Concerning Lafcadio Hearn Part 17

At the beginning, while gazing south, east, west, to the rim of the world, all laughed, shouted, interchanged the quick delight of new impressions: every face was radiant.... Now all look serious; none speaks.... Dominating all, I think, is the consciousness of the awful antiquity of what one is looking upon,--such a sensation, perhaps, as of old found utterance in that tremendous question of the Book of Job: "_Wast thou brought forth before the hills?_"

And the blue mult.i.tudes of the peaks, the perpetual congregation of the mornes, seem to chorus in the vast resplendence,--telling of Nature's eternal youth, and the pa.s.sionless permanence of that about us and beyond us and beneath,--until something like the fulness of a grief begins to weigh at the heart.... For all this astonishment of beauty, all this majesty of light and form and colour, will surely endure,--marvellous as now,--after we shall have lain down to sleep where no dreams come, and may never arise from the dust of our rest to look upon it.

Another day we are laughing at the little _ti canotie_ who in the queerest tiny boats surround a steamer as soon as she drops anchor.

These are the boys who dive for coins. A sad tale is told of Maximilien and Strephane. Again our hearts are moved by the pathos and the tragedy of La Fille de Couleur; and in this chapter we find that characteristic description:--

I refer to the celebrated attire of the pet slaves and _belles affranchies_ of the old colonial days. A full costume,--including violet or crimson "petticoat" of silk or satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery and lace; "trembling-pins" of gold (_zepingue tremblant_) to attach the folds of the brilliant Madras turban; the great necklace of three or four strings of gold beads bigger than peas (_collier-choux_); the ear-rings, immense but light as egg-sh.e.l.ls (_zanneaux-a-clous_ or _zanneaux-chenilles_); the bracelets (_portes-bonheur_); the studs (_boutons-a-clous_); the brooches, not only for the turban, but for the chemise, below the folds of the showy silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,--would sometimes represent over five thousand francs' expenditure. This gorgeous attire is becoming less visible every year: it is now rarely worn except on very solemn occasions,--weddings, baptisms, first communions, confirmations. The _da_ (nurse) or "_porteuse-de-bapteme_" who bears the baby to church, holds it at the baptismal font, and afterwards carries it from house to house in order that all the friends of the family may kiss it, is thus attired: but now-a-days, unless she be a professional (for there are professional _das_, hired only for such occasions), she usually borrows the jewellery. If tall, young, graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin, the effect of her costume is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin. I saw one young _da_ who, thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and earthly;--there was an Oriental something in her appearance difficult to describe,--something that made you think of the Queen at Sheba going to visit Solomon. She had brought a merchant's baby, just christened, to receive the caresses of the family at whose house I was visiting; and when it came to my turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice the child: I saw only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange and purple, bending over it, in an illumination of antique gold. What a _da_!... She represented really the type of that _belle affranchie_ of other days, against whose fascination special sumptuary laws were made: romantically she imaged for me the supernatural G.o.dmothers and Cinderellas of the Creole fairy-tales.

Still we have much to learn about the little creatures in the shapes of ants and scorpions and lizards. They form no small part of the population of Martinique. And still more about the fruits and the vegetables do we learn from good Cyrillia, Ma Bonne. One longs to have a housekeeper as loving and child-like and solicitous. We leave her gazing with love unutterable at the new photograph of her daughter, and wondering the while why they do not make a portrait talk so that she can talk to her beautiful daughter.

And day by day the artlessness of this exotic humanity touches you more;--day by day this savage, somnolent, splendid Nature--delighting in furious colour--bewitches you more.

Already the antic.i.p.ated necessity of having to leave it all some day--the far-seen pain of bidding it farewell weighs upon you, even in dreams.

But before we go, we must learn how Nature must treat those who are not born under her suns.

Then at last reluctantly we board the _Guadeloupe_, and with Mademoiselle Violet-Eyes, who is leaving her country, perhaps for a very long time, to become a governess in New York, we realize that nowhere on this earth may there be brighter skies.

Farewell, fair city,--sun-kissed city,--many-fountained city!--dear yellow-glimmering streets,--white pavements learned by heart,--and faces ever looked for,--and voices ever loved!

Farewell, white towers with your golden-throated bells!--farewell, green steeps, bathed in the light of summer everlasting!--craters with your coronets of forests!--bright mountain paths upwinding 'neath pomp of fern and angelin and feathery bamboo!--and gracious palms that drowse above the dead!

