Thirty Acres, page 13
To change the subject he asked another question: “Why didn’t you bring along the other little Larivières?” After all, he couldn’t very well call them the Rivers!
“There ain’t no others. Just Lily and Billy.”
“Why?” asked Moisan naïvely. “Is your wife sick?”
Rivers burst out laughing and translated the question for Grace, who opened her eyes in astonishment and hid an almost irresistible impulse to laugh behind a wry and rather superior smile.
“Well, cousin, two’s plenty for us, a boy and a girl.”
“I guess I’d sooner not have had thirteen myself. But there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Damn it, my wife and I figured we’d put on the brakes,” he said with an air of finality.
Moisan was taken aback and felt embarrassed, so he said nothing. How could people talk about such things openly? He hadn’t understood all the words they used; but he was pretty sure they had been referring to one of those wicked practices, which the parish priest had mentioned once at a retreat for men and which seek to interfere with the designs of Providence. He looked away.
Alphée’s wife was sitting at the table, where Lucinda had set out an impromptu supper, and Ephrem slipped into a place beside her. He kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye, and his surreptitious glances showed that he had lost all his boldness in the presence of this woman of another species. Every time he looked at her furtively he took in a detail of her face with its rather clouded grey eyes, her thin-lipped, somewhat vicious mouth and her flaunting bosom, whose charms, when she bent over to drink from her tea-cup, her low-cut blouse failed to conceal. Every now and then Grace looked up at him with an amused and knowing expression which made him lower his eyes at once. These two had sized each other up from the very beginning. She was attracted by the obvious physical strength of this well-set-up country bumpkin and guessed at the boldness concealed behind his subdued exterior, while he saw in her all that was most alluring to him in a woman: clothes not made for work, an ability to talk about other things than farming, interests which lay beyond crops and stock. Above all, he felt that she was the sort of woman who was used to living in proximity to all kinds of men, aware of their desire pressing close against her breast and flanks and constantly struggling to fight it off. He was sure she was the sort of woman who would yield without hesitation, doing so of her own free will and not through terror or ignorance like girls he had had so far. At least, that is what he imagined women from the world outside were like.
The two had become participants in that eternal duel which draws the sexes together only to separate them almost immediately, that conflict which, in the cities, takes the place of the more forthright struggle which, in the country, man wages against the earth, who is a female too. For neither earth nor woman is ever entirely mastered.
Moisan made them all sit down round the table, except the smaller children who had been put back to bed. At the end Euchariste, Etienne and “Walter” got talking, or rather the visitor started telling Moisan about the life he led down there in the huge brightly lighted cities of the American Republic; and both used the familiar form of address, for they felt drawn to one another by the mysterious bond of blood. From time to time they filled their empty glasses from a bottle that Lucinda, who knew the rules of hospitality, had set down on the table. Without saying a word the youngster looked after everything. She brought in the dishes and added hot water to the tea-pot. But she, too, couldn’t take her eyes off the American woman. The blue blouse Grace was wearing would have suited her own fairness so well. Ephrem went on talking in a low voice and sat beside his cousin’s wife while she listened as much with her eyes as with her ears, for she did not understand the countrified locutions and the harsh accent. But she was pleased with the striking impression she was making. And that made her begin to feel a little less contemptuous of them all.
Albert looked in only for a few moments, just long enough to greet the visitors. They disposed of the children, including Alphée’s boy, as best they could by putting them three to a bed so as to make room for the grown-ups. And soon, in the whole house, the only room still awake was the warm kitchen where the smoke from the pipes rose into a thick cloud under the heavy beams of the ceiling.
SIX
Larivière said they had come to Canada for a fortnight’s visit, but when scarcely a week had gone by he announced that they were leaving. His wife couldn’t bear to stay on any longer with these lowly ignorant peasants, the descendants of a race which she despised with all the arrogance of an American of English stock. Even her husband began to feel that she looked down on him, too, for claiming relationship with these people.
It had been a relaxation, though, for an American like himself, who lived in the narrow streets of a city, to stay in a country that was so foreign and which seemed so not merely because of the distance from his home, which was not very great, nor because of the language, which he had not entirely forgotten. Up till now he had hardly ever left Lowell and its busy streets, where, in the daytime a grimy sun melts the asphalt and where the night is stripped of its shadows and its mystery by multicoloured electric signs. When he did leave, it was only to go to other towns which resembled it in every respect, where the dust had the same oily taste and the people the same strained, hurried look. He had never come in contact with the country, had never got to know it. It made him feel funny now and he would sometimes stop short in the middle of a field, surprised to realize that he stood out above the meadows and that there was nothing above him, no tall buildings, no factory chimneys, no network of parallel wires; nothing but the occasional spiky tuft of an ash tree or the queer twisted branches of a willow. Beyond, sheer empty space stretched to the clouds, which passed by up there at an incredible height in stately procession. He felt bewildered and at the same time relieved by this disappearance of everything which usually interfered with his vision or his movements. When he stretched out his hand, there were no walls there. The ground yielded gently beneath his footsteps, like an expensive carpet. He was happy, though not quite at his ease.
