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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Maria Chapdelaine, by Louis Hemon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Maria Chapdelaine
+       A Tale of the Lake St. John Country
+
+Author: Louis Hemon
+
+Translator: W. H. Blake
+
+Posting Date: July 26, 2009 [EBook #4383]
+Release Date: August, 2003
+First Posted: January 20, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIA CHAPDELAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MARIA CHAPDELAINE
+
+A TALE OF THE LAKE ST. JOHN COUNTRY
+
+
+BY
+
+LOUIS HEMON
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+W. H. BLAKE
+
+
+Author of "Brown Waters," etc.
+
+
+New York
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    I  PERIBONKA
+   II  HOME IN THE CLEARING
+  III  FRANCOIS PASSES BY
+   IV  WILD LAND
+    V  THE VOWS
+   VI  THE STUFF OF DREAMS
+  VII  A MEAGER REAPING
+ VIII  ENTRENCHED AGAINST WINTER
+   IX  ONE THOUSAND AVES
+    X  STRAYING TRACKS
+   XI  THE INTERPRETER OF GOD
+  XII  LOVE BEARING GIFTS
+ XIII  LOVE BEARING CHAINS
+  XIV  INTO THE DEEP SILENCE
+   XV  THAT WE PERISH NOT
+  XVI  PLEDGED TO THE RACE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PERIBONKA
+
+Ite, missa est
+
+The door opened, and the men of the congregation began to come out
+of the church at Peribonka.
+
+A moment earlier it had seemed quite deserted, this church set by
+the roadside on the high bank of the Peribonka, whose icy
+snow-covered surface was like a winding strip of plain. The snow lay
+deep upon road and fields, for the April sun was powerless to send
+warmth through the gray clouds, and the heavy spring rains were yet
+to come. This chill and universal white, the humbleness of the
+wooden church and the wooden houses scattered along the road, the
+gloomy forest edging so close that it seemed to threaten, these all
+spoke of a harsh existence in a stern land. But as the men and boys
+passed through the doorway and gathered in knots on the broad steps,
+their cheery salutations, the chaff flung from group to group, the
+continual interchange of talk, merry or sober, at once disclosed the
+unquenchable joyousness of a people ever filled with laughter and
+good humour.
+
+Cleophas Pesant, son of Thadee Pesant the blacksmith, was already in
+light-coloured summer garments, and sported an American coat with
+broad padded shoulders; though on this cold Sunday he had not
+ventured to discard his winter cap of black cloth with harelined
+ear-laps for the hard felt hat he would have preferred to wear.
+Beside him Egide Simard, and others who had come a long road by
+sleigh, fastened their long fur coats as they left the church,
+drawing them in at the waist with scarlet sashes. The young folk of
+the village, very smart in coats with otter collars, gave
+deferential greeting to old Nazaire Larouche; a tall man with gray
+hair and huge bony shoulders who had in no wise altered for the mass
+his everyday garb: short jacket of brown cloth lined with sheepskin,
+patched trousers, and thick woollen socks under moose-hide
+moccasins.
+
+"Well, Mr. Larouche, do things go pretty well across the water?"
+
+"Not badly, my lads, not so badly."
+
+Everyone drew his pipe from his pocket, and the pig's bladder filled
+with tobacco leaves cut by hand, and, after the hour and a half of
+restraint, began to smoke with evident satisfaction. The first puffs
+brought talk of the weather, the coming spring, the state of the ice
+on Lake St. John and the rivers, of their several doings and the
+parish gossip; after the manner of men who, living far apart on the
+worst of roads, see one another but once a week.
+
+"The lake is solid yet," said Cleophas Pesant, "but the rivers are
+no longer safe. The ice went this week beside the sand-bank opposite
+the island, where there have been warm spring-holes all winter."
+Others began to discuss the chances of the crops, before the ground
+was even showing.
+
+"I tell you that we shall have a lean year," asserted one old
+fellow, "the frost got in before the last snows fell."
+
+At length the talk slackened and all faced the top step, where
+Napoleon Laliberte was making ready, in accord with his weekly
+custom, to announce the parish news. He stood there motionless for a
+little while, awaiting quiet,--hands deep in the pockets of the
+heavy lynx coat, knitting his forehead and half closing his keen
+eyes under the fur cap pulled well over his ears; and when silence
+fell he began to give the news at the full pitch of his voice, in
+the manner of a carter who encourages his horses on a hill.
+
+"The work on the wharf will go forward at once ... I have been sent
+money by the Government, and those looking for a job should see me
+before vespers. If you want this money to stay in the parish instead
+of being sent back to Quebec you had better lose no time in speaking
+to me."
+
+Some moved over in his direction; others, indifferent, met his
+announcement with a laugh. The remark was heard in an envious
+undertone:--"And who will be foreman at three dollars a day?
+Perhaps good old Laliberte ..."
+
+But it was said jestingly rather than in malice, and the speaker
+ended by adding his own laugh.
+
+Hands still in the pockets of his big coat, straightening himself
+and squaring his shoulders as he stood there upon the highest step,
+Napoleon Laliberte proceeded in loudest tones:--"A surveyor from
+Roberval will be in the parish next week. If anyone wishes his land
+surveyed before mending his fences for the summer, this is to let
+him know."
+
+The item was received without interest. Peribonka farmers are not
+particular about correcting their boundaries to gain or lose a few
+square feet, since the most enterprising among them have still
+two-thirds of their grants to clear,--endless acres of woodland
+and swamp to reclaim.
+
+He continued:--"Two men are up here with money to buy furs. If you
+have any bear, mink, muskrat or fox you will find these men at the
+store until Wednesday, or you can apply to Francois Paradis of
+Mistassini who is with them. They have plenty of money and will pay
+cash for first-class pelts." His news finished, he descended the
+steps. A sharp-faced little fellow took his place.
+
+"Who wants to buy a fine young pig of my breeding?" he asked,
+indicating with his finger something shapeless that struggled in a
+bag at his feet. A great burst of laughter greeted him. They knew
+them well, these pigs of Hormidas' raising. No bigger than rats, and
+quick as squirrels to jump the fences.
+
+"Twenty-five cents!" one young man bid chaffingly.
+
+"Fifty cents!"
+
+"A dollar!"
+
+"Don't play the fool, Jean. Your wife will never let you pay a
+dollar for such a pig as that."
+
+Jean stood his ground:--"A dollar, I won't go back on it."
+
+Hormidas Berube with a disgusted look on his face awaited another
+bid, but only got jokes and laughter.
+
+Meantime the women in their turn had begun to leave the church.
+Young or old, pretty or ugly, nearly all were well clad in fur
+cloaks, or in coats of heavy cloth; for, honouring the Sunday mass,
+sole festival of their lives, they had doffed coarse blouses and
+homespun petticoats, and a stranger might well have stood amazed to
+find them habited almost with elegance in this remote spot; still
+French to their finger-tips in the midst of the vast lonely forest
+and the snow, and as tastefully dressed, these peasant women, as
+most of the middle-class folk in provincial France.
+
+Cleophas Pesant waited for Louisa Tremblay who was alone, and they
+went off together along the wooden sidewalk in the direction of the
+house. Others were satisfied to exchange jocular remarks with the
+young girls as they passed, in the easy and familiar fashion of the
+country,-natural enough too where the children have grown up
+together from infancy.
+
+Pite Gaudreau, looking toward the door of the church, remarked:--"Maria
+Chapdelaine is back from her visit to St. Prime, and there is her
+father come to fetch her." Many in the village scarcely knew the
+Chapdelaines.
+
+"Is it Samuel Chapdelaine who has a farm in the woods on the other
+side of the river, above Honfleur?"
+
+"That's the man."
+
+"And the girl with him is his daughter? Maria ..."
+
+"Yes, she has been spending a month at St. Prime with her mother's
+people. They are Bouchards, related to Wilfrid Bouchard of St.
+Gedeon ..."
+
+Interested glances were directed toward the top of the steps. One of
+the young people paid Maria the countryman's tribute of
+admiration--"A fine hearty girl!" said he.
+
+"Right you are! A fine hearty girl, and one with plenty of spirit
+too. A pity that she lives so far off in the woods. How are the
+young fellows of the village to manage an evening at their place, on
+the other side of the river and above the falls, more than a dozen
+miles away and the last of them with next to no road?"
+
+The smiles were bold enough as they spoke of her, this inaccessible
+beauty; but as she came down the wooden steps with her father and
+passed near by, they were taken with bashfulness and awkwardly drew
+back, as though something more lay between her and them than the
+crossing of a river and twelve miles of indifferent woodland road.
+
+Little by little the groups before the church dissolved. Some
+returned to their houses, after picking up all the news that was
+going; others, before departing, were for spending an hour in one of
+the two gathering places of the village; the cur's house or the
+general store. Those who came from the back concessions, stretching
+along the very border of the forest, one by one untied their horses
+from the row and brought their sleighs to the foot of the steps for
+their women and children.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine and Maria had gone but a little way when a young
+man halted them.
+
+"Good day to you, Mr. Chapdelaine. Good day, Miss Maria. I am in
+great luck at meeting you, since your farm is so high up the river
+and I don't often come this way myself."
+
+His bold eyes travelled from one to the other. When he averted them
+it seemed by a conscious effort of politeness; swiftly they
+returned, and their glance, bright, keen, full of honest eagerness,
+was questioning and disconcerting.
+
+"Francois Paradis!" exclaimed Chapdelaine.
+
+"This is indeed a bit of luck, for I haven't seen you this long
+while, Francois. And your father dead too. Have you held on to the
+farm?" The young man did not answer; he was looking expectantly at
+Maria with a frank smile, awaiting a word from her.
+
+"You remember Francois Paradis of Mistassini, Maria? He has changed
+very little."
+
+"Nor have you, Mr. Chapdelaine. But your daughter, that is a
+different story; she is not the same, yet I should have known her at
+once."
+
+They had spent the last evening at St. Michel de Mistassini-viewing
+everything in the full light of the afternoon: the great wooden
+bridge, covered in and painted red, not unlike an amazingly long
+Noah's ark; the high hills rising almost from the very banks of the
+river, the old monastery crouched between the river and the heights,
+the water that seethed and whitened, flinging itself in wild descent
+down the staircase of a giant. But to see this young man after seven
+years, and to hear his name spoken, aroused in Maria memories
+clearer and more lively than she was able to evoke of the events and
+sights of yesterday.
+
+"Francois Paradis! ... Why surely, father, I remember Francois
+Paradis." And Francois, content, gave answer to the questions of a
+moment ago.
+
+"No, Mr. Chapdelaine, I have not kept the farm. When the good man
+died I sold everything, and since then I have been nearly all the
+time in the woods, trapping or bartering with the Indians of Lake
+Mistassini and the Riviere aux Foins. I also spent a couple of years
+in the Labrador." His look passed once more from Samuel Chapdelaine
+to Maria, and her eyes fell.
+
+"Are you going home to-day?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; right after dinner."
+
+"I am glad that I saw you, for I shall be passing up the river near
+your place in two or three weeks, when the ice goes out. I am here
+with some Belgians who are going to buy furs from the Indians; we
+shall push up so soon as the river is clear, and if we pitch a tent
+above the falls close to your farm I will spend the evening with
+you."
+
+"That is good, Francois, we will expect you."
+
+The alders formed a thick and unbroken hedge along the river
+Peribonka; but the leafless stems did not shut away the steeply
+sloping bank, the levels of the frozen river, the dark hem of the
+woods crowding to the farther edge-leaving between the solitude of
+the great trees, thick-set and erect, and the bare desolateness of
+the ice only room for a few narrow fields, still for the most part
+uncouth with stumps, so narrow indeed that they seemed to be
+constrained in the grasp of an unkindly land.
+
+To Maria Chapdelaine, glancing inattentively here and there, there
+was nothing in all this to make one feel lonely or afraid. Never had
+she known other prospect from October to May, save those still more
+depressing and sad, farther yet from the dwellings of man and the
+marks of his labour; and moreover all about her that morning had
+taken on a softer outline, was brighter with a new promise, by
+virtue of something sweet and gracious that the future had in its
+keeping. Perhaps the coming springtime ... perhaps another
+happiness that was stealing toward her, nameless and unrecognized.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine and Maria were to dine with their relative Azalma
+Larouche, at whose house they had spent the night. No one was there
+but the hostess, for many years a widow, and old Nazaire Larouche,
+her brother-in-law. Azalma was a tall, flat-chested woman with the
+undeveloped features of a child, who talked very quickly and almost
+without taking breath while she made ready the meal in the kitchen.
+From time to time she halted her preparations and sat down opposite
+her visitors, less for the moments repose than to give some special
+emphasis to what she was about to say; but the washing of a dish or
+the setting of the table speedily claimed her attention again, and
+the monologue went on amid the clatter of dishes and frying-pans.
+
+The pea-soup was soon ready and on the table. While eating, the two
+men talked about the condition of their farms and the state of the
+spring ice.
+
+"You should be safe enough for crossing this evening," said Nazaire
+Larouche, "but it will be touch-and-go, and I think you will be
+about the last. The current is strong below the fall and already we
+have had three days of rain.'"
+
+"Everybody says that the ice will hold for a long time yet," replied
+his sister-in-law. "Better sleep here again to-night, and after
+supper the young folks from the village will drop in and spend the
+evening. It is only fair that Maria should have a little more
+amusement before you drag her off into your woods up there."
+
+"She has had plenty of gaiety at St. Prime; singing and games almost
+every night. We are greatly obliged to you, but I am going to put
+the horse in immediately after dinner so as to get home in good
+time."
+
+Old Nazaire Larouche spoke of the morning's sermon which had struck
+him as well reasoned and fine; then after a spell of silence he
+exclaimed abruptly--"Have you baked?"
+
+His amazed sister-in-law gaped at him for a moment before it stole
+upon her that this was his way of asking for bread. A little later
+he attacked her with another question:--"Is your pump working
+well?"
+
+Which signified that there was no water on the table. Azalma rose to
+get it, and behind her back the old fellow sent a sly wink in the
+direction of Maria. "I assault her with parables," chuckled he.
+"It's politer."
+
+On the plank walls of the house were pasted old newspapers, and
+calendars hung there such as the manufacturers of farm implements or
+grain merchants scatter abroad, and also prints of a religious
+character; a representation in crudest colour and almost innocent of
+perspective of the basilica at Ste. Anne de Beaupre--, a likeness
+of Pope Pius X.; a chromo where the palely-smiling Virgin Mary
+disclosed her bleeding heart encircled with a golden nimbus.
+
+"This is nicer than our house," thought Maria to herself. Nazaire
+Larouche kept directing attention to his wants with dark sayings:--"Was
+your pig very lean?" he demanded; or perhaps:--"Fond of maple
+sugar, are you? I never get enough of it ..."
+
+And then Azalma would help him to a second slice of pork or fetch
+the cake of maple sugar from the cupboard. When she wearied of these
+strange table-manners and bade him help himself in the usual
+fashion, he smoothed her ruffled temper with good-humoured excuses,
+"Quite right. Quite right. I won't do it again; but you always loved
+a joke, Azalma. When you have youngsters like me at dinner you must
+look for a little nonsense."
+
+Maria smiled to think how like he was to her father; both tall and
+broad, with grizzled hair, their faces tanned to the colour of
+leather, and, shining from their eyes, the quenchless spirit of
+youth which keeps alive in the countryman of Quebec his imperishable
+simple-heartedness.
+
+They took the road almost as soon as the meal was over. The snow,
+thawed on top by the early rains, and frozen anew during the cold
+nights, gave an icy surface that slipped away easily beneath the
+runners. The high blue hills on the other side of Lake St. John
+which closed the horizon behind them were gradually lost to view as
+they returned up the long bend of the river.
+
+Passing the church, Samuel Chapdelaine said thoughtfully--"The
+mass is beautiful. I am often very sorry that we live so far from
+churches. Perhaps not being able to attend to our religion every
+Sunday hinders us from being just so fortunate as other people."
+
+"It is not our fault," sighed Maria, "we are too far away."
+
+Her father shook his head regretfully. The imposing ceremonial, the
+Latin chants, the lighted tapers, the solemnity of the Sunday mass
+never failed to fill Urn with exaltation. In a little he began to
+sing:--
+
+    J'irai la voir un jour,
+    M'asseoir pres de son trone,
+    Recevoir ma couronne
+    Et regner a mon tour ...
+
+His voice was strong and true, and he used the full volume of it,
+singing with deep fervour; but ere long his eyes began to close and
+his chin to drop toward his breast. Driving always made him sleepy,
+and the horse, aware that the usual drowsiness had possession of his
+master, slackened his pace and at length fell to a walk.
+
+"Get up there, Charles Eugene!"
+
+He had suddenly waked and put his hand out for the whip. Charles
+Eugene resigned himself and began to trot again. Many generations
+ago a Chapdelaine cherished a long feud with a neighbour who bore
+these names, and had forthwith bestowed them upon an old, tired,
+lame horse of his, that he might give himself the pleasure every day
+when passing the enemy's house of calling out very loudly:--"Charles
+Eugene, ill-favoured beast that you are! Wretched, badly brought
+up creature! Get along, Charles Eugene!" For a whole century the
+quarrel was dead and buried; but the Chapdelaines ever since had
+named their successive horses Charles Eugene.
+
+Once again the hymn rose in clear ringing tones, intense with
+feeling:--
+
+    Au ciel, au ciel, au ciel,
+    J'irai la voir un jour . .
+
+And again sleep was master, the voice died away, and Maria gathered
+up the reins dropped from her father's hand.
+
+The icy road held alongside the frozen river. The houses on the other
+shore, each surrounded with its patch of cleared land, were sadly
+distant from one another. Behind the clearings, and on either side of
+them to the river's bank, it was always forest: a dark green background
+of cypress against which a lonely birch tree stood out here and there,
+its bole naked and white as the column of a ruined temple.
+
+On the other side of the road the strip of cleared land was continuous
+and broader; the houses, set closer together, seemed an outpost of the
+village; but ever behind the bare fields marched the forest, following
+like a shadow, a gloomy frieze without end between white ground and gray
+sky.
+
+"Charles Eugene, get on there!"
+
+Chapdelaine woke and made his usual good-humoured feint toward the
+whip; but by the time the horse slowed down, after a few livelier
+paces, he had dropped off again, his hands lying open upon his knees
+showing the worn palms of the horse-hide mittens, his chin resting
+upon the coat's thick fur.
+
+After a couple of miles the road climbed a steep hill and entered
+the unbroken woods. The houses standing at intervals in the flat
+country all the way from the village came abruptly to an end, and
+there was no longer anything for the eye to rest upon but a
+wilderness of bare trunks rising out of the universal whiteness.
+Even the incessant dark green of balsam, spruce and gray pine was
+rare; the few young and living trees were lost among the endless
+dead, either lying on the ground and buried in snow, or still erect
+but stripped and blackened. Twenty years before great forest fires
+had swept through, and the new growth was only pushing its way amid
+the standing skeletons and the charred down-timber. Little hills
+followed one upon the other, and the road was a succession of ups
+and downs scarcely more considerable than the slopes of an ocean
+swell, from trough to crest, from crest to trough.
+
+Maria Chapdelaine drew the cloak about her, slipped her hands under
+the warm robe of gray goat-skin and half closed her eyes. There was
+nothing to look at; in the settlements new houses and barns might go
+up from year to year, or be deserted and tumble into ruin; but the
+life of the woods is so unhurried that one must needs have more than
+the patience of a human being to await and mark its advance.
+
+Alone of the three travellers the horse remained fully awake. The
+sleigh glided over the hard snow, grazing the stumps on either hand
+level with the track. Charles Eugene accurately followed every turn
+of the road, took the short pitches at a full trot and climbed the
+opposite hills with a leisurely pace, like the capable animal he
+was, who might be trusted to conduct his masters safely to the
+door-step of their dwelling without being annoyed by guiding word or
+touch of rein.
+
+Some miles farther, and the woods fell away again, disclosing the
+river. The road descended the last hill from the higher land and
+sank almost to the level of the ice. Three houses were dotted along
+the mile of bank above; but they were humbler buildings than those
+of the village, and behind them scarcely any land was cleared and
+there was little sign of cultivation:-built there, they seemed to
+be, only in witness of the presence of man.
+
+Charles Eugene swung sharply to the right, stiffened his forelegs to
+hold back on the slope and pulled up on the edge of the ice.
+Chapdelaine opened his eyes.
+
+"Here, father," said Maria, "take the reins!" He seized them, but
+before giving his horse the word, took some moments for a careful
+scrutiny of the frozen surface.
+
+"There is a little water on the ice," said he, "and the snow has
+melted; but we ought to be able to cross all the same. Get up,
+Charles Eugene." The horse lowered his head and sniffed at the white
+expanse in front of him, then adventured upon it without more ado.
+The ruts of the winter road were gone, the little firs which had
+marked it at intervals were nearly all fallen and lying in the
+half-thawed snow; as they passed the island the ice cracked twice
+without breaking. Charles Eugene trotted smartly toward the house of
+Charles Lindsay on the other bank. But when the sleigh reached
+midstream, below the great fall, the horse had perforce to slacken
+pace by reason of the water which had overflowed the ice and wetted
+the snow. Very slowly they approached the shore; there remained only
+some thirty feet to be crossed when the ice began to go up and down
+under the horse's hoofs.
+
+Old Chapdelaine, fully awake now, was on his feet; his eyes beneath
+the fur cap shone with courage and quick resolve.
+
+"Go on, Charles Eugene! Go on there!" he roared in his big voice.
+The wise beast dug his calked shoes through the deep slush and
+sprang for the bank, throwing himself into the collar at every
+leap. Just as they reached land a cake of ice tilted beneath their
+weight and sank, leaving a space of open water.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine turned about. "We are the last to cross this
+year," said he. And he halted the horse to breathe before putting
+him at the hill.
+
+After following the main road a little way they left it for another
+which plunged into the woods. It was scarcely more than a rough
+trail, still beset with roots, turning and twisting in all
+directions to avoid boulders and stumps. Rising to a plateau where
+it wound back and forth through burnt lands it gave an occasional
+glimpse of steep hillside, of the rocks piled in the channel of the
+frozen rapid, the higher and precipitous opposing slope above the
+fall, and at the last resumed a desolate way amid fallen trees and
+blackened rampikes.
+
+The little stony hillocks they passed through seemed to close in
+behind them; the burnt lands gave place to darkly-crowding spruces
+and firs; now and then they caught momentary sight of the distant
+mountains on the Riviere Alec; and soon the travellers discerned a
+clearing in tile forest, a mounting column of smoke, the bark of a
+dog.
+
+"They will be glad to see you again, Maria," said her father. "They
+have been lonesome for you, every one of them."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOME IN THE CLEARING
+
+It was supper-time before Maria had answered all the questions, told
+of her journey down to the last and littlest item, and given not
+only the news of St. Prime and Peribonka but everything else she had
+been able to gather up upon the road.
+
+Tit'Be, seated facing his sister, smoked pipe after pipe without
+taking his eyes off her for a single moment, fearful of missing some
+highly important disclosure that she had hitherto held back. Little
+Alma Rose stood with an arm about her neck; Telesphore was listening
+too, as he mended his dog's harness with bits of string. Madame
+Chapdelaine stirred the fire in the big cast-iron stove, came and
+went, brought from the cupboard plates and dishes, the loaf of bread
+and pitcher of milk, tilted the great molasses jar over a glass jug.
+Not seldom she stopped to ask Maria something, or to catch what she
+was saying, and stood for a few moments dreaming, hands on her hips,
+as the villages spoken of rose before her in memory--
+
+"... And so the church is finished-a beautiful stone church, with
+pictures on the walls and coloured glass in the windows ... How
+splendid that must be! Johnny Bouchard built a new barn last year,
+and it is a little Perron, daughter of Abelard Perron of St. Jerome,
+who teaches school ... Eight years since I was at St. Prime, just
+to think of it! A fine parish indeed, that would have suited me
+nicely; good level land as far as you can see, no rock cropping up
+and no bush, everywhere square-cornered fields with handsome
+straight fences and heavy soil. Only two hours' drive to the railway
+... Perhaps it is wicked of me to say so; but all my married life
+I have felt sorry that your father's taste was for moving, and
+pushing on and on into the woods, and not for living on a farm in
+one of the old parishes."
+
+Through the little square window she threw a melancholy glance over
+the scanty cleared fields behind the house, the barn built of
+ill-joined planks that showed marks of fire, and the land beyond
+still covered with stumps and encompassed by the forest, whence any
+return of hay or grain could only be looked for at the end of long
+and patient waiting.
+
+"O look," said Alma Rose, "here is Chien come for his share of
+petting." The dog laid his long head with the sad eyes upon her
+knee; uttering little friendly words, Maria bent and caressed him.
+
+"He has been lonely without you like the rest of us," came from Alma
+Rose. "Every morning he used to look at your bed to see if you were
+not back." She called him to her. "Come, Chien; come and let me pet
+you too."
+
+Chien went obediently from one to the other, half closing his eyes
+at each pat. Maria looked about her to see if some change, unlikely
+though that might be, had taken place while she was away.
+
+The great three-decked stove stood in the centre of the house; the
+sheet-iron stove-pipe, after mounting for some feet, turned at a
+right angle and was carried through the house to the outside, so
+that none of the precious warmth should be lost. In a comer was the
+large wooden cupboard; close by, the table; a bench against the
+wall; on the other side of the door the sink and the pump. A
+partition beginning at the opposite wall seemed designed to divide
+the house in two, but it stopped before reaching the stove and did
+not begin again beyond it, in such fashion that these divisions of
+the only room were each enclosed on three sides and looked like a
+stage setting-that conventional type of scene where the audience are
+invited to imagine that two distinct apartments exist although they
+look into both at once.
+
+In one of these compartments the father and mother had their bed;
+Maria and Alma Rose in the other. A steep stairway ascended from a
+comer to the loft where the boys slept in the summer-time; with the
+coming of winter they moved their bed down and enjoyed the warmth of
+the stove with the rest of the family.
+
+Hanging upon the wall were the illustrated calendars of shopkeepers
+in Roberval and Chicoutimi; a picture of the infant Jesus in his
+mother's arms-a rosy-faced Jesus with great blue eyes, holding out
+his chubby hands; a representation of some unidentified saint
+looking rapturously heavenward; the first page of the Christmas
+number of a Quebec newspaper, filled with stars big as moons and
+angels flying with folded wings.
+
+"Were you a good girl while I was away, Alma Rose?"
+
+It was the mother who replied:--"Alma Rose was not too naughty;
+but Telesphore has been a perfect torment to me. It is not so much
+that he does what is wrong; but the things he says! One might
+suppose that the boy had not all his wits."
+
+Telesphore busied himself with the dog-harness and made believe not
+to hear. Young Telesphore's depravities supplied this household with
+its only domestic tragedy. To satisfy her own mind and give him a
+proper conviction of besetting sin his mother had fashioned for
+herself a most involved kind of polytheism, had peopled the world
+with evil spirits and good who influenced him alternately to err or
+to repent. The bay had come to regard himself as a mere battleground
+where devils who were very sly, and angels of excellent purpose but
+little experience, waged endless unequal warfare.
+
+Gloomily would he mutter before the empty preserve jar:--"It was
+the Demon of gluttony who tempted me."
+
+Returning from some escapade with torn and muddy clothes he would
+anticipate reproach with his explanation:--"The Demon of
+disobedience lured me into that. Beyond doubt it was he." With the
+same breath asserting indignation at being so misled, and protesting
+the blamelessness of his intentions.
+
+"But he must not be allowed to come back, eh, mother! He must not be
+allowed to come back, this bad spirit. I will take father's gun and
+I will shoot him ..."
+
+"You cannot shoot devils with a gun," objected his mother. "But when
+you feel the temptation coming, seize your rosary and say your
+prayers."
+
+Telesphore did not dare to gainsay this; but he shook his head
+doubtfully. The gun seemed to him both the surer and the more
+amusing way, and he was accustomed to picture to himself a
+tremendous duel, a lingering slaughter from which he would emerge
+without spot or blemish, forever set free from the wiles of the Evil
+One.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine came into the house and supper was served. The
+sign of the cross around the table; lips moving in a silent
+Benedicite, which Telesphore and Alma Rose repeated aloud; again the
+sign of the cross; the noise of chairs and bench drawn in; spoons
+clattering on plates. To Maria it was as though since her absence
+she was giving attention for the first time in her life to these
+sounds and movements; that they possessed a different significance
+from movements and sounds elsewhere, and invested with some peculiar
+quality of sweetness and peace all that happened in that house far
+off in the woods.
+
+Supper was nearly at an end when a footstep sounded without; Chien
+pricked up his ears but gave no growl.
+
+"A visitor," announced mother Chapdelaine, "Eutrope Gagnon has come
+over to see us."
+
+It was an easy guess, as Eutrope Gagnon was their only neighbour.
+The year before he had taken up land two miles away, with his
+brother; the brother had gone to the shanties for the winter, and he
+was left alone in the cabin they had built of charred logs. He
+appeared on the threshold, lantern in hand.
+
+"Greeting to each and all," was the salutation as he pulled off his
+woollen cap. "A fine night, and there is still a crust on the snow-,
+as the walking was good I thought that I would drop in this evening
+to find out if you were back."
+
+Although he came to see Maria, as all knew, it was to the father of
+the house that he directed his remarks, partly through shyness,
+partly out of deference to the manners of the country. He took the
+chair that was offered him.
+
+"The weather is mild; if it misses turning wet it will be by very
+little. One can feel that the spring rains are not far off ..."
+
+It was the orthodox beginning to one of those talks among country
+folk which are like an interminable song, full of repetitions, each
+speaker agreeing with the words last uttered and adding more to the
+same effect. And naturally the theme was the Canadian's never-ending
+plaint; his protest, falling short of actual revolt, against the
+heavy burden of the long winter. "The beasts have been in the stable
+since the end of October and the barn is just about empty," said
+mother Chapdelaine. "Unless spring comes soon I don't know what we
+are going to do."
+
+"Three weeks at least before they can be turned out to pasture."
+
+"A horse, three cows, a pig and the sheep, without speaking of the
+fowls; it takes something to feed them!" this from Tit'Be with an
+air of grown-up wisdom.
+
+He smoked and talked with the men now by virtue of his fourteen
+years, his broad shoulders and his knowledge of husbandry. Eight
+years ago he had begun to care for the stock, and to replenish the
+store of wood for the house with the aid of his little sled.
+Somewhat later he had learned to call Heulle! Heulle! very loudly
+behind the thin-flanked cows, and Hue! Dia! Harrie! when the horses
+were ploughing; to manage a hay-fork and to build a rail-fence.
+These two years he had taken turn beside his father with ax and
+scythe, driven the big wood-sleigh over the hard snow, sown and
+reaped on his own responsibility; and thus it was that no one
+disputed his right freely to express an opinion and to smoke
+incessantly the strong leaf-tobacco. His face was still smooth as a
+child's, with immature features and guileless eyes, and one not
+knowing him would probably have been surprised to hear him speak
+with all the deliberation of an older and experienced man, and to
+see him everlastingly charging his wooden pipe; but in the Province
+of Quebec the boys are looked upon as men when they undertake men's
+work, and as to their precocity in smoking there is always the
+excellent excuse that it afford some protection in summer against
+the attacking swarms of black-flies, mosquitos and sand-flies.
+
+"How nice it would be to live in a country where there is hardly any
+winter, and where the earth makes provision for man and beast. Up
+here man himself, by dint of work, must care for his animals and his
+land. If we did not have Esdras and Da'Be earning good wages in the
+woods how could we get along?"
+
+"But the soil is rich in these parts," said Eutrope Gagnon.
+
+"The soil is good but one must battle for it with the forest; and to
+live at all you must watch every copper, labour from morning to
+night, and do everything yourself because there is no one near to
+lend a hand."
+
+Mother Chapdelaine ended with a sigh. Her thoughts were ever fondly
+revisiting the older parishes where the land has long been cleared
+and cultivated, and where the houses are neighbourly-her lost
+paradise.
+
+Her husband clenched his fists and shook his head with an obstinate
+gesture. "Only you wait a few months ... When the boys are back
+from the woods we shall set to work, they two, Tit'Be, and I, and
+presently we shall have our land cleared. With four good men ax in
+hand and not afraid of work things will go quickly, even in the hard
+timber. Two years from now there will be grain harvested, and
+pasturage that will support a good herd of cattle. I tell you that
+we are going to make land."
+
+"Make land!" Rude phrase of the country, summing up in two words all
+the heartbreaking labour that transforms the incult woods, barren of
+sustenance, to smiling fields, ploughed and sown. Samuel
+Chapdelaine's eyes flamed with enthusiasm and determination as he
+spoke.
+
+For this was the passion of his life; the passion of a man whose
+soul was in the clearing, not the tilling of the earth. Five times
+since boyhood had he taken up wild land, built a house, a stable and
+a barn, wrested from the unbroken forest a comfortable farm; and
+five times he had sold out to begin it all again farther north,
+suddenly losing interest; energy and ambition vanishing once the
+first rough work was done, when neighbours appeared and the
+countryside began to be opened up and inhabited. Some there were who
+entered into his feelings; others praised the courage but thought
+little of the wisdom, and such were fond of saying that if good
+sense had led him to stay in one place he and his would now be at
+their ease.
+
+"At their ease ..." O dread God of the Scriptures, worshipped by
+these countryfolk of Quebec without a quibble or a doubt, who hast
+condemned man to earn his bread in the sweat of his face, canst Thou
+for a moment smooth the awful frown from Thy forehead when Thou art
+told that certain of these Thy creatures have escaped the doom, and
+live at their ease?
+
+"At their ease..." Truly to know what it means one must have
+toiled bitterly from dawn to dark with back and hands and feet, and
+the children of the soil are those who have best attained the
+knowledge. It means the burden lifted; the heavy burden of labour
+and of care. It means leave to rest, the which, even if it be
+unused, is a new mercy every moment. To the old it means so much of
+the pride of life as no one would deny them, the late revelation of
+unknown delights, an hour of idleness, a distant journey, a dainty
+or a purchase indulged in without anxious thought, the hundred and
+one things desirable that a competence assures.
+
+So constituted is the heart of man that most of those who have paid
+the ransom and won liberty-ease-have in the winning of it created
+their own incapacity for enjoying the conquest, and toil on till
+death; it is the others, the ill-endowed or the unlucky, who have
+been unable to overcome fortune and escape their slavery, to whom
+the state of ease has all those charms of the inaccessible.
+
+It may be that the Chapdelaines so were thinking, and each in his
+own fashion; the father with the unconquerable optimism of a man who
+knows himself strong and believes himself wise; the mother with a
+gentle resignation; the others, the younger ones, in a less definite
+way and without bitterness, seeing before them a long life in which
+they could not miss attaining happiness.
+
+Maria stole an occasional glance at Eutrope Gagnon, but she quickly
+turned away, for she always surprised his humbly worshipping eyes.
+For a year she had become used to his frequent visits, nor felt
+displeasure when every Sunday evening added to the family circle
+this brown face that was continually so patient and good-humoured;
+but the short absence of a month had not left things the same, for
+she had brought home to the fireside an undefined feeling that a
+page of her life was turned, in which he would have no share.
+
+The ordinary subjects of conversation exhausted, they played cards:
+quatre-sept and boeuf; then Eutrope looked at his big silver watch
+and said that it was time to be going. His lantern lit, the
+good-byes said, he halted on the threshold for a moment to observe
+the night.
+
+"It is raining!" he exclaimed. His hosts made toward the door to see
+for themselves; the rain had in truth begun, a spring rain with
+great drops that fell heavily, under which the snow was already
+softening and melting. "The sou'east has taken hold," announced the
+elder Chapdelaine. "Now we can say that the winter is practically
+over."
+
+Everyone had his own way of expressing relief and delight; but it
+was Maria who stood longest by the door, hearkening to the sweet
+patter of the rain, watching the indistinct movement of cloud in the
+dark sky above the darker mass of the forest, breathing the mild air
+that came from the south.
+
+"Spring is not far ... Spring is not far ..."
+
+In her heart she felt that never since the earth began was there a
+springtime like this springtime to-be.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FRANCOIS PASSES BY
+
+One morning three days later, on opening the door, Maria's ear
+caught a sound that made her stand motionless and listening. The
+distant and continuous thunder was the voice of wild waters,
+silenced all winter by the frost.
+
+"The ice is going out," she announced to those within. "You can hear
+the falls."
+
+This set them all talking once again of the opening season, and of
+the work soon to be commenced. The month of May came in with
+alternate warm rains and fine sunny days which gradually conquered
+the accumulated ice and snow of the long winter. Low stumps and
+roots were beginning to appear, although the shade of close-set
+cypress and fir prolonged the death-struggle of the perishing
+snowdrifts; the roads became quagmires; wherever the brown mosses
+were uncovered they were full of water as a sponge. In other lands
+it was already spring; vigorously the sap was running, buds were
+bursting and presently leaves would unfold; but the soil of far
+northern Canada must be rid of one chill and heavy mantle before
+clothing itself afresh in green.
+
+A dozen times in the course of the day Maria and her mother opened
+the window to feel the softness of the air, listen to the tinkle of
+water running from the last drifts on higher slopes, or hearken to
+the mighty roar telling that the exulting Peribonka was free, and
+hurrying to the lake a freight of ice-floes from the remote north.
+
+Chapdelaine seated himself that evening on the door-step for his
+smoke; a stirring of memory brought the remark--"Franc will soon
+be passing. He said that perhaps he would come to see us." Maria
+replied with a scarce audible "Yes," and blessed the shadow hiding
+her face.
+
+Ten days later he came, long after nightfall. The women were alone
+in the house with Tit'Be and the children, the father having gone
+for seed-grain to Honfleur whence he would only return on the
+morrow. Telesphore and Alma Rose were asleep, Tit'Be was having a
+last pipe before the family prayer, when Chien barked several times
+and got up to sniff at the closed door. Then two light taps were
+heard. The visitor waited for the invitation before he entered and
+stood before them.
+
+His excuses for so late a call were made without touch of
+awkwardness. "We are camped at the end of the portage above the
+rapids. The tent had to be pitched and things put in order to make
+the Belgians comfortable for the night. When I set out I knew it was
+hardly the hour for a call and that the paths through the woods must
+be pretty bad. But I started all the same, and when I saw your light..."
+
+His high Indian boots were caked with mud to the knee; he breathed a
+little deeply between words, like a man who has been running; but
+his keen eyes were quietly confident.
+
+"Only Tit'Be has changed," said he. "When you left Mistassini he was
+but so high..." With a hand he indicated the stature of a child.
+Mother Chapdelaine's face was bright with interest; doubly pleased
+to receive a visitor and at the chance of talking about old times.
+
+"Nor have you altered in these seven years; not a bit; as for Maria
+... surely you find a difference!"
+
+He gazed at Maria with something of wonder in his eyes. "You see
+that ... that I saw her the other day at Peribonka." Tone and
+manner showed that the meeting of a fortnight ago had been allowed
+to blot the remoter days from his recollection. But since the talk
+was of her he ventured an appraising glance.
+
+Her young vigour and health, the beautiful heavy hair and sunburnt
+neck of a country girl, the frank honesty of eye and gesture, all
+these things, thought he, were possessions of the child of seven
+years ago; and twice or thrice he shook his head as though to say
+that, in truth, she had not changed. But the consciousness too was
+there that he, if not she, had changed, for the sight of her before
+him took strange hold upon his heart.
+
+Maria's smile was a little timid, but soon she dared to raise her
+eyes and look at him in turn. Assuredly a handsome fellow; comely of
+body, revealing so much of supple strength; comely of face in
+well-cut feature and fearless eye ... To herself she said with
+some surprise that she had not thought him thus--more forward
+perhaps, talking freely and rather positively-but now he scarcely
+spoke at all and everything about him bad an air of perfect
+simplicity. Doubtless it was his expression that had given her this
+idea, and his bold straightforward manner.
+
+Mother Chapdelaine took up her questioning:--"And so you sold the
+farm when your father died?"
+
+"Yes, I sold everything. I was never a very good hand at farming,
+you know. Working in the shanties, trapping, making a little money
+from time to time as a guide or in trade with the Indians, that is
+the life for me; but to scratch away at the same fields from one
+year's end to another, and stay there forever, I would not have been
+able to stick to that all my life; I would have felt like a cow
+tethered to a stake."
+
+"That is so, some men are made that way. Samuel, for example, and
+you, and many another. It seem as if the woods had some magic for
+you ..." She shook her head and looked at him in wonderment.
+"Frozen in winter, devoured by flies in summer; living in a tent on
+the snow, or in a log cabin full of chinks that the wind blows
+through, you like that better than spending your life on a good
+farm, near shops and houses. Just think of it; a nice bit of level
+land without a stump or a hollow, a good warm house all papered
+inside, fat cattle pasturing or in the stable; for people well
+stocked with implements and who keep their health, could there be
+anything better or happier?"
+
+Paradis, looked at the floor without making answer, perhaps a trifle
+ashamed of these wrong-headed tastes of his. "A fine life for those
+who are fond of the land," he said at last, "but I should never have
+been content."
+
+It was the everlasting conflict between the types: pioneer and
+farmer, the peasant from France who brought to new lands his ideals
+of ordered life and contented immobility, and that other in whom the
+vast wilderness awakened distant atavistic instincts for wandering
+and adventure.
+
+Accustomed for fifteen years to hear her mother vaunting the idyllic
+happiness of the farmer in the older settlements, Maria had very
+naturally come to believe that she was of the same mind; now she was
+no longer certain about it. But whoever was right she well knew that
+not one of the well-to-do young fellows at St. Prime, with his
+Sunday coat of fine cloth and his fur collar, was the equal of
+Paradis in muddy boots and faded woollen jersey.
+
+Replying to further questions he spoke of his journeys on the North
+Shore and to the head-waters of the rivers--of it all very naturally
+and with a shade of hesitation, scarcely knowing what to tell and
+what to leave out, for the people he was speaking to lived in much
+the same kind of country and their manner of life was little
+different.
+
+"Up there the winters are harder yet than here, and still longer. We
+have only dogs to draw our sleds, fine strong dogs, but bad-tempered
+and often half wild, and we feed them but once a day, in the
+evening, on frozen fish.... Yes, there are settlements, but
+almost no farming; the men live by trapping and fishing ... No, I
+never had any difficulty with the Indians; I always got on very well
+with them. I know nearly all those on the Mistassini and this river,
+for they used to come to our place before my father died. You see he
+often went trapping in winter when he was not in the shanties, and
+one season when he was at the head of the Riviere aux Foins, quite
+alone, a tree that he was cutting for firewood slipped in falling,
+and it was the Indians who found him by chance next day, crushed and
+half-frozen though the weather was mild. He was in their game
+preserve, and they might very well have pretended not to see him and
+have left him to die there; but they put him on their toboggan,
+brought him to their camp, and looked after him. You knew my
+father: a rough man who often took a glass, but just in his
+dealings, and with a good name for doing that sort of thing himself.
+So when he parted with these Indians he told them to stop and see
+him in the spring when they would be coming down to Pointe Bleue
+with their furs-Francois Paradis of Mistassini,' said he to them,
+will not forget what you have done ... Francois Paradis.' And when
+they came in spring while running the river he looked after them
+well and every one carried away a new ax, a fine woollen blanket and
+tobacco for six months. Always after that they used to pay us a
+visit in the spring, and father had the pick of their best skins for
+less than the companies' buyers had to pay. When he died they treated
+me in the same way be cause I was his son and bore the same name,
+Francois Paradis. With more capital I could have made a good bit of
+money in this trade-a good bit of money."
+
+He seemed a little uncomfortable at having talked so much, and arose
+to go. "We shall be coming down in a few weeks and I will try to
+stay a little longer," he said as he departed. "It is good to see
+you again."
+
+On the door-step his keen eyes sought in Maria's for something that
+he might carry into the depth of the green woods whither he was
+bent; but they found no message. In her maidenly simplicity she
+feared to show herself too bold, and very resolutely she kept her
+glance lowered, like the young girls with richer parents who return
+from the convents in Chicoutimi trained to look on the world with a
+superhuman demureness.
+
+Scarcely was gone when the two women and Tit'Be knelt for the
+evening prayer. The mother led in a high voice, speaking very
+rapidly, the others answering in a low murmur. Five Paters, five
+Ayes, the Acts, and then a long responsive Litany.
+
+"Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our
+death..."
+
+"Immaculate heart of Jesus, have pity on us..."
+
+The window was open and through it came the distant roaring of the
+falls. The first mosquitos, of the spring, attracted by the light,
+entered likewise and the slender music of their whip filled the
+house. Tit'Be went and closed the window, then fell on his knees
+again beside the others.
+
+"Great St. Joseph, pray for us..."
+
+"St. Isidore, pray for us..."
+
+The prayers over, mother Chapdelaine sighed out contentedly:--"How
+pleasant it is to have a caller, when we see hardly anyone but
+Eutrope Gagnon from year's end to year's end. But that is what comes
+of living so far away in the woods ... Now, when I was a girl at
+St. Gedeon, the house was full of visitors nearly every Saturday
+evening and all Sunday: Adelard Saint-Onge who courted me for such a
+long time; Wilfrid Tremblay, the merchant, who had nice manners and
+was always trying to speak as the French do; many others as well--not
+counting your father who came to see us almost every night for three
+years, while I was making up my mind..."
+
+Three years! Maria thought to herself that she had only seen
+Francois Paradis twice since she was a child, and she felt ashamed
+at the beating of her heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WILD LAND
+
+AFTER a few chilly days, June suddenly brought veritable spring
+weather. A blazing sun warmed field and forest, the lingering
+patches of snow vanished even in the deep shade of the woods; the
+Peribonka rose and rose between its rocky banks until the alders and
+the roots of the nearer spruces were drowned; in the roads the mud
+was incredibly deep. The Canadian soil rid itself of the last traces
+of winter with a semblance of mad haste, as though in dread of
+another winter already on the way.
+
+Esdras and Da'Be returned from the shanties where they had worked
+all the winter. Esdras was the eldest of the family, a tall fellow
+with a huge frame, his face bronzed, his hair black; the low
+forehead and prominent chin gave him a Neronian profile,
+domineering, not without a suggestion of brutality; but he spoke
+softly, measuring his words, and was endlessly patient. In face
+alone had he anything of the tyrant; it was as though the long
+rigours of the climate and the fine sense and good humour of the
+race had refined his heart to a simplicity and kindliness that his
+formidable aspect seemed to deny.
+
+Da'Be, also tall, was less heavily built and more lively and merry.
+He was like his father.
+
+The married couple had given their first children, Esdras and Maria,
+fine, high-sounding, sonorous names; but they had apparently wearied
+of these solemnities, for the next two children never beard their
+real names pronounced; always had they been called by the
+affectionate diminutives of childhood, Da'Be and Tit'Be. With the
+last pair, however, there had been a return to the earlier
+ceremonious manner-Telesphore ... Alma Rose. "When the boys get
+back we are going to make land," the father had promised. And, with
+the help of Edwige Legare, their hired man, they set about the task.
+
+In the Province of Quebec there is much uncertainty in the spelling
+and the use of names. A scattered people in a huge half-wild
+country, unlettered for the most part and with no one to turn to for
+counsel but the priests, is apt to pay attention only to the sound
+of names, caring nothing about their appearance when written or the
+sex to which they pertain. Pronunciation has naturally varied in one
+mouth or another, in this family or that, and when a formal occasion
+calls for writing, each takes leave to spell his baptismal name in
+his own way, without a passing thought that there may be a canonical
+form. Borrowings from other languages have added to the
+uncertainties of orthography and gender. Individuals sign
+indifferently, Denise, Denije or Deneije; Conrad or Courade; men
+bear such names as Hermenegilde, Aglae, Edwige.
+
+Edwige Legare had worked for the Chapdelaines these eleven summers.
+That is to say, for wages of twenty dollars a month he was in
+harness each day from four in the morning till nine at night at any
+and every job that called for doing, bringing to it a sort of
+frenzied and inexhaustible enthusiasm; for he was one of those men
+incapable by his nature of working save at the full pitch of
+strength and energy, in a series of berserk rages. Short and broad,
+his eyes were the brightest blue--a thing rare in Quebec-at once
+piercing and guileless, set in a visage the colour of clay that
+always showed cruel traces of the razor, topped by hair of nearly
+the same shade. With a pride in his appearance that was hard to
+justify he shaved himself two or three times a week, always in the
+evening, before the bit of looking-glass that hung over the pump and
+by the feeble light of the little lamp-driving the steel through his
+stiff beard with groans that showed what it cost him in labour and
+anguish. Clad in shirt and trousers of brownish homespun, wearing
+huge dusty boots, he was from head to heel of a piece with the soil,
+nor was there aught in his face to redeem the impression of rustic
+uncouthness.
+
+Chapdelaine, his three sons and man, proceeded then to "make land."
+The forest still pressed hard upon the buildings they had put up a
+few years earlier: the little square house, the barn of planks that
+gaped apart, the stable built of blackened logs and chinked with
+rags and earth. Between the scanty fields of their clearing and the
+darkly encircling woods lay a broad stretch which the ax had but
+half-heartedly attacked. A few living trees had been cut for timber,
+and the dead ones, sawn and split, fed the great stove for a whole
+winter; but the place was a rough tangle of stumps and interlacing
+roots, of fallen trees too far rotted to burn, of others dead but
+still erect amid the alder scrub.
+
+Thither the five men made their way one morning and set to work at
+once, without a word, for every man's task had been settled
+beforehand.
+
+The father and Da'Be took their stand face to face on either side of
+a tree, and their axes, helved with birch, began to swing in rhythm.
+At first each hewed a deep notch, chopping steadily at the same spot
+for some seconds, then the ax rose swiftly and fell obliquely on the
+trunk a foot higher up; at every stroke a great chip flew, thick as
+the hand, splitting away with the grain. When the cuts were nearly
+meeting, one stopped and the other slowed down, leaving his ax in
+the wood for a moment at every blow; the mere strip, by some miracle
+still holding the tree erect, yielded at last, the trunk began to
+lean and the two axmen stepped back a pace and watched it fall,
+shouting at the same instant a warning of the danger.
