in the south, at night, the trees are full of voices. dare you sit in the woods of martinique at night you would hear in the green twilight that the moon makes through the leaves, an orchestra louder and more fantastic than ever filled a midsummer’s night’s dream.
here in the daytime there is silence. one can hear the waterfall, the distant river, the wind in the trees above, sounds that only serve to make the background of silence more apparent.
at high noon, when the light is fullest, when the heat is greatest, and the wind above stricken dead, the silence of the woods is terrific.
there is no silence in the whole world like to this, unless it be the dumbness of a great multitude.
around you on all sides life is rocketing and blazing; orchids, hibiscus, bursts of bloom, ceibas, sand-box trees, air shoots of the wild pine blossom and riot, uncanny because of their demonstrative life in this silence.
but at dark all changes. night rushes into the high woods like some mad musician, conductor of an orchestra crazy as himself.
the blue day outside closes up swiftly like a great painted fan, just like the pictures on a fan rapidly closed, st. pierre tucks itself into a pocket of shadow, the mornes and mountains are shrivelled up, pelée alone remains sun-stricken107 still, then he, too, vanishes in a crease and as suddenly reappears; for the fan, flirted open again to its full extent, shews the same picture, only this time it is lit by starlight or the light of the moon.
it is with the first closing out of the light that the orchestra of the woods begins; shrill, tremulous, like the bleating of a flock of lilliputian goats, the voices of the cabritt-bois and his mates fill the shadows, then the moon strikes the green heart of the forest and it springs alive like a rattle. a million fantastic things give tongue. one might fancy forms to fit the insect noises of the northern woods, but the wildest imagination pauses before the possibilities of this tropical band, these drummers and harpers whose burr and rattle sways and surges beneath the farandole of the fireflies.
at four o’clock, just as pelée sights the coming sun, and the dawn is coming over the sea like a lilac-coloured breeze, the cabritt-bois ceases his bleating and plong! the last harper plucks the final note from his harp-string. the drummers put up their drums, the oboe, and piccolo, the microscopic sax-horn player, the bones, and flute, pocket or shoulders their instruments and depart—for dreamland maybe.
they have made music all night, music that has reached even the dreamers of st. pierre. the people asleep in the city become aware in their sleep that something has ceased, the faint haze of sound from the great wood above surrounds them no longer and they wake.
gaspard awoke just as the wood music ceased. on the black floor of the room the dawn through the slats of the shutter was laying seven blue-grey bars upon the floor.
he had been dreaming of the island and of sagesse. they had burst into the treasure ship and the strand was108 strewn with bars of gold. then he lost sagesse and was hunting for him and for yves. it was full day, and the island lay sweltering under the sun. he could see nothing of the man he was in search of; then, far away at the end of the little coral pier he saw a form that made him forget both yves and sagesse, the form of a girl.
as he drew closer, he saw that it was the girl. the girl of the little place where the fountain played. the place de la fontaine as he called it in his own mind, not knowing its real name.
she was standing with her tray balanced on her head as though she had just landed, now she was laughing as she saw him coming towards her, laughing as only the girls of montpellier or avignon can laugh and, as he came along the ridge of coral he was laughing too, as he balanced himself, fearful of falling. then the ridge of coral became the yard of a ship, the blue water below became distant, and the dream broke up.
happy dream. he had almost forgotten her last night, chatting and smoking with foreign sailors at the bar of a tavern. she must have struck him hard to make him dream about her like that, for in the dream it seemed to him he had known her a long time, that he was her declared lover; this girl whom he had never seen before and whom he might never meet again.
now, a tap came to the door, and his landlady’s voice offered him coffee or syrup. she brought the coffee in, and placed it on the floor beside him and put the shutters aside, so that the window space became a square dim disc of light, through which, with a breathing of wind, came a tang from the sea below and a breath from the woods above.
st. pierre was already astir; he could hear women’s voices and the prattle of children, creole street cries; unfamiliar109 voices, scents, and sounds came through the open window space, awakening him thoroughly, and awakening in him a keen sense of curiosity such as he had never experienced in any other port.
the people here seemed different from the people anywhere else. like a child who, turning over the leaves of a dull book, comes upon a surprising and joyously-coloured picture, he felt a pleasure he could neither analyse nor understand. an educated man would have felt as he felt, but cursed by convention and knowledge, and the catch words of language, he would not have felt it so freshly as this child of the south, who, like all the children of the south had some inborn love for all that the true poets sing about and true artists paint.
