Books: Maria Chapdelaine
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Louis Hemon >> Maria Chapdelaine
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And are there many Canadians where you are living? Do the people
speak French?"
"At the place I went to first, in the State of Maine, there were
more Canadians than Americans or Irish; everyone spoke French; but
where I live now, in the State of Massachusetts, there are not so
many families however; we call on one another in the evenings."
"Samuel once thought of going West," said Madame Chapdelaine, "but I
was never willing. Among people speaking nothing but English I
should have been unhappy all the rest of my days. I used to say to
him-'Samuel, we Canadians are always better off among Canadians.'"
When the French Canadian speaks of himself it is invariably and
simply as a "Canadian"; whereas for all the other races that
followed in his footsteps, and peopled the country across to the
Pacific, he keeps the name of origin: English, Irish, Polish,
Russian; never admitting for a moment that the children of these,
albeit born in the country, have an equal title to be called
"Canadians." Quite naturally, and without thought of offending, he
appropriates the name won in the heroic. days of his forefathers.
"And is it a large town where you are?"
"Ninety thousand," said Lorenzo with a little affectation of
modesty.
"Ninety thousand! Bigger than Quebec!"
"Yes, and we are only an hour by train from Boston. A really big
place, that."
And he set himself to telling of the great American cities and their
magnificence, of the life filled with case and plenty, abounding in
refinements beyond imagination, which is the portion of the well
paid artisan.
In silence they listened to his words. Framed in the open door-way
the last crimson of the sky, fading to Paler tints, rose above the
vague masses of the forest,-a column resting upon its base. The
Mosquitos began to arrive in their legions, and the humming of
innumerable wings filled the low clearing with continuous sound.
"Telesphore," directed the father, "make us a smudge. Take the old
tin pail." Telesphore covered the bottom of the leaky vessel with
earth, filling it then with dry chips and twigs which he set ablaze.
When the flame was leaping up brightly he returned with an armful of
herbs and leaves and smothered it; the volume of stinging smoke
which ascended was carried by the wind into the house and drove out
the countless horde. At length they were at peace, and with sighs of
relief could desist from the warfare. The very last mosquito settled
on the face of little Alma Rose. With great seriousness she
pronounced the ritual words-"Fly, fly, get off my face, my nose is
not a public place!" Then she made a swift end of the creature with
a slap. The smoke drifted obliquely through the door-way; within the
house, no longer stirred by the breeze, it spread in a thin cloud;
the walls became indistinct and far-off; the group seated between
door and stove resolved into a circle of dim faces hanging in a
white haze.
"Greetings to everyone!" The tones rang clear, and Francois Paradis,
emerging from the smoke, stood upon the threshold. For weeks Maria
had been expecting him. Half an hour earlier the sound of a step
without had sent the blood to her cheek, and yet the arrival of him
she awaited moved her with joyous surprise.
"Offer your chair, Da'Be!" cried mother Chapdelaine. Four callers
from three different quarters converging upon her, truly nothing
more was needed to fill her with delightful excitement. An evening
indeed to be remembered!
"There! You are forever saying that we are buried in the woods and
see no company," triumphed her husband. "Count them over: eleven
grown-up people!" Every chair in the house was filled; Esdras,
Tit'Be and Eutrope Gagnon occupied the bench, Chapdelaine, a box
turned upside down; from the step Telesphore and Alma Rose watched
the mounting smoke.
"And look," said Ephrem Surprenant, "how many young fellows and only
one girl!" The young men were duly counted: three Chapdelaines,
Eutrope Gagnon, Lorenzo Surprenant, Francois Paradis. As for the one
girl ... Every eye was turned upon Maria, who smiled feebly and
looked down, confused.
"Had you a good trip, Francois?-He went up the river with strangers
to buy furs from the Indians," explained Chapdelaine; who presented
to the others with formality-"Francois Paradis, son of Francois
Paradis from St. Michel de Mistassini." Eutrope Gagnon knew him by
name, Ephrem Surprenant had met his father:--"A tall mall, taller
still than he, of a strength not to be matched." it only remained to
account for Lorenzo Surprenant,-"who has come, home from the
States"-and all the conventions had been honoured.
"A good trip," answered Francois. "No, not very good. One of the
Belgians took a fever and nearly died. After that it was rather late
in the season; many Indian families had already gone down to Ste.
