Paul and Virginia

This is my version of the Paul and Virginia romance, first published in the J. of Mauritian Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2006:

Paul and Virginia

Stephen Muecke

When I was doing fieldwork in Port Louis, Mauritius in 1998, I was rummaging in an old photography studio cum museum, and came across a couple of old reel-to-reel audio tapes. I asked the proprietor what was on them and he didn’t know. I said I had a machine at home that could play them. Who knows, I said, they might be something interesting. So he let me take them away on the promise of keeping him informed.
And I did, coming back excitedly the next day with the machine and we sat down and listened to an old creole man tell the story of Paul and Virginia, in his own vernacular style, that is, in Mauritian Creole. Paul and Virginia, as you know, is the classic novel of Mauritius, a bestselling romance from Bernardin de St Pierre, published in France in 1788. As far as Jean Baladin (that was the proprietor of the photo shop) and I were concerned, this more contemporary version was a literary gold-mine. Someone, we didn’t know who (in the nineteen fifties, judging from the age of the tapes) had had the foresight to record on old man who must have been renowned for his abilities in recounting epic oral narratives. My grasp of Mauritian French creole was far from perfect, but it was one of the languages Jean had grown up with. So in the end, between us, we were able to prepare two versions, a creole transcription and my English translation.
For the method of transcription I borrowed the techniques I had used for the narratives of Paddy Roe, from Broome, not that far away on another Indian Ocean shore. There I had found that oral narratives are formed more naturally in phrases rather than the proper sentences of written languages, and that the narrator’s pace is physically governed by the body, by lung capacity. So a line is often a phrase, punctuated by a pause at the end where the narrator takes a breath. In my translation I found myself falling in to the patterns of Paddy Roe’s style. I hope he would have been able to accept it as a compliment that the beauty of his technique could only be imitated, somewhat poorly here, by his old editor and pupil, for this first version of a vernacular Paul and Virginia, transcribed and translated here without any embellishments.

[tape begins as two men are talking, one in standard French (he is probably a planter or a visitor to the island), and the other voice is that of an old man talking creole]

…yes, of course. When you are ready.
[coughing]
-You are ready now? This thing is on is it?
-Yes
-Oh! [laughs] Oh, OK, then…



Well, these two mothers gave birth the same day,
at a place called Pamplemousse
Just up here in the hills, you know.

And the old ladies helping them came up there.
Oh, they weren’t old, but they were young,
Malagasy women, from over there,
friends of the two young mothers,
and they were French, but poor,
oh, very poor those French mothers were.

But they knew what to do, the midwives, you know.
they didn’t have too many doctors in those days.
Only one, for the planters really.

You could hear them crying out
at the same time, these two mothers,
from their huts on both sides of that clearing,
up there in the hills,
around Pamplemousse.

And then, around four in the afternoon,
everyone heard the two babies crying,
first one side then the other: waaa … waaa.
Two babies born, then.
‘Oh good!’ everyone said.
All the people was happy.

So, the two midwives brought the babies out,
all wrapped up, a boy and a girl, they said,
a beautiful boy and beautiful girl.
Put them to sleep side by side in the same crib,
while their mothers had a sleep too.

Ah well, after that those two kids started to grow,
growing up together in that place.
The mothers had two helpers, like slaves,
but not really, more like friends.
Domingo, I think the man’s name was,
and his wife was Mary, she was one of those mid-wives.
He married her after Paul and Virginia were born.

Oh the old people used to talk about that wedding too
Old Tjamba was playing music, plenty of rum.
And dancing all night, right through the night,
down on the beach at Black River.

So all together they made a farm,
up at Pamplemousse.
Domingo was a good farmer, while Mary looked after the poultry.
She took the produce down to the market in Port Louis.

On the fertile ground Domingo sowed wheat,
and on the poor ground maize.
Rice too, in the marshy areas.
Pumpkins and cucumbers grew well at the foot of rocks,
sugar-cane in the clayey soil;
cotton-tree and coffee in the high spots.

Oh he knew what he was doing, that old fella.
And Paul used to follow him around when he was little.
After he grew up he helped the old man.
Oh, Domingo and Mary they loved those two kids,
they was always playin’ around with them.

So one day come, Paul and Virginia were getting big now
Virginia was a woman really now, so pretty, you know
and embarrassed, she hid away in the house,
hiding away because she was shy, lil’ bit.

Poor Paul didn’t know what to do, he’d lost his playmate.
So Domingo took him hunting, out in the bush
they might find birds, or an old Dodo egg.
things like that you could sell in town.
oh good price you get too, for those Dodo eggs
no matter if it is broken, you can patch it up, no worries.

So one day come, Domingo is working in the garden
and he’s looking, rubs his eye and looks again
oh! something there, in the pumpkin patch, he keeps looking.
Like a pumpkin, only moving, up and down
you know…[laughter]

Mus’ be … oh can’t be! Someone’s bottom!
That Domingo took off! back to his hut,
running, and he’s panting and asks Mary, where Paul?

I dunno, where Virginia?...Oh, you’d better come, he said.
So they both crept back, have a look,
from around the side of a tree, you know, two heads
and they were laughing little bit, giggling.

Anyway, no more pumpkin there,
but there’s Paul and Virginia walking on the other side
holding hands you know, those two lovely kids.

