Angéline de Montbrun: A Psychological Romance of Quebec 9781442653054

Table of contents :
Preface
Introduction
Bibliographical Note
Did you believe that this life is life?
Feuilles Détachées

Citation preview

ANGELINE DEMONTBRUN

Literature of Canada Poetry and Prose in Reprint

Douglas Lochhead, General Editor

Angéline de Montbrun Laure Conan

Translated and introduced by Yves Brunelle

U N I V E R S I T Y OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto and Buffalo

© University of Toronto Press 1974 Toronto and Buffalo Printed in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Angers, Félicité, 1845-1924 Angéline de Montbrun (Literature of Canada, poetry and prose in reprint; 14) Bibliography: p. I. Title. PZ3.A577An5 [PQ3919.A5] 843 73-82585 ISBN 0-8020-2126-3 ISBN 0-8020-6234-2 pbk

This book has been published with the assistance of grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the McLean Foundation. Angéline de Montbrun was first published in La Revue canadienne in 1882. It was published in book form in 1884 and then re-edited in 1905 by Abbé H.-R. Casgrain. The text used for this translation is that published in the Collection du Nénuphar, Editions Fides 1950.

Preface Yes, there is a Canadian literature. It does exist. Part of the evidence to support these statements is presented in the form of reprints of the poetry and prose of the authors included in this series. Much of this literature has been long out of print. If the country's culture and traditions are to be sampled and measured, both in terms of past and present-day conditions, then the major works of both our well-known and our lesser-known writers should be available for all to buy and read. The Literature of Canada series aims to meet this need. It shares with its companion series, The Social History of Canada, the purpose of making the documents of the country's heritage accessible to an increasingly large national and international public, a public which is anxious to acquaint itself with Canadian literature — the writing itself — and also to become intimate with the times in which it grew. DL

Laure Conan (pseud. of Marie-Louise-Félicité Angers), 1845-1924

Yves Brunelle

Introduction Laure Conan was the first woman novelist in French Canada and the first writer in all of Canada to dare attempt a roman d'analyse. That she was a novelist was enough to raise a few eyebrows. Abbé H.-R. Casgrain, who wrote the preface to the first edition in book form of the novel, speaks of it as 'a novelty in our young literature.' Pierre-J.-O. Chauveau pointedly entitles an 1885 article on the novel 'A Woman Writer in Canada,' expressing the happy surprise that at last French Canada has a name to place next to those of Mrs Moodie, Mrs Sadlier, and Mrs Leprohon. Both men emphasize — presumably answering an idea expressed somewhere, or simply assuming that no one would believe that a French-Canadian woman could or would write a novel — that it is not a man hiding behind the pen-name. Both knew it was a pen-name, but neither ever divulged in print the author's true identity. And she was forgiven the daring of writing a psychological novel because she was a woman. According to Casgrain, she 'guessed' the true direction of the modern novel, that is, 'the study of character, the analysis of a soul,' through 'that intuition natural to her sex.' He also speaks of 'this incomparable sensitivity ... of which men are unaware.' In his essay Chauveau says that although she may write in a virile style, she is 'truly a woman ... at least in her way of seeing, thinking and feeling.' With Angéline de Montbrun, Laure Conan was breaking new ground in Canadian fiction, certainly in French-Canadian fiction. She eschews the details of adventure and intrigue, the wooden, predictable characters, the transparent intricacies of romantic

Introduction vii

love (although the reader may not be fully aware of these omissions in the first part of the novel). Gone is the emphasis on the external trappings of life in this country. And, strange in a French-Canadian novel, absent basically are the patriotic motive, the rural myth, the exhortative tone, the vast canvas. At last a novelist was writing about the inner turmoil of an individual, live character, a young woman caught in a complex web of human appetites, aspirations, and relationships. As Jean Le Moyne writes, Laure Conan was 'deep enough and naïve enough to commit the first indiscretions' in French-Canadian fiction, although, of course, it was not originally seen in that light. From the outset, Angéline de Montbrun was seen as something other than a frivolous piece of fiction. As has often been remarked, there was a strong prejudice against the novel in nineteenth-century French Canada. The journalist and lecturer Etienne Parent, in 1846, said it was 'deplorable' that the newspapers were 'filled with pieces of light literature, a ready-made feeding ground for the idle and blasé minds of a decaying society.' As late as 1867, the poet Octave Crémazie was writing from exile: 'I am convinced that the sooner we discard the novel, even the religious novel, the better it will be for everyone.' No time should be wasted on frivolity. Philippe Aubert de Gaspé disclaimed any intention of making his Anciens Canadiens (1863) a novel. And Antoine Gérin-Lajoie emphatically denied that his Jean Rivard (1862-4) was a novel. But then, strictly speaking, both were right, although they seem to have been protecting themselves against attacks on moral grounds rather than stating a critical position. They were assuring their readers that they were serving a much higher cause than art.

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Laure Conan made no apologies for her fiction, but she welcomed Abbé Casgrain's offer to write a preface to her first novel, when it appeared in book form, because it would sanction such publication and give it an acceptable status. After all, the good churchman had been for more than twenty years the selfappointed arbiter of letters in French Canada. And sanction it he did (although he too had reservations about the novel form in its frivolous manifestations), placing it in a class with Cardinal Wiseman's Fabiola (!) as a kind of book 'the healthy and fortifying reading of which appeals to the mind, feeds the heart, and uplifts the soul. ... In a word, it is a book from which we exit as from a church, eyes raised to heaven, a prayer on the lips, the soul full of brightness, and the clothes smelling of incense.' But he also found minor faults in the novel, and one of these reflects the prevailing attitude towards fiction, that, if it were to be written at all, it should have a 'nationalistic' (which is almost equated with 'moral') motive or goal: 'The gravest problem with her present manner is that she gives her book too European a mien. ... One is sorry not to meet more truly Canadian passages, such as Angéline's pilgrimage to Garneau's tomb. Our literature can be seriously original only by identifying itself with our country and its inhabitants, only by painting our customs, our history, our features: it is its only reason for existing.' Laure Conan was to respond to this injunction and other suggestions by turning to historical subjects in her later novels, while retaining her penchant for the 'psychological.' What Laure Conan did in Angéline de Montbrun was break away from what has been called the 'collective romanticism' of nineteenth-century French-Canadian literature. Of course, she too

Introduction ix

touches upon the ideals of love of country and love of the land, and she gives a 'religious' patina to her story. But none of these features is really at the core of her novel. It is a very individualized life she treats, and other considerations are only peripheral to the inner life of that individual. For the first time a novelist in Canada created a character in the round, a character that evolves, a character who is not all of a piece, who is fully aware of all the motives and all the repercussions of her behaviour. Indeed, Laure Conan created an extremely complex character, the most complex in Canadian fiction to that date (1882), and for some time to come. However, one is faced with the strong possibility that Laure Conan herself was little conscious of her character's complexity. This possibility leads one to conjecture that there is a great deal more of Laure Conan (or rather, Félicité Angers, the woman behind the novelist) in her heroine than she might have admitted herself. The whole matter is all the more intriguing — and it has intrigued a number of people, particularly in the last twenty years — because we know relatively little about this woman, 'who did not like speaking of herself and whose aloofness her friends sometimes considered excessive.' Sir Thomas Chapáis, who knew Laure Conan fairly well in her later years, wrote these words in a preface to Célébrités (1927), a book half devoted to a biography of the novelist. Here, and in two articles in La Revue de l'université Laval (1952, 1954), Renée des Ormes (Mme Louis-J. Turgeon), a friend of many years, gives most of the details of what is known of the novelist's life.

Marie-Louise-Félicité Angers was born on 9 January 1845 at La Malbaie (Murray Bay), the fourth of six children of Elie and

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Marie (Perron) Angers. The father was a blacksmith and the mother ran a general store, the proceeds from which went to give a better-than-average education to her children. The oldest, Elie, was a notary and a friend of Octave Crémazie, the poet. AnneMarie and Madeleine studied at the Ursulines Convent in Quebec City and married professional men. Like Félicité, MargueriteMarie remained unmarried, 'a tall, elegant, beautiful lady ... as gregarious as Félicité was aloof.' The youngest, Charles, a lawyer, was a member of parliament for Charlevoix. At 13, Félicité in turn went to the Ursulines Convent in Quebec. She was there until 1862, a model student but distant and introspective. In her second year, she was awarded a prize for composition, Charles Sainte-Foi's Les Heures sérieuses d'une jeune personne. The reading of this began a life-long admiration, almost veneration, for this rigid, jansenistic moralist, whom she was to call her 'writer of predilection.' (She once said that he was the model for Charles de Montbrun, Angéline's father in the novel.) Back at La Malbaie, she led a peaceful life, attending 6 o'clock mass every day, tending her garden, which gained a widespread reputation. And she read. She read — and could quote verbatim, we are told — the Bible and the Fathers of the Church, particularly St Augustine, St Jerome, and St John Chrysostom. She also read writers of the grand siècle, La Bruyère, Bossuet, Fénelon; and among her books were those of Chateaubriand, SainteBeuve, and Louis Veuillot. But her favourite book seems to have been Sylvio Pellico's My Prisons, which left an indelible mark: as she said, this book teaches the hardest of all the arts, the art of suffering. Somewhere along the way, she discovered FrançoisXavier Garneau's History of Canada and developed a profound admiration for French Canada's 'national historian.'

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Her first published work was a novella, Un Amour vrai, which appeared in La Revue de Montréal, September-October 1878 and May-June 1879. The name Laure Conan was born, and, according to Chapáis, immediately aroused curiosity. Then came Angéline de Montbrun, which first appeared in La Revue canadienne in fourteen segments between June 1881 and August 1882. In 1884, Léger Brousseau of Quebec City published the novel in book form, apparently at the insistence of Abbé Casgrain, who reported that Laure Conen would get $300, 'if the edition is sold out.' In 1886, she published a pamphlet, Si les Canadiennes voulaient, where she encouraged the women of French Canada to revitalize a moribund nationalism. Her next novel appeared in 1891. A l'Oeuvre et à l'Epreuve is the romanticized story of Charles Gamier, one of the Jesuit martyrs of Canada. Encouraged by Casgrain and others, embued with Garneau, and now fascinated by the Jesuit Relations, she henceforth turned to historical material for the basis of her novels. In 1893, Laure Conan moved to St Hyacinthe, where she lived with the Sisters of the Precious Blood. She edited the order's magazine, La Voix du Précieux-Sang, from 1894 to 1898. In 1898 she returned to La Malbaie to look after her ailing sister Marguerite-Marie, and, in 1900, published her third novel, L'Oublié, the story of the last few years of Lambert Closse, Maisonneuve's right-hand man in the founding of Villemarie. It was brought to the attention of the French Academy, which awarded it the Prix Montyon, a singular honour for a FrenchCanadian novelist (only Louis Frechette had been so honoured, in fact with the same prize, for a book of poems in 1885). Since 1878, Laure Conan had been writing articles. (L.S. Roden lists 102 articles in 13 magazines of all kinds between 1878 and 1921.) Collecting, and sometimes enlarging, some of Yves Brunelle xii

these articles, she published in 1913 Physionomies de saints (Elizabeth Seton, St François Solano, Ste Zita, Ste Catherine of Siena, Ste Rose de Lima, etc.), and in 1917, Silhouettes canadiennes (Louis Hébert, Jeanne Manee, Marguerite Bourgeois, Jeanne le Ber, etc.), a volume she dedicated to the Frenchspeaking school children of Ontario, to remind them of their heritage. In 1919, she published a volume which contains two novellas, L'Obscure souffrance and La Vaine Foi. Apparently wanting to give more immediacy to the revival of interest in Canadian history, she dramatized L'Oublié in 1920, under the title of Aux Jours de Maisonneuve. The play was put on in Montreal by an amateur group, but without much success. Although she considered writing more drama and sought Abbé Lionel Groulx's advice in the matter, Laure Conan never did go back to a genre for which she was ill-equipped. She was thinking over another novel when her activities were interrupted by sickness in 1921. On 1 October 1923, she moved to the Villa Notre-Dame des Bois, at Sillery, on the outskirts of Quebec City. There she managed to write her last major work — her testament it has been called — La Sève immortelle; indeed, she finished it on her death-bed. Taken to Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Quebec, she died on 6 June 1924, aged 79. She willed the royalties of her books and $6000 to the Oblate missionaries of the north, whom she had always greatly admired. Her last novel was published in 1925 through the good offices of Sir Thomas Chapáis.

These are the recorded facts of her life. Even when we learn that she was rather homely, with a deep voice, staring eyes, lacking in charm, somewhat eccentric, old-maidish, distant, but also warm Introduction xiii

to the few friends she made, we still seem to fall short of really perceiving both the woman and the novelist and of accounting for the mood of her fiction. To see further, it is useful to look into some of her correspondence, particularly as it pertains to Angéline de Montbrun, to review more recent conjectures about part of Laure Conan's life, and to interpret the novel itself. The correspondence between Laure Conan and Abbé Casgrain is revealing. Among other things, the tension that grew between them reflects a meaningful side of the novelist's personality. On 9 December 1882, she wrote to thank Casgrain for his encouragement: ... You have understood that I had to be strongly reassured. In spite of your kind words, I feel the need to justify myself to have tried to write. I must say that it is entirely or almost entirely, due to circumstances. My will, I assure you, has little to do with it. Only necessity has given me this extreme courage of seeing myself in print. Naturally, I would gladly correct the work, and your kindness makes me hope that you will not refuse to help me if I succeed in having it published in book form. I would be well disposed if I can expect to have a reasonable financial success. Micheline Dumont has interpreted this passage as suggesting that Laure Conan's motive in deciding to go into a literary career was the desire to make a living. There is probably something to this, since there is other evidence to support that conclusion, but one is tempted to see expressed here a deeper, more mysterious impulse: the 'necessity' could be psychological rather than or as well as financial. On 27 April 1883, Laure Conan accepted Casgrain's offer to help: 'I will prove to you that in showing yourself kind you may not have acted prudently.' On 15 August she wrote: 'You are Yves Brunelle xiv

very obliging in looking after my poor Angéline.' On 26 September 1883, Casgrain had pressed Laure Conan for a photo, presumably to be included in the book which Brousseau was to start setting up 'in the first week of October.' (It was to be almost a year before it was finally printed; the letters that follow may explain why.) As for my picture, it goes without saying that I have never taken your requests entirely seriously. Still, I tried my best, but the balls given by 'précieuse Santé' give much work to our dressmakers and I did not get my dress in time to sit for a photo. It is not necessary to add that I am not sorry to delay the matter. I suppose I still have a faint hope that I will become beautiful, and you would be very hard if you were not to allow me this desire. Already the tension had begun to appear. Casgrain had been writing the preface and sent Laure Conan a copy for her comments. Her response was quick and forceful (1 October 1883): As you requested, I have sent back the study by return mail. It goes without saying that I found it flattering, but it is understood that I will not take to the letter the good you say of my work. On that score I can only say thank you. But, for those things that touch me personally, that is something else. Since you were kind enough to ask for my impressions, allow me to request that you cut all that out. I assure you that that would be more distressing than I can tell you. Please don't inflict that torture on me. I am already shamed enough by having myself printed. Perhaps, sir, you will not understand this feeling — men are made for publicity — But believe that in what I am saying there is no affectation; it is a sentiment as deep as it is sincere.

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This cry from the heart says much about Laure Conan, as do the subsequent pleas. On 14 January 1884: 'Never have I given permission to have my name appear with my pen-name. If you still have the proofs on hand, I beg you to strike it out. I am very mortified that such a thing was considered.' Then, on 4 March 1884, as the printing of the book was finally about to begin, the whole matter of anonymity came to a head : As you requested, I have sent the remainder of the manuscript. I thought publication would be delayed longer, but since it is in fact about to begin, I must speak to you seriously about the preface. I know that it is poetic and charming — I know what value it adds to my work, but allow me to say that everything that concerns me personally must be struck out, and with all the respect, all the gratitude possible I will add, sir — I demand it absolutely. You know what I have told you about my horror of personal details. Unfortunately, you have not understood how serious I was on that score — it is so difficult to be understood in writing — That is no doubt why you have not taken my pleas into consideration, urgent as they were. I am not questioning your kindness, but on your side, don't suspect my gratitude when I assure you that that is unacceptable to me. No, I will not allow myself to be spoken of in the preface to my own book. If I had thought that that would ever come to your mind, I would have died a thousand times before asking you to introduce my novel to the public. I am too insignificant to bother this formidable public with my personality. And if my life has been sad and bitter, I want neither to complain nor to be pitied. I don't want to arouse compassion. ... Nor do I want to turn my poverty and my

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melancholy into an ornament. You may say that there is wild pride, sickly sensitivity in this. Perhaps — but, then, I am what I am, and I can't do anything about it. You will never know, sir, what it costs me to write to you this way. She returned to the thrust of that letter in two more letters. On 18 March, she apologised for having hurt Casgrain's feelings. But she remained immovable: 'As to agreeing that I be spoken of in the preface, never. ... I would prefer a hundred times that the book never be published.' Casgrain must have been insistent still, for she reiterated her position on 29 March, becoming almost hysterical: What have I done that you should believe it right and good to by-pass my most explicit wish and my deepest feelings in something where I certainly have the right to have them accepted? I ask myself in vain. ... I value your charming work more than I can say, but that it deal with me, that cannot be. Casgrain effected a neat compromise, which she seems to have accepted: a short note in July to accompany the proofs of the preface referred only to two typographical errors. All Casgrain had done, it appears, was to remove a few paragraphs which he unceremoniously reinstated in the essay in his Oeuvres complètes in 1896 (I, pp 413-16). All there is of any significance is a 'poetic' description of Laure Conan's home. Could it be that she simply did not want to be identified? It is true that her name appears nowhere in the preface, although the word 'félicité' is italicized on the second last page as it appeared in 1884. To the best of my knowledge, the name Félicité Angers

Introduction xvii

was not linked to Laure Conan in print until 1900, in Françoise's essay on 'Les Femmes canadiennes dans la littérature,' in Les Femmes du Canada. But there remained 'personal' references in the preface, and they inspired one of the most persistent topics of discussion about Laure Conan: whether or not Angéline de Montbrun is autobiographical. As Casgrain remarked: However fictitious it is, a book like Angéline de Montbrun could not have been written without persistent study. ... Even if [Laure Conan] does not say that she has suffered, her novel reveals it to us. She has gone 'through the thorns' of life, and has felt, she herself tells us, 'how heavy the heart is when it is empty.' What she knows of life she learned at the school of affliction. There are tears on the wings of that butterfly. After quoting most of the diary entry for 8 September, Casgrain goes on: Canadian literature, if I am not mistaken, has never produced more moving pages. ... The hand that wrote these lines must have been shaking with emotion as it traced them under the breath of inspiration; because, one must experience these great troubles of the heart to be able to convey them with such acuteness. One is tempted, in spite of oneself, to see next to the profile of Angéline de Montbrun the vague silhouette of the author. P.-J.-O. Chauveau (1895) only went so far as to say that 'there is in this book what is nowadays called personality, a true emotion, sentiments and thoughts which owe nothing to fiction.' Louis

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Frechette (1906) was more blunt: 'It seems that there is in the second part a grain of autobiography.' Finally, the suspicion had been expressed. Charles ab der Halden concurred (1907): There is in the work of Laure Conan a whiff of personal confidence. ... She seems to be expressing experienced sentiments. ... She has given us a book that a writer can write only once, because she has put her soul in it, all of it. In 1926, Jean-Charles Harvey spoke about 'her charming autobiography,' without elaborating. Marie-Claire Daveluy, speaking in 1945 at the centenary celebration of Laure Conan's birth, answers her own question as to whether the novel is an autobiography: 'There is, on almost every page, a personal accent which cannot be mistaken. Angéline de Montbrun is Félicité Angers in the pensive ardour of her youth.' In the preface to the 1950 edition, Bruno Lafleur said that 'Angéline de Montbrun's diary is in fact the transcription, naïve no doubt, but no less sincere and touching, of a lived drama.' In the same year, Damase Potvin shows himself of two minds: 'her characters are so alive that it is hard to believe that they are fictitious.' But he rejects the idea that the novel is autobiographical. 'However,' he adds, 'it is certain that Laure Conan has expressed, in the letters and diary of Angéline, experienced sentiments.' But there are outright denials. Henri d'Arles (1926) insisted that the work is fiction, 'which does not mean that the author has not mixed in the plot of her tale a great part of human truth. It means that the characters we see here are the creations of her mind and the events come from her imagination. So much the

Introduction xix

better if it all copies reality closely and particularly if all the characters resemble nature.' Madeleine Huguenin (1938) denied that Angéline de Montbrun was Laure Conan, although 'Laure Conan would have loved in just that way, if she had ever thought of love.' Laure Conan's biographer, Renée des Ormes, merely brushed the question aside in Célébrités. But in her article of 1952, she is more definite: 'The characters are completely imaginary, but to write a novel with such obvious emotion, the author had to use some of her sentiments transposed.' However, 'Miss Angers had no fiancé.' By the early 1960s the question was still unresolved, although the unresearched assumption that the novel was autobiographical predominated. Bruno Lafleur had spoken for most commentators to that time when he said: 'Let us stop our inquiry this side of useless indiscretion, and let us respect the secrets of a woman who had the courage to bear them in silence.' Not everyone was willing to leave it at that. In 1962, Sister Jean de l'Immaculée (Suzanne Biais) wrote a master's thesis at the Université d'Ottawa entitled 'Angéline de Montbrun: étude littéraire et psychologique.' A summary article is one of the major essays in Le Roman canadien-français (Archives des lettres canadiennes III). She identifies the characters with people in Félicité Angers's entourage, and concludes that there was a man in the novelist's life, Pierre-Alexis Tremblay, and that there was a frustrated love affair. The argument is interesting and convincing. It convinced Paul Wyczynski, who acknowledged that henceforth the novel must be viewed in a different light, and it led Roger Le Moine of the Université d'Ottawa to dig even deeper into the lives of the two principals. The result of his search can be

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read in a long two-part article in La Revue de l'université d'Ottawa 1966. Supplying a spate of details, he confirms, indeed reinforces, the conclusion that there was a love relationship between Laure Conan and Pierre-Alexis Tremblay, and that there is indeed much in Angéline de Montbrun which is autobiographical, but that it is well camouflaged. Part of this camouflage, in Le Moine's view, is Laure Conan's embodiment of Tremblay in Angéline's father, Charles de Montbrun. In this as in the matter of her identity, Casgrain set the tone for some time: according to him, the novel is an uplifting story that teaches the Christian virtue of resignation. At no time does he, or do many later critics, see any ambiguity in either the character of Angéline or in her relationships. Louis Frechette finds the novel 'comforting': 'it is one of those books that cause us to go deeply into ourselves while raising our sights to high ideas and wide horizons. ... It makes us breathe in a refreshing and healthy atmosphere.' A different note is sounded in Charles ab der Halden's critique: Angéline 'suffers, suffers agonizingly, and takes pleasure in her suffering. She is a Christian, but fortunately she is not a saint, and she keeps something human, for her good works, her knitting, her visits to the poor are not enough. ... She has loved her father as one loves one's master, almost as one loves one's God. This father ... relives in her.' This was heady stuff, for which the critic was duly chided. But he too ends with what was becoming a cliché: 'She will no longer turn [her faculty to love] towards the world, but will find the mystical refuge which Catholicism offers to ardent and wounded souls. Divine love will console her for the human treasons.' Henri d'Arles, Renée des Ormes, Albert Dandurand, Frederick Mason Jones, Bruno Lafleur, and even Roger Duhamel, make no

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real attempt to see beyond the surface of the novel, to read beyond the words or between the lines, to recognize the various ambiguities which make of the novel something much more than a pious exercise or a tract devoted to the most austere edification. Indeed, it is because Angéline de Montbrun has a complex theme that it has continued to attract attention beyond mere historical curiosity. And the interpretations have widened apace. It is probably true that the conscious theme of Angéline de Montbrun is, as Gilles Marcotte says, 'suffering that leads to God.' It is likely true also that Laure Conan was quite unaware of, and would be scandalized to learn, what else we may now see in her novel. In other words, we now sense an unconscious theme which is quite different from the conscious one. First, there is the matter of what we may call masochism. Ab der Halden saw that Angéline 'takes pleasure in her suffering,' but left the matter there. L.S. Roden (1956) went further and gave a modern perspective: The sacrifice of Angéline, although clothed in words of warmth and religion, is essentially selfish. ... She is preoccupied with self-immolation. ... According to the words of the text the sacrifice Angéline makes is for the love of God, but it is rather for the love of sacrifice. There is indeed something 'unhealthy' about Angéline's 'vocation to solitude' (Micheline Dumont, 1963.) She both laments and seeks (enjoys?) her own loneliness and solitude. She both curses and exalts her misfortune while claiming a transcendental motive. There is obviously ambiguity here: the character shows herself simply unaware of her own motives, hence of her own 'problem.' But, accepting this situation, 'we must be honest enough to see

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the accuracy of the analysis' (Dumont), and recognize that here was, for the first time in Canadian fiction, a writer who created a 'modern' novel, one that takes account of the ambiguities, or ironies, of life. Conversely, this accuracy of analysis, linked with the possibility that Laure Conan may not have been quite aware of what her character conveys, strengthens the idea of the autobiographical quality of the novel. Félicité Angers also both lamented and sought her own solitude and loneliness, and may have unconsciously taken 'pleasure in her suffering.' It may not necessarily be in the details of Angéline's life that we need find a parallel with her creator but in her whole way of feeling and thinking, in the 'sickly sensibility' of which Laure Conan speaks in one of her letters to Casgrain, quoted above (p xvii). The interpretation in terms of masochism has been carried a long step further. Jean Frechette (1967) sees the novel as the beginning of national masochism in fiction. 'Is not the death of the father an image of the Conquest?' he asks, and he seems to think it is. Madeleine Gagnon-Mahony (1972) appears to have a similar idea: 'Through the means of the veil of the "psychological novel," or the subterfuge of myth, [Félicité] could much more freely take her revenge, fully historical, on [F.-X.] Garneau and all his disciples.' That seems to me rather far-fetched and a rather crude way of claiming the best of the nineteenth-century novelists for the more recent political ideology; but then even the more moderate interpretation we are willing to accept would have seemed, to say the least, far-fetched to Casgrain and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of readers of an earlier day. More shocking still to earlier generations of readers would have been the interpretation put on the relationships within the novel, that between Angéline and her father, between Angéline and

Introduction xxiii

Maurice, and between Angéline and God. The relationship between Mina and Charles de Montbrun is straightforward enough: she falls in love with him; when he dies, having no one else to turn to, she makes the reasoned decision to enter the convent. She, unlike Angéline, gives meaning and purpose to her life: in this she becomes almost a foil for the heroine. For a long time no one thought of or perhaps dared go too deeply into those relationships, to really 'interpret' them, except ab der Halden, again, who was indiscreet enough to suggest that Angéline's love for her father is excessive. Jean Le Moyne took the lid off in 1961. He bluntly stated that 'the lovers in the novel are not Maurice Darville and Angéline, but M. de Montbrun and his daughter.' There is no going back to a simpler view of the novel as novel. Gilles Marcotte, Jean-Cleo Godin, and André Brochu all start from that premise, which was given a name: Suzanne Paradis (1966) speaks of the relationship as a case of Oedipus complex. Whether one subscribes to the need to find a term from the psychologist's lexicon to perceive a theme, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in fact the relationship of Angéline and her father is 'unhealthy,' that it is to a large extent, if not exclusively, at the very source of her tragedy. No claim is made here for this relationship to be strictly autobiographical. If we accept Roger Le Moyne's view that M. de Montbrun is Pierre-Alexis Tremblay, then Laure Conan — but not Angéline — is 'guiltless.' But, as Jean-Cleo Godin (1964) has said, to emphasize unduly that relationship may deflect one's attention from the other important relationship, that between Angéline and Maurice. The traditional view was that Maurice's love for Angéline cools after she is disfigured, and so she is justified in her decision. Of course,

Yves Brunelle xxiv

Angélina says that Maurice has become indifferent. But the evidence, particularly Maurice's last letter, seems to indicate that he continues to love her, that he will have no one else. It would seem that Laure Conan, by including that letter, either is herself ambivalent on the subject or has created a true character, one who, in spite of the evidence, does not perceive everything: Angéline does not see what is happening; she deceives herself, but we need not be deceived. If this is the case, then Laure Conan is indeed a modern novelist: she has let the chips fall where they may, allowing for an interpretation other than that given by her protagonist. The other side of this relationship is perhaps more ambiguous. Because Angéline is perceived to be in love with her father, many recent critics have suggested that the stated love story is a trompe l'oeil, a false lead. Again we may have in Laure Conan a subtlety rare in a nineteenth-century Canadian novelist. She retains the ambiguity, as it might well be in life. It is not we who are misled so much as the heroine. After her father gives his sanction, Angéline convinces herself that she loves Maurice, and she may feel that she does. Possibly she does in some way love him, as her show of jealousy might indicate. But Maurice is no match for M. de Montbrun, as Angéline soon discovers when he remains the only living option. It is a question of whether she loves Maurice less or her father more; when the choice must be made, she opts for the memory of her dead father, whose love can never decline, rather than for Maurice's love, which must remain unpredictable, and which she assumes has already declined. The third relationship, that of Angéline and God, is perhaps the most ambiguous, and is, of course, linked to the basic theme discussed earlier. As indicated above, Angéline de Montbrun was traditionally viewed as a novel of Christian renunciation and

Introduction xxv

Angéline as 'the holiest of all heroines in French-Canadian fiction' (Frederick Mason Jones, 1931). She is spoken of as 'an angel' by Casgrain, and as a 'mystical bride of God' by Henri d'Arles. In all this there seems to be a naïve confidence in things as they are said to be. It is true that Angéline decides after the double accident to live for God alone ('a truly Cornelian decision,' Gérard Tougas calls it). But even without questioning her motives — although we have already done so — to understand her and the novel we must ascertain whether she can in fact live with that decision. We soon realize that what makes the novel more than a pious tale is the very tension between Angéline's will and her desires. As Tougas says, 'her resolution is not without producing in her young body all the resistance of her instincts.' Her father keeps intruding. She must constantly do violence to her 'most serious anxieties and doubts,' to use Marcotte's phrase. There is no peace in Angéline's soul, there is none of the joy that Christian resignation is supposed to bring, and despite her will and her faith she cannot really reconcile herself to her fate. Laure Conan recognized, perhaps from experience, that there is no facile resignation. She may have set up an ideal, which is all most of the early readers saw, but she knew that the ideal, whether in love or in life, is not really attainable, that it has subtle ways of eluding even the good Christian. And it is with subtlety that she conveys it all. At this point, one begins to wonder whether in supposing that Laure Conan was unaware of the implications of her story and of her heroine we are not selling her short. She may have been quite conscious that she was baring her tormented soul (which would account in part for her insistence on anonymity); she may have camouflaged her purpose well by writing a true novel and been

Yves Brunelle xxvi

relieved when it elucidated the naïve interpretation it received during her lifetime. But she never again went quite so far in being 'autobiographical,' nor in writing so subtly. She was considered a good novelist during her lifetime, but, as Jean Le Moyne suggests, for the wrong reasons. We might now consider her a good (but perhaps crude) novelist, and for much better reasons.

