Volume I Part 35 (1/2)

I wanted to buy a pair of baby bracelets;--so they brought in the baby,--a girl, and therefore (?) having a dress on The little babies of the other sex wear nothing but circles of silver on arms and ankles

Sometimes the custoirl baby to the post-office when I was at Demerara, carried it naked at her hip in the most prie eyes,--looked supernatural: the nified She held up her little ars Then she talked to me in--Creole patois! It is the commercial dialect of the poor; and the Hindoos learn it well

Always truly, LAFCADIO HEARN

There are palh There are fish here of all the colours of marsh-sunset

TO ELIZABETH BISLAND

FORT DE FRANCE, MARTINIQUE, July, 1887

DEAR MISS BISLAND,--Iine yourself turned into marble, all white,--robed after the fashi+on of the Directory,--standing forever on a marble pedestal, under an enorraceful as Creole wo always, always, over the summer sea, toward emerald Trois Islets

That is _Josephine_! I think she looks just like you, ”Mamzelle Josephine,”--or Zefine, if you like

I want to tell you a little story about her,--just a little anecdote somebody told me on the street, which I want to develop into a sketch next week

It was after the fall of the Second Empire,--after France felt the iron heel of Germany upon her throat

Far off in this delicious little Martinique, the Republican rage e reaction passed over the ocean like a netic current So it happened, in a little while, that the Martinique politicians resolved to do that which had already been done in France,--to obliterate the memories of the Empire

There was Mamzelle Zefine, _par exemple_! They put a rope round her beautiful white neck They prepared to destroy the statue

Then Soht to see the sleepy little church: it makes you want to doze the athered in the Savane

It was a crowd of women,--mostly women who had been slaves,--quadroons, mulattoesses; the house-servants, the _bonnes_, the nurses and housekeepers of the old days (You could form no possible idea of this coloured Creole ele it: it does not exist in New Orleans) They gathered to defend Mamzelle Zefine

When the Republican officials caazing toward Trois Islets; she hite as ever; her pure cold passionate face just as lovely: she seemed totally indifferent to as about to happen,--she was drea her eternal plaintive dream

But she could well afford to feel indifferent! About her, under the circle of the palry yellow faces, above which flashed the lightning of cane-knives, axes, _couteaux de boucher_ ”Ah! li vieu!--laches! cafa'ds! pott'ons! Vos pas cabab toucher li! Touche li--yon tete fois!--Ose toucher li Capons Republicains! Ose toucher li!”

Maazed plaintively toward Trois Islets She must have seemed to that yellow population to live;--for each one she represented so mistress, some petted child, some memory of the old colonial days And all the love of the slave for the e passionate senseless affection of the servant for the Creole family--was stirred to storm by the mere idea of the proposed desecration The er upon Josephine that day would have been torn lihtened and foiled: they pledged their faith that the statue should not be touched

So they took the ropes away; and they piled flowers at Maarlanded her; they twined the crimson jessamines of the tropics about her beautiful white throat

And she is still here,--always in the circle of the pal to Trois Islets, always beautiful and sweet as a young Creole ,--with a smile that is like some faint, sweet memory of other days

Always, LAFCADIO HEARN

TO ELIZABETH BISLAND

NEW YORK, 1887

DEAR MISS BISLAND,--Thanks for the gracious little letter I wish I could see you, and see other friends; but fate forbids Distances are too enor journey made my head whirl For I return to the tropics, dear Miss Bisland,--probably forever: I iine that civilization will beholdintervals I would like to write you so only that my letters be not ever shown unto newspaper people You will hear froain I am off on Friday afternoon, and have not even the necessary tily sards and so a little more, too