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diff --git a/old/chita10.txt b/old/chita10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..235645a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/chita10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3303 @@ +by Lafcadio Hearn +Chita : A Memory of Last Island +This Etext created by Tokuya Matsumoto (toqyam@os.rim.or.jp) +***************************************************** + + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Chita: A Memory of Last Island +#1 in our series by Lafcadio Hearn** + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +CHITA : A Memory of Last Island + +by Lafcadio Hearn + + + +"But Nature whistled with all her winds, +Did as she pleased, and went her way." +---Emerson + + +To my friend +Dr. Rodolfo Matas of New Orleans + + + + +The Legend of L'Ile Derniere + +I. + +Travelling south from New Orleans to the Islands, you pass +through a strange land into a strange sea, by various winding +waterways. You can journey to the Gulf by lugger if you please; +but the trip may be made much more rapidly and agreeably on some +one of those light, narrow steamers, built especially for +bayou-travel, which usually receive passengers at a point not far +from the foot of old Saint-Louis Street, hard by the +sugar-landing, where there is ever a pushing and flocking of +steam craft--all striving for place to rest their white breasts +against the levee, side by side,--like great weary swans. But +the miniature steamboat on which you engage passage to the Gulf +never lingers long in the Mississippi: she crosses the river, +slips into some canal-mouth, labors along the artificial channel +awhile, and then leaves it with a scream of joy, to puff her free +way down many a league of heavily shadowed bayou. Perhaps +thereafter she may bear you through the immense silence of +drenched rice-fields, where the yellow-green level is broken at +long intervals by the black silhouette of some irrigating +machine;--but, whichever of the five different routes be pursued, +you will find yourself more than once floating through sombre +mazes of swamp-forest,--past assemblages of cypresses all hoary +with the parasitic tillandsia, and grotesque as gatherings of +fetich-gods. Ever from river or from lakelet the steamer glides +again into canal or bayou,--from bayou or canal once more into +lake or bay; and sometimes the swamp-forest visibly thins away +from these shores into wastes of reedy morass where, even of +breathless nights, the quaggy soil trembles to a sound like +thunder of breakers on a coast: the storm-roar of billions of +reptile voices chanting in cadence,--rhythmically surging in +stupendous crescendo and diminuendo,--a monstrous and appalling +chorus of frogs! .... + +Panting, screaming, scraping her bottom over the sand-bars,--all +day the little steamer strives to reach the grand blaze of blue +open water below the marsh-lands; and perhaps she may be +fortunate enough to enter the Gulf about the time of sunset. For +the sake of passengers, she travels by day only; but there are +other vessels which make the journey also by night--threading the +bayou-labyrinths winter and summer: sometimes steering by the +North Star,--sometimes feeling the way with poles in the white +season of fogs,--sometimes, again, steering by that Star of +Evening which in our sky glows like another moon, and drops over +the silent lakes as she passes a quivering trail of silver fire. + +Shadows lengthen; and at last the woods dwindle away behind you +into thin bluish lines;--land and water alike take more luminous +color;--bayous open into broad passes;--lakes link themselves +with sea-bays;--and the ocean-wind bursts upon you,--keen, cool, +and full of light. For the first time the vessel begins to +swing,--rocking to the great living pulse of the tides. And +gazing from the deck around you, with no forest walls to break +the view, it will seem to you that the low land must have once +been rent asunder by the sea, and strewn about the Gulf in +fantastic tatters.... + +Sometimes above a waste of wind-blown prairie-cane you see an +oasis emerging,--a ridge or hillock heavily umbraged with the +rounded foliage of evergreen oaks:--a cheniere. And from the +shining flood also kindred green knolls arise,--pretty islets, +each with its beach-girdle of dazzling sand and shells, +yellow-white,--and all radiant with semi-tropical foliage, myrtle +and palmetto, orange and magnolia. Under their emerald shadows +curious little villages of palmetto huts are drowsing, where +dwell a swarthy population of Orientals,--Malay fishermen, who +speak the Spanish-Creole of the Philippines as well as their own +Tagal, and perpetuate in Louisiana the Catholic traditions of the +Indies. There are girls in those unfamiliar villages worthy to +inspire any statuary,--beautiful with the beauty of ruddy +bronze,--gracile as the palmettoes that sway above them.... +Further seaward you may also pass a Chinese settlement: some +queer camp of wooden dwellings clustering around a vast platform +that stands above the water upon a thousand piles;--over the +miniature wharf you can scarcely fail to observe a white +sign-board painted with crimson ideographs. The great platform +is used for drying fish in the sun; and the fantastic characters +of the sign, literally translated, mean: "Heap--Shrimp--Plenty." +... And finally all the land melts down into desolations of +sea-marsh, whose stillness is seldom broken, except by the +melancholy cry of long-legged birds, and in wild seasons by that +sound which shakes all shores when the weird Musician of the Sea +touches the bass keys of his mighty organ.... + + +II. + +Beyond the sea-marshes a curious archipelago lies. If you travel +by steamer to the sea-islands to-day, you are tolerably certain +to enter the Gulf by Grande Pass--skirting Grande Terre, the most +familiar island of all, not so much because of its proximity as +because of its great crumbling fort and its graceful pharos: the +stationary White-Light of Barataria. Otherwise the place is +bleakly uninteresting: a wilderness of wind-swept grasses and +sinewy weeds waving away from a thin beach ever speckled with +drift and decaying things,--worm-riddled timbers, dead porpoises. + +Eastward the russet level is broken by the columnar silhouette of +the light house, and again, beyond it, by some puny scrub timber, +above which rises the angular ruddy mass of the old brick fort, +whose ditches swarm with crabs, and whose sluiceways are half +choked by obsolete cannon-shot, now thickly covered with +incrustation of oyster shells.... Around all the gray circling of +a shark-haunted sea... + +Sometimes of autumn evenings there, when the hollow of heaven +flames like the interior of a chalice, and waves and clouds are +flying in one wild rout of broken gold,--you may see the tawny +grasses all covered with something like husks,--wheat-colored +husks,--large, flat, and disposed evenly along the lee-side of +each swaying stalk, so as to present only their edges to the +wind. But, if you approach, those pale husks all break open to +display strange splendors of scarlet and seal-brown, with +arabesque mottlings in white and black: they change into +wondrous living blossoms, which detach themselves before your +eyes and rise in air, and flutter away by thousands to settle +down farther off, and turn into wheat-colored husks once more ... +a whirling flower-drift of sleepy butterflies! + +Southwest, across the pass, gleams beautiful Grande Isle: +primitively a wilderness of palmetto (latanier);--then drained, +diked, and cultivated by Spanish sugar-planters; and now familiar +chiefly as a bathing-resort. Since the war the ocean reclaimed +its own;--the cane-fields have degenerated into sandy plains, +over which tramways wind to the smooth beach;--the +plantation-residences have been converted into rustic hotels, and +the negro-quarters remodelled into villages of cozy cottages for +the reception of guests. But with its imposing groves of oak, +its golden wealth of orange-trees, its odorous lanes of oleander. + +its broad grazing-meadows yellow-starred with wild camomile, +Grande Isle remains the prettiest island of the Gulf; and its +loveliness is exceptional. For the bleakness of Grand Terre is +reiterated by most of the other islands,--Caillou, Cassetete, +Calumet, Wine Island, the twin Timbaliers, Gull Island, and the +many islets haunted by the gray pelican,--all of which are little +more than sand-bars covered with wiry grasses, prairie-cane, and +scrub-timber. Last Island (L'Ile Derniere),--well worthy a long +visit in other years, in spite of its remoteness, is now a +ghastly desolation twenty-five miles long. Lying nearly forty +miles west of Grande Isle, it was nevertheless far more populated +a generation ago: it was not only the most celebrated island of +the group, but also the most fashionable watering-place of the +aristocratic South;--to-day it is visited by fishermen only, at +long intervals. Its admirable beach in many respects resembled +that of Grande Isle to-day; the accommodations also were much +similar, although finer: a charming village of cottages facing +the Gulf near the western end. The hotel itself was a massive +two-story construction of timber, containing many apartments, +together with a large dining-room and dancing-hall. In rear of +the hotel was a bayou, where passengers landed--"Village Bayou" +it is still called by seamen;--but the deep channel which now +cuts the island in two a little eastwardly did not exist while +the village remained. The sea tore it out in one night--the same +night when trees, fields, dwellings, all vanished into the Gulf, +leaving no vestige of former human habitation except a few of +those strong brick props and foundations upon which the frame +houses and cisterns had been raised. One living creature was +found there after the cataclysm--a cow! But how that solitary +cow survived the fury of a storm-flood that actually rent the +island in twain has ever remained a mystery ... + + +III. + +On the Gulf side of these islands you may observe that the +trees--when there are any trees--all bend away from the sea; and, +even of bright, hot days when the wind sleeps, there is something +grotesquely pathetic in their look of agonized terror. A group +of oaks at Grande Isle I remember as especially suggestive: five +stooping silhouettes in line against the horizon, like fleeing +women with streaming garments and wind-blown hair,--bowing +grievously and thrusting out arms desperately northward as to +save themselves from falling. And they are being pursued +indeed;--for the sea is devouring the land. Many and many a mile +of ground has yielded to the tireless charging of Ocean's +cavalry: far out you can see, through a good glass, the +porpoises at play where of old the sugar-cane shook out its +million bannerets; and shark-fins now seam deep water above a +site where pigeons used to coo. Men build dikes; but the +besieging tides bring up their battering-rams--whole forests of +drift--huge trunks of water-oak and weighty cypress. Forever the +yellow Mississippi strives to build; forever the sea struggles to +destroy;--and amid their eternal strife the islands and the +promontories change shape, more slowly, but not less +fantastically, than the clouds of heaven. + +And worthy of study are those wan battle-grounds where the woods +made their last brave stand against the irresistible +invasion,--usually at some long point of sea-marsh, widely +fringed with billowing sand. Just where the waves curl beyond +such a point you may discern a multitude of blackened, snaggy +shapes protruding above the water,--some high enough to resemble +ruined chimneys, others bearing a startling likeness to enormous +skeleton-feet and skeleton-hands,--with crustaceous white growths +clinging to them here and there like remnants of integument. +These are bodies and limbs of drowned oaks,--so long drowned that +the shell-scurf is inch-thick upon parts of them. Farther in +upon the beach immense trunks lie overthrown. Some look like +vast broken columns; some suggest colossal torsos imbedded, and +seem to reach out mutilated stumps in despair from their +deepening graves;--and beside these are others which have kept +their feet with astounding obstinacy, although the barbarian +tides have been charging them for twenty years, and gradually +torn away the soil above and beneath their roots. The sand +around,--soft beneath and thinly crusted upon the surface,--is +everywhere pierced with holes made by a beautifully mottled and +semi-diaphanous crab, with hairy legs, big staring eyes, and +milk-white claws;--while in the green sedges beyond there is a +perpetual rustling, as of some strong wind beating among reeds: +a marvellous creeping of "fiddlers," which the inexperienced +visitor might at first mistake for so many peculiar beetles, as +they run about sideways, each with his huge single claw folded +upon his body like a wing-case. Year by year that rustling strip +of green land grows narrower; the sand spreads and sinks, +shuddering and wrinkling like a living brown skin; and the last +standing corpses of the oaks, ever clinging with naked, dead feet +to the sliding beach, lean more and more out of the +perpendicular. As the sands subside, the stumps appear to creep; +their intertwisted masses of snakish roots seem to crawl, to +writhe,--like the reaching arms of cephalopods.... + +... Grande Terre is going: the sea mines her fort, and will +before many years carry the ramparts by storm. Grande Isle is +going,--slowly but surely: the Gulf has eaten three miles into +her meadowed land. Last Island has gone! How it went I first +heard from the lips of a veteran pilot, while we sat one evening +together on the trunk of a drifted cypress which some high tide +had pressed deeply into the Grande Isle beach. The day had been +tropically warm; we had sought the shore for a breath of living +air. Sunset came, and with it the ponderous heat lifted,--a +sudden breeze blew,--lightnings flickered in the darkening +horizon,--wind and water began to strive together,--and soon all +the low coast boomed. Then my companion began his story; perhaps +the coming of the storm inspired him to speak! And as I listened +to him, listening also to the clamoring of the coast, there +flashed back to me recollection of a singular Breton fancy: that +the Voice of the Sea is never one voice, but a tumult of many +voices--voices of drowned men,--the muttering of multitudinous +dead,--the moaning of innumerable ghosts, all rising, to rage +against the living, at the great Witch call of storms.... + + +IV. + +The charm of a single summer day on these island shores is +something impossible to express, never to be forgotten. Rarely, +in the paler zones, do earth and heaven take such luminosity: +those will best understand me who have seen the splendor of a +West Indian sky. And yet there is a tenderness of tint, a caress +of color, in these Gulf-days which is not of the Antilles,--a +spirituality, as of eternal tropical spring. It must have been +to even such a sky that Xenophanes lifted up his eyes of old when +he vowed the Infinite Blue was God;--it was indeed under such a +sky that De Soto named the vastest and grandest of Southern +havens Espiritu Santo,--the Bay of the Holy Ghost. There is a +something unutterable in this bright Gulf-air that compels +awe,--something vital, something holy, something pantheistic: +and reverentially the mind asks itself if what the eye beholds is +not the Pneuma indeed, the Infinite Breath, the Divine Ghost, the +great Blue Soul of the Unknown. All, all is blue in the +calm,--save the low land under your feet, which you almost +forget, since it seems only as a tiny green flake afloat in the +liquid eternity of day. Then slowly, caressingly, irresistibly, +the witchery of the Infinite grows upon you: out of Time and +Space you begin to dream with open eyes,--to drift into delicious +oblivion of facts,--to forget the past, the present, the +substantial,--to comprehend nothing but the existence of that +infinite Blue Ghost as something into which you would wish to +melt utterly away forever.... + +And this day-magic of azure endures sometimes for months +together. Cloudlessly the dawn reddens up through a violet east: + +there is no speck upon the blossoming of its Mystical +Rose,--unless it be the silhouette of some passing gull, whirling +his sickle-wings against the crimsoning. Ever, as the sun floats +higher, the flood shifts its color. Sometimes smooth and gray, +yet flickering with the morning gold, it is the vision of +John,--the apocalyptic Sea of Glass mixed with fire;--again, with +the growing breeze, it takes that incredible purple tint familiar +mostly to painters of West Indian scenery;--once more, under the +blaze of noon, it changes to a waste of broken emerald. With +evening, the horizon assumes tints of inexpressible +sweetness,--pearl-lights, opaline colors of milk and fire; and in +the west are topaz-glowings and wondrous flushings as of nacre. +Then, if the sea sleeps, it dreams of all these,--faintly, +weirdly,--shadowing them even to the verge of heaven. + +Beautiful, too, are those white phantasmagoria which, at the +approach of equinoctial days, mark the coming of the winds. Over +the rim of the sea a bright cloud gently pushes up its head. It +rises; and others rise with it, to right and left--slowly at +first; then more swiftly. All are brilliantly white and +flocculent, like loose new cotton. Gradually they mount in +enormous line high above the Gulf, rolling and wreathing into an +arch that expands and advances,--bending from horizon to horizon. + +A clear, cold breath accompanies its coming. Reaching the +zenith, it seems there to hang poised awhile,--a ghostly bridge +arching the empyrean,--upreaching its measureless span from +either underside of the world. Then the colossal phantom begins +to turn, as on a pivot of air,--always preserving its curvilinear +symmetry, but moving its unseen ends beyond and below the +sky-circle. And at last it floats away unbroken beyond the blue +sweep of the world, with a wind following after. Day after day, +almost at the same hour, the white arc rises, wheels, and passes +... + +... Never a glimpse of rock on these low shores;--only long +sloping beaches and bars of smooth tawny sand. Sand and sea teem +with vitality;--over all the dunes there is a constant +susurration, a blattering and swarming of crustacea;--through all +the sea there is a ceaseless play of silver lightning,--flashing +of myriad fish. Sometimes the shallows are thickened with +minute, transparent, crab-like organisms,--all colorless as +gelatine. There are days also when countless medusae drift +in--beautiful veined creatures that throb like hearts, with +perpetual systole and diastole of their diaphanous envelops: +some, of translucent azure or rose, seem in the flood the shadows +or ghosts of huge campanulate flowers;--others have the semblance +of strange living vegetables,--great milky tubers, just beginning +to sprout. But woe to the human skin grazed by those shadowy +sproutings and spectral stamens!--the touch of glowing iron is +not more painful... Within an hour or two after their appearance +all these tremulous jellies vanish mysteriously as they came. + +Perhaps, if a bold swimmer, you may venture out alone a long +way--once! Not twice!