were sitting once more in the old café on Chartres Street, with his friends spending long hours in comfortable, soothing conversation, sipping their glasses of le petit gouave , that heartwarming, gently exhilarating concoction from old San Domingo. He could smell the wild odours of the tropical, luxuriant flowers, the mildly intoxicating smell of the wild orange, the honeysuckle, the roses, fragrant pines. He could close his eyes and see the delicate pink and white of the oleanders, could hear the soft-throated cries of the hucksters, many of them with huge gold earrings and brilliantly coloured dresses, their heads bound with gay headkerchiefs. “ Belles des figues! Belles des figues! Pralines, pistache! Pralines, pacanes! ” they called. A violent nostalgia assailed him, its accompaniment a bitter distaste for the harsh scenes of his new home. …
Long, tense days crept into anxious nights. Feverishly busy with the making of money, men and women, white and black, good citizens and Christians all and in their own minds true to their own various standards, did nothing. Along towards the middle of September a few of them began