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One autumn evening at Monk’s Inlet, as the Beauchemin family were preparing for supper, they were startled by a knocking at the door. Outside stood a tall, stalwart young man, quite unknown to them, with a pack on his back, who asked for something to eat.

“Come right along in and sit you down, Stranger,” cried Father Didace.

With only a nod and not even a word of thanks, the newcomer accepted the invitation. He merely said, “I’ll just wash up first.”

Throwing his bundle into a corner, he slipped off his vivid red and green check woolen shirt, from which there was a button missing near the collar and another just above the belt. Then he plied the pump with such vigor that after three or four violent wheezes, it began to spurt water outside the iron sink onto the patch of carpet, and even onto the knotty and uneven floorboards. The man, quite unembarrassed, burst into a roar of laughter; but none of the others even smiled, much less Alphonsine who, disgusted by the mess, said rather acidly, “You haven’t got the knack of it.”

She dexterously jerked the pump handle up and down so that the little sink was soon brimming, and the stranger, with quick, deft hands, bathed his face, sluiced his neck, scattered water over his hair, while the eyes of everyone in the room followed his slightest movements. He seemed almost to have brought a fresh significance into an act that was indeed familiar to them all.

As soon as he had taken his place at table, as he paused for a moment, Didace, in some surprise, said to him heartily, “What’s the matter, Stranger? Help yourself. Don’t wait to be asked.”

The man carved himself a large hunk off the hot roast, deposited four roast potatoes on his plate, which he anointed generously with rich gravy, and then looked round the table for the bread. Amable hurriedly hacked off a slice about two inches thick, tearing the inside of the loaf as he did so. Everyone at the table who was feeling at all hungry did the same. The old man threw a stealthy look at them, one by one. No one, however, seemed to notice the shadow of contempt which slowly, like an autumn mist, spread over his grim features. When his turn came, he, Didace, son of Didace, who had a proper respect for bread, quietly picked up the rounded loaf with his left hand, laid it against his half-bared chest still moist with the sweat of a long day’s toil, and, with his right hand (after scraping the knife against the edge of his plate until the gleaming blade was speckless) he gently cut himself off a hunk about the size of a fist.

With heads bent, uplifted elbows, scarcely exchanging a word, and quite oblivious of their neighbors, the three men of the Inlet farm, Didace, his son Amable-Didace, and Beau-Blanc, the hired hand, ate with noble appetite. They wrested the very last particle of meat off the bones, which they then laid on the table. Now and again one of them paused to fling a scrap to Spot, the dog who begged with tearful eye from chair to chair. Another would stab a fork into a bit of bread and dip it in a bowl of maple sirup, which stood in the middle of the table. A third would lift the back of his hand to his chin and wipe off the gravy that was trickling from the corners of his mouth. Alphonsine alone picked daintily at her plate. Often she had to get up and pour out a cup of black tea thick as molasses. In contrast with the men, who gulped down the contents of their thick cups of crude, chalky-white earthenware, she liked to drink in little sips from a small, fancy cup which she never filled to the brim.

After a few satisfactory swallows, the stranger deigned to observe, “It’s good tea, but it’s not real logging-camp stuff. I like the sort of tea that will float a hatchet.”

Neither that evening nor the following day, which he spent working in the company of the others, did the stranger make any mention of departure. Toward the end of the afternoon Didace finally asked, “How long are you going to stay with us?”

“Just about as long as I’m needed.”

“Well, you might tell us your name, and where you come from.”

“My name? You gave me one; you called me ‘Stranger.’ ”

“But that’s not a name,” protested Didace.

“Look here,” said the man, “I don’t ask you any questions. Do as I do. I like this place. If you’ll give me somewhere to sleep, my grub, and a bit of tobacco thrown in, I’ll stay. I don’t ask anything more. Not so much as a cent. I’ll serve you as a farmhand, and you can call me what you like—outlander, stranger, what you will.”

“Hmm,” muttered Didace, and before agreeing, he said, “It’s pretty late in the year to be taking on a farmhand. In this part of Canada we bed down early for the winter.”

His hunter’s eye, which carried far, much farther than any ordinary vision, peered into the stranger’s heart as though to extract its secret. Didace was delighted to see that the man was in no way abashed. The old man’s sole indication of consent was to lay a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“You’re tall and strong, almost as solid as a rock, and you don’t look like a shirker.”

When he reached the track alongside the house, Didace Beauchemin squared his shoulders. Silently he jerked at the reins. The horse, whose quarters were gleaming with sweat, obediently halted. To get a better view of the stretch of ground which he had been plowing, Didace, his eyes bright and piercing beneath the thick, bushy brows, turned around; the parallel furrows ran evenly and almost straight through the heavy, rich soil. Despite his sixty years and more, his wrist was still strong and his eye steady. He had done a good job.

Between the roadway at his feet and the communal pastures of Monk’s Island, the water in the Inlet flowed past, green and placid. Toward the north, two columns of smoke flickered to and fro in the direction of Île à la Pierre: a steamer going up the St. Lawrence to Montreal.

“The four-masters won’t be able to sail up river much longer,” thought Didace.

Disburdened of their milk, a dozen or so cows moved slowly in single file along the muddy bank. There was not a breath of wind, and against the translucent sky a single cloud reddened toward the east, a last live ember among cold ashes. Didace, his head erect, his nostrils stretched, disdainfully sniffed the heavy and tepid air. Although the cool of the evening was at hand, he felt his shoulders still glowing with the heat of noon. In that dead, enervating season, he preferred the gusty rains, the squalls of wind that lash men’s blood and drive the wild birds to take refuge in the bays.

Suddenly he saw two men in a light cart turn up the slope. Recognizing Pierre-Côme Provençal, with Odilon, the eldest of his boys, Didace briskly unharnessed the horse, which trotted back to its stable by itself. Then he leaned against the fence and lit his pipe.

In the center of the plain, among the scattered houses that lay for the most part some way back on the higher ground, far from the river and the neighboring road in order to avoid the floods, Didace’s house, built on an artificial mound near the old Royal road, possessed the rare advantage of being within hail. The Beauchemins could, at any hour of the day, be hailed by the passer-by on the road or the river. Even if there was little to say, they exchanged brief comments about the level of the water, the direction of the wind, their health, for the sole pleasure of saying something, or merely not to lose so good a chance to talk.

“Hullo! Hi! Didace.”

Didace did not move. He and Pierre-Côme Provençal were not on speaking terms. Seldom could two boyhood friends, two lifelong neighbors, have quarreled and made it up with such facility. But for a month past they had ignored each other. Pierre-Côme, who was both Mayor of the parish and game warden, had more than once warned Didace that he must not shoot in the closed season. After having vainly threatened to fine him, he burned his blind, the worst affront that can be offered to a hunter. However, sooner than be the first to speak to Pierre-Côme, Didace had submitted to that indignity. If old Provençal imagined that he was going to dictate to the countryside. . . .

“Hi, Didace—was that Gaillarde who was drawing the plow this afternoon?”

“Herself, my boy,” said Didace, with his usual curtness. “Why do you ask, Fatty?”

“Because if she’s your mare, well—she’s a neat bit of horseflesh. If I ever want foals, I’ll borrow her.”

That was all; they could now become cronies and companions once again. Didace was much elated. But while his neighbor’s team departed at a walk, he said to himself, “Anyway, Provençal spoke first. I’ve got him where I want him. From now on I’ll hunt just when I like.”

For his part, Pierre-Côme Provençal, swollen with pride, reflected that he had done a cheap deal. For the price of a trifling concession, he had made certain of the Beauchemins’ vote and of the votes of all their satellites. He would again be Mayor at the coming elections.

He turned and threw a lingering look at the Beauchemins’ land. With his little slit eyes, like those of a fox out on the prowl, he surveyed its richness: twenty-seven acres nine perches long, by two acres seven perches wide, more or less. The gray, level fields, except where grooved by recent plowings, were laid out like a vast strip of linen stretching from the Baie de la Lavallière to the Inlet. At dusk Pierre-Côme could hardly distinguish them. But he knew that in that alluvial soil, where one would search in vain for a pebble, bumper crops of buckwheat, hay, and oats would grow for many harvests yet.

On the neighboring property of about the same size lived David Desmarais and his only daughter, Angelina. Pierre-Côme thought of his four boys who would have to be settled nearby. A little restive, the Desmarais girl, not easy to talk to, not much to look at either, and past her prime several years ago. But she was hard-working and a good housewife, and such women are getting rare nowadays. When a girl has a solid bit of land behind her and some sound qualities into the bargain, why should a boy bother about her looks?

“Old Didace must be getting rather shaky, eh?”

At the sound of his son’s voice, Provençal gave a start. “Well and indeed! The skin of his heart must be thickening a bit. The Beauchemins must grow old like everybody else.”

Then he paused. Didace and he were the same age; he had just remembered that fact. . . .

“However, if he is a bit shaky, it certainly isn’t just age. The work is getting more than he can manage.”

At that moment he caught sight of the bowed figure of Didace, plodding up the hill. After him, the Beauchemin property could hardly survive. Amable-Didace, the only son, sickly and unequal to hard work, would never make a real farmer.

Once more Pierre-Côme Provençal thought of his sons, Odilon, Augustin, Vincent, Joinville—all of them sturdy, healthy, and energetic. And he smiled proudly.

Before whipping his horse into a trot, he dug an elbow genially into Odilon’s ribs.

“Next time there’s an evening party, take care to be nice to that tall girl of Desmarais’s, Angelina. She’ll soon settle down into something sensible like most girls do.”

With leaden feet Didace made his way toward the house. A flight of five steep, narrow steps led up to the front door; but no one, not even the neighbors, not even near relatives, ever used it, except on great occasions, such as a christening, a wedding, or a pastoral visit from the Curé of Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel. Even when the Abbé Lebrun looked in at Monk’s Inlet to discuss the shooting, or whatever it might be, with old Didace, he would never have thought of entering by that door. No path led up to it. In summer the lowest step was smothered in tall grasses. A trim footpath led around to the back door.

Since the death of Mathilde, his wife, not only did Didace take every chance to get away from his home, he positively avoided it, as though the earth would have burnt his feet, as though all the familiar objects, lately so precious in his eyes, had tarnished and lost their value. Slowly he scraped his boots on the threshold as he peered into the house. He could see a large part of the principal room, which served both as kitchen and sitting room. The curtains hung in slovenly folds against the windows, and in the two lower rooms, his own and that occupied by the young married pair, the feather beds, once so magnificently bulbous, now—for they were feebly shaken—sagged in the center.

Weak and naturally timorous, despite all her good will, Alphonsine had not succeeded in investing the house with that atmosphere of security and warm happiness, that stamp of infallibility, which transforms a home into a unique refuge against the world. In the hands of the daughter-in-law it no longer exhaled its ancient perfumes of cedar wood and cleanliness, and seemed even to have lost its power to cheer the heart.

As he entered, Didace found the table partly laid and Phonsine huddled in a chair. Frail, with narrow shoulders and hips, her hair in plaits, and sitting thus forlorn, she looked like a little girl in disgrace. As soon as she caught sight of her father-in-law, she set about cutting the bread. Sensing the stern look of the master following her slightest movements, she became more and more flustered. Suddenly the loaf together with the bread knife slipped onto the floor. She hurriedly retrieved them, but blood was flowing from a cut finger. As she was about to throw the reddened bread out to the chickens, she said with a nervous little laugh, “When the bread jumps about, Papa, it’s a sign that good times are coming.”

But the old man took her wrist. “Bread must never be thrown away, my dear, not even to the hens. It must be burnt.”

Didace was very angry, but he controlled himself, lest he might say too much. The women of the Beauchemin family, from their ancestress Julie down to his aunts, his mother, his sisters, his wife, and even his daughter Marie-Amanda (now married to Ludger Aubuchon, on the Île de Grâce), had been fine, buxom women, all of them—square-shouldered, always prompt to take their fair share of any burdens. They had always taken pride in giving a hand to the men in the fields and never got out of breath in the steepest plowing. And they bore a child almost every year. But now the daughter-in-law, a little Ladouceur girl from La Pinière, an orphan brought up as a fine lady, makes a face like a fine lady at the prospect of hard work. Didace was furious. “A little chit of a girl like her! And not even a baby in her arms after three years of marriage.”

“Where’s Amable?” he asked brusquely.

Alphonsine jumped. “Amable? He’s lying down upstairs. He came back from the fields exhausted.”

Didace smoked on in silence. Amable was showing up as the same sort of weakling. As long as Mathilde had been alive, maternal vigilance set a barrier between father and son. Now that they were two men face to face all day, Didace was taking the measure of his son. Amable-Didace, sixth of the name, would never be a genuine Beauchemin, lavish of his strength and heart, a great hunter, a great eater, as good at fighting as at work, sometimes without a penny in his pocket, but with pride enough to supply the whole parish.

He, Didace, had labored faithfully for his family; his affection for them may have been crude and inarticulate, but it was solid and unfailing. Those substantial and handsome new buildings—who but he had built them? The buckwheat patch—who had added that onto the farm? He also. Twice churchwarden, then parish councilor, he had been a personage, and he had known how to keep the respect of the neighborhood. But it had meant great sacrifice—from which, indeed, neither he nor his wife had ever shrunk. The property must be preserved in all honor for those who should come after.

When he was gone a man would be needed to carry on the Beauchemin name; Didace had been on the lookout for him for some time, but had not found him yet. A dull, vague uneasiness had long beset him, intermittent but difficult to repel, rather like a pain he had once had in the marrow of his bones, a pain that shifted up and down from his great toe to his knee and made him long to take down his gun and fire it into his leg.

In the little harbor, ducks were fluttering and quacking. A flight of wild duck must be passing over. Instinctively Didace glanced up at the gun, always burnished, always loaded, and securely fastened to the first beam of the ceiling; then he walked over to the window. But he saw nothing but a few seagulls soaring over the Inlet in search of a patch of sand on which to alight.

“Yes, the shooting season’s on; the blacks are getting wild. They’re flying high.”

Everything was blurred in the play of twilight shadows. Scattered here and there among the bare fields, the houses in the distance, stripped of their array of foliage, had a look of gaunt peasant women lingering over their work.

Amable, stooping a little, and Beau-Blanc, the hired hand, came into the kitchen together. Phonsine turned up the wick of the lamp.

It was on that evening, as they were sitting down to supper, that the Stranger knocked at the Beauchemins’ door.

Before entering the narrow path that led to the Beauchemins’ house, Angelina Desmarais paused by the quick-set hedge to get her breath. Walking alone, she found it a long way, and at the turn of the hill the wind lurking in the willows had caught her by the throat and very nearly blown her over.

Angelina moved slowly forward. A touch of lameness, survival of a childish malady, made her walk with a slight tilt to the left, rather than an actual limp.

Careful and thrifty, she wore her clothes threadbare, and never spent a penny on frivolities. “A very capable woman,” was the verdict on her in the neighborhood and on the islands as far as Maska. A husband would find her a treasure. Such was clearly the opinion of the young men in the neighborhood; every week one or other of them would hitch his horse to the poplar near the house of David Desmarais. Then jumping lightly down from the buggy before even taking the horse out of the shafts, the visitor, slipping off his dust coat as rural courtesy demanded, would politely approach Angelina to ask for permission to escort her to the next evening party. But no such offers had been accepted. David Desmarais was much distressed that she remained unmarried, though now over thirty. He would have so much liked to see her future assured by marriage, and, at the same time, now that he was getting on in years, to see the burden of the farm work fall on the shoulders of a strong and energetic son-in-law.

“Angelina,” he would say to her, in a tone of mild reproach, “you’re as choosey as a gray goose.”

“Just tell yourself that the right man hasn’t come along yet,” she would reply encouragingly.

In the face of her dismissal, even those who would have welcomed the land and all the other property, including the daughter of David Desmarais, took to jeering at Angelina among themselves. But she ambled past them without a single resentful glance at the impudent lads, for the good reason that none of them appealed to her in the least.

As she approached the Beauchemins’ place, the silence and absence of movement around the bakehouse astonished Angelina. The idea of finding her neighbors already in their winter quarters on the sheltered side of the house, while the shooting season was in full swing, when the floating docks were still in place, the beach covered with nets and a medley of boats, duck pens, and cages, made her feel quite vexed. Why heat the great house when the bakehouse was sufficient for their needs?

In the old days Marie-Amanda and her mother, Mathilde, like most of the women of Monk’s Inlet and the commune of Sainte-Anne, would never have thought of shutting themselves up before All Saints’ Day. The daughter-in-law Alphonsine had no reason to act otherwise. If a touch of self-pity and an aversion to hard work gave a woman the right to upset the established order, one might as well give up the ghost at once. Amable was not a man to take his wife to task; he admired himself in her. For her part, Angelina wouldn’t fuss over such a feckless creature. She would just look in to borrow a spool of thread and then go on her way.

Angelina had not been mistaken; there was not a sign of life inside the bakehouse. A wisp of smoke previously hidden from view curled round the chimney of the farmhouse. She swung around, with a firm grasp on her skirts to steady herself against a fresh gust. It was an October wind, feline and malicious, sometimes shamming dead, and almost hushed, eyes closed, claws indrawn, crawling limply over the dry rushes, not so much as ruffling the surface of the water, then clambering up the trees, and wrenching at the topmost branches, as though to tear the very trunks out of the ground. In two bounds it dashed onto the road, raised an eddying whirl of dust, swept the dry leaves into a crazy dance, and nearly blew over a passing traveler. Then it swooped upon the frothy, foam-flecked stream, clapped the boats against the docks, rattled the roofs of the old buildings, burst open the great barn doors, and raced over the fields to rest before a further onslaught—a veritable devil of a wind, howling like a lost soul. It tipped a tar barrel right over the road embankment.

The uproar brought Didace hurrying out, with the dog Spot growling at his side. Amazed to find Angelina there, he exclaimed gaily, “A grand slap of wind, eh, my girl?”

“It doesn’t look as if the frost will do you much harm this autumn, from what I can see,” said the lame girl drily.

From where she stood in the doorway, she was about to give a piece of her mind to Alphonsine, but at the sight of the Stranger, whom she did not know, she was embarrassed and refrained. After the exchange of a few phrases she became silently absorbed in watching Alphonsine preparing some pies. She was distressed to see her incessantly add pure wheaten flour to the rather flabby dough and start rolling it out again.

Although by nature very thrifty, Angelina was capable of spending lavishly in a sort of deliberate extravagance, both on herself or others. But the slightest waste of other people’s property as well as of her own roused her to indignation: anything lost in pure loss—a fence collapsing onto the roadway, a farm implement left lying about in the fields, or butter spread too thickly—anything used up to no purpose disgusted her as though she had been herself defrauded of it.

Perched upon a stool the Stranger was patiently trying to slip a bit of coarse thread through the eye of a fine needle. Angelina, overcome with a sudden pity for a man struggling with a feminine task, said timidly, “May I help you?”

“Now then, Stranger,” said Alphonsine angrily, and rather out of countenance, rubbing her floury hands on her apron, “give me the shirt and I’ll sew that button on.”

But the Stranger ignored them both. With an air of bravado and a sly look at Angelina, who never took her eyes off him, he picked up a nail from the floor and fastened his shirt with it. Then he went across to the sink. Not finding his tea mug in its usual place, he opened the cupboard and took the first cup on an upper shelf that caught his eye.

Alphonsine glanced up and noticed that he was drinking out of her cup. In one bound she was beside him and tried to snatch it from his very lips.

“My cup! That’s my cup you’ve taken!”

More agile than she, the Stranger, to tease her, lifted the cup to the full length of his arm.

She blanched and cried, “Don’t—don’t! You’ll break it!”

Although there was nothing special about that cup, Alphonsine treasured it. One evening at the fair at Sorel she had recognized an old school friend who had lately married a doctor at Saint-Ours. As anxious to show herself on Amable’s arm as to renew her acquaintance with this friend of convent days, she waved to her delightedly. But the other, pretending not to see her and busy keeping her ostrich-feather boa in place, turned away as though she didn’t know Alphonsine and concentrated her attention on a cup and a jug set out to be raffled.

Deeply humiliated, Alphonsine had made haste to buy the remaining tickets. To her pride and satisfaction she had drawn the prize.

Phonsine’s wrath was such that the Stranger, with an explosion of laughter, gave her back the cup.

“Nobody’s allowed to touch anything in this house—father has his armchair, the boy his rocker, and even the little mother has her cup. . . .”

The Stranger’s laugh rang out like a peal of little bells in Angelina’s ears.

“That’s enough,” said Beauchemin, amused despite himself, and signing to the Stranger to follow him outside.

When the two men had gone, Angelina asked, more with her eyes than her lips, “Who is that man?”

The other woman shrugged her shoulders, half in disdain and half in indifference.

“Just a man who turned up one day.”

“For a few days in passing?”

“Unfortunately, no. It looks as if he were going to spend the winter here.”

Angelina blushed. She barely realized the joy the news had brought her.

Alphonsine went on, “I don’t understand how my father-in-law can stand such a pickup off the roads, a fellow who won’t even tell his own name.”

“You don’t like him, Phonsine?”

Alphonsine looked confused, hesitated, and then said, “I don’t dislike him, but I rather wish I did; there’s not much good to be got out of birds of passage who are always on the wing. Do you know what he reminds me of?”

“Well, no. . . .”

“The big-headed diver, that odd-looking bird that my father-in-law shot last autumn. By the look of it you’d imagine that it would make a tasty dish; oh yes, a very handsome bird indeed, but all feathers and no flesh. He’s just the same. A proper humbug if there ever was one. Knows everything. Seen everything.”

“Is he up to his job?” asked Angelina with lively interest.

“Some days he’s good for nothing. At other times, when he’s sober, he’s like a man bewitched and can do four men’s work. Two days ago. . . .”

On the last evening but one, the Stranger had tried conclusions with Didace and Amable in storing potatoes in the cellar. Kneeling on the wagon with stiffened back and shoulders squared, the Stranger lifted the sacks with arms outstretched and slung them dexterously to old Didace. The older man much less briskly swung them across to Amable, who stood waiting with his head out of the trap door, ready to put them into place. It was too heavy a job for Amable, who stood there green with exhaustion, wiping onto his sleeve the blood that was flowing from his nose. Every now and then he asked the Stranger for something—a mug of water, or some tool or other, or merely what the time might be—so as to gain a breathing space. Old Didace kept his eye on him.

“Poor softy. I suppose he’s going to collapse again.”

But he himself had more than once to give the signal for a halt, on the pretext of lighting his pipe in shelter from the wind but really to recover his breath. Toward the end of the afternoon, worsted and dead-beat, he regretfully admitted his defeat to the Stranger.

“I’d like to have taken you on at this job, my boy, thirty years ago.”

“Thirty years ago! That’s a man’s life! Oh yes, you’d have beaten me then all right; I was in my cradle.”

While the Stranger was away for a moment, Alphonsine, in the half-conscious hope of getting an answer that might incriminate him, had run to ask her father-in-law, “How did the Stranger get on?”

Didace Beauchemin, who admired nothing in a man so much as strength, had admitted thoughtfully, “He’s the sort of man who can turn his hand to any job.”

He had even added, in a voice of real affection, “The blasted fellow almost made me rick my back.”

That same evening, while the two Beauchemins were only too thankful to get a cushion under them to ease their aching bones, the Stranger had marched out and, by way of stretching his legs, had briskly covered the five miles that separated Monk’s Inlet and Sorel.

“What energy!” said Angelina rather grudgingly.

“Watch him at work if you want to get an idea of what he’s like.”

Not far from the stable the three men were chopping firewood. On either side of the trestle Amable and Didace were thrusting the saw back and forward, but neither father nor son was very adept. Having no notion of concerting their movements, the Beauchemins could not keep up a sufficient supply of logs to the Stranger who, with a joyous sweep of his arm, split them with an ax and sent the segments flying.

Even before Didace had opened his mouth, at a mere impatient glance, the Stranger understood and offered himself as a relief.

“Hi there!—let me take your place, Amable. This pile of wood has to be cleared off before dinnertime.”

Didace and the Stranger soon got the saw into position between them, and the steel teeth hissed into the plane-tree logs. Angelina now saw nothing in the wind but two men swinging rhythmically back and forward.

When the Stranger stood up, motionless and clear-cut against the vivid light, Angelina liked the look of him. Muscular and powerfully built, erect and carrying his head high like an oak tree, he had the poise of the healthy man in the full vigor of his age. His gray-blue eyes, usually with a merry twinkle in them, had a glimmer of sadness in repose; his thick, curly hair, always rather tousled, was flaming red and grew low down on his neck. When she had first noticed it she thought to herself, “It’s like a forest fire.” And when he leaned down to pick up a nail she had seen at the base of his neck a patch of white skin, a white and almost feminine skin, she thought.

Vexed at allowing herself to fall thus under the spell of a passer-by, she made haste to discover his defects: his nose, with its sensitive nostrils, was broad and beaked, his chin short and harshly angled; but his mouth, with its full and shapely lips, from which the laughter burst like water from a spring—his mouth was certainly attractive, that she must needs admit. That great laugh of his! . . . She could hear it still. It stirred in her a medley of emotions. That high, clear laugh rang out on all sides, as resonant as the Pélerine, the bell of Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel, when the wind was blowing in the right direction.

Angelina no longer recognized herself; her temples were throbbing in a surge of blood, as though two harsh hands were beating them. As she turned she saw Alphonsine, her forehead glued to the windowpane, her eyes brimming with dreams and looking toward the Stranger. In a suddenly aggressive tone, Angelina said, “What’s the matter with the man, if he’s a good worker? Is he troublesome?—or difficult to feed?”

Alphonsine shook her head. “He was taken on just for his keep and his tobacco, though I will say that he eats as though he’d never stop. But it isn’t exactly that. . . .”

Mysteriously she moved from one window to the other, and then to the door, peering all around to make sure no one was listening. Then she came up close to Angelina, stood for several moments with a harassed air, and then, in a low, grave, uneasy voice, pronounced sentence on the Stranger.

“He drinks.”

A wall of silence descended between the two women, each of them intent on following the thread of her own thoughts. Alcohol was, for Alphonsine, even more than an object of horror; it was a menace, a curse upon the house. Hadn’t they all known once respectable farmers who had fallen victims to strong drink, and drunk up their houses, their land, and even property left in their trust for minors, and therefore doubly sacred? Surely Angelina must disapprove of any man who got drunk. How was it that she had no word of condemnation for this new arrival? Far from it; as though she were bound to the Stranger by some unuttered bond, she was annoyed with Alphonsine for revealing a secret which she would have found out soon enough.

“Do you mean you have actually seen him tipsy?”

Phonsine was again busy turning the pie around on the platter and crimping its edges with her clumsy fingers, childishly absorbed in her task.

“Not yet, but he looks like a man who drinks. Amable thinks that there’s something not quite normal about a man who’s always so spry and lively and dashes at his jobs; he must have some vice or other.”

Slowly she concluded, “Goes well before the wind, but doesn’t answer to the helm.”

Angelina rose abruptly, ready to depart.

“Don’t hurry away,” pleaded Alphonsine, for whom the company of any woman of the neighborhood was something of a treat. “You might try my pies later on.”

Angelina barely thanked her. She even added curtly, “You know I never care for your pies.”

Alphonsine replied in some astonishment, “Well, the Stranger always eats two or three slices.”

But not wishing to part from her neighbor on terms of such asperity, the visitor went on, “I’m so glad to hear you’re so forward with the autumn work.”

Alphonsine let the pastry fall. Her face lit up. Her hands, white with flour, clasped in a ray of vivid sunlight that rimmed one of the boards in the kitchen table, and she became calm like a young bird when it snuggles under the maternal wing in the simple joy of security.

“We’ve got in nearly all our winter stuff. To tell the truth, since his arrival, the Stranger has put any amount of go into my men. . . .”

Gazing into the firmament, now a little dappled toward the north, in defiance of raging winds and surging floods, of driving snow and whirling dust, she joyously recounted the resources of the house.

“All our winter supplies: the wood you can see for yourself, island maple, good thick timber; plenty of fine buckwheat flour; our peas have dried out nicely. Our potatoes were a grand crop. Our dairy butter is coming along well. We’ve got all we want. The only job to be done now is to kill some pigs and salt the green bacon, at the first hard frost after the Feast of the Assumption.”

The Stranger stayed on at Monk’s Inlet. Amable and Alphonsine often spoke very harshly to him, but he never took offense either at their suspicious looks or their acid comments. But the first time that Didace alluded to the scarcity of work, the Stranger flung down the scythe that he was honing to clear away the rushes from a new pool where it was intended to shoot duck. Waving his mighty arms as though he meant to cleave away the network of branches above his head, he dashed up to the head of the family.

Then and there, as when the skillful workman at the proper moment picks his pine plank and skims the plane along it to shape a boat’s rib, he knew that the hour had come to speak frankly or to go.

“Listen, Father Beauchemin, you and all the rest of you. Don’t take me for a thief nor a scoundrel from the big woods. I’m not a killer nor a robber. And I’m not a cheat. Everywhere I go I earn my bread and my butter. I offered you to take me on for bed and board. If you aren’t satisfied, say so; the road’s not far away. On my side, if I don’t like my quarters, I’ll be off before I’ve had time to get out of my overalls.”

This sort of straight and fighting talk appealed to Didace, but he was not going to show it. He merely answered bluntly, “You can stay as long as you’re needed.”

The Stranger was on the point of adding, “Come now, I’m quite a good sort of fellow, aren’t I, old boy?”

But he restrained himself; bravado, once the battle’s won, is trouble lost.

And so he was to become an inmate of that house. He surveyed the Beauchemin habitation with a long, lingering gaze. A squat, massive, and whitewashed building beneath its shallow-eaved black roof, it stood, with its adjoining bakehouse, on a bit of rising ground, scarcely even a hillock, among a cluster of poplars. A little to the side and lower down were the outbuildings, and in front rose two new barns erected during the previous year—huge, imposing structures set at right angles, the nearer bearing under the eaves the date of their erection in bronze letters—1908. In the background squatted a medley of old thatched sheds, stables, byres, and penthouses, still usable but more than a little rotten and ramshackle.

It was like a house he had once seen in a dream: a house set beside a road that vanished into woodland, with a lovely river at its feet. So he was to stay as long as he was needed: one month? two months? six months? Careless of the future, he shrugged his shoulders and picked up the whetstone and the scythe. Then with a slow, deft movement of his thumb, which he had moistened with saliva, he placidly went on honing the scythe.

“Quick, Stranger, dinner’s on the table.”

As he was walking up to the house, Alphonsine said to him reproachfully, “I do wish you wouldn’t always lag behind everybody else.”

Alphonsine tended to get into a fuss over trifles. The slightest disturbance of the routine of work upset her for the rest of the day. Added to which, having a poor appetite herself, the task of preparing the daily meal, which had fallen to her since her mother-in-law’s death, and especially the meat, which Didace insisted on being highly flavored with spice, garlic, and rock salt, was for her a penitence renewed each day. But no anguish could equal what she suffered at seeing the food submitted to the Stranger’s judgment at every meal. Never a word of blame and never a word of praise, but a hateful habit of pushing his plate away, like a Seigneur’s son—and he didn’t even belong to the parish. And his trick of calling her little mother! . . .

The Stranger took his place on a bench at the side, sipped his broth, and made a faint grimace as he said, “I’m trying to remember where I ate broth as good as this, so rich that it made me feel quite sick. . . .”

Usually very silent at table, he talked on and on, as though he were enjoying the sound of his own voice. “If I could only remember. . . .”

He tried to bring the place back into his mind. Again he tried, ranging over the huge world, telling the Beauchemins of many oddly named cities and countries which meant nothing to them: Monk’s Inlet was all they needed. But he tried in vain. After a few moments’ pause, he continued in a low and level tone, “Did I ever tell you about a cook I knew in a shipyard in Maine? He had the knack of pancakes and buckwheat scones the like of which I’ve never tasted anywhere else. They melted in your mouth. The only trouble was that we hadn’t the pleasure of saying so at table because we weren’t allowed to talk.”

Alphonsine, who was annoyed by this, had it on her lips to say, “So that was where you learnt to hold your tongue, my lad?”

But in her father-in-law’s presence she did not dare.

The Stranger could not stem his flow of talk and went on, “Have you ever eaten roast partridge, garnished with beans and bacon? It has an almond flavor. There’s nothing tastier. It would bring a corpse to life.”

Didace stopped him.

“Nonsense. Partridge is poor stuff. Wild duck, if you like: the flesh is clean, at least, and water game is soothing to the stomach. Partridge indeed! Pah!”

“Have you ever eaten partridge?”

“Of course I have. Some fellow left us a brace not long ago. Phonsine put them into the soup saucepan to stew, and a very nasty brew it was, too.”

The Stranger stopped eating to look at Alphonsine.

“Partridge soup! It’s a sin, little mother, to waste good food like that! Partridge should be eaten with cabbage and a spiced sauce, but never in soup. Or again as I’ve eaten it in Abitibi. The cook plucked a partridge, covered it with clay, and put it to roast in live ashes, in a hole underground. When it was done, there was a crust formed all over it which flaked off, and the partridge was done to a turn.”

Phonsine managed to repress a shudder. Apparently indifferent, her face quite impassive, she listened to the recital of what she regarded merely as travelers’ tales. By way of trying to make her smile, the Stranger, after three helpings of meat, pushed his plate away, and observed to the company at large, “Don’t you think the roast tastes rather of tallow?”

The woman’s face crimsoned. The joke was ill timed, as the Stranger could well see.

Didace got up and went out. The dog, which had been frisking around, darted after him. With one kick Amable sent him flying into a corner.

“Where did you get that dog?” asked the Stranger.

“You’re going to tell us it was stolen from you, eh?” retorted Amable.

Two years before, a stray, short-haired, bewildered dog had followed the Beauchemin farm wagon up to the barn. It lacked one ear and was scarred with many a thrashing, but it looked a good fighter.

“He’s ghastly thin,” Didace had said, despite Amable’s protest. “We’ll give him a chance to fill out a bit.”

“If you want to know,” went on Amable venomously, “he’s what you might call a stranger too.”

“Stranger—stranger,” replied the other, “that’s a word you’re always using. Tell me once for all what you mean by it.”

Amable hesitated.

“Well, if you must know, it’s someone from outside the parish, who stops at a house where he isn’t invited, and then stays on.”

“I don’t see anything very discreditable in that.”

“Well, in these parts the general view is that it isn’t very creditable either.”

The Stranger burst into a roar of laughter, and departed with the dog at his heels. Amable, as he watched them go, said to his wife, “They make a good pair, don’t they?”

But when supper time came, the Stranger, without even looking up, saw Alphonsine furtively add two or three eggs to the pancake mixture, by way of lightening it. And the next morning, while still half asleep and rather peevish at not being able to lie abed as was her habit before the Stranger’s arrival (and at the prospect of preparing breakfast for three men), she rubbed a bit of bacon rind over the round stove pans before plastering them with the gray and lumpy buckwheat dough, soon to sputter into a thousand blisters over the fire.

About the middle of the afternoon Phonsine, thinking the men were in the fields, took out a velvet housewife, dangled it in front of the fire, and watched it sparkle as she mused.

Her brief sojourn at the convent—where, in exchange for a little light domestic work she had been accepted as one of the pupils, whom she waited on at table—had left her with a taste for fine sewing. To spend long evenings in a boudoir under the lamplight, as did the young ladies of Sorel, doing fancy needlework or tatting or petit-point embroidery, had long seemed to her the heighth of bliss. Sometimes she would take out of their hiding place some delicate strips of pale satin and flame-colored velvet, for the sole pleasure of gazing at them and feeling their softness to the touch.

In days gone by, when she thought of the brush holders, the pin-cushions, and all the pretty things that she could fashion with her own hands, and put away in tissue paper at the bottom of a drawer, Alphonsine was seized by a searing regret at the thought that her proper lot was really to wear lace and silk, and not to wait on other people. But her entry into the Beauchemin family gave her such a sense of security that if she still sometimes shuddered at having to mend the men’s rough garments, she resolutely drove all such frivolous thoughts out of her mind. Besides, she no longer had time to do any sewing of that kind. Nor the skill. And her fingers were too stiff.

Musing thus, Phonsine had not heard the footsteps on the outer stairway.

The Stranger was carrying the firewood into the shed. Since his arrival there had always been a good supply of logs and chips to bring a fire up to a blaze, and driftwood for damping fires down for the night. He always kept the wood box properly stacked up to the brim, disdaining Amable’s dodge of flinging in a couple of armfuls at random to make it look full.

Alphonsine had not time to hide away the red velvet housewife before he noticed it. He did not say a word, but a few days later, as she was about to scold him for walking into the kitchen in muddy boots, he held out an armful of sweet grass, saying, “Here you are, little mother. That’ll make grand stuffing for your little fancy jobs.”

Not being used to such thoughtfulness, Alphonsine was the more astonished; and she unconsciously felt flattered. Was this fellow in league with the Devil, that he could actually guess what was passing through people’s minds? She would have been quite prepared to believe it if one day she had not seen a little black cross, from which a tin Christ, much rubbed at the arms, hung by one hand only, drop from the Stranger’s mackinaw.

Didace no longer sought excuses for getting out of the house. Every evening since the Stranger’s arrival the kitchen filled up with what became a pleasant little gathering. First, Jacob Salvail, looking in on his way past, with his daughter Bernadette. Then De-Froi’s three sons. Next appeared the schoolmistress, Rose-de-Lima, bringing with her two of the four Provençal ladies. And all the other neighbors dropped into the habit of coming in too. Curious to hear what the Stranger had to tell about the great world, the dwellers on the Inlet began to frequent the Beauchemin house. For them, with the exception of a few seafarers, the land they knew lay not only within the province of Quebec but entirely between Sorel, the two villages in the north, Yamachiche and Maskinongé, up to Lac Saint-Pierre, and Lavallière and Yamaska bays, at the furthest limit of their lands.

Without even awaiting an invitation, each and all took their places on the bench beside the table, or on a straight chair. Apart from the armchair belonging to the head of the family and Amable’s rocker, on which no one dared to sit, there were a dozen straight low chairs set against the wall, the older ones home made, with seats of woven leather, the backs slightly sagging from wear; the others caned with oaken slats.

The Stranger, who was genially disposed, liked talking to men, but was rather stand-offish with women. When he was not deriding their uselessness, he ignored them. Of the four Provençal girls, he would have been hard put to it to say which was Catherine, Lisabel, Marie, or Geneviève. Twice in the same week he had made the painful mistake of confusing Bernadette Salvail, whose reputation for beauty extended beyond the Great River, with the little schoolmistress, who was very plain—a plainness which nature had maliciously accentuated by crowning her with a sumptuous mass of blue-black hair.

Among those who foregathered thus every evening at the Beauchemins’ was Joinville, the youngest and most exuberant of the four Provençal boys. Pierre-Côme thought it politic to accompany him. The mayor of the parish, as sedate and secret as an owl, sat some distance away from the lamp in a shaded corner, carefully eliminating the faintest expression from his face. On the return home he did his best to remove from his son’s mind any effect that might have been produced by the Stranger’s noxious talk.

“So he says it’s grand over there, does he? But we haven’t seen the receipt for goods delivered. If someone from the Inlet went to have a look, I guess he’d be glad to get back home.”

His son said nothing, and he became more emphatic. “Keep your eye on that fellow; he’s an Indian.”

“But he’s fair-haired! What makes you say such a thing?” protested Joinville.

“It’s clear from the way he talks. When he’s not on guard, he talks under his breath. And he never smiles. An Indian never smiles. He laughs, or else he keeps his face as flat as a stone slab.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Then you haven’t looked at him properly. You should have noticed that he’s got a nasty, ungrateful expression. If I were Didace, I wouldn’t keep him for another day. He may be fair-haired. . . .”

One evening Angelina Desmarais joined the company. Her waxen complexion and thin body gave her the air of a candle kept in a cupboard for several years. Her lank hair strayed in long meshes from underneath the comb and straggled down her neck. Only her vivid black eyes, shining like twin stars, were alive beneath the prominent forehead.

She arrived in such distress and confusion that she felt for the latch on the wrong side of the door. Amable could not resist teasing her, and said, “You won’t catch the son of this house.”

“I don’t want him. I’m just returning the spool of thread I borrowed from Phonsine.”

The young men promptly tried to make her blush.

“Why here’s the lovely Angelina looking quite tidy for once.”

“And as pretty as a picture, too, this evening.”

“Cheeks like two of the rosiest apples.”

“She must have washed with scented soap. She reeks of geranium, and her face is all shiny.”

Didace, with a wave of his hand, silenced their chatter.

On the succeeding evenings she fairly scarified herself to invent some barely plausible excuses. Finally, without so much as opening her mouth, she stood framed in the doorway, her gaunt figure arrayed in a dun-colored wrap. Then she limped toward the nearest chair, and, anxious to lose nothing of what the Stranger said, she mumbled vague replies to the women’s talk.

Angelina, who was always up with the dawn, worked very hard. Her mother having died nearly fifteen years ago, she had, from the very outset, in the household now under her sole charge, displayed that knack of management which women in the fullness of their strength do not always acquire. She knew how to tackle her work in a calm, common-sense way. Her life of an evening varied only in accordance with the season; as long as the fine weather lasted, she sat with hands clasped and watched the river flowing past and the birds speeding overhead. In late autumn and winter she rested quietly, sitting motionless in the shadows, praying or merely watching the reflections of the flames in their wild dance across the ceiling.

Although she liked reading, she would never have dared to do so on a weekday—reading being, according to her notions, a purely Sunday occupation, and too exalted to be pursued in workaday clothes.

But on Sunday afternoon, wearing her best dress, over which she slipped a white apron newly washed and redolent of fresh air and wind—then she could get her books out. She possessed only two: her missal and a school prize, Geneviève de Brabant. She alternated between them, reading one on one Sunday and the other on the following Sunday, never varying that routine.

Though alone, she read aloud, so as to get a better grasp of the subject. The story of the modest Geneviève among the wolves in the forest, subsisting entirely on roots, with her son Dolor—a poor little Saint John the Baptist clad in skins—moved her to tears. Sometimes, while she was reading, her practical instinct came to the surface and struggled dourly against her taste for poetry. But the latter usually won the day. Wasn’t it presumption on her part, and almost a sin, to doubt what was written in such a handsome, gilt-edged presentation volume?

In the missal, there were a few holy pictures used for marking places. There were also some mortuary cards bearing five or six portraits of distant relatives on her mother’s side. Angelina did not know them. At times, out of respect for her mother’s memory, she glanced at them before including them in the prayer for dead relations. They were stiff and unappealing—all taken by the same photographer, no doubt, who had imposed on them an identical carriage of the head. They looked as though they had been cut out of a Mother Seigel’s almanac, a kind of panacea against every sort of pain, great or small, moral or physical.

She would open the missal at the first page that came to hand and be equally content to read the Mass for an Abbé, the Common of Doctors, or the Proper of the Season. Mystical phrases such as Crown of Life—Children of Light—The just man shall flourish like the palm tree—Sweet host of the Soul struck her, and she paused, though it was the music rather than the sense of the words that appealed to her. Surely God was summoning her to His service. How otherwise could the inner rapture that possessed her be explained? She could never be a teaching Sister, of course—but why not a sacristine? She, so inured to hard work, complacently conceived herself ironing the fine lace on the albs and masking the seams of the altar cloth. She saw herself adorning the Infant Jesus for the Christmas crib, and with her broad sleeves tucked up, arranging the high altar, in an aroma of beeswax. As long as she had any breath in her body, God and His Saints should never lack flowers in the altars at the great festivals of the Church; and there should be plenty of those flowers in pots which, in the seedsmen’s catalogues, appeared under their Latin names, which conferred a kind of distinction even on the most ordinary plants.

Came the day when she made a special journey to the Rectory to discuss her vocation with the Curé of Sainte-Anne. The Abbé Lebrun was doubtful about encouraging Angelina; he thought her weak and very young. Besides, her lameness would be a hindrance. He urged her to pray and to wait for a few years; ought not a good daughter in the first place help her father, who was alone and needed her?

David Desmarais remained a widower. As time went on Angelina put her dream behind her and transferred part of her devotion to the garden. As soon as the earth grew warm again, she was to be seen kneeling beside the flower beds or leaning over baskets and transplanting cuttings or plants from pots into open ground. Lobelias, bachelor’s-buttons, begonias, cockscombs, sweet Williams were tended with the most loving care. Her sensitive bare fingers, flitting from one to another, instinctively picked out the sickly tendrils and the lifeless leaves, pressing the soil down around them, as though it were her mission to make them grow. The flowers were to her not merely a source of joy, but a cause of pride and satisfaction; at the local show, she always got a few honorable mentions and several first prizes. Added to which, the seeds sold at retail brought her in a little pocket money.

Since Angelina had become acquainted with the Stranger, she no longer spent the evenings motionless in her chair; she wandered from one window to another. Or else she listened with a sinking heart to the clock picking off the hours in the thick darkness. At regular intervals a drop of water fell from the pump, and this monotonous toc-toc finally became more maddening than the crash of thunder. Now and again David Desmarais, pipe in mouth, lifted up his voice.

“Listen, my girl.”

He caught the thud of a yacht engine in the distance.

“Hullo! Cournoyer’s coming back from the fish market at Sorel.”

Angelina started, and she replied mechanically, “I wonder if he got a good price.”

The fall of the minutes and of the drops of water went on more insistently than ever. Angelina could stand it no longer. She rose abruptly, snatched her cloak from its hook, and before setting out for Didace’s house, she flung at her father from the doorway, “I shan’t be late.”

David Desmarais did not so much as move—either because he did not realize the turmoil in his daughter’s mind, or, without wishing to admit it, he was not disinclined to see Angelina taking up with a young fellow of the Stranger’s stamp.

In Angelina’s eyes the Stranger represented day and night: the man of the roads had shown himself a good worker, devoted to the soil . . . the heedless rover, without family or aim in life, had proved himself a man skilled in five or six different crafts. The first time that Angelina felt her heart beat for him, she, who had so preened herself on never taking a fancy to a young man, revolted. But less and less, however, every day.

In the end, she accepted her emotion, not as a blessing, nor as a cross—far from it!—but just as she greeted the passage of time: as a force, superior to the will, against which she had no choice.

So it was that her heart turned toward love, even as leaves seek the sunlight.

One day the Stranger sang:

No one understood a word of it, except that the tune was catching, and one’s feet automatically tapped out the rhythm on the floor. With his great gnarled hand on his knee, Father Didace, not to be outdone, launched out after him:

When he had finished, he said, “I beg pardon. Time was when I could have gone on all night.”

The Mayor’s wife, Laure Provençal, was quite scandalized, and leaning toward her neighbor, whispered, “Pretty frisky for a widower, isn’t he? Poor Mathilde! Well—better dead, I suppose. She doesn’t seem to be much missed. . . .”

But the others were purple with laughter. They slapped their thighs in token of their delight. The scene was like a holiday evening. Only Phonsine sat and brooded in a corner. After a few minutes, she went across to Laure Provençal, as much because of her capacity of Mayoress as that of their principal neighbor.

“Do you think it would be all right to serve some dandelion wine?”

To help herself to think, the stately Laure Provençal set her lips, folded her arms, and accentuated the perpetual swaying motion which always seemed to possess the upper portion of her body. Her regret for the dead friend did not go so far as depriving herself of the wine she loved so much.

“I don’t see any harm in that, my girl.”

“The trouble is,” observed Phonsine, “that I haven’t any cake, not even a store cracker. . . .”

Bernadette Salvail came forward to help, and so maneuvered as to serve the Stranger. Handing him a glass she plucked up her courage and said, “I’ll bet you play the piano, Stranger. I can see it in your eye.”

“Sure.”

“There’s a harmonium at Angelina’s place, but it’s so precious that no one ever plays it.”

The Stranger turned toward Angelina.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. But it’s a very old harmonium that must need tuning by this time. It hasn’t been opened since my brother’s death.”

“I’ll come and have a look at it one of these days.”

Angelina was in ecstasy.

The Stranger turned his back on the women and began to talk to the men, leaving his hand spread out on the table beside Angelina. She could not take her eyes off that broad, masculine hand—a shapely, powerful hand, supple and strong—a hand that looked smooth to the touch, firm and clear-colored like the heart of an oat, deft, Angelina was sure, at the most delicate of tasks. Beneath the tight skin the veins stood out, running in all directions like sturdy shoots from the parent branch. Such a hand, thought Angelina, is a boon to its possessor and a protection to the woman who shall slip her hand within it. Someone passed the door, and the lamp flame flickered. At the sight of the fleeting russet glow on the soft hairs on the back of the five broad, open fingers, she thought the Stranger’s hand looked like a star.

The evening was drawing to a close. The ancient Beauchemin clock struck the hours with a hurried, high-pitched chime. It let fall nine strokes in succession into the expectant kitchen. Everyone then made ready to go home, and the Stranger began to think about the labors of the morrow. He enjoyed nothing so much as cutting out a good day’s work for himself.

After his wife’s death Didace had left many things neglected on his land; he had no heart, so to speak, for anything but grief. When the Stranger arrived, he marked everything that was askew or was on the verge of coming to grief in one way or another: the bakehouse to be repaired, the old buildings to be demolished, the fences to be shored up and some to be taken away before the snow came, stakes driven in, a chimney bricked up, and so on. At the Inlet many of the farmers, with the exception of Pierre-Côme Provençal, had begun to regret that he hadn’t turned up at their places instead of at the Beauchemins’; indeed they would soon have felt proud to have him as an inmate. On a road-mending job the day before, had not Didace spoken up for him plainly, rather to the detriment of Amable? A fishmonger from Maska had asked in passing, “Who’s that redheaded fellow sweating away at the end of the line?”

Joinville Provençal answered, “It’s the Beauchemin fellow.”

Amable exploded, “He’s no more a Beauchemin than you are Provençal. There aren’t so many Beauchemins hereabouts, if you want to know. He’s just some outlander from heaven knows where.”

“Open your ears before you talk. I didn’t say he was a Beauchemin; I said he was the Beauchemin fellow. You catch people up; you’ll get yourself into trouble one of these days.”

The man from Maska persisted. “What’s his name, Amable?”

“I don’t know any more than you do. He just turned up.”

“Oh,” said the other in a disappointed tone. “He’s just a tramp, is he? I thought he was at least one of those chaps who can stop a wound from bleeding, or hypnotize a pigeon. The Devil and his following. . . .”

“No, but he can stop sheep from jumping over fences,” observed Vincent Provençal.

“Really!” said the man from Maska, brimming with curiosity. “And how does he do that?”

“By making the fences so high that they can’t.”

This sally was greeted with a roar of laughter. Didace came up and cut the conversation short.

“Now then,” he said to the fishmonger. “You get right out of this, you old fathead, or I’ll crack that skull of yours so you won’t see the sunset any more. And you chaps, I won’t have you laughing at that man of ours. He may have a fault or two, but he’s a fine enough fellow to be called Beauchemin.”

The man from Maska moved off jauntily. “You can keep your tramp. No one’s going to take him off your hands.”

But the others, as they went on with their work, said to each other, “Well, I never! It almost looks as though old Didace respects the man!”

Not long afterward, on the quay side one morning, Didace told the Stranger that, as he was walking along the sand bank, he had seen a whole ocean of ducks by the lake. “The sky’s positively black with them, and they’re settling in flocks on the water. Well, they’ll just eat us up,” he said briefly.

The Stranger smiled skeptically; but at midday, before dinner was gone, he got up from the table and, with the dog at his heels, went out in the direction of the dock without uttering a word, lest Didace might say he wanted the boat.

Spot was quivering with excitement. To prevent him barking, the Stranger stroked him into something like composure. At the floats the ducks, with round, staring eyes and outstretched necks, were splashing around in a flutter of curiosity. The dog was already nosing the boat away from the bank. He was amazed to see the Stranger move off without him. Torn between the impulse to swim after the boat or follow it along the bank, he leaped about in all directions. But another bark was approaching along the road; he turned and trotted off to meet it.

Once out of sight of the Beauchemins, the Stranger began to paddle more slowly. He took his time to reach the lake. The sun was high, and the lighthouse on Île aux Raisins would serve to steer by. For some days past autumn had been coming down in full force on Monk’s Inlet. Beneath its yoke the whole countryside looked burdened with disquiet. No more rustles and murmurs in the trees, nothing but cracking branches and the roar of wind. No more bright mists, rising with the dawn, and melting in the first rays of sunlight; nothing but dead fogs wreathing malignantly around the burnt lands and the stubble. Not a clod but was turned back into the earth. Not a patch of kitchen garden but was covered by a layer of mulch. Not a storehouse but was protected by a double bank of earth.

From one field to the next the voices of the men, graver now and more sonorous, rang out like a knell in the morning air. And now and again the quavering bleat of a sheep, frantic with distress, was wafted across the water and echoed against the river banks.

Everything was now so peaceful that the plain seemed to be given over to a resignation that passed into serenity. The Inlet, shorn of its withered reeds packed between land and water, looked wider. At one end of the village pasture, the last of the sheep stood huddled in close array, nose to nose and flank to flank, rigid, silent, and tenacious. On the morrow, they would have to be ferried across in a barge from the field to the fold.

The Stranger stopped paddling and let the boat drift with the current. Cautiously he stood up and peered over the countryside. He could see a long way, but he was looking at what lay near at hand: stripped of its purple loosestrife, the communal island, thus desolate and, as it were, subdued, looked like a great beast gorged with food. On the farther bank the trees stood like a tufted crown around the clearing of the Île d’Embarras. Beside the placid and incurious willows a few young sycamores thrust out their aggressive branches like so many lances couched; while the giant poplars dreamed in patient expectation of what might come.

The Stranger drew a deep breath of emotion. Something tremendous, some ineffable yearning such as he had never felt before, now stirred within him, and he would have liked to share it, even in silence, either with Didace or Angelina Desmarais, or perhaps even with the dog, which he was now sorry he had left behind on the dock.

Didace had told the truth; there were vast gatherings of wild ducks on the lake awaiting the sky signal for migration toward the south. The blue-winged and the green-winged teal had already fled. The ducks assembled in their thousands, some silent, others quacking raucously, formed a sort of living island on the shallows. Crouching among the branches, the Stranger followed their frolics with eager interest—fluttering feathers, ruffled down, ducks of every size and species circling and darting overhead. He practiced picking out from among the black ones the violet-tufted merganser always on the watch for fish, the sawbill with its crooked flight, the bluebill, the red-necked pochard, the gray duck, with its long, white-cravatted neck, a wild French duck, and one or two decoys. A mallard, aristocratic and aloof, paddled about in solitude with its mate. Now and again a bird frantic to depart flapped out of the water with quivering wings wide-stretched.

The Stranger, who could not take his eyes off the scene, stayed for a long while motionless and entranced until, with a touch of giddiness, he noticed that the earth was growing brown beneath his eyes as dusk began to fall. On the journey back the water felt heavier against the oar blade; before long it would freeze for good.

As he entered the house he was astonished to find no one there but Alphonsine. She, who had been feeling mortally afraid at being left alone as night was coming on, thought it quite natural, now that she was reassured, to visit her ill humor on the first comer.

“So here you are at last. And about time too!”

“Where are the others?”

“Amable has gone out in the wagon, he’s driving my father-in-law.”

“Where have they gone so late?”

“To the big pool, in Baie de Lavallière, a little higher up than À la Prèle pond.”

“Not to shoot, I suppose?”

“Not to pick raspberries, anyway. You know as well as I do that he’s after duck; his blind is by the lake.”

“Don’t you take me up so sharp, little mother,” said the Stranger reproachfully. Then, in a softer tone he added, “Never you mind. I fancy it will be his last shooting trip. The bays will all be frozen by this evening.”

Didace did not return until the middle of the next day, with wisps of straw still sticking to his crinkly hair and his face burned by the chill wind. It was true, the bays were already edged with ice. After covering up his blind with long grass, he had spent the night on a bundle of straw, watching for duck in the clear moonlight. The ducks, attracted by the expanse of water, settled on it unafraid.

“Any luck?” asked the Stranger. He spoke rather to tease the old man than otherwise. During the night he had heard the sound of shooting.

Didace smiled. With deliberation he took out of the wagon the leather case containing his gun. He treated his shotgun as a friend, with all sorts of loving attentions that amused Amable, who was not of a careful habit. For one thing, he always took it out with him in its case, so as not to expose it to the severities of the weather.

Since the arrival of the first Beauchemin at Monk’s Inlet, six generations before, the fowling piece had been held in high honor in that house. After the musket brought from France, and the muzzle loader, this breech-locked gun, sound without being in any way remarkable, had shared in the intimate life of the Beauchemin family, like the table, the stove, and the bed. Didace knew its range so well that when the game came in sight, whether furred or feathered, he rarely wasted a cartridge.

Glimpsing the light of mockery in the Stranger’s eye, Didace stood over the decoy ducks’ cage and hauled out two sacks packed with ducks. There were sixty-two in all, mostly black, but with a few gray, a couple of rednecks, and several farmyard birds, all fat and in good plumage.

“They dropped like stones at each shot—quite dead.”

But suddenly—whether it was that visions of the past rose before his eyes, or whether the desire to avenge himself on the Stranger’s fantasies was more than he could withstand—he added, “That’s nothing. You ought to have seen the shoots of times gone by, when the boats came back crammed with duck.”

Proud, however, of his prowess, and delighted to have astonished the Stranger, he shouted as he drove up the slope, his shoulders heaving with laughter, “Anyway, if you want to have a go, Stranger, there’s plenty left.”

At the sight of the bag, Alphonsine clapped her hands to her head and cried, “Day of my life!”

So many ducks to pluck and singe and draw! So much down to be cleaned! And those horrid ducks’ fleas that ran all over one’s body. The smell of giblets made her feel quite sick.

Disheartened and trembling with disgust, she said to Amable, “You might at least try to get your father to sell them as they are.”

Two or three days later a vast covey of Canada geese crossed the purple bars of the setting sun. Wise and dauntless birds, they were on their way to seek their sustenance in warmer and more fertile lands. They flew harrow-wise in companies of fifty, the hindmost, being the youngest or less experienced, in rather agitated flight, incessantly emitting their twin-noted call of distress, to which the skirmisher’s mournful cry of encouragement responded.

