Ite, missa est
The door opened, and the men of
the congregation began to come out of the church at
Peribonka.
A moment earlier it had seemed
quite deserted, this church set by the roadside on the high bank of
the Peribonka, whose icy snow-covered surface was like a winding
strip of plain. The snow lay deep upon road and fields, for the
April sun was powerless to send warmth through the gray clouds, and
the heavy spring rains were yet to come. This chill and universal
white, the humbleness of the wooden church and the wooden houses
scattered along the road, the gloomy forest edging so close that it
seemed to threaten, these all spoke of a harsh existence in a stern
land. But as the men and boys passed through the doorway and
gathered in knots on the broad steps, their cheery salutations, the
chaff flung from group to group, the continual interchange of talk,
merry or sober, at once disclosed the unquenchable joyousness of a
people ever filled with laughter and good humour.
Cleophas Pesant, son of Thadee
Pesant the blacksmith, was already in light-coloured summer
garments, and sported an American coat with broad padded shoulders;
though on this cold Sunday he had not ventured to discard his
winter cap of black cloth with harelined ear-laps for the hard felt
hat he would have preferred to wear. Beside him Egide Simard, and
others who had come a long road by sleigh, fastened their long fur
coats as they left the church, drawing them in at the waist with
scarlet sashes. The young folk of the village, very smart in coats
with otter collars, gave deferential greeting to old Nazaire
Larouche; a tall man with gray hair and huge bony shoulders who had
in no wise altered for the mass his everyday garb: short jacket of
brown cloth lined with sheepskin, patched trousers, and thick
woollen socks under moose-hide moccasins.
"Well, Mr. Larouche, do things go
pretty well across the water?"
"Not badly, my lads, not so
badly."
Everyone drew his pipe from his
pocket, and the pig's bladder filled with tobacco leaves cut by
hand, and, after the hour and a half of restraint, began to smoke
with evident satisfaction. The first puffs brought talk of the
weather, the coming spring, the state of the ice on Lake St. John
and the rivers, of their several doings and the parish gossip;
after the manner of men who, living far apart on the worst of
roads, see one another but once a week.
"The lake is solid yet," said
Cleophas Pesant, "but the rivers are no longer safe. The ice went
this week beside the sand-bank opposite the island, where there
have been warm spring-holes all winter." Others began to discuss
the chances of the crops, before the ground was even showing.
"I tell you that we shall have a
lean year," asserted one old fellow, "the frost got in before the
last snows fell."
At length the talk slackened and
all faced the top step, where Napoleon Laliberte was making ready,
in accord with his weekly custom, to announce the parish news. He
stood there motionless for a little while, awaiting quiet,—hands
deep in the pockets of the heavy lynx coat, knitting his forehead
and half closing his keen eyes under the fur cap pulled well over
his ears; and when silence fell he began to give the news at the
full pitch of his voice, in the manner of a carter who encourages
his horses on a hill.
"The work on the wharf will go
forward at once ... I have been sent money by the Government, and
those looking for a job should see me before vespers. If you want
this money to stay in the parish instead of being sent back to
Quebec you had better lose no time in speaking to me."
Some moved over in his direction;
others, indifferent, met his announcement with a laugh. The remark
was heard in an envious undertone:—"And who will be foreman at
three dollars a day? Perhaps good old Laliberte ..."
But it was said jestingly rather
than in malice, and the speaker ended by adding his own
laugh.
Hands still in the pockets of his
big coat, straightening himself and squaring his shoulders as he
stood there upon the highest step, Napoleon Laliberte proceeded in
loudest tones:—"A surveyor from Roberval will be in the parish next
week. If anyone wishes his land surveyed before mending his fences
for the summer, this is to let him know."
The item was received without
interest. Peribonka farmers are not particular about correcting
their boundaries to gain or lose a few square feet, since the most
enterprising among them have still two-thirds of their grants to
clear,—endless acres of woodland and swamp to reclaim.
He continued:—"Two men are up
here with money to buy furs. If you have any bear, mink, muskrat or
fox you will find these men at the store until Wednesday, or you
can apply to François Paradis of Mistassini who is with them. They
have plenty of money and will pay cash for first-class pelts." His
news finished, he descended the steps. A sharp-faced little fellow
took his place.
