Two Years in the French West Indies Part 36

The moment the supper was ready, the Devil got up from his corner as usual, and approached the table. Then Ye tried to speak; but his teeth were so on edge that instead of saying,--"_Tam ni pou tam ni be_," he could only stammer out:---"_Anni toque Diabe-la cagnan_."

This had no effect on the Devil at all: he seemed to be used to it! He blew his breath on them all, sent them to sleep, ate up all the supper, filled the empty dishes with filth, awoke Ye and his family, and ordered them as usual;--

--"_Gobe-moin ca!_" And they had to gobble it up,--every bit of it.

The family nearly died of hunger and disgust. Twice more Ye climbed the Montagne Pelee; twice more he climbed the Morne de la Croix; twice more he disturbed the poor Bon-Die, all for nothing!--since each time on his way down he would fill his paunch with all sorts of nasty sour things, so that he could not speak right. The Devil remained in the house night and day;--the poor mother threw herself down on the ground, and pulled out her hair,--so unhappy she was!

But luckily for the poor woman, she had one child as cunning as a rat,--*

[* The great field-rat of Martinique is, in Martinique folk- lore, the symbol of all cunning, and probably merits its reputation.]

a boy called Ti Fonte (little Impudent), who bore his name well. When he saw his mother crying so much, he said to her:--

--"Mamma, send papa just once more to see the Good-G.o.d: I know something to do!"

The mother knew how cunning her boy was: she felt sure he meant something by his words;--she sent old Ye for the last time to see the Bon-Die.

Ye used always to wear one of those big long coats they call _lavala.s.ses_;--whether it was hot or cool, wet or dry, he never went out without it. There were two very big pockets in it--one on each side.

When Ti Fonte saw his father getting ready to go, he jumped _floup!_ into one of the pockets and hid himself there. Ye climbed all the way to the top of the Morne de la Croix without suspecting anything. When he got there the little boy put one of his ears out of Ye's pocket,--so as to hear everything the Good-G.o.d would say.

This time he was very angry,--the Bon-Die: he spoke very crossly; he scolded Ye a great deal. But he was so kind for all that,--he was so generous to good-for-nothing Ye, that he took the pains to repeat the words over and over again for him:--"_Tam ni pou tam ni be_."... And this time the Bon-Die was not talking to no purpose: there was somebody there well able to remember what he said. Ti Fonte made the most of his chance;--he sharpened that little tongue of his; he thought of his mamma and all his little brothers and sisters dying of hunger down below. As for his father, Ye did as he had done before--stuffed himself with all the green fruit he could find.

The moment Ye got home and took off his coat, Ti Fonte jumped out, _plapp!_--and ran to his mamma, and whispered:--

--"Mamma, get ready a nice, big dinner!--we are going to have it all to ourselves to-day: the Good-G.o.d didn't talk for nothing,--I heard every word he said!"

Then the mother got ready a nice _calalou-crabe_, a _tonton-banane_, a _matete-cirique_,--several calabashes of _couss-caye_, two _regimes-figues_ (bunches of small bananas),--in short, a very fine dinner indeed, with a _chopine_ of tafia to wash it all well down.

The Devil felt as sure of himself that day as he had always felt, and got up the moment everything was ready. But Ti Fonte got up too, and yelled out just as loud as he could:---"_Tam ni pou tam ni be!_"

At once the Devil gave a scream so loud that it could be heard right down to the bottom of h.e.l.l,--and he fell dead.

Meanwhile, Ye, like the old fool he was, kept trying to say what the Bon-Die had told him, and could only mumble:--

--"_Anni toque Diabe-la cagnan!_"

He would never have been able to do anything;--and his wife had a great mind just to send him to bed at once, instead of letting him sit down to eat all those nice things. But she was a kind-hearted soul; and so she let Ye stay and eat with the children, though he did not deserve it. And they all ate and ate, and kept on eating and filling themselves until daybreak--_pauv piti!_

But during this time the Devil had begun to smell badly and he had become swollen so big that Ye found he could not move him. Still, they knew they must get him out of the way somehow. The children had eaten so much that they were all full of strength--_yo te plein lafce_; and Ye got a rope and tied one end round the Devil's foot; and then he and the children--all pulling together--managed to drag the Devil out of the cabin and into the bushes, where they left him just like a dead dog.

They all felt themselves very happy to be rid of that old Devil.

But some days after old good-for-nothing Ye went off to hunt for birds.

He had a whole lot of arrows with him. He suddenly remembered the Devil, and thought he would like to take one more look at him. And he did.

_Fouinq!_ what a sight! The Devil's belly had swelled up like a morne: it was yellow and blue and green,--looked as if it was going to burst.

And Ye, like the old fool he always was, shot an arrow up in the air, so that it fell down and stuck into the Devil's belly. Then he wanted to get the arrow, and he climbed up on the Devil, and pulled and pulled till he got the arrow out. Then he put the point of the arrow to his nose,--just to see what sort of a smell dead Devils had.

The moment he did that, his nose swelled up as big as the refinery-pot of a sugar-plantation.

Ye could scarcely walk for the weight of his nose; but he had to go and see the Bon-Die again. The Bon-Die said to him:--

--"Ah! Ye, my poor Ye, you will live and die a fool!--you are certainly the biggest fool in the whole world!... Still, I must try to do something for you;--I'll help you anyhow to get rid of that nose!...