When the evening was over, Didace, as he opened the door, heard in the sky a prolonged whir of wings; a final covey was passing like a gust of wind. The wild ducks were traveling, without uttering a sound, at a prodigious height, on their swift farewell flight.

“This is the end,” he thought sadly.

Dejectedly he stood for a long while on the threshold of his door. And once again he knew that the tasks of winter would succeed to the tasks of autumn.

Didace slept badly.

After a spell of duck shooting, the habit of spending the night in his hunting boat beside the blind left him a light sleeper for a while. Still, it was long since he had passed such a sleepless night. Tossing to and fro in search of a dip in the feather mattress in which he could lie more at his ease, or motionless and staring at the wall, he wondered what could have kept him thus awake. From time to time, especially when he wanted to turn his massive body over, he was conscious of a pain like the grip of a bony hand, that caught him by the left shoulder. But he was not a man to whine over a small matter.

“It certainly can’t be the bread or the butter I ate yesterday evening that lie so heavy on my chest. Bread is my life.”

No; bread would not betray him.

The air in the room seemed close and burdensome to his parched throat. He coughed noisily in the hope of awakening someone, more especially the Stranger, who slept in the loft just over his head. The bedstead creaked beneath his paroxysm, but the Stranger made no move. In the next room Alphonsine snuffled in the throes of a nightmare. Didace, who liked to take a poor view of his daughter-in-law, thought, “She hasn’t even the sense to blow her nose.”

Then the house returned to its brooding silence. Through the sixteen windowpanes the moonlight shimmered onto the bed. And beneath the silvery laced pattern outlined against the dark counterpane, Didace stretched his great feet, which were itching to relax.

Suddenly, in a sort of final act of bounty that heralded withdrawal, peace descended on the house. The silence began to lighten, and Didace no longer felt the harsh grip on his shoulder. The dog thumped his tail on the kitchen floor in token of his loving, faithful presence. Even the air of the room seemed to grow richer; the night was nearing its end.

There were signs that dawn was not far off. “The hour when they pass over,” thought Didace. But the ducks had gone. He set his mind to listen inwardly, just once more, to the sound of their last flight. The whir of wings was dying away into the distance. Would Didace see the wild duck return in spring? Would he hear again the sound of wings growing faint, fluid, imperceptible? Would Didace still be of this world next April when high water flooded the meadows, and the first pair settled on the pool behind the house? The sound of wings faded . . . faded . . . till it was lost among the clouds. Didace slept.

When Didace Beauchemin awoke, the light was still dim. He had merely dozed for a while. His first care, once he was up, before he even went to the cattle sheds, was to go down to the water’s edge. A whole covey of ducks, a dozen or so in all, were frolicking about in the little harbor. Not for anything would he have parted with these treasured birds. As he walked he amused himself by imitating the drake’s cry. Then, as an elderly duck gave the signal, the others responded: quack, quack, quack. . . . Hypnotized by the presence of his dog, they began to follow Spot as he darted back and forward.

“Go back home, Spot, you bad, wicked dog!”

The dog calmed down, and Didace could look about him undisturbed. Beneath the white frost the earth was growing gray on every side. The ice in the coves should now be strong enough to bear a man. The water in the Inlet had thickened, and looked motionless. It had risen during the night. It rose at every full moon. He bent down to pick up a stake to strengthen the dock, but started up abruptly with a shout of dismay.

“The devil! The hunting boat’s gone!”

Didace recovered himself; a boat doesn’t get lost in that way. Perhaps the wind had loosened it. And yet he remembered having tied it up securely on the previous evening, as he always did. Perhaps Joinville Provençal or De-Froi’s Tit-Noir or someone else had towed it off just for fun. Well, those young folks would soon find out that he didn’t take that sort of joke. He jumped into the dinghy and made off for the neighboring docks, and then some others further off, inquiring for his boat from each and every owner, but in vain: no one had seen it.

About two o’clock an attack of cramp in the stomach brought Didace home. He ate in solitude at the far end of the table, without uttering a word and without taking his eyes off the saucer in which his tea was growing cold, his whole attention being apparently set on watching the ripples raised in it by his breathing. He had barely swallowed the last mouthful when he again went out, and did not come back until night had fallen, having visited all the small coves and backwaters, and any sort of place where his hunting boat might have gone aground. Next day neither Amable nor Alphonsine dared address him on the subject. It was the Stranger who broke silence. The three men immediately began to talk all at once, as though they had suddenly and miraculously recovered their speech.

Said the Stranger, “If you’re worried about the loss of your boat. . . .”

“Worry will never be the death of you, Stranger,” broke in Amable.

Didace exploded, “If ever I lay hands on the thief, I’ll strangle him.”

“Yes,” rejoined the Stranger, “but that won’t get you back your light boat. If you like, I can build you one just as good.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, my boy.”

“I’m perfectly serious. There’s a lot of sound, dry timber lying idle in the yards.”

“Well, it doesn’t eat.”

“True, but it doesn’t earn either.”

Amable became sarcastic.

“So you’re a carpenter, are you? And where did you learn that job? On the road?”

“I don’t know much, Amable Beauchemin, but I know better than to undertake something I can’t do. Any boat I make will be a good boat, I’ll guarantee that.”

On two successive Sundays, as the congregation came out from Mass, Didace had the loss of his hunting boat cried without success. Whereupon he rather sheepishly took the Stranger aside and said, “As to what you were saying the other day about the boat. . . .”

The Stranger came to his aid.

“I made you an offer. But you’ll have to provide me with the proper tools. I shall need something more than an ax and a handsaw.”

“Yes, yes. There’s a chest full of tools in the upstairs room. But I don’t know whether they’ll be much good.”

The two men clambered up the stairway. Mounted on a chair, Didace, with a heave of his shoulder, raised the trap door that led to the attics, whence he produced a dusty chest. After some effort, he succeeded in opening it, and handed the Stranger a plane and an adze. But he, with an expression of awe, had already picked out a mortise-gauge, some chisels and gouges. . . .

“Where did you get all these tools?”

“They belonged to one of the Beauchemins in days gone by, but I really don’t know which. I’ve seen that chest ever since I was a small boy.”

As they went on taking out the tools, the Stranger named them one by one: a miter box, some clamps, a T square. . . .

There were also clips, claws, mauls, jack planes, cold chisels, augers—all the tools, in fact, that a good workman could desire.

“You seem,” observed Didace, “to know them all by their Christian names.”

“My grandfather had a tool chest just like that.”

“Was your grandfather a carpenter?”

“My grandfather?” The Stranger smiled. “He was an old scamp. He also told me that the chest came to him from some sort of ancestor, but he couldn’t remember his name.”

The two men burst into a simultaneous roar of laughter.

After a pause the Stranger went on, “I can build you a nine-foot boat, in pine, which would hold the water well, with an eighteen-inch bow and a tapered stern. A real man’s boat. A smart little jigger.”

“Now you’re talking, my boy.”

“I could work quietly in the bakehouse this winter. But mind, I won’t have anyone snooping around while I’m on the job.”

“Well, I expect you’ll be quite able to keep them out of the way.”

“Hi! Phonsine! Don’t you hear? There’re the bells just starting.”

The sole response, the clink of an iron against a lamp globe in Alphonsine’s room, roused Didace to wrath.

“Why on earth does she want to curl her hair in the mornings, the silly creature!”

On Sunday morning, although she got up an hour earlier, Alphonsine was always in a fluster over getting herself ready to go to High Mass. Besides having to prepare the midday meal in a hurry, sweep out the living room, and tidy the house, she also had to get out her father-in-law’s and husband’s best clothes and help them to put on their starched collars and tie their neckties, which neither of them could manage by themselves.

On the morning of that Sunday in December, while Didace was busy at the cattle sheds, the Stranger was bringing in firewood. As he came in he noticed Alphonsine furtively wiping away a tear; she had had words with her husband. By way of cheering her up, the Stranger said to her, “Keep the stove hot, Phonsine, if you want a good-tempered husband.”

Amable, silent and morose, was leaning against the stove in a sulk; he picked up his cap and leather jacket and went out.

“Come, come, Phonsine,” said the Stranger reproachfully, “don’t cry about nothing; not on Sunday morning, anyhow. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Amable, who loves you so dearly!”

Alphonsine, her vexation with Amable and her own ill temper suddenly forgotten, swung round with a brusquely aggressive air toward the Stranger.

“And who are you to interfere, eh? You’re just a good-for-nothing tramp. And who told you that Amable loves me? He never tells me so.”

From his outstretched arms the Stranger let fall the load of sycamore faggots into the wood box.

“That’s worse. A woman can knock you about for as long as she likes, but if you just grab the tip of her little finger to stop her, she shrieks blue murder. And a man may give a woman his name, he may cut his chest open and tear out his heart for her, but if he doesn’t keep on proclaiming that he loves her—no, he doesn’t love her at all!”

Alphonsine, rather nettled, retorted, “You know a lot about women for an old bachelor, don’t you?”

“Who told you that I was. . . . Look here, little mother, what I know about women would fill a good Mother Seigel almanac.”

Old Didace once more lost patience.

“Hurry up, Phonsine!—That young woman’s always in a dither.” And he said to the Stranger, “Take the whip, and get ready; we’ll start. She’ll miss Mass. So much the worse for her—she’ll have to confess it.”

The ceremonial whip for the light carriage, when they drove out on Sunday, or to some evening entertainment, stayed in a corner with the birchwood broom. The Stranger did as he was told. Then he thumped the whip butt on the floor near Phonsine’s room.

“Are you behaving like this on purpose, Phonsine? You know quite well that the horse is at the door and the roads are awful.”

Alphonsine put her head through the half-open door and merely said, “Aha! still thinking about that Mother Seigel almanac!”

Outside, the Pélerine, the bell of Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel, was ringing tumultuously, launching a broadside of sound onto Monk’s Inlet, hurling it over the frozen fields, swinging the high-pitched notes over the main stream, speeding a flight of them on to the Île de Grâce, a final onrush to the north, and then—clang . . . clang . . . clang.

The bell was still clanging when Alphonsine came out of the house. In her muskrat stole, rather redolent of camphor, she was scarcely recognizable and looked much plainer: the smooth, pale face and decorously parted hair of the workaday week had given place to what looked like a permanent wave, an absurdly whitened face, and rice powder up to the roots of her eyebrows and eyelashes. She sat down in the back of the barouche with Amable. The Stranger took his place on the front seat beside Didace, ready to start, with the reins in his hands, and they jolted off in silence.

As long as the road ran alongside the river, even when cutting across the farm lands, it remained broad and well kept. But beyond the small mill at the junction of the stream, where the archipelago begins at the head of Lac Saint-Pierre, by Monk’s Inlet, it suddenly became tortuous, as though in an effort to follow the meanderings and the slightest caprices of the river. Opposite the Beauchemins’ farm, although it was still a highway, grass always sprouted between its cobbles in summer. A few acres farther on, it had lost the semblance of a road and was nothing more than a grass-grown track, about to vanish into the nearest creek.

When the tall pine that served as a landmark for the river pilots came in sight, the Stranger remarked, “Bumpy sort of road, isn’t it?”

Vexed by this criticism, Didace blinked.

“I don’t know quite what you mean, Stranger. But if you mean the road needs repair, I agree.”

Everyone brightened up at this sally, which was enough to produce a better atmosphere.

The Stranger, pursuing his idea, continued, “A fall of snow is what is wanted.”

“Certainly. When there isn’t any snow, the frost ruins the pastures.”

He spoke composedly, but he was anxious; the snow, after falling since the beginning of time, might, by some fatality, fail.

It was not solely from piety that Didace wanted to arrive before High Mass began; he disliked nothing so much as being jostled, he said. But he particularly liked to talk to all and sundry at the church door. Then, when he ensconced himself in his pew a quarter of an hour before the introit, he had time to survey the congregation, to clear his throat thoroughly, to look for his rosary, and also to meditate in peace on his temporal affairs. On the entrance of the priest he put them aside to take his place in the presence of God. But he returned to them in the middle of the sermon, on which he always found it difficult to fix his attention. Despite his good will, he could not succeed in understanding the lofty truths preached by the Abbé Lebrun. For him the commandments of God and of the Church could be summed up in four: do good, avoid evil, respect old age, and be as strict with yourself as with others.

Led by Didace they entered the church and marched in single file up to the front pews. The Stranger, who wore the same clothes on Sundays as on weekdays, clambered up into the rood loft. Pierre-Côme Provençal sat down with an air of great importance, in the pew of honor, which was distinguished from the rest solely by a quilted seat. A powerful, high-complexioned figure, rigid in his corpulence and self-complacency, he filled half of the pew. Even before he knelt down, Didace caught sight of him and said to himself, “Fat old fool!—he takes up all the room. The two others will have to squeeze in anyhow.”

After the announcements, the Curé of Sainte-Anne started to read the Gospel for the day. “In that time Jesus said to his disciples: there shall be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars. . . .

“And then the Son of Man shall be seen coming on a cloud with great power and great majesty. . . .

“Consider the fig-tree and the other trees when they begin to grow, and you will know that the summer is at hand. . . .

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

When the priest fell silent, a ripple swept over the array of worshipers, bowed down like corn mown by a skillful reaper in a single swath. The Abbé Lebrun replaced the black marker, laid his hands on the ledge of the pulpit, and, surveying his flock with clear, untroubled eyes, began to preach. He preached without fervor or style, and in a droning monotone.

Didace sat, as he did every Sunday from the outset of the sermon, attentive—his head turned toward the pulpit, his hand cupped round his good ear in an effort to hear. But gradually his eyes strayed toward the nave, and temporal matters soon got the upper hand.

“Snow is certainly needed. A great bombardment of snow.”

As he grew older, and knew to be ephemeral so many things that he had believed to be immutable, Didace no longer relied, as he used to do, in the certainty of the seasons. When he had taken possession of the ancestral land, and again when his sons were born, a sense of duration and of completeness had penetrated into his very substance: the calm strength of the tree that every day, every hour, and every instant thrust its roots deeper into the soil. He did not then doubt that spring would revive the water in the rivers, that summer would ripen the yellow ears of corn and all the fruits of earth. He knew that the departure of the wild birds in the autumn was a necessity, and that it begot belief in their return in spring. He also knew that the snow falls at its appointed hour, and not before; and that, in the light of the Eternal purpose, it is futile to judge by the petty measure of mankind.

But the frost of death had felled a young branch before its season; another had broken off as though severed from the vivifying sap; and the old trunk, with roots exposed, suffered beneath its bark, wounded to the heart.

“If the Angel of God . . .,” went on the Curé of Sainte-Anne in his soft, colorless voice.

Yes, what if the Angel of God appeared upon the clouds and by his mere breath drove all the snow away, or destroyed every sign of life on Monk’s Inlet? In the meantime, the angel of sleep tipped Didace’s head forward, in little jerks at first, and then more stubbornly. Alphonsine nudged Amable.

“Look at your father—he’s having a snooze,” and with his eyes her husband answered, “Let him be. He can’t help it.”

As they came out from Mass a few flakes of snow fluttered down and dropped delicately, as though with infinite caution, onto the ground.

“It’s white weather. Is the snow coming, do you think?”

“It’s beginning to snow.”

“It’s snowing,” said Phonsine joyously.

The men smiled. “Snowing” meant to them a heavy fall, a deep coating on the houses, a solid bridge on the winter roads between the river buoys, a thickened stream that clung to the river banks. But not these silly feathers. . . .

Phonsine held out a hand to catch a flake or two. The small, isolated drops quivered against the warmth of her skin.

A few days later, in the milky light that flooded into the room, the Stranger realized on awakening that the expected transformation had come at last. He jumped out of bed. Beneath the lowering sky the snow was obliterating everything; it unified the whole countryside in a white immobility. The snow was falling heavily, not in silly feathers as on the previous Sunday. The snow was falling, fine and dense and abundant, to feast the earth.

Toward noon the sun came out, pale among pale clouds; and yet it kindled myriads of stars in the fields.

“The snow will lie,” said Didace.

And the snow did lie.

With the definite arrival of the snow an atmosphere of calm descended upon the house. All attended to their duties with increased energy. The Stranger had transformed the bakehouse into a workshop which only Didace was allowed to enter. From their talk it could be gathered that the boat was making progress, but no one had had a glimpse of it.

The first time the roads were usable the two men made their way to Sorel. They did not reappear until the evening, hilarious and rather drunk, and apparently fellow conspirators in a project which they took a childish pleasure in concealing.

In the middle of the following week Marie-Amanda arrived from the Île de Grâce. She had not been expected so soon. With a child on each hand, and heavy with the third, which she was expecting in the spring—tall and strong and honest-eyed, refreshing in her health and serenity—she walked up to the paternal house.

“I was so afraid that the ice bridge wouldn’t form in time for the holidays.”

Alphonsine understood that Marie-Amanda wanted to lighten her father’s regret for the first New Year’s Day without Mathilde Beauchemin.

“Will you take me in, Father?” asked Marie-Amanda, with an affectionate smile on her lips.

Didace, touched and delighted, turned to his daughter-in-law and said with affected surliness, “What do you think, little woman? Shall we take her in?”

Phonsine entered into the game.

“I daresay we can manage with her for a day or two.”

It was from that moment that the house really recovered its quality. The very day after her arrival, Marie-Amanda undertook the great house cleaning which Alphonsine had always been putting off. For one whole day the pulleys creaked under the weight of the rope from which hung the various items of household linen. Toward evening the women carried armfuls of it into the kitchen, aching all over from their labors. A smell of cleanliness and comfort pervaded the whole house, and the men took unwonted care not to soil anything.

“You’ll wear yourself out,” Didace kept on saying to Marie-Amanda.

But she would not relax until everything was in order. The window curtains had to be meticulously starched, as in the days of Mathilde Beauchemin, the feather beds thoroughly shaken up, and at the head of them, the stiff, square pillows decorously enthroned. One was embroidered in red thread with the design of a sleeping child; the other, an awakened child, with the legend underneath, “Good morning—Good night.” In the darkness of the chest of drawers, hand-woven carpets and round plaited table covers awaited their turn to lend a festive air to the house.

In the kitchen (apart from table, stove, and chairs) a single piece of furniture, propped level across a corner of the room by a wooden wedge under one end, served both as a sideboard and a chest of drawers. On a mat of unbleached linen embroidered with a pattern in red thread, a crystal decanter stood as centerpiece. Made of unconvincing pink glass engraved with gilded doves carrying a white message coiling from their beaks and surrounded by six small glasses, its fanciful appearance clashed with the other workaday objects. When he caught sight of it Didace had peevishly remarked, “It looks like a redneck with its brood.” In early days, when he noticed someone eying it with astonishment, rather taken aback by the presence of such frivolity in the house, he felt impelled to explain how it had come there. “It’s my daughter-in-law’s. . . .” Alphonsine had won it at a fair at Sorel, at the same time as the teacup and saucer which she alone used.

Then the pigs were killed. Angelina offered to make the gut-cased sausage and the black pudding.

“I won’t say no,” Phonsine hurriedly replied. She was feeling utterly exhausted.

But Marie-Amanda, far from overdoing with all the work, never complained of being tired. At the most she sometimes laid her hands on her hips and stretched her waist in rather exaggerated fashion, to ease her back for a moment of the weight of her fecundity.

Work seemed to her natural and easy. The eye was soothed by seeing her bring to the accomplishment of all these things such precise and serene movements. With a faithful and a confident hand she dressed the dishes or kneaded the bread, just as she wrung out the linen and did the housework. If anything was needed in the house she had but to say so, and someone would promptly harness Gaillarde and dash off to Sainte-Anne, or even to Sorel, to buy whatever it was, without question from anybody. The Stranger even taught her how to make bread without yeast. Phonsine, who had so much trouble in getting Amable to help her, envied Marie-Amanda’s knack of getting such ready assistance from everyone. And Angelina, seeing the Stranger so assiduous in his attentions to Marie-Amanda, secretly set herself to copy her friend’s methods.

Christmas was at hand. The Stranger could never keep the wood box full. He even picked out the best sort of wood, and was particularly on the lookout for birch, that was renowned for making a good, hot fire.

After having prepared, as usual at this time, the festal meal with the best of what could be found upon the earth, on the morning of the twenty-fourth of December Marie-Amanda began to come and go as usual between the storeroom and the house. The hour had come to bring in the jar of doughnuts powdered with sugar, the stew with the meat balls floating in rich gravy, pies that melted in the mouth, and lavishly spiced mince. In the depths of the iron cauldron a shoulder of young pork simmered gently with a bit of chine set aside for Phonsine, who did not like garlic. As usual, too, the turkey was thawing out in the small stove. And on the top shelf of the cupboard in Didace’s room, safely out of sight of the children, sweets and oranges and apples reposed behind a pile of sheets.

Just like old days, thought Marie-Amanda. But the carefree joy of those old days had gone. Her heart was in the grip of bitter recollections: Ephrem had been drowned one day in July; he was not yet sixteen. Mathilde Beauchemin was no longer in the world to try to soothe Didace when Amable became peevish or the two men were at odds. And grandmother no longer pottered about the kitchen lamenting that pralines weren’t made as they used to be.

And yet Marie-Amanda would not utter the words that might have relieved her anguish; she did not want to depress the others. She merely walked to the window and stood looking out, as though to beg the unchanging countryside for a reflection of its stability. Dusk was falling, casting a blue shadow on the snow mantling the fields, and the line of mountains, usually humped against the hollow of the sky, was now blended with the plain. Through the mist of her tears Marie-Amanda could scarcely see the landscape. She, at thirty, was already the oldest of the women in the family. It was for her, the eldest daughter, to give a good example. Was life like the river, intent only upon its course, heedless of the banks that it fertilizes or lays waste? Were human beings rushes, impotent to restrain it from obeying its own law—blue rushes, full of vigor in the morning, and by the evening shrunk into dismal husks, sapless and straw-colored? Young rushes would grow up in their place. Inexorable, the river continued on its course; neither she nor anyone could prevent it.

Little Mathilde, astonished to see her mother motionless for so long, clung to Marie-Amanda’s skirts.

“Mum-my!”

Little Ephrem, tottering on his small legs, copied her.

“Mum-my . . . Mum-my!”

Marie-Amanda turned. She still felt sick at heart, but she seemed comforted, and said quietly to Alphonsine, “If only we made pralines as in my time. . . .”

Little Mathilde clapped her hands.

“Some pralines, Mummy—I want some pralines.”

Marie-Amanda swung the child up into her arms and smothered her with kisses. The Stranger took her very gently, but said rather sharply to the mother, “You really oughtn’t to carry her. She’s much too heavy for you at present.”

Soon afterward the shopman from Sainte-Anne arrived. He marched into the kitchen accompanied by a blast of frozen air. He always arrived like a gust of wind, and he looked the sort of man that wouldn’t stay a moment longer than was needed; and yet at every house he spent enough time to smoke his pipe and inquire after every member of the family.

“So old Didace is still a widower, eh? Well, the old boy has held out properly, hasn’t he? I expect the creatures frightened him, that’s how it was.”

Phonsine, for the pleasure of getting him to talk, remarked, “They aren’t very dangerous, after all.”

“Ah, my girl, you never know. I’ve known some that were very alarming—very alarming indeed.”

“What sort were they?”

“Creatures with hair like straw mattresses.”

Every other moment he kept jumping to his feet, as though he were dashing off once more; but he merely lifted a lid of the stove to spit in the fire, and came back and settled down in his chair, with his two feet outstretched toward the heat.

“And what about you, Phonsine—when’s the child expected? And how’s Amable? And the Stranger? And Ludger? And the little dog, does he bark as much as ever?”

He went through the whole list. When he came to the turn of Marie-Amanda, he did no more than peer slantwise from where he sat poised on the edge of his chair.

“And the folks from the Île de Grâce? They look as if they were doing pretty well, as far as I can see.”

His budget of news expanded at every house he visited, and he lingered longer at each stage of his round. One might almost have thought that that was his main object, rather than the disposal of his wares.

Marie-Amanda took a special joy in attending Midnight Mass. At Didace’s request, the Stranger undertook to mind the house. Indeed he needed no persuasion. Marie-Amanda assured him that the children never woke up at night. Her husband, Ludger Aubuchon, joined her at the Sainte-Anne church, and after Mass, the dwellers on the Inlet returned in procession. A whole file of sleighs stood like a dotted line along the road, in the blue night that silvered the hamlet. David Desmarais and Angelina accepted the invitation to eat their midnight supper at the Beauchemins’. Angelina had never known a happier Christmas. “What a lovely Christmas!” she kept on repeating in her heart, in which a pious joy was blended with the image of the Stranger.

On their arrival home the Stranger was asleep in his chair. He started up at the same time as the dog, and in a bound he was on his feet. No sooner had the wick of the lamp been turned up than an exclamation burst from Alphonsine.

“Where on earth did you pick up that armchair?”

The armchair from which the Stranger had just risen—a genuine Voltaire armchair, with molded feet and a high, concave back as though to fit the body of the sitter, and the defects that betokened the hand of a local maker—stood imposingly beside the stove.

Still half asleep, the Stranger said with a yawn, “Well, Didace and Amable have their own special chairs in this house. It’s about time I had mine too.”

They spoke of the Midnight Mass, the beautiful singing, and the crèche, but the conversation kept insensibly reverting to the armchair. Everyone wanted to try it and sat themselves down in it with an air of high importance. It seemed to mold exactly to the body. “I’ve seldom seen such a handsome chair. My word, it’s a grand bit of work!”

“You may well boast that you’re a good carpenter,” remarked Ludger Aubuchon.

Alphonsine, who was busy making the forcemeat stew, suddenly dropped the ladle and planted herself in front of the Stranger.

“So that was the great Christmas surprise you were so anxious to conceal from me.”

Angelina wanted to know all about the making of it, and with what it had been stuffed. The Stranger couldn’t answer everybody at the same time.

“I stuffed it,” he explained, “with the old salt bags. It has a smell of the water’s edge, don’t you think?”

“I know some English women at Sorel,” put in Angelina, “who would pay you well to repair their furniture.”

“Hi, Father-in-law,” cried Alphonsine rapturously. “Do you hear what Angelina says?”

But Marie-Amanda gave the signal to sit down to table. After the long drive in the fresh air everyone would celebrate Christmas with good heart and appetite. At the moment of sitting down, there was a minute of deep emotion at the sight of Mathilde’s empty chair; since her death it had been left unoccupied. Marie-Amanda fetched her little girl and sat her down in it; a leaf falls from the tree, another leaf replaces it.

Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the weather hardened; it turned to a dry cold and promised to hold until after the holidays. The frozen road creaked under the runners of the sleighs. Every night the nails cracked in the walls, and the brittle poplars could be heard snapping round the house. Old Didace regarded this as a good omen, and he said to the Stranger, “If the frost lasts, we’ll do well at the holiday market.”

Early in the morning on the following Friday, which was New Year’s Eve, the two men set out for Sorel. The ice bridge had formed across the river. The inhabitants of the northern islands would be hurrying to market with their boxes of meat; and there would be much rivalry for the best stands.

Rather contemptuous of her load, Gaillarde, with pricked ears, set off at a brisk pace. Didace had to rein her in.

“Hey, gently there, Gaillarde! You’re not off to a wedding at this hour of the morning. Your everyday pace will do. There’s plenty of time.”

The mare submissively dropped into a sober trot. Time and again the Stranger asked if he might drive, but the master rarely surrendered the reins. Didace slipped them around his neck, and did not utter another word. The rime had already bristled his mustache, and had whitened his horse’s nostrils.

In the blue morning light a few stars still twinkled briefly. On the right, the white landscape stretched away into the distance, a soft, milky, monotonous expanse, broken only by the harsh silhouette of the lighthouses and the ice-breakers; but on the left, columns of smoke disclosed the presence of houses lurking beneath the snow, like partridges on a plain. At intervals a red sleigh streaked across the horizon. Now and again came a glimpse of a slaughtered sucking-pig on the rear seat, its four frozen trotters uplifted toward the sky. Then, constrained by the road, the sleigh joined the meager morning procession along the highway.

Even before the midday Angelus they had sold their provisions. Didace sent the Stranger to deliver part of them at the Little Fort. The market gradually emptied. The last customers were hustling around the vehicles and baskets. The natives did not take long to pick out the group of bargainers for whom they raised the price before conceding a reduction. By way of displaying a little gaiety at such a season, many tried to find some droll remark to make; and if they failed, thumped their acquaintances violently on the back, who reacted with exaggerated alarm. One of them stopped beside the Beauchemin sleigh and observed in a loud voice to the assembled company, watching for the effect of his words, “My wife isn’t at all pleased with the bullock you sold me last week; she says she’s sick of my marketing.”

Laughter sped from one sleigh to the next, while the men, to quicken their blood, stamped on the hard ground, and clapped their hands through their pigskin mittens. A woman who heard them laugh, came up to contribute her mite to the conversation.

“Cheerful folks, you farmers, aren’t you? You always seem to find something to laugh at. . . .”

“Hey! Who told you we were farmers, eh? I might be just a landowner.”

“Oh, come, Monsieur Beauchemin, they’re both the same.”

“What! There’s a great difference between the two: a landowner is a man who owes money on his land, a farmer doesn’t.”

“I never read that anywhere.”

“Nor did I. But I know it, even though you won’t find it in the almanac.”

The woman looked quizzically at Didace and tried from his expression to distinguish truth from bragging.

The Stranger did not come back. Didace waited for a while, fuming; then he lost patience. Hopeful and yet fearful of being inveigled into the inn, he made haste to return to Monk’s Inlet, so as not to get into trouble with Marie-Amanda.

“Blast the fellow! He’ll turn up when he feels like it, I suppose. Well, if he finds no one here, he can leg it. He knows the way!”

On the morning of New Year’s Day the Stranger had not returned. There was too much to do for anyone to bother about his absence, which was commented on by Alphonsine alone. Visitors were now coming in every moment; indeed, before eight o’clock some young folks hammered on the door and saluted the household:

“Happy New Year!”

“Same to you!”

Shouts and laughter, sighs and embraces, handshakes, good wishes, jokes—all ending in a round of drinks, sandwiches, and sweets, which went on until the time for High Mass. When Marie-Amanda saw that her father was ready to leave for Sainte-Anne, she said to him pleadingly, “Father, please be careful not to start wrangling with Provençal.”

Didace reassured her. Many years before, on one New Year’s morning, Pierre-Côme Provençal, with outstretched hand, had approached Didace Beauchemin on the steps outside the church after Mass. “Happy New Year, Didace!”

But Didace, ignoring his neighbor’s hand, said to him point-blank, “So you’ve been slandering me behind my back, eh? I hear you said I was after your fish nets last autumn.”

“I don’t remember, but I daresay I did.”

“Well you’ll answer for it here and now.”

Before the words were out, fur coats were flung off onto the snow, and two men were slogging at each other in the sight of the whole parish, which looked on delightedly at such a free exhibition, until Didace had vented his wrath and judged his honor satisfied. He then shook Provençal by the hand.

“Happy New Year, Côme!”

“Same to you, Didace!”

Mathilde Beauchemin regarded all fighting with disgust. When she heard of what had happened, she said, “I never knew two men who could agree so often to fight and so seldom to understand each other.”

Every New Year’s Day in the course of fifteen years she still gave her husband the warning which Marie-Amanda, following her example, found it natural to repeat.

The visits and the rounds of drinks went on until the evening, at longer intervals and with bumpers that tended to diminish. Toward the end of the day Bernadette Salvail arrived, laconic and designedly mysterious.

“Ah,” thought Phonsine, “she’s got something up her sleeve.”

After much futile protestation, she ended by admitting that her parents were proposing to give a grand supper party on the following evening; they were expecting all the Pierreville relations, from all over the district, even from the north.

“Everybody from the Inlet is invited, including the Mondor ladies. And the Stranger, of course,” she added.

Whereupon Phonsine hastened to rejoin, “It’s no use asking him; he has disappeared from the Inlet, perhaps for good and all.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense,” said old Didace indignantly.

The successive rounds of drinks had made him rather touchy; moreover he began to regret not having waited for the Stranger on the previous day. His daughter-in-law wanted to sit down in the high-backed chair, but he stopped her.

“Don’t sit there. Surely you know to whom that chair belongs. You might at least keep his place. No one drinks out of your cup.”

About noon on the following day, the first cart that returned to the Inlet after High Mass brought back the Stranger. There was a bruise on his forehead and the right side of his face was rather swollen; he did not utter a word. Phonsine was alone in the house. When she caught sight of him, she said angrily, “Well, you’re going to look a pretty sight this evening. Didn’t you know that Bernadette Salvail was giving her big party tonight?”

All this time she hovered round him, trying to tempt him to eat a little food or apply a piece of raw meat to his eye. But he refused everything.

“Ah—neveurmagne!”

Whereupon she made haste to get him to bed before the others arrived.

“Try to tidy yourself up for this evening,” she advised.

From the very doorway the warmth of the low-ceilinged room, after the frost outside, welcomed the groups of guests at Jacob Salvail’s house. Then they were greeted by an aroma of herbs, spices, and rich food, and cries of, “Take off your greatcoats! The ladies will please leave their cloaks in the drawing room.”

The women, muffled up to the eyes, so that their age was beyond guessing, kept passing on into the reception room, where they peeled off their heavy stockings and, slipping out of their woolen capes and wraps and caps, revealed themselves for what they were: young girls, some of them, others long since past the flower of their age, and even some very old women, their hair smoothed back, neatly arrayed in their Sunday best and looking rather bewildered in so much company.

The young ones surveyed each other out of the corners of their eyes. Several of them were wearing a morning dress or a skirt, and some few an alpaca or colored merino frock. A cousin of Bernadette’s from the northern shore was much envied for her velvet dress, which had been given to her mother by the Seigneuresse de Berthier and which she had remodeled on a pattern in the Delineator. All of them were anxious to look their best; those with meager charms puffed out their bodices and swirled their skirts; others had done their best to flatten out any too obvious protuberances; still others managed to reveal an edge of laced petticoat.

With the backs of their hands the men wiped their mustaches before giving the women great, smacking kisses redolent of tobacco. The slyer ones cheated, and kissed the girls twice. The girls protested vociferously, but not until the deed was done.

The Mondor spinsters vainly endeavored to evade Didace’s attentions.

“Happy New Year, Ombéline, and a husband at the end of your days!”

“A husband, indeed! You mean heaven, don’t you, Monsieur Beauchemin?”

“But, my poor lady—you can’t have one without the other, you know.”

Bernadette was darting about the room. When she noticed her father kissing the other Mondor lady, she cried to her mother, “Come here at once, Mamma!”

Madame Salvail, who was easily upset, hurried up, her arms dangling at her sides like two dead branches.

“Darling! What’s the matter now?”

“Look at that gallant old man of yours flitting from flower to flower.”

“Oh, I couldn’t care less. He’ll be out of breath before he gets off with a girl.”

This sally produced a deafening explosion of laughter.

“I hope you’re all right, Monsieur Didace?”

“Don’t you worry yourself, Marie. I’m going to fill myself up first, and then have a square meal.”

Talk and laughter clashed.

“Pass me that titbit, he’s had his eye on it for a long while.”

“Where’s the bread? And where’s the butter?” demanded Pierre-Côme Provençal, who observed that both were out of his reach.

After some stiffness at the start, they recovered their ease and fell to with a will. There were fifteen at table. The food was as abundant as at a wedding feast. Between the turkey, stuffed to bursting with forcemeat at one end of the table, and a roasted boar’s head with browned potatoes all around it, there were all the usual winter dishes, particularly game and pork prepared in every sort of way, with saucers here and there piled with gherkins, beetroot, green tomato conserve, together with glasses filled with maple sirup and molasses in which those who liked could dip their bread.

None the less, Madame Salvail, in inviting the older people to sit down, thought it polite to add, “It’s a modest meal, I’m afraid; but you are all very welcome.”

Bernadette took occasion to explain to the younger guests, “We’ll let the grand folks get on with it, and then we younger people can have our dinner in peace. I recommend the dessert, by the way: there’s floating island, caramel custard, Lafayette pie, raisin pie, and butternut pie. Angelina made the pastry; it’s puff pastry and melts in your mouth. . . .”

Angelina looked embarrassed and made a sign to say no more. With a saucer in her hand, she went around the table offering each guest a slice of meat. “A spoonful of gravy?” She passed close by the Stranger, who said to her in an undertone, “Try to keep a nice bit for me.”

“All in good time,” she answered demurely, without raising her eyes.

The girls of the Inlet openly sulked at the Stranger for having dodged the New Year’s visit, the customary congratulations, and the complimentary kisses. He, in high good humor, did not seem to notice their petty maneuvers. With several of the younger women he took his place at the second service. Angelina declined to sit down with them.

“I’d sooner wait. I’ll have a mouthful later on.”

Every time she came near the Stranger, he asked for his helping. He had had nothing to eat since the day before, and the drinks had had a rapid effect on him.

“All in good time,” replied Angelina abruptly, as though she could find nothing else to say.

He became impatient and half rose out of his chair, but was made to sit down again.

“Now, don’t make a fuss—you must wait your turn. You can’t be starving; and don’t worry about food—there’s plenty of it for everyone.”

“Well, I warn you that I eat like Gargantua.”

“ ‘Gar-gan-tua!’ ”

To their astonished ears the word sounded like a joke. They roared with laughter. But Odilon Provençal felt almost mortified by the remark.

“Don’t use such words, Stranger. Gargantua, indeed! Pray remember you’re not among savages now. We’re all decent people here.”

They laughed again, the Stranger louder than them all. Amable thought to himself, “He says things that don’t make sense, and he’s too silly to notice when people are laughing at him.”

Angelina came up. The Stranger caught sight of her.

“Ha, my black beauty! Get me some food, for the love of life. I’m starving.”

His familiar address quite shook her, and with a quiver in her voice she said, “Kindly take that great starfish off the table, and I’ll bring you a plateful.”

“Starfish?”

“Yes, look at your hand.”

He looked down at his hand, which, with its splayed fingers, did look very like a starfish, and he burst out laughing. But when he turned to look at Angelina, she had disappeared among the women around the stove.

“Angelina, Angelina, come here—I want to speak to you!”

He felt rather tipsy and depressed, and a voice within him said uneasily, “Why does she follow me with her eyes like that? Why does she watch my every movement?”

But he was hungry and thirsty. Especially thirsty. Since he could not drink, he would eat. He settled down to eating in silence. One thing at a time.

“Stranger—are you dreaming?”

He was startled. “Eh? What’s that?”

“Someone asked you whether you had heard anything at Sorel about this dreadful accident?”

“What accident?”

“It seems that thirty-odd people have been killed in an explosion at the Canadian Pacific freight station at Montreal.”

“Ah, yes, the Acadian^[1] did mention it, but frankly I couldn’t tell you anything about it, for the good reason that I wasn’t even listening.”

A voice inquired, “What sort of person is this Acadian?”

The Stranger took some time before replying.

“Just a woman I know.”

Odilon continued in an undertone, “She certainly doesn’t come from hereabouts. Some wild girl, I suppose, and with a damaged leg, as like as not.”

Instinctively Marie-Amanda glanced at Angelina; but she, as though her attention were elsewhere, seemed not to hear.

The Stranger’s face darkened. He lowered his voice and said, “Now then, Provençal. You let that girl alone. D’you understand me? From today on, leave her in peace, or you’ll have me to reckon with. Have you got that?”

Immediately Odilon backed down.

“I was just talking about your boat.”

And, addressing the rest of the company, he added with a sickly smile, “Seems he’s feeling a bit touchy this evening.”

When the moment came for getting up from table, the Stranger saw the shopman from Sainte-Anne approach Odilon, and heard him mutter, “I rather fancy the Acadian is a girl from the Petite-Rue at Sorel.”

From their knowing smile he guessed the malice behind the words. He liked the three other sons of Pierre-Côme Provençal as much as he detested Odilon. His fists itched to get at this fleshy lad, who was almost as smug as his father. At their next encounter he would let himself go. And if a chance didn’t come soon enough, he would know how to make one.

The older men had taken refuge at one end of the room, isolated by the smoke from their pipes as though they were sitting in an alcove by themselves. One, who was not from the district, pointed to the Stranger and said, “That’s a husky fellow.”

Without leaving Didace time to reply, someone from the Inlet replied, “Well, he’s not a fighter, anyway.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“How do you mean?”

“If he keeps quiet, it’s because he knows he’s a good man with his hands.”

The Stranger brought up a chair to take his place among them. He knew from their expressions that they had been discussing him. The heat and the good cheer made them disinclined to argument. They resumed their casual talk, which came and went, crossing without contacting, like loose threads drawn through a tambour frame, each subject emerging in its turn: the hard winter, the rutted roads, the ice, the coming elections, the maintenance of the lighthouses, which would change hands if the Blues got into power. . . .

They fell silent, as though they were afraid of expressing the least hope in this direction. Suddenly one of them summed up the secret ambition of most of them.

“All I ask for is a little beacon to look after, something like the one on Île des Barques, for example. Well lodged. Well warmed. Plenty of oil. Thirty clinking dollars a month in my own pocket, just to feed and clothe myself—I’d be a rich man.”

“Plus a pint or two of the right stuff to cheer you up now and again.”

“Yes—it would be just a dream.”

“And an occasional visit from the old woman to warm your mattress.”

The man threw a furtive glance toward the women to assure himself that his own wasn’t in the offing before answering jauntily, “Yes, but not too often.”

“Well,” said Didace, “when I’m old, I should like a solid hut set on four stakes at the edge of the water, near the lake, with a little ferry, and a few decoy ducks in the pool. . . .”

“Yes, I get you, my boy,” said Pierre-Côme heartily. “You want to be out of reach of the game warden, and kill a bird or two for the pot before the season opens, eh?”

“When do you call a man old?” asked the Stranger with a smile.

“When he’s good for nothing but to bank the house with manure against the winter.”

“Or,” said another, “to wake up the family before daylight.”

Didace Beauchemin spoke with more emphasis than the rest.

“My old father, when he was fifty-five, worked in the fields just like a young man.”

“Naturally, when a chap spends all his time in the open air or on the water, his hide thickens quicker than other people’s. He may be old in face without being old in age or body.”

The conversation languished. Now and again one would break off in the middle of a phrase to heave a deep sigh, more from the stomach than the heart; and with his hands loosely clasped over his distended belly, he remarked to the company at large, though the observation was directed solely at Jacob Salvail, “I’ve had such a good dinner.” With a jerk of their chins the others expressed their participation in this tribute, which the host accepted in silence as his due.

The women, when the second dinner was laid, gave a hand either in serving or washing the dishes. They considered themselves in honor bound to help, and were to be seen snatching up any dishcloth they could find. Madame Salvail kept anxiously inquiring whether everything was all right. At the moment when the guests set her mind at rest by proving how successful the dinner had been, Eugene, the youngest of the family, came forward armed with a fork and reached over to the center of the table, where he impaled a fritter, and in so doing upset the dish. As he dropped onto his knees to protect himself, he thrust his other hand into a compote dish, and the preserved fruit spattered onto some of the guests.

Bernadette shrieked out in a fury, “Father! Look at your precious Eugene, and the mess he’s just made! A sound thrashing is what he deserves, and you ought to give it him now.”

Jacob Salvail did not even raise his voice. His sole reproof was to observe quietly, “If you wanted some preserves, my boy, you only had to say so. No need to jump into the dish.”

During the brief respite between dinner and the games that were to follow, the girls went up into Bernadette’s room. While they tidied their hair, they discussed whether they should start by playing musical chairs. Or hide-and-seek, or pretty shepherdess? Or measuring ribbons, riddles, or the plate game, as the schoolmistress so much wanted them to do (she being an expert at forfeits and penances).

Catherine Provençal knew several songs. “What about singing?” she suggested. “It’s a bit soon to start dancing now, I think.”

“Just as you like,” agreed Bernadette, who had already decided on a program. “It won’t take a moment to clear the room for dancing. Don’t you agree, Marie?”

Marie Provençal gave a start. She was standing with her back to the others, in the space between the bed and the wall, and had just produced a bit of red tissue paper from the top of her stocking and was dabbing it lightly on her cheeks with a wetted finger.

Rose-de-Lima Bibeau began to sing:

“Let’s go down,” said Bernadette.

On the narrow staircase the lads were gathered, exchanging dirty stories. At the approach of the girls they blushed and scattered like a flock of starlings.

“A song—a song to cheer us up,” cried Bernadette imperiously.

From his corner the Stranger began:

Without taking a moment to draw breath, Odilon Provençal, who, like his three brothers, never touched a drop of alcohol, rejoined:

When the laughter subsided, Bernadette announced to the company, “The Stranger will now give us a song.”

“No, I can’t. I haven’t got one in my gullet tonight.”

“But, Stranger, you can’t refuse. It really would be just too rude.”

Disarmed by his indifference to them, several girls clustered round the Stranger.

“O come, my lad, you’re just trying to put us off. . . .”

“Do sing! We so much want to hear you.”

“What do you want me to sing?”

“The song of your heart, knight of the roads.”

“Of my heart? Do you know if. . . .”

“That’s enough,” broke in Phonsine. “No need to slander the absent.”

“Now, Phonsine,” said the Stranger reproachfully, “don’t you start butting in.”

During the resulting burst of laughter, he said to Bernadette in a tone that only she could hear, “Get me a drink, my lovely, and I’ll sing.”

“Afterward,” said she, rather taken aback.

“No, at once, to clear my throat. Otherwise I won’t sing.”

A little disconcerted, but captivated by the idea of being alone with the Stranger for a few moments, Bernadette hurried into the sitting room. He soon followed her and pushed open the door. Silently she drew forth the decanter of caribou, a mixture of wine and whisky, from beside the chest of drawers, and handed him a glass. He filled it to the brim and then, with a bow, raised it to his lips. He drank a mouthful, and without waiting until his glass was empty, filled it up again. Twice he did this, as though afraid he might not get enough. Bernadette watched him in amazement. She had indeed often seen men at Monk’s Inlet drink brandy. They swallowed it at a single gulp. Some quivered, and even grimaced after it, not liking the taste, and only drinking it to warm themselves or give themselves an illusion of vigor or gaiety.

The Stranger drank otherwise. Slowly. Careful not to lose a drop. Bernadette? Little he cared about her; Bernadette didn’t exist. He drank slowly and with gusto; he drank greedily and reverently. Melancholy, and then impassioned. His glass and he were one. Everything in the room, the house, the world which was not his glass was expunged. The very features of the man seemed to be obscured. A mist rose between Bernadette and himself. They were both together and apart. “Silly fool!” she thought, indignant at seeing him fill his glass a fourth time. But she was aware simultaneously of an impulse of embarrassment and shame, and also the shadow of an unavowed regret: the painful sense of witnessing an ecstasy which she could not share.

“Are you coming along, my lovely?”

Bernadette shook her head; her throat felt parched, she could not speak. Besides, she had nothing to say. When he had left the room, she tried to recover herself. “Why should I bother about him? Let him drink his fill if he wants to. I couldn’t care less.” She thought of getting some water to dilute the spirit, but her father would never forgive her. A large tear trickled down from her clouded eyes onto the neck of the decanter. In the kitchen the Stranger was singing:

His voice was not a good one; it was quite unpracticed, and yet it spoke to the heart. As soon as it rang out, those who heard it must needs pause and listen. Those who heard it were carried along the road of their desire—a road on which awaited them, warm and welcoming, the object of their dreams: fat and fruitful lands, or a little lighthouse to look after, or a well-beloved face, or a flight of wild ducks. . . .

Could there be anywhere in the wide world a shepherdess cruel enough to reject the love of so gallant a shepherd? Surely not a daughter of the plains. The hearts of the listeners were stirred and angered. Leaning against the framework of a door, a woman openly wiped away a tear with the corner of a dishcloth.

But a handsome dancer dashed forward before the end of the last stanza. He preferred, as was plain enough, to the shepherdess of the song, some buxom wench that he could clasp in a brisk embrace.

“Now then—concertina forward, and then the flutes. A jig—quick; and then a rigadoon.”

The chairs were pushed back. The floor creaked beneath the hammering of the men’s hard heels. A swirl of skirts made a red glow in the center of the room. Already a self-constituted master of ceremonies announced the figures, stressing his syllables as he spoke. “Bow to your partner. Swing your ladies!” And amid much clamor the cotillion was launched.

“Turn to the left!”

Unaccustomed to dancing, which they did not much enjoy, the lads of the Inlet soon got out of breath, and began to perspire freely. They abruptly snatched away the handkerchiefs secured beneath their chins, and vigorously mopped their faces, taking a sort of pride in their condition.

“Hi! Look at me! I’m pretty well soaked through.”

“What about me? I’m dripping on the floor.”

“And turn to the right!”

Quickly they fell into step, fearful of getting out of time, and making themselves ridiculous in the girls’ eyes by their awkwardness. Again they seized their partners in a vicelike grip. With laughing eyes and heads thrown back, the girls circled around quite naturally and without bravado.

Then the dancers gathered in a ring around the room, and girls and men clasped hands for the Ladies’ Chain. A brief squeeze of hands said more than lips dared to express. In their own naïve language, hands, more eloquent than voices, spoke of comradeship, everlasting affection, or sometimes of indifference.

The musician took a pleasure in prolonging the cotillion. He pulled out the accordion and drew forth the most languorous melodies. But at the moment when the couples, formed up just as they felt inclined, were about to launch into the final waltz, he clapped the bellows together at a wicked pace and forced the dancers to resume the chain.

The cotillion was still going on when a child shrieked through the door.

“Come and see two men fighting by the barn. There’s a pool of blood beside them, like when a pig’s killed.”

“O gentle Jesus!”

Before she even knew what had happened, Madame Salvail, obsessed by the idea that she suffered from anemia, sank down onto a chair and prepared to faint.

“I do feel so queer. I think I’m going to collapse.”

The other women, who knew what her trouble was and that three-quarters of it was imaginary, paid scant attention. Clustering several deep round the window, they peered through it, but scarcely succeeded in scraping a hand’s breadth of hoar frost off the windowpane. The men, for their part, so as to reach the scene of operation as promptly as possible, grabbed the first woolen helmet they could see. Hence an array of grotesque heads engulfed in caps too large or crammed into caps too small appeared on every side, without provoking even the shadow of a smile.

Eugene Salvail suddenly leaped through the door, like a foal escaping from the paddock. “It’s . . . it’s Odilon Provençal fighting with the Stranger!”

Alphonsine looked quite appalled, and nudged Marie-Amanda with her elbow.

“What will Pierre-Côme Provençal think?”

But nothing was heard save the rasping voice of Laure Provençal, shrill with indignation.

“Why on earth do you keep that wretched fellow? We don’t want that sort of thing around Monk’s Inlet. He just does what he likes. Wait till my old man catches him by the scruff of his neck; he’ll show him who’s Mayor of this village.”

She paled with anger. While she was still speaking she snatched up a cloak, ready to stride over the snowdrifts, ready to fight with bare fists, ready to shed her last drop of blood to save her child from a scratch (the child being a man). Her daughters vainly tried to hold her back. On the path leading to the barn she stumbled. The sound of her cries betrayed her, and Pierre-Côme ordered her back home.

She obeyed without question. None the less, she managed to shout to old Didace, “You’re a fool to take in a fellow like that; he’s bound to bring you trouble. Well, don’t let me catch him in a corner or I’ll tear his guts out, I tell you straight.”

Didace did not even hear. A great joy spread within him, his blood ran once more rich and red. His ashen face seamed by age, his failing strength, his aged heart furrowed by anxiety—all that was an evil dream. He had recovered his youthful strength intact; Didace, son of Didace, come to take possession of the land. He is thirty again. An eldest son has been born to him. The reign of the Beauchemins will never end.

It was he who was fighting in the Stranger’s place. His muscles stiffened with the strain. His lips flecked with foam, his head poised, his legs straddled, and his arms outstretched, he confronted his opponent. Ha! That one was on the mark! His fists, two lumps of iron, smashed into the other’s ribs. The blows he would have struck were struck now by the Stranger. Keep hammering at his ribs and you’ll get him down!

In the moonlight Odilon’s great body swayed like a scarecrow and tottered. The murmur of approaching voices awakened old Didace from his reverie.

“A stout fellow, the Stranger.”

“I’ll say he is. Just look at the thickness of his hands. And still quite young too, as you can see.”

“Seems that Didace eggs him on to fight.”

“I daresay. He’s Didace’s pet. . . .”

Didace felt proud, and joy flickered up again within him. Unlike women, men didn’t make a tragedy of a fight. Nobody thought of stopping it. After all, what was there to be said against a fair fight? In their view it even added an actual attraction to the evening. And they would greatly enjoy talking it over afterward. Always excepting Pierre-Côme Provençal, wounded in his pride to see a man of the parish, and above all his own son, get a thrashing at the hands of a stranger whom he regarded as a rascal merely because he didn’t know anything about him.

So the Stranger increased in esteem and importance in the eyes of many, and especially among the older men, who had been great fighters in their time. None the less, those who, like Amable, had disliked him from the outset, detested him all the more now that they knew he was not merely clever at his job and popular with the girls, but a good man in a fight and as strong as an ox.

No one took the trouble to discover how the fight between Odilon and the Stranger had begun. When anyone tried to acquire prestige by pretending to know something about it, he was immediately bombarded with questions. So much so that he wriggled ten times more violently than the Devil in a stoup of holy water, and promptly failed to remember what had happened.

In any case, as from that day it was well understood at Monk’s Inlet that whoever made fun of Angelina Desmarais would have to reckon with the Stranger, who henceforward was regarded as her champion.

But the parties at the Beauchemins’ never recovered the same rhythm. Most people held aloof from Didace, by way of letting things settle down, like sediment in simmering water. But the Beauchemins hardly noticed the change. As the days imperceptibly lengthened, the work in the bakehouse went on until evening. Everyone now had free access to the place. Since, at Angelina’s instance, the ladies of Sorel had entrusted their old furniture to him for repair, the Stranger had begun to turn out some very handsome articles and make all sorts of objects in wood.

From week to week, the Stranger assumed a tone of command, with the consent of old Didace, who seemed to approve the new state of affairs. The two men would often, in the friendliest fashion, take the things into Sorel. It was seldom that they were back by daylight. Amable and Alphonsine were much concerned about what sort of mischief they might be getting into there so late, but they never said much. Thanks to the Stranger’s activities, into which he gradually drew them all—Angelina too, on any sort of work that called for feminine patience—more money came into the house that winter than ever before. They gradually came, Didace as well, to regard the furniture business as a permanent feature of the farm, and Alphonsine contemplated acquiring a phonograph or at any rate exchanging the stove for another of a more up-to-date and handier type (a “Happy Thought,” for instance), and promised herself much pleasure in polishing its steel trim. Didace had always objected to parting with the old stove. Vast and massive, and rather difficult to start, it spread a gentle warmth all over the house. Moreover in the summer, when they would be living in the bakehouse, it served to keep the family furs free from moths. But now Didace would surely agree to sell the large stove.

Time passed quickly and almost unperceived. It was something of a surprise to learn one evening from the Sainte-Anne shopman that the ice lower down was giving way in places. Was the winter drawing to a close?

It was about this same time that work began to give out. No new furniture could be undertaken for lack of timber. The Stranger made some calculations on a scrap of paper.

“For twenty-four dollars and fifty-seven cents I could go to Montreal and get some commissions, and buy the tools I need to work with.”

Didace gave a start of surprise, but far from saying yes, he went out without uttering a word one way or the other. On the days that followed the Stranger was not in his usual place. He strayed up and down the house, idle, dejected, and silent, or ambled about the neighborhood, ferreting in every corner, on the lookout for something, no one quite knew what. One day he unearthed an old pair of snowshoes in one of the huts, which he set himself to repair. He displayed rare skill in tightening the strings, such as the dwellers on the Inlet had never seen.

“Who taught you that trick, Stranger?” asked Amable.

“Nobody. My father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather learned it for me.”

Didace was never tired of watching him at work. Once more the Stranger’s origin began to haunt his mind. Was he of Indian descent, as Provençal pretended? His temperament, which was that of a highlander, denied it, but his skill and various other characteristics suggested that he might be.

“Who was your grandfather, Stranger?”

“My grandfather? I’ve already told you; he was an old fox like you.”

Amable, to get the knack of it, made him go over the same operation again. At the fourth time, Didace lost patience.

“By gosh, Amable, you’ve got a thick head, thicker than the cat’s. The Stranger will explain it to the dog, and you can take lessons from him.”

“Yes,” rejoined the Stranger, “I never did see a man so awkward with his hands. Look around you, Amable. Every creature has something that you haven’t, and knows how to use it. The dog can run full speed through a stormy night without bumping into anything. Your hands have got a nose, and the eyes of a dog, and you don’t even know how to use them. Do you think the dog could round up cows in a fog, if he waved his hands about him like you do?”

The fields stretched out into the distance, an endless gray expanse. Men moved more slowly, and seemed to carry the reflection of that gray monotony. One day a light breeze, scarce a breath, passed and repassed over the Inlet, lingering for a moment, like the touch of a soft hand, upon their faces.

Could it be the spring?

Next day a boisterous wind hurtled over the countryside, laid low all the buoys, and swept the dry snow in great waves over the plain.

“A treacherous wind—hey, Didace? The sort of wind that fairly gets into the marrow of your bones.”

“Yes, I’ve known it rip the skin off my face like a knife.”

Then the air freshened. The sun warmed the earth a little earlier and for a little longer every day. Now, in place of the blue strips that had lined the snowy roads, the rutted tracks beside the Inlet were filled, about midday, with brown and brackish water.

Toward the end of March, when the thaw was near, the older inhabitants, haunted by their memories of floods, as though by mutual agreement began to talk about old times. One evening Didace, in order to stir the Stranger out of his silence, recalled the disastrous breakup of the ice on Holy Wednesday in 1865. He described the river transformed into a raging torrent by the flood water and the fury of the wind, drowning people by the dozen, demolishing houses, uprooting ancient trees, and finally, at one swoop, lopping off a strip of land twenty-five feet wide and forty acres long from the Île Saint-Ignace.

The Stranger made no sign.

Didace told the noble story of the twenty-year-old wife, the pious and heroic peasant woman, who, though already in labor, begged her husband, when the flood was at its height, to leave her to her death and escape with the two other children. What was her name? Lavallée.

