Alignment-Lab-AI/GutenDialogue · Datasets at Hugging Face

book_id stringlengths 2 6	title stringclasses 1 value	author stringclasses 1 value	conversations listlengths 1 5.07k
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "The pump is not frozen? he asks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Is there plenty of wood in the house?" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "It must be a bad day in the woods!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the woods they are better off than we are here, answers her father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Up there where the trees stand close together one does not feel the wind. You can be sure that Esdras and Da'Be are all right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes?" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I am wondering whether we shall have any callers on New Year's Day, said Madame Chapdelaine one evening. She went over the list of all relatives and friends able to make the venture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azalma Larouche does not live so far away, but she--she is not very energetic. The people at St. Prime would not care to take the journey. Possibly Wilfrid or Ferdinand might drive from St. Gedeon if the ice on the lake were in good condition." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "If the roads are as bad as they were last year, said she," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is it true, mother, she asked as evening was falling," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quite true, her mother reverently answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One desiring a favour who says her thousand Aves properly before midnight on Christmas Eve, very seldom fails to receive what she asks." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hail Mary, full of grace ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Blessed art Thou amongst women..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Blessed art Thou amongst women ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Lord is with Thee ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "With the roads as they are we will not be the only ones who have to stay at home this evening, said Madame Chapdelaine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But is there anything more lovely than the midnight mass at Saint Coeur de Marie, with Yvonne Boilly playing the harmonium, and Pacifique Simard who sings the Latin so beautifully!" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "It is true enough, Laura, that you would have had a happier life with some other man than me, who lived on a comfortable farm, near the settlements." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, Samuel; what the good God does is always right. I grumble ... Of course I grumble. Is there anyone who hasn't something to grumble about? But we have never been unhappy, we two; we have managed to live without faring over-badly; the boys are fine boys, hard-working, who bring us nearly all they earn; Maria too is a good girl..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I have been a good girl too, haven't I, father?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Certainly ... Certainly. A black sin indeed if one were naughty on the day when the little Jesus was born." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Would you like me to rock you?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And are we going to sing too?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Very well; now sing with me:" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Once more? Very well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hail Mary, full of grace ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "And now? Another song: which? Without waiting for a reply he struck in ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No? not that one ... Claire Fontaine? Ah! That's a beautiful one, that is! We shall all sing it together." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hail Mary, full of grace ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "You won't forget to put out the lamp?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, father." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "The thousand Aves have been said, murmured Maria to herself," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Even if no one comes, said she," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Eutrope Gagnon, at once declared Chapdelaine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was just saying to myself that it would be an odd thing if he did not come and spend the evening with us." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "You are the only visitor who has come our way to-day, said Chapdelaine," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naturally ... I would not let New Year's Day go by without paying you a visit. But, besides that, I have news to tell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "News?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By your face I am afraid you have bad news." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not about the boys?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, Madame Chapdelaine. Esdras and Da'Be are well, if that be God's pleasure. The word I bring is not of them-not of your own kin. It concerns a young man you know. Pausing a moment he spoke a name under his breath:--" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "François Paradis." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "This is what happened. You knew perhaps that he was foreman in a shanty above La Tuque, on the Vermilion River. About the middle of December he suddenly told the boss that he was going off to spend Christmas and New Year at Lake St. John-up here. The boss objected, naturally enough; for if the men take ten or fifteen days' leave right in the middle of the winter you might as well stop the work altogether. The boss did not wish him to go and said so plainly; but you know François-a man not be thwarted when a notion entered his head. He answered that he was set on going to the lake for the holidays, and that go he would. Then the boss let him have his way, afraid to lose a man useful beyond the common, and of such experience in the bush." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "François wished to come here ... to me," }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shanty was not very far in the woods, only two days' journey from the Transcontinental which passes La Tuque. But as the luck was, something had happened to the line and the trains were not running. I heard all this through Johnny Niquette of St. Henri, who arrived from La Tuque two days ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When François found that he could not take the train he burst into a laugh, and in that sort of a humour said that as it was a case of walking he would walk all the way-reaching the lake by following the rivers, first the Croche and then the Ouatchouan which falls in near Roberval." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That is so, said Chapdelaine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It can be done. I have gone that way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not at this time of year, Mr. Chapdelaine, certainly not just at this time. Everyone there told François that it would be foolhardy to attempt such a trip in midwinter, about Christmas, with the cold as great as it was, some four feet of snow lying in the woods, and alone. But he only laughed and told them that he was used to the woods and that a little difficulty was not going to frighten him, because he was bound to get to the upper side of the lake for the holidays, and that where the Indians were able to cross he could make the crossing too. Only--you know it very well, Mr. Chapdelaine--when the Indians take that journey it is in company, and with their dogs. François set of alone, on snow-shoes, pulling his blankets and provisions on a toboggan." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "You will remember the weather a week before Christmas-the heavy snow that fell, and after it the nor'west gale. It happened that François was then in the great burnt lands, where the fine snow drives and drifts so terribly. In such a place the best of men have little chance when it is very cold and the storm lasts. And, if you recall it, the nor'wester was blowing for three days on end, stiff enough-to flay you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, and then?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He went astray ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "He went astray ... The storm caught him in the burnt country and he halted for a day. So much we know, for the Indians found a shelter of fir branches he had made for himself, and they saw his tracks. He set out again because his provisions were low and he was in haste to reach the end of his journey, as I suppose; but the weather did not mend, snow was falling, the nor'west wind never eased, and it is likely he caught no glimpse of the sun to guide him, for the Indians said that his tracks turned off from the river Croche which he had been following and wandered away, straight to the north." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "When they heard this, men from Ouatchouan set forth after the weather was a little better. But all his footsteps were covered, and they returned saying that they had found no trace; that was three days ago... He is lost ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "It shows we are but little children in the hand of the good God. François was one of the best men of these parts in the woods, and at finding his way; people who came here used to take him as guide, and always did he bring them back without mishap. And now he himself is lost. 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:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We are but little children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Indeed that is true. I am not saying that the good God had cause to send him to his death-him more than another. He was a fine fellow, hard-working, and I loved him well. But it shows you ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one ever had a thing against him. Eutrope's generous insistence carried him on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A man hard to match for work, afraid of nothing and obliging withal. Everyone who knew him was fond of him. You will not find his like." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a good man, you will not find his like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When we were at Mistassini, began Madame Chapdelaine," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "François Paradis was almost alone in the world; now, as we all had an affection for him, we perhaps might have a mass or two said. What do you think, Laura?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes indeed. Three high masses with music, and when the boys return from the woods--in health, if such be the will of the good God-three more for the repose of his soul, poor lad! And every Sunday we shall, say a prayer for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was like the rest of us, Chapdelaine continued," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Come, Maria." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Yet five Paters and five Aves for the souls of those who have suffered misfortune in the forest." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "O Christ Jesus, who didst stretch forth Thine arm to those in need, why didst Thou not disperse the snows with those pale hands of Thine? Holy Virgin, why didst Thou not sustain him by Thy power when, for the last time, his feet were stumbling? In all the legions of heaven why was there found no angel to show him the way?" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hail Mary, full of grace..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "The roads are passable; if you wish it, Maria, we shall go to La Pipe on Sunday for the mass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Very well, father;" }, { "from": "human", "value": "rather than" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "rather than" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "We shall have dinner first. What say you, my good friends? You must have found an appetite on the road. As for myself, singing mass makes me hungry beyond anything you could believe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes! Yes!" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "So it appears that you are distressing yourself beyond what is reasonable and right?" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Be seated there," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "If there was affection between you it is very proper that you should know regret. But you were not pledged to one another, because neither you nor he had spoken to your parents; therefore it is not befitting or right that you should sorrow thus, nor feel so deep a grief for a young man who, after all is said, was nothing to you..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That masses should be sung, that you should pray for him, such things are useful and good, you could do no better. Three high masses with music, and three more when the boys return from the woods, as your father has asked me, most assuredly these will help him, and also you may be certain they will delight him more than your lamentations, since they will shorten by so much his time of expiation. But to grieve like this, and to go about casting gloom over the household is not well, nor is it pleasing in the sight of God." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "The duty of a girl like you--good-looking, healthy, active withal and a clever housewife--is in the first place to help her old parents, and in good time to marry and bring up a Christian family of her own. You have no call to the religious life? No. Then you must give up torturing yourself in this fashion, because it is a sacrilegious thing and unseemly, seeing that the young man was nothing whatever to you. The good God knows what is best for us; we should neither rebel nor complain ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "So you have come here to till the land. How do you like Canada?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is a beautiful country, new and so vast ... In the summer-time there are many flies, and the winters are trying; but I suppose that one gets used to these things in time." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Before coming to these parts were you farmers in your own country?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What trade then did you follow?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was a tuner myself, a piano-tuner; my two sons here were clerks, Edmond in an office, Pierre in a shop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Piano-tuner; that was it, just so! And his glance at Conrad Neron his neighbour was a trifle superior and challenging, as though intimating.--" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You would not believe me, and maybe you don't know what it means, but now you see ..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Piano-tuner, Samuel Chapdelaine echoed in turn, slowly grasping the meaning of the words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And is that a good trade? Do you earn handsome wages? Not too handsome, eh! ... At any rate you are well educated, you and your sons; you can read and write and cipher? And here am I, not able even to read!