Chapter VIII

... Every year, on the last day of the Carnival, a droll ceremony used to take place called the "Burial of the Bois-bois,"--the bois-bois being a dummy, a guy, caricaturing the most unpopular thing in city life or in politics. This bois-bois, after having been paraded with mock solemnity through all the ways of St. Pierre, was either interred or "drowned,"--flung into the sea.... And yesterday the dancing societies had announced their intention to bury a _bois-bois laverette_,--a manikin that was to represent the plague. But this bois-bois does not make its appearance. _La Vérette_ is too terrible a visitor to be made fun of, my friends;--you will not laugh at her, because you dare not....

No: there is one who has the courage,--a yellow goblin crying from behind his wire mask, in imitation of the màchannes: "_Ça qui 'lè quatòze graines laverette pou yon sou?_" (Who wants to buy fourteen verette-spots for a sou?)

Not a single laugh follows that jest.... And just one week from to-day, poor mocking goblin, you will have a great many more than quatorze graines, which will not cost you even a sou, and which will disguise you infinitely better than the mask you now wear;--and they will pour quick-lime over you, ere ever they let you pass through this street again--in a seven franc coffin!...

IX

And the multicolored clamoring stream rushes by,--swerves off at last through the Rue des Ursulines to the Savane,--rolls over the new bridge of the Roxelane to the ancient quarter of the Fort.

All of a sudden there is a hush, a halt;--the drums stop beating, the songs cease. Then I see a sudden scattering of goblins and demons and devilesses in all directions: they run into houses, up alleys,--hide behind door-ways. And the crowd parts; and straight through it, walking very quickly, conies a priest in his vestments, preceded by an acolyte who rings a little bell. _C'est Bon-Dié ka passé!_ ("It is the Good-God who goes by!") The father is bearing the "viaticum" to some victim of the pestilence: one must not appear masked as a devil or a deviless in the presence of the Bon-Dié.

He goes by. The flood of maskers recloses behind the ominous passage;--the drums boom again; the dance recommences; and all the fantastic mummery ebbs swiftly out of sight.