having dressed himself he left the house. man’m faly was nowhere to be seen, and the rue du morne was steeped in curious twilight shewing at its end an extraordinary vision of twilit sea, spreading out to ghost-blue sea and out, away, and beyond the great mountain shadows, to a sea of stainless azure.
he struck upwards to the street above, and then by a flight of steps to the rue victor hugo. the street was astir. blanchisseuses with bundles making their way to the rivière roxelane, calendeuses on their way to their employment, shopkeepers, children, porteuses balancing their loads upon their heads, starting on the long journeys these women make daily over the island, all moving in the twilight of very early dawn with, overhead, the hyacinth-blue sky of morning.
the great fan picture of starlit city, sea, and wood, had been snapped to, and now the magic fan was slowly reopening to shew the same picture sunlit. pelée and the sea were already in view, and as gaspard made his way110 along the rue victor hugo, the day bloomed brighter overhead, dimness of hyacinths turning to the flashing of sapphires. the air, though still surcharged with shadow, had in it now an obscure brightness, a negative light that became positive where any bright surface shewed, shadows were beginning to form, and the little fountain in the place de la fontaine was returning from a dancing and whispering ghost to the form of a dancing diamond flower.
he followed the street as it dipped and rose and dipped again to the rivière roxelane. he was wondering in what house of all this strange city, what street, was hidden the girl of yesterday.
he had taken his way along the rue victor hugo and through the little place, perhaps because it was there he had met her; who knows; he was quite unconscious of the manner in which she had taken hold upon him, and, infecting him with that dark glance, had caused something to stir and live in his blood; unconscious as the man who was yesterday infected by malaria and to whom the first faint chill tells nothing of the burning fever to follow.
he paused for a moment on the bridge and looked down at the ghost-dim river raving along to the sea; the banks seemed strewn with snow, it was the linen of the washerwomen, he could hear their voices above the rushing of the river, and the sound they made beating the clothes against the boulders.
then he passed on and found himself in the market-place on the place du fort.
long before light, under the stars, boats from the fishing grounds had been making for st. pierre, laden with the catch of the night. from calebasse, morne rouge, marigot, vauclin, men and animals laden with country produce had come into the city before dusk on the previous evening.
111 light was now striking through the trees of the market-place, the stalls were set out and laden, boats had been dragged right up from the shore on rollers, and their flashing cargoes were being unladen right at the stalls, great fish still quivering and jumping with life, an albicore, big almost as a shark, that took three men to lift, blue fish, black fish, silver fish, fish that looked as though carefully painted by hand, fish of all the forms that fish can possibly take, lay exposed on the stalls or were being unladen from the boats.
when gaspard entered the market the place was in shadow; flowers, fish, fruit were there, merchants to sell them, and people to buy them, but it was like a market-place in dreamland—a shadowy, yet living and moving picture, almost voiceless—. pelée is holding everything in his mesmeric gloom.
* * * * *
it is morning, yet it is not. then, almost in a moment everything changes, golden sunbeams stray through the leaves of the trees, the place du fort becomes beautiful with bright light and liquid shadow, an unutterably blue sea is born suddenly, and as if by enchantment beneath a sky of unutterable blue. the market-place thrills, fills with voices, it is like a great cage of birds that break into chatter and song at the first touch of sunlight; you can hear the songs of the canotiers from the sea, songs of the fishermen as they haul the last boatful of fish—hale it right through the market, laughing as they sing and followed by naked laughing children; girls’ voices, men’s voices, buyers, sellers, idlers all mix and blend with the fresh voice of the sea. it has a touch of the morning of the world before the smoke of the first cities dimmed the beauty of the dawn, before man had learned to weep and think. here amidst112 the tamarinds and the early sunlight of the place du fort, for a moment you can catch the blue robe of the past, for a moment you can stand in the market-place of early alexandria, for a moment you can glimpse the agora of athens in her early youth, touch the summer that vanished before rome flung out her bastions and those legions whose spears reflected the last gleams of the golden age.
for a moment—then finotte flutters before you in her wasp-coloured turban, basket in hand, and beautiful as a butterfly in her striped foulard, and you are back again in st. pierre.