--even in company. As the water deepens +beneath you, and you feel those ascending wave-currents of +coldness arising which bespeak profundity, you will also begin to +feel innumerable touches, as of groping fingers--touches of the +bodies of fish, innumerable fish, fleeing towards shore. The +farther you advance, the more thickly you will feel them come; +and above you and around you, to right and left, others will leap +and fall so swiftly as to daze the sight, like intercrossing +fountain-jets of fluid silver. The gulls fly lower about you, +circling with sinister squeaking cries;--perhaps for an instant +your feet touch in the deep something heavy, swift, lithe, that +rushes past with a swirling shock. Then the fear of the Abyss, +the vast and voiceless Nightmare of the Sea, will come upon you; +the silent panic of all those opaline millions that flee +glimmering by will enter into you also... + +From what do they flee thus perpetually? Is it from the giant +sawfish or the ravening shark?--from the herds of the porpoises, +or from the grande-ecaille,--that splendid monster whom no net +may hold,--all helmed and armored in argent plate-mail?--or from +the hideous devilfish of the Gulf,--gigantic, flat-bodied, black, +with immense side-fins ever outspread like the pinions of a +bat,--the terror of luggermen, the uprooter of anchors? From all +these, perhaps, and from other monsters likewise--goblin shapes +evolved by Nature as destroyers, as equilibrists, as +counterchecks to that prodigious fecundity, which, unhindered, +would thicken the deep into one measureless and waveless ferment +of being... But when there are many bathers these perils are +forgotten,--numbers give courage,--one can abandon one's self, +without fear of the invisible, to the long, quivering, electrical +caresses of the sea ... + + +V. + +Thirty years ago, Last Island lay steeped in the enormous light +of even such magical days. July was dying;--for weeks no fleck +of cloud had broken the heaven's blue dream of eternity; winds +held their breath; slow waveless caressed the bland brown beach +with a sound as of kisses and whispers. To one who found himself +alone, beyond the limits of the village and beyond the hearing of +its voices,--the vast silence, the vast light, seemed full of +weirdness. And these hushes, these transparencies, do not always +inspire a causeless apprehension: they are omens +sometimes--omens of coming tempest. Nature,--incomprehensible +Sphinx!--before her mightiest bursts of rage, ever puts forth her +divinest witchery, makes more manifest her awful beauty ... + +But in that forgotten summer the witchery lasted many long +days,--days born in rose-light, buried in gold. It was the +height of the season. The long myrtle-shadowed village was +thronged with its summer population;--the big hotel could hardly +accommodate all its guests;--the bathing-houses were too few for +the crowds who flocked to the water morning and evening. There +were diversions for all,--hunting and fishing parties, yachting +excursions, rides, music, games, promenades. Carriage wheels +whirled flickering along the beach, seaming its smoothness +noiselessly, as if muffled. Love wrote its dreams upon the sand +... + +... Then one great noon, when the blue abyss of day seemed to +yawn over the world more deeply than ever before, a sudden change +touched the quicksilver smoothness of the waters--the swaying +shadow of a vast motion. First the whole sea-circle appeared to +rise up bodily at the sky; the horizon-curve lifted to a straight +line; the line darkened and approached,--a monstrous wrinkle, an +immeasurable fold of green water, moving swift as a cloud-shadow +pursued by sunlight. But it had looked formidable only by +startling contrast with the previous placidity of the open: it +was scarcely two feet high;--it curled slowly as it neared the +beach, and combed itself out in sheets of woolly foam with a low, +rich roll of whispered thunder. Swift in pursuit another +followed--a third--a feebler fourth; then the sea only swayed a +little, and stilled again. Minutes passed, and the immeasurable +heaving recommenced--one, two, three, four ... seven long swells +this time;--and the Gulf smoothed itself once more. Irregularly +the phenomenon continued to repeat itself, each time with heavier +billowing and briefer intervals of quiet--until at last the whole +sea grew restless and shifted color and flickered green;--the +swells became shorter and changed form. Then from horizon to +shore ran one uninterrupted heaving--one vast green swarming of +snaky shapes, rolling in to hiss and flatten upon the sand. Yet +no single cirrus-speck revealed itself through all the violet +heights: there was no wind!--you might have fancied the sea had +been upheaved from beneath ... + +And indeed the fancy of a seismic origin for a windless surge +would not appear in these latitudes to be utterly without +foundation. On the fairest days a southeast breeze may bear you +an odor singular enough to startle you from sleep,--a strong, +sharp smell as of fish-oil; and gazing at the sea you might be +still more startled at the sudden apparition of great oleaginous +patches spreading over the water, sheeting over the swells. That +is, if you had never heard of the mysterious submarine oil-wells, +the volcanic fountains, unexplored, that well up with the eternal +pulsing of the Gulf-Stream ... + +But the pleasure-seekers of Last Island knew there must have been +a "great blow" somewhere that day. Still the sea swelled; and a +splendid surf made the evening bath delightful. Then, just at +sundown, a beautiful cloud-bridge grew up and arched the sky with +a single span of cottony pink vapor, that changed and deepened +color with the dying of the iridescent day. And the cloud-bridge +approached, stretched, strained, and swung round at last to make +way for the coming of the gale,--even as the light bridges that +traverse the dreamy Teche swing open when luggermen sound through +their conch-shells the long, bellowing signal of approach. + +Then the wind began to blow, with the passing of July. It blew +from the northeast, clear, cool. It blew in enormous sighs, +dying away at regular intervals, as if pausing to draw breath. +All night it blew; and in each pause could be heard the answering +moan of the rising surf,--as if the rhythm of the sea moulded +itself after the rhythm of the air,--as if the waving of the +water responded precisely to the waving of the wind,--a billow +for every puff, a surge for every sigh. + +The August morning broke in a bright sky;--the breeze still came +cool and clear from the northeast. The waves were running now at +a sharp angle to the shore: they began to carry fleeces, an +innumerable flock of vague green shapes, wind-driven to be +despoiled of their ghostly wool. Far as the eye could follow the +line of the beach, all the slope was white with the great +shearing of them. Clouds came, flew as in a panic against the +face of the sun, and passed. All that day and through the night +and into the morning again the breeze continued from the north. +east, blowing like an equinoctial gale ... + +Then day by day the vast breath freshened steadily, and the +waters heightened. A week later sea-bathing had become perilous: + +colossal breakers were herding in, like moving leviathan-backs, +twice the height of a man. Still the gale grew, and the +billowing waxed mightier, and faster and faster overhead flew the +tatters of torn cloud. The gray morning of the 9th wanly lighted +a surf that appalled the best swimmers: the sea was one wild +agony of foam, the gale was rending off the heads of the waves +and veiling the horizon with a fog of salt spray. Shadowless and +gray the day remained; there were mad bursts of lashing rain. +Evening brought with it a sinister apparition, looming through a +cloud-rent in the west--a scarlet sun in a green sky. His +sanguine disk, enormously magnified, seemed barred like the body +of a belted planet. A moment, and the crimson spectre vanished; +and the moonless night came. + +Then the Wind grew weird. It ceased being a breath; it became a +Voice moaning across the world,--hooting,--uttering nightmare +sounds,--Whoo!--whoo!--whoo!--and with each stupendous owl-cry +the mooing of the waters seemed to deepen, more and more +abysmally, through all the hours of darkness. From the northwest +the breakers of the bay began to roll high over the sandy slope, +into the salines;--the village bayou broadened to a bellowing +flood ... So the tumult swelled and the turmoil heightened until +morning,--a morning of gray gloom and whistling rain. Rain of +bursting clouds and rain of wind-blown brine from the great +spuming agony of the sea. + +The steamer Star was due from St. Mary's that fearful morning. +Could she come? No one really believed it,--no one. And +nevertheless men struggled to the roaring beach to look for her, +because hope is stronger than reason ... + +Even today, in these Creole islands, the advent of the steamer is +the great event of the week. There are no telegraph lines, no +telephones: the mail-packet is the only trustworthy medium of +communication with the outer world, bringing friends, news, +letters. The magic of steam has placed New Orleans nearer to New +York than to the Timbaliers, nearer to Washington than to Wine +Island, nearer to Chicago than to Barataria Bay. And even during +the deepest sleep of waves and winds there will come betimes to +sojourners in this unfamiliar archipelago a feeling of +lonesomeness that is a fear, a feeling of isolation from the +world of men,--totally unlike that sense of solitude which haunts +one in the silence of mountain-heights, or amid the eternal +tumult of lofty granitic coasts: a sense of helpless insecurity. + +The land seems but an undulation of the sea-bed: its highest +ridges do not rise more than the height of a man above the +salines on either side;--the salines themselves lie almost level +with the level of the flood-tides;--the tides are variable, +treacherous, mysterious. But when all around and above these +ever-changing shores the twin vastnesses of heaven and sea begin +to utter the tremendous revelation of themselves as infinite +forces in contention, then indeed this sense of separation from +humanity appalls ... Perhaps it was such a feeling which forced +men, on the tenth day of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, +to hope against hope for the coming of the Star, and to strain +their eyes towards far-off Terrebonne. "It was a wind you could +lie down on," said my friend the pilot. + +... "Great God!" shrieked a voice above the shouting of the +storm,--"she is coming!" ... It was true. Down the Atchafalaya, +and thence through strange mazes of bayou, lakelet, and pass, by +a rear route familiar only to the best of pilots, the frail +river-craft had toiled into Caillou Bay, running close to the +main shore;--and now she was heading right for the island, with +the wind aft, over the monstrous sea. On she came, swaying, +rocking, plunging,--with a great whiteness wrapping her about +like a cloud, and moving with her moving,--a tempest-whirl of +spray;--ghost-white and like a ghost she came, for her +smoke-stacks exhaled no visible smoke--the wind devoured it! The +excitement on shore became wild;--men shouted themselves hoarse; +women laughed and cried. Every telescope and opera-glass was +directed upon the coming apparition; all wondered how the pilot +kept his feet; all marvelled at the madness of the captain. + +But Captain Abraham Smith was not mad. A veteran American +sailor, he had learned to know the great Gulf as scholars know +deep books by heart: he knew the birthplace of its tempests, the +mystery of its tides, the omens of its hurricanes. While lying +at Brashear City he felt the storm had not yet reached its +highest, vaguely foresaw a mighty peril, and resolved to wait no +longer for a lull. "Boys," he said, "we've got to take her out +in spite of Hell!" And they "took her out." Through all the +peril, his men stayed by him and obeyed him. By midmorning the +wind had deepened to a roar,--lowering sometimes to a rumble, +sometimes bursting upon the ears like a measureless and deafening +crash. Then the captain knew the Star was running a race with +Death. "She'll win it," he muttered;--"she'll stand it ... +Perhaps they'll have need of me to-night." + +She won! With a sonorous steam-chant of triumph the brave little +vessel rode at last into the bayou, and anchored hard by her +accustomed resting-place, in full view of the hotel, though not +near enough to shore to lower her gang-plank.... But she had sung +her swan-song. Gathering in from the northeast, the waters of +the bay were already marbling over the salines and half across +the island; and still the wind increased its paroxysmal power. + +Cottages began to rock. Some slid away from the solid props upon +which they rested. A chimney fumbled. Shutters were wrenched +off; verandas demolished. Light roofs lifted, dropped again, and +flapped into ruin. Trees bent their heads to the earth. And +still the storm grew louder and blacker with every passing hour. + +The Star rose with the rising of the waters, dragging her anchor. + +Two more anchors were put out, and still she dragged--dragged in +with the flood,--twisting, shuddering, careening in her agony. +Evening fell; the sand began to move with the wind, stinging +faces like a continuous fire of fine shot; and frenzied blasts +came to buffet the steamer forward, sideward. Then one of her +hog-chains parted with a clang like the boom of a big bell. Then +another! ... Then the captain bade his men to cut away all her +upper works, clean to the deck. Overboard into the seething went +her stacks, her pilot-house, her cabins,--and whirled away. And +the naked hull of the Star, still dragging her three anchors, +labored on through the darkness, nearer and nearer to the immense +silhouette of the hotel, whose hundred windows were now all +aflame. The vast timber building seemed to defy the storm. The +wind, roaring round its broad verandas,--hissing through every +crevice with the sound and force of steam,--appeared to waste its +rage. And in the half-lull between two terrible gusts there came +to the captain's ears a sound that seemed strange in that night +of multitudinous terrors ... a sound of music! + + +VI. + +... Almost every evening throughout the season there had been +dancing in the great hall;--there was dancing that night also. +The population of the hotel had been augmented by the advent of +families from other parts of the island, who found their summer +cottages insecure places of shelter: there were nearly four +hundred guests assembled. Perhaps it was for this reason that +the entertainment had been prepared upon a grander plan than +usual, that it assumed the form of a fashionable ball. And all +those pleasure seekers,--representing the wealth and beauty of +the Creole parishes,--whether from Ascension or Assumption, St. +Mary's or St. Landry's, Iberville or Terrebonne, whether +inhabitants of the multi-colored and many-balconied Creole +quarter of the quaint metropolis, or dwellers in the dreamy +paradises of the Teche,--mingled joyously, knowing each other, +feeling in some sort akin--whether affiliated by blood, +connaturalized by caste, or simply interassociated by traditional +sympathies of class sentiment and class interest. Perhaps in the +more than ordinary merriment of that evening something of nervous +exaltation might have been discerned,--something like a feverish +resolve to oppose apprehension with gayety, to combat uneasiness +by diversion. But the hours passed in mirthfulness; the first +general feeling of depression began to weigh less and less upon +the guests; they had found reason to confide in the solidity of +the massive building; there were no positive terrors, no +outspoken fears; and the new conviction of all had found +expression in the words of the host himself,--"Il n'y a rien de +mieux a faire que de s'amuser!" Of what avail to lament the +prospective devastation of cane-fields,--to discuss the possible +ruin of crops? Better to seek solace in choregraphic harmonies, +in the rhythm of gracious motion and of perfect melody, than +hearken to the discords of the wild orchestra of storms;--wiser +to admire the grace of Parisian toilets, the eddy of trailing +robes with its fairy-foam of lace, the ivorine loveliness of +glossy shoulders and jewelled throats, the glimmering of +satin-slippered feet,--than to watch the raging of the flood +without, or the flying of the wrack ... + +So the music and the mirth went on: they made joy for +themselves--those elegant guests;--they jested and sipped rich +wines;--they pledged, and hoped, and loved, and promised, with +never a thought of the morrow, on the night of the tenth of +August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six. Observant parents were +there, planning for the future bliss of their nearest and +dearest;--mothers and fathers of handsome lads, lithe and elegant +as young pines, and fresh from the polish of foreign university +training;--mothers and fathers of splendid girls whose simplest +attitudes were witcheries. Young cheeks flushed, young hearts +fluttered with an emotion more puissant than the excitement of +the dance;--young eyes betrayed the happy secret discreeter lips +would have preserved. Slave-servants circled through the +aristocratic press, bearing dainties and wines, praying +permission to pass in terms at once humble and officious,--always +in the excellent French which well-trained house-servants were +taught to use on such occasions. + +... Night wore on: still the shining floor palpitated to the +feet of the dancers; still the piano-forte pealed, and still the +violins sang,--and the sound of their singing shrilled through +the darkness, in gasps of the gale, to the ears of Captain Smith, +as he strove to keep his footing on the spray-drenched deck of +the Star. + +--"Christ!" he muttered,--"a dance! If that wind whips round +south, there'll be another dance! ... But I guess the Star will +stay." ... + +Half an hour might have passed; still the lights flamed calmly, +and the violins trilled, and the perfumed whirl went on ... And +suddenly the wind veered! + +Again the Star reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began to +drag all her anchors. But she now dragged away from the great +building and its lights,--away from the voluptuous thunder of the +grand piano, even at that moment outpouring the great joy of +Weber's melody orchestrated by Berlioz: l'Invitation a la +Valse,--with its marvellous musical swing! + +--"Waltzing!" cried the captain. "God help them!--God help us +all now! ... The Wind waltzes to-night, with the Sea for his +partner!" ... + +O the stupendous Valse-Tourbillon! O the mighty Dancer! +One--two--three! From northeast to east, from east to southeast, +from southeast to south: then from the south he came, whirling +the Sea in his arms ... + +... Some one shrieked in the midst of the revels;--some girl who +found her pretty slippers wet. What could it be? Thin streams +of water were spreading over the level planking,--curling about +the feet of the dancers ... What could it be? All the land had +begun to quake, even as, but a moment before, the polished floor +was trembling to the pressure of circling steps;--all the +building shook now; every beam uttered its groan. What could it +be? ... + +There was a clamor, a panic, a rush to the windy night. Infinite +darkness above and beyond; but the lantern-beams danced far out +over an unbroken circle of heaving and swirling black water. +Stealthily, swiftly, the measureless sea-flood was rising. + +--" Messieurs--mesdames, ce n'est rien. Nothing serious, ladies, +I assure you ... Mais nous en avons vu bien souvent, les +inondations comme celle-ci; ca passe vite! The water will go down +in a few hours, ladies;--it never rises higher than this; il n'y +a pas le moindre danger, je vous dis! Allons! il n'y a--My God! +what is that?" ... + +For a moment there was a ghastly hush of voices. And through +that hush there burst upon the ears of all a fearful and +unfamiliar sound, as of a colossal cannonade rolling up from the +south, with volleying lightnings. Vastly and swiftly, nearer and +nearer it came,--a ponderous and unbroken thunder-roll, terrible +as the long muttering of an earthquake. + +The nearest mainland,--across mad Caillou Bay to the +sea-marshes,--lay twelve miles north; west, by the Gulf, the +nearest solid ground was twenty miles distant. There were boats, +yes!