Farewell, soft-shadowing majesty of valleys unfolding to the sun,--green golden cane-fields ripening to the sea!...

Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Pelee--so they vanish behind us. Shall not we too become _Les Revenants_?

YOUMA[28] (5) was written in Martinique, and also belongs to the New Orleans period. "I think you will like it better than 'Chita.' It is more mature and exotic by far,"--so Hearn wrote of the story in one of his letters. Later on, when living in j.a.pan, he wrote:--

[28] Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.

It gave me no small pleasure to find that you like "Youma": you will not like it less knowing that the story is substantially true. You can see the ruins of the old house in the Quartier du Fort if you ever visit Saint-Pierre, and perhaps meet my old friend Arnoux, a survivor of the time. The girl really died under the heroic conditions described--refusing the help of the blacks and the ladder. Of course I may have idealized her, but not her act. The incident of the serpent occurred also; but the heroine was a different person,--a plantation girl, celebrated by the historian Rufz de Lavison. I wrote the story under wretched circ.u.mstances in Martinique, near the scenes described, and under the cross with the black Christ.

An English notice says:--

"It is an admirable little tale, full of local characteristics with curious fragments of Creole French from Martinique, and abundance of wide human sympathy. It deserves reprinting for English readers more than three-fourths of the fiction which is wont to cross the Atlantic under similar circ.u.mstances." (294.)

"Youma" is the tale of the exquisite devotion and loyalty of a _da_. (A _da_ is the foster-mother and nurse of a Creole child.) At the death of Aimee, Youma's playmate and rich foster-sister, little Mayotte, her child, becomes Youma's charge. An intimate description is given us of the Creole life of Mayotte and Youma. The love of this _da_ is very beautiful. Once with an extraordinary heroism Youma saves Mayotte from a serpent which has slipped into their room. With a still greater heroism she refuses to run away with Gabriel, who has opened the world to her,--Gabriel who has brought her love, and whom she can marry in no other way. No, above the pleadings of her lover, comes the voice of her dying mistress, begging, with such trust,--

"Youma, O Youma! you will love my child?--Youma, you will never leave her, whatever happens, while she is little? promise, dear Youma!"

And she had--promised....

Then comes the final test of Youma's strength of devotion. There is an outbreak among the blacks, who have become inflamed by the dreams of coming freedom. The Desrivieres with many other families are forced to flee for refuge in safer quarters. Under one roof all these people gather. Youma is urged to leave and save herself. But she will not forsake Mayotte or her master. The infuriated blacks surround the house, and horror follows. Presently the house is set on fire. Youma, with Mayotte in her arms, appears at an upper window. Gabriel, "daring the h.e.l.l about him for her sake," puts up a ladder. Youma hands him Mayotte.

"Can you save her?" she asks.

"Gabriel could only shake his head;--the street sent up so frightful a cry....

"_Non!--non!--non!--pa le yche-beke--janmain yche-beke!_"

"Then you cannot save me!" cried Youma, clasping the child to her bosom,--"_janmain! janmain, mon ami._"

"Youma, in the name of G.o.d...."

"In the name of G.o.d, you ask me to be a coward!... Are you vile, Gabriel?--are you base?... Save myself and leave the child to burn?... Go!"

"Leave the _beke's yche_!--leave it!--leave it, girl!" shouted a hundred voices.

"_Moin!_" cried Youma, retreating beyond the reach of Gabriel's hand,--"_moin!_ ... Never shall I leave it, never! I shall go to G.o.d with it."

"Burn with it, then!" howled the negroes ... "down with that ladder! down with it, down with it!"

The ladder catches fire and burns. The walls quiver, and there are shrieks from the back of the house. Unmoved, with a perfect calm, Youma remains at the window. "There is now neither hate nor fear on her fine face." Softly she whispers to Mayotte, and caresses her with an infinite tenderness. Never to Gabriel had she seemed so beautiful.

Another minute--and he saw her no more. The figure and the light vanished together, as beams and floor and roof all quaked down at once into darkness.... Only the skeleton of stone remained,--black-smoking to the stars.

A stillness follows. The murderers are appalled by their crime.