Euchariste, too, was rather looking forward to their leaving. Yet they got on very well together. Every night, bursting with laughter and conversation, they visited a different house, going as far as Labernadie and even further. And everywhere the cousins’ auto made an excellent impression.
But Moisan, who at first had been delighted when Ephrem stayed at home evenings in honour of the Larivières, was much less pleased when he began to realize that his son seized every opportunity of leaving his work to go back to the house to be with Alphée’s wife. So much so that one night he couldn’t refrain from saying jokingly: “See here, Ephrem, Alphée will be getting jealous if you don’t watch out.”
His son blushed to the tips of his ears and his eyes suddenly clouded with anger.
But his cousin burst out laughing and merely said: “Well, ’Charis, that’s a good joke.”
But Grace didn’t even smile.
So when they spoke of leaving, Ephrem was the only one whose protests were not merely polite. And on the eve of their departure he disappeared for a whole hour in the middle of the afternoon, just at a moment when the threat of a storm was spurring them all on to fresh efforts. Then Euchariste saw him coming slowly back through the fields, but he was with Cousin Alphée and they were both absorbed in a conversation that brought them to a halt every twenty paces. They stopped talking when they came within earshot. What could it be about? Surely nothing to do with that woman! But they didn’t seem to have been quarrelling.
The only person to protest against leaving was the little boy, Billy. He had never even dreamed of such a holiday, for so far the horizon of his fancy had been bounded by cramping walls. At first his mother tried ineffectually to get him to live up to his station, but soon they had had to lend him old clothes so that he could go along with his cousins to the fields, the stable and even to the pig-sty, where he used to spend long hours talking to a young pig which he was very anxious to take home with him. Twice a day he dragged Pitou off to swim in the river and, though they couldn’t understand one another, they kept up an incessant chatter and always managed to guess the other’s meaning with that intuition and gift for friendship that all children have.
Just as they were leaving, Alphée kissed all the children and said: “It’s up to you to come and see us at Lowell. When are you coming, ’Charis?”
“Oh, I don’t get around much, Alphée, and a farm ain’t like a factory. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to, but it don’t look as if I’d be leaving here for a while yet.”
“Well, if you’re too slow, send one of the boys for a few weeks. Maybe we could find him a job that would pay for the trip. Then it wouldn’t cost nothing.”
“Oh, I guess I can find the money all right,” Moisan replied, feeling that his self-respect had been wounded. And in a voice full of meaning added: “I’ve got a few dollars put by with the notary. I’ll think it over.”
“Thank you very much, cousin, and au revoir,” said Grace.
“Good-bye.”
“Bonjour. Bonjour.”
“Au revoir. Good-bye,” said Ephrem last of all.
Euchariste imagined that he saw his son exchange a last knowing smile with Grace.
Life on the farm reverted to its ordinary humdrum pace and the only change was that Ephrem left the house less frequently than before to go roistering here, there and everywhere. But what his father couldn’t understand was that he asked for money just as often, if not oftener, than before. Until one day he thought he had guessed the reason: Ephrem was saving up.
This unexpected change in his son’s behaviour made his happiness complete. To look at, Euchariste Moisan was just like any of the neighbouring farmers. Like them, he worked long hours and was always grumbling about hard times. His brow was like a field of heavy soil, furrowed by cares, anxieties and sweat; his skin had a texture like clods broken by the harrow; and his thick arms ended in gnarled fingers. His clothes were old and worn; it cost so much to cover the buildings every year with a fresh coat of white-wash and the fields with their garment of red clover or golden grain that he could not think of wasting money on things for the owner of these fields and buildings to wear. As a matter of fact, in comparison with people from the town he looked almost like a beggar.
But he was no such thing and his eyes gave the lie to his appearance. His glance flowed with an even assurance like a stream which has turned the mill-wheel and runs on, well satisfied, between the bushes on its banks. That’s exactly how it was with him. There was a stream flowing gently through the Moisan mill. The winters went by, leaving the Moisan farm rested, restored, eager for the seed and ready to labour again. Springs came and went, and as they hovered on the threshold of June a delicate velvety green covered the Moisan fields. When the summers were over, all this burden of wealth was swallowed up by the Moisan barns and hay-loft, and the cattle were turned loose in the bare fields. And each year, at the beginning of winter, Euchariste Moisan paid a visit to the notary’s at Saint-Jacques.
“Morning, Mr. Boulet!”
He pronounced the name Boulé as did all the people in that part of the country.
“Oh, it’s you, ’Charis. What can I do for you?”
The procedure was always the same. The farmer would take the bank-notes and silver out of his old leather purse, and these would go to join their predecessors in the notary’s strong-box. And when the money had been counted and recounted in his presence and before it had disappeared out of reach into the safe, he would say: “How much does that come to now, Mr. Boulet?”