--but the stoutest swimmer might never reach them now! + +Then rose a frightful cry,--the hoarse, hideous, indescribable +cry of hopeless fear,--the despairing animal-cry man utters when +suddenly brought face to face with Nothingness, without +preparation, without consolation, without possibility of respite +... Sauve qui peut! Some wrenched down the doors; some clung to +the heavy banquet-tables, to the sofas, to the billiard. +tables:--during one terrible instant,--against fruitless +heroisms, against futile generosities,--raged all the frenzy of +selfishness, all the brutalities of panic. And then--then came, +thundering through the blackness, the giant swells, boom on boom! +... One crash!--the huge frame building rocks like a cradle, +seesaws, crackles. What are human shrieks now?--the tornado is +shrieking! Another!--chandeliers splinter; lights are dashed out; +a sweeping cataract hurls in: the immense hall +rises,--oscillates,--twirls as upon a +pivot,--crepitates,--crumbles into ruin. Crash again!--the +swirling wreck dissolves into the wallowing of another monster +billow; and a hundred cottages overturn, spin in sudden eddies, +quiver, disjoint, and melt into the seething. + +... So the hurricane passed,--tearing off the heads of the +prodigious waves, to hurl them a hundred feet in air,--heaping up +the ocean against the land,--upturning the woods. Bays and +passes were swollen to abysses; rivers regorged; the sea-marshes +were changed to raging wastes of water. Before New Orleans the +flood of the mile-broad Mississippi rose six feet above highest +water-mark. One hundred and ten miles away, Donaldsonville +trembled at the towering tide of the Lafourche. Lakes strove to +burst their boundaries. Far-off river steamers tugged wildly at +their cables,--shivering like tethered creatures that hear by +night the approaching howl of destroyers. Smoke-stacks were +hurled overboard, pilot-houses torn away, cabins blown to +fragments. + +And over roaring Kaimbuck Pass,--over the agony of Caillou +Bay,--the billowing tide rushed unresisted from the +Gulf,--tearing and swallowing the land in its course,--ploughing +out deep-sea channels where sleek herds had been grazing but a +few hours before,--rending islands in twain,--and ever bearing +with it, through the night, enormous vortex of wreck and vast wan +drift of corpses ... + +But the Star remained. And Captain Abraham Smith, with a long, +good rope about his waist, dashed again and again into that awful +surging to snatch victims from death,--clutching at passing +hands, heads, garments, in the cataract-sweep of the +seas,--saving, aiding, cheering, though blinded by spray and +battered by drifting wreck, until his strength failed in the +unequal struggle at last, and his men drew him aboard senseless, +with some beautiful half-drowned girl safe in his arms. But +well-nigh twoscore souls had been rescued by him; and the Star +stayed on through it all. + +Long years after, the weed-grown ribs of her graceful skeleton +could still be seen, curving up from the sand-dunes of Last +Island, in valiant witness of how well she stayed. + + +VII. + +Day breaks through the flying wrack, over the infinite heaving of +the sea, over the low land made vast with desolation. It is a +spectral dawn: a wan light, like the light of a dying sun. + +The wind has waned and veered; the flood sinks slowly back to its +abysses--abandoning its plunder,--scattering its piteous waifs +over bar and dune, over shoal and marsh, among the silences of +the mango-swamps, over the long low reaches of sand-grasses and +drowned weeds, for more than a hundred miles. From the +shell-reefs of Pointe-au-Fer to the shallows of Pelto Bay the +dead lie mingled with the high-heaped drift;--from their cypress +groves the vultures rise to dispute a share of the feast with the +shrieking frigate-birds and squeaking gulls. And as the +tremendous tide withdraws its plunging waters, all the pirates of +air follow the great white-gleaming retreat: a storm of +billowing wings and screaming throats. + +And swift in the wake of gull and frigate-bird the Wreckers come, +the Spoilers of the dead,--savage skimmers of the +sea,--hurricane-riders wont to spread their canvas-pinions in the +face of storms; Sicilian and Corsican outlaws, Manila-men from +the marshes, deserters from many navies, Lascars, marooners, +refugees of a hundred nationalities,--fishers and shrimpers by +name, smugglers by opportunity,--wild channel-finders from +obscure bayous and unfamiliar chenieres, all skilled in the +mysteries of these mysterious waters beyond the comprehension of +the oldest licensed pilot ... + +There is plunder for all--birds and men. There are drowned sheep +in multitude, heaped carcasses of kine. There are casks of +claret and kegs of brandy and legions of bottles bobbing in the +surf. There are billiard-tables overturned upon the sand;--there +are sofas, pianos, footstools and music-stools, luxurious chairs, +lounges of bamboo. There are chests of cedar, and toilet-tables +of rosewood, and trunks of fine stamped leather stored with +precious apparel. There are objets de luxe innumerable. There +are children's playthings: French dolls in marvellous toilets, +and toy carts, and wooden horses, and wooden spades, and brave +little wooden ships that rode out the gale in which the great +Nautilus went down. There is money in notes and in coin--in +purses, in pocketbooks, and in pockets: plenty of it! There are +silks, satins, laces, and fine linen to be stripped from the +bodies of the drowned,--and necklaces, bracelets, watches, +finger-rings and fine chains, brooches and trinkets ... "Chi +bidizza!--Oh! chi bedda mughieri! Eccu, la bidizza!" That +ball-dress was made in Paris by--But you never heard of him, +Sicilian Vicenzu ... "Che bella sposina!" Her betrothal ring +will not come off, Giuseppe; but the delicate bone snaps easily: +your oyster-knife can sever the tendon ... "Guardate! chi bedda +picciota!" Over her heart you will find it, Valentino--the +locket held by that fine Swiss chain of woven hair--"Caya manan!" + +And it is not your quadroon bondsmaid, sweet lady, who now +disrobes you so roughly; those Malay hands are less deft than +hers,--but she slumbers very far away from you, and may not be +aroused from her sleep. "Na quita mo! dalaga!--na quita +maganda!" ... Juan, the fastenings of those diamond ear-drops are +much too complicated for your peon fingers: tear them +out!--"Dispense, chulita!" ... + +... Suddenly a long, mighty silver trilling fills the ears of +all: there is a wild hurrying and scurrying; swiftly, one after +another, the overburdened luggers spread wings and flutter away. + +Thrice the great cry rings rippling through the gray air, and +over the green sea, and over the far-flooded shell-reefs, where +the huge white flashes are,--sheet-lightning of breakers,--and +over the weird wash of corpses coming in. + +It is the steam-call of the relief-boat, hastening to rescue the +living, to gather in the dead. + +The tremendous tragedy is over! + + + +Out of the Sea's Strength + +I. + +There are regions of Louisiana coast whose aspect seems not of +the present, but of the immemorial past--of that epoch when low +flat reaches of primordial continent first rose into form above a +Silurian Sea. To indulge this geologic dream, any fervid and +breezeless day there, it is only necessary to ignore the +evolutional protests of a few blue asters or a few composite +flowers of the coryopsis sort, which contrive to display their +rare flashes of color through the general waving of cat-heads, +blood-weeds, wild cane, and marsh grasses. For, at a hasty +glance, the general appearance of this marsh verdure is vague +enough, as it ranges away towards the sand, to convey the idea of +amphibious vegetation,--a primitive flora as yet undecided +whether to retain marine habits and forms, or to assume +terrestrial ones;--and the occasional inspection of surprising +shapes might strengthen this fancy. Queer flat-lying and +many-branching things, which resemble sea-weeds in juiciness and +color and consistency, crackle under your feet from time to time; +the moist and weighty air seems heated rather from below than +from above,--less by the sun than by the radiation of a cooling +world; and the mists of morning or evening appear to simulate the +vapory exhalation of volcanic forces,--latent, but only dozing, +and uncomfortably close to the surface. And indeed geologists +have actually averred that those rare elevations of the +soil,--which, with their heavy coronets of evergreen foliage, not +only look like islands, but are so called in the French +nomenclature of the coast,--have been prominences created by +ancient mud volcanoes. + +The family of a Spanish fisherman, Feliu Viosca, once occupied +and gave its name to such an islet, quite close to the +Gulf-shore,--the loftiest bit of land along fourteen miles of +just such marshy coast as I have spoken of. Landward, it +dominated a desolation that wearied the eye to look at, a +wilderness of reedy sloughs, patched at intervals with ranges of +bitter-weed, tufts of elbow-bushes, and broad reaches of +saw-grass, stretching away to a bluish-green line of woods that +closed the horizon, and imperfectly drained in the driest season +by a slimy little bayou that continually vomited foul water into +the sea. The point had been much discussed by geologists; it +proved a godsend to United States surveyors weary of attempting +to take observations among quagmires, moccasins, and arborescent +weeds from fifteen to twenty feet high. Savage fishermen, at +some unrecorded time, had heaped upon the eminence a hill of +clam-shells,--refuse of a million feasts; earth again had been +formed over these, perhaps by the blind agency of worms working +through centuries unnumbered; and the new soil had given birth to +a luxuriant vegetation. Millennial oaks interknotted their roots +below its surface, and vouchsafed protection to many a frailer +growth of shrub or tree,--wild orange, water-willow, palmetto, +locust, pomegranate, and many trailing tendrilled things, both +green and gray. Then,--perhaps about half a century ago,--a few +white fishermen cleared a place for themselves in this grove, and +built a few palmetto cottages, with boat-houses and a wharf, +facing the bayou. Later on this temporary fishing station became +a permanent settlement: homes constructed of heavy timber and +plaster mixed with the trailing moss of the oaks and cypresses +took the places of the frail and fragrant huts of palmetto. +Still the population itself retained a floating character: it +ebbed and came, according to season and circumstances, according +to luck or loss in the tilling of the sea. Viosca, the founder +of the settlement, always remained; he always managed to do well. + +He owned several luggers and sloops, which were hired out upon +excellent terms; he could make large and profitable contracts +with New Orleans fish-dealers; and he was vaguely suspected of +possessing more occult resources. There were some confused +stories current about his having once been a daring smuggler, and +having only been reformed by the pleadings of his wife Carmen,--a +little brown woman who had followed him from Barcelona to share +his fortunes in the western world. + +On hot days, when the shade was full of thin sweet scents, the +place had a tropical charm, a drowsy peace. Nothing except the +peculiar appearance of the line of oaks facing the Gulf could +have conveyed to the visitor any suggestion of days in which the +trilling of crickets and the fluting of birds had ceased, of +nights when the voices of the marsh had been hushed for fear. In +one enormous rank the veteran trees stood shoulder to shoulder, +but in the attitude of giants over mastered,--forced backward +towards the marsh,--made to recoil by the might of the ghostly +enemy with whom they had striven a thousand years,--the Shrieker, +the Sky-Sweeper, the awful Sea-Wind! + +Never had he given them so terrible a wrestle as on the night of +the tenth of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six. All the +waves of the excited Gulf thronged in as if to see, and lifted up +their voices, and pushed, and roared, until the cheniere was +islanded by such a billowing as no white man's eyes had ever +looked upon before. Grandly the oaks bore themselves, but every +fibre of their knotted thews was strained in the unequal contest, +and two of the giants were overthrown, upturning, as they fell, +roots coiled and huge as the serpent-limbs of Titans. Moved to +its entrails, all the islet trembled, while the sea magnified its +menace, and reached out whitely to the prostrate trees; but the +rest of the oaks stood on, and strove in line, and saved the +habitations defended by them ... + + +II. + +Before a little waxen image of the Mother and Child,--an odd +little Virgin with an Indian face, brought home by Feliu as a +gift after one of his Mexican voyages,--Carmen Viosca had burned +candles and prayed; sometimes telling her beads; sometimes +murmuring the litanies she knew by heart; sometimes also reading +from a prayer-book worn and greasy as a long-used pack of cards. +It was particularly stained at one page, a page on which her +tears had fallen many a lonely night--a page with a clumsy wood +cut representing a celestial lamp, a symbolic radiance, shining +through darkness, and on either side a kneeling angel with folded +wings. And beneath this rudely wrought symbol of the Perpetual +Calm appeared in big, coarse type the title of a prayer that has +been offered up through many a century, doubtless, by wives of +Spanish mariners,--Contra las Tempestades. + +Once she became very much frightened. After a partial lull the +storm had suddenly redoubled its force: the ground shook; the +house quivered and creaked; the wind brayed and screamed and +pushed and scuffled at the door; and the water, which had been +whipping in through every crevice, all at once rose over the +threshold and flooded the dwelling. Carmen dipped her finger in +the water and tasted it. It was salt! + +And none of Feliu's boats had yet come in;--doubtless they had +been driven into some far-away bayous by the storm. The only +boat at the settlement, the Carmencita, had been almost wrecked +by running upon a snag three days before;--there was at least a +fortnight's work for the ship-carpenter of Dead Cypress Point. +And Feliu was sleeping as if nothing unusual had happened--the +heavy sleep of a sailor, heedless of commotions and voices. And +his men, Miguel and Mateo, were at the other end of the cheniere. + +With a scream Carmen aroused Feliu. He raised himself upon his +elbow, rubbed his eyes, and asked her, with exasperating +calmness, "Que tienes? que tienes?" (What ails thee?) + +--"Oh, Feliu! the sea is coming upon us!" she answered, in the +same tongue. But she screamed out a word inspired by her fear: +she did not cry, "Se nos viene el mar encima!" but "Se nos viene +LA ALTURA!"--the name that conveys the terrible thought of depth +swallowed up in height,--the height of the high sea. + +"No lo creo!" muttered Feliu, looking at the floor; then in a +quiet, deep voice he said, pointing to an oar in the corner of +the room, "Echame ese remo." + +She gave it to him. Still reclining upon one elbow, Feliu +measured the depth of the water with his thumb nail upon the +blade of the oar, and then bade Carmen light his pipe for him. +His calmness reassured her. For half an hour more, undismayed by +the clamoring of the wind or the calling of the sea, Feliu +silently smoked his pipe and watched his oar. The water rose a +little higher, and he made another mark;--then it climbed a +little more, but not so rapidly; and he smiled at Carmen as he +made a third mark. "Como creia!" he exclaimed, "no hay porque +asustarse: el agua baja!" And as Carmen would have continued to +pray, he rebuked her fears, and bade her try to obtain some rest: + +"Basta ya de plegarios, querida!--vete y duerme." His tone, +though kindly, was imperative; and Carmen, accustomed to obey +him, laid herself down by his side, and soon, for very weariness, +slept. + +It was a feverish sleep, nevertheless, shattered at brief +intervals by terrible sounds, sounds magnified by her nervous +condition--a sleep visited by dreams that mingled in a strange +way with the impressions of the storm, and more than once made +her heart stop, and start again at its own stopping. One of +these fancies she never could forget--a dream about little +Concha,--Conchita, her firstborn, who now slept far away in the +old churchyard at Barcelona. She had tried to become +resigned,--not to think. But the child would come back night +after night, though the earth lay heavy upon her--night after +night, through long distances of Time and Space. Oh! the fancied +clinging of infant-lips!--the thrilling touch of little ghostly +hands!--those phantom-caresses that torture mothers' hearts! ... +Night after night, through many a month of pain. Then for a time +the gentle presence ceased to haunt her,--seemed to have lain +down to sleep forever under the high bright grass and yellow +flowers. Why did it return, that night of all nights, to kiss +her, to cling to her, to nestle in her arms? + +For in her dream she thought herself still kneeling before the +waxen Image, while the terrors of the tempest were ever deepening +about her,--raving of winds and booming of waters and a shaking +of the land. And before her, even as she prayed her +dream-prayer, the waxen Virgin became tall as a woman, and +taller,--rising to the roof and smiling as she grew. Then Carmen +would have cried out for fear, but that something smothered her +voice,--paralyzed her tongue. And the Virgin silently stooped +above her, and placed in her arms the Child,--the brown Child +with the Indian face. And the Child whitened in her hands and +changed,--seeming as it changed to send a sharp pain through her +heart: an old pain linked somehow with memories of bright windy +Spanish hills, and summer scent of olive groves, and all the +luminous Past;--it looked into her face with the soft dark gaze, +with the unforgotten smile of ... dead Conchita! + +And Carmen wished to thank; the smiling Virgin for that priceless +bliss, and lifted up her eyes, but the sickness of ghostly fear +returned upon her when she looked; for now the Mother seemed as a +woman long dead, and the smile was the smile of fleshlessness, +and the places of the eyes were voids and darknesses ... And the +sea sent up so vast a roar that the dwelling rocked. + +Carmen started from sleep to find her heart throbbing so that the +couch shook with it. Night was growing gray; the door had just +been opened and slammed again. Through the rain-whipped panes +she discerned the passing shape of Feliu, making for the beach--a +broad and bearded silhouette, bending against the wind. Still +the waxen Virgin smiled her Mexican smile,--but now she was only +seven inches high; and her bead-glass eyes seemed to twinkle with +kindliness while the flame of the last expiring taper struggled +for life in the earthen socket at her feet. + + +III. + +Rain and a blind sky and a bursting sea Feliu and his men, Miguel +and Mateo, looked out upon the thundering and flashing of the +monstrous tide. The wind had fallen, and the gray air was full +of gulls. Behind the cheniere, back to the cloudy line of low +woods many miles away, stretched a wash of lead-colored water, +with a green point piercing it here and there--elbow-bushes or +wild cane tall enough to keep their heads above the flood. But +the inundation was visibly decreasing;--with the passing of each +hour more and more green patches and points had been showing +themselves: by degrees the course of the bayou had become +defined--two parallel winding lines of dwarf-timber and bushy +shrubs traversing the water toward the distant cypress-swamps. +Before the cheniere all the shell-beach slope was piled with +wreck--uptorn trees with the foliage still fresh upon them, +splintered timbers of mysterious origin, and logs in multitude, +scarred with gashes of the axe. Feliu and his comrades had saved +wood enough to build a little town,--working up to their waists +in the surf, with ropes, poles, and boat-hooks. The whole sea +was full of flotsam. Voto a Cristo!