on Mimi’s face as he delved into the more abstract historical part of his tale, he quickly injected anecdotes, dramatic episodes, colourful vignettes. When Mimi seemed wearied of too great stress on the part Negroes had played as soldiers or labourers or if she appeared surfeited with tales of too great virtue and exemplary constructiveness on the part of those who were her forebears, Jean would, almost shyly and imperceptibly, relate a tale of derring do by one who lived at Barataria with that great pirate and freebooter—Jean Lafitte. Mimi felt a delicious tingle titillating her body as Jean told of that other Jean—he of the swart skin, midnight-black hair and eyes, beard shaven clean from the front of his face. She was glad—very glad one of her line had known this intrepid, carefree adventurer who, a marine Robin Hood, had plundered and smuggled and risked death a thousand times as though he were passing the time of day on the street corner.
She, too, was fascinated by Jean’s picture of the coming into being of the Creole.
“The white Louisianian will tell you the Creole is white with ancestry of French or Spanish