It rains very often on the west of Martinique. The day is joyous, brilliant, gaudy with the yellow of the city and the blue of sky and sea. Pelée, with his turban of cloud, sits tranquilly in eternal summer, then, as though at the pointing of some wizard’s wand, it rains. Clouds overcast the blue, the thunder of the rain on roof and verandah mixes with the rush of rivulet and runnel.

It was as though the bells had called the clouds. Suddenly the people were scampering, the rain was lashing. Gaspard, who had sought the shelter of a doorway, could hear the thunder of the verandahs all along the Rue Victor Hugo, an arpeggio played by the fingers of the rain. Wind had risen, and from above came the voice of the great trees beating their wet green bands together, the sigh of the palmiste bending to the wind, the whisper of tree ferns; from the street below the Rue Victor Hugo came the fainter tune of rain-stricken verandah and flowing runnel, laughter, voices calling one to another across the dividing rain, the voices of children and, still, through it all, the bells.

Rain, wind, tree sounds, perfumes of new wet foliage and earth, spouting of the gouyave water, children’s voices, and through it all the carillon of the bells, sweet, joyous vibrant, like the voice of the love that lives through darkness as through sunshine.

103 And now, look! A burst of blue above; the bells have broken a way to heaven, a last thunder from the verandahs, like a parting salvo, and the squall is making a rainbow over the blue sea.

It is over. The verandahs and shop doors are emptying, pretty faces are turned up to the sky as if to test the truth of its blueness, and white umbrellas are opening against the sun.

Gaspard leaving shelter set out to find the Rue du Morne.

His mind was still filled with the image of the girl, the girl with the face of a beautiful child and the eyes of a woman, but the business he was on soon drove her picture from his mind.

“Monsieur, can you direct me to the Rue du Morne?”

Monsieur, an old Creole gentleman under a white umbrella, can and does, but his directions are given in the Creole patois, and so rapidly that what he says seems one word. Gaspard making out that the Rue du Morne lies somewhere below finds a side street leading downward to the blue dream of the harbour.

One could almost tumble into the harbour from here, at least in imagination. Never was there so steep a street, it is mostly steps, foot-worn, moss-grown, murmurous with water, for the side runnels are in spate after the rain.

“Madame, can you direct me to the Rue du Morne?”

In the street below an old Creole lady under a white umbrella, the female replica of the old gentleman in the street above, replies to the question volubly, and also seemingly in one word.

He ............