Anne de Chicoutimi and could not be found; and on top of it all a
canoe was wrecked when running a rapid on the way back, and it was
hard work fishing the pelts out of the river, without mentioning the
fact that one of the bosses was nearly drowned,-the same one that
had the fever. No, we were unlucky all through. But here we are none
the less, and it is always another job over and done with." A
gesture signified to the listeners that the task was completed, the
wages paid and the ultimate profits or losses not his affair.
"Always another job over and done with,"-he slowly repeated the
words. "The Belgians were in a hurry to reach Peribonka on Sunday,
tomorrow; but, as they had another man, I left them to finish the
journey without me so that I might spend the evening with you. It
does one's heart good to see a house again."
His glance strayed contentedly over the meager smoke-filled interior
and those who peopled it. In the circle of faces tanned by wind and
sun, his was the brownest and most weather-beaten; his garments
showed many rents, one side of the, torn woollen jersey flapped upon
his shoulder, moccasins replaced the long boots he had worn in the
spring. He seemed to have brought back something of natures wildness
from the head-waters Of the rivers where the Indians and the great
creatures of the woods find sanctuary. And Maria, whose life would
not allow her to discern the beauty of that wilderness because it
lay too near her, yet felt that some strange charm was at work and
was throwing its influence about her.
Esdras had gone for the cards; cards with faded red backs and
dog-eared corners, where the lost queen of hearts was replaced by a
square of pink cardboard bearing the plainly-written legend dame de
cour. They played at quatre-sept. The two Surprenants, uncle and
nephew, had Madame Chapdelaine and Maria for partners; after each
table and game the beaten couple left the table and gave place to
two other players. Night had fallen; some mosquitos made their way
through the open window and went hither and thither with their
stings and irritating music.
"Telesphore!" called out Esdras, "see to the smudge, the flies are
coming in." In a few minutes smoke pervaded the house again, thick,
almost stifling, but greeted with delight. The party ran its quiet
course. An hour of cards, some talk with a visitor who bears news
from the great world, these are still accounted happiness in the
Province of Quebec.
Between the games, Lorenzo Surprenant entertained Maria with a
description of his life and his journeyings; in turn asking
questions about her. He was far from putting on airs, yet she felt
disconcerted at finding so little to say, and her replies were
halting and timid.
The others talked among themselves or watched the play. Madame
recalled the many gatherings at St. Gedeon in the days of her
girlhood, and looked from one to the other, with unconcealed
pleasure at the fact that three young men should thus assemble
beneath her roof. But Maria sat at the table devoting herself to the
cards, and left it for some vacant seat near the door with scarcely
a glance about her. Lorenzo Surprenant was always by her side and
talking; she felt the continual regard of Eutrope Gagnon with that
familiar look of patient waiting; she was conscious of the handsome
bronzed face and fearless eyes of Francois Paradis who sat very
silent beyond the door, elbows on his knees.
"Maria is not at her best this evening," said Madame Chapdelaine by
way of excusing her, "she is really not used to having visitors you
see..." Had she but known! ...
Four hundred miles away, at the far headwaters of the rivers, those
Indians who have held aloof from missionaries and traders are
squatting round a fire of dry cypress before their lodges, and the
world they see about them, as in the earliest days, is filled with
dark mysterious powers: the giant Wendigo pursuing the trespassing
hunter; strange potions, carrying death or healing, which wise old
men know how to distil from roots and leaves; incantations and every
magic art. And here on the fringe of another world, but a day's
journey from the railway, in this wooden house filled with acrid
smoke, another all-conquering spell, charming and bewildering the
eyes of three young men, is being woven into the shifting cloud by a
sweet and guileless maid with downcast eyes.
The hour was late; the visitors departed; first the two Surprenants,
then Eutrope Gagnon, only Francois Paradis was left,--standing
there and seeming to hesitate.
"You will sleep here to-night, Francois?" asked the father.
His wife heard no reply. "Of course!" said she. "And to-morrow we
will all gather blueberries. It is the feast of Ste. Anne."
When a few moments later Francois mounted to the loft with the boys,
Maria's heart was filled with happiness. This seemed to bring him a
little nearer, to draw him within the family circle.
The morrow was a day of blue sky, a day when from the heavens some
of the sparkle and brightness descends to earth. The green of tender
grass and young wheat was of a ravishing delicacy, even the dun
woods borrowed something from the azure of the sky.