Introduction xxvii

Bibliographical Note SERIAL PUBLICATION Angéline de Montbrun was first published in La Revue canadienne, beginning with the June 1881 issue (XVII 6) 367. It ran serially in successive issues, except May 1882, until August 1882, fourteen parts in all, a total of 146 pages. The parts vary in length from 5 to 19 pages. EDITIONS In book form, the novel appeared in these editions: 1884: Québec, Léger Brousseau, 343 pages. 'Etude sur Angéline de Montbrun,' by Abbé H.-R. Casgrain, pp [5]-24. There are relatively few variants from the periodical publication. A few longer paragraphs are split up. A few passages are eliminated, including a 248-line poem, 'd'une religieuse du Précieux-Sang,' which had concluded the segment of December 1881 (the end of the letter to Mina after the diary entry of 23 May). Also, a few of the many quotations are removed, shortened, or more closely embedded in the text. 1886: Québec, J.-A. Langlais, 343 pages. 'Etude sur Angéline de Montbrun, ' by Abbé H.-R. Casgrain, pp [5]-24. This seems to be no more than a reprinting of the former edition. 1905: 3e édition. Québec, Ed. Marcotte, 277 pages. This is a new, corrected edition. There are many variants. (There is a

Bibliographical note xxviii

twenty-page analysis of the variants in Sister Jean de l'Immaculée's master's thesis listed below.) The style is appreciably tightened; the paragraphs are broken up into smaller units. The quotations, to the excessive number of which Casgrain and Chauveau had objected, are reduced by almost a quarter from the original. (There are still 49 from 33 authors or works, according to Roden.) A number of passages, of various length, have been removed, others rewritten, and a few new ones introduced. The major substantial change occurs in the narrative middle part. Until then Angéline was said to have been disfigured by 'a facial tumour which resisted all treatments and which finally necessitated an operation.' Now, of course, she is disfigured in a fall. 1919: 5e édition. Beauceville, 'L'Eclaireur' Ltée, 286 pages (not seen) There does not seem to have been a fourth edition. 1950: Montreal, Fides, Collection du Nénuphar, 191 pages. Preface by Bruno Lafleur, pp 7-18. This is based on the 1905 edition and was used for this translation. 1967: Montreal, Fides, Bibliothèque canadienne-française, 187 pages. Same as above, without preface, but with chronology, bibliography, critical comments. BIBLIOGRAPHIES There are extensive bibliographies on Laure Conan in:

Bibliographical note xxix

Micheline Dumont, Laure Conan, Montreal, Fides, Collection Classiques canadiens 1961, pp 16-20 Sister Jean de l'Immaculée, 'Angéline de Montbrun: étude littéraire et psychologique,' master's thesis, Université d'Ottawa 1962, typescript, pp 184-201 David M. Hayne & Marcel Tirol, Bibliographie critique du roman canadien-français, 1837-1900, Toronto, University of Toronto Press 1968, pp [32]-42 W O R K S ON L A U R E C O N A N R E F E R R E D TO IN THIS I N T R O D U C T I O N André Brochu, 'Le Cercle et l'évasion verticale dans Angéline de Montbrun,'Études françaises I (1965) 90-100 Abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain, 'Etude sur Angéline de Montbrun,' préface, 1884 and 1886 éditions; Nouvelles Soirées canadiennes IV (1885) 224-33; Oeuvres complètes I (1896) 411-25 Pierre-J.-O. Chauveau, 'Une Femme auteur au Canada,' Nouvelles Soirées canadiennes IV (1885) 49-64 Abbé Albert Dandurand, 'Le Patriotisme dans l'œuvre de Laure Conan,'L 'Action française XIV (1925) 25-36 Henri d'Arles [Abbé Henri Beaudé], 'Une Romancière canadienne: Laure Conan,' in Estampes, Montréal, Action française, 1926, pp 47-86 Marie-Claire Daveluy, 'Pour le Centenaire de Laure Conan,' Le Devoir, 16 June 1945 Renée des Ormes [Mrs Louis-J. Turgeon], 'Laure Conan' in her Célébrités, Québec 1927, pp 11-61

Bibliographical note xxx

- 'Laure Conan: un bouquet de souvenirs,' La Revue de l'université Laval VI (1951-2) 383-91 - 'Glanures dans les papiers pâlis de Laure Conan,' La Revue de l'université Laval IX (1954-5) 120-35 Micheline Dumont, 'Laure Conan,' Cahiers de l'Académie canadienne-française 7 (1963) 61-72 - 'Laure Conan,' in The Clear Spirit, ed. Mary Quayle Innis, Toronto, University of Toronto Press 1966, pp 91-102 Jean Frechette, 'Angéline de Montbrun,' Action nationale, LXVI (1966-7) 696-9 Louis Frechette, 'Petit Courier littéraire: Angéline de Mont brun de Laure Conan,' Le Journal de Françoise V (7 March 1906) 4 Madeleine Gagnon-Mahony, 'Angéline de Montbrun: le mensonge historique et la subversion de la metaphor blanche,' Voix et Images du Pays V (1972) 57-68 Jean-Cleo Godin, 'L'Amour de la fiancée dans Angéline de Montbrun,' Lettres et écritures I (1964) 14-19 Charles ab der Halden, 'Laure Conan,' in his Nouvelles Etudes de la littérature canadienne-française, Paris, Rudeval 1907, pp 185-205 Jean-Charles Harvey, 'La Sève immortelle,' in his Pages de critique, Québec, Le Soleil 1926, pp 59-73 Madeleine [Huguenin], 'Laure Conan (Félicité Angers),' in her Portraits de femmes, Montréal, La Patrie 1938, pp 58-9 Sister Jean de l'Immaculée, sgc [Suzanne Biais],'Angéline de Montbrun: étude littéraire et psychologique,' master's thesis, Université d'Ottawa 1962, typescript - 'Angéline de Montbrun,' Le Roman canadien-français (Archives des Lettres canadiennes III), Montreal, Fides 1971, pp 105-22

Bibliographical note xxxi

Bruno Lafleur, 'Preface,' Angéline de Montbrun, Montreal, Fides, Collection Nénuphar 1950, pp 7-18 Roger Le Moine, 'Laure Conan et Pierre-Alexis Tremblay,' Revue de l'université d'Ottawa XXXVI (1966) 258-71, 500-28 Suzanne Paradis, 'Angéline,' in her Femme fictive, femme réelle, Montréal, Garneau 1966, pp 11-13 Damase Potvin, 'Angéline de Montbrun,' Culture XI (1950) 214-16 Lethem Sutcliffe Roden, 'Laure Conan, the first French-Canadian Woman Novelist,' PhD thesis, University of Toronto 1956, typescript OTHER R E F E R E N C E S Roger Duhamel, Manuel de littérature canadienne-française, Montreal, Renouveau pédagogique 1967 pp 31-2 'Françoise' [Robertine Barry], 'Les Femmes canadiennes dans la littérature,'Les Femmes du Canada, Ottawa, Le Conseil national des Femmes du Canada 1900, pp 209-15 Frederick Mason Jones, Le Roman canadien-français: ses origines, son développement, Montpellier, Imprimerie de la Manufacture 1931, pp 127-9, 136-7 (doctoral thesis, Université de Montpellier) Jean Le Moyne, Convergences, Montreal, HMH 1961, pp 88-90 (Convergence, trans. Philip Stratford, Toronto, Ryerson 1966, pp 78-80) Gilles Marcotte, Une Littérature qui se fait, Montréal, HMH 1968, pp 16-19 Gérard Tougas, Histoire de la littérature canadienne-française, 4e édition, Paris, Presses universitaires de France 1967, pp 57-9

Bibliographical note xxxii

Paul Wyczynski, 'Panorama du roman canadien-français,' in Le Roman canadien-français (Archives des Lettres canadiennes m), Montreal, Fides 1971, p 16 CORRESPONDENCE Laure Conan's correspondence with Abbé Casgrain is in the Fonds Casgrain, Archives du Séminaire de Québec.

Bibliographical note xxxiii

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Angéline de Montbrun

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L'avez-vous cru que cette vie fut la vie? (Did you believe that this life is life?) Lacordaire

M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E TO HIS SISTER Dear Mina, I saw her — I saw my Flower of the Fields, the fresh flower of Valriant — and, believe me, the most beautiful rose which the sun has reddened does not deserve to be compared to her. Yes, my dear, I am at M. de Month run's, and I must admit that my hand was trembling when I rang at the door. 'Monsieur and Mademoiselle are out, but they should be back shortly,' said the servant who greeted me; and she led me into the small and pretty morning room, where I found Mme Lebrun, who has been here for a few days. I would have preferred to find no one there. Still, I made the most of it. But anticipation is a fever like any other. I was warm and cold in turn; my ears were ringing horribly; and absent-mindedly I answered Mme Lebrun, who was looking at me indulgently, as she does at those who speak foolishly. Finally, the door opened and a cloud passed before my eyes: Angéline was entering, followed by her father. She was wearing a riding habit, which suits her better than I can tell. And both chided me for not having taken you with me, as if it were my fault. Why did you insist on not coming with me? You would have been so helpful to me. I need encouragement.

3

Dinner was gotten through happily enough; that is to say, I was gallingly stupid. But I didn't spill anything, and, considering the state of my nerves, that was almost miraculous. M. de Montbrun, even more friendly and gracious at home than abroad, frightens me horribly because I know that my fate is in his hands. Never will his daughter harbour a feeling for which she would not have his complete approbation, or rather, such a feeling would never find root in her. She lives in him somewhat as the saints are said to live in God. Oh, if our father were still alive! He would know how to make me acceptable. After tea we went into the garden, of which I am unable to say anything. I was walking at her side and had all the flowers of Eden been there I would not have looked at them. Adorable country girl! She no longer has the dazzling whiteness of last winter. She is tanned, my dear. Tanned! what am I saying? isn't it an insult to the most beautiful skin and softest complexion in the world? I am crazy and despise myself. No, she is not tanned, Mais il semble qu'on l'ait dorée Avec un rayon de soleil. [But she seems to have been gilded by a ray of sunshine.] She was wearing a white muslin dress, and the evening wind was playing in her beautiful flowing hair. Her eyes — have you ever seen beautiful lakes hidden in the depths of the forest? those beautiful lakes which no breeze has tarnished and which God has created to reflect the blue of the sky? When we returned to the drawing room she showed me a portrait of her mother, a pretty brunette whom she resembles not at all, and one of her father, whom she resembles so much. The

4

latter seemed to me to be well painted. But since M. Napoléon Bourassa's art lectures, in a portrait I dare judge no more than the resemblance. This one is marvellous. 'I had it painted for you, daughter,' M. de Montbrun said; and to me he said: 'Don't you think she will have no excuse if she ever forgets me?' My dear, I made an answer that was so horribly ambiguous and awkward that Angéline burst out laughing, and although she has such white teeth, I don't like to see her laugh when it is at my expense. You will hardly believe how humiliated I am at the awkwardness of my speech when I am with her, an awkwardness that is never there any other time. She asked me to sing and I was delighted. Believe me, little sister, man didn't speak in the earthly paradise. No, in the days of innocence, of love and of happiness, man didn't speak, he sang. You told me more than once that I never sing better than in her presence, and I feel it. When she is listening, the sacred fire kindles in my heart, and then I feel that I have a divinity within me. I had taken my seat again and for a long time no one broke the silence. Finally, M. de Montbrun said to me with a charm of which he has the secret, fl would like to speak, yet lam still listening. ' Angéline seemed moved and never thought of dissembling. Not to hide anything from you, when I was leaving the room, I had the humbling experience of hearing Mme Lebrun say to her niece : 'What a pity that a man who sings so well doesn't always know what he is saying when speaking!' I have no idea what Mlle de Montbrun answered to these charitable words of regret.

5

Dear Mina, I am very anxious, very troubled, very unhappy. What will M. de Montbrun say? He walked me to my room and left me with the warmest handshake. I would have liked to detain him, to tell him why I have come, but I thought: 'Since I still have some hope, let us keep it.' I spent the night at the window, but time didn't seem long. How beautiful the countryside is! What tranquility! What deep peace! And what music in the vague hum of the night! Customs are different here from ours. Just imagine, before 5 o'clock M. de Montbrun was walking in the garden. I was watching him when Angéline appeared, beautiful as day, radiant as the rising sun. She had her straw hat in her hand and she joined her father, who took her to his breast. He seemed to be saying: 'Let anyone try to take this my treasure away from me!' Dear Mina, what will I do if he turns me down? What can I do against him? Oh, if it were only a matter of earning her. So long, little sister; I will lie on the bed to make it appear that I have slept. Kisses. Maurice M I N A D A R V I L L E TO HER B R O T H E R I wonder why you are so sad and so discouraged. M. de Montbrun received you cordially; what more did you want? Did you think that he would be waiting for you with the lawyer and the contract all written out, to tell you 'Please sign'? As for Angéline, I would rather see her a little less serene. I can see from here her limpid eyes, so much like her father's. It is clear that for her you are still only Mina's brother.

6

I don't know whether, as you say, singing was the language of the first man in paradise, but I am sure that it should be yours in the present circumstances. Your voice delights her. I have seen her cry as she listened to you, which, moreover, she was not trying to hide, because she is the simplest, the most natural creature in the world, and, having never read any novel, she is not self-conscious at the tears which your sweet singing makes her shed. In similar circumstance, I would be more circumspect; I would fear tears. My dear Maurice, I see that I acted wisely in refusing to go with you. You would have given me too much to do. I prefer to rest on my laurels of last winter. Besides, I would have served you badly; I no longer feel myself quick-witted enough or glib enough to rescue a lover who gets tongue-tied. But, my dear, no black thoughts. Angéline thinks you absentminded and suspects that you pay homage to the Muse. As for M. de Montbrun, he has too much sense to hold a lover responsible for his speeches. I approve of you admiring Angéline — only, this is no reason to deprecate others. Really, I would deserve to be pitied if I depended on you to know what I am worth. Fortunately, many do me justice, and gossips spread the word that an Anglican minister, whom you know, will eventually forget his charges for me. I don't want to scold you. Angéline is the most charming and best brought up young Canadian woman. But who knows what I would have been had I been raised by her father ...? You are so frightened by that terrible man. I must say that he

7

does not seem to me likely to give anyone a fright. But then maybe I am braver. Besides, you know how interested he is in us. Last winter, speaking of ; it doesn't matter — suppose any extravagance — he took me aside, and, having called me his 'poor orphan,' he gave me the most severe yet most delightful reproof. (Malvina B. and other prophets of my acquaintance spread the word that you will be the glory of the bar, but you will never be a match to him speaking in private.) I thanked him from the bottom of my heart, and he said, with that look that makes him so charming: 'There is a certain pleasure in scolding you. Angéline also has a good character; when I scold her, she always kisses me.' And I believed him implicitly. I would not be the one to doubt the word of the most honest man in the country. Yes, it is true that he holds your fate in his hands. You say, if it were only a matter of earning her. Are you sure you did not add to yourself: Paraissez, Navarrois, Maures et Castillans... [Show your faces, men of Navarre, Moors, Castillians...] What a pity that the time of chivalry is over! Angéline likes the stout-hearted and sword play. During the four months she spent at the convent while her father was abroad, we would often sit under the maples in the Ursulines' yard and talk about knights. She liked Beaumanoir — the one who drank his own blood in the battle of the Thirty — but her greatest admiration was for Duguesclin. She liked to recall that, before dying, the High Constable asked for his sword so that he might kiss it.

8

Really, it is too bad that we are in the 19th century: I would have tied Angéline's colours to your arms; then, instead of accompanying you to the ship, I would have given you the stirrup-cup and climbed the solitary tower, where a pretty page would bring me news of your great deeds. Instead, it is the postman who brings me letters where you talk nonsense, and it is humiliating for me, the wise one of the family. You know that M. de Montbrun asks me often, as Louis XIV used to ask Mme de Maintenon, 'What does your solidité think?' You, you can't write anything pleasant anymore, and the trade of a lover's confidante is the most thankless in the world. Give my love to Angéline and whatever you want to her father. Tell him that I am beginning to suspect that he wants to become a politician, and a politician is a vanity. I pray that you will continue not spilling anything at table. I had expected the worst. Don't delay any longer asking the question. Have confidence. He can't forget whose son you are, and surely he can't ignore the future of his daughter, who has only him in the world. My dear, the house is sad without you. Kisses. Mina PS Doctor L., who smells something, came to make me talk; but I am discreet. I simply told him that you had written me that you had difficulty sleeping. 'Mercy,' he said, 'we must send him some medicine; you'll see that he will forget himself to the extent of singing a serenade.' And the doctor intoned in his best falsetto :

9

Tandis que dans les pleurs en priant, moi, à je veille, Et chante dans la nuit seul, loin d'elle, à genoux... [While praying, in tears, I wake and sing in the night alone, far from her, on my knees...] Finish this yourself, and, believe me, don't open your window too wide to the hums of the night: you could catch cold, and that would be a pity. If you can't sleep at all, well, write poetry. We could always throw it in the fire when you come back. Mina M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E TO HIS SISTER Dear Mina, You pretend that you are bored by my confidences, but if I took you at your word — how you would lay on your seductive arts! how much wheedling to bring me around to tell you everything! Poor daughter of Eve! — But don't worry. I scorn easy acts of revenge. At any rate, my heart is overflowing. Mina, I live under the same roof as she does, in the intimacy of the family; and there is in this blessed home a perfume that possesses me and enchants me. I feel myself so different from what I usually am. The least little thing moves me to tears. Mina, I want to hush up all the noises around this mossy nest, and love here in peace. How beautiful she is! There is in her a regal charm which takes the breath away. When she is there everything else disappears from my sight, and I don't quite know whether it is day or night.

10

It is said that man is basically egoistic, deeply proud; what then is this power of love which would make me prostrate myself before her? which would make me shed my blood to no purpose — for the simple pleasure of doing it for her? Ail that is true. Don't laugh, Mina, and tell me what I should say to her father. You know him better than I do, and I fear so much going at it the wrong way, turning him against me. Then there is in him a trace of mockery with which you can deal quite well, but which embarrasses me, since I have so little sense of humour. Just now, having gone to my room to write to you, I could not get started. The beautiful dream so sweet to dream engrossed me so completely that I was shocked at seeing M. de Montbrun, who had come in without my noticing it and was watching me closely. He accepted my excuses with the becoming manner which you so much admire, and as I was mumbling something or other to explain my distraction, he folded his arms and said in his seriocomic tone: 'That's it. Sans haine et sans amour, tu vivais pour penser.' [Without hatred and without love, you lived to think.] I remained half annoyed, half confused. Gould he have guessed? Then why make fun of me? Is it my fault if my poor heart gets lost in heavenly dreams? Kisses. Maurice

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M I N A D A R V I L L E TO HER BROTHER Of what use is it to chase fancies, or rather, why not turn them into realities? Go and see M. de Montbrun and — since one must tell you what to say — say: 4 I love her; have pity on me.' It is as easy as that. But bridle your nerves and don't faint at his feet. He likes balanced types. I know him well and what he will ask you is not whether you are in love to ecstasy, or whether you will be very successful in life, but rather whether you have the strength to always do your duty, come what may. You can count on his casting your horoscope according to your past. He is not of those who think everything will go right because everything has gone wrong. You say I know him better than you do. It must be so, since I have observed him closely. I admit that I would put him to any test without fear, and yet, it is a terrible thing to test a man. Note that it is not a woman who said that. Women, instead of slandering their oppressors, usually try to discover some good qualities in them, which is not always easy. As for M. de Montbrun, one can see at first sight that he is thoroughly engaging, and that's something; but he has ideas of his own. So, I have heard that as his wedding was getting near, someone having broached the subject that his choice of a wife offered little advantage in the world, he answered without passion that his bride-to-be had the wings of which the Imitation [of Christ] speaks — simplicity and purity — and satisfied him fully.

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This repartee is remembered. You know that he soon tired of being a show soldier and turned himself into a farmer. He proved that he did not mean to be one in name only, either. Angéline told me that on his wedding day, her father went to work. Yes, my dear — it is written down in some private papers Mme de Montbrun left behind — in the morning he went to the fields. It was harvest time, and M. de Montbrun was in the first flush of his enthusiasm for farming. Still, think about the fact that he was twenty-three, that he was wealthy, and that he loved his wife, and you will consider it rather surprising. Hardly less so is Mme de Montbrun's behaviour. She had never heard of a bridegroom who acted this way; but having thought about it, she said to herself that one can always act as no one else, that the love of work, even pushed to excess, is a precious pledge, and if anyone should work more than anyone else it was her husband, since he was as sturdy as an oak. All that is written down. And she thought, 'a hard worker never suffers from migraine or the spleen.' (Mme de Montbrun had a great contempt for the unhappy ones who suffer from either complaint and probably she would have had much to say of a son-in-law who 'gets lost in heavenly dreams.') Be that as it may, taking her role as a farmer's wife seriously, she went into the kitchen, where, there being none of the customary gruel, of which the recipe has since been lost, she made soup for her lord and master, whom at this point she could only think of as Spartan, and found pleasure in bringing it to him.

13

One of her husband's hired hands saw her coming, and having a good voice and a quick wit, he began to sing merrily Tous les chemins devraient fleurir, Devraient fleurir, devraient germer Où belle épousée va passer. [All roads on which the bride is about to walk should bloom, should germinate.] M. de Montbrun heard him, and like Cincinnatus on hearing the voice of the envoy from Rome, he left off working. His straw hat in his hand, he went to meet his wife, accepted the soup without a frown, thanked her, and led her into the shade. Sitting on the grass, they ate the soup together, and Mme de Montbrun vouched that one does not have this kind of meal twice in one's life. That was nineteen years ago, but then as now, there were always charitable souls ready to interfere in other people's business. The story of the wedding day made the rounds, and many jokes were told, which much amused the authors of the scandal. A little later they reinstated themselves, up to a point, by going to Niagara Falls. This beginning of married life pleases Angéline, and that should make you think. Slavish imitation is not my strong point, but we might look into it. There, I've got it. There is in your desk a large notebook which, I am sure, would make you look very serious if you were to make notes in it on your wedding day. My dear Maurice, believe me, you must not delay. I fear that you might be too bold in speaking with Angéline. The way M. de Montbrun is acting proves that he doesn't want anyone to

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whisper sweet nothings to his daughter, or whisper big things, if you prefer. You are the only one he has admitted to the intimacy of his home, and that mark of esteem puts an obligation upon you. Besides, to abuse his confidence would be more than an error, it would be a blunder. With you in spirit. Mina M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E TO HIS SISTER You are a thousand times right. I must risk the big question, but I think he puts me out on purpose. This morning, having made up my mind, I waited for him in his study, where he usually goes quite early. I like that room in which Angéline has spent so many hours of her life; and if I owned the table on which Cicero wrote his best speeches, I would gladly give it in exchange for the little desk on which she did her homework. The other night, I asked her if, as a child, she liked to study. 'Not always,' she answered. And looking towards her father coquettishly, she added, 'but I feared him so much!' Mina, I wonder how I can manage to behave sensibly. Really, I can't figure it out. To go back to my story, on the wall, above M. de Montbrun's work table, there is a picture of his wife, and just below, hung also by a black ribbon, a picture of our father in a student uniform. It is particularly his tired and sickly face that I remember, and as far as I am concerned this young and smiling face does not resemble him at all.

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I was looking at it when M. de Montbrun entered. We spoke of the past, of the time when they were in college together. I never saw him so congenial, so affectionate. I thought that this was an opportune time, and I said rather clumsily: 'It seems to me that you must regret not having a son.' He looked at me; you should have seen the mischievousness in his beautiful eyes. 'Why this concern?' Then, with mock seriousness: 'Does not my daughter appear to you to be everything I would want?' Those who like banterers would have enjoyed painting a portrait of him just then. I called upon all the courage I have, and as I opened my mouth to bring up the subject directly, Angéline appeared at the window where we were sitting. She put one of her pretty hands over her father's eyes; with the other she brushed my face with a bunch of lilacs damp with dew. 'Shocking,' M. de Montbrun said. 'See how Maurice blushes at your country manners.' 'But,' Angéline said with the clear laugh that you know, 'perhaps M. Darville blushes on his own account. Do you know what emotions are aroused in a poet showered by the tears of the night?' 'Daughter,' he went on, 'one must never speak lightly of one who writes verses.' Nothing humbles an emotional man more than a jest. I felt myself turned off for the day. But I was looking at her, and that's a pleasure of which my eyes never tire. If you had seen her, as she was in the bright light. Yes, indeed, she is the fairy of youth! She is all the brilliancy, all the freshness, all the charm, all the radiance of the morning!

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No, he won't have the heart to let me despair! This is an untenable situation, and since I can't speak, I will write. M. de Montbrun talked at length about you. He finds that you have too much freedom and too few duties. He asked me how many lovers you have at the moment, but I could not tell him exactly. According to him, the atmosphere of adulation in which you live is not good. According to him also, you are a bit of a coquette, and it would be better for you if you became more serious. I am repeating everything exactly. I am told I have a pleasant voice, but I would hardly dare say these things myself. To scold a young lady is a difficult art. To do it with impunity one needs the stature of a François I and that charm which you call 'montbrunage.' My dear Mina, how good this place makes me feel! I like this isolated and gay house which looks towards the sea through beautiful trees, and which smiles at its garden over a hedge of delightful shrubs. It is white, but one can hardly tell since it is covered with ivy right to the roof. Angéline says: 'Springtime is happy to have me. I have been such a good girl that everything is green.' Today we took a long walk. They wanted to show me the Bay of Gaspé, the place where Jacques Cartier took possession of the country by erecting a cross. But Angéline was there and I can see only her. Mina, how beautiful she is! I am ashamed to be so troubled; this charming house seems made to shelter peace of mind. What would become of me if he should turn me down? But I am still hopeful. Kisses, little sister. Maurice

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M I N A D A R V I L L E TO HER B R O T H E R I am hopeful too. But to write instead of speaking, that's pure cowardice. My dear, you are a milksop! If Angéline knew that! she who so much likes bravery! Yes, she loves courage — as all women do anyway — and it was a long time ago that we decided that it was a great condescension to accept the homage of those who have not smelled the odor of powder and of blood. As for me, I have always regretted not having been born in the first days of the colony, when every Canadian was a hero. There is no doubt that that was a great era for Canadian women. It is true that once in a while they heard that a friend had been scalped, but then those who lived at that time deserved to be mourned. On that point, Angéline shares my feelings, and wishes she had lived in the days of her cousin Lévis.* You should brush jealousy aside and speak often of that gallant man. She likes to be reminded of those days 'when the voice of Lévis resounded,' and she is indignant at the English who unashamedly refused him the honours of war. Her father listens to her delightedly. My dear, we are lucky not to have been living a hundred years ago. The victor of the battle of Sainte-Foy would have conquered father and daughter, and our machiavellian approach would have failed. As for the chivalrous Lévis, no one has ever told me but I am inclined to think that he sang, as the handsome Dunois, 'Love to the most beautiful girl.'

* The de Montbruns were a branch of the Lévis family, [author's note]

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So, it is suggested that I become serious. It seems to me that to flirt with the Right Reverend is serious enough. At bottom, I am no more frivolous than any old politician, and I am just about as enthusiastic about my contemporaries. As for being a coquette, that is pure slander. M. de Montbrun will have to give me an explanation for his comments, and he could come and tell me those things to my face. Am I so imposing or so disagreeable? My dear Maurice, you don't know how much I long to hear your voice in the house. Since you are in love, you may not always know what you are saying, but your voice is such a sweet sound. You have so pampered my hearing that everyone with whom I speak seems to have a chest cold. By the way, there is a rumour that a French ship will soon come to Quebec. Thank God I am as much of a monarchist as the most august dowager of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; although that does not prevent me from loving the tricolour 'because it is still the flag of France,' and — I would wish the French sailors could see Angéline. To keep the most beautiful girl in Canada hidden in a Gaspé village is a crime. I would be properly overshadowed if she showed herself; no matter, national pride above all. Kisses. Mina M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E TO HIS SISTER I don't at all care to have Angéline see the French sailors. I count on you to make them sing 'Vive la Canadienne.' Take it from me, 19

we are much too fond of France, which hardly ever even thinks of us Canadians, 'exiled in their own country,' as Crémazie wrote. I don't want French sailors courting Mlle de Montbrun, telling her of battles and of storms. As for even the most illustrious ghosts, they don't bother me much. 'Of Lévis, of Montcalm, we will tell the exploits' as much as she wants. My dear, if I am not yet the happiest of men, at least I am far from being unhappy. But we have agreed that I would tell all. So, having written my letter, I had it delivered to M. de Montbrun, and went into the garden to await his summons, which was rather long in coming. Need I tell you what I went through? Finally, a kind of duenna, who seems to be something between a governess and a maid, fetched me for her master. Unfortunately, at the door I met Angéline, who beseeched me: 'Come and see my swan.' As you may imagine, I followed her. How could I refuse? You probably know that a wide and beautiful brook runs through the garden. M. de Montbrun has taken advantage of it to make a small pond which is as pretty as a picture. Magnificent walnut trees shade the pond and wild flowers grow everywhere on the shore and in the thick moss that spreads all around the pond. It's charming, delightful, and the swan feels that way about it too since he loves that spot. Angéline, bare-headed, a large chunk of bread in her hand, was walking ahead of me. From time to time, she turned around and spoke teasingly. But when we got to the pond, she ignored me. She divided her attention between the birds that were singing in the trees and the swan which swayed softly over the water. But at last the swan received all her attention. She was throwing

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pieces of bread at it while saying a thousand saucy things which it would be impossible to record; and the bird seemed to take great pleasure in being the centre of attraction. He would look at himself in the water, dive, then proudly follow the flowery shore of the miniature lake where the setting sun was reflected. 'Isn't he beautiful, isn't he beautiful!' Angéline said with warmth. 'If only Mina could see it! — ' She handed me the last crumbs of bread so that I could give them to the swan. The burning rays of the sun were filtering through the trees and surrounding her as if by a fiery cone. I closed my eyes. I thought I was going mad. She, noticing that something was wrong, asked me naively : 'But, M. Darville, what is the matter?' Mina, all my resolve evaporated. 'I love you!' And involuntarily I knelt before the girl who holds my happiness and my life in her chaste hand. My words and actions had been completely irrational. When I saw how astounded, how disconcerted she was, I regained my composure and recognized how badly I had behaved. But before I could find words to say, she had fled. My heart was actually bursting with joy, and I stood there repeating to myself: 'She knows, she knows I love her.' I had completely forgotten that her father was waiting for me and was vexed when someone came to remind me. This time, I got there without hindrance. He motioned for me to sit near him. 'So,' he said, twisting my letter between his fingers, 'here is the explanation for all the silly things you have been saying lately.' I didn't answer, and as he was remaining silent, I took him by the hand and told him that I would go out of my mind or would die.

