La Guerre:Yes Sir by Roch Carrier

Author:Roch Carrier [Carrier, Roch & Fischman, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Literary, Short Stories (Single Author), French-Canadian Fiction, FIC029000, Québec (Province)
ISBN: 9780887844102
Publisher: House of Anansi Press
Published: 1970-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Eventually the feast spread to the living room too. The flag covering Corriveau’s coffin became a tablecloth where plates and glasses were left and cider was spilled. People sitting at the kitchen table leaned against a wall because it was hard to keep your balance with a plate in one hand, a glass of cider in the other, fat from the tourtière streaming down cheeks and chin; or they kept their heads high and dry on a pile of greasy dishes, or else standing in the doorway which was open to the snow and cold, they tried to vomit to get rid of their dizziness; or they put both hands on Antoinette’s generous backside or tried to see through the wool covering Philomène’s breasts; and they ate juicy tourtière in the living room, in the odour of the candles which were going out, and they prayed in the heavy odour of the kitchen where the smell of grease mingled with that of the sweat of the men and women.

They prayed: “Sainte-Marie pleine et grasse, le seigneur, avez-vous? Entrez toutes les femmes… ”

These people did not doubt that their prayer would be understood. They prayed with all their strength as men, all their strength as women who had borne children. They did not ask God for Corriveau to come back on earth; they begged God quite simply not to abandon him for too long in the flames of purgatory. Corriveau couldn’t be in hell. He was a boy from the village, and it would have seemed unfair to these villagers for one of their children to be condemned to the eternal flames. Perhaps some people deserved a very long time in purgatory, but no one really deserved hell.

Amélie had come with Arthur while Henri, her deserter husband, remained cowering in his attic, well protected by the heavy trunks slid across the trapdoor.

“In purgatory the fire doesn’t hurt as much as in hell. You know that you can get out of purgatory; you think of that while you’re burning. Then the fire doesn’t bite so bad. So let us pray for the fire of purgatory to purify Corriveau. Hail Mary… ”

Amélie strung all her prayers end to end, formulas learned at school, responses from her little catechism, and she felt that she was right.

“Let us pray again,” she said.

How could a woman leading a dishonest life with two men in her house be so pious? How could she explain supernatural things about religion and hell with so much wisdom? Despite her impure life Amélie was a good woman. Occasions like this evening were fortunate, people would say: you have to have deaths and burials from time to time to remember the goodness of people. The villagers felt a great warmth in their hearts: it wasn’t possible that there was a hell. To imaginations steeped in pork fat and cider, the flames of hell were scarcely bigger than the candleflames on Corriveau’s coffin. The flames could not burn through all eternity; all the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.