--what a wrecking there must +have been! And to think the Carmencita could not be taken out! + +They had seen other luggers making eastward during the +morning--could recognize some by their sails, others by their +gait,--exaggerated in their struggle with the pitching of the +sea: the San Pablo, the Gasparina, the Enriqueta, the Agueda, +the Constanza. Ugly water, yes!--but what a chance for wreckers! +... Some great ship must have gone to pieces;--scores of casks +were rolling in the trough,--casks of wine. Perhaps it was the +Manila,--perhaps the Nautilus! + +A dead cow floated near enough for Mateo to throw his rope over +one horn; and they all helped to get it out. It was a milch cow +of some expensive breed; and the owner's brand had been burned +upon the horns:--a monographic combination of the letters A and +P. Feliu said he knew that brand: Old-man Preaulx, of +Belle-Isle, who kept a sort of dairy at Last Island during the +summer season, used to mark all his cows that way. Strange! + +But, as they worked on, they began to see stranger things,--white +dead faces and dead hands, which did not look like the hands or +the faces of drowned sailors: the ebb was beginning to run +strongly, and these were passing out with it on the other side of +the mouth of the bayou;--perhaps they had been washed into the +marsh during the night, when the great rush of the sea came. +Then the three men left the water, and retired to higher ground +to scan the furrowed Gulf;--their practiced eyes began to search +the courses of the sea-currents,--keen as the gaze of birds that +watch the wake of the plough. And soon the casks and the drift +were forgotten; for it seemed to them that the tide was heavy +with human dead--passing out, processionally, to the great open. +Very far, where the huge pitching of the swells was diminished by +distance into a mere fluttering of ripples, the water appeared as +if sprinkled with them;--they vanished and became visible again +at irregular intervals, here and there--floating most thickly +eastward!--tossing, swaying patches of white or pink or blue or +black each with its tiny speck of flesh-color showing as the sea +lifted or lowered the body. Nearer to shore there were few; but +of these two were close enough to be almost recognizable: Miguel +first discerned them. They were rising and falling where the +water was deepest--well out in front of the mouth of the bayou, +beyond the flooded sand-bars, and moving toward the shell-reef +westward. They were drifting almost side by side. One was that +of a negro, apparently well attired, and wearing a white +apron;--the other seemed to be a young colored girl, clad in a +blue dress; she was floating upon her face; they could observe +that she had nearly straight hair, braided and tied with a red +ribbon. These were evidently house-servants,--slaves. But from +whence? Nothing could be learned until the luggers should +return; and none of them was yet in sight. Still Feliu was not +anxious as to the fate of his boats, manned by the best sailors +of the coast. Rarely are these Louisiana fishermen lost in +sudden storms; even when to other eyes the appearances are most +pacific and the skies most splendidly blue, they divine some +far-off danger, like the gulls; and like the gulls also, you see +their light vessels fleeing landward. These men seem living +barometers, exquisitely sensitive to all the invisible changes of +atmospheric expansion and compression; they are not easily caught +in those awful dead calms which suddenly paralyze the wings of a +bark, and hold her helpless in their charmed circle, as in a +nightmare, until the blackness overtakes her, and the +long-sleeping sea leaps up foaming to devour her. + +--"Carajo!" + +The word all at once bursts from Feliu's mouth, with that +peculiar guttural snarl of the "r" betokening strong +excitement,--while he points to something rocking in the ebb, +beyond the foaming of the shell-reef, under a circling of gulls. +More dead? Yes--but something too that lives and moves, like a +quivering speck of gold; and Mateo also perceives it, a gleam of +bright hair,--and Miguel likewise, after a moment's gazing. A +living child;--a lifeless mother. Pobrecita! No boat within +reach, and only a mighty surf-wrestler could hope to swim thither +and return! + +But already, without a word, brown Feliu has stripped for the +struggle;--another second, and he is shooting through the surf, +head and hands tunnelling the foam hills.... One--two--three +lines passed!--four!--that is where they first begin to crumble +white from the summit,--five!--that he can ride fearlessly! ... +Then swiftly, easily, he advances, with a long, powerful +breast-stroke,--keeping his bearded head well up to watch for +drift,--seeming to slide with a swing from swell to +swell,--ascending, sinking,--alternately presenting breast or +shoulder to the wave; always diminishing more and more to the +eyes of Mateo and Miguel,--till he becomes a moving speck, +occasionally hard to follow through the confusion of heaping +waters ... You are not afraid of the sharks, Feliu!--no: they +are afraid of you; right and left they slunk away from your +coming that morning you swam for life in West-Indian waters, with +your knife in your teeth, while the balls of the Cuban +coast-guard were purring all around you. That day the swarming +sea was warm,--warm like soup--and clear, with an emerald flash +in every ripple,--not opaque and clamorous like the Gulf today +... Miguel and his comrade are anxious. Ropes are unrolled and +inter-knotted into a line. Miguel remains on the beach; but +Mateo, bearing the end of the line, fights his way out,--swimming +and wading by turns, to the further sandbar, where the water is +shallow enough to stand in,--if you know how to jump when the +breaker comes. + +But Feliu, nearing the flooded shell-bank, watches the white +flashings,--knows when the time comes to keep flat and take a +long, long breath. One heavy volleying of foam,--darkness and +hissing as of a steam-burst; a vibrant lifting up; a rush into +light,--and again the volleying and the seething darkness. Once +more,--and the fight is won! He feels the upcoming chill of +deeper water,--sees before him the green quaking of unbroken +swells,--and far beyond him Mateo leaping on the bar,--and beside +him, almost within arm's reach, a great billiard-table swaying, +and a dead woman clinging there, and ... the child. + +A moment more, and Feliu has lifted himself beside the waifs ... +How fast the dead woman clings, as if with the one power which is +strong as death,--the desperate force of love! Not in vain; for +the frail creature bound to the mother's corpse with a silken +scarf has still the strength to cry out:--"Maman! maman!" But +time is life now; and the tiny hands must be pulled away from the +fair dead neck, and the scarf taken to bind the infant firmly to +Feliu's broad shoulders,--quickly, roughly; for the ebb will not +wait ... + +And now Feliu has a burden; but his style of swimming has totally +changed;--he rises from the water like a Triton, and his powerful +arms seem to spin in circles, like the spokes of a flying wheel. +For now is the wrestle indeed!--after each passing swell comes a +prodigious pulling from beneath,--the sea clutching for its prey. + +But the reef is gained, is passed;--the wild horses of the deep +seem to know the swimmer who has learned to ride them so well. +And still the brown arms spin in an ever-nearing mist of spray; +and the outer sand-bar is not far off,--and there is shouting +Mateo, leaping in the surf, swinging something about his head, as +a vaquero swings his noose! ... Sough! splash!--it struggles in +the trough beside Feliu, and the sinewy hand descends upon it. +Tiene!--tira, Miguel! And their feet touch land again! ... + +She is very cold, the child, and very still, with eyes closed. + +--"Esta muerta, Feliu?" asks Mateo. + +--"No!" the panting swimmer makes answer, emerging, while the +waves reach whitely up the sand as in pursuit,--"no; vive! +respira todavia!" + +Behind him the deep lifts up its million hands, and thunders as +in acclaim. + + +IV. + +--"Madre de Dios!--mi sueno!" screamed Carmen, abandoning her +preparations for the morning meal, as Feliu, nude, like a marine +god, rushed in and held out to her a dripping and gasping +baby-girl,--"Mother of God! my dream!" But there was no time +then to tell of dreams; the child might die. In one instant +Carmen's quick, deft hands had stripped the slender little body; +and while Mateo and Feliu were finding dry clothing and +stimulants, and Miguel telling how it all happened--quickly, +passionately, with furious gesture,--the kind and vigorous woman +exerted all her skill to revive the flickering life. Soon Feliu +came to aid her, while his men set to work completing the +interrupted preparation of the breakfast. Flannels were heated +for the friction of the frail limbs; and brandy-and-water warmed, +which Carmen administered by the spoonful, skilfully as any +physician,--until, at last, the little creature opened her eyes +and began to sob. Sobbing still, she was laid in Carmen's warm +feather-bed, well swathed in woollen wrappings. The immediate +danger, at least, was over; and Feliu smiled with pride and +pleasure. + +Then Carmen first ventured to relate her dream; and his face +became grave again. Husband and wife gazed a moment into each +other's eyes, feeling together the same strange thrill--that +mysterious faint creeping, as of a wind passing, which is the awe +of the Unknowable. Then they looked at the child, lying there, +pink checked with the flush of the blood returning; and such a +sudden tenderness touched them as they had known long years +before, while together bending above the slumbering loveliness of +lost Conchita. + +--"Que ojos!" murmured Feliu, as he turned away,--feigning hunger +... (He was not hungry; but his sight had grown a little dim, as +with a mist.) Que ojos! They were singular eyes, large, dark, and +wonderfully fringed. The child's hair was yellow--it was the +flash of it that had saved her; yet her eyes and brows were +beautifully black. She was comely, but with such a curious, +delicate comeliness--totally unlike the robust beauty of Concha +... At intervals she would moan a little between her sobs; and at +last cried out, with a thin, shrill cry: "Maman!--oh! maman!" +Then Carmen lifted her from the bed to her lap, and caressed her, +and rocked her gently to and fro, as she had done many a night +for Concha,--murmuring,--"Yo sere tu madre, angel mio, dulzura +mia;--sere tu madrecita, palomita mia!" (I will be thy mother, my +angel, my sweet;--I will be thy little mother, my doveling.) And +the long silk fringes of the child's eyes overlapped, shadowed +her little cheeks; and she slept--just as Conchita had slept long +ago,--with her head on Carmen's bosom. + +Feliu re-appeared at the inner door: at a sign, he approached +cautiously, without noise, and looked. + +--"She can talk," whispered Carmen in Spanish: "she called her +mother"--ha llamado a su madre. + +--"Y Dios tambien la ha llamado," responded Feliu, with rude +pathos;--"And God also called her." + +--"But the Virgin sent us the child, Feliu,--sent us the child +for Concha's sake." + +He did not answer at once; he seemed to be thinking very +deeply;--Carmen anxiously scanned his impassive face. + +--"Who knows?" he answered, at last;--"who knows? Perhaps she +has ceased to belong to any one else." + +One after another, Feliu's luggers fluttered in,--bearing with +them news of the immense calamity. And all the fishermen, in +turn, looked at the child. Not one had ever seen her before. + + +V. + +Ten days later, a lugger full of armed men entered the bayou, and +moored at Viosca's wharf. The visitors were, for the most part, +country gentlemen,--residents of Franklin and neighboring towns, +or planters from the Teche country,--forming one of the numerous +expeditions organized for the purpose of finding the bodies of +relatives or friends lost in the great hurricane, and of +punishing the robbers of the dead. They had searched numberless +nooks of the coast, had given sepulture to many corpses, had +recovered a large amount of jewelry, and--as Feliu afterward +learned,--had summarily tried and executed several of the most +abandoned class of wreckers found with ill-gotten valuables in +their possession, and convicted of having mutilated the drowned. +But they came to Viosca's landing only to obtain information;--he +was too well known and liked to be a subject for suspicion; and, +moreover, he had one good friend in the crowd,--Captain Harris of +New Orleans, a veteran steamboat man and a market contractor, to +whom he had disposed of many a cargo of fresh pompano, +sheep's-head, and Spanish-mackerel ... Harris was the first to +step to land;--some ten of the party followed him. Nearly all +had lost some relative or friend in the great catastrophe;--the +gathering was serious, silent,--almost grim,--which formed about +Feliu. + +Mateo, who had come to the country while a boy, spoke English +better than the rest of the cheniere people;--he acted as +interpreter whenever Feliu found any difficulty in comprehending +or answering questions; and he told them of the child rescued +that wild morning, and of Feliu's swim. His recital evoked a +murmur of interest and excitement, followed by a confusion of +questions. Well, they could see for themselves, Feliu said; but +he hoped they would have a little patience;--the child was still +weak;--it might be dangerous to startle her. "We'll arrange it +just as you like, " responded the captain;--"go ahead, Feliu!" +... + +All proceeded to the house, under the great trees; Feliu and +Captain Harris leading the way. It was sultry and bright;--even +the sea-breeze was warm; there were pleasant odors in the shade, +and a soporific murmur made of leaf-speech and the hum of gnats. +Only the captain entered the house with Feliu; the rest remained +without--some taking seats on a rude plank bench under the +oaks--others flinging themselves down upon the weeds--a few stood +still, leaning upon their rifles. Then Carmen came out to them +with gourds and a bucket of fresh water, which all were glad to +drink. + +They waited many minutes. Perhaps it was the cool peace of the +place that made them all feel how hot and tired they were: +conversation flagged; and the general languor finally betrayed +itself in a silence so absolute that every leaf-whisper seemed to +become separately audible. + +It was broken at last by the guttural voice of the old captain +emerging from the cottage, leading the child by the hand, and +followed by Carmen and Feliu. All who had been resting rose up +and looked at the child. + +Standing in a lighted space, with one tiny hand enveloped by the +captain's great brown fist, she looked so lovely that a general +exclamation of surprise went up. Her bright hair, loose and +steeped in the sun-flame, illuminated her like a halo; and her +large dark eyes, gentle and melancholy as a deer's, watched the +strange faces before her with shy curiosity. She wore the same +dress in which Feliu had found her--a soft white fabric of +muslin, with trimmings of ribbon that had once been blue; and the +now discolored silken scarf, which had twice done her such brave +service, was thrown over her shoulders. Carmen had washed and +repaired the dress very creditably; but the tiny slim feet were +bare,--the brine-soaked shoes she wore that fearful night had +fallen into shreds at the first attempt to remove them. + +--"Gentlemen, " said Captain Harris,--"we can find no clew to the +identity of this child. There is no mark upon her clothing; and +she wore nothing in the shape of jewelry--except this string of +coral beads. We are nearly all Americans here; and she does not +speak any English ... Does any one here know anything about her?" + +Carmen felt a great sinking at her heart: was her new-found +darling to be taken so soon from her? But no answer came to the +captain's query. No one of the expedition had ever seen that +child before. The coral beads were passed from hand to hand; the +scarf was minutely scrutinized without avail. Somebody asked if +the child could not talk German or Italian. + +--"Italiano? No!" said Feliu, shaking his head.... One of his +luggermen, Gioachino Sparicio, who, though a Sicilian, could +speak several Italian idioms besides his own, had already +essayed. + +--"She speaks something or other," answered the captain--"but no +English. I couldn't make her understand me; and Feliu, who talks +nearly all the infernal languages spoken down this way, says he +can't make her understand him. Suppose some of you who know +French talk to her a bit ... Laroussel, why don't you try?" + +The young man addressed did not at first seem to notice the +captain's suggestion. He was a tall, lithe fellow, with a dark, +positive face: he had never removed his black gaze from the +child since the moment of her appearance. Her eyes, too, seemed +to be all for him--to return his scrutiny with a sort of vague +pleasure, a half savage confidence ... Was it the first embryonic +feeling of race-affinity quickening in the little brain?--some +intuitive, inexplicable sense of kindred? She shrank from Doctor +Hecker, who addressed her in German, shook her head at Lawyer +Solari, who tried to make her answer in Italian; and her look +always went back plaintively to the dark, sinister face of +Laroussel,--Laroussel who had calmly taken a human life, a wicked +human life, only the evening before. + +--"Laroussel, you're the only Creole in this crowd," said the +captain; "talk to her! Talk gumbo to her! ... I've no doubt this +child knows German very well, and Italian too,"--he added, +maliciously--"but not in the way you gentlemen pronounce it!" + +Laroussel handed his rifle to a friend, crouched down before the +little girl, and looked into her face, and smiled. Her great +sweet orbs shone into his one moment, seriously, as if +searching; and then ... she returned his smile. It seemed to +touch something latent within the man, something rare; for his +whole expression changed; and there was a caress in his look and +voice none of the men could have believed possible--as he +exclaimed:-- + +--"Fais moin bo, piti." + +She pouted up her pretty lips and kissed his black moustache. + +He spoke to her again:-- + +--"Dis moin to nom, piti;--dis moin to nom, chere." + +Then, for the first time, she spoke, answering in her argent +treble: + +--"Zouzoune." + +All held their breath. Captain Harris lifted his finger to his +lips to command silence. + +--"Zouzoune? Zouzoune qui, chere?" + +--"Zouzoune, a c'est moin, Lili!" + +--"C'est pas tout to nom, Lili;--dis moin, chere, to laut nom." + +--"Mo pas connin laut nom. " + +--"Comment ye te pele to maman, piti?" + +--"Maman,--Maman 'Dele." + +--"Et comment ye te pele to papa, chere?" + +--"Papa Zulien." + +--"Bon! Et comment to maman te pele to papa?