by Anne Hébert
The poison is Elisabeth’s idea. A pregnant woman’s obsession. Send Aurélie to Kamouraska with poison, so she can . . . No use trying to reason with Elisabeth. It’s easier to pretend you agree . . . Like a good chemist, go on with your experiment. While that lurking sadness, creeping through our soul, becomes too much to bear. Erupts into such a frenzied fury that, at last . . .
Who let the doctor into the house? What is he doing here? It’s five in the morning! . . . At least let me take off this silly nightcap! . . . Aurélie must have opened the door. See, Aunt Adélaïde. See how the doctor heads straight for the child’s room. All those closed doors in the corridor don’t confuse him a bit.
This man is drunk with the weariness of sleepless nights. Mad with jealousy. Imagining things. Sure that Antoine is hiding somewhere in the house. He says he’ll have to be ferreted out, like a rat. When things quiet down a little . . . My love sees Aunt Adélaïde and says hello. Whispers in my ear. All out of breath. Insists that we’ll have to get Antoine away from Kamouraska. Out in the open. Get it over with once and for all . . . I beg him not to go before the baby comes. I’m so afraid I might die in labor . . .
Antoine sits sulking in his manor in Kamouraska. Selling land and planning his return to Sorel. Or is he here already? Hiding with Horse Marine, or maybe someone else? We’d better go scour the countryside around Sorel. The woods, the bushes, the streets in Sorel. The bed of every whore in Sorel. The taverns in Sorel. Search every house, probe every wall. He could swoop down on us here at any moment. “Peekaboo! It’s me, your darling husband. See? I’m back!” With that stinking drunkard’s breath of his. And he’ll beat me all over, shame me in front of the help. “Here’s my wife, nailed to a cross with her feet in the air. I’d like you to meet her . . .” His loud, idiotic laugh. Then he’ll grab me, and hold me. Won’t let me go till I’m lying there dead, in a pool of blood. Like a woman dying in childbirth, gasping her last. And my baby, ground between two stones . . . Oh, what a strange and agonizing cry will send me hurtling into hell! So unresisting, so resigned. Letting myself be caught and killed in Antoine’s snares. Too terribly willing . . . No, I want to live. I’m innocent. I won’t give in. Won’t do what my husband wants of me. It’s my death he’s after. Lurking in the shadows . . . No, Antoine’s the one who has to die. And I’ll be saved. Loving and faithful. Sweet and pure. And George too, George will be saved. By Antoine’s death. A holy sacrifice. No other way. Just go on living!
My love says I have a fever. He kisses me on the forehead. Pulls the covers up around my chin. Says he’ll come see me again this evening. Tells them to let me sleep, all day if I want to. Tiptoes out of the room . . .
I plunge into darkness. Won’t open my eyes. Not before night comes falling all around us. Everyone sleeping.
I jump down from my bed, run out of the house. Don’t take the time to dress. Don’t bother to throw off the vestiges of sleep . . .
Too late! It’s too late! The street is full of people. Incredible, All these people, milling about so late at night . . . Someone is saying that my trial has begun. The witnesses look me over, up and down. Seem to know me. Take their oath on the Gospels.
“Yes, she’s the one who killed her husband! She’s a criminal, that woman. See how she dawdles about through the streets, and in the middle of the night. Must be breaking her back with so much love!”
“Alexis-Paul Hus, seaman by trade . . . I was coming home, between one and two in the morning. All of a sudden I catch sight of Doctor Nelson and Madame Tassy. They’re in a little garden, near where Madame d’Aulnières and the Lanouette sisters live. They seem to be getting up off the ground, both of them. Anyhow, I’m sure they weren’t standing up a minute before, because the wall is real low over there, and I would have noticed them right away. And Madame Tassy has on a kind of dressing gown, a white one I think. And as soon as they see me, they separate. Madame Tassy walks across the courtyard into Madame d’Aulnière’s house. And the doctor goes off in the other direction . . .”
Everything drowned out by the sound of hoofbeats. A horse, galloping along the horizon. The other direction! My love, running off. Far, far away. Over the border. He’ll never be returned to face this country’s justice. There won’t be a trial. And the witnesses can all go home . . .
