Maman had been generous to Saint Anne. She bought her one of the biggest candles. Kneeling in front of her statue, she had had a long talk with Saint Anne. I've always thought that what Maman then asked of her was to cure her forever of the need for freedom—perhaps not too promptly, giving her time for another trip or two. .. .
I thought that now all our visits were over and that we should return straight home from the shrine. But no! Maman told me, "There is still Odile Constant. How I should love to find Odile Constant just once more!"
I asked her who on earth Odile Constant was.
"Odile," my mother replied, "was my dearest childhood friend when I was a little older than you."
"But where shall we find Odile?"
"That," said Maman, "is always possible. If you really make an effort, you can always find an old friend, even if she's at the ends of the earth."
And thus it happened that we went to the village where Maman and Odile had been born. First we tried to get information at the priest's house. The pastor had heard that Odile Constant had entered a convent, but he knew not of what order. Then we ventured further, to the home of one of Odile's relatives, and he was able to tell us the name of the order, but not which house of that order; for fifteen years he had not laid eyes on 64 Street of Riches
her; she must have been transferred from one place to another; certainly she was still alive.
I was pleased to feel that we were almost "warm"; it was high time; we had very nearly no money left to continue our search; and besides, Maman seemed to set more store by this person than by all our cousins put together.
Once again we encountered sea gulls as we crossed a river, swimming around tufts of verdure that floated in the water. The Saint Lawrence was very lovely at this spot. We saw a big island; Maman told me it was Saint Helen's, which Champlain had given his bride, only twelve years old when he married her, and that there, on the island, he had let her grow up a few years. But despite this, it is Odile Constant's name which remains linked in my mind to this landscape.
The longer we searched, the more memories Maman recaptured of this little girl of earlier days; she even remembered the color of her eyes—hazelnut. And so, even had we never seen her in the flesh, we should all the same have rediscovered her.
"If God allows me to see Odile once more," said Maman, "I can say that I have satisfied my every wish."
I don't know why, but I still had it in my head that it was a little girl we were looking for so desperately.
At last at a convent door Maman inquired, "Could you let us see Odile—excuse me, I mean Sister Etienne du Sauveur. I am a very old childhood friend of hers. But don't tell her," Maman asked the portress! "I'd like so much to see whether Odile—I mean Sister Etienne du Sauveur—will recognize me."
The portress placed a finger over her lips; her sweet smile told us that the secret would be well kept, and noiselessly she went off to get Sister Etienne du Sauveur.
Maman and I were seated on chairs which, at our slightest movement, slipped a little on the gleaming parquet floor. It seemed to me that we avoided looking at each other; and if occasionally our eyes could not help meeting, we quickly averted our glances, as though we did not know each other very well. That must be the way of it when there are two of you awaiting the same good thing; perhaps each of you is afraid that, by too great a display of hope to the other, she will add to her disappointment, if that should be the outcome; or else perhaps you are embarrassed that both of you together should be awaiting happiness ... I scarcely know. That is how it was -a kind of fear holding us by the throats—when we heard light footsteps coming toward us. Then in the doorway a nun with a
The Gadabouts 65
pale face and feeble eyes—but gray they were, not hazelnut -was looking at us. Maman had urged upon me, "Don't say a word. Don't spoil it. Let me go alone to greet Odile."
The nun gave me a gentle, kindly glance, smiling at me as she did so, then looked at Maman. "Odile!" my mother called, as though to waken someone asleep.
At hearing this name, the nun trembled. Her two hands rose toward the crucifix hanging from her neck and she clasped it in both of them. Then she moved toward my mother; she took her by her arms and led her near a high window at the back of the parlor. She drew aside the curtains, to admit a better light into the room, and began to study Maman's face with a sort of eagerness to recognize her, which was even then utterly charming. Supposedly nuns forswear the affections of this world; ever since I saw Sister Etienne du Sauveur's face, I have believed that they don't always achieve so sad a perfection.
