PETIONVILLE, Haiti -- When Yolande Solages Kirk made her regular drive to Mass yesterday, there was little to suggest that ,, by the next Sunday that church bells ring, the U.S. military would be here, either as invaders or interveners.

Here among bougainvillea and hibiscus, the almond and avocado trees of this tony enclave above and beyond Port-au-Prince, Haiti's pitifully poor capital, the elite parishioners in their Sunday best walked smartly into the Carmelite convent chapel to hear what their priest had to say about what is happening here.

On their way to the church, Mrs. Kirk and her neighbor and friend, Marie Lynn, passed the Hotel Creole, where on Saturday night former President Jimmy Carter dined with the military junta in the final effort to avoid bloodshed by persuading them to step down.

"Carter is very loved in Haiti," said Mrs. Kirk. "He doesn't think like other Americans. He pays attention to other countries. He is trying always to calm things down."

Here, the imminent return of the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected president who was ousted three years ago by the army, will bring no celebration and no dancing in the streets. This is home to the rich elite who have benefited directly or indirectly from the Duvalier family dictatorship that preceded Father Aristide's election and the military junta that followed it.

Here, there are suspicions that the French Embassy was involved in rigging the elections and that the Americans were duped into declaring them fair and free.

Here, there are accusations that Father Aristide terrorized opponents, destroyed the economy and derailed a system that worked -- at least for these people.

"He called all business people rubber," said Mrs. Kirk. "He told the hungry that if they saw someone eating they had a constitutional right to demand the food."

Mrs. Kirk, who runs a small hotel that has been mostly empty since the United Nations imposed an embargo on Haiti last year, said: "The business people come down every day. They open their businesses because it is habit. But there is almost no business."

In the sweltering car yesterday -- the air conditioning was off to reduce the consumption of precious gasoline -- the conversation was about the small-arms fire that woke everyone during the night. It was dismissed simply as a political effort to disturb the peace by one side or the other.

Inside the church, the priest wondered aloud whether there was such a thing as good ambition. Certainly, he told the parishioners, there was. But there also was bad ambition, and that was behind the current crisis.

"Why this invasion?" he asked. "It's because of negative ambition."

He finished with a prayer for peace, and Ms. Lynn said afterward: "It's the ambition that makes everyone like that. There's only one who's right. The one who is above."

'We have only fear'

At the other end of town, in the squalid and sweltering Cite du Soleil, Haiti's most notorious slum, Mosicar Samidy walks through the dingiest of back alleys to the home she shares with two other adults and seven children. It has two rooms, a living room and bedroom, each 6 feet by 6 feet. The floor is bare concrete. The sky shines bright blue through the rusted corrugated iron roof. A rickety blue stool is the only piece of furniture.

The entire group is lying on the floor or leaning against the walls. In a corner is a pot of beans, a smaller one of salsa and a can of salt.

It is dark, unbearably humid, indescribably filthy. Mosicar Samidy, 24, has no job, no income and two children, a 3-year-old and an 18-month-old.

"I have many problems," she said. "I have little to eat. I don't have even a dollar. For me, it is important to have change, for an end to the embargo. We have suffered a lot from the embargo. Things have become very expensive."

Her friend, Jean Pierre Louis, 22, who also lives in a slum, said: "It is necessary Aristide comes back. We need change. Things don't work."

If an invasion occurred, they would stay in their homes.

"We have no security," said Mr. Louis. "We have only fear. If we had money we'd move to the provinces, but we don't."

In another part of Cite du Soleil, another young woman whispered that "an invasion would be good." Afraid of being heard, she continued in a whisper, "It would help because we have such a deplorable situation."

That situation is most dramatically glimpsed in the gasoline black market, aptly dubbed "Kuwait City." Here, gasoline is available at the day's price of $14 a gallon, up from $1.80 before the embargo.

Willy Montau, 29, a gas seller, intervenes in a conversation between a reporter and Eddy Jackson, 24, a market laborer. Mr. Jackson is about to explain why he opposed an invasion but would like the country to change.

"That's a difficult issue for him to talk about," said Mr. Montau. "If he answered that, the men with guns will come for him."

This does not stop him from expressing his opposition to an invasion.

Soon, the "men with guns" may have evaporated for the time being. But Mr. Jackson has little trust for any politicians.

"It will bring more dead, more bodies," he said. "I hate politicians. Politicians don't work for change here. They work for money for their own pockets."

The group is growing. Jean Pierre Francklyn, 25, an articulate young man who makes about a dollar a day trading second-hand jeans, says: "A country can change without invasion. A country can change through dialogue among Haitians. Haitian to Haitian.

"I want the United States to come in, but not with arms -- without arms. Haiti is so poor, but it is also part of the Americas."

'They are themselves'

Outside army headquarters, where Mr. Carter was meeting with Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras and other junta leaders yesterday, Orel Eustache stood apart from the small crowd of demonstrators. He was the most smartly dressed among them, attired in a striped business shirt and tailored trousers. He stood with arms crossed and looked at the door through which Mr. Carter and the rest of the U.S. delegation had been expected to emerge momentarily for the last several hours.

He was there to protest any invasion -- not like most of the others, who marched obediently behind the military leadership, but as a businessman who thinks the country would benefit from an entirely new political structure.

He would like to see the resignations of the generals and Father Aristide.

"It is necessary to give a new team a chance," said the proprietor of a pasta plant.

"It is not an Aristide government that will permit Mr. Clinton to resolve the Haitian problem. The American president has been addressing the Aristide problem, not the Haitian problem. It is up to the Haitians themselves to discuss and amend their problems."

He said the generals should resign but should not be forced into exile.

"They have their homes here. Haiti is their country," he said. "To depart from office, yes. But to depart, how? They are generals. They are themselves. They are not going to back out."

He was only partly right.

Mr. Eustache said he would not join any resistance to the invasion he opposes. He said, like most Haitians, he would stay home.