+
+It was then the turn of Edwige Legare and Esdras; when the tree was
+not too heavy each took an end, clasping their strong hands beneath
+the trunk, and then raised themselves-backs straining, arms cracking
+under the stress-and carried it to the nearest heap with short
+unsteady steps, getting over the fallen timber with stumbling
+effort. When the burden seemed too heavy, TAW came forward leading
+Charles Eugene dragging a tug-bar with a strong chain; this was
+passed round the trunk and fastened, the horse bent his back, and
+with the muscles of his hindquarters standing out, hauled away the
+tree which scraped along the stumps and crushed the young alders to
+the ground.
+
+At noon Maria came out to the door-step and gave a long call to tell
+them that dinner was ready. Slowly they straightened up among the
+stumps, wiping away with the backs of their hands the drops of sweat
+that ran into their eyes, and made their way to the house.
+
+Already the pea-soup smoked in the plates. The five men set
+themselves at table without haste, as if sensation were somewhat
+dulled by the heavy work; but as they caught their breath a great
+hunger awoke, and soon they began to eat with keen appetite. The two
+women waited upon them, filling the empty plates, carrying about the
+great dish of pork and boiled potatoes, pouring out the hot tea.
+When the meat had vanished the diners filled their saucers with
+molasses in which they soaked large pieces of bread; hunger was
+quickly appeased, because they had eaten fast and without a word,
+and then plates were pushed back and chairs tilted with sighs of
+satisfaction, while hands were thrust into pockets for their pipes,
+and the pigs' bladders bulging with tobacco.
+
+Edwige Legare, seating himself on the door-step, proclaimed two or
+three times:--"I have dined well ... I have dined well ...
+with the air of a judge who renders an impartial decision; after
+which he leaned against the post and let the smoke of his pipe and
+the gaze of his small fight-coloured eyes pursue the same
+purposeless wanderings. The elder Chapdelaine sank deeper and deeper
+into his chair, and ended by falling asleep; the others smoked and
+chatted about their work.
+
+"If there is anything," said the mother, "which could reconcile me
+to living so far away in the woods, it is seeing my men-folk make a
+nice bit of land-a nice bit of land that was all trees and stumps
+and roots, which one beholds in a fortnight as bare as the back of
+your hand, ready for the plough; surely nothing in the world can be
+more pleasing or better worth doing." The rest gave assent with
+nods, and were silent for a while, admiring the picture. Soon
+however Chapdelaine awoke, refreshed by his sleep and ready for
+work; then all arose and went out together.
+
+The place where they had worked in the morning was yet full of
+stumps and overgrown with alders. They set themselves to cutting and
+uprooting the alders, gathering a sheaf of branches in the hand and
+severing them with the ax, or sometimes digging the earth away about
+the roots and tearing up the whole bush together. The alders
+disposed of, there remained the stumps.
+
+Legare and Esdras attacked the smaller ones with no weapons but
+their axes and stout wooden Prizes. They first cut the roots
+spreading on the surface, then drove a lever well home, and, chests
+against the bar, threw all their weight upon it. When their efforts
+could not break the hundred ties binding the tree to the soil Legare
+continued to bear heavily that he might raise the stump a little,
+and while he groaned and grunted under the strain Esdras hewed away
+furiously level with the ground, severing one by one the remaining
+roots.
+
+A little distance away the other three men handled the
+stumping-machine with the aid of Charles Eugene. The pyramidal
+scaffolding was put in place above a large stump and lowered, the
+chains which were then attached to the root passed over a pulley,
+and the horse at the other end started away quickly, flinging
+himself against the traces and showering earth with his hoofs. A
+short and desperate charge, a mad leap often arrested after a few
+feet as by the stroke of fist; then the heavy steel blades a giant
+would swing up anew, gleaming in the sun, and fall with a dull sound
+upon the stubborn wood, while the horse took breath for a moment,
+awaiting with excited eye the word that would launch him forward
+again. And afterwards there was still the labour of hauling or
+rolling the big stumps to the pile-at fresh effort of back, of
+soil-stained hands with swollen veins, and stiffened arms that
+seemed grotesquely striving with the heavy trunk and the huge
+twisted roots.
+
+The sun dipped toward the horizon, disappeared; the sky took on
+softer hues above the forest's dark edge, and the hour of supper
+brought to the house five men the of the colour of the soil.
+
+While waiting Upon them Madame Chapdelaine asked a hundred questions
+about the day's work, and when the vision arose before her of this
+patch of land they had cleared, superbly bare, lying ready for the
+Plough, her spirit was possessed with something of a mystic's
+rapture.
+
+With hands upon her hips, refusing to seat herself at table, she
+extolled the beauty Of the world as it existed for her: not the
+beauty wherein human beings have no hand, which the townsman makes
+such an ado about with his unreal ecstasies.-mountains, lofty and
+bare, wild seas-but the quiet unaffected loveliness of the level
+champaign, finding its charm in the regularity of the long furrow
+and the sweetly-flowing stream--the naked champaign courting with
+willing abandon the fervent embraces of the sun.
+
+She sang the great deeds of the four Chapdelaines and Edwige Legare,
+their struggle against the savagery of nature, their triumph of the
+day. She awarded praises and displayed her own proper pride, albeit
+the five men smoked their wooden or clay pipes in silence,
+motionless as images after their long task; images of earthy hue,
+hollow-eyed with fatigue.
+
+"The stumps are hard to get out." at length said the elder
+Chapdelaine, "the roots have not rotted in the earth so much as I
+should have imagined. I calculate that we shall not be through for
+three weeks." He glanced questioningly at Legare who gravely
+confirmed him.
+
+"Three weeks ... Yes, confound it! That is what I think too."
+
+They fell silent again, patient and determined, like men who face a
+long war.
+
+The Canadian spring had but known a few weeks of life when, by
+calendar, the summer was already come; it seemed as if the local
+weather god had incontinently pushed the season forward with august
+finger to bring it again into accord with more favoured lands to the
+south. For torrid heat fell suddenly upon them, heat well-nigh as
+unmeasured as was the winter's cold. The tops of the spruces and
+cypresses, forgotten by the wind, were utterly still, and above the
+frowning outline stretched a sky bare of cloud which likewise seemed
+fixed and motionless. From dawn till nightfall a merciless sun
+calcined the ground.
+
+The five men worked on unceasingly, while from day to day the
+clearing extended its borders by a little; deep wounds in the
+uncovered soil showed the richness of it.
+
+Maria went forth one morning to carry them water. The father and
+Tit'Be were cutting alders, Da'Be and Esdras piled the cut trees.
+Edwige Legare was attacking a stump by himself; a hand against the
+trunk, he had grasped a root with the other as one seizes the leg of
+some gigantic adversary in a struggle, and he was fighting the
+combined forces of wood and earth like a man furious at the
+resistance of an enemy. Suddenly the stump yielded and lay upon the
+ground; he passed a hand over his forehead and sat down upon a root,
+running with sweat, overcome by the exertion. When Maria came near
+him with her pail half full of water, the others having drunk, he
+was still seated, breathing deeply and saying in a bewildered
+way:--"I am done for ... Ah! I am done for." But he pulled himself
+together on seeing her, and roared out--"Cold water! Perdition! Give
+me cold water."
+
+Seizing the bucket he drank half its contents and poured the rest
+over his head and neck; still dripping, he threw himself afresh upon
+the vanquished stump and began to roll it toward a pile as one
+carries off a prize.
+
+Maria stayed for a few moments looking at the work of the men and
+the progress they had made, each day more evident, then hied her
+back to the house swinging the empty bucket, happy to feel herself
+alive and well under the bright sun, dreaming of all the joys that
+were to be hers, nor could be long delayed if only she were earnest
+and patient enough in her prayers. Even at a distance the voices of
+the men came to her across the surface of the ground baked by the
+heat; Esdras, his hands beneath a young jack pine, was saying in his
+quiet tones:--"Gently ... together now!"
+
+Legare was wrestling with some new inert foe, and swearing in his
+half-stifled way:--"Perdition! I'll make you stir, so I will." His
+gasps were nearly as audible as the words. Taking breath for a
+second he rushed once more into the fray, arms straining, wrenching
+with his great back. And yet again his voice was raised in oaths and
+lamentations:-"I tell you that I'll have you ... Oh you rascal!
+Isn't it hot? . . I'm pretty nearly finished ..." His complaints
+ripened into one mighty cry:--"Boss! We are going to kill
+ourselves making land."
+
+Old Chapdelaine's voice was husky but still cheerful as he answered:
+"Tough! Edwige, tough! The pea-soup will soon be ready."
+
+And in truth it was not long before Maria, once more on the
+door-step, shaping her hands to carry the sound, sent forth the
+ringing call to dinner.
+
+Toward evening a breeze arose and a delicious coolness fell upon the
+earth like a pardon. But the sky remained cloudless.
+
+"If the fine weather lasts," said mother Chapdelaine, "the
+blueberries will be ripe for the feast of Ste. Anne."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE VOWS
+
+THE fine weather continued, and early in July the blueberries were
+ripe.
+
+Where the fire had passed, on rocky slopes, wherever the woods were
+thin and the sun could penetrate, the ground had been clad in almost
+unbroken pink by the laurel's myriad tufts of bloom; at first the
+reddening blueberries contended with them in glowing colour, but
+under the constant sun these slowly turned to pale blue, to royal
+blue, to deepest purple, and when July brought the feast of Ste.
+Anne the bushes laden with fruit were broad patches of violet amid
+the rosy masses now beginning to fade.
+
+The forests of Quebec are rich in wild berries; cranberries, Indian
+pears, black currants, sarsaparilla spring up freely in the wake of
+the great fires, but the blueberry, the bilberry or whortleberry of
+France, is of all the most abundant and delicious. The gathering of
+them, from July to September, is an industry for many families who
+spend the whole day in the woods; strings of children down to the
+tiniest go swinging their tin pails, empty in the morning, full and
+heavy by evening. Others only gather the blueberries for their own
+use, either to make jam or the famous pies national to French
+Canada.
+
+Two or three times in the very beginning of July Maria, with
+Telesphore and Alma Rose, went to pick blueberries; but their day
+had not come, and the gleanings barely sufficed for a few tarts of
+proportions to excite a smile.
+
+"On the feast of Ste. Anne," said their mother by way of
+consolation, "we shall all go a-gathering; the men as well, and
+whoever fails to bring back a full pail is not to have any."
+
+But Saturday, the eve of Ste. Anne's day, was memorable to the
+Chapdelaines; an evening of company such as their house in the
+forest had never seen.
+
+When the men returned from work Eutrope Gagnon was already there. He
+had supped, he said, and while the others were at their meal he sat
+by the door in the cooler air that entered, balancing his chair on
+two legs. The pipes going, talk naturally turned toward the labours
+of the soil, and the care of stock.
+
+"With five men," said Eutrope, "you have a good bit of land to show
+in a short while. But working alone, as I do, without a horse to
+draw the heavy logs, one makes poor headway and has a hard time of
+it. However you are always getting on, getting on."
+
+Madame Chapdelaine, liking him, and feeling a great sympathy for his
+solitary labour in this worthy cause, gave him a few words of
+encouragement. "You don't make very quick progress by yourself, that
+is true enough, but a man lives on very little when he is alone, and
+then your brother Egide will be coming back from the drive with two
+or three hundred dollars at least, in time for the hay-making and
+the harvest, and, if you both stay here next winter, in less than
+two years you will have a good farm."
+
+Assenting with a nod, his glance found Maria, as though drawn
+thither by the thought that in two years, fortune favouring, he
+might hope.
+
+"How does the drive go?" asked Esdras. "Is there any news from that
+quarter?"
+
+"I had word through Ferdina Larouche, a son of Thadee Larouche of
+Honfleur, who got back from La Tuque last month. He said that things
+were going well; the men were not having too bad a time."
+
+The shanties, the drive, these are the two chief heads of the great
+lumbering industry, even of greater importance for the Province of
+Quebec than is farming. From October till April the axes never cease
+falling, while sturdy horses draw the logs over the snow to the
+banks of the frozen rivers; and, when spring comes, the piles melt
+one after another into the rising waters and begin their long
+adventurous journey through the rapids. At every abrupt turn, at
+every fall, where logs jam and pile, must be found the strong and
+nimble river-drivers, practised at the dangerous work, at making
+their way across the floating timber, breaking the jams, aiding with
+ax and pike-pole the free descent of this moving forest.
+
+"A hard time!" exclaimed Legare with scorn. "The young fellows of
+to-day don't know the meaning of the words. After three months in
+the woods they are in a hurry to get home and buy yellow boots,
+stiff hats and cigarettes, and to go and see their girls. Even in
+the shanties, as things are now, they are as well fed as in a hotel,
+with meat and potatoes all winter long. Now, thirty years ago ..."
+
+He broke off for a moment, expressing with a shake of his head those
+prodigious changes that the years had wrought.
+
+"Thirty years ago, when the railway from Quebec was built, I was
+there; that was something like hardship, I can tell you! I was only
+sixteen years of age but I chopped with the rest of them to clear
+the right of way, always twenty-five miles ahead of the steel, and
+for fourteen months I never clapped eye on a house. We had no tents,
+summer or winter, only shelters of boughs that we made for ourselves.
+And from morning till night it was chop, chop, chop,--eaten by the
+flies, and in the course of the same day soaked with rain and
+roasted by the sun."
+
+"Every Monday morning they opened a sack of flour and we made
+ourselves a bucketful of pancakes, and all the rest of the week,
+three times a day, one dug into that pail for something to eat. By
+Wednesday, no longer any pancakes, because they were all stuck
+together; nothing there but a mass of dough. One cut off a big chunk
+of dough with one's knife, put that in his belly, and then chopped
+and chopped again!"
+
+"When we got to Chicoutimi where provisions could reach us by water
+we were worse off than Indians, pretty nearly naked, all scratched
+and torn, and I well remember some who began to cry when told they
+could go home, because they thought they would find all their people
+dead, so long bad the time seemed to them. Hardship! That was
+hardship if you like."
+
+"That is so," said Chapdelaine, "I can recall those days. Not a
+single house on the north side of the lake: no one but Indians and a
+few trappers who made their way up here in summer by canoe and in
+winter with dog-sleds, much as it is now in the Labrador."
+
+The young folk were listening keenly to these tales of former times.
+"And now," said Esdras, "here we are fifteen miles beyond the lake,
+and when the Roberval boat is running we can get to the railway in
+twelve hours."
+
+They meditated upon this for a while without a word, contrasting
+past and present; the cruel harshness of life as once it was, the
+easy day's journey now separating them from the marvels of the iron
+way, and the thought of it filled them with naive wonder.
+
+All at once Chien set up a low growl; the sound was heard of
+approaching footsteps. "Another visitor!" Madame Chapdelaine
+announced in a tone mingling pleasure and astonishment.
+
+Maria also arose, agitated, smoothing her hair with unconscious
+hand; but it was Ephrem Surprenant of Honfleur who opened the door.
+
+"We have come to pay you a visit!" He shouted this with the air of
+one who announces a great piece of news. Behind him was someone
+unknown to them, who bowed and smiled in a very mannerly way.
+
+"My nephew Lorenzo," was Ephrem Surprenant's introduction, "a son of
+my brother Elzear who died last autumn. You never met him, it is a
+long time since he left this country for the States."
+
+They were quick to find a chair for the young man from the States,
+and the uncle undertook the duty of establishing the nephew's
+genealogy on both sides of the house, and of setting forth his age,
+trade and the particulars of his life, in obedience to the Canadian
+custom. "Yes, a son of my brother Elzear who married a young
+Bourglouis of Kiskisink. You should be able to recall that, Madame
+Chapdelaine?"
+
+From the depths of her memory mother Chapdelaine unearthed a number
+of Surprenants and as many Bourglouis, and gave the list with their
+baptismal names, successive places of residence and a full record of
+their alliances.
+
+"Right. Precisely right. Well, this one here is Lorenzo. He has
+been in the States for many years, working in a factory."
+
+Frankly interested, everyone took another good look at Lorenzo
+Surprenant. His face was rounded, with well-cut features, eyes
+gentle and unwavering, hands white; with his head a little on one
+side he smiled amiably, neither superior nor embarrassed under this
+concentrated gaze.
+
+"He came here," continued his uncle, "to settle affairs after the
+death of Elzear, and to try to sell the farm."
+
+"He has no wish to hold on to the land and cultivate it?" questioned
+the elder Chapdelaine.
+
+Lorenzo Surprenant's smile broadened and he shook his head. "No, the
+idea of settling down on the farm does not tempt me, not in
+theleast. I earn good wages where I am and like the place very well;
+I am used to the work."
+
+He checked himself, but it was plain that after the kind of life he
+had been living and what he had seen of the world, existence on a
+farm between a humble little village and the forest seemed a thing
+insupportable.
+
+"When I was a girl," said mother Chapdelaine, "pretty nearly
+everyone went off to the States. Farming did not pay as well as it
+does now, prices were low, we were always hearing of the big wages
+earned over there in the factories, and every year one family after
+another sold out for next to nothing and left Canada. Some made a
+lot of money, no doubt of that, especially those families with
+plenty of daughters; but now it is different and they are not going
+as once they did ... So you are selling the farm?"
+
+"Yes, there has been some talk with three Frenchmen who came to
+Mistook last month. I expect we shall make a bargain."
+
+"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 ...
+
+In the stillness of the night the roar of the fall sounds loud and
+near; the north-west wind sways the tops of spruce and fir with a
+sweet cool sighing; again and again, farther away and yet farther,
+an owl is hooting; the chill that ushers in the dawn is still
+remote. And Maria, in perfect contentment, rests upon the step,
+watching the ruddy beam from her fire-flickering, disappearing,
+quickened again to birth.
+
+She seems to remember someone long since whispering in her ear that
+the world and life were cheerless and gray. The daily round,
+brightened only by a few unsatisfying, fleeting pleasures; the slow
+passage of unchanging years; the encounter with some young man, like
+other young men, whose patient and hopeful courting ends by whining
+affection; a marriage then, and afterwards a vista of days under
+another roof, but scarce different from those that went before. So
+does one live, the voice had told her. Naught very dreadful in the
+prospect, and, even were it so, what possible but submission; yet
+all level, dreary and chill as an autumn field.
+
+It is not true! Alone there in the darkness Maria shakes her head, a
+smile upon her lips, and knows how far from true it is. When she
+thinks of Paradis, his look, his bearing, of what they are and will
+be to one another, he and she, something within her bosom has
+strange power to burn with the touch of fire, and yet to make her
+shiver. All the strong youth of her, the long-suffering of her
+sooth-fast heart find place in it; in the upspringing of hope and of
+longing, this vision of her approaching miracle of happiness.
+
+Below the oven the red gleam quivers and fails.
+
+"The bread must be ready!" she murmurs to herself. But she cannot
+bring herself at once to rise, loth as she is to end the fair dream
+that seems only beginning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A MEAGER REAPING
+
+SEPTEMBER arrived, and the dryness so welcome for the hay-making
+persisted till it became a disaster. According to the Chapdelaines,
+never had the country been visited with such a drought as this, and
+every day a fresh motive was suggested for the divine displeasure.
+
+Oats and wheat took on a sickly colour ere attaining their growth; a
+merciless sun withered the grass and the clover aftermath, and all
+day long the famished cows stood lowing with their heads over the
+fences. They had to be watched continually, for even the meager
+standing crop was a sore temptation, and never a day went by but one
+of them broke through the rails in the attempt to appease her hunger
+among the grain.
+
+Then, of a sudden one evening, as though weary of a constancy so
+unusual, the wind shifted and in the morning came the rain. It fell
+off and on for a week, and when it ceased and the wind hauled again
+to the north-west, autumn had come.
+
+The autumn! And it seemed as though spring were here but yesterday.
+The grain was yet unripe, though yellowed by the drought; nothing
+save the hay was in barn; the other crops could draw nutriment from
+the soil only while the too brief summer warmed it, and already
+autumn was here, the forerunner of relentless winter, of the frosts,
+and soon the snows ...
+
+Between the wet days there was still fine bright weather, hot toward
+noon, when one might fancy that all was as it had been: the harvest
+still unreaped, the changeless setting of spruces and firs, and ever
+the same sunsets of gray and opal, opal and gold, and skies of misty
+blue above the same dark woodland. But in the mornings the grass was
+sometimes white with rime, and swiftly followed the earliest dry
+frosts which killed and blackened the tops of the potatoes.
+
+Then, for the first time, a film of ice appeared upon the
+drinking-trough; melted by the afternoon sun it was there a few days
+later, and yet a third time in the same week. Frequent changes of
+wind brought an alternation of mild rainy days and frosty mornings;
+but every time the wind came afresh from the north-west it was a
+little colder, a little more remindful of the icy winter blasts.
+Everywhere is autumn a melancholy season, charged with regrets for
+that which is departing, with shrinking from what is to come; but
+under the Canadian skies it is sadder and more moving than
+elsewhere, as though one were bewailing the death of a mortal
+summoned untimely by the gods before he has lived out his span.
+
+Through the increasing cold, the early frosts, the threats of snow,
+they held back their hands and put off the reaping from day to day,
+encouraging the meager grain to steal a little nourishment from the
+earth's failing veins and the spiritless sun. At length, harvest
+they must, for October approached. About the time when the leaves of
+birches and aspens were turning, the oats and the wheat were cut and
+carried to the barn under a cloudless sky, but without rejoicing.
+
+The yield of grain was poor enough, yet the hay-crop had been
+excellent, so that the year as a whole gave occasion neither for
+excess of joy nor sorrow. However, it was long before the
+Chapdelaines, in evening talk, ceased deploring the unheard-of
+August droughts, the unprecedented September frosts, which betrayed
+their hopes. Against the miserly shortness of the summer and the
+harshness of a climate that shows no mercy they did not rebel, were
+even without a touch of bitterness; but they did not give up
+contrasting the season with that other year of wonders which fond
+imagination made the standard of their comparisons; and thus was
+ever on their lips the countryman's perpetual lament, so reasonable
+to the ear, but which recurs unfailingly: "Had it only been an
+ordinary year!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ENTRENCHED AGAINST WINTER
+
+ONE October morning Maria's first vision on arising was of countless
+snow-flakes sifting lazily from the skies. The ground was covered,
+the trees white; verily it seemed that autumn was over, when in
+other lands it had scarce begun.
+
+But Edwige Legare thus pronounced sentence: "After the first
+snowfall there is yet a month before winter sets in. The old folks
+always so declared, and I believe it myself." He was right; for in
+two days a rain carried off the snow and the dark soil again lay
+bare. Still the warning was heeded, and they set about preparations;
+the yearly defences against the snow that may not be trifled with,
+and the piercing cold.
+
+Esdras and Da'Be protected the foundation of their dwelling with
+earth and sand, making an embankment at the foot of the walls; the
+other men, armed with hammer and nails, went round the outside of
+the house, nailing up, closing chinks, remedying as best they could
+the year's wear and tear. Within, the women forced rags into the
+crevices, pasted upon the wainscotting at the north-west side old
+newspapers brought from the village and carefully preserved, tested
+with their hands in every corner for draughts.
+
+These things accomplished, the next task was to lay in the winter's
+store of wood. Beyond the fields, at the border of the forest plenty
+of dead trees yet were standing. Esdras and Legare took ax in hand
+and felled for three days; the trunks were piled, awaiting another
+fall of snow when they could be loaded on the big wood-sleigh.
+
+All through October, frosty and rainy days came alternately, and
+meanwhile the woods were putting on a dress of unearthly loveliness.
+Five hundred paces from the Chapdelaine house the bank of the
+Peribonka fell steeply to the rapid water and the huge blocks of
+stone above the fall, and across the river the opposite bank rose in
+the fashion of a rocky amphitheatre, mounting to loftier heights-an
+amphitheatre trending in a vast curve to the northward. Of the
+birches, aspens, alders and wild cherries scattered upon the slope,
+October made splashes of many-tinted red and gold. Throughout these
+weeks the ruddy brown of mosses, the changeless green of fir and
+cypress, were no more than a background, a setting only for the
+ravishing colours of those leaves born with the spring, that perish
+with the autumn. The wonder of their dying spread over the hills and
+unrolled itself, an endless riband following the river, ever as
+beautiful, as rich in shades brilliant and soft, as enrapturing,
+when they pawed into the remoteness of far northern regions and were
+unseen by human eye.
+
+But ere long there sweeps from out the cold north a mighty wind like
+a final sentence of death, the cruel ending to a reprieve, and soon
+the poor leaves, brown, red and golden, shaken too unkindly, strow
+the ground; the snow covers them, and the white expanse has only for
+adornment the sombre green of trees that alter not their
+garb-triumphing now, as do those women inspired with bitter wisdom
+who barter their right to beauty for life everlasting.
+
+In November Esdras, Da'Be and Edwige Legare went off again to the
+shanties. The father and Tit'Be harnessed Charles Eugene to the
+wood-sleigh, and laboured at hauling in the trees that had been cut,
+and piling them near the house; that done, the two men took the
+double-handed saw and sawed, sawed, sawed from morning till night;
+it was then the turn of the axes, and the logs were split as their
+size required. Nothing remained but to cord the split wood in the
+shed beside the house, where it was sheltered from the snow; the
+huge piles mingling the resinous cypress which gives a quick hot
+flame, spruce and red birch, burning steadily and longer,
+close-grained white birch with its marble-like surface, slower yet
+to be consumed and leaving red embers in the morning after a long
+winter's night.
+
+The moment for laying in wood is also that of the slaughtering.
+After entrenching against cold comes the defence against hunger. The
+quarters of pork went into the brine-tub; from a beam in the shed
+there hung the side of a fat heifer-the other half sold to people in
+Honfleur-which the cold would keep fresh till spring; sacks of flour
+were piled in a corner of the house, and Tit'Be, provided with a
+spool of brass wire, set himself to making nooses for hares.
+
+After the bustle of summer they relapsed into easy-going ways, for
+the summer is painfully short and one must:-not lose a single hour
+of those precious weeks when it is possible to work on the land,
+whereas the winter drags slowly and gives all too much time for the
+tasks it brings.
+
+The house became the centre of the universe; in truth the only spot
+where life could be sustained, and more than ever the great
+cast-iron stove was the soul of it. Every little while some member
+of the family fetched a couple of logs from under the staircase;
+cypress in the morning, spruce throughout the day, in the evening
+birch, pushing them in upon the live coals. Whenever the heat
+failed, mother Chapdelaine might be heard saying anxiously.--"Don't
+let the fire out, children." Whereupon Maria, Tit'Be or Telesphore
+would open the little door, glance in and hasten to the pile of
+wood.
+
+In the mornings Tit'Be jumped out of bed long before daylight to see
+if the great sticks of birch had done their duty and burned all
+night; should, unluckily, the fire be out he lost no time in
+rekindling it with birch-bark and cypress branches, placed heavier
+pieces on the mounting flame, and ran back to snuggle under the
+brown woollen blankets and patchwork quilt till the comforting
+warmth once more filled the house.
+
+Outside, the neighbouring forest, and even the fields won from it,
+were an alien unfriendly world, upon which they looked wonderingly
+through the little square windows. And sometimes this world was
+strangely beautiful in its frozen immobility, with a sky of flawless
+blue and a brilliant sun that sparkled on the snow; but the
+immaculateness of the blue and the white alike was pitiless and gave
+hint of the murderous cold.
+
+Days there were when the weather was tempered and the snow fell
+straight from the clouds, concealing all; the ground and the low
+growth was covered little by little, the dark line of the woods was
+hidden behind the curtain of serried flakes. Then in the morning the
+sky was clear again, but the fierce northwest wind swayed the
+heavens. Powdery snow, whipped from the ground, drove across the
+burnt lands and the clearings in blinding squalls, and heaped itself
+behind whatever broke the force of the gale. To the south-east of
+the house it built an enormous cone, and between house and stable
+raised a drift five feet high through which the shovel had to carve
+a path; but to windward the ground was bare, scoured by the
+persistent blast.
+
+On such days as these the men scarcely left the house except to care
+for the beasts, and came back on the run, their faces rasped with
+the cold and shining-wet with snow-crystals melted by the heat of
+the house. Chapdelaine would pluck the icicles from his moustache,
+slowly draw off his sheepskin-lined coat and settle himself by the
+stove with a satisfied sigh. "The pump is not frozen?" he asks.
+"Is there plenty of wood in the house?"
+
+Assured that the frail wooden fortress is provided with water, wood
+and food, he gives himself up to the indolences of winter quarters,
+smoking pipes innumerable while the women-folk are busy with the
+evening meal. The cold snaps the nails in the plank walls with
+reports like pistol-shots; the stove crammed with birch roars
+lustily; the howling of the wind without is like the cries of a
+besieging host.
+
+"It must be a bad day in the woods!" thinks Maria to herself; and
+then perceives that she has spoken aloud.
+
+"In the woods they are better off than we are here," answers her
+father. "Up there where the trees stand close together one does not
+feel the wind. You can be sure that Esdras and Da'Be are all right."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+But it was not of Esdras and Da'Be that she had just been thinking.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ONE THOUSAND AVES
+
+SINCE the coming of winter they had often talked at the Chapdelaines
+about the holidays, and now these were drawing near.
+
+"I am wondering whether we shall have any callers on New Year's
+Day," said Madame Chapdelaine one evening. She went over the list of
+all relatives and friends able to make the venture. "Azalma Larouche
+does not live so far away, but she--she is not very energetic. The
+people at St. Prime would not me to take the journey. Possibly
+Wilfrid or Ferdinand might drive from St. Gedeon if the ice on the
+lake were in good condition." A sigh disclosed that she still was
+dreaming of the coming and going in the old parishes at the time of
+the New Year, the family dinners, the unlooked-for visits of kindred
+arriving by sleigh from the next village, buried under rugs and
+furs, behind a horse whom coat was white with frost.
+
+Maria's thoughts were turning in another direction. "If the roads
+are as bad as they were last year," said she, "we shall not be able
+to attend the midnight mass. And yet I should so much have liked it
+this time, and father promised ..."
+
+Through the little window they looked on the gray sky, and found
+little to cheer them. To go to midnight mass is the natural and
+strong desire of every French-Canadian peasant, even of those living
+farthest from the settlements. What do they not face to accomplish
+it I Arctic cold, the woods at night, obliterated roads, great
+distances do but add to the impressiveness and the mystery. This
+anniversary of the birth of Jesus is more to them than a mere
+fixture in the calendar with rites appropriate; it signifies the
+renewed promise of salvation, an occasion of deep rejoicing, and
+those gathered in the wooden church are imbued with sincerest
+fervour, are pervaded with a deep sense of the supernatural. This
+year, more than ever, Maria yearned to attend the-mass after many
+weeks of remoteness from houses and from churches; the favours she
+would fain demand seemed more likely to be granted were she able to
+prefer them before the altar, aided in heavenward flight by the
+wings of music.
+
+But toward the middle of December much snow fell, dry and fine as
+dust, and three days before Christmas the north-west wind arose and
+made an end of the roads. On the morrow of the storm Chapdelaine
+harnessed Charles Eugene to the heavy sleigh and departed with
+Tit'Be; they took shovels to clear the way or lay out another route.
+The two men returned by noon, worn out, white with snow, asserting
+that there would be no breaking through for several days. The
+disappointment must be borne; Maria sighed, but the idea came to her
+that there might be other means of attaining the divine goodwill.
+
+"Is it true, mother," she asked as evening was falling, "that if you
+repeat a thousand Aves on the day before Christmas you are always
+granted the thing you seek?"
+
+"Quite true," her mother reverently answered. "One desiring a
+favour who says her thousand Aves properly before midnight on
+Christmas Eve, very seldom fails to receive what she asks."
+
+On Christmas Eve the weather was cold but windless. The two men went
+out betimes in another effort to beat down the road, with no great
+hope of success; but long before they left, and indeed long before
+daylight, Maria began to recite her Aves. Awakening very early, she
+took her rosary from beneath the pillow and swiftly repeated the
+prayer, passing from the last word to the first without stopping,
+and counting, bead by bead.
+
+The others were still asleep; but Chien left his place at the stove
+when he saw that she moved, and came to sit beside the bed, gravely
+reposing his head upon the coverings. Maria's glance wandered over
+the long white muzzle resting upon the brown wool, the liquid eyes
+filled with the dumb creature's pathetic trustfulness, the drooping
+glossy ears; while she ceased not to murmur the sacred words.--"Hail
+Mary, full of grace ..."
+
+Soon Tit'Be jumped from bed to put wood upon the fire; an impulse of
+shyness caused Maria to turn away and hide her rosary under the
+coverlet as she continued to pray. The stove roared; Chien went back
+to his usual spot, and for another half-hour nothing was stirring in
+the house save the fingers of Maria numbering the boxwood beads, and
+her lips as they moved rapidly in the task she had laid upon
+herself.
+
+Then must she arise, for the day was dawning; make the porridge and
+the pancakes while the men went to the stable to care for the
+animals, wait upon them when they returned, wash the dishes, sweep
+the house. What time she attended to these things, Maria was ever
+raising a little higher toward heaven the monument of her Aves; but
+the rosary had to be laid aside and it was hard to keep a true
+reckoning. As the morning advanced however, no urgent duty calling,
+she was able to sit by the window and steadily pursue her
+undertaking.
+
+Noon; and already three hundred Aves. Her anxiety lessens, for now
+she feels almost sure of finishing in time. It comes to her mind
+that fasting would give a further title to heavenly consideration,
+and might, with reason, turn hopes into certainties; wherefore she
+ate but little, foregoing all those things she liked the best.
+
+Throughout the afternoon she must knit the woollen garment designed
+for her father as a New Year's gift, and though the faithful
+repetition ceased not, the work of her fingers was something of a
+distraction and a delay; then came the long preparations for supper,
+and finally Tit'Be brought his mittens to be mended, so all this
+time the Ayes made slow and impeded progress, like some devout
+procession brought to halt by secular interruption.
+
+But when it was evening and the tasks of the day were done, she
+could resume her seat by the window where the feeble light of the
+lamp did not invade the darkness, look forth upon the fields hidden
+beneath their icy cloak, take the rosary once more in her hands and
+throw her heart into the prayer. She was happy that so many Ayes
+were left to be recited, since labour and difficulty could only add
+merit to her endeavour; even did she wish to humble herself further
+and give force to her prayer by some posture that would bring
+uneasiness and pain, by some chastening of the flesh.
+
+Her father and Tit'Be smoked, their feet against the stove; her
+mother sewed new ties to old moose-hide moccasins. Outside, the moon
+had risen, flooding the chill whiteness with colder light, and the
+heavens were of a marvellous purity and depth, sown with stars that
+shone like that wondrous star of old.
+
+"Blessed art Thou amongst women..."
+
+Through repeating the short prayer oftentimes and quickly she grew
+confused and sometimes stopped, her dazed mind lost among the
+well-known words. It is only for a moment; sighing she closes her
+eyes, and the phrase which rises at once to her memory and her lips
+ceases to be mechanical, detaches itself, again stands forth in all
+its hallowed meaning.
+
+"Blessed art Thou amongst women ..."
+
+At length a heaviness weighs upon her, and the holy words are spoken
+with greater effort and slowly; yet the beads pass through her
+fingers in endless succession, and each one launches the offering of
+an Ave to that sky where Mary the compassionate is surely seated on
+her throne, hearkening to the music of prayers that ever rise, and
+brooding over the memory of that blest night.
+
+"The Lord is with Thee ..."
+
+The fence-rails were very black upon the white expanse palely
+lighted by the moon; trunks of birch trees standing against the dark
+background of forest were like the skeletons of living creatures
+smitten with the cold and stricken by death; but the glacial night
+was awesome rather than affrighting.
+
+"With the roads as they are we will not be the only ones who have to
+stay at home this evening," said Madame Chapdelaine. "But is there
+anything more lovely than the midnight mass at Saint Coeur de Marie,
+with Yvonne Boilly playing the harmonium, and Pacifique Simard who
+sings the Latin so beautifully!" She was very careful to say nothing
+that might seem reproachful or complaining on such a night as this,
+but in spite of herself the words and tone had a sad ring of
+loneliness and remoteness. Her husband noticed it, and, himself
+under the influence of the day, was quick to take the blame.
+
+"It is true enough, Laura, that you would have had a happier life
+with some other man than me, who lived on a comfortable farm, near
+the settlements."
+
+"No, Samuel; what the good God does is always right. I grumble ...
+Of course I grumble. Is there anyone who hasn't something to grumble
+about? But we have never been unhappy, we two; we have managed to
+live without faring over-badly; the boys are fine boys,
+hard-working, who bring us nearly all they earn; Maria too is a good
+girl..."
+
+Affected by these memories of the past, they also were thinking of
+the candles already lit, of the hymns soon to be raised in honour of
+the Saviour's birth. Life had always been a simple and a
+straightforward thing for them; severe but inevitable toil, a good
+understanding between man and wife, obedience alike to the laws of
+nature and of the Church. Everything was drawn into the same woof;
+the rites of their religion and the daily routine of existence so
+woven together that they could not distinguish the devout emotion
+possessing them from the mute love of each for each.
+
+Little Alma Rose heard praises in the air and hastened to demand her
+portion. "I have been a good girl too, haven't I, father?"
+
+"Certainly ... Certainly. A black sin indeed if one were naughty
+on the day when the little Jesus was born."
+
+To the children, Jesus of Nazareth was ever "the little Jesus," the
+curly-headed babe of the sacred picture; and in truth, for the
+parents as well, such was the image oftenest brought to mind by the
+Name. Not the sad enigmatic Christ of the Protestant, but a being
+more familiar and less august, a newborn infant in his mother's
+arms, or at least a tiny child who might be loved without great
+effort of the mind or any thought of the coming sacrifice.
+
+"Would you like me to rock you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He took the little girl on his knees and began to swing her back and
+forth.
+
+"And are we going to sing too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well; now sing with me:"
+
+    Dans son etable,
+    Que Jesus est charmant!
+    Qu'il est aimable
+    Dans son abaissement
+
+He began in quiet tones that he might not drown the other slender
+voice; but soon emotion carried him away and he sang with all his
+might, his gaze dreamy and remote. Telesphore drew near and looked
+at him with worshipping eyes. To these children brought up in a
+lonely house, with only their parents for companions, Samuel
+Chapdelaine embodied all there was in the world of wisdom and might.
+As he was ever gentle and patient, always ready to take the children
+on his knee and sing them hymns, or those endless old songs he
+taught them one by one, they loved him with a rare affection.
+
+    ... Tous les palais des rois
+    N'ont rien de comparable
+    Aux beautes que je vois
+    Dans cette etable.
+
+"Once more? Very well."
+
+This time the mother and Tit'Be joined in. Maria could not resist
+staying her prayers for a few moments that she might look and
+hearken; but the words of the hymn renewed her ardour, and she soon
+took up the task again with a livelier faith ... "Hail Mary, full of
+grace ..."
+
+    Trois gros navires sont arrives,
+    Charges d'avoine, charges de ble.
+    Nous irons sur l'eau nous y prom-promener,
+    Nous irons jouer dans l'ile...
+
+"And now? Another song: which?" Without waiting for a reply he
+struck in ... "No? not that one ... Claire Fontaine? Ah! That's
+a beautiful one, that is! We shall all sing it together."
+
+He glanced at Maria, but seeing the beads ever slipping through her
+fingers he would not intrude.
+
+    A la claire fontaine
+    M'en allant promener,
+    J'ai trouve l'eau si belle
+    Que je m'y suis baigne ...
+    Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
+    Jamais je ne t'oublierai...
+
+Words and tune alike haunting; the unaffected sadness of the refrain
+lingering in the ear, a song that well may find its way to any
+heart.
+
+    .. Sur la plus haute branche,
+    Le rossignol chantait.
+    Chante, rossignol, chante,
+    Toi qui a le coeur gai ...
+    Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
+    Jamais je ne t'oublierai ...
+
+The rosary lay still in the long fingers. Maria did not sing with
+the others; but she was listening, and this lament of a love that
+was unhappy fell very sweetly and movingly on her spirit a little
+weary with prayer.
+
+    ... Tu as le coeur a rire,
+    Moi je l'ai a pleurer,
+    J'ai perdu ma maitresse
+    Sans pouvoir la r'trouver,
+    Pour un bouquet de roses
+    Que je lui refusai
+    Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
+    Jamais je ne t'oublierai.
+
+Maria looked through the window at the white fields circled by
+mysterious forest; the passion of religious feeling, the tide of
+young love rising within her, the sound of the familiar voices,
+fused in her heart to a single emotion. Truly the world was filled
+with love that evening, with love human and divine, simple in nature
+and mighty in strength, one and the other most natural and right; so
+intermingled that the beseeching of heavenly favour upon dear ones
+was scarcely more than the expression of an earthly affection, while
+the artless love songs were chanted with solemnity of voice and
+exaltation of spirit fit for addresses to another world.
+
+    .. Je voudrais que la rose
+    Fut encore au rosier,
+    Et que le rosier meme
+    A la mer fut jete.
+    Il y a longtemps, que je t'aime,
+    Jamais je ne t'oublierai . .
+
+"Hail Mary, full of grace ..."
+
+The song ended, Maria forthwith resumed her prayers with zeal
+refreshed, and once again the tale of the Aves mounted.
+
+Little Alma Rose, asleep on her father's knee, was undressed and put
+to bed; Telesphore followed; Tit'Be arose in turn, stretched
+himself, and fined the stove with green birch logs; the father made
+a last trip to the stable and came back running, saying that the
+cold was increasing. Soon all had retired, save Maria.
+
+"You won't forget to put out the lamp?"
+
+"No, father."
+
+Forthwith she quenched the light, preferring it so, and seated
+herself again by the window to repeat the last Aves. When she had
+finished, a scruple assailed her, and a fear lest she had erred in
+the reckoning, because it had not always been possible to count the
+beads of her rosary. Out of prudence she recited yet another fifty
+and then was silent-jaded, weary, but full of happy confidence, as
+though the moment had brought her a promise inviolable.
+
+The world outside was lit; wrapped in that frore splendour which the
+night unrolls over lands of snow when the sky is clear and the moon
+is shining. Within the house was darkness, and it seemed that wood
+and field had illumined themselves to signal the coming of the holy
+hour.
+
+"The thousand Aves have been said," murmured Maria to herself, "but
+I have not yet asked for anything ... not in words." She bad
+thought that perhaps it were not needful; that the Divinity might
+understand without hearing wishes shaped by lips--Mary above all ...
+Who had been a woman upon earth. But at the last her simple mind
+was taken with a doubt, and she tried to find speech for the favour
+she was seeking.
+
+Francois Paradis ... Most surely it concerns Francois Paradis.
+Hast Thou already guessed it, O Mary, full of grace? How might she
+frame this her desire without impiety? That he should be spared
+hardship in the woods ... That he should be true to his word and
+give up drinking and swearing ... That he return in the spring.
+
+That he return in the spring ... She goes no further, for it seems
+to her that when he is with her again, his promise kept, all the
+happiness in the world must be within their reach, unaided ...
+almost unaided ... If it be not presumptuous so to think ...
+
+That he return in the spring ... Dreaming of his return, of
+Francois, the handsome sunburnt face turned to hers, Maria forgets
+all else, and looks long with unseeing eyes at the snow-covered
+ground which the moonlight has turned into a glittering fabric of
+ivory and mother-of-pearl-at the black pattern of the fences
+outlined upon it, and the menacing ranks of the dark forest.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+STRAYING TRACKS
+
+NEW YEAR'S DAY, and not a single caller! Toward evening the mother
+of the family, a trifle cast down, hid her depression behind a mask
+of extra cheeriness. "Even if no one comes," said she, "that is no
+reason for allowing ourselves to be unhappy. We are going to make la
+tire."
+
+The children exclaimed with delight, and followed the preparations
+with impatient eyes. Molasses and brown sugar were set on the stove
+to boil, and when this had proceeded far enough Telesphore brought
+in a large dish of lovely white snow. They all gathered about the
+table as a few drops of the boiling syrup were allowed to fall upon
+the snow where they instantly became crackly bubbles, deliciously
+cold.
+
+Each was helped in turn, the big people making a merry pretence of
+the children's unfeigned greed; but soon, and very wisely, the
+tasting was checked, that appetite might not be in peril for the
+real la fire, the confection of which had only begun. After further
+cooking, and just at the proper moment, the cooling toffee must be
+pulled for a long time. The mother's strong hands plied unceasingly
+for five minutes, folding and drawing out the sugary skein; the
+movement became slower and slower, until, stretched for the last
+time to the thickness of a finger, it was cut into lengths with
+scissors-not too easily, for it was already hard. The la tire was
+made.
+
+The children were busy with their first portions, when a knocking
+was heard on the door. "Eutrope Gagnon," at once declared
+Chapdelaine. "I was just saying to myself that it would be an odd
+thing if he did not come and spend the evening with us."
+
+Eutrope Gagnon it was in truth. Entering, he bade them all good
+evening, and laid his woollen cap upon the table. Maria looked at
+him, a blush upon her cheek. Custom ordains that on the first day of
+the year the young men shall kiss the women-folk, and Maria knew
+well enough that Eutrope, shy as he was, would exercise his
+privilege; she stood motionless by the table, unprotesting, yet
+thinking of another kiss she would have dearly welcomed. But the
+young man took the chair offered him and sat down, his eyes upon the
+floor.
+
+"You are the only visitor who has come our way to-day," said
+Chapdelaine, "and I suppose you have seen no one either. I felt
+pretty certain you would be here this evening."
+
+"Naturally ... I would not let New Year's Day go by without
+paying you a visit. But, besides that, I have news to tell."
+
+"News?"
+
+Under the questioning eyes of the household he did not raise his
+eyes.
+
+"By your face I am afraid you have bad news."
+
+"Yes."
+
+With a start of fear the mother half rose. "Not about the boys?"
+
+"No, Madame Chapdelaine. Esdras and Da'Be are well, if that be
+God's pleasure. The word I bring is not of them-not of your own kin.
+It concerns a young man you know." Pausing a moment he spoke a name
+under his breath:--"Francois Paradis."
+
+His glance was lifted to Maria and as quickly fell, but she did not
+so much as see his look of honest distress. Deep stillness weighed
+upon the house-upon the whole universe. Everything alive and dead
+was breathlessly awaiting news of such dreadful moment-touching him
+that was for her the one man in all the world ...
+
+"This is what happened. You knew perhaps that he was foreman in a
+shanty above La Tuque, on the Vermilion River. About the middle of
+December he suddenly told the boss that he was going off to spend
+Christmas and New Year at Lake St. John-up here. The boss objected,
+naturally enough; for if the men take ten or fifteen days' leave
+right in the middle of the winter you might as well stop the work
+altogether. The boss did not wish him to go and said so plainly; but
+you know Francois-a man not be thwarted when a notion entered his
+head. He answered that he was set on going to the lake for the
+holidays, and that go he would. Then the boss let him have his way,
+afraid to lose a man useful beyond the common, and of such
+experience in the bush."
+
+Eutrope Gagnon was speaking with unusual ease, slowly, but without
+seeking words, as though his story had been shaped beforehand. Amid
+her overwhelming grief the thought flitted through Maria's
+heart:--"Francois wished to come here ... to me," and a fugitive joy
+touched it as a swallow in flight ruffles the water with his wing.
+
+"The shanty was not very far in the woods, only two days' journey
+from the Transcontinental which passes La Tuque. But as the luck was,
+something had happened to the line and the trains were not running.
+I heard all this through Johnny Niquette of St. Henri, who arrived
+from La Tuque two days ago."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When Francois found that he could not take the train he burst into
+a laugh, and in that sort of a humour said that as it was a case of
+walking he would walk all the way-reaching the lake by following the
+rivers, first the Croche and then the Ouatchouan which falls in near
+Roberval."
+
+"That is so," said Chapdelaine. "It can be done. I have gone that
+way."
+
+"Not at this time of year, Mr. Chapdelaine, certainly not just at
+this time. Everyone there told Francois that it would be foolhardy
+to attempt such a trip in midwinter, about Christmas, with the cold
+as great as it was, some four feet of snow lying in the woods, and
+alone. But he only laughed and told them that he was used to the
+woods and that a little difficulty was not going to frighten him,
+because he was bound to get to the upper side of the lake for the
+holidays, and that where the Indians were able to cross he could
+make the crossing too. Only--you know it very well, Mr.
+Chapdelaine--when the Indians take that journey it is in company, and
+with their dogs. Francois set of alone, on snow-shoes, pulling his
+blankets and provisions on a toboggan." No one had uttered a word to
+hasten or check the speaker. They listened as to him whose story's
+end stalks into view, before the eyes but darkly veiled, like a
+figure drawing near who hides his face.
+
+"You will remember the weather a week before Christmas-the heavy
+snow that fell, and after it the nor'west gale. It happened that was
+then in the great burnt lands, where the fine snow drives and drifts
+so terribly. In such a place the best of men have little chance when
+it is very cold and the storm lasts. And, if you recall it, the
+nor'wester was blowing for three days on end, stiff enough-to flay
+you."
+
+"Yes, and then?"
+
+The narrative he had framed did not carry him further, or perhaps he
+could not bring himself to speak the final words, for it was some
+time before the low-voiced answer came--"He went astray ..."
+
+Those who have passed their lives within the shadow of the Canadian
+forests know the meaning but too well. The daring youths to whom
+this evil fortune happens in the woods, who go astray-are lost-but
+seldom return. Sometimes a search-party finds their bodies in the
+spring, after the melting of the snows. In Quebec, and above all in
+the far regions of the north, the very word, ecarte, has taken on a
+new and sinister import, from the peril overhanging him who loses
+his way, for a short day only, in that limitless forest.
+
+"He went astray ... The storm caught him in the burnt country and
+he halted for a day. So much we know, for the Indians found a
+shelter of fir branches he had made for himself, and they saw his
+tracks. He set out again because his provisions were low and he was
+in haste to reach the end of his journey, as I suppose; but the
+weather did not mend, snow was falling, the nor'west wind never
+eased, and it is likely he caught no glimpse of the sun to guide
+him, for the Indians said that his tracks turned off from the river
+Croche which he had been following and wandered away, straight to
+the north."