"Do you recognize me, Odile?" asked Maman in a thin littler voice, which trembled with joyous fear.
Then the expression of the aged nun hurt me, so hard was she trying to look deep into Maman's face. It must have been difficult indeed to discover in an elderly, wrinkled face like Maman's a chubby-cheeked little girl with long braids. The old Sister was making so desperate an effort that her chin, her lips, even her hands were trembling. Finally she narrowed her scrutiny to Maman's very arched eyebrows, and it seemed as though they told her something; little by little there crept into her eyes a glow, at first of disbelief; then Sister Etienne cried out almost plaintively: "Good Lord! . . . Good Lord! Could it be my little Eveline?"
"Yes, it's I! It's Eveline I" Maman exclaimed, and threw herself in the nun's arms.
Then they both began to cry; they embraced, drew apart to stare once again into each other's faces. They kept saying to each other, weeping the while, "I knew you by your eyes . . ." and "Oh, but I knew you by the perfect arch of your eyebrows ... no one but you ever ever had such beautifully curved eyebrows. ..."
When they had had a good cry, they sat down facing each other, and Sister Etienne adjusted her headdress a bit, Maman having rumpled it somewhat when she held her tight. She said, all impatience, as though out of breath: "And now tell me, Eveline, my dear little Line, tell me about yourself. You must 66 Street of Riches
have had many an adventure! You're married! Are you happy ? Tell me all about it."
"Yes," said Maman, "I married young. You understand, Odile, it was not a passionate love, a foolish love; I was marrying a man much older than I, a responsible man; but one by one I've discovered his fine qualities."
"If your husband has allowed you this fine trip, he's a generous man," Sister Etienne decided.
"Yes, very generous," said Maman.
"How happy I am! I'm sure that your husband is a very kindly man; he couldn't be otherwise You have children ?"
"I've had nine," Maman said. "I've a daughter who is already married ... another is a religious ... a son long ago gone away ... and I lost one child, Odile ... a lovely little girl; she died so quickly ..."
And they began to cry together over my little sister who had died of meningitis when she was four.
"But you," said Maman, wiping her eyes, "tell me about yourself...."
"I," said Sister Etienne, "I have no history. . . . Tell me more about yourself "
"Well, then, my husband works for the Ministry of Colonization. He busies himself establishing European immigrants on our western lands. They're called homesteads."
"What a fine occupation!" exclaimed Sister Etienne. "So much more noble than business! I'm going to ask God to bless your husband's undertakings and also his colonist's efforts. . . . Couldn't you spend a day or two with me ? Our Mother Provincial happens to be right here at the moment; I'll ask her permission. ..."
"I'd certainly love it," answered Maman, "but I must take the Transcontinental tomorrow for Winnipeg."
"The Transcontinental! For Winnipeg!" cried the nun, grasping her little cross. "And you say that as I might say I'm going to take the streetcar. . . . Dear, dear Line, go! Adventures will surely never frighten you. ... Do you remember what I told you even then, thirty-eight years ago ? 'You, my little Line, have
been born to know great emotions '"
Maman then seemed to me constrained and ill at ease. "I somet
imes wonder whether I go too far " /
"No," Sister Etienne reassured her; "When God gives us a venturesome heart, it is in order that we may know better than others all the beautiful countries He has made. There are
many ways of obeying God, Eveline . . . and freedom is one of the roads on which to journey toward Him...."
And with her thumb she traced a little cross on each of our foreheads. After that she gave us medals, scapulars, and to both of us a picture of her patron saint.
In the entranceway to the convent, they both began to embrace each other. "To think that you have appeared and disappeared, like a comet!" Sister Etienne complained.
Maman begged her, "Pray for me, Odile. There are times when I sorely tempt Providence."
"Don't say that," the nun replied, as she studied Maman with her tired, kindly eyes. "I recognize them when I see beings set apart by Providence ... set apart to their advantage ... and you are such a one . . . such you are, my little Line. Dear, always trust in Providence. ..."