The Stranger made no sign.

Didace told the story of the rescue of Gilbert Brisset, who saw his house split in two, and then his wife, his child, his mother, two brothers, four sisters drowned under his very eyes; how Olivier Berard found him clinging to the trunk of a young mountain ash, up to the waist in icy water, and lashed by all the winds for eight hours and more.

Alphonsine sat wide-eyed and listened greedily. Of course they knew by heart the story of that dreadful flood. But from time to time it sounded to her rather elaborated, for old Didace never told it in the same way, and he always found some new detail to add.

But the Stranger still made no sign.

Then Didace, to demonstrate the caprices of chance, spoke of Louis Désy.

“Now I come to think of it, I’ve never told you what happened to little Louis. He didn’t want to get drowned, so he scrambled up to the top of a tree. And the wind swung him to and fro just like a willow branch. This was getting beyond a joke anyway, when suddenly he saw his house being carried downstream. But that wasn’t all; his wife and daughter were inside it. ‘Good-by, wife; good-by, daughter,’ he said, bursting into tears, and lifting his arms to the sky. ‘I shan’t see you again except in Paradise.’ That said, he shut his eyes, so as not to see them perish. But the poor creatures—who, as usual, got it all wrong—instead of replying, ‘Good-by, till we meet in heaven!’ started to climb out onto the gable end. So that when old Louis opened his eyes, what should he see astride the house? His girl and his old woman, as spry as you please, and calling out. ‘Good morning, little Louis, good morning.’ ”

Still the Stranger made no sign.

But suddenly, without even raising his eyes, he began to talk in an undertone, as though to himself, about the bustle of great seaports when they awaken to the life of spring, and especially about the docker’s job, easy and well paid, needing no apprenticeship. But he said nothing of the perils of the longshoreman’s life, nor of all that the docker has to contend with, wedged in the bottom of a ship’s hold, shoveling the grain, the dust of which congests his lungs—nor of the rats, the ship’s rats that voyage from one continent to another with the bales of merchandise, rats as large as tomcats. He talked of the docker’s life with the affection that could see no faults.

At the Stranger’s words, Didace’s heart began to hammer in his chest. He, usually so shrewd, grasped the nostalgic tone rather than the sense of what was said. He saw himself once more alone with Amable and Alphonsine. He saw the house desolate and the land abandoned.

The married pair rose to go to their bedroom. The Stranger made as though to follow their example, but Didace signed to him to stay in the kitchen. Then, without a word, he went into his office, and returned with a roll of bank notes. In an undertone, he said, “Twenty-four and fifty-seven was what you said. Here’s sixty, to make a round sum.”

He winked to emphasize his generosity. The Stranger took the money without more ado.

“When do you expect to get back from Montreal?” asked Didace.

“I daresay I shall start out tomorrow at dawn. Perhaps not till the next day. But I shan’t stay more than two or three days at the very most.”

“Right you are. This is a grand time of year hereabouts, as you will see, my boy. Spring can’t be far off now. Then, when the time comes, the sun and the wind and the rain eat up the old snow. And then the rivers are full, and we paddle around all day long. It’s a grand time, I can tell you that.”

The week passed but the Stranger did not return. Amable said sarcastically to old Didace, “That gay bird of yours seems to have flown away on the wings of your money. . . .”

Didace took the Stranger’s part. “If he hasn’t come back at once, no doubt he had his reasons.”

All the same, his anxiety was sharpening, and grew more intense on the morning when Beau-Blanc from De-Froi’s pulled up at the house. As he caught sight of him, Didace found himself wondering what more bad news he had brought.

And indeed he had scarcely arrived before he burst out, “I don’t want to be telling tales, Monsieur Beauchemin, but I saw your Stranger on the razzle in Sorel. He could hardly stand.”

Didace pushed Amable out of the room. “You promised David Desmarais that you’d help him chop wood. You get along to the sugar hut at once.”

“All right. I’m going, but I shall tell Angelina just what sort of fellow her Stranger is: a drunkard . . . a brawler . . . a waster . . . a. . . .”

“Now please don’t do anything of the kind,” pleaded Alphonsine. “She’ll be quite upset enough, since she’s fond of him—don’t blame her for his misdeeds.”

No sooner had Amable departed than Didace harnessed the horse and drove off toward Sorel. During the morning, time passed quickly. Alphonsine did the housework and prepared the dinner. Then she set herself to wash the floor, just for the joy of working without anyone to watch her. No one would eye her reproachfully for having left the soap in the water. No one would see her take a rest when she felt inclined. Then she scrubbed the floor straight off without a pause, taking care, each time she soaped the swab, to put the soap down in a dry place beside the bucket. The Angelus was ringing from the belfry at Sainte-Anne when she got up to throw the dirty water outside. She paused for an instant. On the road there was no sign of life. The sky was overcast. A few isolated drops of rain pattered down onto her hands.

When she turned around, she heaved a sigh of satisfaction at the sight of the floor, now shining in cleanliness. As she was not hungry, she decided not to have her dinner until Didace returned. He would surely not be long now. Two o’clock struck. Then three o’clock. She began to be wearied by waiting, and to pass the time she turned over the pages of an old fashion magazine. At four o’clock the sky became darkly overcast, and the rain was now falling in heavy drops. As she stood at the window, Alphonsine watched the rain against the windowpanes. Sometimes it struck them slantwise in sharp, arrowy gusts, sometimes one large drop would hover and then slide downward in one spurt, like a water snake. Then she started back in alarm; a man was making his way along the path. It was the Stranger, alone and on foot; he was still tipsy, and staggered as he walked.

Hurriedly she lit the lamp, and sat down in a secluded corner. After lurching to and fro in the doorway, the Stranger decided to step across the threshold, lifting his feet in exaggerated fashion. Like a wind-swept tree he tottered; then he paused, his eyes wavering and his chest absurdly thrown out in a futile attempt at dignity; he smiled fatuously at the beams of the ceiling. One of them seemed to attract his particular attention. With an air of gravity he examined it carefully and gesticulated at it in a crazy sort of way. Then, in search of support, he swept an arm through space, splaying his fingers out so wide that their shadow from the lamplight stretched like a cloud across the kitchen. It looked almost as though the gigantic hand was trying to grasp a whole section of the wall and fling it outside. Then he took two headlong strides across the room and collapsed into a chair near the table. Scarcely had he sat down than his head began to droop in slumber. Two puddles of mud stained the floor. Alphonsine burst out at him, “It’s a disgrace for a man to drink himself into such a state. And look at my floor that I’ve just scrubbed—all over mud! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

She said to herself, “I knew that fellow would bring us nothing but misfortune.” But in her heart she was less enraged by the mess on the floor, than distressed by the condition of the Stranger. Despite herself, her vexation was not unmixed with pity for the Stranger in his solitude, who thought himself strong by virtue of the bold gestures that proclaimed his strength and independence, and was yet at the mercy of the first temptation.

The Stranger’s mackinaw was dripping. In grief and anguish she slipped it off him. Then she tugged at his boots with all her might, but in vain.

“If you would only help me the least little bit . . .,” she pleaded.

Then she added in a threatening tone, “I shall tell my father-in-law all about it, and he’ll turn you out of doors. This very evening. You’ll die like a dog, and a good thing too.”

But the Stranger, powerless to make the slightest movement, sat with a grin on his face, dumb, indifferent, and aloof.

“And the money? And the tools? What have you done with them?”

At her stern tone the Stranger raised his eyebrows in an effort to understand. His vacant gaze strayed all over the room, trying to understand. He succeeded in turning his pockets inside out. They were empty. Only a small crucifix fell out of one of them. Alphonsine picked up the rosary cross from which a tin Christ hung by one hand.

“Where’s my father-in-law?”

Hiccuping, with thickened speech, stumbling over every syllable or gulping down his words, the Stranger finally blurted out, “Father? . . . He’s gone . . . to see . . . his girl. . . .”

“What’s that? Speak up properly,” said Alphonsine, with a growing sense of uneasiness.

“Now, now! I’m all right. I’ve only had a glass or two. . . . Listen, little mother. . . . Run and get me a drink . . . and then we can talk. Old man Didace is . . . in love . . . with. . . .”

She ran to the pump, filled a tumbler, and handed it to the Stranger. No sooner had he set his lips to it than he spat out the water and dashed the glass onto the floor.

“You dirty dog!” cried Alphonsine indignantly.

But she was devoured with curiosity, and after clearing away the debris, she said in a milder tone, “Tell me the truth, Stranger. Old Didace is in love with . . .?”

She dipped the linen towel in water and rubbed his face with it, especially his forehead and temples, around to the back of his neck; but he still remained silent, and coughed incessantly.

Involuntarily, her heart began to melt. “He’s got no one to look after him,” she thought. And she began to wash his face more gently, as she might have washed a child. From time to time she talked to him, so that the pale glimmer of reason should not vanish into the mists of drunkenness. Suddenly the man’s voice stiffened. The words came forth full sail. Nothing could stop him talking now.

Alphonsine did not move. She kept the Stranger’s head against her shoulder. Often had she been told that truths came from the lips of drunken men. From among the jumble of phrases, she tried to distinguish those which had any meaning.

“Just a Stranger . . . just a Stranger . . . but I respect your house . . . I respect your Father Didace . . . a rare old customer, the best shot in the province. . . . He’s not like the Provençals . . . the biggest farmers in the canton . . . but a pack of mutts . . . who didn’t know a thing . . . not even that Father Didace was going to marry . . . the Acadian . . . the lovely Acadian. Don’t say no, Odilon, or I’ll send you flying up to the ceiling again. . . .”

After a pause the Stranger got up and rose to his full height.

“Where are you going?” asked Phonsine uneasily.

“I want to go and see . . . see the sun dance. On Easter morning . . . the sun dances . . . yes, it does!”

Phonsine succeeded in getting him to sit down again. By way of soothing him, she repeated mechanically after him, “The sun . . . dances . . . dances. . . .”

The man fell silent, and she let him sink into slumber. It would be futile to try and awaken him to find out a little more. As well try to uproot an oak. The plates on the table clattered as the Stranger’s head crashed like a rock onto the edge of it. A minute later he was snoring.

It was nearly seven o’clock. Alphonsine had eaten nothing since the morning, but she did not feel hungry. She lifted the lid off the kettle. The potatoes, which had begun to sprout, had deliquesced into a grayish, unappetizing paste. Pouring off the water into the sink, she shifted the kettle to the back of the stove.

In the warming oven, the rashers of bacon had shriveled up. They were so dry that one of them crumbled away at a touch. The pancake dough, covered with a white cloth, was bursting into bubbles. A little tea at the bottom of her cup would be enough for Alphonsine; she swallowed it without sugar or milk, and indeed almost unconsciously.

Her head was humming with thoughts. She listened to the rain water spurting in gushes from the eaves, the wind rattling the roofs and making the shutters creak. Then she stood, marking the heavy rhythm of the sleeper’s breathing. Then again she lulled herself by contemplating various small projects on which she had previously set small store: she would cut out a morning dress; perhaps she would embroider a quilt; and she must be thinking about the great spring house cleaning for Monday week. But all the while she was lying to herself; she knew she was trying to efface the scar left by the Stranger’s words. Was it possible that her father-in-law was going to marry again, and bring another wife into the house? A woman whom no one knew from Adam or Eve, and a foreigner. What would Pierre-Côme Provençal think? And Amable, when he knew all? Poor Amable—a man who was cast down by the merest trifle. And Marie-Amanda, too!—expecting a baby, and very near her time. If it rested solely with Alphonsine, they should not hear about it for a long while. And she, who already had so much difficulty in keeping her position in the house—what would become of her beside another woman, a woman of experience who must know how to talk to men and to get around them, since she had managed to get around Didace? And then the farm? The farm went by right to Amable. If Didace meant to leave it to the new wife, Amable and she would be destitute. She saw herself haggard and in rags, begging her bread from house to house along some unknown road—an outcast.

Suddenly such a surge of misery came upon her that her heart was wrung with pain; her distress was so great that her very soul was overwhelmed by dejection. An awful presentiment made her shiver from head to foot. She saw disaster—like a bird of prey, hovering, haughty, patient, and deliberate, before swooping down upon its chosen victim—spreading once again its sinister black wings over the house of the Beauchemins. After Ephrem had been drowned, Mathilde had died. The grandmother had followed soon after. Three bereavements in one year—a heavy burden for one family. Troubles seldom arrive singly.

As a crowning misfortune, the Stranger, a mere tramp and a ne’er-do-well, had settled down at Monk’s Inlet. Why didn’t he take to the road again? What had he called the woman? Ah—yes—the Acadian! A nickname, of course. The Acadian. The name had a sinister echo. Where had she heard that name before?

Now there were only three left—Didace, Amable-Didace, and herself—to guard the ancestral farm. Her gaze wandered from one familiar object to another as though to implore their help. One holy picture, highly colored and quite unconvincing, adorned the stretch of wall. The simpering Saint Anthony and the child in his arms had the same fair, curly hair, the same childish features, the man’s face appearing as a mere enlargement of that of the child, with the miraculous addition of a beard. Above the door hung a cross of solid wood. One day Ephrem had gone out to cut down a sycamore, and in the fork of a young tree he had found a cross of so lovely a natural shape that he had brought it home. Beside it a branch of consecrated spruce with its needles still green hoarded the remnant of its life against the dead wood.

Two portraits on zinc of previous Didace Beauchemins—six generations had borne the name—in wooden medallion frames, which some Beauchemin forebear who was handy with his knife had roughly carved with a decoration of roses, surveyed the scene—both wearing bristly chin-beards, their brawny shoulders lightly encased in jackets of homespun, both with steady, penetrating eyes and lofty foreheads. Powerful, stern, and unimpeachable, they presided over the doings of the family. By reason of their honesty and the human respect due to the sweat and blood of pioneers, poured forth on the plains and on the salt seas, in lives of bitter hardship, as lumbermen, mariners, fishermen, and farmers, they had written Beauchemin law. It was for those who followed, the inheritors of the name, to observe it faithfully.

Kneeling beside the stove, Alphonsine began her evening prayer. “Let us place ourselves in the presence of God. . . .” But her mind, preoccupied with many things, slipped out of her control. A sudden flash revealed the way that she must take: Mathilde Beauchemin, who was so near to God, might well intercede with Him. In a half-conscious calculation she tried to touch her on a sensitive spot. “Dear and holy Mathilde Beauchemin, you would surely not allow another woman to take your place . . . nor ours.”

Still on her knees, she began to argue with herself to restore her self-assurance.

“What a fool I am to imagine all this nonsense! I ought never to have let that silly Stranger talk.”

Then she listened. The sole response was the snoring of the drunken man, and the moaning of the wind. She went over to the fire and put a spruce log onto the dying embers. She would thus feel less lonely; the crackling of the fire would keep her company. But once more she began to grieve. As truly as though she were the sole victim of fate, Alphonsine agonized as though she were alone and abandoned on a vast landscape of injustice. She was the stone in the fields, cold and sterile, among the rich and sunny crops. She was the blackened grain which a disdainful hand flung out of the sieve. And she suffered so much, and sobbed so bitterly, that she had to clasp both hands over her throbbing heart to prevent its bursting with pain. She wept and wept until she dropped into a doze, her head buried in the hollow of her arms. But now and then her thin shoulders heaved convulsively.

At ten o’clock she awoke, shivering and benumbed. The Stranger was heavily asleep, and Didace had not come back. Outside, a violent snowstorm had succeeded the rain.

“It’s sugar falling,” said Alphonsine to herself, thinking of Amable at the sugar refinery.

The roads would soon become impassable. After turning down the lamp, she picked it up carefully and set it in a china dish on the dresser which stood across a corner of the room. To avoid falling into too deep a sleep, she lay down on the lower end of the sofa in a rather uncomfortable position. In the middle of the night she was awakened by the sound of words. It was Didace talking to himself in the kitchen.

“So I’ve caught you out, have I, Didace Beauchemin? You can’t drink without getting drunk, eh? Well, you shan’t have another drop all this Lent. Not one! Do you hear me? Answer, now. . . .”

Alphonsine waited until he fell silent. Then, screening the lamp globe with her hand, she walked with measured steps into the kitchen. Didace lay sprawling on the floor beside the stove, with the dog beside him. She could not induce him to rouse himself and go to bed; so she got a pillow and slipped it under his head, and then went to fetch a counterpane to lay over him. But when she came back, he was again lying with his head on the bare floor, with his arms embracing the down pillow in an almost loving attitude.

Alphonsine told her husband no more than the essentials. In point of fact, Amable, when he heard that the Stranger had squandered at Sorel the money with which he had been entrusted for the journey to Montreal, was not displeased. Wouldn’t Didace come to his senses at last? Wouldn’t he turn the Stranger out?

Didace did nothing of the kind. Far from it. He stiffened once more into the patriarchal Beauchemin whose word was law.

“Before the Stranger came, our timber just slept on the stacks and brought us in nothing. This year it has brought in nearly a hundred and fifteen dollars, not to mention my boat, with which I’m delighted. On that I advanced him something under thirteen dollars and a half for a pair of gum boots and various oddments. And he spent not quite twenty-five dollars on the journey in question. That leaves at least seventy dollars clear. The Provençals pay less than that as a yearly pension to the little schoolmistress. As for the Stranger, he has run into a bit of trouble, I admit, and I had his measure straightway. I’m sure he’ll take care it never happens again. It isn’t always a bad thing for a man to slip up on occasion: it shows him that he isn’t quite the stout fellow that he thought he was.”

Alphonsine and Amable exchanged a look of astonishment, and Amable said to his father, “Well, he must have told you some tall stories to get around you like that. He’s been spoiled. At your age you ought to know that if a man is going to be bamboozled, it’s always by a fattened hog. Anyway, there isn’t work for three men on the farm. More by token, there isn’t any at all for a man possessed, and with nearly all the vices.”

The Stranger, who had just appeared in the doorway, caught Amable’s last words and said, “There may not be work for you, Amable, but there’s still plenty for me to do. As for having all the vices, that’s a bit too much. All the same, I’ll admit to a few. But I haven’t any faults. You haven’t a single vice, but you’ve got all the faults.”

Alphonsine blushed to the roots of her hair.

The Stranger yawned as though, in talking thus, solely from condescension, he were fulfilling a task devoid of interest to himself but imposed on him by circumstances. He went on, “I don’t deny my passion for drink, which you can see for yourself. You can’t understand it because you don’t like anything that upsets your peace of mind. Do you ever enjoy a fine day? Not a bit; it may be raining by tomorrow evening. At the mere thought of risking a dollar or two to improve the land, you just shudder; if it lasts your lifetime, well and good . . . neveurmagne. You’re like the ant that shed its wings after collecting enough to eat. What’s the good of wings? Why fly? The ant doesn’t need them any more. But a passion that can’t be seen isn’t called so; it doesn’t send a fellow staggering across the pavement. Poor Amable. It isn’t your fault at all. Your father’s wealth was what destroyed you. Before your time the Beauchemins had to make their keep by hunting in the woods, or sailing the seas, or selling the fish they caught. But you were born with your living already earned, son of a rich farmer. You didn’t have to take a job. A family is like salt, as one might say. Rain falls from heaven, soaks into the ground, absorbs the salt in it, then finds its way into the streams and rivers and flows down to enrich the sea. The sky sucks up water from the sun and restores the salt to the earth. It seems as though everything starts all over again in this world here below.”

Didace, who had hitherto appeared to be lending only the vaguest attention to the Stranger’s remarks, suddenly interrupted him, his usually raucous tones now muted by a touch of sadness.

“That’s all very well, but it’s never the same water that runs back again.”

The Stranger looked astonished, laughed, and continued.

“I tell you in all friendship, Amable, that if you don’t watch out, in ten or fifteen years you’ll have ceased to be just a cautious fellow, you’ll have become a miser. That’s a real vice, that is, and you’ll be poor in good earnest. You’ll know what it is to be poor.”

Amable snorted, “All right, go on singing your little songs, and send us to sleep all the sooner.”

The Stranger burst out laughing, but old Didace banged his fist on the table.

“That’s enough, you two. There’s work to be done.”

That evening, when the Stranger was about to walk home with Angelina as he usually did, and spend part of the evening at her house, after a little hesitation she said to him, “Easter’s nearly here. Ten more days and it will be the twenty-seventh of March. Are you proposing to spend Easter like that?”

“I don’t understand. Are you talking about my Easter duties?”

“If you neglected them, it would be the last straw, and I would never speak to you again. No—I meant, dressed in the same old rags you wear every day. You don’t seem to have got any decent garments.”

“I don’t set much store by clothes. But if you’re ashamed of me, my dark lovely, I’d better be moving on.”

“Now don’t talk nonsense. You know your underclothes are all in holes. You must have some new ones, and I’m just reminding you.”

“I shan’t have earned enough money by then.”

“I don’t suggest a complete new outfit, but you should be able to look a little smarter on occasion. If I were you, I’d try to catch some muskrats this spring. I can lend you the traps, and Spot’s a good one with rats. The water will be rising any day now. Unless you’re very unlucky, you ought to pick up a couple of hundred fine skins. And even if you share with Didace, that’ll leave you a good sum.”

“How much do skins fetch these days?”

“From seven to twelve cents. And I’ll take the carcasses to market.”

At the end of each week Angelina had a stall at the market. No woman was as capable as she at cooking muskrat, cold jellied pork, or head cheese that she removed from the bowl with one rapid circular stroke. Moreover, she excelled in preparing, when in season, little packets of seeds, pickled cucumbers, the vinegar of which she economically touched up with water, as well as tin vessels of berries which to the eye appeared to topple over the rim while the bottom of the container was cleverly stuffed with leaves of rhubarb. Besides, she felt perfectly at ease retailing rag carpet by the yard, rather than by the time-honored custom of selling it by the ell. Always dignified, and always on her guard against familiar talk that might lead to a few sous’ reduction, she sold her goods at high prices to a selected clientele.

“My dear,” continued Angelina, “there have been springs when the trappers caught as many as seven hundred rats.”

Then she added, in an only slightly lower tone, “I can advance you some money for clothes. . . .”

The Stranger made as though to stroke her hand, but she slipped out of reach. They came in sight of the house. Angelina went on ahead. When she had lit the lamp, the Stranger noticed three five-dollar notes on the corner of the table. . . .

“Look here, darling. . . .”

Bending toward her, he looked into her eyes, which were so limpid that he could—he thought—have seen his image in them. He was the first to avert his gaze, and he took the money without another word.

Angelina had improved in looks. Love had transfigured her. He had not noticed it before. This pure and timid creature who, without a thought of evil, offered money to a man, suddenly reminded him of the bunch of wild grapes he had picked on the evening of his arrival at Monk’s Inlet. Before knocking at the Beauchemins’ door, he had caught sight of a vine loaded with black grapes and had paused beside it. The fruit was in fact so bitter that he had flung away the first grape, then he gradually started eating them, more and more greedily, until he could not stop.

In a low voice, in case her father was not asleep, Angelina said, “Drinking is a vile habit. Do try to behave decently in future.”

He nodded agreement.

“On Saturday week,” continued Angelina, “after market, I could go with you to the Sailor’s Friend, to make sure that Syrian doesn’t cheat you.”

She, usually so retiring, felt quite elated at the prospect of walking out on the Stranger’s arm along the shopping street at Sorel, in the sight of all and sundry. Bernadette Salvail would not fail to hear about it.

The Stranger, who was feeling vague and restless, made desultory replies. He kept on fingering the banknotes in his pocket and peering at the clock. After the lapse of a quarter of an hour, when Angelina produced her work bag, he rose and said, “Now don’t get out your knitting, my lovely. I can’t stay late.”

Without further explanation, he departed. But when he reached the road, instead of making his way toward the Beauchemins’ house, he set off at a brisk pace in the direction of Sorel.

Next day the ice was under water, and the Stranger wanted to be out after muskrat straightway, without setting traps or taking the dog with him or asking anyone’s advice. He got out the boat, put the gun in it, together with two or three tame ducks in a bag (by way of poaching a wild duck or two), and made off, now on foot over the ice, now in the boat. The cold night had formed a thin layer of ice everywhere, even at the bottom of the punt, which, in his inexperience, he had neglected to cover with a truss of straw. He slipped and fell overboard into a hole where the water was fortunately shallow.

As he picked himself out, he saw some ducks flying across the bay. Soaked as he was, he hurriedly constructed a small blind. Ducks passed over well within range. But the gun was slightly damp and would not fire at the first shot. The Stranger waited. Soon afterward, another covey fluttered across. He shot one duck on the water, and then brought down two flying. But he managed to kill only one muskrat with a cankered paw.

Observing the poor results of the expedition, Didace smiled.

“It’s a bit too early, perhaps,” remarked the Stranger.

“Nonsense! I’ve known years when we shot muskrats after a fall of rain, in the month of January—out of season, of course, and the pelts fetched less, it’s true. But the flesh was just as good. Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to do it.”

Toward the end of the afternoon Spot was heard pounding at the door in unwonted fashion. Amable went and opened it. The dog, with nose uplifted, stood expectant beside two magnificent muskrats he had carried home in his mouth. Amable, proud of his revenge on the Stranger, said to his father, “Don’t waste time teaching him how to shoot rats; he need only take a few lessons from Spot.”

At the first glint of daylight, Didace and the Stranger made their preparations. They had nearly forty traps to lay, marking them with cedar-wood pegs.

“Give me the shovel,” said Didace.

Thus armed, he began to dig wherever he could see any traces of rats, at the water’s edge, in the slope of the bank, or in hollow tree stumps. The Stranger helped him to clear out the soil, make a hole for the trap, and then disguise it. Spot was busy hunting. He followed every scent he could find, unearthed a number of runs and dashed off, crouching at the exits till his prey emerged.

When their job was done, the two men paused to get their breath. Their hands were cracked and bleeding. The Stranger produced a flask of gin from the pocket of his mackinaw, and said to Didace, “Have a dram to cheer you up.”

“Certainly not,” said Didace loftily, as though such an offer were in the nature of an insult.

This time he wondered how the Stranger could get hold of anything to drink, but said to himself, “I shan’t interfere. I’ll never interfere again!” Even the Stranger’s insistence did not make him yield.

“You’re wasting your time, my boy. I gave it up for Lent after that evening of ours; I shall start again on Easter Sunday morning. Not before.”

“Well, I wouldn’t like to contradict you, sir. But yesterday morning, when you were clearing out the stable, you smelt of something stronger than whey. You were talking very thick, and shouting at the animals.”

“I’d hardly had a drop, I had just finished breakfast.”

“Breakfast! Just a slab of bacon, eh? You won’t get me to believe that.”

With a very solemn air, Didace proceeded to explain.

“If you’d like the recipe, here it is. I break two eggs into a good-sized bowl, empty a gill of fresh cream into it, and fill up with neat whisky. That’s my breakfast.”

Then he added hurriedly, “Well, let’s go back to the house. Now you know the way of it, you’ll be catching rats on your own, my boy. If you try hard enough, you ought to catch thirty a day, at least.”

“Yes. We should be getting along. And you’ll be wanting your breakfast, I daresay. . . .”

Not a bad lad, thought Didace, laughing despite himself.

When they reached the landing stage, an unknown man was waiting for them. Didace waved a hand to him in silence, and let the other speak first. He, before he even stated the object of his visit, produced a bottle of whisky and offered it to the two men. Didace refused point-blank; but in his abrupt, curt speech, he said to the Stranger, “Drink my dram for me, will you?”

Then they fell to talking of one thing and another, all three perched on the landing-stage bollards. The new arrival had scarcely made known that he was a trader in fur pelts when Didace said eagerly, “Muskrats are going to be very scarce this spring, I’m afraid. I wonder where they’ve got to; we hardly ever see any now. Two or three rats a day is a good bag. Ask my young friend here. Hi, my lad, how many rats did you kill yesterday?”

“One.”

“You see?”

The trader in his turn, not to be outdone, remarked, “It’s discouraging to see how muskrat is going out of fashion. I can’t understand the reason. Women won’t wear it any more. There’s some say it isn’t what it used to be.”

Didace broke in, “I daresay that may be true of the river rat or the northern rat, but not of the island rat; he’s too well fed and too fat.”

The trader realized that he wasn’t going to get the best of this exchange. He said in a lower tone, “I don’t pick up skins just to amuse myself. But I don’t make a hundred per cent profit, I just collect some to oblige a few special customers.”

They parleyed for a little longer until they agreed on a price for the season’s catch: ten cents a skin. As long as the interview lasted, each time the trader renewed his offer of a drink, the Stranger had to drink double, on Didace Beauchemin’s invitation.

“Drink my dram for me, will you?”

On Holy Saturday, about midday, the farmers who had stalls at Sorel market since the day before made haste to pack up and go home. As agreed, Angelina waited for the Stranger. After waiting for him in vain until two o’clock, she went along to the Sailor’s Friend, then visited the neighboring shops, and hurried back to the original spot, without finding a trace of the Stranger. To keep herself in better countenance, she turned over some materials, bargained over one garment and then another, peering at the door all the time. To escape the importunities of the Syrian, who offered his entire stock for cash, she departed.

Then she began to pace up and down the pavement outside the hotel frequented by the farmers. The moment a man came in or out, she promptly pretended to be absorbed in the next shopwindow until the pavement was again deserted. In the road an old sweeper was removing the dirty, crumbling ice in large slabs, which he nonchalantly pitched onto the banks of snow on either side. Now and again Angelina set herself a limit: she would shut her eyes and count up to fifty. If, when she opened them, the Stranger wasn’t there, she would go away. But the sun sank behind a lowering heliotrope cloud, and still Angelina waited.

The sky darkened at the approach of night, and the aspect of everything was changed. The water trickled out of the gutters. Angelina shivered; the cold air slid down her back. The old sweeper seemed to have suddenly aged. She saw herself in the shopwindow, livid and hollow-eyed. She could now hear the chunks of snow falling with a dull thud, like the earth dropped onto a coffin. Huddled in her cloak, her head hunched between her shoulders and her hands muffled in her sleeves, she came and went, returning on her steps like a little old woman who had lost her way and did not dare to venture too far.

“Are you looking for someone, lady?”

She gave a start. Wild-eyed, she looked about her. The old man was talking to her; he seemed kindly disposed. However, she paused before replying. The words which she had trained herself to speak in so natural a fashion, and which had come so easily not long ago, now strangled her. In a tortured voice, she said, “You didn’t happen to see a tall man, rather well dressed, with red, curly hair going into the hotel?”

The old man wagged his head.

“Poor young lady! There’s a mort of men with curly hair in these parts; and on the day before a holiday the hotels are full of smartly dressed men. And very queer folk some of them are. You’d better be getting home. That’s where you ought to be.”

Angelina blushed for shame. But the man saw such distress in her eyes that he felt sorry for her.

“If I see your friend with curly red hair, what do you want me to say?”

“Tell him he’s expected at Monk’s Inlet.”

As she turned away, Angelina felt as though the ground were giving way beneath her feet: the handsome De-Froi boy was walking toward the hotel, and she could not hide her anguished face soon enough. He had already said, “If it’s the Beauchemin Stranger that you’re looking for, you needn’t wait for him; I’ve just met him with his pals in the Petite-Rue.”

The blow went home; but Angelina stiffened and had the resolution to swallow her tears. What if this wretched little tattler carried the tale round to Pierre-Côme Provençal, to Bernadette Salvail, the Beauchemins, and even to Sainte-Anne’s Rectory, that he’d seen her prowling around the hotel? True it was that Angelina was distressed by her belief that the Stranger had no affection for her, but at the thought that the dwellers on the Inlet might get to know about her desolation, her distress increased.

And what would the Stranger think, at the news that she had been waiting for him, while he was all the time with someone else? He would laugh that great laugh of his, perhaps? But her better self told her that he wouldn’t, and also that the De-Froi boy would say nothing of having seen her. The same gregarious instinct that impelled sheep in the fields to surround the ewe just about to drop her lamb, to protect her from the eyes of other animals, would preserve her from all gossip of that kind. She now had but one idea: to get back home. In a quiet, melancholy voice she said, “I’m not looking for anybody, my dear boy. Don’t you get silly ideas into your head. A speck of dust had stuck in my eye, that’s all.”

She sturdily wiped the burning tears from her eyes, and hurried away.

Next day, on coming out from Mass, Angelina, still heavy-hearted, made her way toward her cart, not venturing to talk to anyone. Suddenly she stopped, entranced—entranced, but at the same time afraid she might have been mistaken. Her heart throbbed violently against her chest as though struggling to escape and welcome her delight. She clasped her hands across it and listened. In the blue noonday, a high, clear laugh mingled with the Angelus bell, and both rang out gaily at full peal. Angelina turned her head slightly. Among a group of young peasants, dressed in rather baggy black suits, wearing brown caps and bulldog boots, according to the fashion of the day, the Stranger’s flushed face, his red hair ruffled by the wind, was outlined against the curtain of clear sky. He caught sight of Angelina, and he made toward her with his usual loose and nonchalant stride. And unbuttoning his mackinaw, he produced a small box with the string half undone.

“Here, my lovely—a box of sweets for you.”

“A present for me! How kind of you.”

Angelina’s heart, after the anguish and tears of the day before, was purged of all misery, and prepared for a deeper joy. She did not even notice that the Stranger was wearing high boots and the old red and green mackinaw, patched at both elbows.

Three days later the countryside awoke to find the Inlet almost free of ice. Only a few blocks floated past. The water, gray with mud, swept the drift ice downstream all day, and the next day, but less and less of it as time went on. Submissive to the eternal rhythm, the people of the Inlet felt the same relief that had been theirs the previous autumn when they watched the bridge of ice form across the river.

Now only a flurry of snow fell in streaks along the deep red furrows.

The rising water, that flooded the pastures except the headland and some hillocks here and there, was soon swollen by the water from the lakes. Then the smoke of the first steamer plumed the tufted willows on the Île des Barques. As though powerless to rise above the treetops, it hovered round the clumps of alders before dispersing among the withered rushes.

Since their arrival, the wild duck swept across the sky, no longer in coveys, like last autumn, but in pairs, in fulfillment of the task of life. When they came within range, making for the Baie de Lavallière, Didace watched them until they passed out of sight. His eyes sparkled with pleasure as he thought, “At the far end of my land there’s a stretch of buckwheat stubble under water. The black duck always seem to gather there, I suppose in search of food. I ought to be able to bag a good few quickly.”

The moment he saw Pierre-Côme Provençal departing on his round as game warden toward the lower-lying country, he dropped the idea and took a chance shot here and there.

The full moon of April brought the high water. After the floods the earth began to steam, and gradually dried. For days and days it stretched itself lazily in the sunshine before its full awakening.

At last, one morning, the spring burst forth. A golden haze floated over a golden countryside. The water in the Inlet became clear and green once more. Now and again its ripples flashed like silver scales. The Stranger often watched their enchanting play. One afternoon he thought he heard an unusual murmur. He listened; it was more than a murmur, it was a soft melody, a marvelous strain of music uplifted from the tall, pink swamp grass by the riverbanks. From every side at once, from the river, from the heart of the echoing earth, the sound of music rose and swelled until its mellow cadences filled the entire plain. They enfolded Monk’s Inlet and spread on past the bays, past the dikes and backwaters, on away into the infinite beyond. In a hymn to life, the frogs, emerging from the mire, mounted to the surface of the water and celebrated their nuptials in the light of day.

After a long spell of rain, a vegetal and earthy smell was wafted from the clearings by the keen wind, and blended with the sweetish smell of water; and here and there ferns, as yet barely visible, began to thrust their heads through the tangled herbage.

Next day they were standing well up from the earth. Then, beside the first dandelion, the horsetail raised its frail green cone.

In the sheepfold, a pathetic bleating told to all the winds the tale of the ewes’ anxiety over their unruly lambs—which Didace did not dare to let out to pasture, for once they had acquired a taste for grass, they would never go back to their mothers.

Marie-Amanda had had her third child. On the first fine day after her churching, she came to show him to Didace, and put him in his arms. The old man, who found more difficulty in holding a child than hauling a barge, held it tight against him for a moment. But the infant, being an extremely lively child, kicked about so violently in its long clothes that Didace returned it at once to Marie-Amanda.

“Take him back. I’m so afraid of dropping him.”

“It was nice to see him in your arms,” remarked the Stranger.

During the days that followed Marie-Amanda’s departure, the house seemed to have grown larger and more silent—especially to Didace, who was very irritable with Alphonsine. When the same dish appeared on the table two days running, he exploded.

“But I thought you liked boiled beef, Father-in-law.”

“Yes, but not every day. . . . However good a dish may be,” etc., etc.

His daughter-in-law simply could not understand the reason for his ill temper. Everything was going smoothly at Monk’s Inlet. Since Easter, the Stranger had barely touched a drop of drink. He was so attentive to Angelina, and obliging to David Desmarais, that people began to think that this same neighbor would soon have a son-in-law. Angelina looked after the flowers and the house with more affectionate care than usual. When she referred to “my house” or “my flowers,” the words sounded as though they were still glowing from contact with her heart, they fell so softly and warmly on the ear.

On the Beauchemins’ farm, the hens, thanks to the Stranger’s assiduity, brought in more than they had ever done before at such a season.

“And if I’m still alive next year,” said he, in his eagerness to make them more productive, “your chickens will be laying in winter.”

The unlikelihood of this forecast made Amable smile. The Stranger, however, continued to unfold his plans.

“We might sow clover in the old field—the soil will need to be improved, of course. The Journal of Agriculture says that a dressing of lime works marvels. And why not have a strawberry bed? It’s a bit of trouble for the first two years, but afterward the strawberries look after themselves.”

“Hey!” broke in Amable. “Don’t go so fast. Who’s going to see to the hoeing, and weeding, and picking?”

But Didace believed everything the Stranger said. Thanks to him, he would be before long as important a farmer as Pierre-Côme Provençal.

About the middle of May, preparations were in hand for removing to the bakehouse. While the Beauchemins were painting the interior, the De-Froi boy turned up. His distraught expression and his trick of clicking his tongue made it clear that he had some news to impart. When he launched into his usual exordium, “I don’t want to say too much, but . . .,” Didace stopped him.

“Say what you’ve got to say or hold your tongue.”

The farmhand subsided into a sulky silence. But after a few minutes, his tongue so itched to speak that he said, “Since you must know, I saw a man dashing around in your old shooting boat, that you had stolen off you last autumn.”

Didace leaped to his feet.

“Hey! What’s that you’re saying?”

Delighted with the effect he had produced, the lad eagerly repeated his news.

“Are you quite sure?” Didace insisted.

“I should think I am! I passed quite close to him, at the upper end of Île aux Raisins, near the light on the outer islet. There’s a fleet of boats at the entrance to the lake. There was a lot of mist about, but I recognized yours all right. If you won’t believe me. . . .”

Like all born liars, who can persuade the very Devil to believe them, the De-Froi lad was most indignant that his slightest word should be called in question.

“Did you recognize the thief? Was it someone from hereabouts?” asked Phonsine.

“I didn’t know him. He was a foreigner, a bargeman by the look of him.”

“These damned foreigners . . .,” Amable began.

The Stranger burst out laughing.

“That’s it, Amable, knock anybody down who doesn’t come from Monk’s Inlet, or get your gun and shoot them.”

“Get the dinghy out, Amable,” Didace broke in. “We’ll go along to the lake.”

“Oh, come, there’s no hurry. Let’s go tomorrow. If the fellow’s with the barges, he won’t fly away.”

“You must be a fool to talk so,” growled Didace. “Come on, Stranger!”

“But the bakehouse,” protested Phonsine. “Are you going to leave it half painted?”

In a tone that admitted no rejoinder, Didace said with emphasis, “Neveurmagne. The bakehouse can wait.”

“Ha,” thought Phonsine, “there’s my father-in-law starting to swear in English like the Stranger.”

Didace took his place in the bow of the boat. They rowed across the Inlet, and the Stranger then began to pole the boat along the northern bank.

“You’d do better to steer by the light on Île aux Raisins,” said Didace. “It’s tricky to find one’s way through the islands at this time of year.”

The floods of May had again raised the level of the water. As he moved along, the Stranger was surprised to find the landscape so different from what it had been in the autumn. At the same time he had the impression of recognizing it as though he had already seen it through other eyes, or as though it had been faithfully described to him by a traveler who had admired it in time gone by. In place of the full-blown, haughty giants, he saw drooping trees, avid and impatient, with rounded branches like great welcoming arms, awaiting the wind and sun and rain—some so eager that they mingled their young topmost leaves, from one island to the next, forming an arch of greenery above the river, while the clear waters swirled round their scarred trunks, flayed by the drifting ice; others, so replete with sap that they parted with their young foliage to share their riches with the stunted shoots on which the sickly buds scarce opened.

Not far away a pair of teal were taking a walk. The duck was ambling nonchalantly back to her chicks, while the drake marched proudly forward, keeping all the while a vigilant eye upon the young mother. Neither displayed any agitation at the boat’s approach. The sense of life was so strong in them that it mastered their natural fear of death.

The dinghy slid along in a channel of light between the shade of two islands—light that was a blend of the tender green of the leaves, the blue clearness of the sky, and the transparency of the water, but light that was also warm with promise, life, and eternal renewal. A futile courage assailed the Stranger. A new ardor stirred his blood. He longed to contend against a power greater than himself—to fell an oak, overcome a stiff obstacle, or perhaps even build a stone house. Had he been alone, he would have shouted aloud with all his might. Instinctively he poled so vigorously that the boat nearly capsized.

“Now then,” protested Didace, “mind what you’re up to. You’ll drown us all in a pig’s whisper.”

The sun grew hotter. The Stranger felt it on his shoulders like the pressure of two friendly hands.

He took off his mackinaw and, as he sat down, said, “Can you swim, Father Didace?”

“No. We don’t swim hereabouts. But we know how to manage a boat.”

“Yes, just about as well as woodsmen ever can.”

But, more to himself than his companion, the Stranger added, “Beauchemin—it sounds somehow as if the first of the name must have been fond of roads.”

“You’re right, my boy. The first Beauchemins of our branch didn’t stay put. They were two brothers, one tall and one short—more than two brothers, they were real and hearty friends. The tall one was named Didace. I’ve never succeeded in finding out the short one’s name. Two tough customers, strong, hard-working, with quicksilver in their bodies, and better not rubbed up the wrong way or there’d be trouble. They came from the old countries. Both of them had left father and mother and country to become their own masters and make a new life.

“When it came to legging it over the length and breadth of the land, they hadn’t their equal for leagues around. As they had heard tell of places where the woods were thick and trees tall enough to be cut for masts for the King’s ships, they came to the Inlet late one autumn, with nothing but their hatchets and the packs on their backs. They meant to go off again in the spring. But during the winter, the tall Beauchemin had fallen so deeply in love with a girl that he never wanted to go back. In the early days a man had to be a bold fellow, but he needed a stout-hearted woman to stand by him; the river always rose in springtime and licked the walls of the house at every spate, when it didn’t flood it altogether. Everything had always to be started all over again.

“So he married, and that was how the family struck roots in Monk’s Inlet. The other Beauchemin was so mortified that he went off by himself.”

Suddenly the Stranger began to hum a song. The words of an old catch came to his lips:

But without letting him finish, Didace chanted:

Then he went on with his tale, “All that is known of him is that he revenged himself by refusing to bear the name of Beauchemin; he called himself Petit.”

“Petit!” exclaimed the Stranger. “Not Beauchemin, known as Petit?”

“Certainly. Anything odd in that?”

“It surprises me because there were some Petits in our family.”

His grandmother had been a Petit. Was he of the same blood as the Beauchemins? Well, nothing was impossible. And he would be proud of it. But remembering what old Didace had said about the first Canadians, a word that must have passed from mouth to mouth, not like a message but a simple truth, he began to muse, “To become their own masters and make a new life,”—thus it was that so few Frenchmen, being by nature stay-at-homes, came to establish themselves in Canada in the early days of the colony, and that the manorial system was impossible there. He who decides to break away completely from an environment in which he cannot breathe is always an adventurer. He will not again submit himself to the yoke he has flung off. The Frenchman, once he has become a Canadian, would prefer to cultivate a hand breadth of land than a seignorial estate on which he would be merely a vassal, owing loyalty, homage, and service to a master.

He had unconsciously begun to think aloud. Didace made no sign that he had noticed. Filled with admiration and respect for such well-instructed talk, he listened carefully for what might follow, but the Stranger said no more. Didace thought, “There’s everything in his favor. He’s like me: strong, hard-working, clever with his hands, well able to knock his man down in case of need, and always curious to know the reason for everything.” The old man secretly admired himself in the Stranger, even to his faults. How he wished he could have found in his son, Amable-Didace, such an extension of himself.

Then, as a pledge of good will and to attach the Stranger more closely to himself, he wanted to say to him confidentially, “If a poor fellow has something on his mind and thinks to find a cure for it far away or on the open road, he shouldn’t leave his house and country and wander from place to place, because he will carry his trouble with him everywhere until he dies.” But Didace hadn’t the gift of speech. He sought for words in vain. If it had been a matter of rounding up a herd of frightened cattle on the common, after Michaelmas, for instance, he would have been quite at his ease. But words—against which a man must struggle in a void? When he tried to speak, a sudden constraint caught him by the throat. He was awed by the Stranger’s superior education.

Didace began to dream. The Stranger would never go away. He would marry Angelina Desmarais and in his turn settle down at Monk’s Inlet for the rest of his days. He would be the first neighbor of the Beauchemins, and churchwarden, no doubt, one of these days—Mayor of the parish, and later on very likely Prefect of the county—Deputy . . . a much more important personage than Pierre-Côme Provençal.

Squawk! A bittern swoops in horizontal flight across the landscape. The water laps against the boat. Didace awakens.

“Stranger,” says he abruptly, “tell me how it was you came to stop at the Inlet.”

Just as abruptly, the Stranger began to pole again, erect in the sunlight. Should he plumb to its depths the old man’s affection for him? Suddenly, he blurted out, with a burst of laughter,

“Well, . . . I’d run around enough, I’d had my summer . . . and the winter looked like being a long one. . . .”

At the entrance to the lake, a gust from the open water whipped the two men’s faces. The Stranger stopped poling, and Didace laid the oars in the thole pins. He had just caught sight of his hunting boat with a man at the tiller oar. He made straight for the boat, laid his own boat alongside it, and said in a curt tone of command, “Get out of that, and give me back my boat.”

“Your boat, is it? Well, I’m damned. I was looking everywhere for someone to own it. It was just floating downstream, and I caught it.”

“Get right out, and give me my boat.”

The Stranger intervened. One couldn’t leave a man like that in the middle of the lake, and in the channel of the big steamers. He must be taken back to his barge.

“Not a bit of it!” roared Didace. “He’s to get out at once, and give me back my boat. I know his sort, blast them! They’ll pinch anything they take a fancy to—a stove or a thousand-pound anchor—and tell you they found it floating down the river.”

His face was crimson, he was seething with rage, and all the while he spoke he had the boat by the gunwale and was shaking it with all his might.

“If I could do as I liked, my lad, I’d wring your neck.”

When Didace had calmed down, they made their way back with the man, who was still pale with terror, to the barge. Then they put out into the Inlet once more with the boat in tow. They paddled on in silence for a while until the Stranger noticed at a bend in the river two of the Provençals towing their craft against the current. Standing in the stern, Pierre-Côme was steering the lighter stacked with driftwood, while his son Joinville tramped along the towpath hauling at the cable over his shoulder. Pierre-Côme, noticing Didace smoking at his ease, shouted, “That’s the idea, Didace, put your back into it. There’s salvation in work.”

“Go to hell,” retorted Didace briskly.

Their shouts of laughter echoed for quite a while across the water. But as they drew away from the Provençals, Didace said to the Stranger,

“That’s a real farmer for you. Four boys and four daughters all devoted to the land, always on the best terms. Never think of going away or wasting money. Just set on work, and adding to the property.”

“You ought to have had sons like that,” observed the Stranger.

“That’s my great regret. If only the last had lived. I can hardly trust Amable to take care of the land. When I’m dead, as true as you stand there, he’ll let it go. He isn’t my idea of a Beauchemin. You’d think he was afraid of work. Always exhausted or downcast. The dead spit of old Phrem Antaya. He gets it from his mother. On the Antaya side, there was only Mathilde was any good. All the others, brothers and sisters too, were feeble folk. Gosh! When I was Amable’s age, when we still thrashed with a flail and mowed the hay with a scythe or even a sickle, I used to scramble onto the roof of the barn. I remember one spring when the water had risen so high that we had to fish up our stuff from all over the place, past the islands and as far down as the Anse de Nicolet. Afterward, to replace what we had lost, I and Mathilde lived on boiled fish for a long while. In the morning I used to visit my lines. Any fish that wasn’t salable I put on one side. The wife cooked it by throwing it still alive into a cauldron of boiling water, with a handful of rough salt. We ate it just so, without butter or dressing. The first time we thought it quite good. But day after day, all the summer through, on such a diet, we soon felt famished.

“But we had to do it to save money. We had the pluck to stand it for the sake of the farm.”

“Pluck? You’ve plenty of that. I was watching you just now when you were cursing that chap. You’re very far from being old. You could still raise a family.”

Didace was startled. Marry again? At his age? Take a second wife young enough to give him one or two sons like himself? Such an idea had never entered his head.

From beneath his bushy brows his eyes peered searchingly at the Stranger’s face. It was as smooth as a mirror, not a blink of the eyelids, not a wrinkle in the nose, nor the shadow of a smile. Didace straightened his drooping shoulders. “True, I’m not so young as I was, but I’m not old, not so old as many men are at my age.”

When they reached the floating dock, as he bent down over the boat to take out the oars, he said without looking up at the Stranger, “I wonder how old that Acadian woman might be.”

“Getting on for forty, I should think, but I’d swear on the Gospels she’s not a day older.”

The real spring, which was short and hot, passed almost without transition into summer. Now, when Phonsine, on awakening, made her way through the mansion house to the bakery, she found the cat curled up in a square patch of sunlit floor. For some weeks past the barn doors had swung open with a crash, and at the slightest motion of man or beast, scythes and rakes and all the implements clattered against the walls.

One day at noontide the cicada began its song. The Stranger, lying full length on the grass, was the first to hear it, and he said, “There’s the cicada.”

But Amable was blissfully asleep.

Phonsine, with a basin in her outstretched arms, was on her way to throw the dishwater onto the tomato plants. She paused in consternation, her hair matted against her forehead, and stood motionless, like a statue carved in wood, thinking to herself, “That means heat. And we might be baking in an oven already. Oh dear!”

After a brief doze, the Stranger leaped to his feet. It was Sunday. He would spend the rest of the afternoon with Angelina. He crossed over to the pump. With one vigorous heave he filled the bucket, bent his head forward, and poured the water over it. Then he combed his hair with four fingers. His toilet thus completed, he set off.

Dressed in her fine gray alpaca frock trimmed with black braid, on which, in an impulse of coquetry, she had pinned a strip of lace as a ruffle, Angelina, her face shining with cleanliness, was rocking back and forward in the hammock, with her missal in her hand. But she was not reading. For, the moment she caught sight of the Stranger at the far end of the road, she hastily made a place for him beside her. Then she smoothed her hair, and pinched her cheeks.

Instead of sitting down by Angelina, the Stranger went on into the house. The air within struck cool and fresh. As though he were the master of the house, he slammed the shutters back and took his place at the harmonium.

The sounds of music, rather muffled, reached Angelina’s ears through the window. As she wagged her head and rocked, her gaze wandered over the countryside. From the distant fields came a savor of honey. What was happening in the world? Never had she seen the Inlet in such a spate of emerald water. Nor the creepers round the house so delicately unfolding the silk of their shining leaves. Never had the far-flung meadows looked so blue, up to the dark line of the woods, beneath the rising crop of young oats. Nor had the sun scattered so much gold upon the plain. Never—never in her life. . . .

“A penny for your thoughts, Angelina. Have you lost a loaf from your last baking?”

Taken by surprise, Angelina blushed. Lisabel Provençal and Bernadette Salvail—the latter swathed in her white muslin flounced dress and her flame-colored sash of watered silk, carefully displaying the uppers of her buttoned boots—were at her side and looking quizzically down at her. With a finger to her lips she signed to them to be silent. But in vain; the Stranger had recognized their voices. He crashed out a final chord and got up.

“A harmonium’s too slow and dull. A piano’s what I like. The notes start and stop just as you want them to.”

“You might sing to us, Stranger, if you won’t play us a tune,” cried Bernadette.

The sturdy figure of the Stranger, his hair already ruffled, appeared for a moment in the framework of the window.

“All right. I’ll sing you the song an actress sang to a king who loved her.”

Again the harmonium gathered its breath and began to wheeze; then came a melody, almost human in its plaintiveness, accompanied by the Stranger’s voice.

As the three women bent forward, the hammock rocked to and fro once more. But Angelina, put out by the presence of her companions, could not recover the enchanted thread of her reveries. Not much addicted to logic and blinded by her feelings, she who found within herself every sort of reason for loving the Stranger, could not endure that any other woman should have the faintest affection for him. Lisabel, who was as good as white bread, was not to be feared, but what was the handsome Bernadette Salvail doing here, in her short white dress, transparent silk sash, and high buttoned boots? She was always up to something. . . .

From the Stranger’s mouth the slightest compliment was as precious to Bernadette Salvail as a word from the Gospels. But, vexed to find that he took so little notice of her and the new finery that she had put on solely in his honor, she lent a disappointed ear to his song, while savagely biting one of her fingernails to the quick.

It seemed odd that a king should allow himself to be addressed so familiarly by an actress, and listen to songs made up of such ordinary words, within the reach of the humblest subject.

When one knows how kings, arrayed in purple and ermine and bedecked with gold from head to foot, passed their lives seated on a throne, scepter in hand, and on their heads a crown set with every imaginable precious stone—when one knows that they may only be approached after deep genuflections, as in church. . . .

It was certainly very odd.

She tried to catch Lisabel’s eye, but Lisabel Provençal, her eyes as round as polished marbles, was gazing into infinity. She was swinging to and fro, without thinking of anything. It was a fine, sunny day. Her suitor, from the Pot-au-Beurre, would be coming to see her that very evening; and he was always careful, when there was a party, to come too early rather than miss it. The expectation of a beloved whom one is always afraid of losing, and who has to be reconquered at every fresh encounter, was an experience of which she would never know the ecstasies nor anguish; her suitor’s punctuality was a guarantee of comfort and security. After six clear months’ association with her, he would in all sincerity propose to her; she would in all sincerity accept him. And their married life would be achieved without any further agitation.

Bernadette made an unconcealed grimace. Angelina, who wanted to get rid of her at all costs, invented a pretext.

“The Stranger talked of taking a turn in the cart. It would give Fairy a little exercise at the same time.”

Bernadette understood. She felt maliciously disposed to stay on. But under Angelina’s stern gaze, she changed her mind and departed, taking Lisabel with her, before the song was finished.

Fairy, a frisky and rather unmanageable steed, darted off, and the light cart sped like a gust of wind along the road to Sainte-Anne. In the village, after vespers, four men, two on each side, in shirt sleeves with straw hats tipped over their eyes, were playing croquet. At the edge of the ground, a round dozen of villagers of all ages were following the strokes with the intensest interest. The player of the moment, a large man with a perplexed expression, was bending down, and the seat of his trousers, glossy from wear, gleamed like twin circles in the sunlight (for the material, far from being new, had already been subjected to the ordeal of being turned and then re-turned right side out).

“Hurry up, Cleophas,” shouted one of the youngsters impatiently.

The furious looks of Cleophas’s backers warned the impertinent youth to curb his enthusiasm. The honor of a whole side was at stake.

“Take your time, Cleophas.”

Mallet in hand, the man addressed as Cleophas went on feinting at the ball from every sort of angle—a tap to the right, a medium stroke to the left, a hard knock in the center. His partner was lavish with advice; while their opponents, consumed with impatience, stood and twisted their mustaches. Suddenly he stood up straight, revealing his face, as red as a pluck of pork. With an air of reckless desperation, he threw a strategic look at the hoop he had to negotiate. It looked as though he were poising himself for some decisive stroke, but no; with that light, tripping step often affected by fat men, he made off to measure the distance between the position of his ball and that of his opponent. A murmur of disappointment rippled over the spectators.

The Stranger declined to watch the contest any longer.

“Gee-up!”

The horse, having shaken off his stable lethargy, dropped once more into a brisk trot, his huge, silky rump undulating up and down to the rhythm of the flapping harness.

“Villagers must lead a pleasant life,” observed Angelina. “Being so near a church like that must make them more devout, I should think. Neighbors all around . . . the shop at the very door . . . and every sort of amusement, as you see. . . .”

The Stranger remained obdurately silent. So she said to him, “A penny for your thoughts.”

He hesitated, and then said meditatively, “I was thinking of all sorts of things.”

“Tell me.”

“I was thinking that I’ve never stayed so long anywhere as here. Before, when I’d stayed a month in one place, that was about the limit. But at the Inlet—I don’t exactly know why . . . perhaps because there’s flowing water that I like to watch, water that comes from the countries I’ve already seen . . . water that’s on its way to countries I shall one day see . . . I don’t exactly know. . . .”

“Isn’t there anything else that keeps you here?”

The Stranger gazed into the distance.

“Suppose I told you what it was, my lovely, would you be any better off?”

Their eyes, as though in mutual agreement, turned toward the river; it was almost as though the river knew, and wanted to do honor to a distinguished guest. Between two sandy slopes sped a sheet of water flecked with golden sunshine.

After proceeding at a walking pace through the town of Sorel, the horse, with the Stranger still driving, turned into the road to Saint-Ours. Suddenly he shied. Near a derelict caravan in a field, a pair of gypsies, clad in brightly colored rags, sat locked in an embrace on the embankment at the roadside.

Angelina blushed. “Look at those campers. . . .”

“Oh well—if they’re fond of each other.”

“All the more reason. I just can’t understand. . . .”

“What?”

“That people can exist for whom love is just that, and nothing more.”

With a suddenly dejected air, the Stranger averted his eyes, and muttered, “Never despise what you don’t understand. I daresay there are some poor people who can’t even get what you call—that and nothing more.”

