Kamouraska by Anne Hébert Page A

was born. Escape from the clutches of this frightful place on Rue Augusta. My life! My whole life, with all its turmoil, all its passion, waiting for me there behind the shuttered windows on Rue Augusta. A wild beast, caged, lurking in the shadows, watching for a chance to pounce. Can’t I run away from that part of my life? Back to where I was born? Back to the gentle, peaceful time before I was born? My mother, deep in mourning, carrying me in her womb. Like the stone inside a fruit . . . Poor little child, growing in a black crape cocoon . . . Could I glimpse the world outside through the red, weeping eyes of this young widowed mother of mine? . . . They’re taking my father’s coffin out of the house. My mother is fainting dead away. And here I am, shut in tight, kicking her in the belly. Trying to wake her up. Jumping and bouncing about. Why, such a long, frightening faint could kill us both!
    â€œWhat a naughty little girl!”
    Is that the first voice in the world to reach my ears?
    No sooner do you get used to one nursemaid’s face than a newone appears. Madame d’Aulnières changes nannies with every breath. On account of the child. It’s the servants who take charge of the child, body and soul.
    â€œSimply can’t keep her. No two ways about it. Believe me, she’s just too smart for her own good. You’ll never change her!”
    White bonnet perched on a dingy chignon. This one has lice. Get rid of her at once. Cook can’t stand for it. It’s too disgusting. Mother grumbles:
    â€œWhat a nuisance . . . Oh, my poor head! . . . Really, cook is just too fussy . . . Oh, well, if I must, I must. All right then, find me another one as soon as you can!”
    The nanny is gone! Long live the nanny! This one is clean and uncompromising.
    â€œThe child is full of lice!”
    A fine-tooth comb, that’s what we need. Ayyy! Like needles, raking my poor skull back and forth.
    â€œSit still or the lice are going to eat up your brains!”
    The child’s hair is so thick, it would really be better to cut it. Only way to take care of these vermin. Snip, snip. Curl after curl. Down to the scalp. The kitchen floor is strewn with golden fluff. Just look at that shorn head! Like a convict! The child goes rummaging through the sweepings, looking for her blond curls. The red copper pots shine in a row along the wall. Cook says if you slice a raw onion and put it in a saucer it will keep the mosquitoes away. I swear, I can hear her mumbling it now, leaning against her hot black stove.
    Once her daughter is born, Madame d’Aulnières puts aside her widow’s weeds of deepest mourning for that somber garb that will mark her sorrow for the rest of her days. Just like a grandmother, though she’s only seventeen. With her black dress, white bonnet, collar and cuffs of fine linen, she sets about growing old and disconsolate. Day and night. Never leaves her room. Quite satisfiedmerely to sit there, feeling her pulse at regular intervals. No other care but the feeble beating of a heart wrapped in swaddling.
    My dear little aunts begin to prod her. Use their authority as older sisters.
    â€œYou can’t stay here. Think of your daughter. Why not come back home and live with us? The way it was before?”
    Madame d’Aulnières, my mother, shakes her head sadly.
    Go back to the family home? That trap! Let people confuse me with my spinster sisters? Risk an insult like that? No, I’ve paid too much for the honor of being Madame to give it up so easily.
    â€œListen to me, all of you. Nothing will ever be the way it was before. I’m Madame d’Aulnières. And that’s how I’m going to stay until my dying breath. Until then, I have a right to my own way of life, to my daughter, my servants, my household, even my mourning. This is my husband’s house. This is where I’m going to die. My mind is made up.”
    â€œBut what about the