And she added: "Eveline, I've lost all my own people long since. When they told me you were here to see me, it was four years since anyone had asked for me. Four years, Line, without a single visitor! . .."
For a long while, standing in the convent doorway, she waved her hand after us, just like a little girl.
VI
On her way back to Winnipeg Maman seemed to grow older again. She thought of the Sister Superior at the Convent of Saint Anne-des-Chenes and said to me, "That sister had a strict look, none too amiable. If by any chance she's spoken harshly to Alicia, the child will never get over it, she's so timid!"
Then Maman began to worry about the food at the convent. "For the price I'm paying, it can't be very good. . . . Agn&s had very little appetite to begin with. Perhaps they haven't eaten anything for a whole month. . . ."
Maman, as it were, kept piling up her scruples. It's not worth going on a trip, though I, if along the way one had to be prey to so many worries.
"Your father!" Maman would say. "Your poor father! Can you see him trying to get his own meals! He must have taken advantage of our absence to eat all sorts of indigestible things; he always does what he feels like when I'm not there to prevent him. ... How slow this train is! You'd swear we're not moving at all "
We had traveled back across the country without seeing a
thing except burned forests and burning brush piles. "This northern Ontario must surely be the dreariest country in the world" Maman complained.
She made a little conversation with a lady who was going as far as Great Slave Lake in Alberta. "Edouard, my husband, has a delicate stomach," Maman was saying. "He leads an exhausting life ... a man of excessive probity. I'm afraid," she said, "that with me away he'll have undermined his health even more by staying up late and eating anything handy."
This lady answered severely, "If you were fearful of that,
you had only not to leave your husband Why did you leave
him?"
Maman watched the rain drench over the window. "Perhaps to become a better wife," she replied.
I instantly understood what she meant: it is when you leave your own that you truly find them, and you are happy about it; you wish them well; and you want also to be better yourself. But the lady journeying to Alberta had not the least idea what Maman meant. Her motive for traveling was very different. She was going west to settle an estate matter. Her aged and completely helpless husband could not stir from home. She explained dryly that she cared for him day and night and that she never left her "wifely duties."
Maman finally fell asleep, her hands over her skirt, which was all awry. As she slept, her mouth opened slightly and she began to wheeze a little in her slumber. Maman had always asked us to waken her when she wheezed . . . but she wasn't
wheezing hard, and I let her rest a few minutes longer Little
wrinkles began to appear on her face. Her head lolled a bit over her chest; I noticed that Maman had a slight double chin; other wrinkles took shape at the corners of her mouth. I saw that Maman was old. I was afraid. I woke her. I called out to her, "Maman! Maman!" as though she were far, very far away. And with a start, seeming not to recognize me, she cried, "What is it? What's the matter?"
Then she recognized me. She said to me, "Oh! It's you! I was dreaming that I had been left all alone in the world . . . that I had to wander from one end of the country to the other to find my children, who were scattered through all the provinces "
From the station we took the tram. We must have crossed the Provencher Bridge, but the windows were fogged over, and in any case neither of us thought of watching for the Red River.
There was a slight, chilling wind. We shivered a little, and Maman remarked that, after all, spring was less advanced in Manitoba than in the East, that Ursule would certainly be pleased over that. . . . Montreal had receded so far away that we might just as well never have been there. Out of our whole trip, it seemed to me the only thing I could still clearly see in my mind's eye was the big candle in front of Saint Anne. . . . From afar, when we got off at the corner of Rue Desmeurons and Rue Deschambault, we saw that our house was all lighted up. "Good heavens!" said Maman. "Can someone be sick ?"
She quickened her pace, dragging me along so fast that I stumbled over my own feet.
We later learned that Papa had come home two weeks after we had left, upsetting Maman's plans; in her heart she had probably hoped she could make the whole long trip and resume her place at home before Papa even knew of our absence.