Francois came down in the morning looking a different man, in
clothes borrowed from Da'Be and Esdras, and after he had shaved and
washed Madame Chapdelaine complimented him on his appearance.
When breakfast was over and the hour of the mass come, all told
their chaplet together; and then the long delightful idle Sunday lay
before them. But the day's programme was already settled. Eutrope
Gagnon came in just as they were finishing dinner, which was early,
and at once they all set forth, provided with pails, dishes and tin
mugs of every shape and size.
The blueberries were fully ripe. In the burnt lands the purple of
the clusters and the green of the leaves now overcame the paling
rose of the laurels. The children began picking at once with cries
of delight, but their elders scattered through the woods in search
of the larger patches, where one might sit on one's heels and fill a
pail in an hour. The noise of footsteps on dry twigs, of rustling in
the alder bushes, the calls of Telesphore and Alma Rose to one
another, all faded slowly into the distance, and about each gatherer
was only the buzzing of flies drunk with sunshine, and the voice of
the wind in the young birches and aspens.
"There is a fine clump over here," said a voice. Maria's heart beat
faster as she arose and went toward Francois Paradis who was
kneeling behind the alders. Side by side they picked industriously
for a time, then plunged farther into the woods, stepping over
fallen trees, looking about them for the deep blue masses of the
ripe berries.
"There are very few this year," said Francois. "It was the spring
frosts that killed the blossoms." He brought to the berry-seeking
his woodsman's knowledge. "In the hollows and among the alders the
snow was lying longer and kept them from freezing."
They sought again and made some happy finds: broad clumps of bushes
laden with huge berries which they heaped into their pails. In the
space of an hour these were filled; they rose and went to sit on a
fallen tree to rest themselves.
Mosquitos swarmed and circled in the fervent afternoon heat. Every
moment the hand must be raised to scatter them; after a
panic-stricken flight they straightway returned, reckless and
pitiless, bent only on finding one tiny spot to plant a sting; with
their sharp note was blended that of the insatiate black-fly,
filling the woods with unceasing sound. Living trees there were not
many; a few young birches, some aspens, alder bushes were stirring
in the wind among the rows of lifeless and blackened trunks.
Francois Paradis looked about him as though to take his bearings.
"The others cannot be far away," he said.
"No," replied Maria in a low voice. But neither he nor she called to
summon them.
A squirrel ran down the bole of a dead birch tree and watched the
pair with his sharp eyes for some moments before venturing to earth.
The strident flight of heavy grasshoppers rose above the intoxicated
clamour of the flies; a wandering air brought the fall's dull
thunder through the alders.
Francois Paradis stole a glance at Maria, then turned his eyes away
and tightly clasped his hands. Ah, but she was good to look upon!
Thus to sit beside her, to catch these shy glimpses of the strong
bosom, the sweet face so modest and so patient, the utter simplicity
of attitude and of her rare gestures; a great hunger for her awoke
in him, and with it a new and marvellous tenderness, for he had
lived his life with other men, in hard give-and-take, among the wild
forests and on the snowy plains.
Well he knew she was one of those women who, giving themselves, give
wholly, reckoning not the cost; love of body and of soul, strength
of arm in the daily task, the unmeasured devotion of a spirit that
does not waver. So precious the gift appeared to him that he dared
not ask it.
"I am going down to Grand'Mere next week," he said, almost in a
whisper, "to work on the lumber-dam. But I will never take a glass,
not one, Maria!" Hesitating a moment he stammered out, eyes on the
ground: "Perhaps ... they have said something against me?"
"No."
"It is true that I used to drink a bit, when I got back from the
shanties and the drive; but that is all over now. You see when a
young fellow has been working in the woods for six months, with
every kind of hardship and no amusement, and gets out to La Tuque or
Jonquieres with all the winter's wages in his pocket, pretty often
he loses his head; he throws his money about and sometimes takes too
much ... But that is all over."
"And it is also true that I used to swear. When one lives all the
time with rough men in the woods or on the rivers one gets the
habit. Once I swore a good deal, and the cure, Mr. Tremblay, took me
to task because I said before him that I wasn't afraid of the devil.
But there is an end of that too, Maria. All the summer I am to be
working for two dollars and a half a day and you may be sure that I
shall save money. And in the autumn there will be no trouble finding
a job as foreman in a shanty, with big wages. Next spring I shall
have more than five hundred dollars saved, clear, and I shall come
back... ."