"Who wants to buy a fine young
pig of my breeding?" he asked, indicating with his finger something
shapeless that struggled in a bag at his feet. A great burst of
laughter greeted him. They knew them well, these pigs of Hormidas'
raising. No bigger than rats, and quick as squirrels to jump the
fences.
"Twenty-five cents!" one young
man bid chaffingly.
"Fifty cents!"
"A dollar!"
"Don't play the fool, Jean. Your
wife will never let you pay a dollar for such a pig as that."
Jean stood his ground:—"A dollar,
I won't go back on it."
Hormidas Berube with a disgusted
look on his face awaited another bid, but only got jokes and
laughter.
Meantime the women in their turn
had begun to leave the church. Young or old, pretty or ugly, nearly
all were well clad in fur cloaks, or in coats of heavy cloth; for,
honouring the Sunday mass, sole festival of their lives, they had
doffed coarse blouses and homespun petticoats, and a stranger might
well have stood amazed to find them habited almost with elegance in
this remote spot; still French to their finger-tips in the midst of
the vast lonely forest and the snow, and as tastefully dressed,
these peasant women, as most of the middle-class folk in provincial
France.
Cleophas Pesant waited for Louisa
Tremblay who was alone, and they went off together along the wooden
sidewalk in the direction of the house. Others were satisfied to
exchange jocular remarks with the young girls as they passed, in
the easy and familiar fashion of the country,-natural enough too
where the children have grown up together from infancy.
Pite Gaudreau, looking toward the
door of the church, remarked:—"Maria Chapdelaine is back from her
visit to St. Prime, and there is her father come to fetch her."
Many in the village scarcely knew the Chapdelaines.
"Is it Samuel Chapdelaine who has
a farm in the woods on the other side of the river, above
Honfleur?"
"That's the man."
"And the girl with him is his
daughter? Maria ..."
"Yes, she has been spending a
month at St. Prime with her mother's people. They are Bouchards,
related to Wilfrid Bouchard of St. Gedeon ..."
Interested glances were directed
toward the top of the steps. One of the young people paid Maria the
countryman's tribute of admiration—"A fine hearty girl!" said
he.
"Right you are! A fine hearty
girl, and one with plenty of spirit too. A pity that she lives so
far off in the woods. How are the young fellows of the village to
manage an evening at their place, on the other side of the river
and above the falls, more than a dozen miles away and the last of
them with next to no road?"
The smiles were bold enough as
they spoke of her, this inaccessible beauty; but as she came down
the wooden steps with her father and passed near by, they were
taken with bashfulness and awkwardly drew back, as though something
more lay between her and them than the crossing of a river and
twelve miles of indifferent woodland road.
Little by little the groups
before the church dissolved. Some returned to their houses, after
picking up all the news that was going; others, before departing,
were for spending an hour in one of the two gathering places of the
village; the curé's house or the general store. Those who came from
the back concessions, stretching along the very border of the
forest, one by one untied their horses from the row and brought
their sleighs to the foot of the steps for their women and
children.
Samuel Chapdelaine and Maria had
gone but a little way when a young man halted them.
"Good day to you, Mr.
Chapdelaine. Good day, Miss Maria. I am in great luck at meeting
you, since your farm is so high up the river and I don't often come
this way myself."
His bold eyes travelled from one
to the other. When he averted them it seemed by a conscious effort
of politeness; swiftly they returned, and their glance, bright,
keen, full of honest eagerness, was questioning and
disconcerting.
"François Paradis!" exclaimed
Chapdelaine.
"This is indeed a bit of luck,
for I haven't seen you this long while, François. And your father
dead too. Have you held on to the farm?" The young man did not
answer; he was looking expectantly at Maria with a frank smile,
awaiting a word from her.
"You remember François Paradis of
Mistassini, Maria? He has changed very little."
"Nor have you, Mr. Chapdelaine.
But your daughter, that is a different story; she is not the same,
yet I should have known her at once."
They had spent the last evening
at St. Michel de Mistassini-viewing everything in the full light of
the afternoon: the great wooden bridge, covered in and painted red,
not unlike an amazingly long Noah's ark; the high hills rising
almost from the very banks of the river, the old monastery crouched
between the river and the heights, the water that seethed and
whitened, flinging itself in wild descent down the staircase of a
giant. But to see this young man after seven years, and to hear his
name spoken, aroused in Maria memories clearer and more lively than
she was able to evoke of the events and sights of yesterday.