Saddened in her turn by the Stranger’s inexplicable sadness, Angelina said no more. They went on thus, silent, side by side, so close that they could feel the warmth of their arms through their clothes, but leagues apart in their thoughts. Past the Governor’s house, they swung round to return to the Inlet. In front of the gypsy encampment, the girl, now alone, smiled at the Stranger. With her long green eyes, her white teeth, and all her feline body, she called to him. Without a word he laid the reins in Angelina’s hands and jumped down from the cart.

The horse, left to his own devices, first pulled down a clump of foliage from a bush, and then moved forward step by step, cropping the soft grass on the verge of the road. Not far away an old gypsy was milking a goat and talking volubly to a young woman who was busy washing a baby in a tub. Barefooted and in rags, two urchins were chasing a bedraggled yellow dog around and around the caravan. Three skinny horses, so skinny that their ribs could have been counted—real old hacks—stood impassively watching the proceedings. With somnolent eyes and dribbling jaws, the only sign of life they made was to flick their tail or mane to shake off the voracious flies.

“Rascally horse copers,” thought Angelina with contempt. “They want to fatten up those nags before passing them off on our people on the Inlet.”

But in Angelina’s heart time lagged. Minutes seemed as long as hours. Why was the Stranger dallying with the gypsy? If the first comer could, with a slanting look, a brazen smile, a twist of her hip, prevail over a man, this “nothing more” must have great value in his eyes. A good and faithful girl who did her duty didn’t seem to count for much.

Angelina was bewildered. What she had always thought to be a disgrace, a bondage, a weakness of the body, the Stranger spoke of as a glory brought to fullness by an equal glory lurking in someone else’s body, it would seem. Her eyes were opening onto life. Now this same glory became apparent to her everywhere in nature. This must be the beauty that blossomed forth in a flower upon the stem, beside a barren corolla. And this the joy that gives a bird its song, at break of dawn, beside a silent, bedraggled bird on the same branch. Is this the longing that maddens the solitary she-wolf and keeps her prowling up and down the forest tracks where her mate was trapped? This it is, that in soft nights, impels her to howl to the listening moon the grief and distress within her flanks. But why do some possess the gift and others know it not? A living wellspring, subject to mysterious laws, of which the Creator alone has the secret. . . .

Angelina turned her head away and affected to be lost in contemplation of a little wood nearby, but out of the corner of her eye she could still see the pair. The gypsy girl was bending forward, examining the Stranger’s outstretched hand, which she held in hers.

“She’s actually stroking the Stranger’s hand, his great, starry hand, the hussy!” thought Angelina with anguish and indignation.

But what was this infernal machine advancing at breakneck speed along the road in a cloud of dust and with such an appalling clatter? A motorcar. Angelina grabbed the reins. Too late. The horse began to kick and rear, struggling to get out of the shafts and smash up the carriage. “Now, now, Fairy—” Angelina did not know how to quiet him. “Don’t be so silly, Fairy, please!” Was he going to jump into the ditch or overturn the carriage and bolt?

“Fairy!”

Fortunately, and as if by magic, the Stranger bounded onto the road. He seized the horse by the bridle and his firm grip soothed the animal; the strange vehicle bore down upon them.

Her heart still throbbing with emotion, Angelina watched the automobile speed past, but could see nothing but the backs of two women, who looked to her smartly dressed, wearing tussore silk bonnets, with tulle scarves of Marie-Louise blue floating in the wind behind them.

The Stranger resumed his place at Angelina’s side, and they continued on their way toward Sainte-Anne.

“Have you heard the great news?” he blurted out excitedly. “There’s a circus coming to Sorel at the end of the week. I must see it, whatever happens. A circus! Think of that!”

A circus! In his mind’s eye the Stranger saw the procession, to the accompaniment of trumpet fanfares. Melancholy clowns pirouetting past, their eyelids streaked with kohl. A cavalcade of cowboys. A dwarf maltreating the giant equestriennes, swathed in fantastic spangled tunics, smiling from their curvetting steeds. Poised on a pink and gilded chariot, obviously purloined from a fairy story, the queen of the trapeze stands blowing kisses. Then the long undulating wave of elephants in single file. A learned seal, erect in its glittering dress, simpers past. Monkeys in plumed hats and striped jackets tweak the lion’s whiskers. All the denizens of the jungle. And the Far West. Asia—Africa. The world. The vast world. And then the road.

“Is it free?” asked Angelina.

The Stranger awoke. He was returning from very far away and could not suppress a shout of laughter. Here was a true Norman girl, always thinking of the pennies!

For the first time, Angelina did not recognize on the Stranger’s lips the high, clear laugh she loved so well, which rang out like the Pélerine at Sainte-Anne when the wind was right. It was too much. This unpleasant laugh, added to the intrusion of Bernadette Salvail, the Stranger’s melancholy talk, the gypsy’s familiarities, and the appearance of the motorcar, combined to upset her altogether, and she began to dissolve into tears. In vain she tried to keep them back, and then to hide them; they quivered in little drops, like fine rain, on the tips of her eyelashes, and there trembled and fell thick and fast onto her lips like the warm rain of summer; then in heavy drops, onto her hands, like a thundershower.

The Stranger was astonished. “Crying? Why are you crying, Angelina? Nothing to do with me, eh, my lovely? I wouldn’t have you shed a single tear on my account.”

Angelina did her best to swallow her mortification, and summoning up her courage, she replied, “All right, I’m not crying.”

But she choked as she spoke.

“Come, my lovely, I just stopped long enough to have my fortune told. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You know that I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

Yes, thought Angelina despite herself, that’s all very well. Still, eager as she was to snatch at the first reason for forgiving him, she said, heaving a deep sigh, “Yes, I do know that.”

Then, incapable of resisting her curiosity any longer, she asked in a tone which she hoped would sound indifferent but actually quavered with anxiety, “Well, and what did the gypsy tell you?”

The Stranger hesitated.

“She said I should soon be going on a long journey.”

“You didn’t believe her, did you?”

The Stranger’s sole response was a shrug of his shoulders and a noncommittal grin. Angelina waited in the hope that he would redeem himself by saying something to encourage her. But in vain. The only sound was the rasp of the sandy road beneath the carriage wheels.

Three little tents around the central tent, which was scarcely larger than a ramshackle hut; a few lynxes; a porcupine; two brown bears, so tame that they were almost as shy as human beings when observed, and indeed it seemed hardly worth while to keep them in a cage—such were the main features of this traveling show.

Standing in front of a huge cardboard bird, a little wizened old man, an ex-clown who had retained nothing from his more prosperous days but a gift for showman’s patter, shouted raucously, “Step up and see the great white pelican with thirty-six teeth—only one in captivity and. . . .”

But catching sight of a red-faced girl with a well-filled bodice and white cotton skirt stretched tight over her buxom person, he broke off and, to the delight of the assemblage, raised his eyes to heaven, heaved a deep sigh, and said, “If only I hadn’t got a missus already!”

Then, without pausing to take breath, he continued in his professional tone, “Only ten cents to see the white pelican with thirty-six teeth. . . .”

The rest was drowned in the laughter of the crowd.

Since the preceding Sunday the Stranger had talked of nothing but circuses and amusements. Annoyed by such eagerness to dazzle the folk of Monk’s Inlet with prospects of delights which he regarded as useless luxuries, Pierre-Côme Provençal had said to him reproachfully, “You must be very rich, young man, to be so free with your cash.”

“Not his cash, anyway,” Amable had observed, delighted to see the Stranger reproved by the Mayor.

“Not yours either, you can be dead sure of that,” retorted the Stranger, rattling the money in his pockets. He even produced several twenty-five-cent pieces for everyone to see. Amable suspected Angelina of having again lent him money. Silly creature; she would never see it back again.

As it was Saturday, market day at Sorel, most of the young people from the Inlet—Joinville Provençal and Amable Beauchemin among them—had succeeded in dodging their wives in order to go to the fair. Disappointed at not finding at the circus amusements like those which the Sohmer Park was supposed to provide, and lacking an outlet for their high spirits, they wandered aimlessly up and down. For the whole week they had been anticipating a grand jollification. Now, at a loss for something to do, they were in holiday mood and consequently bored. So they took their stand opposite one of the tents and began to smoke their pipes, surveying the scene around them.

It was the Stranger whose ecstatic admiration of two wrestlers in tights stirred them from their lethargy.

“Hey—just look at them! They might be a pair of stallions—a Clay and a Percheron.”

On a small platform a man who appeared to combine the functions of manager, referee, and showman addressed the crowd.

“Walk up, gents, walk up. Try your strength. This way, please. Here we have Louis the Throttler, champion of France, just back from a tour in Europe and Spain, the champion who met the famous Butcher of Toulouse and the Mysterious Wrestler of Dieppe. He also threw the Japanese Zatiasma of New Ireland. He could take on Cazeaux and Constant the Sailor at the same time. One dollar down to any of you who isn’t thrown in five minutes by the finest wrestler in the whole Quebec Province, including Sorel.”

“Gosh! That sounds like some fellow,” exclaimed a spectator admiringly.

“You wait and see. The lads of Sorel can keep their end up. We’re tough customers hereabouts!”

“Sure we are. Butcher Levert, the only man who beat Joseph Montferrand, came from Sorel,” said one ancient.

“You’re right!”

The wrestler, a clean-shaven and hitherto silent figure standing with lowered head and frowning brow, folded his arms in an attitude of Napoleonic challenge, though he was really more suggestive of a rampaging young bull. Stung to the quick of his pride by the last remarks, he emerged from his phlegm and said, “There are twenty men around who claim to have beaten Montferrand. But did they?”

“Anyway,” the ancient went on, “Butcher Levert was a grand chap. I saw him fight an Irishman who was raising hell at little Baptiste’s election, on Moses Rajotte’s land, one Sunday afternoon. He ate him up in one mouthful. I was only a nipper at the time, but I remember it quite well. I heard him crow like a cock when it was over.”

“Ah,” said another regretfully. “What a pity old Soulières isn’t here. He could lift the keel of a tug onto his back, an oak keel; he’d be a hefty fighter.”

“And Odilon, eh?” began Joinville.

But at the sight of the Stranger beside him and the recollection of the fight at the party, he said no more.

“Are you coming into the tent?” said someone in an insinuating tone.

“Sure I am,” said the Stranger curtly.

The others followed his example. He waited while the strong man floored two straw men put up for the purpose. Suddenly, with one leap he cleared the rope that surrounded the arena, a mere patch of sand, and taking off his mackinaw, vanished behind a green fringed curtain and reappeared in tights. At the sight of the Stranger’s solid muscular structure the umpire announced, “This is an all-in fight—everything permitted, kicking, jujitsu, and any sort of blow. The management is not responsible for injuries of any kind. You wrestle at your own risk. If you want to back out, there’s still time. Understand?”

The Stranger, quite unimpressed, his height seemingly increased by the tights he was wearing, contented himself with testing the ropes.

“O.K.,” he rejoined.

The professional athlete had recovered his impassiveness. With his squat neck, vacant eyes, and barrel-like torso, clad in black knitted tights from waist to feet, he looked like a plaster bust mounted on a pedestal. By his side the Stranger, whose chest and long legs of almost feminine whiteness shone through the red singlet above the purple velvet tights, was the very spirit of vitality.

“Look at the size of his thighs,” said the De-Froi lad, who happened to be rather short-legged.

The small man who was acting as referee clapped his hands to indicate that the match had begun. After the ritual embrace the antagonists exchanged a few blows, more to test each other than in earnest. These were met by alternate parries, like the rhythmic figures of a ballet.

Hypnotized, the spectators followed the show. Amable, well to the fore, was torn between his antipathy to the Stranger and an odd sense of loyalty and fellowship. The Stranger, in a way, belonged to the household—wouldn’t his victory or defeat bring honor or dishonor on them all? An inarticulate impatience made the spectators anticipate the movements of the wrestlers. Why were they so long in coming to a clinch? Why didn’t the Stranger get a leg hook on the other fellow?

“Hi, Stranger, sock him one in the calf!”

The “champion of France” suddenly grabbed the Stranger’s wrist. But he, with a prompt twist of his arm, jerked away the thumb that was groping for the sensitive nerve.

“Aha,” jeered the Stranger, “I know that one!”

At that same instant the wrestler, stung by this last remark, crashed his heavy boot onto the Stranger’s bare foot and jabbed his knee into his belly. Bent double and groaning with pain, the Stranger collapsed. The Throttler, whose features blazed, in a flash, into a conqueror’s mask, braced himself for the knockout; but like twin springs the Stranger’s legs shot out, caught his adversary full in the body, and sent him rolling onto the ropes. The Stranger recovered himself first, although he seemed gravely weakened. But the applause helped him to recover his poise. The referee was by way of declaring him disqualified, but the assemblage protested vociferously.

“Every sort of blow allowed! You said it yourself. Your bloke began with a knee jab. Unless the fight goes on, we’ll knock down your tent.”

The combat began again. The two men, now more cautious and feeling themselves to be almost on equal terms, were fighting on the ground. In a series of dexterous somersaults and rolling movements, with arms and legs interlocked, no one could have distinguished the limbs of either wrestler, except that the Stranger’s were bare.

“That’s a stout lad,” said the ancient who had sung the praises of Butcher Levert.

At the end of three minutes the Stranger was holding his own. Four minutes—he was still putting up a fight. Suddenly a shout, half of alarm, half of admiration, burst from the onlookers.

“Look out for your left, Stranger!”

Upright now, the antagonists were both trying to stun each other with forearm blows. Half choked, the Stranger managed to extricate his head from a stranglehold. In order to get his breath, he set himself to dodge his adversary by a series of instinctive but rapid feints.

“Now then, get on with it,” shouted the referee, in the hope that his man would floor this presumptuous peasant, who not only looked like destroying the reputation of the “champion of France” but, what was worse, pocketing the takings for the day.

In this last bout the Stranger muttered to his antagonist, “You’re going to get what’s coming to you now.”

“Smash away, my lad!”

Advice was yelled from every side, to the accompaniment of caps flung into the air and much stamping on the ground. Five minutes. Then six. The Stranger was still on his legs. A little battered, but his shoulders nowhere near the mattress, at the end of ten minutes he claimed that the fight should stop.

The excited onlookers, even those who didn’t know him by sight, slapped him on the back so violently that they nearly dislocated his shoulder. “Hurrah for the Stranger!”

“What name do you call him by?” said one of them to Joinville Provençal.

“The Beauchemins’ Stranger, from Monk’s Inlet.”

Amable heard but did not protest.

The ancient went on mumbling about Butcher Levert, but no one listened.

The Stranger, still dizzy, was bleeding from the nose, and his face was a mass of bruises. But he shook his head and promptly recovered his senses. With his money in his pocket, he walked out of the tent, head erect, and said in an arrogant tone, “I could have stuck it for another half hour at least, but I thought I’d made enough for drinks all around. Come along, boys!”

And with roars of applause and admiration, they followed him off the field.

When the money was spent, the Stranger, whose thirst was far from being quenched by a few drinks, was considering how he could most conveniently go on drinking.

“Boys,” he said very gravely, “you’ve been drinking at the expense of the poorest chap on the Inlet. I think one of our rich friends might now stand a round.”

All eyes were fixed on Joinville, who blushed like a child caught out in some transgression. He hadn’t a penny in his pocket. They all saw him, with shame on his brow, begging the landlord to allow him credit. Only the Stranger, apparently intent on looking out into the street, seemed to notice nothing.

Enthroned at the counter of the bar among bottles whose reflection in the mirror doubled their number, the landlord, with the dignity of a monarch jealous of his favors, flatly refused, while continuing to rinse out his glasses. Why should he give credit to the inhabitants of Monk’s Inlet, when he counted among his clients the boss of the Richelieu Company and of the important shipbuilding yard?

At that moment three Scotchmen hailed him from the other end of the bar.

“One gin,” said one.

“One Scotch,” said the next.

The third hesitated and then made up his mind. “Same thing.”

The landlord, who did not understand a single word of English but was too proud to disclose the fact, served the first two. When he got to the third, he pushed several bottles toward him and said, “Help yourself.”

There was some astonishment at hearing the Stranger suddenly ask Joinville, “Had a good market, Provençal?”

“A good market?”

It was the first time that young Provençal had drunk any alcohol. His ideas were confused and his head was swimming. A good market? Suddenly he thought of the market money reposing in the breast pocket of his jacket. After all, this money, which the Provençals usually put into a common fund, surely belonged to him as much as to his brothers. Flinging the notes down on the counter, he shouted, “Here! I’ll stand drinks to everyone in this hotel.”

“Drinks all around,” said the landlord, with unimpaired dignity, but mollified by the sight of cash.

Although he drank his share in a general round, the landlord never got drunk. He had thus established a reputation as a gallant drinker among the hotel customers, who respected him all the more and never took any liberties with him. He himself encouraged the legend of his imperviousness to alcohol.

“The more I drink, the steadier I become,” he said, as he poured himself out brimmers from a bottle marked “gin,” which he carefully kept on one side for the excellent reason that it contained nothing but water.

The Stranger thumped Joinville on the back.

“You’re a sport, Provençal, a real sport.”

“That’s right,” said Amable. “You make up to him, now you’ve got him to spend his market money.”

“Never you mind, Provençal, I’ll show you how to get it back twice over. If you want your hens to lay well next winter. . . .”

Amable here intervened. “Hey, there! Don’t give away family secrets. Please remember we provide your keep.”

The Stranger roared with laughter.

“You do, do you? . . .”

But he paused abruptly. Standing with his back to the wall, in an almost prophetic voice he said musingly, “What is given, Amable, is never lost. What is given to one is restored to us by another. In a different sort of coin, and often at the moment least expected. I knew a nigger sailor who always threw into the sea the first bit of bread he received on board a ship. He used to say that once when he’d been wrecked a seagull saved him from dying of hunger. . . . Cast your bread. . . . Ah, neveurmagne!”

Joinville Provençal was weeping bitterly, with his elbows on a table.

“By God, that’s a fine story of yours, Stranger. Tell us some more. Say it all over again. I didn’t understand it all . . . about the nigger . . . the seagull . . . and the bit of bread. . . .”

After a few vain efforts to get Joinville away, Amable left the two men to their own devices. And with the others he set out on his way back to the Inlet.

At the first streak of light on the following Sunday, Angelina, who no longer felt sleepy, got up. At a loss without something to do, she prepared the barley mash for the fowls and took it into their run. On her return, though she was shivering in the chill of dawn, she stayed out in the garden.

The sky had just emerged from the shades of night. Only a slender line of violet still tinged the horizon. In the east, above the Baie de Saint-François, the morning star yet flickered, but the sun was just about to rise.

It was Angelina’s habit of a morning to look all about her. But as she gazed upward she stood dazzled by the illumination in the sky. It was like an unwinding of silks of every shade. Sometimes they swayed and rippled, delicate and elusive; sometimes splitting into streamers, then flashing forth once more in an ordered succession of rigid, horizontal folds.

But suddenly the sun dispelled those silken splendors and in its unrivaled beauty appeared above the earth.

Simultaneously, on a fence beside a small barn a red crest quivered and the victorious chant of the cock heralded the triumph of the day over the night.

“It’s going to be a grand day,” thought Angelina as she made her way down to the road.

A light wind passed, light as a breath. The leaves of the awakening poplars rustled. They were now full grown, and the trees had attained their plenitude of shade. The grass was beaded with dew. A butterfly was aimlessly fluttering its wings, and then darted from a wild pea vine onto a blue vetch. On every strip of grass buttercups and thistles made a carpet of bright color.

Angelina gave a sudden start. In the middle of a tall clump of sorrel she saw a large patch of red which seemed to move. On the edge of the ditch near some mauve morning-glories curling round the garden gateposts a man lay asleep, flat on his stomach with a bottle against his cheek. The Stranger’s mackinaw! Quite unmistakable. She recognized it by its patched sleeves and the darns that she had herself made. So the Stranger had started drinking again. How dreadful! And what a pity! But no one must know! Softly she approached the man and bent over him to see if there were anything she could do. But as she leaned down, she collapsed as though a lurking scythe had sliced off both her legs. Her heart leaped with amazement and indignation; it was not the Stranger, it was Joinville Provençal lying there, unconscious and still half drunk.

“Joinville Provençal. Oh, my God!”

But without reflecting that there was some point in the fact that he was wearing the Stranger’s mackinaw, the first thought that came into her mind was, “The man who egged him on to drink is responsible for this.”

“I say, Stranger, what’s she like—old Didace’s little lady? You know her, don’t you? Now then, tell us all about her!”

The words rattled onto Alphonsine’s heart like hailstones on a roof. A moment or two ago she had been overjoyed to see all their neighbors again reunited in the house. September and the first heavy rains would restore to their autumn evening gatherings the familiar rhythm of the previous year.

“Why, it’s like a party on a holiday,” she exclaimed joyously, as she welcomed the latest arrivals. “It’s a pity my father-in-law is out shooting and won’t be back tonight, he does so love company.”

But what she had taken for chance visits or friendly calls were soon found to be inspired by malicious curiosity. Did everybody know about Didace Beauchemin’s love affairs? She watched the men settle themselves into their chairs as though in expectation of some fruity jest, and the women, except Angelina, affect an utter detachment from the whole affair, busily flicking an imaginary speck of dust from their skirts or examining the pattern of the tablecloth with exaggerated attention. Alphonsine tried to catch the Stranger’s eye to keep him silent; but before she had succeeded, Amable, in a forceful and commanding tone which had never been heard from him before, said, “Now then, Stranger, tell us what you know.”

The Stranger, usually so bold of speech, whether because he found himself embarrassed by his knowledge or whether he didn’t quite know how to express himself, paused before he replied, “It isn’t easy to give you an answer.”

He knocked the ash out of his pipe and went on, “If you refer to the Acadian woman, her real name being Blanche Varieur—well, she’s a widow. She has fair, almost red hair. She’s not exactly pretty, and yet she looks somehow like a picture. Milk-white skin and red cheeks.”

“Good enough,” burst out one of the men, peering at his pipe which he was calmly stuffing with tobacco from his neighbor’s pouch.

“She’s not exactly beautiful, as I was saying just now, but there’s a sort of sweetness in her look that can’t be put into words. Eyes that change like river water, now gray, now green, now blue. It’s difficult to tell their color.”

“Well, but has she got a good figure?” asked Jacob Salvail’s wife. “She can’t be a hairy caterpillar and as lean as a crossbow, to turn men’s heads the way she does. From what you say, Stranger, it seems as though men eat out of the hollow of her hand.”

The Stranger’s eyes lit up with satisfaction.

“Speaking frankly, compared with you, Madame Salvail, she bulges.”

“Fat enough to split with your fingernail, eh?”

“Oh, indeed,” said another, visibly disappointed. “I thought she’d be a fat and handsome creature who could hardly get through a door, and eyes like will-o’-the-wisps.”

“But she must be getting on in years?” said Angelina, quivering with mortification, being so puny and so dark, at the Stranger’s picture of such fair and opulent charms.

“I daresay, but she doesn’t look it. When she laughs, the best of men would just disown his father and his mother.”

“She’s been making eyes at you, I can see that,” said Angelina sadly.

“No more than at any other man. You all asked me what I thought, and I’ve told you frankly. In any case,” he concluded, “she’s the very woman to keep an old man warm at night.”

“Aren’t you ashamed to say such a thing?” said Angelina reproachfully.

Stately Laure Provençal then observed acidly, “You’d best be careful of this redheaded wench, she’ll pluck you all alive. Do you hear, Amable?”

“You don’t seem to favor red hair,” said the Stranger.

And for the malicious pleasure of making talk among the women, as he passed his hand over his bronzed locks he added, “And yet when the fire blazes, it’s a sign the stove is drawing well.”

“But where does she come from, to get the name ‘Acadian’?”

“Oh, from below Quebec, somewhere on the Gulf.”

“Well, that doesn’t prevent her having sailors to lodge with her, and getting herself a bad name.”

“Let her stay where she belongs.”

“That’s just slander,” burst out the Stranger, “nothing but slander. An outlander is always suspect; ‘she doesn’t come from hereabouts.’ ”

Suddenly he felt impelled to move his chair out of the family circle. For the space of a year he had managed to share their lives, but he wasn’t one of themselves, and never would be. Even his voice had changed—it was graver and seemed more remote as he began, “You folks. . . .”

With a shuffling of feet, the chairs moved apart. Of its own accord, by necessity, the ring was broken.

“You folks don’t know what it is to want to see a bit of country, to get up with the dawn one fine morning and slip away alone, with a light heart, and all your belongings on your back. No! You would sooner foot it up and down in the same old place, bent double over your little plots of land, as flat as pocket handkerchiefs. God in heaven! You’ll never have seen anything in all your born days! If an odd sort of bird passes over, you stand and goggle at it. You still talk about the big-headed diver that Father Didace shot nearly two years ago. How would you feel if you saw the sky alive with wild geese, thousands of them, white and whirling like a gust of snow? Flights of nine miles long, swooping in wedge formation across the blue firmament—and then out of them a fleshy bird of ten or twelve pounds’ weight breaks away and drops like a stone. That’s a real marksman’s shot! If you knew what it is to see a bit of country. . . .”

His words tumbled over each other. He was drunk, drunk with distance and departure. Once more the unwearied pilgrim saw the golden cup brimming with the red and heady wine of the road, of the great spaces, horizons, and lands far away.

As his eyes were fixed on the door while he was speaking, everybody, following his example, looked at it too: a gray door, massive and low, opening onto the fields—so low indeed that the taller members of the household had to bend their heads to avoid knocking them against the lintel. The threshold they had trod so often, and so many others before them, was hollowed out in the middle by the weight of countless footsteps. And the hundred-year-old latch, so thin and worn, and stiff from clicking under so many different hands—a humble door of every day, now arrayed in virtue by the words of a chance comer.

“All that there was to see, my lad, we have seen,” rejoined Pierre-Côme Provençal with dignity, mortified in his person, his family, and his parish.

The Stranger, now sobered down, looked from one to another as though he was seeing them for the first time—Pierre-Côme Provençal, his four boys, his wife, and his daughters, the Salvail family, Alphonsine and Amable, and then the rest—even Angelina. Didn’t the people of the Inlet understand that he felt a genuine respect for that household, a respect that almost amounted to fear? That he had broken away from them simply because he couldn’t bear any sort of yoke or constraint? From day to day, for each and all of them, he was tending to become merely the Beauchemins’ Stranger; at the circus Amable hadn’t even protested when he was so described. Father Didace swore by him. Alphonsine, scolding but affectionate, could hardly let him out of her sight. The dog followed him more readily than he did his master. Everybody regarded him as a member of the household. But one day the road would get him back.

For a short space, no one talked. The strength of the Stranger’s fists had left too deep an impression for anyone to dare to offend him at such a moment. But he read their thoughts like an open book. He thought he could hear them saying to themselves, “Sing, my handsome blackbird, go on singing those songs of yours.”

“You’ll never be happy till you’ve drunk yourself silly and go to sleep in a ditch.”

“You’ll be run in as a half-wit and a pest to the district.”

“You’ll die in a ditch like a dog.”

“Without a priest to say a prayer for you.”

“You poor tramp!”

The Stranger drew himself to his full height and towered above them all.

“I pity the fellow who lays a finger on me. I’ll kick him so far that he won’t ever see the sunset. No man can say what sort of death he’ll die. But when I come to the end, you won’t find me at the bottom of a ditch. Look for me on the highroad in the sunshine, with my eyes to the sky, as proud as a king setting out for the last of his domains.”

“Well, my boy, you’ll have taken the right turning for once in your life,” said Jacob Salvail.

Thankful for the relief from tension, they all laughed heartily. But they broke off when, with a wink at Angelina, the Stranger began to hum. Waxen pale like a corpse, overcome by an unutterable anguish, she listened to the song of her heart:

These two stanzas finished, he stopped. His face buried in the hollow of his arm, his shoulders seeming to heave with sobs. When he raised his head, a tear glittering at the corner of his eye, he burst out into a shout of laughter, so that no one could tell whether he had actually been crying or laughing.

Angelina was the first to make a move. Alphonsine made no attempt to detain her. She was anxious to be alone again with Amable. A profound secret had drawn them closer together for some time: Alphonsine was expecting a child. Amable had wanted to tell his father the news at once, but his wife forbade him.

“No, no, please don’t. Let us keep it to ourselves. The others will know soon enough.”

In the face of Alphonsine’s embarrassment, which was in fact a strange sort of false shame, he had resolved to keep silent as long as she should wish.

Alphonsine said quickly to Angelina, “Wait a moment, and I’ll turn up the light.”

“No, please don’t,” said the other eagerly. “I can see quite well, and I’ve got my cape in my hand.”

To walk across a brightly lit room with the Stranger’s eyes upon her—that was more than she could do. He must not see her tarnished skin, her sickly body, and her dull hair. The distance from her chair to the door was about twenty paces. She made toward it slowly, almost on tiptoe, and managed her lame leg so as to make as little noise as possible. When she reached the threshold, the Stranger said, “Aren’t you afraid, little shepherdess?”

“Afraid? No one would try to interfere with me,” she said sadly, as she vanished into the darkness.

As soon as she was outside, the Stranger hurried after her. The company quickly broke up, and one by one they departed. When the last had gone, Alphonsine heaved a sigh of relief. Amable did not move; with darkened eyes, he sat like a man of stone. She ran toward him, with words of comfort on her lips, “Cheer up, dear. It’s sure to be just a passing fancy.”

Amable hammered on the table with his clenched fist.

“But suppose it were true! Damn that infernal woman!”

“Angelina!”

No voice replied. But at the turn of the road, the mists scattered and revealed a shadow.

“I was waiting for you,” said Angelina simply.

There were no tears in her eyes. Her voice, calm and low, rang with resignation and hope. She went on, without disguise, “I wanted to speak to you, heart to heart. You must be frank with me, Stranger. There’s something on your mind. Have I hurt your feelings somehow?”

“Indeed you haven’t, my lovely. I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Then why aren’t you the same man as before?”

“But. . . .”

“Now don’t try to deny it; your voice sounded odd just now when you were talking before all those people. Is there some trouble, or disappointment that you’re trying to hide from me?”

The Stranger did not reply. Angelina’s heart contracted. Some disaster threatened him. She knew it. She felt it.

“If there’s anything the matter, say so. Don’t keep it to yourself—that’s all wrong. For some time I’ve thought that there’s one thing that might please you; how if we exchanged our harmonium for a piano?”

Poor Angelina! Ready to make any sacrifice for his sake. And it wasn’t enough. She searched her heart of gold to find something fresh to offer.

“Are you in need of money? I can lend you a bit more, and you needn’t pay it back till it’s quite convenient. You’ve been such a help to us this summer that we surely owe you more. . . . And I wanted to let you know that my father means to leave the farm to me. There’s no mortgage on it, you know. And without being rich folks, we aren’t badly off. The man who marries me won’t have much to complain of.”

“The woman who takes me,” observed the Stranger pensively, “won’t be able to say as much. I’ve got the pack on my back and that’s all.”

“Don’t say that, Stranger. You have a good heart, and a worker like yourself never comes with empty hands. Husbands and wives surely have everything in common.”

They were walking slowly on in the center of the road, both so preoccupied that they took no notice of the puddles. It was drizzling, and the mist began to soak through their clothes. Angelina shuddered. She was trembling like a leaf.

“Hurry home, Angelina, or you’ll catch cold.”

But flinging back the flaps of her coat, she laid her hands on the Stranger’s shoulders. In a pleading, humble voice, she began, “If you liked, Stranger. . . .”

Tenderly and for a moment he clasped those clinging hands and hid his face in them. Then he stepped brusquely back and said hoarsely, “Don’t tempt me, Angelina. Better not.”

So saying, he strode away and vanished into the darkness.

The road would get him back.

If he went now, he would be pitied for not having as much head as heart; he didn’t know what he wanted. And he would soon be forgotten. But if he waited any longer, and Angelina talked to him as she had talked to him that evening, what would happen? If she tried to attach him to a house? He who couldn’t deliberately give pain to anyone would be capable of marrying her. And that house would fall in ruin. One day—he felt it—the road would get him back.

The road would get him back. . . .

Then why not at once? He had neither wife nor possessions. He had two stout legs and arms, and strong muscles. His debt to the Beauchemins? He surely had discharged it in full. The great harvests were over, the autumn plowing was well in hand, and, as Father Beauchemin would say, the earth had begun to put on its October rags. Poor old Beauchemin! They got on well together. But Father Didace would console himself with the Acadian woman. His petty debts to the other folks on Monk’s Inlet? Ah—neveurmagne!

In his own view, he had never been more than a sojourner at Monk’s Inlet. It was the others who misconceived the length of his stay in the house and thus thwarted his usual routine.

But there was Angelina. Was he to let himself be attached to the Inlet by a female of the species, like the first Beauchemin, until the end of his days? Angelina was well-to-do. She had her house, her flowers, and her father. She would end by marrying Odilon Provençal. None the less, a dull regret nipped his heart.

Suppose he stayed? There was yet time.

If he stayed, there would be the house, security, economy in everything and everywhere, the little farm of twenty-seven acres and nine perches, and the constant worry about money.

(“How much will it cost?”)

Constraint and constant questioning.

(“You’ve been celebrating, haven’t you?”)

Always held down and stifled.

(“What is Pierre-Côme Provençal going to think?”)

The monotonous plain without a single secret. Always the same talk. Always the same faces. Always the same song until the hour of death. No!—he could not face that slavery.

If he went, there was freedom before him, the mountain trail, the mystery of falling darkness. And, suddenly a gust of wind and the tinkle of cattle bells. The yapping of a dog, wreathing smoke, a huddle of houses, strange faces. A new country, the road, the mighty world.

If he stayed—Angelina and her devotion.

But the road would get him back. It was awful . . . the road would get him back . . . the road would get him back. . . .

Next morning Didace made his way back from the Îlette à Bibeau. Pensively he poled his boat along through the familiar countryside. The banks were so low that he could see far into the distance across the stubble, and, with ears on the alert, accustomed to disentangling sounds, he listened. He stopped for a moment; he could hear the call of the siren from the shipyards at Sorel. Seven o’clock.

Didace had spent the livelong night under his tarpaulin, on the watch for game, but without firing more than a shot or two. Moreover an owl had swooped down upon his decoys and scared away his ducks. Now, chilled and ravenous, he was in a hurry to get home.

Suddenly the time when his wife was alive passed before his eyes. When she caught sight of him in the distance, Mathilde ran to meet him on the dock, eager to help. And in his home what a feast awaited him! Golden rashers of bacon, a grand pile of eggs, and strong, scalding tea. Nothing tepid. And in his bed, between the sheets of country-woven linen, she kept the place still warm for his after-breakfast nap. And always the right word for everyone and everything. Ah, what a wife she had been! But she was dead, worn out with toil. And to think that at this moment, in her house on the hill. . . . But how was this? Not a wisp of smoke around the chimney? And animals straying around the garden. Didace, who had taken so much trouble to grow the autumn variety of corn, which was very difficult to get, became uneasy.

“What on earth can this mean?”

A waft of raw air greeted him on the threshold of the kitchen. The stove was dead. And in the adjoining room Alphonsine and Amable were still asleep. Didace spluttered with rage.

“Get up, you lazy brutes. Come and help me corral the cows! The animals are eating everything. We shan’t have a thing left. Hey! Stranger! Get up, Amable! Look lively! Spot, where are you?”

He vainly searched for the dog beneath the stove to set him after the cows, and bounced out in a fury.

“A fine sort of farm dog you are! Just you wait till I get hold of you.”

Alphonsine, now quite distraught, said to Amable, who still lingered in bed, “Do get up, dear.”

But Amable was not to be hurried.

“Two or three cows in the garden doesn’t matter all that much.”

Didace had time to chase the animals out before Amable had finished dressing. Feeling a little calmer, he said, “Which of you left the gate open last evening?”

“I certainly didn’t,” replied Amable. “It must have been the Stranger. He came in last.”

“Was it you, Stranger?” asked Didace, from the foot of the staircase.

He waited for the answer, but in vain.

“I wonder why he’s lying up so long this morning. It’s not a habit of his. . . .”

At last he grew impatient.

“If I’ve got to go and pull his nose at this time of day, it’s a bit too much. . . .”

“Let me go up,” put in Alphonsine, dashing up the staircase.

But when she reached the top step, she stopped short: the mattress was untouched, no one had slept on it, the room was as it had been on the previous evening, except that the Stranger’s ragged garments and his pack were no longer hanging from the wall.

“The Stranger has gone!”

As the steps creaked beneath his ponderous tread, Didace merely repeated, “It’s impossible! Impossible!”

“It’s true!” shrieked Alphonsine. “He’s gone—he’s gone. . . .”

The Stranger gone! Without a word or a sign. Without a wave of his hand.

Still out of breath from having dashed upstairs, Alphonsine said in a tone of fury, “He’s just a savage. They’re all alike, these fellows. They just come and go. They’re worse than stray dogs. One day they’re eating out of your hand, as sweet as honey; next day, they’d tear you to bits if they got a chance. No use looking for him. He’s gone to munch his bones somewhere else. And after him there’ll be another, I suppose?”

Twice wounded in his feelings, by the Stranger’s departure and the allusion to Blanche Varieur, Didace said acidly, “I should advise you, my girl, to be careful not only of what you say, but of what you think.”

And kicking up the dust that lay thick over the floor, he added, “Alphonsine Beauchemin, do your day’s work and keep the house in order. That will take all your time and energy.”

A sudden flush set Alphonsine’s heart aglow and sent the blood to her face, for shame that she wasn’t a good housewife, and for pride to hear herself honored by her father-in-law with the name of Beauchemin, which he had never used to her before. Perhaps he knew she was going to have a child. For a moment she forgot the Stranger’s departure in the thought of the child within her, assuredly a boy. When she had presented the family with another Didace, she would indeed take her place in the illustrious sisterhood of the Beauchemin ladies.

Several days passed, and neither the Stranger nor Spot reappeared at Monk’s Inlet.

“I always said they made a pretty pair,” said Amable, who was amused by the whole affair.

It had indeed to be admitted that the Stranger had gone for good. A few young people boasted to the neighborhood of having been badly hit by his departure. The blow struck Angelina full in the heart, but she uttered no complaint. People were even astonished to hear no single word of bitterness on her lips. One morning her father departed for the north, to visit some relations. Then she powdered her nose, made up her face, put on her best frock, and went off up the hillside to inquire about the Stranger’s debts.

And her grief? Even her grief could wait. No one would deprive her of it. She let it drop into the deepest hollow of her heart, like some precious possession which a traveler deposits at the foot of a tree before a perilous journey, certain of recovering it on the way back. But he—the Stranger—his name must remain unsullied. It should not be said that for want of a few pennies she let the image of the man she loved be tarnished by idle talk.

Tripping along with short, sparrowlike steps, she reached the houses. Bernadette Salvail could not forgive an ill-favored creature like Angelina for having obtained from the Stranger the affection he had refused her—she, who was as pretty as a picture. And as she saw her rival turning around near the doorstep, she thought to herself bitterly, “Poor silly little cat!”

Angelina, vacant-eyed, would laugh at anything. She was really a little crazy. And she talked and talked interminably, about this and that. Then suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, she would break off short. “By the by,” she would say, “did the Stranger borrow any money from you? He asked me to settle his small debts.”

She paid exactly what he owed. At a few places, she put down a round sum, adding twenty-five cents to the total.

“Take it, take it,” she said, with rather a forced air of nonchalance. “It’s his money, not mine. . . .”

But she longed to spit the money into their faces! But no, Pierre-Côme Provençal would get to hear of it. Hers was the better vengeance; she would shame them and shut their mouths at one stroke.

When she reached the last house, she turned back. Rain was falling heavily. It was really pitiful to see the poor, limping creature, the hem of her best skirt thick with mud, plunging ankle-deep into the mire and trailing her lame leg, like a broken wing, along the rutted roads, up the hillsides, down the hollows, everywhere. Her immense black eyes seemed to engulf her face, and rain and tears trickled down her haggard cheeks.

Aha! The bright lads of Monk’s Inlet could now call her a miser, an old crow, and a cripple, and laugh at her as they pleased! But no one at Monk’s Inlet, no one, would have the right to say a word against the Stranger.

When she had redeemed the Stranger’s name, she shut herself up in the house, alone with her grief. Immersed in her fathomless anguish, she spent the nights and days in peering down the road. She wept so bitterly that her eyes smarted as though she had fallen asleep in a bed of nettles. And her writhing hands seemed to be eternally kneading her sorrow, like invisible bread. After knocking at the door several times in vain, the neighbors soon became uneasy at seeing no sign of smoke spiraling from the chimney, not even at mealtimes, nor any dish towels hung out on the line to dry.

Beau-Blanc pretended to have seen a light glimmering in one corner of the house at dead of night. But no one took the word of such a liar—a dark, furtive youth, as nervous as a hare, and a poacher into the bargain.

On the morning of the fourth day Alphonsine could stand it no longer.

“Look here,” she said, “Marie-Amanda is her best friend, we must let her know. After all, we’re David Desmarais’s nearest neighbors.”

That very evening Marie-Amanda came to Monk’s Inlet.

Not merely could Marie-Amanda make tasty dishes, manage a household, and bring up a family. Marie-Amanda was like a lighthouse. And like a lighthouse, tall and luminous and serene, white and glowing, she stood up in the midst of the darkness and turmoil of humanity, pointing out the way to each and all. When she came in, she did not start talking about her sick child, or the harvest, or the winter weather. She merely said, “I hear you wanted me.”

At the sight of her, Angelina gave way and broke into convulsive sobs. Marie-Amanda held her clasped in her arms and rocked her tenderly to and fro, just as she would have comforted a sick child. In this motherly embrace Angelina gradually calmed down, and then began to weep silently, the great tears like beads of a rosary rolling one by one down her ashen face.

“The Stranger was mine,” she burst forth, in an access of revolt. “And he’s gone. I shall never see him any more. I’d have torn my heart out for him. I’d have been satisfied with a hunk of bread on a corner of the table, if only he were by. I wouldn’t have asked for anything. Just to see him look at me from time to time.”

Marie-Amanda also burst into tears. She produced a large, dazzlingly white handkerchief, slapped it full out like the sail of a ship, and with the care that she applied to everything, wiped her handsome face, usually so serene and now streaming with tears.

“Listen, Angelina. . . .”

For some while she talked, trying, with words of patience and of wisdom, to loosen the bonds that gripped the other woman’s heart. But Angelina suddenly cried out, “It’s quite clear you’ve never known the miseries of love. . . .”

“Do you think so? When my Ludger was at sea, I just longed for the day when he would come ashore for good and all. He said he was bored with sailing up and down our silly little streams and meant to get onto salt water at any price, and he used to be away for weeks without answering my letters. Oh, those evenings when I went to bed with misery in my heart—I couldn’t count them all. I used to pray and pray, until I went to sleep over my rosary. And often enough what had looked like a mountain the evening before was no bigger than a pin’s head next morning. But you need to pray, and reason with yourself. . . .”

“Do you mean I’m to forget the Stranger? Never.”

“No, but try to overcome your grief. Think about him, of course, but in a better sort of way.”

“Oh, if only he’d been willing, I’d have followed him around like his shadow . . . like Spot the dog. . . .”

“Before you knew the Stranger, you had your house and your flowers. You have them still. And for more than a year he gave you his heart. He hasn’t left you any poorer, has he? You have nothing to be sorry for, surely. Why be so sad? You must try to be more reasonable.”

A sudden enmity gleamed in Angelina’s eyes.

“The Stranger always treated me with respect. But if he hadn’t, I tell you frankly, I don’t think I’d have refused him anything.”

“That’s not what I meant, Angelina,” protested Marie-Amanda, rather hurt.

How could the Stranger have left Angelina any the poorer? Marie-Amanda must be crazy to think any such thing. He who had taught Angelina all the melodies of earth, who talked of flowers as though they were familiar friends. And at Easter he had given her the loveliest box of sweets. . . .

But her grief soon got the upper hand again, and after a silence she asked dejectedly, “Marie-Amanda, if I went after him . . . do you think I could get him back?”

Marie-Amanda hesitated before giving her a shadow of hope.

“Perhaps, but sooner or later he would be off once more and you would have to start all over again. How can you suppose that you could hold and keep him, when by your own doing you saw him, day in, day out, eaten up with boredom, longing to be somewhere else, and yourself just a limping woman in his eyes? Poor Angelina! You would lose him more surely than you have lost him now. If he wants to walk the roads alone, let him have his will. Even if it makes him happy to choose another woman, let him be happy. Otherwise you don’t love him truly. Love, my girl, doesn’t consist of getting whatever it may be from him you love, but in giving him the best you have. Let him go, Angelina. Or you will never know a minute’s peace.”

“I can’t understand. . . .”

“Don’t try to understand. You will understand later on. Grief dies as joy dies. Everything dies in the end. That is the way of this world. For a week you have been alone here, brooding over your sorrow, like a dead plant on the common. Your father will soon be back. You don’t want him to find you like this. Pull yourself together.”

At the mention of her father, Angelina stiffened. Dry-eyed, and without even a sigh, she went out of the house. Marie-Amanda watched her uneasily. She saw her rise on tiptoe and blow twice, and yet again, at the flame of the lantern in the doorway. The flame flared and dipped, swayed to and fro, as though reluctant to go out. Then Angelina seized the lighted wick, crushed it in her fingers, came in, closed the cover of the harmonium, and returned to her place beside Marie-Amanda. But she was unrecognizable; she looked like a woman in her death agony.

There, her face clasped in her veined hands, so thin that they were almost transparent, she collected herself. Her fate—she accepted it. Her sacrifice was in the way of accomplishment. The passer-by who, one autumn evening, had knocked at the Beauchemins’ door, could go quietly away, along the road from which there was no return. With a gesture of resignation the poor girl’s hands opened as though to release a captive bird.

When she again spoke of the Stranger, it was as though she were referring to someone who had died.

“He had his faults, of course. He was too fond of celebrating. And if he hadn’t much regard for me, he’s not to be blamed for that. I didn’t know the trick of getting myself loved. We were never walking in step. Only . . . only . . . I must give him his due. He never mentioned my lameness.”

A pallid smile lit up her tear-stained face, just as the sky sometimes glows during a downpour of rain.

“Yes, he had his qualities,” said Marie-Amanda with some warmth. “He was never clumsy nor coarse. And frankly—he was good to look at. So upstanding, gallant, and well-mannered.”

“Such a way with him!”

“And always singing.”

“Yes,” said Angelina proudly, “his head high and a laugh on his lips.”

That great, clear laugh of his! Whenever the Pélerine of Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel sent its peal echoing across to Monk’s Inlet, Angelina would hear that great laugh ringing forth along the roads. And she thought, “If only he finds someone to take care of him and keep him out of too much trouble.”

Was she about to give way again? Marie-Amanda tried to distract her.

“You must come and stay with me at Île de Grâce. That will take your mind off things. You will be interested in the children.”

“I shall never go away from this house again.”

Marie-Amanda did not insist.

“It’s getting rather chilly,” she said. “Shall I fetch a few logs from the stable and make a nice fire?”

Angelina gave a start. “Don’t you do any such thing! There’s a special way of putting wood into the stove. I’ll light a fire later on.”

Marie smiled and felt reassured. Her friend was reverting to the housewife of other days, her energy was coming back.

“Well then, come along to our place and get warm. My father’s there.”

“I shall never dare to look anyone in the face.”

“You must try, now, while I’m with you.”

Angelina let herself be led to Didace Beauchemin’s house. But as soon as she entered it, she burst into tears again.

“Come, come,” growled Didace, almost as upset as she was. “You mustn’t go on like that. Who can tell? Perhaps the Stranger has gone to the Eucharistic Congress, and will come back to us with all sorts of news. You know how he can talk. Or perhaps he’s gone to visit his family. In my opinion he’s the son of some big landowner. He knows such a lot about farming.”

“I rather think a woman might have got hold of him and managed him. . . .”

“Oh, no,” Amable broke in. “Restless men can’t be managed, they slip through your fingers.”

“Well, I’d have tamed him when he was small, if I’d been his mother,” exclaimed Alphonsine.

Father Didace, dumbfounded to hear his daughter speak in such a way, swung round to get a better look at her. Alphonsine blushed. No, her father-in-law had no idea she was expecting a child; otherwise he would not have cast so stern an eye on her.

Angelina refused to listen to any more. Didace followed her out. Marie-Amanda held him back. “Let her go by herself, Father. Her grief will work itself out.”

Marie-Amanda and Alphonsine sat down beside the stove. Amable was the first to break the silence, and he said lightly, “She’ll forget it all the night before her wedding.”

“Really, Amable! It’s not like you to say such a thing!”

“No, but it isn’t natural to take on like that about a casual laborer.”

“You sound as if you still disliked the Stranger,” remarked Marie-Amanda.

“It isn’t that at all; I think she’s just plumb silly to be grieving over a blackguard who took her money and went off to drink it up with a pack of rapscallion friends. And you just can’t imagine the fantastic stories he used to tell her afterward!”

“I don’t believe quite all that, Amable,” said Marie-Amanda. “But if it’s true that he wasn’t all he should have been, he must have felt pretty miserable and ashamed, and that was his punishment.”

“He always had a heart of gold and would give anything away,” protested Alphonsine. “He had nothing to call his own.”

“That’s easy enough, when you haven’t two cents to your name,” rejoined Amable.

But Marie-Amanda stuck to her contention.

“What he had learnt, on the roads or elsewhere,—that was all his own. He could have kept it to himself, but he didn’t. He never grudged himself nor his time; you can’t deny that, Amable.”

Amable did not reply.

“I suppose,” Marie-Amanda went on, “you think a poor man who is always ready to share with his fellow the little that he has, is less generous than the moneyed man who throws his dollars about when he’s got more than he knows what to do with.”

“I don’t know; but anyway it’s less tiresome. And do you suppose we didn’t give anything to the Stranger? He was like one of ourselves.”

“Yes,” said Marie-Amanda, “but if you give, and then take pleasure in boasting to everyone about it, I don’t feel as though you were giving anything at all, because you really come off best.”

“That’s what is called the charity of pride,” said Alphonsine. “Now the Stranger knew just how to give, he had the knack.”

“He certainly had,” replied Amable, “the knack of taking all he could get while seeming to give with both his hands.”

“Ah, Amable, you always did take a mean view of people.”

“Look here, you two, you’ll drive me crazy. Why are you all in raptures about such a fellow? Has he bewitched you with his songs? For a year past he has been laying down the law at Monk’s Inlet. He was like the son of the house. More than that. He spent our money. He made Joinville Provençal drink. And from what I can gather, he has broken Angelina Desmarais’s heart. And that’s not all; the old man . . . Didace himself. . . .”

But as he saw Alphonsine blanch, he calmed down, and changed the subject.

“You mark my words: I fancy we shall never know the end of what he’s robbed us of, this Stranger. It’s a merciful dispensation that he’s gone.”

Footsteps approached the house. The three fell silent and waited pensively.

Marie-Amanda returned to the Île de Grâce, and for the rest of the week Didace, who was visibly in distress, shuffled from one window to another. Countless journeys from the house to the stable and the farm buildings failed to relieve the tedium of his days. If only he could have found someone with whom he could talk about the Stranger. Angelina? At the very mention of his name she looked as woebegone as a hooked fish. David Desmarais sulked, as though he held Didace responsible for his daughter’s unhappiness. At home, the Stranger seemed to be already forgotten, and those outside no longer mentioned him.

Eternally on the lookout for a sympathetic ear, Didace watched for the rare passers-by. As soon as he caught sight of one, he ran out onto the road.

One evening when he thus caught Pierre-Côme Provençal on the wing, his corpulent person canting the light carriage over till it almost touched the ground, Didace was moved to take the Stranger’s part.

“You know how it is, Côme, when a young fellow like that takes to the road, he has to go back to it sooner or later. He can’t help himself.”

With a jerk of his shoulders, Pierre-Côme Provençal hunched his huge body together as though to retire more obdurately within himself. Mortally offended, he gulped down his saliva, swallowing therewith the irrevocable words that might well have wrecked their ancient friendship and ruined his career as Mayor. The man before him—could this be truly Didace Beauchemin, his near neighbor, whom his own mother, Odile Cournoyer, had received into the world and dandled at his baptism? Didace, son of Didace, who would not quail before a moose at bay, and would, as like as not, promptly shoot anyone who tried to steal an inch of his land—was this man who listened to the foolish tales of a wastrel, who had knocked out Odilon Provençal, and not merely led Joinville on into drinking, but made him spend most of his market money? Shame on you, Didace.

His sole greeting was to spit heartily onto the road.

Then he whipped up his little chestnut mare which, already rather restive, reared and dashed off, tail flying, at a gallop.

For an instant the carriage rent the mist, which then promptly closed its gray curtain around Monk’s Inlet. Didace stood for a long while, leaning against the fence, staring blankly into the darkness and inhaling the sharp air.

“Not even he,” Didace said to himself in bewilderment. “Not a soul will talk to me about the Stranger.”

Winter was at hand.

His heart contracted, and then overflowed with bitterness. Slowly his fingers tightened their grip on the fence. “Damn all people.”

At Sainte-Anne’s rectory the housekeeper was bustling around the stove. Through the window she could see Father Didace advancing toward the house, and motioned to him to come in without knocking. Respectful of the spotlessness of the kitchen and all it contained, he stood shifting his feet uneasily on the square of carpet by the door.

“Come right in, Father Didace. This is a good moment for a visit. I’m just going to dish up a stew of teal. You must have some, and tell me how you like it.”

Indifferent (contrary to his habit) to the strong and savory odor that pervaded the whole room, Didace refused.

“Not in the middle of the day. I’m not hungry. And my folks are waiting for me at the shop. I just wanted a word with Monsieur le Curé.”

The Curé Lebrun soon appeared.

“Aha, Father Didace. A grand wind for shooting, isn’t it?”

On his arrival at Monk’s Inlet, thirty years or so ago, the Curé had acquired a taste for shooting, but he had never managed to learn the hazards that made for a day’s sport. Father Didace never missed an opportunity of teasing him on the subject. But this time he contented himself with a shrug of his shoulders, as he growled, “Bah! Just a capful of wind. . . .”

“I haven’t seen you at the blind lately.”

“No, I hardly ever shoot now.”

“How’s that?”

“You may well ask.”

“Is all well at home?”

“Pretty well, but. . . . Monsieur le Curé, I want a private word with you. I shan’t keep you long.”

“Certainly. Come into the study, Monsieur Beauchemin.”

The priest’s gaunt workroom, with its white walls, its imposing portraits of bishops, always impressed old Didace. He remained silent, confronted by, not a man with a gun, but his priest. By way of helping him out the priest spoke first.

“You have something you wish to say to me, Monsieur Beauchemin?

Father Didace seemed to emerge from a dream.

“That is so. Well then, Monsieur le Curé. . . .”

Suddenly he burst out: “Monsieur le Curé, since my wife’s death, I find the house very empty. And my daughter-in-law isn’t a very capable woman. She hasn’t always time to mend my socks. And there are mice all over the place. If I could find a person to my taste, I believe I’d marry again. What do you think, Monsieur le Curé? I don’t want to make a mistake, and I wouldn’t do anything without consulting you.”

The Curé pondered.

“The lady would have to be suited to you in every way. But I won’t disguise from you that I think it’s a terrible risk, with a grown-up son and a daughter-in-law in the house.”

“That’s just it, Monsieur le Curé. They may have children. Two women would have plenty to do in looking after them.”

“First, Monsieur Beauchemin, answer me frankly. Have you anyone in view?”

“More or less. I know a very nice widow, thoroughly capable, hard-working, and a good cook. She’s poor, but lively and cheerful. Only that doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to marry her.”

“I understand. What is her name?”

“Varieur. Blanche Varieur. A good name, don’t you think?”

“Varieur—it certainly isn’t a local name, nor even from the province, is it?”

“No, she comes from a parish south of Quebec, rather difficult to pronounce. I’ve got the name written on a piece of paper, if you would like to see it. She herself is an Acadian. She was a cook on a barge—you remember The Fly, that caught fire last summer. She was nearly burnt to death. She had to hang on by a cable in empty space above the water for more than an hour. She was quite ill from it and nearly died. The priest actually visited her. Since then she’s been living at Sorel.”

“How old?”

“Just about forty.”

“Rather young for you, isn’t she?”

“But, Monsieur le Curé, I would like to raise another couple of boys, if I could.”

The Curé of Sainte-Anne wagged his head. He threw himself back in his rocking chair so as to be able to look Father Didace square in the eyes.

“Now don’t be in a hurry to make up your mind, Monsieur Beauchemin. Wait. I will write to the curé of her parish. If this person is worthy to become your wife and to take the place of your dear dead lady, I shall be the first to rejoice. Marriage is a very serious matter, and all the more so for a widower with grown-up children at home. . . .”

While the Curé was bestowing these sage counsels on him and trying to dissuade him from a dubious marriage, Didace, spellbound, was leagues away. The Stranger knew everything. He was always right. Since he had advised him to remarry, the match was sure to be successful. It was also thanks to him that Didace had made the lady’s acquaintance. The Acadian! At the very sound of her name, his aged flesh thrilled. He waited to control his blood and voice before he answered, “By all means write, Monsieur le Curé.”

He rose, produced from his pocket an ancient note case which his gnarled fingers could barely open, and added, “Just one thing, Monsieur le Curé. . . . This is for the marriage license. . . . If I take it now, I shall spare you a pack of trouble, and myself too. I won’t fancy driving over these roads of ours when the snow has come.”

Phonsine, her arms clasped above her head, was lying in bed awake. She was uneasily on the alert for the faintest sounds in the house: the slow working of the timber, the hum of an insect, the plop of an ember into the ashes. Outside, the dry rushes crackled beneath the gusts, and the evening dew dripped heavily from the roof onto the fallen leaves. Suddenly a noise—a rumble, then a crash—drowned all the others. Phonsine nudged her husband.

Flat on his back, as straight as an arrow, Amable lay engulfed in sleep.

“Amable—don’t you hear?”

He was snoring, open-mouthed.

“Amable! Thunder, in the north.”

Amable snorted. Then in a husky voice he muttered apathetically, “That’s all right. Thunder . . . in October . . . means a fine autumn.”