A familiar voice, muffled ever so slightly. Saying that nothing has really happened yet. That everything is still to come. Doctor Nelson has only gone to Quebec. To be with his sister, the Ursuline nun, who’s terribly sick.
This horse is even more wonderful than you can imagine. Every innkeeper down the river sings his praises. From Sorel to Kamouraska. For some, it’s his strength. For some, his endurance. For others, his dark, demonic beauty, like the devil himself. But only George Nelson can make you feel how really sensitive this beast can be. How perfectly his powerful stride echoes the frenzied rhythm of his master’s heart.
The trip to Quebec, through rain and mud. There and back. Just time enough for this man to enter the convent walls and stand by the bed of the poor little nun about to pass away. To say goodbye. Receive her dying words. Carry them off forever. Not even stop to rest, or to rest his horse. Start back again, in the dark and the rain . . . The need to be happy. Not wait any longer. Now that death has come and gone. Get back to Elisabeth as fast as he can. Just one thing matters now: to live! Whatever the price. But live!
Cathy’s dying words. Impossible to shake them off along the way. Even with the wind and rain. Feeling them etch themselves deeper and deeper. With each passing moment. Despite the noise of galloping hooves. Despite the terrible scraping of wheels . . .
My love is coming back. Go light the fire. Aurélie. It’s autumn, Aurélie. Don’t make a fuss. My love is on his way, he’s coming back. I want to soothe and comfort him. That awful look on his face, already . . .
Sister Catherine of the Angels has offered up her life and death to God. From her very first moment in the Ursulines’ cloister. Gave up her long black hair. And that inkling of human warmth in her childish heart. Now, with all her tender passion stifled at its source, with her three vows faithfully kept each day, our little sister Cathy is about to die. Both her brothers by her side. Here, within these walls, by permission of the bishop. Because one is a doctor and one is a priest . . .
Sister Catherine stops them in the midst of their prayers. The prayer of the dying. Calls out in a loud, clear voice. Calls to her brother the doctor. Holds out her departing soul to George. George, the impenitent thief, the brother lost beyond recall.
“It’s too late now to pray. Doctor, save me!”
The other brother — the fiery preacher, the penitent thief by trade — crosses himself with trembling hand. Catherine of the Angels dies with that cry on her lips. In her loud, clear voice:
“Doctor, save me!”
George leaves the convent. Runs out like a madman. His horse, dashing headlong. Back to Sorel . . . I can hear him coming toward me now. With that tormenting cry ringing in his ears and mine: “Doctor, save me!”
I’ll use Cathy’s voice if I have to. The selfsame voice of every threatened life that wants to live. Save me, Doctor Nelson! And save yourself! No, not with prayers. Not with some righteous, abstract alchemy. But with all your body, with all my body. Living flesh of man and of woman. With your name, Doctor Nelson. A name to give your wife. Instead of a name she loathes. With your heart, your soul, your all . . . There’s a man to be killed. There’s no other way. I’m love and I’m life. And my need is as imperious and absolute as death itself . . .
Where you’re concerned I move so near the edge it makes me dizzy. May as well ponder your family problems with you (and more than just your family problems . . .). All the way back from Quebec to Sorel. In the muck and mud of autumn. The wallow and rot of autumn. The heady smell, the lashing rains, the groaning gusts of wind.
“Poor Cathy. So grim, so serious, yet such a child. ‘My calling . . .’ That’s what she used to tell me. In that strange and mystical
way. Oh, what a farce . . .”
Now Aurélie looms up before you, ghostlike, over the muddy road. Her face, so white. Her woollen kerchief, black, twisted about her narrow shoulders. Tossing her kinky little head, like an actress. With a black girl’s grace. You can’t imagine how much shame and scorn will cling to this love of ours because of her. Fixed forever in a grimacing mask . . .
You breathe the decay of autumn until it makes you sick. Catherine of the Angels’ death sticks in your throat . . . See, I won’t leave you alone. Despite your grief, my love, I’ll prod you on. Remind you over and over that you have your calling too. The real one. Just like your family . . . (The perfect alibi: to each his own!) A murderer! Yes, you’re a murderer! And I’m your accomplice, your wife. Waiting for you here in Sorel. With Aurélie by my side, thrashing about, caught in the trap.
