Island Beneath The Sea Quotes
"The earth, like the sky and water, had no owner until the foreigners took control of it."
"The most intractable crop was sugarcane, the sweet gold of the colony."
"He admired the philosophers and encyclopedists who had in recent decades made such an impact in Europe."
"His father’s illness was in the last stages; he was covered with pustules, nearly incapacitated."
"Valmorain realized that his father’s slaves lasted an average of eighteen months before they dropped dead of fatigue or escaped."
"The young Valmorain carried out the necessary changes in a methodical way."
"The slaves, whose number was ten times greater than that of the whites and affranchis combined, counted for nothing."
"In the best of cases they were merchants, artisans, friars of little virtue, sailors, military men, and minor civil servants."
"His decision to marry her was not the result of a carefully worked out strategy, but of a lightning bolt to his heart so violent that he never questioned it."
"She, in contrast, came from the best society of Madrid, from a noble Catholic family."
"Do not let them have water. Give them a lot of weak coffee and rice soup."
"She was a slim young woman with prominent cheekbones and elongated eyes with sleepy eyelids and golden irises; she had a natural grace, and precise and fluid movements."
"The master declared a feast day; no one on the plantation worked."
"He had only commercial relations, like his Jewish manager in Le Cap or his banker in Cuba."
"He detested the island. During the day he was kept busy around the plantation, but evenings and nights were endless."
"Sit down, I don’t like for you to talk above my head."
"Maman, promise me that we will never, never be apart."
"Life is written in our z’étoile, and we cannot change it."
"He was a warrior, this love of mine, like the name his father gave him: Gambo, which means warrior."
"Love has mute words, more transparent than the river."
"Every slave was an enemy, and there were already more than half a million of them."
"The slaves believed that mosquitoes, the cause of that death toll, were Macandal’s armies battling against the whites."
"My godmother convinced Cambray that the boy had the plague and that it was best to leave him alone so he wouldn’t give it to the rest of the crew."
"I didn’t know love. What the master did with me was dark and shameful."
"Tété cursed him in her heart, but she also was afraid he would replace her with another slave and sell her to Cambray, the worst fate imaginable."
"Rosette was born the same day that Gambo disappeared."
"At the end of a few days of chasing Gambo, Prosper Cambray was livid with rage."
"I always knew that Gambo would leave without me."
"In our heads, we had accepted that, but not in our hearts."
"I tried not to think about it because that could make it happen, but a slave always lives with uncertainty."
"The news arrived weeks late, but that didn’t matter to him; all the events occurred in a different universe."
"The drums immediately stilled, and all except the mambo were again themselves as the loas retired to the tops of the trees."
"Toussaint was not named, because at that moment the man who would become the soul of the rebels was at a plantation in Breda, where he served as coachman."
"Many years have gone by and blood keeps running, soaking the soil of Haïti, but I am not there to weep."
"He did not join the uprising until several weeks later, after he had put his master’s entire family in a safe place."
"The only person happy with the mambo’s absence was Prosper Cambray, who gave no sign of pursuing her—the farther away the better when it came to that witch able to turn a human being into a zombie."
"The slaves scattered broken glass on the ground, the poison entered through cuts on the soles of the feet, and the night after the funeral they dug up the cadaver, now a zombie, and revived him with a monumental beating."
"Because that is how twisted and unfair life is, my child."
"In view of the disaster in the colony, France sent a commission to speak with the black chiefs, who declared themselves ready to return the hostages as a sign of goodwill."
"The women were converted into slaves and concubines, just as black women had been on the plantations."
"He wondered whether his considerations served any purpose, or if he was hated as much as Lacroix."
"Everyone knows it. In France there is a reaction of horror to these events."
"But first all the whites would have to be killed, including newborn babies, and there would be so much blood on the earth that ears of corn would grow red."
"I am afraid for Adèle and the children, Major."
"I suppose that you have seen the damage caused by the rebellion, Doctor."
"One of Cambray’s punishments consisted of leaving a slave in the fields at night and at dawn loosing the dogs after him."
"His family’s fortune, begun by his father and multiplied several times over by him, was soaked in blood."
"We are going to restore the colony as it was. We will not sit here with our arms crossed!"
"I have always treated you very well. What are you complaining about?"
"No one could resist being bewitched by my daughter."
"We are not going back to Saint-Domingue, if that is what you're thinking."
"He who strikes first strikes twice, Maurice."
"Open your eyes, Maurice! You have to be a man!"
"I would rather sit contemplating an anthill in the garden or reading stories to Rosette than participate in the rough games."
"When I grow up, I will go to balls every night, Maurice."
"The Negroes do the work, because they don’t know how to do anything else."
"That is, we will have to combat whites of all types, civil, military, in addition to Galbaud’s sailors."
"No one moves from here. We are not going to scurry away like rats."
"Protocol forced Valmorain to announce his intentions promptly."
"Following the ceremony, the bouquet of orange blossom and jasmine was sent to the nuns to place at the feet of the Virgin in the chapel."
"Hortense never doubted that she would trap Valmorain."
"It would have been disgraceful for the bride to appear in public, even in front of her family, as she was being initiated into the secrets of love."
"She had the implacable determination he lacked."
"He felt his virility, which he had considered irreversibly diminished, reborn."
"The god of the whites frightens me, Père Antoine. He is crueler than Prosper Cambray."
"The plantation and the house in the city were his; he could rid himself of that partner who brought in nothing."
"Once the master got married; he took his wife and Maurice to the plantation, and I was left for several months alone with Rosette in the house in the city."
"The road of freedom twists and turns, son. At times it will seem that we are retreating, making pacts, losing sight of the principles of the revolution."
"He treated everyone the same, without distinguishing among free and slaves, criminals and exemplary citizens, virtuous women and others of the merry persuasion, thieves, buccaneers, lawyers, hangmen, usurers, and excommunicants."
"No one can say I am the first to have bedded a slave, Sancho, for God's sake!"
"No one will leave you in peace, because if you go ahead with your plan society will be endangered."
"I will marry her even though you are her father."
"You are a good boy, Maurice, but overly sensitive and dreamy."
"Abolition, monsieur. I am going to devote my life to struggling against slavery."
"I know that. Everyone insists on telling me that we can have abnormal children."