+
+There was no further speech; neither from the two men who had
+listened with assenting motions of their heads while they followed
+every turn of Eutrope's grim story; nor from the mother whose hands
+were clasped upon her knees,--as in a belated supplication; nor from
+Maria . .
+
+"When they heard this, men from Ouatchouan set forth after the
+weather was a little better. But all his footsteps were covered, and
+they returned saying that they had found no trace; that was three
+days ago is lost ..."
+
+The listeners stirred, and broke the stillness with a sigh; the tale
+was told, nor was there a word that, anyone might speak. The fate of
+Francois Paradis was as mournfully sure as though he were buried in
+the cemetery at St. Michel de Mistassini to the sound of chants,
+with the blessing of a priest.
+
+Silence fell upon the house and all within it. Chapdelaine was leaning
+forward, elbows on his knees, his face working,--mechanically striking
+one fist upon the other. At length he spoke:--"It shows we are but
+little children in the hand of the good God. Francois was one of the
+best men of these parts in the woods, and at finding his way; people
+who came here used to take him as guide, and always did he bring them
+back without mishap. And now he himself is lost. We are but little
+children. Some there be who think themselves pretty strong-able to
+get on without God's help in their houses and on their lands...but
+in the bush..." With solemn voice and slowly-moving head he repeated:
+"We are but little children."
+
+"A good man he was," said Eutrope Gagnon, "in very truth a good
+man, strong and brave, with ill-will to none.'
+
+"Indeed that is true. I am not saying that the good God had cause
+to send him to his death-him more than another. He was a fine
+fellow, hard-working, and I loved him well. But it shows you ..."
+
+"No one ever had a thing against him." Eutrope's generous
+insistence carried him on. "A man hard to match for work, afraid of
+nothing and obliging withal. Everyone who knew him was fond of
+him. You will not find his like."
+
+Raising his eyes to Maria he repeated with emphasis:--"He was a
+good man, you will not find his like."
+
+"When we were at Mistassini," began Madame Chapdelaine, "seven years
+ago, he was only a lad, but very strong and quick and as tall as he
+is now--I mean as he was when he came here last summer. Always
+good-natured too. No one could help liking him."
+
+They all looked straight before them in speaking, and yet what they
+said seemed to be for Maria alone, as if the dear secret of her
+heart were open to them. But she spoke not, nor moved, her eyes
+fixed upon the frosted panes of the little window, impenetrable as
+the wall.
+
+Eutrope Gagnon did not linger. The Chapdelaines, left to themselves,
+were long without speech. At last the father said in a halting
+voice:--"Francois Paradis was almost alone in the world; now, as
+we all had an affection for him, we perhaps might have a mass or two
+said. What do you think, Laura?"
+
+"Yes indeed. Three high masses with music, and when the boys return
+from the woods--in health, if such be the will of the good
+God-three more for the repose of his soul, poor lad! And every
+Sunday we shall, say I a prayer for him."
+
+"He was like the rest of us," Chapdelaine continued, "not without
+fault, of course, but kindly and well-living. God and the Holy
+Virgin will have pity on him."
+
+Again silence. Maria well knew it was for her they said these
+things-aware of her grief and seeking to assuage it; but she was not
+able to speak, either to praise the dead or utter.-her sorrow. A
+hand had fastened upon her throat, stifling her, as the narrative
+unfolded and the end loomed inevitable; and now this hand found its
+way into her breast and was crushing her heart. Presently she would
+know a yet more intolerable pain, but now she only felt the deadly
+grasp of those five fingers closed about her heart.
+
+Other words were said, but they scarce reached her ear; then came
+the familiar evening stir of preparation for the night, the father's
+departure on a last visit to the stable and his swift return, face
+red with the cold, slamming the door hastily in a swirl of frosty
+vapour.
+
+"Come, Maria." The mother called her very gently, and laid a hand
+upon her shoulder. She rose and went to kneel and pray with the
+others. Voice answered to voice for ten minutes, murmuring the
+sacred words in low monotone.
+
+The usual prayer at an end, the mother whispered:--"Yet five
+Paters and five Aves for the souls of those who have suffered
+misfortune in the forest." And the voices again rose, this time more
+subdued, breaking sometimes to a sob.
+
+When they were silent, and all had risen after the last sign of the
+cross, Maria went back to the window. The frost upon the panes made
+of them so many fretted squares through which the eye could not
+penetrate, shutting away the outside world; but Maria saw them not,
+for the tears welled to her eyes and blinded her. She stood there
+motionless, with arms hanging piteously by her side, a stricken
+figure of grief; then a sudden anguish yet keener and more
+unbearable seized upon her; blindly she opened the door and went out
+upon the step.
+
+The world that lay beyond the threshold, sunk in moveless white
+repose, was of an immense serenity; but when Maria passed from the
+sheltering walls the cold smote her like the hungry blade of a sword
+and the forest leaped toward her in menace, its inscrutable face
+concealing a hundred dreadful secrets which called aloud to her in
+lamentable voices. With a little moan she drew back, and closing the
+door sat shivering beside the stove. Numbness was yielding, sorrow
+taking on an edge, and the hand that clutched her heart set itself
+to devising new agonies, each one subtler and more cruel than the
+last.
+
+How he must have suffered, far off there amid the snows! So thought
+she, as still her own face remembered the sting of the bitter air.
+Men threatened by this fate had told her that death coming in such a
+guise smote with gentle and painless hand-a hand that merely lulled
+to sleep; but she could not make herself believe it, and all the
+sufferings that Francois, might have endured before giving up and
+falling to the white ground passed before her eyes.
+
+No need for her to see the spot, too well she knew the winter
+terrors of the great forest, the snow heaped to the firs' lower
+branches, alders almost buried beneath it, birches and aspens naked
+as skeletons and shuddering in the icy wind, a sunless sky above the
+massed and gloomy spires of green. She sees Francois making his way
+through the close-set trees, limbs stiffened with the cold, his skin
+raw with that pitiless nor'wester, gnawed by hunger, stumbling with
+fatigue, his feet so weary that with no longer strength to lift them
+his snowshoes often catch the snow and throw him to his knees.
+
+Doubtless when the storm abated he saw his error, knew that he was
+walking toward the barren northland, turned at once and took the
+right course--he so experienced, the woods his home from boyhood.
+But his food is nearly gone, the cold tortures him; with lowered
+head and clenched teeth he fights the implacable winter, calling to
+aid his every reserve of strength and high courage. He thinks of the
+road he must follow, the miles to be overcome, measures his chances
+of life; and fitful memories arise of a house, so warm and snug,
+where all will greet him gladly; of Maria who, knowing what he has
+dared for her sake, will at length raise to him her truthful eyes
+shining with love.
+
+Perhaps he fell for the last time when succour was near, a few yards
+only from house or shanty. Often so it happens. Cold and his
+ministers of death flung themselves upon him as their prey; they
+have stilled the strong limbs forever, covered his open handsome
+face with snow, closed the fearless eyes without gentleness or pity,
+changed his living body into a thing of ice ... Maria has no more
+tears that she may shed, but she shivers and trembles as he must
+have trembled and shivered before he sank into merciful
+unconsciousness; horror and pity in her face, Maria draws nearer the
+stove as though she might thus bring him warmth and shield his dear
+life against the assassin.
+
+"O Christ Jesus, who didst stretch forth Thine arm to those in need,
+why didst Thou not disperse the snows with those pale hands of
+Thine? Holy Virgin, why didst Thou not sustain him by Thy power
+when, for the last time, his feet were stumbling? In all the legions
+of heaven why was there found no angel to show him the way?"
+
+But it is her grief that utters these reproaches, and the steadfast
+heart of Maria is fearful of having sinned in yielding to it.
+Another dread is soon to assail her. Perhaps Francois Paradis was
+not able quite faithfully to keep the promises he made to her. In
+the shanty, among rough and careless men, may he not have had
+moments of weakness; blasphemed or taken the names of the saints in
+vain, and thus have gone to his death with sin upon his conscience,
+under the weight of divine wrath.
+
+Her parents had promised but a little ago that masses should be
+said. How good they were! Having guessed her secret how kindly had
+they been silent! But she herself might help with prayers the poor
+soul in torment. Her beads still lay upon the table; she takes them
+in her hands, and forthwith the words of the Ave mount to her
+lips,--"Hail Mary, full of grace..."
+
+Did you doubt of her, O mother of the Galilean? Since that only
+eight days before she strove to reach your ear with her thousand
+prayers, and you but clothed yourself in divine impassivity while
+fate accomplished its purpose, think you that she questions your
+goodness or your power? It would indeed have been to misjudge her.
+As once she sought your aid for a man, so now she asks your pardon
+for a soul, in the same words, with the same humility and boundless
+faith.
+
+"Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy
+womb, Jesus."
+
+But still she cowers by the great stove, and though the fire's heat
+strikes through her, she ceases not to shudder as she thinks of the
+frozen world about her, of Paradis, who cannot be insentient, who
+must be so bitter cold in his bed of snow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE INTERPRETER OF GOD
+
+ONE evening in February Samuel Chapdelaine said to his daughter:
+"The roads are passable; if you wish it, Maria, we shall go to La
+Pipe on Sunday for the mass."
+
+"Very well, father;" but she replied in a voice so dejected, almost
+indifferent, that her parents exchanged glances behind her back.
+
+Country folk do not die for love, nor spend the rest of their days
+nursing a wound. They are too near to nature, and know too well the
+stern laws that rule their lives. Thus it is perhaps, that they are
+sparing of high-sounding words; choosing to say "liking" rather than
+"loving" ... "ennui" rather than "grief," that so the joys and
+sorrows of the heart may bear a fit proportion to those more anxious
+concerns of life which have to do with their daily toil, the yield
+of their lands, provision for the future.
+
+Maria did not for a moment dream that life for her was over, or that
+the world must henceforward be a sad wilderness, because Francis
+Paradis would not return in the spring nor ever again. But her heart
+was aching, and while sorrow possessed it the future held no promise
+for her.
+
+When Sunday arrived, father and daughter early began to make ready
+for the two hours' journey which would bring them to St. Henri de
+Taillon, and the church. Before half-past seven Charles Eugene was
+harnessed, and Maria, still wearing a heavy winter cloak, had
+carefully deposited in her purse the list of her mother's
+commissions. A few minutes later the sleigh-bells were tinkling, and
+the rest of the family grouped themselves at the little square
+window to watch the departure.
+
+For the first hour the horse could not go beyond a walk, sinking
+knee-deep in snow; for only the Chapdelaines used this road, laid
+out and cleared by themselves, and not enough travelled to become
+smooth and hard. But when they reached the beaten highway Charles
+Eugene trotted along briskly.
+
+They passed through Honfleur, a hamlet of eight scattered houses,
+and then re-entered the woods. After a time they came upon
+clearings, then houses appeared dotted along the road; little by
+little the dusky ranks of the forest retreated, and soon they were
+in the village with other sleighs before and following them, all
+going toward the church.
+
+Since the beginning of the year Maria had gone three times to hear
+mass at St. Henri de Taillon, which the people of the country
+persist in calling La Pipe, as in the gallant days of the first
+settlers. For her, besides being an exercise of piety, this was
+almost the only distraction possible and her father sought to
+furnish it whenever he could do so, believing that the impressive
+rites of the church and a meeting with acquaintances in the village
+would help to banish her grief.
+
+On this occasion when the mass was ended, instead of paying visits
+they went to the curees house. It was already thronged with members
+of the congregation from remote farms, for the Canadian priest not
+only has the consciences of his flock in charge, but is their
+counsellor in all affairs, and the composer of their disputes; the
+solitary individual of different station to whom they can resort for
+the solving of their difficulties.
+
+The cure of St. Henri sent none away empty who asked his advice;
+some he dealt with in a few swift words amidst a general
+conversation where he bore his cheerful part; others at greater
+length in the privacy of an adjoining room. When the turn of the
+Chapdelaines came he looked at his watch.
+
+"We shall have dinner first. What say you, my good friends? You
+must have found an appetite on the road. As for myself, singing mass
+makes me hungry beyond anything you could believe."
+
+He laughed heartily, more tickled than anyone at his own joke, and
+led his guests into the dining-room. Another priest was there from a
+neighbouring parish, and two or three farmers. The meal was one long
+discussion about husbandry, with a few amusing stories and bits of
+harmless gossip thrown in; now and then one of the farmers, suddenly
+remembering where he was, would labour some pious remark which the
+priests acknowledged with a nod or an absent-minded "Yes! Yes!"
+
+The dinner over at last, some of the guests departed after lighting
+their pipes. The cure, catching a glance from Chapdelaine, seemed to
+recall something; arising, he motioned to Maria, and went before her
+into the next room which served him both for visitors and as his
+office.
+
+A small harmonium stood against the wall; on the other side was a
+table with agricultural journals, a Civil Code and a few books bound
+in black leather; on the walls hung a portrait of Pius X., an
+engraving of the Holy Family, the coloured broadside of a Quebec
+merchant with sleighs and threshing-machines side by side, and a
+number of official notices as to precautions against forest fires
+and epidemics amongst cattle.
+
+Turning to Maria, the cure said kindly enough;--"So it appears that
+you are distressing yourself beyond what is reasonable and right?"
+
+She looked at him humbly, not far from believing that the priest's
+supernatural power had divined her trouble without need of telling.
+He inclined his tall figure, and bent toward her his thin peasant
+face; for beneath the robe was still the tiller of the soil: the
+gaunt and yellow visage, the cautious eyes, the huge bony shoulders.
+Even his hands--hands wont to dispense the favours of Heaven-were
+those of the husbandman, with swollen veins beneath the dark skin.
+But Maria saw in him only the priest, the cure of the parish,
+appointed of God to interpret life to her and show her the path of
+duty.
+
+"Be seated there," he said, pointing to a chair. She sat down
+somewhat like a schoolgirl who is to have a scolding, somewhat like
+a woman in a sorcerer's den who awaits in mingled hope and dread the
+working of his unearthly spells... ... ...
+
+An hour later the sleigh was speeding over the hard snow.
+Chapdelaine drowsed, and the reins were slipping from his open
+hands. Rousing himself and lifting his head, he sang again in
+full-voiced fervour the hymn he was singing as they left the
+village:--
+
+    ... Adorons-le dans le ciel.
+    Adorons-le sur l'autel ...
+
+Then he fell silent, his chin dropping slowly toward his breast, and
+the only sound upon the road was the tinkle of sleigh-bells.
+
+Maria was thinking of the priest's words: "If there was affection
+between you it is very proper that you should know regret. But you
+were not pledged to one another, because neither you nor he had
+spoken to your parents; therefore it is not befitting or right that
+you should sorrow thus, nor feel so deep a grief for a young man
+who, after all is said, was nothing to you..."
+
+And again: "That masses should be sung, that you should pray for
+him, such things are useful and good, you could do no better. Three
+high masses with music, and three more when the boys return from the
+woods, as your father has asked me, most assuredly these will help
+him, and also you may be certain they will delight him more than
+your lamentations, since they will shorten by so much his time of
+expiation. But to grieve like this, and to go about casting gloom
+over the household is not well, nor is it pleasing in the sight of
+God."
+
+He did not appear in the guise of a comforter, nor of one who gives
+counsel in the secret affairs of the heart, but rather as a man of
+the law or a chemist who enunciates his bald formulas, invariable
+and unfailing.
+
+"The duty of a girl like you--good-looking, healthy, active withal
+and a clever housewife--is in the first place to help her old
+parents, and in good time to marry and bring up a Christian family
+of her own. You have no call to the religious life? No. Then you
+must give up torturing yourself in this fashion, because it is a
+sacrilegious thing and unseemly, seeing that the young man was
+nothing whatever to you. The good God knows what is best for us; we
+should neither rebel nor complain ..."
+
+In all this, but one phrase left Maria a little doubting, it was the
+priest's assurance that Francois Paradis, in the place where now he
+was, cared only for masses to repose his soul, and never at all for
+the deep and tender regrets lingering behind him. This she could not
+constrain herself to believe. Unable to think of him otherwise in
+death than in life, she felt it must bring him something of
+happiness and consolation that her sorrow was keeping alive their
+ineffectual love for a little space beyond death. Yet, since the
+priest had said it ...
+
+The road wound its way among the trees rising sombrely from the
+snow. Here and there a squirrel, alarmed by the swiftly passing
+sleigh and the tinkling bells, sprang upon a trunk and scrambled
+upward, clinging to the bark. From the gray sky a biting cold was
+falling and the wind stung the cheek, for this was February, with
+two long months of winter yet to come.
+
+As Charles Eugene trotted along the beaten road, bearing the
+travellers to their lonely house, Maria, in obedience to the words
+of the cure at St. Henri, strove to drive away gloom and put
+mourning from her; as simple-mindedly as she would have fought the
+temptation of a dance, of a doubtful amusement or anything that was
+plainly wrong and hence forbidden.
+
+They reached home as night was falling. The coming of evening was
+only a slow fading of the light, for, since morning, the heavens had
+been overcast, the sun obscured. A sadness rested upon the pallid
+earth; the firs and cypresses did not wear the aspect of living
+trees and the naked birches seemed to doubt of the springtime. Maria
+shivered as she left the sleigh, and hardly noticed Chien, barking
+and gambolling a welcome, or the children who called to her from the
+door-step. The world seemed strangely empty, for this evening at
+least. Love was snatched away, and they forbade remembrance. She
+went swiftly into the house without looking about her, conscious of
+a new dread and hatred for the bleak land, the forest's eternal
+shade, the snow and the cold,--for all those things she had lived her
+life amongst, which now had wounded her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+LOVE BEARING GIFTS
+
+MARCH came, and one day Tit'Be brought the news from Honfleur that
+there would be a large gathering in the evening at Ephrem
+Surprenant's to which everyone was invited.
+
+But someone must stay to look after the house, and as Madame
+Chapdelaine had set her heart on this little diversion after being
+cooped up for all these months, it was Tit'Be himself who was left
+at home. Honfleur, the nearest village to their house, was eight
+miles away; but what were eight miles over the snow and through the
+woods compared with the delight of hearing songs and stories, and of
+talk with people from afar?
+
+A numerous company was assembled under the Surprenant roof: several
+of the villagers, the three Frenchmen who had bought his nephew
+Lorenzo's farm, and also, to the Chapdelaines' great surprise,
+Lorenzo himself, back once more from the States upon business that
+related to the sale and the settling of his father's affairs. He
+greeted Maria very warmly, and seated himself beside her.
+
+The men lit their pipes; they chatted about the weather, the
+condition of the roads, the country news; but the conversation
+lagged, as though all were looking for it to take some unusual turn.
+Their glances sought Lorenzo and the three Frenchmen, expecting
+strange and marvellous tales of distant lands and unfamiliar manners
+from an assembly so far out of the common. The Frenchmen, only a few
+months in the country, apparently felt a like curiosity, for they
+listened, and spoke but little.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine, who was meeting them for the first time, deemed
+himself called upon to put them through a catechism in the ingenuous
+Canadian fashion.
+
+"So you have come here to till the land. How do you like Canada?"
+
+"It is a beautiful country, new and so vast ... In the
+summer-time there are many flies, and the winters are trying; but I
+suppose that one gets used to these things in time."
+
+The father it was who made reply, his sons only nodding their heads
+in assent with eyes glued to the floor. Their appearance alone would
+have served to distinguish them from the other dwellers in the
+village, but as they spoke the gap widened, and the words that fell
+from their lips had a foreign ring. There was none of the slowness
+of the Canadian speech, nor of that indefinable accent found in no
+comer of France, which is only a peasant blend of the different
+pronunciations of former emigrants. They used words and turns of
+phrase one never hears in Quebec, even in the towns, and which to
+these simple men seemed fastidious and wonderfully refined.
+
+"Before coming to these parts were you farmers in your own country?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What trade then did you follow?"
+
+The Frenchman hesitated a moment before replying; possibly thinking
+that what he was about to say would be novel, and hard for them to
+understand. "I was a tuner myself, a piano-tuner; my two sons here
+were clerks, Edmond in an office, Pierre in a shop."
+
+Clerks--that was plain enough for anyone; but their minds were a
+little hazy as to the father's business.
+
+However Ephrem Surprenant chimed in with.--"Piano-tuner; that was
+it, just so!" And his glance at Conrad Neron his neighbour was a
+trifle superior and challenging, as though intimating.--"You would
+not believe me, and maybe you don't know what it means, but now you
+see ..."
+
+"Piano-tuner," Samuel Chapdelaine echoed in turn, slowly grasping
+the meaning of the words. "And is that a good trade? Do you earn
+handsome wages? Not too handsome, eh! ... At any rate you are well
+educated, you and your sons; you can read and write and cipher? And
+here am I, not able even to read!"
+
+"Nor I!" struck in Ephrem Surprenant, and Conrad Neron and Egide
+Racicot added: "Nor I!" "Nor I!" in chorus, whereupon the whole of
+them broke out laughing.
+
+A motion of the Frenchman's hand told them indulgently that they
+could very well dispense with these accomplishments; to himself of
+little enough use at the moment.
+
+"You were not able to make a decent living out of your trades over
+there. That is so, is it not? And therefore you came here?"
+
+The question was put simply, without thought of offence, for he was
+amazed that anyone should abandon callings that seemed so easy and
+so pleasant for this arduous life on the land.
+
+Why indeed had they come? ... A few months earlier they would have
+discovered a thousand reasons and clothed them in words straight
+from the heart: weariness of the footway and the pavement, of the
+town's sullied air; revolt against the prospect of lifelong slavery;
+some chance stirring word of an irresponsible speaker preaching the
+gospel of vigour and enterprise, of a free and healthy life upon a
+fruitful soil. But a few months ago they could have found glowing
+sentences to tell it all ... Now their best was a sorry effort to
+evade the question, as they groped for any of the illusions that
+remained to them.
+
+"People are not always happy in the cities," said the father.
+"Everything is dear, and one is confined."
+
+In their narrow Parisian lodging it had seemed so wonderful a thing
+to them, the notion that in Canada they would spend their days out
+of doors, breathing the taintless air of a new country, close beside
+the mighty forest. The black-flies they had not foreseen, nor
+comprehended the depth of the winter's cold; the countless ill turns
+of a land that has no pity were undivined.
+
+"Did you picture it to yourselves as you have found it," Chapdelaine
+persisted, "the country here, the life?"
+
+"Not exactly," replied the Frenchman in a low voice. "No, not
+exactly ..." And a shadow crossed his face which brought from
+Ephrem. Surprenant:--"It is rough here, rough and hard!"
+
+Their heads assented, and their eyes fell: three narrow-shouldered
+men, their faces with the pallor of the town still upon them after
+six months on the land; three men whom a fancy had torn from
+counter, office, piano-stool-from the only lives for which they were
+bred. For it is not the peasant alone who suffers by uprooting from
+his native soil. They were seeing their mistake, and knew they were
+too unlike in grain to copy those about them; lacking the strength,
+the rude health, the toughened fibre, that training for every task
+which fits the Canadian to be farmer, woodsman or carpenter,
+according to season and need.
+
+The father was dreamily shaking his head, lost in thought; one of
+the sons, elbows on knees, gazed wonderingly at the palms of his
+delicate hands, calloused by the rough work of the fields. All three
+seemed to be turning over and over in their minds the melancholy
+balance-sheet of a failure. Those about them were thinking--"Lorenzo
+sold his place for more than it was worth; they have but little
+money left and are in hard case; men like these are not built for
+living on the land."
+
+Madame Chapdelaine, partly in pity and partly for the honour of
+farming, let fall a few encouraging words:--"It is something of a
+struggle at the beginning-if you are not used to it; but when your
+land is in better order you will see that life becomes easier."
+
+"It is a queer thing," said Conrad Neron, "how every man finds it
+equally hard to rest content. Here are three who left their homes
+and came this long way to settle and farm, and here am I always
+saying to myself that nothing would be so pleasant as to sit quietly
+in an office all the day, a pen behind my ear, sheltered from cold
+wind and hot sun."
+
+"Everyone to his own notion," declared Lorenzo Surprenant, with
+unbiassed mind.
+
+"And your notion is not to stick in Hon-fleur sweating over the
+stumps," added Racicot with a loud laugh.
+
+"You are quite right there, and I make no bones about it; that sort
+of thing would never have suited me. These men here bought my land-a
+good farm, and no one can gainsay it. They wanted to buy a farm and
+I sold them mine. But as for myself, I am well enough where I am,
+and have no wish to return."
+
+Madame Chapdelaine shook her head. "There is no better life than the
+life of a farmer who has good health and owes no debts. He is a free
+man, has no boss, owns his beasts, works for his own profit ...
+The finest life there is!"
+
+"I hear them all say that," Lorenzo retorted, "one is free, his own
+master. And you seem to pity those who work in factories because
+they have a boss, and must do as they are told. Free-on the
+land-come now!" He spoke defiantly, with more and more animation.
+
+"There is no man in the world less free than a farmer ... When you
+tell of those who have succeeded, who are well provided with
+everything needful on a farm, who have had better luck than others,
+you say.--'Ah, what a fine life they lead! They are comfortably off,
+own good cattle.' That is not how to put it. The truth is that their
+cattle own them. In all the world there is no 'boss' who behaves as
+stupidly as the beasts you favour. Pretty nearly every day they give
+you trouble or do you some mischief. Now it is a skittish horse that
+runs away or lashes out with his heels; then it is a cow, however
+good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on
+your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they
+don't harm you, they are forever finding a way to destroy your
+comfort and to vex you..."
+
+"I know how it is; I was brought up on a farm. And you, most of you
+farmers, know how it is too. All the morning you have worked hard,
+and go to your house for dinner and a little rest. Then, before you
+are well seated at table, a child is yelling:--'The cows are over
+the fence;' or 'The sheep are in the crop,' and everyone jumps up
+and runs, thinking of the oats or the barley it has been such a
+trouble to raise, that these miserable fools are ruining. The men
+dash about brandishing sticks till they are out of breath; the women
+stand screaming in the farm-yard. And when you have managed to drive
+the cows or the sheep into their paddock and put up the rails, you
+get back to the house nicely 'rested' to find the pea-soup cold and
+full of flies, the pork under the table gnawed by dogs and cats, and
+you eat what you can lay your hands on, watching for the next trick
+the wretched animals are getting ready to play on you."
+
+"You are their slaves; that's what you are. You tend them, you
+clean them, you gather up their dung as the poor do the rich man's
+crumbs. It is you who must keep them alive by hard work, because the
+earth is miserly and the summer so short. That is the way of it, and
+there is no help, as you cannot get on without them; but for cattle
+there would be no living on the land. But even if you could ...
+even if you could ... still would you have other masters: the
+summer, beginning too late and ending too soon; the winter, eating
+up seven long months of the year and bringing in nothing; drought
+and rain which always come just at the wrong moment..."
+
+"In the towns these things do not matter; but here you have no
+defence against them and they do you hurt; and I have not taken into
+account the extreme cold, the badness of the roads, the loneliness
+of being far away from everything, with no amusements. Life is one
+kind of hardship on top of another from beginning to end. It is
+often said that only those make a real success who are born and
+brought up on the land, and of course that is true; as for the
+people in the cities, small danger that they would ever be foolish
+enough to put up with such a way of living."
+
+He spoke with heat and volubly--a man of the town who talks every
+day with his equals, reads the papers, hears public speakers. The
+listeners, of a race easily moved by words, were carried away by his
+plaints and criticisms; the very real harshness of their lives was
+presented in such a new and startling light as to surprise even
+themselves.
+
+However Madame Chapdelaine again shook her head. "Do not say such
+things as that; there is no happier life in the world than the life
+of a farmer who owns good land."
+
+"Not in these parts, Madame Chapdelaine. You are too far north; the
+summer is too short; the grain is hardly up before the frosts come.
+Each time that I return from the States, and see the tiny wooden
+houses lost in this wilderness-so far from one another that they
+seem frightened at being alone-and the woods hemming you in on every
+side ... By Heaven! I lose heart for you, I who live here no
+longer, and I ask myself how it comes about that all you folk did
+not long ago seek a kinder climate where you would find everything
+that makes for comfort, where you could go out for a walk in the
+winter-time without being in fear of death ..."
+
+Without being in fear of death! Maria shuddered as the thought
+swiftly awoke of those dark secrets hidden beneath the ever-lasting
+green and white of the forest. Lorenzo Surprenant was right in what
+he had been saying; it was a pitiless ungentle land. The menace
+lurking just outside the door-the cold-the shrouding snows-the blank
+solitude-forced a sudden entrance and crowded about the stove, an
+evil swarm sneering presages of ill or hovering in a yet more
+dreadful silence:--"Do you remember, my sister, the men, brave and
+well-beloved, whom we have stain and hidden in the woods? Their
+souls have known how to escape us; but their bodies, their-bodies,
+their bodies, none shall ever snatch them from our hands ..."
+
+The voice of the wind at the comers of the house was loud with
+hollow laughter, and to Maria it seemed that all gathered within the
+wooden walls huddled and spoke low, like men whose lives are under a
+threat and who go in dread.
+
+A burden of sadness was upon the rest of the evening, at least for
+her. Racicot told stories of the chase: of trapped bears struggling
+and growling so fiercely at the sight of the trapper that he loses
+courage and falls a-trembling; and then, giving up suddenly when the
+hunters come in force and the deadly guns are aimed--giving up,
+covering their heads with their paws and whimpering with groans and
+outcries almost human, very heart-rending and pitiful.
+
+After these tales came others of ghosts and apparitions; of
+blood-curdling visitations or solemn warnings to men who had
+blasphemed or spoken ill of the priests. Then, as no one could be
+persuaded to sing, they played at cards and the conversation dropped
+to more commonplace themes. The only memory that Maria carried away
+of the later talk, as the sleigh bore them homeward through the
+midnight woods, was of Lorenzo Surprenant extolling the United
+States and the magnificence of its great cities, the easy and
+pleasant life, the never-ending spectacle of the fine straight
+streets flooded with light at evening.
+
+Before she departed Lorenzo said in quiet tones, almost in her
+ear.--"To-morrow is Sunday; I shall be over to see you in the
+afternoon."
+
+A few short hours of night, a morning of sunlight on the snow, and
+again he is by her side renewing his tale of wonders, his
+interrupted plea. For it was to her he had been speaking the evening
+before; Maria knew it well. The scorn he showed for a country life,
+his praises of the town, these were but a preface to the allurements
+he was about to offer in all their varied forms, as one shows the
+pictures in a book, turning page by page.
+
+"Maria," he began, "you have not the faintest idea! As yet, the most
+wonderful things you ever saw were the shops in Roberval, a high
+mass, an evening entertainment at the convent with acting. City
+people would laugh to think of it! You simply cannot imagine ...
+Just to stroll through the big streets in the evening--not on little
+plank-walks like those of Roberval, but on fine broad asphalt
+pavements as level as a table--just that and no more, what with the
+lights, the electric cars coming and going continually, the shops
+and the crowds, you would find enough there to amaze you for weeks
+together. And then all the amusements one has: theatres, circusses,
+illustrated papers, and places everywhere that you can go into for a
+nickel--five cents--and pass two hours laughing and crying. To
+think, Maria, you do not even know what the moving pictures are!"
+
+He stopped for a little, reviewing in his mind the marvels of the
+cinematograph, asking himself whether he could hope to describe
+convincingly the fare it provided:--those thrilling stories of young
+girls, deserted or astray, which crowd the screen with twelve
+minutes of heart-rending misery and three of amends and heavenly
+reward in surroundings of incredible luxury;--the frenzied galloping
+of cowboys in pursuit of Indian ravishers; the tremendous fusillade;
+the rescue at the last conceivable second by soldiers arriving in a
+whirlwind, waving triumphantly the star-spangled banner ... after
+pausing in doubt he shook his head, conscious that he had no words
+to paint such glories.
+
+They walked on snow-shoes side by side over the snow, through the
+burnt lands that lie on the Peribonka's high bank above the fall.
+Lorenzo had used no wile to secure Maria's company, he simply
+invited her before them all, and now he told of his love, in the
+same straightforward practical way.
+
+"The first day I saw you, Maria, the very first day ... that is
+only the truth! For a long time I had not been back in this country,
+and I was thinking what a miserable place it was to live in, that
+the men were a lot of simpletons who had never seen anything and the
+girls not nearly so quick and clever as they are in the States ...
+And then, the moment I set eyes on you, there was I saying to myself
+that I was the simpleton, for neither at Lowell nor Boston had I
+ever met a girl like yourself. When I returned I used to be thinking
+a dozen times a day that some wretched farmer would make love to you
+and carry you off, and every time my heart sank. It was on your
+account that I came back, Maria, came up here from near Boston,
+three days' journey! The business I had, I could have done it all by
+letter; it was you I wished to see, to tell you what was in my heart
+to say and to hear the answer you would give me."
+
+Wherever the snow was clear for a few yards, free of dead trees and
+stumps, and he could lift his eyes without fear of stun-Ning, they
+were fixed upon Maria; between the woollen cap and the long woollen
+jersey curving to her vigorous form he saw the outline of her face,
+downward turned, expressing only gentleness and patience. Every
+glance gave fresh reason for his love but brought him no hint of a
+response.
+
+"This ... this is no place for you, Maria. The country is too
+rough, the work too hard; barely earning one's bread is killing
+toil. In a factory over there, clever and strong as you are, soon
+you would be in the way of making nearly as much as I do; but no
+need of that if you were my wife. I earn enough for both of us, and
+we should have every comfort: good clothes to wear, a pretty flat in
+a brick house with gas and hot water, and all sorts of contrivances
+you never heard of to save you labour and worry every moment of the
+day. And don't let the idea enter your head that all the people are
+English. I know many Canadian families who work as I do or even keep
+shops. And there is a splendid church with a Canadian priest as
+cure--Mr. Tremblay from St. Hyacinthe. You would never be lonesome ..."
+
+Pausing again he surveyed the white plain with its ragged crop of
+brown stumps, the bleak plateau dropping a little farther in a long
+slope to the levels of the frozen river; meanwhile ransacking his
+mind for some final persuasive word.
+
+"I hardly know what to say ... You have always lived here and it
+is not possible for you to guess what life is elsewhere, nor would I
+be able to make you understand were I to talk forever. But I love
+you, Maria, I earn a good wage and I never touch a drop. If you will
+marry me as I ask I will take you off to a country that will open
+your eyes with astonishment--a fine country, not a bit like this,
+where we can live in a decent way and be happy for the rest of our
+days."
+
+Maria still was silent, and yet the sentences of Lorenzo Surprenant
+beat upon her heart as succeeding waves roll against the shore. It
+was not his avowals of love, honest and sincere though they were,
+but the lures he used which tempted her. Only of cheap pleasures had
+he spoken, of trivial things ministering to comfort or vanity, but
+of these alone was she able to conjure up a definite idea. All
+else--the distant glamour of the city, of a life new and
+incomprehensible to her, full in the centre of the bustling world
+and no longer at its very confines--enticed her but the more in its
+shimmering remoteness with the mystery of a great light that shines
+from afar.
+
+Whatsoever there may be of wonder and exhilaration in the sight and
+touch of the crowd; the rich harvests of mind and sense for which
+the city dweller has bartered his rough heritage of pride in the
+soil, Maria was dimly conscious of as part of this other life in a
+new world, this glorious re-birth for which she was already
+yearning. But above all else the desire was strong upon her now to
+flee away, to escape.
+
+The wind from the cast was driving before it a host of melancholy
+snow-laden clouds. Threateningly they swept over white ground and
+sullen wood, and the earth seemed awaiting another fold of its
+winding-sheet; cypress, spruce and fir, close side by side and
+motionless, were passive in their attitude of uncomplaining
+endurance. The stumps above the snow were like floating wreckage on
+a dreary sea. In all the landscape there was naught that spoke of a
+spring to come--of warmth and growth; rather did it seem a shard of
+some disinherited planet under the eternal rule of deadly cold.
+
+All of her life had Maria known this cold, this snow, the land's
+death-like sleep, these austere and frowning woods; now was she
+coming to view them with fear and hate. A paradise surely must it
+be, this country to the south where March is no longer winter and in
+April the leaves are green! At midwinter one takes to the road
+without snowshoes, unclad in furs, beyond sight of the cruel forest.
+And the cities ... the pavements ...
+
+Questions framed themselves upon her lips. She would know if lofty
+houses and shops stood unbrokenly on both sides of the streets, as
+she had been told; if the electric cars ran all the year round; if
+the living was very dear ... And the answers to her questions
+would have satisfied but a little of this eager curiosity, would
+scarcely have disturbed the enchanting vagueness of her illusion.
+
+She was silent, however, dreading to speak any word that might seem
+like the foreshadowing of a promise. Though Lorenzo gazed at her
+long as they walked together across the snow, he was able to guess
+nothing of what was passing in her heart.
+
+"You will not have me, Maria? You have no liking for me, or is it,
+perhaps, that you cannot make up your mind?" As still she gave no
+reply he clung to this idea, fearing that she might hastily refuse
+him.
+
+"No need whatever that you should say 'Yes' at once. You have not
+known me very long ... But think of what I have said to you. I
+will come back, Maria. It is a long journey and costly, but I will
+come. And if only you give thought to it, you will see there is no
+young fellow here who could give you such a future as I can; because
+if you marry me we shall live like human beings, and not have to
+kill ourselves tending cattle and grubbing in the earth in this
+out-of-the-way comer of the world."
+
+They returned to the house. Lorenzo gossiped a little about his
+journey to the States, where the springtime would have arrived
+before him, of the plentiful and well-paid work to which his good
+clothes and prosperous air bore witness. Then he bade them adieu,
+and Maria, whose eyes had carefully been avoiding his, seated
+herself by the window, and watched the night and the snow falling
+together as she pondered in the deep unrest of her spirit.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+LOVE BEARING CHAINS
+
+No one asked Maria any questions that evening, or on the following
+evenings; but some member of the family must have told Eutrope
+Gagnon of Lorenzo Surprenant's visit and his evident intentions, for
+the next Sunday after dinner came Eutrope in turn, and Maria heard
+another suitor declare his love.
+
+Francois had come in the full tide of summer, from the land of
+mystery at the headwaters of the rivers; the memory of his artless
+words brought back the dazzling sunshine, the ripened blueberries
+and the last blossoms of the laurel fading in the undergrowth; after
+him appeared Lorenzo Surprenant offering other gifts,--visions of
+beautiful distant cities, of a life abounding in unknown wonders.
+When Eutrope spoke, it was in a shamefaced halting way, as though he
+foresaw defeat, knowing full well that he bore little in his hands
+wherewith to tempt her.
+
+Boldly enough he asked Maria to walk with him, but when they were
+dressed and outside the door, they saw that snow was falling. Maria
+stood dubiously on the step, a hand on the latch as though she would
+return; and Eutrope, unwilling to lose his chance, began forthwith
+to speak--hastening as though doubtful that he would be able to say
+all that was in his mind.
+
+"You know very well, Maria, how I feel toward you. I said nothing
+before as my farm was not so forward that we could live there
+comfortably, and moreover I guessed that you liked Francois Paradis
+better than me. But as Francois is no longer here, and this young
+fellow from the States is courting you, I said to myself that I,
+too, might try my fortune ..."
+
+The snow was coming now in serried flakes, fluttering whitely for an
+instant against the darkly-encircling forest, on the way to join
+that other snow with which five months of winter had burdened the
+earth.
+
+"It is true enough that I am not rich; but I have two lots of my
+own, paid for out and out, and you know the soil is good. I shall
+work on it all spring, take the stumps out of the large field below
+the ridge of rock, put up some fences, and by May there will be a
+fine big field ready for seeding. I shall sow a hundred and thirty
+bushels, Maria,--a hundred and thirty bushels of wheat, barley and
+oats, without reckoning an acre of mixed grain for the cattle. All
+the seed, the best seed-grain, I am going to buy at Roberval,
+settling for it on the spot ... I have the money put aside; I
+shall pay cash, without running into debt to a soul, and if only we
+have an average season there will be a fine crop to harvest. Just
+think of it, Maria, a hundred and thirty bushels of good seed in
+first-rate land! And in the summer before the hay-making, and then
+again before the harvest, will be the best chance for building a
+nice tight warm little house, all of tamarack. I have the wood
+ready, cut and piled behind my barn; my brother will help me,
+perhaps Esdras and Da'Be as well, when they get home. Next winter I
+shall go to the shanties, taking a horse with me, and in the spring
+I shall bring back not less than two hundred dollars in my pocket.
+Then, should you be willing to wait so long for me, would be the
+time ..."
+
+Maria was leaning against the door, a hand still upon the latch, her
+eyes turned away. Eutrope Gagnon had just this and no more to offer
+her: after a year of waiting that she should become his wife, and
+live as now she was doing in another wooden house on another
+half-cleared farm ... Should do the household work and the
+cooking, milk the cows, clean the stable when her man was
+away--labour in the fields perhaps, since she was strong and there
+would be but two of them ... Should spend her evenings at the
+spinning-wheel or in patching old clothes ... Now arid then in
+summer resting for half an hour, seated on the door-step, looking
+across their scant fields girt by the measureless frowning woods; or
+in winter thawing a little patch with her breath on the windowpane,
+dulled with frost, to watch the snow falling on the wintry earth and
+the forest ... The forest ... Always the inscrutable, inimical
+forest, with a host of dark things hiding there--closed round them
+with a savage grip that must be loosened little by little, year by
+year; a few acres won each spring and autumn as the years pass,
+throughout all the long days of a dull harsh life ... No, that she
+could not face ...
+
+"I know well enough that we shall have to work hard at first,"
+Eutrope went on, "but you have courage, Maria, and are well used to
+labour, as I am. I have always worked hard; no one can say that I
+was ever lazy, and if only you will marry me it will be my joy to
+toil like an ox all the day long to make a thriving place of it, so
+that we shall be in comfort before old age comes upon us. I do not
+touch drink, Maria, and truly I love you ..."
+
+His voice quivered, and he put out his hand toward the latch to take
+hers, or perhaps to hinder her from opening the door and leaving him
+without his answer.
+
+"My affection for you ... of that I am not able to speak ..."
+
+Never a word did she utter in reply. Once more a young man was
+telling his love, was placing in her hands all he had to give; and
+once more she could but hearken in mute embarrassment, only saved
+from awkwardness by her immobility and silence. Town-bred girls had
+thought her stupid, when she was but honest and truthful; very close
+to nature which takes no account of words. In other days when life
+was simpler than now it is, when young men paid their
+court--masterfully and yet half bashfully--to some deep-bosomed girl
+in the ripe fullness of womanhood who had not heard nature's
+imperious command, she must have listened thus, in silence; less
+attentive to their pleading than to the inner voice, guarding
+herself by distance against too ardent a wooing, whilst she awaited
+... Chapdelaine were not drawn to her by any charm of gracious
+speech, but by her sheer comeliness, and the transparent honest
+heart dwelling in her bosom; when they spoke to her of love she was
+true to herself, steadfast and serene, saying no word where none was
+needful to be said, and for this they loved her only the more.
+
+"This young fellow from the States was ready with fine speeches, but
+you must not be carried away by them ..." He caught a hint of
+dissent and changed his tone.
+
+"Of course you are quite free to choose, and I have not a word to
+say against him. But you would be happier here, Maria, amongst
+people like yourself."
+
+Through the falling snow Maria gazed at the rude structure of
+planks, between stable and barn, which her father and brother had
+thrown together five years before; unsightly and squalid enough it
+appeared, now that her fancy had begun to conjure up the stately
+buildings of the town. Close and ill-smelling, the floor littered
+with manure and foul straw, the pump in one comer that was so hard
+to work and set the teeth on edge with its grinding; the
+weather-beaten outside, buffeted by wind and never-ending snow--sign
+and symbol of what awaited her were she to marry one like Eutrope
+Gagnon, and accept as her lot a lifetime of rude toil in this sad
+and desolate land ... She shook her head.
+
+"I cannot answer, Eutrope, either yes or no; not just now. I have
+given no promise. You must wait."
+
+It was more than she had said to Lorenzo Surprenant, and yet Lorenzo
+had gone away with hope in his heart, while Eutrope felt that he had
+made his throw and lost. Departing alone, the snow soon hid him. She
+entered the house.
+
+* * * * *
+
+March dragged through its melancholy days; cold winds drove the gray
+clouds back and forth across the sky, and swept the snow hither and
+thither; one must needs consult the calendar of the Roberval grain
+merchant to get an inkling that spring was drawing near.
+
+Succeeding days were to Maria like those that had gone before, each
+one bringing its familiar duties and the same routine; but the
+evenings were different, and were filled with pathetic strivings to
+think. Beyond doubt her parents had guessed the truth; but they were
+unwilling to force her reserve with their advice, nor did she seek
+it. She knew that it rested with her alone to make a choice, to
+settle the future course of her life, and she, felt like a child at
+school, standing on a platform before watchful eyes, bidden to find
+by herself the answer to some knotty question.
+
+And this was her problem: when a girl is grown to womanhood, when
+she is good-looking, healthy and strong, clever in all that pertains
+to the household and the farm, young men come and ask her to marry,
+and she must say "Yes" to this one and "No" to another.
+
+If only Francois Paradis had not vanished forever in the great
+lonely woods, all were then so plain. No need to ask herself what
+she ought to do; she would have gone straight to him, guided by a
+wise instinct that she might not gainsay, sure of doing what was
+right as a child that obeys a command. But Francois was gone;
+neither in the promised springtime nor ever again to return, and the
+cure of St. Henri forbade regrets that would prolong the awaiting.
+
+Ah, dear God! How happy had been the early days of this awaiting! As
+week followed week something quickened in her heart and shot upward,
+like a rich and beauteous sheaf whose opening ears bend low under
+their weight. Happiness beyond any dream came dancing to her ...
+No, it was stronger and keener yet, this joy of hers. It had been a
+great light shining in the twilight of a lonely land, a beacon
+toward which one journeys, forgetful of the tears that were about to
+flow, saying with glad defiance: "I knew it well--knew that
+somewhere on the earth was such a thing as this ..." It was over.
+Yes, the gleam was gone. Henceforth must she forget that once it had
+shone upon her path, and grope through the dark with faltering
+steps.
+
+Chapdelaine and Tit'Be were smoking in silence by the stove; the
+mother knitted stockings; Chien, stretched out with his head between
+his paws, blinked sleepily in enjoyment of the good warmth.
+Telesphore had dozed off with the catechism open on his knees, and
+the little Alma Rose, not yet in bed, was hovering in doubt between
+the wish to draw attention to her brother's indolence, and a sense
+of shame at thus betraying him.
+
+Maria looked down again, took her work in hand, and her simple mind
+pursued a little further its puzzling train of thought. When a girl
+does not feel, or feels no longer, that deep mysterious impulse
+toward a man singled out from all the rest of the world, what is
+left to guide her? For what things should she seek in her marriage?
+For a satisfying life, surely; to make a happy home for herself ...
+
+Her parents would like her to marry Eutrope Gagnon--that she
+felt--because she would live near them, and again because this life
+upon the land was the only one they knew, and they naturally thought
+it better than any other. Eutrope was a fine fellow, hard-working
+and of kindly disposition, and he loved her; but Lorenzo Surprenant
+also loved her; he, likewise, was steady and a good worker; he was a
+Canadian at heart, not less than those amongst whom she lived; he
+went to church ... And he offered as his splendid gift a world
+dazzling to the eye, all the wonders of the city. He would rescue
+her from this oppression of frozen earth and gloomy forest.
+
+She could not as yet resolve to say to herself: "I will marry
+Lorenzo Surprenant," but her heart had made its choice. The cruel
+north-west wind that heaped the snow above Francois Paradis at the
+foot of some desolate cypress bore also to her on its wings the
+frown and the harshness of the country wherein she dwelt, and filled
+her with hate of the northern winter, the cold, the whitened ground
+and the loneliness, of that boundless forest unheedful of the
+destinies of men where every melancholy tree is fit to stand in a
+home of the dead. Love--all-compelling love--for a brief space had
+dwelt within her heart ... Mighty flame, scorching and bright,
+quenched now, and never to revive. It left her spirit empty and
+yearning; she was fain to seek forgetfulness and cure in that life
+afar, among the myriad paler lights of the city.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+INTO THE DEEP SILENCE
+
+There came an evening in April when Madame Chapdelaine would not
+take her place at the supper table with the others.
+
+"There are pains through my body and I have no appetite," she said,
+"I must have strained myself to-day lifting a bag of flour when I
+was making bread. Now something catches me in the back, and I am not
+hungry."
+
+No one answered her. Those living sheltered lives take quick alarm
+when the mechanism of one of their number goes wrong, but people who
+wrestle with the earth for a living feel little surprise if their
+labours are too much for them now and then, and the body gives way
+in some fibre.
+
+While father and children supped, Madame Chapdelaine sat very still
+in her chair beside the stove. She drew her breath hard, and her
+broad face was working.
+
+"I am going to bed," she said presently. "A good night's sleep, and
+to-morrow morning I shall be all right again; have no doubt of that.
+You will see to the baking, Maria."
+
+And indeed in the morning she was up at her usual hour, but when she
+had made the batter for the pancakes pain overcame her, and she had
+to lie down again. She stood for a minute beside the bed, with both
+hands pressed against her back, and made certain that the daily
+tasks would be attended to.
+
+"You will give the men their food, Maria, and your father will lend
+you a hand at milking the cows if you wish it. I am not good for
+anything this morning."
+
+"It will be all right, mother; it will be all right. Take it
+quietly; we shall have no trouble."
+
+For two days she kept her bed, with a watchful eye over everything,
+directing all the household affairs.
+
+"Don't be in the least anxious," her husband urged again and again.
+"There is hardly anything to be done in the house beyond the
+cooking, and Maria is quite fit to look after that--everything else
+too, by thunder! She is not a little child any longer, and is as
+capable as yourself. Lie there quietly, without stirring; and be
+easy in your mind, instead of tossing about all the time under the
+blankets and making yourself worse...."
+
+On the third day she gave up thinking about the cares of the house
+and began to bemoan herself.
+
+"Oh my God!" she wailed. "I have pains all over my body, and my
+bead is burning. I think that I am going to die."
