Maria Chapdelaine quotes

Which signified that there was no water on the table. Azalma rose to get it, and behind her back the old fellow sent a sly wink in the direction of Maria.

“I assault her with parables,” chuckled he. “It’s politer.”

On the plank walls of the house were pasted old newspapers, and calendars hung there such as the manufacturers of farm implements or grain merchants scatter abroad, and also prints of a religious character;

Two years from now there will be grain harvested, and pasturage that will support a good herd of cattle. I tell you that we are going to make land.”

“Make land!” Rude phrase of the country, summing up in two words all the heartbreaking labour that transforms the incult woods, barren of sustenance, to smiling fields, ploughed and sown.

Samuel Chapdelaine’s eyes flamed with enthusiasm and determination as he spoke.

but it was Maria who stood longest by the door, hearkening to the sweet patter of the rain, watching the indistinct movement of cloud in the dark sky above the darker mass of the forest, breathing the mild air that came from the south.

“Spring is not far⁠ ⁠… Spring is not far⁠ ⁠…”

In her heart she felt that never since the earth began was there a springtime like this springtime to-be.

“Spring is not far … Spring is not far …”

In her heart she felt that never since the earth began was there a springtime like this springtime to-be.

And in truth it was not long before Maria, once more on the doorstep, shaping her hands to carry the sound, sent forth the ringing call to dinner.

Toward evening a breeze arose and a delicious coolness fell upon the earth like a pardon.

But the sky remained cloudless.

At length they were at peace, and with sighs of relief could desist from the warfare. The very last mosquito settled on the face of little Alma Rose. With great seriousness she pronounced the ritual words—

“Fly, fly, get off my face, my nose is not a public place!”

Then she made a swift end of the creature with a slap. The smoke drifted obliquely through the doorway; within the house, no longer stirred by the breeze, it spread in a thin cloud; the walls became indistinct and far-off;

Again he hesitated, and the question he was about to put took another form upon his lips. “You will be here still … next spring?”

And after the simple question and simpler answer they fell silent and so long remained, wordless and grave, for they had exchanged their vows.

Always had she dim consciousness of such a presence—moving the spirit like the solemn joy of chanted masses, the intoxication of a sunny windy day, the happiness that some unlooked-for good fortune brings, the certain promise of abundant harvest …

In the stillness of the night the roar of the fall sounds loud and near; the northwest wind sways the tops of spruce and fir with a sweet cool sighing; again and again, farther away and yet farther, an owl is hooting; the chill that ushers in the dawn is still remote.

And Maria, in perfect contentment, rests upon the step, watching the ruddy beam from her fire—flickering, disappearing, quickened again to birth.

Frequent changes of wind brought an alternation of mild rainy days and frosty mornings; but every time the wind came afresh from the northwest it was a little colder, a little more remindful of the icy winter blasts.

Everywhere is autumn a melancholy season, charged with regrets for that which is departing, with shrinking from what is to come

; but under the Canadian skies it is sadder and more moving than elsewhere, as though one were bewailing the death of a mortal summoned untimely by the gods before he has lived out his span.

… easygoing ways, for the summer is painfully short and one must not lose a single hour of those precious weeks when it is possible to work on the land, whereas the winter drags slowly and gives all too much time for the tasks it brings.

The house became the centre of the universe; in truth the only spot where life could be sustained, and more than ever the great cast-iron stove was the soul of it.

Every little while some member of the family fetched a couple of logs from under the staircase; cypress in the morning, spruce throughout the day, in the evening birch, pushing them in upon the live coals.

We are but little children. Some there be who think themselves pretty strong—able to get on without God’s help in their houses and on their lands … but in the bush …” With solemn voice and slowly-moving head he repeated:

“We are but little children.”

“A good man he was,” said Eutrope Gagnon, “in very truth a good man, strong and brave, with ill-will to none.”

“Very well, father;” but she replied in a voice so dejected, almost indifferent, that her parents exchanged glances behind her back.

Country folk do not die for love, nor spend the rest of their days nursing a wound.

They are too near to nature, and know too well the stern laws that rule their lives. Thus it is perhaps, that they are sparing of high-sounding words;

They are comfortably off, own good cattle.’ That is not how to put it.

The truth is that their cattle own them.

In all the world there is no ‘boss’ who behaves as stupidly as the beasts you favour. Pretty nearly every day they give you trouble or do you some mischief. Now it is a skittish horse that runs away or lashes out with his heels;

aided by miracles, he never fails; he fulfils his sacred office, and thenceforward there is room for neither doubt nor fear.

Death is but a glorious preferment, a door that opens to the joys unspeakable of the elect.

The wind had risen and was shaking the partitions as windowpanes rattle in a sudden gust.

aided by miracles, he never fails; he fulfils his sacred office, and thenceforward there is room for neither doubt nor fear. Death is but a glorious preferment, a door that opens to the joys unspeakable of the elect.

The wind had risen and was shaking the partitions as windowpanes rattle in a sudden gust.

The nor’wester came howling over the dark treetops, fell upon the clearing about the little wooden buildings—house, stable, barn—in squalls and-wicked whirlwinds that sought to lift the roof and smote the walls like a battering-ram, before sweeping onward to the forest in a baffled fury.

What she heard had moved her profoundly, and she felt in a dim and troubled way that this story of a hard life so bravely lived had for her a deep and timely significance and held some lesson if only she might understand it.

“How little do we know people!” was the thought that filled her mind.

Since her mother had crossed the threshold of death she seemed to wear a new aspect, not of this world; and now all the homely and familiar traits endearing her to them were being overshadowed by other virtues well-nigh heroic in their quality.

Was it worth the cost?

The question scarcely framed itself with such clearness in her mind, but so her thoughts were tending.

Thus to live, as hardly, as courageously, and to be so sorely missed when she departed, few women were fit for this. As for herself …

Again Maria asked herself:—“Why stay here, to toil and suffer thus? Why? …” And when she found no answer, it befell at length that out of the silence and the night voices arose.

No miraculous voices were these; each of us hears them when he goes apart and withdraws himself far enough to escape from the petty turmoil of his daily life.

But they speak more loudly and with plainer accents to the simple-hearted, to those who dwell among the great northern woods and in the empty places of the earth.