Domingo and Mary had a good laugh then.
After that Mary always called her old man coco-fesses
But they didn’t tell the mothers,
‘cos they went to church and everything.

So what happened then?
Nature must take its course you know.
Mary talked to Virginia of course
about all that women’s stuff
but mighta been too late, I think.

Soon as she knew…soon as she knew
(must have been that pumpkin I think!)
Well Mary said, ‘we gotta tell your mother’.
The old lady has to know what to do.

She had that same thing too, when she was carrying Virginia
her man just took off, somewhere in France
and she had to go up to Pamplemousse with Paul’s mother
and her husband had died or something.

Oh, they was really cross those old ladies
when they found out
About Virginia and Paul
what they done, ooh, very cross.

And so they had to send the girl away
that’s what those French people do, you know
they think it a big shame.

‘Cos that mother had a auntie in France.
and a boat was leaving in a couple of weeks.
‘We’ll send you there,’ she said.
‘You can help your old Auntie, she’s been asking for you.
And carry a letter with you.’


That’s how it went, you know
Virginia didn’t want to go,
She was crying all the time.
And Paul wanted her to stay
he was just hanging around.
‘Cos those two grew up together,
together they wanted to stay,
on the island, where they grew up.

Now I dunno what happened in France
Paris it might of been, or maybe Rouen
But Virginia stayed there about a year,
with a young girl who went with her,
to keep her company on the ship.
Creole girl, from that family, ah, whatname now?
Can’t remember that family name, doesn’t matter.


After that nobody heard any story, no letter, nothing.
‘What happen to Virginia?’ everyone been askin’.
And Paul hanging about, down by the sea,
just sitting carving a bit of wood, or might be bone.
He was making picture of his girl, you know, how they do.
Like the barhai do, we call ‘em barhai, wood carvers.
scrimshaw English call it, eh? scrimshaw.
Old Pierre in Flic-en-Flac got some of that stuff, you seen it?

So one day come, they got word,
mighta been the governor I think,
said those girls coming back, on the next boat.
Virginia and her girlfriend,
or her helper, or whatever.
Governor himself went up to Pamplemousse
to talk to those mothers.
That old Auntie dead too, in France, he said.

And she gonna leave some money to you lot.
Looks like no more worries.
Everyone got happy then.
‘Cos they really missed their girl
and Paul, like he woke up again after a long sleep.

Started to get everything ready then.
Boat was coming in about a month.
That was the old days then
Sailing boats, very slow, you know all the way from France,
Around past Cape Town, then across to Mauritius, and on to India.

So when they gonna come, one night I think
People was saying, ‘oh! cyclone comin’ up.’
In the morning everyone was down at a place called poussiere d’or,
waiting waiting waiting, watching the sea,
see if they could see that boat,
and they could see the storm coming from the other side.


Soon as that boat got near the shore, crash! the cyclone hit it.
They couldn’t control the boat,
and it was close up on the reef,
You could see the people on the deck,
and then it hit the reef.

And some people got little boats out to help,
get out there to rescue them, you know
Paul was there, yelling out to Virginia
and telling her to jump in.
But she was too frightened.
She didn’t want to jump into the sea.
Boat started to break up then,
with the storm and lightning all around.

It was a big bloody mess they say,
dead body washing up on the beach, you know
and poor Paul, running from one to another,
after the storm, running around.
and looking for his beloved, and he didn’t find her.
Someone else found her, half buried in the sand.
After the storm.

And they took him away and the poor boy lost his mind
After that he couldn’t talk, and just got thinner and thinner.
I think it mighta been a few months after that, he was dead.

So that was the story of Paul and Virginia.
Some bloke made a book out of that, eh?
long long time ago.

[noise of chairs moving around] -----

But that’s not the finish yet, of the story,
‘cos they found that other girl, the creole girl you know.
Someone musta pulled her out of the water,
and she came in on one of those little catamarans.

And she had a baby in her arms, little baby
but that wasn’t her baby, no.
this was a little white baby, blond hair, everything.

Nobody knew, where this baby been come from, you know.
But we knew, you know, us creole mob.
that girl musta told her mother after a while,
who that baby belong to, you know.

Virginia musta kept that baby.
somehow she talked to that old auntie, talk her around
and she let her keep the baby,
Virginia wanted to bring it home for her and Paul, you know.

That creole girl kept the baby, with her people in Black River, I think
Nobody worried too much, those days,
plenty o’ lil’ brown kids running around.
So he grew up there, in Black River,
but they knew where he come from, really.
‘cos of Domingo and Mary.

So that’s how that little boy got his nickname,
‘Pumpkin’, they called him, and the old people knew why,
but they kept it to themselfs, my old creole mob.
that little Pumpkin was a happy kid, strong.
but he never knew who his real mummy and daddy were.

that’s the finish now, of that story.


Postscript: This story was inspired by the moment in Bernardin de Saint Pierre’s narrative where he describes the old man who told him the story of Paul and Virginia: “One day, when I was seated at the foot of the cottages, and contemplating their ruins, a man, advanced in years, passed near the spot. He was dressed in the ancient garb of the island, his feet were bare, and he leaned upon a staff of ebony; his hair was white, and the expression of his countenance was dignified and interesting … The old man, after a short silence, during which he leaned his face upon his hands, as if he were trying to recall the images of the past, thus began his narration: ---…”