Maria Chapdelaine

“ 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." ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 François 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. ”

“ 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 François Paradis who sat very silent beyond the door, elbows on his knees. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Wherever the snow was clear for a few yards, free of dead trees and stumps, and he could lift his eyes without fear of stumbling, 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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 François 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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:—"François 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ..." ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”