—"Ou-ou! Fafa!"
—"Êti! Gabou!"
—"Vini ti bouin!—mi bel négresse!"
Out rushes Fafa, with his huge straw hat in his hand: "Oti, Gabou?"
—"Mi!"
—"Ah! quimbé moin!" cries black Fafa, enthusiastically; "fouinq! li bel!—Jésis-Maïa! li doux!"... Neither ever saw that woman before; and both feel as if they could watch her forever.
There is something superb in the port of a tall young mountain-griffone, or negress, who is comely and knows that she is comely: it is a black poem of artless dignity, primitive grace, savage exultation of movement.... "Ou marché tête enlai cornu couresse qui ka passé lariviè" (You walk with, your head in the air, like the couresse-serpent swimming a river) is a creole comparison which pictures perfectly the poise of her neck and chin. And in her walk there is also a serpentine elegance, a sinuous charm: the shoulders do not swing; the cambered torso seems immobile;—but alternately from waist to heel, and from heel to waist, with each long full stride, an indescribable undulation seems to pass; while the folds of her loose robe oscillate to right and left behind her, in perfect libration, with the free swaying of the hips. With us, only a finely trained dancer could attempt such a walk;—with the Martinique woman of color it is natural as the tint of her skin; and this allurement of motion unrestrained is most marked in those who have never worn shoes and are clad lightly as the women of antiquity,—in two very thin and simple garments;—chemise and robe-d'indienne.... But whence is she?—of what canton? Not from Vauclin, nor from Lamentin, nor from Marigot,—from Case-Pilote or from Case-Navire: Fafa knows all the people there. Never of Sainte-Anne, nor of Sainte-Luce, nor of Sainte-Marie, nor of Diamant, nor of Gros-Morne, nor of Carbet,—the birthplace of Gabou. Neither is she of the village of the Abysms, which is in the Parish of the Preacher,—nor yet of Ducos nor of François, which are in the Commune of the Holy Ghost....
V
... She approaches the ajoupa: both men remove their big straw hats; and both salute her with a simultaneous "Bonjou', Manzell."
—"Bonjou', Missié," she responds, in a sonorous alto, without appearing to notice Gabou,—but smiling upon Fafa as she passes, with her great eyes turned full upon his face.... All the libertine blood of the man flames under that look;—he feels as if momentarily wrapped in a blaze of black lightning.