I'll tell you how to do it. To-morrow morning, very early, get up and take a big _taya_ [whip], and beat all the bushes well, and drive all the birds to the Roche de la Caravelle. Then you must tell them that I, the Bon-Die, want them to take off their bills and feathers, and take a good bath in the sea. While they are bathing, you can choose a nose for yourself out of the heap of bills there."

Poor Ye did just as the Good-G.o.d told him; and while the birds were bathing, he picked out a nose for himself from the heap of beaks,--and left his own refinery-pot in its place.

The nose he took was the nose of the _coulivicou_.* And that is why the _coulivicou_ always looks so much ashamed of himself even to this day.

[* The _coulivicou_, or "Colin Vicou," is a Martinique bird with a long meagre body, and an enormous bill. It has a very tristful and taciturn expression.... _Maig conm yon coulivicou_, "thin as a coulivicou," is a popular comparison for the appearance of anybody much reduced by sickness.]

III.

... Poor Ye!--you still live for me only too vividly outside of those strange folk-tales of eating and of drinking which so cruelly reveal the long slave-hunger of your race. For I have seen you cutting cane on peak slopes above the clouds;--I have seen you climbing from plantation to plantation with your cutla.s.s in your hand, watching for snakes as you wander to look for work, when starvation forces you to obey a master, though born with the resentment of centuries against all masters;--I have seen you prefer to carry two hundred-weight of bananas twenty miles to market, rather than labor in the fields;--I have seen you ascending through serpent-swarming woods to some dead crater to find a cabbage-palm,--and always hungry,--and always s.h.i.+ftless! And you are still a great fool, poor Ye!--and you have still your swarm of children,--your _rafale yche_,--and they are famished; for you have taken into your _ajoupa_ a Devil who devours even more than you can earn,--even your heart, and your splendid muscles, and your poor artless brain,--the Devil Tafia!... And there is no Bon-Die to help you rid yourself of him now: for the only Bon-Die you ever really had, your old creole master, cannot care for you any more, and you cannot care for yourself. Mercilessly moral, the will of this enlightened century has abolished forever that patriarchal power which brought you up strong and healthy on scanty fare, and scourged you into its own idea of righteousness, yet kept you innocent as a child of the law of the struggle for life. But you feel that law now;--you are a citizen of the Republic! you are free to vote, and free to work, and free to starve if you prefer it, and free to do evil and suffer for it;--and this new knowledge stupefies you so that you have almost forgotten how to laugh!

CHAPTER XIV LYS

I.

It is only half-past four o'clock: there is the faintest blue light of beginning day,--and little Victoire already stands at the bedside with my wakening cup of hot black fragrant coffee. What! so early?...

Then with a sudden heart-start I remember this is my last West Indian morning. And the child--her large timid eyes all gently luminous--is pressing something into my hand.

Two vanilla beans wrapped in a morsel of banana-leaf,--her poor little farewell gift!...

Other trifling souvenirs are already packed away. Almost everybody that knows me has given me something. Manm-Robert brought me a tiny packet of orange-seeds,--seeds of a "gift-orange": so long as I can keep these in my vest-pocket I will never be without money. Cyrillia brought me a package of _bouts_, and a pretty box of French matches, warranted inextinguishable by wind. Azaline, the blanchisseuse, sent me a little pocket looking-gla.s.s. Cerbonnie, the _machanne_, left a little cup of guava jelly for me last night. Mimi--dear child!--brought me a little paper dog! It is her best toy; but those gentle black eyes would stream with tears if I dared to refuse it.... Oh, Mimi! what am I to do with a little paper dog? And what am I to do with the chocolate-sticks and the cocoanuts and all the sugar-cane and all the cinnamon-apples?...

II.

... Twenty minutes past five by the clock of the Bourse. The hill shadows are shrinking back from the sh.o.r.e;--the long wharves reach out yellow into the sun;--the tamarinds of the Place Bertin, and the pharos for half its height, and the red-tiled roofs along the bay are catching the glow. Then, over the light-house--on the outermost line depending from the southern yard-arm of the semaph.o.r.e--a big black ball suddenly runs up like a spider climbing its own thread.... _Steamer from the South!_ The packet has been sighted. And I have not yet been able to pack away into a specially purchased wooden box all the fruits and vegetable curiosities and odd little presents sent to me. If Radice the boatman had not come to help me, I should never be able to get ready; for the work of packing is being continually interrupted by friends and acquaintances coming to say good-bye. Manm-Robert brings to see me a pretty young girl--very fair, with a violet foulard twisted about her blonde head. It is little Basilique, who is going to make her _pouemie communion_. So I kiss her, according to the old colonial custom, once on each downy cheek;--and she is to pray to _Notre Dame du Bon Port_ that the s.h.i.+p shall bear me safely to far-away New York.

And even then the steamer's cannon-call shakes over the town and into the hills behind us, which answer with all the thunder of their phantom artillery.

III.

... There is a young white lady, accompanied by an aged negress, already waiting on the south wharf for the boat;--evidently she is to be one of my fellow-pa.s.sengers. Quite a pleasing presence: slight graceful figure,--a face not precisely pretty, but delicate and sensitive, with the odd charm of violet eyes under black eye-brows....