"François Paradis! ... Why
surely, father, I remember François Paradis." And François,
content, gave answer to the questions of a moment ago.
"No, Mr. Chapdelaine, I have not
kept the farm. When the good man died I sold everything, and since
then I have been nearly all the time in the woods, trapping or
bartering with the Indians of Lake Mistassini and the Riviere aux
Foins. I also spent a couple of years in the Labrador." His look
passed once more from Samuel Chapdelaine to Maria, and her eyes
fell.
"Are you going home to-day?" he
asked.
"Yes; right after dinner."
"I am glad that I saw you, for I
shall be passing up the river near your place in two or three
weeks, when the ice goes out. I am here with some Belgians who are
going to buy furs from the Indians; we shall push up so soon as the
river is clear, and if we pitch a tent above the falls close to
your farm I will spend the evening with you."
"That is good, François, we will
expect you."
The alders formed a thick and
unbroken hedge along the river Peribonka; but the leafless stems
did not shut away the steeply sloping bank, the levels of the
frozen river, the dark hem of the woods crowding to the farther
edge-leaving between the solitude of the great trees, thick-set and
erect, and the bare desolateness of the ice only room for a few
narrow fields, still for the most part uncouth with stumps, so
narrow indeed that they seemed to be constrained in the grasp of an
unkindly land.
To Maria Chapdelaine, glancing
inattentively here and there, there was nothing in all this to make
one feel lonely or afraid. Never had she known other prospect from
October to May, save those still more depressing and sad, farther
yet from the dwellings of man and the marks of his labour; and
moreover all about her that morning had taken on a softer outline,
was brighter with a new promise, by virtue of something sweet and
gracious that the future had in its keeping. Perhaps the coming
springtime ... perhaps another happiness that was stealing toward
her, nameless and unrecognized.
Samuel Chapdelaine and Maria were
to dine with their relative Azalma Larouche, at whose house they
had spent the night. No one was there but the hostess, for many
years a widow, and old Nazaire Larouche, her brother-in-law. Azalma
was a tall, flat-chested woman with the undeveloped features of a
child, who talked very quickly and almost without taking breath
while she made ready the meal in the kitchen. From time to time she
halted her preparations and sat down opposite her visitors, less
for the moments repose than to give some special emphasis to what
she was about to say; but the washing of a dish or the setting of
the table speedily claimed her attention again, and the monologue
went on amid the clatter of dishes and frying-pans.
The pea-soup was soon ready and
on the table. While eating, the two men talked about the condition
of their farms and the state of the spring ice.
"You should be safe enough for
crossing this evening," said Nazaire Larouche, "but it will be
touch-and-go, and I think you will be about the last. The current
is strong below the fall and already we have had three days of
rain.'"
"Everybody says that the ice will
hold for a long time yet," replied his sister-in-law. "Better sleep
here again to-night, and after supper the young folks from the
village will drop in and spend the evening. It is only fair that
Maria should have a little more amusement before you drag her off
into your woods up there."
"She has had plenty of gaiety at
St. Prime; singing and games almost every night. We are greatly
obliged to you, but I am going to put the horse in immediately
after dinner so as to get home in good time."
Old Nazaire Larouche spoke of the
morning's sermon which had struck him as well reasoned and fine;
then after a spell of silence he exclaimed abruptly—"Have you
baked?"
His amazed sister-in-law gaped at
him for a moment before it stole upon her that this was his way of
asking for bread. A little later he attacked her with another
question:—"Is your pump working well?"
Which signified that there was no
water on the table. Azalma rose to get it, and behind her back the
old fellow sent a sly wink in the direction of Maria. "I assault
her with parables," chuckled he. "It's politer."
On the plank walls of the house
were pasted old newspapers, and calendars hung there such as the
manufacturers of farm implements or grain merchants scatter abroad,
and also prints of a religious character; a representation in
crudest colour and almost innocent of perspective of the basilica
at Ste. Anne de Beaupre—, a likeness of Pope Pius X.; a chromo
where the palely-smiling Virgin Mary disclosed her bleeding heart
encircled with a golden nimbus.
"This is nicer than our house,"
thought Maria to herself. Nazaire Larouche kept directing attention
to his wants with dark sayings:—"Was your pig very lean?" he
demanded; or perhaps:—"Fond of maple sugar, are you? I never get
enough of it ..."