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'Let's say you would have a bad migraine,' he said. The hardest part was done. I spoke to him freely in all confidence. I told him many things and it seems to me I spoke not badly. He appeared to be nearly moved, and you would have found him perfectly charming; but I could not draw any more of an answer than 'I will think on it.' 'Besides,' he added, 'there is no hurry. You are very young.' 'I am twenty-one,' I said. 'Angéline is eighteen,' he went on, 'but she is a child, and I very much want her to remain a child as long as possible.' That reminded me that I had abused his hospitality and I felt I was blushing. He noticed it and said gently : 'If you think my words were meant as censure, you are mistaken. I believe you to be discreet.' Those words humbled me more than any reproach. Upon my faith, I could not hold back and in spite of the terrible chance I was taking of lowering myself in his esteem, I confessed my fine conduct. 'Did she laugh?' he asked. The question seemed to me rather cruel, and yet I was delighted to answer that she had not laughed. He frowned and said very coldly: 'I deplore your indiscretion more than you can know.' I was as uneasy as one can be. We were called to dinner, which reminded him no doubt that I am his guest, for he became himself again and graciously invited me to the table. We found there, with the ladies, an old priest, a curé of the neighbourhood, who, throughout the meal, told us charmingly of the work of a bullfinch who is building a nest in a rosebush in his garden.

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Evidently this pleasant table talk was intended for Mlle de Montbrun, but for once she seemed no more interested than Mme W— is in her husband's stories when they go on longer than three-quarters of an hour. Noticing this, the good priest inquired politely of the swan. She blushed divinely and answered something or other which no one understood. The priest, quite perplexed, looked at M. de Montbrun and seemed to be asking: 'Will you explain all this to me?' After dinner, he wanted to see Friby — Friby is a cute, welltrained squirrel, who opens the door of his own cage. M. le curé vouches that the church warden would hardly do any better opening the official pew. Angéline, usually so taken up with the engaging manners of the squirrel, absent-mindedly gave it a few nuts. She was silently standing to one side. Her father kept an eye on her without appearing to be doing so, and from time to time he threw a look at me that seemed to say, unless I am mistaken, 'The devil take you and your immoderate talk. How could you dare trouble this child?' Mina, my remorse had disappeared like snow in the warm sun; at least, if there was any left, I couldn't feel it. You know Ses paupières, jamais sur ses beaux yeux baissées, Ne voilaient son regard... [Her eyelids, never lowered on her beautiful eyes, did not veil her look...] Now she does not dare look at me; I can't tell you what I feel seeing her troubled and blushing before me. Yes, she will love me! Do you hear, Mina? I am telling you she will love me.

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Little sister, I love you, but I don't have time to write about that. I am going out to end the evening on the moss, at the spot where I said to her, 'I love you.' Maurice MINA DARVILLE TO HER BROTHER I told you that you would end up by doing something foolish. But at bottom, you should perhaps be envied rather than blamed. The first shock having passed, M. de Montbrun must have understood that 'hunger, the occasion, the tender moss —' Besides, Angéline was questioning you. I can't think of her naivety without laughing. I am looking forward to speaking of this to M. de Montbrun and tell him: 'See the inconvenience of never reading novels and to have as an only friend so discreet a person as I am.' So, Maurice, you got down on your knees. It's true that it was in the moss; no matter, I know that such beautiful things will never happen to me. It's true that sweet words are readily enough whispered to me, but I don't have 'the regal charm which takes reason away,' and no one thinks of kneeling before me. Still, I am glad that Angéline has learned to lower her eyes — those beautiful eyes, the colour of which I could never tell — but, pardon me, it's for you to describe them. I must admit that that story about the pond frightened me. For goodness' sake, what were you doing there? I don't usually find fault with the sun, but, in such circumstances, surrounding Angéline as if by a fiery cone was very careless. In fact, it may well be that you saw more than was there. Still, it was a good thing that you closed your eyes.

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You say that she will love you. I hope so, my dear, and perhaps she would already love you if she loved her father less. That passionate fondness consumes her. As for M. de Montbrun, I always thought him well disposed. If he had not found you suitable or nearly so, he would have held you at a distance, as he has many others. I approve your having confessed your escapade. First, truthfulness is a beautiful thing, and then, Angéline, who hides nothing from her father, would have been sure to tell him at the first opportunity, and that would not have served you well. Think what you want, but if she is moved, as you believe she is, I would like to know what he told her. That man has an adorable tactfulness, delicacy. There is something of the peasant, of the artist, and particularly of the military man in his nature, but there is also something of the subtlety of a diplomat and the tenderness of a woman. All that makes for a rather rare entity. What a friend you will have there! and his daughter! — Believe me, the day you are accepted, fall on your knees and thank God. I know many young ladies, but between them and Angéline there is no comparison possible. What she is worth I know better than you do. Her shining beauty dazzles your eyes too much. You don't see the beauty of her soul, and yet it is that that you must love. By the way, you should know that my reverend admirer has been pleased to write in my album. It ends this way: Calm and holy, Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart, Feeding its flames. But it is pointless to try to open your eyes to my glorious fate. What a pity that the pond is so far away; I would convince him to

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go there to meditate on his sermons; but don't think that I would go and drop bread crumbs for the swan. No, my friend, nature leaves him cold, but he has or wants to have a great love for antiquity, so I would wash my clothes in the pond, as beautiful Nausicaa did. Need I say that I am bored? that I miss you? Thinking about it, I have convinced myself that, in spite of your jumpy nerves, you have a lovable personality. I hope that the pilgrimage to the pond was a happy one. I am waiting for you; since you are happy, come singing. Kisses. Mina CHARLES DE M O N T B R U N TO MAURICE DARVILLE I have not wasted my time since you left us. I have inquired about you from positively everyone who would be in a position to know you. You are just about what you should be; I have ascertained it gladly and since one can hardly ask more of human nature, I have left my daughter completely free to accept you. She did not refuse, but she asserts that she will never agree to leave me. Think about it, my dear, and see if you have any objection to marrying me. You say that in giving you my daughter I will gain a son and not lose her. I must say that I think somewhat differently, but I would be most selfish if I forgot her own future for the joy of keeping her all to myself. You love her, Maurice, which does not mean that you can know what she is to me, what she has been to me since the sad 26

day when, returning home after my wife's funeral, I took in my arms my poor little orphan who was tearfully asking for her mother. As you know, I did not assign to anyone else the task of educating her. I believed that no one would give it as much care, as much love as I would. I wanted her to be the daughter of my soul as well as of my blood and who can say to what extent this double parenthood has bound us one to the other? As you know, ordinarily one loves one's children more than one is loved by them. But Angéline reciprocates my love; and her boundless attachment, her fond affection would make me the happiest of men, if I thought less often of what she will suffer when I die. I am barely forty-two years old; I have never been sick in my life. Still that thought troubles me. She must have other duties, other affections, I know that. Maurice, take my place in her heart, and may God grant that my death not be an inconsolable grief. Among the things I have heard about you, one particularly pleases me: it is the unanimous testimony given to your truthfulness. That reminds me that last year one of your former teachers told me, speaking of you, 'I believe that that boy would not lie to save his life.' Along that line, he told me some aspects of your school life which show in you an admirable respect for the truth. Someone else said, 'why does he want to be a lawyer?' and then went on that he was sure his ward would be a lawyer since he had always been a little liar. Let us forget this characteristic of the profession. Your father was the most loyal, most honest man I have ever known, and I am happy that he has passed on such a noble and beautiful quality. I

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hope that you will always be, like him, an honorable man in the best sense of the word. My dear Maurice, you know what interest I have had in you, particularly since you became an orphan. Naturally, this interest has doubled since I see in you the future husband of my daughter. But before going further, I will wait until I hear that you accept our conditions. G. de Montbrun M A U R I C E DARVILLE TO C H A R L E S DE M O N T B R U N

Sir, I will not try to thank you. I have read over your letter several times to convince myself of my happiness. Can your daughter believe that I want to take her away from you? No, a thousand times no, I don't want to make her suffer. Besides, without any flattery, your company delights me. And why, please, would I not be a true son to you? I confess humbly that I have caught myself occasionally being jealous of you; the thought has even crossed my mind that she loves you too much. But now I only ask to join her in her worship of you; and you will eventually have to accept that we have merged in your heart. You say, Sir, that my father was the most loyal, most honest man that you have ever known. I am happy that this is the case, and I am proud of it. If I am fortunate enough to resemble him, I owe it all to him. I well remember his contempt for any kind of falsehood, and I can assure you that his hand, tenderly stern, would punish it

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effectively. 'Whoever is dirtied by a lie,' he used to say, 'will never find enough water to cleanse himself.' Those words made quite an impression on me, and would in fact recur to me rather forcibly whenever I stopped to look at the mighty St Lawrence. I beg you to take over the direction of my life, and to have Mile de Montbrun accept the assurance of my boundless gratitude. Sir, I wish I could tell you how happy and thankful I am. Maurice Darville CHARLES DE M O N T B R U N TO M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E Thank you for accepting me so readily. Did I tell you that I will not consent to the marriage of Angéline until she is twenty years old? But I have no objection to her giving you her word right now. And since we have reached this point, I want your most serious attention. First, Maurice, will you preserve the generous aspirations, the noble impulses, the chaste enthusiasm of your twenties? Do you want to love for a long time and be loved always? 'Protect your heart, protect it with all possible care, because from it your life evolves.' Need I say that you cannot do anything greater or more difficult? 'Show me,' said an old bishop, 'show me a man who has remained pure, and I will prostrate myself before him.' Words as touching as they are are noble! What is knowledge, genius, glory, and everything the world admires compared to the splendour of a pure heart? Moreover, there is only one source of happiness. To love or to be happy, they are absolutely the same thing; but purity is necessary to understand love. 29

Oh my son, neglect nothing that will preserve in all its beauty the divine spring of everything that is lofty and tender in your soul. But in this respect man cannot do much on his own. Get on your knees, Maurice, and pray for the zeal that fights and the strength that triumphs. It is not for nothing, you may be sure, that the Scriptures call prayer 'man's all,' and remember that in order not to grant oneself what is forbidden one must know how to deny oneself often, indeed very often, what is permitted. That is the greatest, and perhaps least perceived, effect of the education which each of us owes to himself. May God grant that you recognize it. I beg you, resist the adulation of the world. And believe me that it is not so difficult. Tell me, if someone were to try to make you blush because of your nationality, would you not laugh with contempt? Of course, I admire and honour national pride, but above it I place pride of faith. Know well, faith is the greatest moral force. Keep it alive by the practice of everything it commands and develop it by serious study. I have known men who claimed not to need religion, that honour was their God, but honour, that one at least, leads to many compromises, and if you had no other religion, certainly you would not have my daughter. Dear Maurice, it is of absolute importance that you accept, that you fulfill to its full extent the great law of work, a law which binds particularly the young, particularly the strong. And, by the way, don't devote too much of your time to music. No, I don't find fault with the development of your talent, but music must be for you no more than an agreeable diversion, and if you want to taste the strong joys of study, you must devote much time to that.

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One more observation. I don't approve of your getting involved in electioneering. I have been told that you have some good speeches on your conscience — I want to be a nice fellow, but, I warn you amicably, if you should try again, you a twenty-year-old student, to enlighten the electorate on their rights, on their duties, I will get Angéline and Mina to make proper fun of you. Moreover, why embrace so warmly the interests of this one or that one? Do you believe that love of country is really the motive of many public men? We have had our great parliamentary battles. But it is now the time of skirmishes: party spirit has replaced national spirit. No, patriotism, that noble flower, is hardly found in politics, that soiled arena. I would be happy to be mistaken, but aside from a few rare exceptions, I believe our statesmen are much more concerned with themselves than with the country. I have seen them at work, and those wretched ambitions that collide, those vile interests, those short-sighted calculations, that sad conglomeration of pettiness, falsehood, abuse, have built in me the greatest loathing, and, in my bitterness, I said: Oh, my country, let me show you my love, let me serve you by cultivating your sacred soil ! I am not saying that you must do as I did. And, in a few years, if public life has an irresistible attraction for you, go to it. But I have seen much self-respect, much scrupulousness, founder there, and in advance I tell you: what is great remains great, what is pure remains pure. This letter is solemn, but so are the circumstances. I know that a man in love faces marriage without fear; and yet, in marrying you will take on great and difficult responsibilities.

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It will pain you, Maurice, not to show to your beloved wife all the foolish tenderness which, by misunderstanding her dignity and yours, would lead you both to inevitable sorrow. It will pain you, you may be sure, to have to exert your authority without placing it at the service of your egotism or whims. Sacrifice is at the bottom of any duty performed; but to know how to deny oneself, is that not true greatness? is it not true that one must learn at any cost? As Lacordaire, whose incisive comments you appreciate, said: If you want to know the value of a man, put him to the test and if he does not make you hear the sound of sacrifice, even if he be covered with purple, look the other way and pass on. My dear Maurice, I am through. As you see, I have spoken to you with great freedom, but I believe I am doubly justified, since you are the son of my best friend and you want to be mine. My respects to Mile Darville. Since she plans to come, why don't you come with her? I am inviting you warmly, and the holidays are near at hand. So long. I am rejoining my daughter, who has been waiting for me. Oh, if only I could, by pressing you to my breast, arouse in you the love that I want you to have for her! G. de Montbrun M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E TO C H A R L E S DE M O N T B R U N

Sir, Never will I be able to repay you; but I promise to make her happy, and I promise that you will be satisfied with me.

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There is something in your virile words that touches me deeply; you know how to perceive the generous side of human nature, and, once more, you will be satisfied with me. What a wise decision you made in not allowing anyone else to shape your daughter! No other education would have made her what she is. As for your invitation, I accept it with joy, and yet I can't help but think that you will see me arrive without pleasure. But you have a generous soul and I will always have for you the loving sentiments of a son. No, I will not have the wretched courage of placing a soiled hand in hers. Your son. Maurice Darville M A U R I C E DARVILLE TO A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N Mademoiselle, I thank you simply. Neither happiness nor love can be put into words. From the heart moved to its divine depths, only tears flow. May God allow you some day to know the unspeakable sweetness of those tears. Mademoiselle, may you one day love me as much as I love you. Yours forever, Maurice Darville

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ANGELINE DE M O N T B R U N TO M I N A DARVILLE Dear Mina, If you knew how much I long to see you, you would use the wings of the wind, instead of taking a ship like everyone else. I will have so much pleasure 'desocietizing' you! My father says that one does not succeed every day in this kind of endeavour. Men, as you know, see difficulties everywhere and know nothing of miracles. No matter, I am very confident. I will change the queen of the fashionable world into a wild flower, and, that great metamorphosis accomplished, you will be very satisfied. Every sceptre is heavy, I am convinced, and yet — you see human inconsistency — I am thinking of conquering my realm again, and want you as an ally. Mina, my house, which you believe to be so peaceful, is a prey to factions. Old Monique forgets that her regency is at an end, and will not let go the reins of power, and this resembles the behaviour of many ministers of state. If you don't come to my aid, I will end up like the powerless kings. I could, it is true, protest in the name of order and right, but I run the risk of becoming angry, and my father says that one should not yell, lest the house catch fire. I have decided to wait until you come, and when my right to command is ignored, I put on a dignified air. Dear Mina, I consider you very lucky to be coming to our home. It seems that it is a beautiful thing to see the master of the house every day.

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Believe me, when you have observed him closely, you will want to do like the Queen of Sheba, who considered Solomon's servants very happy. Mme Swetchine has written somewhere that the kindness of certain hearts is sweeter than the affection of many others, just as the moon of Naples is more brilliant than many suns. That thought comes back to me often when I see him among his servants. Dear Mina, I would rather be his servant than the daughter of the most prominent man in the country. Your brother asserts that between us the moral resemblance is even greater than the physical likeness. It is a shame to be able to flatter so well, and you should make him blush for it. When I try, he says: 'Since you have the nearest blood relationship, why should you not have the nearest soul relationship? Don't you realize to what extent you resemble him?' That question always makes me laugh, because ever since I was born I have been hearing that I look like him, and when I was small I would have him stand before a mirror so that I could compare myself to him, who enjoys this likeness as I do. Delightful comparison! which we still do often. How eager I am to have you here, where everything smiles, everything is perfumed, everything hums! There is so much pleasure in feeling oneself alive, and the open air is so good! I want to reform you completely. Alas! I fear that I will always remain a country lass to the soul. Here everything is so calm, so fresh, so pure, so beautiful. What pleasure I will have in showing you my woods, my garden and my house, my mossy nest where soon you will sing Home, Sweet Home. You will see how beautiful my room is.

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Elle est belle, elle est gentille, Toute bleue. [It is pretty, it is nice, all blue.] like the one of which Mlle Henriette Chauveau sang. When you have seen it, you will be able to tell if it is possible not to love it Ainsi que fait l'alouette Et chaque gentil oiseau Pour le petit nid d'herbette Qui fut hier son berceau. [As the lark and every pretty bird does for the little grassy nest which was yesterday its crib.] I have given much care to the preparation of your room, and I hope it will please you. The sun laughs everywhere in it. I go there twenty times a day, to make sure it is charming, and also because you will soon be there. Imagine my behaviour when you are there. Waiting has its charm. I am constantly looking at the road by which you will be arriving, but I only see 'the sun which dries things up and the grass which is green.' Tell M. Maurice that I recommend that he look after you. What a beautiful family we will make! Dear sister, I love you and I await you. Angéline M I N A DARVILLE TO A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N Dear Sister, Allow me to begin as you end. Alas! I was imprudent enough to let Maurice read your letter, and he lost the little reason he had left. 36

My dear, I find it funny that you recommend me to his care. If only you knew how forgetful of all earthly things a lover is! It has come down to my having to look after him as if he were a child. It seems that in a state of ecstasy one needs nothing. Still, I insist on his taking some soup from time to time. My cousin, become anxious, wanted me to have him treated, but he defended himself by singing sotto voce: Ah! gardez-vous de me guérir! J'aime mon mal, j'en veux mourir. [Ah! don't try to have me cured! I like my illness, I want to die from it.] The attending physician said: 'He took hashish. Leave him alone.' My cousin did not ask for an explanation, but I see that she is not sure that she understands. Figurative language is not her style. I beg you not to be alarmed. Maurice has the soul of an artist and he is in the effervescence of youth. But he will calm down. And even if he did not! The power to feel is not quite what frightens a woman. Besides, he has a lively faith and a true feeling of honour. You are made to love each other, and you will be happy together. Even if he were to shed tears of admiration at nature, or even of tenderness for you, what does it matter? Let the positivists have their way. I have seen from close up happiness based on reason, and, between us, it looks terribly like life sustained by medicines. I know that the word exaltation is glibly used by some people. Angéline, are you like me? There exists on earth a frightful common sense which is horribly rigid, detestably narrow, which I

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never meet without feeling like doing something foolish. No, to dislike common sense would be a sad aberration. Of all the men I know, your father is the most sensible, and I am sufficiently well disposed in his regard. True common sense is not incompatible with sublimity. To regulate and to diminish are very different things. What then, I ask, is that so-called wisdom which admits only the dull and the lukewarm, and the dry and cold hand which would extinguish everything that shines, everything that burns? My beautiful flower of the fields, how lucky you are not to have seen much of the world! If it were mine to do again, I would choose not to see it at all, to keep my candour and my ignorance. Here is where I am after two years of worldly life. Imagine what Mme D— would say if she wanted to speak. I have had my social successes. Believe me, I say so without much pride. You know that Eugénie de Guérin was never sought out. There is matter for reflection in that for Mina Darville and her circle of admirers. Poor men! everywhere the same. Dear friend, M. de Montbrun has the wrong opinion of me. I only ask to be 'desocietized.' I had resolved to arrive among you with a simple valise, as suits a noble soul on a trip. But one rarely knows what one wants and never what one might need: I ended up by packing all my fineries. Truly, I don't understand it, and I catch myself dreaming before my bulging luggage and my empty drawers. My dear, you will have to help smuggle some of my suitcases in. I dread M. de Montbrun's smirk. After all, what is wrong with dressing well, provided one does it with taste? If Mlle de Montbrun is indifferent to adornments, it is because in watching the one who resembles her, she discovered that she can thoroughly do without them. But I can't afford that luxury.

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There, and tell your father that before I have been a week at Valriant I will have discovered many faults in him too. I anticipate without fear a conversation with him, although he can be hard at times. Thus, last winter, in a weak moment, I confessed to him that I was rather unhappy — that as soon as I fall in love with someone I find another that I prefer — and instead of commiserating with me, that austere confessor called me 'a dangerous flirt.' No matter, my dear, I don't blame you for loving him; sometimes, I even tell myself that it is a wonderful thing to have that duty. If you will take my word for it, we should reconsider together before you force Mme Monique to abdicate. M. de Montbrun believes you a jewel of a housewife, but Tel brille au second rang qui s'éclipse au premier. [He who shines in the second rank is eclipsed in the first.] Still, I hate usurpation. I am a legitimist. Tell M. de Montbrun that we will confer together on giving a king to France. My dear, I am sure my room will please me. Only I don't care for the more cheerful aspects of nature. For my periods of meditation I will need a walk lined with fir trees. As for Maurice, I don't think he will need that; it seems to me his thoughts run rather to 'the bottom of a garden, at the edge of a pond.' Don't blush, my dear. Love and kisses. Mina

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MINA DARVILLE TO E M M A SIt is almost midnight and I just now closed my window, where I had been sitting for a long time. I love the serene sweetness of a beautiful night and I feel sorry for you, dear friend, to want to enter the cloister. Excuse me; you don't like me to touch on that subject. It seems to me that I end up speaking about it a great deal, but — Frankly, the religious life appears to me like that astonishing river which flows, peaceful and deep, between two walls of granite. It is grand, but sad. My dear, rigid uniformity and austere detachment are not for me. I am perfectly at home at Valriant, delightful place which would have, however, little that is grand if it did not have the river [St Lawrence] which gives itself the airs of an ocean. Need I say that Maurice is happy? It is no longer a secret. It is difficult, however one thinks about it, to find anything wrong with this marriage; and, frankly, it is a beautiful thing this love which grows this way in full sunshine, in peace and security. Then, all around them, everything is so beautiful. No doubt nothing is more personal than happiness. But still, when God created Adam and Eve He did not place them in a desolate field. Maurice would be quite satisfied with a cell, but, skeptic that you are, you no longer believe in anything. You say that it is with love as with ghosts: one speaks of it only on the word of another. If only you were at Valriant. You would have to admit that love exists — that there are truths more beautiful than dreams. Angéline looks more than ever like her father. She has that deep-seated charm, that indefinable something which I have seen

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only in him and which I call 'montbrunage.' But what I like above all in her is her deep sensitivity, her admirable power to love. You know that I am inclined to value people according to that propensity, and why not? My weight is my love, St Augustine said. If I know anything about it, Angéline's tenderness for her father is boundless, but she loves him without show and kisses him surreptitiously. All together we lead the healthiest, most agreeable life in the world. There is around here a wholesome perfume which will eventually impregnate me. Frankly, I don't know how I will be able to put on the chains of my society life again. Do you recall our preparations for the ball, when to dress up impeccably was the big thing and when I wished so much to have a fairy for a godmother, like Cinderella? Seriously, it would have cost less time and money to bring some poor family out of misery. I can assure you that I have gotten over my social successes and superficial feelings. But love is a beautiful thing — To love is to get out of oneself. I admit that I cannot stand myself anymore. Goodnight. Mina PS It is all Angéline's and Maurice's fault. One cannot see them together without becoming extravagant. THE SAME TO THE SAME Do you remember with what tender care you watched over the snowball tree in the yard at the Ursulines'? I don't know why I

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remembered this a little while ago as I was walking in the garden. I would like to see you there. Usually, I don't particularly care for gardens: I find there something that makes me sing: J'aime la marguerite Qui fleurit dans les champs. [I love the daisy that grows in the field.] But this one gives the impression of a paradise. Frankly, I would like to spend my life in that spot. There are charming nooks, green bowers full of shade, freshness, perfumes. I have never seen so many flowers, flowers in the sun, flowers in the shade, flowers everywhere. And all the charm of the spontaneous, the natural. You know my dislike for the symmetrical, the stilted. There is none here, but the most charming medley of lawns, flower beds, and bushes. A pretty brook gambols and babbles there, and, here and there, discreet paths wend their way into the foliage. My beautiful green and sombre paths! The grass is soft there; the shade thick; the birds sing; life springs from everywhere. It is a delightful walk which ends at a pond, the freshest, the prettiest in the world. We often start the evening in that area, but, alas! unwelcome visitors get in everywhere. We occasionally have them. Yesterday — I am mortified — we had to put up with a Quebecer more rich than pleasant, who ventured that far. The garden brought from him many expansive compliments, and at the pond he said: *How beautiful this is. Isn't it a splendid spot to have a nap after dinner?' Maurice looked at him with contempt and moved off humming the Hungarian March. I explained to Angéline that her

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future lord and master is of the genus irritabile, that the Hungarian March is a sure sign of his anger; and whenever she hears those warlike sounds, she would do well to let him look upon her. That amused us, but she said that to get angry, to become impatient, is to waste some of one's energy. The more I see her the more I find her well brought up; she calls me her sister, which delights Maurice. Poor Maurice. His voice is more velvety than ever. Softness of speech never harms anyone. Angéline's conversation is not at all like that of a woman of the world, but it is singularly pleasant. Maurice says that she is light, perfume, dew. The poor boy is so in love that he arouses envy — and pity. Angéline asks me thousands of charming questions on his character, on his tastes, on his habits. His reveries interest her without knowing why. You would hardly believe how she was amused as much by his fear of dying a Jesuit as by his repugnance for girls who sing 'Demande à la brise plaintive' [Ask the plaintive breeze] or other languid stupidities. M. de Montbrun treats me in the most pleasant manner, with a protective air that becomes him. He is accused of not fulfilling all that is expected of him. But how much to my liking it is that he never chose to be a minister of state ! It is good to see a scion of an illustrious family cultivate the soil with his own hands. May God grant that this example not be wasted. This evening we were talking about the future of Canada; he was a bit sad and troubled. As for me, I did as everybody does: I fell upon the government which does so little to stop emigration, to help colonization. But my zeal did not impress him; and, looking at my clothes with some scorn, he asked if I ever

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thought of denying myself anything in order to help the poor settlers. My dear Emma, I could not say 'I have done it'; but I did say, 'I will do it.' He smiled, and that smile, the nicest I have seen, offended me. I felt like crying. Does he think me incapable of a lofty feeling? I will prove to him that I am not as frivolous as he thinks. You know that a simple word is sometimes enough to arouse sleeping sentiments. Oh! if wishing made it so! A moment ago, leaning at my window, I was having dreams of the kind Father L— would have if he had the time. I was imbuing everybody with nationalistic fervour. I was extinguishing chandeliers at balls; I was suppressing the extravagance of banquets; I was persuading everyone to give to colonization everything that is now spent uselessly. Then I could see 'desert made beautiful by fertility, hills clothed with cheerfulness, the seeds rejoicing in the bowels of the earth,' and, near the lamp of the humble church, the lamp of the settler was shining. Ah! if only everyone did what he could! Would so many Canadians take the road to exile? But I like to hope. We are born of France and of the Church. Confidence and goodnight, dear friend. Mina THE SAME TO THE SAME You are decidedly suspicious of my nationalistic dreams, and it is not without malice that you advise me to seek the source of this fine zeal. My dear, I am not curious by nature. To seek sources, to return to first principles, is the business of explorers and philosophers. Do you think I can be mistaken for these people? 44

Besides, one must never admit the most when the least is enough of an explanation. Here nationalism is enough. Do you remember our conversations of last fall, when you were beginning to be sensible? What progress you have made! I would like to continue these conversations. Angéline has all my friendship, all my confidence, but she is too superior to me in some things. No dust has ever touched that radiant flower, and consequently I am somewhat circumspect; with you, I can be a bit freer. In spite of your religious aspirations, I cannot forget that we have been companions in fancies, in readings, in frivolities. Besides, I am envious of your so prompt, so complete disillusionment. But these desires fade away quickly. I persist in hoping that some day happiness will come to this poor earth which God has made so beautiful. From my window I have a glorious view of the river. Truly, it is the sea. I don't tire of looking at it. I love the sea. The music of the waves throws a soft melancholy over the sadness of my thoughts, because, I admit, I am sad, and I would gladly say as some queen of old: 4Fie on life!' Yet I have no real reason for sorrow, but as you know, one stops loving oneself when one is not loved. There it is! I can see the day coming when I will hate myself. You are quite aware of how much I sought the realization of Maurice's dream. No doubt I knew that I would fall to the second rank. But is it the second place that I hold? Is there a comparison possible between his cult for her and his affection for me? It is true, on the other hand, that Angéline loves me more than before; she is the most agreeable, the most tender of sisters; but naturally I come far behind her fiancé and her father.

