By a great grove of palms she passes;—so thickly mustered they are that against the sun their intermingled heads form one unbroken awning of green. Many rise straight as masts; some bend at beautiful angles, seeming to intercross their long pale single limbs in a fantastic dance; others curve like bows: there is one that undulates from foot to crest, like a monster serpent poised upon its tail. She loves to look at that one,—joli pié-bois-là!—talks to it as she goes by,—bids it good-day.
Or, looking back as she ascends, she sees the huge blue dream of the sea,—the eternal haunter, that ever becomes larger as she mounts the road; and she talks to it: "Mi lanmé ka gadé main!" (There is the great sea looking at me!) "Mâché toujou deïé moin, lamnè!" (Walk after me, O Sea!)
Or she views the clouds of Pelée, spreading gray from the invisible summit, to shadow against the sun; and she fears the rain, and she talks to it: "Pas mouillé moin, laplie-à! Quitté moin rivé avant mouillé moin!" (Do not wet me, O Rain! Let me get there before thou wettest me!)
Sometimes a dog barks at her, menaces her bare limbs; and she talks to the dog. "Chien-a, pas mòdé moin, chien—anh! Moin pa fé ou arien, chien, pou ou mòdé moin!" (Do not bite me, O Dog! Never did I anything to thee that thou shouldst bite me, O Dog! Do not bite me, dear! Do not bite me, doudoux!)
Sometimes she meets a laden sister travelling the opposite way.... "Coument ou yé, chè?" she cries. (How art thou, dear?) And the other makes answer, "Toutt douce, chè,—et ou?" (All sweetly, dear,—and thou?) And each passes on without pausing: they have no time!
... It is perhaps the last human voice she will hear for many a mile. After that only the whisper of the grasses—graïe-gras, graïe-gras!—and the gossip of the canes—chououa, chououa!—and the husky speech of the pois-Angole, ka babillé conm yon vié fenme,—that babbles like an old woman;—and the murmur of the filao-trees, like the murmur of the River of the Washerwomen.
XII
... Sundown approaches: the light has turned a rich yellow;—long black shapes lie across the curving road, shadows of balisier and palm, shadows of tamarind and Indian-reed, shadows of ceiba and giant-fern. And the porteuses are coming down through the lights and darknesses of the way horn far Grande Anse, to halt a moment in this little village. They are going to sit down on the road-side here, before the house of the baker; and there is his great black workman, Jean-Marie, looking for them from the door-way, waiting to relieve them of their loads.... Jean-Marie is the strongest man in all the Champ-Flore: see what a torso,—as he stands there naked to the waist!... His day's work is done; but he likes to wait for the girls, though he is old now, and has sons as tall as himself. It is a habit: some say that he had a daughter once,—a porteuse like those coming, and used to wait for her thus at that very door-way until one evening that she failed to appear, and never returned till he carried her home in his arms dead,—striken by a serpent in some mountain path where there was none to aid.... The roads were not as good then as now.
... Here they come, the girls—yellow, red, black. See the flash of the yellow feet where they touch the light! And what impossible tint the red limbs take in the changing glow!... Finotte, Pauline, Médelle,—all together, as usual,—with Ti-Clé trotting behind, very tired.... Never mind, Ti-Clé!—you will outwalk your cousins when you are a few years older,—pretty Ti-Clé.... Here come Cyrillia and Zabette, and Féfé and Dodotte and Fevriette. And behind them are coming the two chabines,—golden girls: the twin-sisters who sell silks and threads and foulards; always together, always wearing robes and kerchiefs of similar color,—so that you can never tell which is Lorrainie and which Édoualise.
And all smile to see Jean-Marie waiting for them, and to hear his deep kind voice calling, "Coument ou yé chè? coument ou kallé?"... (How art thou, dear?—how goes it with thee?)