+
+Her husband tried to cheer her with his Clumsy pleasantries. "You
+are going to die when the good God wills it, and according to my way
+of thinking that will not be for a while yet. What would He be doing
+with you? Heaven is all cluttered with old women, and down here we
+have only the one, and she is able to make herself a bit useful,
+every now and then ..." But he was beginning to feel anxious, and
+took counsel with his daughter.
+
+"I could put the horse in and go as far as La Pipe," he suggested.
+"It may be that they have some medicine for this sickness at the
+store; or I might talk things over with the cure, and he would tell
+me what to do."
+
+Before they had made up their minds night had fallen, and Tit'Be,
+who had been at Eutrope Gagnon's helping him to saw his firewood,
+came back bringing Eutrope along with him.
+
+"Eutrope has a remedy," said he. They all gathered round Eutrope, who
+took a little tin box from his pocket and opened it deliberately.
+
+"This is what I have," he announced rather dubiously. "They are
+little pills. When my brother was bad with his kidneys three years
+ago he saw an advertisement in a paper about these pills, and it
+said they were the proper thing, so he sent the money for a box, and
+he declares it is a good medicine. Of course his trouble did not
+leave him at once, but he says that this did him good. It comes from
+the States ..."
+
+Without word said they looked at the little gray pills rolling about
+on the bottom of the box ... A remedy compounded by some man in a
+distant land famed for his wisdom ... And they felt the awe of the
+savage for his broth of herbs simmered on a night of the full moon
+beneath the medicineman's incantations.
+
+Maria asked doubtfully: "Is it certain that her trouble has only to
+do with the kidneys?"
+
+"I thought it was just that, from what Tit'Be told me."
+
+A motion of Chapdelaine's hand eked out his words.--"She strained
+herself lifting a bag of flour, as she says; and now she has pains
+everywhere. How can we tell ..."
+
+"The newspaper that spoke of this medicine," Eutrope Gagnon went on,
+"put it that whenever a person falls sick and is in pain it is
+always the kidneys; and for trouble in the kidneys these pills here
+are first-rate. That is what the paper said, and my brother as
+well."
+
+"Even if they are not for this very sickness," said Tit'Be
+deferentially, "they are a remedy all the same."
+
+"She suffers, that is one thing certain; we cannot let her go on
+like this."
+
+They drew near the bed where the sick woman was moaning and
+breathing heavily, attempting from time to time to make slight
+movements which were followed by sharper outcries.
+
+"Eutrope has brought you a cure, Laura."
+
+"I have no faith in your cures," she groaned out. But yet she was
+ready to look at the little gray pills ever running round in the tin
+box as if they were alive.
+
+"My brother took some of these three years ago when he had the
+kidney trouble so badly that he was hardly able to work at all, and
+he says that they cured him. It is a fine remedy, Madame
+Chapdelaine, there is not a question of it!" His former doubts had
+vanished in speech and he felt wholly confident. "This is going to
+cure you, Madame Chapdelaine, as surely as the good God is above us.
+It is a medicine of the very first class; my brother had it sent
+expressly from the States. You may be sure that you would never find
+a medicine like this in the store at La Pipe."
+
+"It cannot make her worse?" Maria asked, some doubt lingering. "It
+is not a poison, or anything of that sort?"
+
+With one voice, in an indignant tone, the three men protested: "Do
+harm? Tiny pills no bigger than that!"
+
+"My brother took nearly a box of them, and according to his account
+it was only good they did him."
+
+When Eutrope departed he left the box of pills; the sick woman had
+not yet agreed to try them, but her objections grew weaker with
+their urging. In the middle of the night she took a couple, and two
+more in the morning, and as the hours passed they all waited in
+confidence of the virtue of the medicine to declare itself. But
+toward midday they had to bow to the facts: she was no easier and
+did not cease her moaning. By evening the box was empty, and at the
+falling of the night her groans were filling the household with
+anguished distress, all the keener as they had no medicine now in
+which to place their trust.
+
+Maria was up several times in the night, aroused by her mother's
+more piercing cries; she always found her lying motionless on her
+side, and this position seemed to increase the suffering and the
+stiffness, so that her groans were pitiful to hear.
+
+"What ails you, mother? Are you not feeling any better?"
+
+"Ah God, how I suffer! How I do suffer! I cannot stir myself, not
+the least bit, and even so the pain is as bad as ever. Give me some
+cold water, Maria; I have the most terrible thirst."
+
+Several times Maria gave her mother water, but at last she became
+afraid. "Maybe it is not good for you to drink so much. Try to bear
+the thirst for a little."
+
+"But I cannot bear it, I tell you-the thirst and the pain all
+through my body, and my head that bums like fire ... My God! It is
+certain that I am to die."
+
+A little before daylight they both fen asleep; but soon Maria was
+awakened by her father who laid his hand upon her shoulder and
+whispered:--"I am going to harness the horse to go to Mistook for
+the doctor, and on the way through La Pipe I shall also speak to the
+cure. It is heart-breaking to hear her moan Eke this."
+
+Her eyes open in the ghostly dawn, Maria gave ear to the sounds of
+his departure: the banging of the stable door against the wall; the
+horse's hoofs thudding on the wood of the alley; muffled commands to
+Charles Eugene: "Hold up, there! Back ... Back up! Whoa!" Then the
+tinkle of the sleigh-bells. In the silence that followed, the sick
+woman groaned two or three times in her sleep; Maria watched the wan
+light stealing into the house and thought of her father's journey,
+trying to reckon up the distances he must travel.
+
+From their house to Honfleur, eight miles; from Honfleur to La Pipe,
+six. There her father would speak with the cure, and then pursue his
+way to Mistook. She corrected herself, and for the ancient Indian
+name that the people of the country use, gave it the official one
+bestowed in baptism by the church--St. Coeur de Marie. From La Pipe
+to St. Coeur de Marie, eight miles ... --Eight and six and then eight.
+Growing confused, she said to herself--"Anyway it is far, and the
+roads will be heavy."
+
+Again she felt affrighted at their loneliness, which once hardly
+gave her a thought. All was well enough when people were in health
+and merry, and one had no need of help; but with trouble or sickness
+the woods around seemed to shut them cruelly away from all
+succour--the woods where horses sink to the chest in snow, where
+storms smother one in mid-April.
+
+The mother strove to turn in her sleep, waked with a cry of anguish,
+and the continual moaning began anew. Maria rose and sat by the bed,
+thinking of the long day just beginning in which she would have
+neither help nor counsel.
+
+All the dragging hours were burdened with lamentable sound; the
+groaning from the bed where the sick woman lay never ceased, and
+haunted the narrow wooden dwelling. Now and then some household
+noise broke in upon it: the clashing of plates, the clang of the
+opened stove door, the sound of feet on the planking, Tit'Be
+stealing into the house, clumsy and anxious, to ask for news.
+
+"Is she no better?"
+
+Maria answered by a movement of the head. They both stood gazing for
+a time at the motionless figure under the woollen blankets, giving
+ear to the sounds of distress; then Tit'Be departed to his small
+outdoor duties. When Maria had put the house in order she took up
+her patient watching, and the sick woman's agonizing wails seemed to
+reproach her.
+
+From hour to hour she kept reckoning the times and the distances.
+"My father should not be far from St. Coeur de Marie ... If the
+doctor is there they will rest the horse for a couple of hours and
+come back together. But the roads must be very bad; at this time, in
+the spring, they are sometimes hardly passable."
+
+And then a little later:--"They should have left; perhaps in
+going through La Pipe they will stop to speak to the cure; perhaps
+again he may have started as soon as he heard, without waiting for
+them. In that case he might be here at any moment."
+
+But the fall of night brought no one, and it was only about seven
+o'clock that the sound of sleigh-bells was heard, and her father and
+the doctor arrived. The latter came into the house alone, put his
+bag on the table and began to pull off his overcoat, grumbling all
+the while.
+
+"With the roads in this condition," said he, "it is no small affair
+to get about and visit the sick. And as for you folk, you seem to
+have hidden yourselves as far in the woods as you could. Great
+Heavens! You might very well all die without a soul coming to help
+you."
+
+After warming himself for a little while at the stove he approached
+the bedside. "Well, good mother, so we have taken the notion to be
+sick, just like people who have money to spend on such things!"
+
+But after a brief examination he ceased to jest, saying:--"She
+really is sick, I do believe."
+
+It was with no affectation that he spoke in the fashion of the
+peasantry; his grandfather and his father were tillers of the soil,
+and he had gone straight from the farm to study medicine in Quebec,
+amongst other young fellows for the most part like himself--grandsons,
+if not sons of farmers--who had all clung to the plain country manner
+and the deliberate speech of their fathers. He was tall and heavily
+built, with a grizzled moustache, and his large face wore the
+slightly aggrieved expression of one whose native cheerfulness is
+being continually dashed through listening to the tale of others'
+ills for which he is bound to show a decent sympathy.
+
+Chapdelaine came in when he had unharnessed and fed the horse. He
+and his children sat at a little distance while the doctor was going
+through his programme.
+
+Every one of them was thinking:--"Presently we shall know what is
+the matter, and the doctor will give her the right medicines." But
+when the examination was ended, instead of turning to the bottles in
+his bag, he seemed uncertain and began to ask interminable
+questions. How had it happened, and where, particularly, did she
+feel pain ... Had she ever before suffered from the same trouble ...
+The answers did not seem to enlighten him very much; then he
+turned to the sick woman herself, only to receive confused
+statements and complaints.
+
+"If it is just a wrench that she has given herself," at length he
+announced, "she will get well without any meddling; there is nothing
+for her to do but to stay quietly in bed. But if there is some
+injury within, to the kidneys or another organ, it may be a grave
+affair." He was conscious that his state of doubt was disappointing
+to the Chapdelaines, and was anxious to restore his medical
+reputation.
+
+"Internal lesions are serious things, and often one cannot detect
+them. The wisest man in the world could tell you no more than I. We
+shall have to wait ... But perhaps it is not that we have to deal
+with." After some further investigation he shook his head. "Of
+course I can give something that will keep her from suffering like
+this."
+
+The leather bag now disclosed its wonderworking phials; fifteen
+drops of a yellowish drug were diluted with two fingers of water,
+and the sick woman, lifted up in bed, managed to swallow this with
+sharp cries of pain. Then there was apparently nothing more to be
+done; the men fit their pipes, and the doctor, with his feet against
+the stove, held forth as to his professional labours and the cures
+he had wrought.
+
+"Illnesses like these," said he, "where one cannot discover
+precisely what is the matter, are more baffling to a doctor than the
+gravest disorders--like pneumonia now, or even typhoid fever which
+carry off three-quarters of the people hereabouts who do not die of
+old age. Well, typhoid and pneumonia, I cure these every month in
+the year. You know Viateur Tremblay, the postmaster at St. Henri ..."
+
+He seemed a little hurt that Madame Chapdelaine should be the victim
+of an obscure malady, hard to diagnose, and had not been taken down
+with one of the two complaints he was accustomed to treat with such
+success, and he gave an account by chapter and verse of the manner
+in which he had cured the postmaster of St. Henri. From that they
+passed on to the country news--news carried by word of mouth from
+house to house around Lake St. John, and greeted a thousandfold more
+eagerly than tidings of wars and famines, since the gossipers always
+manage to connect it with friend or relative in a country where all
+ties of kinship, near or far, are borne scrupulously in mind.
+
+Madame Chapdelaine ceased moaning and seemed to be asleep. The
+doctor, considering that he had done all that was expected of him,
+for the evening at least, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and rose
+to go.
+
+"I shall sleep at Honfleur," said he, "I suppose your horse is fit
+to take me so far? There is no need for you to come, I know the
+road. I shall stay with Ephrem, Surprenant, and come back in the
+morning."
+
+Chapdelaine was a little slow to make reply, recalling the stiff
+day's work his old beast had already accomplished, but at the end he
+went out to harness Charles Eugene once more. In a few minutes the
+doctor was on the road, leaving the family to themselves as usual.
+
+A great stillness reigned in the house. The comfortable thought was
+with them all:--"Anyway the medicine he has given her is a good
+one; she groans no longer." But scarce an hour had gone by before
+the sick woman ceased to feel the effect of the too feeble drug,
+became conscious again, tried to turn herself in bed and screamed
+out with pain. They were all up at once and crowding about her in
+their concern; she opened her eyes, and after groaning in an
+agonized way began to weep unrestrainedly.
+
+"O Samuel, I am dying, there can be no doubt of it."
+
+"No! No! You must not think that."
+
+"Yes, I know that I am dying. I feel it. The doctor is only an old
+fool, and he cannot tell what to do. He is not even able to say what
+the trouble is, and the medicine he gave me is useless; it has done
+me no good. I tell you I am dying."
+
+The failing words were hindered with her groaning, and tears coursed
+down the heavy cheeks. Husband and children looked at her, struck to
+the very earth with grief. The footstep of death was sounding in the
+house. They knew themselves cut off from all the world, helpless,
+remote, without even a horse to bring them succour. The cruel
+treachery of it all held them speechless and transfixed, with
+streaming eyes.
+
+In their midst appeared Eutrope Gagnon.
+
+"And I who was thinking to find her almost well. This doctor, now ..."
+
+Chapdelaine broke out, quite beside himself:--"This doctor is not
+a bit of use, and I shall tell him so plainly, myself. He came here,
+he gave her a drop of some miserable stuff worth nothing at all in
+the bottom of a cup, and he is off to sleep in the village as if his
+pay was earned! Not a thing has he done but tire out my horse, but
+he shall not have a copper from me, not a single copper..."
+
+Eutrope's face was very grave, and he shook his head as he
+declared:--"Neither have I any faith in doctors. Now if we had only
+thought of fetching a bone-setter--such a man as Tit'Sebe of
+St. Felicien ..." Every face was turned to him and the tears ceased
+flowing.
+
+"Tit'Sebe!" exclaimed Maria. "And you think he could help in a case
+like this?" Both Eutrope and Chapdelaine hastened to avow their
+trust in him.
+
+"There is no doubt whatever that Tit'Sebe can make people well. He
+was never through the schools, but he knows how to cure. You heard
+of Nazaire Gaudreau who fell from the top of a barn and broke his
+back. The doctors came to see him, and the best they could do was to
+give the Latin name for his hurt and say that he was going to die.
+Then they went and fetched Tit'Sebe, and Tit'Sebe cured him." Every
+one of them knew the healer's repute and hope sprang up again in
+their hearts.
+
+"Tit'Sebe is a first-rate man, and a man who knows how to make sick
+people well. Moreover he is not greedy for money. You go and you
+fetch him, you pay him for his time, and he cures you. It was he who
+put little Romeo Boilly on his legs again after being run over by a
+wagon loaded with planks."
+
+The sick woman had relapsed into stupor, and was moaning feebly with
+her eyes closed.
+
+"I will go and get him if you like," suggested Eutrope.
+
+"But what will you do for a horse?" asked Maria. "The doctor has
+Charles Eugene at Honfleur."
+
+Chapdelaine clenched his fist in wrath and swore through his
+teeth:--"The old rascal!"
+
+Eutrope thought a moment before speaking. "It makes no difference. I
+will go just the same. If I walk to Honfleur, I shall easily find
+someone there who will lend me a horse and sleigh--Racicot, or
+perhaps old Neron."
+
+"It is thirty-five miles from here to St. Felicien and the roads
+are heavy."
+
+"I will go just the same."
+
+He, departed forthwith, thinking as he went at a jog-trot over the
+snow of the grateful look that Maria had given him. The family made
+ready for the night, computing meanwhile these new distances ...
+Seventy miles there and back ... Roads deep in snow. The lamp was
+left burning, and till morning the voice from the bed was never
+hushed. Sometimes it was sharp with pain; sometimes it weakly strove
+for breath. Two hours after daylight the doctor and the cure of St.
+Henri appeared together.
+
+"It was impossible for me to come sooner," the cure explained, "but
+I am here at last, and I picked up the doctor in the village." They
+sat at the bedside and talked in low tones. The doctor made a fresh
+examination, but it was the cure who told the result of it. "There
+is little one can say. She does not seem any worse, but this is not
+an ordinary sickness. It is best that I should confess her and give
+her absolution; then we shall both go away and be back again the day
+after to-morrow."
+
+He returned to the bed, and the others went over and sat by the
+window. For some, minutes the two voices were beard in question and
+response; the one feeble and broken by suffering; the other
+confident, grave, scarcely lowered for the solemn interrogation.
+After some inaudible words a hand was raised in a gesture which
+instantly bowed the heads of all those in the house. The priest
+rose.
+
+Before departing the doctor gave Maria a little bottle with
+instructions. "Only if she should suffer greatly, so that she cries
+out, and never more than fifteen drops at a time. And do not let her
+have any cold water to drink."
+
+She saw them to the door, the bottle in her hand. Before getting
+into the sleigh the cure took Maria aside and spoke a few words to
+her. "Doctors do what they can," said he in a simple unaffected way,
+"but only God Himself has knowledge of disease. Pray with all your
+heart, and I shall say a mass for her to-morrow--a high mass with
+music, you understand."
+
+All day long Maria strove to stay the hidden advances of the
+disorder with her prayers, and every time that she returned to the
+bedside it was with a half hope that a miracle had been wrought,
+that the sick woman would cease from her groaning, sleep for a few
+hours and awake restored to health. It was not so to be; the moaning
+ceased not, but toward evening it died away to sighing, continual
+and profound--nature's protest against a burden too heavy to be
+borne, or the slow inroad of death-dealing poison.
+
+About midnight came Eutrope Gagnon, bringing Tit'Sebe the
+bone-setter. He was a little, thin, sad-faced man with very kind
+eyes. As always when called to a sick-bed, he wore his clothes of
+ceremony, of dark wellworn cloth, which he bore with the awkwardness
+of the peasant in Sunday attire. But the strong brown hands beyond
+the thread-bare sleeves moved in a way to inspire confidence. They
+passed over the limbs and body of Madame Chapdelaine with the most
+delicate care, nor did they draw from her a single cry of pain;
+thereafter he sat for a long time motionless beside the couch,
+looking at her as though awaiting guidance from a source beyond
+himself. But when at last he broke the silence it was to say: "Have
+you sent for the cure? ... He has been here. And will he return?
+To-morrow; that is well."
+
+After another pause he made his frank avowal.--"There is nothing I
+can do for her. Something has gone wrong within, about which I know
+nothing; were there broken bones I could have healed them. I should
+only have had to feel them with my hands, and then the good God
+would have told me what to do and I should have cured her. But in
+this sickness of hers I have no skill. I might indeed put a blister
+on her back, and perhaps that would draw away-the blood and relieve
+her for a time. Or I could give her a draught made from beaver
+kidneys; it is useful when the kidneys are affected, as is well
+known. But I think that neither the blister nor the draught would
+work a cure."
+
+His speech was so honest and straightforward that he made them one
+and all feel what manner of thing was a disorder of the human
+frame--the strangeness and the terror of what is passing behind the
+closed door, which those without can only fight clumsily as they
+grope in dark uncertainty.
+
+"She will die if that be God's pleasure."
+
+Maria broke into quiet tears; her father, not yet understanding, sat
+with his mouth half-open, and neither moved nor spoke. The
+bone-setter, this sentence given, bowed his head and held his
+pitiful eyes for long upon the sick woman. The browned hands that
+now availed him not lay upon his knees; leaning forward a little,
+his back bent, the gentle sad spirit seemed in silent communion with
+its maker--"Thou hast bestowed upon me the gift of healing bones
+that are broken, and I have healed them; but Thou hast denied me
+power over such ills as these; so must I let this poor woman die."
+
+For the first time now the deep marks of illness upon the mother's
+face appeared to husband and children as more than the passing
+traces of suffering, as imprints from the hand of death. The
+hard-drawn breath rattling in her throat no longer betokened
+conscious pain, but was the last blind remonstrance of the body rent
+by nearing dissolution.
+
+"You do not think she will die before the cure comes back?" Maria
+asked.
+
+Tit'Sebe's head and hand showed that he was helpless to answer. "I
+cannot tell ... If your horse is able you would do well to seek
+him with the daylight."
+
+Their eyes searched the window, as yet only a square of darkness,
+and then returned to her who lay upon the bed ... But five days
+ago a hearty, high-spirited woman, in full health of mind and body
+... It could not be that she was to die so soon as that. ... But
+knowing now the sad inevitableness, every glance found a subtle
+change, some fresh token that this bed-ridden woman groaning in her
+blindness was no more the wife and mother they had known so long.
+
+Half an hour went by; after casting his eyes toward the window
+Chapdelaine arose hurriedly, saying.--"I am going to put the
+horse in."
+
+Tit'Sebe nodded. "That is well; you had better harness; it is near
+day."
+
+"Yes. I am going to put the horse in," Chapdelaine repeated. But at
+the moment of his departure it swept over him suddenly that in going
+to bring the Blessed Sacrament he would be upon a solemn and a final
+errand, significant of death. The thought held him still irresolute.
+"I am going to put the horse in." Shifting from foot to foot, he
+gave a last look at his wife and at length went out.
+
+Not long after the coming of day the wind rose, and soon was
+sounding hoarsely about the house. "It is from the nor'west; there
+will be a blow," said Tit'Sebe.
+
+Maria looked toward the window and sighed. "Only two days ago snow
+fell, and now it will be raised and drift. The roads were heavy
+enough before; father and the cure are going to have trouble getting
+through."
+
+But the bone-setter shook his head. "They may have a little
+difficulty on the road, but they will get here all the same. A
+priest who brings the Blessed Sacrament has more than the strength
+of a man." His mild eyes shone with the faith that knows no bounds.
+
+"Yes, power beyond the strength of a man has a priest bearing the
+Blessed Sacrament. It was three years ago that they summoned me to
+care for a sick man on the lower Mistassini; at once I saw that I
+could do nothing for him, and I bade them go fetch a priest. It was
+night-time and there was not a man in the house, the father himself
+being sick and his boys quite young. And so at the last it was I
+that went. On the way back we had to cross the river; the ice had
+just gone out--it was in the spring--and as yet not a boat had been
+put into the water. We found a great heavy tub that had been lying
+in the sand all winter, and when we tried to run her down to the
+water she was buried so deep in the sand and was so heavy that the
+four of us could not so much as make her budge. Simon Martel was
+there, big Lalancette of St. Methode, a third I cannot call to mind,
+and myself; and we four, hauling and shoving to break our hearts as
+we thought of this poor fellow on the other side of the river who
+was in the way of dying like a heathen, could not stir that boat a
+single inch. Well, the cure came forward; he laid his hand on the
+gunwale--just laid his hand on the gunwale, like that--'Give one
+more shove,' said he; and the boat seemed to start of herself and
+slipped down to the water as though she were alive. The sick man
+received the sacrament all right, and died like a Christian just as
+day was breaking. Yes, a priest has strength beyond the strength of
+men."
+
+Maria was still sighing, but her heart discovered a melancholy peace
+in the certainty and nearness of death. This unknown disorder, the
+dread of what might be coming, these were dark and terrifying
+phantoms against which one strove blindly, uncomprehendingly. But
+when one was face to face with death itself all to be done was
+plain--ordained these many centuries by laws beyond dispute. By day
+or night, from far or near, the cure comes bearing the Holy
+Sacrament-across angry rivers in the spring, over the treacherous
+ice, along roads choked with snow, fighting the bitter north-west
+wind; aided by miracles, he never fails; he fulfils his sacred
+office, and thenceforward there is room for neither doubt nor fear.
+Death is but a glorious preferment, a door that opens to the joys
+unspeakable of the elect.
+
+The wind had risen and was shaking the Partitions as window-panes
+rattle in a sudden gust. The nor'wester came howling over the dark
+tree-tops, fell upon the clearing about the little wooden
+buildings--house, stable, barn--in' squalls and-wicked whirlwinds
+that sought to lift the roof and smote the walls like a
+battering-ram, before sweeping onward to the forest in a baffled
+fury. The house trembled from base to chimneytop, and swayed on its
+foundation in such a fashion that the inmates, feeling the
+onslaught, hearing the roar and shriek of the foe, were almost as
+sensible of the terrors of the storm as though they were exposed to
+it; lacking the consciousness of safe retreat that belongs to those
+who are sheltered by strong walls of stone.
+
+Tit'Sebe cast his eyes about. "A good house you have here; tightly
+made and warm. Your father and the boys built it, did they not?
+Moreover, you must have a good bit of land cleared by this time ..."
+
+So loud was the wind that they did not hear the sound of
+sleigh-bells, and suddenly the door flew open against the wall and
+the cure of St. Henri entered, bearing the Host in his raised hands.
+Maria and Tit'Sebe fell upon their knees; Tit'Be ran to shut the
+door, then also knelt. The priest put off the heavy fur coat and the
+cap white with snow drawn down to his eyes, and instantly approached
+the sick-bed as heaven's envoy bringing pardon and peace.
+
+Ah! the assurance, the comfort of the divine promise which dispels
+the awful mists of death! While the priest performed the sacred
+rites, and his low words mingled with the sighs of the dying woman,
+Samuel Chapdelaine and his children were praying with bended heads;
+in some sort consoled, released from anxiousness and doubt,
+confident that a sure pact was then concluding with the Almighty for
+the blue skies of Paradise spangled with stars of gold as a rightful
+heritage.
+
+Afterwards the cure warmed himself by the stove; then they prayed
+together for a time, kneeling by the bed.
+
+Toward four o'clock the wind leaped to the south-east, and the storm
+ended swiftly as a broken wave sinks backward from the shore; in the
+strange deep silence after the tumult the mother sighed, sighed once
+again, and died.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THAT WE PERISH NOT
+
+EPHREM SURPRENANT pushed open the door and stood upon the threshold.
+
+"I have come." He found no other words, and waited there motionless
+for a few seconds, tongue-tied, while his eyes travelled from
+Chapdelaine to Maria, from Maria to the children who sat very still
+and quiet by the table; then he plucked off his cap hastily, as if
+in amends for his forgetfulness, shut the door behind him and moved
+across to the bed where the dead woman lay.
+
+They had altered its place, turning the head to the wall and the
+foot toward the centre of the house, so that it might be approached
+on both sides. Close to the wall two lighted candles stood on
+chairs; one of them set in a large candlestick of white metal which
+the visitors to the Chapdelaine home had never seen before, while
+for holding the other Maria had found nothing better than a glass
+bowl used in the summer time for blueberries and wild raspberries,
+on days of ceremony.
+
+The candlestick shone, the bowl sparkled in the flames which lighted
+but feebly the face of the dead. The days of suffering through which
+she had passed, or death's final chill had given the features a
+strange pallor and delicacy, the refinement of a woman bred in the
+city. Father and children were at first amazed, and then perceived
+in this the tremendous consequence of her translation beyond and far
+above them.
+
+Ephrem. Surprenant bent his eyes upon the face for a little, and
+then kneeled. The prayers he began to murmur were inaudible, but
+when Maria and Tit'Be came and knelt beside him he drew from a
+pocket his string of large heads and began to tell them in a low
+voice. The chaplet ended, he sat himself in silence by the table,
+shaking his head sadly from time to time as is seemly in the house
+of mourning, and because his own grief was deep and sincere.
+
+At last he discovered speech. "It is a heavy loss. You were
+fortunate in your wife, Samuel; no one may question that. Truly you
+were fortunate in your wife."
+
+This said, he could go no further; he sought in vain for some words
+of sympathy, and at the end stumbled into other talk. "The weather
+is quite mild this evening; we soon shall have rain. Everyone is
+saying that it is to be an early spring."
+
+To the countryman, all things touching the soil which gives him
+bread, and the alternate seasons which lull the earth to sleep and
+awaken it to life, are of such moment that one may speak of them
+even in the presence of death with no disrespect. Their eyes turned
+quite naturally to the square of the little window, but the night
+was black and they could discern nothing.
+
+Ephrem Surprenant began anew to praise her who was departed. "In
+all the parish there was not a braver-spirited woman than she, nor a
+cleverer housewife. How friendly too, and what a kind welcome she
+always gave a visitor! In the old parishes--yes! and even in the
+towns on the railway, not many would be found to match her. It is
+only the truth to say that you were rarely suited in your wife ...
+Soon afterwards he rose, and, leaving the house, his face was dark
+with sorrow.
+
+A long silence followed, in which Samuel Chapdelaine's head nodded
+slowly towards his breast and it seemed as though he were falling
+asleep. Maria spoke quickly to him, in fear of his
+offending:--"Father! Do not sleep!"
+
+"No! No!" He sat up straight on his chair and squared his shoulders
+but since his eyes were closing in spite of him, he stood up
+hastily, saying:--"Let us recite another chaplet."
+
+Kneeling together beside the bed, they told the chaplet bead by
+bead. Rising from their knees they heard the rain patter against the
+window and on the shingles. It was the first spring rain and
+proclaimed their freedom: the winter ended, the soil soon to
+reappear, rivers once more running their joyous course, the earth
+again transformed like some lovely girl released at last from an
+evil spell by touch of magic wand. But they did not allow themselves
+to be glad in this house of death, nor indeed did they feel the
+happiness of it in the midst of their hearts' deep affliction.
+
+Opening the window they moved back to it and hearkened to the
+tapping of the great drops upon the roof. Maria saw that her
+father's head had fallen, and that he was very still; she thought
+his evening drowsiness was mastering him again, but when about to
+waken him with a word, he it was who sighed and began to speak.
+
+"Ephrem. Surprenant said no more than the truth. Your mother was a
+good woman, Maria; you will not find her like."
+
+Maria's head answered him "Yes," but her lips were pressed close.
+
+"Full of courage and good counsel, that she has been throughout her
+life; but it was chiefly in the early days after we were married,
+and then again when Esdras and yourself were little, that she showed
+herself the woman she was. The wife of a small farmer looks for no
+easy life, but women who take to their work as well and as
+cheerfully as she did in those days, Maria, are hard to find."
+
+Maria faltered:--"I know, father; I know it well;" and she dried
+her eyes for her heart was melting into tears.
+
+"When we took up our first land at Normandin we had two cows and
+very little pasture for them, as nearly all our lot was in standing
+timber and hard to win for the plough. As for me, I picked up my ax
+and I said to her:--'Laura, I am going to clear land for you.' And
+from morning till night it was chop, chop, chop, without ever coming
+back to the house except for dinner; and all that time she did the
+work of the house and the cooking, she looked after the cattle,
+mended the fences, cleaned the cow-shed, never rested from her
+toiling; and then half-a-dozen times a day she would come outside
+the door and stand for a minute looking at me, over there by the
+fringe of the woods, where I was putting my back into felling the
+birches and the spruce to make a patch of soil for her.
+
+"Then in the month of July our well must needs dry up; the cows had
+not a drop of water to slake their thirst and they almost stopped
+giving milk. So when I was hard at it in the woods the mother went
+off to the river with a pail in either hand, and climbed the steep
+bluff eight or ten times together with these brimming, and her feet
+that slipped back in the running sand, till she had filled a barrel;
+and when the barrel was full she got it on a wheelbarrow, and
+wheeled it off herself to empty it into the big tub in the
+cow-pasture more than three hundred yards from the house, just below
+the rocks. It was not a woman's work, and I told her often enough to
+leave it to me, but she always spoke up briskly:--'Don't you think
+about that--don't think about anything--clear a farm for me.' And
+she would laugh to cheer me up, but I saw well enough this was too
+much for her, and that she was all dark under the eyes with the
+labour of it.
+
+"Well, I caught up my ax and was off to the woods; and I laid into
+the birches so lustily that chips flew as thick as your wrist, all
+the time saying to myself that the wife I had was like no other, and
+that if the good God only kept me in health I would make her the
+best farm in the countryside."
+
+The rain was ever sounding on the roof now and then a gust drove
+against the window great drops which ran down the panes like
+slow-falling tears. Yet a few hours of rain and the soil would be
+bare, streams would dance down every slope; a few more days and they
+would hear the thundering of the falls.
+
+"When we took up other land above Mistassini," Samuel Chapdelaine
+continued, "it was the same thing over again; heavy work and
+hardship for both of us alike; but she was always full of courage
+and in good heart ... We were in the midst of the forest, but as
+there were some open spaces of rich grass among the rocks we took to
+raising sheep. One evening He was silent for a little, and when he
+began speaking again his eyes were fixed intently upon Maria, as
+though he wished to make very clear to her what he was about to say.
+
+"It was in September; the time when all the great creatures of the
+woods become dangerous. A man from Mistassini who was coming down
+the river in a canoe landed near our place and spoke to us
+thiswise:--'Look after your sheep; the bears came and killed a
+heifer last week quite close to the houses.' So your mother and I
+went off that evening to the pasture to drive the sheep into the pen
+for the night so that the bears would not devour them.
+
+"I took one side and she the other, as the sheep used to scatter
+among the alders. It was growing dark, and suddenly I heard Laura
+cry out: 'Oh, the scoundrels!' Some animals were moving in the
+bushes, and it was plain to see they were not sheep, because in the
+woods toward evening sheep are white patches. So, ax in hand, I
+started off running as hard as I could. Later on, when we were on
+the way back to the house, your mother told me all about it. She had
+come across a sheep lying dead, and two bears that were just going
+to eat it. Now it takes a pretty good man, one not easily frightened
+and with a gun in his hand, to face a bear in September; as for a
+woman empty-handed, the best thing she can do is to run for it and
+not a soul will blame her. But your mother snatched a stick from the
+ground and made straight for the bears, screaming at them:--'Our
+beautiful fat sheep! Be off with you, you ugly thieves, or I will do
+for you!' I got there at my best speed, leaping over the stumps;
+but by that time the bears had cleared off into the woods without
+showing fight, scared as could be, because she had put the fear of
+death into them."
+
+Maria listened breathlessly; asking herself if it was really her
+mother who had done this thing-the mother whom she had always known
+so gentle and tender-hearted; who had never given Telesphore a
+little rap on the head without afterwards taking him on her knees to
+comfort him, adding her own tears to his, and declaring that to slap
+a child was something to break one's heart.
+
+The brief spring shower was already spent; through the clouds the
+moon was showing her face--eager to discover what was left of the
+winter's snow after this earliest rain. As yet the ground was
+everywhere white; the night's deep silence told them that many days
+must pass before they would hear again the dull roaring of the
+cataract; but the tempered breeze whispered of consolation and
+promise.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine lapsed into silence for a while, his head bowed,
+his hands resting upon his knees, dreaming of the past with its
+toilsome years that were yet so full of brave hopes. When he took up
+his tale it was in a voice that halted, melancholy with
+self-reproach.
+
+"At Normandin, at Mistassini and the other places we have lived I
+always worked hard; no one can say nay to that. Many an acre of
+forest have I cleared and I have built houses and barns, always
+saying to myself that one day we should have a comfortable farm
+where your mother would live as do the women in the old parishes,
+with fine smooth fields all about the house as far as the eye could
+see, a kitchen garden, handsome well-fed cattle in the farm-yard ...
+And, after it all, here is she dead in this half-savage spot,
+leagues from other houses and churches, and so near the bush that
+some nights one can hear the foxes bark. And it is my fault that she
+has died so ... My fault ... My fault." Remorse seized him; he
+shook his head at the pity of it, his eyes upon the floor.
+
+"Many times it happened, after we had spent five or six years in
+one place and all had gone well, that we were beginning to get
+together a nice property--good pasturage, broad fields ready for
+sowing, a house lined inside with pictures from the papers ...
+Then people came and settled about us; we bad but to wait a little,
+working on quietly, and soon we should have been in the midst of a
+well-to-do settlement where Laura could have passed the rest of her
+days in happiness ... And then all of a sudden I lost heart; I
+grew sick and tired of my work and of the countryside; I began to
+hate the very faces of those who had taken up land near-by and used
+to come to see us, thinking that we should be pleased to have a
+visitor after being so long out of the way of them. I heard people
+saying that farther off toward the head of the Lake there was good
+land in the forest; that some folk from St. Gedeon spoke of settling
+over on that side; and forthwith I began to hunger and thirst for
+this spot they were talking about, that I had never seen in my life
+and where not a soul lived, as for the place of my birth ...
+
+"Well, in those days, when the work was done, instead of smoking
+beside the stove I would go out to the door-step and sit there
+without moving, like a man homesick and lonely; and everything I saw
+in front of me--the place I had made with these two hands after so
+much of labour and sweat--the fields, the fences, over to the rocky
+knoll that shut us in--I detested them all till I seemed ready to go
+out of my mind at the very sight of them.
+
+"And then your mother would come quietly up behind me. She also
+would look out across our place, and I knew that she was pleased
+with it to the bottom of her heart because it was beginning to look
+like the old parish where she had grown up, and where she would so
+gladly have spent her days. But instead of telling me that I was no
+better than a silly old fool for wishing to leave--as most women
+would have done-and finding hard things to say about my folly, she
+only sighed a little as she thought of the drudgery that was to
+begin all over again somewhere back in the woods, and kindly and
+softly she would say to me:--'Well, Samuel! Are we soon to be on the
+move once more?' When she said that I could not answer, for I was
+speechless with very shame at thinking of the wretched life I had
+given her; but I knew well enough that it would end in our moving
+again and pushing on to the north, deeper into the woods, and that
+she would be with me and take her share in this hard business of
+beginning anew--as cheerful and capable and good-humoured as ever,
+without one single word of reproach or spitefulness."
+
+He was silent after that, and seemed to ponder long his sorrow and
+the things which might have been. Maria, sighing, passed a hand
+across her face as though she would brush away a disquieting vision;
+but in very truth there was nothing she wished to forget. What she
+heard had moved her profoundly, and she felt in a dim and troubled
+way that this story of a hard life so bravely lived had for her a
+deep and timely significance and held some lesson if only she might
+understand it.
+
+"How little do we know people!" was the thought that filled her
+mind. Since her mother had crossed the threshold of death she seemed
+to wear a new aspect, not of this world; and now all the homely and
+familiar traits endearing her to them were being overshadowed by
+other virtues well-nigh heroic in their quality.
+
+To pass her days in these lonely places when she would have dearly
+loved the society of other human beings and the unbroken peace of
+village life; to strive from dawn till nightfall, spending all her
+strength in a thousand heavy tasks, and yet from dawn till nightfall
+never losing patience nor her happy tranquillity; continually to see
+about her only the wilderness, the great pitiless forest, and to
+hold in the midst of it all an ordered way of life, the gentleness
+and the joyousness which are the fruits of many a century sheltered
+from such rudeness--was it not surely a hard thing and a worthy? And
+the recompense? After death, a little word of praise.
+
+Was it worth the cost? The question scarcely framed itself with such
+clearness in her mind, but so her thoughts were tending. Thus to
+live, as hardly, as courageously, and to be so sorely missed when
+she departed, few women were fit for this. As for herself ...
+
+The sky, flooded with moonlight, was of a wonderful lambency and
+depth; across the whole arch of heaven a band of cloud, fashioned
+strangely into carven shapes, defiled in solemn march. The white
+ground no longer spoke of chill and desolateness, for the air was
+soft; and by some magic of the approaching spring the snow appeared
+to be only a mask covering the earth's face, in nowise terrifying--a
+mask one knew must soon be lifted.
+
+Maria seated by the little window fixed her unconscious eyes upon
+the sky and the fields stretching away whitely to the environing
+woods, and of a sudden it was borne to her that the question she was
+asking herself had just received its answer. To dwell in this land
+as her mother had dwelt, and, dying thus, to leave behind her a
+sorrowing husband and a record of the virtues of her race, she knew
+in her heart she was fit for that. In reckoning with herself there
+was no trace of vanity; rather did the response seem from without.
+Yes, she was able; and she was filled with wonderment as though at
+the shining of some unlooked-for light.
+
+Thus she too could live; but ... it was not as yet in her heart so
+to do ... In a little while, this season of mourning at an end,
+Lorenzo Surprenant would come back from the States for the third
+time and would bear her away to the unknown delights of the
+city--away from the great forest she hated--away from that cruel
+land where men who go astray perish helplessly, where women endure
+endless torment the while ineffectual aid is sought for them over
+the long roads buried in snow. Why should she stay here to toil and
+suffer when she might escape to the lands of the south and a happier
+life.
+
+The soft breeze telling of spring came against the window, bringing
+a confusion of gentle sounds; the swish and sigh of branches swaying
+and touching one another, the distant hooting of an owl. Then the
+great silence reigned once more. Samuel Chapdelaine was sleeping;
+but in this repose beside the dead was nothing unseemly or wanting
+in respect; chin fallen on his breast, bands lying open on his
+knees, he seemed to be plunged into the very depths of sorrow or
+striving to relinquish life that he might follow the departed a
+little way into the shades.
+
+Again Maria asked herself:--"Why stay here, to toil and suffer
+thus? Why? ..." And when she found no answer, it befell at length
+that out of the silence and the night voices arose.
+
+No miraculous voices were these; each of us bears them when he goes
+apart and withdraws himself far enough to escape from the petty
+turmoil of his daily life. But they speak more loudly and with
+plainer accents to the simple-hearted, to those who dwell among the
+great northern woods and in the empty places of the earth. While yet
+Maria was dreaming of the city's distant wonders the first voice
+brought murmuringly to her memory a hundred forgotten charms of the
+land she wished to flee.
+
+The marvel of the reappearing earth in the springtime after the long
+months of winter ... The dreaded snow stealing away in prankish
+rivulets down every slope; the tree-roots first resurgent, then the
+mosses drenched with wet, soon the ground freed from its burden
+whereon one treads with delighted glances and sighs of happiness
+like the sick man who feels glad life returning to his veins ...
+Later yet, the birches, alders, aspens swelling into bud; the laurel
+clothing itself in rosy bloom ... The rough battle with the soil a
+seeming holiday to men no longer condemned to idleness; to draw the
+hard breath of toil from morn till eve a gracious favour ...
+
+--The cattle, at last set free from their shed, gallop to the
+pasture and glut themselves with the fresh grass. All the new-born
+creatures--the calves, the fowls, the lambs, gambol in the sun and
+add daily to their stature like the hay and the barley. The poorest
+farmer sometimes halts in yard or field, hands in pockets, and
+tastes the great happiness of knowing that the sun's heat, the warm
+rain, the earth's unstinted alchemy--every mighty force of
+nature--is working as a humble slave for him ... for him.
+
+--And then, the surnmertide; the glory of sunny noons, the heated
+quivering air that blurs the horizon and the outline of the forest,
+the flies swarming and circling in the sun's rays, and but three
+hundred paces from the house the rapids and the fall--white foam
+against dark water--the mere sight of it filling one with a
+delicious coolness. In its due time the harvest; the grain that
+gives life heaped into the barns; then autumn and soon the returning
+winter ... But here was the marvel of it, that the winter seemed
+no longer abhorrent or terrifying; it brought in its train the sweet
+intimacies of a house shut fast, and beyond the door, with the
+sameness and the soundlessness of deep-drifted snow, peace, a great
+peace . .
+
+In the cities were the strange and wonderful things whereof Lorenzo
+Surprenant had told, with others that she pictured to herself
+confusedly: wide streets suffused with light, gorgeous shops, an
+easy fife of little toil with a round of small pleasures and
+distractions. Perhaps, though, one would come to tire of this
+restlessness, and, yearning some evening only for repose and quiet,
+where would one discover the tranquillity of field and wood, the
+soft touch of that cooler air that draws from the north-west after
+set of sun, the wide-spreading peacefulness that settles on the
+earth sinking to untroubled sleep.
+
+"And yet they must be beautiful!" thought she, still dreaming of
+those vast American cities ... As though in answer, a second voice
+was raised.
+
+--Over there was it not a stranger land where people of an alien
+race spoke of unfamiliar things in another tongue, sang other songs?
+Here ...
+
+--The very names of this her country, those she listened to every
+day, those heard but once, came crowding to memory: a thousand names
+piously best owed by peasants from France on lakes, on rivers, on
+the settlements of the new country they were discovering and
+peopling as they went--lac a l'Eau-Claire--la
+Famine--Saint-Coeur--de-Marie--Trois-Pistoles--Sainte
+Rose-du-Degel--Pointe-aux-Outardes--Saint-Andre-de-l' Epouvante ...
+An uncle of Eutrope Gagnon's lived at Saint-Andre-de-l'Epouvante;
+Racicot of Honfleur spoke often of his son who was a stoker on a
+Gulf coaster, and every time new names were added to the old;
+names of fishing villages and little harbours on the St. Lawrence,
+scattered here and there along those shores between which the ships
+of the old days had boldly sailed toward an unknown
+land--Pointe-Mille-Vaches--les Escoumins--Notre-Dame-du-Portage--les
+Grandes-Bergeronnes--Gaspe.
+
+--How sweet to hear these names where one was talking of distant
+acquaintance and kinsfolk, or telling of far journeys! How dear and
+neighbourly was the sound of them, with a heart-warming friendly
+ring that made one feel as he spoke them:--"Throughout all this
+land we are at home ... at home ..."
+
+--Westward, beyond the borders of the Province; southward, across
+the line were everywhere none but English names. In time one might
+learn to speak them, even might they at last come familiarly to the
+ear; but where should one find again the happy music of the French
+names?
+
+--Words of a foreign speech from every lip, on every street, in
+every shop ... Little girls taking hands to dance a round and
+singing a song one could not understand ... Here ...
+
+Maria turned toward her father who still slept with his chin sunk on
+his breast, looking like a man stricken down by grief whose
+meditation is of death; and the look brought her swift memory of the
+hymns and country songs he was wont to teach his children in the
+evenings.
+
+    A la claire fontaine
+    M'en allant promener ...
+
+In those cities of the States, even if one taught the children how
+to sing them would they not straightway forget!
+
+The clouds a little while ago drifting singly across a moonlit sky
+were now spread over the heavens in a vast filmy curtain, and the
+dim light passing through it was caught by the earth's pale coverlet
+of melting snow; between the two wan expanses the ranks of the
+forest darkly stretched their long battle-front.
+
+Maria shuddered; the emotion which had glowed in her heart was
+dying; once again she said to herself: "And yet it is a harsh
+land, this land of ours ... Why should I linger here?"
+
+Then it was that a third voice, mightier than the others, lifted
+itself up in the silence: the voice of Quebec--now the song of a
+woman, now the exhortation of a priest. It came to her with the
+sound of a church bell, with the majesty of an organ's tones, like a
+plaintive love-song, like the long high call of woodsmen in the
+forest. For verily there was in it all that makes the soul of the
+Province: the loved solemnities of the ancestral faith; the lilt of
+that old speech guarded with jealous care; the grandeur and the
+barbaric strength of this new land where an ancient race has again
+found its youth.
+
+Thus spake the voice.--"Three hundred years ago we came, and we
+have remained ... They who led us hither might return among us
+without knowing shame or sorrow, for if it be true that we have
+little learned, most surely nothing is forgot.
+
+"We bore oversea our prayers and our songs; they are ever the same.
+We carried in our bosoms the hearts of the men of our fatherland,
+brave and merry, easily moved to pity as to laughter, of all human
+hearts the most human; nor have they changed. We traced the
+boundaries of a new continent, from Gaspe to Montreal, from St. Jean
+d'Iberville to Ungava, saying as we did it.--Within these limits
+all we brought with us, our faith, our tongue, our virtues, our very
+weaknesses are henceforth hallowed things which no hand may touch,
+which shall endure to the end.
+
+"Strangers have surrounded us whom it is our pleasure to call
+foreigners; they have taken into their hands most of the rule, they
+have gathered to themselves much of the wealth; but in this land of
+Quebec nothing has changed. Nor shall anything change, for we are
+the pledge of it. Concerning ourselves and our destiny but one duty
+have we clearly understood: that we should hold fast--should endure.
+And we have held fast, so that, it may be, many centuries hence the
+world will look upon us and say:--These people are of a race that
+knows not how to perish ... We are a testimony.
+
+"For this is it that we must abide in that Province where our
+fathers dwelt, living as they have lived, so to obey the unwritten
+command that once shaped itself in their hearts, that passed to
+ours, which we in turn must hand on to descendants innumerable:--In
+this land of Quebec naught shall die and naught shall suffer
+change ..."
+
+The veil of gray cloud which hid-the whole heavens had become
+heavier and more louring, and suddenly the rain began afresh,
+bringing yet a little nearer that joyous hour when the earth would
+lie bare and the rivers be freed. Samuel Chapdelaine slept
+profoundly, his head sunk upon his breast, an old man yielding at
+last to the long fatigues of his lifetime of toil. Above the
+candlestick of metal and the glass bowl the candle flames wavered
+under gentle breaths from the window, and shadows flitting across
+the face of the dead woman made her lips seem to be moving in prayer
+or softly telling secrets.
+
+Maria Chapdelaine awaked from her dream to the thought:--"So I
+shall stay--shall. stay here after all!" For the voices had spoken
+commandingly and she knew she could not choose but obey. It was only
+then that the recollection of other duties came, after she had
+submitted, and a sigh had passed her lips. Alma Rose was still a
+child; her mother dead, there must be a woman in the house. But in
+truth it was the voices which had told her the way.
+
+The rain was pattering on the roof, and nature, rejoicing that
+winter was past, sent soft little wandering airs through the
+casement as though she were sighing in content. Throughout the hours
+of the night Maria moved not; with hands folded in her lap, patient
+of spirit and without bitterness, yet dreaming a little wistfully of
+the far-off wonders her eyes would never behold and of the land
+wherein she was bidden to live with its store of sorrowful memories;
+of the living flame which her heart had known awhile and lost
+forever, and the deep snowy woods whence too daring youths shall no
+more return.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PLEDGED TO THE RACE
+
+ESDRAS and Da'Be came down from the shanties in May, and their
+grieving brought freshly to the household the pain of bereavement.
+But the naked earth was lying ready for the seed, and mourning must
+not delay the season's labours.
+
+Eutrope Gagnon was there one evening to pay them a visit, and a
+glance he stole at Maria's face perhaps told him of a change in her,
+for when, they were alone he put the question:--"Maria, do you
+still think of going away?"
+
+Her eyes were lowered, as with a motion of her head she signified
+"No."
+
+"Then ... I know well that this is no time to speak of such
+things, but if only you could say there would be a chance for me one
+day, then could I bear the waiting better."