* * * * *
with these people a man of gaspard’s class could fraternize and find friends at sight. touched with the spirit of the place, he laid hold of the gunwale of the last boat and helped to haul her along, the creole boatman laughing and chattering with him in the patois which he only half understood. he was french and a man from the big ships, evidently out for a spree, that was enough for them. when they had got the boat in position at a corner of the fish market, for the place was divided, the fish and meat being sold at one side, fruit, vegetables, and flowers at the other, they began to sell their fish right from the boat without troubling to put it on a stall.
heavens! what fish were in that boat, and what a picture they made fresh from the sea and still quivering; frilled, horned, spined, fantastically coloured. black and red perroquets, souris pink and orange, blue fish, yellow fish, all glittering like jewels; gelatinous masses that came in clinging to the nets, seaweeds. it was as though a great hand had been dipped in the tropical sea bringing up everything it could grasp. one looked for a mermaid—now the boatmen hammering with sticks were calling out their113 wares, holding up their fish, joking with the crowd; gaspard joining in, his white teeth and dark eyes flashing, the picture of one of those boatmen one sees on the sea-steps of naples, only better dressed. he had seized a huge eel and was holding it up, in a moment it was gone, bought, and pierre-alphonse—so he had dubbed the chief boatman—nicknaming him with any name that came first into his head, as these men do—was pocketing the coins. pierre-alphonse had conducted the barter whilst gaspard had held the eel, a pretty girl had bought it and carried it off in her basket, and now pierre-alphonse seizing a monster shaped like a little barrel, a barrique de vin—thrust it into the new salesman’s hands. “sell him too, thou man from the sea—fish! fish! fish! who’ll buy?—all alive and breathing, all fresh from the water, tonne, volant, balaou, all leaping at thee. hi dodotte—pauline, where are you going with your baskets—fill them.” he seemed to know everyone; the little children crowded round, he gave them handfuls of sádines, little white fish, let them pick seaweed out of the boat, patted them on the head, all with his left hand, as it were, whilst with his right hand and the whole energy of his mind and body he continued selling. he was a big man, pierre-alphonse, with a big, dark, smiling face good to look at altogether, and evidently a “character” of the market, and a favourite.
gaspard had sold the barrique de vin to a syndicate of two old women who had combined to buy it, and perhaps peddle it round town with other produce, for they had with them a small cane truck, when, turning to the boat to find something else to sell, he saw in the midst of the surrounding crowd the girl. she was without her tray, her little shapely head was bound with a yellow and blue madras, she had a basket in her hand, and she was coming to buy114 fish. then she saw gaspard. their eyes met and she instantly looked away.
pierre-alphonse saw her, too.
not only had she looked away, she had turned away.
pierre-alphonse’s mouth flew open:
“hi, marie—marie de morne rouge—ho, marie, are you deaf this morning? here are the fish calling thee—she’s gone—” then to gaspard, “now what devil has got into the girl—she often buys from me, she was coming, and she is gone—no matter, here is another barrique—sell him, o thou man from the sea—”
“who is she?” asked gaspard, taking the barrique.
“marie—whose father lives at morne rouge.”
“where does she live?”
“with her aunt in the street of the precipice. ho, there, mayotte, here is a fish for thee pretty as thyself—take it for nothing—next to nothing, two sous and it is thine, ’tis as big as a baby—”
“what is she, this marie?”
“a porteuse—there, ’tis thine—wait till i get the change, and thy mother, how is she? all sweetly i hope—there, take thy change, little one—” all in the patois that takes the sharpness from words, makes new words of old, a tropical growth of language, coloured, quaint, infantile.
gaspard turned to pierre-alphonse. “well, i must be going, good luck—” he disengaged himself from a fishy embrace and, followed by a shower of good wishes from pierre-alphonse and his crew, mingled with the crowd. the girl was nowhere to be seen, there were pretty girls everywhere, but he had no eyes for them.
was she angry with him? why had she turned away? five minutes ago, as he stood there helping pierre-alphonse to sell his fish, he had forgotten her; if he had never seen115 her again he would not have troubled very much; but, now, something inexplicable had happened, the world had altered in a flash, it was as though to a man going blindly along a misty road the vision of a beautiful and unattainable country had suddenly appeared through a rent in the mist which closed again destroying the vision, but leaving the dream. he was in love.
he crossed the place, and wandered amongst the stalls where fruit, vegetables, and flowers were sold. here the air had a heady and intoxicating perfume, the place was glorious with colour, piles, and mounds of colour, such fruit! such vegetables! such flowers! egg plants, pommes d’haiti, oranges—green oranges, tiny monkey oranges, giant oranges—giant apricots each the size of a turnip, osier baskets filled with green nutmegs, custard apples, guavas, white and green christophines, prickly pears—then the vegetables, palm tops, and sweet potatoes, bread fruit—choux. and the flowers, grenadilla blossoms and fleurs d’amour, flowers of the loseille bois, delicate butterfly blossoms, poised as if forever in the act of taking flight. gaspard had ceased looking for the girl in the kaleidoscopic throng around him, he was standing at a stall half of which was laden with fruit of every colour, the other half with every coloured flowers when, turning, he found that she was beside him.