--dis ca a moin, +chere?" + +The child looked down, put a finger in her mouth, thought a +moment, and replied:-- + +--"Li pele li, 'Cheri'; li pele li, 'Papoute.'" + +--"Aie, aie!--c'est tout, ca?--to maman te jamain pele li daut' +chose?" + +--"Mo pas connin, moin." + +She began to play with some trinkets attached to his watch +chain;--a very small gold compass especially impressed her fancy +by the trembling and flashing of its tiny needle, and she +murmured, coaxingly:-- + +--"Mo oule ca! Donnin ca a moin." + +He took all possible advantage of the situation, and replied at +once:-- + +-- "Oui! mo va donnin toi ca si to di moin to laut nom." + +The splendid bribe evidently impressed her greatly; for tears +rose to the brown eyes as she answered: + +-- "Mo pas capab di' ca;--mo pas capab di' laut nom ... Mo oule; +mo pas capab!" + +Laroussel explained. The child's name was Lili,--perhaps a +contraction of Eulalie; and her pet Creole name Zouzoune. He +thought she must be the daughter of wealthy people; but she could +not, for some reason or other, tell her family name. Perhaps she +could not pronounce it well, and was afraid of being laughed at: +some of the old French names were very hard for Creole children +to pronounce, so long as the little ones were indulged in the +habit of talking the patois; and after a certain age their +mispronunciations would be made fun of in order to accustom them +to abandon the idiom of the slave-nurses, and to speak only +French. Perhaps, again, she was really unable to recall the +name: certain memories might have been blurred in the delicate +brain by the shock of that terrible night. She said her mother's +name was Adele, and her father's Julien; but these were very +common names in Louisiana,--and could afford scarcely any better +clew than the innocent statement that her mother used to address +her father as "dear" (Cheri),--or with the Creole diminutive +"little papa" (Papoute). Then Laroussel tried to reach a clew in +other ways, without success. He asked her about where she +lived,--what the place was like; and she told him about fig-trees +in a court, and galleries, and banquettes, and spoke of a +faubou',--without being able to name any street. He asked her +what her father used to do, and was assured that he did +everything--that there was nothing he could not do. Divine +absurdity of childish faith!--infinite artlessness of childish +love! ... Probably the little girl's parents had been residents +of New Orleans--dwellers of the old colonial quarter,--the +faubourg, the faubou'. + +-- "Well, gentlemen," said Captain Harris, as Laroussel abandoned +his cross-examination in despair,--"all we can do now is to make +inquiries. I suppose we'd better leave the child here. She is +very weak yet, and in no condition to be taken to the city, right +in the middle of the hot season; and nobody could care for her +any better than she's being cared for here. Then, again, seems +to me that as Feliu saved her life,--and that at the risk of his +own,--he's got the prior claim, anyhow; and his wife is just +crazy about the child--wants to adopt her. If we can find her +relatives so much the better; but I say, gentlemen, let them come +right here to Feliu, themselves, and thank him as he ought to be +thanked, by God! That's just what I think about it." + +Carmen understood the little speech;--all the Spanish charm of +her youth had faded out years before; but in the one swift look +of gratitude she turned upon the captain, it seemed to blossom +again;--for that quick moment, she was beautiful. + +"The captain is quite right," observed Dr. Hecker: "it would be +very dangerous to take the child away just now. "There was no +dissent. + +--"All correct, boys?" asked the captain ... "Well, we've got to +be going. By-by, Zouzoune!" + +But Zouzoune burst into tears. Laroussel was going too! + +--"Give her the thing, Laroussel! she gave you a kiss, +anyhow--more than she'd do for me," cried the captain. + +Laroussel turned, detached the little compass from his watch +chain, and gave it to her. She held up her pretty face for his +farewell kiss ... + + +VI. + +But it seemed fated that Feliu's waif should never be +identified;--diligent inquiry and printed announcements alike +proved fruitless. Sea and sand had either hidden or effaced all +the records of the little world they had engulfed: the +annihilation of whole families, the extinction of races, had, in +more than one instance, rendered vain all efforts to recognize +the dead. It required the subtle perception of long intimacy to +name remains tumefied and discolored by corruption and exposure, +mangled and gnawed by fishes, by reptiles, and by birds;--it +demanded the great courage of love to look upon the eyeless faces +found sweltering in the blackness of cypress-shadows, under the +low palmettoes of the swamps,--where gorged buzzards started from +sleep, or cottonmouths uncoiled, hissing, at the coming of the +searchers. And sometimes all who had loved the lost were +themselves among the missing. The full roll call of names could +never be made out; extraordinary mistakes were committed. Men +whom the world deemed dead and buried came back, like ghosts,--to +read their own epitaphs. + +... Almost at the same hour that Laroussel was questioning the +child in Creole patois, another expedition, searching for bodies +along the coast, discovered on the beach of a low islet famed as +a haunt of pelicans, the corpse of a child. Some locks of bright +hair still adhering to the skull, a string of red beads, a white +muslin dress, a handkerchief broidered with the initials +"A.L.B.,"--were secured as clews; and the little body was +interred where it had been found. + +And, several days before, Captain Hotard, of the relief-boat +Estelle Brousseaux, had found, drifting in the open Gulf +(latitude 26 degrees 43 minutes; longitude 88 degrees 17 +minutes),--the corpse of a fair-haired woman, clinging to a +table. The body was disfigured beyond recognition: even the +slender bones of the hands had been stripped by the nibs of the +sea-birds-except one finger, the third of the left, which seemed +to have been protected by a ring of gold, as by a charm. Graven +within the plain yellow circlet was a date,--"JUILLET--1851" ; +and the names,--"ADELE + JULIEN,"--separated by a cross. The +Estelle carried coffins that day: most of them were already +full; but there was one for Adele. + +Who was she?--who was her Julien? ... When the Estelle and many +other vessels had discharged their ghastly cargoes;--when the +bereaved of the land had assembled as hastily as they might for +the du y of identification;--when memories were strained almost +to madness in research of names, dates, incidents--for the +evocation of dead words, resurrection of vanished days, +recollection of dear promises,--then, in the confusion, it was +believed and declared that the little corpse found on the pelican +island was the daughter of the wearer of the wedding ring: Adele +La Brierre, nee Florane, wife of Dr. Julien La Brierre, of New +Orleans, who was numbered among the missing. + +And they brought dead Adele back,--up shadowy river windings, +over linked brightnesses of lake and lakelet, through many a +green glimmering bayou,--to the Creole city, and laid her to rest +somewhere in the old Saint-Louis Cemetery. And upon the tablet +recording her name were also graven the words-- + +..................... + +Aussi a la memoire de +son mari; + +JULIEN RAYMOND LA BRIERRE, +ne a la paroisse St. Landry, +le 29 Mai; MDCCCXXVIII; +et de leur fille, +EULALIE, +agee de 4 as et 5 mois,-- +Qui tous perirent +dans la grande tempete qui +balaya L'Ile Derniere, le +10 Aout, MDCCCLVI +..... + ..... +Priez pour eux! + + +VII. + +Yet six months afterward the face of Julien La Brierre was seen +again upon the streets of New Orleans. Men started at the sight +of him, as at a spectre standing in the sun. And nevertheless +the apparition cast a shadow. People paused, approached, half +extended a hand through old habit, suddenly checked themselves +and passed on,--wondering they should have forgotten, asking +themselves why they had so nearly made an absurd mistake. + +It was a February day,--one of those crystalline days of our +snowless Southern winter, when the air is clear and cool, and +outlines sharpen in the light as if viewed through the focus of a +diamond glass;--and in that brightness Julien La Brierre perused +his own brief epitaph, and gazed upon the sculptured name of +drowned Adele. Only half a year had passed since she was laid +away in the high wall of tombs,--in that strange colonial +columbarium where the dead slept in rows, behind squared marbles +lettered in black or bronze. Yet her resting-place,--in the +highest range,--already seemed old. Under our Southern sun, the +vegetation of cemeteries seems to spring into being +spontaneously--to leap all suddenly into luxuriant life! +Microscopic mossy growths had begun to mottle the slab that +closed her in;--over its face some singular creeper was crawling, +planting tiny reptile-feet into the chiselled letters of the +inscription; and from the moist soil below speckled euphorbias +were growing up to her,--and morning glories,--and beautiful +green tangled things of which he did not know the name. + +And the sight of the pretty lizards, puffing their crimson +pouches in the sun, or undulating athwart epitaphs, and shifting +their color when approached, from emerald to ashen-gray;--the +caravans of the ants, journeying to and from tiny chinks in the +masonry;--the bees gathering honey from the crimson blossoms of +the crete-de-coq, whose radicles sought sustenance, perhaps from +human dust, in the decay of generations:--all that rich life of +graves summoned up fancies of Resurrection, Nature's +resurrection-work--wondrous transformations of flesh, marvellous +bans migration of souls! ... From some forgotten crevice of that +tomb roof, which alone intervened between her and the vast light, +a sturdy weed was growing. He knew that plant, as it quivered +against the blue,--the chou-gras, as Creole children call it: +its dark berries form the mockingbird's favorite food ... Might +not its roots, exploring darkness, have found some unfamiliar +nutriment within?--might it not be that something of the dead +heart had risen to purple and emerald life--in the sap of +translucent leaves, in the wine of the savage berries,--to blend +with the blood of the Wizard Singer,--to lend a strange sweetness +to the melody of his wooing? ... + +... Seldom, indeed, does it happen that a man in the prime of +youth, in the possession of wealth, habituated to comforts and +the elegances of life, discovers in one brief week how minute his +true relation to the human aggregate,---how insignificant his +part as one living atom of the social organism. Seldom, at the +age of twenty-eight, has one been made able to comprehend, +through experience alone, that in the vast and complex Stream of +Being he counts for less than a drop; and that, even as the blood +loses and replaces its corpuscles, without a variance in the +volume and vigor of its current, so are individual existences +eliminated and replaced in the pulsing of a people's life, with +never a pause in its mighty murmur. But all this, and much more, +Julien had learned in seven merciless days--seven successive and +terrible shocks of experience. The enormous world had not missed +him; and his place therein was not void--society had simply +forgotten him. So long as he had moved among them, all he knew +for friends had performed their petty altruistic roles,--had +discharged their small human obligations,--had kept turned toward +him the least selfish side of their natures,--had made with him a +tolerably equitable exchange of ideas and of favors; and after +his disappearance from their midst, they had duly mourned for his +loss--to themselves! They had played out the final act in the +unimportant drama of his life: it was really asking too much to +demand a repetition ... Impossible to deceive himself as to the +feeling his unanticipated return had aroused:--feigned pity where +he had looked for sympathetic welcome; dismay where he had +expected surprised delight; and, oftener, airs of resignation, or +disappointment ill disguised,--always insincerity, politely +masked or coldly bare. He had come back to find strangers in his +home, relatives at law concerning his estate, and himself +regarded as an intruder among the living,--an unlucky guest, a +revenant ... How hollow and selfish a world it seemed! And yet +there was love in it; he had been loved in it, unselfishly, +passionately, with the love of father and of mother, of wife and +child ... All buried!--all lost forever! ... Oh! would to God the +story of that stone were not a lie!--would to kind God he also +were dead! ... + +Evening shadowed: the violet deepened and prickled itself with +stars;---the sun passed below the west, leaving in his wake a +momentary splendor of vermilion ... our Southern day is not +prolonged by gloaming. And Julien's thoughts darkened with the +darkening, and as swiftly. For while there was yet light to see, +he read another name that he used to know--the name of RAMIREZ +... Nacio en Cienfuegos, isla de Cuba ... Wherefore born?--for +what eternal purpose, Ramirez,--in the City of a Hundred Fires? +He had blown out his brains before the sepulchre of his young +wife ... It was a detached double vault, shaped like a huge +chest, and much dilapidated already:--under the continuous +burrowing of the crawfish it had sunk greatly on one side, +tilting as if about to fall. Out from its zigzag fissurings of +brick and plaster, a sinister voice seemed to come:--"Go thou and +do likewise! ... Earth groans with her burthen even now,--the +burthen of Man: she holds no place for thee!" + + +VIII. + +... That voice pursued him into the darkness of his chilly +room,--haunted him in the silence of his lodging. And then began +within the man that ghostly struggle between courage and despair, +between patient reason and mad revolt, between weakness and +force, between darkness and light, which all sensitive and +generous natures must wage in their own souls at least +once--perhaps many times--in their lives. Memory, in such +moments, plays like an electric storm;--all involuntarily he +found himself reviewing his life. + +Incidents long forgotten came back with singular vividness: he +saw the Past as he had not seen it while it was the +Present;--remembrances of home, recollections of infancy, +recurred to him with terrible intensity,--the artless pleasures +and the trifling griefs, the little hurts and the tender +pettings, the hopes and the anxieties of those who loved him, the +smiles and tears of slaves ... And his first Creole pony, a +present from his father the day after he had proved himself able +to recite his prayers correctly in French, without one +mispronunciation--without saying crasse for grace,--and yellow +Michel, who taught him to swim and to fish and to paddle a +pirogue;--and the bayou, with its wonder-world of turtles and +birds and creeping things;--and his German tutor, who could not +pronounce the j;--and the songs of the cane-fields,--strangely +pleasing, full of quaverings and long plaintive notes, like the +call of the cranes ... Tou', tou' pays blanc! ... Afterward +Camaniere had leased the place;--everything must have been +changed; even the songs could not be the same. Tou', tou' pays +blare!--Danie qui commande ... + +And then Paris; and the university, with its wild +under-life,--some debts, some follies; and the frequent fond +letters from home to which he might have replied so much +oftener;--Paris, where talent is mediocrity; Paris, with its +thunders and its splendors and its seething of passion;--Paris, +supreme focus of human endeavor, with its madnesses of art, its +frenzied striving to express the Inexpressible, its spasmodic +strainings to clutch the Unattainable, its soarings of soul-fire +to the heaven of the Impossible ... + +What a rejoicing there was at his return!--how radiant and level +the long Road of the Future seemed to open before him! +--everywhere friends, prospects, felicitations. Then his first +serious love;--and the night of the ball at St. Martinsville, +--the vision of light! Gracile as a palm, and robed at once so +simply, so exquisitely in white, she had seemed to him the +supreme realization of all possible dreams of beauty ... And his +passionate jealousy; and the slap from Laroussel; and the +humiliating two-minute duel with rapiers in which he learned that +he had found his master. The scar was deep. Why had not +Laroussel killed him then? ... Not evil-hearted, Laroussel, +--they used to salute each other afterward when they met; and +Laroussel's smile was kindly. Why had he refrained from +returning it? Where was Laroussel now? + +For the death of his generous father, who had sacrificed so much +to reform him; for the death, only a short while after, of his +all-forgiving mother, he had found one sweet woman to console him +with her tender words, her loving lips, her delicious caress. +She had given him Zouzoune, the darling link between their +lives,--Zouzoune, who waited each evening with black Eglantine at +the gate to watch for his coming, and to cry through all the +house like a bird, "Papa, lape vini!--papa Zulien ape vini!" ... +And once that she had made him very angry by upsetting the ink +over a mass of business papers, and he had slapped her (could he +ever forgive himself?)--she had cried, through her sobs of +astonishment and pain:--"To laimin moin?--to batte moin!" (Thou +lovest me?--thou beatest me!) Next month she would have been five +years old. To laimin moin?--to batte moin! ... + +A furious paroxysm of grief convulsed him, suffocated him; it +seemed to him that something within must burst, must break. He +flung himself down upon his bed, biting the coverings in order to +stifle his outcry, to smother the sounds of his despair. What +crime had he ever done, oh God! that he should be made to suffer +thus?--was it for this he had been permitted to live? had been +rescued from the sea and carried round all the world unscathed? +Why should he live to remember, to suffer, to agonize? Was not +Ramirez wiser? + +How long the contest within him lasted, he never knew; but ere it +was done, he had become, in more ways than one, a changed man. +For the first,--though not indeed for the last time,--something +of the deeper and nobler comprehension of human weakness and of +human suffering had been revealed to him,--something of that +larger knowledge without which the sense of duty can never be +fully acquired, nor the understanding of unselfish goodness, nor +the spirit of tenderness. The suicide is not a coward; he is an +egotist. + +A ray of sunlight touched his wet pillow,--awoke him. He rushed +to the window, flung the latticed shutters apart, and looked out. + +Something beautiful and ghostly filled all the +vistas,--frost-haze; and in some queer way the mist had +momentarily caught and held the very color of the sky. An azure +fog! Through it the quaint and checkered street--as yet but half +illumined by the sun,--took tones of impossible color; the view +paled away through faint bluish tints into transparent +purples;--all the shadows were indigo. How sweet the +morning!--how well life seemed worth living! Because the sun had +shown his face through a fairy veil of frost! ... + +Who was the ancient thinker?--was it Hermes?