Chapter V

... Extraordinary things are happening in the streets through which the procession passes. Pest-smitten women rise from their beds to costume themselves,--to mask face already made unrecognizable by the hideous malady,--and stagger out to join the dancers.... They do this in the Rue Longchamps, in the Rue St. Jean-de-Dieu, in the Rue Peysette, in the Rue de Petit Versailles. And in the Rue Ste.-Marthe there are three young girls sick with the disease, who hear the blowing of the horns and the pattering of feet and clapping of hands in chorus;--they get up to look through the slats of their windows on the masquerade,--and the creole passion of the dance comes upon them. "Ah!" cries one,--"_nou ké amieusé nou!--c'est zaffai si nou mò!_" [We will have our fill of fun: what matter if we die after!] And all mask, and join the rout, and dance down to the Savane, and over the river bridge into the high streets of the Fort, carrying contagion with them!... No extraordinary example, this: the ranks of the dancers hold many and many a _verrettier._