+
+And Maria answered him:--"Yes ... If you wish I will marry you
+as you asked me to ... In the spring--the spring after this spring
+now--when the men come back from the woods for the sowing."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Maria Chapdelaine, by Louis Hemon
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Maria Chapdelaine, by Louis Hemon
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+Title: Maria Chapdelaine
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+Author: Louis Hemon
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+Release Date: August, 2003 [Etext# 4383]
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+[This file was first posted on January 20, 2002]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Maria Chapdelaine, by Louis Hemon
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+
+
+Edited by Charles Aldarondo Aldarondo@yahoo.com
+
+
+
+
+MARIA CHAPDELAINE
+
+A TALE OF THE
+LAKE ST. JOHN COUNTRY
+
+BY
+
+LOUIS HEMON
+TRANSLATED BY
+W. H. BLAKE
+Author of "Brown Waters," etc.
+
+New York
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+
+
+I PERIBONKA
+
+II HOME IN THE CLEARING
+
+III FRANCOIS PASSES BY
+
+IV WILD LAND
+
+V THE VOWS
+
+VI THE STUFF OF DREAMS
+
+VII A MEAGER REAPING
+
+VIII ENTRENCHED AGAINST WINTER
+
+IX ONE THOUSAND AVES
+
+X STRAYING TRACKS
+
+XI THE INTERPRETER OF GOD
+
+XII LOVE BEARING GIFTS
+
+XIII LOVE BEARING CHAINS
+
+XIV INTO THE DEEP SILENCE
+
+XV THAT WE PERISH NOT
+
+XVI PLEDGED TO THE RACE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PERIBONKA
+
+Ite, missa est
+
+The door opened, and the men of the congregation began to come out
+of the church at Peribonka.
+
+A moment earlier it had seemed quite deserted, this church set by
+the roadside on the high bank of the Peribonka, whose icy
+snow-covered surface was like a winding strip of plain. The snow lay
+deep upon road and fields, for the April sun was powerless to send
+warmth through the gray clouds, and the heavy spring rains were yet
+to come. This chill and universal white, the humbleness of the
+wooden church and the wooden houses scattered along the road, the
+gloomy forest edging so close that it seemed to threaten, these all
+spoke of a harsh existence in a stern land. But as the men and boys
+passed through the doorway and gathered in knots on the broad steps,
+their cheery salutations, the chaff flung from group to group, the
+continual interchange of talk, merry or sober, at once disclosed the
+unquenchable joyousness of a people ever filled with laughter and
+good humour.
+
+Cleophas Pesant, son of Thadee Pesant the blacksmith, was already in
+light-coloured summer garments, and sported an American coat with
+broad padded shoulders; though on this cold Sunday he had not
+ventured to discard his winter cap of black cloth with harelined
+ear-laps for the hard felt hat he would have preferred to wear.
+Beside him Egide Simard, and others who had come a long road by
+sleigh, fastened their long fur coats as they left the church,
+drawing them in at the waist with scarlet sashes. The young folk of
+the village, very smart in coats with otter collars, gave
+deferential greeting to old Nazaire Larouche; a tall man with gray
+hair and huge bony shoulders who had in no wise altered for the mass
+his everyday garb: short jacket of brown cloth lined with sheepskin,
+patched trousers, and thick woollen socks under moose-hide
+moccasins.
+
+"Well, Mr. Larouche, do things go pretty well across the water?"
+
+"Not badly, my lads, not so badly."
+
+Everyone drew his pipe from his pocket, and the pig's bladder filled
+with tobacco leaves cut by hand, and, after the hour and a half of
+restraint, began to smoke with evident satisfaction. The first puffs
+brought talk of the weather, the coming spring, the state of the ice
+on Lake St. John and the rivers, of their several doings and the
+parish gossip; after the manner of men who, living far apart on the
+worst of roads, see one another but once a week.
+
+"The lake is solid yet," said Cleophas Pesant, "but the rivers are
+no longer safe. The ice went this week beside the sand-bank opposite
+the island, where there have been warm spring-holes all winter."
+Others began to discuss the chances of the crops, before the ground
+was even showing.
+
+"I tell you that we shall have a lean year," asserted one old
+fellow, "the frost got in before the last snows fell."
+
+At length the talk slackened and all faced the top step, where
+Napoleon Laliberte was making ready, in accord with his weekly
+custom, to announce the parish news. He stood there motionless for a
+little while, awaiting quiet,--hands deep in the pockets of the
+heavy lynx coat, knitting his forehead and half closing his keen
+eyes under the fur cap pulled well over his ears; and when silence
+fell he began to give the news at the full pitch of his voice, in
+the manner of a carter who encourages his horses on a hill.
+
+"The work on the wharf will go forward at once ... I have been sent
+money by the Government, and those looking for a job should see me
+before vespers. If you want this money to stay in the parish instead
+of being sent back to Quebec you had better lose no time in speaking
+to me."
+
+Some moved over in his direction; others, indifferent, met his
+announcement with a laugh. The remark was heard in an envious
+undertone:--"And who will be foreman at three dollars a day?
+Perhaps good old Laliberte ..."
+
+But it was said jestingly rather than in malice, and the speaker
+ended by adding his own laugh.
+
+Hands still in the pockets of his big coat, straightening himself
+and squaring his shoulders as he stood there upon the highest step,
+Napoleon Laliberte proceeded in loudest tones:--"A surveyor from
+Roberval will be in the parish next week. If anyone wishes his land
+surveyed before mending his fences for the summer, this is to let
+him know."
+
+The item was received without interest. Peribonka farmers are not
+particular about correcting their boundaries to gain or lose a few
+square feet, since the most enterprising among them have still
+two-thirds of their grants to clear,--endless acres of woodland
+and swamp to reclaim.
+
+He continued:--"Two men are up here with money to buy furs. If you
+have any bear, mink, muskrat or fox you will find these men at the
+store until Wednesday, or you can apply to Francois Paradis of
+Mistassini who is with them. They have plenty of money and will pay
+cash for first-class pelts." His news finished, he descended the
+steps. A sharp-faced little fellow took his place.
+
+"Who wants to buy a fine young pig of my breeding?" he asked,
+indicating with his finger something shapeless that struggled in a
+bag at his feet. A great burst of laughter greeted him. They knew
+them well, these pigs of Hormidas' raising. No bigger than rats, and
+quick as squirrels to jump the fences.
+
+"Twenty-five cents!" one young man bid chaffingly.
+
+"Fifty cents!"
+
+"A dollar!"
+
+"Don't play the fool, Jean. Your wife will never let you pay a
+dollar for such a pig as that."
+
+Jean stood his ground:--"A dollar, I won't go back on it."
+
+Hormidas Berube with a disgusted look on his face awaited another
+bid, but only got jokes and laughter.
+
+Meantime the women in their turn had begun to leave the church.
+Young or old, pretty or ugly, nearly all were well clad in fur
+cloaks, or in coats of heavy cloth; for, honouring the Sunday mass,
+sole festival of their lives, they had doffed coarse blouses and
+homespun petticoats, and a stranger might well have stood amazed to
+find them habited almost with elegance in this remote spot; still
+French to their finger-tips in the midst of the vast lonely forest
+and the snow, and as tastefully dressed, these peasant women, as
+most of the middle-class folk in provincial France.
+
+Cleophas Pesant waited for Louisa Tremblay who was alone, and they
+went off together along the wooden sidewalk in the direction of the
+house. Others were satisfied to exchange jocular remarks with the
+young girls as they passed, in the easy and familiar fashion of the
+country,-natural enough too where the children have grown up
+together from infancy.
+
+Pite Gaudreau, looking toward the door of the church, remarked:--
+"Maria Chapdelaine is back from her visit to St. Prime, and there is
+her father come to fetch her." Many in the village scarcely knew the
+Chapdelaines.
+
+"Is it Samuel Chapdelaine who has a farm in the woods on the other
+side of the river, above Honfleur?"
+
+"That's the man."
+
+"And the girl with him is his daughter? Maria ..."
+
+"Yes, she has been spending a month at St. Prime with her mother's
+people. They are Bouchards, related to Wilfrid Bouchard of St.
+Gedeon ..."
+
+Interested glances were directed toward the top of the steps. One of
+the young people paid Maria the countryman's tribute of
+admiration--"A fine hearty girl!" said he.
+
+"Right you are! A fine hearty girl, and one with plenty of spirit
+too. A pity that she lives so far off in the woods. How are the
+young fellows of the village to manage an evening at their place, on
+the other side of the river and above the falls, more than a dozen
+miles away and the last of them with next to no road?"
+
+The smiles were bold enough as they spoke of her, this inaccessible
+beauty; but as she came down the wooden steps with her father and
+passed near by, they were taken with bashfulness and awkwardly drew
+back, as though something more lay between her and them than the
+crossing of a river and twelve miles of indifferent woodland road.
+
+Little by little the groups before the church dissolved. Some
+returned to their houses, after picking up all the news that was
+going; others, before departing, were for spending an hour in one of
+the two gathering places of the village; the cur's house or the
+general store. Those who came from the back concessions, stretching
+along the very border of the forest, one by one untied their horses
+from the row and brought their sleighs to the foot of the steps for
+their women and children.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine and Maria had gone but a little way when a young
+man halted them.
+
+"Good day to you, Mr. Chapdelaine. Good day, Miss Maria. I am in
+great luck at meeting you, since your farm is so high up the river
+and I don't often come this way myself."
+
+His bold eyes travelled from one to the other. When he averted them
+it seemed by a conscious effort of politeness; swiftly they
+returned, and their glance, bright, keen, full of honest eagerness,
+was questioning and disconcerting.
+
+"Francois Paradis!" exclaimed Chapdelaine.
+
+"This is indeed a bit of luck, for I haven't seen you this long
+while, Francois. And your father dead too. Have you held on to the
+farm?" The young man did not answer; he was looking expectantly at
+Maria with a frank smile, awaiting a word from her.
+
+"You remember Francois Paradis of Mistassini, Maria? He has changed
+very little."
+
+"Nor have you, Mr. Chapdelaine. But your daughter, that is a
+different story; she is not the same, yet I should have known her at
+once."
+
+They had spent the last evening at St. Michel de Mistassini-viewing
+everything in the full light of the afternoon: the great wooden
+bridge, covered in and painted red, not unlike an amazingly long
+Noah's ark; the high hills rising almost from the very banks of the
+river, the old monastery crouched between the river and the heights,
+the water that seethed and whitened, flinging itself in wild descent
+down the staircase of a giant. But to see this young man after seven
+years, and to hear his name spoken, aroused in Maria memories
+clearer and more lively than she was able to evoke of the events and
+sights of yesterday.
+
+"Francois Paradis! ... Why surely, father, I remember Francois
+Paradis." And Francois, content, gave answer to the questions of a
+moment ago.
+
+"No, Mr. Chapdelaine, I have not kept the farm. When the good man
+died I sold everything, and since then I have been nearly all the
+time in the woods, trapping or bartering with the Indians of Lake
+Mistassini and the Riviere aux Foins. I also spent a couple of years
+in the Labrador." His look passed once more from Samuel Chapdelaine
+to Maria, and her eyes fell.
+
+"Are you going home to-day?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; right after dinner."
+
+"I am glad that I saw you, for I shall be passing up the river near
+your place in two or three weeks, when the ice goes out. I am here
+with some Belgians who are going to buy furs from the Indians; we
+shall push up so soon as the river is clear, and if we pitch a tent
+above the falls close to your farm I will spend the evening with
+you."
+
+"That is good, Francois, we will expect you."
+
+The alders formed a thick and unbroken hedge along the river
+Peribonka; but the leafless stems did not shut away the steeply
+sloping bank, the levels of the frozen river, the dark hem of the
+woods crowding to the farther edge-leaving between the solitude of
+the great trees, thick-set and erect, and the bare desolateness of
+the ice only room for a few narrow fields, still for the most part
+uncouth with stumps, so narrow indeed that they seemed to be
+constrained in the grasp of an unkindly land.
+
+To Maria Chapdelaine, glancing inattentively here and there, there
+was nothing in all this to make one feel lonely or afraid. Never had
+she known other prospect from October to May, save those still more
+depressing and sad, farther yet from the dwellings of man and the
+marks of his labour; and moreover all about her that morning had
+taken on a softer outline, was brighter with a new promise, by
+virtue of something sweet and gracious that the future had in its
+keeping. Perhaps the coming springtime ... perhaps another
+happiness that was stealing toward her, nameless and unrecognized.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine and Maria were to dine with their relative Azalma
+Larouche, at whose house they had spent the night. No one was there
+but the hostess, for many years a widow, and old Nazaire Larouche,
+her brother-in-law. Azalma was a tall, flat-chested woman with the
+undeveloped features of a child, who talked very quickly and almost
+without taking breath while she made ready the meal in the kitchen.
+From time to time she halted her preparations and sat down opposite
+her visitors, less for the moments repose than to give some special
+emphasis to what she was about to say; but the washing of a dish or
+the setting of the table speedily claimed her attention again, and
+the monologue went on amid the clatter of dishes and frying-pans.
+
+The pea-soup was soon ready and on the table. While eating, the two
+men talked about the condition of their farms and the state of the
+spring ice.
+
+"You should be safe enough for crossing this evening," said Nazaire
+Larouche, "but it will be touch-and-go, and I think you will be
+about the last. The current is strong below the fall and already we
+have had three days of rain.'"
+
+"Everybody says that the ice will hold for a long time yet," replied
+his sister-in-law. "Better sleep here again to-night, and after
+supper the young folks from the village will drop in and spend the
+evening. It is only fair that Maria should have a little more
+amusement before you drag her off into your woods up there."
+
+"She has had plenty of gaiety at St. Prime; singing and games almost
+every night. We are greatly obliged to you, but I am going to put
+the horse in immediately after dinner so as to get home in good
+time."
+
+Old Nazaire Larouche spoke of the morning's sermon which had struck
+him as well reasoned and fine; then after a spell of silence he
+exclaimed abruptly--"Have you baked?"
+
+His amazed sister-in-law gaped at him for a moment before it stole
+upon her that this was his way of asking for bread. A little later
+he attacked her with another question:--"Is your pump working
+well?"
+
+Which signified that there was no water on the table. Azalma rose to
+get it, and behind her back the old fellow sent a sly wink in the
+direction of Maria. "I assault her with parables," chuckled he.
+"It's politer."
+
+On the plank walls of the house were pasted old newspapers, and
+calendars hung there such as the manufacturers of farm implements or
+grain merchants scatter abroad, and also prints of a religious
+character; a representation in crudest colour and almost innocent of
+perspective of the basilica at Ste. Anne de Beaupre--, a likeness
+of Pope Pius X.; a chromo where the palely-smiling Virgin Mary
+disclosed her bleeding heart encircled with a golden nimbus.
+
+"This is nicer than our house," thought Maria to herself. Nazaire
+Larouche kept directing attention to his wants with dark sayings:--
+"Was your pig very lean?" he demanded; or perhaps:--"Fond of maple
+sugar, are you? I never get enough of it ..."
+
+And then Azalma would help him to a second slice of pork or fetch
+the cake of maple sugar from the cupboard. When she wearied of these
+strange table-manners and bade him help himself in the usual
+fashion, he smoothed her ruffled temper with good-humoured excuses,
+"Quite right. Quite right. I won't do it again; but you always loved
+a joke, Azalma. When you have youngsters like me at dinner you must
+look for a little nonsense."
+
+Maria smiled to think how like he was to her father; both tall and
+broad, with grizzled hair, their faces tanned to the colour of
+leather, and, shining from their eyes, the quenchless spirit of
+youth which keeps alive in the countryman of Quebec his imperishable
+simple-heartedness.
+
+They took the road almost as soon as the meal was over. The snow,
+thawed on top by the early rains, and frozen anew during the cold
+nights, gave an icy surface that slipped away easily beneath the
+runners. The high blue hills on the other side of Lake St. John
+which closed the horizon behind them were gradually lost to view as
+they returned up the long bend of the river.
+
+Passing the church, Samuel Chapdelaine said thoughtfully--"The
+mass is beautiful. I am often very sorry that we live so far from
+churches. Perhaps not being able to attend to our religion every
+Sunday hinders us from being just so fortunate as other people."
+
+"It is not our fault," sighed Maria, "we are too far away."
+
+Her father shook his head regretfully. The imposing ceremonial, the
+Latin chants, the lighted tapers, the solemnity of the Sunday mass
+never failed to fill Urn with exaltation. In a little he began to
+sing:--
+
+    J'irai la voir un jour,
+    M'asseoir pres de son trone,
+    Recevoir ma couronne
+    Et regner a mon tour ...
+
+His voice was strong and true, and he used the full volume of it,
+singing with deep fervour; but ere long his eyes began to close and
+his chin to drop toward his breast. Driving always made him sleepy,
+and the horse, aware that the usual drowsiness had possession of his
+master, slackened his pace and at length fell to a walk.
+
+"Get up there, Charles Eugene!"
+
+He had suddenly waked and put his hand out for the whip. Charles
+Eugene resigned himself and began to trot again. Many generations
+ago a Chapdelaine cherished a long feud with a neighbour who bore
+these names, and had forthwith bestowed them upon an old, tired,
+lame horse of his, that he might give himself the pleasure every day
+when passing the enemy's house of calling out very loudly:--
+"Charles Eugene, ill-favoured beast that you are! Wretched, badly
+brought up creature! Get along, Charles Eugene!" For a whole century
+the quarrel was dead and buried; but the Chapdelaines ever since had
+named their successive horses Charles Eugene.
+
+Once again the hymn rose in clear ringing tones, intense with
+feeling:--
+
+    Au ciel, au ciel, au ciel,
+    J'irai la voir un jour . .
+
+And again sleep was master, the voice died away, and Maria gathered
+up the reins dropped from her father's hand.
+
+The icy road held alongside the frozen river. The houses on the other
+shore, each surrounded with its patch of cleared land, were sadly
+distant from one another. Behind the clearings, and on either side of
+them to the river's bank, it was always forest: a dark green background
+of cypress against which a lonely birch tree stood out here and there,
+its bole naked and white as the column of a ruined temple.
+
+On the other side of the road the strip of cleared land was continuous
+and broader; the houses, set closer together, seemed an outpost of the
+village; but ever behind the bare fields marched the forest, following
+like a shadow, a gloomy frieze without end between white ground and gray
+sky.
+
+"Charles Eugene, get on there!"
+
+Chapdelaine woke and made his usual good-humoured feint toward the
+whip; but by the time the horse slowed down, after a few livelier
+paces, he had dropped off again, his hands lying open upon his knees
+showing the worn palms of the horse-hide mittens, his chin resting
+upon the coat's thick fur.
+
+After a couple of miles the road climbed a steep hill and entered
+the unbroken woods. The houses standing at intervals in the flat
+country all the way from the village came abruptly to an end, and
+there was no longer anything for the eye to rest upon but a
+wilderness of bare trunks rising out of the universal whiteness.
+Even the incessant dark green of balsam, spruce and gray pine was
+rare; the few young and living trees were lost among the endless
+dead, either lying on the ground and buried in snow, or still erect
+but stripped and blackened. Twenty years before great forest fires
+had swept through, and the new growth was only pushing its way amid
+the standing skeletons and the charred down-timber. Little hills
+followed one upon the other, and the road was a succession of ups
+and downs scarcely more considerable than the slopes of an ocean
+swell, from trough to crest, from crest to trough.
+
+Maria Chapdelaine drew the cloak about her, slipped her hands under
+the warm robe of gray goat-skin and half closed her eyes. There was
+nothing to look at; in the settlements new houses and barns might go
+up from year to year, or be deserted and tumble into ruin; but the
+life of the woods is so unhurried that one must needs have more than
+the patience of a human being to await and mark its advance.
+
+Alone of the three travellers the horse remained fully awake. The
+sleigh glided over the hard snow, grazing the stumps on either hand
+level with the track. Charles Eugene accurately followed every turn
+of the road, took the short pitches at a full trot and climbed the
+opposite hills with a leisurely pace, like the capable animal he
+was, who might be trusted to conduct his masters safely to the
+door-step of their dwelling without being annoyed by guiding word or
+touch of rein.
+
+Some miles farther, and the woods fell away again, disclosing the
+river. The road descended the last hill from the higher land and
+sank almost to the level of the ice. Three houses were dotted along
+the mile of bank above; but they were humbler buildings than those
+of the village, and behind them scarcely any land was cleared and
+there was little sign of cultivation:-built there, they seemed to
+be, only in witness of the presence of man.
+
+Charles Eugene swung sharply to the right, stiffened his forelegs to
+hold back on the slope and pulled up on the edge of the ice.
+Chapdelaine opened his eyes.
+
+"Here, father," said Maria, "take the reins!" He seized them, but
+before giving his horse the word, took some moments for a careful
+scrutiny of the frozen surface.
+
+"There is a little water on the ice," said he, "and the snow has
+melted; but we ought to be able to cross all the same. Get up,
+Charles Eugene." The horse lowered his head and sniffed at the white
+expanse in front of him, then adventured upon it without more ado.
+The ruts of the winter road were gone, the little firs which had
+marked it at intervals were nearly all fallen and lying in the
+half-thawed snow; as they passed the island the ice cracked twice
+without breaking. Charles Eugene trotted smartly toward the house of
+Charles Lindsay on the other bank. But when the sleigh reached
+midstream, below the great fall, the horse had perforce to slacken
+pace by reason of the water which had overflowed the ice and wetted
+the snow. Very slowly they approached the shore; there remained only
+some thirty feet to be crossed when the ice began to go up and down
+under the horse's hoofs.
+
+Old Chapdelaine, fully awake now, was on his feet; his eyes beneath
+the fur cap shone with courage and quick resolve.
+
+"Go on, Charles Eugene! Go on there!" he roared in his big voice.
+The wise beast dug his calked shoes through the deep slush and
+sprang for the bank, throwing himself into the collar at every.
+leap. Just as they reached land a cake of ice tilted beneath their
+weight and sank, leaving a space of open water.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine turned about. "We are the last to cross this
+year," said he. And he halted the horse to breathe before putting
+him at the hill.
+
+After following the main road a little way they left it for another
+which plunged into the woods. It was scarcely more than a rough
+trail, still beset with roots, turning and twisting in all
+directions to avoid boulders and stumps. Rising to a plateau where
+it wound back and forth through burnt lands it gave an occasional
+glimpse of steep hillside, of the rocks piled in the channel of the
+frozen rapid, the higher and precipitous opposing slope above the
+fall, and at the last resumed a desolate way amid fallen trees and
+blackened rampikes.
+
+The little stony hillocks they passed through seemed to close in
+behind them; the burnt lands gave place to darkly-crowding spruces
+and firs; now and then they caught momentary sight of the distant
+mountains on the Riviere Alec; and soon the travellers discerned a
+clearing in tile forest, a mounting column of smoke, the bark of a
+dog.
+
+"They will be glad to see you again, Maria," said her father. "They
+have been lonesome for you, every one of them."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOME IN THE CLEARING
+
+It was supper-time before Maria had answered all the questions, told
+of her journey down to the last and littlest item, and given not
+only the news of St. Prime and Peribonka but everything else she had
+been able to gather up upon the road.
+
+Tit'Be, seated facing his sister, smoked pipe after pipe without
+taking his eyes off her for a single moment, fearful of missing some
+highly important disclosure that she had hitherto held back. Little
+Alma Rose stood with an arm about her neck; Telesphore was listening
+too, as he mended his dog's harness with bits of string. Madame
+Chapdelaine stirred the fire in the big cast-iron stove, came and
+went, brought from the cupboard plates and dishes, the loaf of bread
+and pitcher of milk, tilted the great molasses jar over a glass jug.
+Not seldom she stopped to ask Maria something, or to catch what she
+was saying, and stood for a few moments dreaming, hands on her hips,
+as the villages spoken of rose before her in memory-
+
+"... And so the church is finished-a beautiful stone church, with
+pictures on the walls and coloured glass in the windows ... How
+splendid that must be! Johnny Bouchard built a new barn last year,
+and it is a little Perron, daughter of Abelard Perron of St. Jerome,
+who teaches school ... Eight years since I was at St. Prime, just
+to think of it! A fine parish indeed, that would have suited me
+nicely; good level land as far as you can see, no rock cropping up
+and no bush, everywhere square-cornered fields with handsome
+straight fences and heavy soil. Only two hours' drive to the railway
+... Perhaps it is wicked of me to say so; but all my married life
+I have felt sorry that your father's taste was for moving, and
+pushing on and on into the woods, and not for living on a farm in
+one of the old parishes."
+
+Through the little square window she threw a melancholy glance over
+the scanty cleared fields behind the house, the barn built of
+ill-joined planks that showed marks of fire, and the land beyond
+still covered with stumps and encompassed by the forest, whence any
+return of hay or grain could only be looked for at the end of long
+and patient waiting.
+
+"O look," said Alma Rose, "here is Chien come for his share of
+petting." The dog laid his long head with the sad eyes upon her
+knee; uttering little friendly words, Maria bent and caressed him.
+
+"He has been lonely without you like the rest of us," came from Alma
+Rose. "Every morning he used to look at your bed to see if you were
+not back." She called him to her. "Come, Chien; come and let me pet
+you too."
+
+Chien went obediently from one to the other, half closing his eyes
+at each pat. Maria looked about her to see if some change, unlikely
+though that might be, had taken place while she was away.
+
+The great three-decked stove stood in the centre of the house; the
+sheet-iron stove-pipe, after mounting for some feet, turned at a
+right angle and was carried through the house to the outside, so
+that none of the precious warmth should be lost. In a comer was the
+large wooden cupboard; close by, the table; a bench against the
+wall; on the other side of the door the sink and the pump. A
+partition beginning at the opposite wall seemed designed to divide
+the house in two, but it stopped before reaching the stove and did
+not begin again beyond it, in such fashion that these divisions of
+the only room were each enclosed on three sides and looked like a
+stage setting-that conventional type of scene where the audience are
+invited to imagine that two distinct apartments exist although they
+look into both at once.
+
+In one of these compartments the father and mother had their bed;
+Maria and Alma Rose in the other. A steep stairway ascended from a
+comer to the loft where the boys slept in the summer-time; with the
+coming of winter they moved their bed down and enjoyed the warmth of
+the stove with the rest of the family.
+
+Hanging upon the wall were the illustrated calendars of shopkeepers
+in Roberval and Chicoutimi; a picture of the infant Jesus in his
+mother's arms-a rosy-faced Jesus with great blue eyes, holding out
+his chubby hands; a representation of some unidentified saint
+looking rapturously heavenward; the first page of the Christmas
+number of a Quebec newspaper, filled with stars big as moons and
+angels flying with folded wings.
+
+"Were you a good girl while I was away, Alma Rose?"
+
+It was the mother who replied:--"Alma Rose was not too naughty;
+but Telesphore has been a perfect torment to me. It is not so much
+that he does what is wrong; but the things he says! One might
+suppose that the boy had not all his wits."
+
+Telesphore busied himself with the dog-harness and made believe not
+to hear. Young Telesphore's depravities supplied this household with
+its only domestic tragedy. To satisfy her own mind and give him a
+proper conviction of besetting sin his mother had fashioned for
+herself a most involved kind of polytheism, had peopled the world
+with evil spirits and good who influenced him alternately to err or
+to repent. The bay had come to regard himself as a mere battleground
+where devils who were very sly, and angels of excellent purpose but
+little experience, waged endless unequal warfare.
+
+Gloomily would he mutter before the empty preserve jar:--"It was
+the Demon of gluttony who tempted me."
+
+Returning from some escapade with torn and muddy clothes he would
+anticipate reproach with his explanation:--"The Demon of
+disobedience lured me into that. Beyond doubt it was he." With the
+same breath asserting indignation at being so misled, and protesting
+the blamelessness of his intentions.
+
+"But he must not be allowed to come back, eh, mother! He must not be
+allowed to come back, this bad spirit. I will take father's gun and
+I will shoot him ..."
+
+"You cannot shoot devils with a gun," objected his mother. "But when
+you feel the temptation coming, seize your rosary and say your
+prayers."
+
+Telesphore did not dare to gainsay this; but he shook his head
+doubtfully. The gun seemed to him both the surer and the more
+amusing way, and he was accustomed to picture to himself a
+tremendous duel, a lingering slaughter from which he would emerge
+without spot or blemish, forever set free from the wiles of the Evil
+One.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine came into the house and supper was served. The
+sign of the cross around the table; lips moving in a silent
+Benedicite, which Telesphore and Alma Rose repeated aloud; again the
+sign of the cross; the noise of chairs and bench drawn in; spoons
+clattering on plates. To Maria it was as though since her absence
+she was giving attention for the first time in her life to these
+sounds and movements; that they possessed a different significance
+from movements and sounds elsewhere, and invested with some peculiar
+quality of sweetness and peace all that happened in that house far
+off in the woods.
+
+Supper was nearly at an end when a footstep sounded without; Chien
+pricked up his ears but gave no growl.
+
+"A visitor," announced mother Chapdelaine, "Eutrope Gagnon has come
+over to see us."
+
+It was an easy guess, as Eutrope Gagnon was their only neighbour.
+The year before he had taken up land two miles away, with his
+brother; the brother had gone to the shanties for the winter, and he
+was left alone in the cabin they had built of charred logs. He
+appeared on the threshold, lantern in hand.
+
+"Greeting to each and all," was the salutation as he pulled off his
+woollen cap. "A fine night, and there is still a crust on the snow-,
+as the walking was good I thought that I would drop in this evening
+to find out if you were back."
+
+Although he came to see Maria, as all knew, it was to the father of
+the house that he directed his remarks, partly through shyness,
+partly out of deference to the manners of the country. He took the
+chair that was offered him.
+
+"The weather is mild; if it misses turning wet it will be by very
+little. One can feel that the spring rains are not far off ..."
+
+It was the orthodox beginning to one of those talks among country
+folk which are like an interminable song, full of repetitions, each
+speaker agreeing with the words last uttered and adding more to the
+same effect. And naturally the theme was the Canadian's never-ending
+plaint; his protest, falling short of actual revolt, against the
+heavy burden of the long winter. "The beasts have been in the stable
+since the end of October and the barn is just about empty," said
+mother Chapdelaine. "Unless spring comes soon I don't know what we
+are going to do."
+
+"Three weeks at least before they can be turned out to pasture."
+
+"A horse, three cows, a pig and the sheep, without speaking of the
+fowls; it takes something to feed them!" this from Tit'Be with an
+air of grown-up wisdom.
+
+He smoked and talked with the men now by virtue of his fourteen
+years, his broad shoulders and his knowledge of husbandry. Eight
+years ago he had begun to care for the stock, and to replenish the
+store of wood for the house with the aid of his little sled.
+Somewhat later he had learned to call Heulle! Heulle! very loudly
+behind the thin-flanked cows, and Hue! Dia! Harrie! when the horses
+were ploughing; to manage a hay-fork and to build a rail-fence.
+These two years he had taken turn beside his father with ax and
+scythe, driven the big wood-sleigh over the hard snow, sown and
+reaped on his own responsibility; and thus it was that no one
+disputed his right freely to express an opinion and to smoke
+incessantly the strong leaf-tobacco. His face was still smooth as a
+child's, with immature features and guileless eyes, and one not
+knowing him would probably have been surprised to hear him speak
+with all the deliberation of an older and experienced man, and to
+see him everlastingly charging his wooden pipe; but in the Province
+of Quebec the boys are looked upon as men when they undertake men's
+work, and as to their precocity in smoking there is always the
+excellent excuse that it afford some protection in summer against
+the attacking swarms of black-flies, mosquitos and sand-flies.
+
+"How nice it would be to live in a country where there is hardly any
+winter, and where the earth makes provision for man and beast. Up
+here man himself, by dint of work, must care for his animals and his
+land. If we did not have Esdras and Da'Be earning good wages in the
+woods how could we get along?"
+
+"But the soil is rich in these parts," said Eutrope Gagnon.
+
+"The soil is good but one must battle for it with the forest; and to
+live at all you must watch every copper, labour from morning to
+night, and do everything yourself because there is no one near to
+lend a hand."
+
+Mother Chapdelaine ended with a sigh. Her thoughts were ever fondly
+revisiting the older parishes where the land has long been cleared
+and cultivated, and where the houses are neighbourly-her lost
+paradise.
+
+Her husband clenched his fists and shook his head with an obstinate
+gesture. "Only you wait a few months ... When the boys are back
+from the woods we shall set to work, they two, Tit'Be, and I, and
+presently we shall have our land cleared. With four good men ax in
+hand and not afraid of work things will go quickly, even in the hard
+timber. Two years from now there will be grain harvested, and
+pasturage that will support a good herd of cattle. I tell you that
+we are going to make land."
+
+"Make land!" Rude phrase of the country, summing up in two words all
+the heartbreaking labour that transforms the incult woods, barren of
+sustenance, to smiling fields, ploughed and sown. Samuel
+Chapdelaine's eyes flamed with enthusiasm and determination as he
+spoke.
+
+For this was the passion of his life; the passion of a man whose
+soul was in the clearing, not the tilling of the earth. Five times
+since boyhood had he taken up wild land, built a house, a stable and
+a barn, wrested from the unbroken forest a comfortable farm; and
+five times he had sold out to begin it all again farther north,
+suddenly losing interest; energy and ambition vanishing once the
+first rough work was done, when neighbours appeared and the
+countryside began to be opened up and inhabited. Some there were who
+entered into his feelings; others praised the courage but thought
+little of the wisdom, and such were fond of saying that if good
+sense had led him to stay in one place he and his would now be at
+their ease.
+
+"At their ease ..." O dread God of the Scriptures, worshipped by
+these countryfolk of Quebec without a quibble or a doubt, who hast
+condemned man to earn his bread in the sweat of his face, canst Thou
+for a moment smooth the awful frown from Thy forehead when Thou art
+told that certain of these Thy creatures have escaped the doom, and
+live at their ease?
+
+"At their ease..." Truly to know what it means one must have
+toiled bitterly from dawn to dark with back and hands and feet, and
+the children of the soil are those who have best attained the
+knowledge. It means the burden lifted; the heavy burden of labour
+and of care. It means leave to rest, the which, even if it be
+unused, is a new mercy every moment. To the old it means so much of
+the pride of life as no one would deny them, the late revelation of
+unknown delights, an hour of idleness, a distant journey, a dainty
+or a purchase indulged in without anxious thought, the hundred and
+one things desirable that a competence assures.
+
+So constituted is the heart of man that most of those who have paid
+the ransom and won liberty-ease-have in the winning of it created
+their own incapacity for enjoying the conquest, and toil on till
+death; it is the others, the ill-endowed or the unlucky, who have
+been unable to overcome fortune and escape their slavery, to whom
+the state of ease has all those charms of the inaccessible.
+
+It may be that the Chapdelaines so were thinking, and each in his
+own fashion; the father with the unconquerable optimism of a man who
+knows himself strong and believes himself wise; the mother with a
+gentle resignation; the others, the younger ones, in a less definite
+way and without bitterness, seeing before them a long life in which
+they could not miss attaining happiness.
+
+Maria stole an occasional glance at Eutrope Gagnon, but she quickly
+turned away, for she always surprised his humbly worshipping eyes.
+For a year she had become used to his frequent visits, nor felt
+displeasure when every Sunday evening added to the family circle
+this brown face that was continually so patient and good-humoured;
+but the short absence of a month had not left things the same, for
+she had brought home to the fireside an undefined feeling that a
+page of her life was turned, in which he would have no share.
+
+The ordinary subjects of conversation exhausted, they played cards:
+quatre-sept and boeuf; then Eutrope looked at his big silver watch
+and said that it was time to be going. His lantern lit, the
+good-byes said, he halted on the threshold for a moment to observe
+the night.
+
+"It is raining!" he exclaimed. His hosts made toward the door to see
+for themselves; the rain had in truth begun, a spring rain with
+great drops that fell heavily, under which the snow was already
+softening and melting. "The sou'east has taken hold," announced the
+elder Chapdelaine. "Now we can say that the winter is practically
+over."
+
+Everyone had his own way of expressing relief and delight; but it
+was Maria who stood longest by the door, hearkening to the sweet
+patter of the rain, watching the indistinct movement of cloud in the
+dark sky above the darker mass of the forest, breathing the mild air
+that came from the south.
+
+"Spring is not far ... Spring is not far ..."
+
+In her heart she felt that never since the earth began was there a
+springtime like this springtime to-be.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FRANCOIS PASSES BY
+
+One morning three days later, on opening the door, Maria's ear
+caught a sound that made her stand motionless and listening. The
+distant and continuous thunder was the voice of wild waters,
+silenced all winter by the frost.
+
+"The ice is going out," she announced to those within. "You can hear
+the falls."
+
+This set them all talking once again of the opening season, and of
+the work soon to be commenced. The month of May came in with
+alternate warm rains and fine sunny days which gradually conquered
+the accumulated ice and snow of the long winter. Low stumps and
+roots were beginning to appear, although the shade of close-set
+cypress and fir prolonged the death-struggle of the perishing
+snowdrifts; the roads became quagmires; wherever the brown mosses
+were uncovered they were full of water as a sponge. In other lands
+it was already spring; vigorously the sap was running, buds were
+bursting and presently leaves would unfold; but the soil of far
+northern Canada must be rid of one chill and heavy mantle before
+clothing itself afresh in green.
+
+A dozen times in the course of the day Maria and her mother opened
+the window to feel the softness of the air, listen to the tinkle of
+water running from the last drifts on higher slopes, or hearken to
+the mighty roar telling that the exulting Peribonka was free, and
+hurrying to the lake a freight of ice-floes from the remote north.
+
+Chapdelaine seated himself that evening on the door-step for his
+smoke; a stirring of memory brought the remark--"Franc will soon
+be passing. He said that perhaps he would come to see us." Maria
+replied with a scarce audible "Yes," and blessed the shadow hiding
+her face.
+
+Ten days later he came, long after nightfall. The women were alone
+in the house with Tit'Be and the children, the father having gone
+for seed-grain to Honfleur whence he would only return on the
+morrow. Telesphore and Alma Rose were asleep, Tit'Be was having a
+last pipe before the family prayer, when Chien barked several times
+and got up to sniff at the closed door. Then two light taps were
+heard. The visitor waited for the invitation before he entered and
+stood before them.
+
+His excuses for so late a call were made without touch of
+awkwardness. "We are camped at the end of the portage above the
+rapids. The tent had to be pitched and things put in order to make
+the Belgians comfortable for the night. When I set out I knew it was
+hardly the hour for a call and that the paths through the woods must
+be pretty bad. But I started all the same, and when I saw your light..."
+
+His high Indian boots were caked with mud to the knee; he breathed a
+little deeply between words, like a man who has been running; but
+his keen eyes were quietly confident.
+
+"Only Tit'Be has changed," said he. "When you left Mistassini he was
+but so high..." With a hand he indicated the stature of a child.
+Mother Chapdelaine's face was bright with interest; doubly pleased
+to receive a visitor and at the chance of talking about old times.
+
+"Nor have you altered in these seven years; not a bit; as for Maria
+... surely you find a difference!"
+
+He gazed at Maria with something of wonder in his eyes. "You see
+that ... that I saw her the other day at Peribonka." Tone and
+manner showed that the meeting of a fortnight ago had been allowed
+to blot the remoter days from his recollection. But since the talk
+was of her he ventured an appraising glance.
+
+Her young vigour and health, the beautiful heavy hair and sunburnt
+neck of a country girl, the frank honesty of eye and gesture, all
+these things, thought he, were possessions of the child of seven
+years ago; and twice or thrice he shook his head as though to say
+that, in truth, she had not changed. But the consciousness too was
+there that he, if not she, had changed, for the sight of her before
+him took strange hold upon his heart.
+
+Maria's smile was a little timid, but soon she dared to raise her
+eyes and look at him in turn. Assuredly a handsome fellow; comely of
+body, revealing so much of supple strength; comely of face in
+well-cut feature and fearless eye ... To herself she said with
+some surprise that she had not thought him thus--more forward
+perhaps, talking freely and rather positively-but now he scarcely
+spoke at all and everything about him bad an air of perfect
+simplicity. Doubtless it was his expression that had given her this
+idea, and his bold straightforward manner.
+
+Mother Chapdelaine took up her questioning:--"And so you sold the
+farm when your father died?"
+
+"Yes, I sold everything. I was never a very good hand at farming,
+you know. Working in the shanties, trapping, making a little money
+from time to time as a guide or in trade with the Indians, that is
+the life for me; but to scratch away at the same fields from one
+year's end to another, and stay there forever, I would not have been
+able to stick to that all my life; I would have felt like a cow
+tethered to a stake."
+
+"That is so, some men are made that way. Samuel, for example, and
+you, and many another. It seem as if the woods had some magic for
+you ..." She shook her head and looked at him in wonderment.
+"Frozen in winter, devoured by flies in summer; living. in a tent on
+the snow, or in a log cabin full of chinks that the wind blows
+through, you like that better than spending your life on a good
+farm, near shops and houses. Just think of it; a nice bit of level
+land without a stump or a hollow, a good warm house all papered
+inside, fat cattle pasturing or in the stable; for people well
+stocked with implements and who keep their health, could there be
+anything better or happier?"
+
+Paradis, looked at the floor without making answer, perhaps a trifle
+ashamed of these wrong-headed tastes of his. "A fine life for those
+who are fond of the land," he said at last, "but I should never have
+been content."
+
+It was the everlasting conflict between the types: pioneer and
+farmer, the peasant from France who brought to new lands his ideals
+of ordered life and contented immobility, and that other in whom the
+vast wilderness awakened distant atavistic instincts for wandering
+and adventure.
+
+Accustomed for fifteen years to hear her mother vaunting the idyllic
+happiness of the farmer in the older settlements, Maria had very
+naturally come to believe that she was of the same mind; now she was
+no longer certain about it. But whoever was right she well knew that
+not one of the well-to-do young fellows at St. Prime, with his
+Sunday coat of fine cloth and his fur collar, was the equal of
+Paradis in muddy boots and faded woollen jersey.
+
+Replying to further questions he spoke of his journeys on the North
+Shore and to the head-waters of the rivers--of it all very naturally
+and with a shade of hesitation, scarcely knowing what to tell and
+what to leave out, for the people he was speaking to lived in much
+the same kind of country and their manner of life was little
+different.
+
+"Up there the winters are harder yet than here, and still longer. We
+have only dogs to draw our sleds, fine strong dogs, but bad-
+tempered and often half wild, and we feed them but once a day, in
+the evening, on frozen fish.... Yes, there are settlements, but
+almost no farming; the men live by trapping and fishing ... No, I
+never had any difficulty with the Indians; I always got on very well
+with them. I know nearly all those on the Mistassini and this river,
+for they used to come to our place before my father died. You see he
+often went trapping in winter when he was not in the shanties, and
+one season when he was at the head of the Riviere aux Foins, quite
+alone, a tree that he was cutting. for firewood slipped in falling,
+and it was the Indians who found him by chance next day, crushed and
+half-frozen though the weather was mild. He was in their game
+preserve, and they might very well have pretended not to see him and
+have left him to die there; but they put him on their toboggan,
+brought him to their camp, and looked after him. You knew my
+father: a rough man who often took a glass, but just in his
+dealings, and with a good name for doing that sort of thing himself.
+So when he parted with these Indians he told them to stop and see
+him in the spring when they would be coming down to Pointe Bleue
+with their furs-Francois Paradis of Mistassini,' said he to them,
+will not forget what you have done ... Francois Paradis.' And when
+they came in spring while running the river he looked after them
+well and every one carried away a new ax, a fine woollen blanket and
+tobacco for six months. Always after that they used to pay us a
+visit in the spring, and father had the pick of their best skins for
+less than the companies' buyers had to pay. When he died they treated
+me in the same way be cause I was his son and bore the same name,
+Francois Paradis. With more capital I could have made a good bit of
+money in this trade-a good bit of money."
+
+He seemed a little uncomfortable at having talked so much, and arose
+to go. "We shall be coming down in a few weeks and I will try to
+stay a little longer," he said as he departed. "It is good to see
+you again."
+
+On the door-step his keen eyes sought in Maria's for something that
+he might carry into the depth of the green woods whither he was
+bent; but they found no message. In her maidenly simplicity she
+feared to show herself too bold, and very resolutely she kept her
+glance lowered, like the young girls with richer parents who return
+from the convents in Chicoutimi trained to look on the world with a
+superhuman demureness.
+
+Scarcely was gone when the two women and Tit'Be knelt for the
+evening prayer. The mother led in a high voice, speaking very
+rapidly, the others answering in a low murmur. Five Paters, five
+Ayes, the Acts, and then a long responsive Litany.
+
+"Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our
+death..."
+
+"Immaculate heart of Jesus, have pity on us..."
+
+The window was open and through it came the distant roaring of the
+falls. The first mosquitos, of the spring, attracted by the light,
+entered likewise and the slender music of their whip filled the
+house. Tit'Be went and closed the window, then fell on his knees
+again beside the others.
+
+"Great St. Joseph, pray for us..."
+
+"St. Isidore, pray for us..."
+
+The prayers over, mother Chapdelaine sighed out contentedly:--"How
+pleasant it is to have a caller, when we see hardly anyone but
+Eutrope Gagnon from year's end to year's end. But that is what comes
+of living so far away in the woods ... Now, when I was a girl at
+St. Gedeon, the house was full of visitors nearly every Saturday
+evening and all Sunday: Adelard Saint-Onge who courted me for such a
+long time; Wilfrid Tremblay, the merchant, who had nice manners and
+was always trying to speak as the French do; many others as well--
+not counting your father who came to see us almost every night for
+three years, while I was making up my mind..."
+
+Three years! Maria thought to herself that she had only seen
+Francois Paradis twice since she was a child, and she felt ashamed
+at the beating of her heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WILD LAND
+
+AFTER a few chilly days, June suddenly brought veritable spring
+weather. A blazing sun warmed field and forest, the lingering
+patches of snow vanished even in the deep shade of the woods; the
+Peribonka rose and rose between its rocky banks until the alders and
+the roots of the nearer spruces were drowned; in the roads the mud
+was incredibly deep. The Canadian soil rid itself of the last traces
+of winter with a semblance of mad haste, as though in dread of
+another winter already on the way.
+
+Esdras and Da'Be returned from the shanties where they had worked
+all the winter. Esdras was the eldest of the family, a tall fellow
+with a huge frame, his face bronzed, his hair black; the low
+forehead and prominent chin gave him a Neronian profile,
+domineering, not without a suggestion of brutality; but be spoke
+softly, measuring his words, and was endlessly patient. In face
+alone had he anything of the tyrant; it was as though the long
+rigours of the climate and the fine sense and good humour of the
+race had refined his heart to a simplicity and kindliness that his
+formidable aspect seemed to deny.
+
+Da'Be, also tall, was less heavily built and more lively and merry.
+He was like his father.
+
+The married couple had given their first children, Esdras and Maria,
+fine, high-sounding, sonorous names; but they had apparently wearied
+of these solemnities, for the next two children never beard their
+real names pronounced; always had they been called by the
+affectionate diminutives of childhood, Da'Be and Tit'Be. With the
+last pair, however, there had been a return to the earlier
+ceremonious manner-Telesphore ... Alma Rose. "When the boys get
+back we are going to make land," the father had promised. And, with
+the help of Edwige Legare, their hired man, they set about the task.
+
+In the Province of Quebec there is much uncertainty in the spelling
+and the use of names. A scattered people in a huge half-wild
+country, unlettered for the most part and with no one to turn to for
+counsel but the priests, is apt to pay attention only to the sound
+of names, caring nothing about their appearance when written or the
+sex to which they pertain. Pronunciation has naturally varied in one
+mouth or another, in this family or that, and when a formal occasion
+calls for writing, each takes leave to spell his baptismal name in
+his own way, without a passing thought that there may be a canonical
+form. Borrowings from other languages have added to the
+uncertainties of orthography and gender. Individuals sign
+indifferently, Denise, Denije or Deneije; Conrad or Courade; men
+bear such names as Hermenegilde, Aglae, Edwige.
+
+Edwige Legare had worked for the Chapdelaines these eleven summers.
+That is to say, for wages of twenty dollars a month he was in
+harness each day from four in the morning till nine at night at any
+and every job that called for doing, bringing to it a sort of
+frenzied and inexhaustible enthusiasm; for he was one of those men
+incapable by his nature of working save at the full pitch of
+strength and energy, in a series of berserk rages. Short and broad,
+his eyes were the brightest blue--a thing rare in Quebec-at once
+piercing and guileless, set in a visage the colour of clay that
+always showed cruel traces of the razor, topped by hair of nearly
+the same shade. With a pride in his appearance that was hard to
+justify he shaved himself two or three times a week, always in the
+evening, before the bit of looking-glass that hung over the pump and
+by the feeble light of the little lamp-driving the steel through his
+stiff beard with groans that showed what it cost him m labour and
+anguish. Clad in shirt and trousers of brownish homespun, wearing
+huge dusty boots, he was from head to heel of a piece with the soil,
+nor was there aught in his face to redeem the impression of rustic
+uncouthness.
+
+Chapdelaine, his three sons and man, proceeded then to "make land."
+The forest still pressed hard upon the buildings they had put up a
+few years earlier: the little square house, the barn of planks that
+gaped apart, the stable built of blackened logs and chinked with
+rags and earth. Between the scanty fields of their clearing and the
+darkly encircling woods lay a broad stretch which the ax had but
+half-heartedly attacked. A few living trees had been cut for timber,
+and the dead ones, sawn and split, fed the great stove for a whole
+winter; but the place was a rough tangle of stumps and interlacing
+roots, of fallen trees too far rotted to burn, of others dead but
+still erect amid the alder scrub.
+
+Thither the five men made their way one morning and set to work at
+once, without a word, for every man's task had been settled
+beforehand.
+
+The father and Da'Be took their stand face to face on either side of
+a tree, and their axes, helved with birch, began to swing in rhythm.
+At first each hewed a deep notch, chopping steadily at the same spot
+for some seconds, then the ax rose swiftly and fell obliquely on the
+trunk a foot higher up; at every stroke a great chip flew, thick as
+the hand, splitting away with the grain. When the cuts were nearly
+meeting, one stopped and the other slowed down, leaving his ax in
+the wood for a moment at every blow; the mere strip, by some miracle
+still holding the tree erect, yielded at last, the trunk began to
+lean and the two axmen stepped back a pace and watched it fall,
+shouting at the same instant a warning of the danger.