--who said:-- + +"The Sun is Laughter; for 'tis He who maketh joyous the thoughts +of men, and gladdeneth the infinite world." ... + + + +The Shadow of the Tide. + +I. + +Carmen found that her little pet had been taught how to pray; for +each night and morning when the devout woman began to make her +orisons, the child would kneel beside her, with little hands +joined, and in a voice sweet and clear murmur something she had +learned by heart. Much as this pleased Carmen, it seemed to her +that the child's prayers could not be wholly valid unless uttered +in Spanish;--for Spanish was heaven's own tongue,--la lengua de +Dios, el idioma de Dios; and she resolved to teach her to say the +Salve Maria and the Padre Nuestro in Castilian--also, her own +favorite prayer to the Virgin, beginning with the words, "Madre +santisima, toda dulce y hermosa." . . . + +So Conchita--for a new name had been given to her with that +terrible sea christening--received her first lessons in Spanish; +and she proved a most intelligent pupil. Before long she could +prattle to Feliu;--she would watch for his return of evenings, +and announce his coming with "Aqui viene mi papacito?"--she +learned, too, from Carmen, many little caresses of speech to +greet him with. Feliu's was not a joyous nature; he had his dark +hours, his sombre days; yet it was rarely that he felt too sullen +to yield to the little one's petting, when she would leap up to +reach his neck and to coax his kiss, with--"Dame un beso, +papa!--asi;--y otro! otro! otro!" He grew to love her like his +own;--was she not indeed his own, since he had won her from +death? And none had yet come to dispute his claim. More and +more, with the passing of weeks, months, seasons, she became a +portion of his life--a part of all that he wrought for. At the +first, he had had a half-formed hope that the little one might be +reclaimed by relatives generous and rich enough to insist upon +his acceptance of a handsome compensation; and that Carmen could +find some solace in a pleasant visit to Barceloneta. But now he +felt that no possible generosity could requite him for her loss; +and with the unconscious selfishness of affection, he commenced +to dread her identification as a great calamity. + +It was evident that she had been brought up nicely. She had +pretty prim ways of drinking and eating, queer little fashions of +sitting in company, and of addressing people. She had peculiar +notions about colors in dress, about wearing her hair; and she +seemed to have already imbibed a small stock of social prejudices +not altogether in harmony with the republicanism of Viosca's +Point. Occasional swarthy visitors,--men of the Manilla +settlements,--she spoke of contemptuously as negues-marrons; and +once she shocked Carmen inexpressibly by stopping in the middle +of her evening prayer, declaring that she wanted to say her +prayers to a white Virgin; Carmen's Senora de Guadalupe was only +a negra! Then, for the first time, Carmen spoke so crossly to +the child as to frighten her. But the pious woman's heart smote +her the next moment for that first harsh word;--and she caressed +the motherless one, consoled her, cheered her, and at last +explained to her--I know not how--something very wonderful about +the little figurine, something that made Chita's eyes big with +awe. Thereafter she always regarded the Virgin of Wax as an +object mysterious and holy. + +And, one by one, most of Chita's little eccentricities were +gradually eliminated from her developing life and thought. More +rapidly than ordinary children, because singularly intelligent, +she learned to adapt herself to all the changes of her new +environment,--retaining only that indescribable something which +to an experienced eye tells of hereditary refinement of habit and +of mind:--a natural grace, a thorough-bred ease and elegance of +movement, a quickness and delicacy of perception. + +She became strong again and active--active enough to play a great +deal on the beach, when the sun was not too fierce; and Carmen +made a canvas bonnet to shield her head and face. Never had she +been allowed to play so much in the sun before; and it seemed to +do her good, though her little bare feet and hands became brown +as copper. At first, it must be confessed, she worried her +foster-mother a great deal by various queer misfortunes and +extraordinary freaks;--getting bitten by crabs, falling into the +bayou while in pursuit of "fiddlers," or losing herself at the +conclusion of desperate efforts to run races at night with the +moon, or to walk to the "end of the world." If she could only +once get to the edge of the sky, she said, she "could climb up." +She wanted to see the stars, which were the souls of good little +children; and she knew that God would let her climb up. "Just +what I am afraid of!"--thought Carmen to herself;--"He might let +her climb up,--a little ghost!" But one day naughty Chita +received a terrible lesson,--a lasting lesson,--which taught her +the value of obedience. + +She had been particularly cautioned not to venture into a certain +part of the swamp in the rear of the grove, where the weeds were +very tall; for Carmen was afraid some snake might bite the child. + +But Chita's bird-bright eye had discerned a gleam of white in +that direction; and she wanted to know what it was. The white +could only be seen from one point, behind the furthest house, +where the ground was high. "Never go there," said Carmen; "there +is a Dead Man there,--will bite you!" And yet, one day, while +Carmen was unusually busy, Chita went there. + +In the early days of the settlement, a Spanish fisherman had +died; and his comrades had built him a little tomb with the +surplus of the same bricks and other material brought down the +bayou for the construction of Viosca's cottages. But no one, +except perhaps some wandering duck hunter, had approached the +sepulchre for years. High weeds and grasses wrestled together +all about it, and rendered it totally invisible from the +surrounding level of the marsh. + +Fiddlers swarmed away as Chita advanced over the moist soil, each +uplifting its single huge claw as it sidled off;--then frogs +began to leap before her as she reached the thicker grass;--and +long-legged brown insects sprang showering to right and left as +she parted the tufts of the thickening verdure. As she went on, +the bitter-weeds disappeared;--jointed grasses and sinewy dark +plants of a taller growth rose above her head: she was almost +deafened by the storm of insect shrilling, and the mosquitoes +became very wicked. All at once something long and black and +heavy wriggled almost from under her naked feet,--squirming so +horribly that for a minute or two she could not move for fright. +But it slunk away somewhere, and hid itself; the weeds it had +shaken ceased to tremble in its wake; and her courage returned. +She felt such an exquisite and fearful pleasure in the +gratification of that naughty curiosity! Then, quite +unexpectedly--oh! what a start it gave her!--the solitary white +object burst upon her view, leprous and ghastly as the yawn of a +cotton-mouth. Tombs ruin soon in Louisiana;--the one Chita +looked upon seemed ready to topple down. There was a great +ragged hole at one end, where wind and rain, and perhaps also the +burrowing of crawfish and of worms, had loosened the bricks, and +caused them to slide out of place. It seemed very black inside; +but Chita wanted to know what was there. She pushed her way +through a gap in the thin and rotten line of pickets, and through +some tall weeds with big coarse pink flowers;--then she crouched +down on hands and knees before the black hole, and peered in. It +was not so black inside as she had thought; for a sunbeam slanted +down through a chink in the roof; and she could see! + +A brown head--without hair, without eyes, but with teeth, ever so +many teeth!--seemed to laugh at her; and close to it sat a Toad, +the hugest she had ever seen; and the white skin of his throat +kept puffing out and going in. And Chita screamed and screamed, +and fled in wild terror,--screaming all the way, till Carmen ran +out to meet her and carry her home. Even when safe in her +adopted mother's arms, she sobbed with fright. To the vivid +fancy of the child there seemed to be some hideous relation +between the staring reptile and the brown death's-head, with its +empty eyes, and its nightmare-smile. + +The shock brought on a fever,--a fever that lasted several days, +and left her very weak. But the experience taught her to obey, +taught her that Carmen knew best what was for her good. It also +caused her to think a great deal. Carmen had told her that the +dead people never frightened good little girls who stayed at +home. + +--"Madrecita Carmen," she asked, "is my mamma dead?" + +--"Pobrecita! .... Yes, my angel. God called her to Him,--your +darling mother." + +--"Madrecita," she asked again,--her young eyes growing vast +with horror,--"is my own mamma now like That?" ... She pointed +toward the place of the white gleam, behind the great trees. + +--"No, no, no! my darling!" cried Carmen, appalled herself by +the ghastly question,--"your mamma is with the dear, good, +loving God, who lives in the beautiful sky, above the clouds, my +darling, beyond the sun!" + +But Carmen's kind eyes were full of tears; and the child read +their meaning. He who teareth off the Mask of the Flesh had +looked into her face one unutterable moment:--she had seen the +brutal Truth, naked to the bone! + +Yet there came to her a little thrill of consolation, caused by +the words of the tender falsehood; for that which she had +discerned by day could not explain to her that which she saw +almost nightly in her slumber. The face, the voice, the form +of her loving mother still lived somewhere,--could not have +utterly passed away; since the sweet presence came to her in +dreams, bending and smiling over her, caressing her, speaking to +her,--sometimes gently chiding, but always chiding with a kiss. +And then the child would laugh in her sleep, and prattle in +Creole,--talking to the luminous shadow, telling the dead mother +all the little deeds and thoughts of the day.... Why would God +only let her come at night? + +... Her idea of God had been first defined by the sight of a +quaint French picture of the Creation,--an engraving which +represented a shoreless sea under a black sky, and out of the +blackness a solemn and bearded gray head emerging, and a cloudy +hand through which stars glimmered. God was like old Doctor de +Coulanges, who used to visit the house, and talk in a voice like +a low roll of thunder.... At a later day, when Chita had been +told that God was "everywhere at the same time "--without and +within, beneath and above all things,--this idea became somewhat +changed. The awful bearded face, the huge shadowy hand, did not +fade from her thought; but they became fantastically blended with +the larger and vaguer notion of something that filled the world +and reached to the stars,--something diaphanous and +incomprehensible like the invisible air, omnipresent and +everlasting like the high blue of heaven .... + + +II. + +... She began to learn the life of the coast. + +With her acquisition of another tongue, there came to her also +the understanding of many things relating to the world of the sea +She memorized with novel delight much that was told her day by +day concerning the nature surrounding her,--many secrets of the +air, many of those signs of heaven which the dwellers in cities +cannot comprehend because the atmosphere is thickened and made +stagnant above them--cannot even watch because the horizon is +hidden from their eyes by walls, and by weary avenues of trees +with whitewashed trunks. She learned, by listening, by asking, +by observing also, how to know the signs that foretell wild +weather:--tremendous sunsets, scuddings and bridgings of +cloud,--sharpening and darkening of the sea-line,--and the shriek +of gulls flashing to land in level flight, out of a still +transparent sky,--and halos about the moon. + +She learned where the sea-birds, with white bosoms and brown +wings, made their hidden nests of sand,--and where the cranes +waded for their prey,--and where the beautiful wild-ducks, +plumaged in satiny lilac and silken green, found their food,--and +where the best reeds grew to furnish stems for Feliu's red-clay +pipe,--and where the ruddy sea-beans were most often tossed upon +the shore,--and how the gray pelicans fished all together, like +men--moving in far-extending semicircles, beating the flood with +their wings to drive the fish before them. + +And from Carmen she learned the fables and the sayings of the +sea,--the proverbs about its deafness, its avarice, its +treachery, its terrific power,--especially one that haunted her +for all time thereafter: Si quieres aprender a orar, entra en el +mar (If thou wouldst learn to pray, go to the sea). She learned +why the sea is salt,--how "the tears of women made the waves of +the sea,"--and how the sea has ii no friends,"--and how the +cat's eyes change with the tides. + +What had she lost of life by her swift translation from the dusty +existence of cities to the open immensity of nature's freedom? +What did she gain? + +Doubtless she was saved from many of those little bitternesses +and restraints and disappointments which all well-bred city +children must suffer in the course of their training for the more +or less factitious life of society:--obligations to remain very +still with every nimble nerve quivering in dumb revolt;--the +injustice of being found troublesome and being sent to bed early +for the comfort of her elders;--the cruel necessity of straining +her pretty eyes, for many long hours at a time, over grimy desks +in gloomy school-rooms, though birds might twitter and bright +winds flutter in the trees without;--the austere constrains +and heavy drowsiness of warm churches, filled with the droning +echoes of a voice preaching incomprehensible things;--the +progressively augmenting weariness of lessons in deportment, in +dancing, in music, in the impossible art of keeping her dresses +unruffled and unsoiled. Perhaps she never had any reason to +regret all these. + +She went to sleep and awakened with the wild birds;--her life +remained as unfettered by formalities as her fine feet by shoes. +Excepting Carmen's old prayer-book,--in which she learned to read +a little,--her childhood passed without books,--also without +pictures, without dainties, without music, without theatrical +amusements. But she saw and heard and felt much of that which, +though old as the heavens and the earth, is yet eternally new and +eternally young with the holiness of beauty,--eternally mystical +and divine,---eternally weird: the unveiled magnificence of +Nature's moods,--the perpetual poem hymned by wind and +surge,--the everlasting splendor of the sky. + +She saw the quivering pinkness of waters curled by the breath of +the morning--under the deepening of the dawn--like a far +fluttering and scattering of rose-leaves of fire;-- + +Saw the shoreless, cloudless, marvellous double-circling azure of +perfect summer days--twin glories of infinite deeps inter. +reflected, while the Soul of the World lay still, suffused with a +jewel-light, as of vaporized sapphire;-- + +Saw the Sea shift color,--"change sheets,"--when the viewless +Wizard of the Wind breathed upon its face, and made it green;-- + +Saw the immeasurable panics,--noiseless, scintillant,--which +silver, summer after summer, curved leagues of beach with bodies +of little fish--the yearly massacre of migrating populations, +nations of sea-trout, driven from their element by terror;--and +the winnowing of shark-fins,--and the rushing of porpoises,--and +the rising of the grande-ecaille, like a pillar of flame,--and +the diving and pitching and fighting of the frigates and the +gulls,--and the armored hordes of crabs swarming out to clear the +slope after the carnage and the gorging had been done;-- + +Saw the Dreams of the Sky,--scudding mockeries of ridged +foam,--and shadowy stratification of capes and coasts and +promontories long-drawn out,--and imageries, multicolored, of +mountain frondage, and sierras whitening above sierras,--and +phantom islands ringed around with lagoons of glory;--- + +Saw the toppling and smouldering of cloud-worlds after the +enormous conflagration of sunsets,--incandescence ruining into +darkness; and after it a moving and climbing of stars among the +blacknesses,--like searching lamps;-- + +Saw the deep kindle countless ghostly candles as for mysterious +night-festival,--and a luminous billowing under a black sky, and +effervescences of fire, and the twirling and crawling of +phosphoric foam;-- + +Saw the mesmerism of the Moon;--saw the enchanted tides +self-heaped in muttering obeisance before her. + +Often she heard the Music of the Marsh through the night: an +infinity of flutings and tinklings made by tiny amphibia,--like +the low blowing of numberless little tin horns, the clanking of +billions of little bells;--and, at intervals, profound tones, +vibrant and heavy, as of a bass viol--the orchestra of the great +frogs! And interweaving with it all, one continuous +shrilling,--keen as the steel speech of a saw,--the stridulous +telegraphy of crickets. + +But always,--always, dreaming or awake, she heard the huge blind +Sea chanting that mystic and eternal hymn, which none may hear +without awe, which no musician can learn,-- + +Heard the hoary Preacher,--El Pregonador,--preaching the ancient +Word, the word "as a fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the +rock in pieces,"--the Elohim--Word of the Sea! ... + +Unknowingly she came to know the immemorial sympathy of the mind +with the Soul of the World,--the melancholy wrought by its moods +of gray, the reverie responsive to its vagaries of mist, the +exhilaration of its vast exultings--days of windy joy, hours of +transfigured light. + +She felt,--even without knowing it,--the weight of the Silences, +the solemnities of sky and sea in these low regions where all +things seem to dream--waters and grasses with their momentary +wavings,--woods gray-webbed with mosses that drip and +drool,--horizons with their delusions of vapor,--cranes +meditating in their marshes,--kites floating in the high blue.... +Even the children were singularly quiet; and their play less +noisy--though she could not have learned the difference--than the +play of city children. Hour after hour, the women sewed or wove +in silence. And the brown men,--always barefooted, always +wearing rough blue shirts,--seemed, when they lounged about the +wharf on idle days, as if they had told each other long ago all +they knew or could ever know, and had nothing more to say. They +would stare at the flickering of the current, at the drifting of +clouds and buzzard:--seldom looking at each other, and always +turning their black eyes again, in a weary way, to sky or sea. +Even thus one sees the horses and the cattle of the coast, +seeking the beach to escape the whizzing flies;--all watch the +long waves rolling in, and sometimes turn their heads a moment to +look at one another, but always look back to the waves again, as +if wondering at a mystery.... + +How often she herself had wondered--wondered at the multiform +changes of each swell as it came in--transformations of tint, of +shape, of motion, that seemed to betoken a life infinitely more +subtle than the strange cold life of lizards and of fishes,--and +sinister, and spectral. Then they all appeared to move in +order,--according to one law or impulse;--each had its own voice, +yet all sang one and the same everlasting song. Vaguely, as she +watched them and listened to them, there came to her the idea of +a unity of will in their motion, a unity of menace in their +utterance--the idea of one monstrous and complex life! The sea +lived: it could crawl backward and forward; it could speak!