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As for him, the last but not the least, what is this kind interest he shows in me? I must say, in that virile heart the least feeling has strength. But still, what is that? If you knew how he loves his daughter — And I am not needed by anyone. My dear Emma, I feel what a miser would feel who would be watching others loaded down with gold while he had only a few coins. Mina THE SAME TO THE SAME You say, dear friend, that the only sad thing would be to be loved above all else. 'Sad,' is that really the right word? Let's say, dangerous, if you wish, but be easy, I am in no danger that way. No doubt it is finer, more divine to give than to receive. But absolute disinterestedness, where does one find that? I must say that your quotation from Fenelon did not please me.* That king of China sticks in my craw. What! is that what you want? There will come a time when it will matter little to you whether I share a thought, a memory with you! I complained to M. de Montbrun, who answered, not without malice perhaps, that you are still a long way from 'pure love' and 'mystical death.' I see that he finds it charming that our worldly rivalries have not cooled our childhood friendship. He says that there is something good in us. On paper, that does not sound particularly * * If it were not for self-esteem, you would not care to see your friends fond of you any more than of the king of China.' Fenelon, Lettres spirituelles, [author's note]

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flattering, but that horrible man knows how to make the least compliment totally acceptable. I admit that I can't get used to the charm of his conversation. Still, his mind often dozes off, his thought needs the outdoors, and he never converses better than while walking through the fields; but no matter. Even in a closed drawing-room he radiates something which brings calm, refreshes, and makes one listen to him as easily as one walks on the moss, as one listens to a running brook. There is missing in him only some of that disturbing quality which used to make us rave before a portrait of Chateaubriand. I say 'used to.' Really, that beautiful head combed by the wind appeals to me more than I could say. But decidedly that is too much in the René vein. Admire my wisdom. I want to learn to understand, to live life; I want to forget the beautiful gloom and its undying sadness. Yet that tedious state is rather pleasant. You must agree. M. de Montbrun is confident that you will rediscover your gaiety behind the convent wall. Although he hardly more than met you, he has not forgotten you; you appeal to him, and since he pleases me by doing you justice, I would not leave him unaware that you think of him as the most attractive man you have ever met. Discretion must have limits; besides, with him this causes no problem: he will not believe you enamoured of him, nor even nearly so. We sometimes talk about your vocation. He approves of your taking the shortest route to heaven. But this semi-separation saddens me. I fear that religious austerity will interfere with our friendship. There are so many feminine peccadillos that one must speak

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about; friendship without confidence is like a flower without scent. Then, sometimes, it takes so little to change friendship into indifference. It seems to me, at certain moments, that the heart is like the northern seas, which, when the summer is over, turn to ice at the least shock. Let us be careful. It has been decided that Maurice will go to France for his studies. How will he be able to pull himself away from here? I don't know, nor does he. But he will have to leave sooner or later, since M. de Montbrun does not want Angéline to marry before she is twenty. As for me, I am likely to spend most of my brother's absence here. He wants it that way, and my pretty little sister argues for it too. Poor children! the thought of parting casts a shadow over them, and that is reassuring. Strange thing: happiness frightens. It always seemed to me that something would happen. It is curious, but Angéline often arouses in me a pity which I can't explain. I find her too beautiful, too charming, too happy, too beloved. You realize that here we are far from 'the illusion of worldly friendships which depart with the years and the changes of interests.' Frankly, as much as I look for it, I can't see that 'dark spot,' as sailors say. Is happiness, then, of this world? It is true that her father does not shelter her from the vagaries of everyday life. He keeps her strictly to her duties. But what is that? One needs only to look at her to realize that she does not know the dullness, or, as we say, 'the grayness' of life. Mina

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M I N A D A R V I L L E TO E M M A SI am in the best of cheer, and I want to tell you why. First, Mme H— is at Valriant. Yes, my dear, she can't stand stopping at the fashionable resorts. She needs calm, rest, etc., etc., It is perfectly touching, but I rather think that that disconsolate widow would gladly make 'the sweet duties of loving and of pleasing her business.' Be that as it may, she did as he who went to the mountain because the mountain would not come to him. Anyway, she is always sparkling; only, being near Angéline is not to her advantage. She is a bit like a dahlia next to an unfolding rose. But she manages as well as she can. You should see with what enthusiasm she speaks of Angéline! With what modest grace she chides M. de Montbrun for looking so much like the most charming Canadian girl. It is an interesting display. But under the studied graces, I believe there is a sincere passion. What is certain is that she hates me — cordially. I am her 'bête-noire.' Ostensibly I am treated with a velvet paw, but I have often felt the claws. What false-hearted compliments! how dangerous that woman would be if she were not so expansive! and what a horrid creature she would make of me under the pretext of retelling my conquests. Yes, my dear, I am a great criminal and have caused rivers of tears to flow. Some are known to have had their hearts reduced to ashes. I have caused young men to neglect their studies and to waste away sadly. So, M. de Montbrun said to me: 'Mademoiselle, I am beginning to think that I am rendering a great service to my country by keeping you at Valriant at my risk and peril.'

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That made us laugh. Mme H—, who knows so much, does not know that by proving too much one proves nothing. But I will have my revenge. Madame will leave 'trailing her wing and dragging her foot.' I am not speaking figuratively. She sprained an ankle slipping off a rock where she had ventured in spite of my warning. Fortunately, she was more frightened than hurt. But if you only had seen her convoy! M. de Montbrun and Maurice were carrying the stretcher, Angéline was carrying her parasol. I was like Malbrouck's other officer — the one who was carrying nothing. It must be that I am not very sympathetic because I had a strong desire to laugh. Really, I don't blame myself much. As M. de Montbrun's coachman said, 'The big lady had no business climbing the big rocks; she should have stuck to the king's highway.' We went in a body to see her. M. de Montbrun did not seem any more moved than he needed, and I looked like nothing at all. Since then, we have lost Mr W—. He is a foreigner who loves fishing and who believes firmly that everything that is grand, noble, distinguished must come direct from England. But he was quite proper. He had been honouring us with his presence for a fortnight. Angéline insists that she saw him laugh once. It is true that he occasionally tried to jest, but his manner is so wooden! 'But,' M. de Montbrun said, 'the good Lord has given me the grace of not always hearing him.' Which did not prevent him from giving the signal for rejoicing when his lordship had finally left us. Still, his solemn air amused us once in a while. Goodnight, my dear. Mina 50

M I N A D A R V I L L E TO E M M A SMme H— feels better, or rather, she only has to stay quiet and rest; is it not what she wanted? Right now I would settle for that myself. You know that I write only late at night and tonight I am as sleepy as if I had been listening to a speech on tariffs or had a conversation with Mr W—. It is rather hard to stay at my desk when my bed is so near. Why are you not here? we could talk while watching the stars. They are so beautiful: I just looked at them to refresh myself. When I was a child, the heavens interested me a great deal, and I asserted absolutely that there are holes in the floor of the sky through which we can see the light of God. In spite of everything, the sky still has some attraction for me, since whenever I leave a ball I always remember to look up at the stars. I don't mean that those beautiful evenings are the most efficacious 'sursum corda.' Still, I remember one night, as I was returning from a ball, the Ursulines' bell rang the nuns' rising. Never, no never, has a death-knell touched me so deeply. Oh, how well this bell was preaching in the deep silence of the night. Back in my room, I threw down my furs and stood for a long time before the mirror, just as I was, in all my fineries — and I can assure you that my thoughts were not turned to vanity. Then, when I finally fell asleep, I had a dream which I never mentioned to anyone, but which has left an indelible impression. I seemed to be in the small interior court of the Ursuline Convent, when suddenly a window opened, and I saw a nun appear. I don't know how, but immediately, from under the white headband and black veil, I recognized that sparkling socialite of two hundred years ago, Madeleine de Repentigny.

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She was looking at me with deep sympathy and was pointing to the door of the monastery; but I could not move: a terrible force was holding me back, or rather a thousand bonds were fastening me to the ground. She noticed it, and she rested her shining forehead on my clasped hands; then I felt that my bonds were being loosened, but what pain I felt through my whole body! I woke up, more moved, more affected that it is possible for me to say. Usually, I push that memory aside, but on that day I felt in all its force the truth of these words from the Imitation of Christ: 'the joy of the evening makes bitter the awakening on the morrow.' Goodnight, my dear friend. Mina MINA DARVILLE TO EMMA SYou take my dream very seriously. It can be explained adequately by my emotions of the night, by the thoughts that were in my mind when I fell asleep. Still, there has remained a certain affection for the kind Madeleine de Repentigny. It is true that I had always had a certain weakness for the beautiful socialite. She would often come to my mind whenever I went to the Saints' chapel. I used to like that little lamp that burns there day and night, as perpetual witness of her gratitude; I even asked to be given the care of it. Let us change the subject, and may God permit me to retain the healthy enjoyment of life. Here I wake up to the sight of sunshine gilding my window, to the songs of birds that live in the garden; but I get up early only every now and then. 52

Yet I like the morning, fresh, damp with the dew; but 'the other,' as Xavier de Maistre used to say, finds the bed so comfortable. I fear that I will never be like the strong woman, nor like Angéline, whom Maurice calls the Morning Star. It seems that he is always the first one up. But there is little merit, when one is in love, in gathering flowers in the most beautiful garden in the world and waiting. Poor Maurice! I am fairly sure that all the birds of the sky could be singing around him and he would still be able to recognize the small noise a certain window makes upon opening. But I am in the process of compromising the ear of the family. Imagine that I, who love birds so much, don't always recognize their song: that shocks Angéline. 'What,' she says, 'a musician, a Darville mistaking the song of a linnet for that of a warbler!' She, of course, would never make such a mistake. 'And yet,' she adds, 'in my family we have hardly been able to differentiate notes.' That does not prevent her from loving music and to be affected by it. She says that, according to St Francis of Assisi, music will be one of the pleasures of heaven, and that thought appeals to me. At bottom, I think that we all have a secret dread that we might be a little bored in immortality. Today is the feast of Saint Louis. We have not forgotten it. Poor France! Angéline says, as did Eugénie de Guérin, that 'she would gladly make the rope that would hang the Republic and the republicans.' As for me, I would not object, but I would beg mercy for Victor Hugo, who sang of 'the lily emerging from the grave.' Angéline is more of a monarchist than I am; she finds me lukewarm, and Maurice does not dare admit that he is a Bonapartist.

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Let us forget governments, past and future. Dear friend, the sea is a great seducer. Here, how beautiful it is, and how terrible! how gentle too. Then, how softly it rocks the poor fishermen's boats. It is charming. And that magic phosphorescence of the waves —. M. de Montbrun has a boat named La Mouette [The Seagull], and so pretty, so graceful! Angéline is very fond of sailing. You can imagine that Maurice minded not being able to do it. He immediately went to learn from the fishermen, and now he handles La Mouette as if he had never done anything else. Angéline, who does the tacking, says that Maurice makes knots like an admiral. It was quite a triumph for him when he first took over the running of the boat. When there is no wind, he rows, which gives him an opportunity to show off his strength. It still does not match M. de Montbrun's, but it is not to be laughed at. And when both row together, La Mouette seems to fly. You can imagine that Maurice readily breaks into song, and on this brilliant sea, under this vast sky, his matchless voice is simply delightful. Sparks fly in the boat's wake and along the shore. For Angéline and Maurice these boat rides must have the beauty of a dream. They can say with Albert de la Ferronnays: 'It would be blasphemous to think that God did not create us for happiness.' Goodnight, dear friend. Mina

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M I N A D A R V I L L E TO E M M A SWe have finished haying, and I would say that I did not get in the way, but Angéline thinks that I am showing off — that my raking is rather exaggerated. I wish you had seen Angéline in her haymaker's dress. Without making the comparison, I did not look so bad myself, and without a lie we were well received. M. de Montbrun let it be known that he was delighted. He compared us to the reapers of the Bible, to all the pretty workers of antiquity. He even recited some Latin verses, where I think there was a reference to rustic divinities. I am quite satisfied. Mina Darville joining the goddesses! That is all that was lacking to the humiliation of Olympus! By the way, you should know that the master does not go to the fields without being well gloved. I cannot really find much that is wrong with that; still, I said to him: 'Really, you astonish me; I always believed that man — that superior being — was only concerned with the beauty of his soul. Is it through family pride that you take such care of your beautiful aristocratic hands?' I keep telling him that he will end up passing for an idler, for a bourgeois. My dear friend — believe me if you can — that man gains by being seen at closer range. His serene calm is attractive, causes one to dream as the calm of deep waters. His is truly a strong nature, and I cannot look at him closely without placing in his mouth the magnificent words of Augustus to Cinna: 'I am my own master.' That is what one gains from reading the classics! and believe me, it would be quite a thing to trouble that beautiful calm, to

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see the humiliation of this proud man. But it is madness to think of it. He sees only his daughter. Frankly, I don't think he has a single thought where she is not involved. How kind he is to her! What has she done, tell me, to deserve being so perfectly loved! The other evening, Maurice asked him to read for us 'La fille du Tintoret' [Tintoretto's Daughter], which he did, and you know how the utterance of a strong feeling intoxicates us, us poor women. That tone of voice, so true, so passionate, follows me everywhere. 'Dead!—,' oh, my friend, how he says that! Could one be surprised that Angéline could not hold back? that a moment later she was crying in his arms, oblivious of our presence, of everything? Ah, he too can say that in his daughter 'God has crowned him.' And I, well, I understand that God asks for our whole heart, because I hate fractions. Mina M I N A DARV1LLE TO E M M A SMy dear Emma, I will tell you a little thing that has left me a pleasant memory. A few days ago, a young farmer of the neighbourhood came to ask Mlle de Montbrun for a bouquet for his fiancée. They were to be married the next day. So we did our utmost and the bouquet turned out to be fit for a queen. The brave boy was looking at it with rapture and did not dare touch it. His love is well known in these parts, and as women are always a bit interested in those things, we got him talking.

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Ah, my dear, that one is not blasé, nor a dreamer either, I must say — because he is the hardest worker in the area — so beneath his naive words one feels a certain depth, as one senses hollowness, emptiness beneath the words of many others. Angéline listened to him with a curiosity touched with emotion and sincerity; as for me, I kept him talking and finally we were charmed. Angéline decided that we should give these lovers a surprise, and on the wedding day we brought them a pretty little supper. The newlyweds had not yet arrived. I must say that their clean little house interested me. We looked at everything: the harvest that is ripening, the fruit trees that are still small, the little garden that will soon be in bloom. Near the door, two old poplars shade a charming spring. Angéline says that pretty springs and old trees bring happiness to houses. That one, it must be said, only had its four walls, but one could feel what would be there in time. The tablecloth was soon set and the snack brought out of the basket. It was delightful to watch Angéline looking after these chores in that poor little house. She was looking everywhere, with those wide-open eyes that you know, and pointed out to me how the wood and the kindling were laid out in the hearth, waiting only for a spark to set them ablaze. I must admit that that small detail made me dream. We walked back philosophizing. Angéline wanted to know why, in the world, contempt is shown for a poor, simple, and frugal life. If you could only hear her talk about the ancient Romans! Well, I love the great names on those pink lips — I always look with respect upon the poor house of a settler, and yet — Would it

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be that I am of that old persuasion that you call the cult of the golden calf? I don't think so, but certain aspects of luxury still dazzle me somewhat. To turn one's back completely on the spirit of the world, one must have a very strong and a very noble soul. And, strong souls are rare, and so are noble ones. Kisses. Mina M I N A D A R V I L L E TO E M M A SYou are right. The affectations of the idle life produce weak and colourless characters — the bourgeois type, as M. de Montbrun would say. Poor bourgeois! I would have much to say on the settled, the flabby, the woolly. M. de Montbrun says that there is a certain material well being which always gives him the desire to live on bread and water. Believe me, that would be a reason to refuse to dine with him. My dear, I am visibly turning to austerity, and I will end up by saying, with Solomon: 'God, give me only what is necessary to live.' In the meantime, it is raining heavily. Never did I see so much water coming down. Whoever said that in the country rain is like a beautiful woman crying? I don't see that at all, but if it is true, I advise beautiful women never to cry. Rain bores me thoroughly. But a good fire makes up for many things, and I don't think at all of drowning myself. Nothing disposes me better to conversation than a flaming fire in a large hearth.

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My taste in this is shared here, and no one seems to be bored. However, it is thought that I am very fond of 'flames.' We read often, and I choose the reading material. You know, I have a predilection in common with Mme de Grignan's mother: I delight in sword play. But I think my friends are getting a bit tired of it. Si Peau-d'Ane m'était conté, J'y prendrais un plaisir extrême, [If a child's story were told to me, I would experience extreme pleasure] The nicest of hosts whispered to me the other night. I did not have to be told twice. We recalled all the favourite stories of our childhood, and that crazy evening was the most agreeable in the world. M. de Montbrun claims that Cinderella's success must have made me dream early; but Maurice is there to say that I always preferred the tales where there were monsters and gloom. Tonight Maurice read Vol de VAme to us. I remember hearing you say that you could not see a beautiful fall morning without thinking a bit of the lovable Claire, of the noble Fabien. Angéline hardly understands those lovers. A little while ago I was looking at her with Maurice, and I was thinking of a lot of things that don't usually concern me much. In spite of everything, at times one feels that sacrifice is worth more than all the joys. Besides, there are so many things around us that preach to us. There are already dry leaves in this delightful garden at Valriant. Tell me, can you imagine a dead leaf in Paradise? — Good night, dear friend. Mina 59

E M M A S- TO M I N A D A R V I L L E My dear Mina, No, doubtless, there would never have been dry leaves in Paradise. That would have clashed too much with eternal beauty, with eternal youth. I assure you that those things would have suited me well. I very much long for that beautiful Paradise, that garden of sensual pleasure where one would never see mud; mud comes straight from sin. But always, dear friend, real heaven remains to us. Since it depends on us to get there, why should you be sad? I beg of you, push away melancholy. That glutton lives on what is most exquisite in the soul and always leaves us weak. I mean poetic and seductive melancholy, not grave and Christian sadness. I wish this one to be your portion, because it always turns to joy; and, besides, who can persistently withstand that divine sadness? My dear Mina, this is my last autumn in the world, and you would hardly know what touching charm this thought spreads over everything I see. It is as if I were to die. Never has nature been more beautiful to me. I walk alone a great deal, with my thoughts, with an agreeable serenity that never leaves me. Already one can feel the fall in the air. But in our present state, I think it is better to be walking on dry leaves than on new grass. While I await the snow, I have here a place that delights me. It is simply a recess on the seashore, but huge rocks overhang it and seem always ready to give way, which frightens me as it charms me.

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Despite the distance and the rough, stony path, I often go there. I like this perfect and wild solitude where one hears only the cries of seagulls and the noises of the sea. There is not a tree, not a plant: only some moss in the cracks in the rocks, and here and there a few feathers. It seems to me that it is a place that would please you perfectly, particularly when the sun lets fall on the waves its fiery streaks which you like so much. This evening, the most beautiful clouds I have ever seen were reflected on the water. That gave the sea an iridescent, marvelous bottom, and I thought about many things. I have not forgotten how life appears when — but never mind. Dear Mina, however it appears at certain times, it is the cold, the barren, the dull which make the bottom of the sea, and it is not love that makes the bottom of life. There is a bit of wisdom, but I suppose that the wisdom of woman is, like that of man, 'always limited in some way.' That great light of disillusionment does not reach you, does not get to Valriant. I often think of your kind friends and I hope that you will soon see the 'humbling of the superb one.' Without flattery, I am surprised that he holds out so long. Dear Mina, you have given me many worries. You want to marry, and yet under a somewhat frivolous exterior you hide everything needed to love forever a man of character, dignity, refinement, and — I ask forgiveness of these gentlemen — all that seems very rare. But that man has Christian virility and charm, which does no harm.

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Courage, my dear. He finds you frivolous, but he will eventually come around and then I hope you put aside your coquetry, and say frankly, as did Sleeping Beauty: 'Indeed, my prince, you have kept me waiting.' Emma M I N A D A R V I L L E TO E M M A SI promise you that I will say what Sleeping Beauty said. Meantime, I am as pleasant as possible with him; but pretty little Mme S— was not wrong when she maintained that he wears a magic armour. At least he has all the traits of legendary figures and does not seem to suffer any from it all. All modesty aside, I cannot figure it out, particularly since I am sure I am pleasing to him. Now I never meet his gaze without seeing there a spark, a flash, and, according to me, that should mean something. That passionate yet reserved nature is interesting to study. But what is holding him back? It cannot be the difference in age: there are good mirrors here. I suppose that one blames oneself for this involuntary weakness. Perhaps I am not found to have a soul of the first order; perhaps also it is believed that I cannot adapt myself to a serious, retired life. The fact is that I care as much about worldly pleasures as about last year's fashions. With the slightest excuse I would propose to him to go live on the shores of Labrador. There we would walk on the white moss through the mist, as do the heroes of Ossian.

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Oh, my dear, I have many daily temptations, and I catch myself making ejaculations of the kind Maurice used to make, when he would cut in with, 'How beautiful she is! Lord, make her love me!' Poor Maurice! His departure is near at hand. I will be going back with him to Quebec, where I expect to see you again and be as your shadow until you enter the convent. And I think of the fact that afterwards you will no longer come to my house, to my room, where we were so comfortable. It seems to me that the noviciate will appear very gloomy to you, in spite of the beautiful portrait of St Louis Gonzaga. I can see it from here. That heavenly face leaning on the crucifix has left an impression on me that nothing can erase. Sometimes I think that they are happy who are really God's own; they aren't afraid to get old or to die. Around us the leaves are yellowing visibly. You know that I cannot see a shrivelled leaf without thinking of a thousand sad things. I must say, those poor leaves have had much said about them. (No matter, I will always love Arnauld's old leaf, which says so well: 'I am going where everything goes.') These are the first verses I learned and it is my dying father who taught them to me. That is no doubt why they still have for me a charm, so touching, so funereal. M. de Montbrun often speaks to me of my father; better than anyone else he makes me really know him. Did I tell you that I will spend the winter at Valriant? You understand that this is not a great sacrifice. Maurice gone, I would find the house too big: he is all the family I have, but here I have another. It is pleasant to see the engagement ring shining on Angéline's beautiful hand. The ring is my mother's. Before dying, she gave it

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to Maurice for the one who would be his life's companion. I sometimes wonder if she ever wished that that companion could be so pure, so charming. You say that I caused you many worries. My dear, I have had many too. I think, as did Madame de Staël, that a woman who dies without having loved has not lived, and, on the other hand, I always felt that I could love only a man who was worthy of being loved. It is true that many pleasant 'little nobodies' tried to persuade me that it was all up to me to make them perfect, or almost. But I think it is a sad thing for a wife to have to educate her husband. I would rather marry an accomplished man. Still, I admit it, someone who was not interested me greatly at one time. I knew his stormy youth, but his melancholy affected me. I used to think of St Augustine far from God, of his glorious sadness. 'Dear, beautiful, tormented soul!' I often said to myself. Later, I found out — but never mind. It seems that the Miles V— keep on saying that I am basically impertinent, that I will treat my husband as a slave. Poor man! Don't you pity him? At this moment, I am greatly tempted to go watch someone who is pacing on the verandah. That step, so regular, so firm, always makes me a little nervous. My dear, 'it cannot be helped: I fear him.' Need it be said that that one would be a master? But, no matter. I would rather obey him than command the others. There — and I am thankful to him to want to get me away from those puerilities, those trifles, which men usually appear nobly to surrender to us, while retaining a fair share of them. So long. Mina 64

M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E TO A N G E L I N E DE M O N T B R U N Dear friend, I am still suffering, all broken up, from that effort needed to pull myself away from you. Once in the coach I burst into tears, and now, still, at certain moments, I am weak as a child. Still I try to live without seeing you. But I can no more forget you even for a moment that I can stop my heart from beating or my blood from circulating. Oh, if I could only tell you the extent of my misery. Everything hurts me, everything bothers me. Angéline, it is an irresistible attraction, an invincible pull that draws me to you and now it is time to go. I will be putting an ocean between us. May God have pity on me! and may He keep you and bless you, my dear and sacred fiancée, my immortal beloved. Kiss your father for me. 0 my life! o my beautiful one! 1 would shed blood to know that you are weeping on my account. Maurice A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N TO M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E After your departure, I had to lock myself up in my room and I leave it to you to guess why. If you only knew how sad it is not to see you anywhere, never to hear your beautiful voice. I forgo telling you and don't dare think of that extreme distance that separates us. How you must suffer to be going among indifferent, unknown people. I am always thinking about it and know that you are more to be pitied than I. My father knows how to give me

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courage. He speaks so well of you — with a regard that makes me very proud. My noble Maurice, you are worthy to be his son; it is with you that I want to spend my life. Tell me, do you sometimes think of your return? I am already expecting you, and often I find myself fixing things up for your arrival. On that day, I will need a sparkling sky, a sun, a light, as you like them. I want Valriant to show itself to you in all its beauty. In the meantime, one must be bored. Often I pick up that guitar which your fingers could make sing. I try to make it sing again some of your chords. I have them so well in my ear; but the magic of memory is not enough. The frost has already damaged the garden. That beautiful greenery which you looked at so often, so much admired, I see it withering from day to day. I see it fading away and it saddens me. It is the first time that the fall has made me feel this way. One would say, Maurice, that you left me your melancholy. I feel pity for everything that loses its colour, everything that wilts. You called me your 'immortal beloved'; Maurice, what a beautiful phrase! how it touched my soul and how delightful it is to me. And yet, it is said that there is no eternal love, that the dream of endless love, always sought, has been sought in vain on earth. When what I have read on the subject comes back to me, and makes me think, I reread your letter and relish to the bottom of my heart that heavenly phrase: 'my immortal beloved.' Did I tell you to hang in your room the print of the Virgin I gave you? Please don't fail to do so. Often I ask her to keep you in her sweet and secure custody. Pray to her also for me, and I

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beg you to love me in God and for God so that your heart may not grow cold. Yours for life and beyond. Angéline M A U R I C E DARVILLE TO A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N My love, my beauty, my heart, my life, If I understand, you want me to love you out of charity. I must admit that I cannot do that. But I am very thankful to God to have made you as you are. Is that not enough, dreamer? My dear conscience, don't try to disturb me. I know everything that has been said of the vanity of human emotions; only that does not concern us. Angéline, I don't want you to think of those things, and as soon as it is my right I will forbid you. That will be the first use I will make of my authority. Meantime, I obey you con amore, and I have hung the picture of the Virgin in my room. It was my first chore. Need I say that underneath I placed your picture (the one I stole from Mina). I have a lamp burning before it, the prettiest in the world. First, it is a constant prayer, and that soft light spreads over your picture something celestial which sustains me, appeases me. My dear and beloved, I must restrain myself from not reading your letter continually. You ask if I think of my return. Do I think of it! That's what is preventing me from dying of boredom. Tell me, is it true that you have agreed to share my life? Often, 'I close my eyes to see hope better.'

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Oh, I also have intoxicating memories. Happiness has touched me; I have shed tears which only one could comfort entirely. No, I don't have the right to complain, and yet I suffer cruelly. This need to see you, which permeates my heart, often becomes a sharp, intolerable pain, or rather, away from you, I don't live. It seems I am no longer the same man. That youthfulness, that fullness of life, I no longer have. Tell me, could you feel something of the expansion of my soul whenever I looked at you? How good you are to miss me, to await me! I am sorry, but it will be useless for nature to put on an act for my arrival. I will hardly see any of it. Even if the rain pours down, or the winds howl, it is all the same to me, as long as I am not delayed, as long as I can get there. I have written to your father. I will never be able to thank him enough, to love him enough, for he is so dear to me! I am sending you a bit of mignonette drawn from the soil of France. Poor France! Are we not a little crazy to love it so much! The ship that was bringing me to Calais seemed to be going so slowly. Standing on the deck, I was peering with an ardent, joyful curiosity, and when I spotted the land, the land of France, I must admit that I shuddered. My eyes were rather dimmed, but no matter, I recognized it, the France of our ancestors, beautiful, noble, generous France. Dear friend, France, our ideal France, what have they done to it? But, ssh! — It seems that I would be insulting my mother. Let us pray to God that 'the Canadians will be faithful to themselves,' as Garneau wished. I am sure that the Virgin Mary listens to you when you speak to her of me.

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I too place you in her keep. May she bless you, may she make me worthy of you. Maurice MINA D A R V I L L E TO HER B R O T H E R I am at Valriant, my dear Maurice, and welcome as if I were carrying springtime in my furs. Naturally, I had to see everything and we had to discuss everything thoroughly: that is what has delayed me, the model of the correspondent. My friend, believe me, I am not making any sacrifice for your sake in spending the winter with Angéline. After your departure, the house was uninhabitable. Besides, I am tired of the worldly life, that is to say, life reduced to dust. You can imagine how these comments were treated. 'The Queen of the beautiful nights burying herself in the country! the evening star vanishing, disappearing!' One of my admirers sent me a sonnet. In it I am compared to a sovereign who abdicates, to a young star which hides, tired of shining, and to tell it all there is a line of thirteen syllables! But if I were to continue talking about myself you would not find me kind! Don't fear, I am a good girl, and Angéline is always the queen of roses; but she often frowns, and that is your fault. My dear, you are indeed guilty. Why did you get her to fall in love with you? You should see how she looks at your empty place at table! I think she would still gladly make you a cup of tea. Seriously, are you sure that you are to be pitied? I was looking at her a while ago as we were talking near the hearth. The flames were lighting her up completely and making her engagement ring shine. Once 69

again, you are not as unhappy as you think. Where is the man who would not accept your misfortune with joy? A year is soon over. Time has a light wing. No, absence is not the greatest of evils, particularly when there is no fear of cooling off or inconstancy. Maurice, you want to know, then, absolutely how much she loves you and it is up to me to analyse this heart so true. The task is not without its charms. It is as if I were dropping the sounding-lead into a live, shadowed, deep spring, the limpid waters of which reflect the sky in spite of the foliage. Our conversations are charming. Her replete heart pours out without ever drying up. Your refined ear would be delighted. She makes Nox smell your hat so that he will not forget you. A while ago I heard her speak to the dog: 'Nox, are you lonesome? are you eager for his return? Do you love him? Take care, Nox. You must love him. He will be your master. Do you know that?' Nox listens to everything and answers by striking the floor with his tail. Alas! Valriant no longer deserves the name. It is pitiful to see the garden; but the winter hay still perfumes the edges of the pond. I went there with Angéline. My dear, the walnut tree under which you blurted out your profession of love is bare like all the others. The fall winds have no respect for anything. Do you know that I was told that I would die of boredom before the end of winter? But I doubt it. I feel within myself such a superabundance of life! The sound of the sea has wakened in my heart something tempestuous, something delightful, or rather, I think that there is, on the shore at Valriant, an irresistible sylph which takes hold of me as soon as I set foot on its domain.

