In the mill they found a girl on the ground amid a cloud of flies and the deafening noise of machines being pulled by mules. The process was delicate and it was entrusted to the most skillful slaves, who had to determine exactly how much lime to use and how long to boil the syrup to obtain quality sugar. The mill was where the worst accidents occurred, and on this occasion the victim, Seraphine, had bled so much that at first sight Parmentier thought something had exploded in her chest, but then he saw that the blood was flowing from the stump of one arm she was pressing against her round stomach. In one quick move Tante Rose pulled the cloth from her head and tied it above the girl's elbow, murmuring a prayer. Seraphine's head fell backward onto the doctor's knees, and Tante Rose moved to take her into her own lap. She pried open the girl's mouth with one hand and with the other poured in a dark stream from a flask she took from her pouch. "It's just molasses, to revive her," she said, although he had not asked. A slave explained that the girl, pushing cane into the crusher, had been distracted for a moment, and the toothed rollers had caught her hand. Her screams alerted him, and he had been able to stop the mules before the suction of the machine pulled her arm in to the shoulder. To free her, he'd had to cut off her hand with the hatchet that always hung on a hook for precisely that purpose. "We have to stop the bleeding. If she is not infected, she will live," the doctor pronounced, and ordered a slave to go to the big house and bring him his bag. The man hesitated because he took orders only from commandeurs, but at a word from Tante Rose he went running. Seraphine had opened her eyes slightly and was mumbling something the doctor could scarcely capture. Tante Rose bent down to hear. "I can't, p'tite, the white man is here, I can't," she answered in a whisper. Two slaves came and lifted Seraphine to take her to a nearby shed, the slaves' hospital, where they laid her on a bench of raw wood. Tete shooed away hens and a pig nosing through the garbage on the ground, while the men held Seraphine and the healer washed her stump with a rag and water from a pail. "I can't, p'tite, I can't," she repeated every once in a while into the girl's ear. Another slave brought hot coals from the mill. Luckily Seraphine had lost consciousness by the time Tante Rose cauterized the stump. The doctor noticed that the girl was some six or seven months pregnant and thought that with the loss of blood she would surely abort.

At that moment the figure of a horseman appeared at the threshold of the shed; one of the slaves ran to take the bridle and the man jumped to the ground. It was Prosper Cambray, with a pistol at his waist and whip in his hand, dressed in dark trousers and a shirt of common cloth, but also wearing leather boots and an American hat of good quality, identical to Valmorain's. Blinded from the light outside, he did not recognize Dr. Parmentier. "What is all this uproar?" he asked in the soft voice that could sound so threatening, striking his boots with the whip, as he always did. Everyone stood back so he could see for himself; with that he saw the doctor, and his tone changed.

"Don't bother yourself with this foolishness, Doctor. Tante Rose will take care of it. Allow me to accompany you back to the big house. Where is your horse?" he asked amiably.

"Have this girl taken to Tante Rose's cabin so she can care for her. She is pregnant," Parmentier replied.

"That is not news to me," Cambray replied with a laugh.

"If the wound becomes infected with gangrene, the arm will have to be cut off," Parmentier insisted, red with indignation. "I am telling you that she must be taken to Tante Rose's cabin, immediately."

"That is what the hospital is for, Doctor," Cambray replied.

"This is not a hospital, it's a filthy stable!"

The head overseer looked around the shed with a curious expression, as if seeing it for the first time.

"It isn't worth your time to worry about this woman, Doctor; she cannot work the cane anymore and will have to be used for a different-"

"You have not understood me, Cambray," the physician interrupted, defiant. "Do you want me to speak directly with Monsieur Valmorain to resolve this?"

Tete did not dare take a peek at the overseer's expression; she had never heard anyone speak to Cambray in that tone, not even the master, and she was afraid that Cambray was going to lift his hand against the white man, but when he answered his voice was humble, like that of a servant.

"You are right, Doctor. If Tante Rose saves her, we will at least have her offspring," he decided, touching Seraphine's bloody belly with the handle of his whip.

A Being Not Human

The garden of Saint-Lazare, which emerged as an impulse that struck Valmorain shortly after he wed, had over the years become his favorite project. He designed it by copying drawings from a book on the palaces of Louis XIV, but European flowers did not thrive in the Antilles, and he had to hire a botanist from Cuba, one of Sancho Garcia del Solar's friends, to give him advice. The garden was colorful, with luxuriant blooms, but it had to be defended against the voraciousness of the tropics by three indefatigable slaves, who also cared for the orchids that grew in the shade. Tete went out every day before the worst heat to cut flowers for house bouquets. That morning Valmorain was walking with Dr. Parmentier along the narrow garden path that divided the geometric sections of shrubs and flowers, explaining how after the hurricane of the previous year he'd had to plant everything anew, but the physician's mind was wandering elsewhere. Parmentier lacked an artistic eye for appreciating decorative plants; he considered them an extravagance of nature, being much more interested in the ugly clumps and clusters in Tante Rose's gardens that had the power to cure or to kill. He was similarly intrigued by the healer's sorcery because he had verified its benefits among the slaves. He confessed to Valmorain that more than once he had felt tempted to treat a patient by using the black healer's methods, but his French pragmatism and fear of ridicule had stopped him.

"Those superstitions do not deserve the attention of a scientist like yourself, Doctor," Valmorain bantered.

"I have seen miraculous cures, mon ami, just as I have seen people die from no cause at all, only because they believe themselves victims of black magic."

"Africans are very suggestible."

"And also whites. Your wife, without going any-"

"There is a fundamental difference between my wife and an African," Valmorain interrupted, "no matter how addlepated she may be, Doctor! Surely you do not believe that the blacks are like us?"

"From the biological point of view, there is evidence that they are."

"It is obvious that you have had very few dealings with them. Blacks have the constitution for heavy work, they feel less pain and fatigue, their brain power is limited, they do not know how to make choices, they are violent, disorderly, lazy, and they lack ambition and noble sentiments."

"The same could be said of a white brutalized by slavery, monsieur."

"What an absurd argument!" The other smiled disdainfully. "Blacks require a firm hand. And you may be sure that I am referring to firmness, not brutality."

"In that matter there is no median. Once you accept the notion of slavery, how you treat them makes little difference," the physician rebutted.

"I do not agree. Slavery is a necessary evil, the only way to manage a plantation, but it can be done in a humanitarian way."

"It can never be humanitarian to own and exploit another human," Parmentier rejoined.

"And have you never had a slave, Doctor?"

"No. And neither shall I in the future."