+
+It was then the turn of Edwige Legare and Esdras; when the tree was
+not too heavy each took an end, clasping their strong hands beneath
+the trunk, and then raised themselves-backs straining, arms cracking
+under the stress-and carried it to the nearest heap with short
+unsteady steps, getting over the fallen timber with stumbling
+effort. When the burden seemed too heavy, TAW came forward leading
+Charles Eugene dragging a tug-bar with a strong chain; this was
+passed round the trunk and fastened, the horse bent his back, and
+with the muscles of his hindquarters standing out, hauled away the
+tree which scraped along the stumps and crushed the young alders to
+the ground.
+
+At noon Maria came out to the door-step and gave a long call to tell
+them that dinner was ready. Slowly they straightened up among the
+stumps, wiping away with the backs of their hands the drops of sweat
+that ran into their eyes, and made their way to the house.
+
+Already the pea-soup smoked in the plates. The five men set
+themselves at table without haste, as if sensation were somewhat
+dulled by the heavy work; but as they caught their breath a great
+hunger awoke, and soon they began to eat with keen appetite. The two
+women waited upon them, filling the empty plates, carrying about the
+great dish of pork and boiled potatoes, pouring out the hot tea.
+When the meat had vanished the diners filled their saucers with
+molasses in which they soaked large pieces of bread; hunger was
+quickly appeased, because they had eaten fast and without a word,
+and then plates were pushed back and chairs tilted with sighs of
+satisfaction, while hands were thrust into pockets for their pipes,
+and the pigs' bladders bulging with tobacco.
+
+Edwige Legare, seating himself on the door-step, proclaimed two or
+three times:--"I have dined well ... I have dined well ...
+with the air of a judge who renders an impartial decision; after
+which he leaned against the post and let the smoke of his pipe and
+the gaze of his small fight-coloured eyes pursue the, same
+purposeless wanderings. The elder Chapdelaine sank deeper and deeper
+into his chair, and ended by falling asleep; the others smoked and
+chatted about their work.
+
+"If there is anything," said the mother, "which could reconcile me
+to living so far away in the woods, it is seeing my men-folk make a
+nice bit of land-a nice bit of land that was all trees and stumps
+and roots, which one beholds in a fortnight as bare as the back of
+your hand, ready for the plough; surely nothing in the world can be
+more pleasing or better worth doing." The rest gave assent with
+nods, and were silent for a while, admiring the picture. Soon
+however Chapdelaine awoke, refreshed by his sleep and ready for
+work; then all arose and went out together.
+
+The place where they had worked in the morning was yet full of
+stumps and overgrown with alders. They set themselves to cutting and
+uprooting the alders, gathering a sheaf of branches in the hand and
+severing them with the ax, or sometimes digging the earth away about
+the roots and tearing up the whole bush together. The alders
+disposed of, there remained the stumps.
+
+Legare and Esdras attacked the smaller ones with no weapons but
+their axes and stout wooden Prizes. They first cut the roots
+spreading on the surface, then drove a lever well home, and, chests
+against the bar, threw all their weight upon it. When their efforts
+could not break the hundred ties binding the tree to the soil Legare
+continued to bear heavily that he might raise the stump a little,
+and while he groaned and grunted under the strain Esdras hewed away
+furiously level with the ground, severing one by one the remaining
+roots.
+
+A little distance away the other three men handled the
+stumping-machine with the aid of Charles Eugene. The pyramidal
+scaffolding was put in place above a large stump and lowered, the
+chains which were then attached to the root passed over a pulley,
+and the horse at the other end started away quickly, flinging
+himself against the traces and showering earth with his hoofs. A
+short and desperate charge, a mad leap often arrested after a few
+feet as by the stroke of fist; then the heavy steel blades a giant
+would swing up anew, gleaming in the sun, and fall with a dull sound
+upon the stubborn wood, while the horse took breath for a moment,
+awaiting with excited eye the word that would launch him forward
+again. And afterwards there was still the labour of hauling or
+rolling the big stumps to the pile-at fresh effort of back, of
+soil-stained hands with swollen veins, and stiffened arms that
+seemed grotesquely striving with the heavy trunk and the huge
+twisted roots.
+
+The sun dipped toward the horizon, disappeared; the sky took on
+softer hues above the forest's dark edge, and the hour of supper
+brought to the house five men the of the colour of the soil.
+
+While waiting Upon them Madame Chapdelaine asked a hundred questions
+about the day's work, and when the vision arose before her of this
+patch of land they had cleared, superbly bare, lying ready for the
+Plough, her spirit was possessed with something of a mystic's
+rapture.
+
+With hands upon her hips, refusing to seat herself at table, she
+extolled the beauty Of the world as it existed for her: not the
+beauty wherein human beings have no hand, which the townsman makes
+such an ado about with his unreal ecstasies.-mountains, lofty and
+bare, wild seas-but the quiet unaffected loveliness of the level
+champaign, finding its charm in the regularity of the long furrow
+and the sweetly-flowing stream--the naked champaign courting with
+willing abandon the fervent embraces of the sun.
+
+She sang the great deeds of the four Chapdelaines and Edwige Legare,
+their struggle against the savagery of nature, their triumph of the
+day. She awarded praises and displayed her own proper pride, albeit
+the five men smoked their wooden or clay pipes in silence,
+motionless as images after their long task; images of earthy hue,
+hollow-eyed with fatigue.
+
+"The stumps are hard to get out." at length said the elder
+Chapdelaine, "the roots have not rotted in the earth so much as I
+should have imagined. I calculate that we shall not be through for
+three weeks." He glanced questioningly at Legare who gravely
+confirmed him.
+
+"Three weeks ... Yes, confound it! That is what I think too."
+
+They fell silent again, patient and determined, like men who face a
+long war.
+
+The Canadian spring had but known a few weeks of life when, by
+calendar, the summer was already come; it seemed as if the local
+weather god had incontinently pushed the season forward with august
+finger to bring it again into accord with more favoured lands to the
+south. For torrid heat fell suddenly upon them, heat well-nigh as
+unmeasured as was the winter's cold. The tops of the spruces and
+cypresses, forgotten by the wind, were utterly still, and above the
+frowning outline stretched a sky bare of cloud which likewise seemed
+fixed and motionless. From dawn till nightfall a merciless sun
+calcined the ground.
+
+The five men worked on unceasingly, while from day to day the
+clearing extended its borders by a little; deep wounds in the
+uncovered soil showed the richness of it.
+
+Maria went forth one morning to carry them water. The father and
+Tit'Be were cutting alders, Da'Be and Esdras piled the cut trees.
+Edwige Legare was attacking a stump by himself; a hand against the
+trunk, he had grasped a root with the other as one seizes the leg of
+some gigantic adversary in a struggle, and he was fighting the
+combined forces of wood and earth like a man furious at the
+resistance of an enemy. Suddenly the stump yielded and lay upon the
+ground; he passed a hand over his forehead and sat down upon a root,
+running with sweat, overcome by the exertion. When Maria came near
+him with her pail half full of. water, the others having drunk, he
+was still seated, breathing deeply and saying in a bewildered
+way:--"I am done for ... Ah! I am done for." But he pulled himself
+together on seeing her, and roared out--"Cold water! Perdition! Give
+me cold water."
+
+Seizing the bucket he drank half its contents and poured the rest
+over his head and neck; still dripping, he threw himself afresh upon
+the vanquished stump and began to roll it toward a pile as one
+carries off a prize.
+
+Maria stayed for a few moments looking at the work of the men and
+the progress they had made, each day more evident, then hied her
+back to the house swinging the empty bucket, happy to feel herself
+alive and well under the bright sun, dreaming of all the joys that
+were to be hers, nor could be long delayed if only she were earnest
+and patient enough in her prayers. Even at a distance the voices of
+the men came to her across the surface of the ground baked by the
+heat; Esdras, his hands beneath a young jack pine, was saying in his
+quiet tones:--"Gently ... together now!"
+
+Legare was wrestling with some new inert foe, and swearing in his
+half-stifled way:--"Perdition! I'll make you stir, so I will." His
+gasps were nearly as audible as the words. Taking breath for a
+second he rushed once more into the fray, arms straining, wrenching
+with his great back. And yet again his voice was raised in oaths and
+lamentations:-"I tell you that I'll have you ... Oh you rascal!
+Isn't it hot? . . I'm pretty nearly finished ..." His complaints
+ripened into one mighty cry:--"Boss! We are going to kill
+ourselves making land."
+
+Old Chapdelaine's voice was husky but still cheerful as he answered:
+"Tough! Edwige, tough! The pea-soup will soon be ready."
+
+And in truth it was not long before Maria, once more on the
+door-step, shaping her hands to carry the sound, sent forth the
+ringing call to dinner.
+
+Toward evening a breeze arose and a delicious coolness fell upon the
+earth like a pardon. But the sky remained cloudless.
+
+"If the fine weather lasts," said mother Chapdelaine, "the
+blueberries will be ripe for the feast of Ste. Anne."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE VOWS
+
+THE fine weather continued, and early in July the blueberries were
+ripe.
+
+Where the fire had passed, on rocky slopes, wherever the woods were
+thin and the sun could penetrate, the ground had been clad in almost
+unbroken pink by the laurel's myriad tufts of bloom; at first the
+reddening blueberries contended with them in glowing colour, but
+under the constant sun these slowly turned to pale blue, to royal
+blue, to deepest purple, and when July brought the feast of Ste.
+Anne the bushes laden with fruit were broad patches of violet amid
+the rosy masses now beginning to fade.
+
+The forests of Quebec are rich in wild berries; cranberries, Indian
+pears, black currants, sarsaparilla spring up freely in the wake of
+the great fires, but the blueberry, the bilberry or whortleberry of
+France, is of all the most abundant and delicious. The gathering of
+them, from July to September, is an industry for many families who
+spend the whole day in the woods; strings of children down to the
+tiniest go swinging their tin pails, empty in the morning, full and
+heavy by evening. Others only gather the blueberries for their own
+use, either to make jam or the famous pies national to French
+Canada.
+
+Two or three times in the very beginning of July Maria, with
+Telesphore and Alma Rose, went to pick blueberries; but their day
+had not come, and the gleanings barely sufficed for a few tarts of
+proportions to excite a smile.
+
+"On the feast of Ste. Anne," said their mother by way of
+consolation, "we shall all go a-gathering; the men as well, and
+whoever fails to bring back a full pail is not to have any."
+
+But Saturday, the eve of Ste. Anne's day, was memorable to the
+Chapdelaines; an evening of company such as their house in the
+forest had never seen.
+
+When the men returned from work Eutrope Gagnon was already there. He
+had supped, he said, and while the others were at their meal he sat
+by the door in the cooler air that entered, balancing his chair on
+two legs. The pipes going, talk naturally turned toward the labours
+of the soil, and the care of stock.
+
+"With five men," said Eutrope, "you have a good bit of land to show
+in a short while. But working alone, as I do, without a horse to
+draw the heavy logs, one makes poor headway and has a hard time of
+it. However you are always getting on, getting on."
+
+Madame Chapdelaine, liking him, and feeling a great sympathy for his
+solitary labour in this worthy cause, gave him a few words of
+encouragement. "You don't make very quick progress by yourself, that
+is true enough, but a man lives on very little when he is alone, and
+then your brother Egide will be coming back from the drive with two
+or three hundred dollars at least, in time for the hay-making and
+the harvest, and, if you both stay here next winter, in less than
+two years you will have a good farm."
+
+Assenting with a nod, his glance found Maria, as though drawn
+thither by the thought that in two years, fortune favouring, he
+might hope.
+
+"How does the drive go?" asked Esdras. "Is there any news from that
+quarter?"
+
+"I had word through Ferdina Larouche, a son of Thadee Larouche of
+Honfleur, who got back from La Tuque last month. He said that things
+were going well; the men were not having too bad a time."
+
+The shanties, the drive, these are the two chief heads of the great
+lumbering industry, even of greater importance for the Province of
+Quebec than is farming. From October till April the axes never cease
+falling, while sturdy horses draw the logs over the snow to the
+banks of the frozen rivers; and, when spring comes, the piles melt
+one after another into the rising waters and begin their long
+adventurous journey through the rapids. At every abrupt turn, at
+every fall, where logs jam and pile, must be found the strong and
+nimble river-drivers, practised at the dangerous work, at making
+their way across the floating timber, breaking the jams, aiding with
+ax and pike-pole the free descent of this moving forest.
+
+"A hard time!" exclaimed Legare with scorn. "The young fellows of
+to-day don't know the meaning of the words. After three months in
+the woods they are in a hurry to get home and buy yellow boots,
+stiff hats and cigarettes, and to go and see their girls. Even in
+the shanties, as things are now, they are as well fed as in a hotel,
+with meat and potatoes all winter long. Now, thirty years ago ..."
+
+He broke off for a moment, expressing with a shake of his head those
+prodigious changes that the years had wrought.
+
+"Thirty years ago. when the railway from Quebec was built, I was
+there; that was something like hardship, I can tell you! I was only
+sixteen years of age but I chopped with the rest of them to clear
+the right of way, always twenty-five miles ahead of the steel, and
+for fourteen months I never clapped eye on a house. We had no tents,
+summer or winter, only shelters of boughs that we made for ourselves. 
+And from morning till night it was chop, chop, chop,--eaten by the 
+flies, and in the course of the same day soaked with rain and 
+roasted by the sun."
+
+"Every Monday morning they opened a sack of flour and we made
+ourselves a bucketful of pancakes, and all the rest of the week,
+three times a day, one dug into that pail for something to eat. By
+Wednesday, no longer any pancakes, because they were all stuck
+together; nothing there but a mass of dough. One cut off a big chunk
+of dough with one's knife, put that in his belly, and then chopped
+and chopped again!"
+
+"When we got to Chicoutimi where provisions could reach us by water
+we were worse off than Indians, pretty nearly naked, all scratched
+and torn, and I well remember some who began to cry when told they
+could go home, because they thought they would find all their people
+dead, so long bad the time seemed to them. Hardship! That was
+hardship if you like."
+
+"That is so," said Chapdelaine, "I can recall those days. Not a
+single house on the north side of the lake: no one but Indians and a
+few trappers who made their way up here in summer by canoe and in
+winter with dog-sleds, much as it is now in the Labrador."
+
+The young folk were listening keenly to these tales of former times.
+"And now," said Esdras, "here we are fifteen miles beyond the lake,
+and when the Roberval boat is running we can get to the railway in
+twelve hours."
+
+They meditated upon this for a while without a word, contrasting
+past and present; the cruel harshness of life as once it was, the
+easy day's journey now separating them from the marvels of the iron
+way, and the thought of it filled them with naive wonder.
+
+All at once Chien set up a low growl; the sound was heard of
+approaching footsteps. "Another visitor!" Madame Chapdelaine
+announced in a tone mingling pleasure and astonishment.
+
+Maria also arose, agitated, smoothing her hair with unconscious
+hand; but it was Ephrem Surprenant of Honfleur who opened the door.
+
+"We have come to pay you a visit!" He shouted this with the air of
+one who announces a great piece of news. Behind him was someone
+unknown to them, who bowed and smiled in a very mannerly way.
+
+"My nephew Lorenzo," was Ephrem Surprenant's introduction, "a son of
+my brother Elzear who died last autumn. You never met him, it is a
+long time since he left this country for the States."
+
+They were quick to find a chair for the young man from the States,
+and the uncle undertook the duty of establishing the nephew's
+genealogy on both sides of the house, and of setting forth his age,
+trade and the particulars of his life, in obedience to the Canadian
+custom. "Yes, a son of my brother Elzear who married a young
+Bourglouis of Kiskisink. You should be able to recall that, Madame
+Chapdelaine?"
+
+From the depths of her memory mother Chapdelaine unearthed a number
+of Surprenants and as many Bourglouis, and gave the list with their
+baptismal names, successive places of residence and a full record of
+their alliances.
+
+"Right. Precisely right. Well, this one here is Lorenzo. He has
+been in the States for many years, working in a factory."
+
+Frankly interested, everyone took another good look at Lorenzo
+Surprenant. His face was rounded, with well-cut features, eyes
+gentle and unwavering, hands white; with his head a little on one
+side he smiled amiably, neither superior nor embarrassed under this
+concentrated gaze.
+
+"He came here," continued his uncle, "to settle affairs after the
+death of Elzear, and to try to sell the farm."
+
+"He has no wish to hold on to the land and cultivate it?" questioned
+the elder Chapdelaine.
+
+Lorenzo Surprenant's smile broadened and he shook his head. "No, the
+idea of settling down on the farm does not tempt me, not in
+theleast. I earn good wages where I am and like the place very well;
+I am used to the work."
+
+He checked himself, but it was plain that after the kind of life he
+had been living and what he had seen of the world, existence on a
+farm between a humble little village and the forest seemed a thing
+insupportable.
+
+"When I was a girl," said mother Chapdelaine, "pretty nearly
+everyone went off to the States. Farming did not pay as well as it
+does now, prices were low, we were always hearing of the big wages
+earned over there in the factories, and every year one family after
+another sold out for next to nothing and left Canada. Some made a
+lot of money, no doubt of that, especially those families with
+plenty of daughters; but now it is different and they are not going
+as once they did ... So you are selling the farm?"
+
+"Yes, there has been some talk with three Frenchmen who came to
+Mistook last month. I expect we shall make a bargain."
+
+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 ...
+
+In the stillness of the night the roar of the fall sounds loud and
+near; the north-west wind sways the tops of spruce and fir with a
+sweet cool sighing; again and again, farther away and yet farther,
+an owl is hooting; the chill that ushers in the dawn is still
+remote. And Maria, in perfect contentment, rests upon the step,
+watching the ruddy beam from her fire-flickering, disappearing,
+quickened again to birth.
+
+She seems to remember someone long since whispering in her ear that
+the world and life were cheerless and gray. The daily round,
+brightened only by a few unsatisfying, fleeting pleasures; the slow
+passage of unchanging years; the encounter with some young man, like
+other young men, whose patient and hopeful courting ends by whining
+affection; a marriage then, and afterwards a vista of days under
+another roof, but scarce different from those that went before. So
+does one live, the voice had told her. Naught very dreadful in the
+prospect, and, even were it so, what possible but submission; yet
+all level, dreary and chill as an autumn field.
+
+It is not true! Alone there in the darkness Maria shakes her head, a
+smile upon her lips, and knows how far from true it is. When she
+thinks of Paradis, his look, his bearing, of what they are and will
+be to one another, be and she, something within her bosom has
+strange power to burn with the touch of fire, and yet to make her
+shiver. All the strong youth of her, the long-suffering of her
+sooth-fast heart find place in it; in the upspringing of hope and of
+longing, this vision of her approaching miracle of happiness.
+
+Below the oven the red gleam quivers and fails.
+
+"The bread must be ready!" she murmurs to herself. But she cannot
+bring herself at once to rise, loth as she is to end the fair dream
+that seems only beginning.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A MEAGER REAPING
+
+SEPTEMBER arrived, and the dryness so welcome for the hay-making
+persisted till it became a disaster. According to the Chapdelaines,
+never had the country been visited with such a drought as this, and
+every day a fresh motive was suggested for the divine displeasure.
+
+Oats and wheat took on a sickly colour ere attaining their growth; a
+merciless sun withered the grass and the clover aftermath, and all
+day long the famished cows stood lowing with their heads over the
+fences. They had to be watched continually, for even the meager
+standing crop was a sore temptation, and never a day went by but one
+of them broke through the rails in the attempt to appease her hunger
+among the grain.
+
+Then, of a sudden one evening, as though weary of a constancy so
+unusual, the wind shifted and in the morning came the rain. It fell
+off and on for a week, and when it ceased and the wind hauled again
+to the north-west, autumn had come.
+
+The autumn! And it seemed as though spring were here but yesterday.
+The grain was yet unripe, though yellowed by the drought; nothing
+save the hay was in barn; the other crops could draw nutriment from
+the soil only while the too brief summer warmed it, and already
+autumn was here, the forerunner of relentless winter, of the frosts,
+and soon the snows ...
+
+Between the wet days there was still fine bright weather, hot toward
+noon, when one might fancy that all was as it had been: the harvest
+still unreaped, the changeless setting of spruces and firs, and ever
+the same sunsets of gray and opal, opal and gold, and skies of misty
+blue above the same dark woodland. But in the mornings the grass was
+sometimes white with rime, and swiftly followed the earliest dry
+frosts which killed and blackened the tops of the potatoes.
+
+Then, for the first time, a film of ice appeared upon the
+drinking-trough; melted by the afternoon sun it was there a few days
+later, and yet a third time in the same week. Frequent changes of
+wind brought an alternation of mild rainy days and frosty mornings;
+but every time the wind came afresh from the north-west it was a
+little colder, a little more remindful of the icy winter blasts.
+Everywhere is autumn a melancholy season, charged with regrets for
+that which is departing, with shrinking from what is to come; but
+under the Canadian skies it is sadder and more moving than
+elsewhere, as though one were bewailing the death of a mortal
+summoned untimely by the gods before he has lived out his span.
+
+Through the increasing cold, the early frosts, the threats of snow,
+they held back their hands and put off the reaping from day to day,
+encouraging the meager grain to steal a little nourishment from the
+earth's failing veins and the spiritless sun. At length, harvest
+they must, for October approached. About the time when the leaves of
+birches and aspens were turning, the oats and the wheat were cut and
+carried to the barn under a cloudless sky, but without rejoicing.
+
+The yield of grain was poor enough, yet the hay-crop had been
+excellent, so that the year as a whole gave occasion neither for
+excess of joy nor sorrow. However, it was long before the
+Chapdelaines, in evening talk, ceased deploring the unheard-of
+August droughts, the unprecedented September frosts, which betrayed
+their hopes. Against the miserly shortness of the summer and the
+harshness of a climate that shows no mercy they did not rebel, were
+even without a touch of bitterness; but they did not give up
+contrasting the season with that other year of wonders which fond
+imagination made the standard of their comparisons; and thus was
+ever on their lips the countryman's perpetual lament, so reasonable
+to the ear, but which recurs unfailingly: "Had it only been an
+ordinary year!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ENTRENCHED AGAINST WINTER
+
+ONE October morning Maria's first vision on arising was of countless
+snow-flakes sifting lazily from the skies. The ground was covered,
+the trees white; verily it seemed that autumn was over, when in
+other lands it had scarce begun.
+
+But Edwige Legare thus pronounced sentence: "After the first
+snowfall there is yet a month before winter sets in. The old folks
+always so declared, and I believe it myself." He was right; for in
+two days a rain carried off the snow and the dark soil again lay
+bare. Still the warning was heeded, and they set about preparations;
+the yearly defences against the snow that may not be trifled with,
+and the piercing cold.
+
+Esdras and Da'Be protected the foundation of their dwelling with
+earth and sand, making an embankment at the foot of the walls; the
+other men, armed with hammer and nails, went round the outside of
+the house, nailing up, closing chinks, remedying as best they could
+the year's wear and tear. Within, the women forced rags into the
+crevices, pasted upon the wainscotting at the north-west side old
+newspapers brought from the village and carefully preserved, tested
+with their hands in every corner for draughts.
+
+These things accomplished, the next task was to lay in the winter's
+store of wood. Beyond the fields, at the border of the forest plenty
+of dead trees yet were standing. Esdras and Legare took ax in hand
+and felled for three days; the trunks were piled, awaiting another
+fall of snow when they could be loaded on the big wood-sleigh.
+
+All through October, frosty and rainy days came alternately, and
+meanwhile the woods were putting on a dress of unearthly loveliness.
+Five hundred paces from the Chapdelaine house the bank of the
+Peribonka fell steeply to the rapid water and the huge blocks of
+stone above the fall, and across the river the opposite bank rose in
+the fashion of a rocky amphitheatre, mounting to loftier heights-an
+amphitheatre trending in a vast curve to the northward. Of the
+birches, aspens, alders and wild cherries scattered upon the slope,
+October made splashes of many-tinted red and gold. Throughout these
+weeks the ruddy brown of mosses, the changeless green of fir and
+cypress, were no more than a background, a setting only for the
+ravishing colours of those leaves born with the spring, that perish
+with the autumn. The wonder of their dying spread over the hills and
+unrolled itself, an endless riband following the river, ever as
+beautiful, as rich in shades brilliant and soft, as enrapturing,
+when they pawed into the remoteness of far northern regions and were
+unseen by human eye.
+
+But ere long there sweeps from out the cold north a mighty wind like
+a final sentence of death, the cruel ending to a reprieve, and soon
+the poor leaves, brown, red and golden, shaken too unkindly, strow
+the ground; the snow covers them, and the white expanse has only for
+adornment the sombre green of trees that alter not their
+garb-triumphing now, as do those women inspired with bitter wisdom
+who barter their right to beauty for life everlasting.
+
+In November Esdras, Da'Be and Edwige Legare went off again to the
+shanties. The father and Tit'Be harnessed Charles Eugene to the
+wood-sleigh, and laboured at hauling in the trees that had been cut,
+and piling them near the house; that done, the two men took the
+double-handed saw and sawed, sawed, sawed from morning till night;
+it was then the turn of the axes, and the logs were split as their
+size required. Nothing remained but to cord the split wood in the
+shed beside the house, where it was sheltered from the snow; the
+huge piles mingling the resinous cypress which gives a quick hot
+flame, spruce and red birch, burning steadily and longer,
+close-grained white birch with its marble-like surface, slower yet
+to be consumed and leaving red embers in the morning after a long
+winter's night.
+
+The moment for laying in wood is also that of the slaughtering.
+After entrenching against cold comes the defence against hunger. The
+quarters of pork went into the brine-tub; from a beam in the shed
+there hung the side of a fat heifer-the other half sold to people in
+Honfleur-which the cold would keep fresh till spring; sacks of flour
+were piled in a corner of the house, and Tit'Be, provided with a
+spool of brass wire, set himself to making nooses for hares.
+
+After the bustle of summer they relapsed into easy-going ways, for
+the summer is painfully short and one must:-not lose a single hour
+of those precious weeks when it is possible to work on the land,
+whereas the winter drags slowly and gives all too much time for the
+tasks it brings.
+
+The house became the centre of the universe; in truth the only spot
+where life could be sustained, and more than ever the great
+cast-iron stove was the soul of it. Every little while some member
+of the family fetched a couple of logs from under the staircase;
+cypress in the morning, spruce throughout the day, in the evening
+birch, pushing them in upon the live coals. Whenever the heat
+failed, mother Chapdelaine might be heard saying anxiously.-" Don't
+let the fire out, children." Whereupon Maria, Tit'Be or Telesphore
+would open the little door, glance in and hasten to the pile of
+wood.
+
+In the mornings Tit'Be jumped out of bed long before daylight to see
+if the great sticks of birch had done their duty and burned all
+night; should, unluckily, the fire be out he lost no time in
+rekindling it with birch-bark and cypress branches, placed heavier
+pieces on the mounting flame, and ran back to snuggle under the
+brown woollen blankets and patchwork quilt till the comforting
+warmth once more filled the house.
+
+Outside, the neighbouring forest, and even the fields won from it,
+were an alien unfriendly world, upon which they looked wonderingly
+through the little square windows. And sometimes this world was
+strangely beautiful in its frozen immobility, with a sky of flawless
+blue and a brilliant sun that sparkled on the snow; but the
+immaculateness of the blue and the white alike was pitiless and gave
+hint of the murderous cold.
+
+Days there were when the weather was tempered and the snow fell
+straight from the clouds, concealing all; the ground and the low
+growth was covered little by little, the dark line of the woods was
+hidden behind the curtain of serried flakes. Then in the morning the
+sky was clear again, but the fierce northwest wind swayed the
+heavens. Powdery snow, whipped from the ground, drove across the
+burnt lands and the clearings in blinding squalls, and heaped itself
+behind whatever broke the force of the gale. To the south-east of
+the house it built an enormous cone, and between house and stable
+raised a drift five feet high through which the shovel had to carve
+a path; but to windward the ground was bare, scoured by the
+persistent blast.
+
+On such days as these the men scarcely left the house except to care
+for the beasts, and came back on the run, their faces rasped with
+the cold and shining-wet with snow-crystals melted by the heat of
+the house. Chapdelaine would pluck the icicles from his moustache,
+slowly draw off his sheepskin-lined coat and settle himself by the
+stove with a satisfied sigh. "The pump is not frozen?" he asks.
+"Is there plenty of wood in the house?"
+
+Assured that the frail wooden fortress is provided with water, wood
+and food, he gives himself up to the indolences of winter quarters,
+smoking pipes innumerable while the women-folk are busy with the
+evening meal. The cold snaps the nails in the plank walls with
+reports like pistol-shots; the stove crammed with birch roars
+lustily; the howling of the wind without is like the cries of a
+besieging host.
+
+"It must be a bad day in the woods!" thinks Maria to herself; and
+then perceives that she has spoken aloud.
+
+"In the woods they are better off than we are here," answers her
+father. "Up there where the trees stand close together one does not
+feel the wind. You can be sure that Esdras and Da'Be are all right."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+But it was not of Esdras and Da'Be that she had just been thinking.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+ONE THOUSAND AVES
+
+SINCE the coming of winter they had often talked at the Chapdelaines
+about the holidays, and now these were drawing near.
+
+"I am wondering whether we shall have any callers on New Year's
+Day," said Madame Chapdelaine one evening. She went over the list of
+all relatives and friends able to make the venture. "Azalma Larouche
+does not live so far away, but she--she is not very energetic. The
+people at St. Prime would not me to take the journey. Possibly
+Wilfrid or Ferdinand might drive from St. Gedeon if the ice on the
+lake were in good condition." A sigh disclosed that she still was
+dreaming of the coming and going in the old parishes at the time of
+the New Year, the family dinners, the unlooked-for visits of kindred
+arriving by sleigh from the next village, buried under rugs and
+furs, behind a horse whom coat was white with frost.
+
+Maria's thoughts were turning in another direction. "If the roads
+are as bad as they were last year," said she, "we shall not be able
+to attend the midnight mass. And yet I should so much have liked it
+this time, and father promised ..."
+
+Through the little window they looked on the gray sky, and found
+little to cheer them. To go to midnight mass is the natural and
+strong desire of every French-Canadian peasant, even of those living
+farthest from the settlements. What do they not face to accomplish
+it I Arctic cold, the woods at night, obliterated roads, great
+distances do but add to the impressiveness and the mystery. This
+anniversary of the birth of Jesus is more to them than a mere
+fixture in the calendar with rites appropriate; it signifies the
+renewed promise of salvation, an occasion of deep rejoicing, and
+those gathered in the wooden church are imbued with sincerest
+fervour, are pervaded with a deep sense of the supernatural. This
+year, more than ever, Maria yearned to attend the-mass after many
+weeks of remoteness from houses and from churches; the favours she
+would fain demand seemed more likely to be granted were she able to
+prefer them before the altar, aided in heavenward flight by the
+wings of music.
+
+But toward the middle of December much snow fell, dry and fine as
+dust, and three days before Christmas the north-west wind arose and
+made an end of the roads. On the morrow of the storm Chapdelaine
+harnessed Charles Eugene to the heavy sleigh and departed with
+Tit'Be; they took shovels to clear the way or lay out another route.
+The two men returned by noon, worn out, white with snow, asserting
+that there would be no breaking through for several days. The
+disappointment must be borne; Maria sighed, but the idea came to her
+that there might be other means of attaining the divine goodwill.
+
+"Is it true, mother," she asked as evening was falling, "that if you
+repeat a thousand Aves on the day before Christmas you are always
+granted the thing you seek?"
+
+"Quite true," her mother reverently answered. "One desiring a
+favour who says her thousand Aves properly before midnight on
+Christmas Eve, very seldom fails to receive what she asks."
+
+On Christmas Eve the weather was cold but windless. The two men went
+out betimes in another effort to beat down the road, with no great
+hope of success; but long before they left, and indeed long before
+daylight, Maria began to recite her Aves. Awakening very early, she
+took her rosary from beneath the pillow and swiftly repeated the
+prayer, passing from the last word to the first without stopping,
+and counting, bead by bead.
+
+The others were still asleep; but Chien left his place at the stove
+when he saw that she moved, and came to sit beside the bed, gravely
+reposing his head upon the coverings. Maria's glance wandered over
+the long white muzzle resting upon the brown wool, the liquid eyes
+filled with the dumb creature's pathetic trustfulness, the drooping
+glossy ears; while she ceased not to murmur the sacred words.-" Hail
+Mary, full of grace ..."
+
+Soon Tit'Be jumped from bed to put wood upon the fire; an impulse of
+shyness caused Maria to turn away and hide her rosary under the
+coverlet as she continued to pray. The stove roared; Chien went back
+to his usual spot, and for another half-hour nothing was stirring in
+the house save the fingers of Maria numbering the boxwood beads, and
+her lips as they moved rapidly in the task she had laid upon
+herself.
+
+Then must she arise, for the day was dawning; make the porridge and
+the pancakes while the men went to the stable to care for the
+animals, wait upon them when they returned, wash the dishes, sweep
+the house. What time she attended to these things, Maria was ever
+raising a little higher toward heaven the monument of her Aves; but
+the rosary had to be laid aside and it was hard to keep a true
+reckoning. As the morning advanced however, no urgent duty calling,
+she was able to sit by the window and steadily pursue her
+undertaking.
+
+Noon; and already three hundred Aves. Her anxiety lessens, for now
+she feels almost sure of finishing in time. It comes to her mind
+that fasting would give a further title to heavenly consideration,
+and might, with reason, turn hopes into certainties; wherefore she
+ate but little, foregoing all those things she liked the best.
+
+Throughout the afternoon she must knit the woollen garment designed
+for her father as a New Year's gift, and though the faithful
+repetition ceased not, the work of her fingers was something of a
+distraction and a delay; then came the long preparations for supper,
+and finally Tit'Be brought his mittens to be mended, so all this
+time the Ayes made slow and impeded progress, like some devout
+procession brought to halt by secular interruption.
+
+But when it was evening and the tasks of the day were done, she
+could resume her seat by the window where the feeble light of the
+lamp did not invade the darkness, look forth upon the fields hidden
+beneath their icy cloak, take the rosary once more in her hands and
+throw her heart into the prayer. She was happy that so many Ayes
+were left to be recited, since labour and difficulty could only add
+merit to her endeavour; even did she wish to humble herself further
+and give force to her prayer by some posture that would bring
+uneasiness and pain, by some chastening of the flesh.
+
+Her father and Tit'Be smoked, their feet against the stove; her
+mother sewed new ties to old moose-hide moccasins. Outside, the moon
+had risen, flooding the chill whiteness with colder light, and the
+heavens were of a marvellous purity and depth, sown with stars that
+shone like that wondrous star of old.
+
+"Blessed art Thou amongst women..."
+
+Through repeating the short prayer oftentimes and quickly she grew
+confused and sometimes stopped, her dazed mind lost among the
+well-known words. It is only for a moment; sighing she closes her
+eyes, and the phrase which rises at once to her memory and her lips
+ceases to be mechanical, detaches itself, again stands forth in all
+its hallowed meaning.
+
+"Blessed art Thou amongst women ..."
+
+At length a heaviness weighs upon her, and the holy words are spoken
+with greater effort and slowly; yet the beads pass through her
+fingers in endless succession, and each one launches the offering of
+an Ave to that sky where Mary the compassionate is surely seated on
+her throne, hearkening to the music of prayers that ever rise, and
+brooding over the memory of that blest night.
+
+"The Lord is with Thee ..."
+
+The fence-rails were very black upon the white expanse palely
+lighted by the moon; trunks of birch trees standing against the dark
+background of forest were like the skeletons of living creatures
+smitten with the cold and stricken by death; but the glacial night
+was awesome rather than affrighting.
+
+"With the roads as they are we will not be the only ones who have to
+stay at home this evening," said Madame Chapdelaine. "But is there
+anything more lovely than the midnight mass at Saint Coeur de Marie,
+with Yvonne Boilly playing the harmonium, and Pacifique Simard who
+sings the Latin so beautifully!" She was very careful to say nothing
+that might seem reproachful or complaining on such a night as this,
+but in spite of herself the words and tone had a sad ring of
+loneliness and remoteness. Her husband noticed it, and, himself
+under the influence of the day, was quick to take the blame.
+
+"It is true enough, Laura, that you would have had a happier life
+with some other man than me, who lived on a comfortable farm, near
+the settlements."
+
+"No, Samuel; what the good God does is always right. I grumble ...
+Of course I grumble. Is there anyone who hasn't something to grumble
+about? But we have never been unhappy, we two; we have managed to
+live without faring over-badly; the boys are fine boys,
+hard-working, who bring us nearly all they earn; Maria too is a good
+girl..."
+
+Affected by these memories of the past, they also were thinking of
+the candles already lit, of the hymns soon to be raised in honour of
+the Saviour's birth. Life had always been a simple and a
+straightforward thing for them; severe but inevitable toil, a good
+understanding between man and wife, obedience alike to the laws of
+nature and of the. Church. Everything was drawn into the same woof;
+the rites of their religion and the daily routine of existence so
+woven together that they could not distinguish the devout emotion
+possessing them from the mute love of each for each.
+
+Little Alma Rose heard praises in the air and hastened to demand her
+portion. "I have been a good girl too, haven't I, father?"
+
+"Certainly ... Certainly. A black sin indeed if one were naughty
+on the day when the little Jesus was born."
+
+To the children, Jesus of Nazareth was ever "the little Jesus," the
+curly-headed babe of the sacred picture; and in truth, for the
+parents as well, such was the image oftenest brought to mind by the
+Name. Not the sad enigmatic Christ of the Protestant, but a being
+more familiar and less august, a newborn infant in his mother's
+arms, or at least a tiny child who might be loved without great
+effort of the mind or any thought of the coming sacrifice.
+
+"Would you like me to rock you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He took the little girl on his knees and began to swing her back and
+forth.
+
+"And are we going to sing too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well; now sing with me:"
+
+    Dans son etable,
+    Que Jesus est charmant!
+    Qu'il est aimable
+    Dans son abaissement
+
+He began in quiet tones that he might not drown the other slender
+voice; but soon emotion carried him away and he sang with all his
+might, his gaze dreamy and remote. Telesphore drew near and looked
+at him with worshipping eyes. To these children brought up in a
+lonely house, with only their parents for companions, Samuel
+Chapdelaine embodied all there was in the world of wisdom and might.
+As he was ever gentle and patient, always ready to take the children
+on his knee and sing them hymns, or those endless old songs he
+taught them one by one, they loved him with a rare affection.
+
+    ... Tous les palais des rois
+    N'ont rien de comparable
+    Aux beautes que je vois
+    Dans cette etable.
+
+    "Once more? Very well."
+
+This time the mother and Tit'Be joined in. Maria could not resist
+staying her prayers for a few moments that she might look and
+hearken; but the words of the hymn renewed her ardour, and she soon
+took up the task again with a livelier faith ... "Hail Mary, full of
+grace ..."
+
+    Trois gros navires sont arrives,
+    Charges d'avoine, charges de ble.
+    Nous irons sur l'eau nous y prom-promener,
+    Nous irons jouer dans l'ile...
+
+"And now? Another song: which?" With out waiting for a reply he
+struck in ... "No? not that one ... Claire Fontaine? Ah! That's
+a beautiful one, that is! We shall all sing it together."
+
+He glanced at Maria, but seeing the beads ever slipping through her
+fingers he would not intrude.
+
+    A la claire fontaine
+    M'en allant promener,
+    J'ai trouve l'eau si belle
+    Que je m'y suis baigne ...
+    Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
+    Jamais je ne t'oublierai...
+
+Words and tune alike haunting; the unaffected sadness of the refrain
+lingering in the ear, a song that well may find its way to any
+heart.
+
+    .. Sur la plus haute branche,
+    Le rossignol chantait.
+    Chante, rossignol, chante,
+    Toi qui a le coeur gai ...
+    Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
+    Jamais je ne t'oublierai ...
+
+The rosary lay still in the long fingers. Maria did not sing with
+the others; but she was listening, and this lament of a love that
+was unhappy fell very sweetly and movingly on her spirit a little
+weary with prayer.
+
+    ... Tu as le coeur a rire,
+    Moi je l'ai a pleurer,
+    J'ai perdu ma maitresse
+    Sans pouvoir la r'trouver,
+    Pour un bouquet de roses
+    Que je lui refusai
+    Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
+    Jamais je ne t'oublierai.
+
+Maria looked through the window at the white fields circled by
+mysterious forest; the passion of religious feeling, the tide of
+young love rising within her, the sound of the familiar voices,
+fused in her heart to a single emotion. Truly the world was filled
+with love that evening, with love human and divine, simple in nature
+and mighty in strength, one and the other most natural and right; so
+intermingled that the beseeching of heavenly favour upon dear ones
+was scarcely more than the expression of an earthly affection, while
+the artless love songs were chanted with solemnity of voice and
+exaltation of spirit fit for addresses to another world.
+
+    .. Je voudrais que la rose
+    Fut encore au rosier,
+    Et que le rosier meme
+    A la mer fut jete.
+    Il y a longtemps, que je t'aime,
+    Jamais je ne t'oublierai . .
+
+"Hail Mary, full of grace ..."
+
+The song ended, Maria forthwith resumed her prayers with zeal
+refreshed, and once again the tale of the Aves mounted.
+
+Little Alma Rose, asleep on her father's knee, was undressed and put
+to bed; Telesphore followed; Tit'Be arose in turn, stretched
+himself, and fined the stove with green birch logs; the father made
+a last trip to the stable and came back running, saying that the
+cold was increasing. Soon all had retired, save Maria.
+
+"You won't forget to put out the lamp?"
+
+"No, father."
+
+Forthwith she quenched the light, preferring it so, and seated
+herself again by the window to repeat the last Aves. When she had
+finished, a scruple assailed her, and a fear lest she had erred in
+the reckoning, because it had not always been possible to count the
+beads of her rosary. Out of prudence she recited yet another fifty
+and then was silent-jaded, weary, but full of happy confidence, as
+though the moment had brought her a promise inviolable.
+
+The world outside was lit; wrapped in that frore splendour which the
+night unrolls over lands of snow when the sky is clear and the moon
+is shining. Within the house was darkness, and it seemed that wood
+and field had illumined themselves to signal the coming of the holy
+hour.
+
+"The thousand Aves have been said," murmured Maria to herself, "but
+I have not yet asked for anything ... not in words." She bad
+thought that perhaps it were not needful; that the Divinity might
+understand without hearing wishes shaped by lips--Mary above all ...
+Who had been a woman upon earth. But at the last her simple mind
+was taken with a doubt, and she tried to find speech for the favour
+she was seeking.
+
+Francois Paradis ... Most surely it concerns Francois Paradis.
+Hast Thou already guessed it, O Mary, full of grace? How might she
+frame this her desire without impiety? That he should be spared
+hardship in the woods ... That he should be true to his word and
+give up drinking and swearing ... That he return in the spring
+
+That he return in the spring ... She goes no further, for it seems
+to her that when be is with her again, his promise kept, all the
+happiness in the world must he within their reach, unaided ...
+almost unaided ... If it be not presumptuous so to think ...
+
+That he return in the spring ... Dreaming of his return, of
+Francois, the handsome sunburnt face turned to hers, Maria forgets
+all else, and looks long with unseeing eyes at the snow-covered
+ground which the moonlight has turned into a glittering fabric of
+ivory and mother-of-pearl-at the black pattern of the fences
+outlined upon it, and the menacing ranks of the dark forest.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+STRAYING TRACKS
+
+NEW YEAR'S DAY, and not a single caller! Toward evening the mother
+of the family, a trifle cast down, hid her depression behind a mask
+of extra cheeriness. "Even if no one comes," said she, "that is no
+reason for allowing ourselves to be unhappy. We are going to make la
+tire."
+
+The children exclaimed with delight, and followed the preparations
+with impatient eyes. Molasses and brown sugar were set on the stove
+to boil, and when this had proceeded far enough Telesphore brought
+in a large dish of lovely white snow. They all gathered about the
+table as a few drops of the boiling syrup were allowed to fall upon
+the snow where they instantly became crackly bubbles, deliciously
+cold.
+
+Each was helped in turn, the big people making a merry pretence of
+the children's unfeigned greed; but soon, and very wisely, the
+tasting was checked, that appetite might not be in peril for the
+real la fire, the confection of which had only begun. After further
+cooking, and just at the proper moment, the cooling toffee must be
+pulled for a long time. The mother's strong hands plied unceasingly
+for five minutes, folding and drawing out the sugary skein; the
+movement became slower and slower, until, stretched for the last
+time to the thickness of a finger, it was cut into lengths with
+scissors-not too easily, for it was already hard. The la tire was
+made.
+
+The children were busy with their first portions, when a knocking
+was heard on the door. "Eutrope Gagnon," at once declared
+Chapdelaine. "I was just saying to myself that it would be an odd
+thing if he did not come and spend the evening with us."
+
+Eutrope Gagnon it was in truth. Entering, he bade them all good
+evening, and laid his woollen cap upon the table. Maria looked at
+him, a blush upon her cheek. Custom ordains that on the first day of
+the year the young men shall kiss the women-folk, and Maria knew
+well enough that Eutrope, shy as he was, would exercise his
+privilege; she stood motionless by the table, unprotesting, yet
+thinking of another kiss she would have dearly welcomed. But the
+young man took the chair offered him and sat down, his eyes upon the
+floor.
+
+"You are the only visitor who has come our way to-day," said
+Chapdelaine, "and I suppose you have seen no one either. I felt
+pretty certain you would be here this evening."
+
+"Naturally ... I would not let New Year's Day go by without
+paying you a visit. But, besides that, I have news to tell."
+
+"News?"
+
+Under the questioning eyes of the household he did not raise his
+eyes.
+
+"By your face I am afraid you have bad news."
+
+"Yes."
+
+With a start of fear the mother half rose. "Not about the boys?"
+
+"No, Madame Chapdelaine. Esdras and Da'Be are well, if that be
+God's pleasure. The word I bring is not of them-not of your own kin.
+It concerns a young man you know." Pausing a moment he spoke a name
+under his breath. :--"Francois Paradis."
+
+His glance was lifted to Maria and as quickly fell, but she did not
+so much as see his look of honest distress. Deep stillness weighed
+upon the house-upon the whole universe. Everything alive and dead
+was breathlessly awaiting news of such dreadful moment-touching him
+that was for her the one man in all the world ...
+
+"This is what happened. You knew perhaps that he was foreman in a
+shanty above La Tuque, on the Vermilion River. About the middle of
+December he suddenly told the boss that he was going off to spend
+Christmas and New Year at Lake St. John-up here. The boss objected,
+naturally enough; for if the men take ten or fifteen days' leave
+right in the middle of the winter you might as well stop the work
+altogether. The boss did not wish him to go and said so plainly; but
+you know Francois-a man not be thwarted when a notion entered his
+head. He answered that he was set on going to the lake for the
+holidays, and that go he would. Then the boss let him have his way,
+afraid to lose a man useful beyond the common, and of such
+experience in the bush."
+
+Eutrope Gagnon was speaking with unusual ease, slowly, but without
+seeking words, as though his story had been shaped beforehand. Amid
+her overwhelming grief the thought flitted through Maria's heart:--
+"Francois wished to come here ... to me," and a fugitive joy
+touched it as a swallow in flight ruffles the water with his wing.
+
+"The shanty was not very far in the woods, only two days' journey
+from the Transcontinental which passes La Tuque. Butastheluck was,
+something had happened to the line and the trains were not running.
+I heard all this through Johnny Niquette of St. Henri, who arrived
+from La Tuque two days ago."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When Francois found that he could not take the train he burst into
+a laugh, and in that sort of a humour said that as it was a case of
+walking he would walk all the way-reaching the lake by following the
+rivers, first the Croche and then the Ouatchouan which falls in near
+Roberval."
+
+"That is so," said Chapdelaine. "It can be done. I have gone that
+way."
+
+"Not at this time of year, Mr. Chapdelaine, certainly not just at
+this time. Everyone there told Francois that it would be foolhardy
+to attempt such a trip in midwinter, about Christmas, with the cold
+as great as it was, some four feet of snow lying in the woods, and
+alone. But he only laughed and told them that he was used to the
+woods and that a little difficulty was not going to frighten him,
+because he was bound to get to the upper side of the lake for the
+holidays, and that where the Indians were able to cross he could
+make the crossing too. Only-you know it very well, Mr.
+Chapdelaine-when the Indians take that journey it is in company, and
+with their dogs. Francois set of alone, on snow-shoes, pulling his
+blankets and provisions on a toboggan." No one had uttered a word to
+hasten or check the speaker. They listened as to him whose story's
+end stalks into view, before the eyes but darkly veiled, like a
+figure drawing near who hides his face.
+
+"You will remember the weather a week before Christmas-the heavy
+snow that fell, and after it the nor'west gale. It happened that was
+then in the great burnt lands, where the fine snow drives and drifts
+so terribly. In such a place the best of men have little chance when
+it is very cold and the storm lasts. And, if you recall it, the
+nor'wester was blowing for three days on end, stiff enough-to flay
+you."
+
+"Yes, and then?"
+
+The narrative he had framed did not carry him further, or perhaps he
+could not bring himself to speak the final words, for it was some
+time before the low-voiced answer came-" He went astray ..."
+
+Those who have passed their lives within the shadow of the Canadian
+forests know the meaning but too well. The daring youths to whom
+this evil fortune happens in the woods, who go astray-are lost-but
+seldom return. Sometimes a search-party finds their bodies in the
+spring, after the melting of the snows. In Quebec, and above all in
+the far regions of the north, the very word, ecarte, has taken on a
+new and sinister import, from the peril overhanging him who loses
+his way, for a short day only, in that limitless forest.
+
+"He went astray ... The storm caught him in the burnt country and
+he halted for a day. So much we know, for the Indians found a
+shelter of fir branches he had made for himself, and they saw his
+tracks. He set out again because his provisions were low and he was
+in haste to reach the end of his journey, as I suppose; but the
+weather did not mend, snow was falling, the nor'west wind never
+eased, and it is likely he caught no glimpse of the sun to guide
+him, for the Indians said that his tracks turned off from the river
+Croche which he had been following and wandered away, straight to
+the north."
