The Town Below. Roger Lemelin
too bad!” whimpered Barloute, mingling remorse with her tears. She thanked God she had been spared any suicides in her family.
“It’s a good thing we know it’s not true,” remarked Flora, reassuringly.
“Don’t all cry at once or you’ll drown that ‘drinker of tears,’” was Denis’s ironic comment.
“Such impudence!” cried Madame Langevin. She was indignant. “He can’t appreciate it, it’s too beautiful!”
The Deputy, who had a big belly, kept tapping it with his program as he surveyed Lise with a friendly gaze. “It would be very easy to find a place for her at Parliament House, Monsieur Lévesque.”
“I have no doubt of that, with your influence. But I prefer to keep her at home.”
“Oh,” said the Deputy, “I don’t have so much influence as people think. I like them to tell me that I do; but you can imagine what it is, with everyone expecting me to use it in his behalf. The influence is not equal to the affluence.”
They both laughed loudly at this witticism. Pinasse Charcot, commander of the parish guard and an enemy of Zépherin Lévesque, the honorary commandant, was watching the latter’s manoeuvres with a spiteful look in his eye. He was a Conservative and was anxious for the next elections to come around so that he could give his Deputy the boot. Grondin, a tavern keeper and a timid Liberal, was endeavouring to find out if he would be able to obtain a licence for the coming year. The Deputy reassured him.
“I have slain my last two lovers!” screamed Messalina on the stage.
With this terrible announcement the act ended, and a wave of indignation rolled up toward the curtain as it fell. Monsieur le Curé made a wry mouth. To his mind the piece was not an illustration of the divine grace of mercy. The author of the adaptation was an elderly ham who, after having had his fling at acting, had gone in for the manufacture of explosives. He now came forward to speak in humble terms of all the sleepless nights which he had spent upon his task. He had been in Hollywood ten years ago, following a dramatic debauch at the popular theatre of Saint-Sauveur where he had set four hundred and fifty good housewives to bawling, and he let it be inferred that he would be leaving for Paris the following week to receive his laurels from the French Academy. Denis pricked up his ears at this, for the mention of literature awakened an instinct within him. In his opinion, the fellow was a mediocre hack, and he shuddered at the thought of the honours that were coming to him.
Lise was nervously rolling a sheet of music in her hand. For her it was a great occasion. She had sung in the convent, but there had been no deputy to feast his eyes upon her and no lads like Denis Boucher to listen to her. She was vaguely yet distinctly conscious of the difference. The commandant Pinasse, a jolly fellow, was master of ceremonies. As Lise saw him going up on the stage, she had a clammy feeling.
“It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the daughter of our churchwarden and honorary commandant. She is going to warble for us ‘Les Figues —’” He bent over toward Lise: “What’s the name of it?”
“‘Les Filles de Cadiz.’”
“‘Les Figues de Cadice,’ ladies and gentlemen. And I may tell you that she is no Bolduc.”
The speaker’s stentorian voice filled Zépherin Lévesque with rage. He himself suffered from chronic laryngitis, which was a great handicap in competing with Pinasse for command of the guard. He made a grimace. How vulgar the fellow was! He could see a kind of vengeance in this inept announcement.
Eugénie Clichoteux, in the midst of other young Soyeuses, was chattering away. The group laughed discreetly at Pinasse’s little jest.
Very pale despite the fact that her face was burning, Lise came near stumbling as she mounted the steps to the stage. Her mother, wishing to make herself conspicuous, held her back for a moment and adjusted a fold of her dress. Then all was silence. Jean was listening to his own heart as it beat an accompaniment; it seemed to him that it rivalled in tempo the fingers of the guest organist at high mass. As for the Langevin twins, they would have liked to take this girl upon their shoulders and bear her in triumph. Had she not provided them with a hiding place? Her voice was one made for telling falsehoods to gendarmes.
That voice now rose crystal-clear, like a spring bubbling up in the sunlight. It was in turn coquettish, light and playful, sad, and then of a sudden, violent, detaching itself from the piano like water playing over moss-covered stones. It would run off in trills, only to dissolve in a charming musical lament. Like the swallow’s flight, it was now capricious, gently palpitating, and again would hover in the form of a sigh that seemed to be the echo of some magic song the angels sang. Denis’s face was frozen with surprise. He had come forward and taken Lise’s vacant chair. For him her beauty was lifted like a flag above this exhibition of the ridiculous. Jean noted the effect upon his friend and was proud that Denis was so interested; but when he saw him applauding frantically, he became uneasy, fearing he had already been dispossessed. It reminded him of the apples they stole that were just beginning to ripen.
“Whoopee!” Robert burst out, “what do you think of a girl like that hiding us from the cops?”
Jean’s mouth was dry. What would Denis have to say? He would not say anything, for he was planning to steal her, Jean was sure of it.
Barloute Colin thought it was all very beautiful, quite “classic,” for her Jean was in a reserved seat tonight and she must live up to him. Flora Boucher played the sophisticate. “You can tell she’s been well trained. Ah, the opera! Joseph used to take me often when I was a girl.”
“She seems to me a little stuck-up,” said Germaine Colin doubtfully. At family gatherings she sang the love songs she had heard on the radio, and the walls of her bedroom were covered with the photographs of popular singers. “If they don’t call her back for an encore, we can start the bingo game. Oh, momsy, I didn’t tell you, did I? That’s Jean’s girlfriend.” And she went on to relate the little adventure of that afternoon.
“Well,” replied Barloute proudly, “I always did say Jean would never marry a girl without a stitch to her back. But one so high up in the world as that!”
“Denis surely couldn’t have been there,” said Flora, with a note of assurance in her voice. She too, as a young mother (she regarded herself as young), was proud of her son and of his appeal to women, so long as he did not make use of it. The thought of such a thing was sufficient to make her heart beat faster, as if he had in reality made a masculine conquest.
“How are your lad’s hens coming along?” Bidonnet, with the usual expansive look on his face, wanted to know.
“They’re laying very well. Did you hear that Gus Perrault won the last lottery?”
“It’s always those that don’t need it,” complained Madame Langevin. Concerned with placing her sons in the Parliament Buildings, she was convinced that Flora had gone out of her way to flatter Perrault in order to prepare the ground for Denis, who was trained for office work.
“They tell me you’re going to open Gaston’s shop very soon?” inquired Barloute anxiously.
“Monday night we’re buying the lumber for the partition. Our place is so conveniently located and I know everybody. We’ll serve ice cream, soft drinks, and cigarettes — just light refreshments, you understand. He gave me such a fright again tonight. If I can only win!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, the bingo game is starting! Have your tickets ready, and please don’t throw your beans on the floor!”
“Let’s go on back,” said Denis, who did not care for games of chance.
“We’d better stay here,” Jean protested uncertainly. “We’ll disturb people.”
“You’re becoming very polite all of a sudden,” said Robert with a smile. “Don’t worry, your seat’s reserved.”
Stationing themselves near the entrance, they began talking of Tit-Blanc’s scheme. Jean now