Kamouraska Read Online Free PDF Page B

sits up. Sunlight is pouring into Léontine’s little bedroom now. It’s the middle of the morning. Upstairs the children are raising a terrible row, seeing who can stamp and squeal the loudest. Suddenly, two piercing cries come ripping through the air, above the clatter. The child isn’t screaming with anger or pain. Just for the sheer joy of making himself heard, at the top of his lungs, over the troop of brothers and sisters.
    Madame Rolland pulls on her dressing gown, dashes upstairs. There she is now in the nursery, wild-eyed, breathless, giving a healthy slap to little Eugène, so startled he forgets to whimper.
    â€œWhat’s got into you, screaming like that? And with your father so sick!”
    The chaos of the room defies description. Chunks of bread scattered about the rug, a cup of milk spilled over. A big rocking horse, lying on its side, as if craning its neck to reach the puddle.Piles of dirty underwear. Baby Eléonore, half naked, displaying her bottom and its chafed little checks. Madame Rolland seizes the children’s nursemaid by the shoulders, gives her a shaking. Hairpins fall to the floor in a shower as the poor girl is jostled back and forth by a steady hand.
    â€œAgathe, you stupid child!”
    â€œBut . . . Florida said she’d help me. I can’t do it all by myself.”
    In no time at all Madame Rolland has powdered little Eléonore’s bottom, dressed her up in pretty embroidered drawers. The rocking horse is put in its place. Agathe takes out the dirty underwear, wipes up the milk, picks up the bread, sweeps up the crumbs. Everything is back to normal. The children — dressed, combed, calmed down — strike a delightful pose around their mother. Agathe, hands joined in admiration, stands before the touching tableau.
    â€œJust like the Queen with her little princes by her side!”
    Out of the mouths of fools. How true. The Queen, against Elisabeth d’Aulnières? Absurd. Who would dare accuse me of offending the Queen? When it’s obvious that I look just like her, enough to be her sister, with all my brood around me. I look like the Queen of England. I act like the Queen of England. I’m fascinated by the image of Victoria and her children. Perfect imitation. Who could find me guilty of doing anything wrong?
    Suddenly little Anne-Marie’s sweet voice pipes up:
    â€œBut Mamma is wearing her robe! And her hair isn’t combed. And besides, her face is all red!”
    What a nuisance, this bright, clever child. Too clever. In a flash the charm is broken, the sham unmasked. In her state of disarray, Madame Rolland rings a clashing note. And in such a lovely picture of the children, cleaned up all spick-and-span. Agathe seems a little ashamed to have let herself be taken in by such a sorry sight.
    â€œOh, Mamma, let me fix your hair!”
    Anne-Marie pleads with her shining eyes. For a while Elisabeth lets her pull and tug. Again and again, without success, comb and brush attack the thick, tangled growth.
    All right, what’s the shame? Let’s show the children the backside of Victoria’s image. Let it amaze them. Let them be good and bewildered. It will teach them something. Here’s your mother, unkempt and disheveled. See what she looks like fresh from a couple of hours of haunted sleep. So, Anne-Marie, my dear, you think my face is red? You’ll never know how it hurts me to hear you say that. You’ll never know the pain . . . Your childish voice, dredging up another voice buried deep in the darkness of time. A long root, torn thundering from the soil of memory, still covered with earth. Justine Latour, before the magistrate, testifying in her peasant’s twang, shaking with fright.
    â€œThe whole time Doctor Nelson was on his way to Kamouraska, Madame was all excited and red in the face, even more than she usually is.”
    Send the children off for the day. Anne-Marie and Eugène to Aunt