XXXI
April 20th.
... Very early yesterday morning Yzore was carried away under a covering of quick-lime: the children do not know; Manm-Robert took heed they should not see. They have been told their mother has been taken to the country to get well,—that the doctor will bring her back soon.... All the furniture is to be sold at auction to pay the debts;—the landlord was patient, he waited four months; the doctor was kindly: but now these must have their due. Everything will be bidden off, except the chapelle, with its Virgin and angels of porcelain: yo pa ka pè venne Bon-Dié (the things of the Good-God must not be sold). And Manm-Robert will take care of the little ones.
The bed—a relic of former good-fortune,—a great Martinique bed of carved heavy native wood,—a lit-à-bateau (boat-bed), so called because shaped almost like a barge, perhaps—will surely bring three hundred francs;—the armoire, with its mirror doors, not less than two hundred and fifty. There is little else of value: the whole will not fetch enough to pay all the dead owes.
XXXII
April 28th.
—Tam-tam-tam!—tam-tam-tam!... It is the booming of the auction-drum from the Place: Yzore's furniture is about to change hands.
The children start at the sound, so vividly associated in their minds with the sights of Carnival days, with the fantastic mirth of the great processional dance: they run to the sunny street, calling to each other,—Vini ouè!—they look up and down. But there is a great quiet in the Rue du Morne Mirail;—the street is empty.
... Manm-Robert enters very weary: she has been at the sale, trying to save something for the children, but the prices were too high. In silence she takes her accustomed seat at the worn counter of her little shop; the young ones gather about her, caress her;—Mimi looks up laughing into the kind brown face, and wonders why Manm-Robert will not smile. Then Mimi becomes afraid to ask where the maskers are,—why they do not come. But little Maurice, bolder and less sensitive, cries out:—
—"Manm-Robert, oti masque-à?"