--it +only feigned deafness and sightlessness for some malevolent end. +Thenceforward she feared to find herself alone with it. Was it +not at her that it strove to rush, muttering, and showing its +white teeth, ... just because it knew that she was all by +herself? ... Si quieres aprender a orar, entra en el mar! And +Concha had well learned to pray. But the sea seemed to her the +one Power which God could not make to obey Him as He pleased. +Saying the creed one day, she repeated very slowly the opening +words,--"Creo en un Dios, padre todopoderoso, Criador de cielo y +de la tierra,"--and paused and thought. Creator of Heaven and +Earth? "Madrecita Carmen," she asked,--"quien entonces hizo el +mar?" (who then made the sea?). + +--"Dios, mi querida," answered Carmen.--"God, my darling.... +All things were made by Him" ( todas las cosas fueron hechas por +El). + +Even the wicked Sea! And He had said unto it: "Thus far, and no +farther." ... Was that why it had not overtaken and devoured +her when she ran back in fear from the sudden reaching out of its +waves? Thus far....? But there were times when it +disobeyed--when it rushed further, shaking the world! Was it +because God was then asleep--could not hear, did not see, until +too late? + +And the tumultuous ocean terrified her more and more: it filled +her sleep with enormous nightmare;--it came upon her in dreams, +mountain-shadowing,--holding her with its spell, smothering her +power of outcry, heaping itself to the stars. + +Carmen became alarmed;--she feared that the nervous and delicate +child might die in one of those moaning dreams out of which she +had to arouse her, night after night. But Feliu, answering her +anxiety with one of his favorite proverbs, suggested a heroic +remedy:-- + +--"The world is like the sea: those who do not know how to swim +in it are drowned;--and the sea is like the world," he added.... +"Chita must learn to swim!" + +And he found the time to teach her. Each morning, at sunrise, he +took her into the water. She was less terrified the first time +than Carmen thought she would be;--she seemed to feel confidence +in Feliu; although she screamed piteously before her first +ducking at his hands. His teaching was not gentle. He would +carry her out, perched upon his shoulder, until the water rose to +his own neck; and there he would throw her from him, and let her +struggle to reach him again as best she could. The first few +mornings she had to be pulled out almost at once; but after that +Feliu showed her less mercy, and helped her only when he saw she +was really in danger. He attempted no other instruction until +she had learned that in order to save herself from being half +choked by the salt water, she must not scream; and by the time +she became habituated to these austere experiences, she had +already learned by instinct alone how to keep herself afloat for +a while, how to paddle a little with her hands. Then he +commenced to train her to use them,--to lift them well out and +throw them forward as if reaching, to dip them as the blade of an +oar is dipped at an angle, without loud splashing;--and he showed +her also how to use her feet. She learned rapidly and +astonishingly well. In less than two months Feliu felt really +proud at the progress made by his tiny pupil: it was a delight +to watch her lifting her slender arms above the water in swift, +easy curves, with the same fine grace that marked all her other +natural motions. Later on he taught her not to fear the sea even +when it growled a little,--how to ride a swell, how to face a +breaker, how to dive. She only needed practice thereafter; and +Carmen, who could also swim, finding the child's health improving +marvellously under this new discipline, took good care that Chita +should practice whenever the mornings were not too cold, or the +water too rough. + +With the first thrill of delight at finding herself able to glide +over the water unassisted, the child's superstitious terror of +the sea passed away. Even for the adult there are few physical +joys keener than the exultation of the swimmer;--how much greater +the same glee as newly felt by an imaginative child,--a child, +whose vivid fancy can lend unutterable value to the most +insignificant trifles, can transform a weed-patch to an Eden! ... +Of her own accord she would ask for her morning bath, as soon as +she opened her eyes;--it even required some severity to prevent +her from remaining in the water too long. The sea appeared to +her as something that had become tame for her sake, something +that loved her in a huge rough way; a tremendous playmate, whom +she no longer feared to see come bounding and barking to lick her +feet. And, little by little, she also learned the wonderful +healing and caressing power of the monster, whose cool embrace at +once dispelled all drowsiness, feverishness, weariness,--even +after the sultriest nights when the air had seemed to burn, and +the mosquitoes had filled the chamber with a sound as of water +boiling in many kettles. And on mornings when the sea was in too +wicked a humor to be played with, how she felt the loss of her +loved sport, and prayed for calm! Her delicate constitution +changed;--the soft, pale flesh became firm and brown, the meagre +limbs rounded into robust symmetry, the thin cheeks grew peachy +with richer life; for the strength of the sea had entered into +her; the sharp breath of the sea had renewed and brightened her +young blood.... + +... Thou primordial Sea, the awfulness of whose antiquity hath +stricken all mythology dumb;--thou most wrinkled diving Sea, the +millions of whose years outnumber even the multitude of thy hoary +motions;--thou omniform and most mysterious Sea, mother of the +monsters and the gods,--whence shine eternal youth? Still do thy +waters hold the infinite thrill of that Spirit which brooded +above their face in the Beginning!--still is thy quickening +breath an elixir unto them that flee to thee for life,--like the +breath of young girls, like the breath of children, prescribed +for the senescent by magicians of old,--prescribed unto weazened +elders in the books of the Wizards. + + +III + +... Eighteen hundred and sixty-seven;--midsummer in the +pest-smitten city of New Orleans. + +Heat motionless and ponderous. The steel-blue of the sky +bleached from the furnace-circle of the horizon;--the lukewarm +river ran yellow and noiseless as a torrent of fluid wax. Even +sounds seemed blunted by the heaviness of the air;--the rumbling +of wheels, the reverberation of footsteps, fell half-toned upon +the ear, like sounds that visit a dozing brain. + +Daily, almost at the same hour, the continuous sense of +atmospheric oppression became thickened;--a packed herd of +low-bellying clouds lumbered up from the Gulf; crowded blackly +against the sun; flickered, thundered, and burst in torrential +rain--tepid, perpendicular--and vanished utterly away. Then, +more furiously than before, the sun flamed down;--roofs and +pavements steamed; the streets seemed to smoke; the air grew +suffocating with vapor; and the luminous city filled with a +faint, sickly odor,--a stale smell, as of dead leaves suddenly +disinterred from wet mould,--as of grasses decomposing after a +flood. Something saffron speckled the slimy water of the +gutters; sulphur some called it; others feared even to give it a +name! Was it only the wind-blown pollen of some innocuous plant? + +I do not know; but to many it seemed as if the Invisible +Destruction were scattering visible seed! ... Such were the +days; and each day the terror-stricken city offered up its +hecatomb to death; and the faces of all the dead were yellow as +flame! + +"DECEDE--; "DECEDEE--; "FALLECIO;"--"DIED." ... On the +door-posts, the telegraph-poles, the pillars of verandas, the +lamps,--over the government letter-boxes,--everywhere glimmered +the white annunciations of death. All the city was spotted with +them. And lime was poured into the gutters; and huge purifying +fires were kindled after sunset. + +The nights began with a black heat;--there were hours when the +acrid air seemed to ferment for stagnation, and to burn the +bronchial tubing;--then, toward morning, it would grow chill with +venomous vapors, with morbific dews,--till the sun came up to +lift the torpid moisture, and to fill the buildings with +oven-glow. And the interminable procession of mourners and +hearses and carriages again began to circulate between the +centres of life and of death;--and long trains and steamships +rushed from the port, with heavy burden of fugitives. + +Wealth might flee; yet even in flight there was peril. Men, who +might have been saved by the craft of experienced nurses at home, +hurriedly departed in apparent health, unconsciously carrying in +their blood the toxic principle of a malady unfamiliar to +physicians of the West and North;--and they died upon their way, +by the road-side, by the river-banks, in woods, in deserted +stations, on the cots of quarantine hospitals. Wiser those who +sought refuge in the purity of the pine forests, or in those near +Gulf Islands, whence the bright sea-breath kept ever sweeping +back the expanding poison into the funereal swamps, into the +misty lowlands. The watering-resorts became overcrowded;--then +the fishing villages were thronged,--at least all which were easy +to reach by steamboat or by lugger. And at last, even Viosca's +Point,--remote and unfamiliar as it was,--had a stranger to +shelter: a good old gentleman named Edwards, rather broken down +in health--who came as much for quiet as for sea-air, and who had +been warmly recommended to Feliu by Captain Harris. For some +years he had been troubled by a disease of the heart. + +Certainly the old invalid could not have found a more suitable +place so far as rest and quiet were concerned. The season had +early given such little promise that several men of the Point +betook themselves elsewhere; and the aged visitor had two or +three vacant cabins from among which to select a dwelling-place. +He chose to occupy the most remote of all, which Carmen furnished +for him with a cool moss bed and some necessary +furniture,--including a big wooden rocking-chair. It seemed to +him very comfortable thus. He took his meals with the family, +spent most of the day in his own quarters, spoke very little, and +lived so unobtrusively and inconspicuously that his presence in +the settlement was felt scarcely more than that of some dumb +creature,--some domestic animal,--some humble pet whose relation +to the family is only fully comprehended after it has failed to +appear for several days in its accustomed place of patient +waiting,--and we know that it is dead. + + +IV. + +Persistently and furiously, at half-past two o'clock of an August +morning, Sparicio rang Dr. La Brierre's night-bell. He had +fifty dollars in his pocket, and a letter to deliver. He was to +earn another fifty dollars--deposited in Feliu's hands,--by +bringing the Doctor to Viosca's Point. He had risked his life +for that money,--and was terribly in earnest. + +Julien descended in his under-clothing, and opened the letter by +the light of the hall lamp. It enclosed a check for a larger fee +than he had ever before received, and contained an urgent request +that he would at once accompany Sparicio to Viosca's Point,--as +the sender was in hourly danger of death. The letter, penned in +a long, quavering hand, was signed,--"Henry Edwards." + +His father's dear old friend! Julien could not refuse to +go,--though he feared it was a hopeless case. Angina +pectoris,--and a third attack at seventy years of age! Would it +even be possible to reach the sufferer's bedside in time? "Due +giorno,--con vento,"--said Sparicio. Still, he must go; and at +once. It was Friday morning;--might reach the Point Saturday +night, with a good wind ... He roused his housekeeper, gave all +needful instructions, prepared his little medicine-chest;--and +long before the first rose-gold fire of day had flashed to the +city spires, he was sleeping the sleep of exhaustion in the tiny +cabin of a fishing-sloop. + +... For eleven years Julien had devoted himself, heart and soul, +to the exercise of that profession he had first studied rather as +a polite accomplishment than as a future calling. In the +unselfish pursuit of duty he had found the only possible +consolation for his irreparable loss; and when the war came to +sweep away his wealth, he entered the struggle valorously, not to +strive against men, but to use his science against death. After +the passing of that huge shock, which left all the imposing and +splendid fabric of Southern feudalism wrecked forever, his +profession stood him in good stead;--he found himself not only +able to supply those personal wants he cared to satisfy, but also +to alleviate the misery of many whom he had known in days of +opulence;--the princely misery that never doffed its smiling +mask, though living in secret, from week to week, on bread and +orange-leaf tea;--the misery that affected condescension in +accepting an invitation to dine,--staring at the face of a watch +(refused by the Mont-de-Piete) with eyes half blinded by +starvation;--the misery which could afford but one robe for three +marriageable daughters,--one plain dress to be worn in turn by +each of them, on visiting days;--the pretty misery--young, brave, +sweet,--asking for a "treat" of cakes too jocosely to have its +asking answered,--laughing and coquetting with its well-fed +wooers, and crying for hunger after they were gone. Often and +often, his heart had pleaded against his purse for such as these, +and won its case in the silent courts of Self. But ever +mysteriously the gift came,--sometimes as if from the hand of a +former slave; sometimes as from a remorseful creditor, ashamed to +write his name. Only yellow Victorine knew; but the Doctor's +housekeeper never opened those sphinx-lips of hers, until years +after the Doctor's name had disappeared from the City Directory +... + +He had grown quite thin,--a little gray. The epidemic had +burthened him with responsibilities too multifarious and +ponderous for his slender strength to bear. The continual +nervous strain of abnormally protracted duty, the perpetual +interruption of sleep, had almost prostrated even his will. Now +he only hoped that, during this brief absence from the city, he +might find renewed strength to do his terrible task. + +Mosquitoes bit savagely; and the heat became thicker;--and there +was yet no wind. Sparicio and his hired boy Carmelo had been +walking backward and forward for hours overhead,--urging the +vessel yard by yard, with long poles, through the slime of canals +and bayous. With every heavy push, the weary boy would sigh +out,--"Santo Antonio!--Santo Antonio!" Sullen Sparicio himself +at last burst into vociferations of ill-humor:--"Santo +Antonio?--Ah! santissimu e santu diavulu! ... Sacramentu paescite +vegnu un asidente!--malidittu lu Signuri!" All through the +morning they walked and pushed, trudged and sighed and swore; and +the minutes dragged by more wearily than the shuffling of their +feet. "Managgia Cristo co tutta a croce!" ... "Santissimu e +santu diavulu!" ... + +But as they reached at last the first of the broad bright lakes, +the heat lifted, the breeze leaped up, the loose sail flapped and +filled; and, bending graciously as a skater, the old San Marco +began to shoot in a straight line over the blue flood. Then, +while the boy sat at the tiller, Sparicio lighted his tiny +charcoal furnace below, and prepared a simple meal,--delicious +yellow macaroni, flavored with goats' cheese; some fried fish, +that smelled appetizingly; and rich black coffee, of Oriental +fragrance and thickness. Julien ate a little, and lay down to +sleep again. This time his rest was undisturbed by the +mosquitoes; and when he woke, in the cooling evening, he felt +almost refreshed. The San Marco was flying into Barataria Bay. +Already the lantern in the lighthouse tower had begun to glow +like a little moon; and right on the rim of the sea, a vast and +vermilion sun seemed to rest his chin. Gray pelicans came +flapping around the mast;--sea-birds sped hurtling by, their +white bosoms rose-flushed by the western glow ... Again +Sparicio's little furnace was at work,--more fish, more macaroni, +more black coffee; also a square-shouldered bottle of gin made +its appearance. Julien ate less sparingly at this second meal; +and smoked a long time on deck with Sparicio, who suddenly became +very good-humored, and chatted volubly in bad Spanish, and in +much worse English. Then while the boy took a few hours' sleep, +the Doctor helped delightedly in maneuvering the little vessel. +He had been a good yachtsman in other years; and Sparicio +declared he would make a good fisherman. By midnight the San +Marco began to run with a long, swinging gait;--she had reached +deep water. Julien slept soundly; the steady rocking of the +sloop seemed to soothe his nerves. + + --"After all, " he thought to himself, as he rose from his +little bunk next morning,--"something like this is just what I +needed." ... The pleasant scent of hot coffee greeted +him;--Carmelo was handing him the tin cup containing it, down +through the hatchway. After drinking it he felt really +hungry;--he ate more macaroni than he had ever eaten before. +Then, while Sparicio slept, he aided Carmelo; and during the +middle of the day he rested again. He had not had so much +uninterrupted repose for many a week. He fancied he could feel +himself getting strong. At supper-time it seemed to him he could +not get enough to eat,--although there was plenty for everybody. + +All day long there had been exactly the same wave-crease +distorting the white shadow of the San Marco's sail upon the blue +water;--all day long they had been skimming over the liquid level +of a world so jewel-blue that the low green ribbon-strips of +marsh land, the far-off fleeing lines of pine-yellow sand beach, +seemed flaws or breaks in the perfected color of the +universe;--all day long had the cloudless sky revealed through +all its exquisite transparency that inexpressible tenderness +which no painter and no poet can ever reimage,--that unutterable +sweetness which no art of man may ever shadow forth, and which +none may ever comprehend,--though we feel it to be in some +strange way akin to the luminous and unspeakable charm that makes +us wonder at the eyes of a woman when she loves. + +Evening came; and the great dominant celestial tone +deepened;--the circling horizon filled with ghostly +tints,--spectral greens and grays, and pearl-lights and +fish-colors ... Carmelo, as he crouched at the tiller, was +singing, in a low, clear alto, some tristful little melody. Over +the sea, behind them, lay, black-stretching, a long low arm of +island-shore;--before them flamed the splendor of sun-death; they +were sailing into a mighty glory,--into a vast and awful light of +gold. + +Shading his vision with his fingers, Sparicio pointed to the long +lean limb of land from which they were fleeing, and said to La +Brierre:-- + +--"Look-a, Doct-a! Last-a Islan'!" + +Julien knew it;--he only nodded his head in reply, and looked the +other way,--into the glory of God. Then, wishing to divert the +fisherman's attention to another theme, he asked what was Carmelo +singing. Sparicio at once shouted to the lad:-- + +--"Ha! ... ho! Carmelo!--Santu diavulu! ... Sing-a loud-a! +Doct-a lik-a! Sing-a! sing!" .... "He sing-a nicee,"--added +the boatman, with his peculiar dark smile. And then Carmelo +sang, loud and clearly, the song he had been singing before,--one +of those artless Mediterranean ballads, full of caressing +vowel-sounds, and young passion, and melancholy beauty:-- + +"M'ama ancor, belta fulgente, +Come tu m'amasti allor;-- +Ascoltar non dei gente, +Solo interroga il tuo cor." ... + +--"He sing-a nicee,--mucha bueno!" murmured the fisherman. And +then, suddenly,--with a rich and splendid basso that seemed to +thrill every fibre of the planking,--Sparicio joined in the +song:-- + +"M'ama pur d'amore eterno, +Ne deilitto sembri a te; +T'assicuro che l'inferno +Una favola sol e." ... + +All the roughness of the man was gone! To Julien's startled +fancy, the fishers had ceased to be;--lo! Carmelo was a princely +page; Sparicio, a king! How perfectly their voices married +together!