“A fine autumn indeed!” snapped Phonsine. “It’s been pouring with rain nearly every day.”

But Amable, with his face to the wall, was already asleep again.

After the Stranger’s departure, Phonsine had begun to lie abed again of a morning, as she used to do. Less from need of sleep, however—her pregnancy rather inclined her to insomnia—than for her own satisfaction, by way of recovering in her own eyes such of her prestige as she had lost by the presence of an alien in the household.

At first she used to wake up from mere joy, in the middle of the night. Wide-eyed she lay and wondered in what green foliage her heart was fluttering. . . . Ah, yes—the Stranger had departed. He had left Monk’s Inlet. No more huge meals to prepare for the men at break of day, in the damp kitchen among the lingering shadows. Father Didace Beauchemin, who had something on his mind, did nothing but the most urgent work. In the morning he was quite content to eat the leavings of the day before, often cold, or even bread and milk sweetened with maple sugar. He never complained about his food.

But the isolation of Phonsine’s enjoyment soon robbed it of its first fragrance, and she watched it droop like a neglected plant. Though she would not admit it to herself, the house now seemed enormous, and she missed the Stranger’s little attentions. If only Amable had been understanding and shown the slightest inclination to be helpful. On the contrary, he had fallen back into his old dawdling habits, and would now sit with legs outstretched smoking beside the fire. Phonsine had forced herself to say to him on one occasion, “You’re always in my way.” But all to no purpose. He had sulked, and Father Didace had snapped at her. Since then, Amable had resumed his accustomed place. Rather than pester him every day to fill the wood box, Phonsine preferred to go out in search of brushwood, and even logs, with which she came home laden. . . . But not the armfuls brought in by the now departed rover. . . .

The image of the Stranger, with his ringing laugh and all his faults, his swaggering speech and his ready hands, scarred her thoughts. But she forbade herself to think too much about him, for fear that the child she was to bear might be like him in the end.

She fingered her body, still so flat and meager. Was it possible that the miracle of life was being accomplished within her? Hastily she pulled the bedclothes up over her legs and hips. During the first year of her marriage she had believed that when she was expecting a baby she would talk freely about it to Amable. But now that she was carrying it, a natural shyness kept her silent. And in company she always kept aloof.

As long as there was breath in her body, the child should want for nothing; on that she was resolved. Not merely what is bought, but what is given. Nothing is lost in this world. The Stranger was fond of making that remark. Nine days’ fine weather makes up for a rainy spell. So it must be with human joys. Her share of joy, of all the joys which she had missed, she would bestow upon the little one to come.

There came a sudden uproar on the Common. Scarcely muffled by the light-leaved alders on the riverbanks, it drifted in a melancholy clamor across the water. A breeze carried it along the hillside to the south, awakening all the dogs of the neighborhood. Their persistent, frenzied barking added to the din, and sped it on beyond the meadows.

Sitting up in bed, Phonsine listened. She could clearly distinguish, through the volley of barks, the clatter of sabots and the tramp of feet, and the shrieks of slaughtered pigs.

“Cattle thieves. Amable—wake up! There’s trouble on the island.”

“He always sleeps like a log,” thought Phonsine. “He’d sleep if he was half under water. I might be murdered by his side, or the house catch fire, and he wouldn’t even know.”

Barefooted, she padded through the darkness to her father-in-law’s room. Father Didace had not slept at home. For the moment she felt no surprise, intent as she was on her own safety. Her first instinct was to run to the front door, which was never bolted. But on her way she stumbled and nearly fell, catching her great toe in the ring of the cellar trap door. Too terrified to feel any pain, she freed herself and went on. The latch would not budge. She leaned the back of a chair under the door handle and waited. Gradually her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. As she surveyed the prospect, she saw shadows move across the Provençals’ landing stage. They put off in a boat, crossed the Inlet, and emerged onto the Common.

“Ah,” said Phonsine to herself, “the Provençals are always on the spot when there’s trouble about. Pierre-Côme and his four lads are never caught napping, I do give them credit for that. Well, they’re rich, and not for nothing.”

As the men approached, the noise of the animals subsided and then ceased altogether. Phonsine was shivering. Reassured by quiet, she slipped back into bed. Amable, at the touch of his wife’s cold feet, awoke with a start.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she snapped at him. “Sleeping like a log as if nothing had happened!”

In the course of a yawn he asked, “What did happen?”

“You wouldn’t care if we lost our herd, and had to beg along the roads. There were cattle thieves on the Common.”

“There are some horse dealers around. I expect it was them you heard. Or gypsies, perhaps.”

“Never mind what they were, if they stole our pigs. . . .”

“Well, do you expect me to swim after them?”

“The Provençals,” she said, thinking to annoy him, “were on the spot at once.”

But Amable remained unmoved.

“And your father isn’t back yet. . . .”

“I daresay he’s waiting for a barge load of apples on the quay at Sorel. He was talking about it only the other day.”

“You’ve always got an answer for everything. But don’t you think it odd that he hasn’t been out shooting this autumn?”

Amable did not answer.

“Mark my words,” said Phonsine. “Our first news of him will be when he comes back married.”

Amable, who did not like this sort of talk, turned toward the wall.

“For God’s sake, don’t look out for trouble; it’ll come along soon enough. We had just begun to breathe in peace. Go to sleep.”

Phonsine stiffened with indignation. Her eyes fixed on the clearer rectangle formed by the window, but solely intent on what was passing through her mind, she did not see the dawn, brown as homespun, slide across the velvet sky. She did not hear the silken wingbeats of a migrating flight of teal. Then her eyes closed.

It was broad daylight when Phonsine awoke. A dog was yapping outside the house. At first she thought she was dreaming. But a comforting smell of frying fat and pancakes crept through the chinks of the door.

“That’s Spot barking!”

Something leaped like a flame within her, and flared up joyously into her throat.

“The Stranger’s back!”

Amable, who had now got up, was sitting with a lock of hair dangling over his eyes, putting on his boots.

“Do you hear, Amable? The Stranger’s back!”

“Sounds as though you were pleased about it, eh?”

The flame in Phonsine’s voice went out.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is—” He hesitated. “Get up and dress yourself to meet your handsome lad. But this time I’ll have him know me for his master.”

He grabbed his wife’s arm and dragged her to the door. But on the threshold, he said to Phonsine as he stood aside for her to pass, “After you!”

At the table, her bare elbow resting on the oilcloth cover, sat a woman, nonchalantly drinking out of Phonsine’s cup. Thinking herself alone, she put the cup down and scraped the bottom of it with a teaspoon.

“My cup!” said Phonsine to herself, wide-eyed with astonishment.

The new arrival caught sight of her with Amable, standing stock-still in the doorway.

“I’m Father Didace’s wife,” she said to them with a complacent smile. “Don’t you know me? They call me the Acadian, but that’s a nickname. For quite a while I was called the Widow Varieur. But my real name is Blanche.”

She continued, but with eyes averted, “So you’re the daughter-in-law, eh? And you’re the son of the house?”

Neither one nor the other gave any sign that they had heard. Despite themselves they listened to that fleshy voice drawling out its utterance as wool retains the heat. On the stove stood a kettle, which had begun to boil over. Blanche made as though to get up. This seemed to necessitate some rather painful maneuvers. She began by pressing her short, strong hands flat against the table. Next she swung her body cumbrously to the right, and then to the left. With a final heave she rose to her full height, an imposing figure in her serenity and strength. Smoothing out the folds of her mauve cotton frock, embroidered with lighter-colored flowers, she walked with the same sort of rolling gait to the stove, lifted the lid off the kettle, and then returned to her chair. For no reason she began to laugh, and with one hand, on which gleamed a new ring, kept brushing her blond curls away from her perspiring forehead.

“A nice fire does cheer the place up,” said she. “I took the opportunity to thin out the pancakes a bit. Father Didace fairly wolfed them down. He likes his grub, does my old man.”

Leaning down as she spoke, she slowly scratched her leg near the ankle, through her black stocking. Her open-necked blouse revealed, beyond the triangle of bare flesh reddened and freckled by the sun, a skin of dazzling whiteness.

Livid with rage, Amable went out without shutting the door behind him. Phonsine did not try to keep him back. Spot, who had been cowering underneath the stove, crawled along the wainscoting and fled outside. The dog, who had vanished from Monk’s Inlet at the same time as the Stranger, was half starved and emaciated, his skin clinging to his bones; he must have ranged the countryside before finding his way home.

Blanche, as though she knew her way about the house, went across to the cupboard. The arrangement of the interior had already been changed: plates and saucers piled up at one end, the cups at the other, leaving a wide gap in the middle. And the kitchen was scrupulously tidy.

Still stunned by the shock, Phonsine felt no distress. She collapsed onto the nearest chair by the sideboard, her arms dangling beside her like two oars in the rowlocks of an empty skiff floating downstream. The dead weight of them nearly tipped her over backward. Then she grasped the extent of the disaster: she had lost her place in the household. Father Didace had made a second marriage with this Acadian woman, this giggling creature who came and went, and was already queen and mistress of the house.

If only she would keep her mouth shut, thought Phonsine. But once more Blanche explained, “I cleared up as best I could. I swept the deck and I’ll scrub it later on.”

At the scarcely veiled reproach, Phonsine blushed. After the party last evening, she had neglected to clear the kitchen. How early had her mother-in-law arrived, that she had managed to do so much housework already? Before dawn, for sure. They must have got married last evening at Sorel. Perhaps Father Didace had feared a fuss. . . .

Blanche picked up a common cup, filled it to the brim with scalding tea, and handed it to Phonsine.

“Wouldn’t you like a spoonful of sugar in it?” she asked. “You must be hungry.”

Hungry! Phonsine was no more hungry than a river is thirsty. She held out her hand with unconscious docility. Then she realized that she was behaving just as she had done when she was six years old.

Her mother had just died. Her only aunt—a half-sister of her mother’s—overcome by spontaneous compassion, had taken her in. But when the first days of mourning were over and the impulse of generosity had subsided, the aunt had no notion of bestowing free board and lodging on the tearful little creature, so clumsy that she was always falling down and tearing her stockings, while her father spent his earnings on drink. She accordingly sent for him.

Joseph Ladouceur arrived, rather tipsy, at Saint-Joseph-de-Sorel. Moreover he was wearing a new curled wig, which the aunt had regarded the ultimate outrage, and dispelled her lingering doubts. Vainly he tried to mollify her.

“My wife . . . your poor sister . . . think of it, bedridden for six months . . . the expense of all the medicine and the doctor . . . and then the funeral . . . three days before she was buried, and a wake supper every night . . . my dear, dear wife. . . .”

He began to snivel, his face buried in a large, white, black-striped handkerchief.

“Well, she’s happy now,” observed his sister-in-law acidly. “She’s well out of all her troubles.”

With a vaguely protesting wave of his hand, he declaimed, “Let the dead bury their dead!”

“You might have waited till the earth had settled on her grave before you started on the loose again. . . .”

He interrupted her, pointing to a broad band of crape on his sleeve, “I wear an armlet, weekdays and Sunday.”

“. . . You’re drinking like a fish—you’re just a sot!”

He clasped his head in his hands.

“Drink? Me?”

“Yes, you. Don’t try to put me off. You stink of the stuff now. Besides. . . .”

The condemnation fell, inexorable, from the woman’s lips, “Besides, you’ve been seen drunk.”

He gave in, and burst into a laugh. “Look here, don’t be absurd. Even if a fellow does come from a respectable family, he’s got the right to drown his grief. He’s got the right to rinse his scuppers with something stronger than water from the stream. Oh yes, he has. Now you listen to me. You’ll keep the child, . . .” he winked, “and I’ll see you don’t lose by it.”

“No, thank you! And you never told me she had a weak back.”

They ignored Phonsine. Hidden behind a chair, she stood overwhelmed in humiliation.

On the evening of the next day her father took her to the orphanage. An orphan among orphans. In her unhappy little head, shame melted into misery. She was an orphan.

At the end of a dark corridor a nun kept watch under a lantern that burned day and night. The flame lit up the lower half of a scarlet vestment on the statue of a saint, and a pair of glossy white feet with gilded toes.

In the presence of the Sister, Joseph Ladouceur assumed an air of importance. He observed impressively to Phonsine, “You must be an obedient little girl, do you understand? and do everything that the kind sisters tell you. Otherwise you will be sent away. . . .”

In an impulse of affection long repressed, Phonsine ran up to her father. She wanted to fling her arms around his neck as she kissed him good-by. But, misjudging her intention, he hadn’t left her time, being in a hurry to get away and only too glad to be relieved of his responsibility.

A tall girl of ten with a wooden expression, wearing the regulation iron-gray uniform, her hair drawn back under a pink horn comb (which Phonsine had promptly noticed), carried her off to take her place on one of the tiered seats. The steps were steep and the air laden with smells of chalk and dried apples.

Too timid and too sensitive to complain, Phonsine had suffered in silence, haunted by the constant dread of being sent away.

“Go up to the dormitory!”

She had shivered with cold in the night, when she had an accident. And shivered, too, with fear.

“Go down to the refectory.”

Face to face with the whitewashed wall, in meek obedience she swallowed a little tapioca, refusing the corn which upset her weak stomach.

“And now run out and play.”

Run she did, bent double by a bar of colic across her middle. She played, when she had had her fill of suffering in silence.

The clapper rattled as a signal for everyone to kneel. Though her knees were sagging, the child remained kneeling until prayers were over. With closed eyes and clasped hands, she dedicated her weariness to her father, who had pledged her to obedience.

“Drink your tea before it gets cold,” said Blanche sharply.

Phonsine started, her eyes blurred with tears. In the cup the liquid shook.

“Look out!” exclaimed Blanche. “You’ll upset your tea!”

Phonsine gulped down her tears. In a flash the women’s eyes met—Blanche’s furtive, sea-green, inscrutable. “Her eyes are sometimes blue, sometimes green, they change like river water,” the Stranger had said. And Phonsine thought, “Like a snake in the tall grass.”

From outside Father Didace was peering through the window, shading his eyes with his hands. At the sight of the two women drinking side by side, he thankfully thought that they were already on good terms. With bent forefinger he tapped briskly on the window to attract his wife’s attention.

As soon as she was alone, Phonsine ran to her cup. She who always melted the sugar by dabbing it gently with the spoon, without ever touching the edge of the cup, was afraid the Acadian had cracked it. To examine it more carefully she went to the window and held it up to the light.

In the course of years the porcelain had acquired a warm, golden glow with pearly glints in it. Thin green lines, now rather faded, adorned the inside of the cup, which was rather wide at the rim, but tapered down to a narrow base. The outside was decorated with branches of yellow daisies, in which Phonsine used to amuse herself by recognizing the faces of her friends.

After dipping her fingers in the water to make sure it was tepid, she plunged the cup in the bucket. Then, to wipe it, she chose a soft linen duster, rather than a dishcloth of homespun linen. Before putting it aside on an upper shelf, she found herself slipping her thumb through the handle as it hung from her finger.

Suddenly she thought of Amable. Where had he taken refuge? She went out to look for him. Between the bakehouse and the Desmarais farm she found him sitting on the stone steps with Angelina, his face wet with tears. Angelina, who had never got over the Stranger’s departure, was stroking Spot’s lean head. Silently the man and the woman gazed into the distance. Phonsine sat down beside them.

As dusk was falling, the young couple returned to the house. Amable refused to take his place at table. He shut the door of the bedroom, where Phonsine found him on the bed. She went into the kitchen to get him a cup of hot tea. Sitting side by side, Father Didace and Blanche were talking in low tones. At the daughter-in-law’s approach, they shifted their chairs apart and fell silent. But the old man continued to gaze fondly at his wife, who sat and smiled at him.

“At their age!” thought Phonsine, her face red with indignation, as though affection were the bread of youth alone.

When Amable had drunk his tea, she put out the lamp and lay down at his side between the woolen blankets, with one arm around his neck. Amable’s shoulders shook at intervals. His wife’s hand soon steadied him.

“Are you crying?” she asked.

Great, warm tears trickled down onto her hand.

“You are!”

Touched by Amable’s distress, and embarrassed by his cowardice thus nakedly displayed, like a large and shameless body, she held him close to her so long as he could not sleep, stroking his temples, stroking his hair, stroking his eyelids.

When his agitation had subsided, one by one her fingers relaxed their grip. And gradually, through her pity for him, came a sense of vague regret, tinged with resentment and secret bitterness.

While there had been still time to keep an eye on his rights, Amable sat rocking beside the glowing stove. And now he had gone to bed in tears. Was this a man? She lay awake in anguish while he slept, breathing peacefully beside her. During the whole of that day he had not uttered a word of sympathy for her, fated much more than he was to live in the company of this detested woman. And she was carrying his child, his first child!

Something unassuaged was tormenting her. Confused images haunted her sleepless hours. She remembered having heard women’s melting voices as they spoke of a feeble but affectionate husband. She saw the reflection of happiness on the lovely, serene face of Marie-Amanda when she mentioned her Ludger Aubuchon, for all her hard and toilsome life on the Île de Grâce. And Angelina, lame but ecstatic at noon on Easter Day, on the steps of the church, while the Pélerine, the bell of Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel, rang out a peal—because the Stranger, after some act of perfidy, had brought her a paltry box of sweets. She saw once more on her knees the box of sweet grass which the Stranger had gathered for her, and she thought of her happiness at the gift.

Conscientiously and remorsefully she banished these pictures from her mind. Amable was a good man, there was no denying that. He didn’t drink. He had no vices. In the dusk she thought she could hear the Stranger’s sardonic tones, “No vices, but all the faults.”

Just as she was about to withdraw her now numbed arm, Amable clutched it. “He’s so weak,” she thought, “and so defenseless.” Henceforward she would have to be brave enough for two. She would have two children, one now lying in her womb, and the other sleeping in her arms.

Since such was to be her lot, she would renounce all impossible joys, as she had put aside the remnants of velvet and of silk which were not for her chapped hands, though from time to time she could not forbear taking them out and holding the glittering fabrics to the light.

“But the child who is to be born—he shall be mine!”

Before sunrise she would stir up Amable to go to the notary and see that they got their rights. If she took the trouble to harness the horse herself and put the reins in his hands, Amable would go. . . . She wouldn’t let an intruder despoil them of their due.

“Let her take her place as I took mine when I entered the family. And bad luck to her.”

Near the threshold flickered a slant of light. In the kitchen the pump squeaked. Footsteps thudded into the next room, then darkness fell. The old people were going to bed. Brusquely Phonsine detached her arm from Amable’s embrace. Dry-eyed, tight-lipped, she lay awake all night, a load of hatred on her heart.

At the first meal together, which she had so dreaded, Phonsine, as much to master her fears as to encourage Amable, pretended to be hungry. Standing beside the sink she filled the tin mug and after the first gulp said, “I could drink the pump dry.”

Then, surveying the round table eagerly, she said, “And now for a good dinner.”

All this exuberance astonished Didace. He said gaily, “Mind you don’t choke, my dear.”

Blanche sat down beside her husband. Instead of helping herself like the others, she held out her plate and asked for what she fancied.

“Just a thin slice of lean, from near the bone.”

With the end of her fork she indicated the tenderest bit of the loin of pork, without fat or garlic, which Phonsine always kept for herself.

Didace sliced off the undercut and gave it to his wife.

“Don’t be afraid, my dear, we aren’t going to let you starve.”

Then he helped her to three roast potatoes, a ladleful of sauce, and on second thought added a fourth potato.

“There you are, old lady, now get on with it.”

Blanche lowered her eyes as she set about cutting up her meat.

“It isn’t that I’m hungry, but I’ve got a weak stomach.”

After the first mouthful she paused. Without speaking, the Acadian looked carefully round the table. Then she made as though to get up. Didace understood and said sharply, “Phonsine, the tea. You’re very slow today. Are your fingers frozen?”

The young woman got up at once.

“Only a drop for me,” said Blanche, as Phonsine poured the tea into the cups, filling them to the brim, except her own, which she left three-quarters full.

On returning to her place, Phonsine stopped, dumbfounded; this woman was again drinking out of her cup.

“But that’s my cup!” she protested, on the verge of tears.

In the hope that they would speak up in her defense, she looked at the two men in turn. Amable, whose thoughts were elsewhere, ate listlessly, with his head low over his place. Didace, as though deaf and impervious to what was going on, dipped a hunk of bread in the bowl of maple sirup.

A doubt shot through Phonsine’s mind: was her father-in-law the just man that she had always thought him? A trustworthy head of a family? And yet one day, when she had been sitting in the Stranger’s armchair, he had made her get up, saying, “No one drinks out of your cup.” The Stranger! He would have got her cup back for her!

Blanche smiled, with eyes downcast. And so, for a smiling woman, a man would disown his father and his mother, and his family. He would let himself be led by her, like a calf on a leash.

Phonsine pushed her half-empty plate away, and broke into sudden laughter. Forced laughter, that came in bursts, false and joyless, and so strange that it made the other three look up.

“Stop!” cried Father Didace. “And don’t you laugh like that again.”

An access of nausea compelled Phonsine to run out of the room; Amable went after her.

“What’s the matter with that daughter-in-law of yours?” asked Blanche. “Has she got the collywobbles?”

Didace shrugged his shoulders. He did not always understand his wife’s language.

“Ah! Her eyes were bigger than her belly.”

A dark struggle for the mastery of the household started between the two women. Apart from the appropriation of the cup, at every meal, according to who happened to be first on the scene, they set themselves to make their days a tissue of rivalries about trifles. If one of them put the saucepan handle to the left, the other always managed to shift it to the right. And so on. Blanche, being more adept, enjoyed it as a game; but Phonsine, naturally more straightforward, had recourse to rather feeble ruses, and she did her utmost to forestall the other in the tasks which her rival preferred. Always side by side, but never heart to heart, they never lent one another a hand in anything.

On the following Sunday, Phonsine got up early, so as to be first on the spot to tie her father-in-law’s necktie. Even Didace was astonished.

“You’re an early bird, little one!”

But Blanche, always an early riser, was before her.

Like Didace Beauchemin, Blanche Varieur was fond of walking against the wind; like him she loved fresh air; and like him she was strong and energetic. She asked, almost as a favor, to be allowed to milk the cows on the Common.

This had been Mathilde’s task in days gone by. After her death Amable had taken her place, and he was succeeded by the Stranger. Later on Amable had taken it on again. Not only did Phonsine, who was susceptible to cold, dislike crossing the Inlet in the autumn as far as the common pasturage and scrambling up the muddy riverbank, but she hadn’t a good hand for milking. The cows, sensitive to her clumsy touch, were inclined to be restive. Moreover, since her pregnancy the smell of hot milk revolted her. But on the afternoon when Blanche talked of taking on the job, Phonsine felt impelled to accompany her.

“What for?” asked Amable. “Let her go by herself, if she’s so keen.”

When they were alone together, they referred to his father’s wife merely as “She.”

“I’m going if I drop dead there,” said Alphonsine obstinately.

After a step or two she turned. “Don’t forget to speak to your father as you promised. Ask him plainly what arrangements he has made, as the notary won’t open his mouth. Try to get him to transfer the property to us by deed of gift, and not by will. D’you understand?”

Blanche was already pushing the oars into the rowlocks. Phonsine took her place in the bow of the boat. On the Common, pools of still water here and there in the hollows shone like golden discs. The cows, heavy with milk, were lowing mournfully. Blanche set to work at once with unfaltering hands. Phonsine, to ease her weak back, sat on the edge of the low stool; bent nearly double, she leaned her forehead against the cow’s russet flank. At first the jets of milk spattered onto the bottom of the metal bucket; then they fell with a soft gurgle like summer rain. Phonsine could see nothing but a white circle. She turned her head a little. Nearby a calf with ecstatic eyes, straddled legs, and whisking tail was drinking from its mother. The light breeze was redolent of warm milk, manure, and muddy water. Everything around Phonsine began to sway. To keep her balance, she jammed her head against the cow’s belly. The beast gave an impatient jerk to one side and kicked the pail over. Instead of going to Phonsine’s aid, Blanche burst out laughing.

From the farther bank Didace saw the mishap, but he heard his wife’s laughter and his heart rejoiced. Hidden behind the broad elm which he was clasping with both hands, he was waiting till the boat came back across the Inlet to feast his eyes on his new wife. The water rippled. The mooring chain rattled against the wharf, and then Blanche disembarked, shaking out her flowered calico, which accentuated her broad hips. With a bucket of milk in each hand, her head thrown back, and a smile on her lips, she walked sedately toward him with her usual swinging step.

“She moves well,” said Father Didace to himself.

Behind her, beyond the northern islands, the sun was setting in a fan of purple. The old man closed his eyes ecstatically. His prayer had been heard, in his flesh and in his heart. His joy made him afraid. Ah, if only this woman could give him a son. The child could not fail to be fine and strong. A true Beauchemin!

A footstep squelched in the undergrowth nearby. But in his rapture Didace did not hear it. Suddenly Amable rose up before him, stammering, “The arrangements! . . . the arrangements. . . .”

“Arrangement? What do you mean?”

“Those you made before the notary—for her.”

“Don’t you worry. There’s plenty of time to talk about all that. In the first place there’s only one master in the house. And that’s not you, if you want to know.”

“I want my rights. I’ve got my mother’s interest in the property, and don’t you forget it.”

“You haven’t the shadow of a claim. You renounced it in writing.”

“On condition that the land came to me.”

“I’ll make a will in your favor.”

“No, a will can be revoked. I want a deed of gift.”

Give his land away! In the flower of his age! The prospective father of a second family! Was it Phonsine who was going to upset the Beauchemin dynasty?

He let go the tree and advanced toward Amable.

“I suppose Phonsine sent you. It’s she who wants a deed of gift?” He spat. “A woman who can’t even milk a cow. She ought to be ashamed of herself.”

“Ashamed! If anyone ought to be ashamed, it’s you, at your age, hiding behind a tree to get a peep at the girls.”

“You blasted swine . . .!”

Shaken by the altercation, Didace stopped and staggered. Amable pressed his advantage home.

“How much have you made over to her, eh?”

Didace’s wrath subsided. He was master. His voice steadied. “I never asked quarter from any man alive,” he began.

He turned his head toward the Common. The sun was now flecking the gold pools in the hollows with sanguine stains.

“I gave her a life interest in the farm, so long as she bore my name—the Beauchemin name. That’s no more than was just and reasonable.”

And truculently he added, “And damn his eyes who dares to contradict me!”

Marie-Amanda arrived for a first visit. Without leaving her time to sit down, Phonsine took advantage of Blanche’s absence to say to her, in the secret hope of rallying her to her cause, “Your poor, dear, kind mother! Replaced already.”

Suppressing her own distress in an effort to try and soothe her sister-in-law’s mind, Marie-Amanda replied, “Yes, but poor, dear mother’s dead. . . .”

“Who would have believed it of your father, at his age.”

“A man’s not made to live alone, Phonsine. You must know that.”

“David Desmarais is still a widower.”

“That’s an extreme case; he’s half dead already. And don’t forget one thing: he’s got Angelina to look after his farm.”

“Do you suggest that I neglect this place?”

“I don’t say yes, and I don’t say no. But if my father’s happy now he’s married again, so much the better.”

“In that case,” retorted Phonsine peevishly, “if you happened to die, your Ludger. . . .”

Marie-Amanda did not let her finish.

“If he married a sensible person who’d be kind to the children, all the better!”

None the less she was seized by sudden panic, and paused to pray inwardly, “But not too pretty, O God, nor too young.” And she resolved to take more care of her looks in the future.

“Well, I pity your father when he wakes up,” said Phonsine. “I pity him with all my heart.”

Marie-Amanda went to the cupboard. She could not help admiring the orderliness that now reigned in the household. Alluding to Blanche, she said, “Surely so capable a woman must be a help, as you aren’t very strong.”

Each of these words of Marie-Amanda’s fell upon the ear like the pronouncement of a sentence. Measured words, replete with sense, wisdom, and force, they lingered in the mind. . . . This was solid earth compared with Amable, always groping for an argument, stammering out his stumbling utterances, especially when he was in the right.

Phonsine watched her shut the cupboard door. Marie-Amanda brought to all her gestures a dignity and significance which gave the least of them an air of something definite. Even the very objects seemed to obey her. Never did she knock anything over. Phonsine, naturally awkward, always hesitant, whose clumsy, nervous hands dropped the bread at nearly every meal and who, more often than not, set the chairs askew, thought, “She shuts the door as though she was closing a tomb, without so much as noticing it. If I were as stout and strong as she is, I’d let everybody know it!” She considered the unfairness of physical endowments: the eldest daughter, oblivious of her strength, inheritress of the Beauchemin energy; and Amable, soft and flabby, always ready to dodge any exertion. Blanche would be getting to work on him, if she—Phonsine—didn’t keep extremely wide awake.

In a toneless voice she answered Marie-Amanda.

“I feel nervous with a woman like her about.”

Marie-Amanda retorted angrily, “Are you going to spend your whole life in this perpetual state of misery? The mere sight of you fills the whole house with fog. You’ll soon become intolerable.”

Phonsine walked to the window. Outside, the cock was harrying the hens.

“Handsome little creature!” exclaimed Marie-Amanda.

The vision of the earth, rich and brown from recent plowing, lavish in promise, merely accentuated Phonsine’s bitterness.

The backwash of her past, which she had thought settled forever, but which had already been stirred up by Blanche’s arrival, now surged into her mind. Through that troubled water, memories frothed up to the surface—memories of her orphan infancy, dependent on public charity; memories of her humiliated girlhood among pampered companions who knew only loving kindness; memories of her young womanhood in service.

Gray bubbles rose and burst.

Her first wages, a few dollars laboriously earned at the age of fifteen, symbol of liberation, which she had triumphantly displayed to her father, but which he, slave of the passion which was to kill him soon afterward, grabbed and kept. Her departure to Montreal, full of high hopes, with all her belongings in a little gray, strapped suitcase, in which she took much pride, as calculated to make a good impression, but which merely evoked a disdainful grin from her new mistress. And the smiles of haughty masters, who laughed at Phonsine’s clumsiness and rustic speech in company, but made overtures to her in secret. One evening, to amuse their guests, they held her up to ridicule in public. Phonsine had wept for rage. Later on she had laughed in their faces. It amused her to see the display of silver, glass, and costly wines set out before their friends like a row of two-horsed carriages; the furs and jewels; all this just to help them to jeer at their waiting maid. Had they no conversation of their own? But that very evening she had wept her heart out.

More bubbles rose and burst, gray ones also. . . .

Her solitary walks on the quays when the steamer was leaving for Sorel, or to the Bonaventure Station to meet the train, lurking behind the pillars in the sole hope of glimpsing a face she knew. . . .

The water cleared once more. . . .

One evening, two days before Christmas, she had had a vision of herself. Salvation appeared to her in the person of Amable-Didace, a tall young man, decent, quiet, and gentle, who would know how to take care of her, since he had asked her hand in marriage. Her feet were aching to get away to Monk’s Inlet, to see the snow fall on the long fields, unfailing and eternal, to hear the jingle of the sleighbells, to sit down at the friendly table in the square-set house, where there were none to waylay her, and where, one day, when the reign of Mother Mathilde ended, she in her turn would be queen and mistress. There lay salvation and lasting security.

Phonsine raised a hand to her forehead.

“Have you got a headache?” asked Marie-Amanda.

“I feel as if my head were always touching the ceiling.”

Intent upon her idea, she continued, “And to think your father has to provide for her so long as she shall bear the name of Beauchemin.”

“Well, you and Amable are the only people who object to that.”

Phonsine looked grim.

“Yes, and I’m right and everyone else is wrong.”

Marie-Amanda could not understand. She had never known the vital terror of having nothing to fall back on but the street, not even the road.

“Why in heaven did the Stranger need to stop just here, a year ago almost to the day? We were so comfortable among ourselves, we three Beauchemins: your father, Amable, and then myself.”

“Ah, Phonsine, we mustn’t waste time wondering why things happen. . . . Why does a green leaf fall, and another go on growing?”

“He could easily have walked on, or gone to roost in the next place, leaving us in peace. How much we should have been spared: your father wouldn’t have married Blanche . . . poor Angelina wouldn’t have cried her heart out over him . . . Joinville Provençal wouldn’t have taken to drink . . . and we. . . .”

“Stop! You talk as if he were antichrist. My father always said that the Stranger had many good qualities.”

Phonsine blushed. “Because he was as strong as an ox, and knew how to use his hands, too. The paragon, as Pierre-Côme calls him. Just think! A nondescript who doesn’t even know his own name—a wastrel, if there ever was one, who took a pride in tramping the high roads. He had a notch on his shoulder from carrying his pack across it. And last month he showed himself up by the way he slipped off like an Indian. Not even a wave of the hand.”

“Don’t forget that Spot followed him; he isn’t a dog to take to anybody.”

“And the Stranger hadn’t even the heart to keep him.”

“How do you know? They may well have missed each other on the road. . . . Anyway, you can’t deny that the Stranger was thoughtful, such as few people are nowadays. A nice fellow, too, and never grumbled. And apart from all that, he was easy to look at, with his graceful walk and his flaming red hair—like a forest fire, as Angelina used to say.”

Phonsine turned her head away and stood in pensive silence. Then, with an odd glitter in her eye, she murmured, “I wonder if I shall ever see the end of this new woman. . . .”

“Don’t talk like that,” said Marie-Amanda, reproachfully.

“I tell you frankly, Marie-Amanda, I’m afraid of what may happen later on. I’m afraid. I always felt as though there was a load on my heart.”

Phonsine’s profile stood out, thin and drawn, against the pallid light. She began to tremble. Marie-Amanda laid an arm affectionately round her shoulders.

“My dear Phonsine.”

She could feel the young woman’s bones through her clothes. More touched by her emaciation and frailty than her uneasiness, which seemed to her childish, Marie-Amanda felt truly sorry for her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll stand by you. Later on, if you’re feeling that way, give me a call.”

Phonsine thought she would not be inclined to ask for comfort; but there was a charm in Marie-Amanda’s words that did its work.

The women of the Inlet, although distrustful of the new arrival, did not actually cold-shoulder her, out of regard for Didace. But they kept their eyes on everything she did; they weighed every word she uttered. A woman whose past remained a mystery, except that she had worked on the coastal lighters, a buxom, handsome woman of her age must undoubtedly have led an easygoing sort of life. Too much so, in fact. They, who had always toiled so hard, bore her all the deeper a grudge. Besides, their husbands, from sheer perversity, always praised her in their wives’ hearing.

Pierre-Côme Provençal had been the very first to say, “Aha! A fine figure of a woman.”

“By gosh, yes! As solid as a stone house,” added Jacob Salvail.

“I tell you straight that if I had a woman like that at home, I wouldn’t put my nose outside in the winter, not even to fetch a bucket of water.”

“Well, Father Didace won’t spend many nights shooting black duck this autumn.”

And, as David Desmarais came in, “Why, even our Davy had his eye on her yesterday. . . .”

David laid his black cap on the floor beside his chair and said in his quiet voice, “Don’t you worry on my account. I never look at a girl.”

“Well! No one thought you were quite so dried up as that!”

This produced a babble of laughter, but the women set their lips ominously. The truth was that the men felt at ease in the company of this smooth-browed woman who let them smoke in peace or talk without ever interrupting them or asking questions.

One evening when they were all spending the evening at the Beauchemins’, Pierre-Côme suddenly announced, “Yes—Big Paul, from the Northwest, has just been visiting his family.”

“Surely you mean Big Paul’s son, Little Pierre, from the Islands, don’t you?” interrupted Laure Provençal.

“It’s intolerable,” burst out Pierre-Côme, “to have a wife who can’t keep her mouth shut. Kindly let me finish.”

He blew out a puff of smoke and then went on in his natural voice, “He says he’s got two hundred and fifty acres of good land over there, all plowed, ready for the spring sowing.”

“Yes, it should be first-rate land. But no one has seen it.”

“Two hundred and fifty acres, eh! But it’s a devilish long way off . . . practically at the other end of the earth.”

“And that’s not all; they are going to build a breakwater, right opposite Sorel.”

“Who are?”

“The government boys!”

“An election breakwater,” snapped Didace. “As soon as they begin to dig and lay foundations—mark my words—there’ll be an election.”

The argument quickened.

“And what does Madam think about it?” said Jacob Salvail, merely to provoke her into talking.

She did not hear. At the far end of her musings, a barge was rocking on the water. And on the deck mariners came and went—strong, lithe men—men always ravenous, who passed, without thinking, from prayers to curses in the hour of peril.

“What can be in her mind all the time?” said Father Didace uneasily to himself. “She’s never with the rest of us. Like an island away out at sea. Every time she comes back, it’s as though she made an effort, as though she had to cross the water, and a lot of water too. It must be very tiresome!”

He pitied her.

“Hey, old lady, they’re talking to you,” said he in a low tone.

His wife blinked. “Eh? What’s that?”

She stiffened, and sat with that proud carriage of the head that endows some women with a sort of fleshly splendor.

“They’re asking what you think of it.”

“Me? Oh, nothing.”

And that was all.

“I know one lady who has never gone to bed late,” said the Sainte-Anne shopman, with a wink at the men.

“Why?” asked one of the women.

“Well . . . she doesn’t look as if anything could tire her.”

Flattered by this naïve homage, Blanche burst out laughing. Phonsine saw nothing funny in the remark. And she was annoyed with her mother-in-law for laughing at the shopman’s remarks. Besides, the woman was absurd; she laughed like a clucking hen.

Her plump shoulders still shaking with laughter, Blanche made her way into the bedroom. From her long service on barges, with their low and narrow doorways, she still retained the trick of never walking straight through a door; she negotiated it sideways, shoulder first, and then her large and buxom hip.

This method of going through a door irritated Phonsine, who was so thin that she could have slipped between two stalks of hay.

“What would Father Didace’s first wife have thought of her, in that light muslin frock . . .,” Phonsine wondered. “Poor, shrinking little Mother Mathilde, in her black apron, who always slipped out so unobtrusively when any unwelcome visitor appeared. . . .”

On the way back, Laure Provençal said to Mother Salvail, “Surely she must feel the need to talk sometimes. When she is with men, of course, she need only look pretty. . . .”

“Men, indeed! So long as a woman’s got a well-filled bosom they don’t trouble to look at her face; they’ll swear she’s as pretty as a picture!”

“I’ll make her talk one of these days. I’ve got an idea that she knows a thing or two about the handsome Stranger. I daresay she had some dealings with him. . . .”

Indian summer!

At all times of day the men were to be seen, their pipes in their mouths and their noses in the air, strolling down to the beach to sniff the wind . . . drowsy peace among the russet stubble . . . a sky of blue and white without the slightest threat of rain . . . a faint breeze, light and fleeting as a breath, augured nothing good. But the fine days were drawing to an end. The muskrats were already building their homes. And here and there clumps of rushes stood up out of the river.

The outdoor work must be hurried on. The women, at the suggestion of Laure Provençal, took advantage of the arrival of a consignment of soap to assemble one afternoon on the beach near the great elm opposite the Beauchemins’ house. Father Didace had made a fire against the arrival of the women neighbors. Blanche was gazing into the distance. He went up to her.

“That island over yonder, old lady, is what we call Île Plate; its trees, mostly willows, are flattened by the ice. It’s under water every spring. Farther on is Queue-de-Rat, at the far end of the Île aux Sables. And the one nearby is a nice little island shaped like a crescent moon.”

His eyes lit up with pleasure.

“I shoot there sometimes. Farther out still are the Îles de la Girodeau, one of them is called Île à la Cavale. . . . There’s shelter there against the high winds of late autumn, when one’s out shooting or fishing on the banks. The lake’s no place to be out on in a storm, I can tell you!”

An indulgent smile passed over Blanche’s lips, she who had sailed the Atlantic, encountered hurricanes when the waves ran mountain-high.

“There are a lot of islands,” she said after a pause.

“I should say there are, more than I could count.”

“But no hills of any size.”

Father Didace thought she shared his devotion to the Sorel countryside. He looked proudly round him.

“No, nothing much to catch the eye. We see . . . just as far as we want to see.”

She did not stir. Her stalwart body erect, she stood sniffing the soft, irritating moisture that clings to the skin; how she longed for the strong smell of salt water, of holds packed with salt fish, and the tides that soak into the very flesh.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Father Didace, in a flush of impatience at seeing her thus motionless and abstracted. “Come along!”

Blanche lent a willing hand to the needful labors. She helped to melt the fat, to weigh the rosin, and stir the simmering soap. Although there were several who, by their allusions, tried to sting her into talking, she let their tongues wag, never uttering an unnecessary word.

When the work was done and dusk was falling, Laure Provençal was about to retire in vexation with the women neighbors, when an exclamation made her look up.

“Zarovitch,” cried Bernadette Salvail.

Engulfed in his voluminous garments, bent under his pack, with a valise in either hand, the pedlar, a Rumanian Jew, was approaching around the corner of the house.

He had long been a familiar figure on Monk’s Inlet. Sometimes he had made two or three yearly visits there. Other years he would not come at all, confident of finding his territory uninvaded when he did return.

“It must be pretty near six years since we saw you hereabouts.”

The Jew lifted two fingers, while he peered about him in search of someone in the crowd.

“Two yearth!” he lisped.

“Now then, open your cases. I hope you’ve got something nice to show us.”

But the Jew, disappointed at finding so many women there, shook his head. He walked on and set down his valises by the wall of the house. Then he mopped his brow with a red and blue cotton handkerchief, and said to the assemblage at large, “Where’s the lady of the house?”

Phonsine went up to him.

“Not the little lady. The lady herself.”

On learning that Mathilde was dead, his eyes rested on Blanche, whom he did not know.

“Is this the new lady of the house?”

From the silence that greeted his question, he understood that he had guessed right.

The little group moved toward the bakehouse. Once the lamp was lit, the girls gathered round the pedlar and coaxed him to unpack his wares.

A haggard figure, his hair matted over his forehead, his hat tilted onto the back of his head, his bronze eyes hardly visible in his tanned face, the pedlar, looking perplexed, stood in the middle of the room, with his arms close to his sides and his knees together, as though in fear of losing the least particle of body heat.

“Hey! Zarovitch! So you aren’t dead yet?” said Father Didace, who came in accompanied by Odilon and Amable. He sat down beside his wife.

“He’s a wily bird, that pedlar,” whispered Blanche to him with a smile.

Zarovitch yielded to the women’s entreaties, but without much enthusiasm. As he produced various small articles he enumerated them as though he were reciting a litany.

“—Spring knives . . . safety pins . . . braces . . . lovely braces.”

He duly set them out. His quavering voice and rather slurred pronunciation made him difficult to understand.

“Scapularies . . . rosaries . . . horn combs . . . fine combs. . . .”

With a wink at the others, Bernadette Salvail said, “Have you still got any of those nice side combs, like you had the last time, two years ago?”

The pedlar stiffened into immobility. He seemed to be searching his memory before looking into his valise. Then his face lit up.

“Those little face combs?”

Everybody burst out laughing. David Desmarais and Pierre-Côme were passing down the road. Attracted by the laughter, they came in.

“Hey, Davy! Ask the pedlar to show you his combs. You’d look well with one each side of your face, and a fine cock’s feather on the top of your head.”

“. . . Fa-a-th combs,” repeated the pedlar, gratified by everyone’s good humor and deliberately exaggerating his comic pronunciation.

Laughter again rippled around the little group.

In one corner the two little Salvails were inspecting a spring knife and clicking its blades. The women formed a circle, a double row of heads here and there, around the pedlar. Only Blanche held aloof.

“Come along, old lady,” said Didace. “You can’t see from where you are.”

“I’m all right,” rejoined Blanche. “I don’t need anything.”

She went on rocking to and fro, ignoring the furtive glances flung at her from time to time.

“. . . A harmonica. . . .”

“Oh!” cried Bernadette Salvail. “A lovely mouth organ for only a dollar and a half.”

From one year to the next the pedlar carried the instrument about with the rest of his wares, nor was it indeed for sale. As soon as anyone showed signs of wanting to buy it, he put the harmonica back in its case, or raised its price.

“A har-mo-ni-ca,” piped one of the children, mimicking the old man’s speech.

“He talks good French,” said Rose-de-Lima Bibeau.

The women all agreed.

“He always has done,” said Laure. “You can see that he has traveled in the old countries, he speaks so carefully.”

Pierre-Côme became indignant.

“Look at all those females in raptures about a foreigner who hasn’t even been baptized. And quite ready to give him our last cent. And there’s a bright young shopman in the parish who comes to the door twice a week, sells good stuff, and gives us credit when we need it. And always so polite. I never did like the looks of this fellow. . . .”

Deaf to their talk, the pedlar warmed the glittering tin instrument between his hands and then against his cheek. He closed his eyes. His moist, crimson lips gleamed through his drooping mustache. Then he began to play, slowly, laboriously, as though he were drawing a melody out of his very heart—so languorous and nostalgic an air that it seemed to all who heard it the expression of their own romantic longings.

When he had finished, Joinville Provençal, bare-headed and distinctly tipsy, his shirt half unbuttoned, suddenly appeared. He had vanished from the Inlet on the day before and no one knew where he had been.

“So you’ve been on the loose again,” said Pierre-Côme sternly.

His mother came up to him and said in her shrillest tones, “Button your shirt at once. You’re a disgrace!”

But then she leaned forward and said in his ear, “You’ll catch cold. Are you hungry? Won’t you have something to eat?”

Angelina looked at him wide-eyed. Father Didace was also observing him from some way off, and said to himself, “He’s aping the Stranger, as though he would do it by copying his faults. The other chap had stuff in him that made up for his misdeeds. But this one hasn’t—not he.”

Ignoring what was going on, Joinville pushed the children out of his way, knelt down on the floor, slipped his fingers through the ring of the trap door, and tried to lift it.

“What on earth is he up to?” asked one of the women.

Blanche laughed till she cried. Her flesh quivered with her mirth. She had to keep on mopping her streaming face. Father Didace eyed her with childish admiration.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she gurgled. “I oughtn’t to be laughing like this, I feel as if my heart was going to burst.”

Odilon Provençal hoisted Joinville roughly to his feet and carried him off.

“I know what it is,” explained Catherine Provençal. “He thinks he’s at home.”

“How do you mean?” asked Bernadette Salvail.

“Well, the other Saturday he came back from Sorel very drunk indeed. My father was waiting for him—and had been, for quite a while! When he caught sight of him he lifted the door of the cellar and slung him down to cool off. He thought it was the best thing to do. So now when Joinville comes home tipsy, the first thing he does, all on his own, is to shut himself into the cellar—see?”

“Just like my Uncle Barthelemy’s cat,” said Bernadette Salvail. “When she made a mess on the floor, my uncle always put her out of the window, to teach her not to do it. And ever afterward, when she forgot herself, she hopped out of the window straightway.”

“Now don’t let’s laugh at him,” protested Rose-de-Lima Bibeau, who was rather fond of Joinville. “He thinks he’s clever when he imitates the Stranger, silly boy.”

“Never you utter that name before my mother!”

“Well, the little tin god of the open road doesn’t raise much dust at Monk’s Inlet these days,” remarked Bernadette.

“You think he’s raised enough?” asked Genevieve Provençal.

At the other extremity of the circle the women were talking.

“Does Joinville still drink?” asked Mother Salvail in an undertone.

“Well, well, well! You must be the only person who doesn’t know. He takes his drop like a man.”

The pedlar produced a fan, pleated like an accordion, and passed it round. Phonsine opened it full out. On it was a picture of the Hotel Ponce de Léon, with a group of Negroes, palm trees, and crocodiles in the foreground. When it reached Blanche, instead of examining it she began to fan herself, with a quick, easy grace that the other women secretly envied.

“. . . scented soap . . . thread . . . colored pins . . .”

Phonsine looked rapturously at each object produced by the pedlar. She was soon laden with them. Annoyed by her enthusiasm and thinking she wanted to buy the whole lot, Didace said to Amable in a warning tone, “You’d better keep your eye on her. We don’t sweat all the year round to put money in the pedlar’s pockets.”

Last of all, Zarovitch brought out the fabrics. The women gathered round yet more eagerly. But they could not sample everything at the same time: the fleecy woolens, the satins, the flannel, and the strips of Valenciennes lace. Then he laid out separately, across the back of a chair, a length of glossy golden-brown alpaca. At the exclamations of the women, Blanche got up and looked at it with melting eyes, as the pedlar noticed. Scenting a sale, and peering at her through half-closed lids, he began to dilate on the qualities of the material, as though for her benefit alone. “Double width . . . pure silk . . . doesn’t crease . . . six yards . . . the very thing for an outsized lady . . .”

He then crumpled the fabric, which at once resumed its shape.

“That would make me a nice dress,” said Phonsine. She was thinking of the not far distant time when she would need to disguise her shape under an ampler garment.

“A six yards’ length,” muttered the Acadian to Father Didace. “Why, she’d be lost in it.”

“How much for the whole length?” asked Phonsine.

“I’ll let you have it cheap. . . .”

“How much?” persisted Phonsine.

He stretched out a hand with the thumb bent back, as though he couldn’t count without the help of his fingers.

“Four dollars—only four dollars.”

Alas, she must not buy. Her last dress was only three months old, and she did not want to reveal her pregnant state to her father-in-law.

The women neighbors postponed their purchases until the following day. The pedlar would call at their houses, and they had already exchanged meaning looks with him on the subject of such-and-such an article which they wanted reserved for them.

Zarovitch slept at the Beauchemins’. On the following morning, after breakfast, he made ready to depart. Phonsine watched him pack up his wares in their various bales, a world of marvels in her eyes. She had bought nothing but a pink horn comb, which—so Didace thought—would be quite useless, and a length of flannel intended for the baby’s layette.

On Blanche’s arm shone the length of golden alpaca cloth.

“Hey!” cried Phonsine, surprised into abruptness, “you’ve forgotten to give that back to the pedlar.”

“No, I haven’t,” replied Blanche quietly. “Father Didace bought it for me as a present.”

Phonsine grew pale. Her heart wrung with bitterness and vexation, she went out and sat on the doorstep. What sort of female was this, to get Didace to give her such a present? She had probably told him some sort of fancy tale.

To think that she, Phonsine, was carrying the next Beauchemin, and never yielded to any kind of caprice. And she pressed the strip of flannel affectionately to her heart.

Over the islands wisps of gray smoke were rising slowly from the treetops. Above the Inlet a long-winged teal, which had dropped behind its flight, was skimming distractedly to and fro. The pedlar, his back bent beneath his pack, moved off along the road. Then came a gust of wind, the dust eddied round him, and finally hid him from view.

Didace came up. Phonsine averted her eyes when he passed close by, pretending to be picking up something from the ground. The soil, to her touch, felt as warm as in the heart of summer.

Two days later came an abrupt awakening to the full force of autumn. There was even a slight fall of snow. On Sunday the town crier announced for the last time that the animals must be cleared off the Common.

The landowners of three counties then began to flock into the Inlet: substantial men, silent and astute men, with rubicund faces, and the smaller farmers, full of their own importance, whip in hand and talking very loud, always ready for a row. Those who did not belong to the parish shut their cattle into the temporary stake and post enclosure.

For the space of two days Monk’s Inlet was like a traveling fair. A strange clamor pervaded the countryside—shouts and oaths and laughter, the thud of galloping hooves, the lowing of stampeding cows. Every time the ferry brought a herd across, the road was dotted with bright patches of red as the oxen scrambled past. Now and again, from a thicket or behind a hedge or through a half-open door, came the voices of the women gaily chaffing the leader of the procession.

In the evening the men gathered at the barrier, on the trampled earth, to talk and smoke by the light of the lantern. Pierre-Côme was eager to talk politics, but the landowners of Maska were not easily drawn.

“Reciprocity . . . reciprocity . . . yes, as much as you like. Before the elections, it’s give me an egg and I’ll give you an ox. But after them, boys, it’s another story: an ox for an egg, eh?”

“All right, you’re Red and we’re Blue. We shan’t change our coats.”

Others were doing a little horse dealing on the side.

“If I exchange my filly for your gray, what will you give me for good measure?”

“A kick in the right place.”

“Aha, Pierre-Côme! Is that what’s called reciprocity?”

Didace usually talked about shooting.

“There’s not much doing at present, of course. The water’s as high as it is in spring. The ducks have stopped at Rimbaud’s place, where there’s still some buckwheat. The folks up there are killing hundreds, I’m told, in broad daylight, without putting a foot outside their front doors.”

“You don’t say!”

“And on the lake there’s hardly a duck to be seen.”

“What! Isn’t old Didace shooting this autumn?”

“He can’t leave home, you see. A man with a young wife has to watch out for the stork.”

“It would be a joke if the father put the son’s nose out of joint.”

“I guess that would be Easter before Palm Sunday.”

“Well, he’s spry enough to bring it off.”

Didace listened with a complacent ear, but Amable clenched his fists.

“Keep your beastly mouths shut!”

“Well,” said a man from Maska, “if you do decide to shoot, you’re welcome to use my blind; it’s the first along the small sandbank.”

In the night the beacon on Île aux Raisins winked a brisk and knowing eye.

At the end of the second day, only one horse was left on the Common, the big chestnut belonging to David Desmarais. Every effort to capture it had failed. A council was held at the Beauchemins’ to consider how best to catch it. The older men’s advice was to ferry over to Monk’s Island some fresh and rested horses, which would gallop about and carry the obstinate beast along with them—or a white horse, which other horses would always follow.

But the younger men urged that the chestnut should be allowed to run loose for a few days.

“After all, he can’t get into much mischief,” said Odilon. “But wait till the snow really begins to fall. He’ll come down to the riverbank fast enough and give himself up.”

“He can browse enough to keep himself alive, and drink the marsh water,” observed Amable.

But Angelina and the older men objected.

“Why let the beast suffer for nothing?”

“And he’s sure to damage his hooves.”

“He’ll get completely out of hand.”

“Now my Varieur. . . .”

The name reverberated through the kitchen like a shutter slamming in the wind. Everybody turned toward the woman from Acadia. But she, feeling the unuttered censure closing in on her, did not finish her sentence.

“Do you remember. . . .”

Pierre-Côme paused and groped for words. The feeling was that he was talking mainly to dispel the embarrassment that had come upon the company.

“Do you remember the autumn when two cows were lost on the Common? Only their carcasses were found next spring.”

On the following day, the men in batches of two again went in pursuit of the animal. Joinville Provençal and Father Didace stood bent forward, on the alert, near a thicket. They could hear in the distance the loose horse galloping hard in their direction. He stopped nearby. His mane flying in the wind, his nostrils dilated, the chestnut stood and neighed; his glossy, sinewy barrel quivered from breast to quarters.

“Do you know what he reminded me of?” asked Joinville.

Didace merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Of the Stranger when he. . . .”

“Hey, neveurmagne,” snapped Didace.

At the sound of his voice the horse resumed its gallop, scattering sods of earth as it passed.

“You see?” said Father Didace. . . . “They missed the chance of catching it, and it’s your fault.”

But he said no more. Standing up, the blood throbbing in his temples, he listened; he had just recognized a unique clamor in the sky. A flock of gray geese, still invisible, was approaching, shrilly trumpeting their flight from the Arctic ice and their descent to warmer waters. Soon they swooped down over the river and flew lower. Suddenly, breaking the symmetry of the triangle, one goose, and then two, then several others, dropped away and flew confusedly about, soaring right and left with vaguely flapping wings, as though at the mercy of the wind. Suddenly again they rejoined flight, now shaped in a double triangle. Again they dispersed, each flying independently with drooping, listless pinions. Then at a secret command they resumed the strict order of their flight, heads outstretched, sped onward by a controlling will and the instinct of their race toward brighter strands, less melancholy reed beds—toward fertility.

They disappeared beyond the southern lands while Didace’s piercing eyes were still searching the firmament.

“What a grand sight!” he said to Joinville. “It’s fine to see them pass over in that close formation.”

“Who is it tells them where to go? Who is it tells them when to start?”

In a gesture of bafflement Didace lifted up his arms.

“Ah! the order comes to them from very far away . . . and from very high up. . . . The Indians say that when the geese fall out of rank, as you saw, the old chief is giving up his place to a younger one, who has a try or two, and then takes the lead himself.”

An hour later at the other end of the island a red rag was hoisted at the end of a stick; the horse had just been caught. This gave Didace no satisfaction. His heart was burdened with vague longings, and he remained pensive until the evening.

Life then began once more at Monk’s Inlet, apparently unchanged. But the Acadian woman had lost her importance in the eyes of everyone except Phonsine and Amable, who still regarded her with unchanged aversion. The parish having resumed first place in men’s minds, the women neighbors, their jealousy assuaged, would have soon reduced her to the same level as themselves.

Even Father Didace no longer treated his wife so solicitously as before, nor with so much affection, since she had put him to shame by talking so publicly of her Varieur husband. When he saw her meditative, or staring into vacancy, or listening to the wail of a boat’s siren, he was much annoyed.

“Ha!” he said to himself, “she’s off with that blasted old man of hers again.”

“When do we start quilting?” asked Laure Provençal suddenly, one evening when the women were sitting together.

At their look of surprise, she explained, “Surely you haven’t forgotten that our Lisabel is going to be married the day after Twelfth-night. There are two counterpanes to be quilted yet. And it’s nearly Advent already. . . .”

“What about Thursday?” said Blanche eagerly, her zeal aroused by the news of an approaching wedding. “You might come here, as the frame is set up and ready.”

“And you might give us a hand with our doughnuts later in the afternoon,” suggested Phonsine.

“Thank you, no,” said Blanche, indignantly. “I don’t call in other folks to help me at my jobs. When I was on salt water and had thirty or forty men to feed, I managed all right. All the more so here. . . .”

“All right, all right,” retorted Laure Provençal. “But a little help is very welcome all the same.”

On the Thursday, Angelina, on the point of leaving the house to go to the Beauchemins’, glanced around the kitchen to make sure that everything was in order. A chair was a little out of line, a log was sticking out of the pile of wood; she set them in place. With her hand on the latch of the door she paused, looking thoughtful. Her father was watching her. Since the Stranger’s departure he had admired her for not giving way to her distress. “She bears her cross,” he thought, and instinctively he bent his shoulders. He knew the weight of one; he had borne his at his wife’s death. But time had eased that sorrow.