Then, from below, the flames wrestled out again,--crimsoning the smoke whirls, the naked masonry, the wreck of timbers. They wriggled upward, lengthening, lapping together,--lifted themselves erect,--grew taller, fiercer,--twined into one huge fluid spire of tongues that flapped and s.h.i.+vered high into the night....

The yellowing light swelled,--expanded from promontory to promontory,--palpitated over the harbour,--climbed the broken slopes of the dead volcano leagues through the gloom. The wooded mornes towered about the city in weird illumination,--seeming loftier than by day,--blanching and shadowing alternately with the soaring and sinking of the fire;--and at each huge pulsing of the glow, the white cross of their central summit stood revealed, with the strange pa.s.sion of its black Christ.

... And at the same hour, from the other side of the world,--a s.h.i.+p was running before the sun, bearing the Republican gift of liberty and promise of universal suffrage to the slaves of Martinique.

There are two little bits of description which are so characteristic that I quote them:--

Then she became aware of a face ... lighted by a light that came from nowhere,--that was only a memory of some long-dead morning.

And through the dimness round about it a soft blue radiance grew,--the ghost of a day.

Sunset yellowed the sky,--filled the horizon with flare of gold;--the sea changed its blue to lilac;--the mornes brightened their vivid green to a tone so luminous that they seemed turning phosph.o.r.escent. Rapidly the glow crimsoned,--shadows purpled; and night spread swiftly from the east,--black-violet and full of stars.

KARMA[29] (242) was written during the Philadelphia period, but was not published in _Lippincott's Magazine_ until after Hearn had sailed for j.a.pan. The story is concentrated, with its every word a shaft of light, and it seems a wrong to attempt to epitomize it. Except in its entirety no adequate conception can be formed of this marvellous revelation of the anguish that a human soul may suffer; nor of the artistic power with which Hearn has developed and perfected his study. Many quotations could be gleaned from his subsequent books which reflect the inspiration of "Karma."

[29] Copyright, 1889, by Lafcadio Hearn; and, copyright, 1890 by J. B. Lippincott Company.

Despite her unusual intellect, the heroine had a childlike simplicity and frankness which invited her lover's confidence, but he had never told her his admiration, for a dormant power beneath her girlishness made a compliment seem a rudeness. He was often alone with her, which is helpful to lovers, but her charm always confused him, and his embarra.s.sment only deepened. One day she archly asked him to tell her about it.

Is there one who does not know that moment when the woman beloved becomes the ideal, and the lover feels his utter unworthiness? Yet, if she is one of those rare souls, the illusion, however divine, is less perfect than is her worth. Do you know what she truly is--how she signifies "the whole history of love striving against hate, aspiration against pain, truth against ignorance, sympathy against pitilessness?

She,--the soul of her! is the ripened pa.s.sion-flower of the triumph. All the heroisms, the martyrdoms, the immolations of self,--all strong soarings of will through fire and blood to G.o.d since humanity began,--conspired to kindle the flame of her higher life."

And then you question yourself with a thousand questions, and then there are as many more of your duty to her, to the future, and to the Supreme Father.

She was not surprised when he told her his wish, but she was not confident that he really loved her, nor whether she should permit herself to like him. Finally she bade him go home and "as soon as you feel able to do it properly,--write out for me a short history of your life;--just write down everything you feel that you would not like me to know. Write it,--and send it.... And then I shall tell you whether I will marry you."

How easy the task seemed, and his whole being was joyous; but the lightness lasted for only a moment, and gradually all that her command meant crept over him.... "_Everything you feel you would not like me to know._" Surely she had no realization of what she had asked. Did she imagine that men were good like women--how cruel to hurt her.

Then for a period he was uplifted with the desire to meet her truthfulness, but his courage failed again after he had written down the record of his childhood and youth. It was no slight task to make this confession of his sins. And how pale and trivial they had seemed before.

Was it possible that he had never before rightly looked at them? Yet why should he so falter? Surely she meant to pardon him. He must put everything down truthfully, and then recolour the whole for her gaze.

But his face grew hot at the thought of certain pa.s.sages.

Hour after hour he sat at his desk until it was past midnight, but no skill could soften the stony facts. Finally he lay down to rest: his fevered brain tried to find excuses for his faults. He could forgive himself everything ... except--ah, how unutterably wicked he had been there. No, he could not tell her _that_: instead he must lose her for ever. And in losing her he would lose all the higher self which she had awakened. To lose her--when he of all men had found his ideal.