she was quite unconscious of the fact. wandering amidst the crowd she had drifted against him, touched him with her elbow without being aware of whom she was touching until he turned and their eyes met for the third time in their lives; then, all at once, and as though the faint reflection of a rose had been cast upon her face and neck, she blushed—it was less a blush than a deepening of the southern dusk beneath her skin.
116 it told him at once that she recognised him, not only that; in some mysterious way it told him that she had been thinking of him. it gave him courage.
“bonjour, mademoiselle.”
“bonjou, missie.”
it was the salutation that everyone gave to everyone else in st. pierre, strangers, friends, everyone. she was passing on when, picking up a spray of the fleur d’amour from the stall and flinging some coins on the board, he handed the branch laden with delicate blossoms to her. she took it, glanced at him with a half smile, then she looked at the flowers as though she had never seen flowers before, her lips were moving, she was murmuring something, speaking to the flowers, to the branch, “oh, thou art pretty—thou art sweet.” then she had passed away; with a glance and a little bow to the giver of the flowers she had dissolved before his sight in the coloured moving throng.
but her voice remained with him, the caressing words she had spoken to the flowers in the infantile french of the tropics.
“oh, thou art pretty—thou art sweet—” she had spoken to the flowers, but it seemed to gaspard she had spoken of herself. she had described herself unconsciously in a sentence.
he passed on. he did not wish to find her again just then. the vision held him satisfied for the moment. she was not angry, more than that, she was not indifferent. to this man, direct and fierce in love as in hate, this girl of his own class was a revelation, she seemed less a woman than a flower that had suddenly blossomed in his path.
the elements of all the grandest poetry live in the commonest man; deaf to the stuff of the drawing-room ballad maker, blind to the embroideries of art, the eternal terrors117 and beauties of nature move him much or little as the case may be, but they move him. the commonest man would have felt something of the poetry, simple, and sweet, yet exotic and beyond words fascinating, which this girl carried with her—cast around her as the fleur d’amour casts its colour and perfume.
“o thou art pretty—thou art sweet—” he was turning to leave the market-place when a scream from one of the market women made him wheel round.
the stall just behind him had been upset, the crowd was scattering in every direction.
“fer de lance—fer de lance!”
the cry echoed from one end of the place to the other, and gaspard found himself standing alone, face to face with an old gentleman dressed in white and holding a white umbrella over his head.
the old man, though seemingly paralysed by terror, had not dropped his umbrella. his eyes were fixed on the ground where, writhing in the dust, a yellow snake was raising its head to strike him.
it was a fer de lance, young, about three feet in length, but terrible as death himself. it had come to market hidden in the great clusters of yellow bananas, frightened and ferocious; hating the sunlight, it was preparing to strike at the man before it, terror striking at terror.
the sight of the reptile left gaspard quite unperturbed. the smallest minority of the great human race are certainly the people who have no dread of snakes. gaspard belonged to this few, a strange fact considering his imaginative nature. it is true he knew nothing of the fer de lance and its terrors, but if he had, i doubt if he would have done otherwise than he did.
the snake, obsessed by its objective, did not perceive118 the fearless enemy behind it; springing forward in a flash gaspard seized it naked-handed just below the horrible triangular head; seizing it four inches lower down with his left hand he almost twisted the head from the body, breaking the spine at the neck. then he flung the remains on the ground and planted his heel on the head, crushing bone and demon brain, and burning eyes into the dust.
the next moment it seemed to him that the world had gone mad and was trying to smother him. the old man he had saved was clinging to his neck, the whole market was surging round him; men laughing, women weeping, and crying out to the virgin. one might have thought gaspard the bearer of the news of some national triumph, the saviour of the island—that is to say, if one were not acquainted with the creole mind and its excitability. then a ring was formed and he found himself in the centre of it, the old man—still with the umbrella over his head—holding his hand, shaking it, and talking at the same time.
“i am monsieur seguin, any of these good people here know me—” murmurs of assent from the crowd, “you have saved my life at the risk of your own, i am your friend. ask what you will, i am not poor, my house is yours, and all i possess. my life is yours, for have you not saved it?”