“Put on some warm clothes, my girl,” he said to her. “It’s snowing a bit and will soon be snowing hard. Winter has come.”

He took his cap with earflaps from where it hung on the back of a chair and went out with Angelina, to get a better look at the weather. Even more clearly than the white particles that starred the void, the chill in the air spoke of the approach of winter. The countryside was assuming the harsh look of those austere, impenetrable women who keep their sorrows to themselves.

Father Didace was making his way along the road, struggling against the storm.

“Stop and get warm,” David Desmarais shouted to him, “and have a bite of food.”

Each syllable rang out, clear and distinct, in the resonant air.

“No,” said Didace curtly.

“Winter’s here, eh? I suppose it will soon be snowing good and proper.”

“Can’t quite say yet. But . . . there’s a smell of snow. Dappled skies, like painted girls, can’t be trusted.”

“When people begin to walk about with their backs bent—that means winter,” said David Desmarais as he watched Didace move off, his head hunched between his shoulders.

He had not got back home before a snow cloud came down.

“No, this isn’t the snow, this isn’t the winter yet. It’s just a fog,” said Angelina obstinately, going out to the stable to get the spruce broom and sweep the snow off the steps and the path.

But at the end of it lay the road, dazzling white, like a great arm slumbering across the land. As long as the road kept a look of autumn, Angelina had believed in the Stranger’s return. After the snowfall, the road changed. Back would come the beacon lights, meetings would be difficult when travelers must often make detours across the open fields. The Stranger would never return by that same road; she felt that in her bones. And now desolation fell more and more heavily upon her, like snow upon the plain.

Such despair assailed her that she seized the spruce broom in both hands and bent it on the whitened ground. “You vile road, it’s you, and all the people on you, that robbed me of the Stranger.”

From the crest of a poplar came the plaintive hoot of a screech owl. At the sound of that quavering call, Angelina grew calmer. The snow flurry blinded her vision.

There were hardly any birds left on Monk’s Inlet. A few seagulls lingered, and some of the more voracious owls that hunted for field mice on the Common. Of wild duck, only the weak and wounded, left to their fate by the migrating squadrons.

A wood cart driven by Joinville Provençal nearly ran into Angelina. She had not heard it approach.

“Winter has come,” cried Joinville gaily. “Look at the snowbirds playing about.”

A flock of little white birds were indeed flying through the gusts over the stubble. They scattered before the speeding wind, swooped upward, and then dropped like little balls of snow.

“Winter has come,” said Angelina, at last convinced. She waited until the cart had moved off. Then she went out and picked up a dropped log.

Angelina was the first to reach the Beauchemins’ house. She at once began to mix some bluing with a little flour. The counterpane was already stretched on the frame, resting on a chair at each corner. As the women neighbors arrived, bringing their scissors and thimbles, they divided the work between them. Two dipped a cord in the blue liquid, which they pulled out at arm’s length and then let drop, now straight and now aslant, so as to make a diamond design on the fabric. Others prepared long needlefuls of thread, lazy women’s needlefuls as they are called, which they laid beside some pairs of freshly ground scissors.

More muffled up than usual, Mother Salvail was the last arrival. Gasping for breath, stretching out her hands to the warmth of the stove, she could not make up her mind to shed her finery.

“You smelt the doughnuts, eh, you witch?” said Laure Provençal, with a malicious glance at the others.

“That’s a smell from next door,” rejoined the Acadian, who had caught the allusion.

Laughter pealed through the kitchen.

“You’d better take something off,” cried Laure Provençal, “if you don’t want to get roasted.”

“Let me warm up a bit first. We aren’t in such a hurry as all that. My bones have been aching for the last two days. There’s bad weather on the way.”

“Now then, shed another skin.”

She was wearing a woolen wrap, a small shawl, and a cape.

“God in heaven,” said one of the Mondor ladies, “if she takes off any more, there’ll be nothing left but the core.”

Three of them took their places beside the frame, one at each end, the best quilters taking charge of the more difficult places. Their hands were as agile as their tongues.

“Aren’t you going to make us something tasty for our trouble?” said Blanche suddenly to Laure Provençal.

“Something tasty?” asked Laure, who did not understand.

“She means a special dish for the wedding.”

“Oh, if that’s it, don’t you worry. It will be a proper wedding.”

“With a fiddler,” put in Bernadette Salvail.

“Not just one—two, so that the music won’t have to stop.”

“And lots of food.”

“If you like,” suggested the Acadian, “I’ll make a six-layered pie, with three or four sorts of meat, and a rich slab of pastry in between.”

“Is that good?” asked Lisabel Provençal.

“I should just think so.”

Blanche licked her lips.

“My stomach rumbles at the very mention of it.”

“Sure,” said Mother Salvail. “But Angelina’s a first-rate hand at pastry.”

Laure Provençal went on, “No one ever got up from our table without having eaten his fill. And all the more so at a wedding. This won’t be a widower’s wedding.”

Phonsine, intent on what was being said, tripped over the rocker of a chair, she was laughing so violently.

“Look at her trailing around all the time,” said Blanche, by way of vengeance on her daughter-in-law.

Emboldened by the presence of others, Phonsine, quite crimson, said, “Were you referring to me?”

“Who else? The way you shuffle about makes me tired.”

“Well, it makes me just as tired to see the way you always bustle about.”

Phonsine’s retort delighted the company. No one had thought she could defend herself so stoutly. Were her wisdom teeth beginning to grow? Tall Laure Provençal adjusted her spectacles; Mother Salvail settled herself comfortably in her chair so as not to miss a word of the altercation.

In the excitement and the storm, they had not heard a cart drive up to the house. Marie-Amanda’s arrival evoked exclamations of surprise.

“You can’t say I keep myself to myself. This is the second time this autumn that I’ve been to see you.”

“There must be a good deal of ice on the river by now?”

“It’s thickening all the time,” said Marie-Amanda. “And the same old goings-on here, I suppose?”

“As you see, we’re quilting, for Lisabel.”

“Ah yes, Lisabel’s getting married, of course.”

“About time too,” said Lisabel. “It’s a good six months since I’ve been walking out with the lad.”

When she was well warmed up, Marie-Amanda produced various small presents from her bag: butternuts, for the women of the house, strong tobacco for her father, and wild cherry jam for Angelina, who was passionately fond of it.

“You’re too kind,” said Angelina.

“Yes, Marie-Amanda always arrives with her hands full.”

“What’s all this fuss?” protested Marie-Amanda. “A pot of jam, a few jars of nuts, a plug of tobacco—that’s nothing; not what I call giving.”

“Isn’t it?” said Blanche. “Then what is?”

Marie-Amanda’s face lit up with a malicious smile. And she thought, “It’s depriving oneself of what one likes to present it to someone one doesn’t like.”

“She gets it from her mother, who was generosity itself.”

Laure Provençal screamed in Marie-Amanda’s face as though she were abusing and insulting her, “I’ve never seen anyone like her. I’m sure she goes short herself on the Île de Grâce. And never an envious word about anyone.”

“Look here, Madame Provençal, don’t make me out better than I am. If I started envying everybody who was better off than we are, there’d be a good many and I’d have too much to do.”

At their continued compliments, she got up and pretended to lose her temper.

“Phonsine, give me my things and I’ll go.”

“Hey, this is no time to be so touchy!”

“Well, it was silly to praise her to her face like that.”

“She wouldn’t be a Beauchemin without a touch of malice.”

Laughter rippled round the little company.

“The Stranger. . . .”

Who had been so tactless as to mention the Stranger? Before anyone realized it, the women, except for Marie-Amanda and Angelina, who were chatting by themselves, had begun to talk about him.

“He had such a grand laugh,” said Rose-de-Lima Bibeau.

“I think he laughed too much,” said Blanche. “A man who laughs as much as that, and so often, can’t be feeling really gay.”

Catherine Provençal went on, “I feel I can see him now in the doorway, bare-chested and always rigged out in his check jacket. Tipping an eye this way and that, leaning one way and then the other, like a moored boat rocking.”

“He reminded me of a bird somehow. You never quite knew where he’d perch.”

“Sure, and a very fine bird too,” said Laure Provençal acidly. “The long-legged heron on the Common.”

“I’ve no use for a young man with hair in his ears,” said one of the young girls.

“Well, for girls who don’t reckon to bother about young men, you seem to have looked at him pretty close,” said Blanche, and snorted with satisfaction at the girls’ indignation.

“You’re not going to delude yourself into thinking that he had never met any girls before he got to Monk’s Inlet. He knew enough to salt away a few—and girls of every sort.”

A pale green line barely filtered through her golden eyelashes as she went on, in a gentler tone, “But he wasn’t really fond of anybody.”

For the last moment or two, Angelina, who had approached them, had been listening. She jumped up in a fury, and said to Blanche, “Where did you know the Stranger as well as all that? Was it in that back street of yours?”

“I didn’t know him,” she replied, “but you didn’t know him either, not as well as you wish you had.”

Angelina retrieved her scissors from the floor, picked up her thimble, stuck her needle into the reel of cotton, and took her cloak off its hook.

“Don’t go,” said Phonsine to her in a low tone. “Never mind what that woman says.”

But without another word Angelina slipped through the door. Marie-Amanda rejoined her on the road. They walked in silence, stepping quietly along like women with time and space at their disposal. Snow was still falling and effaced, one by one, the imprints of their footsteps on the whitened earth.

Without turning her head Angelina said, “Do you think, Marie-Amanda, that it was one of those women who took the Stranger away from me?”

The image of the gypsy girl whom they had met in the summer near the little wood haunted her persistently. Who knows whether this inveterate rover hadn’t found the gypsy, with her cat’s eyes and lissome limbs.

“Don’t be silly—of course not. I always think. . . .”

“Well?”

“. . . it isn’t such-and-such a man or woman who takes our loved one from us. . . .”

Marie-Amanda stopped in a gust of wind to get her breath, and then went on, “It’s true. It’s time that brings all things to an end. Take my father. He loved my mother. In his own way, if you like. But he did love her very much. And now that she’s dead, there’s another woman in her place.”

In a voice husky with sorrow she added, “My mother’s time had come.”

With flecks of snow and tears glittering on her eyelashes, Angelina swung round and faced her.

“I don’t understand you. The other day you kept on telling me that time settled everything. Today you’re saying just the opposite.”

“No, I’m not. I said that everything works itself out in the long run, joys as well as sorrows. Everything goes as time goes.”

Angelina slackened her step. Memories flooded into her tormented spirit. Three, in particular, were rarely absent from her mind. They brushed against her like three gamboling kittens. The two first, living and warm—the first appearance of the Stranger, sharp-cut against the gusts, in the bright light of morning; the high, clear laugh that rang out like the Pélerine bell at Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel when the wind was in the right quarter; the hand outspread starwise on the table—these she was glad to have and keep. One clung to her neck, the other crouched beside her. But the third! It clawed at her heart, and the pain oozed out drop by drop, never to be stanched.

“I haven’t told you everything, you know, Marie-Amanda.”

“You don’t need to.”

“What I’m going to tell you now—will you swear on your mother’s grave that you’ll never breathe a word of it to a living soul?”

“You know me well enough.”

Angelina hesitated.

“I think I’ve been chasing my own troubles.”

Marie-Amanda stopped. “How do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you. One market day at Sorel I saw a notice pasted on a tree in the Square, announcing a concert that same evening, and the bandstand decorated for the Richelieu band. I knew without knowing it—but something told me—that the Stranger would want to go to that concert. And so he did. That evening he asked my father if he might have the chestnut and the light cart. So when I saw I would be left on the shelf for the evening while he went off to enjoy himself, perhaps with another girl, my heart failed me, and I asked him to take me to the concert.”

“How could you!” said Marie-Amanda reproachfully.

Over her face, as pure as morning air, a cloud passed. To yield to a man’s caprices, to humiliate oneself before him, was surely bad tactics.

Angelina eyed her. “Would you have done better in my place?”

Marie-Amanda did not answer. Angelina went on, “Besides, I’d seen the beautiful Bernadette Salvail, all dolled up, going along the road to Sorel.” Her sense of economy suddenly prevailing over her distress, Angelina burst out indignantly, “She’s so extravagant that she didn’t mind letting the dew wet her fine leghorn hat.”

Angelina’s indignation made Marie-Amanda smile. The former calmed down.

“Well, after a bit of coaxing, he agreed to drive me in. But that was all. When I tried to talk, he just said yes or no. That was all our conversation. When we got to Sorel, he sat me down on a bench in the Square, saying he was going to put up the horse at the Sailor’s Friend.”

Angelina’s eyelashes fluttered and her expression changed.

“He never came near me again. The concert was over, the lights out, and I was still waiting. So I had to make up my mind to fetch the horse and go back to the Inlet. When I had put the cart away, instead of going to bed I sat down to wait.”

“You waited?”

“I did indeed. Don’t ask me what sort of night I spent. I wasn’t in this world. At the slightest sound on the water, I ran to the floating dock. It was some animal on the Common coming down to drink at the river. Or nothing at all. So I went back again, always in fear that my father might wake up and catch me. At the break of dawn some fishermen, who had just taken their fish along to the shops, brought him back.”

“Tipsy, I suppose?” asked Marie-Amanda.

“Of course. The moment I tried to speak to him, he just said, ‘Oh, neveurmagne!’ ”

“Don’t you know that it’s useless to argue with a man who’s drunk?”

“I did know, but . . . well, he just kept on interrupting me, and said, ‘I did everything I could, my lovely, to make you understand that it wasn’t your company I wanted. But you wouldn’t understand.’ ”

“And so. . . .”

Angelina began to cry.

“Don’t cry,” said Marie-Amanda, with tears in her eyes. “Or you won’t be able to talk. . . .”

“Then,” said Angelina, “he reached out his great hand, and pushed me out of his way. I needn’t tell you how I struggled with myself. I realized that if I gave way then, I did so for good and all. When daylight came the sound of a hay cart woke me up. Odilon was walking beside it. I had just had time to slip into the ditch. Fortunately he didn’t notice me. What would Pierre-Côme Provençal have thought? There, on my knees in the dew and almost desperate, I prayed to God that there be a change in the way we felt, both the Stranger and myself. God granted my prayer. But not as I meant it.”

Her voice quavering with anguish, she went on, “Perhaps I oughtn’t to have done that.”

“Don’t talk so!” said Marie-Amanda in a horrified tone. “It’s wicked! How can you tell what might have spared you all this sorrow?”

To distract Angelina’s mind, she added, “Did you ever mention that night to him again?”

“Once, and once only, when he was in a good humor, I asked him to tell me the truth.”

“And what did he say?”

“First he burst out laughing; then he ran his great hand through his hair.”

“Yes, I can picture him,” said Marie-Amanda. “That was just his way.”

“Then, with his hair standing on end and with his voice still filled with laughter, he said, ‘Oh, these damned women! They’re all the same, always asking questions, all of them: every single one . . . since. . . .’ He stopped short as though he was afraid he’d said too much. And he added, ‘Yourself included.’ At that he looked at me in a queer sort of way. He was no longer laughing. He threw his head back and began to talk in earnest. ‘Listen, my lovely, first you must tell me what you call the truth. Is it what I did to the best of my knowledge? Or is it what I might have done quite outside my knowledge? Or what you would have liked me to have done? If you want to question me, do. But don’t complain of the answer.’ What’s to be done with a fellow like that? One can only suffer.”

“Or get rid of him,” concluded Marie-Amanda.

“That’s what happened, though I didn’t want to lose him.”

“You’ve no idea where he may have gone? Didn’t he ever talk to you about countries he wanted to see?”

Angelina shrugged her shoulders listlessly. One place or another—what did it matter, so long as he was far away?

“Well, sometimes he said he’d like to see France again.”

Marie-Amanda’s eyes blazed with pride.

“Who wouldn’t be glad to see France?”

“At other times he thought of nothing but the forest. He used to speak of a wild sort of country where there weren’t any birds in the sky nor wild beasts in the woods.”

Marie-Amanda wagged her head skeptically.

“There can’t be such a place.”

“Oh, yes, when there’s been a forest fire, you know, and lots of stumps that look so easy to pull out, but are all quite firmly rooted.”

They were now nearing the house. Said Angelina, “I would have followed him anywhere.”

Marie-Amanda, incredulous, reached out a hand.

“Would you have left all that?”

There lay the rich and level fields, the house basking in its warmth, and beside it the bakehouse, so cool in the long summer days; the massive barns, crammed with the harvest, and opposite, the great Common for pasturing; the garden with its herbaceous borders asleep now under their winter mulch, but which would awaken lovelier than ever in the summer; Monk’s Inlet, of the broad horizons and a life of peace.

“You would have left all that? I don’t believe it. And do you know one thing, my girl? I’m beginning to think that you rather enjoy tormenting yourself.”

Back in the house, the women went on cackling like crows in a field of ripe corn. Now that she was no longer there, everyone talked freely about Angelina.

“She had her chance,” said Blanche.

Didace and Amable came in.

Laure explained, “We were just talking about Angelina and that Stranger of yours. Your wife said she’d had her chance.”

“Chance of what?” asked Amable. “Oh, you mean she couldn’t manage him?”

“No,” said Didace sagely. “And you wouldn’t be much of a hand at that job, my boy.”

“Ah well,” rejoined Laure Provençal, “when a girl’s unlucky enough to fall in love with a fellow she can’t manage, she’ll just have to grin and bear it.”

“Angelina couldn’t!” said Phonsine.

The women were all talking at once.

“Why not?”

“Because the Stranger spent her money on drink?”

“Because he laughed at her?”

“He never laughed at her,” protested Phonsine. “He even had a fight about her.”

“Well, I know one thing: for every cent of mine he spent, I’d have made him sick and sorry.”

Laure Provençal thought it was Blanche who had spoken. She turned toward her and said, “You look to me like a woman who knows her way about.”

“Perhaps. But it cost me something to find it. Today, though . . . I don’t need to worry any more.”

“That’s true enough,” thought Phonsine angrily. “She’s got the farm as long as she bears the name of Beauchemin. She’s got no troubles now.”

“Now my first husband, Varieur, . . .” Blanche began.

Laure Provençal bit her lips. Then, leaning toward Mother Salvail, she said, “This same Varieur seems to have pretty well become one of the Beauchemin family. Father Didace might as well ask him to come and spend the night.”

Didace, guessing the words of mockery, promptly quenched the mutter of voices and laughter.

“The Stranger never pretended to be what he wasn’t. Those who took him differently and made up all sorts of silly stories about him—well, that’s their affair. And it’s none of our business. As for Angelina, poor girl, I’m not surprised she fell for him, and I’m truly sorry for her, because there was a fair-haired girl. . . .”

With his broad fist Didace described a circle in the void that signified the road, the vast world. . . .

“What are you going to do with this one?” asked Amable, with his head thrown back, making as though to tip a bottle into his throat.

“Poor Angelina!” said Phonsine, with tears in her eyes. “She did so love the Stranger. She actually loved him enough to ask him to forgive her for the way he treated her.”

Blanche smiled, and murmured, “She wasn’t the only one. . . .”

Phonsine blushed. Feeling Amable’s eyes upon her, she went over to the stove to keep herself in countenance. “I can’t think how the stove can have got so hot. I’m scorching.”

But, lifting the nearest damper, she saw that the fire was nearly out, and bent over the wood pile to pick off a log. Then, in a flurry of embarrassment, she turned and faced the company.

“No, she wasn’t the only one who loved him.”

“Well,” said Laure Provençal, thinking that this was enough of the subject, and shaking the ends of cotton off her apron, “it’s time to go home. We’ve done enough quilting for this afternoon.”

“My word!” said Didace. “You seem to have been hard at it, the whole lot of you.”

Then, growing suddenly impatient, he shouted, “Here, clear all this stuff away, and get the room tidy. I want my supper!”

“We’ve done twenty-four points,” said Lisabel Provençal enthusiastically. She had not understood a word.

That evening, Phonsine again pestered Amable to extract a deed of gift from his father.

Thanks to the presence of Marie-Amanda and her family, New Year’s Day, which Phonsine had dreaded, passed off without incident, although she and Blanche could not bring themselves to wish each other a happy New Year.

The preparations for Lisabel Provençal’s wedding then took up all the women’s time. At any moment of the day they would patter across the sparkling ice to lend a hand to the Provençals, or merely to see what they were up to in the kitchen. Excitement and fatigue soon made them shriek with laughter over trifles, or gave rise to fleeting disagreements.

On the eve of the wedding, Blanche was making her famous six-layered pie in the Provençal kitchen. Talking all the time, she suddenly found herself wedged between table and dresser. Not realizing that the others were watching her efforts to extricate herself, she went on, “When we were at sea. . . .” Looking up, she saw them all bursting with laughter except Angelina, who was at the stove pulling doughnuts. Crimson with wrath, Blanche said, “Well, what’s the joke? Is it because I mentioned my first husband?”

Genevieve Salvail wiped a tear away. She was helpless with laughter.

“No, no,” she said, “it wasn’t that.”

She made a sign to Bernadette Salvail. The two girls pushed the table back.

Still out of breath, Blanche leaned against the dresser.

“Because this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you laugh. Well, I’ve long wanted to draw your horoscope, and now I will. You’re just a pack of cowards, first to last.”

“Now then, my dear. Don’t get above yourself.”

“And you’re as bad as the rest. You’re afraid to hear the truth. When someone tells it you, you run away.”

Mother Salvail, who was getting up to go, sat down again beside the stove, near the dish which Angelina was filling with doughnuts.

“. . . Or you stop your ears, just as you close the shutters of your houses in summer, to keep the sun out.”

While the women were all listening eagerly to Blanche, Mother Salvail furtively slipped a doughnut between her two aprons.

“You laugh at me,” Blanche went on, “first because I’ve got some flesh on my bones. So I have, and it isn’t tallow either.”

She displayed two muscular arms.

“Next, kindly understand that I shall talk about my first husband just as much as I choose, and as long as I live. There’s no shame in that. When I talk about him, I’m not failing in my duty here. Nobody can rob me of his part of my affection, any more than he can take away my affection for Didace. It’s not just because a man died years ago. . . . He was a fisherman, he fished for smelts, and he was no angel, if you want to know. He drank. Sometimes he drank all his fish money. When he went on a spree, there was no holding him. He threw everything about, and even kicked the stovepipe onto the floor. But when he was sober, he was the kindest hearted man alive. And he always spoke to me so nicely. One night when he’d gone to sleep on the lugger, a tide wave swept everything off the deck, and him too.

“I never knew what it was to have to nurse him. He was a powerful man and very tough. A dashing fellow. Always fit and well. Never a moment’s illness, so that I could have coddled him a bit. All I could do was to wait for him, with my hand on the door latch, and try to soothe him when he was drunk. How often I did wait. And I didn’t even have the comfort of receiving him when he was dead. They never recovered his body.”

Phonsine glanced round the room; all the faces, intent and sympathetic, were upturned to the Acadian. “She’s getting round them properly,” thought Phonsine.

“And then? Well, then I had to earn my living. I brought up his little boy as well as I could. He’s the son of a former wife. But I treated him just like my own. He can’t complain of me. At least, I don’t think so. If my first husband had lived, I’d have given him as many children as he pleased. The more the merrier! But I never had that joy.”

With the back of her hand she brushed the curls off her forehead.

“So I went to sea to earn my living and the little one’s too. Sometimes I was the only woman on board with twenty or thirty men. I wasn’t so stout as I am now, not by a long way. And I was young. And quite pretty. There were all sorts on the ship, good and bad, pretty tough some of them, and up to every kind of dodge, and others were as easy as pie. I liked a good laugh. There are some folk who always keep a blank face in any sort of weather, even if they’ve got no troubles. Well, I always liked a laugh—it’s what I can’t resist. So laugh I did, and kept my sorrows to myself. When the men heard me laugh, they were always after me, one by one, each with a good excuse. One wanted me to sew on a button, another wanted to complain about something, and a third wanted to be cheered up. Well, I was never afraid of them, because I knew I could trust myself.”

Blanche, who was finishing her monumental pie, set the last layer of pastry in its place.

“The little boy was hardly grown up when he went out to work. He wanted to earn my living too, but I would never let him. I went to sea as long as I was able. The very fact of being on the water seemed to make me feel less lonely and a little nearer to my dear Varieur.

“And then there was the wreck of the Firefly on Lac Saint-Pierre. It was after that I got to know the Stranger, and then Father Didace. That’s how it was.”

Blanche dropped her voice. “On the solid earth you’ve got your dead with you; you can close their eyes and bury them. You can kneel on their graves and bring them bunches of flowers. But I can’t. At sea, on the salt water, the dead are lost. My Varieur—say what you like about him, call me crazy, call me any sort of names. But for all his faults, and he was a poor man too, he was always kind and good to me; and if I talk about him now and again, I wonder why you should want to laugh, or what’s worse than that, sneer at me. Well. . . .”

The words poured forth like the uneasy wail of a siren on a fogbound ship.

Rather more composed, but still flushed from so much talk, Blanche stretched out the corners of her mouth with two fingers. Mother Salvail, observing that she had finished her story, got ready to go.

“Now,” she said, as she got up, “I’ll make my curtsy.”

A dozen doughnuts which she had secreted between her two aprons rolled out on the floor.

“Dear me,” she ejaculated, “how very mysterious!”—more astonished than everyone else to find she had forgotten her depredations.

“No mystery at all,” said Laure Provençal, “it was you with your big hands that put them there.”

Blanche also made as though to depart, but Laure would not let her go.

“Do stay for a talk and a bite of something to eat.”

“Wait for me,” said Phonsine to Angelina, who was tying the strings of her apron after shaking all trace of flour off it.

Angelina, as though she had not heard, went straight up to Blanche. In a loud tone, intended to reach everyone, she said, “We might go back together this evening, if you like.”

“All right,” said Blanche.

The women, in their astonishment, looked furtively at Phonsine. “I hope it won’t snow tomorrow,” said one, half opening the door. “There’s a ring around the moon. . . .”

With a sinking heart Phonsine watched Blanche and Angelina go off together. Blanche and Angelina arm-in-arm. Every day her mother-in-law managed to annex something more that was hers: today, Angelina’s affection, and tomorrow something else. “Before long,” she said to herself, “there’ll be nothing left for Amable and me, nor anyone to take our part.”

“Well! This is a grand wedding!”

In the Provençal kitchen Jacob Salvail, with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, staring at a patch of carpet, pondered before he replied, “By gosh, it is! There’s seldom been one like it, even at Sainte-Anne.”

For the space of two days and one night the table remained laid, fresh supplies being brought in as needed, not to mention frequent rounds of drinks.

The six-layered pie was by general consent the ornament of the feast, though the first arrivals sampled it with a slight air of mistrust.

“Can you tell me on your oath,” asked an old man from Maska, “that there’s nothing in that dish that ever wore a feather?”

“Why do you want to know, gaffer?” asked a youth.

“Don’t suit my stomach. I’ve never eaten any in my life, and I’m not going to start now.”

“Dear, dear! I had always understood that the big folks at Maska had cast-iron stomachs.”

“Only for drink, my boy. We can drink like Old Scratch and not turn a hair. But not for eats.”

“Anyway, if you want to know what’s inside it, ask the large lady in the rocking chair beside the stove. I fancy she looks after the food here.”

The old man peered across the room. “Not that handsome piece in the gilt-edged dress? Why she might be a queen on her throne.”

Phonsine who, despite a headache, was waiting on the guests at table, heard the remark. “It’s quite true,” she said to herself. “She has a trick of making a chair look like a throne. It isn’t enough for her to be a fine, healthy woman, the men must praise whatever she does. The water that flows down to the river. . . .”

The guests at the first dinner were so loud in their appreciation of the six-layered pie that they might well have regretted their enthusiasm; they were not allowed a second helping, for those who had not dined insisted on their share. Blanche was called on to explain the recipe. “You take,” she said, “a good-sized bird, a hare, and cut them into sections. Then you slice a hunk of bacon about the size of your fist and pop the lot into a frying pan to brown. In the meantime you make a slab of pastry. . . .”

“The Beauchemins,” a widow from the Pot-au-Beurre observed acidly (she would have gladly married Father Didace), “the Beauchemins always have to go one better than anybody else. Last year it was their Stranger who brought them so much credit. This year it’s the same sort of person, except that she’s a female. . . .”

“You mustn’t talk about her like that,” said David Desmarais in a warning voice. “She’s Father Didace’s wife.”

“I know that—I know it as well as you do. Is she a reputable woman?”

“There’s nothing against her.”

At the party, songs alternated with dances, enlivened by much twirling and capering and clattering of heels, the music being provided by the violinists, each playing in turn.

When the festivities began, the guests greeted each other with bows and compliments and embraces. But by the middle of the second day things began to loosen up. Two youths nicknamed the Mudlarkers from the Île Saint-Ignace, in shirt sleeves, started a rough-and-tumble. Joinville, being rather drunk, launched a random kick at the husband, who pitched onto the corner of the stove and bruised his forehead. The husband’s relations were much incensed and even talked about returning to the Pot-au-Beurre before the wedding was over. Pierre-Côme had to intervene before they could be induced to stay.

The children, too, had shed their party manners and were doing their very worst. Their hair in wild disorder, their clothes crumpled and stained, they squabbled and fought, slid wildly down the banisters, or dashed outside and back again, shaking their snow-laden mittens over the guests. One innocent sat all day in a corner intently performing on a jew’s-harp. Laughter there still was, but it was joyless and perfunctory.

The younger people dropped out of the dance and fell to playing parlor games. After a bout of Musical Chairs, they played the peppermint game, exchanging white pastilles flavored with tea leaves and inscribed in red sugar with a question or an answer, such as, “Will you give me a kiss?”—“Go and ask my confessor.”—“Really! If Mamma could hear you!”

Odilon, who was courting Bernadette Salvail, took a frenzied delight in this diversion. Angelina eyed the pair. She regretted those joyous moments with the Stranger, snatched from her by Bernadette. A hand on her shoulder made her start. Father Didace was at her side. And he who, meeting her every day, had never dared to utter the Stranger’s name in her presence, suddenly asked her in a voice hoarse with emotion, at the height of the festivities, “Has the Stranger ever made any signs of life? Have you ever had any news of him?”

“How should I?”

“Well, I thought he might write to you—send you a post card to say how he was getting on, and what he was doing over yonder. . . .”

“Write to me!”

Angelina, with eyes downcast, sat motionless on her chair. Nothing in her attitude betrayed her feelings. Oblivious of the fire of hope he had just kindled in the poor girl’s heart, blind to the gleam of love that flashed into her eyes, Father Didace thought that she preferred not to talk about the Stranger any more and went quietly away.

Sitting on the staircase side by side, Amable and Vincent Provençal smoked in silence. They had heard it all.

“It’s very curious,” said Vincent in an undertone, “how your father always seems to believe that there’s nothing the Stranger can’t do.”

“Yes, it’s very silly of him,” replied Amable curtly. “Just as though a fellow could change his heart as well as his lodging. If the Stranger tramped all over Africa and America he would still be the same vagabond as before. But it’s no use my saying so to Father, he wouldn’t understand.”

Just as dancing raises dust, pleasure had raised a cloud of melancholy. Gradually it spread over faces and furniture, and even over the half-emptied dishes, in which the guests, now replete, took no further interest.

The tall Laure, who had collapsed into a chair near the window, heaved a sigh of satisfaction as she saw the final carriage round off the procession that was to escort the newly married pair as far as the Pot-au-Beurre.

On the following day, a Tuesday, day of tradesmen’s rounds, Angelina watched for the shopman who also acted as postman. Hardly allowing him time to come in, she asked whether he had a letter for her. She was usually more interested in prices and what he had for sale, than in the mail.

“I’ve ordered some seeds by post,” she said with a deep blush, not being a good liar.

“Bless me! You’re sowing rather early, aren’t you?” said the shopman, scenting a mystery.

As he departed, she put her head through the half-open door and, speaking with her hand across her mouth so as not to inhale the cold air, she cried after him, “Next time you come, bring me a two-cent stamp in case. . . .”

But on the following day she could hold out no longer, and went in to Sorel to choose some picture post cards. There was a restaurant which stocked them for all tastes. Angelina, accustomed never to spend an unnecessary penny, looked narrowly at the smallest expenditure. The young assistant, who wanted to return to his girl in the back of the shop, pattered away as he handed out the cards to Angelina.

“That’s a girl from Paimpol . . . you know the Botrel Song, I expect?”

Angelina shrugged her shoulders.

“You remember, surely? Paimpol sloping to the sea, the church and the great Pardon; and the Paimpol girl who waits for me. . . .”

Angelina examined the woman’s dress, her lace neckerchief, and, in her hair, the great black velvet butterfly bow. She wondered how on earth it could be kept in place.

“And this is Switzerland. . . .”

This was a landscape depicting a deep blue sky, dazzling snow, and below, an expanse of gaudy green meadow with a shepherdess and her flock of white sheep. Angelina, with anguish in her heart, thought of the Stranger’s song, “Would you, lovely shepherdess. . . .”

She chose two cards: one of a dark-haired, slender girl not unlike herself she thought, and another of the road to Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel.

But no news of the Stranger reached Angelina and the two post cards remained at the bottom of a drawer.

Soon afterward the sole subject of conversation was the municipal election at Monk’s Inlet. There came an influx of political agents in the pay of Pierre-Côme’s opponents, with their eye on every chance in view of the forthcoming general elections. Rollicking fellows, all of them, brimful of merry tales; as they made their calls from house to house they scattered all manner of stale propaganda, which they would be prompt to deny in favor of whosoever might bid higher for their services.

But as they were amply provided with strong waters, they were in much request for evening parties. With their eyes glued to the jug in the middle of the table, for a clear week the farmers drank their fill. They laughed till their jaws ached, and listened impassively while strangers dilated on the needs of the parish.

For all that, on nomination day no one could be produced to oppose Pierre-Côme, who was accordingly re-elected by acclamation.

Two days later, over some trifle, they began to abuse him as usual.

“Damn that fellow Provençal!”

Monk’s Inlet fell back into the daily round.

For the men, the tale of morning tasks—woodcutting, carting, sometimes a clandestine visit to some muskrat burrow—and the duties of the evening, followed by long hours of idle smoking. A trip to Sorel market on Saturday, High Mass at Sainte-Anne on Sunday were still their main distractions.

For the women, the three meals that brought the housework to a stop three times a day and an occasional gathering of some women neighbors to braid rugs and gossip.

With the advent of February a storm swept over the countryside. During the two succeeding days, it raged without respite. And snow was falling all the time. It fell in stars, in flakes, in particles, sometimes fine and powdery, sometimes wildly, sometimes lightly. Gradually it filled the hollows, overlaid such fences as had been neglectfully left in place, and blotted out all landmarks. Soon it imprisoned every habitation, and finally isolated Monk’s Inlet.

The houses could not be kept warm. In vain were strips of carpet stuffed under the doors, the chill air poured across the floor and even seemed to seep through the walls.

On the first evening the Beauchemins went to bed early, but the constant creaking of the poplars around the house and the cracking of nails awakened them all through the night. Scarcely had Blanche fallen asleep when she started up with a shriek, “The ghost! The ghost!”

Didace jabbed her in the side.

“You’ve got a nightmare! Wake up!”

“The ghost’s calling me!”

“Nonsense! You’re dreaming. It’s the wind in the chimney.”

Blanche fingered the woolen blanket, the rough counterpane, and Father Didace’s hairy hand.

“Oh!” she said, shivering and half awake. “I didn’t realize I was at home.”

And she went on with a yawn, “Now you’ve woken me up at this hour, I’ll never get to sleep again. You’ll have to talk to me. . . .”

Enraged by her want of frankness and by her absorption in her Acadian life, Father Didace sat up and shouted, “I couldn’t let you rouse the whole parish, could I? You were yelling your head off! I never heard such a row.”

Next day they woke up later than usual. A dim, blue light barely percolated through the windows, masked by snowdrifts. The kitchen had the aspect of a cellar. Before they even sat down to table the men made haste to clear a passage, so as to let in some light, and a path up to the farm buildings. Phonsine, who was standing by the door, enjoyed watching Amable and Father Didace at work. Armed with wooden shovels, they opened a trench by cutting out huge wedges of snow, which they flung over their shoulders. Suddenly, an access of folly came upon her. Bareheaded and half-dressed as she was, she ran outside. With arms outstretched she flung herself into the nearest snowdrift, leaving the imprint of her body in the form of a cross; this being a gesture she had dreamed of making since her childhood. When she got up, she heard, through the storm, the raucous laughter of Father Didace. Joyfully she returned to the house.

“There’s Father Didace laughing,” said she.

“You must be crazy,” answered Blanche, who had witnessed the scene. “You won’t do much good to yourself by catching inflammation of the lungs. And if you do, who’s going to nurse you? You aren’t going to get fanciful at your time of life, surely?” she added, surveying the young woman from head to foot.

Her joy suddenly quenched, Phonsine, in an effort to appear thinner than she was, looked slowly downward at her stomach. No; no one would guess that she was pregnant. The idea that she might one day have to surrender her body into Blanche’s care made her shiver. When her time came, she would ask Laure Provençal to come to her, or even Angelina, if Marie-Amanda didn’t arrive in time. They would look after her.

Father Didace came back, his feet caked with snow. The Acadian ran up to him with a small broom.

“Let me dust the snow off you!”

“It’s falling pretty thick,” said Father Didace.

“Will it go on for long?” asked the Acadian, who was longing for the spring.

Before uttering his pronouncement, Father Didace looked up.

“All day . . . all night . . . and a part of tomorrow. It’s white weather.”

“Heaven help us! We shall be snowed up for good and all. I was relying on the potatoes, which had begun to sprout, so I thought the spring couldn’t be far off,” she said, opening the small drawer of the dresser and pulling it right out.

“What are you messing about there for?” asked Didace.

The back of the narrow drawer was filled with small packages of important papers; in front were kept the prayer books and the holy pictures. Anyone who wanted anything from the drawer pulled it half out. Only Didace, in his capacity of head of the family, exercised his right to pull it right out. Phonsine thought Blanche must have inspected its contents.

“I’m not messing about,” said Blanche. “I’m looking for the almanac. I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Why do you want the almanac?” asked Phonsine.

“To look up the weather.”

“We haven’t got one.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of a house without an almanac,” said Blanche in astonishment. “There can’t be many such.”

Whereto Father Didace indignantly retorted, “Ignorant folks need one, I daresay, but we can read the weather in the sky as it might be the palms of our hands.”

Alphonsine longed to run up to Father Didace and fling her arms around his neck.

But Blanche was not to be put off.

“There’s no mystery in such predictions—snow . . . and then more snow . . . and then snow all the time. In our parts we have a bit of snow now and again, but never like this.”

“Pity you didn’t stay there,” said Phonsine to herself, with a sudden gleam of malice in her eye.

On the third day about noon the snow, which had floated down more thinly since the morning, ceased altogether. Then it was revealed that the snow had leveled everything as far as eye could reach: fields and stream and Common. In the white sky the blood-red sun grew round and rounder, and then vanished, like a great wounded eye that half opens for a moment and shuts again in anguish. Soon afterward a pink radiance flickered on the snow around the blue shadows.

When darkness fell, the tinkling bells of a first sleigh could be heard in the distance. Father Didace went to the window.

“Aha!” said he. “The moon is on its back. The frost won’t break yet.”

And catching sight of the sleigh, “Who can be marking out the road so late? Must be in a hell of a hurry about something. Go out and have a look, Amable.”

Amable was dozing, his feet comfortably outstretched to the open oven door. He started up.

“It isn’t our turn to open up the road.”

“It’s always our turn to give a hand to someone who’s in trouble. The horse is nearly foundered in the snow. He’s in it up to his belly.”

“Let him get out as best he can.”

“You’re a poor creature, Amable,” said Father Didace, slipping on his overcoat lined with wildcat fur and getting ready to go out.

When he came back ten minutes later, silent and bowed, Blanche said, “You look as wild as if you’d lost a loaf out of your last baking.”

Silently he threw off his overcoat and lit his pipe.

“Is there someone ill in the parish?” asked Alphonsine.

“Worse than that.”

“Someone dead?”

“Duck Peloquin has died. His son has gone to see about the funeral at Sorel.”

“Well I never!” said Phonsine.

“Duck! What an odd name!” exclaimed Blanche. “Who on earth is he?”

“It’s Duck the hunter, the best guide and shot who ever lived.”

“From the way you talk,” snorted Amable, “I’d always believed you were the champion hunter.”

“Well, he in his time and I in mine, there wasn’t much between us.”

“Poor Duck Peloquin,” said Phonsine sadly. “We’ll say five paters and five Aves for him after family prayers.”

“A great loss to the parish.”

“Pooh,” said Amable. “The old chap had been going downhill for years.”

“You can’t understand. You’ve never had a gun in your hands. It was Duck who taught me to shoot, and to shoot them on the wing. He had managed to train an old gander which used to pal up with the black drakes and then bring them along to his ducks, just by the blind.”

“Why do you call him Duck?”

“Because he imitated the cry of a duck so you couldn’t tell the difference. And it was grand to see him shoot. I remember one afternoon not many years before he gave up hunting, how he brought down a hundred and fifty-four ducks on his own, and all of them rednecks. His shoulder was black and blue from the kick of the gun. By midday he hadn’t a single cartridge left. Duck rowed up to Sorel for cartridges. Then he rowed back to the blind and killed about forty more. That’s what I call a proper shot.”

“It’s what I call a proper swine,” said Amable, with a yawn.

Phonsine signed to Amable to be quiet. Father Didace, with red and wrathful visage, went out to the store cupboard. From the far end of it he produced the old pair of snowshoes which the Stranger had mended the year before. His thumbs itched to feel the plaited sinews.

“Give me my slippers,” he roared to the women as he kicked off his boots.

Phonsine brought him his moccasins.

Guessing his father’s intention, Amable said to him in a tone of genuine regard, “You’re too old to racket about the country at night on snowshoes. Stay beside the stove. Your place is here, not outside.”

Didace exploded: “Don’t talk like a fool. So the ship’s boy wants to step into the captain’s shoes, eh? Getting old, am I? Well, I’m not the only one. And if I get older every year, so do you, and don’t forget it.”

He got up.

“I’ve never seen a Beauchemin so disloyal to the parish. You’re a sort of stickleback, that’s what you are.”

In the eyes of Didace Beauchemin, Peloquin’s death counted for more than a man’s death; it was the beginning of the end, a sign of the times, the passing of an ancient parish worthy. Well, the imbecilities of the younger generation, the changes in the migration of the duck, which were driven farther by the advance of civilization—year after year, all these changes were pushing at his back, as though to hurl him into his grave before his time.

“Where on earth are you off to?” asked Blanche.

“I’m going to pray beside the body, and then talk. Talk, by God—with people of my own kind and age.”

For some time past Phonsine had been drooping. One morning at the end of March, after a sleepless night, she got up intending to consult the doctor that very day. She was alarmed, not so much by her pregnancy, which was as yet barely noticeable and rather pleased her, but by the fact that she had not felt for some time the life of the child within her womb. Amable, who knew his father’s aversion to sickness and medicines, hesitated before yielding to what he regarded as a caprice.

“Look here, Monday’s the worst day you could choose. Two drives on successive days. Besides, the roads are in an awful state after all this mild weather.”

At Amable’s reluctance, Phonsine said, “There’s a man at Pierre-Côme’s place who has to go into Sorel this morning. He can drive me in. That’s all right, isn’t it?”

About midday Amable, unknown to Blanche, was looking for some implement in the barn, when the crash of a slammed door made him start. This, he knew, heralded his father. As he came in, Didace exclaimed, “How the place stinks!”

And indeed, stronger than the smell of milk and wet leather which on certain days pervaded the kitchen, a waft of cheap scent assailed the nostrils.

Blanche agreed. “Disgusting! It’s Phonsine, who has just gone off to Sorel. She must have scrubbed herself with scented soap.”

Her lips curled into a smile and she added, “She doesn’t soap herself like that for our benefit, does she?”

Didace pretended not to hear.

“It’s strange she never mentioned it. She might have done an errand for me there. Why dash off to Sorel? Who drove her in?”

“No one to boast about. She went off on her own with the handsome Joinville Provençal. Just imagine what the folks will say!”

“Joinville? She must have done it just to make a scandal. . . .”

“Someone was needed to take the Stranger’s place.”

“Disgraceful!” observed Didace.

Footsteps on the floor above them cut short their colloquy. Amable was already clattering down the narrow staircase. Instead of explaining quietly to his father that Phonsine had gone to see the doctor and that he had sent her in with Joinville so as to spare the horses, he stood confronting his mother-in-law and shouted like a man demented, “Don’t you dare to insult my wife! She isn’t your sort. She’s respectable. I won’t have you insulting her—she’s with a child.”

He raised a threatening hand. “Treat her with respect, or out you go, and don’t forget it.”

Didace knocked the hand down with his clenched fist.

“Stop that! Let your mother alone.”

He meant to say, “your mother-in-law,” but the word escaped him in his excitement.

“My mother? . . . That foul-mouthed slut?”

His mother was Mathilde, the sainted woman who never spared herself and would have torn her heart out for another’s sake.

Memories crowded into his mind: Didace’s frequent absences during the time he was a widower, his trips to Sorel with the Stranger, the chaff of the Maska farmers on his aspirations to paternity.

“What did you want to marry for? Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for nothing?”

The insult was such that Amable had better have spat in his father’s face. Didace leaped to his feet, rolled up the sleeves of his woolen shirt, and roared, “Come on!”

Amable did not move. He merely paled. Didace, though he had become rather stocky, was still the taller of the two by half a head. His broad, heavy shoulders were much more powerful than those of his son, which were already slightly bent. He dashed at him, but whether from the violence of the emotions or a sudden stab of anguish, his fist dropped. At that same moment a ray of sunshine fell on the limewood medallions. The zinc portraits of his Beauchemin forebears seemed to fix him with their eyes and arraign him as unworthy of his ancestors. He stood before the founders of his clan. To fight a weaker man was in itself a disgrace; but to fight his own son was treachery. He was ashamed.

“I can’t strike my own flesh and blood.”

Great beads of sweat stood out on his bald head. He sank back into his armchair.

“Don’t you squabble about me,” said Blanche, making as though to pick up her clothes. “I’ve never caused trouble anywhere. I think I’d better beat it.”

Still gasping, Didace stopped her. “Stay where you are, please. It’s not for you to give way.”

“So you think you’ll throw me out, do you, while you stay on here?” snarled Amable. “You’re wasting your time. I’m going, but I’m going of my own free will. I’m going to earn my living somewhere else.”

“Where, pray?”

“Out into the world . . . the great wide world. . . .”

The word seemed to bear no mark nor meaning on Amable’s lips. The great world was no more than a child’s toy in Amable’s hand.

“You mean to go—you?” asked Didace with a sudden flush of emotion. But a glint of mockery promptly came into his eye.

“You? Why, you can’t even manage a spade properly. And when you drop it, you always curse the spade. You won’t stand up to a hard life. You don’t know any trade.”

“Don’t I? What about a docker’s job? It’s an easy one, no apprenticeship, and good pay for very little work. The Stranger used to say. . . .”

The Stranger would have loved the Beauchemin land. A feeling of regret came into Father Didace’s heart.

“Never mind the Stranger! He and you are as different as chalk and cheese.”

Always the Stranger!

Amable collapsed with his head in his hands. He no longer understood anything. Comes a passer-by one autumn evening. He dashes into the house like a gust of wind, and there settles down as though he belonged. Everybody accepted him at his own value. Father Didace first of all, because he was strong, held his head high, and knew how to fight; the women, because he was a handsome fellow, sang to them, and always kept the wood box well filled.

And when he’s through with one place, he just flicks it aside like the dust on his sleeve— Hey, neveurmagne—and off and away to where he fancies next. And there’s many left behind who miss him more than one of their own folk dead. And yet—who goes off to the woods in winter, and cuts down the trees? Who puts the bread on the table three times a day? The fellow who stays put. He who stays, deaf to all appeals, for love of an aging mother who couldn’t let him go, or an ailing wife whom he must not leave; and after a time no one notices him because he’s always there, like the dresser in the corner.

“Tomorrow,” said Father Didace, “if the mild weather holds, we ought to begin to tap for maple sugar.”

As Amable said nothing, “Did you hear?” he asked.

“I heard,” said Amable. “I guess the jar on the table doesn’t fill itself with maple sirup, eh?”

“Don’t be impertinent.”

When Amable had left the room, Blanche said to her husband, “He hasn’t gone for good, has he?”

“You don’t know the lads hereabouts. They depart to set fire to the four corners of the world, but in two days they’re back and on the job again.”

Didace began to gasp.

“Rather wheezy, aren’t you, dear?” said his wife.

Didace, with eyes closed, replied with a nonchalant grimace. But within him a veil was rent; the pain which he pretended to ignore, he recognized only too well. He had had it before. He stood motionless until it passed. Then, in a spasm of relief, he cried, “Hey, Blanche!”

She quivered.

“My dear, you gave me such a turn.”

“I wasn’t dreaming, was I? Amable did say that his wife was with child?”

A slight tremor was the sole indication she had heard. With a suspicious look in his eye, he persisted, “You hadn’t a notion she was pregnant?”

“She never told me.”

But realizing that she was trapped, she watched him warily with her claws out.

“It was for her to tell me.” And she added lightly, “People who won’t talk often die unconfessed.”

“Yes, but when people live side by side like this, I guess these things get known without any need for talking.”

Instead of answering, Blanche gazed into space. Didace went on impatiently, “How was it that you never said a word about it? Look at me. Are you afraid to look straight at people? Are you trying to hide something? Stop rolling your green eyes like that.”

“They’re the same I had before I married you.”

Blanche’s eyelids fluttered up and down. Then she opened her eyes wide and, with a fleeting glance at Didace, fixed them on the Beauchemin portraits. Clasping her hands rigidly together, she said almost in a whisper, “Everybody can’t be so sharp-eyed as the Beauchemins.”

Time was when such a reply would have rejoiced old Didace’s heart. But not now. Huddled in his chair, he surveyed his wife, who was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she did not notice. There were crow’s-feet on her temples, and white hairs had tarnished the red-gold of her hair. None the less, Didace’s eyes lingered lovingly on the soft pink folds of her neck. “She’s as fat as a quail. Well housed, well fed, safe, not the shadow of a care. She may think herself lucky.”

But behind the flesh and whiteness of this woman, he saw something else; she had married him for security in her declining years, her heart was still with her Acadian, Varieur. “I’m not such a fool as I may seem,” he thought. “She’s quite affectionate but she can’t forget the other chap. And that’s natural; it was with Varieur that she went through her hard times.”

Had she cheated him? Sure enough she had passed the age of child-bearing. But it was for him, Didace, to have been more careful on the occasion of his second marriage.

The house gleamed with cleanliness. The table was always loaded with good food, clothes were clean and duly mended. But it was not enough for a true woman that order reigned over the household; there must be order in the minds of the members of the household, or that house could not endure.

Women who could impose order on both house and family must be rare. His mother certainly could. And his sisters. Mathilde, too, without a doubt. And Marie-Amanda. But she was married. A married daughter is a branch that falls and takes root farther off. She had crossed the river to live at the Île de Grâce and became an Aubuchon. True, when she came to the Inlet, she felt herself a Beauchemin. Only on Sunday at Sainte-Anne, at Mass, when the Île de Grâce folk, leaving their overshoes on the steps outside, trooped into church together, Marie-Amanda went in with her own people; she contented herself with smiling from a distance at her acquaintances and relatives of Monk’s Inlet.

Had Blanche this gift? Didace shook his head. No. But no one else should know it. When a Beauchemin plowed a crooked furrow, he didn’t ask his neighbor to put it straight.

So it was Phonsine, a paltry second growth, whom he had often treated with disdain because she came from the Pinière, and berated for her bad housekeeping—it was his daughter-in-law who would produce the seventh Didace, more longed-for than his own son. His first son had certainly been greeted with delight, but no doubts had preceded his arrival; he would as lief have doubted his own blood and strength, or the light of day. But this little one, Amable’s child, had been his heart’s desire for the last three years or more.

A long-remembered canticle came into his mind. Swaying his head like a poplar in a summer breeze, Didace began to hum:

“Are you quite cracked?” said Blanche. “Christmas is over. It will be Easter soon.”

Gravely and with head erect he folded his arms.

“From now on, we must take great care of our daughter-in-law, never let her carry any heavy weights nor do any hard work. Do you hear?”

Blanche said nothing but she thought, “He’s worrying more about the baby than his daughter-in-law. It’s the baby that’s going to matter in this house.”

Then she assumed her distant look, when she said she was thinking about nothing; but Father Didace asked no questions. He just said to himself, “She’s an Acadian, and always will be. Well, the Beauchemins can get on all right without her.”

It must have been nearly four o’clock when Phonsine came back to the house that afternoon. Amable was alone. From his taciturn expression she gathered that all was not well. He told her about the quarrel, though he took the edge off his own remarks.

Oblivious at first of anything but her mother-in-law’s insults, Phonsine burst out indignantly, “The old codfish! Now she’s found a place to fatten in, she’s all right! She deserves to be hanged from the church tower. Clean! Why, I keep myself twice as clean as she does, nasty sneering creature! I don’t blame you for going away,” she said to Amable. “There’s a limit to what one can stand. Get ready quickly, before the others come in.”

“Do you want me to go?” asked Amable in some amazement.

“Well, haven’t you said you’re going? Haven’t you told your father so?”

He began to stammer. “I—I—just wanted to give them a fright . . . that’s all.”

“No,” said Phonsine decisively. “Now you’ve said it—go. Otherwise life in this house will be impossible for both of us. Besides, as you’ll see, your father will soon be asking for you. The sugar making will begin soon. Go to Sorel. You’ll find a job.”

“But if I don’t . . .?”

“You will. . . . Even if you didn’t find one at once, anything’s better than being pushed around here.”

A few old garments stowed into the bottom of his pack, in his pocket the money from the sale of eggs, plus the savings which Phonsine kept in a broken sugar basin, and Amable was ready. But he could not nerve himself to leave the house. Phonsine, exasperated at seeing him shift from chair to chair, walked across to the cupboard, and as she rummaged in the drawers kept on urging him to make a move.

“Go—and go now, Amable, for goodness’ sake, before the old people get back.”

An evil glint yellowed Amable’s eyes. “You’re in a great hurry. I shall soon believe what women said about you and. . . .”

“And?” queried Phonsine.

“And—the Stranger.”

“Amable!”

Phonsine laid her arms across her body, as though to protect the outraged child. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

In prompt remorse, Amable drew his wife toward him, lifted her hair, and kissed her rather clumsily underneath the ear.

“Do you want me to stay, Phonsine?” he said in a soft, imploring voice.

It was the first time he had shown her any such affection. She had to stiffen herself against it.

“Listen, Amable, if you stay, if you don’t stand up for yourself, you’re done for. We owe a proper respect to your father, of course, but after all he can’t treat us absolutely like dirt. He has a good heart, I admit, but he’s made of human flesh like the rest of us. The lesson won’t do him any harm. Besides, why should we let that woman rob us? She’s got the upper hand now; and if she goes on like this, she’ll soon get everything into her hands. And when your father’s dead, we’ll be in the road. It’s time her eyes were opened. Think of the little one that’s on the way. . . .”

Amable tried to exploit the child in his own favor. “Have you realized that you might give birth to him while I was away?”

“There’s no risk of that. The doctor told me not to worry. I’ve got five clear weeks yet. Fruit doesn’t drop until it’s ripe.”

They agreed to meet on the following Saturday, at the Sailor’s Friend.

“But your father will want you back before that,” said Phonsine briskly. “Now be a man and get along with you.”

He looked into her eyes. “I’ll go, Phonsine, but I tell you frankly that I shan’t come back of my own free will. Never. Unless I come back by the front door,” he added, alluding to the principal entrance, which was never used except on great occasions.

Phonsine, with a sinking heart, watched him move away from the house. He walked slowly, his head half turned toward her. He tripped over a lump of ice and fell on his knees in the snow, one hand grazed and bleeding where it had caught on a splinter of ice, which was still thick in places. His eyes looked longingly at the window for a sign from Phonsine, but she slowly withdrew into the room. If she stayed watching him kneeling in the snow, she would call him back.

“No—no—no,” she murmured with decision, as though in an effort to convince herself. “He has struck at last, and he must go. That will teach them!”

She felt as if Amable’s departure would produce a revolution that must restore order in everybody’s minds. There would now be peace and justice for everybody in the house.

Amable was on his feet again. He walked on with long, jerky strides, as though he had to wrench his feet out of the snow at every step. He almost ran as he clambered down the slope in search of the road marked out on the ice. Hidden behind the curtains, Phonsine saw his bowed shoulders and his free arm swinging loosely at his side. Then—nothing. She waited in case he should retrace his steps. But he did not. She ran to the door and peered into the distance. Dusk was falling rapidly. Even the outlines of the bushes had vanished. She lit the lamp, and raised it above her head, trying to make out Amable’s tracks outside. Near the house, only two holes like empty eye sockets, now brimming with blue shadows, remained.

The weather grew steadily milder. The sugar season had begun, and looked like being a good one: frost at night, clear sunshine by day. But no one could tell how long it would last; a sudden fall of snow, a crows’ winter, or too short a spring might ruin everything. The ice-breakers were already at work. In clear weather, the smoke of the Lady Gray was visible. The water rose. A first pair of black duck alighted on a pond in the fields. Then others came. And others. Didace watched them pass over. In the spring he usually went out shooting on the sly, while Amable made the sugar. It was the son who slit the maple trunks, drew off the liquor, and set it to boil at the far end of the barn nearest the marsh. The Beauchemins did not sell; they merely made such supply of sirup and maple sugar as sufficed for their own needs.

On the first evening after Amable’s departure, Didace came back from the woods exhausted and chilled. The water was so high that he had to make his way in a canoe from one tree to the next. After a glance at the nail on which Amable was wont to hang his cap, he went to bed without a word.

During that whole day the women had not spoken to each other. The Acadian already saw her Varieur’s son settled at her side. And in Didace’s presence she overwhelmed Phonsine with attentions, which the latter sedately ignored.

Until then, Phonsine’s main feeling about Amable’s departure had been one of pride. At last he had done something manly, something worthy of the name of Beauchemin, which stamped him as what he really was. But she was moved by Didace’s misery and felt the remorse of it all night long, like a stone upon her heart.