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This time, it is worse than ever. These terrible east winds enchant me. 4I enter with delight in the mouth of tempests,' and I would soon make my way to the beach; but the proud autocrat who reigns here does not allow it. He says that I would look like a water sprite at loose ends; he contemptuously calls me his chilled one, his delicate one. (Angéline has never had a cold in her life.) Yet, he regularly has a swim as if it were the middle of the summer. All our plans are drawn for the winter; study has a place, but rather small. Thank God we are not De ces rats qui, livres rongeants, Se font savants jusqu'aux dents. [Those rats which, gnawing books, become learned to the teeth.] As for you, you will be an orator. We have decided that unanimously; but among us you will not have the right to speak any more than anyone else. Remember that. As always, Angéline wears only white or blue. Was her father not right to dedicate her to the Virgin? How pleasant she is with him! How she anticipates his every wish! Nothing is small in love. Those who wait for major occasions to show their tenderness don't know how to love. Keep that in mind, Maurice. Really, I think you will make a tolerable husband, 'neither cold nor jealous.' That is what I was telling Angéline a little while ago. Be easy, I excel in showing you off; I will never give you anything but acceptable faults. I embrace you as I love you, that is with all my heart. Mina 71

PS Do you know that marriage is 'the sweet residue of earthly paradise?' It is the Church that says so in the preface of the nuptial mass. Meditate upon those liturgical words and don't write any more laments.

M.

The next summer, Maurice Darville returned to Canada. It has been said that human happiness is made up of so many pieces that there are always a few missing. But nothing, absolutely nothing was lacking to the young, charming, deeply enamoured couple. The future appeared to them enchanted. Both had that elated confidence, that illusion of security which people have who share a keen, irreproachable love, who will soon be united by a divine bond. But a tragic event proved cruelly that happiness is a plant which never fully acclimatizes itself to the earth. M. de Montbrun loved hunting passionately. One day in September, as he was returning from hunting, his rifle became tangled in the branches of a tree; a shot fired and he was mortally wounded. M. de Montbrun died a few hours later, and that man, who was tied to earth by such strong bonds, was admirable in strength and faith before death. His daughter at first showed great courage, but she loved her father immensely, and, after the funeral, which took place in Quebec City in the church of the Ursulines, she became completely, absolutely prostrate, and there was fear for her life.

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No word could convey the anguish, the suffering of her fiancé. Anything human beings could do Maurice and Mina did for Angéline. They saved her life, perhaps, but they could not prevent her from sinking deeper and deeper into grief. She had that intense feeling which refuses consolation, which is incompatible with any joy. Maurice and his sister tried in vain to bring her to go through with the marriage. 'Later, later. I beg you, Maurice, let me cry,' she would answer to the most irresistible supplications of her fiancé. It had been decided that Mlle de Montbrun would return to Valriant only after the wedding. She willingly assented, but it was useless to try in whatever way not to let her delay. During the winter after M. de Montbrun's death, Mile Darville entered the noviciate. Angéline did not try to prevent it, but the separation proved painful to her. She liked the nearness of that dear friend who never dared show all her own grief. Mlle de Montbrun did not complain; never would she speak her father's name. But she wept over him ceaselessly, and her magnificent health soon began to decline dangerously. In this girl of mysteriously deep sensibility, grief seemed to act as a poison. One could see her waste away, melt away. She would occasionally faint suddenly. One day, when out alone, she fainted, fell on the pavement, and suffered contusions to her face which had serious consequences. So much so that an operation was called for, and the poor child remained disfigured. Maurice Darville loved his fiancée most deeply. Her unhappiness, her suffering had made her all the dearer to him, and he had given her ample proof of his most complete, passionate devotion.

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But, as has been said, in the love of a man, even when it seems as deep as the ocean, there are lacunae, unexpected dry spots. And when his fiancée had lost the enchanting charm of her beauty, Maurice Darville's heart cooled, or rather the divine madness of love flew away. Maurice tried in vain to retain it, to call it back. The keenest, most delightful sentiment of the heart is also the most involuntary. In spite of the care he was taking not to show it, Angéline soon felt the cooling. She had not expected that. Elevated soul, she had not understood how the loss of her beauty could cause her to be loved less. Her confidence in Maurice had been absolute, but, once awakened, the cruel doubt gave her no rest. She said nothing about it, but she was observing Maurice closely. It was impossible for her to judge him properly — she suffered too much from the change in him — and after terrible alternations between hope and doubt, she came to the painful conviction that only honour and pity were detaining him near her. And her resolution soon taken was firmly executed. In spite of Maurice Darville's attempts to make her change her mind, she relieved him of his promise and gave him back his ring, and went back to Valriant. This noble young lady, who was isolating herself in her grief, with the proud decency of delicate souls, used to write occasionally. These personal pages may interest those who have loved and suffered.

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FEUILLES DETACHEES

May 7 How I longed to be back at Valriant! but how hard on me my coming has been! how terrible the last eight days have been! The delightful memories as well as the bitter ones are tearing my heart apart. I have what feels like internal bleeding, suffocating, without outlet. And there is no one to whom one could say the words that would relieve the pressure. Do you hear me, father, when I speak to you? Do you know that your poor girl returns home to hide, suffer, and die? It seems to me that I could forget my misfortunes in your arms. Dear house that was his! where everything reminds me of him, where my heart sees him again everywhere. But never again will he come into his home. My God, forgive me. I should resist the temptation to sink into my melancholy, to allow myself to be engulfed by it. This isolation which I wanted, which I still want, how can I stand it? No doubt when one suffers nothing is more distressing than facing indifferent people But how can I live without seeing Maurice, without hearing him ever, ever! — Oh, the overwhelming thought! — It is night, coldness, death. Here where I lived an ideal life of such intensity, of such confidence, I must now get used to the most terrible of solitudes, to the solitude of the heart. And yet how he loved me! His conversation was vivid, masterful, and I hear it still, I will always hear it. In the boat, as I was moving away from him, as more water came between us, memories were coming back to me most

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vividly. I could see him as I had seen him in the funeral procession. Oh! how bitterly he cried for him, how he shared my suffering. Now that I have broken with him, I often think of what binds me to him forever. How he tried to control himself, how much he cared, how much tender sympathy he displayed! It is true, then, I saw love die out in his heart. My God, how terrible it is to know oneself repulsive, not to have anything to expect from life. I think sometimes about the girl 'delivered up to cancer' of whom de Maistre speaks. She would say: 'I am not as unhappy as you think: God gives me the grace to think only of Him.' Those admirable feelings are not for me. But, my God, you are all powerful, keep me from despair, that sin of cowardly souls. Oh Lord! how roughly you have treated me! how weak I feel! how sad! Sometimes, I fear that I may lose my mind. I sleep so little, and, besides, I would need the sleep of the earth to make me forget. The night after my return, when I thought everyone had gone to sleep, I got up. I picked up my lamp, and softly went down to his study. There, I put the light before his picture and called to him. I was strangely overwrought. I was choking with tears, suffocating with memories, and, in a kind of frenzy, in a madness of regrets, I was speaking to that dear picture as if to my father himself. I closed the doors and the shutters, lit the lamps on either side of the fireplace. Then his portrait was in full light — that portrait that I love so much, not because of its worth as art, of which I can hardly be a judge, but because of the wonderful likeness. It is

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thus that I spent the first night of my return. Eyes fixed upon his beautiful face, I thought of his matchless tenderness, I remembered his attentions, so enlightened, so devoted, so tender. Oh, if I should ever forget him, how I would despise my heart! But blessed be God ! The death which took away all my happiness has left all my love.

May 8 I thought that I had already suffered too much ever to be able to feel joy. Well, I was mistaken. This morning, at sunrise, the birds sang long and delightfully, and I listened to them with an unutterable emotion. It seemed to me that those tender and pure voices were saying to me: God is good. Place your hope in Him. I cried, but those tears were not bitter, and since that hour, I feel within myself a pleasant calm. 0 my God, you will not leave me alone with my suffering, you who have said: 'I am close to troubled hearts.'

May 10 My aunt has gone, and frankly — The company of that weak woman is not at all what I need. She is good, tireless in her care, but her sympathy unnerves and irritates me. There is in her compassion something which makes me painfully aware of the misfortune of having lost my beauty ! The joys of the heart are no longer for me, but I would like to have near me a strong soul who would help me gain the greatest, the most difficult knowledge: knowing how to suffer.

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May 11 I feel an unspeakable loathing for life and for everything. Who will help me climb the difficult path? Solitude is good for those who are calm, for those who are strong. My God, 'help me; don't abandon me to the weakness of my heart, nor to the dreams of my mind.' As soon as my strength returns, I will try to find some occupation that will hold my attention. I would like to look after the poor, as my good father used to do, but I am afraid that these poor people will think that they are doing the right thing in speaking of my face, in showing their compassion, in telling me a thousand horrible things. Childish fears, vain weakness that I must overcome. May 12 In the world those who fall from the heights of honour, of greatness, are greatly pitied. But the great calamity is to fall from the heights of love. How can I get used to the idea of not seeing him, of not hearing him? never! never! My God! the secret of strength — Here my life had been a feast of light, and now life seems to me a tomb, a tomb with the quiet of death. Oh, calm — rest — peace. May God have pity on me! 4It is a horrible thing to have seen everything one possessed crumble without feeling the desire to hang on to something permanent.' May 14 Since my return, I had not wanted to go outdoors, but this evening there came through the open window a breeze so full of the

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salty smell of the sea that I could not resist. In a few minutes I was on the shore. There was no one there. I lifted the thick veil without which I never step outside anymore and breathed in, with delight, the harsh and bracing perfume of the beach. The beauty of nature, which used to make me overjoyed, still pleases me. I was enjoying the view of the sea, the softness of the evening, the dreamy melody of the waves lapping the shore-line. But a young man in a canoe went by singing, 'Remember, etc., etc.' People around here remember that song of Musset's from hearing Maurice sing it, and it reminded me of the bitterness of his indifference. What will he say on hearing of my death? 'Poor child! Poor Angéline!' He will think of me a few days — then he will forget me. He has already forgotten that together we hoped, we loved, we suffered. If I too could only forget. And yet, no, I don't want to. It is better to remember. It is better to suffer. It is better to cry. May 17 No, the law of averages is not an empty idea. I have felt the joys that lift one to the heavens, but I also know the pains of which one should die. May 20 Painful date ! It was on September 20 that I lost my father. The bad weather has prevented me from going out. I am sorry. I need to see the house where they took him after the terrible accident that cost him his life. A poor woman lives there with her

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family, but I have kept to myself the miserable little room where he breathed his last. All the sorrows of my life are obliterated before what I suffered seeing my father die; and yet, my God, when I want to strengthen my faith in your goodness, it is to that hour of heartbreak that I look back. How vivid those memories are! He had endured everything without complaining, but on seeing me, a deep groan escaped him. He fainted. When he came to again, with difficulty he put his arm around my neck, but he did not speak, he did not look at me. His eyes were turned towards a picture of Our Lady of Sorrows, fastened to the wall at the foot of the bed by four pins, and as long as I live I will see the agony on his face. As for me, in spite of the terror, the shock of that moment, I cannot say how I was able to remain calm. I had been told so often that I had to be, that the least excitement would be fatal to him. The tinkling of the small bell told us of the approach of the blessed sacrament. At that well-known sound he shuddered, a tear rolled down his pale cheek; he closed his eyes, and said to me with difficulty: 'Daughter, think of the One who is coming.' They were the first words he spoke to me. His voice was weak, but very clear. I don't know what hope, what faith in a miracle was sustaining me. 0 Master of life and death, I believed that you would let yourself be moved. Lord, I was offering you everything to purchase his days, and, prostrated at your sacred feet, in my deadly anguish, I was emploring your divine pity through the tears of your Mother, through what she suffered in seeing you die.

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No, I could not believe in my own unhappiness. The word resignation affected me like cold steel in the flesh, and, when he had received communion my father drew me to him and said, 'Angéline, it is the will of God that separates us/ I burst into tears. What I said in my bewilderment I have no idea, but I can still see the expression of painful surprise on his face. He kissed the crucifix that he was holding in his right hand, and said beseechingly: 'Lord, forgive her, the poor child does not know what she is saying.' For a few minutes he remained engrossed in intense prayers. Then, with what authority, yet with what tenderness, he ordered — a word so rare on his lips — that I say with him: May the will of God be done! My whole being was rebelling against that will, and with what force! what violence! But I could not, no, I could not disobey him, and I said what he wanted me to say. Then, he blessed me, and resting my head on his chest, 'Loving Saviour,' he repeated, 'I give her to you — 0 Lord Jesus, speak to her — 0 Lord Jesus, console her.' And I, in the agony of the moment — Compassionate Lord, Jesus, King of love, King of glory, our divine Brother, it is by prostrating myself to the ground that I should give you thanks. How do you strengthen those you have redeemed with the failings of your infinite strength, with the weight of your bloodied cross? In our bodily hearts, what do you mix with the suffering which stabs and crushes? Almighty Jesus, you made me accept and adore your will. I bared my heart to the sword and at that moment, more painful than a thousand deaths, I had towards your goodness, your love, your compassion, an unspeakable feeling.

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Oh, in my hours of weakness and anguish, why have I not always sought refuge in that sacred memory? I would have found there strength and peace. Peace — I had it in my heart when my father died in my arms, and, when the priest intoned De Profundis, I, prostrated on the bedroom floor, from the abyss of my suffering still cried to God: Thy will be done. When I rose again, they had covered his face and for the first time in my life I fainted. Coming to again, I found myself lying on the grass. I saw Maurice leaning over me and I could feel his tears falling on my face. The curé of Valriant then said to me: 'Daughter, look to heaven.' Daughter - that word, which my father would never say again, was painful to my ears. And turning over to the ground I cried. May 22 This morning, on waking, I saw a little canary flying around my room. Monique, who was knitting at the foot of the bed, said: 'It is a gift from the twins. They trained it for you, and brought it to you this morning, on their way to catechism class.' I put my hand out to the bird, and after some teasing he landed on it. The dear little one! I have had it only a few hours and already I would hate to lose it. It is so pleasant and it sings so well. Is it not nice of those children to have thought of giving me this pleasure? This evening I decided to thank them. I found them sitting in the door of their little house. Marie, pretty and fresh enough to

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shame roses, was stringing beads to make a necklace for herself and Paul was watching her. Seeing her so charming, I recalled what I was when Maurice used to call me 'the flower of the fields,' and a bitter sadness took hold of me There is nothing more pleasant, more touching to see than the mutual affection of these two beautiful children. 'They cannot get out of each other's sight,' their grandmother said, and it is true. Poor children! what will happen to the one who outlives the other? A great affection is the great happiness of life, but great joys lead to great sorrows. Yet, even after the last separation, who is there, to suffer less, would choose to have loved less? My father loved these verses of Byron: 'Give me joy with pain: I want to love as I have loved, suffer as I have suffered.'

May 23 I have just paid a visit to my garden, of which I had only caught a glimpse so far. Brave Désir was very proud to show me around. But I soon noticed that something was bothering him, and when I asked, 'Désir, what is the matter?' he answered, 'Mademoiselle, your beautiful rose bush is dying. And I did everything I could!' Then he gave all sorts of explanations which I hardly heard. I was looking at the poor bush, which, in fact, has only thorns left, and I was thinking of the day Maurice brought it to me, so green, so full of blossoms. What is left of those half-open roses? what is left of those perfumes? Withered the illusions of life, wilted the flowers of love! Why weep? neither tears nor blood will bring them back to life.

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Poor Maurice! His love for me rather darkened his youth. With what cruel anxiety, what painful anguish he watched the progress of the terrible illness! It is true that with hope in my recovery love died in his heart. He was not able to love me disfigured, and what man could have? My God, where is the time when I found life too sweet and too beautiful? Then I used to arouse envy. The question often was why was I so rich, so charming, so loved. And now, in spite of my fortune, a beggarwoman would refuse to trade places with me. Oh, how my father would suffer if he saw me as I am. God be thanked that he was spared this terrible affliction. A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N TO M I N A DARVILLE Dear Mina, Thanks and thanks again for your wonderful letters. I seem to be ungrateful, but I am not. Except for very short notes to my aunt, I write to absolutely no one. Sometimes I receive a few letters from those who were called my friends. (Poor friendship! poor friends!) I must admit that from one day to the next I believe less and less in their deep sympathy. So, without the least remorse, I claim the privilege of the sick and I leave the letters unanswered. Don't be alarmed, their deep sympathy does not trouble their rest nor their pleasures. They have all the strength to bear the sufferings of others. I feel better for being in the country. It seems to me that I no longer have that terrible fever which seemed to make my blood boil. Total rest and fresh air calm me down, refresh me. It is true 84

that my isolation is sometimes painful, but at least I am rid of the condolences of the tiresome ones who, like Job's friends, were full of talk. Besides, may your friendship be reassured, I am well looked after. How many sick people lack everything! In my moments of despondency, I try to think of those who are worse off than I am. Never have you seen my cottage as pretty as it is this summer. It is a nest of greenery. One would say that it was made especially to harbour happiness. The birds sing and warble in the beautiful trees my father planted. You ask me details of the life I lead. You want to know who visits me, what I do. Really, dear friend, except for the doctor, no one visits me, but I walk around a bit, and I knit a lot as someone reads to me. I confine myself mostly to books of religion and history. I need to uplift my heart, and I like to see live again those glories, that grandeur which are now dust. I spend every evening in his study, as I did when he lived. When the weather is fine, the windows are left open, and I have a big fire set in the fireplace. You remember how my father liked to spend the evening by the fire. 'My hearth, my pleasure-giving hearth,' he used to say often. Mina, I have not yet become accustomed to the final separation. Often, when a door is opened, I jump. It seems he is about to enter the room. But no, he will never come again. It is I who will join him, under the slab of that dear church of the Ursulines, where he wanted to rest near my mother. I placed his portrait over the mantel. I never saw a portrait with such a likeness. Sometimes when I gaze upon it, by the

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uncertain light of the fire, I think that he comes alive, that he will open his arms to me, but it is only the illusion of a moment, and immediately I see him dead, buried, lying in the coffin under the earth, with my crucifix and the picture of the Virgin in his folded hands. My friend, pray for me. Dear Mina, I am no longer anything, or at most I count for little to your brother; but you are and will always be my dear sister. Oh, I loved to call you by that name, and I have not forgotten that on entering the convent you said that to be separated from me was a sacrifice worthy to be offered to God. As for my conduct towards Maurice, you are wrong in blaming me. No doubt, as a man of heart and honour, he wanted to fulfill his promise, and go through with our marriage; but could I accept that sacrifice? I can assure you that the world would not make me retract my demurement. Poor Maurice! he was asking if his care, his tenderness would not help me endure life. Mina, his presence, his presence alone would ease everything, if he still loved me, but he has only pity for me now — and I would quickly tear what I have just written if I were not sure that he will never know it. How time passes! Here you are on the eve of your sacred nuptials. You say that on that day your prayers will be for me. Thank you, Mina. Ask of Jesus Christ that He grant that I love Him before I die. Dear sister, I would like to attend your profession. I would like to hear you pronounce your vows, those vows which will cut you off from the deceitful and deceived world. Happy are those who expect nothing from life! Happy are those who ask nothing of people!

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0 my friend, love the divine crucified one, because He will always love you. He is infinite goodness, He is eternal, incomprehensible love. And with what joy I would give up what I own to feel those truths as I felt them in my dying father's arms. But I have lost that clear view of God which was given me at the hour of unspeakable anguish. Dear sister, in the first months of my mourning, you were an angel to me. Maurice, too, and yet it was not your care, it was not your affection that kept me alive. What sustained me was the memory of the goodness of God, unutterably felt at the fearful hour of the sacrifice — at that hour when I suffered more than unto death. You, Mina, you know what my father was for me. And who in my place would not have loved him ardently and deeply? Every evening, after my prayers, I kneel before his portrait, as I used to do before him, and often I weep. Excuse my going on at such lengths about my sorrows; I never speak of them, and I need to let go. Alas! I think ceaselessly about the delightful life of the past. 0 my friend, I would like to cry in your arms, but now the impassable wall of a cloister will separate us forever. Adieu.

May 30 It is getting late, but I stay awake thinking of Mina who, in a few hours, will take her vows. 0 nobility of the religious life! Who was it that said that there is in the human soul a mystery of elevation? Mina is Maurice's sister, she was the dear friend of my youth, and yet, in spite of the sweetness of those memories, it is not the picture of the Mina of those days that comes to mind; it

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is that of the virgin who sleeps there under the guard of angels awaiting the hour of her consecration to the Lord. Dear Mina! what will the One she has chosen say to her when the bell warns her that the hour has finally come? Oh, I would like to be there to see her, to hear her! But I would then have had to meet Maurice, and I felt that I was not up to that. Will he think of me? — When Mina took the veil, I was at his side in Ste Philomene Chapel. Before the ceremony we were alone with Mina in the parlour. Her bride's dress suited her beautifully, and how calm she was! and with what heavenly tenderness she spoke to us! That evening, Maurice came to my aunt's house. Someone saying something against the religious life, Maurice, still under the effect of the emotions of the day, answered by reading that part of a lecture by Lacordaire where the famous Dominican proves the divinity of Jesus Christ by the love He inspires, by the sacrifices He requests, and 'to whom all the centuries pay homage.' Maurice read those eloquent pages admirably, and I can still hear him saying: 'There is a man whose love guards the tomb.' 'There is a man scourged, slain, sacrificed, whom an unspeakable passion resurrects from death and infamy to place Him in the glory of a love that never fails, of a love that finds in itself peace, honour, joy, and even ecstasy.' 0 marvellous Jesus, that is true! 'As for us,' as Lacordaire also said, 'pursuing love all through life, we have it only imperfectly, and it makes our heart bleed.' Yes, Mina has chosen the best part. Love among human beings is like a fire in the straw which first flames up brightly, but which soon leaves only light ashes which the wind lifts and scatters forever.

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June 2 Like me old Monique loves the sea. So we often walk together along the beach. This afternoon I met Marie Desroches,* a former friend. She threw her arms around my neck with such transport that I was moved, and, looking at me, she wept — truly sincere tears. I gladly accepted her invitation to go to her house with her. As a child, I used to like to be with this wild little one who was afraid of nothing, and I used to envy the freedom which she enjoyed. Fortunately, this freedom, almost absolute, has not been harmful to her. On sent rien qu'à la voir sa dignité profonde! De ce cœur sans limon, nul vent n'a troublé l'onde. [Only by looking at her one can perceive her great dignity! No wind has disturbed the flow of this pure heart.] It must be that Marie has taste and is industrious, for this shack, lost among the rocks, is pleasant. No doubt comfort is hardly to be found here, but thanks to the greenery and the flowersrit is pretty. So that we might speak freely, Marie led me to her small room which she shares with her sister. The charming statue of the Virgin, which my father gave her when her mother died, occupies the place of honour. A lively ivy adorns it nicely. It is pleasant to the soul and soft to the eyes; and I was quite touched seeing, in that girl's room, my father's picture, framed with immortelles and dry moss. * Daughter of a poor fisherman and goddaughter of M. de Montbrun [author's note]

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'Marie, you have not forgotten him?' And I can still hear the tone of her voice when she answered: 'Oh, mademoiselle, I will die before I forget him.' This girl spends her life working around the house, making and repairing the nets her father uses to catch the fish he sells for four cents a dozen. Still, how pleasant her life seems! She has health, beauty. One of these days, an honest man will love her, and by loving her will be a better man. Her heart is quiet, her soul serene. She does not know bitter sorrows, devouring regrets. God, may she never know them, and give me peace — the peace of the heart, while I await the peace of the tomb. June 4 I have just learned that Mile Desileux died yesterday on her farm at des Aulnets. Poor woman! How sad a life! My father used to say that she had a great heart. He would take me to see her from time to time, and, the first few times, I can still remember with what care he would ask me to be nice to her, not to appear to notice her horrible ugliness. 'You see,' he would say, 'she knows that she is hideous, and one must try to make her forget that terrible truth.' Why is this adorable goodness so rare? If Maurice had my father's delicacy, perhaps he would have made me forget that I can no longer be loved. Poor Mile Desileux! At first I found her quite repulsive, but when my father would say most casually, 'Angéline, kiss Mile Desileux,' I would do it courageously. And then how proud I was to hear him say to me that he was pleased with me; because I loved him tenderly, even when I was still very small, and

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whenever he showed himself satisfied with my behaviour, I was among the stars. He was of the opinion that too demonstrative an affection softens character, is prejudicial to the development of the will which so needs to be fortified; so, in spite of his extreme love for me, he was usually very sparing of caresses. But when I had satisfied him perfectly, he would show it in the most pleasant and tender way. Sometimes also, in spite of his great mastery over himself, there would escape from him sudden displays of tenderness with which I was overjoyed, and which proved to me how the restraint he imposed on himself must have weighed on him. I remember one day, when we were reading together the life of Mère Marie de l'Incarnation, he wept at that passage where her son says that she never kissed him — not even when she left for Canada, when she knew that she was seeing him for the last time. V É R O N I Q U E DESILEUX TO A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N Mademoiselle, I feel that my end is near and I gather my strength to write to you. When you receive this letter, I will be dead. May God allow that my words, coming from the tomb, bring you consolation! Oh, dear mademoiselle, how I have suffered from your sorrows! how happy I would be if I could assuage them, and prove to you my gratitude, for you and your father were good, really good to poor Véronique Desileux. And be sure, that loving word, that interest shown those denied all human sympathy are alms blessed by God.

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If you only knew how sweet kindness is to those who have never been loved! In the world, one seems to believe that unfortunate beings have no heart, and please Heaven it were so! I leave you everything I own: my farm and my furniture. Do with it as you wish — and I hope that you will remember me occasionally. If I could only tell you how I mourned for your father! may God forgive me ! in the madness of my grief, I wanted to do like the faithful dog who crawls to his master's grave and dies there. Then, still, I did not know to what extent he had been generous to this poor unfortunate one; it is only in the last few days that I have learned what I owe him. You should know that at my father's death, fifteen years ago, I would have been penniless if M. de Montbrun had exacted payment of what was due him. But learning that my father had been ruined, that all I had left was the farm at des Aulnets, and that it would have to be sold to pay him, he said: 'Poor girl; her life is already sad enough!' Then and there, he wrote out a receipt for the amount of the debt, signed it, and gave it to M. L—, making him promise to keep the secret. M. L— told me all this after I made out my will in his presence. 'In the condition you are in,' he said, 'this can no longer humiliate you.' And he is right. Dear mademoiselle, since I have learned all this, I have thought often about it. I am deeply grateful to your father for his interest in me, for the perfect courtesy with which he always treated me, and now, near death, I learn that I owe him quiet, independence, and the joy to be able to give often.

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Would that I were able to do something for you, his daughter! I am told that you have shown great courage, but I can imagine what agonizing regrets, what deadly sadness you hide under your calmness, and how many times I wept over you! Oh, if I could make you see that what passes is as nothing when one is facing death! You would soon be comforted. My hour is come, yours will come, and soon, 'because the hours may seem long, the years are always short.' Then you will understand the goal of life, and you will see what designs of mercy are hidden under the mysterious harshness of Providence. Now I see that my life could have been a life of blessings. Would that I had endured my sorrows better! At this hour when everything is escaping, how rich I would be! I have lived without friendship, without love. Even my father could not conceal the aversion I aroused in him. But if, accepting all the rejections, all the humiliations, with a humble and peaceful heart, I had placed them at the feet of Jesus Christ, with what confidence I would today say as did our Divine Lord, the day before His death: 'I have accomplished the work that thou hast given me to do. And now do thou, Father, glorify me with thyself.' Alas, I suffered badly ! But 'as much as heaven is above us, so much has it consolidated its mercy upon us.' I like to meditate upon these beautiful words as I look at the sky. Yes, I have hope. Don't be frightened, Our Lord told me when He came into my soul, do not fear. Ask me for forgiveness for not having known how to suffer for love of me, who have loved you to death on the cross. Oh, why did I not love Him? He, He would not have disdained my love.

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My dear child, I would very much have liked to see you before dying. But I was told that a trip of a few leagues was beyond your strength — that it was better to spare you painful emotions — and I did not dare send word for you to come. Still, it seems to me that this visit would not have been without use to you. Better than anyone I believe I understand what you are suffering. Poor child, so direly tested, these words from the Imitation could have been written for you: 'Jesus Christ wants to possess your heart alone, and reign there as a king on his throne.' An author I like says that we can exaggerate many things, but that we will never be able 'to exaggerate the love of Jesus Christ.' Meditate upon that sweet and deep truth. Think of the incomparable Friend. 'Make room for Him in your heart,' and He will be what neither father nor husband ever was. And now, my benefactor's dear daughter, adieu. Adieu, and courage. To suffer passes, but if you accept the divine will, to have suffered will never pass. Yours eternally. Véronique Desileux June 12 My God, give eternal happiness to the one who has suffered so much. Forgive her if sometimes she weakened under the weight of her terrible cross. I read her letter often. That voice which is no longer of this world makes me cry. Poor woman! Her memory does not leave me. The thought of what she suffered makes me forget my own grief.

