Far off in this delicious little Martinique, the Republican rage made itself felt;—the huge reaction passed over the ocean like a magnetic current. So it happened, in a little while, that the Martinique politicians resolved to do that which had already been done in France,—to obliterate the memories of the Empire.
There was Mamzelle Zefine, par exemple!... They put a rope round her beautiful white neck. They prepared to destroy the statue.
Then Somebody rang the Church-bell—(you ought to see the sleepy little church: it makes you want to doze the moment you pass into its cool shadow). A vast crowd gathered in the Savane.
It was a crowd of women,—mostly women who had been slaves,—quadroons, mulattoesses; the house-servants, the bonnes, the nurses and housekeepers of the old days. (You could form no possible idea of this coloured Creole element without seeing it: it does not exist in New Orleans.) They gathered to defend Mamzelle Zefine.
When the Republican officials came with their workmen at sunrise, Mamzelle Zefine was still gazing toward Trois Islets; she was white as ever; her pure cold passionate face just as lovely: she seemed totally indifferent to what was about to happen,—she was dreaming her eternal plaintive dream.
But she could well afford to feel indifferent! About her, under the circle of the palms, surged a living sea,—a tide of angry yellow faces, above which flashed the lightning of cane-knives, axes, couteaux de boucher. “Ah! li vieu!—lâches! cafa’ds! pott’ons! Vos pas cabab toucher li! Touché li—yon tête fois!—Osé toucher li. Capons Républicains! Osé toucher li!“
Mamzelle Zefine still gazed plaintively toward Trois Islets. She must have seemed to that yellow population to live;—for each one she represented some young mistress, some petted child, some memory of the old colonial days. And all the love of the slave for the master—all the strange passionate senseless affection of the servant for the Creole family—was stirred to storm by the mere idea of the proposed desecration. The man who should have dared to lay an evil finger upon Josephine that day would have been torn limb from limb in the public square. The officials were frightened and foiled: they pledged their faith that the statue should not be touched.
So they took the ropes away; and they piled flowers at Mamzelle Zefine’s white feet; they garlanded her; they twined the crimson jessamines of the tropics about her beautiful white throat.
And she is still here,—always in the circle of the palms, always looking to Trois Islets, always beautiful and sweet as a young Creole maiden,—dreamy, gracious, loving,—with a smile that is like some faint, sweet memory of other days.
Always,