Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
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mythical island of Saint-Jacques, situated, according to Leigh
Fermor, between Guadeloupe and Dominica, in the Windward
Islands, 'where it hung like a bead on the sixty-first meridian'.³
Set in the last few years of the nineteenth century, the story
is seen through the eyes of a young painter Berthe de Rennes,
who describes the delights and luxuries, customs, courtesies and
venalities of the island in the days before a ball at Government
House. Berthe drew and painted on the island, and sent albums
of her pictures back to her aunt in Paris. As hams and quails in
aspic, giant lobsters and crabs, ivory pyramids of
chou coco
and
mounds of soursop and mangoes were assembled for the festiv-
ities, 'the volcano [the Saltpêtrière] had been burning . . . with
unaccustomed vigour. Now it hung in the dark like a bright red
torch, prompting the island wiseacres . . . to shake their heads.'4
At the height of the ball, when dancers were whirling and the
orchestra reaching a frenzy, panic set in as a group of lepers dis-
guised in pantomime domino costumes, intermingled with the
Cover design for the
first edition of Patrick
Leigh Fermor,
The Violins of
Saint-Jacques
(1953).