Again he hesitated, and the question he was about to put took
another form upon his lips. "You will be here still...next
spring?"
"Yes."
And after the simple question and simpler answer they fell silent
and so long remained, wordless and grave, for they had exchanged
their vows.
CHAPTER VI
THE STUFF OF DREAMS
IN July the hay was maturing, and by the middle of August it was
only a question of awaiting a few dry days to cut and-store it. But
after many weeks of fine weather the frequent shifts of wind which
are usual in Quebec once more ruled the skies.
Every morning the men scanned the heavens and took counsel together.
"The wind is backing to the sou'east. Bad luck! Beyond question it
will rain again," said Edwige Legare with a gloomy face. Or it was
old Chapdelaine who followed the movement of the white clouds that
rose above the tree-tops, sailed in glad procession across the
clearing, and disappeared behind the dark spires on the other side.
"If the nor'west holds till to-morrow we shall begin," he announces.
But next day the wind had backed afresh, and the cheerful clouds of
yesterday, now torn and shapeless, straggling in disorderly rout,
seemed to be fleeing like the wreckage of a broken army.
Madame Chapdelaine foretold inevitable misfortune. "Mark my words,
we shall not have good hay-making weather. They say that down by the
end of the lake some people of the same parish have gone to law with
one another. Of a certainty the good God does not like that sort of
thing!"
Yet the Power at length was pleased to show indulgence, and the
north-west wind blew for three days on end, steady and strong,
promising a rainless week. The scythes were long since sharpened and
ready, and the five men set to work on the morning of the third day.
Legare, Esdras and the father cut; Da'Be and Tit'Be followed close
on their heels, raking the hay together. Toward evening all. five
took their forks in hand and made it into cocks, high and carefully
built, lest a change of wind should bring rain. But the sunshine
lasted. For five days they carried on, swinging the scythe steadily
from right to left with that broad free movement that seems so easy
to the practised hand, and is in truth the hardest to learn and the
most fatiguing of all the labours known to husbandry.
Flies and mosquitos rose in swarms from the cut hay, stinging and
tormenting the workers; a blazing sun scorched their necks, and
smarting sweat ran into their eyes; when evening came, such was the
ache of backs continually bent, they could not straighten themselves
without making wry faces. Yet they toiled from dawn to nightfall
without loss of a second, hurrying their meals, feeling nothing but
gratitude and happiness that the weather stood fair.
Three or four times a day Maria or Telesphore brought them a bucket
of water which they stood in a shady spot to keep it cool; and when
throats became unbearably dry with heat, exertion and the dust of
the hay, they went by turns to swallow great-draughts and deluge
wrists or head.
In five days all. the hay was cut, and, the drought persisting, on
the morning of the sixth day they began to break and scatter the
cocks they intended lodging in the barn before night. The scythes
had done their work and the forks came into play. They threw down
the cocks, spread the bay in the sun, and toward the end of the
afternoon, when dry, heaped it anew in piles of such a size that a
man could just lift one with a single motion to the level of a
well-filled hay-cart.
Charles Eugene pulled gallantly between the shafts; the cart was
swallowed up in the barn, stopped beside the mow, and once again the
forks were plunged into the hard-packed hay, raised a thick mat of
it with strain of wrist and back, and unloaded it to one side. By
the end of the week the hay, well-dried and of excellent colour, was
all under cover; the men stretched themselves and took long breaths,
knowing the fight was over and won.
"It may rain now if it likes," said Chapdelaine. "It will be all
the same to us." But it appeared that the sunshine had not been
timed with exact relation to their peculiar needs, for the wind held
in the north-west and fine days followed one upon the other in
unbroken succession.
The women of the Chapdelaine household had no part in the work of
the fields. The father and his three tall sons, all strong and
skilled in farm labour, could have managed everything by themselves;
if they continued to employ Legare and to pay him wages it was
because he had entered their service eleven years before, when the
children were young, and they kept him now, partly through habit,
partly because they were loth to lose the help of so tremendous a
worker. During the hay-making then, Maria and her mother had only
their usual tasks: housework, cooking, washing and mending, the
milking of three cows and the care of the hens, and once a week the
baking which often lasted well into the night.