“nothing, nothing,” cried gaspard, “i have done nothing. i am not afraid of snakes—” then with a touch of tartarin in his tone, “they never bite me.”
they never bit him! he who had never handled one before—but the crowd knew nothing of this, they took it as a statement of fact. this man, then, was a prodigy, he handled the dreaded fer de lance as a poulterer handles a chicken. before noon that fact had become the news of the day in st. pierre, and gaspard half a hero, half a wizard.
119 “all the same,” said old m. seguin, “you have saved my life, monsieur, but i will thank you in another place than this—have you breakfasted? no? well then, i pray of you come with me and accept of my hospitality.”
with his hand upon gaspard’s arm he led him away through the crowd which divided before them, across the place, across the rivière roxelane, into the rue victor hugo.
here at a café they breakfasted.
during the meal the old gentleman who had a strong and vivacious personality of his own, questioned his guest as to his past, present, and future. though good-hearted, evidently, and evidently a power in st. pierre, m. seguin was not of the highest refinement. he shewed this in the manner in which he cross-questioned his vis-à-vis, for at once he had gauged gaspard’s social position and his manner was that of an employer standing treat to an employée, but his every movement and every word, the tone of his voice and the kindness in his old eyes proclaimed the fact that he was a “straight man.”
gaspard told of the wreck, and sketched his story till he came to the name of sagesse.
“sagesse!” cried his questioner. “pierre sagesse?”
“yes—that is his name.”
one might have fancied that another fer de lance had shown itself, so great was the loathing and hatred that appeared in the face of m. seguin. then he smothered his emotions and helped himself to more coffee.
“beware of that man. he is not a man, he is a fer de lance. poisonous. he landed you here? well, you will of course have no more to do with him.”
gaspard explained that he was bound to go on an expedition with the said fer de lance as soon as la belle arlésienne120 had cleared her cargo. he said nothing of the treasure or the object of the expedition, but i doubt if he had, whether m. seguin would have heard him.
“but you will not go.”
“but i must—i have given my word.”
“ah, you have given your word. well, a word given must not be taken back even from pierre sagesse. but do not get entangled with him if you can help it. look!” he pointed to a huge spider passing along the wall. “that is pierre sagesse. he is a man-spider, who treats other men as a spider treats flies. gets them into his power, binds them up, and sucks them dry. he is my greatest enemy,” said the old man frankly enough, “and i am the only man who has ever got the better of him. he hates me. i think i am the only man he really hates; a nature like his does not give itself to hate, it would be a waste of energy.” then suddenly, “has he bound you?”
gaspard, surprised at the question and its far-reaching nature, was about to reply. but the old man had read the fact in his face.
“don’t trouble to say it—only this—if he has, paul seguin will be your friend. ah, you do not know sagesse. he has numerous poor folk here quite under his horrid thumb, men to whom he has lent money, men whom he has got power over, and he works them like slaves, negroes. well, now, when you come back from this expedition you will stay in st. pierre, and you will let me put you in the way of making money. i own many of those boats that go to the fishing. i can make you quite a comfortable place, and you will settle amongst us and marry some pretty girl. a fine fellow like you will have his pick of the best.”
gaspard laughed. here was a prospect if the treasure hunt turned out fruitless.
121 “ma foi,” said he. “i will take your offer righthanded. i have never struck such a place as this, and i never hope to leave it when i return from this voyage—and to think that i should have the luck to meet you all through a snake.”
“my friend,” said m. seguin, “there is a martinique proverb that says, ‘he who kills a snake is forgiven seven deadly sins.’ so you have purged yourself of seven sins and made a friend for life—do not let us despise snakes.”
for the first time gaspard felt the pleasantness of the fact that he had that morning saved a life. dead yves appeared before him. here was a life to balance that life he had taken. then in a flash appeared before him anisette, selling drinks at the bar of the riga. heavens! was it possible that he had ever loved or thought of that tallow-faced, under-sized creature!
marie, marie of morne rouge, had slain the evil shade of anisette in his mind, just as a sunbeam slays a shadow.
then he said good-bye to m. seguin, promising to call and see him at the address which the old man gave him upon a card.
he turned down hill to the sea front where on the place bertine, amidst the sugar hogsheads, talking to one of the port officials, he saw sagesse. the owner of la belle arlésienne was laughing, gesticulating and, as gaspard passed to emphasise some remark, he brought his great thumb down on the top of a sugar cask.
gaspard could not but remember m. seguin’s words about the unfortunate people under that “horrid thumb.”