--they sang with passion, with power, with truth, with +that wondrous natural art which is the birthright of the rudest +Italian soul. And the stars throbbed out in the heaven; and the +glory died in the west; and the night opened its heart; and the +splendor of the eternities fell all about them. Still they sang; +and the San Marco sped on through the soft gloom, ever slightly +swerved by the steady blowing of the southeast wind in her +sail;--always wearing the same crimpling-frill of wave-spray +about her prow,--always accompanied by the same smooth-backed +swells,--always spinning out behind her the same long trail of +interwoven foam. And Julien looked up. Ever the night thrilled +more and more with silent twinklings;--more and more +multitudinously lights pointed in the eternities;--the Evening +Star quivered like a great drop of liquid white fire ready to +fall;--Vega flamed as a pharos lighting the courses ethereal,--to +guide the sailing of the suns, and the swarming of fleets of +worlds. Then the vast sweetness of that violet night entered +into his blood,--filled him with that awful joy, so near akin to +sadness, which the sense of the Infinite brings,--when one feels +the poetry of the Most Ancient and Most Excellent of Poets, and +then is smitten at once with the contrast-thought of the +sickliness and selfishness of Man,--of the blindness and +brutality of cities, whereinto the divine blue light never purely +comes, and the sanctification of the Silences never descends ... +furious cities, walled away from heaven ... Oh! if one could only +sail on thus always, always through such a night--through such a +star-sprinkled violet light, and hear Sparicio and Carmelo sing, +even though it were the same melody always, always the same song! + +... "Scuza, Doct-a!--look-a out!" Julien bent down, as the big +boom, loosened, swung over his head. The San Marco was rounding +into shore,--heading for her home. Sparicio lifted a huge +conch-shell from the deck, put it to his lips, filled his deep +lungs, and flung out into the night--thrice--a profound, +mellifluent, booming horn-tone. A minute passed. Then, ghostly +faint, as an echo from very far away, a triple blowing responded +... + +And a long purple mass loomed and swelled into sight, heightened, +approached--land and trees black-shadowing, and lights that swung +... The San Marco glided into a bayou,--under a high wharfing of +timbers, where a bearded fisherman waited, and a woman. Sparicio +flung up a rope. + +The bearded man caught it by the lantern-light, and tethered the +San Marco to her p]ace. Then he asked, in a deep voice: + +-"Has traido al Doctor?" + +-"Si, si!" answered Sparicio... "Y el viejo?" + +-"Aye! pobre!" responded Feliu,--"hace tres dias que esta +muerto. " + +Henry Edwards was dead! + +He had died very suddenly, without a cry or a word, while resting +in his rocking-chair,--the very day after Sparicio had sailed. +They had made him a grave in the marsh,--among the high weeds, +not far from the ruined tomb of the Spanish fisherman. But +Sparicio had fairly earned his hundred dollars. + + +V. + +So there was nothing to do at Viosca's Point except to rest. +Feliu and all his men were going to Barataria in the morning on +business;--the Doctor could accompany them there, and take the +Grand Island steamer Monday for New Orleans. With this intention +Julien retired,--not sorry for being able to stretch himself at +full length on the good bed prepared for him, in one of the +unoccupied cabins. But he woke before day with a feeling of +intense prostration, a violent headache, and such an aversion for +the mere idea of food that Feliu's invitation to breakfast at +five o'clock gave him an internal qualm. Perhaps a touch of +malaria. In any case he felt it would be both dangerous and +useless to return to town unwell; and Feliu, observing his +condition, himself advised against the journey. Wednesday he +would have another opportunity to leave; and in the meanwhile +Carmen would take good care of him ... The boats departed, and +Julien slept again. + +The sun was high when he rose up and dressed himself, feeling no +better. He would have liked to walk about the place, but felt +nervously afraid of the sun. He did not remember having ever +felt so broken down before. He pulled a rocking-chair to the +window, tried to smoke a cigar. It commenced to make him feel +still sicker, and he flung it away. It seemed to him the cabin +was swaying, as the San Marco swayed when she first reached the +deep water. + +A light rustling sound approached,--a sound of quick feet +treading the grass: then a shadow slanted over the threshold. +In the glow of the open doorway stood a young girl,--gracile, +tall,--with singularly splendid eyes,--brown eyes peeping at him +from beneath a golden riot of loose hair. + +--"M'sieu-le-Docteur, maman d'mande si vous n'avez besoin +d'que'que chose?" ... She spoke the rude French of the fishing +villages, where the language lives chiefly as a baragouin, +mingled often with words and forms belonging to many other +tongues. She wore a loose-falling dress of some light stuff, +steel-gray in color;--boys' shoes were on her feet. + +He did not reply;--and her large eyes grew larger for wonder at +the strange fixed gaze of the physician, whose face had visibly +bleached,--blanched to corpse-pallor. Silent seconds passed; and +still the eyes stared--flamed as if the life of the man had +centralized and focussed within them. + +His voice had risen to a cry in his throat, quivered and swelled +one passionate instant, and failed--as in a dream when one +strives to call, and yet can only moan ... She! Her unforgotten +eyes, her brows, her lips!--the oval of her face!--the dawn-light +of her hair! ... Adele's own poise,--her own grace!--even the +very turn of her neck, even the bird-tone of her speech! ... Had +the grave sent forth a Shadow to haunt him?--could the perfidious +Sea have yielded up its dead? For one terrible fraction of a +minute, memories, doubts, fears, mad fancies, went pulsing +through his brain with a rush like the rhythmic throbbing of an +electric stream;--then the shock passed, the Reason +spoke:--"Fool!--count the long years since you first saw her +thus!--countthe years that have gone since you looked upon her +last! And Time has never halted, silly heart!--neither has Death +stood still!" + +... "Plait-il?"--the clear voice of the young girl asked. She +thought he had made some response she could not distinctly hear. + +Mastering himself an instant, as the heart faltered back to its +duty, and the color remounted to his lips, he answered her in +French:-- + +"Pardon me!--I did not hear ... you gave me such a start!" ... +But even then another extraordinary fancy flashed through his +thought;--and with the tutoiement of a parent to a child, with an +irresistible outburst of such tenderness as almost frightened +her, he cried: "Oh! merciful God!--how like her! ... Tell me, +darling, your name; ... tell me who you are?" (Dis-moi qui tu es, +mignonne;--dis-moi ton nom.) + +... Who was it had asked her the same question, in another idiom +ever so long ago? The man with the black eyes and nose like an +eagle's beak,--the one who gave her the compass. Not this +man--no! + +She answered, with the timid gravity of surprise:-- + +--"Chita Viosca" + +He still watched her face, and repeated the name +slowly,--reiterated it in a tone of wonderment:--"Chita +Viosca?--Chita Viosca!" + +--"C'est a dire ..." she said, looking down at her +feet,--"Concha--Conchita. " His strange solemnity made her +smile,--the smile of shyness that knows not what else to do. But +it was the smile of dead Adele. + +--"Thanks, my child, " he exclaimed of a sudden,--in a quick, +hoarse, changed tone. (He felt that his emotion would break +loose in some wild way, if he looked upon her longer.) "I would +like to see your mother this evening; but I now feel too ill to +go out. I am going to try to rest a little." + +--"Nothing I can bring you?" she asked,--"some fresh milk?" + +--"Nothing now, dear: if I need anything later, I will tell +your mother when she comes. " + +--"Mamma does not understand French very well." + +--"No importa, Conchita;--le hablare en Espanol." + +--"Bien, entonces!" she responded, with the same exquisite +smile. "Adios, senor!" ... + +But as she turned in going, his piercing eye discerned a little +brown speck below the pretty lobe of her right ear,--just in the +peachy curve between neck and cheek. ... His own little Zouzoune +had a birthmark like that!---he remembered the faint pink trace +left by his fingers above and below it the day he had slapped her +for overturning his ink bottle ... "To laimin moin?---to batte +moin!" + +"Chita!---Chita!" + +She did not hear ... After all, what a mistake he might have +made! Were not Nature's coincidences more wonderful than +fiction? Better to wait,--to question the mother first, and thus +make sure. + +Still--there were so many coincidences! The face, the smile, the +eyes, the voice, the whole charm;---then that mark,---and the +fair hair. Zouzoune had always resembled Adele so strangely! +That golden hair was a Scandinavian bequest to the Florane +family;---the tall daughter of a Norwegian sea captain had once +become the wife of a Florane. Viosca?---who ever knew a Viosca +with such hair? Yet again, these Spanish emigrants sometimes +married blonde German girls ... Might be a case of atavism, too. +Who was this Viosca? If that was his wife,---the little brown +Carmen,---whence Chita's sunny hair? ... + +And this was part of that same desolate shore whither the Last +Island dead had been drifted by that tremendous surge! On a +clear day, with a good glass, one might discern from here the +long blue streak of that ghastly coast ... Somewhere--between +here and there ... Merciful God! ... + +... But again! That bivouac-night before the fight at +Chancellorsville, Laroussel had begun to tell him such a singular +story ... Chance had brought them,--the old enemies,--together; +made them dear friends in the face of Death. How little he had +comprehended the man!---what a brave, true, simple soul went up +that day to the Lord of Battles! ... What was it--that story +about the little Creole girl saved from Last Island,--that story +which was never finished? ... Eh! what a pain! + +Evidently he had worked too much, slept too little. A decided +case of nervous prostration. He must lie down, and try to sleep. + +These pains in the head and back were becoming unbearable. +Nothing but rest could avail him now. + +He stretched himself under the mosquito curtain. It was very +still, breath. less, hot! The venomous insects were +thick;---they filled the room with a continuous ebullient sound, +as if invisible kettles were boiling overhead. A sign of +storm.... Still, it was strange!---he could not perspire ... + +Then it seemed to him that Laroussel was bending over +him---Laroussel in his cavalry uniform. "Bon jour, +camarade!---nous allons avoir un bien mauvais temps, mon pauvre +Julien." How! bad weather?---"Comment un mauvais temps?" ... +He looked in Laroussel's face. There was something so singular +in his smile. Ah! yes,---he remembered now: it was the wound! +... "Un vilain temps!" whispered Laroussel. Then he was gone +... Whither? + +---"Cheri!" ... + +The whisper roused him with a fearful start ... Adele's whisper! +So she was wont to rouse him sometimes in the old sweet +nights,--to crave some little attention for ailing Eulalie,---to +make some little confidence she had forgotten to utter during the +happy evening ... No, no! It was only the trees. The sky was +clouding over. The wind was rising ... How his heart beat! how +his temples pulsed! Why, this was fever! Such pains in the back +and head! + +Still his skin was dry,--dry as parchment,--burning. He rose up; +and a bursting weight of pain at the base of the skull made him +reel like a drunken man. He staggered to the little mirror +nailed upon the wall, and looked. How his eyes glowed;---and +there was blood in his mouth! He felt his pulse spasmodic, +terribly rapid. Could it possibly---? ... No: this must be +some pernicious malarial fever! The Creole does not easily fall +a prey to the great tropical malady,---unless after a long +absence in other climates. True! he had been four years in the +army! But this was 1867 ... He hesitated a moment; +then,--opening his medicine chest, he measured out and swallowed +thirty grains of quinine. + +Then he lay down again. His head pained more and more;---it +seemed as if the cervical vertebrae were filled with fluid iron. +And still his skin remained dry as if tanned. Then the anguish +grew so intense as to force a groan with almost every aspiration +... Nausea,--and the stinging bitterness of quinine rising in his +throat;---dizziness, and a brutal wrenching within his stomach. +Everything began to look pink;---the light was rose-colored. It +darkened more,---kindled with deepening tint. Something kept +sparkling and spinning before his sight, like a firework ... Then +a burst of blood mixed with chemical bitterness filled his mouth; +the light became scarlet as claret ... This--this was ... not +malaria ... + + +VI. + +... Carmen knew what it was; but the brave little woman was not +afraid of it. Many a time before she had met it face to face, in +Havanese summers; she knew how to wrestle with it; she had torn +Feliu's life away from its yellow clutch, after one of those long +struggles that strain even the strength of love. Now she feared +mostly for Chita. She had ordered the girl under no +circumstances to approach the cabin. + +Julien felt that blankets had been heaped upon him,---that some +gentle hand was bathing his scorching face with vinegar and +water. Vaguely also there came to him the idea that it was +night. He saw the shadow-shape of a woman moving against the red +light upon the wall;---he saw there was a lamp burning. + +Then the delirium seized him: he moaned, sobbed, cried like a +child,---talked wildly at intervals in French, in English, in +Spanish. + +---"Mentira!---you could not be her mother ... Still, if you +were---And she must not come in here,---jamais! ... Carmen, did +you know Adele,---Adele Florane? So like her,---so like,---God +only knows how like! ... Perhaps I think I know;---but I do +not---do not know justly, fully---how like! ... Si! si!---es el +vomito!---yo lo conozco, Carmen! ... She must not die twice ... I +died twice ... I am going to die again. She only once. Till the +heavens be no more she will not rise ... Moi, au contraire, il +faut que je me leve toujours! They need me so much;---the slate +is always full; the bell will never stop. They will ring that +bell for me when I am dead ... So will I rise again!---resurgam! +... How could I save him?---could not save myself. It was a bad +case,--at seventy years! ... There! Qui ca?" ... + +He saw Laroussel again,--reaching out a hand to him through a +whirl of red smoke. He tried to grasp it, and could not ... +"N'importe, mon ami," said Laroussel,---"tu vas la voir bientot." +Who was he to see soon?---"qui done, Laroussel?" But Laroussel +did not answer. Through the red mist he seemed to smile;---then +passed. + +For some hours Carmen had trusted she could save her +patient,---desperate as the case appeared to be. His was one of +those rapid and violent attacks, such as often despatch their +victims in a single day. In the Cuban hospitals she had seen +many and many terrible examples: strong young men,---soldiers +fresh from Spain,---carried panting to the fever wards at +sunrise; carried to the cemeteries at sunset. Even troopers +riddled with revolutionary bullets had lingered longer ... Still, +she had believed she might save Julien's life: the burning +forehead once began to bead, the burning hands grew moist. + +But now the wind was moaning;--the air had become lighter, +thinner, cooler. A stone was gathering in the east; and to the +fever-stricken man the change meant death ... Impossible to bring +the priest of the Caminada now; and there was no other within a +day's sail. She could only pray; she had lost all hope in her +own power to save. + +Still the sick man raved; but he talked to himself at longer +intervals, and with longer pauses between his words;---his voice +was growing more feeble, his speech more incoherent. His thought +vacillated and distorted, like flame in a wind. + +Weirdly the past became confounded with the present; impressions +of sight and of sound interlinked in fastastic affinity,---the +face of Chita Viosca, the murmur of the rising storm. Then +flickers of spectral lightning passed through his eyes, through +his brain, with every throb of the burning arteries; then utter +darkness came,---a darkness that surged and moaned, as the +circumfluence of a shadowed sea. And through and over the +moaning pealed one multitudinous human cry, one hideous +interblending of shoutings and shriekings ... A woman's hand was +locked in his own ... "Tighter," he muttered, "tighter still, +darling! hold as long as you can!" It was the tenth night of +August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six ... + +---"Cheri!" + +Again the mysterious whisper startled him to consciousness,---the +dim knowledge of a room filled with ruby colored light,---and the +sharp odor of vinegar. The house swung round slowly;---the +crimson flame of the lamp lengthened and broadened by +turns;---then everything turned dizzily fast,---whirled as if +spinning in a vortex ... Nausea unutterable; and a frightful +anguish as of teeth devouring him within,---tearing more and more +furiously at his breast. Then one atrocious wrenching, rending, +burning,---and the gush of blood burst from lips and nostrils in +a smothering deluge. Again the vision of lightnings, the +swaying, and the darkness of long ago. "Quick!---quick!---hold +fast to the table, Adele!---never let go!" ... + +... Up,---up,---up!---what! higher yet? Up to the red sky! +Red---black-red ... heated iron when its vermilion dies. So, +too, the frightful flood! And noiseless. Noiseless because +heavy, clammy,---thick, warm, sickening---blood? Well might the +land quake for the weight of such a tide!---Why did Adele speak +Spanish? Who prayed for him? ... + +---"Alma de Cristo santisima santificame! + +"Sangre de Cristo, embriagame! + +"O buen Jesus, oye me!" ... + +Out of the darkness into--such a light! An azure haze! +Ah!---the delicious frost! ... All the streets were filled with +the sweet blue mist ... Voiceless the City and white;---crooked +and weed grown its narrow ways! ... Old streets of tombs, these +... Eh! How odd a custom!---a Night-bell at every door. Yes, of +course!---a night-bell!---the Dead are Physicians of Souls: they +may be summoned only by night,---called up from the darkness and +silence ... Yet she?---might he not dare to ring for her even by +day? ........ Strange he had deemed it day!---why, it was black, +starless ... And it was growing queerly cold ...... How should he +ever find her now? It was so black ... so cold! ... + +---"Cheri!" + +All the dwelling quivered with the mighty whisper. + +Outside, the great oaks were trembling to their roots;---all the +shore shook and blanched before the calling of the sea. + +And Carmen, kneeling at the feet of the dead, cried out, alone in +the night:--- + +---"O Jesus misericordioso!---tened compasion de el!" + + + + + +End Project Gutenberg's Etext of Chita: A Memory of Last Island + |