Guadeloupe continued - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 27

that the old man had damaged his own ear by falling down on his cutlass when he was drunk, but also
that he had been abandoned, because of his intemperance and violence, first by his mistress and then by
his daughter, who had taken refuge with ' ce jeune homme sobre et travailleur—mettez-vous debout, mon-
sieur ' (a sort of simpleton grinned for a moment and sat down) ' merci—avec lequel elle vit maintenant
maritalement .' He won his case.
It was an illuminating glimpse of life in the mornes . There is something terrifying about these razor or
cutlass fights in lamplit cabins.
Me Lara next defended a young man who was charged with rape. Here he became humorous, tolerant,
detached. ' Que voulez-vous, monsieur, ce n'était qu'une idylle—la sorte d'idylle que nous connaissons
tous—qui a pris une tournure un peu vive. Regardezla, messieurs; merci, mademoiselle .' (A very embar-
rassed girl stood up.) 'Elle est jeune. Elle est belle. Elle est latine. Maintenant, regardez le jeune homme,
mon client' (a young peasant clattered to his feet). ' Il est jeune, joli-garcon, vif, latin également. Ils sont
tous les deux latins, messieurs. Ils vivant à la campagne, il y avait une lune ,' he waved, towards the spot
on the whitewashed wall where that luminary would have hung, ' et il se peut que l'ardeur de ce jeune
Tityre s'est exprimé en gestes où nous ne devons voir que de l'entrain, de la fougue et de la jeunesse. Et,
au lieu d'aigrir, par un verdit trop peu pondéré, les rapports entre ces deux jeunes gens; au lieu de flétrir
une fleur qui est en train de bourgeonner—que dis-je?—qui s'épanouit déjà, nous devons les congédier
de ce tribunal sans haine, sans rancure entre eux, et suivis par nos voeux pour leur bonheur futur, et par
notre espoir que la Sainte Eglise bénira bientôt une union que ne saurait être qu'heureuse et féconde .'
He won his case again, subsiding after his peroration like a weary Othello. The boy and the girl clumped
down the aisle, looking slightly bewildered, but not ill-pleased. I was very much struck by the use of the
word ' latin .'
The coolest place in the Hôtel des Antilles was a vaulted drinking-hall on the ground floor, the found-
ations on which the old monkish superstructure had been built. I used to escape here to write during
the afternoon when the atmosphere in my room, under a mosquito net, became unbearably hot. (Joan's
plan—still, alas! as I write, no more than a plan—of sleeping chained to a chame-leon seems to be the
only practical way of neutralizing the unceasing siege of the insect world. With this alert little basilisk
camped on one's bosom suitably camouflaged to melt into the slumberwear; prepared, at the faintest buzz
in the surrounding ether, to fire half a yard of tongue at the foe, and swallow it without blinking an eye,
one might snore the night peacefully through. Not otherwise.)
This afternoon the cool vault was empty of customers. Streaming with sweat, I settled at a table and
opened my diary. As usual, the three rather pretty waitresses were sitting in a row, looking avidly through
ancient, dog-eared copies of Marie-Claire and the Paris Vogue , gazing at themselves in the looking-glass,
interminably tying and retying their tartan madrases, and giggling and quacking quietly to each other.
One of them brought me a glass of beer, and said:
' Vous écwivez toujours, Monsieu'? '
' Oui .'
' Vous aimez écwiw'? '
' Oui, merci .'
' Vous connaissez Helena, Monsieu'? '
' Non. Qui est elle? '
' C'est la twoisième jeune fille là .'