The verjuice which old Rose had sprinkled over Peter and Cissie by
calling them "he-nigger" and "she-nigger" somehow minimized them,
animalized them in the old lawyer's imagination. Rose's speech was
charged with such contempt for her own color that it placed the mulatto
and the octoroon down with apes and rabbits.
The lawyer fought against his feeling, for the sake of his secretary,
who had come to occupy so wide a sector of his comfort and affection.
Yet the old virago evidently spoke from a broad background of
experience. She was at least half convincing. While the Captain repelled
her charge against his quiet, hard-working brown helper, he admitted it
against Cissie Dildine, whom he did not know. She was an animal, a
female centaur, a wanton and a strumpet, as all negresses are wantons
and strumpets. All white men in the South firmly believe that. They
believe it with a peculiar detestation; and since they used these
persons very profitably for a hundred and fifty years as breeding
animals, one might say they believe it a trifle ungratefully.
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