I make her sit down on the floor, beside me. Facing the fire. First, blow out all the candles. Solemnly, one by one. Only the glow of the fire lighting the room. Our shadows on the wall. And we hold out our hands toward the fire. Aurélie’s, so tiny. Fingers spread, like rays. She asks if she can light her pipe. Wraps herself in a cloud of smoke. Sits musing. Eyes half closed. A dream of happiness, clear and simple. Surging waves of passion over her face, pink in the firelight.
“Your affair, Madame . . . You and the doctor . . . I’m dying to see what happens!”
Aurélie doesn’t run around with bad boys anymore. Doesn’t make her predictions over newborn babies. Never goes anywhere. Just follows me about, wherever I go. Comes to life when I give her a message to take to George. And only then. Bursts into bloom, atwitter and atremble, as soon as I tell her my pleasures or pains. I read a boundless admiration on her face. An infinite awe. A kind of enchantment. As if this hectic life of mine were quite enough for Aurélie now. Enough to spare her the need to live herself. But sometimes it seems to make her angry. And her old hostility toward the doctor comes back again.
“That dear little doctor of yours has hexed us for sure, no doubt about it . . .”
I put my arms around her. Stroke her hair. It’s so essential now to soothe and calm her. Make her drop her defenses. Pamper her into that utterly passive state where docile submission will seem the most natural thing in the world . . . I offer Aurélie a glass of port. She drinks it down in little swallows.
“I need your help, Aurélie. You know what a wicked man I married. Well, I want you to go to Kamouraska and poison my husband . . .”
“That’s a pretty big crime, Madame . . .”
“No one will ever know. And afterward you’ll come stay here with me. Like a sister. For the rest of your life if you want . . .”
“I’m so afraid I’ll burn in hell! . . .”
Between Montreal and Sorel. The ruts run deep. The earth, dug up. And the heart as well, by the same devastation. Impossible to tell just where it began. With the earth, more than likely. The countryside, eaten away from within. At first, an infinitesimal shifting of ground, somewhere in a rain-soaked landscape.
Then masses of crumbling rock, great floods and rushing torrents. And a corner of the known world gives way and falls to pieces. (You mean you didn’t know such villainy was in you, Doctor Nelson?) Now here you are, involved completely, bound up in the fate of this land. The collapse of this land. (Before you return there yourself, in the flesh, to rot.) All the good topsoil, ripped away. (Pride, self-respect, compassion, charity, courage . . .) The heart, stripped bare. So painfully naked. (Fatigue, despair, disgust . . .) “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Now just one thing to do. Be rid of Catherine of the Angels’ death as fast as possible. And every other death as well. Those past and yet to come. Tonight, George Nelson, this very evening, you’ll give way to Elisabeth’s pleas. You’ll speak to Aurélie and send her off to Kamouraska in your place . . . Weary. So awfully weary . . .
Poor dear, I’m sure I can never make you understand that beyond all saintliness the wily innocence of beasts and madmen reigns supreme.
A dozen miles or so before you reach Sorel. It’s no use forcing your horse. Besides, Aurélie and I have so much to say to each other. Here by the fire, cozy and warm. And these sudden cravings of mine. Like every pregnant woman. Send Aurélie to Kamouraska. We must send Aurélie to Kamouraska . . . Put Antoine’s death way out beyond our reach, yours and mine. Keep plenty of distance between ourselves and Antoine’s death. Enough to restore our innocence. So difficult a peace to win. Dispel the agony. Heart pounding, bulging out between the ribs. The terrible urge to kill, held at bay. Try frantically to reach the calm in the hurricane’s eye. You’ll see, it’s all going to happen in another world. Aurélie is taking care of everything. Well hear about Antoine’s death as if we had nothing to do with it at all. His mother will write us a letter, I suppose. And no one will ever be able to say just what my husband died of. It was bound to happen, sooner or later. One party too many, and that’s the end of the squire of Kamouraska. Nobody will really be surprised . . . On a frightful night like this I hear someone whisper that the Marsh King is coming to get me. That he’ll grab me by the hair and drag me off. Roll me about in a great morass of muck and slime until I drown . . . It’s so hard to keep the fire alive. The logs don’t seem to burn. Just fill the room with smoke . . . Maybe I’ve had too much port to drink.