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Last night I had a dream that has left me with a strange impression. I seemed to be in a cemetery. The grass was growing freely among the crosses, many of which were falling in ruins. I was walking aimlessly, thinking of the poor dead, when a new grave attracted my attention. As I was bending down to look at it, the earth, freshly turned over, became suddenly transparent as pure crystal, and I saw Véronique Desileux at the bottom. She seemed in deep meditation; under the sheet that covered them, her hands could be seen joined in eternal prayer. I was looking at her, invincibly attracted by the calm of the grave, by the quiet of death, and I was questioning her, I was asking her if she regretted having suffered, having ever inspired only pity. June 18 M. L— came to tell me that I am Mile Desileux's heir. I did not want to see him, but he so insisted that I agreed. Fortunately, this businessman is also a tactful man. None of those attentions which wound one's feelings, none of that compassion that hurts. Only, on leaving me he said, 'You have suffered much, and one can see that. Yet, you still look like your father.' Those words touched me. 0 dear likeness which was my mother's pride and his joy. M. L— spoke to me at length of my father's actions towards poor Mile Desileux, and told me about many of his traits which prove both a disinterested attitude and a delicacy which are

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rather rare. 'You can be sure,' he said, 'that there are many things we will never know.' Yes, he obeyed fully the divine law of charity. With what care he fulfilled that duty! I was only a child and already he was using me as a messenger for his alms. As a reward or as encouragement he would suggest some unfortunate person whose suffering I could assuage, and my worst punishment was to be prevented from giving. But he forgave quickly. And the sweetness of those moments when I would cry, in his arms, for having displeased him! June 22 I have been at des Aulnets since yesterday. Upon arriving, I went to visit Mile Desileux's grave, where already the grass is growing. The house had been closed since the funeral. Her old servant opened the door for me, and what impression I received from the funereal silence that permeates the place ! I hardly dared move through those darkened rooms where a few rays of light could barely penetrate through cracks in the closed shutters. Mad woman that I am! I came to strengthen myself by thinking on death, and I catch myself constantly thinking of Maurice, of what he will feel when he returns to Valriant — because he will return. I will leave him my house. What will the seals everywhere, the empty and dark rooms, the deep silence say to him? Will he be able to cross the threshold of that house, which he called 'his paradise,' without being troubled? Will not memories, sad and tender, rise everywhere before him? Will not the voice of the past make itself heard in that mournful silence?

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0 my God! I am falling into my weakness again. What matters it to me that he weeps for me! Will nothing pull me away from this fatal love? What! neither separation, nor time, nor religion, nor death ! — Woe is me! however much I tell myself that I no longer exist for him, I love him, as only the unfortunate ones can love. June 24 From my window I can see the cemetery and readily spot the place where Véronique Desileux is at rest. Her servant tells me that she used to spend hours here. As with all those doomed to isolation, she loved the sight of nature, and perhaps also that of the cemetery. Among the dead who sleep there, is there one who suffered more than she! Will we ever know what melancholy, what pain accumulates in the soul of the unhappy ones who are condemned to be always and everywhere ridiculed? What are the obvious misfortunes compared to those lives full of rebuffs, humiliations, wounded sensibilities? And hers was a passionate soul! Oh my God! How sorry I am that I did not come to see her! My presence might have made her last days easier. We would have talked of my father. The unhappy woman loved him, and nothing in the feelings of the happy ones of the world can make one guess how much. Whenever those poor, wounded, scorned hearts dare love, they worship. She never recovered from the news of his death, and I cannot think without crying of the fatal despondency in which she remained from then on. Last night, the servant told me many things as she turned her spinning-wheel in the kitchen attic. Sometimes she would stop

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abruptly and look furtively towards her mistress' room — this gave me the shivers. It seemed to me that I would see her appear again. What mystery death is! how this terrible disappearance is difficult to grasp! After my father's death, whenever someone said to Mile Desileux that in time I would be consoled, she would say covering her face: 'Never, never!' It is impossible to say how much sympathy she had for me. The very night she died she was bemoaning my grief, and said to the person who was with her: 'Tell her that she still has God.' 0 my friend, pray for me that I understand these words! What is life? 'However brilliant the play may be, the last act is always bloody. Dirt is finally dropped over your head, and that is it forever.' June 26 From my visit at des Aulnets I brought back Tout pour Jésus, a book beloved by Mile Desileux; and, my God, with what emotion I read the following page which in the margin had the date of my father's death ! 'Look upon this soul which has just heard its judgment: hardly has Jesus finished speaking, the sound of his sweet voice has not yet died down, and those who weep have not yet closed the eyes of the body from which life has escaped: yet judgment is passed, all is consummated; it was short but merciful. What am I saying? merciful: the word does not say what it really was. Let imagination find the right word. Some day, please God, we ourselves will have that sweet experience. That soul must be very strong not to sink under the weight of feelings that invade it; it needs God's support not to be annihilated. Its life is passed; how short it was!

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its death has come; how sweet its agony of a moment! how the trials seem weakness, the sorrows misery, the afflictions childishness. And now it has obtained a happiness that will never end. Jesus has spoken, doubt is no longer possible. What is that happiness? The eye has not seen it, the ear has not heard it. It sees God, eternity spreads itself before it in its infinity. Darkness has passed away, weakness has disappeared, there is no longer time, which formerly made her despair. No more ignorance; it sees God, its intelligence feels itself flooded by unspeakable delights, it has drawn new strength which the imagination cannot conceive; it gorges itself on this vision, in the presence of which all the science of the world is only darkness and ignorance. Its will swims in a river of love; just as a sponge fills itself with the waters of the sea, it fills itself with light, beauty, happiness, rapture, immortality, God. These are only vain words, lighter than feathers, weaker than water; they cannot really even hint at the shadow of the happiness of that soul. And we are still here! o boredom! o sadness!' A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N TO M I N A D A R V I L L E You have not forgotten our trip to des Aulnets, nor the poor, misshapen Mile Desileux. She is no longer, and after her death I was given a letter from her that will not be without its use. Mina, how that unlucky person loved us, my father and me! and how she suffered ! It is over, now the earth has been trampled over her poor body, and as for me, there is Véronique Desileux among these dear shades that one drags behind oneself as one advances through life.

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I received both your letters; many things touched me deeply. You know how much he pitied you in his last hour, and willingly I would say as he did: 'Poor little Mina!' Your brother has sent me a lock of your hair. Thank him for me, and convince him not to write to me again. What is the use! Dear sister, I cannot look without emotion at those beautiful brown curls which you used to set so well. Who could have told us that some day that superb hair would fall under the monastic scissors? that a whimple of white linen would frame your pretty face? My dear worldling of yesteryears, how I would like to see you under your black veil. So, now you are consecrated to God, obliged to love Our Lord with the love of a virgin and wife. What is said against perpetual vows revolts me. Shame to the heart which, once it loves, can anticipate that it will cease to love. My friend, I sleep very little, and when I hear the clock striking four o'clock, memories of you come back to me. My fond thought follows you down the long corridors of the convent of the Ursulines. I have attended the prayers of the nuns. I liked to see them motionless in their stalls, with all heads, young and old, lowered at the thought of eternity. Eternity, that shoreless sea, that bottomless abyss where we will all be engulfed ! If I could only get that thought thoroughly into my mind! But I don't know what great weight ties me to the earth. Where are the wings of my childhood candour? Then I would feel myself lifted high by love. My soul, like a captive bird, sought always to rise. Oh! the great charm of those childish dreams of God, of the other life.

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I loved my father with a burning affection, and yet I would have left him for my heavenly father. Mina, it was still then the total grace of my baptism. Now, the Christian woman, blinded by her faults, no longer understands what a child's innocence understood. Mina, I have seen near at hand the abyss of despair. Neither God nor my father is pleased with me, and that thought adds still more to my sadness. In your cheerful chapel of the Ursulines, I liked particularly the Saints' alcove, where I prayed better than anywhere else. During my stay as a boarder, I would light a candle every day so that the Holy Virgin would bring my father back safe and sound, and now I would like to have a light burning night and day at the feet of Our Lady of Great Power so that she might bring me to him. I am delighted that you are sacristan. You are so good at making bouquets. What beautiful baskets of flowers I would send you if you were not so far away. My dear Mina, be blessed for the tender memorial you give to my father. Since your position allows you to enter the church, I beg you don't spend a day without kneeling on the slab that covers him. That tomb, so narrow, so cold, so dark — I have it before my eyes all the time. You say that in heaven he is nearer to me than ever before. Mina, heaven is very high, very far, and I am a poor creature. You cannot imagine to what extent I miss him, and the need, the irresistible need that I have to feel pressed to his heart. Time can do nothing for me. As Eugénie de Guérin said, great sorrows go on deepening as the sea. And did she know it as I do! She could not love her brother as I loved my father. She was not entirely dependent on him. And then nothing had prepared me

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for my misfortune. He had all the vigour, buoyancy, charm of youth. His life was so active, calm, sound, and his health perfect. Without that fatal accident! It may be 'the perfidy of pain,' but I always come back to that. My friend, you know that I don't complain readily, but your friendship is so faithful, your sympathy so tender, that with you my heart opens up in spite of myself. My health is improving. Who knows how long I will live. Beg in my name for peace, that supreme good of dead hearts. July I Pourquoi dans mon esprit revenez-vous sans cesse! 0 jours de mon enfance et de mon allégresse? Qui donc toujours vous rouvre en nos cœurs presque éteints. 0 lumineuse fleur des souvenirs lointains? [Why do you ceaselessly return to my mind, o days of my childhood and of my gladness? Who unfolds you always in our nearly-extinguished hearts, o shining flower of our distant memories?] Among my father's papers I found many of my school workbooks which he kept; and how that brought me back to those blessed days when I worked under his eyes, surrounded, filled by his warm affection. What cares would he not take to make studying pleasant. He wanted me to grow up happy, gay, in the freedom of the country, among the greenery and the flowers, and for that he did not hesitate to sacrifice his own likes and habits. The sight of those workbooks touched me deeply. I wept for a long time. 0 the blessing of tears! Sometimes that divine spring dries up completely. Then I remain immersed in my mournful

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sadness. In vain then do I seek my good feelings, my courageous resolutions. Pain, that virile friend, elevates and strengthens, but sadness ruins the soul. How can one shelter oneself from this consuming listlessness? I hardly live in the present, and in order not to look at the future, which appears to me as a mournful and desolate solitude, I think of the past that is altogether gone. So the shipwrecked who has only space before him turns around and in his mortal distress questions the sea where no wreckage floats. Yes, everything has disappeared. 0 my God, leave me the bitter pleasure of tears!

JulyS I should not read Méditations. That soft and tender voice has too many echoes in my heart. I get drunk on that dangerous melancholy, on those passionate regrets. Foolish woman! I pray for peace and I seek trouble. I am like a wounded person who would have a bitter pleasure in aggravating his wounds, in seeing blood flow from them. Where will this painful restiveness lead me? I feebly try to get hold of myself by enjoying the charming sights of the country, but Le soleil des vivants n'échauffe plus les morts. [The sun of the living no longer warms the dead.] July 6 Forgetting! is it a good thing? Can I desire it? Forgetting that one has carried within oneself the shining whiteness of baptism, and the divine beauty of perfect innocence. 103

Forgetting the unbearable shame of the first sin, the salutary bitterness of the first remorse. Forgetting the harsh and strengthening savour of renunciation, the deep joys, the spiritual terrors of faith. Forgetting the yearnings for the infinite, the blessed sweetness of tears, the delightful dreams of the virginal soul, the first look upon the future, that enchanted remoteness illumined by love. Forgetting the sacred joys of the heart, the cruel rending and the illumination of sacrifice, the revelation of pain. Forgetting the lights from above; the rays that escape from the grave; the voices that come from the earth when a deeply-loved one has disappeared there. Forgetting that one has been the object of incomparable affection; that one has believed in the immortality of love. Forgetting that enthusiasm has caused the heart to beat faster; that the soul was moved before the beauty of nature; that it was touched by the frost-bitten flower, by the nest on which snow was falling, by the brook that ran through denuded trees. Forgetting! letting the past close over its abyss on the best part of oneself! Keeping nothing from it! Seeing disappear from one's thought as from one's life those one has loved! feeling them falling in dust in one's heart! No, consolation is not there.

July 7 Consolation is to be found in accepting the will of God, in thinking of the joy of meeting again, in knowing that I loved him as much as I could. In what delightful closeness we lived together! I spared no effort to please him; but I knew that involuntary offences are

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inevitable, and to erase all traces, I would rarely leave him at night without asking for his forgiveness. Dear and sweet custom which brought me back towards him the day before his death. When I think of that day of the 19th! How happily foolish we were, Mina and I! Never was such a dire day preceded by such a gay one. How I have thanked God, since, to have led me to my father: that last conversation will remain a highlight of my life. I found him reading quietly. Nox was asleep at his feet before the hearth, where the fire was dying out. I remember stopping at the door to take in the charming sight of the room. He loved flowers and I used to put them everywhere. Through the open window, I could see through the leaves, the smooth sea, the radiant sky. Without raising his eyes from his book, my father asked me what the matter was. I came closer, and, kneeling before him as I often did, I told him that I would not be able to go to sleep unless I knew that no shadow of coldness had come between us, unless I had asked him for forgiveness, if I had been unfortunate enough to displease him in any way. I can still see his look, half amused, half moved. He kissed my hair, calling me 'his dear foolish girl,' and asked me to sit down to talk. He was in one of his playful moods, and at those times his voice, undulating and light, had a peculiar charm. I never knew anyone whose gaiety was more catching. But that evening something solemn was oppressing me. I was moved without knowing why. Everything I owed him was coming to mind. It seemed that I had never really appreciated his admirable tenderness. I felt a need to thank him, to cherish him. Midnight rang. Never had knell sounded so ominous, given me such a funereal impression. A vague and terrible fear invaded me. That room, so beautiful, so gay, suddenly appeared to me as a tomb.

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I got up to hide my confusion and moved towards the window. The tide had receded, but the faint sound of the waves could still reach me from time to time. I was trying resolutely to steady my heart, because I did not want to sadden my father. He started walking back and forth in the room as was his wont. Tintoretto's Daughter was in full light. Passing by, his eyes fell on that painting which he loved, and a pained shadow fell across his face. After a few more turns, he stopped before it and looked at it dreamily and with a melancholy air. I was observing him without daring to follow his thought. Our eyes met and tears came to his eyes. He stretched out his arms and sobbed: '0 my supreme possession! o my Tintorella!' I burst into tears. That sudden and extraordinary emotion, answering my secret anguish, scared me, and I exclaimed: 'My God! my God! What will happen?' He recovered immediately, and tried to reassure me, but I could feel the violent beating of my heart, as he repeated in his calmest voice: 'It is nothing, it is nothing, it is only sympathy for poor Jacques Robusti.' As I was still crying and shivering in his arms, he carried me to the settee near the fire; then he closed the window and put a few more logs on the embers. Flames soon shot up warm and bright. Returning near me he asked me why I was so shaken. I admitted all my fears. 'Bah!' he said lightly, 'nerves.' And as I insisted, saying that he too had felt the nearness of misfortune, he added: 'I had an emotional moment, but you know, Mina says that I have an artist's temperament.' He teased me, reasoned with me, wheedled me, and as I remained confused, he drew me to him and asked me: 'My child,

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if I your father had the complete ordering of your future, would you be terrified?' Then, starting from there, he spoke to me tenderly about the foolishness, the absurdity of defying God. His faith was penetrating me as a force. The vague, horrible fear disappeared. Never, no never had I felt so deeply loved. Yet I understood — with what clarity — that nothing in human affection can even hint at what God's love for his creatures really is. 0 my God, your grace was preparing me for the most terrible sacrifice. It is my fault, my grievous fault, if the bright light, which was then rising in my soul, has not grown to this day. Funny thing! the odor of the heliotrope always brings me back to that sacred hour — the last of my happiness. That night he had one in his buttonhole, and that perfume has remained forever mingled with my memories of that evening, the last he spent on earth.

JulyS Even if I were to live a long time, never will I shed my black dress, never will I do away with my mourning clothes. After my mother's death he consecrated me to the Virgin, and for as long as I can remember I always wore her colours. Could she forget it? It is for my orphan's veil that I have forsaken her garb, which I was to leave only at my marriage. Those virginal colours pleased everyone, my father in particular. He used to say that never a day went by that he did not remind the Holy Virgin that I belonged to her.

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July 10 On the Tuesday before his death, early, we had climbed the cape. Nothing is as beautiful as the morning of a beautiful day, and I never saw the sun rise so radiantly as that morning. Around us, everything was resplendent, everything was radiant. But, indifferent to this ravishing spectacle, my father remained sunk in deep meditation. I asked him what he was looking at within himself, and answering my question with a question, as was his wont, he said: 'Do you think sometimes of the conflagration of love which the sight of God will light in our soul?' I was not disposed to follow him in those elevated regions and I answered gaily: 'In the meantime, press me to your heart.' 'My poor child,' he then went on, 'we are of this earth, but a moment ago that thrill of nature at the rising of the sun moved me deeply and my whole soul bounded towards God.' His facial expression struck me. His eyes were shining with a light I had never seen there. Was it the light of eternity which he was beginning to see? He was so near it — and with what comfort I have remembered that, listening to the story St Augustine left us of his rapture at looking at the sky and at the Sea of Ostia with his mother. I like St Augustine, that feeling heart, who wept so profusely at the death of his mother and of his friend. One day, speaking of superstitions, 'the son of so many tears' said: 'No, the dead don't come back to us'; his loving soul gives the touching reason: 'I would certainly have seen my mother again.' Poor girl that I am, I too can say the same: the dead don't come back, for I would have seen my father. He was so compassionate at my least sorrow; he was like a lost soul whenever I was away from him.

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So many grieved summonses, so many passionate entreaties, and yet always inexorable silence, the silence of death. July 12 I love to see the sun go down through the great trees of the forest, which is already shedding its dress of light to put on its shadows. On the horizon the clouds grow pale. There is an expression that says: beautiful as a cloudless sky; and yet, how beautiful clouds are when they take the fiery colours of the night! A while ago, admiring those brightly coloured groupings, I was thinking of what God's love can do with our sorrows, since the light can turn darkened vapours into marvellous adornments for the sky. Whenever the weather is fine at the fall of night, I walk in my beautiful garden — the garden, as Maurice used to say, that is so beautiful that only lovers should be allowed to enter it. It is charming to hear the birds calling each other in the trees. Before returning to their nests some come to drink or swim on the edge of the brook. That brook, which drops from the mountain in such torrents, flows peacefully here; it is a pleasure to follow its gracious windings. It seems that it cannot decide to leave the garden; I love that whisper among the flowers: Les images de ma jeunesse S'élèvent avec cette voix: Elles m'inondent de tristesse Et je me souviens d'autrefois. [The memories of my youth rise with that voice; they flood me with sadness and I recall the past.]

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July 13 My canary is bored; he beats his wings against the window panes. Poor little one! having wings and not being able to use them! Who does not know that frustration? Who has not run against some painful limits? Who does not know the torment of powerless aspirations? July 15 I have given the farm at des Aulnets to Marie Desroches and I was glad to sign that deed. What would I have done with that property? Perhaps I am already too rich, and besides, if his death had not been so sudden, I am sure my father would have left something to his pretty goddaughter whom he loved. That farm insures a happy and peaceful old age for her father; he now has a secure future. Her own happiness is heart-warming to see. July 16 Every Sunday after Vespers, Paul and Marie pay me a visit, a little I think, because of affection for me and more because of attachment for the canary, which still shows them a slight preference, of which they are very proud. Those nice children are charming in their first communion clothes. Marie particularly looks good enough to eat, with her white dress and the pretty blue prayer beads as a necklace. Paul is getting accustomed to see her so pretty, but the first few times he was dazzled. On the day of their first communion, I invited them to dinner and, having left them alone for a moment, I found them looking at each other admiringly. These delightful children often

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bring me corallorhize* for my flower baskets. Marie can relate their adventures very well. The other day, on going to fetch their cow, they had sat on a big rock to rest when a large snake crawled from under the rock. Marie thought her last hour had arrived and started to run, but Paul keeping his composure got her to climb on a fence. Then he walked resolutely towards the rock and stoned the snake and its young to death. There were seven. Marie still shudders at the thought of having been so close to a nest of snakes. Since that day, her little brother has assumed the stature of a hero. 'He is afraid of nothing,' she says with conviction, and Paul exults modestly. I love those children. Their conversation leaves behind something fresh and sweet. I would gladly satisfy their every wish, but then their visits might be self-seeking; so usually I only give them some wine for their grandmother. They go away quite happy. July 20 The dazzling day saddens me strangely, but I like the golden half-light, the tender and soft light of twilight. In spite of the permanent sadness at the bottom of my soul, the beauty of nature sometimes carries me into delicious reveries. But one must go back inside, and then the feeling of isolation comes back with renewed force. At times, I have the irresistible urge to see and hear Maurice again. I have to make a desperate effort not to write to him: Come. And faithful to his word, he would come...

* A flower that grows among the moss in pine forests [author's note]

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July 21 Was my beauty the only thing he loved in me? Oh, that cruel discovery of the soul. That has remained in my heart of hearts like a sharp, intolerable pain. What can time, what can reason do for me? I am a woman who needs to be loved. Sometimes I must make a terrible effort to bear the attentions of my servants. And yet they are attached to me, and has not the most humble affection its value? My God, may I be able to conquer myself, may I not be ungrateful, may I make no one suffer. July 23 Beautiful weather. For the first time I had a swim in the sea, which brought a few minutes of serenity. At one time, I was the best bather in the country — the queen of the beaches, Maurice used to say. Since my mourning, I had not seen my beach house nor this peaceful and wild spot where I came for the last time with Mina. I found it different. The cove still has its beautiful sand, its shells, its windings, its belt of rocks at the water's edge. But the beautiful knoll which sheltered my shack is being eroded by the sea. A cedar has already fallen and the two strong pines whose shade I used to like watching in the water are leaning towards the ground, undermined by the waves. That led me to thoughts the sadness of which had its sweetness. 'A mountain ends up crumbling to dust, and a rock is finally torn from its place. The sea pits the stones and little by little eats the shore away. Will not those who live in mud houses be the soonest destroyed?'

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July 25 I like to get near the poor, the humble, that is to say, the strong who carry so valiantly such heavy loads. Often I visit a poor woman left with no other resource but her courage to bring up her three children. The unfortunate woman saw her husband perish almost under her eyes. The sea has kept the body, but a few hours after the shipwreck, the storm threw on the shore the debris from the boat with the fisherman's oars; and the widow has crossed the oars in the beams above the black wooden cross which adorns the whitewashed wall of her poor home. I am strangely attracted to that young woman. She never complains, but one can feel that she has suffered. The rough and endless work, privations of all kinds, are not the most difficult things for her to endure. But she accepts everything. 'One must earn heaven,' she tells me once in a while. There is something on that pale and sweet face which strengthens, elevates the mind. What unknown virtues will shine on the great day! What hidden majesty will be displayed among those whom the world ignores or scorns! One day, Ignatius of Loyola asked Jesus Christ who, at that moment, was most agreeable to Him on earth, and Our Lord answered that it was a poor widow who earned her bread and that of her children by spinning. My father used to find this trait charming, and used to say: 'When I see poverty despised, I am torn between indignation and the desire to laugh.' July 26 For a long time, I stood looking at the sea, neat, high, and perfectly calm. It is as beautiful as a passionate heart at rest. To

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upset the sea, a storm is needed, but to trouble a heart to the very bottom, what is necessary? — alas, a nothing, a shadow. Sometimes, everything acts upon us, even the smoke that rises in the sky, even the leaf that the wind carries. Why all this? is it not with emotion as with those strong and dangerous currents which circulate everywhere and the nature of which remains a deep mystery? God does not give to everyone a keen and deep sensibility. Many hearts are not moved by suffering or love, and time erases impressions in them as easily as the waves wash away footprints in the sand. It is said that the deepest heart finally wears itself out. Is it true? Then it is a poor consolation. Nothing on earth has ever grown out of ashes — the extinguished edges of a volcano are forever sterile. Not a flower, or moss will ever be seen there. Snow can hide the frightening barrenness of the mountain, but nothing can ever make beautiful again a life laid waste by a powerful flame. These ruins are sad: what fire does not destroy, it blackens. July 27 A well-intentioned lady has insisted on seeing me, and has written to me that she would not leave without speaking some consoling words to me. Poor woman! She strikes me as the type of woman who expects to sweeten the bitterness of the sea with a drop of water at the end of her finger. May I be left in peace ! July 28 It is strange how my health is improving. My strong constitution is getting the upper hand again and often I wonder with terror

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whether I am not sentenced to grow old — to grow old in isolation of soul and heart. My courage fails at the thought. To distract myself, I take long walks every day. I come back tired and this makes me enjoy my rest. But how sad it is to live with a full heart in an empty house. 0 my father, on the day of your death, mourning entered here forever. Sometimes I think of travelling. But it would always be to someplace where no one awaits me. Moreover, I cannot leave Valriant, where everything brings back to mind my past, so sweet, so full, so sacred. As much as possible I live outdoors. The countryside is at its magnificent best, but it is a time of ripeness, and it seems that nature feels the hour of despoliation coming. Already it collects itself and is sometimes saddened, as a beautiful woman who sees her youth fleeing and who thinks of the coming of wrinkles and loss of beauty. August 2 Today I went horseback riding. Now that my strength has returned, I would like to get back to my old habits. Besides, violent exercise calms me and is good for me. Mounting that noble animal which my father loved, I felt a great weight on my heart, but the speed of the gallop numbed me. Coming back I was tired and I had to slow my beautiful Sultan to a walking pace. Then thoughts, sad and tender, invaded me. I regret now that I did not write something down when my life was like delightful days of spring, when the air is fresh, the grass tender, the light pure. I would enjoy reading those pages again. I would find there a perfume of the past. Now all charm has gone; I see everything only with eyes that have wept. But there are

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memories of happiness that come back obstinately like that wreckage that keeps floating. August 4 Since my walk, my thoughts keep turning towards La Malbaie. I have an uncontrollable desire to go there, but why? To see again a place where I was nearly killed. It is at the edge of a rocky road, on the side of a hill; there is dogwood along the fence and here and there young alders which must have grown by now. If Maurice went by there, would he remember? And yet if I had died then, what emptiness, what sorrow there would be in his life and in his heart! That was three years ago. Coming back from a trip to the Saguenay, we had stopped at La Malbaie. My father, Maurice, and I, as much at ease on a horse as in an armchair, used to go on long outings and one day we went as far as Port-au-Persil, a wild and charming place, some five or six leagues from La Malbaie. On our way back, a storm caught us unawares. The rain was falling so hard that Maurice and I decided to seek shelter somewhere and we were waiting for my father, whom we had outdistanced, when a flash of lightning burned our faces. Almost simultaneously thunder clapped over our heads and crashed into a tree a few steps from me. Our frightened horses reared wildly; I was not able to hold mine — and he took off. It was a mad, terrible race. I could hardly breathe; my ears were ringing horribly; I felt dizzy. Still, through the rumblings of the thunder, I could make out Maurice's voice which kept saying, 'Don't be afraid.' I was holding on, but at the bottom of a hill, at a turn in the road, my horse swerved abruptly, turned, jumped over a large

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rock, and, terrified, took off again. Maurice had jumped to the ground and was waiting. When I saw him lunge, I thought that the horse would run him down; but he grabbed it by the nostrils and stopped him sharply. That moment of anguish had been horrible. All my strength left me, I dropped the reins, and fell. In one bounce Maurice was near me. Fortuitously but happily I had fallen in some bushes which had broken my fall. I was not hurt at all. I was only shaken up. My father arrived at full gallop, worried almost to death. In one glance he realized what had happened and, in voiceless joy, he took us both in his arms. 0 my God, you know it, his first words were to thank you! And the sweetness of that moment! Worn out with fatigue and emotion I was unable to walk. Rain was still falling in torrents. My father picked me up like a feather and carried me to a nearby house, where we were welcomed warmly. I was drenched to the skin; fearing a chill, they had me change clothes. A young girl placed her whole wardrobe at my disposal. I chose a dress of white flanelette. As it did not fit me too well, the mistress of the house opened a chest and pulled out a pretty blue shawl — her wedding shawl, she told me as she carefully wrapped it around me. 'You nearly had it,' the worthy woman kept saying; 'if you had fallen in the rocks, you were dead.' 'Or disfigured for life,' added the young girl, who seemed to think that much worse. 'The man who stopped your horse, is he your beau?' she whispered in my ear.

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When I had tidied up, she gave me a small mirror and naively asked if I was not happy to be so beautiful — if I could stand the misfortune of being disfigured. Coming out of the room, I found my father and Maurice. Oh! that beautiful light shining in their eyes. In spite of their dripping clothes, both seemed very happy. The storm had stopped. The countryside, refreshed by the rain, was resplendent in the sun. Moisture sparkled on every blade of grass, and fell from the trees in shining drops. The air, wonderful to breathe, carried whiffs of the healthy scent of new-mown hay and the aromatic smell of the trees. Never had nature appeared to me more beautiful. Standing by the window, I was looking out, moved, dazzled. The immense and magnificent panorama, where in the distance the sparkling sea was merging with the sky, appeared to me as a vision of the future. 'My God,' I was thinking, 'how good it is to be alive!' Seated on a stool at my feet, Maurice was looking at me, and in a low voice I said to him, 'Thank you.' A flash of joy lit up his face, but he remained silent. 'See how beautiful everything is,' I said. He smiled and answered in Italian, a language he was fond of, 'Beatrice was looking at the sky, and I was looking at Beatrice.' August 7 Near Pointe-aux-Cèdres, in a gully without shade, greenery, water, a newly-married couple have settled. They have bought and repaired, after a fashion, a wretched shanty which was falling in ruins and they live there happily. Happiness is within us, and who

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knows if the magic of love cannot make a poor hut as pleasant as Calypso's grotto. I often walk by that gully. I take in those newly weds an interest of which they are unaware. This afternoon I was watching the young woman preparing supper. When the weather is fine, three stones set in a tripod near the door serve as a hearth, and a few dry branches are enough to cook the meal. She is attractive and wears her blond hair in the Swiss fashion, in thick braids at the back. It is charming to see her sitting on a log in front of her humble fire, watching her soup, while knitting. I imagine she has no clock, for she often looks up at the sun — o charm of the waiting! I am sadder still when I see her. Is it that I would want no more happy people on earth? Happy! — yes they are, for they have love, and that is everything. I sent them a message that they are welcome to come and pick up fruits and flowers, as often as they wish. August 8 Everyone has gone to bed, except my dear old Monique, who insists that I need care and who turns a deaf ear to orders that she go to bed. But she makes no more noise than a shadow. Everything is peaceful around me. The perfume of the beach — that scent that Maurice loved so much — reaches me, penetrating and sharp. Over there, on the silvery waves, one can see fiery sparks running. But the sea is calm, strangely calm, and I hear only the murmur of the brook, through the garden, and here and there the rustle of the leaves in the light breeze. Who has not felt close to tears in the calm of the countryside half immersed in darkness? who hasn't lent a charmed ear to

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those divine silences, to those vague and wavering murmurs of the night? My God, I need to forget how beautiful the earth is! Daylight distracts me somewhat, but at night the soul opens itself entirely to reverie, and the heart is troubled, the imagination expands everywhere, with its flashing flow of sadness. Vainly I try to look at the sky. Calm waters are needed to reflect its beauty, and my soul 'N'est plus qu'une onde obscure où le sable a monté' [is only darkened water where the sand has been disturbed]. August 9 In isolation, when the soul is still completely and keenly sensitive, there is a strange sensual delight in the memories that tear the heart and make one weep. I surround myself with those dear memories of tenderness and sorrow, wrap myself in them, become imbued with them, or rather they are the very soul of my life. This behaviour is not wise, I know; yet, who does not love the storm more than the flat calm — that terrible calm which destroys, which annihilates the proudest bravery. August 15 I am ashamed of myself. What has happened to my courage? what has happened to my will? Never, no never would I have believed that the soul could revert into the nerve ends. I cannot stay still. I am thoroughly incapable of any work, of any steadiness whatever. In spite of myself, my book and my work drop out of my hand. Everything

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moves me, troubles me, and even in the presence of my servants, burning tears fill my eyes. 0 father! What would you think of me? you so noble! so proud! But I cannot help it. As I regain my strength, the need to see him again grows terribly in my heart. Prayer now offers only a very temporary relief, or rather I no longer know how to pray, I only know how to listen to my despairing heart. 0 my God! forgive me. These passionate regrets, these devouring sorrows, they are the mad complaints of this testing life. I would not know how to stop them from growing. 0 my God, tear away and burn, I beg of you, I entreat you. Ah, how many times, during the terrible days I have just lived through, have I not fallen at your feet. I am afraid of myself, and I spend long hours in church. 0 Lord Jesus, you know that it is not you I want, it is not for your love that I thirst, and even in your ardent presence, my thoughts go astray. Yesterday, there was a raging wind, a frightening storm. Kneeling in church, my face hidden in my hands, I was listening to the noise of the sea, which was still less agitated than my heart. In the deepest recesses of my soul, strange wild sorrows were answering the roars of the waves on the lonely beach and at times convulsive sobs would tear my breast. The church was empty. A humble tallow candle, lit by the wife of a poor fisherman, was burning on a long wooden candlestick, before the picture of the Virgin. 0 Mary! stretch out your soft hand to those whom the abyss wants to swallow. 0 Virgin! o Mother! have pity.