On the eve of a baking Telesphore was sent to hunt up the bread-pans
which habitually found their way into all comers of the house and
shed-being in daily use to measure oats for the horse or Indian corn
for the fowls, not to mention twenty other casual purposes they were
continually serving. By the time all were routed out and scrubbed
the dough was rising, and the women hastened to finish other work
that their evening watch might be shortened.
Telesphore made a blazing fire below the Oven with branches of gummy
cypress that smelled of resin, then fed it with tamarack logs,
giving a steady and continuous heat. When the oven was hot enough,
Maria slipped in the pans of dough; after which nothing remained but
to tend the fire and change the position of the pans as the baking
required.
Too small an oven had been built five years before, and ever since
then the family did not escape a weekly discussion about the new
oven it was imperative to construct, which unquestionably should
have been put in hand without delay; but on each trip to
the-village, by one piece of bad luck and another, someone forgot
the necessary cement; and so it happened that the oven bad to be
filled two or even three times to make weekly provision for the nine
mouths of the household.
Maria invariably took charge of the first baking; invariably too,
when the oven was ready for the second batch of bread and the
evening well advanced, her mother would say considerately:--"You
can go to bed, Maria, I will look after the second baking." And
Maria would reply never a word, knowing full well that the mother
would presently stretch herself on the bed for a little nap and not
awake till morning. She then would revive the smudge that smouldered
every evening in the damaged tin pail, install the second batch of
bread, and seat herself upon the door-step, her chin resting in her
hands, upheld through the long hours of the night by her
inexhaustible patience.
Twenty paces from the house the clay oven with its sheltering roof
of boards loomed dark, but the door of the fireplace fitted badly
and one red gleam escaped through the chink; the dusky border of the
forest stole a little closer in the night. Maria sat very still,
delighting in the quiet and the coolness, while a thousand vague
dreams circled about her like a flock of wheeling birds.
There was a time when this night-watch passed in drowsiness, as she
resignedly awaited the moment when the finished task would bring her
sleep; but since the coming of Francois Paradis the long weekly
vigil was very sweet to her, for she could think of him and of
herself with nothing to distract her dear imaginings. Simple they
were, these thoughts of hers, and never did they travel far afield.
In the springtime he will come back; this return of his, the joy of
seeing him again, the words he will say when they find themselves
once more alone, the first touch of hands and lips. Not easy was it
for Maria to make a picture for herself of how these things were to
come about.
Yet she essayed. First she repeated his full name two or three
times, formally, as others spoke it: Paradis, from St. Michel de
Mistassini ... Francois Paradis ... Then suddenly, with sweet
intimacy,--Francois!
The evocation fails not. He stands before her tall and strong, bold
of eye, his face bronzed with sun and snow-glare. He is by her side,
rejoicing at the sight of her, rejoicing that he has kept his faith,
has lived the whole year discreetly, without drinking or swearing.
There are no blueberries yet to gather-it is only springtime-yet
some good reason they find for rambling off to the woods; he walks
beside her without word or joining of hands, through the massed
laurel flaming into blossom, and naught beyond does either need to
flush the cheek, to quicken the beating of the heart.
Now they are seated upon a fallen tree, and thus he speaks: "Were
you lonely without me, Maria?" Most surely it is the first question
he will put to her; but she is able to carry the dream no further
for the sudden pain stabbing her heart. Ah! dear God! how long will
she have been lonely for him before that moment comes! A summer to
be lived through, an autumn, and all the endless winter! She sighs,
but the steadfast patience of the race sustains her, and her
thoughts turn upon herself and what the future may be holding.
When she was at St. Prime, one of her cousins who was about to be
wedded spoke often to her of marriage. A young man from the village
and another from Normandin had both courted her; for long months
spending the Sunday evenings together at the house.
"I was fond of them both,"--thus she declared to Maria. "And I really
think I liked Zotique best; but he went off to the drive on the St.
Maurice, and he wasn't to be back till summer; then Romeo asked me
and I said, 'Yes.' I like him very well, too."
Maria made no answer, but even then her heart told her that all
marriages are not like that; now she is very sure. The love of
Francois Paradis for her, her love for him, is a thing apart-a thing
holy and inevitable--for she was unable to imagine that between
them it should have befallen otherwise; so must this love give
warmth and unfading colour to every day of the dullest life. Always
had she dim consciousness of such a presence-moving the spirit like
the solemn joy of chanted masses, the intoxication of a sunny windy
day, the happiness that some unlooked-for good fortune brings, the
certain promise of abundant harvest ...
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