... So my forgotten heart will be!"...
The air is not so charming, however, as that of a little song which every creole knows, and which may be often heard still at the river: I think it is the prettiest of all creole melodies. "To-to-to" (patois for the Frenchtoc) is an onomatope for the sound of knocking at a door.
"To, to, to!—'Ça qui là?'—'C'est moin-mênme, lanmou;—Ouvé lapott ba moin!'"To, to, to!—'Ça qui là?'—'C'est moin-mênme, lanmou;—Qui ka ba ou khè moin!'"To, to, to!—'Ça qui là?'—'C'est moin-mênme, anmou;—Laplie ka mouillé moin!'"
[To-to-to... "Who taps there?"—"'Tis mine own self Love: open the door for me."
To-to-to... "Who taps there?"—"'Tis mine own self Love, who give my heart to thee."
To-to-to... "Who taps there?"—"Tis mine own self Love: open thy door to me;—the rain is wetting me!"...]
... But it is more common to hear the blanchisseuses singing merry, jaunty, sarcastic ditties,—Carnival compositions,—in which the African sense of rhythmic melody is more marked:—"Marie-Clémence maudi, Loéma tombé, Quand ou ni ti mari jojoll."[28]
—At mid-day the màchanne-mangé comes, with her girls,—carrying trays of fried fish, andakras, and cooked beans, and bottles of mabi. The blanchisseuses buy, and eat with their feet in the water, using rocks for tables. Each has her little tin cup to drink her mabi in.... Then the washing and the chanting and the booming of the fessé begin again. Afternoon wanes;—school-hours close; and children of many beautiful colors come to the river, and leap down the steps crying, "Eti! manman!"—"Sésé!"—"Nenneine!" calling their elder sisters, mothers, and godmothers: the little boys strip naked to play in the water a while.... Towards sunset the more rapid and active workers begin to gather in their linen, and pile it on trays. Large patches of bald rock appear again.... By six o'clock almost the whole bed of the river is bare;—the women are nearly all gone. A few linger a while on the Savane, to watch the last-comer. There is always a great laugh at the last to leave the channel: they ask her if she has not forgotten "to lock up the river."
—"Ou fèmé lapòte lariviè, chè—anh?"
—"Ah! oui, chè!—moin fèmé y, ou tanne?—moin ni laclé-à!" (Oh yes, dear. I locked it up,—you hear?—I've got the key!)
But there are days and weeks when they do not sing,—times of want or of plague, when the silence of the valley is broken only by the sound of linen beaten upon the rocks, and the great voice of the Roxelane, which will sing on when the city itself shall have ceased to be, just as it sang one hundred thousand years ago.... "Why do they not sing to-day?" I once asked during the summer of 1887,—a year of pestilence. "Yo ka pensé toutt lanmizè yo,—toutt lapeine yo," I was answered. (They are thinking of all their trouble, all their misery.) Yet in all seasons, while youth and strength stay with them, they work on in wind and sun, mist and rain, washing the linen of the living and the dead,—white wraps for the newly born, white robes for the bride, white shrouds for them that pass into the Great Silence. And the torrent that wears away the ribs of the perpetual hills wears away their lives,—sometimes slowly, slowly as black basalt is worn,—sometimes suddenly,—in the twinkling of an eye.
For a strange danger ever menaces the blanchisseuse,—the treachery of the stream!... Watch them working, and observe how often they turn their eyes to the high north-east, to look at Pelée. Pelée gives them warning betimes. When all is sunny in St. Pierre, and the harbor lies blue as lapis-lazuli, there may be mighty rains in the region of the great woods and the valleys of the higher peaks; and thin streams swell to raging floods which burst suddenly from the altitudes, rolling down rocks and trees and wreck of forests, uplifting crags, devastating slopes. And sometimes, down the ravine of the Roxelane, there comes a roar as of eruption, with a rush of foaming water like a moving mountain-wall; and bridges and buildings vanish with its passing. In 1865 the Savane, high as it lies above the river-bed, was flooded;—and all the bridges were swept into the sea.
So the older and wiser blanchisseuses keep watch upon Pelée; and if a blackness gather over it, with lightnings breaking through, then—however fair the sun shine on St. Pierre—the alarm is given, the miles of bleaching linen vanish from the rocks in a few minutes, and every one leaves the channel. But it has occasionally happened that Pelée gave no such friendly signal before the river rose: thus lives have been lost. Most of the blanchisseuses are swimmers, and good ones,—I have seen one of these girls swim almost out of sight in the harbor, during an idle hour;—but no swimmer has any chances in a rising of the Roxelane: all overtaken by it are stricken by rocks and drift;—yo crazé, as a creole term expresses it,—a term signifying to crush, to bray, to dash to pieces.
... Sometimes it happens that one who has been absent at home for a brief while returns to the river only to meet her comrades fleeing from it,—many leaving their linen behind them. But she will not abandon the linen intrusted to her: she makes a run for it,—in spite of warning screams,—in spite of the vain clutching of kind rough fingers. She gains the river-bed:—the flood has already reached her waist, but she is strong; she reaches her linen,—snatches it up, piece by piece, scattered as it is—"one!—two!—five!—seven!";—there is a roaring in her ears—"eleven!—thirteen!" she has it all... but now the rocks are moving! For one instant she strives to reach the steps, only a few yards off;—another, and the thunder of the deluge is upon her,—and the crushing crags,—and the spinning trees....
Perhaps before sundown some canotier may find her floating far in the bay,—drifting upon her face in a thousand feet of water,—with faithful dead hands still holding fast the property of her employer.