Two years in the French West Indies

by Lafcadio Hearn

—"Why, Cyrillia, they are only vapor,—brume: I have been in clouds."

She looked at me in surprise, and, after a moment's silence, asked, with an irony of which I had not supposed her capable:—

—"Then you are the Good-God?"

—"Why, Cyrillia, it is not difficult to reach clouds. You see clouds always upon the top of the Montagne Pelée;—people go there. I have been there—in the clouds."

—"Ah! those are not the same clouds: those are not the clouds of the Good-God. You cannot touch the sky when you are on the Morne de la Croix."

—"My dear Cyrillia, there is no sky to touch. The sky is only an appearance."

—"Anh, anh, anh! No sky!—you say there is no sky?... Then, what is that up there?"

—"That is air, Cyrillia, beautiful blue air."

—"And what are the stars fastened to?"

—"To nothing. They are suns, but so much further away than our sun that they look small."