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August 17 If once again I could hear him, it seems that I would have the strength to withstand anything. His voice always acted powerfully and wonderfully on me, and alone it could have pulled me out of that despondency, so near death, in which I was sunk after the funeral of my father. As long as I had had his adored face before my eyes, a mysterious strength had sustained me. His hand, his dear hand, which had blessed me — it was still warm when I joined it to his left hand in which he held the crucifix. In bitter peace, I kissed his face, so calm, so beautiful, and to obey him even in death, I kept repeating, 'May the will of God be done!' But when I no longer saw anything of him, not even his casket, the exaltation of sacrifice dropped. Without a thought, a word, a tear, unable to understand anything or to endure even the light of day, I spent days and nights stretched out on my bed, all shutters closed. As I was lying in that depression which resisted all and which left no hope, suddenly a voice arose like that of an angel. In spite of my extreme state of prostration, the song reached me, but muffled as if from very far. And the gloomy weight which was crushing me was lifting; I was coming back to life because of this song, so tender, so penetrating. In my gloomy mind, it was the voice of the Christian who, from the depths of the tomb, was singing his immortal love and imperishable hope; it was the voice of one of the elects who, from on high, was singing the gratefulness and the divine joy of those who are comforted. It seemed to me that my father's love had vanquished the terrible silence of death, the unutterable suffering of eternal separation, and how often I have wished to relive that

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hour. That unforgettable hour, so strange and so sweet, when I came back to life, soothed by a divine melody. The song kept on. I was listening as if heaven had opened, and there came a moment when I would have died, under the excess of emotion, had not tears relieved my heart. They flowed copiously, and as they flowed I felt within myself a soothing calm. 'Maurice, Maurice,' Mina cried, 'she lives.' Then I saw the light; I understood, and I asked to see Maurice. 'He will come,' said the doctor, who was holding my hand, 'he will come, if you will drink this and allow us to let some light in here.' In spite of dreadful loathing, I swallowed what he was offering me. The shutters were opened and I hid my face in the pillows, so as not to see the sunlight which I despised because my father would not see it again. Maurice came, and kneeling by the side of my bed, he spoke to me, spoke words to me which today he would seek in vain. He begged me to look at him and I could not resist his wish. '0 dear child! o my beloved!' he moaned as he saw my face. His face was as if burnt by his tears. Mina also seemed very changed. They were both in deep mourning, and I cannot go back to that hour without an emotion which makes me forget everything else. Then I could feel our souls inextricably bound. I felt myself loved — loved with that infinite tenderness which stirs the heart, makes it give itself up. At that time I believed that a shared suffering was a keen force which bound souls forever. To relieve my sadness, how many times Maurice sang to me! Now, I will never hear again that entrancing voice which made one forget the earth — that celestial singing which consoled as it made one cry.

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August 18 I dreamt that I was hearing him sing Ton souvenir est toujours là' and since — o madness! madness! I am nothing to him. He does not love me any more; he will never love me again. Yet, at the moment of leaving, of parting from me forever, he told me: 'Angeline, if you change your mind about this unjust, mad decision, all you have to do is write to me. Remember that.' No, I will not call him back! No doubt he would come, but one does not go to the altar crowned with wilted roses. To be loved as before or unhappy forever. August 19 People keep telling me that I should distract myself. Distract myself! How? The depth of my misery is very little understood. Life can be for me no more than a ghastly solitude, a frightful desert. What does the whole world mean to me since I will never see it again? August 20 How a powerful sentiment strips one, removes one from everything! That is why well-directed love makes saints. May God have pity on me! He means very little to me, and the thought of His love dispels my gloom for hardly more than a moment. That thought is for me only as a fleeting bolt of lightning in the dark night. August 21 I looked at an old picture of myself for a long time and that has left me in a violent state which humiliates me. 124

When I had beauty, I was little concerned with it. Remoteness from the world, the virile education I had received, had saved me from vanity. My father used to say that to love someone for his exterior was like loving a book for its binding. Whenever there was a death in the neighbourhood he would say: 'Come, come see what one loves when one loves the body.!' But, however fragile, however fleeting, is not beauty a great

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August 23 Ah! the sadness of these walls. At times, they seem to be oozing sadness and coldness. And yet, I love this house where I have been so happy — dear house where sorrow has entered forever! 'Woe to him who, in the depth of his heart, wishes to die as long as there is a sacrifice to be performed, needs to be provided for, tears to be dried!' August 24 There is a high wind and rain. All the windows are closed, and, alone before the fireplace, Je regarde le feu qui brûle à petit bruit, Et j'écoute mugir l'aquilon de la nuit. [I look at the fire that burns with a slight noise, and I listen to the north wind roaring in the night.] The voice of the sea rises above all others. The high waves which resound and which come nearer flood me with sadness.

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August 25 Putting some papers in order, I found a frightful drawing of Maurice which vividly brought back to me one of the happiest moments of my life. How far that is! Those gay memories, whenever they come to me, remind me of those poor discoloured leaves which hang from the trees, forsaken by the autumn winds. August 26 What does Mina mean? I don't dare fathom her words, or rather her letter is always before my eyes and I think about it constantly. Is he thinking? No, I cannot write it! Should I not have been expecting it? Is he not free? However much he objected, did I not release him from his promise? Who knows how far a man can carry indifference and forgetfulness? A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N TO M I N A D A R V I L L E Dear Mina, I would have waited for a moment of serenity before answering you; but that would take too long. Besides, Marc wants you to know that he has been ill for some time. 4 I harnessed her horse many times,' he was just telling me; 'and I enjoyed running errands for her.' He likes to talk about you, and always ends up by saying philosophically: 'Who would have thought that such a beautiful, worldly woman would become a nun?'

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I am inclined to think that he pictured nuns as always walking with downcast eyes and wearing the great shawl in all seasons. Your entering the convent has upset that picture. Dear friend, you suggest I travel now that my health permits it. I think about it sometimes, but really I cannot drag myself away from here. My heart is rooted here. Besides, it seems to me that regular, serious, sustained work is a surer refuge than distractions. Unfortunately, finding absorbing occupations is sometimes very difficult. But as my father used to say, a strong will can do many things. I want to remain worthy of him. It is not necessary to say that I look after the needy. And, great God! what would I become if misfortune did not make me love those who suffer? But there is this excess of emotion which weighs on me. Loneliness of the heart is the supreme test. You are right, your brother's situation is very sad. Has he not thought of changing it? and who would blame him? Dear sister of my tears, believe that in the best part of my heart, I wish that he would forget and be happy. August 28 Why is it that the thought that he loves someone else shakes me so much? Would I want him to condemn himself to a life of loneliness and sadness? Am I not unjust, unreasonable, in holding him responsible for the involuntary change in his heart? a change that he wanted to hide from all eyes — that he wanted to hide from himself. Poor Maurice! And yet how he has loved me! Would it not be a great shallowness of heart to forget what I received from him, to think only of what more he could have given me?

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August 29 Nothing is impossible to God. He could tear me away from the love that is my torment. Montaiembert tells the story about his dear St Elizabeth, who prayed to God to be relieved of her love for her children. Her prayer was answered and she could say: 'My children are as strangers to me.' But I will never make such a prayer. Even if I were to die from it — I want to love him. August 30 Yes, they were beautiful days. Never a shadow of a doubt, never the least feeling of jealousy came near us, and, whatever may be said, security is essential to happiness. Many, I know, don't think that way; but an uneasy and troubled love seems to me a miserable feeling. At least it is a rich source of suffering and anxiety. I hate resentments, suspicions, affectations, and everything that harasses the heart. Maurice thought as I do. On the eve of his departure for Europe, he said to me, with some nobility: 'I fear from you neither inconsistancy nor suspicions. I believe in you, and I know that you believe in me.' Yes, I believed in him. Why could I not always believe in him? His word given, it was a proud and deep bondage; but it is sad to have only ashes in the hearth. August 31 Tu m'appelles ta vie, appelle-moi ton âme, Je veux un nom de toi qui dure plus d'un jour.

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La vie est peu de chose, un souffle éteint sa flamme. Mais l'âme est immortelle, ainsi que notre amour. [You call me your life; call me your soul, I want from you a name that lasts more than a day. Life is very little, a breath blows out its flame. But the soul is immortal, and so is our love.] So, he believed in his own heart as he believed in mine; he could not understand that love can end. But that affection, which he believed immortal, turned to pity — and a man's pity — who wants it? Besides, that sad residue is not guaranteed. Soon, what will I be for him? A disturbing thought, a painful memory, which will trouble his happiness. His happiness! No, he will not be able to be happy. He is as free as an ex-convict who carries everywhere the remains of his chains. The shadow of the past will darken his every joy, or rather he will not have any experience deserving that name. When one has received that great gift of sensibility, one can hardly be diverted, even less made to forget. However much one may wish it, the past cannot be wrenched from one's heart. One does not shed one's memories as one sheds faded clothes. No, it is the bloodied dress of Déjanire, which sticks to the flesh and burns. September 1 How I would like to see Mina! It is eight o'clock. For her, the evening service has just finished and it is the hour of recreation. How calm that life is! How smooth it is compared to mine! In the past, spoiled by happiness, I could not understand the religious life, could not convince

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myself that one could live that way, the soul in heaven and the body in the tomb. Now I see the religious vocation as a great happiness. Mina wanted to spend her last day in the world with him and me. What a day! All three of us were absolutely unable to speak. When it came near time for us to leave, we took our last meal together, rather we sat at table, for none of us could eat. Then Mina toured her dear house on the Ramparts alone and we left. She wanted to visit the basilica. The organ was playing, and the bénédicité was being sung over a small casket decked with flowers. The singing made me feel good. I felt that entering the religious life was like the death of small children: unnatural, but in the eyes of the faithful, full of unutterable consolation and holy joy. When we came to the Ursulines' there was no one there. Mina led me under the arch, lifted my mourning veil, and looked at me closely for a long time. 'How much you look like him!' she said sadly. She moved away and, facing the wall, wept. This weakness was short-lived. She came back to us pale but resolute. 'I would have stayed until your wedding,' she said with difficulty, 'but it is beyond my strength.' She took our hands in hers and continued tenderly: 'You love each other, and the blood of Christ will join you.' Then, speaking to me: 'Don't expect of him a perfection that human nature does not allow. Promise me to love him always and to make him happy.' 'Dear sister,' I answered firmly, 'I promise.' 'And you, Maurice,' she went on, 'show her devotion and tenderness. Remember that he entrusted her to you!' And her voice died down in a sob.

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'Woe to me if I should forget it,' Maurice said, deeply moved. She rang the doorbell. Soon keys were heard at the lock and the doors opened. Mina, pale as a corpse, embraced me tightly without saying a word. Her brother wept over her and held her in his arms a long time. 'Maurice,' she said finally, 'it must be.' And tearing herself away from his embrace, she crossed the threshold of the cloister and without looking back disappeared down the hall. The nuns spoke a few words of encouragement which I hardly understood. Then the doors creaked on their hinges and closed with a sound that seemed sinister. Sad at heart, we just stood there. '0 my friend,' Maurice said at last, 'I have only you now!' This parting had touched him terribly. More than anyone else I understood the scope of his sacrifice, and my heart bled for him. I suggested we walk, thinking that the exercise would be good for him. He sent his carriage away and we moved into the GrandeAllée. It was bitterly cold, the snow crunched under our feet, but the sky was admirably clear. Neither of us could speak. Only, from time to time, Maurice would ask me if I wanted to go back, if I was not cold. — and he put in these banal questions such warmth, such solicitude, that I was greatly moved. Walking back, we stopped at the Ursulines' to see Mina already in the dress of a postulant, still charming in spite of the white coif and the pigtail. She wept as we did. The grilles made a distressing impression on me, and yet, how sweet this half separation seemed to me when I thought of my father whom I would never see again, whom I would never hear again, who was there nearby, lying under the ground. Many years before, in this same parlour of the Ursulines, with what grief, with what tears I had said

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farewell to him for a few months. All these memories were coming back to me and were tearing my heart. 'Now,' I thought, 'I know what separation is.' That night, I endeavoured to master my grief and comfort Maurice. Seated on the divan, which was always at our disposal in my aunt's living room, we talked. I can still see the expression of his eyes, so sad and tender. Then I knew that my life had been profoundly modified — that I could no longer be happy — because at the very bottom of my heart, I had a wound that would never heal. But I believed in his love, and that was still so sweet! September 2 Old Marc is still weak. I found him seated before the window, looking out onto the cemetery where the high grass was waving in the wind. 'My parents are there,' he said, 'and very soon I will be lying there too.' Those words troubled me. When one has placed there what one loves most, the heart naturally turns towards the earth. We will all take our abode in the 'narrow house,' and as we wait can we be patient? The longest life hardly lasts. 'Yesterday a child and tomorrow an old man!' Silvio Pellico said. This frightful flight of our joys and sorrows should make resignation easy. '0 my ten years in chains, how you have gone by quickly,' the immortal prisoner also said. Placing Mio Pigrioni in my hands, my father said: 'An admirable book which teaches how to suffer.' Learning to suffer is all I have left. According to Charles Sainte-Foi, a good book should always create a true link between the writer and the reader. I like that

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statement, the truth of which I felt long before I was able to test it, and of the writers worthy of that appellation, it is not the glory I would envy, but the sympathies they inspire. September 3 Whenever I walk through the fields, I cannot help but envy the mowers bowed under the weight of the day and of the heat. I see some, oblivious of their fatigue, who sing as they hone their scythes. How healthy that rough life is! I love that strong race of workers whom my father loved. Often I think with admiration upon his life, so active, so full of work. Wealthy as he was, what other man would have subjected himself to such hard labour! But he abhorred any indolence and believed that a hard life is healthy for both the body and the soul. Besides, he enjoyed the beauty of the countryside as an artist. 'No,' he would say sometimes, 'one could hardly have base thoughts when one works under such a beautiful sky.' 0 my father, I am a very unworthy daughter, but grant me that I be able at least to say: 'No, I will not entertain thoughts of despair under such a beautiful sky.' September 4 It was there, in that delightfully solitary place, that he told me for the first time: 'I love you.' 1 love you! an involuntary cry from his heart that disturbed mine. My father, Mina, Maurice, and I, we all had a weakness for that solitary and charming spot. How often we all went there together! Those beautiful walnut trees have heard many peals of

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laughter. Now, my father is in his grave, Mina in her cloister, and while I am alive Maurice will not come back here! He used to say that we should be ashamed to walk on this soft moss, that to trample on the flowers hidden there was to insult Beauty. Tonight everything was delightfully fresh and calm around the pond. Not the least breeze in the trees, not a ripple on the transparent, frigid water. Lying down on the moss, I let my thoughts wander, but I could feel nothing except the deep weariness of the soul. September 5 Madwoman that I am! I read his letters again and that acts on my soul as the flame does on dry grass. September 6 Why rue so bitterly the loss of love? 'Daughter,' said the old missionary to Átala, 'one might just as well cry over a dream. Do you know man's heart, and could you count the inconsistencies of his desires? You would do better to count the waves the sea makes in a storm.' September 8 How we remain children! Since yesterday I have been mad with regrets, mad with sorrow. Why? Because the wind has uprooted the ash tree under which Maurice used to sit with his books. I loved that tree which sheltered him so often, when he loved me as a woman dreams to be loved. How often he leaned his head back against it. 'By its nature love is a dreamer,' he would say sometimes. That spot on the shore, overlooking the sea, pleased him no end, and the sound of the waves delighted him. So he would

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often spend hours there. He had scraped the bark off the ash tree and had carved, between our initials, this line of Dante's: Amor chi a nullo amato amar perdona. [Love demands of whoever is loved to love in return.] Bitter mockery now! and yet those words kept for me a scent of the past. I would have given much to preserve that tree consecrated by his memory. The last time I was near it, a large spider was weaving its web over the characters his hand had carved and that made me weep. I thought I saw hideous indifference working at veiling forgetfulness. I removed the web, but who will raise the fallen tree — uprooted in all its strength, in all its vigour? The heart attaches itself to everything, and I can't say what I feel looking at the shore where I can no longer see that beautiful tree, that witness of the past. I had the inscription removed. Cowardice; but what can one do? All the while he may be busy with someone else. September 10 My aunt wrote me that he is in the process of taking his mind off his sorrows. Those words made me perfectly miserable. Why not tell me the whole truth? Why force me to ask? No, I will not stand this uncertainty. My God, what has happened to the time when I served you joyously? Beautiful days of my childhood, what has become of you? Then work and play filled all my time. Then I loved only God and my father. They were really the happy days.

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0 peace of the soul! o blessed ignorance of the troubles of the heart — where you no longer are, happiness cannot be found. September 11 I work a great deal for the poor. When my hands are thus occupied, it seems to me God forgives the bitterness of my thoughts and I more easily master my sadness. But today I forgot myself on the beach. Standing in the angle of a rock, my face resting on my hands, I cried freely, without constraint, and I would have cried a long time had it not been for the sound of the waves which seemed to say: life runs out; each wave carries a moment of it away. Great misery! I need the thought of death to sustain life. And am I more to be pitied than others? I have travelled such beautiful, smooth roads, and on earth there are so many who have never known happiness, who have never experienced a deep joy. There are so many lives frightfully weighed down, horribly wasted. How many people lead aimless lives without sympathy, affection, memories! Among them are some who would have loved rapturously had circumstances not been adverse. They have had to live with others who are vulgar, mediocre, unable either to inspire or to feel love. How many are there who love as they want to love, who are loved as they want to be loved? Infinitely few. As for me, I have had that happiness so rare, so great; I have lived an ideal, intense life. And I pay for this divine joy through dreadful sorrows, unutterable pains.

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September 13 A lung hemorrhage has suddenly placed poor Marc in serious danger. I found him stretched out on his bed, very weak, very pale, but not appearing to be suffering much. 'I am going, my dear little mistress,' he said to me sadly. The doctor intervened, asking him not to speak. 'That is fine,' he said. 'I will not say any more, but please read me the Passion of Our Lord.' He closed his eyes and joined his hands to listen to the reading. The state of that faithful servant touched me deeply, but I could not help but envy his calm. While setting up the table which was to serve as an altar, I often looked at him and I thought of what my father told me of the tremendous terror my mother felt when she saw herself, still young and keen, in the grasp of death. Her love, her happiness, weighed on her as a remorse. 'I have been too happy,' she said crying, 'heaven is not for people like that.' But when she had received communion, her fears died down. 'He suffered for me,' she said over and over again, kissing the crucifix. My father was always moved by the memory. He would suggest that I thank Our Lord that He had so perfectly heartened, so tenderly consoled my poor young mother in her last hour. 4I could no longer do anything for her,' he would say. Horrible helplessness, which I have felt in turn. When he was dying under my eyes, what could I do? Nothing — but add to his despondency and his anguish. But learning that his last hour had

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corne, he asked for the viaticum, and the conqueror of death came to smooth the terrible passage. He came to put him to sleep with the words of eternal life. May He be blessed forever, eternally blessed! Peace, says the priest as he enters with the Blessed Sacrament, peace to this house and to those who inhabit it! I am included then in that divine wish which the Church has remembered from Jesus Christ. Oh! peace! I would seek it in the furthest desert, in the most arid solitude. This morning, half hidden in the shadows, I witnessed all, and as I knelt to adore the Blessed Sacrament, there spread over my heart such a keen, tender faith. — I seemed to feel Our Lord's gaze upon me, and since — 0 Lord of the bloody sacrifice! I understood you. You want the idols to fall to dust before you. But am I not unhappy enough? Have I not suffered enough? Oh! let me love him in tears, in pain. Don't command the impossible sacrifice, or rather, almighty Lord, Saviour of the whole man, sanctify this feeling into which I had placed everything, make it rise like a flame and leave nothing there that is of the 'province of death.' September 15 Marc died yesterday. The day before he seemed better. We had a fairly long conversation. He was reminding me of my childhood, of my beautiful pony, of which he was as proud as I was. His old coachman's heart warmed at these memories. We were almost gay — at least I tried to appear so — but, when I spoke of his recovery, he stopped me with a sad smile, and asked me naively, 'Is there something you want me to tell him?'

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Those words made me cry, and I answered with transport: 'Tell him I love him more than ever. Ask him that he have pity on his poor daughter!' He pressed my hands in his calloused hands, and went on calmly: 'My dear little mistress, I know that the earth seems to you as empty as an eggshell, I know that life seems very hard to you. But, believe me, it is only a moment. Life passes as a dream.' Poor Marc! his is over. I attended him to the end. No, God did not create death — the death that separates — that death so terrible even to those who hope and who believe. September 18 It is over. I will never again see that humble friend, that honest face that I find in the haze of my memories. I waked him religiously as he had done for my parents, as he would have done for me, and now I say with the Church, from the bottom of my heart: May he rest in peace! Oh! how great is the peace of the tomb; how it attracts hearts tired of suffering. And yet, death is terrible seen face to face! That anguish of agony, that parting full of horror! 'It is death that clothes us with everything'; but, as St Paul adds, 'we would like some clothes over that,' and the casting off of our mortality, that dissolution of a part of ourselves, remains the great punishment for sin. Ah! even if the Church said nothing about it, my heart would teach me that Jesus Christ did not abandon His mother to the corruption of the grave. 0 God! what would I not have done to protect my father from it! But the sentence must be served, we must return to dust. And yet, in spite of the sadness of the tomb, it is there that my mind

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finds refuge, rest — there upon 'the bed set in the darkness' — where everyone takes his place in turn. 'Nation of brothers and relatives, my words to you are words of peace.' ANGÉLINE DE M O N T B R U N TO M I N A DARVILLE Dear Mina, Again the great lesson of death. Poor Marc has gone from us. His parting leaves a void. He was of this house before I was. I loved to watch that respectable head which had greyed in the service of my father. You will remember that at my father's death, Marc did not want to take any rest. I was thinking of this as I attended him; I could see him again, eyes red with tears, with a rosary in his rough hand. You would hardly believe how much the burning candles, the prayers said around me, brought me back to that wake, so painful, sacred. Dear sister, I am accused of having rejected all forms of distraction and yet I tried hard. But whenever I tried to take a new lease on life, to take interest in something, that murmur of prayers said around his casket would inevitably come back to me and would make me deaf to everything. What could I do to lift the weight of sadness that was crushing me? I could just as easily have pushed a mountain with my hand. No, I don't think I need blame myself. God has granted me the grace never to complain of His holy will. May He be blessed for it!

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One day, I hope from the bottom of my heart, I will thank Him for everything. On his deathbed, my faithful servant thanked God for having allowed him to be born and to have lived poor. And is there not also a blissful poverty of heart, a detachment which would be worth more than all affections? But that would be the death of human nature; and, before this death as before the other everything in us rebels. Surely, Mina, you have not forgotten poor Grey, of which Marc was so proud. How we laughed when you kept asking him about that famous trip, the story of which he gladly and ably told! Grey is quite lame now, which had not diminished Marc's affection for him. On the day of his death he had him brought before the window, and it was touching to see Marc moved by the sight of his poor horse, which he called 'his old pal.' My friend, I cannot blame your brother for seeking some diversion. He must need it. Poor Maurice! But in the wind clouds scatter. Did I tell you that Marc wanted to be reminded to you? I must admit that accompanying him to the cemetery I would have liked to see opened for me those portals of that refuge of peace, but it is not here that I will sleep my last sleep. It is in your chapel, near you and near him. In the meantime, one must live, and I am not a little concerned. My solitary meals are a harsh penance. Yours would also seem to me very long. To be set in rows around the great refectory is terribly monastic. How it was since we ate together the blessed bread of joy! Your sister Angéline

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September 19 Tomorrow — the third anniversary of his death. 'I believe in the communion of saints, I believe in the resurrection of the flesh, I believe in life eternal.' I believe, but the gloom that covers that other life is very dark. When I came back here, when I crossed the threshold where 'his corpse' had just passed, I felt that mourning had entered here forever. But then a wonderful force sustained me. Oh! grace, the powerful grace of God. No doubt, the pain of separation was there, terrible and sharp. That black dress Mina got me to wear — I had never worn black before, and a shudder went through me. The coldness of death and of the tomb which ran through my veins has left a terrible memory. But, in the bottom of my soul, I was strong, calm, and with what ardour I offered to suffer whatever he owed to divine justice! — How many times, afterwards, I renewed that prayer! Whenever boredom was driving me mad, I received some consolation in offering myself so that he would be happy. But our sacrifices are always inadequate and unworthy of God. Blessed be that divine condescension of Jesus Christ, who compensates by His sacrifice what ours lack. Adorable goodness! How does He deign to hear me when I say: for him! for him! 0 my God, may you be blessed! Every day of my life I will pray for my father. More than anyone else I knew his soul. I know that under a charming exterior he was hiding admirable virtues and austere renunciations. I know that his proud conscience never compromised his duty. For him 'the charm of trifles' did not exist; he had nothing of that worldly spirit which

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Jesus Christ cursed and he had all the dignity, all the refinement of a Christian. But what do we know of God's adorable purity? However steady, an ardent heart is always immoderate. It is so easy to go too far, through enthusiasm, ecstasy. Did he not love me too much? I often wonder sadly. But I know with what thorough submission he accepted the will of God which was about to part us. Then — supreme comfort — he died in the arms of Holy Church, and it is with that immortal Mother that I say every day : 'Remit the penalties he may have earned, and as the true faith brought him together with Your faithful on earth, may Your divine clemency bring him together with the choirs of angels. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord.' September 22 There is a wild wind blowing. The sea is white with foam. I like to see it disturbed to its depths. Why? Is it because the sea is God's most beautiful work? Is it not rather because it is the image of our hearts? Both have the formidable depth, the terrible power of storms, and however troubled they are — What does the storm draw from the depths of the sea? What does passion reveal of our hearts? The sea keeps its wealth, the heart keeps its treasures. It cannot speak of life, it cannot speak of love, and all the efforts of passion are similar to those of the storm which draw from the abyss only scattered debris, those light seaweeds which are seen on the sand and on the rocks, mixed with a little foam.

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September 25 I have started again having someone read to me. When I read myself I stop too often and that is no good. History entertains me more effectively than any other kind of reading. I forget myself before the rapid flow of the ages which carries so much suffering. Tonight I had [F.-X.] Garneau read to me. Often my father and I would read him together. '0 daughter,' he would exclaim sometimes, 'how abject we would be if we were not proud of our ancestors!' He would get very enthusiastic at feats of arms and his enthusiasm would win me over. Now I know the nothingness of many things. How many extinguished ardours there are in my dead heart! But love of country is still very much alive deep within me. Happy are those who can dedicate themselves to, sacrifice themselves for a great cause. It is a beautiful bed to die on, the sacred soil of one's country. My mother's great-grandfather was mortally wounded on the Plains [of Abraham], and my father's died on the battlefield at Ste-Foye along with two of his sons, the older of whom was not quite sixteen. I have never pitied them. But I have pitied chivalrous Lévis (a distant cousin). Many times I have imagined him, serious and proud, ordering the destruction of the flags. I don't see the city of Quebec, which 'he wanted to burn down if he could not hold it for France,' without thinking about him, and, looking at the roadstead, I have often thought about his mortal anguish when, the day after the victory at Ste-Foye, the arrival of ships was signalled. But the white flag [of France] was no longer to wave

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over the St Lawrence, and for our forefathers, all was lost, 'save honour.' That spring of 1760, Mme de Montbrun herself plowed the fields so that she would have bread for her little orphans. Gallant woman! I like to imagine her eating her supper of black bread, her hard day done. I have a letter of hers from after the surrender, found among the old family papers, which my father was able to acquire on his trip to France. It is a proud letter. 'They gave all the blood of their veins,' she writes of her husband and sons, 'and I have given that of my heart; I have shed all my tears. But what is sad is to know that the country is lost.' The noble woman was mistaken. As Chevalier de Lorimier said the day before he climbed the scaffold, 'The blood and tears shed on the altar of the nation are a fount of life for the people,' and Canada will live. Ah! I hope so. In spite of all, did not our ancestors keep the language, honour, and faith of their noble mother? My father liked to dwell on our recollections of mourning and glory. He had a deep appreciation of Garneau, who has brought so much heroism to light, and he would have liked to see his portrait in every Canadian home. This highly-regarded portrait is still in its old place. Sometimes I stop to look at it. Who knows, Crémazie said, how much pain makes up glory? Touching thought, and for Garneau true! To do what he has done is to go to the end of one's strength, which calls for many painful efforts. Ah! I understand that. No doubt I cannot help it, but I love my country and I would like my country to love the one who has done so much for the honour of our name. I hope that instead of dropping into

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oblivion, the glory of Garneau will continue to rise. Does he not deserve it? A stranger to pleasures, without personal ambition, that wonderful man thought only of his country. He loved it with a boundless love, and that affection, full of fears, stamped with sadness, has always singularly impressed me. Besides, he proved it heroically. In this century of decline, Garneau had antique grandeur. It is one of my regrets not to have known him, never to have seen him. But I have thought about him a great deal, about his great difficulties, his solitary education, and with what respect I would visit the garret where, without teachers and almost without books, our historian worked at his formation. How courageous he was! how persevering! and how often I have been moved to pity thinking of that candle burning late in the night, a light which nevertheless was to illuminate our glorious past. But he has finished his laborious task. Now 'long is his night.' I visited his grave in the Belmont cemetery. At that time I had never shed bitter tears and my keen youthfulness was astonished and troubled at the quiet of the graves; but before our historian's tombstone, my ancestors' generous blood was running a little warmer in my veins. I remember that I stayed there a long time. A child still in many ways, I was not without profit from the education I had received. Already I had a deep feeling of national honour, and, as one who would be speaking the last farewell to Garneau in the name of the nation, I would have wished to assure him of the immortal gratitude of all Canadians. 'He has erased forever the words "conquered race," "vanquished people".