And then Azalma would help him to
a second slice of pork or fetch the cake of maple sugar from the
cupboard. When she wearied of these strange table-manners and bade
him help himself in the usual fashion, he smoothed her ruffled
temper with good-humoured excuses, "Quite right. Quite right. I
won't do it again; but you always loved a joke, Azalma. When you
have youngsters like me at dinner you must look for a little
nonsense."
Maria smiled to think how like he
was to her father; both tall and broad, with grizzled hair, their
faces tanned to the colour of leather, and, shining from their
eyes, the quenchless spirit of youth which keeps alive in the
countryman of Quebec his imperishable simple-heartedness.
They took the road almost as soon
as the meal was over. The snow, thawed on top by the early rains,
and frozen anew during the cold nights, gave an icy surface that
slipped away easily beneath the runners. The high blue hills on the
other side of Lake St. John which closed the horizon behind them
were gradually lost to view as they returned up the long bend of
the river.
Passing the church, Samuel
Chapdelaine said thoughtfully—"The mass is beautiful. I am often
very sorry that we live so far from churches. Perhaps not being
able to attend to our religion every Sunday hinders us from being
just so fortunate as other people."
"It is not our fault," sighed
Maria, "we are too far away."
Her father shook his head
regretfully. The imposing ceremonial, the Latin chants, the lighted
tapers, the solemnity of the Sunday mass never failed to fill him
with exaltation. In a little he began to sing:—
J'irai la voir un jour,
M'asseoir pres de son
trone,
Recevoir ma couronne
Et regner a mon tour ...
His voice was strong and true,
and he used the full volume of it, singing with deep fervour; but
ere long his eyes began to close and his chin to drop toward his
breast. Driving always made him sleepy, and the horse, aware that
the usual drowsiness had possession of his master, slackened his
pace and at length fell to a walk.
"Get up there, Charles
Eugene!"
He had suddenly waked and put his
hand out for the whip. Charles Eugene resigned himself and began to
trot again. Many generations ago a Chapdelaine cherished a long
feud with a neighbour who bore these names, and had forthwith
bestowed them upon an old, tired, lame horse of his, that he might
give himself the pleasure every day when passing the enemy's house
of calling out very loudly:—"Charles Eugene, ill-favoured beast
that you are! Wretched, badly brought up creature! Get along,
Charles Eugene!" For a whole century the quarrel was dead and
buried; but the Chapdelaines ever since had named their successive
horses Charles Eugene.
Once again the hymn rose in clear
ringing tones, intense with feeling:—
Au ciel, au ciel, au ciel,
J'irai la voir un jour . .
And again sleep was master, the
voice died away, and Maria gathered up the reins dropped from her
father's hand.
The icy road held alongside the
frozen river. The houses on the other shore, each surrounded with
its patch of cleared land, were sadly distant from one another.
Behind the clearings, and on either side of them to the river's
bank, it was always forest: a dark green background of cypress
against which a lonely birch tree stood out here and there, its
bole naked and white as the column of a ruined temple.
On the other side of the road the
strip of cleared land was continuous and broader; the houses, set
closer together, seemed an outpost of the village; but ever behind
the bare fields marched the forest, following like a shadow, a
gloomy frieze without end between white ground and gray sky.
"Charles Eugene, get on
there!"
Chapdelaine woke and made his
usual good-humoured feint toward the whip; but by the time the
horse slowed down, after a few livelier paces, he had dropped off
again, his hands lying open upon his knees showing the worn palms
of the horse-hide mittens, his chin resting upon the coat's thick
fur.
After a couple of miles the road
climbed a steep hill and entered the unbroken woods. The houses
standing at intervals in the flat country all the way from the
village came abruptly to an end, and there was no longer anything
for the eye to rest upon but a wilderness of bare trunks rising out
of the universal whiteness. Even the incessant dark green of
balsam, spruce and gray pine was rare; the few young and living
trees were lost among the endless dead, either lying on the ground
and buried in snow, or still erect but stripped and blackened.
Twenty years before great forest fires had swept through, and the
new growth was only pushing its way amid the standing skeletons and
the charred down-timber. Little hills followed one upon the other,
and the road was a succession of ups and downs scarcely more
considerable than the slopes of an ocean swell, from trough to
crest, from crest to trough.