human
You are smiling, repeated Madame Oge.
gpt
Though you stoop your head over your work, I see that you have some droll thought.
human
It would be strange, certainly, replied Euphrosyne,
gpt
Young people like to be positive, said Madame Oge to the abbess.
human
But it does not much matter, as they have life before them; time enough to see what is true, and what is not. Is it your doctrine, my dear young lady, that God has given over His wrath towards this island; and that it is to be happy henceforth, with the negroes for masters?
gpt
With the negroes for equals, I think it may be happy. But I never thought of God being wrathful towards us. I thought our miseries had arisen out of men's wrath with each other.
human
If ever, said Madame Oge, in a low tone, but yet so that every word was heard--
gpt
And, interposed Euphrosyne, courageously,
human
You have proved nothing, my dear, but that you do not know what has happened, even since you were born. Any white will tell you what the negroes did, so late as the year ninety-one--how they killed their masters by inches--how they murdered infants--how they carried off ladies into the woods--
gpt
I am aware of all that you say: but every one allows that the most ignorant and cruel of the negroes did over again exactly what they had seen the whites do to their race. But these revengeful blacks were few, very few, in comparison with the numbers who spared their masters, helped and comforted them, and are now working on their estates--friends with all who will be friends with them. The place is not hell where thousands of men forgot the insults of a lifetime, and bind up the wounds of their oppressors.
human
I cannot doubt, said the abbess,
gpt
Besides, sister Benoite ventured to say,
human
Peace!
gpt
There have been disputes among the rulers, as Father Gabriel says there are among all the rulers in the world; but he says (and no one knows better than Father Gabriel) that the body of the people have not been troubled by these disputes, and are not even aware of them.
human
Does not Father Gabriel tell you that ten years are but a day in heaven and hell? Yes, in hell--they may be long for suffering; but they are short for revenge. The cruel master, who saw one slave faint under the lash, and let another die in the stocks, and tore the husband from the wife, and the child from the mother, might escape for the time with the destruction of his family, punished for his sake:--he might live safely in the midst of the city, for the ten years you speak of; but, let him venture out for a single day--let him but drive to his own estate and back again, and grey as his head is, he is shot in his own carriage, as soon as it is dark.