Two Years in the French West Indies Part 21

XXIX. _April 10th._

Manm-Robert is much annoyed and puzzled because the American steamer--the _bom-mange_, as she calls does not come. It used to bring regularly so many barrels of potatoes and beans, so much lard and cheese 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 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:--"_Alle oue Batterie d' Esnotz si bom-mange-a pas vini_." But Louis always returns with same rueful answer:--

--"_Manm-Robert, pa ni piess bom-mange_" (there is not so much as a bit of a _bom-mange_).

... "No more American steamers for Martinique:" that is the news received by telegraph! The disease has broken out among the s.h.i.+pping; the harbors have been delared infected. United States mail-packets drop their Martinique mails at St. Kitt's or Dominica, and pa.s.s 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-five _verettiers_ per day in 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, pa.s.sing by Manm-Robert's, I ask about them. The old woman answers me very gravely:--

--"_At, mon che, c'est Yzore qui ni laverette!_"

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!_

x.x.x. _April 13th._

... Still the verette 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 bekes begin to go, especially the young and strong; and the 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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-Die ka pa.s.se!_"...

x.x.xI. _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.... All the furniture is to be sold at auction to 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 pe venne Bon-Die_ (the things of the Good-G.o.d must not be sold). And Manm-Robert will take care little ones.

The bed--a relic of former good-fortune,--a great Martinique bed of carved heavy native wood,--a _lit-a-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.

x.x.xII. _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 a.s.sociated 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 oue!_--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-a?_"

Manm-Robert does not answer;--she does not hear. She is gazing directly into the young faces cl.u.s.tered 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!--qut.i.tte moin chache papaou qui adans cimetie pou vini 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!)

CHAPTER VI. LES BLANCHISSEUSES.

I.

Whoever stops for a few months in St. Pierre is certain, sooner or later, to pa.s.s 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 the _blanchisseuses_ at 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 Riviere 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 still sleeps,--this fas.h.i.+on of was.h.i.+ng 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 wormen, 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! Noemi!"...

"Coument ou ye, che?"... "Eh! Pascaline!",..."Bonjou', Youtte!--Dede!-Fifi!--Henrillia!"... "Coument ou kalle, Cyrillia?"...

"Toutt douce, che!--et Ti Meme?"... "Y bien;--oti Ninotte?"... "Bo ti manmaille pou moin, che--ou tanne?"... But the bridge leading to the market of the Fort is the poorest point of view; for the better cla.s.ses of blanchisseuses are not there: only the lazy, the weak, or non-professionals--house-servants, who do was.h.i.+ng 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 s.p.a.ce of a mile you can see well exemplified one natural law of life's struggle,--the best chances to the best const.i.tutions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RIVIeRE DES BLANCHISSEUSES.]

You might also observe, if you watch long enough, that among the blanchisseuses there are few sufficiently light of color to be cla.s.sed as bright mulatresses;--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 const.i.tutions 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 was.h.i.+ng-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 m 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 was.h.i.+ng, seldom ventures to go to the river. Yet I saw an instance of such rashness one day. A pretty sang-melee, perhaps about eighteen or nineteen years old,--whom I afterwards learned had just lost her mother and found herself thus absolutely dest.i.tute,--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:--

--"_Ou vini pou pouend yon bain?_" (Coming to take a bath?) For the river is a great bathing-place.

--"_Non; moin vini lave_." (No; I am coming to wash.)

--"_Ae! ae! ae!--y vini lave!_"... And all within hearing laughed together. "Are you crazy, girl?--_ess ou fou?_" The tall capresse s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 ke lave toutt ca ba ou bien vite, che,--va, amise 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 machanne-mange--made her regular round among them, with fried fish and eggs and manioc flour and bananas.

II.

All of the mult.i.tude 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 ma.s.ses 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 these _apprenti_, 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" (_frotte_ in creole);--after she can do this pretty well, she is taught the curious art of whipping it (_fesse_). You can hear the sound of the fesse 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 las.h.i.+ng 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 fesse. 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 b.u.t.tons are much less often broken than might be supposed. The singular echo is altogether due to the manner of folding the article for the fesse.

After this, all the pieces are spread out upon the rocks, in the sun, for the "first bleaching" (_pouemie lablanie_). In the evening they are gathered into large wooden trays or baskets, and carried to what is called the "lye-house" (_lacae lessive_)--overlooking the river from a point on the fort bank opposite to the higher end of the Savane.

There each blanchisseuse hires a small or a large vat, or even several,--according to the quant.i.ty of work done,--at two, three, or ten sous, and leaves her was.h.i.+ng to steep in lye (_coule_ is 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 s.h.i.+rt nicely, and a pair of white pantaloons, she is considered to have finished her time;--she becomes a journey-woman (_ouvouye_).

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.

s.h.i.+rts and white pantaloons figure at six and eight cents in laundry bills; but other was.h.i.+ng 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 cla.s.sify 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 was.h.i.+ng 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.