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'He was a man of courage, heroic perseverance, unselfishness, sacrifice. 'May he rest on the battlefield which he celebrated, not far from the heroes he drew from oblivion!' May God grant us, as to our forefathers, with the very French sentiment of honour, the exaltation of devotion, the madness of sacrifice, which make heroes and saints. September 28 Delightful evening. I love these ...nuits qui ressemblent au jour, Avec moins de clarté, mais avec plus d'amour, [nights which resemble day, with less brightness, but with more love] and if any earthly joy could still stir my heart, I would want it to be on a night like this, in this beautiful garden where the peaceful light of the moon rests. I spent the whole evening on the balcony and I would gladly be there still. But this kind of meditation is not good for me. My youth is reawakened, passionate, and keen. Nature is always for us only a reflection, an echo of our inner life, and this soft transparency of beautiful nights, these perfumes, these murmurs that rise everywhere, only disturb me. But a moment ago, as if she could guess my mad thoughts, my young reader, who was spinning alone in her room, began to sing: Ce bas séjour n'est qu'un pèlerinage. [This earthly stay is only a pilgrimage.]

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The pleasant song, coming from an innocent child, refreshed my soul. Je crois. Au fond du cœur l'espérance me reste: Je ne suis ici-bas que l'hôte d'un instant. Aux désirs de mon cœur si la terre est funeste, J'aurai moins de regrets, demain, en la quittant. [I believe. Hope remains at the bottom of my heart: here below I am a guest for only a moment. If the earth is fatal to the desires of my heart, I will have fewer regrets upon leaving

¡t.]

Among Mile Desileux's books, I found a notebook from which most of the pages have been torn out, but where I could still read: 'My God, may your love burn out my faults, as fire has just burned out the expression of my cowardly regrets.' Poor woman! she too had a confidant. I will do as she did before dying. What does she think now of her long martyrdom, now that God 'Himself has wiped away her tears?' I like those tender words of the Scriptures and so many others full of mystery. What is that light, that peace that we ask for those who 'have gone before us'? What is that 'joy of the Lord' where we will all enter, and which the human soul, however vast it is, cannot contain? What is that love of which our most ardent affections are only a pale shadow? It is true that in spite of the vastness of our desires and the marvelous prospects which our faith shows us, we have no idea of heaven. And in this our own efforts are of little avail. We are like someone who, having seen only a leaf, wants to have an idea of a

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forest, or who, having seen only a drop of water, wants to imagine the ocean. October 1 'Sir,' said the poor Samaritan woman, 'give me this water, that I may not thirst.' Meaningful words! my tears have fallen warm and abundant on the sacred book. What shipwreck's thirst can compare to my need to be loved? Since this morning, I have in my mind that delightful scene from the gospel. A moment ago I picked up the illustrated Bible to find Jesus with the Samaritan woman. And that brought me back to the blessed days of my childhood when, on my father's knees, I would look at the beautiful pictures which I loved so much! I remember being cross at the Samaritan woman for not giving a drink to Our Lord. 'If thou didst know the gift of God and who it is who says to thee "Give me to drink"!' And, my God, this need to love which grows with every disappointment, every sadness, every pain, is it so difficult to understand that it will never be satisfied on earth? No, God has not made Himself a place in our soul for nothing. The powerful grace of baptism does not find an abode there for so long without leaving deep traces. From it come those aspirations for which there is no fulfilment on earth and that mysterious sadness which happiness itself awakens in our heart of hearts. Maurice used to say: 'By its very nature, love is a dreamer.' It is true. But why does it dream, if not because the present, the real never satisfies it?

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October 2 Nevertheless, how 'the charm of feeling' carries one away. He does not love me anymore, I know, but foolish as I am I keep saying, 'he has loved me.' Yes, he has loved me, as he will never love again. Usually not very talkative, Maurice always had on his brow, as on his mind, a light veil of sadness. Often on looking at me his eyes would fill with tears, even before my misfortune. This expression of tenderness and melancholy was his great charm. His keen sensitivity was made known intuitively rather than through expansive statement. He used to say that he needed music to let his soul speak. But then, with what power his soul revealed itself. That is over! I will never again hear his voice! His voice, so soft, penetrating, expressive. October 4 'The leper closed the door and shot the bolt.' Frightful solitude! what one feels deeply is always new, and the reading of 'The Leper' has again made a terrible impression on me. But I will come back to it. Since I must weep, I would want to weep over others. 0 egoism! personality! Whenever the future looks too horrible, one must think of those even more unfortunate. For some days now I have been dwelling upon the map of Siberia, and I let my mind wander over those frozen expanses. How many Poles are there whose guilt is to have loved their country! And who will tell of their sadness? the sadness of the

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patriot! the sadness of the exile! the sadness of the man at the last degree of unhappiness! Ah! the wretches, treated worse than beasts of burden, it should be they who damn life. Yet they cannot do this without sinning, and this existence, of which no word could convey the horror, remains an immense blessing because it can earn them heaven. What is heaven then? My God! give me faith, faith in my future happiness; and those hapless ones! Lord, innocent or guilty, are they not your children? Ah! keep them from blasphemy, keep them from despair, that supreme misfortune. May no thought of hatred, no doubt of your justice, no defiance of your adorable goodness ever penetrate their hearts. Send divine hope! may it lift their chains, may it set ajar the portals of their hell. October 6 A moment ago, I heard a passer-by humming: Que le jour me dure, Passé loin de toi! etc. [May I withstand the day spent away from you! etc.] It was Maurice who made popular around here that melancholy song to which his voice gave such a troubling charm. All our echoes said it again. Then he could not live without me. And I — foolish girl — I have just counted the days since our separation. How distant already is that evening when, having made up my mind not to see him again, I said to him before broaching the inevitable explanation:

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'Maurice, sing me something as in the days of happiness.' He blushed, and his embarrassment pained me. Ah! the days of happiness were indeed far away. Without saying a word, he picked up a guitar (his favourite accompaniment) and sat near me. Then, after reflecting a moment, he began: 'Fier Océan, vallons, etc.' We were alone, I let drop the work which I had picked up to keep my composure, and I listened. My father liked that song and had often asked him to sing it. The last time I had heard it, it was in our precious garden at Valriant. How the past returns at certain moments, how the past, the earth bring back what they have taken! But the pain of separation was present, tearing. I had been too ill and weak and that may be why the thought of his indifference had not caused any violent pain until then. No doubt that thought never left me, but what I felt generally was rather a feeling of despondency, of total misery — what the incurably sick man must experience who knows that in gathering all his strength he will be able only to turn over on his bed of sorrow. But to decide to break with him I had needed a terrible effort which had somewhat revived me — and that strange emotion brought on by his voice. I knew I was hearing him for the last time. Yet I stayed calm. I was beyond tears, and when he had ended his song I remember that we exchanged pointless words on the wind, on the rain that was beating against the windows. He then remained silent looking at the fire in the grate; he seemed vexed. Ah! the heart so rich in love, in ardent flame, was truly dead.

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I was in the habit of watching him constantly, and I could see perfectly that life had become barren, colourless for him. I could see all this, but in my heart there was no bitterness towards him. Never had he been for me what he was at that moment. How I could feel the depth of my affection! how well I could see what life without him would be! Yet there had to be an end, and I was resolved to force him to take back that 'ring of faith' which was burning me since he no longer loved me. Oh! how was I able to survive that moment! how was I able to withstand his reproaches, resist his supplications? he sounded still so much as before. For a moment, I thought myself still loved: the emotion of the surprise had warmed up his heart. 'What have I done?' he sobbed. (The great crime against love is not to return it.) No, he no longer loved me; but the flame flares up once more before dying out completely. But he was humbled in his loyalty, and he did not have that cruel egoism which makes most men oblivious or indifferent to the unhappiness of others. October 7 Alone! — Alone — forever! Ah! I would like to think of heaven. But I cannot. I am like that woman of which the gospel speaks who was bowed with age and unable to look upwards. October 9 'The burden of life!' Now I understand that phrase. I know of nothing harder to endure than the heavy boredom which invades me so often. It is a terrible weariness, a

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despondency, a loathing without name, a wild insensitivity. My poor soul sees itself alone in a frightful void. But I no longer allow myself to be dominated by boredom. I am again in the habit of working and I will keep it. What would become of me without 'the holy work of the hands,' as the monastic rules say, often the only one which is possible for me. October 11 Wonderful weather! I walked along the beach for a long time. The fishermen's fires are pleasant to see from a distance, but I cannot stand the sight of the beach at low tide. How grey it is! how lustreless! how sad! I seem to be able to see 'that tedium which is the bottom of life,' or rather I seem to be able to see a life where love has withdrawn. Always that thought! May God forgive me this madness which believes everything lost when He remains. I would like to forget the appearances of love, I would like to forget the appearances of happiness, and not think of them any more than most men think of heaven and of the infinite love found there. But, o misery! I cannot. And yet, Lord, I believe in your adorably unutterable love. I believe in the bleeding proofs you have given me; I know that your grace gives strength in all the sacrifices it requests, and at the bottom of my heart. — Is it the burden of the cross fully accepted that has left this delightful wound? I believe in the joy of sacrifice, I believe in the joy of pain.

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FATHER S - , M I S S I O N A R Y , TO A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N Mademoiselle, Your generous gift has come most appropriately. Following your wish, we and our novices will pray for your father. As for me, I could hardly forget that, next to God, it is to him that I owe the honour of the priesthood, but for a long time now it is in thanksgiving that I have remembered him every day at the altar. Does not the thought of his bliss soften your sadness? Why always look at the tomb rather than at heaven? Why see him where he is not? Poussière, tu n'es rien! cendre, tu n'es pas l'être Que nous avons chéri; Tu n'es qu'un vêtement dédaigné par son maître, Et qu'un lambeau flétri. [Dust, you are nothing! ashes, you are not the being we have loved; you are only a garment scorned by its owner, only a soiled rag.] Tell me, is not to love someone to place one's happiness in that of another? Why do you weep for him? Poor child! I understand your weakness. Although I was only his protégé, I could not help but admire and love him. You know that on hearing of his fatal accident, I vowed that if he lived I would devote my life to the difficult missions of the North. And, I am proud to say, that same evening of September 20, kneeling in the church at Valriant, I complained to God, who had not accepted my sacrifice.

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I complained and cried, while waiting for dawn when I could begin the mass which I wanted to offer for him — my benefactor. What went on in my soul then? What celestial light suddenly surrounded me in the half darkness of the sanctuary, where a few days before I had received the priestly anointing? I could not say, but, comforted, I solemnly vowed to Our Lord that I would spend my life among the poor Indians. You ask me how I can stand this terrible life. The constitution suffers, but next to the sacrifices there are the joys of the apostolate. When I came here, I could already speak two Indian languages fluently, so I was sent among the Chippeways. There, I must admit, many cowardly regrets beset me. But Our Lord had pity on his unworthy priest. He led me to a sick young woman who was waiting for baptism to die. I say 'was waiting' and that is so, because for several weeks her living was a miracle; and it is not possible to say with what ease this simple soul heard the word of salvation. 'Blessed,' indeed 'blessed are the pure of heart.' If you had seen the expression on her dying face when she whispered the blessed name of the Saviour, when she saw the crucifix! I baptised her with a joy that leaves the heart bruised. 0 cold joys of the flesh! o poor happiness of this earth, how happy the priest is to see you sacrificed! What tears I shed in that wretched hut! If you had seen her as she was after dying, stretched out on some fir branches, her virginal forehead still damp from the baptismal water and the crucifix in her clasped hands. I am sure that that happy saint will be a protectress for you in heaven because she promised me and I even gave her your name. And now, mademoiselle, would you allow, not the man, but the priest, the poor missionary, to tell you what you need to hear?

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In your letter I read many things that you did not write. Tell me, why are you so sad, so unhappy, and particularly so troubled? Is it not because you insist on crying over the burning marks which love has left in your life? You say that consolation will never do more than brush by your heart; you say that there is no peace for you any more. My child, consolation comes to you from all sides since you are a Christian, and Our Lord has brought peace to all souls of good will. Ah! if you were generous! If you had the courage to sacrifice all the unnerving reveries, all the dangerous memories! Soon you would have peace, and, in spite of your sadness, you would see the consolations of faith rising in your soul, radiant and without number as the stars on a clear night. Know that the sweetness of a passion does not remove the danger from it; on the contrary, that is an added seduction for the unhappy soul that surrenders to it. You will say that one is weak against one's heart. Yes, that is true. But according to St Augustine, virtue is order in love. Think about it, and pray that God attract your heart. No, He has not made you so that you would suffer. If he destroyed your happiness, it is that happiness was not good for you; if he has dashed your hopes, it is that you hoped for too little. Tell me, in spite of, or rather because of, his deep affection for you, was your father not stern with you when the need arose? Let us allow God to educate us for eternity. When the latter opens up for us with its infinite depth, what will the years spent on earth seem to us? — You know, the painful hours as well as the hours of ecstasy all pass — and with what marvelous speed !

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It seems only yesterday that, rather embarrassed, I waited for your father along the road at Valriant to beg that he place me in college because I wanted to be a priest. The future will disappear as the past. The future, the true future, is heaven. Ah! if only we had faith. In the glorious days of the Church, to be a Christian was to know how to suffer. How many young girls there were among the martyrs! Can you imagine them crying over earthly happiness and the sweetness of life? We too are Christians, but as Our Lord said: 'When the Son of Man returns to earth, do you think He will still find faith?' 0 painful words! And yet, as degenerate as we are, we do understand that martyrdom is the supreme gift, and we would not dare compare any earthly delight to that of the Christian who surrenders himself to torments for Jesus Christ. My child, you know that there is also a martyrdom of the heart. Yes, thank God, there are lives that are a perpetual death. No doubt you are weak, worn out, tired of suffering, but do you know what name our poor Indians give to the eucharist? They call it 'what makes the heart strong.' My God! what sustains the missionary against the power of regrets and memories? In his terrible isolation, in the midst of countless drudgeries and inconveniences, what protects him against the visions of home and hearth? We too are weak, and if we stand firm it is, as St Paul says, 'because of Him who has loved us.' You can be sure that communion is a comfort for everything. What am I saying? 'My friend,' wrote a missionary who has since received the martyr's crown, 'to receive communion is always a great happiness; but to receive communion in a cell, when one is wearing an iron collar

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and heavy chains, and when one has seen one's body dragged in the mud, is a happiness that cannot be told.' Don't doubt it. Jesus Christ can make anything smooth; he is an enchanter! He brought fire to the earth. May He light it in your heart. Love is the great joy, and I would want you happy. Yes, God will bless us. Every day our novices pray for you with the fervour of the innocence of faith, and your father has taken you in his heart to heaven. Rejoice, and don't pity the poor missionary. As he moves away from human consolations, he feels Jesus Christ coming nearer. I am happy, but occasionally I feel a strong need to hear the dear bell of Valriant. You will say that I am homesick. I don't think so. I rather longD for heaven. But one must earn it. Please accept this cheap medal of the Immaculate. Often I tie one of these to a tree to scent the solitude. Pray for me, and may God grant you the grace to fulfil perfectly the great commandment of love, in which all is justice, grandeur, consolation, peace and joy. October 15 For several days now I have not opened my diary, in which I promised myself I would never again write his name. The love of God is a gift, the greatest gift, and one must earn it. Then — is it the impetus given by a strong hand? — there is within me a strange power which pushes me towards renunciation, towards sacrifice. Upon receiving the letter from Father S— (a generous soul, that), I added his humble medal to the locket I wear night and day and which contained my father's picture and his. Then I removed the latter and, with an effort from which I have not yet recovered, threw it in the fire with his letters.

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October 16 I am not sorry for what I did, but I still shudder at the thought of it, and I cry ceaselessly because his picture and letters are ashes. I was asking myself with sadness whether these tears were making my sacrifice less worthy in the eyes of God, but today I found consolation in reading that, when one returns wounded and bloodied but victorious from a bout with one's passions, one can cry over what it has cost one — that God is not offended with our tears — no more than Rome was offended when the elder Brutus, returning home after having sacrificed his two sons to the Republic, sat in his deserted house and cried. October 18 I often think with emotion about the young girl who waited for baptism before dying! 0 what gift! bliss of purity! A few years ago, walking through Gésu church, I went past an altar under which a young saint (St Louis of Gonzaga, I believe) is shown prostrate on his funeral bed. I am rather ignorant of those things, but I am sure that that sculpture is not a remarkable work of art. What, then, made my soul thrill? Why did I stay there so long, moved, absorbed as if before a pleasant scene? I did not know why then, but today it seems to me that that strong attraction which had drawn me, and which I could not define, was the celestial beauty of spotless purity. Long after I had come out of the church, that virginal and peaceful face was still before my eyes and in spite of myself I cried a little. Still, the impression had been sweet. But nothing touches the heart that does not also bring tears to the eyes.

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Many days have passed since, and is it not strange that the thought of that young girl, who has promised to be my protectress, vividly recalls to mind that nearly-obliterated memory? No, she will not forget the promise made to the angel who opened heaven for her — who gave her her name. October 22 It is a great misfortune that I let my will weaken, but I am trying hard to strengthen it. Like everything else, more than anything else, the will is strengthened by exercise: one wins no victory over oneself without painful and continual fighting. To abstain from those reveries where my soul softens and loses itself is a self-denial of every moment. And yet I know that however sweet they may be, the memories of love bring no consolation — no more than the rays of the moon warm. But at last, I have made a resolution and will keep it. Receiving communion helps, appeases me to a point. Sometimes a flash of joy crosses my soul at the thought that my father is in heaven, but that ray of light soon dies down in the dimness of faith, and I fall back in my sadness — calm but deep sadness. November 5 Here I am back at home after a fortnight's absence. I wanted to see his grave again, I wanted to see Mina, and there is one person whom I had never seen but whose reputation attracted me. I only went through Quebec, and, to my chagrin, I was not able to see Mina, sick in bed for some time; but I shed tears on his

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grave, 'that grave where he no longer is,' and I could not say whether they were tears of joy or of sadness, so comforted was I. Then I took the train for — which took me to the Convent of —. It is a great happiness to come near a saint. There is a wide gap between ordinary virtue and sanctity. I felt it in her presence, and was not at all astonished at that humble confidence, that sacred tenderness which let her bare her soul. Where do angels get that adorable forbearance, that unutterable compassion for those weaknesses which they cannot understand? My own mother would not have been any more tender. I could feel it, and leaning against the grille that stood between us, I burst into tears. She too was crying, through heavenly pity. But her face remained serene. How deep is the peace of the heart that is devoted to love ! I could feel myself wrapped up, invaded by that divine peace as I was speaking to her. 0 radiant faces of saints! o piercing eyes which plunge so deeply into eternity and into that other abyss called our heart! whoever has seen you will never forget you. But before her I felt neither shyness nor embarrassment. On the contrary, her look, so calm and so pure, spread through my heart some undefinable serenity. Yes, I am happy to have gone there. I brought back a strength, a light, a perfume. I hope to have discovered there a goal of life. In that dear church, before the crucifix that stands above the tabernacle, I accepted my life as it is, I promised to fulfil the great commandment of love. 0 dear refuge of prayer and of peace!

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I was sorry to have to leave my room where other weak souls had come to seek strength — where the Flower of the Carmel had been. All I could hear in that place was the murmur of the Yamaska River flowing nearby. That melancholy sound provided me with thousands of sad and sweet thoughts. The waves of the sea move off only to return soon, but river water is like time passing: it never returns. November 6 'Woe to him who lets his love lose its way and wallow in the passing world; for it will be gone in a moment and nothing will remain of this miserable soul except an infinite emptiness and, in eternal separation from God, an eternal inability to love.' November 7 I spent the afternoon at the edge of the woods. The sun was gilding the denuded fields, the crickets were climbing the wilted grass; yet autumn has done its work well, and one can feel sadness everywhere. But what deep serenity is mixed with it! And why, in my gloomy calm, should I not also have serenity? I was telling myself this, and, head hidden in my hands, I was thinking of that farewell that we must eventually say to everything — of that long and languishing farewell, as St Francis of Sales says. Since we must die, it is the happy ones we must pity. M A U R I C E DARVILLE TO A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N So you insist on shutting yourself up, on refusing to receive me; for you I am no more than a stranger, an intruder.

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Angelina, can that be? 0 my always beloved, I should have pushed your servants aside and entered your house in spite of your orders. But I am not here to upbraid you. I come to beg you to have pity on me. If you knew how bitter it is to despise oneself! 0 my dear child, your image keeps following me around, your sad life is my constant remorse. And yet, am I guilty? is it my fault if you threw my heart in my face? Angéline, you forced me to break my word. Yes, you have reduced me to that vileness. But, upon my honour, I will have no woman but you. Ah Î you can be sure that one does not give oneself twice with what is most tender and deep in one's soul, or rather when one has bestowed oneself thus, one can never withdraw. If my heart seemed to cool. — My dear child, at the bottom of a man's heart there are many miseries, but forgive me, forgive me for the love of him who loved me, who had chosen me. What! can you not forgive an involuntary wrong? Ah! you have really forgotten the promise made to Mina, that solemn promise always to love me and make me happy. If only you knew what I have suffered since the terrible night we parted! Oh! how could you humiliate me that way? Am I so base in your eyes? My God! who will give us confidence, that gift unique in its sweetness? You say that you will never accept a sacrifice. A sacrifice — Angéline, there is one thing I would rather keep quiet forever. But since you force me to speak of it, I will do so. Sooner or later, as you know, one finds joys only in souls. And, besides,

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the traces of the cruel event fade daily. Everybody says it, can you ignore it? My friend, I entreat you to have pity on my sad life, my dreary future. What will become of me if you abandon me? Alone I am and alone I will be; I admit, I am at the end of my strength. Sadness is a bad counsellor, and I glimpse pitfalls. Angéline, is your heart so completely in his grave? No, my dear orphan, I do not reproach you with either the excess or the duration of your sorrows. Does anyone know how long a great sorrow must last? But I understand your pain, I share in it. You know that, you cannot doubt it. My God, why didn't I think of having him order you, at the last, not to delay our wedding? Unfortunately, neither he nor I thought about it; but do you believe that he approves your resolution? Angéline, it is I who carried you almost lifeless from the side of his corpse. 0 God! with what affection I loved you and how I have suffered from that horrible inability to comfort you! But today, can I do nothing? I can assure you that I loved you no more when my love tore you away from death; and I beg you, by the brotherhood of our tears, by that divine hope that we have of seeing him again, consent to hear me out! Oh! let me see you! let me talk to you! Can you refuse to let me into your house, the house that belonged to him who called me his son? Last night I stayed a long time leaning against the garden wall. I admit that I finally climbed over it. Once inside I walked around. The cold light of the sky showed me everything sad, desolate. A frigid wind was stirring the dead leaves. But the past was there, and who could describe the sadness and the pain of my thoughts!

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At first the house had seemed in utter darkness, but as I drew nearer I saw a faint light filtering through the shutters of your room. 0 dear light! I stood for a long time looking at it. Angéline, life must not be a troubled vigil. No, you cannot persevere in such a resolution, and soon, as Mina said, 'the blood of Christ will join us.' Christian, have you not understood the strength and the sweetness of that union? Do you doubt that in His blood we will find the immortality of love, the deep joys of mutual forgiveness? No, you will not have the sad courage to send me away in despair. I have faith in your tender, deep heart. Yours forever. Maurice A N G É L I N E DE M O N T B R U N TO M A U R I C E D A R V I L L E Maurice, forgive me. You can make my resolution not to receive you harder, more painful to keep, but you will not make me give it up. And need I say that resentment has nothing to do with it? Dear friend, I have never had any resentment against you. No, you have not cheated on his confidence; no, you have not reneged on your word and I will keep mine. But believe me, it is not with a feeling of which you have already felt the decline that you can fill the emptiness of your heart and of your days. I am saying it without reproach. 0 my loyal friend, I have nothing, absolutely nothing to forgive you. Why did you love me? Why have I so shadowed your youth? And yet, we were happy together. Do you recall how beautiful 166

life seemed to us? But there is 'no hand that can hold the shadow nor keep the wave.' My dear friend, we had forgotten that. Tell me, if the spell of love and happiness had continued, what would we have become? How could we ever have accepted to die? But the glamour has faded quickly, and we know now that life is painful. No doubt divine goodness has not allowed it to be without consolation, and our poor affections remain the best comfort for our suffering. But no one chooses one's way and relief is not for me. No, if God in His goodness has had me go through such cruel pains, it is not so that I should return to the affections and joy s of this world. I have seen that clearly since I have known that you are here; and a strange force leads me back to that moment when my dying father pulled me to him after receiving communion for the last time: 'Saving Love,' he said, weakly pressing my head to his heart, 'Saving Love, I give her to you, 0 Lord Jesus, take her, 0 Lord Jesus, console her, strengthen her.' And at that moment of agony, a force, a supernatural sweetness spread through my soul. All my rebellion melted into adoration. I accepted the separation. I bowed before the cross, I received it as if from the hands of Christ Himself. And today still, He presents it to me. I see and feel that He asks of me complete renunciation, that I must be His alone. Maurice, it is He who leads us, it is His will that separates us. My father spoke those words to me at the hour of his anguish, and I am repeating them to you. Ah! I felt my weakness. To be disillusioned is not to be alienated. My friend, you know that the denuded tree is still attached to the earth. Oh! how we are made! but the divine will gives the strength for the sacrifices that it commands. I beg you, don't be anxious

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for my future. It is up to God to dispose of it; happiness and sadness have weakened me, but if I am brave, if I am faithful, I will have peace before too long. Then the light will come in its full intensity. Why cry? This earthly happiness, don't we know how shallow it is, even if we could have it in its fullness — which cannot be. No, the enchanted dream cannot start again. And yet how sweet life with you would still be. In spite of the trouble it causes for my heart, your coming is a deep joy to me. The feeling that you keep for me is a flower which scents the ruins, as a touching echo of the past. The past! Do you remember the sentimental song you used to sing about memories, which are nothing and everything? Ah! whatever happens, don't forget. And may you be blessed for the things you did for him. Never will I forget the respect with which you mourned him, nor the sorrow, so keen, sincere. Oh, how good you were! how gentle you were! I know that you would be again. But some get to heaven only by being wounded and they have no right to complain. Maurice, I give you up to Saving Love. Everywhere and always I will pray for you to Him. And since it must be said, farewell, my dear, farewell. When I was a child, my father, to encourage me to daily renunciation, used to say that for God there is no sacrifice that is too small; and today, I feel him telling me that for God, there is no sacrifice that is too great. After all, my friend, by sacrificing everything we sacrifice very little. Need I tell you that nothing on earth will ever satisfy us? Ah! you can be sure that in blessing the union of spouses, the blood of Christ does not insure the immortality of love, and

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whatever we do, resignation remains always the great difficulty, as it is the great duty. No doubt, all this is sad, and sadness has its perils. Who knows it better than I? But Maurice, no cowardly weakness! Spare me this ultimate pain; may I never blush to have loved you!

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LITERATURE

OF

CANADA

Poetry and Prose in Reprint Douglas Lochhead, General Editor

1

Collected

8

Poems

The St Lawrence

and

Saguenay and Other

Poems,

a n d Hesperus and Other and

9

the

Our Intellectual

Strength

10

and

Old Man Savarin Stories Introduction by Linda Sheshko

'English-Canadian L i t e r a t u r e '

11

Dreamland and Other Poems Tecumseh:

T h o m a s Guthrie Marquis

I n t r o d u c t i o n b y [Norman Shrive

Camille R o y I n t r o d u c t i o n b y Clara T h o m a s

12

The Poems

of Archibald

Selections from Canadian Poets

(including At the

E d w a r d Hartley D e w a r t

Archibald Lampman

Introduction by Douglas Lochhead Poems

and

Introduction by

13

The Poetical

Works of

Introduction b y

Alexander

M a l c o l m G . Parks

Alexander McLachlan

A

E . Margaret F u l t o n

Frank Parker Day

The

Homesteaders

R o b e r t J . C . Stead Introduction by Susan W o o d G l i c k s o h n

McLachlan

Introduction b y

Novel

Introduction b y Allan Bevan

Lampman

LongSault)

Margaret C o u l b y W h i t r i d g e

Essays

Joseph H o w e

Rockbound:

and

A Drama

Charles Mair

'French-Canadian Literature'

7

Prose

E.W. T h o m s o n

and

Weakness

6

Poetry

Critical

E d i t e d w i t h an i n t r o d u c t i o n

John George Bourinot

5

Selected

a n d n o t e s b y W.J. K e i t h

Introduction by Gordon Johnston

4

Rule

Charles G . D . R o b e r t s

Poems

Lyrics

Charles Sangster

3

of the

Louis K. MacKendrick

Introduction by James Reaney 2

The Measure

Introduction by

Isabella V a l a n c y C r a w f o r d

14

Angeline

de

Montbrun

Laure C o n a n Translation a n d i n t r o d u c t i o n b y Y v e s Brunelle