On the second day, after another spell of sugar making, Didace again glanced at the nail, and again went out. He came back soon after with Beau-Blanc, whom he had just taken on for the sugar season.

By Saturday, when Phonsine left for Sorel, Father Didace had not uttered Amable’s name nor asked about him. She waited in vain for her husband at the Sailor’s Friend. The man who usually served her was no longer there and had been replaced by a new one who did not even know Amable by sight.

Then she began to get really anxious. Time was beyond computation; sometimes the clock hands did not move, sometimes they raced around full circle, unobserved by Phonsine. She sat lost in thought at the window. At home, “the window” always meant the one that faced north, as though there were only one. The whole life of the Beauchemins had filed past that window. The women had there watched the arrivals to a christening or a wedding, or a departing funeral procession. From that window Phonsine had seen Amable on his knees before he went off. The sun and the wind had scattered the snow where he had fallen; two shining pools of water had mirrored two patches of spring sky.

One afternoon when Phonsine was surveying the road from the window, she saw a cart pull up before the house, and two strangers, accompanied by the driver, got out. Almost fainting at the thought that they might be bringing bad news of Amable, she fled quickly to take refuge in her room. Through the crack of the door she heard them introduce themselves, a magistrate and a lawyer from Montreal, which made her all the more uneasy. Why had two men of law come to call on Father Didace? The driver stared at Blanche, who was frying some bacon over the stove. He recognized her and said, “You’ve got very stout.”

The water in the kettle boiled over. A few drops fell into the frying pan. The grease sputtered, and gave off an appetizing odor. Then Blanche replied, “It’s not so much that I’m getting stout, I’m putting on weight.”

From her point of vantage, Phonsine saw her mop her brow with the corner of her tucked-up apron, thus revealing the broadness of her waist.

The strangers wanted to buy some wild ducks, and Phonsine breathed again when she learned the purpose of their journey. Didace could not sell them any, but he offered to find some for them, observing with a wink, “Off the record, of course.”

Pierre-Côme Provençal had seen the strangers stop at the Beauchemin house. He waited for Didace to appear and say, “You haven’t got any—you know what—have you?”

And he answered, “No.”

Didace produced some silver coins that glittered in the sun. “Now then, I know you’ve got some hidden among the oats in the barn. It isn’t for myself; if I wanted duck to eat, I’d go out and shoot a few, as you well know. It’s for two important gentlemen from Montreal, who want some badly. They’ll give you up to ninety cents the brace, but not a penny more.”

“At that price,” thought Didace, “I would make a good profit for myself.”

“No,” replied Pierre-Côme.

Good game wardens are recruited from the best hunters. Having been a famous shot and a very crafty poacher, Pierre-Côme had placed his knowledge of the countryside and all his country lore at the service of the law. Nay, more, he took a pride in being as strict with his four boys as he would have been with any new offender.

Before all the world he lectured his sons on their duties. Stern, and rather raucous, his fat, arrogant thumbs stuck into his armholes, he said, for each of them to hear, “Just let me catch you shooting out of season! You’ll pay the fine just like anybody else.”

But when he went off on a tour of inspection, he never failed to let them know where he was going. One hour afterward his sons would leave on a poaching expedition in the opposite direction.

“You may tell those important gentlemen from Montreal as a message from me, that Pierre-Côme Provençal, game warden at Monk’s Inlet, is a respecter of the law. He doesn’t sell wild duck out of season, for gold or silver either.”

His thick neck swelled with pride, as though the overripe flesh was about to burst the skin. He was more than a man. He was the law incarnate, inflexible, inexorable. A statue.

“I’d like to let a little juice out of the bloated brute,” thought Didace.

He passed the back of his hand over the half-crowns, embossed with the double-chinned profile of Edward VII, until they gleamed in the snowy light, and then put his purse back in his pocket. What a pity all that good money should be lost to the parish.

He was about to emerge onto the main road when a shout from Pierre-Côme swung him around.

“What’s the matter?”

Pierre-Côme waited until Didace had come close up to him. “Did you say just now that you wanted a word with my son? Odilon is over yonder beside the barn. . . .”

Phonsine’s relief when she learnt that the strangers brought her no bad news of Amable did not last for long. She promptly relapsed into anxiety. Her forehead and the upper part of her cheeks began to acquire the masklike air of pregnancy. She scarcely ate. And the knowledge that her condition was the subject of talk and calculation made her feel defiled in her person and more desolate than ever.

If Amable’s departure set a few young people wondering, it left most of the men indifferent. Amable—leave Monk’s Inlet? He was known too well for what he was: a stuffed shirt. One fine morning he would have resumed his place at home, Amable as before.

But the women talked about him all the time. They were annoyed with Phonsine for having kept the secret of her pregnancy so well, although one and all claimed to have noticed it from one indication or another quite a while ago.

One afternoon when they were all gathered in the Provençal house, Mother Salvail wagged her head knowingly and said, “Holy Saints, it’s sure to be a kitten. Why, you can hardly see it on her. Now, when I had my first. . . .”

One of them—so it was to be gathered—hadn’t been able to walk at all; she merely waddled. Another could not move without the help of two chairs. And another—well!

“Anyway, Phonsine isn’t much to look at these days,” said Blanche.

Laure Provençal sat up very straight.

“Perhaps not just now. But you should have seen her when she was a girl. There wasn’t a prettier one in the whole province: china-blue eyes and rosy cheeks.”

“You don’t say so! I pictured her as a tall, lanky creature, with vacant eyes. . . .”

“Like me, you mean?” asked Mother Salvail.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Look, she’s staring at me. All the same, when I was a girl, I had such red cheeks that I was ashamed of them. The horsemen used to ride in procession up to the door to ask leave to take me to my next party. One Sunday. . . .”

“So much so,” broke in Laure, “that her old father talked of auctioning her on the church steps after Harvest Festival, with the pumpkins, and cabbage hearts, and the pedigree animals.”

Laughter rippled around the circle.

Angelina was sitting rather aloof. Their light talk made her feel a little sick. Is autumn expected to resemble spring? A tree does not bear flowers and fruit at once. Phonsine’s distress and Amable’s obstinacy were almost more than she could bear.

Knowing that Phonsine was alone, she set out for the Beauchemins’ house. On the way, she went into the house and took a pot of geraniums, thinking to present it to her friend. “It will take her mind off her troubles,” she thought. But noticing she had chosen the largest, she changed her mind; a smaller one would have done just as well. After looking several times from one to the other, she took the first. In her heart she measured Phonsine’s pleasure by her own sacrifice.

“Here,” she said as she came in, doing her best to seem indifferent, “I’ve brought you a few flowers.”

Phonsine paid no attention. A touch of warmth came into Angelina’s voice as she went on, “It’s one of my famous prize geraniums, you know.”

She stroked the velvety leaves with the tips of her slender fingers.

“It’s just going to blossom. You must take great care of it, see that it gets plenty of sun and water, but not too much. You must look after it, do you hear? Because if you let it wither, I shall come and take it away, as sure as you’re sitting there, so mark my words.”

Phonsine’s eyes were moist; she tried to smile, and burst into tears.

Angelina sat down at her side and put her arms around her. “Come, come—you must be brave. Forget your troubles; they’ll soon be gone. Think of all the joys to come. Why not do some knitting—that would pass the time. Would you like me to start you off?”

“I’ve tried,” replied Phonsine, “but I suddenly find I’ve dropped a hundred stitches.”

“Why not try some sewing first? It’s less confusing. Now I come to think of it, I wove a lot of wool this winter. I can bring you a couple of lengths if you like. When you’re not feeling well, you can be making some nice bonnets for the baby.”

Phonsine’s sole reply was to stare into vacancy. Then she said, “I would never have thought, Angelina, that it was so difficult to wait.”

Angelina shivered, and pulled her cape up to her throat. Then, with eyes downcast, she answered, “There’s worse than that. . . .”

“Worse?”

Angelina went on in a lowered tone, “And that’s to wait for someone when you know it’s. . . .”

“Haven’t you any hope?” asked Phonsine.

Angelina lifted her head; there was a look of rapture on her face.

“If anyone would promise me that in ten years the Stranger would come back and spend an hour with me here, I’d wait without complaining, without even finding the time too long. No . . . there’s no hope. . . .”

“Well, then,” said Phonsine. “There’s no reason for you to stay at Monk’s Inlet. What about a little trip to the Île de Grâce to see Marie-Amanda?”

Angelina, who was peering down the road, got up suddenly.

“What—go away from Monk’s Inlet? Never!”

“It will leave a mark on her for the rest of her life,” said Phonsine to herself, for a moment oblivious of her own trouble.

That same evening the blows of a hammer awakened Phonsine. They came from the bakehouse. She got up. Leaning out of the window she saw Father Didace stooping down with a row of nails in his mouth, no doubt mending the spare part of some farm implement. He passed a hand back and forward over the wood. Suddenly he stepped back and exposed the cradle to view, the ancient cradle of the Beauchemins, which he had retrieved from the attic.

So he felt no further bitterness against Amable and Phonsine. She thought he had taken an aversion to them.

Didace caught sight of her. His first impulse was to slip the cradle out of sight, but he left it where it was. After extinguishing the lamp in the bakehouse, he made his way toward the house. Phonsine was trembling like a leaf. She longed to fling herself on her knees, to confess to him and beg his forgiveness.

“Father-in-law, . . .” she began.

But Didace stopped her. He wanted no tears nor lamentations. Everyone had faults enough to answer for.

“I’ve had an idea, my girl,” said he. “Put on some warm clothes tomorrow morning. We’ll go and see what’s happening at Sorel.”

Early next morning Didace and Phonsine set out for Sorel. The latter suggested a short cut over the ice. But Didace said no. “Good roads never lengthen a journey, my girl. You’ll soon know that.”

Sorel. Tightly bound by its layers of ice, the town, dozing beneath its veils of mist, lay motionless.

After the Sailor’s Friend, they went to the river wharves, the market cellars, and the shipyards, cheering each other as time passed with the hope of news of Amable at the next place. But no one knew anything about him.

The main streets were deeply rutted, and the horse made slow progress. Didace, rather than turn down any of the bumpy side streets, let the runners of the sleigh scrape the bare roadway, so that Phonsine might be jolted as little as possible.

Gradually the town awoke. In the dock yard the repairs on the shipping started. From time to time a docker’s head popped up through a hatchway. Painters were encircling round black funnels with vermilion bands. Now and again through the thin air came the thud of the caulkers’ hammers against the ribs of the wooden lighters.

In the doorways lingered a few pursy citizens prophesying disaster. On the Place Royale young men in clusters, sailors most of them, were discussing their next job. At the sight of any girls they fell silent. But no sooner had they passed than voices were once more uplifted in chaffing comment on the visitors. If one of the girls, bolder than the rest, turned to launch a retort, they burst into roars of laughter. Their tanned faces showed the assurance both of citybred lads and of sailors. After the numb idleness of a sedentary winter they longed to be at sea again.

About midday Didace, tired of wandering about, abandoned Phonsine to her quest.

“I’m going along to the notary. Call for me there at two o’clock. And don’t wear yourself out with trying to track him down. Wherever he is, he hasn’t taken root. He’ll come back all right.”

He was making an effort to be hearty, as was obvious, but his voice quavered as he went on, “If you do come across him, you might just give him a hint, without actually saying so, that I’ve gone to see the notary.”

“If I’m not back by two o’clock,” Phonsine answered in a low tone, “don’t wait; I shall be on his track.”

The notary’s visitors went in without troubling to knock. The slightest movement of the door set a bell tinkling. A rich odor of roasting game assailed the nostrils of Didace, who was inclined to take a poor view of this indulgence. “Does himself pretty well,” said he to himself. “Game on Thursday! What extravagance!”

The notary received clients at any hour. On occasion he would, without the slightest hesitation, get up in the middle of the night to draw up an urgent document. Sometimes he had to cross the river in stormy weather. Often his fees were paid in kind. According to his clients’ means or generosity, he would accept a sucking pig, a loin of veal, a ladder, a piece of harness, a load of timber, or—as he had done that day—some game.

Didace remembered. A gust of voices reached him now and again from the next room. He thought he recognized that of Pierre-Côme Provençal and crimsoned at the thought that his corpulent old friend could have extended his property once more. Before long he would be a wealthy man, with a brick house . . . iron gates . . . a real chateau!

The notary’s voice made Didace start.

“Ah, Monsieur Beauchemin, I’ll be at your disposal in two minutes,” said he, crossing the room.

Didace knew how far he could rely on the notary’s promptitude. He himself would have been by no means satisfied with a brief visit to the man of law, his view being that a contract should be matured and its consequences weighed before he affixed his cross over the notarial signature. And how could he reflect more at his ease than in this antechamber, confronting a diploma whose already imposing dimensions were still further enhanced by a broad walnut frame?

In any case Didace was master of his time. He lit his pipe. Through the half-open door he could see into the office. Pierre-Côme was not there. Sitting with her back to the light was a little, shriveled old lady almost engulfed in the depths of a vast wooden armchair, with her three rather raffish sons. Didace recognized her. It was a charwoman commonly known as Pipelet because she smoked a clay pipe now and again. She must have been a handsome woman once. Her features retained a certain delicacy, but no life lingered in her pale, discolored eyes.

A hard and penurious life spent in scrubbing the decks of boats and polishing soft wood floors until as she proudly said, they were “as bright as yellow gold,” and cleaning cupboards (these being tasks which other charwomen declined) had enabled her to put by enough to buy a little patch of ground and build a simple wooden cabin, the inner walls covered with tar-lined paper, not far from the cemetery, as though to be handier for her last journey.

“She knows she can’t live much longer,” said the alcoholic voice of the eldest son.

Didace realized that the old lady was transferring her property to her sons.

“Pipelet handing herself over to her three calves,” he said to himself. “How shocking.”

“Yes indeed. I know I can’t live much longer. . . .”

Her feet dangling in vacancy, the Pipelet took her share in the conversation, just as though the affairs of a stranger were in question. Her faded eyes glanced from one to another of her sons, seeking support for her weakness and old age, ready to make any sacrifice to oblige her sons!

“If one could be sure she wouldn’t be ill for a long time before she died . . . I would take her on.”

They agreed admirably on the division of the property, but none of them wanted the mother, who had been worn out rather by hardship than old age.

“Yes, indeed, . . .” echoed the old woman, in the same tone as before.

The two who had thus spoken left the house. The old lady then approached the third, who had not yet opened his mouth.

“Take me with you—do. You won’t lose by me. I shan’t live long, you know.”

“There’s fate in this,” exclaimed Father Didace indignantly. “One’s a drunkard, the other’s a lazy brute, the third’s a drunkard and a lazy brute as well, and that’s the one she wants to live with!—There’s no understanding women!”

After the departure of the Pipelet and her three sons, Didace went into the office. Without a word he sat down facing the notary, letting him speak first, as though it was not his part to give a lead.

“Have you come to see me about your will and the points we were discussing the other day?”

“Yes and no.”

“Well, Monsieur Beauchemin, you want me to do something for you, I suppose.”

Didace decided to speak out. “I want you to draw up a deed of gift. You must draft it in plain terms, not omitting anything.”

“If I understand you rightly, you . . . are proposing to donate your property to Amable?”

“Exactly, with my common rights.”

“Together with a certain sum of money. I will insert that later on. In exchange, your son undertakes to provide you with your board . . . your wife included . . . of course. . . .”

“At the family table, the same as he has. I’m not going to be a Pipelet. . . .”

As he wrote the words, the notary read, “And to provide the donor and his spouse with clothes.”

“Proper clothes, for Sundays as well as weekdays.”

“To provide them with lighting, heating. . . .”

“The same as he has himself. . . .”

“To rent a pew for them in Sainte-Anne church . . . to fetch the priest in case of need, and obtain and pay for medical advice. . . .”

Didace stiffened. “I’ve never had the doctor in my life. There’s nothing the matter with me. . . .”

“All the same, as a measure of precaution. . . .”

“Very well, put it in,” said Didace.

“Is that all?” asked the notary.

“No. I want a set of live decoy ducks always kept up to strength, two drakes and ten ducks; my little shooting boat to go shooting when I like, whether it’s the closed season or not; and a few dollars to pay my fines in case of need. No one shall stop me from shooting, neither Amable nor Pierre-Côme. And a basket of food to take with me when I spend the night at the blind. Have I the right to that?”

“Certainly, you can make any stipulations you please. And now, as to your wife—any special provisions for her? Snuff, for instance?”

“She doesn’t take snuff.”

“Sweets, then? Old ladies like to have a box of sweets beside them.”

“Quite right. Put in—a pound of mixed sweetmeats, acid drops, strong peppermints, just what she fancies—the first Friday in every month.”

The notary got up.

“While you are fetching your witnesses, I will draw up the document. I have all your title deeds here.”

In a burst of astonishment, Didace pulled his woolen belt a hole or two tighter.

“Hey, Mister Notary. What’s all this? The transfer of a property isn’t like pulling a tooth out behind the cellar door.”

At the moment of transfer the Beauchemin property clung to him by tough and innumerable fibers.

“Give me time to get my breath. Who knows? I might perhaps prefer a will.”

With the same unfailing patience, the notary sketched out a draft will. When he had finished, he said to Didace, “You haven’t thought of your funeral.”

“Gosh! I needn’t provide for that as well. If they won’t have me buried, they’ll pickle me.”

The notary roared with laughter.

“There will also be Masses.”

“How do you mean—Masses?”

“Well, it’s a usual item.”

“If my survivors haven’t the heart to get some Masses said for me, I’ll do without. After all I’m dead, and they’re the mourners. Let them do their part. I’m doing mine.”

“Agreed,” said the notary. “But your heirs, in sorrowing for your loss, may well neglect to have Masses said for you. Whereas if you leave directions to that effect in your will, Masses will be said for the repose of your soul, over a reasonable period. I’ve known people, let me tell you . . . Widow Caonette from the Marsh. . . .”

The notary narrated several painful cases he had come across in the course of his profession. Leaning heavily over the table, Didace listened meditatively, staring at the lining of his cap, from which with much deliberation he pulled out a thread. Then he said abruptly,

“Do you yourself believe, Mister Notary, that there’s a hell, with flames and demons with great forks and the Devil himself and so on, as in the pictures of a bad man’s death?”

The notary stroked his chin before replying:

“I believe, my dear Monsieur Beauchemin, that there will be rewards and punishments for each of us, in accordance with the good or evil we have done. As for the fire of hell, it may not be in the least like earthly fire.”

The office echoed with the metallic tap of the pipe that Didace was knocking out on the spittoon.

“All right, then, some Masses. . . . Not a bad idea, perhaps, because, as you say, if I had to take my chance, I wouldn’t get many. . . .”

Then, in sudden resolve, he added, “Right, put ’em in. I’m taking no risks. I don’t want to have the Devil spurting flames at my backside through all eternity.”

“How many shall I say?”

“I haven’t an idea. How many do you think would be about right?”

The notary scratched his head. “It’s difficult to say. That obviously depends on many things. On the life you lived when you were a young man. I haven’t known you for very long. . . .”

“Damme!” roared Didace. “That would eat up the whole property! There’d be nothing left for the heirs!”

At two o’clock Phonsine had not appeared. Still wavering between a deed of gift and a will, Didace prepared to return to Monk’s Inlet alone.

The mare set off at a brisk pace along the Sainte-Anne road, but the surface was so bad that she soon had to slow down. Once out of the town and past the soot-blackened piles of stale snow at the edge of the sidewalks, Didace breathed again when he surveyed the white and clean immensity of the Inlet plain. Everything lay in repose. It was not the heavy somnolence of winter, but the light drowsiness that precedes awakening. No longer the harsh wind that whirls round the houses and pierces to the very marrow, but the breeze that passes and repasses like a caressing hand. With anguish in his heart as he thought of Amable, Didace drove on, turning his pipe bowl downward against the drizzle that had now begun. Despite his uneasiness, he sniffed eagerly at the springlike air that came from far away, with the promise of renewal. Amable would soon be back. After the ice break and the high waters of May, in another month everything would be green again. A few months more and the blue rushes would be shooting out of the water. Summer would be here. The smell of the buckwheat . . . the first stroke of the scythe . . . the reaping of the field of oats . . . the women working in the garden. The little child would be a harbinger of peace. Besides, women don’t talk so much in summertime. . . .

A pale shaft of light slanted through the mist. The sun came out. The snow had melted. The trees were ringed by humps of earth.

Didace noticed the russet buds on the poplar branches, and on the topmost boughs five bedraggled blackbirds, the earliest arrivals.

Some children coming out of school at Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel found Phonsine lying prostrate against the gate. They ran to the village store to tell the shopman, who hurried out to help her home.

“She ought to have taken a cart,” said Father Didace indignantly, on hearing that Phonsine had walked from Sorel to Sainte-Anne.

But when he saw her huddled beside the stove, a shawl stretched across her chest, the malformation of her body accentuating the thinness of her shoulders and her figure, his heart was touched.

“You weren’t afraid I should grumble at having to pay for a cart, were you, little one?”

While the Beauchemins had been poor, they had indeed had to be extremely careful, but today they were well-to-do, with money in the notary’s hands, and in the Church fund. . . .

Apparently oblivious to what was happening around her, Blanche sat rocking herself to and fro, nibbling at an apple, the juice of which dribbled down her chin. At the sight of this unconcern, Didace lost his temper.

“Now then, stir about and make a poultice. And brew some tea. Do you want her to die of exhaustion? Can’t you see she’s frozen through?”

“I daresay she did it on purpose, just to get some sympathy,” said Blanche, who was already shaking the teapot.

Phonsine had not been asleep for two hours when she awoke with a start, as though someone had tapped her on the shoulder. With throbbing heart, she waited. Gradually her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, but she was mistaken; there was no one in the room. None the less, convinced that there was a presence at her side, she tried to sit up. A stabbing pain in the small of her back forced her to lie down again. The pain passed, as a wave recedes, and Phonsine fell into a doze. But an hour later the pain awakened her again; it had shifted to the stomach.

“I oughtn’t to have walked so far,” said she to herself reproachfully. “Nor gone so long without food.”

And she thought in sudden panic, “I’ve got the twisted colic.”

This was dreadful. She had heard tell of people with that complaint, who had to stand on their heads to get the knot out of their intestine.

She stretched out her fingers and cautiously massaged her belly, whimpering in an undertone, “My poor body . . . my poor body. . . .”

If only dawn would come. It was so much easier to bear pain by daylight. Then she would ask for someone to go to Sister Agnes and get her a poultice.

At the third awakening, the same surge of pain came over her with even greater violence, like a rising tide. Suddenly Phonsine understood; this was the beginning.

She was going to have her child. And Amable was not there. Now, nothing mattered but the child. Nothing at all. Marie-Amanda had already said in her presence, “The first is always a long business. You must bear it patiently. And then, when you have your little one in your arms, you won’t even remember your martyrdom.” Phonsine bit her fist so as not to cry out. In a moment of respite, she prayed, “O God, I offer Thee everything, my trials, my sufferings, and my sorrow. . . .” But the pain had begun again. . . . “My sorrow, and the trials that are yet to come, if only the child may live, and not be crippled.”

A supernatural courage forced her to get up. Her aching body no longer obeyed her will. Seated on the edge of the bed, she made three attempts to stand. Her legs sagged and she slid onto her knees. She would not cry out. Others before her had fought this fight, but hers would be worse than theirs. O God! Fiery hands were clutching at her entrails; then they released her, desolate, in the red valley of maternity. A cry rang through the house; the mystery had begun.

Blanche, awakening with a start, rushed up in a dressing gown, with her hair down her back.

“Don’t scream like that. You’ll keep the men awake.”

At the cry that unmistakably announced the approach of a new life, Didace had got up also and hurriedly slipped on some clothes. Too shy to enter Phonsine’s room, he rapped out in a curt, commanding tone, “Hot water—quick—and plenty of it.”

Blanche began, “There’s no need to be in such a hurry. My Varieur’s niece, when she. . . .”

But Didace’s sharp look promptly cut her short.

“I don’t want to hear about the Varieurs tonight, please. Kindly attend to the Beauchemins. They’ll bring you better luck.”

And to Beau-Blanc, “Put both horses in the cart and fetch the doctor. As you pass Pierre-Côme’s place, wake up the Provençals and tell them from me that Phonsine’s labors have started. Get Laure to come and give us a hand as soon as she can.”

“Why?” asked Blanche. “We don’t need her.”

Didace opened his mouth but did not speak. What was the use of answering? There are some things that can only be explained to those who want to understand; the folks of the Inlet have a perfect right to fight and quarrel if they wish. But in the hour of birth as in the hour of death, they forget their differences, they act together. The parish comes first.

Lantern in hand, Didace went out, preceding the farmhand. As he helped him to harness the two draught horses, he said in a warning tone, “Don’t you take any drink on the way, because if you do, I’ll hear of it and give you something to remember.”

And he thought of Angelina.

“It wouldn’t be a bad thing to stop at her place too and see if she can come.”

Then he was left alone. Alone, and with nothing to do, he made his way across to the farm buildings. A waft of warm air, redolent of animals, met him from the stable.

It was on this night that Didace, son of Didace, was going to be born. The seventh Didace.

All the blood in his veins thrilled with the pride of race.

This very night!

Didace could scarcely contain his impatience—though he was well acquainted with the laws of nature, and knew that before reaping the grain must be given time to soak itself with rain and sunshine, and it was no use trying to hurry the harvest.

This night. . . .

And Amable wasn’t even there to receive the child.

A dark anger came over Didace at the thought that he must wait alone and that there was nothing more that he could do.

Suddenly Didace picked up the lantern that he had set on the floor and hung it on the wall. Then, his face haggard with emotion, he began to grope his way from one pen to the next among the astonished beasts.

At least the animals would be watching in his company. He jabbed the gorged and heavy belly of the pig with the point of his fork; with a contemptuous jerk of his shoulder he pushed Gaillarde against the side of her stall, as though the mare had no business to be asleep. The fowls huddled on their perches and, annoyed at being disturbed while roosting, began to cackle; the cock, bemused by this false dawn, blew his bugle call.

For the third time Laure Provençal leaned over Phonsine.

“It’s a girl, Phonsine. Won’t you look at her?”

Whiter than an anemone, Phonsine lay on her pillows, barely conscious.

“A lovely little girl . . . quite perfect. . . .”

And she laid a forefinger on her lips to engage the other women to support her. . . . “And very much alive.”

In the kitchen, the doctor, refreshing himself after his exertions, explained to Father Didace as he helped himself to some steaming potatoes and a slice of half-frozen bacon.

“No, Monsieur Beauchemin, the child is out of time. If she had been born even a few weeks ago, she would have had more chance. But an eight months’ child is a ‘blue heart,’ as we call it.”

Didace recoiled: “What! . . . And the mother?” he asked after a brief pause.

“The mother?”

The doctor wagged his head and drank some tea. He made a wry face at the acrid savor of the boiling liquid. Then he went into the bedroom and lifted Phonsine’s eyelids. Resuming his place at the table, he lowered his voice and said, “She isn’t out of danger. I can’t answer for her.”

He swallowed another mouthful of tea and rose.

“Are you going to leave her any physic?” asked Blanche.

“No. Just keep her awake as much as possible. Even if she gives no signs of life, talk to her quietly so that she doesn’t go off to sleep again.”

“Is she conscious?”

“Quite conscious,” replied the doctor. “In one hour’s time, give her a little gelatine. That has the effect of thickening the blood, and may help her to preserve the little she has left. I’m rather afraid of a hemorrhage. And above all, keep her head down and the foot of the bed raised. That’s important.”

“And what shall we give her to drink?”

“As little as possible, so as to stop the milk rising. Some coffee, if she looks like dropping asleep, but not too hot.”

“I’ll make it myself,” said Angelina. “I know her cup.”

“Right,” said the doctor, with a touch of malice. “And when I say coffee, I mean strong, black coffee.”

Didace was exhausted. After the doctor’s departure, he went and stretched himself out fully dressed on his bed, and Blanche lay down beside him. As though realizing his disappointment, she said, “If only it could have been a boy, eh? A little boy is so much nicer, I think.”

Didace, his face turned to the wall, did not reply.

Angelina’s voice awakened him two hours later. He thought he had merely been dozing for a few minutes.

“Monsieur le Curé and Pierre-Côme are coming up to the front door.”

Didace heaved himself to his feet. His blood swept back into his heart; the two visitors were in fact making their way toward the front door. With hair unbrushed, he hurried to meet them, as though to parry the blow unobserved.

“Have you come to see Phonsine?” he asked.

Pierre-Côme shook his head.

“You must be brave, Monsieur Beauchemin,” he said.

“It’s about Amable, then?”

Neither answered.

Didace merely ejaculated, “Ah,” and began to tremble all over. They made him lean against the trunk of a small elm. For a moment man and tree swayed as though caught in a gust of wind. A branch with some life in it still, though weakened by the last frost, broke off from the main stem with a dry crack and fell onto Didace’s shoulder.

In a minute or two the old man stiffened and declined any further support.

“Well?” he said.

“All that is known, Monsieur Beauchemin,” began the Abbé Lebrun, “is that Amable has had an accident.

“While a steamer was taking on a cargo of ore in the port of Montreal, Amable, who was working on the job, was knocked down by a crane. He is lying in hospital with a fractured skull, between life and death. . . .”

“I must know the truth. He isn’t dead, is he?”

“Not yet.”

Didace rallied enough strength to walk up to the house unaided. Once inside, he dropped his head in his hands and gave way to his emotions.

“Who could have believed that Amable would ever leave home.”

“Ah well,” rejoined Pierre-Côme, who had been silent until then, “people always cut themselves on blunt knives. They’re careful about sharp ones.”

“But I provoked him, you know. I ought to have known better; it’s risky to provoke a Beauchemin, and he was more of a Beauchemin than I realized.”

The Abbé Lebrun and Pierre-Côme got up. When Didace saw that they were on the point of going, he stood up in his turn and said in a low voice, harsh with grief, “My boy, it was your old father and your old mother who stood sponsors at my christening. The baby will have to be baptized tomorrow. I shan’t be there. I must take the first train to Montreal. Will you do the honors in my place?”

Pierre-Côme had acquired the habit of weighing every question before giving his reply. But this time, without any pause, he nodded.

A brief flash of satisfaction lit up Didace’s face.

“In that case, I’ll lend you Gaillarde. As you know, she behaves well at any kind of ceremony.”

The mare at least had not failed him. To think that last night he had pushed her against the side of her stall because she wouldn’t get off her litter; and he recalled her large, limpid, and astonished eyes.

Immediately he fell into utter dejection. With his hand on the latch of the door, Pierre-Côme racked his mind for something to say to Didace that would indicate his sympathy. To tell the truth, he and Didace had not always walked hand in hand. But, as between neighbors, what are a few rough words and even open quarrels, a blind burned and a fine exacted, when the blows are fairly dealt and the fist is forwarder than any bitterness of heart? All such things are calculated to strengthen rather than weaken true friendship.

Besides, they had had the same sort of upbringing, little Côme and little Didace—the same youth; they had played the same tricks and run the same risks. They had fought on the church steps on the morning of New Year’s Day.

“My name’s Provençal!”

“Mine’s Beauchemin.”

That sort of thing is not forgotten.

It was certainly Didace’s unlucky hour when he received the Stranger, that master of many trades, into his house. It had been calamitous for the village too; so fine a village, built by his forebears with so much zeal. If it was to be kept thus to themselves, no alien should be admitted; or it would not long survive.

But sympathy with Didace would be to suggest that he was a damaged old bird left to its fate by the migrating flock.

Pierre-Côme began to cough, and went on coughing as though to tear his gullet out. The six glasses clinked round the carafe on the sideboard. Then he snorted and, walking to the stove, lifted one of the lids to spit into the fire.

The noise of these proceedings produced a moan from Phonsine. The women, scandalized by such a disturbance in a house where someone lay seriously ill, got up to tend the young mother and the child, which one of them held swathed in wadding at the mouth of the oven, and motioned to Pierre-Côme to be quiet. But he, intent upon what was in his mind, burst forth, “Look here, Didace, what’s preventing you from mending your bit of road? It’s a disgrace to the village, outside a gate like yours.”

Didace promptly retorted, “Mind your own business!”

Noticing that the Curé was looking at them wide-eyed, he calmed down. Mother Salvail leaned toward Angelina and said, “He’s a nasty fellow, that Provençal, don’t you think?”

They had not crossed the threshold of the house when the Curé turned and said with much emotion to Pierre-Côme, “You’re a very good fellow, Monsieur Provençal.”

Phonsine was barely breathing. Her thin blood was ebbing away like water from a cracked pitcher. She was struggling to preserve her energies. One by one, like a scattered herd, she rallied them as soon as she regained consciousness.

She refused to die. If she died, who would take care of her baby? No, her baby should not be what she had been, an orphan, brought up on charity. Already she saw it growing up. She wondered what sort of present she could give it. A doll? A really nice doll, to replace the one that Phonsine had never had. Then she would send her as a boarder to the convent at Sorel, to heal the wounded pride that still rankled in her heart from having, as a child, had to wait on other children. On Sunday she would put on her best clothes to go and visit with her in the parlor. Her daughter would wear a loose, flounced uniform—the number of flounces symbolizing opulence in her childish mind. Later on she would wear silk. She would do fine needlework. And her husband, not a farmhand, would bring her boxes of sweet grass. When she had a child, her mother—she, Phonsine—would look after her; no strange nurse should try to stop the baby crying.

From outside came the call of the hen blackbird.

“Poor little blackbird, poor little mother, are you all alone too? Have you too lost your mate?”

Then Phonsine felt herself swept away into a haze of fever. She was no more than a dead leaf on the water. It was good to have no weight to carry, to let oneself drift with the current. But the leaf caught against a stone.

Phonsine found herself painfully returning to the reality of her bedroom. Ah, yes—she had a small daughter. The thought thrilled her with joy. And with the joy, the blood swept in hot waves through her body. She tried to calm herself.

“I shall not die.

“It would give Blanche too much pleasure,” she thought. Then she bit her lips in contrition. By way of penitence, when she was stronger, she would say her rosary ten times.

Amable would certainly have preferred a boy, but when he came back she would say to him, “Isn’t she lovely; she’s like the Beauchemins.” Again the fever gripped her. Amable was standing beside the cot. He begged his wife to put the little one into his arms. Phonsine tried hard. She wanted to say to him, “Can’t you see that both my hands are tied?” But she could not speak, nor lift a finger. Then he went away.

Phonsine woke up, her head soaked in sweat. In the kitchen the cradle was creaking as Didace’s ponderous foot rocked it to and fro.

“I’m going away,” she wailed.

Didace heard her lamenting voice. He opened the bedroom door a little wider.

“Do you want anything, Phonsine?”

But the sick woman did not move. She seemed to be asleep. The baby was sleeping too. This little parcel of flesh, a daughter, was perhaps all that was left of Amable. And in a day or two, there would be nothing left. With his hands over his eyes, wounded in flesh and pride, he had a vision of Amable prostrate on the quay, his skull fractured, in a pool of blood. And here in the house was his child, a grotesque little figure engulfed in its bonnet, its tiny body swathed in wadding. The last of them all. How pitiful!

God deals a blow where it will tell. There must be no rebelling. That is to walk against the wind, as the Abbé Lebrun said. But the blows do tell.

The light of the lamp was failing. Its reflection had dwindled to a narrow, yellow crescent. With his hands on his hips, Didace leaned forward and peered out over the countryside. All around the house, the calm, pure dawn launched its peace into infinity. The day would be fine. Didace came back into the room and took off the lamp globe. With horny thumb and forefinger he snuffed the wick. A whitish glow flooded the room, set the shadows dancing, and dazzled the eyes of the sleeping dog.

The child stirred in the cradle. Didace had not really looked at her before; he had waited till he was alone. He bent over the cradle for a moment, and then a second time to make more certain. He rubbed his eyes. There was a choking sensation in his throat. Yes—the child had the low, stubborn Beauchemin brow with black, close-set hair, and the broad Beauchemin nose, an incomparable organ for sniffing the wind. She was made in his own image, she was one of the true breed!

He padded on stockinged feet into the room. Every one of his steps rang like hammer blows on Phonsine’s temples. She saw three men’s heads in the doorway, then two, then she recognized Father Didace and began to tremble. What if he reproached her with having produced a girl instead of a boy? Or if he insisted on her standing up to receive the christening certificate?

“I should never have the strength,” she thought.

Didace had laid his hand on the foot of the cradle. Phonsine became dizzy; the room swayed to and fro.

“Phonsine—are you asleep?”

She shook her head. With a great effort she succeeded in uttering two syllables: “A-mab-?”

Where was Amable? The truth was being withheld from her. She had heard the women muttering in the kitchen. And Marie-Amanda had been sent for.

In a sudden uprush of pride, Didace squared his shoulders. There was one law for everything in the world: one for time, one for plants, and one for the family. Only the master, not the son, must give orders in the house. It was for Amable to obey.

“I am his father,” said he, with head erect.

In the kitchen the child whimpered, the little child with the low, stubborn brow and the broad Beauchemin nose. In haste to soothe the child, he tried to blurt out everything at once, but the words stuck in his throat. The choking sensation grew still more intense.

“You must have the child baptized today, my dear. But I shan’t be there. Later on you’ll know why. Don’t worry about that. In our family, you know, the eldest is always called Didace. For good luck’s sake, you ought to name the child after me, after Amable-Didace and all the other Didaces.”

His voice faded.

“Call her Didace—Didace. Do you hear, Phonsine?”

Phonsine tried to repeat the name after him, as though to pledge herself. “Didace . . . Marie-Didace.” But she could not.

As a sign of life, she put all her strength into lifting her hand; then she let it drop into the streak of light shed by the kitchen lamp across the counterpane. Her face, in shadow, was streaming with tears, and her body was still trembling, not with fear now, but with joy.

Now she was a true Beauchemin.

Marie-Didace!

Marie-Didace, a breath of life, without even the strength to weep. She was a month old. At every visit the neighbors were amazed to find her still in her cradle.

“Poor little atom!”

“She’s as blue as a grape.”

“But she doesn’t choke when she cries,” said Blanche. Her strong hands turned the child over on its face, and she dandled it on her knees.

At this Phonsine, who was only slowly recovering from her confinement, shivered, her heart wrung with anxiety beside the overheated stove, in terror lest Blanche should break the child’s back.

Marie-Didace. Two black and beady eyes, which looked inquiringly at space or squinted in the cradle at the fist she was trying to nibble. A chuckle and a gasp. Three months old. Again the neighbors are amazed.

“Well, it really does look as if she’s going to thrive.”

From week to week, from day to day the mystery proceeds. Marie-Didace lives. She awakens to a knowledge of the people in the house. Mummy—a hard, black bodice against which her little head vainly thumped in search of a soft corner for sleep. Grandma—a vast, flowered bodice, velvety and warm, heaving up and down, and singing.

Phonsine, already jealous, held her arms out for the child. “Let me have her,” she said.

But Marie-Didace snuggled her head deeper into the warm hollow between Blanche’s arm and bosom.

“Can’t you see she wants to go to sleep? She’s making a cosy little corner for herself, the little wretch!”

The chair creaked as she rocked it to and fro.

“Sleepy-by, baby, sleep. . . .”

Marie-Didace’s eyes closed.

But the hero, the champion of the house, was Father Didace. At a year and a half, Marie-Didace followed him about like a shadow. If he went out of a door without taking her, she danced with rage, and flung herself onto the floor.

“Look at her, the little lamb, she pushes her way in everywhere. Come along, lambkin, and leave your papa in peace.”

“She’s going to faint,” cried Phonsine in a frenzied tone.

Father Didace quickly retraced his steps, and the child was promptly consoled.

Oh, these Beauchemins!

Grandpa—a big, loud voice and a prickly face:

. . . and then a magic foot that lifts the child into space.

Two great hands that hoist her up to the ceiling.

“She’s such a little dear!” said Father Didace with tears in his eyes, to all and sundry.

Guided by the hand of Father Didace, the child’s hand plunges into the bowl. A handful of meal for the little pigs, all whimpering like children, jostling around and rising up on their hind legs, with beady eyes and pink, quivering snouts. A handful of grain for the hen. Marie-Didace smiled to see the pullets pecking at her feet.

Suddenly Father Didace, wearied by the living burden of the child, made off toward the house. The farmyard echoed with Marie-Didace’s cries.

“You don’t want to go back home? You don’t? Where do you want to go then?”

The child pointed to the water’s edge.

“You want to see the ducks? All right, we’ll go.”

Again the child began to protest.

“What is it now?”

The old gentleman peered about him, baffled.

“Aha, yes, we’ve dropped Spot somewhere on the way.”

Without Spot to chase the ducks, there would be no fun by the riverside.

“Hullo, there—Spot!”

The dog regretfully abandoned his patch of sunshine. He shambled up to his master, and then, entering into the game, dashed off in pursuit of the ducks. Phonsine appeared on the threshold of the bakehouse door and said with anger in her voice, “You’ll make the child so unruly!”

Then, in an impulse of fear, she cried, “Don’t for God’s sake, lean over the water with her, whatever you do!”

Marie-Didace!

“Six years old! And no more obedient than a year-old baby,” said Blanche impatiently.

Marie-Didace, flat on her face in the tall grass, heard but did not stir. From her grandmother’s voice she could tell that she wasn’t expected to answer yet. With her eyes half closed, like a little cat, intent upon her secret life, she was listening, in that midday hour of June, to the first music of the earth. Nearby a bee was gathering honey; anemones, fleabane, and, in the dell, violets were bursting into blossom. For Marie-Didace they were flowers awakened. Others beside them were still asleep.

The white duck waddled up sedately, quacking as she came. Always spotless and always solitary, her isolation never failed to cause surprise. But not to Marie-Didace, who knew the reason. The white duck did not want to soil her plumage. Fearing lest the secret of her hiding place might be revealed by all this quacking, Marie-Didace shooed the duck away.

The voice, shriller now, pierced the silence. This time the child thought she had better answer.

“What is it?”

“Run down to the river, and tell Grandpa that dinner’s ready to dish up. And don’t get into the nettles.”

Marie-Didace sat down sedately. She picked an anemone and lifted the tiny calyx to her lips. An ant crawled onto her foot. Before she got up, while the warm sand was trickling between her toes, she gave the insect time to get back onto the ground. Once on her feet, Marie-Didace ran off. Suddenly, panting for breath, she stopped. The soft and silky leaves of the poplars were rustling in the breeze. On one of the main branches a starling sat and chuckled. A blackbird, with its white shirt front and glistening back, darted through the foliage. Everywhere, from one tree to the next, the birds were busy, each with its own nest.

Rather than go in by the open gateway, Marie-Didace wormed herself through the wire fence, leaving a mesh of hair behind her. On the road nearby a little knot of people had gathered. The child ran toward them, gleefully scattering the dust with her bare feet as she went.

The final ice break had flooded the countryside. The lower part of Monk’s Inlet was under water. Since his marriage with Bernadette Salvail, Odilon Provençal had settled there while waiting to inherit the old estate. The farmers had to let the cattle wander about at random in search of food, since they could no longer put them out to pasture on the Common.

Odilon Provençal ran up with a ladle in his hand, his wife at his heels. Catching sight of their small son Tit-Côme, she cried, “Get the children out of the way, and don’t let them see anything.”

“What’s the matter?” said Marie-Didace to Tit-Côme, she having overtaken the pair.

In a piping voice, already touched with conceit, he condescendingly explained, “The cow has just dropped her calf.”

In the grass near the cow, which was assiduously licking its offspring, stood the calf, a glistening, leggy little creature, its bluish eyes interrogating space.

Odilon, quite beside himself, stormed after his wife.

“Pick up the chain, Bedette! Take the cow back to the stable. Now, then, get a move on!”

Bernadette shrugged her shoulders.

“Really, Dilon, you are silly! You know she can’t be shifted without her calf.”

When the cow had gone, the children scattered. On the quay a huge pile of wool was drying. Marie-Didace was the first to dive into it. Didace, who was repairing his hunting boat under the great willow, paused, brush in hand, to watch the child’s antics.

“Tarring her, eh?”

Didace started at the voice of Pierre-Côme Provençal, whom he had not heard approach. Slowly and sedately, he replied, “I am.”

The two men measured each other with a look.

“You’re tarring your boat so as to shoot before the season opens. Well, I’ll catch you on one of the little creeks.”

“I am tarring my boat: just you try to make me pay the fine. I’ll fix my blind among the reeds so that you’ll pass right by it and never know it’s there.”

“Have you heard the news?” asked Pierre-Côme, leaning against the willow.

“. . . The news?” asked Didace in his turn.

“Bacon has gone up again. It’s selling at twenty-seven cents. Everything’s going up in the most ridiculous way—table butter at forty-seven cents, and eggs, and so on.”

“Is that so?”

“You’ll see it in the Gazette. We’d better put up our prices too.”

“Hum,” said Didace reflectively.

War was an odd invention. Men fighting, suffering, losing their property, and even dying on the field of battle; and all the while their brothers far away would be filling their bellies and their pockets. Yes, but the men of the Inlet had known hardships too. In the early days of the colony, for instance, when the Iroquois used to wash their weapons in the Jean Brook and the older people could not go out of their doors unarmed for fear of being scalped; and the Indians used to carry off the women and force them to live in wigwams like themselves. Since those times the Beauchemins had struggled to clear the forest, to acquire and then to keep the patch of ground and the house—struggled against the water and the ice, against all kinds of foes, while the people of the old countries were enjoying themselves.

Marie-Didace tugged at her grandfather’s sleeve.

“G’andpa—listen.”

“What is it, dear?”

“Listen: the thrush is calling for rain.”

Didace smiled at his granddaughter. Poor little soul! Who could tell whether it wasn’t due to all these hardships that the Beauchemin blood had become clotted in Amable. And Didace thought, “We’ve had our war. Some for joy and some for trouble—that’s the way of the world.”

“There’s not a shadow of a doubt,” he said emphatically, “prices must go up.” And with a deep pull at his pipe, he continued: “I suppose the war’s still on? What does it say in the Gazette?”

“The news isn’t too good. To speak frankly. . . .”

Pierre-Côme, in fact, merely glanced at the headlines about the war. Out of Date Methods: War to the Bitter End . . . Lloyd George . . . Too Many Ministers in England. He moistened his massive thumb with saliva and quickly turned over the pages until he got to the commodity prices. He scarcely looked at the lists of killed, wounded, and missing, and of prisoners of war, among whom were none of his own kin.

“How are the French getting on?”

“Not too well; though they sometimes seem to try to make a push.”

“Well, peace must come sometime. How they must long for it.”

Pierre-Côme stiffened and said angrily, “Don’t let’s think about peace. The shipyards at Sorel have just been given a big contract—twenty steamers, a hundred and eighty-odd feet long.

“And shells! Joinville says eight hundred thousand are being turned out every week in this country alone. Which just goes to show. . . .”

Didace caught the purpose behind Pierre-Côme’s words.

“You’re all right, anyway.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve got nothing to complain of. You’re making money hand over fist—a farm in full production, and your four sons nearby. Three of them on the land, and Joinville in munitions, earning eight or ten dollars a day.”

“Yes, but he has to spend a good deal of that. . . .”

Joinville was the splinter in Pierre-Côme’s heart. In the hope of attaching him to the farm and to Rose-de-Lima Bibeau, who would gladly have married him, and rather than see him leave the Inlet for good and all, he had agreed to let him work at Sorel. Besides, there seemed every prospect that conscription would be an accomplished fact in a few weeks.

Seeing Didace at work with his left arm bandaged against his side, he said, “Have you ricked your arm?”

“I rather think I’ve dislocated a small bone or strained a sinew, and I’ve got a hell of a pain in that arm. I feel as if the flesh were coming off the bones.”

“I expect it’s a cyst. Go and see Coq. With those great thumbs of his he’ll put it to rights in no time.”

“Oh, it will cure itself.”

They smoked in silence. After a time, Pierre-Côme said, “Is that boat you’re mending the one the Stranger made for you?”

“It is. Until a branch fell on it the other day, it was just as good as new. Luckily the bow caught it just where the boat’s strongest.”

“By the way,” said Provençal, as he prepared to depart, “I saw in the Gazette a photograph of a chap who looked very like your Stranger. But it couldn’t be he, as he was in uniform.”

Didace did not move a muscle. He had long hoped, and also feared, that the Stranger might return—because by coming back to Monk’s Inlet, delighted as Didace would have been to see him, the rover would have thereby belied himself.

“Lie down!” Didace suddenly shouted to the Provençals’ dog, who, with his tongue hanging out, was barking breathlessly round Spot.

“That’s a silly dog of yours, my boy. He’s always about the place trying to bully Spot. Poor old Spot was a very useful watchdog when he was younger. He hasn’t much strength left now. If your beast goes on making a nuisance of himself, I’ll get another dog—one of Spot’s sons—who’s being trained by a farmer at Saint-Ours. He’ll soon make short work of yours.”

The wind turned. Far away the Pélerine was pealing. The Angelus sped in gusts across the blue and white sky.

Pierre-Côme moved off, the dog at his heels. Marie-Didace suddenly remembered her errand.

At that same instant, Blanche’s voice was heard, calling to the child. Then, in Phonsine’s anguished tones, “Good God! I hope she hasn’t fallen down the well.”

“Now then, don’t scream like that,” Didace shouted to the two women.

And he said to the child, “Answer at once. Your mother’s anxious.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Marie-Didace.

“You’ll get the worst thrashing you ever had in your life,” cried Blanche.

“If you lay a finger on her, you’ll have Father Didace to deal with. You seem to take a delight in getting the child down to the water.”

The two women went on bickering outside the bakehouse.

“I wish it was September,” said Phonsine, “and I’d pack her off to school. She wouldn’t get into mischief there, at any rate.”

“That would be a sad shame,” protested Blanche. “The child isn’t old enough.”

Marie-Didace began to whimper, clinging to her grandfather.

“I won’t go to school! I won’t! I don’t know how to read or write; I don’t know anything. What’s the use of my going to school?”

“You’d learn your lessons.”

“I’m not old enough—Mummy said so. Besides, I should get lost in the snow.”

“Don’t be so silly. I’ll clear a path for you. And when school is over, I’ll come and fetch you. Keep close up to me and you won’t feel the wind.”

“Look—look what’s flying over the Common.”

A heron, flapping its great wings, alighted with long, pendent legs on the farther bank.

“If you’re a good girl,” Didace went on, “I might show you a teal’s nest later on.”

“Where?” asked the child, in a voice of eagerness and doubt combined.

“Opposite Île à la Croix.”

Marie-Didace clapped her hands. Of all the islands, she loved Île à la Croix most, with its green point that always looked to her like a boat’s bow covered with greenery.

“Will the little mother be on her nest?” she demanded.

“Yes, but you’ll have to keep quite quiet so as not to disturb her. She’s got hardly any feathers left. She tore them all out to line her nest. The young ones must be just hatching out.”

“How many are there?”

“Thirteen. A lovely brood. The little papa is always around. It’s such a pretty sight.”

Father Didace stamped on a smoking brand that was lying about among the weeds, and covered it with soil. Then, after carefully placing the brush in the cauldron of tar, he took the child by the hand.

Left alone in the house, Phonsine had scarcely lain down in her cool bedroom when she had to get up again. There was a repeated knocking at the outer door. On her way to open it, she glanced at the clock. One o’clock. She had just had time to drop off to sleep.

At the door she was met by a gust of scorching air. Two men with guns were outside.

“You sleep pretty sound,” said one of them, in a bantering tone, which to Phonsine sounded reproachful.

Phonsine eyed the stranger. What did he mean by talking to her in that way?

“We’ve been hammering on this door for fully five minutes,” he went on.

The other explained, “We want Father Didace to take us out shooting.”

Annoyed at having been disturbed and by the way they spoke, she did not invite them in, and contented herself with talking to them through the screen door.

“Then you’re wasting your time,” she said. “He’s out in the fields and can’t come back. The haying’s going to start this morning.”

“Oho!” said both men.

“Besides,” said Phonsine, “don’t you think it’s rather early to go duck shooting in August?”

“When they’re young, they’re tender. And Pierre-Côme is haymaking. Do you understand? Now’s the time.”

She ended by yielding to their insistence, being more especially afraid that Father Didace might learn of her refusal later on.

With a large straw hat pulled down over her eyes to protect her from sunstroke, Phonsine crossed the yard where some dishcloths lay bleaching on the grass. Sitting on the balustrade of the veranda the two men, pipes in mouth and legs dangling, followed her with their eyes. Suddenly they smiled as they saw her, instead of taking the short path by the well, go right around by the farm buildings, despite the heat, walking with a brisk and nervous step, in contrast with her listlessness a few moments before. Once she had passed the Common she relapsed into her slouching gait. With long, indolent strides she made her way up the slope, her feet almost unconsciously avoiding the still-standing hay.

The first time that Phonsine, in a dream, had fallen down the well was two days after Amable’s death. She had first dreamed that in trying to take her cup away from Blanche, it had slipped out of her hands. As she leaned over the well and tried to get it out, she saw that it was not her cup but her little girl that had fallen in. She herself, clutching at space, was spinning down a bottomless abyss, uttering shrieks that flayed her throat. She had waked up bathed in sweat, and with such palpitations that her heart seemed to be bursting out of her breast. Surely someone would rush in and come to her help, or at least ask her what was the matter. Still panting, she waited. No. In the neighboring room, they were watching by the body. A woman in a bleak and spectral voice was reciting the prayers for Amable.

“Deliver, O Lord, the soul of Thy Servant, as Thou hast delivered. . . .

“Deliver, O Lord the Soul of Thy Servant . . .

“Deliver, O Lord. . . .”

Phonsine had tried to get out of bed, but she had not succeeded in detaching her leg from the tangled bedclothes. Through the window a wan dawn was banishing the night, the last night that Amable was spending on earth. Grief banished from Phonsine’s mind the visions of their brief happiness together. Once more she saw Amable’s face, so desolate, peering at her through the window; then his sagging shoulders, and his back, so soon to disappear forever from Monk’s Inlet.

“Forgive me, Amable.”

Shaken with sobs, her head buried in the pillow, she had burst into tears.

Next month Phonsine’s dream had twice returned. As soon as she had recovered enough strength to make the journey, she had gone to see the doctor at Sorel.

“Do you cry out?” he asked.

“Apparently I do. My throat is always feverish when I wake up.”

“What are your sensations when you fall into the well?”

“At first, it attracts me. Afterward—well, it’s death. I die all of a sudden.”

“And next day?”

“I feel tired, and a sort of heaviness all over me. All my limbs ache. I’m as stiff as if I’d done a hard day’s threshing in a mill.”

The doctor stroked his beard pensively. Flinging himself back into his rocking chair, his hands clasped across his stomach, which was made more prominent by a pair of tight trousers, he sat with vacant eyes and pondered. The sole movement came from the tassel of the smoking cap he wore indoors, even in summer, to protect his bald head against draughts. Suddenly, noticing a load of wood just entering the yard, he ran outside to direct the driver to the stable. Then he reverted to his meditative attitude on his chair—not without lifting the skirts of the black frock coat which he wore, year in year out, more from respect for his profession than from vanity (for as the son of farmers, he was still one of themselves). Phonsine waited for him to speak.

“I don’t see anything serious in your case,” he said. “Some people leap into the air when they’re in bed asleep. With you it’s just the opposite; you fall. A real shock is what is needed to put you to rights.”

“Oh dear! Don’t you think I’ve had enough shocks, doctor?”

He eyed her compassionately.

“Indeed, my dear girl, I realize what you have had to go through. Your husband’s death and then this slow fever, after childbirth. But slow fevers. . . .”

His voice gradually hardened; he screwed up his face, and looked contemptuous.

“I don’t like slow fever. A nasty creeping sort of trouble, that leaves its poison in the blood for years. . . .”

He grew more peremptory, and addressed his patient as though she were responsible for her condition.

“Look at yourself. You’re as thin as a woodpecker. Your eyes are sunk into your head. You weren’t even able to feed your baby. Do you know what you need? A good, solid illness that would stop you thinking. That would clear your mind and blood. After that your health would stand up to anything. In the meantime what you need is rest.”

But Phonsine could not tell the doctor what was preying on her mind: her inveterate resentment against Blanche for having driven Amable away, for having replaced her as queen and mistress of the house; and, above all, her fear that she might lose her child. “I’m already punished enough by her being there. There’ll never be any peace for me,” she said to herself, as the doctor went into the dispensary. Through the half-open door she saw him slide the glass panels of a cupboard against the wall and then take out, one after another, two small jars, which he held close to his short-sighted eyes, pushing up his spectacles so as to read the list of the contents on the label.

“Are you going to make me up a tonic wine, something with iron and beef-juice in it?”

“No, something better than that, to calm your nerves and put some strength into you,” replied the doctor, dusting the bottle with the tail of his coat.

Later on, as the nightmare returned at shorter and shorter intervals, she again went to see the doctor. But he himself had talked about her to Blanche, who, having always enjoyed good health, would never admit that anyone else could be ill.

“I never hear her make a sound,” she had replied. “It’s all just imagination, doctor.”

More to cheer her up than with any notion of teasing her, the doctor had said to Phonsine, “If I were you, my dear girl, I would marry again. That would be a certain cure.”

Phonsine had been furious. As soon as a widow got the least bit out of sorts, everybody, even the doctor, was inclined to explain the fact by the absence of a man in her life. So she never mentioned it again to anyone. But as her nightmare returned, her nervousness increased and was combined with a terror of the night. She stayed awake as long as she could, struggling not to give way to sleep.

But she never went near the well.

Since the morning, Didace Beauchemin had been mowing.

He had, as his custom was, when the dew had fallen, dealt the first stroke with the scythe, as behooved the master of the property. Then he had gone on scything with his own hands, so as not to lose any of the grass on the edges of the field, by the ditches, and under the hedges among the strands of morning-glories.

Didace had lately taken to a mechanical mower, merely because of the shortage of labor since the war. From a distance Phonsine saw him approach, his head bowed, moving very like the horses he was leading, as though he shared their load.