Mr. Boulet got out a big ledger. And his client sat there hardly daring to breathe and with his eyes screwed up, as if the money might fly out through the door if he allowed his attention to wander for a moment during the checking over of his annual deposits.
He relaxed a little towards the end when he heard the notary say: “Plus this year’s interest at five per cent …”
But he never got up to go until the strong-box had been shut tight.
Apart from Christmas and New Year’s, that day was the only one in the year on which Euchariste Moisan came home a little drunk and it was more due to happiness than to whiskey blanc.
It would probably have been impossible for him to explain what instinct impelled him to hoard his savings like this. He didn’t have to worry about his old age, because his capital was there at hand: a fine thirty-acre strip of farm-land, with no mortgages on it, paying a generous annual income and asking only what it is natural for a man to give and which costs nothing; namely, work. Now that his Oguinase had finished his studies he had no further need for money, since his sons could go on living off the farm. And yet, without being a skin-flint, he was careful of his cash and, rather than spend it freely, preferred to hide it away in the notary’s strong-box. The impulse was too strong for him and was like one of those instinctive urges that affect both men and animals: ants, for instance, who store food in their ant-hills for generations they will never see and of whose future existence they are not even aware. It was a compelling, vital instinct, inherited from his ancestors, those Norman or Picard peasants, whose race he perpetuated and that would be carried on after him by his sons and grandsons and those still distant generations which are the future made flesh.
Etienne took after him in this, for he was thrifty and hard-working and incapable of reckoning hours of work, the sweat of his brow, the weariness of his arms and legs in terms of money, since work, sweat and weariness cost nothing, while money is worth a great deal. Not that either of them, nor any of the other farmers for that matter, were really miserly. By no means! But they were governed by the vague feeling that the money that comes out of the land belongs to it and must not be diverted. Every bale of hay, every bushel of wheat they sold bound them more closely to this kindly mother, who was both generous and exacting.
Etienne was thinking of getting married; but he would never have dreamed of choosing any other time but the autumn, in case even the founding of a new home should interfere with the work.
In his spare time he patched up the tumble-down house where Euchariste had thought of settling down with Alphonsine long ago. He was doubtful about the place for a time, for the floors were rotten and the walls eaten with damp; but the framework was still solid after a century and a half.
He spoke to his father about it, half hoping that he and his wife could live in the big house. She was a Lamy he had met at a party and whom he visited twice a month at her father’s place at Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs, seventeen miles up the river. But his father’s house was only just large enough for the immediate family. Aside from Euchariste and Etienne there were Albert, Ephrem, Eva, Lucinda, Pitou, Orpha and Marie-Louise, without counting Oguinase, who had to have the best bedroom when he came home at New Year’s or for the summer holidays. So for the moment it was decided that the newly-weds should live in the old house that had been fixed up. His father gave him to understand that later, perhaps, when Ephrem’s turn came to get married, Etienne, as the eldest, would get the new house. As for Ephrem, he could move into the old one.
But Euchariste did not mention that he had an idea at the back of his mind. He didn’t like to think that Ephrem, who in spite of everything was still his favourite son, might one day be less well housed than his brother. When the time came, he could advance him enough to buy a farm. The Bertrand property had slipped through his fingers and had been sold to a stranger while he shilly-shallied in the hope of getting it without having to pay cash and tried to get over his dislike of coming to a decision. Oh, well, when he needed it he would get one that suited him, and next time he wouldn’t let it escape him.
The wedding took place in October and, as was fitting, there was no undue expense. The only hitch occurred when Euchariste went out of doors to get a breath of fresh air and almost bumped into Lucinda, who was being hugged by one of the young wedding guests. And it wasn’t the first time either. But he had never been willing to believe his own eyes, or, for that matter, his ears when neighbours made half-teasing, half-malicious remarks. She had sprung up a lot in the last three years and was now almost as tall as her father. She had also developed a bosom which she was at no pains to conceal and had the inviting eyes of a pretty, tame animal. To him she was still a child, but others probably already realized that she was a woman.
One day, during the following year, Ephrem was reading the weekly paper when he looked up and remarked: “Say, here’s a piece of news; looks like they’re going to have a war in Europe.”
Europe was everything outside Canada or the United States, everything far away and mentioned in the school histories.
Euchariste and Albert were sitting at the table playing checkers.
“Whereabouts?” asked Albert, advancing a man.
“Wait a second…. The Russians against the Aus … Austrians.”
“What’s their trouble?”
“It doesn’t say.”
Euchariste took advantage of Albert’s inattention. “One, two, three, four and King,” he said, cutting a swathe through his opponent’s men. Then, well pleased with himself, he turned to Ephrem.
“Well, let them fight it out. It won’t bother us any!”
But the Saturday evening following, Ephrem had hardly sat down before he announced the big news he had read in the paper he brought back from the post-office:
“Do you know what? They’ve gone crazy over in Europe. They’re all fighting each other. There’s Russia and … some other country and another one and England, too, and Germany.”
