Free Kamouraska by Anne Hébert Page B

a little as he covers my face with great moist kisses.
    He’s not from these parts. He’s from farther down the river. I don’t know a thing about him. But he’s a scoundrel, I’m sure. Good family and all, but a scoundrel just the same. I’ll make him show me the respect a marriageable young lady deserves.
    Antoine Tassy puts the huge bird into my game bag. He puts the bag on his shoulder, Then he holds out his gloveless hand, all warm and soft. Smooth.
    â€œCome . . . Shall we take a little walk?”
    The path cuts through the pine grove. The ground is covered with red-brown needles.
    â€œOh, no, Monsieur. I have to go back. My aunts are waiting for me in the cabin.”
    His hand presses mine. For just a moment my hand submits. Like a wounded bird. Then pulls away, with a show of chaste reserve.
    Angélique, Adélaïde, Luce-Gertrude . . . Gazing in wide-eyed rapture.
    â€œPinch me! Am I dreaming? Or is that the child I see? Coming from the marshes, covered with mud . . . With her cheeks all red from the cold, and her curls in a tangle . . . Holding hands with a big, tall, handsome lad . . .
    â€œNo, my dear, you’re not dreaming. That’s Antoine Tassy, the young squire of Kamouraska!”
    Antoine Tassy doesn’t give my aunts much time to revel in the romantic bliss of a first encounter. The very next day he asks for my hand. Through Madame Cazeau, who comes and pays my mother a lengthy visit.
    â€œExcellent match. Fine old family. Two hundred and fifty acres of land and woods. And the islands opposite the estate. And a salt marsh. A bakehouse. A wharf. A fine stone manor built out on the cape. The father, dead last year. Lives alone with his mother. Married sisters in Quebec . . .”
    Madame d’Aulnières bursts into tears. Dreads having to explain to her daughter the mysteries of marriage and death. For her, one and the same.
    â€œWhat a life! Good God, what a life! A widow at seventeen, with a baby on the way . . . No, I’ll never get over it. Never . . .”

I’m going to be married. My mother has said yes. And so have I, deep in the darkness of my flesh. Will you help me? Tell me, Mother, will you? What’s your advice? And you, dear aunts? Tell me, is it love? Is it really love that’s troubling me so? Making me feel as if I’m about to drown . . .
    Is this how little girls grow up? I preen you and primp you, fix your hair. I send you off to mass and catechism. I shield you from life and death, hide them behind big, high embroidered screens, covered with roses and exotic birds . . . We get babies from the Indians. They come by and drop them into women’s beds. You know, those tiny, teeny infants with their puckered little faces, that you find one morning all wrapped and swaddled in a white woolen bundle? Next to a new young mother, exhausted and smiling . . . Oh, the fables we tell. The ones about God, the ones about men. “The Wedding-feast at Cana,” “The Bride of Lammermoor,” “Down by the crystal fountain, e’er shall I remember thee . . .” Love. Beautiful love of song and story.
    Swine! Lord of the manor. Foul swine! I saw you in the street. And that whore, Mary Fletcher. Lord! Her red coat. Her flaming red hair. And you, Milord the Fool, tagging along like a dirty littlelamb. To her great big bed with its filthy sheets. Oh, yes, I guessed the kind of shameless games you two were playing. And what a blow it was! Innocent little me. Elisabeth d’Aulnières. Marriageable young lady.
    The Cazeaus’ ball. Strange how a man so big can whirl and twirl with so much grace. I keep looking down, refuse to lift my eyes. He squeezes my arm. His soft, liquid voice.
    â€œPlease, Elisabeth. Look at me!”
    â€œYou’ve humiliated me! I saw you with that . . . that person. Yesterday, in the street.”
    â€œI didn’t realize . . . Please . . . I’m sorry.”
    His lip