Swath upon swath the hay fell and lay, golden at the top, blue near the stalk, mingled with wild millet, sweet-smelling clover, thistles, and wild peas. The air grew fragrant with their scents.

Since midday Blanche had been turning the cut hay. Her bright pink dress could be seen from far away. Proud of the whiteness of her skin, she was wearing black cotton mittens. Phonsine watched her manipulating the fork, shaking the hay out to dry much more skillfully than the young hired hand employed by the Beauchemins. She envied her her strength.

Dislodged from the cool soil, the mosquitoes set up an irritating hum. Now and again a loud smack marked the end of one that had just stung one of the haymakers. But, with the advent of haying, their season was past; they would soon betake themselves to the marshes.

A huge cloud lowered in the sky above the Inlet; the field filled with shadow. Then the sun reappeared, more brilliant than before. The mown field was dotted with bare patches and looked to Phonsine rather like the coat of a freshly shorn animal.

Marie-Didace and Tit-Côme had begun by gleaning the hay in small armfuls, with the firm intention of making themselves useful all through the afternoon. But gradually they had begun to amuse themselves by picking the seeds off the plantains to catch the birds, or gathering raspberries on the outskirts of the forest, which was what Marie-Didace most enjoyed.

Whenever Phonsine saw the little girl organizing games or taking the lead in her little society, she rejoiced to find in her daughter the qualities so lacking in herself. “She enjoys life,” thought Phonsine with a thrill. “At her age I had already begun to worry.”

Marie-Didace’s clear voice reached her with the summer breeze.

“Tit-Côme, let’s play at the wife who’s lost her husband.”

“Don’t know that game,” said Tit-Côme, who talked with the tip of his tongue.

Phonsine, with a dagger in her heart, lay flat in the grass, out of their sight, to listen to their cruel, innocent chatter.

“Don’t know it?” jeered Marie-Didace. “Well, I’ll show you. I’m the wife, and you’re the man, my husband. Bad people came along and made us get into a great ship and took us away . . . ever so far. We were lost; everybody searched for us for a hundred years.”

“Thirty years will be enough,” said Blanche, who recognized a local story of her own, which she had told the little girl. Phonsine recognized it too, and was distressed to see how much the stepmother had impressed herself on the child’s mind.

“Thirty years to begin with,” said Marie-Didace, correcting herself. “You knock at every house. ‘Have you seen my Julie?’ And I ask, ‘Have you seen my Julot?’ Now then—you start.”

Tit-Côme, hopping up and down like a sparrow, said to the gate posts, the trees, and the hay, “Have you seen my Didace?”

Again the little girl said in a tone of reproof,

“No—my Julie.”

In a grave, lamenting tone, to show her little friend how it ought to be done, she went up to Didace, Blanche, and the hired hand, and said, “Have you seen my Julot?”

“And what next?” asked Tit-Côme, who was enjoying all this very much.

“Listen. On Sunday there’s a procession. I wear a big widow’s veil.”

She picked up an old rag and covered her face. Then she took a block of wood and gave it to Tit-Côme.

“You’re an old man with a limp. Suddenly you catch sight of me, and come to fetch me.”

The children acted the scene.

“Now, Madame, up with your veil,” said Tit-Côme imperiously.

“That’s not right,” protested Marie-Didace.

And turning to Blanche, she said, “What ought I to do, Mummy?”

Blanche explained, “He goes quietly up to the woman, and so as not to frighten her, he says very gently, ‘I don’t want to offend you, my dear lady, but you rather remind me of a person of my acquaintance I lost sight of many years ago. Might I ask you to be so kind as to lift your veil and show me your face?’ Then the two recognize each other—it was indeed Julie Arsenault—and they burst into tears.”

“That’s not a game,” said Tit-Côme, refusing to go on.

Marie-Didace fell into a fury. “You’re a dirty Provençal!”

“Marie-Didace! I’m ashamed of you!”

But Didace laughed, and egged her on in a whisper.

“That’s right; let him have it. But it’s enough to tell him he’s a real Provençal.”

“How he spoils her,” thought Phonsine.

After a few moments, as Marie-Didace was picking up some little frogs and seemed to be amusing herself, Tit-Côme rejoined her. A cry from the little girl made Didace look up.

“Papa, you’ve been cutting the frogs’ legs off with your mower.”

Didace stopped the horses, which had been gradually drooping since the morning. He took advantage of the pause to snap off a plane-tree withe which he could use as a goad. While he was peeling off the bark, he noticed Phonsine a few steps away. As she rose to her feet, her knee knocked against something. She reached out a hand to it—why, it was the doll she had bought for Marie-Didace. The stuffing was oozing from its kidskin carcass, and the eyes had dropped out of the discolored face. The child valued it no longer; she had left it out in the rain.

“Marie-Didace!”

The child thought her mother was coming in search of her; she ran and took refuge with Blanche.

“Don’t run about so much,” said Phonsine, with anguish in her heart. “And just look at your poor doll!”

Then she said to her father-in-law, “There are two men asking for you at home, they want you to take them out shooting.”

“Do you know them?”

“Sure I do. Not by name, but by sight. Or I wouldn’t have opened the door.”

“Why didn’t you tell them to come and fix it up with me themselves? You would have spared yourself a journey.”

“They did suggest it, but I thought perhaps you might have wanted to get out of it—I didn’t know. . . .”

The Acadian stuck her fork in the ground.

“Do you see?” she said to Father Didace. “If you weren’t so pigheaded and would let me send for Varieur’s boy, you would have some proper help and could go out shooting when you liked.”

She never lost an occasion of stressing the advantages which the presence of the Varieur boy would bring to each and all of them. Conscription would provide her with a telling argument. But Father Didace was impervious. Without a word, he led the horses into the shade of the young plane trees. The leaves were already losing the resplendent green of high summer. He began to unharness the horses. By the time Blanche caught sight of him, he had finished.

“You surely can’t leave the field half mown,” she said. “It’s heavy weather, there’s going to be a storm. Look; there’s a film over the sky toward the north.”

Didace silently put away the mechanical mower. The blade glittered in the sunshine slanting through the foliage. He put a bundle of straw on the seat. The Acadian went on peevishly, “Didace, you aren’t leaving the mower like that? And the hay? The hay must come first.”

“Meals come before hay. I’m going shooting. That’s the life for me. Blast the hay!”

He hoisted Tit-Côme onto one horse, Marie-Didace onto the other, and with Phonsine in the rear they made their way toward the house.

Hopping along on one foot, or prostrate on the grass watching the flight of the birds, Marie-Didace had been on the lookout since morning for her grandfather’s return. She was the first to see the canoe manned by the two men with guns approaching from the Inlet, towing a second canoe, apparently empty.

She ran to tell Blanche, who was busy bedding out tomato plants in the kitchen garden. Phonsine heard them from the bakehouse.

“What does it mean? Can there have been an accident?”

With his arms dangling and his face so haggard that Phonsine gave a start as she saw it, Didace, supported by the two strangers, leaned against the framework of the door before entering the room.

“Quick! Take my coat off. I’m stifling.”

Blanche, delighted to find she had been in the right, began to nag at him. “I suppose you’ve injured yourself, eh? Didn’t I tell you yesterday to be careful?”

But his appearance was so altered that she said no more. Didace closed his eyes.

Beauchemin had had an attack of angina in the middle of the night. The two others had laid him down on straw in the bottom of his canoe, under the shooting tarpaulin. But they had had to wait for daylight before coming out from the blind, so as to make sure of their course among the various backwaters. At dawn, the decoys taken in and the canoe hitched to their own boat, the storm broke. Against a head wind, towing Didace’s canoe, they had slowly made their way upstream. The sun was high in the heavens when they got back to the house.

“Shall we send the doctor along?” said the two hunters, who were returning to Sorel.

“Yes, yes, please get Dr. Casaubon,” said Phonsine eagerly.

“This blasted left arm of mine seems to have gone dead,” explained Didace.

“I expect you’ve caught a chill,” said the Acadian. “I’ve got an aching shoulder myself.”

“Yes,” thought Phonsine, “she always would try to draw attention to herself.” On her knees beside Father Didace, she said to him, “Keep still. I’ll take your boots off.”

She tried to pull them off, but in vain—she pulled so feebly, like a woman in a dream. When had she gone through these same movements before? Gradually, in little touches, the picture in her memory set and clarified. Kneeling beside the Stranger, one evening when he had been drinking, Phonsine had taken off his boots. In a flurry of incoherent talk—dance of the sunshine, dance of Easter morning—he told her the story of Father Didace’s love affair with the Acadian woman. The drunken man’s head had dropped back onto the table. Two pools of gray water had stained the freshly scrubbed floor. Phonsine had had a vision of the security and peace of which she would be robbed. Among the burning, sun-tanned ears of corn she would be merely the poor blackened grain contemptuously ejected from the sieve.

The Stranger had not brought good fortune to the Beauchemins. True, his magnetic power barely cast a reflection on them now; but the furrow of ill fortune that he had unwittingly plowed around their house had not been filled in six years later. This woman, the Acadian, was not one of themselves; she had defrauded them of part of their heritage, and she incessantly threatened them with the presence of her son Varieur. This woman, who always took the part of Marie-Didace, and had won the affection of the child to the detriment of Phonsine—it was the Stranger who had made her known to Father Didace. But for her, but for her maneuvers, Amable would never have left Monk’s Inlet, and he would not be dead. Nor would Phonsine be haunted by the nightly vision of her little girl falling into the well.

What if it started over again! Let another Stranger come and knock at the Beauchemin door. Phonsine would give him the reception he deserved. She always exerted her energies in dreams and exhausted them in dreams. In the real world. . . .

Two tears trickled down Phonsine’s haggard cheeks. She pulled, and pulled. . . .

“Pull harder, girl!”

Hoarsely she muttered, “I’m afraid of hurting you.”

The break in his daughter-in-law’s voice opened Didace’s eyes. He could see nothing but her bent head, her bright chestnut hair faintly streaked with white.

“Why, you’re going gray,” he said in a tone of gentle astonishment.

Father Didace’s unaccustomed tenderness finally overwhelmed Phonsine.

“Clumsy girl,” said Blanche, pushing her aside. Squatting on the floor, with one hand she gripped the toe of Father Didace’s boot, the heel with the other, and thus had both boots off in a twinkling.

She wanted to wrap a woolen cloak around his knees, but he thrust it aside.

“Tell. . . .”

“Pierre-Côme?”

He nodded.

“And . . . Marie-Amanda.”

Marie-Didace, glad to make herself useful, ran to the Provençal house.

Curé Lebrun took his place in the light cart beside Pierre-Côme Provençal. The small russet mare set off briskly along the road to Monk’s Inlet, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.

As they passed, the harvesters scattered about the fields stiffened into immobility, standing up like candles on some vast altar. Sorrowful to think that one of themselves was on the point of death, and filled with secret satisfaction at the thought that they were not yet marked out for death. . . . It was already known that Didace, son of Didace, was receiving his last visit from the priest.

The Curé had a lump in his throat and felt no desire to talk. He and Didace had often gone out shooting together. A past of more than thirty years rose sadly into his memory: those marvelous expeditions in old days, the savage north winds, the shivering journeys across the Baie de Lavallière, or threading their way through the string of islets. And the blinds they made out of sinewy willow branches . . . the perilous return journeys along the frozen edges of the creeks in November, when men came back to the Inlet sheathed in ice. . . .

He started out of his reverie. The cart had just stopped outside the Beauchemin house.

Shaken by emotion, the priest said rather diffidently to Didace, “I’ve just looked in as I was passing.”

Didace realized why his Curé was there. He was going to give him a hand. This was just as it should be. They would make a last expedition side by side.

“Take your coat off, Monsieur le Curé—take your coat off, we’ll have a bit of talk before you go.”

Didace spoke with difficulty. Every time he breathed, it was as though a plow were breaking up his chest.

“Well, and what’s wrong?” asked the Abbé Lebrun, taking off his alpaca dust coat.

Angelina, Blanche, and Phonsine were grouped around the sick man in his armchair beside the window.

“He’s just a bit sorry for himself,” replied Blanche.

Glowering from beneath his bushy eyebrows, Didace managed to produce a smile. Opening his coarse shirt, he thumped his hairy chest, stained with the russet freckles of old age.

“The hull is sound. The hull is still sound. It’s the old engine that’s gone back on me.”

“But isn’t the doctor coming to examine you?” asked Alphonsine, more to comfort her father-in-law than because she wanted to know.

The Curé signed to the women to withdraw. He went over to the window and shut it.

“Time to make your confession,” he explained to Didace.

Then he came and sat down again and asked the sick man, “Have you anything on your conscience?”

“Ah well,” said the old man simply, “I don’t know what sort of welcome I shall get on the other side. I’ve often cleaned my gun before due time, and taken my decoys out at all seasons. Only, when the bag was a good one and I had some ducks to spare . . . I always took a few along to the Sisters, for the orphans’ dinner.”

After a brief pause to rest, he went on earnestly, “Apart from that, when I was a young man, I drank like a fish.”

In vain the Abbé Lebrun told him not to speak so loud. Didace continued to make his confession at the top of his voice.

“I drank like a fish. . . .”

Didace Beauchemin had nothing to conceal. His end would be like his life—he would depart with his face to the four winds along the high road.

“. . . I never refused a drink. And when I was drunk, I was always itching for a fight. I tell you, I used to fight like a young devil. And there weren’t many who would stand up to me in those days. And I could take it too. I cursed and I swore. All the time, and just for nothing, I used to make love to other men’s wives, and made no secret of it. But I went to confession every first Friday in the month. I hardly ever take a drink these days. I scarcely swear at all, and never run after women. But I don’t go to confession very often.”

Didace fell silent. “Is that all?” asked the priest.

Didace pondered and then replied, “I wouldn’t mind signing the pledge for life.”

“I mean—is that all that you have on your conscience?”

“Otherwise, Monsieur le Curé, I’ve always tried to do the right thing, to the best of my knowledge.”

The Curé thought for a few moments before speaking of God and truth eternal to this simple man, his friend, now at the point of death. He sought in the depths of his faith and friendship for the words that should touch this honest but not too accessible heart. From the priest’s lips, serene and forceful, they flowed forth, like the patient and unruffled course of a great river, now sinuous, now straight, without turmoil or eddies, assured that it will soon mingle with the sea. Didace was no longer conscious of his pain. At first he set his mind doggedly to listen. By degrees a purifying balm spread through him, lightening the burden of his misdeeds. Then he became like a very little child, with his hand resting in the hand of one older than himself, who lets himself be guided in perfect peace of mind and confidence. Suddenly he stiffened, raised his head, and seemed to sniff the direction of the wind, his eyes fixed on a flock of birds traveling northward. Didace Beauchemin saw Almighty God, God the Father, as presented in the holy pictures in his missal, and on His right the Holy Virgin, draped in a garment of clear blue, aureoled with golden stars. A little to one side—surely that was Mathilde smiling at him. No longer his sallow Mathilde, always careful to keep her gnarled hands out of sight, but a lovely young woman between Amable and Ephrem, the son who had been drowned in a rush brake one noon of July—a group like the little porcelain Holy Family that stood on the sideboard.

Suddenly God assumed the aspect of a divine game warden, on whom Didace had played some scurvy tricks in this world below, but who closed his eyes to the escapades of humble folk. A divine game warden who would surely let him fire a shot or two at the birds on the celestial lakes.

How could Didace have feared a God so loving and so kind, and have remained aloof from Him so long?

After the absolution Didace was no longer the same man. An angel had touched him with his miraculous wing. In a gentle, pleading voice he said, “Don’t go away, Monsieur le Curé. Stay awhile. The sun is high. Beau-Blanc will drive you back.”

He began to choke.

“I can’t seem to get my breath since this morning.”

The Curé opened the window, and Didace lay more at ease. He would have liked to talk some more about the beyond and life eternal, but too many memories of their shooting trips together assailed him from this side and kept him earthbound. In spite of a painful rattle in his throat, he managed to get out what he wanted to say.

“Do you remember, Monsieur le Curé, that French gun of yours, when you were a young priest? Your father had presented you with a Sainte-Étienne, a twelve-bore, and a grand gun it was. And you thought a good gun was enough to make a good hunter. As you were quite fresh to the parish, we took you out to the sandbank one fine autumn afternoon. Suddenly we saw a large flock of larks coming toward us. The sky was black with them. One of us shouted, ‘Now’s your chance, Monsieur le Curé.’ I can still see you blazing away into the middle of them. But not a bird fell. Not one. No one dared to laugh, of course—you were our Curé and we scarcely knew you. But we were just splitting our sides. When you came back to our bank and saw that we could hardly contain ourselves, you said very solemnly, ‘This is a very good gun.’ Not a word; no one laughed. We all just goggled at you and waited for you to speak. And you said, ‘Did you see how carefully I shot between the larks without hitting a single one?’ Then we had a good laugh. And we regarded you as a man and a brother ever afterward. It was clear that you might never make much of a hunter, but that it was no use trying to tell you any tall hunting stories.”

The Curé could not suppress a smile. The priest rejoiced at restoring such a sheep to the Good Shepherd, but the man lamented his friend. After blowing his nose vigorously, he got up to go. The women helped him on with his dust coat, and then knelt down to receive his blessing. In a low voice he said to them, “I shall come back to bring him the sacrament.”

The sick man lay prostrate, and seemed not to hear. After a few moments’ silence, while his eyes strayed over the room, he asked hoarsely, “Am I to receive the good God?”

The priest nodded.

“Don’t be too long, Monsieur le Curé. In any case, if I don’t see you again, you can use my blind . . . on . . . the bay. . . .”

But Didace did not finish the sentence. While the Curé was getting ready to go, he did not once look up at him. He seemed to be immersed in grim contemplation of Monk’s Island, the vast communal fields glowing with purple willows right down to the stream, the vast pasture where the animals browsed on the rich herbage. No familiar hand, not even that of a Stranger, would bring them back to the stables when Michaelmas was over. From beneath the yellow bristles of his bushy eyebrows a great tear gathered, hung for a moment on the fringe of his eyelids, and then rolled down the aged, anguished face.

After the departure of the priest, Didace refused to go to bed before he had seen his gun slung from one of the beams of the ceiling. Then he allowed himself to be settled comfortably on his pillows. The women put a clean nightshirt on him. Above the white linen the broad face, tanned by sun and wind, looked browner than before. Then he asked to be left alone. But they kept on putting their heads through the door to ask if there was anything he wanted.

Marie-Didace tiptoed into the room unobserved.

“Grandpa,” she said, laying her hands on his face. “You’re fine to look at, but your face is all twisted.”

Then she departed to the barn and returned with a duckling hatched the day before, from a second clutch, the first having failed.

“Look, Grandpa, it eats little flies. It’s quite lively already.”

Didace cupped his hands together as she put the duckling into them; but it promptly left its card on the clean sheet, and he gave it back to her.

“You’ll be getting into trouble. Go away and play, little one. Leave the door open.”

A moment later Didace could be heard talking out loud.

“How could you, an old friend of fifty years, let me down like this? How could you?”

Angelina got up. Through the half-open door she could see him staring at his gun.

“He’s blaming his gun for something,” she explained in an undertone.

“You see?” said Blanche, turning toward the women. “He must have hurt himself out shooting. The kick of his gun, perhaps.”

“If he’s fussing about anything, that’s a good sign,” said Phonsine, by way of cheering herself up.

“Anyway, I hope he won’t go off on Sunday,” said Laure Provençal. “That always means more deaths before the year is out.”

Phonsine came into the room. “Is there anything you want, Father Didace? Shall I straighten your pillows? You must be uncomfortable with your head as low as that.”

In her haste to forestall her daughter-in-law, Blanche bumped against the corner of the dresser, which gave her a sharp jab in the hip, tearing the stuff of her dress. With an ejaculation of pain, she said, “That dresser’s a nuisance, I shall get rid of it, and pretty soon too.”

“You’d better wait a bit before you make any changes here, Madame Varieur,” said Phonsine, astonished at her sudden audacity.

Didace signaled to her with a look to hold her tongue and shut the door. When they were alone, he said as she bent over him, “Don’t get across her if you can help it. And don’t be angry with her. She’s had a lot to bear and it’s hardened her. And she likes her own way. Be patient. Your turn will come.”

Soon after Amable’s death, Didace had made a will in favor of Marie-Didace.

“Your turn will come.”

He stopped and writhed with pain, his hand clutching at his chest. Phonsine moved softly away from the bed. He promptly called her back.

“Make your little girl love you.”

She waited for him to say something more, but in vain.

The afternoon dragged on slowly despite the comings and goings of the neighbors. The hours, loaded with heat and anxiety, seemed endless. The hurried chimes of the kitchen clock startled the watchers. Silence and idleness made this day of anguish seem like Sunday. The wind had fallen. Everything was again covered with flies. The cicada was chirping in the grass.

Marie-Amanda arrived in a sailing boat on the stroke of six. Heavy-eyed and moving painfully, her massive body burdened with an eighth child, she made her way, with her hat still in her hand, to Didace’s room.

At the sight of his daughter a faint smile lit up the sick man’s features.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” said he. “Come here, I’ve got something I want to say.”

Then, after an effort, he went on, “I’m going. I shan’t last long.”

“You don’t look as badly as all that,” she said to encourage him.

He held up his hand. The others might cheat. But not Marie-Amanda.

“Come closer. I want to speak to you, to ask your pardon. . . .”

“Pardon?”

“Yes, pardon for what I may have done to injure you, and anybody else. One can hurt someone’s feelings quite unintentionally.”

His voice grew hoarser as he went on, “I want to thank you, too, for all your kindness to me and to the family. You have always been kind, like your mother was. And I haven’t always acknowledged it as I should have done.”

He paused to cough. Marie-Amanda, deeply moved, could scarcely hold back her tears. The child within her stirred. “Life . . . death . . . so near, so far . . .,” she thought.

Didace’s breath came and went with a sort of whistle as he continued.

“The beginnings were hard, very hard. The first Beauchemin got to the Inlet without a cent in his pocket. And look at it today! The house built bit by bit, and the fields. . . . My father always used to say that but for the women, who heartened them to stay, the men would have gone away again, all of them, one after the other. My mother, my own mother—she was a grand woman. Up with the dawn to work until the stars came out. We ate well, but we worked. Up to the waist in icy water in the spring to pick any bit of stuff out of the river.”

Didace closed his eyes; there was a drawn look on his face. After a pause he went on, jerking his head toward Phonsine and Blanche in the kitchen.

“Do your best to see that the good work lasts, and help those two to live in peace together.”

Blanche put her head through the half-open door.

“What do you think of our invalid today, Marie-Amanda? Not so bad, eh? for a man who’s just had a visit from the priest.”

Marie-Amanda, her face wet with tears, went out of the kitchen with her mother-in-law. She motioned to her to be silent.

“It’s useless, his sacrifice is over.”

At the front door, her back turned to the rest, she remained standing, in an effort to compose her features. Beyond the Île de Grâce the sun was setting. On the Common, a caravan led by a white horse was bustling into line ready to set out for the northern banks of the river. Above the purple loosestrife could be seen the backs of sheep undulating in short, close-set ripples.

On returning to her father, Marie-Amanda stopped dumbfounded; a ray of amber and of gold flickered across the counterpane. In the light of the setting sun, Didace’s great head glowed. There was a look of dazzlement on Didace’s sharpened features as he looked up at the glowing sky. A flock of black ducks sped across the luminous rectangle. Not a muscle quivered on the face of the dying man. Marie-Amanda realized that his sight was going.

“Come at once,” she said to the others, as she went out to fetch Marie-Didace. But the child, who was trembling, slipped away to give her hand to Blanche.

In a steady voice that belied her anguished face, the eldest daughter of the Beauchemins began, “Father—we are all with you—Marie-Didace . . . Amable’s wife. . . .”

The rest was lost in Phonsine’s lamentations.

“No! No! No!”

Angelina led her into the kitchen.

“Let him depart in peace. He can hear everything,” she whispered in her ear.

Laure Provençal lit a wax candle.

“Let us pray for the dying. . . .”

Didace, son of Didace, had ceased to live.

Phonsine seldom went to the Île de Grâce, scarcely twice a year, and always for some very compelling reason.

Marie-Amanda recognized from a distance her sister-in-law’s nervous footstep, and Marie-Didace skipping along at her side. A sense of uneasiness came upon her; more trouble at Monk’s Inlet.

The children in high glee ran to meet Marie-Didace. Once inside the house the two women eyed each other earnestly, and then exchanged, by way of greeting, a few commonplace remarks, without making any mention of what was on their minds, as though by mutual consent, in the presence of the children.

Phonsine could not keep still. She shifted from one chair to another, eager to depart.

“Do stay; we’ll take you home,” said Marie-Amanda.

“You’ve forgotten the cows.”

“Mother-in-law will look after them. Besides, there’s the hired hand.”

But Phonsine was not to be persuaded.

“I just looked in as I was passing. They’ll be waiting for me by the river. We must be back before it gets dark.”

“Please stay, Auntie,” pleaded the children.

“I can’t. I left the horse and cart with the shopman at Sainte-Anne.”

Seeing that Phonsine had something she wanted to say, Marie-Amanda offered to walk back a little way with her down to the river. She stepped slowly and cautiously, so as not to trip in the burrows dug by the muskrats in the spring. Phonsine kept on turning about or jumping aside, like a hunted animal.

A whip-poor-will dropped in a vertical swoop upon its prey. Then, from high up in the elms, a cloud of starlings flew away.

Marie-Didace clapped her hands.

“Auntie, look! A bird wedding!”

Marie-Amanda smiled at her.

“They’re forming up to fly away.”

Then, turning to Alphonsine and pointing to the child, “You might leave her with us for a couple of days. Ludger will take her back to Sainte-Anne.”

Marie-Didace was the first to protest. “No! I want to go back to Grandma!”

“You see?” said Phonsine bitterly. “There’s no getting her away from the Inlet. I had the greatest trouble to bring her here.”

Marie-Amanda frowned. The lamentations would begin again. She hurriedly packed the child off.

“Run and find Uncle Ludger. Poor Uncle, he must be so tired of being all by himself in the dinghy. Run along. He’ll be so glad to see you.”

When Marie-Didace had clambered down the embankment, Marie-Amanda stopped.

“I’ve just remembered. I could have offered you some butternuts. The children went out nutting yesterday. Could you have taken some home? There’s a trick of cracking them: you scald them overnight. Next day you crack them on a stone or a flatiron. They’re very nice.”

Phonsine also stopped to look at Marie-Amanda’s placid face. Nuts? What was all this about nuts? Without answering, as though the other had not offered her anything at all, she began, “It’s that woman. . . .”

Marie-Amanda, realizing that Phonsine was referring to Blanche, broke in, “What’s been happening now? Look here, Phonsine, before you say anything more, don’t forget she bears our name.”

“Yes, but only because she can’t do otherwise. She’s much more Varieur than Beauchemin, and I’ll prove it. Only this morning she got Marie Provençal to write a letter for her to her son by Varieur. And do you know what she said? She invited him to come and stay at the Inlet as a son of the house. He’ll soon be our lord and master, and what’s going to become of me then?”

“You’ve got Beau-Blanc to help you.”

“For the time being, yes. But knowing that farmer-workers are hard to get, he keeps on threatening to go into munitions. Blanche backs him up.”

“Has the letter gone off?”

“Not yet. Marie took it along to show it to her father first.”

“Well, then, no harm’s done yet. Don’t worry before you need. You know quite well that Pierre-Côme will never let a foreigner settle at the Inlet. Especially . . . after the Stranger. . . .”

“Ah yes, that paragon. He brought us a lot of misfortune.”

A sense of justice impelled Marie-Amanda to protest.

“Don’t say that. After he came, there was Amable’s accident, certainly; but the Stranger wasn’t the only one to blame for that, by any means. Then there was my father’s death, three weeks ago, it’s true. . . .”

A quick flash hardened Phonsine’s look for a moment.

“Don’t you regard those as misfortunes?”

“Certainly. But . . . I don’t quite know how to say it . . . they’re natural misfortunes, that one can’t hope to escape. Sooner or later, you and I and all of us must go down that hill. They’re troubles that can be endured and borne before the eyes of all the world, not misfortunes that bring shame and have to be concealed, like disgrace for instance. . . .”

“Well, that’s the last straw,” said Phonsine indignantly. “To return to Blanche . . . she has done all she can do to curry favor with the child. Did you notice how only yesterday evening, in that storm of wind, Marie-Didace complained of being afraid. It wasn’t true.” A ring of pride came into Phonsine’s voice. “She’s not afraid of anything. So to try and stop that sort of thing I told her to lie quiet in bed. Next morning I found her in bed with Blanche. It’s always the same.”

She paused, in the expectation of some helpful comment from Marie-Amanda.

In the sky a long gray cloud shaped like a boat was steering toward the port of sunset, lustrous with a pink and amber glow. On the river a three-master was making its way down to the sea.

“Look—look at that ship, it’s right down in the water, it must be off to the war.”

“I don’t need to look at it, there are ships like that passing every day,” replied Phonsine, whom nothing external could distract from her anxiety.

A pleading note came into her voice: “Try to invent some means of getting her away, Marie-Amanda. She must go—she positively must. I can’t stand her any longer.”

“But, Phonsine, you are legally bound to keep her. Even to nurse her if she falls ill.”

Phonsine stopped short, wide-eyed with horror.

“Nurse her! Never! I simply couldn’t.”

“Why?”

In a hard, malignant tone, Phonsine replied, “Because I don’t respect her.”

“You talk of her as though she were the Devil himself. And yet she seems to me kind-hearted and generous.”

“Kind-hearted—generous—she?”

In a voice that rasped with bitterness, Phonsine said, “She’s one of those people who always give the impression of being generous while they’re draining the very blood out of your heart. Kind! A woman who took my cup! my place! my husband!”

Phonsine’s voice had risen to a shriek.

“Not so loud,” said Marie-Amanda. “They’ll hear you.”

“All right, let them hear me. So much the better.”

Nothing could halt her now. “And then she wants to rob me of my little girl, the farm, and everything I have. You’ll see; I shall be turned out onto the road to beg my bread.”

“Nonsense,” said Marie-Amanda. “You know quite well that the property belongs to Marie-Didace. Blanche can’t touch it. Don’t be silly.”

“So that’s what you think? You don’t realize how she’s got everything into her hands. I hardly know how to turn around. Sometimes I just wonder what God expects me to do. . . .”

A sharp pain in the back made Marie-Amanda bend forward. Her eighth child would soon be born now. In a faltering voice she said, “Instead of abusing her all the time, why don’t you try to get on terms with her? It looks as though you did it on purpose. After all, you haven’t any particular worries. . . .”

Phonsine grew pale. So this was all the help she could expect from Marie-Amanda: reproaches, more reproaches, then some butternuts.

“It’s quite clear that you don’t care what happens,” said Phonsine, hurrying off.

To her great surprise, Marie-Amanda saw her cross the bank of beaten earth, the strip of spongy backwash, and without slowing down, hurry over the sandy shore and get into the dinghy where Marie-Didace was waiting for her.

“Phonsine! Don’t go off like that!” cried Marie-Amanda, as she could not follow her.

The wind was blowing up from the river, and her voice died away in the nearest clump of alders.

“Phonsine!”

The dinghy was already moving away from the landing stage; it slipped through the shallows and reached the slack water of midstream. The child was throwing kisses to her aunt with both hands, but Phonsine had her back turned to the island.

Marie-Amanda stood motionless, in deep distress, on the edge of the bank. “They call me kind,” she thought remorsefully. “Phonsine brought her troubles to me, but I couldn’t comfort her.”

Still, why should it always be her part to comfort others and never to be comforted herself? At the very moment when she might have felt like unbosoming herself of all her cares, Phonsine arrived with her pack of worries and disappointments. Poor Phonsine! Marie-Amanda had thought to help her by not offering her a great deal of sympathy. Besides, Father Didace had urged her to try to reconcile the two women.

After all, had she—Marie-Amanda—no troubles of her own? Seven children to clothe and feed and manage; an eighth on the way; a household to look after; a husband to keep in order. No trouble, indeed!

Far away a child was crying. Marie-Amanda listened. Thinking she could recognize one of her own, she hastened back to the house.

At the far end of Sainte-Anne village, Phonsine pulled up her horse; the driver of an approaching vehicle in the opposite direction signed to her to stop. She recognized Doctor Casaubon.

“I’ve just come from Monk’s Inlet, Phonsine. From your place, actually.”

“How do you mean?”

“Your mother-in-law isn’t well.”

Blanche ill? Phonsine couldn’t believe it.

“Indeed she is, and very ill too.”

“What can be the matter with her?”

“I can’t yet say.”

He hesitated. “But I’m worried about her heart. It’s far from strong.”

“Who is looking after her? She isn’t all alone, is she?”

“No, the women have taken turns to nurse her until you got back.”

“Is she in pain?”

“She must have been, before I arrived.”

“And I wasn’t there. Just like her—the sly creature.”

The doctor eyed Phonsine in amusement.

“However, I left her some medicine and so on. But. . . .” He paused, and said with greater emphasis, “But . . . she needs care and she mustn’t be allowed to eat. It’s no use her saying she doesn’t eat, I know her only too well; she’s a hearty eater. She hasn’t got so stout as all that on nothing. . . .”

“Would it be bad for her to eat?” asked Phonsine.

“Look me straight in the eyes.”

He bent forward until his body was half out of his buggy, grasped Phonsine’s arm, and turned her toward him. The pupils of her eyes seemed to dilate and then contract in an abnormal way. But the daylight was fading rapidly. A mist was coming up, and he could barely see.

“Do you still cry out in your sleep?”

“Let me alone. I’m not ill. You’ve told me so already.”

“Next time you’re in Sorel, come and see me. I’ve got something to say to you. And don’t leave it too long.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me, I tell you. What about her . . .?”

“I’ll call early tomorrow. If she’s not better by then, I’ll put some leeches on her.”

Marie-Didace made a face. “Leeches—how disgusting!”

Before even unharnessing the horse, Phonsine ran to the kitchen.

Her hands clasped limply between her knees, Blanche was sitting, bent almost double, by the stove.

“Are you in pain?” asked Phonsine.

She raised her head a little, with something of an effort, and replied, “Not now, but I’ve been in awful pain.”

Phonsine could not take her eyes off her mother-in-law’s face, which looked to her ten years older. It was she, and yet it was not she; it was the face of an elder sister not unlike her.

The women neighbors noticed Phonsine’s astonishment. It was Laure Provençal who spoke.

“You ought to have been here when she fainted. She looked as if she was passing out. She wasn’t a pretty sight, I can tell you. I came in without knocking, as I usually do. I found her collapsed in her chair, and choking; she was blue in the face.”

“Well,” retorted Mother Salvail, “you couldn’t expect her to go red in the face just to please the Provençal family.”

“I gave a yell,” Laure went on. “Luckily Odilon happened to be passing. The doctor had to be fetched.”

“I know,” said Phonsine. “I met him on my way here. He left some physic, didn’t he?”

Blanche threw a disdainful glance at the dresser.

“A few little blue pills. I’m wondering what’s the good of such a pellet inside a woman of my size.”

“How do you feel?” asked Alphonsine.

“How do I feel? . . .” She heaved a sigh. “Just as though a child’s head were weighing on my heart.”

“She mustn’t eat, you know.”

Phonsine did not answer.

“She’s no longer young, after all. . . . She’s getting old too,” observed Mother Salvail, in a slightly complacent tone.

“No, I’m not,” retorted Blanche. “I’m getting stiff, that’s what it is.”

Now that Phonsine was back, the women left Blanche to her care and went back to their several homes. She put the stew on the stove, and a rich odor of spiced pork and broiling flour soon pervaded the kitchen. She dipped a finger of bread in the sauce and gave it to Marie-Didace. Blanche took the ladle and helped herself to a plateful of stew, which she finished to the last drop of gravy. Phonsine looked on without uttering a word. “If she feels poorly after all that,” she said to herself, “it’ll be her own fault.”

Beau-Blanc’s sudden appearance made her start. She promptly tried to conceal the plate which the Acadian had just emptied. When the hired hand had gone, she poured out some tea and drank no more than a mouthful. There was an ache of weariness at the back of her neck. Where was her resentment now? A breath had dispelled it in the very hour of its fulfillment; there was no longer anything inside her head but a black void, mere empty space. She helped Blanche into bed. Then she put the box of pills within her reach, on the dresser, and hung a gray woolen cape over the window.

“Are you in pain?” she asked.

Blanche shook her head.

“But I would be so grateful, dear. . . .”

The voice was weak and piteous. “I would be so grateful, dear, if you would massage my back. It’s twitching dreadfully. I expect your hands are soft.”

With a wry grimace, Phonsine recoiled a step. She bent over her hands and examined them as she had never done before: nervous, slender hands, not beautiful nor delicate—hands that had to cope with heavy house tasks couldn’t be kept fine and white—but honest hands, which had never done anything that shamed her to remember.

“I can’t,” she said to herself. “I just can’t.”

But impelled by something stronger than her will, she suddenly laid them on Blanche’s back. The other uttered a faint cry of surprise. At the touch of the strange skin, the long, awkward fingers refused to function; they lay motionless and impotent.

“Harder—much harder . . .,” pleaded Blanche.

Once more the hand slipped through the opened nightdress. With eyes closed and quivering with repugnance, she began to rub the naked back, vigorously massaging the aging, thickened skin, flaccid, unresisting, speckled with the brown rust of years, and the flabby flesh beneath it. It smelt faintly stale.

With a jerk of her shoulder Blanche signified that she had had enough. Phonsine felt ill. On the point of being sick, she rushed outdoors.

During the succeeding night Phonsine was twice visited by her evil dream; she fell into the well with her cup and Marie-Didace as well (who was pushed in by Blanche). Rather than suffer the nightmare a second time, she half sat up in bed, her heart beating feebly, and so dozed until daylight came. When the first glimmers flickered in the east, Phonsine lay down once more.

The sun was shining as she awoke. She wished she could go to sleep again, but she must get up. In her heavy head she sought the reason why. Ah yes, Blanche was ill. Noiselessly, so as not to awaken Marie-Didace, she made her way to her mother-in-law’s room.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, through the half-opened door.

Only the ticking of the clock filled the silent kitchen. Phonsine lit the stove. Everything was an effort. Instead of making straight for the woodpile and the box of matches, she had to grope about to find them.

“Would you like a morsel of food?”

Blanche could surely hear; she must be awake.

Phonsine, rather puzzled, went into the bedroom. The room was in darkness but seemed to be in good order, except for a black stocking on the floor near the bed. The other, retaining the imprint of Blanche’s broad, thick foot, still hung across the back of a chair.

“Are you asleep?”

Not the shadow of a sound.

“Are you asleep?”

Seized with panic at this terrifying silence, Phonsine tried to slip the cape from the window, but her shaking hand could only unhitch one corner. The light, made more dazzling by the yellowing poplars, poured into the room. Blinded by the harsh glare, Phonsine could see nothing. A thousand suns glittered before her, and she had to shut her eyes. . . . When she opened them, Blanche, outstretched beneath the bedclothes, appeared to be resting, resplendent in her rounded contours. On her calm face, slightly tilted to one side as though in a moment of reflection, a smile still lingered. There was still a pink flush on her cheeks and bosom. Some meshes of hair, matted by the final sweat, adorned the smooth forehead with a fringe of faded gold. Not a trace of agony.

Hypnotized, bewildered, Phonsine stared at the rigid face. Then she lowered her eyes. On the crimson counterpane the clasped hands formed a hard and grayish knot, like the knot in a birch branch. She touched them with the tips of her fingers and shrank back to the wall. Blanche was dead. Alone. Without a priest. At dead of night.

The whole parish would accuse Phonsine of having killed Blanche because she hated her. Beau-Blanc would testify before the jury that she had allowed her to eat on the previous day. She had been the shame and the disgrace of Marie-Didace, of the Beauchemins, and of the parish. . . .

This was the end. In a frenzy of fear she saw monstrous, clutching hands dragging her into an infernal cavalcade led by Blanche and escorted by Pierre-Côme Provençal, Angelina galloping alongside, laughing like a maniac. The Pélerine was ringing a crazy peal. And each stroke hammered upon Phonsine’s temple. From all four corners of the parish came people with demoniac faces, pitchforks in hand, to drag her down to everlasting hell.

Phonsine tried to escape. But without a cry she collapsed beside the bed. Her head bumped against the dressing table and knocked off the box of pills which Blanche had emptied during the night.

Sitting beside the window with an earthenware dish on her knees, Angelina was peeling apples. She so dexterously slipped the blade between skin and pulp that the thin russet peel fell off in a neat spiral. Beside her a kitten, lying playfully on its back, waited with uplifted paw to catch one as it dropped. Its mother, beneath the stove, seemed to be dozing. Only a fleeting streak of gold from under its half-closed eyelids betrayed her indulgent watch on these childish frolics.

At the rattle of the latch, Angelina looked up. Through the window she saw the face of Marie-Didace streaming with tears.

“Come in—do; the door’s never bolted, you know.”

The sternness of her tone belying the affection in her eyes, she went to the door and opened it.

“You bad little girl, to disturb me for nothing. What have you been up to now?”

At the sight of the child, with her hair all over her face and her frock undone, she stood in silent astonishment. Marie-Didace must have fallen down while she was running; one leg was cut and bleeding, and covered with mud.

“Where on earth have you been?”

Instead of answering, the child began to cry. David Desmarais came in.

“Don’t squall like that, child! Tell us what’s the matter.”

Marie-Didace made up her mind to speak.

“Come to the house—quick! Come and help me.”

“All right, we’ll come,” said David in a soothing tone.

Marie, feeling reassured, went on, “Grandma won’t wake up. She doesn’t answer. And Mummy’s sitting by the well and won’t move. There’s nobody to do anything.”

“Isn’t Beau-Blanc there?”

“That’s why the animals were making all that noise,” said David reflectively.

“You go at once,” said Angelina to her father. “I’ll be along very soon.”

David set out forthwith. Angelina hurriedly put the apples on to stew in a little sugared water at the back of the stove. Then she went out, with Marie-Didace holding her hand.

On the very threshold she stopped in dazzled admiration. After the rain of the day before, the Inlet was sparkling in the sunshine. There was a glister of gold everywhere—in the clearings, on the riverbanks, among the stubble, from copse to copse, from one islet to the next, in the top branches of a poplar, on the lower branches of a willow; the yellow gold of aspens, the tawny gold of dogwood, the light gold tangled in the longhair of the rushes. From far away came the clangor of the Pélerine.

“What are you listening to?” asked Marie-Didace. “The pealing of the bell?”

“It’s not pealing,” said Angelina in a strangled voice. “It’s tolling.”

“Let’s run,” said the child, trying to drag her along.

Angelina could not move as quickly as she would have wished. She did not dare to question Marie-Didace for fear of awakening her grief. At every step she prayed, ‘O God, spare us another tragedy.’ Near the fence, in the garden, a solitary rosebud that would never be a rose was dying. The mystery of these humble destinies always saddened her. She reproached herself for having neglected the less attractive plant. On her first free day she would transplant the rose tree into richer earth.

A hedge of sunflowers, with a few withered blooms among the leaves, concealed the surroundings of the Beauchemin house. When Angelina and the child had passed it, Angelina stood and stared in stupefaction. Sitting on the parapet of the well, Phonsine held pressed against her heart something that she was fondling as though it had been a loved one’s head. Coming closer, Angelina saw that it was the cup—the cup that Phonsine cherished, and never filled to the brim.

The doctor, who had already arrived, approached and lifted one of Phonsine’s eyelids. David Desmarais came up after him. One after another, others, mostly women, attracted gradually by the little knot of people, hurried up. They stood together in a group, plunged in consternation.

“A dreadful thing has happened,” said the doctor, taking off his woolen cardigan. “Madame Blanche is dead. It’s not surprising, as she had swallowed a large dose of medicine. She might have lasted for a week or two, but not more; her case was hopeless. As for the little woman there, she is badly shaken. She has had a nasty shock. I was expecting this for some time. What may save her is that she has bled from the temple. Two men will carry her into the house.” He lowered his voice. “I want to apply some leeches to her face.”

He made a sign to take Marie-Didace away, but the child would not budge.

Vincent and Joinville Provençal came forward to lift Phonsine. Pierre-Côme elbowed them aside and picked up Phonsine in his arms.

“She’s as light as a feather,” he said.

When he got outside, someone asked, “Who’s going to do the work? Who’ll look after the farm?”

A shrill voice came from the little group.

“I will—and Tit-Côme.”

“Bravo—little Beauchemin lady!” exclaimed Pierre-Côme, more moved than he cared to show.

He threw his head back and coughed.

“Everyone must bear a hand, that’s the least we can do. The Beauchemins have always been a credit to us.”

“But they must have some relations left among the Antayas?” protested Odilon.

Pierre-Côme glared at his son.

“We’re not going to ask for outside help. Unless you want to ring the tocsin to rouse the whole parish. I’ll see to Madame Blanche—the inquest, the funeral, and all the rest of it. And there are plenty of women at my house, two of them can come and take care of Phonsine.”

“I’ll take Marie-Didace,” said Angelina. “I’ll keep her with me as long as it’s necessary.”

“Good,” said Pierre-Côme cordially.

“I—,” said David Desmarais.

“I—,” said Jacob Salvail.

“I—,” said another.

There followed a chorus of offers.

“Each in turn,” said Pierre-Côme in a voice of satisfaction. “You, Davy?”

“I’ll stand by and take charge of the buildings.”

“You, Jacob?”

“I’m the nearest neighbor. I’ll see to the animals.”

Observing that Odilon said nothing, Pierre-Côme turned to him. “We’ll do the work in relays. Odilon—you start.”

“I don’t know that I can,” grumbled Odilon. “I’m repairing my barn.”

“Never mind your barn,” said Pierre-Côme, clenching his fists. “That can wait. It won’t fly away. The parish comes first.”

And turning toward the assembly, he said in louder tones, “If I see anyone stealing so much as a horse apple, I’ll be after him, and pretty quick too.”

Church and rectory and shop stand in the center of the village, at Sainte-Anne-de-Sorel, a short distance apart. The horses slow down of their own accord, as a matter of habit, beside the fence to which they are tethered during service.

The horse which Angelina drove from Sorel to the Inlet did so. The sun had just set. The shadow of a vast cloud hovered over the countryside, and then extinguished it. The golden poplars promptly shed their luster. Three or four pallid leaves circled down through the dead air. But farther away the topmost branches of some plane trees still glowed in the last rays of sunshine. Angelina felt a shiver run down her back. “The weather is treacherous in autumn,” she said to herself as she got out of the buggy. “It looks like being hot. And then before you can turn your head around, you’re freezing cold. That’s autumn!”

But she soon shook off any feeling of depression. Since she had forgotten to buy some thread at Sorel, she would get some from the shopman at Sainte-Anne. And she would take the opportunity of stopping at the Rectory. Disappointed at not finding Curé Lebrun walking up and down the veranda smoking, as his habit was after the midday meal, she hesitated before going on to the shop.

Outside stood a car with a bright trumpet-shaped brass horn and a shining black-lacquered hood; this glittering vehicle, an object of pride to the shopman of Sainte-Anne, remained on view every fine day, just far enough off the road to allow the passers-by to admire it, without running the risk of scaring the customers’ horses. Even when the roads were dry it was seldom used.

Angelina glanced at the river before entering the shop. In midstream a large, camouflaged, transatlantic liner, scarcely visible against the color of the water, was steaming down the main channel. “A transport,” thought Angelina nonchalantly.

Lifting her foot so as not to trip over a familiar knob in the threshold, Angelina entered the shop. The three small bells began to jingle: one, the shrillest, took the lead, the others, of a deeper pitch, rang longest. There was no one there. Angelina sat down on the bench alongside the one and only counter. She liked the blend of odors in the shop; the smell of pepper and heavy spices came in wafts from the back quarters, accompanied by subtler and more sugared odors.

The shopman’s wife, a stout and stocky woman with rather a flabby figure, came into the doorway between the kitchen and the shop. She took her place behind the counter, but did not sit down. The two women began to chat. The one seemed no more anxious to sell than the other to buy. Parish news first.

“I’ve never known so many deaths in one family,” said the shopman’s wife, alluding to the Beauchemins.

“It’s quite unusual,” agreed Angelina.

“And all of them well-known people. And now Phonsine’s ill.”

“Yes, she’s in a bad way.”

“Has she much changed? Hardly recognizable, I guess?”

“Naturally after a fortnight in bed, she’s pretty feeble, but it’s her character I mean. She’s no longer the same person. You can see that something’s devouring her inside.”

“And the little girl?”

“She’s still with me. She’s been waiting for me. Before I left for Sorel this morning, she said, ‘Mind you wave to me. I’ll be waiting for you on top of the bakehouse. And I’ll run and meet you.’ ”

They went on chatting. The shopwoman, by way of emphasizing her remarks, let her hand drop limply onto the counter with a dull thud, like hammer blows punctuating the conversation.

There were few customers to disturb them. A small boy came in for sweets. With his nose flattened against the glass cover of the counter he examined each box, without making up his mind. He picked out a red cinnamon pipe; then some jujube mice tied together with elastic, at two for a penny, caught his gloating eye. To get at them the shopwoman had to take out an unopened box of marshmallow pigs, coated in chocolate, with pink sugar noses. The child quivered with excitement.

“I want one of those marshmallow pigs that you can pull in and out.”

But no sooner in possession of this delicacy, he cast an envious eye on a licorice whistle. The shopwoman became restive.

“You must make up your mind. I’ve got other things to do beside selling candy to little boys.”

The child dashed out, clutching the marshmallow pig. The shopwoman’s cry pulled him up.

“Hey, little boy, you’ve forgotten to give me your cent.”

“It’s to be charged.”

“Have you got a note from your mother?”

The child began to whimper, but the shopwoman was obdurate.

“Come back at once and give me that candy. You can have it when you bring me a note. Not before.”

He fled in tears, while the shopwoman explained to Angelina, as she patted the marshmallow pig before returning it to its box, “The little devils! They’d clear the shop if we’d let them.”

The two women had nothing more to say to each other. Angelina asked for a spool of cotton. When she had chosen the color she wanted, she bought two jujube mice and had them put into a bag for Marie-Didace, as she paid her little bill.

“Is that all?” asked the shop woman, thinking that the shop would scarcely thrive on Angelina’s purchases.

As she turned to go, Angelina happened to glance at the bit of newspaper in which the thread was wrapped. Startled by what she saw, she undid the parcel, smoothed out the half-torn scrap of paper, and looked at it more closely. A portrait of a man, head and shoulders only, in an Army uniform, headed A Missing Hero. The Stranger! Angelina was in no sort of doubt; it was he, a soldier, older, a little battered of course—but the eyes were his, sadder, perhaps, and the mocking lips from which that rich and easy laugh of his came forth, the broad nose with its sensitive nostrils, the hair, flaming like a forest fire, but now cropped short, with only a narrow fringe above the forehead. It was certainly he.

“Where did you get that newspaper?” asked Angelina.

“I should find it hard to tell you that, young lady. My old man picks up any old papers he finds.”

“Have you had it long?”

“Well, as I said, maybe a year, maybe a few days.”

“Yes, but you surely have the rest of the pages somewhere,” persisted Angelina.

“It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to find them; the newspapers are all stacked up in the back store.”

As she raised her eyes, she noticed the dejected look on Angelina’s face.

“You’re very pale. I guess you need something to eat. Have a bowl of soup. There’s some hotting up on the stove. You’re welcome.”

Angelina shook her head. She laid the scrap of paper on the counter.

“Who does that face remind you of?”

“No one, so far as I know.”

The shopwoman held it at another angle. “Perhaps of Father Didace when he was young. . . . And yet—no.”

The little boy came back with a note which he handed to the shopwoman, who flushed with wrath as she read it. “You had better mind your own business, my good woman, before you start insulting your customers. . . .”

She appealed to Angelina as a witness of how disgracefully she was treated.

“You see how it is, young lady. They’re all the same. That’s the sort we have to deal with—and give them credit too. And then they abuse us.”

With arms akimbo she turned to the little boy and screamed at him, “Go and tell your mother that she’s no better than. . . .”

Before she could hear any more, Angelina dashed out of the shop.

“A Missing Hero!” So the Stranger was dead. And with not even a name to his face. Perhaps if she made some inquiries. . . . A voice spoke to Angelina.

“Do you want Monk’s Inlet people accusing him again of all the vices in creation, and prying into all his doings? They’ll just gloat over his death. Oho! Neveurmagne! What good would that do you?” None; for Angelina he would never bear any other name than Stranger.

Without noticing it she had reached the Rectory.

“Is Monsieur le Curé in?” she asked.

“You’re unlucky, my poor Angelina,” replied the housekeeper, who was also the priest’s sister. “My brother the Curé has gone to help the Curé of Saint-Aimé who is ill—seriously ill, though don’t say I said so. I don’t expect him back before the evening. But do sit down,” said the housekeeper, thankful for a visitor.

Angelina sat down on the edge of a chair, exercising all her will to conceal her distress.

“Did you want to see him privately? If it’s about the tithe, I can receive it just as well as he can.”

“No, I wanted to have a Low Mass said for Blanche.”

“Well, call again then, if you like.”

Angelina pondered.

“I think. . . . I think I’ll leave the money with you after all.”

“That will be quite all right, I don’t forget things. But to be on the safe side, I’ll make a note of it.”

Angelina took two one-dollar notes out of her purse, which she laid on the table. The scrap of paper slipped out at the same time.

“By the way,” she said to the housekeeper. “Do you recognize that face?”

The housekeeper held the bit of newspaper close up to her eyes.

“A soldier, eh? It wouldn’t be one of the Latraverse boys who got killed in the war? You know the one I mean, one of Noé’s sons—it’s just the large head they all have.”

Angelina shut her eyes. As she sat and said no more, the old lady paid no further attention to the portrait and took the money from the table.

“But this is too much.”

“No,” said Angelina. “I also want a Requiem Mass sung for a dead friend.”

“A dead friend! . . . Now, wait a bit. I’ll note all that down carefully in my little book, so that there’ll be no mistake. A Requiem Mass for ‘a dead friend, on behalf of . . .’ Who?”

Angelina hesitated. “Just put—‘a private person.’ ”

The housekeeper looked inquisitive and nibbled her pencil.

“Wouldn’t you like to mention the name of the dead friend, at any rate?”

“It isn’t necessary,” murmured Angelina.

“You don’t look well,” said the housekeeper sympathetically. “Won’t you take a small glass of something to make you feel better, before you go?”

“No, thank you,” said Angelina in an undertone. “But I should like to ask a favor of Monsieur le Curé; I want him to say the two Masses himself, the Requiem Mass first. And I don’t want them sung on the same day.”

Angelina indeed wanted to pray for Blanche and for the Stranger, but separately. An abiding resentment prevented her from uniting them, even in prayer.

The housekeeper coughed discreetly. She laid her warm, dry hand on Angelina’s chilly fingers.

“As you know, my dear, we have to pass through many rough places in this life. But we do pass through them . . . in the end.”

Angelina gently disengaged her hand and left.

The Stranger was dead. Was there anyone to tell or talk to about it? A month ago there would have been Father Didace. He would have recognized the Stranger at first glance. Marie-Amanda? But Marie-Amanda was at the Île de Grâce. It was now that Angelina must, to save her reason, let her heart’s blood flow and weep her bitter tears.

Without even a genuflexion, closing her eyes, she dropped onto a side pew in the church, near the eighth station of the Cross, just in time. Her arms and legs were numb. Only two words stirred within her: “Missing Hero.” They throbbed in her temples and her heart: missing hero, missing hero. . . .

Stricken and distraught, Angelina yielded to her grief; she wept as though there were no longer any men or women left upon the earth, nor fields or forests, nothing but her own vast anguish. She was bruised with sorrow, bruised and battered; a grain of corn beneath the wheels of the divine will.

An infinite lassitude came upon her shoulders and her chest, from having wept so much. Suddenly, though there was no change in anything around her, Angelina felt that she was no longer alone. Like the holy women of the Way of the Cross, she was accompanying someone in silent and sorrowing companionship. She understood the Stranger had come back to Monk’s Inlet for a supreme consolation, to bring her the message of his death. It was not by pure chance that she had forgotten to buy the cotton at Sorel. Perhaps he had come also to ask her for a prayer.

Angelina knelt down and prayed. Gradually the bitterness that overlay her anguish dissolved into pious resignation and a secret relief that the Stranger was delivered from the obsession and the hazards of the road.

“At last,” she said to herself. “He has found his way. He is back home.” She heaved a deep sigh. And again she thought, “He knows now how much I loved him.” Then she grieved at having thought of him as in the past. She felt bereaved. A sense of pride uplifted her head. Thenceforward, instead of the humiliation of a limping old maid, she would bear the dignity of widowhood.

She would confide her sorrow to no one. Not even to Marie-Amanda. Since she had been in the world, she had always shared with that special friend all her joys and all her sorrows, her tremendous childish secrets and the lesser secrets of her girlhood. But Marie-Amanda, with her eight children—the eighth had just been born—had her own troubles. And people change. One married on the Île de Grâce; the other a daughter at Monk’s Inlet—they would certainly be always glad to meet, but they no longer lived the same life.

No, this sorrow was too deep and too poignant; it must not be sullied nor even touched by empty words. Angelina would guard it diligently. Unconsciously her hands made the benign gesture of putting a plant away in a safe and sheltered spot.

And yet Angelina would have liked to proclaim to all the winds, to Monk’s Inlet, that the Stranger had done his part, that he had been killed in action—“his eyes uplifted to the sky, proud to have gone forth to see the last land of all”—in glory, as he had promised her he would, and not in shame, as had so often been predicted. She would say nothing. No one should hear it from her lips. Her silence would be her vengeance on the great world. . . .

“My rose trees,” thought Angelina.

The rose trees that she was to have transplanted that very afternoon, before the deep frosts of autumn. Marie-Didace would be expecting her. At the vision of the child perched on top of the bakehouse, Angelina smiled.

Moist-eyed, she folded up the portrait of the rover, taking care not to let the folds cross the face, and slipped it under her bodice, into the little yellow cotton bag containing her scapulary.

Then she crossed herself, and with head held high walked serenely out of the church.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[The end of The Outlander, by Germaine Guèvremont]