Kamouraska by Anne Hébert

quivers as if he’s about to cry.
    My pride! I call my pride to come to my defense. Like my God. While the flame-red image of Mary Fletcher makes me burn with curiosity, with jealousy and desire.
    For a long moment we look at each other. Without a word. His embarrassment. His helplessness. Mine too. And my pride, giving way little by little. We turn our heads, the two of us worn out, like a pair of wrestlers.
    â€œEléonore-Elisabeth d’Aulnières, do you take this man, Jacques-Antoine Tassy, for your lawfully wedded husband?”
    You have to say “yes,” say it nice and loud. Your bridal veil. Your crown of orange blossoms. Your gown with its long train. The wedding cake, three layers high, covered with icing and thick whipped cream. Behind you the guests are sniffling in their handkerchiefs. All of Sorel is waiting to watch you go by, hanging on your young husband’s arm . . . Good God, I’m doomed! Married to a man I don’t even love . . .
    This fair-haired giant. Eyes so blue, like flax, filled with tears. A little too plump, perhaps. And always ready with a tear or two . . . They say he drinks and chases the ladies, this squire of Kamouraska. Barely twenty-one years old. And I’m sixteen,Elisabeth d’Aulnières. And I’ve vowed I’ll be happy . . .
    No, don’t let Madame Rolland settle down just yet. Don’t let her wake up all of a sudden in Léontine Mélançon’s little room. To sort out the recollections of her marriage and hang them on the wall, so she can look them over at her leisure. Nothing is less innocuous than the story of Elisabeth d’Aulnières’ first marriage.
    It’s not the unrelenting light. No, it’s this terrible stillness. This distance that ought to be comforting me, this sense of detachment. It’s worse than all the rest. Seeing yourself as someone else. Pretending to be objective. Not feeling that you and that young bride dressed in blue velvet are one and the same. Her traveling costume. Fashion plate for Louis-Philippe of France. The groom looks like a dummy made of wax. Long frock coat, tall silk hat.
    And now the bride begins to move. Little mechanical doll, clinging to her husband’s arm, climbing into the carriage. Her white silk stocking, her elegant shoe. Sitting back, she reassumes the pose. The wedding guests crowd around, joking and laughing at the top of their lungs. Again the bride gives her mother a kiss. And her aunts, and all the guests. The groom takes the reins, can’t wait to start out on the long trip all the way to Kamouraska. Stopping at inns. Changing the horses. Aunt Adélaïde shouts something, swallowed up in the wind. Repeats the question, as the groom struggles to hold back the team of two black horses.
    Again and again the groom kisses the bride. The groom is made of painted wood. So is the bride, colored all blue.
    And me, I’m Madame Rolland, and I’m off again on my first wedding trip. The way you tell a story. Not taking it too seriously, with an amused little smile. Even if happiness turns to vinegar, to bitter gall . . .
    The road is lined with trees. I count the grains of rice strewn everywhere in the carriage. I close my eyes. The warm, dry wind passes over my face, my hands. Between my lashes I can see thecloud of dust stirred up by the carriage along the road.
    We should have taken the steamboat to Quebec. But my husband insists that he’ll drive his young wife by himself, over his favorite route, all the way to his home down the river.
    The smell of cut hay. The fragrance of clover. The chirping of crickets. Great armfuls heaped over me, now burning hot, now fresh and cool. Out of the sunlight, into the deep, dark shade of the forest. So sensitive again to the slightest touch. This one desire, the very center of my being . . . No, no! I won’t admit how willingly I let myself be bound to this fair-haired man beside me. The carriage, madly