The same hand beckoned us which has for generations been beckoning other children of men; other children who have gone there to live and die content; the same that beckoned old Father Dutertre hundreds of years ago. Children’s children have been born there, and have grown old and withered, and have gone the way of all the earth, and La Pelée, the giantess, has slept for generations, and the children had quite forgotten that the day might come when she would awaken. La Pelée was slumbering, oh! so gently—so peacefully, that far-away night, when we first wondered at her beauty—and we, too, forgot! For did not her children say that she would never waken more?
The soft, blue hills said, “Come!” The lonely peaks, beyond, said, “Come!” And the little city waved its pretty white hand to us with “Come!” in every motion; and the sweet-voiced creole lads, who rowed us in, smiled, “Come!” and what could we do?
And then, when we entered the little city, it was so snug and clean, and it was all so different, so different. How can I explain it to you? There was, as it were, a homogeneousness about the people which was not apparent in the other islands. Here was a people whose sires had sprung from the best blood of France, from a race of great men and women; here the question of colour had been more harmoniously worked out; and we felt at once that we were amongst those whose ancestors had learned, through the streaming blood of kings and princes, the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Justice.
The people said, “Come!” and we answered, and long, long into the night we were following the summons.
Then it was that La Pelée was fair, and she lay so still, so still, that the children forgot—if they ever really knew—that very beautiful women can sometimes be very wicked—only “sometimes,” for there are so many beautiful good women.
But the children loved La Pelée; she was beautiful, and she took her bath so gently, away amongst the clouds and mist of the morning.
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As I look again in the unchanging photograph at the dark mountains and the tiny white city, cuddled down by the sea, with its quaint lighthouse and its old church, there rises a strange mist over my soul, and a blur comes into my eyes, and I feel myself pressing the cold bit of cardboard against my lips as I would the face of a beloved.