Now I’m giving Aurélie some cakes. And ribbons too. Red ones and green ones. In an instant her sullen face lights up. Like a child, in tears one moment and laughing the next.
I speak to her softly, afraid of jostling her out of her sudden joy.
She sighs, tries to find her thoughts in the fire. Pokes through the crumbling embers. Snatches at tiny cinders with the tongs. All at once she utters a cry. Jumps up. Drops the tongs on the hearth. With an infernal clatter.
Someone has just come in. Someone we didn’t expect so soon, comes bursting in. All out of breath. After a long, long ride . . .
He’s been standing in the bedroom with us now for several minutes. His muddy boots have left a black trail on the floor. A three-day growth of beard covers his cheeks with dark blue shadows. He’s staring at us without a word. Long and hard. As if he were blaming me and Aurélie for something . . . Now he’s saying that it’s all a farce, that sooner or later you’ve got to make up your mind. And his voice, by nature so gentle and pleasant, shatters the air.
“Someone could walk off with this house, the way you watch it! I’ve been out there knocking for half an hour! . . . What on earth is in that fire, Aurélie? What are you looking at?”
George Nelson throws his coat on the floor. His silk hat, his cane. It’s Aurélie he’s after with his jibes. He doesn’t seem to see me at all. I’m beginning to find her hateful . . .
“You don’t look like much of a witch to me, Aurélie!”
“When it comes to devils, Monsieur, no one is as good as you! Now let me be, Monsieur. I want to go . . .”
“You’re not going to leave me just like that, Aurélie. Not now, when I need you. Oh, no! We’re going to see whose power is stronger, yours or mine. We’ll see if you’re as much of a witch as you say you are!”
“I’d rather not, Monsieur. I want to go . . .”
“Look me in the eye, Aurélie.”
“I never look anyone in the eye, Monsieur. And I’m not about to begin with you.”
Aurélie looks down at the floor. Then at me. Seems to be waiting for help. I turn aside. We’ve reached a point where we have to let things run their course now without the slightest change.
“Come now, Aurélie. Whenever we go meddling in other people’s business we have to go all the way. Like it or not. Put up with all their secrets, from start to finish. Their whole delightful tale of love and death . . .”
“Please, Monsieur, let me go. I’ll mind my own business for the rest of my blessed days. I promise . . .”
A dry little laugh. That inflexible voice I know so well.
“Now don’t start whimpering, Aurélie, for God’s sake!”
; Aurélie stares at the floor. Then at the dying fire. Begins to weep, but without a sound. Without even moving. As if the flood of tears streaming down her shawl weren’t part of her anymore.
George comes over and sits by my side. Shuts out the world. The two of us, here in a corner. Kisses my hands. Calls me his “dearest.” Lays his head in my lap and tells me about his sister. Tells me that she’s dead. That she died at three o’clock, this morning. Like a sinner. And that we have to mourn her for two reasons now.
In a single bound he’s back to Aurélie. Ranting and raving.
“Tell me, Aurélie . . . While you’re sitting there looking for treasures in the fire . . . Do you hear people’s voices there too? Do you hear their screams? . . . My sister’s scream . . . Can you hear it somewhere in all those ashes? ‘Save me! Doctor, save me!’ . . .”
Aurélie stands transfixed. Weeping. Without moving a muscle. As if she were turned to stone.
The doctor looks at her and smiles. Sees how weak and defenseless she is, how easily hurt. He seems relieved, rid of a terrible burden weighing him down. He speaks to her now in the gentlest of tones.
“You see, Aurélie, the important thing is for you to know what’s going on. For you to take care of everything. Even certain things your sweet little mind might not understand. That’s how real witches work. We each have our calling. And you know what my calling is, Aurélie? Would you believe it? One day I swore I was going to be a saint!”
“You, Monsieur? A saint? You must be joking!”
“Yes, I’m quite a joker, Aurélie. You’ll never know how much of a joker I can be.”
The doctor is laughing now. Aurélie too. Wiping her nose and her eyes on her sleeve. She’s coming back to life. And so is he. Light as a bubble. His white teeth gleaming in his dark, whiskered face.
“Tassy, that worthless scum! Watch, Aurélie. I’ll cut him down like the dog he is!”