Read Online Kamouraska by Anne Hébert - Free Book Online

vie for the joy of combing her tawny fleece. Their own sparse locks light up and shine with vicarious pride. My first period. Their chaste excitement.
    â€œAre you sure, Aunt Angélique, that it’s going to happen like that every month?”
    â€œYes, darling. It’s something we all go through. It’s the way of the world.”
    Aunt Angélique is ill at ease, embarrassed. But still delighted. “The way of the world.” A deep, mysterious communion with all of womankind seems to hold a fabled, romantic fate in store for her. Is each and every wasted ovule of her sterile life about to be made fertile? Gallantly? By tender husbands? Tender lovers? Is mad passion and all its magic, somehow, old as she is, about to make her pregnant at last, with a hundred happy, blue-eyed babes?

Above the house, the sun has gone out. Suddenly, like a lamp. All at once it’s very dark. My dear little aunts are getting excited, running about in every direction. Up and down the balcony stairs. Rushing to pick up three pots of geraniums. Disappearing inside the house. Each one clutching her pot of flowers, red or pink, tight to her bosom. The front door slams shut. Behind the closed door, an extraordinary echo. The sound of the door slamming lingers for a time, as if in a great empty space. An immense space, with no furniture, no drapes. Huge. Like a rail-road station. A vault, high and bare. A moment later, a sharp voice pipes up, caught in an endless echo.
    â€œI assure you, it’s going to freeze tonight. It would be a shame to leave the geraniums out on the balcony . . . Ge-ra-ni-ums . . . bal-co-ny . . . co-ny . . . y-y . . .”
    The words well up in waves. Roll and subside. The voice was coming from the drawing room. Aunt Luce-Gertrude? Yes, that’s who it is, I’m sure. It’s night now, altogether dark. My house, shut tight, fills all of Rue Augusta with its somber silhouette. It seems to be rising up from the middle of the street. Massive, unavoidable, provoking. Like a barricade.
    I want to run. To keep from going inside the house. Not risk the certain chance of seeing my bygone days spring back to life, shake off their ashes in powdery little flakes. Each burnt-out log rekindled. Each rose-red ember blazing, bursting into flame. No, no! I won’t! I’ll never cross the threshold of my house again. There must be some mistake. You’re confusing me with someone else. I have a perfect alibi. My pass is in order. Let me go. I’m Madame Rolland. My husband is Jérôme Rolland, notary in the city of Quebec. None of this is any of my affair. All these mysterious happenings of dubious taste, long dead, here in this brick house on the corner of Rue Augusta and Rue Philippe, in the town of Sorel. You’ve got the wrong person, I tell you. Let me go. I’m supposed to be somewhere else. My duty calls me. I’ve got to get back to Quebec, to Rue du Parloir. This very moment my husband is dying. My place is by his side. I have no business on Rue Augusta, here in Sorel. I’m Madame Rolland. I swear I am! Madame Jérôme Rolland!
    I don’t dare turn aside. I keep staring straight ahead. And yet, to my right and left there’s something happening, something I can’t see. Coming closer, from both sides at once. Now it’s grazing my body. Pressing against me. Right beside me. Someone rumpling my skirt. Touching my knee. I’m being lifted off the ground. Under my arms, two powerful arms seizing me. Will I have to put up with this outrage again? Must I cross that threshold, in front of me there, with two policemen by my side? And the witnesses! All of them, packed into the vast drawing room, safely behind closed shutters. I can hear them whispering. No, I won’t be brought to trial before the likes of them! Servants, innkeepers, boatmen, peasants! Good-for-nothing witnesses, every one! None of them can stand up against me. And as for Aurélie Caron