Kamouraska by Anne Hébert Read Free Book Online Page A

Denis and Saint Eustache! Let the Queen have every patriot hanged if that’s her pleasure. But not my love. Let him live, him alone. And let me belong to him forever.
    The servant girls from Sorel have finished arranging things on the dresser. Now they’re bringing in hats, and coats, and gloves for the Lanouette sisters, off to testify before the magistrate. My three aunts . . . Husbandless, hopeless . . . Dressed as women of respectable years and good family should be. Some brown, a little lace, very little . . . Some gray, a good deal of gray . . . Some beige, but not too much beige . . . Black, the choicest, finest black . . . And a tight-lipped, straight-laced look to rival any lady of the Congregation.
    â€œPlace your right hand on the Bible and repeat: ‘I do solemnly swear.’ Go ahead, I’m listening.”
    The feather quill scratches over the paper. The clerk bows his head and writes. Everything you say will be put down.
    Mademoiselle Angélique Lanouette, being of legal age and in exercise of her legal rights, residing in the town of Sorel, being duly sworn, does testify and affirm:
    â€œI am the aunt of Madame Elisabeth d’Aulnières, her mother’s sister. And I don’t know how anyone can think my niece is guilty of such a terrible thing. A lady of her breeding, a child that I helped raise myself to lead a good, religious life? No, she could never be a party to her husband’s murder. She loved Monsieur Tassy. She was a devoted wife. And as for Aurélie Caron, everyone knows what a reputation she has. Elisabeth’s worst mistake, the only thing she can be blamed for, was keeping that girl on. That shameless, unprincipled liar . . . That drunken beast . . . That . . . That slut . . .”
    Aunt Angélique bursts out sobbing. Tears roll down her sunken cheeks, stop at the corners of her lips, pressed tight. Her left hand, gloved in kid, wipes them away. The smell of the fine leather grazing her nose only adds to her distress. So much refinement, so much good taste . . . Kid, lace, First Communion, Walter Scott . . . Such elegance, such dignity . . . That it should all come to this.This disgrace. All of us, dragged through the mud with our haughty little darling. Pride and joy of our barren existence. Impudent idol of our miserable spinster life.
    Mademoiselle Luce-Gertrude Lanouette, being of legal age and in exercise of her legal rights, does testify and affirm:
    â€œI declare for all to hear that my niece, Madame Elisabeth D’Aulnières, widow of Antoine Tassy, is a young lady of flawless reputation. Raised in a manner befitting her fine background, and according to the best religious principles, she is utterly blameless and above reproach.”
    Aunt Luce-Gertrude doesn’t cry. Her voice is curt and precise. She has taken off her gloves. Her hands are moist and cold. She feels her pulse throbbing, racing along her arm, with sudden spasmodic twitches. Feels it reaching her shoulder, her back, her other arm. Feels it shaking every inch of her body. An apple tree in the wind.
    Mademoiselle Adélaïde Lanouette, being of legal age and in exercise of her legal rights, being duly sworn, affirms and testifies:
    â€œMadame Elisabeth d’Aulnières, the wife of the late Antoine Tassy, is a lady through and through. A fine, upstanding Christian lady. And so young, so pretty. Simply an adorable child. And now, maligned, slandered before the whole wide world! Why, the love and affection she lavished on her husband . . . Her late husband . . . The attention she showed him! And their three little ones . . . Why, the baby is scarcely four months old. An angel . . . No, I wouldn’t believe a word, not a single word that Aurélie Caron says against her!”
    Aunt Adélaïde, till then so self-controlled, so pleased with her bit of storybook fiction, trilled out with just a touch of affectation, suddenly breaks down at the mention of Aurélie