+
+There was no further speech; neither from the two men who had
+listened with assenting motions of their heads while they followed
+every turn of Eutrope's grim story; nor from the mother whose hands
+were clasped upon her knees,--as in a belated supplication; nor from
+Maria . .
+
+"When they heard this, men from Ouatchouan set forth after the
+weather was a little better. But all his footsteps were covered, and
+they returned saying that they had found no trace; that was three
+days ago is lost ..."
+
+The listeners stirred, and broke the stillness with a sigh; the tale
+was told, nor was there a word that, anyone might speak. The fate of
+Francois Paradis was as mournfully sure as though he were buried in
+the cemetery at St. Michel de Mistassini to the sound of chants,
+with the blessing of a priest.
+
+Silence fell upon the house and all within it. Chapdelaine was
+leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his face working,--
+mechanically striking one fist upon the other. At length he
+spoke:--"It shows we are but little children in the hand of the good
+God. Francois was one of the best men of these parts in the woods,
+and at finding his way; people who came here used to take him as
+guide, and always did he bring them back without mishap. And now he
+himself is lost. We are but little children. Some there be who think
+themselves pretty strong-able to get on without God's help in their
+houses and on their lands...but in the bush..." With solemn
+voice and slowly-moving head he repeated: "We are but little
+children."
+
+"A good man he was," said Eutrope Gagnon, "in very truth a good
+man, strong and brave, with ill-will to none.'
+
+"Indeed that is true. I am not saying that the good God had cause
+to send him to his death-him more than another. He was a fine
+fellow, hard-working, and I loved him well. But it shows you ..."
+
+"No one ever had a thing against him." Eutrope's generous
+insistence carried him on. "A man hard to match for work, afraid of
+nothing and obliging withal. Everyone who knew him was fond of
+him. You will not find his like."
+
+Raising his eyes to Maria he repeated with emphasis:--"He was a
+good man, you will. not find his like."
+
+"When we were at Mistassini," began Madame Chapdelaine, "seven years
+ago, he was only a lad, but very strong and quick and as tall. as he
+is now-I mean as he was when he came here last summer. Always
+good-natured too. No one could help liking him."
+
+They all looked straight before them in speaking, and yet what they
+said seemed to be for Maria alone, as if the dear secret of her
+heart were open to them. But she spoke not, nor moved, her eyes
+fixed upon the frosted panes of the little window, impenetrable as
+the wall.
+
+Eutrope Gagnon did not linger. The Chapdelaines, left to themselves,
+were long without speech. At last the father said in a halting
+voice:--" Francois Paradis was almost alone in the world; now, as
+we all had an affection for him, we perhaps might have a mass or two
+said. What do you think, Laura?"
+
+"Yes indeed. Three high masses with music, and when the boys return
+from the woods--in health, if such be the will of the good
+God-three more for the repose of his soul, poor lad! And every
+Sunday we shall, say I a prayer for him."
+
+"He was like the rest of us," Chapdelaine continued, "not without
+fault, of course, but kindly and well-living. God and the Holy
+Virgin will have pity on him."
+
+Again silence. Maria well. knew it was for her they said these
+things-aware of her grief and seeking to assuage it; but she was not
+able to speak, either to praise the dead or utter.-her sorrow. A
+hand had fastened upon her throat, stifling her, as the narrative
+unfolded and the end loomed inevitable; and now this hand found its
+way into her breast and was crushing her heart. Presently she would
+know a yet more intolerable pain, but now she only felt the deadly
+grasp of those five fingers closed about her heart.
+
+Other words were said, but they scarce reached her ear; then came
+the familiar evening stir of preparation for the night, the father's
+departure on a last visit to the stable and his swift return, face
+red with the cold, slamming the door hastily in a swirl of frosty
+vapour.
+
+"Come, Maria." The mother called her very gently, and laid a hand
+upon her shoulder. She rose and went to kneel and pray with the
+others. Voice answered to voice for ten minutes, murmuring the
+sacred words in low monotone.
+
+The usual prayer at an end, the mother whispered:--" Yet five
+Paters and five Aves for the souls of those who have suffered
+misfortune in the forest." And the voices again rose, this time more
+subdued, breaking sometimes to a sob.
+
+When they were silent, and all had risen after the last sign of the
+cross, Maria went back to the window. The frost upon the panes made
+of them so many fretted squares through which the eye could not
+penetrate, shutting away the outside world; but Maria saw them not,
+for the tears welled to her eyes and blinded her. She stood there
+motionless, with arms hanging piteously by her side, a stricken
+figure of grief; then a sudden anguish yet keener and more
+unbearable seized upon her; blindly she opened the door and went out
+upon the step.
+
+The world that lay beyond the threshold, sunk in moveless white
+repose, was of an immense serenity; but when Maria passed from the
+sheltering walls the cold smote her like the hungry blade of a sword
+and the forest leaped toward her in menace, its inscrutable face
+concealing a hundred dreadful secrets which called aloud to her in
+lamentable voices. With a little moan she drew back, and closing the
+door sat shivering beside the stove. Numbness was yielding, sorrow
+taking on an edge, and the hand that clutched her heart set itself
+to devising new agonies, each one subtler and more cruel than the
+last.
+
+How he must have suffered, far off there amid the snows! So thought
+she, as still her own face remembered the sting of the bitter air.
+Men threatened by this fate had told her that death coming in such a
+guise smote with gentle and painless hand-a hand that merely lulled
+to sleep; but she could not make herself believe it, and all the
+sufferings that Francois, might have endured before giving up and
+falling to the white ground passed before her eyes.
+
+No need for her to see the spot, too well she knew the winter
+terrors of the great forest, the snow heaped to the firs' lower
+branches, alders almost buried beneath it, birches and aspens naked
+as skeletons and shuddering in the icy wind, a sunless sky above the
+massed and gloomy spires of green. She sees Francois making his way
+through the close-set trees, limbs stiffened with the cold, his skin
+raw with that pitiless nor'wester, gnawed by hunger, stumbling with
+fatigue, his feet so weary that with no longer strength to lift them
+his snowshoes often catch the snow and throw him to his knees.
+
+Doubtless when the storm abated he saw his error, knew that he was
+walking toward the barren northland, turned at once and took the
+right course--he so experienced, the woods his home from boyhood.
+But his food is nearly gone, the cold tortures him; with lowered
+head and clenched teeth he fights the implacable winter, calling to
+aid his every reserve of strength and high courage. He thinks of the
+road he must follow, the miles to be overcome, measures his chances
+of life; and fitful memories arise of a house, so warm and snug,
+where all will greet him gladly; of Maria who, knowing what he has
+dared for her sake, will at length raise to him her truthful eyes
+shining with love.
+
+Perhaps he fell for the last time when succour was near, a few yards
+only from house or shanty. Often so it happens. Cold and his
+ministers of death flung themselves upon him as their prey; they
+have stilled the strong limbs forever, covered his open handsome
+face with snow, closed the fearless eyes without gentleness or pity,
+changed his living body into a thing of ice ... Maria has no more
+tears that she may shed, but she shivers and trembles as he must
+have trembled and shivered before he sank into merciful
+unconsciousness; horror and pity in her face, Maria draws nearer the
+stove as though she might thus bring him warmth and shield his dear
+life against the assassin.
+
+"O Christ Jesus, who didst stretch forth Thine arm to those in need,
+why didst Thou not disperse the snows with those pale hands of
+Thine? Holy Virgin, why didst Thou not sustain him by Thy power
+when, for the last time, his feet were stumbling? In all the legions
+of heaven why was there found no angel to show him the way?"
+
+But it is her grief that utters these reproaches, and the steadfast
+heart of Maria is fearful of having sinned in yielding to it.
+Another dread is soon to assail her. Perhaps Francois Paradis was
+not able quite faithfully to keep the promises he made to her. In
+the shanty, among rough and careless men, may he not have had
+moments of weakness; blasphemed or taken the names of the saints in
+vain, and thus have gone to his death with sin upon his conscience,
+under the weight of divine wrath.
+
+Her parents had promised but a little ago that masses should be
+said. How good they were! Having guessed her secret how kindly had
+they been silent! But she herself might help with prayers the poor
+soul in torment. Her beads still lay upon the table; she takes them
+in her hands, and forthwith the words of the Ave mount to her
+lips,--"Hail Mary, full of grace..."
+
+Did you doubt of her, O mother of the Galilean? Since that only
+eight days before she strove to reach your ear with her thousand
+prayers, and you but clothed yourself in divine impassivity while
+fate accomplished its purpose, think you that she questions your
+goodness or your power? It would indeed have been to misjudge her.
+As once she sought your aid for a man, so now she asks your pardon
+for a soul, in the same words, with the same humility and boundless
+faith.
+
+"Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy
+womb, Jesus."
+
+But still she cowers by the great stove, and though the fire's heat
+strikes through her, she ceases not to shudder as she thinks of the
+frozen world about her, of Paradis, who cannot be insentient, who
+must be so bitter cold in his bed of snow
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE INTERPRETER OF GOD
+
+ONE evening in February Samuel Chapdelaine said to his daughter:
+"The roads are passable; if you wish it, Maria, we shall go to La
+Pipe on Sunday for the mass." "Very well, father;" but she replied
+in a voice so dejected, almost indifferent, that her parents
+exchanged glances behind her back.
+
+Country folk do not die for love, nor spend the rest of their days
+nursing a wound. They are too near to nature, and know too well the
+stern laws that rule their lives. Thus it is perhaps, that they are
+sparing of high-sounding words; choosing to say "liking" rather than
+"loving ... .. ennui" rather than "grief," that so the joys and
+sorrows of the heart may bear a fit proportion to those more anxious
+concerns of life which have to do with their daily toil, the yield
+of their lands, provision for the future.
+
+Maria did not for a moment dream that life for her was over, or that
+the world must henceforward be a sad wilderness, because Francis
+Paradis would not return in the spring nor ever again. But her heart
+was aching, and while sorrow possessed it the future held no promise
+for her.
+
+When Sunday arrived, father and daughter early began to make ready
+for the two hours' journey which would bring them to St. Henri de
+Taillon, and the church. Before half-past seven Charles Eugene was
+harnessed, and Maria, still wearing a heavy winter cloak, had
+carefully deposited in her purse the list of her mother's
+commissions. A few minutes later the sleigh-bells were tinkling, and
+the rest of the family grouped themselves at the little square
+window to watch the departure.
+
+For the first hour the horse could not go beyond a walk, sinking
+knee-deep in snow; for only the Chapdelaines used this road, laid
+out and cleared by themselves, and not enough travelled to become
+smooth and hard. But when they reached the beaten highway Charles
+Eugene trotted along briskly.
+
+They passed through Honfleur, a hamlet of eight scattered houses,
+and then re-entered the woods. After a time they came upon
+clearings, then houses appeared dotted along the road; little by
+little the dusky ranks of the forest retreated, and soon they were
+in the village with other sleighs before and following them, all
+going toward the church.
+
+Since the beginning of the year Maria had gone three times to hear
+mass at St. Henri de Taillon, which the people of the country
+persist in calling La Pipe, as in the gallant days of the first
+settlers. For her, besides being an exercise of piety, this was
+almost the only distraction possible and her father sought to
+furnish it whenever he could do so, believing that the impressive
+rites of the church and a meeting with acquaintances in the village
+would help to banish her grief.
+
+On this occasion when the mass was ended, instead of paying visits
+they went to the curees house. It was already thronged with members
+of the congregation from remote farms, for the Canadian priest not
+only has the consciences of his flock in charge, but is their
+counsellor in all affairs, and the composer of their disputes; the
+solitary individual of different station to whom they can resort for
+the solving of their difficulties.
+
+The cure of St. Henri sent none away empty who asked his advice;
+some he dealt with in a few swift words amidst a general
+conversation where he bore his cheerful part; others at greater
+length in the privacy of an adjoining room. When the turn of the
+Chapdelaines came he looked at his watch.
+
+"We shall. have dinner first. What say you, my good friends? You
+must have found an appetite on the road. As for myself, singing mass
+makes me hungry beyond anything you could believe."
+
+He laughed heartily, more tickled than anyone at his own joke, and
+led his guests into the dining-room. Another priest was there from a
+neighbouring parish, and two or three farmers. The meal was one long
+discussion about husbandry, with a few amusing stories and bits of
+harmless gossip thrown in; now and then one of the farmers, suddenly
+remembering where he was, would labour some pious remark which the
+priests acknowledged with a nod or an absent-minded "Yes! Yes!"
+
+The dinner over at last, some of the guests departed after lighting
+their pipes. The cure, catching a glance from Chapdelaine, seemed to
+recall something; arising, he motioned to Maria, and went before her
+into the next room which served him both for visitors and as his
+office.
+
+A small harmonium stood against the wall; on the other side was a
+table with agricultural journals, a Civil Code and a few books bound
+in black leather; on the walls hung a portrait of Pius X., an
+engraving of the Holy Family, the coloured broadside of a Quebec
+merchant with sleighs and threshing-machines side by side, and a
+number of official notices as to precautions against forest fires
+and epidemics amongst cattle.
+
+Turning to Maria, the cure said kindly enough;--"So it appears that
+you are distressing yourself beyond what is reasonable and right?"
+
+She looked at him humbly, not far from believing that the priest's
+supernatural power had divined her trouble without need of telling.
+He inclined his tall figure, and bent toward her his thin peasant
+face; for beneath the robe was still the tiller of the soil: the
+gaunt and yellow visage, the cautious eyes, the huge bony shoulders.
+Even his hands--hands wont to dispense the favours of Heaven-were
+those of the husbandman, with swollen veins beneath the dark skin.
+But Maria saw in him only the priest, the cure of the parish,
+appointed of God to interpret life to her and show her the path of
+duty.
+
+"Be seated there," he said, pointing to a chair. She sat down
+somewhat like a schoolgirl who is to have a scolding, somewhat like
+a woman in a sorcerer's den who awaits in mingled hope and dread the
+working of his unearthly spells... ... ...
+
+An hour later the sleigh was speeding over the hard snow.
+Chapdelaine drowsed, and the reins were slipping from his open
+hands. Rousing himself and lifting his head, he sang again in
+full-voiced fervour the hymn he was singing as they left the
+village:--
+
+    ... Adorons-le dans le ciel.
+    Adorons-le sur l'autel ...
+
+Then he fell silent, his chin dropping slowly toward his breast, and
+the only sound upon the road was the tinkle of sleigh-bells.
+
+Maria was thinking of the priest's words: "If there was affection
+between you it is very proper that you should know regret. But you
+were not pledged to one another, because neither you nor he had
+spoken to your parents; therefore it is not befitting or right that
+you should sorrow thus, nor feel so deep a grief for a young man
+who, after all is said, was nothing to you..."
+
+And again: "That masses should be sung, that you should pray for
+him, such things are useful and good, you could do no better. Three
+high masses with music, and three more when the boys return from the
+woods, as your father has asked me, most assuredly these will help
+him, and also you may be certain they will delight him more than
+your lamentations, since they will shorten by so much his time of
+expiation. But to grieve like this, and to go about casting gloom
+over the household is not well, nor is it pleasing in the sight of
+God."
+
+He did not appear in the guise of a comforter, nor of one who gives
+counsel in the secret affairs of the heart, but rather as a man of
+the law or a chemist who enunciates his bald formulas, invariable
+and unfailing.
+
+"The duty of a girl like you--good-looking, healthy, active withal
+and a clever housewife--is in the first place to help her old
+parents, and in good time to marry and bring up a Christian family
+of her own. You have no call to the religious life? No. Then you
+must give up torturing yourself in this fashion, because it is a
+sacrilegious thing and unseemly, seeing that the young man was
+nothing whatever to you. The good God knows what is best for us; we
+should neither rebel nor complain ..."
+
+In all this, but one phrase left Maria a little doubting, it was the
+priest's assurance that Francois Paradis, in the place where now he
+was, cared only for masses to repose his soul, and never at all for
+the deep and tender regrets lingering behind him. This she could not
+constrain herself to believe. Unable to think of him otherwise in
+death than in life, she felt it must bring him something of
+happiness and consolation that her sorrow was keeping alive their
+ineffectual love for a little space beyond death. Yet, since the
+priest had said it ...
+
+The road wound its way among the trees rising sombrely from the
+snow. Here and there a squirrel, alarmed by the swiftly passing
+sleigh and the tinkling bells, sprang upon a trunk and scrambled
+upward, clinging to the bark. From the gray sky a biting cold was
+falling and the wind stung the cheek, for this was February, with
+two long months of winter yet to come.
+
+As Charles Eugene trotted along the beaten road, bearing the
+travellers to their lonely house, Maria, in obedience to the words
+of the cure at St. Henri, strove to drive away gloom and put
+mourning from her; as simple-mindedly as she would have fought the
+temptation of a dance, of a doubtful amusement or anything that was
+plainly wrong and hence forbidden.
+
+They reached home as night was falling. The coming of evening was
+only a slow fading of the light, for, since morning, the heavens had
+been overcast, the sun obscured. A sadness rested upon the pallid
+earth; the firs and cypresses did not wear the aspect of living
+trees and the naked birches seemed to doubt of the springtime. Maria
+shivered as she left the sleigh, and hardly noticed Chien, barking
+and gambolling a welcome, or the children who called to her from the
+door-step. The world seemed strangely empty, for this evening at
+least. Love was snatched away, and they forbade remembrance. She
+went swiftly into the house without looking about her, conscious of
+a new dread and hatred for the bleak land, the forest's eternal
+shade, the snow and the cold,--for all those things she had lived her
+life amongst, which now had wounded her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+LOVE BEARING GIFTS
+
+MARCH came, and one day Tit'Be brought the news from Honfleur that
+there would be a large gathering in the evening at Ephrem
+Surprenant's to which everyone was invited.
+
+But someone must stay to look after the house, and as Madame
+Chapdelaine had set her heart on this little diversion after being
+cooped up for all these months, it was Tit'Be himself who was left
+at home. Honfleur, the nearest village to their house, was eight
+miles away; but what were eight miles over the snow and through the
+woods compared with the delight of hearing songs and stories, and of
+talk with people from afar?
+
+A numerous company was assembled under the Surprenant roof: several
+of the villagers, the three Frenchmen who had bought his nephew
+Lorenzo's farm, and also, to the Chapdelaines' great surprise,
+Lorenzo himself, back once more from the States upon business that
+related to the sale and the settling of his father's affairs. He
+greeted Maria very warmly, and seated himself beside her.
+
+The men lit their pipes; they chatted about the weather, the
+condition of the roads, the country news; but the conversation
+lagged, as though all were looking for it to take some unusual turn.
+Their glances sought Lorenzo and the three Frenchmen, expecting
+strange and marvellous tales of distant lands and unfamiliar manners
+from an assembly so far out of the common. The Frenchmen, only a few
+months in the country, apparently felt a like curiosity, for they
+listened, and spoke but little.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine, who was meeting them for the first time, deemed
+himself called upon to put them through a catechism in the ingenuous
+Canadian fashion.
+
+"So you have come here to till the land. How do you like Canada?"
+
+"It is a beautiful country, new and so vast ... In the
+summer-time there are many flies, and the winters are trying; but I
+suppose that one gets used to these things in time."
+
+The father it was who made reply, his sons only nodding their heads
+in assent with eyes glued to the floor. Their appearance alone would
+have served to distinguish them from the other dwellers in the
+village, but as they spoke the gap widened, and the words that fell
+from their lips had a foreign ring. There was none of the slowness
+of the Canadian speech, nor of that indefinable accent found in no
+comer of France, which is only a peasant blend of the different
+pronunciations of former emigrants. They used words and turns of
+phrase one never hears in Quebec, even in the towns, and which to
+these simple men seemed fastidious and wonderfully refined.
+
+"Before coming to these parts were you farmers in your own country?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What trade then did you follow?"
+
+The Frenchman hesitated a moment before. replying; possibly thinking
+that what he was about to say would be novel, and hard for them to
+understand. "I was a tuner myself, a piano-tuner; my two sons here
+were clerks, Edmond in an office, Pierre in a shop."
+
+Clerks--that was plain enough for anyone; but their minds were a
+little hazy as to the father's business.
+
+However Ephrem Surprenant chimed in with.--" Piano-tuner; that was
+it, just so!" And his glance at Conrad Neron his neighbour was a
+trifle superior and challenging, as though intimating.--" You would
+not believe me, and maybe you don't know what it means, but now you
+see ..."
+
+"Piano-tuner," Samuel Chapdelaine echoed in turn, slowly grasping
+the meaning of the words. "And is that a good trade? Do you earn
+handsome wages? Not too handsome, eh! ... At any rate you are well
+educated, you and your sons; you can read and write and cipher? And
+here am I, not able even to read!"
+
+"Nor I!" struck in Ephrem Surprenant, and Conrad Neron and Egide
+Racicot added: "Nor I!" "Nor I!" in chorus, whereupon the whole of
+them broke out laughing.
+
+A motion of the Frenchman's hand told them indulgently that they
+could very well dispense with these accomplishments; to himself of
+little enough use at the moment.
+
+"You were not able to make a decent living out of your trades over
+there. That is so, is it not? And therefore you came here?"
+
+The question was put simply, without thought of offence, for he was
+amazed that anyone should abandon callings that seemed so easy and
+so pleasant for this arduous life on the land.
+
+Why indeed had they come? ... A few months earlier they would have
+discovered a thousand reasons and clothed them in words straight
+from the heart: weariness of the footway and the pavement, of the
+town's sullied air; revolt against the prospect of lifelong slavery;
+some chance stirring word of an irresponsible speaker preaching the
+gospel of vigour and enterprise, of a free and healthy life upon a
+fruitful soil. But a few months ago they could have found glowing
+sentences to tell it all ... Now their best was a sorry effort to
+evade the question, as they groped for any of the illusions that
+remained to them.
+
+"People are not always happy in the cities," said the father.
+"Everything is dear, and one is confined."
+
+In their narrow Parisian lodging it had seemed so wonderful a thing
+to them, the notion that in Canada they would spend their days out
+of doors, breathing the taintless air of a new country, close beside
+the mighty forest. The black-flies they had not foreseen, nor
+comprehended the depth of the winter's cold; the countless ill turns
+of a land that has no pity were undivined.
+
+"Did you picture it to yourselves as you have found it," Chapdelaine
+persisted, "the country here, the life?"
+
+"Not exactly," replied the Frenchman in a low voice. "No, not
+exactly ..." And a shadow crossed his face which brought from
+Ephrem. Surprenant:--"It is rough here, rough and hard!"
+
+Their heads assented, and their eyes fell: three narrow-shouldered
+men, their faces with the pallor of the town still upon them after
+six months on the land; three men whom a fancy had torn from
+counter, office, piano-stool-from the only lives for which they were
+bred. For it is not the peasant alone who suffers by uprooting from
+his native soil. They were seeing their mistake, and knew they were
+too unlike in grain to copy those about them; lacking the strength,
+the rude health, the toughened fibre, that training for every task
+which fits the Canadian to be farmer, woodsman or carpenter,
+according to season and need.
+
+The father was dreamily shaking his head, lost in thought; one of
+the sons, elbows on knees, gazed wonderingly at the palms of his
+delicate hands, calloused by the rough work of the fields. All three
+seemed to be turning over and over in their minds the melancholy
+balance-sheet of a failure. Those about them were thinking--
+"Lorenzo sold his place for more than it was worth; they have but
+little money left and are in hard case; men like these are not built
+for living on the land."
+
+Madame Chapdelaine, partly in pity and partly for the honour of
+farming, let fall a few encouraging words:--" It is something of a
+struggle at the beginning-if you are not used to it; but when your
+land is in better order you will see that life becomes easier."
+
+"It is a queer thing," said Conrad Neron, "how every man finds it
+equally hard to rest content. Here are three who left their homes
+and came this long way to settle and farm, and here am I always
+saying to myself that nothing would be so pleasant as to sit quietly
+in an office all the day, a pen behind my ear, sheltered from cold
+wind and hot sun."
+
+"Everyone to his own notion," declared Lorenzo Surprenant, with
+unbiassed mind.
+
+"And your notion is not to stick in Hon-fleur sweating over the
+stumps," added Racicot with a loud laugh.
+
+"You are quite right there, and I make no bones about it; that sort
+of thing would never have suited me. These men here bought my land-a
+good farm, and no one can gainsay it. They wanted to buy a farm and
+I sold them mine. But as for myself, I am well enough where I am,
+and have no wish to return."
+
+Madame Chapdelaine shook her head. "There is no better life than the
+life of a farmer who has good health and owes no debts. He is a free
+man, has no boss, owns his beasts, works for his own profit ...
+The finest life there is!"
+
+"I hear them all say that," Lorenzo retorted, one is free, his own
+master. And you seem to pity those who work in factories because
+they have a boss, and must do as they are told. Free-on the
+land-come now!" He spoke defiantly, with more and more animation.
+
+"There is no man in the world less free than a farmer ... When you
+tell of those who have succeeded, who are well provided with
+everything needful on a farm, who have had better luck than others,
+you say.--'Ah, what a fine life they lead! They are comfortably off,
+own good cattle.' That is not how to put it. The truth is that their
+cattle own them. In all the world there is no 'boss' who behaves as
+stupidly as the beasts you favour. Pretty nearly every day they give
+you trouble or do you some mischief. Now it is a skittish horse that
+runs away or lashes out with his heels; then it is a cow, however
+good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on
+your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they
+don't harm you, they are forever finding a way to destroy your
+comfort and to vex you..."
+
+"I know how it is; I was brought up on a farm. And you, most of you
+farmers, know how it is too. All the morning you have worked hard,
+and go to your house for dinner and a little rest. Then, before you
+are well seated at table, a child is yelling:--'The cows are over
+the fence;' or 'The sheep are in the crop,' and everyone jumps up
+and runs, thinking of the oats or the barley it has been such a
+trouble to raise, that these miserable fools are ruining. The men
+dash about brandishing sticks till they are out of breath; the women
+stand screaming in the farm-yard. And when you have managed to drive
+the cows or the sheep into their paddock and put up the rails, you
+get back to the house nicely 'rested' to find the pea-soup cold and
+full of flies, the pork under the table gnawed by dogs and cats, and
+you eat what you can lay your hands on, watching for the next trick
+the wretched animals are getting ready to play on you."
+
+"You are their slaves; that's what you are. You tend them, you
+clean them, you gather up their dung as the poor do the rich man's
+crumbs. It is you who must keep them alive by hard work, because the
+earth is miserly and the summer so short. That is the way of it, and
+there is no help, as you cannot get on without them; but for cattle
+there would be no living on the land. But even if you could ...
+even if you could ... still would you have other masters: the
+summer, beginning too late and ending too soon; the winter, eating
+up seven long months of the year and bringing in nothing; drought
+and rain which always come just at the wrong moment..."
+
+"In the towns these things do not matter; but here you have no
+defence against them and they do you hurt; and I have not taken into
+account the extreme cold, the badness of the roads, the loneliness
+of being far away from everything, with no amusements. Life is one
+kind of hardship on top of another from beginning to end. It is
+often said that only those make a real success who are born and
+brought up on the land, and of course that is true; as for the
+people in the cities, small danger that they would ever be foolish
+enough to put up with such a way of living."
+
+He spoke with heat and volubly--a man of the town who talks every
+day with his equals, reads the papers, hears public speakers. The
+listeners, of a race easily moved by words, were carried away by his
+plaints and criticisms; the very real harshness of their lives was
+presented in such a new and startling light as to surprise even
+themselves.
+
+However Madame Chapdelaine again shook her head. "Do not say such
+things as that; there is no happier life in the world than the life
+of a farmer who owns good land."
+
+"Not in these parts, Madame Chapdelaine. You are too far north; the
+summer is too short; the grain is hardly up before the frosts come.
+Each time that I return from the States, and see the tiny wooden
+houses lost in this wilderness-so far from one another that they
+seem frightened at being alone-and the woods hemming you in on every
+side ... By Heaven! I lose heart for you, I who live here no
+longer, and I ask myself how it comes about that all you folk did
+not long ago seek a kinder climate where you would find everything
+that makes for comfort, where you could go out for a walk in the
+winter-time without being in fear of death ..."
+
+Without being in fear of death! Maria shuddered as the thought
+swiftly awoke of those dark secrets hidden beneath the ever-lasting
+green and white of the forest. Lorenzo Surprenant was right in what
+he had been saying; it was a pitiless ungentle land. The menace
+lurking just outside the door-the cold-the shrouding snows-the blank
+solitude-forced a sudden entrance and crowded about the stove, an
+evil swarm sneering presages of ill or hovering in a yet more
+dreadful silence:--"Do you remember, my sister, the men, brave and
+well-beloved, whom we have stain and hidden in the woods? Their
+souls have known how to escape us; but their bodies, their-bodies,
+their bodies, none shall ever snatch them from our hands ..."
+
+The voice of the wind at the comers of the house was loud with
+hollow laughter, and to Maria it seemed that all gathered within the
+wooden walls huddled and spoke low, like men whose lives are under a
+threat and who go in dread.
+
+A burden of sadness was upon the rest of the evening, at least for
+her. Racicot told stories of the chase: of trapped bears struggling
+and growling so fiercely at the sight of the trapper that he loses
+courage and falls a-trembling; and then, giving up suddenly when the
+hunters come in force and the deadly guns are aimed--giving up,
+covering their heads with their paws and whimpering with groans and
+outcries almost human, very heart-rending and pitiful.
+
+After these tales came others of ghosts and apparitions; of
+blood-curdling visitations or solemn warnings to men who had
+blasphemed or spoken ill of the priests. Then, as no one could be
+persuaded to sing, they played at cards and the conversation dropped
+to more commonplace themes. The only memory that Maria carried away
+of the later talk, as the sleigh bore them homeward through the
+midnight woods, was of Lorenzo Surprenant extolling the United
+States and the magnificence of its great cities, the easy and
+pleasant life, the never-ending spectacle of the fine straight
+streets flooded with light at evening.
+
+Before she departed Lorenzo said in quiet tones, almost in her
+ear.--"To-morrow is Sunday; I shall be over to see you in the
+afternoon."
+
+A few short hours of night, a morning of sunlight on the snow, and
+again he is by her side renewing his tale of wonders, his
+interrupted plea. For it was to her he had been speaking the evening
+before; Maria knew it well. The scorn he showed for a country life,
+his praises of the town, these were but a preface to the allurements
+he was about to offer in all their varied forms, as one shows the
+pictures in a book, turning page by page.
+
+"Maria," he began, "you have not the faintest idea! As yet, the most
+wonderful things you ever saw were the shops in Roberval, a high
+mass, an evening entertainment at the convent with acting. City
+people would laugh to think of it! You simply cannot imagine ...
+Just to stroll through the big streets in the evening--not on little
+plank-walks like those of Roberval, but on fine broad asphalt
+pavements as level as a table--just that and no more, what with the
+lights, the electric cars coming and going continually, the shops
+and the crowds, you would find enough there to amaze you for weeks
+together. And then all the amusements one has: theatres, circusses,
+illustrated papers, and places everywhere that you can go into for a
+nickel--five cents--and pass two hours laughing and crying. To
+think, Maria, you do not even know what the moving pictures are!"
+
+He stopped for a little, reviewing in his mind the marvels of the
+cinematograph, asking himself whether he could hope to describe
+convincingly the fare it provided:--those thrilling stories of young
+girls, deserted or astray, which crowd the screen with twelve
+minutes of heart-rending misery and three of amends and heavenly
+reward in surroundings of incredible luxury;--the frenzied galloping
+of cowboys in pursuit of Indian ravishers; the tremendous fusillade;
+the rescue at the last conceivable second by soldiers arriving in a
+whirlwind, waving triumphantly the star-spangled banner ... after
+pausing in doubt he shook his head, conscious that he had no words
+to paint such glories.
+
+They walked on snow-shoes side by side over the snow, through the
+burnt lands that lie on the Peribonka's high bank above the fall.
+Lorenzo had used no wile to secure Maria's company, he simply
+invited her before them all, and now he told of his love, in the
+same straightforward practical way.
+
+"The first day I saw you, Maria, the very first day ... that is
+only the truth! For a long time I had not been back in this country,
+and I was thinking what a miserable place it was to live in, that
+the men were a lot of simpletons who had never seen anything and the
+girls not nearly so quick and clever as they are in the States ...
+And then, the moment I set eyes on you, there was I saying to myself
+that I was the simpleton, for neither at Lowell nor Boston had I
+ever met a girl like yourself. When I returned I used to be thinking
+a dozen times a day that some wretched farmer would make love to you
+and carry you off, and every time my heart sank. It was on your
+account that I came back, Maria, came up here from near Boston,
+three days' journey! The business I had, I could have done it all by
+letter; it was you I wished to see, to tell you what was in my heart
+to say and to hear the answer you would give me."
+
+Wherever the snow was clear for a few yards, free of dead trees and
+stumps, and be could lift his eyes without fear of stun-Ning, they
+were fixed upon Maria; between the woollen cap and the long woollen
+jersey curving to her vigorous form he saw the outline of her face,
+downward turned, expressing only gentleness and patience. Every
+glance gave fresh reason for his love but brought him no hint of a
+response.
+
+"This ... this is no place for you, Maria. The country is too
+rough, the work too hard; barely earning one's bread is killing
+toil. In a factory over there, clever and strong as you are, soon
+you would be in the way of making nearly as much as I do; but no
+need of that if you were my wife. I earn enough for both of us, and
+we should have every comfort: good clothes to wear, a pretty flat in
+a brick house with gas and hot water, and all sorts of contrivances
+you never heard of to save you labour and worry every moment of the
+day. And don't let the idea enter your head that all the people are
+English. I know many Canadian families who work as I do or even keep
+shops. And there is a splendid church with a Canadian priest as
+cure--Mr. Tremblay from St. Hyacinthe. You would never be lonesome ..."
+
+Pausing again he surveyed the white plain with its ragged crop of
+brown stumps, the bleak plateau dropping a little farther in a long
+slope to the levels of the frozen river; meanwhile ransacking his
+mind for some final persuasive word.
+
+"I hardly know what to say ... You have always lived here and it
+is not possible for you to guess what life is elsewhere, nor would I
+be able to make you understand were I to talk forever. But I love
+you, Maria, I earn a good wage and I never touch a drop. If you will
+marry me as I ask I will take you off to a country that will open
+your eyes with astonishment--a fine country, not a bit like this,
+where we can live in a decent way and be happy for the rest of our
+days."
+
+Maria still was silent, and yet the sentences of Lorenzo Surprenant
+beat upon her heart as succeeding waves roll against the shore. It
+was not his avowals of love, honest and sincere though they were,
+but the lures he used which tempted her. Only of cheap pleasures had
+he spoken, of trivial things ministering to comfort or vanity, but
+of these alone was she able to conjure up a definite idea. All
+else--the distant glamour of the city, of a life new and
+incomprehensible to her, full in the centre of the bustling world
+and no longer at its very confines--enticed her but the more in its
+shimmering remoteness with the mystery of a great light that shines
+from afar.
+
+Whatsoever there may be of wonder and exhilaration in the sight and
+touch of the crowd; the rich harvests of mind and sense for which
+the city dweller has bartered his rough heritage of pride in the
+soil, Maria was dimly conscious of as part of this other life in a
+new world, this glorious re-birth for which she was already
+yearning. But above all else the desire was strong upon her now to
+flee away, to escape.
+
+The wind from the cast was driving before it a host of melancholy
+snow-laden clouds. Threateningly they swept over white ground and
+sullen wood, and the earth seemed awaiting another fold of its
+winding-sheet; cypress, spruce and fir, close side by side and
+motionless, were passive in their attitude of uncomplaining
+endurance. The stumps above the snow were like floating wreckage on
+a dreary sea. In all the landscape there was naught that spoke of a
+spring to come--of warmth and growth; rather did it seem a shard of
+some disinherited planet under the eternal rule of deadly cold.
+
+All of her life had Maria known this cold, this snow, the land's
+death-like sleep, these austere and frowning woods; now was she
+coming to view them with fear and hate. A paradise surely must it
+be, this country to the south where March is no longer winter and in
+April the leaves are green! At midwinter one takes to the road
+without snowshoes, unclad in furs, beyond sight of the cruel forest.
+And the cities ... the pavements ...
+
+Questions framed themselves upon her lips. She would know if lofty
+houses and shops stood unbrokenly on both sides of the streets, as
+she had been told; if the electric cars ran all the year round; if
+the living was very dear ... And the answers to her questions
+would have satisfied but a little of this eager curiosity, would
+scarcely have disturbed the enchanting vagueness of her illusion.
+
+She was silent, however, dreading to speak any word that might seem
+like the foreshadowing of a promise. Though Lorenzo gazed at her
+long as they walked together across the snow, he was able to guess
+nothing of what was passing in her heart.
+
+"You will not have me, Maria? You have no liking for me, or is it,
+perhaps, that you cannot make up your mind?" As still she gave no
+reply he clung to this idea, fearing that she might hastily refuse
+him.
+
+"No need whatever that you should say 'Yes' at once. You have not
+known me very long ... But think of what I have said to you. I
+will come back, Maria. It is a long journey and costly, but I will
+come. And if only you give thought to it, you will see there is no
+young fellow here who could give you such a future as I can; because
+if you marry me we shall live like human beings, and not have to
+kill ourselves tending cattle and grubbing in the earth in this
+out-of-the-way comer of the world."
+
+They returned to the house. Lorenzo gossiped a little about his
+journey to the States, where the springtime would have arrived
+before him, of the plentiful and well-paid work to which his good
+clothes and prosperous air bore witness. Then he bade them adieu,
+and Maria, whose eyes had carefully been avoiding his, seated
+herself by the window, and watched the night and the snow falling
+together as she pondered in the deep unrest of her spirit.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+LOVE BEARING CHAINS
+
+No one asked Maria any questions that evening, or on the following
+evenings; but some member of the family must have told Eutrope
+Gagnon of Lorenzo Surprenant's visit and his evident intentions, for
+the next Sunday after dinner came Eutrope in turn, and Maria heard
+another suitor declare his love.
+
+Francois had come in the full tide of summer, from the land of
+mystery at the headwaters of the rivers; the memory of his artless
+words brought back the dazzling sunshine, the ripened blueberries
+and the last blossoms of the laurel fading in the undergrowth; after
+him appeared Lorenzo Surprenant offering other gifts,--visions of
+beautiful distant cities, of a life abounding in unknown wonders.
+When Eutrope spoke, it was in a shamefaced halting way, as though he
+foresaw defeat, knowing full well that he bore little in his hands
+wherewith to tempt her.
+
+Boldly enough he asked Maria to walk with him, but when they were
+dressed and outside the door, they saw that snow was falling. Maria
+stood dubiously on the step, a hand on the latch as though she would
+return; and Eutrope, unwilling to lose his chance, began forthwith
+to speak--hastening as though doubtful that he would be able to say
+all that was in his mind.
+
+"You know very well, Maria, how I feel toward you. I said nothing
+before as my farm was not so forward that we could live there
+comfortably, and moreover I guessed that you liked Francois Paradis
+better than me. But as Francois is no longer here, and this young
+fellow from the States is courting you, I said to myself that I,
+too, might try my fortune ..."
+
+The snow was coming now in serried flakes, fluttering whitely for an
+instant against the darkly-encircling forest, on the way to join
+that other snow with which five months of winter had burdened the
+earth.
+
+"It is true enough that I am not rich; but I have two lots of my
+own, paid for out and out, and you know the soil is good. I shall
+work on it all spring, take the stumps out of the large field below
+the ridge of rock, put up some fences, and by May there will be a
+fine big field ready for seeding. I shall sow a hundred and thirty
+bushels, Maria,--a hundred and thirty bushels of wheat, barley and
+oats, without reckoning an acre of mixed grain for the cattle. All
+the seed, the best seed-grain, I am going to buy at Roberval,
+settling for it on the spot ... I have the money put aside; I
+shall pay cash, without running into debt to a soul, and if only we
+have an average season there will be a fine crop to harvest. Just
+think of it, Maria, a hundred and thirty bushels of good seed in
+first-rate land! And in the summer before the hay-making, and then
+again before the harvest, will be the best chance for building a
+nice tight warm little house, all of tamarack. I have the wood
+ready, cut and piled behind my barn; my brother will help me,
+perhaps Esdras and Da'Be as well, when they get home. Next winter I
+shall go to the shanties, taking a horse with me, and in the spring
+I shall bring back not less than two hundred dollars in my pocket.
+Then, should you be willing to wait so long for me, would be the
+time ..."
+
+Maria was leaning against the door, a hand still upon the latch, her
+eyes turned away. Eutrope Gagnon had just this and no more to offer
+her: after a year of waiting that she should become his wife, and
+live as now she was doing in another wooden house on another
+half-cleared farm ... Should do the household work and the
+cooking, milk the cows, clean the stable when her man was
+away--labour in the fields perhaps, since she was strong and there
+would be but two of them ... Should spend her evenings at the
+spinning-wheel or in patching old clothes ... Now arid then in
+summer resting for half an hour, seated on the door-step, looking
+across their scant fields girt by the measureless frowning woods; or
+in winter thawing a little patch with her breath on the windowpane,
+dulled with frost, to watch the snow falling on the wintry earth and
+the forest ... The forest ... Always the inscrutable, inimical
+forest, with a host of dark things hiding there--closed round them
+with a savage grip that must be loosened little by little, year by
+year; a few acres won each spring and autumn as the years pass,
+throughout all the long days of a dull harsh life ... No, that she
+could not face ...
+
+"I know well enough that we shall have to work hard at first,"
+Eutrope went on, "but you have courage, Maria, and are well used to
+labour, as I am. I have always worked hard; no one can say that I
+was ever lazy, and if only you will marry me it will be my joy to
+toil like an ox all the day long to make a thriving place of it, so
+that we shall be in comfort before old age comes upon us. I do not
+touch drink, Maria, and truly I love you ..."
+
+His voice quivered, and he put out his hand toward the latch to take
+hers, or perhaps to hinder her from opening the door and leaving him
+without his answer.
+
+"My affection for you ... of that I am not able to speak ..."
+
+Never a word did she utter in reply. Once more a young man was
+telling his love, was placing in her hands all he had to give; and
+once more she could but hearken in mute embarrassment, only saved
+from awkwardness by her immobility and silence. Town-bred girls had
+thought her stupid, when she was but honest and truthful; very close
+to nature which takes no account of words. In other days when life
+was simpler than now it is, when young men paid their
+court--masterfully and yet half bashfully--to some deep-bosomed girl
+in the ripe fullness of womanhood who had not heard nature's
+imperious command, she must have listened thus, in silence; less
+attentive to their pleading than to the inner voice, guarding
+herself by distance against too ardent a wooing, whilst she awaited
+... Chapdelaine were not drawn to her by any charm of gracious
+speech, but by her sheer comeliness, and the transparent honest
+heart dwelling in her bosom; when they spoke to her of love she was
+true to herself, steadfast and serene, saying no word where none was
+needful to be said, and for this they loved her only the more.
+
+"This young fellow from the States was ready with fine speeches, but
+you must not be carried away by them ..." He caught a hint of
+dissent and changed his tone.
+
+"Of course you are quite free to choose, and I have not a word to
+say against him. But you would be happier here, Maria, amongst
+people like yourself."
+
+Through the falling snow Maria gazed at the rude structure of
+planks, between stable and barn, which her father and brother had
+thrown together five years before; unsightly and squalid enough it
+appeared, now that her fancy had begun to conjure up the stately
+buildings of the town. Close and ill-smelling, the floor littered
+with manure and foul straw, the pump in one comer that was so hard
+to work and set the teeth on edge with its grinding; the
+weather-beaten outside, buffeted by wind and never-ending snow--sign
+and symbol of what awaited her were she to marry one like Eutrope
+Gagnon, and accept as her lot a lifetime of rude toil in this sad
+and desolate land ... She shook her head.
+
+"I cannot answer, Eutrope, either yes or no; not just now. I have
+given no promise. You must wait."
+
+It was more than she had said to Lorenzo Surprenant, and yet Lorenzo
+had gone away with hope in his heart, while Eutrope felt that he had
+made his throw and lost. Departing alone, the snow soon hid him. She
+entered the house.
+
+* * * * * * *
+
+March dragged through its melancholy days; cold winds drove the gray
+clouds back and forth across the sky, and swept the snow hither and
+thither; one must needs consult the calendar of the Roberval grain
+merchant to get an inkling that spring was drawing near.
+
+Succeeding days were to Maria like those that had gone before, each
+one bringing its familiar duties and the same routine; but the
+evenings were different, and were filled with pathetic strivings to
+think. Beyond doubt her parents had guessed the truth; but they were
+unwilling to force her reserve with their advice, nor did she seek
+it. She knew that it rested with her alone to make a choice, to
+settle the future course of her life, and she, felt like a child at
+school, standing on a platform before watchful eyes, bidden to find
+by herself the answer to some knotty question.
+
+And this was her problem: when a girl is grown to womanhood, when
+she is good-looking, healthy and strong, clever in all that pertains
+to the household and the farm, young men come and ask her to marry,
+and she must say "Yes" to this one and "No" to another.
+
+If only Francois Paradis had not vanished forever in the great
+lonely woods, all were then so plain. No need to ask herself what
+she ought to do; she would have gone straight to him, guided by a
+wise instinct that she might not gainsay, sure of doing what was
+right as a child that obeys a command. But Francois was gone;
+neither in the promised springtime nor ever again to return, and the
+cure of St. Henri forbade regrets that would prolong the awaiting.
+
+Ah, dear God! How happy had been the early days of this awaiting! As
+week followed week something quickened in her heart and shot upward,
+like a rich and beauteous sheaf whose opening ears bend low under
+their weight. Happiness beyond any dream came dancing to her ...
+No, it was stronger and keener yet, this joy of hers. It had been a
+great light shining in the twilight of a lonely land, a beacon
+toward which one journeys, forgetful of the tears that were about to
+flow, saying with glad defiance: "I knew it well--knew that
+somewhere on the earth was such a thing as this ..." It was over.
+Yes, the gleam was gone. Henceforth must she forget that once it had
+shone upon her path, and grope through the dark with faltering
+steps.
+
+Chapdelaine and Tit'Be were smoking in silence by the stove; the
+mother knitted stockings; Chien, stretched out with his head between
+his paws, blinked sleepily in enjoyment of the good warmth.
+Telesphore had dozed off with the catechism open on his knees, and
+the little Alma Rose, not yet in bed, was hovering in doubt between
+the wish to draw attention to her brother's indolence, and a sense
+of shame at thus betraying him.
+
+Maria looked down again, took her work in hand, and her simple mind
+pursued a little further its puzzling train of thought. When a girl
+does not feel, or feels no longer, that deep mysterious impulse
+toward a man singled out from all the rest of the world, what is
+left to guide her? For what things should she seek in her marriage?
+For a satisfying life, surely; to make a happy home for herself ...
+
+Her parents would like her to marry Eutrope Gagnon--that she
+felt--because she would live near them, and again because this life
+upon the land was the only one they knew, and they naturally thought
+it better than any other. Eutrope was a fine fellow, hard-working
+and of kindly disposition, and he loved her; but Lorenzo Surprenant
+also loved her; he, likewise, was steady and a good worker; he was a
+Canadian at heart, not less than those amongst whom she lived; he
+went to church ... And he offered as his splendid gift a world
+dazzling to the eye, all the wonders of the city. He would rescue
+her from this oppression of frozen earth and gloomy forest.
+
+She could not as yet resolve to say to herself: "I will marry
+Lorenzo Surprenant," but her heart had made its choice. The cruel
+north-west wind that heaped the snow above Francois Paradis at the
+foot of some desolate cypress bore also to her on its wings the
+frown and the harshness of the country wherein she dwelt, and filled
+her with hate of the northern winter, the cold, the whitened ground
+and the loneliness, of that boundless forest unheedful of the
+destinies of men where every melancholy tree is fit to stand in a
+home of the dead. Love--all-compelling love--for a brief space had
+dwelt within her heart ... Mighty flame, scorching and bright,
+quenched now, and never to revive. It left her spirit empty and
+yearning; she was fain to seek forgetfulness and cure in that life
+afar, among the myriad paler lights of the city.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+INTO THE DEEP SILENCE
+
+There came an evening in April when Madame Chapdelaine would not
+take her place at the supper table with the others.
+
+"There are pains through my body and I have no appetite," she said,
+"I must have strained myself to-day lifting a bag of flour when I
+was making bread. Now something catches me in the back, and I am not
+hungry."
+
+No one answered her. Those living sheltered lives take quick alarm
+when the mechanism of one of their number goes wrong, but people who
+wrestle with the earth for a living feel little surprise if their
+labours are too much for them now and then, and the body gives way
+in some fibre.
+
+While father and children supped, Madame Chapdelaine sat very still
+in her chair beside the stove. She drew her breath hard, and her
+broad face was working.
+
+"I am going to bed," she said presently. "A good night's sleep, and
+to-morrow morning I shall be all right again; have no doubt of that.
+You will see to the baking, Maria."
+
+And indeed in the morning she was up at her usual hour, but when she
+had made the batter for the pancakes pain overcame her, and she had
+to lie down again. She stood for a minute beside the bed, with both
+hands pressed against her back, and made certain that the daily
+tasks would be attended to.
+
+"You will give the men their food, Maria, and your father will lend
+you a hand at milking the cows if you wish it. I am not good for
+anything this morning."
+
+"It will be all right, mother; it will be all right. Take it
+quietly; we shall have no trouble."
+
+For two days she kept her bed, with a watchful eye over everything,
+directing all the household affairs.
+
+"Don't be in the least anxious," her husband urged again and again.
+"There is hardly anything to be done in the house beyond the
+cooking, and Maria is quite fit to look after that--everything else
+too, by thunder! She is not a little child any longer, and is as
+capable as yourself. Lie there quietly, without stirring; and be
+easy in your mind, instead of tossing about all the time under the
+blankets and making yourself worse...."
+
+On the third day she gave up thinking about the cares of the house
+and began to bemoan herself.
+
+"Oh my God!" she wailed. "I have pains all over my body, and my
+bead is burning. I think that I am going to die."