When he had entered the house, he had not noticed the letter Maman had left; he had rushed to the neighbors', worried and trembling, thinking we might all be sick and in the hospital. Madame Guilbert had been only too glad to give him the news: "What do you mean ? Didn't Eveline tell you that she was leaving for Lower Canada with your little girl ? . . . I thought you knew all about it . . . all the more so because she told me she
had a pass What an amazing business ... to have done such
a thing!" But Papa did not lose his temper at Madame Gilbert's, as she had perhaps expected he would. He gathered his children together from their various temporary abodes. Once he had them around him, Papa did not say a word. He paced up and down. For ten days he had tramped through the house, along the downstairs passage, back and forth in the upstairs hall. The children had not dared say anything to him. It seemed that during those days everything took place at home in almost total silence—meals, dishwashing, reproaches, and all else.
They were sitting in the midst of this dreadful silence when Maman very quietly opened the door. Papa raised his eyes. He saw us. He turned pale, arose from his chair, and said, "Ah! At last! My gadabouts!"
I was afraid we'd be turned out of the house.
But then Maman walked over to my father; she was wearing her small blue straw hat adorned with a bunch of bright red grapes.
"Edouard," said my mother, "before you get to the well-deserved scolding, let me extend to you, in the name of your sisters and your brother Placide, their heartfelt greetings and all the good wishes they asked me to bring you n
"What! You even went. . ."
"Yes, Edouard, back into your past, as far as your childhood. . . . Without the past, what are we, Edouard?" she asked. "Severed plants, half alive! ... That is what I've come to understand! ..."
My father moved back, fumbling for the edge of his chair. And Maman continued. "It weighs a little on Ursule's heart that you should not have sent them any news for so long a time ... but through my visit I think I have repaired the forgetfulness of
the years Anyway, she is now fully restored to equanimity,
thanks to hearing how important your work is. ... I overheard her talking about it in the village. . . . Aglad is sensitive by nature. ... I liked your brother Placide right off. . . . His name suits him ..."
I was looking at my mother; her eyes shone with sincerity, and—was it really possible?—she had grown young again. Before even taking off her j
acket, which she merely unbuttoned, she was already launched on her tale. "Back there on what they call the 'ranks' the houses are not far from each other, as they are on our plains, but lined up in a row; they make one continuous village; beautiful trees, much larger and much sturdier than ours, border the roads; shadow and sunlight play over the white house fronts. Those Quebec houses, low-lying, with their narrow windows near the ground and their tall, pointed roofs perhaps do not let in as much daylight as ours in Manitoba, but they preserve better the warmth of memories. What a fine feeling when, with the lamps lighted, people's faces take on a look of friendship, and even the woodwork itself a tint of welcome! Then, in the silence, you can almost hear it remembering Perhaps," said Maman, "the generations of the dead still
breathe around the living in that ancient land of Quebec! ..."
Little by little we all drew close to Maman, the better to watch her eyes, which, in advance of her lips, foretold the sights she would describe. Because, before drawing them from her memory, her eyes caressed them, she smiled at them, playing gently the while with the small collar of artificial pearl around her neck.
A tear trickled down Papa's cheek, and he did not bother to
brush it away. Timidly he asked about other details: Was the old apple tree still there, next the barn? Was some of the orchard left ? And Maman filled in the picture for him, lifelike and touching. Upon her face her memories were like birds in full flight.
71 Street ol Riches
The Well of Dunrea
Hi
-is strange life, so beautiful upon occasion, yet so hard and exacting, my father kept locked
. from our curiosity. He never said much about it, either to my mother or to me, even less to our neighbors. But he did talk about it to Agn&s, on the syllables of whose name his voice lingered lovingly. Why and at what moment did he unburden so much of his heart to this young daughter of his, who was already oversensitive ? She long kept as her own secret what my father had certainly told her not without considerable
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