+
+Her husband tried to cheer her with his Clumsy pleasantries. "You
+are going to die when the good God wills it, and according to my way
+of thinking that will not be for a while yet. What would He be doing
+with you? Heaven is all cluttered with old women, and down here we
+have only the one, and she is able to make herself a bit useful,
+every now and then ..." But he was beginning to feel anxious, and
+took counsel with his daughter.
+
+"I could put the horse in and go as far as La Pipe," he suggested.
+"It may be that they have some medicine for this sickness at the
+store; or I might talk things over with the cure, and he would tell
+me what to do."
+
+Before they had made up their minds night had fallen, and Tit'Be,
+who had been at Eutrope Gagnon's helping him to saw his firewood,
+came back bringing Eutrope along with him.
+
+Eutrope has a remedy," said he. They all gathered round Eutrope, who
+took a little tin box from his pocket and opened it deliberately.
+
+"This is what I have," he announced rather dubiously. "They are
+little pills. When my brother was bad with his kidneys three years
+ago he saw an advertisement in a paper about these pills, and it
+said they were the proper thing, so he sent the money for a box, and
+he declares it is a good medicine. Of course his trouble did not
+leave him at once, but he says that this did him good. It comes from
+the States ..."
+
+Without word said they looked at the little gray pills rolling about
+on the bottom of the box ... A remedy compounded by some man in a
+distant land famed for his wisdom ... And they felt the awe of the
+savage for his broth of herbs simmered on a night of the full moon
+beneath the medicineman's incantations.
+
+Maria asked doubtfully: "Is it certain that her trouble has only to
+do with the kidneys?"
+
+"I thought it was just that, from what Tit'Be told me."
+
+A motion of Chapdelaine's hand eked out his words.--"She strained
+herself lifting a bag of flour, as she says; and now she has pains
+everywhere. How can we tell ..."
+
+"The newspaper that spoke of this medicine," Eutrope Gagnon went on,
+"put it that whenever a person falls sick and is in pain it is
+always the kidneys; and for trouble in the kidneys these pills here
+are first-rate. That is what the paper said, and my brother as
+well."
+
+"Even if they are not for this very sickness," said Tit'Be
+deferentially, "they are a remedy all the same."
+
+"She suffers, that is one thing certain; we cannot let her go on
+like this."
+
+They drew near the bed where the sick woman was moaning and
+breathing heavily, attempting from time to time to make slight
+movements which were followed by sharper outcries.
+
+"Eutrope has brought you a cure, Laura."
+
+"I have no faith in your cures," she groaned out. But yet she was
+ready to look at the little gray pills ever running round in the tin
+box as if they were alive.
+
+"My brother took some of these three years ago when he had the
+kidney trouble so badly that he was hardly able to work at all, and
+he says that they cured him. It is a fine remedy, Madame
+Chapdelaine, there is not a question of it!" His former doubts had
+vanished in speech and he felt wholly confident. This is going to
+cure you, Madame Chapdelaine, as surely as the good God is above us.
+It is a medicine of the very first class; my brother had it sent
+expressly from the States. You may be sure that you would never find
+a medicine like this in the store at La Pipe."
+
+"It cannot make her worse?" Maria asked, some doubt lingering. "It
+is not a poison, or anything of that sort?"
+
+With one voice, in an indignant tone, the three men protested: "Do
+harm? Tiny pills no bigger than that!"
+
+"My brother took nearly a box of them, and according to his account
+it was only good they did him."
+
+When Eutrope departed he left the box of pills; the sick woman had
+not yet agreed to try them, but her objections grew weaker with
+their urging. In the middle of the night she took a couple, and two
+more in the morning, and as the hours passed they all waited in
+confidence of the virtue of the medicine to declare itself. But
+toward midday they had to bow to the facts: she was no easier and
+did not cease her moaning. by evening the box was empty, and at the
+falling of the night her groans were filling the household with
+anguished distress, all the keener as they had no medicine now in
+which to place their trust.
+
+Maria was up several times in the night, aroused by her mother's
+more piercing cries; she always found her lying motionless on her
+side, and this position seemed to increase the suffering and the
+stiffness, so that her groans were pitiful to hear.
+
+"What ails you, mother? Are you not feeling any better?"
+
+"Ah God, how I suffer! How I do suffer! I cannot stir myself, not
+the least bit, and even so the pain is as bad as ever. Give me some
+cold water, Maria; I have the most terrible thirst."
+
+Several times Maria gave her mother water, but at last she became
+afraid. "Maybe it is not good for you to drink so much. Try to bear
+the thirst for a little."
+
+"But I cannot bear it, I tell you-the thirst and the pain all
+through my body, and my head that bums like fire ... My God! It is
+certain that I am to die."
+
+A little before daylight they both fen asleep; but soon Maria was
+awakened by her father who laid his hand upon her shoulder and
+whispered:--" I am going to harness the horse to go to Mistook for
+the doctor, and on the way through La Pipe I shall also speak to the
+cure. It is heart-breaking to hear her moan Eke this."
+
+Her eyes open in the ghostly dawn, Maria gave ear to the sounds of
+his departure: the banging of the stable door against the wall; the
+horse's hoofs thudding on the wood of the alley; muffled commands to
+Charles Eugene: "Hold up, there! Back ... Back up! Whoa!" Then the
+tinkle of the sleigh-bells. In the silence that followed, the sick
+woman groaned two or three times in her sleep; Maria watched the wan
+light stealing into the house and thought of her father's journey,
+trying to reckon up the distances he must travel.
+
+From their house to Honfleur, eight miles; from Honfleur to La Pipe,
+six. There her father would speak with the cure, and then pursue his
+way to Mistook. She corrected herself, and for the ancient Indian
+name that the people of the country use, gave it the official one
+bestowed in baptism by the church--St. Coeur de Marie. From La Pipe
+to St. Coeur de Marie, eight miles . .-Eight and six and then eight.
+Growing confused, she said to herself--" Anyway it is far, and the
+roads will be heavy."
+
+Again she felt affrighted at their loneliness, which once hardly
+gave her a thought. All was well enough when people were in health
+and merry, and one had no need of help; but with trouble or sickness
+the woods around seemed to shut them cruelly away from all
+succour--the woods where horses sink to the chest in snow, where
+storms smother one in mid-April.
+
+The mother strove to turn in her sleep, waked with a cry of anguish,
+and the continual moaning began anew. Maria rose and sat by the bed,
+thinking of the long day just beginning in which she would have
+neither help nor counsel.
+
+All the dragging hours were burdened with lamentable sound; the
+groaning from the bed where the sick woman lay never ceased, and
+haunted the narrow wooden dwelling. Now and then some household
+noise broke in upon it: the clashing of plates, the clang of the
+opened stove door, the sound of feet on the planking, Tit'Be
+stealing into the house, clumsy and anxious, to ask for news.
+
+"Is she no better?"
+
+Maria answered by a movement of the head. They both stood gazing for
+a time at the motionless figure under the woollen blankets, giving
+ear to the sounds of distress; then Tit'Be departed to his small
+outdoor duties. When Maria had put the house in order she took up
+her patient watching, and the sick woman's agonizing wails seemed to
+reproach her.
+
+From hour to hour she kept reckoning the times and the distances.
+"My father should not be far from St. Coeur de Marie ... If the
+doctor is there they will rest the horse for a couple of hours and
+come back together. But the roads must be very bad; at this time, in
+the spring, they are sometimes hardly passable."
+
+And then a little later:--" They should have left; perhaps in
+going through La Pipe they will stop to speak to the cure; perhaps
+again he may have started as soon as he heard, without waiting for
+them. In that case he might be here at any moment."
+
+But the fall of night brought no one, and it was only about seven
+o'clock that the sound of sleigh-bells was heard, and her father and
+the doctor arrived. The latter came into the house alone, put his
+bag on the table and began to pull off his overcoat, grumbling all
+the while.
+
+"With the roads in this condition," said he, "it is no small affair
+to get about and visit the sick. And as for you folk, you seem to
+have hidden yourselves as far in the woods as you could. Great
+Heavens! You might very well all die without a soul coming to help
+you."
+
+After warming himself for a little while at the stove he approached
+the bedside. "Well, good mother, so we have taken the notion to be
+sick, just like people who have money to spend on such things!"
+
+But after a brief examination he ceased to jest, saying:--"She
+really is sick, I do believe."
+
+It was with no affectation that he spoke in the fashion of the
+peasantry; his grandfather and his father were tillers of the soil,
+and he had gone straight from the farm to study medicine in Quebec,
+amongst other young fellows for the most part like himself--
+grandsons, if not sons of farmers--who had all clung to the plain
+country manner and the deliberate speech of their fathers. He was
+tall and heavily built, with a grizzled moustache, and his large
+face wore the slightly aggrieved expression of one whose native
+cheerfulness is being continually dashed through listening to the
+tale of others' ills for which he is bound to show a decent
+sympathy.
+
+Chapdelaine came in when he had unharnessed and fed the horse. He
+and his children sat at a little distance while the doctor was going
+through his programme.
+
+Every one of them was thinking:--"Presently we shall know what is
+the matter, and the doctor will give her the right medicines." But
+when the examination was ended, instead of turning to the bottles in
+his bag, he seemed uncertain and began to ask interminable
+questions. How had it happened, and where, particularly, did she
+feel pain ... Had she ever before suffered from the same trouble ... 
+The answers did not seem to enlighten him very much; then he
+turned to the sick woman herself, only to receive confused
+statements and complaints.
+
+"If it is just a wrench that she has given herself," at length he
+announced, "she will get well without any meddling; there is nothing
+for her to do but to stay quietly in bed. But if there is some
+injury within, to the kidneys or another organ, it may be a grave
+affair." He was conscious that his state of doubt was disappointing
+to the Chapdelaines, and was anxious to restore his medical
+reputation.
+
+"Internal lesions are serious things, and often one cannot detect
+them. The wisest man in the world could tell you no more than I. We
+shall have to wait ... But perhaps it is not that we have to deal
+with." After some further investigation he shook his head. "Of
+course I can give something that will keep her from suffering like
+this."
+
+The leather bag now disclosed its wonderworking phials; fifteen
+drops of a yellowish drug were diluted with two fingers of water,
+and the sick woman, lifted up in bed, managed to swallow this with
+sharp cries of pain. Then there was apparently nothing more to be
+done; the men fit their pipes, and the doctor, with his feet against
+the stove, held forth as to his professional labours and the cures
+he had wrought.
+
+"Illnesses like these," said he, "where one cannot discover
+precisely what is the matter, are more baffling to a doctor than the
+gravest disorders--like pneumonia now, or even typhoid fever which
+carry off three-quarters of the people hereabouts who do not die of
+old age. Well, typhoid and pneumonia, I cure these every month in
+the year. You know Viateur Tremblay, the postmaster at St. Henri ..."
+
+He seemed a little hurt that Madame Chapdelaine should be the victim
+of an obscure malady, hard to diagnose, and had not been taken down
+with one of the two complaints he was accustomed to treat with such
+success, and he gave an account by chapter and verse of the manner
+in which he had cured the postmaster of St. Henri. From that they
+passed on to the country news--news carried by word of mouth from
+house to house around Lake St. John, and greeted a thousandfold more
+eagerly than tidings of wars and famines, since the gossipers always
+manage to connect it with friend or relative in a country where all
+ties of kinship, near or far, are borne scrupulously in mind.
+
+Madame Chapdelaine ceased moaning and seemed to be asleep. The
+doctor, considering that he had done all that was expected of him,
+for the evening at least, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and rose
+to go.
+
+"I shall sleep at Honfleur," said he, "I suppose your horse is fit
+to take me so far? There is no need for you to come, I know the
+road. I shall stay with Ephrem, Surprenant, and come back in the
+morning."
+
+Chapdelaine was a little slow to make reply, recalling the stiff
+day's work his old beast had already accomplished, but at the end he
+went out to harness Charles Eugene once more. In a few minutes the
+doctor was on the road, leaving the family to themselves as usual.
+
+A great stillness reigned in the house. The comfortable thought was
+with them all:--"Anyway the medicine he has given her is a good
+one; she groans no longer." But scarce an hour had gone by before
+the sick woman ceased to feel the effect of the too feeble drug,
+became conscious again, tried to turn herself in bed and screamed
+out with pain. They were all up at once and crowding about her in
+their concern; she opened her eyes, and after groaning in an
+agonized way began to weep unrestrainedly.
+
+"O Samuel, I am dying, there can be no doubt of it."
+
+"No! No! You must not think that."
+
+"Yes, I know that I am dying. I feel it. The doctor is only an old
+fool, and he cannot tell what to do. He is not even able to say what
+the trouble is, and the medicine he gave me is useless; it has done
+me no good. I tell you I am dying."
+
+The failing words were hindered with her groaning, and tears coursed
+down the heavy cheeks. Husband and children looked at her, struck to
+the very earth with grief. The footstep of death was sounding in the
+house. They knew themselves cut off from all the world, helpless,
+remote, without even a horse to bring them succour. The cruel
+treachery of it all held them speechless and transfixed, with
+streaming eyes.
+
+In their midst appeared Eutrope Gagnon.
+
+"And I who was thinking to find her almost well. This doctor, now ..."
+
+Chapdelaine broke out, quite beside himself:--" This doctor is not
+a bit of use, and I shall tell him so plainly, myself. He came here,
+he gave her a drop of some miserable stuff worth nothing at all in
+the bottom of a cup, and he is off to sleep in the village as if his
+pay was earned! Not a thing has he done but tire out my horse, but
+he shall not have a copper from me, not a single copper..."
+
+Eutrope's face was very grave, and he shook his head as he declared:--
+"Neither have I any faith in doctors. Now if we had only thought
+of fetching a bone-setter--such a man as Tit'Sebe of St. Felicien ..."
+Every face was turned to him and the tears ceased flowing.
+
+"Tit'Sebe!" exclaimed Maria. "And you think he could help in a case
+like this?" Both Eutrope and Chapdelaine hastened to avow their
+trust in him.
+
+"There is no doubt whatever that Tit'Sebe can make people well. He
+was never through the schools, but he knows how to cure. You heard
+of Nazaire Gaudreau who fell from the top of a barn and broke his
+back. The doctors came to see him, and the best they could do was to
+give the Latin name for his hurt and say that he was going to die.
+Then they went and fetched Tit'Sebe, and Tit'Sebe cured him." Every
+one of them knew the healer's repute and hope sprang up again in
+their hearts.
+
+"Tit'Sebe is a first-rate man, and a man who knows how to make sick
+people well. Moreover he is not greedy for money. You go and you
+fetch him, you pay him for his time, and he cures you. It was he who
+put little Romeo Boilly on his legs again after being run over by a
+wagon loaded with planks."
+
+The sick woman had relapsed into stupor, and was moaning feebly with
+her eyes closed.
+
+"I will go and get him if you like," suggested Eutrope.
+
+"But what will you do for a horse?" asked Maria. "The doctor has
+Charles Eugene at Honfleur."
+
+Chapdelaine clenched his fist in wrath and swore through his teeth:--
+"The old rascal!"
+
+Eutrope thought a moment before speaking. "It makes no difference. I
+will go just the same. If I walk to Honfleur, I shall easily find
+someone there who will lend me a horse and sleigh--Racicot, or
+perhaps old Neron."
+
+"It is thirty-five miles from here to St. Felicien and the roads
+are heavy."
+
+"I will go just the same."
+
+He, departed forthwith, thinking as he went at a jog-trot over the
+snow of the grateful look that Maria had given him. The family made
+ready for the night, computing meanwhile these new distances ...
+Seventy miles there and back ... Roads deep in snow. The lamp was
+left burning, and till morning the voice from the bed was never
+hushed. Sometimes it was sharp with pain; sometimes it weakly strove
+for breath. Two hours after daylight the doctor and the cure of St.
+Henri appeared together.
+
+"It was impossible for me to come sooner," the cure explained, "but
+I am here at last, and I picked up the doctor in the village." They
+sat at the bedside and talked in low tones. The doctor made a fresh
+examination, but it was the cure who told the result of it. "There
+is little one can say. She does not seem any worse, but this is not
+an ordinary sickness. It is best that I should confess her and give
+her absolution; then we shall both go away and be back again the day
+after to-morrow."
+
+He returned to the bed, and the others went over and sat by the
+window. For some, minutes the two voices were beard in question and
+response; the one feeble and broken by suffering; the other
+confident, grave, scarcely lowered for the solemn interrogation.
+After some inaudible words a hand was raised in a gesture which
+instantly bowed the heads of all those in the house. The priest
+rose.
+
+Before departing the doctor gave Maria a little bottle with
+instructions. "Only if she should suffer greatly, so that she cries
+out, and never more than fifteen drops at a time. And do not let her
+have any cold water to drink."
+
+She saw them to the door, the bottle in her hand. Before getting
+into the sleigh the cure took Maria aside and spoke a few words to
+her. "Doctors do what they can," said he in a simple unaffected way,
+"but only God Himself has knowledge of disease. Pray with all your
+heart, and I shall say a mass for her to-morrow--a high mass with
+music, you understand."
+
+All day long Maria strove to stay the hidden advances of the
+disorder with her prayers, and every time that she returned to the
+bedside it was with a half hope that a miracle had been wrought,
+that the sick woman would cease from her groaning, sleep for a few
+hours and awake restored to health. It was not so to be; the moaning
+ceased not, but toward evening it died away to sighing, continual
+and profound--nature's protest against a burden too heavy to be
+borne, or the slow inroad of death-dealing poison.
+
+About midnight came Eutrope Gagnon, bringing Tit'Sebe the
+bone-setter. He was a little, thin, sad-faced man with very kind
+eyes. As always when called to a sick-bed, he wore his clothes of
+ceremony, of dark wellworn cloth, which he bore with the awkwardness
+of the peasant in Sunday attire. But the strong brown hands beyond
+the thread-bare sleeves moved in a way to inspire confidence. They
+passed over the limbs and body of Madame Chapdelaine with the most
+delicate care, nor did they draw from her a single cry of pain;
+thereafter he sat for a long time motionless beside the couch,
+looking at her as though awaiting guidance from a source beyond
+himself. But when at last he broke the silence it was to say: "Have
+you sent for the cure? ... He has been here. And will he return?
+To-morrow; that is well."
+
+After another pause he made his frank avowal.--" There is nothing I
+can do for her. Something has gone wrong within, about which I know
+nothing; were there broken bones I could have healed them. I should
+only have had to feel them with my hands, and then the good God
+would have told me what to do and I should have cured her. But in
+this sickness of hers I have no skill. I might indeed put a blister
+on her back, and perhaps that would draw away-the blood and relieve
+her for a time. Or I could give her a draught made from beaver
+kidneys; it is useful when the kidneys are affected, as is well
+known. But I think that neither the blister nor the draught would
+work a cure."
+
+His speech was so honest and straightforward that he made them one
+and all feel what manner of thing was a disorder of the human
+frame--the strangeness and the terror of what is passing behind the
+closed door, which those without can only fight clumsily as they
+grope in dark uncertainty.
+
+"She will die if that be God's pleasure."
+
+Maria broke into quiet tears; her father, not yet understanding, sat
+with his mouth half-open, and neither moved nor spoke. The
+bone-setter, this sentence given, bowed his head and held his
+pitiful eyes for long upon the sick woman. The browned hands that
+now availed him not lay upon his knees; leaning forward a little,
+his back bent, the gentle sad spirit seemed in silent communion with
+its maker--" Thou hast bestowed upon me the gift of healing bones
+that are broken, and I have healed them; but Thou hast denied me
+power over such ills as these; so must I let this poor woman die."
+
+For the first time now the deep marks of illness upon the mother's
+face appeared to husband and children as more than the passing
+traces of suffering, as imprints from the hand of death. The
+hard-drawn breath rattling in her throat no longer betokened
+conscious pain, but was the last blind remonstrance of the body rent
+by nearing dissolution.
+
+"You do not think she will die before the cure comes back?" Maria
+asked.
+
+Tit'Sebe's head and hand showed that he was helpless to answer. "I
+cannot tell ... If your horse is able you would do well to seek
+him with the daylight."
+
+Their eyes searched the window, as yet only a square of darkness,
+and then returned to her who lay upon the bed ... But five days
+ago a hearty, high-spirited woman, in full health of mind and body
+... It could not be that she was to die so soon as that. ... But
+knowing now the sad inevitableness, every glance found a subtle
+change, some fresh token that this bed-ridden woman groaning in her
+blindness was no more the wife and mother they had known so long.
+
+Half an hour went by; after casting his eyes toward the window
+Chapdelaine arose hurriedly, saying.--" I am going to put the
+horse in."
+
+Tit'Sebe nodded. "That is well; you had better harness; it is near
+day."
+
+"Yes. I am going to put the horse in," Chapdelaine repeated. But at
+the moment of his departure it swept over him suddenly that in going
+to bring the Blessed Sacrament he would be upon a solemn and a final
+errand, significant of death. The thought held him still irresolute.
+"I am going to put the horse in." Shifting from foot to foot, he
+gave a last look at his wife and at length went out.
+
+Not long after the coming of day the wind rose, and soon was
+sounding hoarsely about the house. "It is from the nor'west; there
+will be a blow," said Tit'Sebe.
+
+Maria looked toward the window and sighed. "Only two days ago snow
+fell, and now it will be raised and drift. The roads were heavy
+enough before; father and the cure are going to have trouble getting
+through."
+
+But the bone-setter shook his head. "They may have a little
+difficulty on the road, but they will get here all the same. A
+priest who brings the Blessed Sacrament has more than the strength
+of a man." His mild eyes shone with the faith that knows no bounds.
+
+"Yes, power beyond the strength of a man has a priest bearing the
+Blessed Sacrament. It was three years ago that they summoned me to
+care for a sick man on the lower Mistassini; at once I saw that I
+could do nothing for him, and I bade them go fetch a priest. It was
+night-time and there was not a man in the house, the father himself
+being sick and his boys quite young. And so at the last it was I
+that went. On the way back we had to cross the river; the ice had
+just gone out--it was in the spring--and as yet not a boat had been
+put into the water. We found a great heavy tub that had been lying
+in the sand all winter, and when we tried to run her down to the
+water she was buried so deep in the sand and was so heavy that the
+four of us could not so much as make her budge. Simon Martel was
+there, big Lalancette of St. Methode, a third I cannot call to mind,
+and myself; and we four, hauling and shoving to break our hearts as
+we thought of this poor fellow on the other side of the river who
+was in the way of dying like a heathen, could not stir that boat a
+single inch. Well, the cure came forward; he laid his hand on the
+gunwale--just laid his hand on the gunwale, like that--'Give one
+more shove,' said he; and the boat seemed to start of herself and
+slipped down to the water as though she were alive. The sick man
+received the sacrament all right, and died like a Christian just as
+day was breaking. Yes, a priest has strength beyond the strength of
+men."
+
+Maria was still sighing, but her heart discovered a melancholy peace
+in the certainty and nearness of death. This unknown disorder, the
+dread of what might be coming, these were dark and terrifying
+phantoms against which one strove blindly, uncomprehendingly. But
+when one was face to face with death itself all to be done was
+plain--ordained these many centuries by laws beyond dispute. By day
+or night, from far or near, the cure comes bearing the Holy
+Sacrament-across angry rivers in the spring, over the treacherous
+ice, along roads choked with snow, fighting the bitter north-west
+wind; aided by miracles, he never fails; he fulfils his sacred
+office, and thenceforward there is room for neither doubt nor fear.
+Death is but a glorious preferment, a door that opens to the joys
+unspeakable of the elect.
+
+The wind had risen and was shaking the Partitions as window-panes
+rattle in a sudden gust. The nor'wester came howling over the dark
+tree-tops, fell upon the clearing about the little wooden
+buildings--house, stable, barn--in' squalls and-wicked whirlwinds
+that sought to lift the roof and smote the walls like a
+battering-ram, before sweeping onward to the forest in a baffled
+fury. The house trembled from base to chimneytop, and swayed on its
+foundation in such a fashion that the inmates, feeling the
+onslaught, hearing the roar and shriek of the foe, were almost as
+sensible of the terrors of the storm as though they were exposed to
+it; lacking the consciousness of safe retreat that belongs to those
+who are sheltered by strong walls of stone.
+
+Tit'Sebe cast his eyes about. "A good house you have here; tightly
+made and warm. Your father and the boys built it, did they not?
+Moreover, you must have a good bit of land cleared by this time ..."
+
+So loud was the wind that they did not hear the sound of
+sleigh-bells, and suddenly the door flew open against the wall and
+the cure of St. Henri entered, bearing the Host in his raised hands.
+Maria and Tit'Sebe fell upon their knees; Tit'Be ran to shut the
+door, then also knelt. The priest put off the heavy fur coat and the
+cap white with snow drawn down to his eyes, and instantly approached
+the sick-bed as heaven's envoy bringing pardon and peace.
+
+Ah! the assurance, the comfort of the divine promise which dispels
+the awful mists of death! While the priest performed the sacred
+rites, and his low words mingled with the sighs of the dying woman,
+Samuel Chapdelaine and his children were praying with bended heads;
+in some sort consoled, released from anxiousness and doubt,
+confident that a sure pact was then concluding with the Almighty for
+the blue skies of Paradise spangled with stars of gold as a rightful
+heritage.
+
+Afterwards the cure warmed himself by the stove; then they prayed
+together for a time, kneeling by the bed.
+
+Toward four o'clock the wind leaped to the south-east, and the storm
+ended swiftly as a broken wave sinks backward from the shore; in the
+strange deep silence after the tumult the mother sighed, sighed once
+again, and died.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THAT WE PERISH NOT
+
+EPHREM SURPRENANT pushed open the door and stood upon the threshold.
+
+"I have come." He found no other words, and waited there motionless
+for a few seconds, tongue-tied, while his eyes travelled from
+Chapdelaine to Maria, from Maria to the children who sat very still
+and quiet by the table; then he plucked off his cap hastily, as if
+in amends for his forgetfulness, shut the door behind him and moved
+across to the bed where the dead woman lay.
+
+They had altered its place, turning the head to the wall and the
+foot toward the centre of the house, so that it might be approached
+on both sides. Close to the wall two lighted candles stood on
+chairs; one of them set in a large candlestick of white metal which
+the visitors to the Chapdelaine home had never seen before, while
+for holding the other Maria had found nothing better than a glass
+bowl used in the summer time for blueberries and wild raspberries,
+on days of ceremony.
+
+The candlestick shone, the bowl sparkled in the flames which lighted
+but feebly the face of the dead. The days of suffering through which
+she had passed, or death's final chill had given the features a
+strange pallor and delicacy, the refinement of a woman bred in the
+city. Father and children were at first amazed, and then perceived
+in this the tremendous consequence of her translation beyond and far
+above them.
+
+Ephrem. Surprenant bent his eyes upon the face for a little, and
+then kneeled. The prayers he began to murmur were inaudible, but
+when Maria and Tit'Be came and knelt beside him he drew from a
+pocket his string of large heads and began to tell them in a low
+voice. The chaplet ended, he sat himself in silence by the table,
+shaking his head sadly from time to time as is seemly in the house
+of mourning, and because his own grief was deep and sincere.
+
+At last he discovered speech. "It is a heavy loss. You were
+fortunate in your wife, Samuel; no one may question that. Truly you
+were fortunate in your wife."
+
+This said, he could go no further; he sought in vain for some words
+of sympathy, and at the end stumbled into other talk. "The weather
+is quite mild this evening; we soon shall have rain. Everyone is
+saying that it is to be an early spring."
+
+To the countryman, all things touching the soil which gives him
+bread, and the alternate seasons which lull the earth to sleep and
+awaken it to life, are of such moment that one may speak of them
+even in the presence of death with no disrespect. Their eyes turned
+quite naturally to the square of the little window, but the night
+was black and they could discern nothing.
+
+Ephrem. Surprenant began anew to praise her who was departed. "In
+all the parish there was not a braver-spirited woman than she, nor a
+cleverer housewife. How friendly too, and what a kind welcome she
+always gave a visitor! In the old parishes--yes! and even in the
+towns on the railway, not many would be found to match her. It is
+only the truth to say that you were rarely suited in your wife ...
+"Soon afterwards he rose, and, leaving the house, his face was dark
+with sorrow.
+
+A long silence followed, in which Samuel Chapdelaine's head nodded
+slowly towards his breast and it seemed as though he were falling
+asleep. Maria spoke quickly to him, in fear of his
+offending:--"Father! Do not sleep!"
+
+"No! No!" He sat up straight on his chair and squared his shoulders
+but since his eyes were closing in spite of him, he stood up
+hastily, saying:--" Let us recite another chaplet."
+
+Kneeling together beside the bed, they told the chaplet bead by
+bead. Rising from their knees they heard the rain patter against the
+window and on the shingles. It was the first spring rain and
+proclaimed their freedom: the winter ended, the soil soon to
+reappear, rivers once more running their joyous course, the earth
+again transformed like some lovely girl released at last from an
+evil spell by touch of magic wand. But they did not allow themselves
+to be glad in this house of death, nor indeed did they feel the
+happiness of it in the midst of their hearts' deep affliction.
+
+Opening the window they moved back to it and hearkened to the
+tapping of the great drops upon the roof. Maria saw that her
+father's head had fallen, and that he was very still; she thought
+his evening drowsiness was mastering him again, but when about to
+waken him with a word, he it was who sighed and began to speak.
+
+"Ephrem. Surprenant said no more than the truth. Your mother was a
+good woman, Maria; you will not find her like."
+
+Maria's head answered him "Yes," but her lips were pressed close.
+
+"Full of courage and good counsel, that she has been throughout her
+life; but it was chiefly in the early days after we were married,
+and then again when Esdras and yourself were little, that she showed
+herself the woman she was. The wife of a small farmer looks for no
+easy life, but women who take to their work as well and as
+cheerfully as she did in those days, Maria, are hard to find."
+
+Maria faltered:--"I know, father; I know it well;" and she dried
+her eyes for her heart was melting into tears.
+
+"When we took up our first land at Normandin we had two cows and
+very little pasture for them, as nearly all our lot was in standing
+timber and hard to win for the plough. As for me, I picked up my ax
+and I said to her:--'Laura, I am going to clear land for you.' And
+from morning till night it was chop, chop, chop, without ever coming
+back to the house except for dinner; and all that time she did the
+work of the house and the cooking, she looked after the cattle,
+mended the fences, cleaned the cow-shed, never rested from her
+toiling; and then half-a-dozen times a day she would come outside
+the door and stand for a minute looking at me, over there by the
+fringe of the woods, where I was putting my back into felling the
+birches and the spruce to make a patch of soil for her.
+
+"Then in the month of July our well must needs dry up; the cows had
+not a drop of water to slake their thirst and they almost stopped
+giving milk. So when I was hard at it in the woods the mother went
+off to the river with a pail in either hand, and climbed the steep
+bluff eight or ten times together with these brimming, and her feet
+that slipped back in the running sand, till she had filled a barrel;
+and when the barrel was full she got it on a wheelbarrow, and
+wheeled it off herself to empty it into the big tub in the
+cow-pasture more than three hundred yards from the house, just below
+the rocks. It was not a woman's work, and I told her often enough to
+leave it to me, but she always spoke up briskly:--'Don't you think
+about that--don't think about anything--clear a farm for me.' And
+she would laugh to cheer me up, but I saw well enough this was too
+much for her, and that she was all dark under the eyes with the
+labour of it.
+
+"Well, I caught up my ax and was off to the woods; and I laid into
+the birches so lustily that chips flew as thick as your wrist, all
+the time saying to myself that the wife I had was like no other, and
+that if the good God only kept me in health I would make her the
+best farm in the countryside."
+
+The rain was ever sounding on the roof now and then a gust drove
+against the window great drops which ran down the panes like
+slow-falling tears. Yet a few hours of rain and the soil would be
+bare, streams would dance down every slope; a few more days and they
+would hear the thundering of the falls.
+
+"When we took up other land above Mistassini," Samuel Chapdelaine
+continued, "it was the same thing over again; heavy work and
+hardship for both of us alike; but she was always full of courage
+and in good heart ... We were in the midst of the forest, but as
+there were some open spaces of rich grass among the rocks we took to
+raising sheep. One evening He was silent for a little, and when he
+began speaking again his eyes were fixed intently upon Maria, as
+though he wished to make very clear to her what he was about to say.
+
+"It was in September; the time when all the great creatures of the
+woods become dangerous. A man from Mistassini who was coming down
+the river in a canoe landed near our place and spoke to us
+thiswise:--'Look after your sheep; the bears came and killed a
+heifer last week quite close to the houses.' So your mother and I
+went off that evening to the pasture to drive the sheep into the pen
+for the night so that the bears would not devour them.
+
+"I took one side and she the other, as the sheep used to scatter
+among the alders. It was growing dark, and suddenly I heard Laura
+cry out: 'Oh, the scoundrels!' Some animals were moving in the
+bushes, and it was plain to see they were not sheep, because in the
+woods toward evening sheep are white patches. So, ax in hand, I
+started off running as hard as I could. Later on, when we were on
+the way back to the house, your mother told me all about it. She had
+come across a sheep lying dead, and two bears that were just going
+to eat it. Now it takes a pretty good man, one not easily frightened
+and with a gun in his hand, to face a bear in September; as for a
+woman empty-handed, the best thing she can do is to run for it and
+not a soul will blame her. But your mother snatched a stick from the
+ground and made straight for the bears, screaming at them:--'Our
+beautiful fat sheep! Be off with you, you ugly thieves, or I will do
+for you!' I got there at my best speed, leaping. over the stumps;
+but by that time the bears had cleared off into the woods without
+showing fight, scared as could be, because she had put the fear of
+death into them."
+
+Maria listened breathlessly; asking herself if it was really her
+mother who had done this thing-the mother whom she had always known
+so gentle and tender-hearted; who had never given Telesphore a
+little rap on the head without afterwards taking him on her knees to
+comfort him, adding her own tears to his, and declaring that to slap
+a child was something to break one's heart.
+
+The brief spring shower was already spent; through the clouds the
+moon was showing her face--eager to discover what was left of the
+winter's snow after this earliest rain. As yet the ground was
+everywhere white; the night's deep silence told them that many days
+must pass before they would hear again the dull roaring of the
+cataract; but the tempered breeze whispered of consolation and
+promise.
+
+Samuel Chapdelaine lapsed into silence for a while, his head bowed,
+his hands resting upon his knees, dreaming of the past with its
+toilsome years that were yet so full of brave hopes. When he took up
+his tale it was in a voice that halted, melancholy with
+self-reproach.
+
+"At Normandin, at Mistassini and the other places we have lived I
+always worked hard; no one can say nay to that. Many an acre of
+forest have I cleared and I have built houses and barns, always
+saying to myself that one day we should have a comfortable farm
+where your mother would live as do the women in the old parishes,
+with fine smooth fields all about the house as far as the eye could
+see, a kitchen garden, handsome well-fed cattle in the farm-yard ...
+And, after it all, here is she dead in this half-savage spot,
+leagues from other houses and churches, and so near the bush that
+some nights one can hear the foxes bark. And it is my fault that she
+has died so ... My fault ... My fault." Remorse seized him; be
+shook his head at the pity of it, his eyes upon the floor.
+
+"Many times it happened, after we had spent five or six years in
+one place and all had gone well, that we were beginning to get
+together a nice property--good pasturage, broad fields ready for
+sowing, a house lined inside with pictures from the papers ...
+Then people came and settled about us; we bad but to wait a little,
+working on quietly, and soon we should have been in the midst of a
+well-to-do settlement where Laura could have passed the rest of her
+days in happiness ... And then all of a sudden I lost heart; I
+grew sick and tired of my work and of the countryside; I began to
+hate the very faces of those who had taken up land near-by and used
+to come to see us, thinking that we should be pleased to have a
+visitor after being so long out of the way of them. I heard people
+saying that farther off toward the head of the Lake there was good
+land in the forest; that some folk from St. Gedeon spoke of settling
+over on that side; and forthwith I began to hunger and thirst for
+this spot they were talking about, that I had never seen in my life
+and where not a soul lived, as for the place of my birth ...
+
+"Well, in those days, when the work was done, instead of smoking
+beside the stove I would go out to the door-step and sit there
+without moving, like a man homesick and lonely; and everything I saw
+in front of me--the place I had made with these two hands after so
+much of labour and sweat--the fields, the fences, over to the rocky
+knoll that shut us in--I detested them all till I seemed ready to go
+out of my mind at the very sight of them.
+
+"And then your mother would come quietly up behind me. She also
+would look out across our place, and I knew that she was pleased
+with it to the bottom of her heart because it was beginning to look
+like the old parish where she had grown up, and where she would so
+gladly have spent her days. But instead of telling me that I was no
+better than a silly old fool for wishing to leave--as most women
+would have done-and finding hard things to say about my folly, she
+only sighed a little as she thought of the drudgery that was to
+begin all over again somewhere back in the woods, and kindly and
+softly she would say to me:--'Well, Samuel! Are we soon to be on the
+move once more?' When she said that I could not answer, for I was
+speechless with very shame at thinking of the wretched life I had
+given her; but I knew well enough that it would end in our moving
+again and pushing on to the north, deeper into the woods, and that
+she would be with me and take her share in this hard business of
+beginning anew--as cheerful and capable and good-humoured as ever,
+without one single word of reproach or spitefulness."
+
+He was silent after that, and seemed to ponder long his sorrow and
+the things which might have been. Maria, sighing, passed a hand
+across her face as though she would brush away a disquieting vision;
+but in very truth there was nothing she wished to forget. What she
+heard had moved her profoundly, and she felt in a dim and troubled
+way that this story of a hard life so bravely lived had for her a
+deep and timely significance and held some lesson if only she might
+understand it.
+
+"How little do we know people!" was the thought that filled her
+mind. Since her mother had crossed the threshold of death she seemed
+to wear a new aspect, not of this world; and now all the homely and
+familiar traits endearing her to them were being overshadowed by
+other virtues well-nigh heroic in their quality.
+
+To pass her days in these lonely places when she would have dearly
+loved the society of other human beings and the unbroken peace of
+village life; to strive from dawn till nightfall, spending all her
+strength in a thousand heavy tasks, and yet from dawn till nightfall
+never losing patience nor her happy tranquillity; continually to see
+about her only the wilderness, the great pitiless forest, and to
+hold in the midst of it all an ordered way of life, the gentleness
+and the joyousness which are the fruits of many a century sheltered
+from such rudeness--was it not surely a hard thing and a worthy? And
+the recompense? After death, a little word of praise.
+
+Was it worth the cost? The question scarcely framed itself with such
+clearness in her mind, but so her thoughts were tending. Thus to
+live, as hardly, as courageously, and to be so sorely missed when
+she departed, few women were fit for this. As for herself ...
+
+The sky, flooded with moonlight, was of a wonderful lambency and
+depth; across the whole arch of heaven a band of cloud, fashioned
+strangely into carven shapes, defiled in solemn march. The white
+ground no longer spoke of chill and desolateness, for the air was
+soft; and by some magic of the approaching spring the snow appeared
+to be only a mask covering the earth's face, in nowise terrifying--a
+mask one knew must soon be lifted.
+
+Maria seated by the little window fixed her unconscious eyes upon
+the sky and the fields stretching away whitely to the environing
+woods, and of a sudden it was borne to her that the question she was
+asking herself had just received its answer. To dwell in this land
+as her mother had dwelt, and, dying thus, to leave behind her a
+sorrowing husband and a record of the virtues of her race, she knew
+in her heart she was fit for that. In reckoning with herself there
+was no trace of vanity; rather did the response seem from without.
+Yes, she was able; and she was filled with wonderment as though at
+the shining of some unlooked-for light.
+
+Thus she too could live; but ... it was not as yet in her heart so
+to do ... In a little while, this season of mourning at an end,
+Lorenzo Surprenant would come back from the States for the third
+time and would bear her away to the unknown delights of the
+city--away from the great forest she hated--away from that cruel
+land where men who go astray perish helplessly, where women endure
+endless torment the while ineffectual aid is sought for them over
+the long roads buried in snow. Why should she stay here to toil and
+suffer when she might escape to the lands of the south and a happier
+life
+
+The soft breeze telling of spring came against the window, bringing
+a confusion of gentle sounds; the swish and sigh of branches swaying
+and touching one another, the distant hooting of an owl. Then the
+great silence reigned once more. Samuel Chapdelaine was sleeping;
+but in this repose beside the dead was nothing unseemly or wanting
+in respect; chin fallen on his breast, bands lying open on his
+knees, he seemed to be plunged into the very depths of sorrow or
+striving to relinquish life that be might follow the departed a
+little way into the shades.
+
+Again Maria asked herself:--"Why stay here, to toil and suffer
+thus? Why? ..." And when she found no answer, it befell at length
+that out of the silence and the night voices arose.
+
+No miraculous voices were these; each of us bears them when he goes
+apart and withdraws himself far enough to escape from the petty
+turmoil of his daily life. But they speak more loudly and with
+plainer accents to the simple-hearted, to those who dwell among the
+great northern woods and in the empty places of the earth. While yet
+Maria was dreaming of the city's distant wonders the first voice
+brought murmuringly to her memory a hundred forgotten charms of the
+land she wished to flee.
+
+The marvel of the reappearing earth in the springtime after the long
+months of winter ... The dreaded snow stealing away in prankish
+rivulets down every slope; the tree-roots first resurgent, then the
+mosses drenched with wet, soon the ground freed from its burden
+whereon one treads with delighted glances and sighs of happiness
+like the sick man who feels glad life returning to his veins ...
+Later yet, the birches, alders, aspens swelling into bud; the laurel
+clothing itself in rosy bloom ... The rough battle with the soil a
+seeming holiday to men no longer condemned to idleness; to draw the
+hard breath of toil from morn till eve a gracious favour ...
+
+--The cattle, at last set free from their shed, gallop to the
+pasture and glut themselves with the fresh grass. All the new-born
+creatures--the calves, the fowls, the lambs, gambol in the sun and
+add daily to their stature like the hay and the barley. The poorest
+farmer sometimes halts in yard or field, hands in pockets, and
+tastes the great happiness of knowing that the sun's heat, the warm
+rain, the earth's unstinted alchemy--every mighty force of
+nature--is working as a humble slave for him ... for him.
+
+--And then, the surnmertide; the glory of sunny noons, the heated
+quivering air that blurs the horizon and the outline of the forest,
+the flies swarming and circling in the sun's rays, and but three
+hundred paces from the house the rapids and the fall--white foam
+against dark water--the mere sight of it filling one with a
+delicious coolness. In its due time the harvest; the grain that
+gives life heaped into the barns; then autumn and soon the returning
+winter ... But here was the marvel of it, that the winter seemed
+no longer abhorrent or terrifying; it brought in its train the sweet
+intimacies of a house shut fast, and beyond the door, with the
+sameness and the soundlessness of deep-drifted snow, peace, a great
+peace . .
+
+In the cities were the strange and wonderful things whereof Lorenzo
+Surprenant had told, with others that she pictured to herself
+confusedly: wide streets suffused with light, gorgeous shops, an
+easy fife of little toil with a round of small pleasures and
+distractions. Perhaps, though, one would come to tire of this
+restlessness, and, yearning some evening only for repose and quiet,
+where would one discover the tranquillity of field and wood, the
+soft touch of that cooler air that draws from the north-west after
+set of sun, the wide-spreading peacefulness that settles on the
+earth sinking to untroubled sleep.
+
+"And yet they must be beautiful!" thought she, still dreaming of
+those vast American cities ... As though in answer, a second voice
+was raised.
+
+--Over there was it not a stranger land where people of an alien
+race spoke of unfamiliar things in another tongue, sang other songs?
+Here ...
+
+--The very names of this her country, those she listened to every
+day, those heard but once, came crowding to memory: a thousand names
+piously best owed by peasants from France on lakes, on rivers, on
+the settlements of the new country they were discovering and
+peopling as they went--lac a l'Eau-Claire--la Famine--Saint-Coeur-
+de-Marie--Trois-Pistoles--Sainte Rose-du-Degel--Pointe-aux-
+Outardes--Saint-Andre-de-l' Epouvante ... An uncle of Eutrope
+Gagnon's lived at Saint-Andre-de-l'Epouvante; Racicot of Honfleur
+spoke often of his son who was a stoker on a Gulf coaster, and every
+time new names were added to the old; names of fishing villages and
+little harbours on the St. Lawrence, scattered here and there along
+those shores between which the ships of the old days had boldly
+sailed toward an unknown land--Pointe-Mille-Vaches--les
+Escoumins--Notre-Dame-du-Portage--les Grandes-Bergeronnes--Gaspe.
+
+--How sweet to hear these names where one was talking of distant
+acquaintance and kinsfolk, or telling of far journeys! How dear and
+neighhourly was the sound of them, with a heart-warming friendly
+ring that made one feel as he spoke them:--"Throughout all this
+land we are at home ... at home ..."
+
+--Westward, beyond the borders of the Province; southward, across
+the line were everywhere none but English names. In time one might
+learn to speak them, even might they at last come familiarly to the
+ear; but where should one find again the happy music of the French
+names?
+
+--Words of a foreign speech from every lip, on every street, in
+every shop ... Little girls taking hands to dance a round and
+singing a song one could not understand ... Here ...
+
+Maria turned toward her father who still slept with his chin sunk on
+his breast, looking like a man stricken down by grief whose
+meditation is of death; and the look brought her swift memory of the
+hymns and country songs he was wont to teach his children in the
+evenings.
+
+    A la claire fontaine
+    M'en allant promener ...
+
+In those cities of the States, even if one taught the children how
+to sing them would they not straightway forget!
+
+The clouds a little while ago drifting singly across a moonlit sky
+were now spread over the heavens in a vast filmy curtain, and the
+dim light passing through it was caught by the earth's pale coverlet
+of melting snow; between the two wan expanses the ranks of the
+forest darkly stretched their long battle-front.
+
+Maria shuddered; the emotion which had glowed in her heart was
+dying; once again she said to herself: "And yet it is a harsh
+land, this land of ours ... Why should I linger here?"
+
+Then it was that a third voice, mightier than the others, lifted
+itself up in the silence: the voice of Quebec--now the song of a
+woman, now the exhortation of a priest. It came to her with the
+sound of a church bell, with the majesty of an organ's tones, like a
+plaintive love-song, like the long high call of woodsmen in the
+forest. For verily there was in it all that makes the soul of the
+Province: the loved solemnities of the ancestral faith; the lilt of
+that old speech guarded with jealous care; the grandeur and the
+barbaric strength of this new land where an ancient race has again
+found its youth.
+
+Thus spake the voice.--"Three hundred years ago we came, and we
+have remained ... They who led us hither might return among us
+without knowing shame or sorrow, for if it be true that we have
+little learned, most surely nothing is forgot.
+
+"We bore oversea our prayers and our songs; they are ever the same.
+We carried in our bosoms the hearts of the men of our fatherland,
+brave and merry, easily moved to pity as to laughter, of all human
+hearts the most human; nor have they changed. We traced the
+boundaries of a new continent, from Gaspe to Montreal, from St. Jean
+d'Iberville to Ungava, saying as we did it.--Within these limits
+all we brought with us, our faith, our tongue, our virtues, our very
+weaknesses are henceforth hallowed things which no hand may touch,
+which shall endure to the end.
+
+"Strangers have surrounded us whom it is our pleasure to call
+foreigners; they have taken into their hands most of the rule, they
+have gathered to themselves much of the wealth; but in this land of
+Quebec nothing has changed. Nor shall anything change, for we are
+the pledge of it. Concerning ourselves and our destiny but one duty
+have we clearly understood: that we should hold fast--should endure.
+And we have held fast, so that, it may be, many centuries hence the
+world will look upon us and say:--These people are of a race that
+knows not how to perish ... We are a testimony.
+
+"For this is it that we must abide in that Province where our
+fathers dwelt, living as they have lived, so to obey the unwritten
+command that once shaped itself in their hearts, that passed to
+ours, which we in turn must hand on to descendants innumerable:--
+In this land of Quebec naught shall die and naught shall suffer
+change ..."
+
+The veil of gray cloud which hid-the whole heavens had become
+heavier and more louring, and suddenly the rain began afresh,
+bringing yet a little nearer that joyous hour when the earth would
+lie bare and the rivers be freed. Samuel Chapdelaine slept
+profoundly, his head sunk upon his breast, an old man yielding at
+last to the long fatigues of his lifetime of toil. Above the
+candlestick of metal and the glass bowl the candle flames wavered
+under gentle breaths from the window, and shadows flitting across
+the face of the dead woman made her lips seem to be moving in prayer
+or softly telling secrets.
+
+Maria Chapdelaine awaked from her dream to the thought:--" So I
+shall stay--shall. stay here after all!" For the voices had spoken
+commandingly and she knew she could not choose but obey. It was only
+then that the recollection of other duties came, after she had
+submitted, and a sigh had passed her lips. Alma Rose was still a
+child; her mother dead, there must be a woman in the house. But in
+truth it was the voices which had told her the way.
+
+The rain was pattering on the roof, and nature, rejoicing that
+winter was past, sent soft little wandering airs through the
+casement as though she were sighing in content. Throughout the hours
+of the night Maria moved not; with hands folded in her lap, patient
+of spirit and without bitterness, yet dreaming a little wistfully of
+the far-off wonders her eyes would never behold and of the land
+wherein she was bidden to live with its store of sorrowful memories;
+of the living flame which her heart had known awhile and lost
+forever, and the deep snowy woods whence too daring youths shall no
+more return.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+PLEDGED TO THE RACE
+
+ESDRAS and Da'Be came down from the shanties in May, and their
+grieving brought freshly to the household the pain of bereavement.
+But the naked earth was lying ready for the seed, and mourning must
+not delay the season's labours.
+
+Eutrope Gagnon was there one evening to pay them a visit, and a
+glance he stole at Maria's face perhaps told him of a change in her,
+for when, they were alone he put the question:--" Maria, do you
+still think of going away?"
+
+Her eyes were lowered, as with a motion of her head she signified
+"No."
+
+"Then ... I know well that this is no time to speak of such
+things, but if only you could say there would be a chance for me one
+day, then could I bear the waiting better."
+
+And Maria answered him:--"Yes ... If you wish I will marry you
+as you asked me to ... In the spring--the spring after this spring
+now--when the men come back from the woods for the sowing."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Maria Chapdelaine, by Louis Hemon
+
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