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nor I! struck in Ephrem Surprenant, and Conrad Neron and Egide Racicot added:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nor I!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nor I!" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "You were not able to make a decent living out of your trades over there. That is so, is it not? And therefore you came here?" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "People are not always happy in the cities, said the father." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything is dear, and one is confined." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Did you picture it to yourselves as you have found it, Chapdelaine persisted," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not exactly, replied the Frenchman in a low voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, not exactly ... And a shadow crossed his face which brought from Ephrem. Surprenant:--" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is rough here, rough and hard!" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Lorenzo sold his place for more than it was worth; they have but little money left and are in hard case; men like these are not built for living on the land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is something of a struggle at the beginning-if you are not used to it; but when your land is in better order you will see that life becomes easier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is a queer thing, said Conrad Neron," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone to his own notion," }, { "from": "human", "value": "And your notion is not to stick in Hon-fleur sweating over the stumps," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You are quite right there, and I make no bones about it; that sort of thing would never have suited me. These men here bought my land-a good farm, and no one can gainsay it. They wanted to buy a farm and I sold them mine. But as for myself, I am well enough where I am, and have no wish to return." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is no better life than the life of a farmer who has good health and owes no debts. He is a free man, has no boss, owns his beasts, works for his own profit ... The finest life there is!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hear them all say that, Lorenzo retorted," }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is no man in the world less free than a farmer ... When you tell of those who have succeeded, who are well provided with everything needful on a farm, who have had better luck than others, you say.--'Ah, what a fine life they lead! 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; then it is a cow, however good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they don't harm you, they are forever finding a way to destroy your comfort and to vex you..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I know how it is; I was brought up on a farm. And you, most of you farmers, know how it is too. All the morning you have worked hard, and go to your house for dinner and a little rest. Then, before you are well seated at table, a child is yelling:--'The cows are over the fence;' or 'The sheep are in the crop,' and everyone jumps up and runs, thinking of the oats or the barley it has been such a trouble to raise, that these miserable fools are ruining. The men dash about brandishing sticks till they are out of breath; the women stand screaming in the farm-yard. And when you have managed to drive the cows or the sheep into their paddock and put up the rails, you get back to the house nicely 'rested' to find the pea-soup cold and full of flies, the pork under the table gnawed by dogs and cats, and you eat what you can lay your hands on, watching for the next trick the wretched animals are getting ready to play on you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You are their slaves; that's what you are. You tend them, you clean them, you gather up their dung as the poor do the rich man's crumbs. It is you who must keep them alive by hard work, because the earth is miserly and the summer so short. That is the way of it, and there is no help, as you cannot get on without them; but for cattle there would be no living on the land. But even if you could ... even if you could ... still would you have other masters: the summer, beginning too late and ending too soon; the winter, eating up seven long months of the year and bringing in nothing; drought and rain which always come just at the wrong moment..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the towns these things do not matter; but here you have no defence against them and they do you hurt; and I have not taken into account the extreme cold, the badness of the roads, the loneliness of being far away from everything, with no amusements. Life is one kind of hardship on top of another from beginning to end. It is often said that only those make a real success who are born and brought up on the land, and of course that is true; as for the people in the cities, small danger that they would ever be foolish enough to put up with such a way of living." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Do not say such things as that; there is no happier life in the world than the life of a farmer who owns good land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not in these parts, Madame Chapdelaine. You are too far north; the summer is too short; the grain is hardly up before the frosts come. Each time that I return from the States, and see the tiny wooden houses lost in this wilderness-so far from one another that they seem frightened at being alone-and the woods hemming you in on every side ... By Heaven! I lose heart for you, I who live here no longer, and I ask myself how it comes about that all you folk did not long ago seek a kinder climate where you would find everything that makes for comfort, where you could go out for a walk in the winter-time without being in fear of death ..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do you remember, my sister, the men, brave and well-beloved, whom we have slain and hidden in the woods? Their souls have known how to escape us; but their bodies, their-bodies, their bodies, none shall ever snatch them from our hands ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "To-morrow is Sunday; I shall be over to see you in the afternoon." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Maria, he began," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "The first day I saw you, Maria, the very first day ... that is only the truth! For a long time I had not been back in this country, and I was thinking what a miserable place it was to live in, that the men were a lot of simpletons who had never seen anything and the girls not nearly so quick and clever as they are in the States ... And then, the moment I set eyes on you, there was I saying to myself that I was the simpleton, for neither at Lowell nor Boston had I ever met a girl like yourself. When I returned I used to be thinking a dozen times a day that some wretched farmer would make love to you and carry you off, and every time my heart sank. It was on your account that I came back, Maria, came up here from near Boston, three days' journey! The business I had, I could have done it all by letter; it was you I wished to see, to tell you what was in my heart to say and to hear the answer you would give me." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "This ... this is no place for you, Maria. The country is too rough, the work too hard; barely earning one's bread is killing toil. In a factory over there, clever and strong as you are, soon you would be in the way of making nearly as much as I do; but no need of that if you were my wife. I earn enough for both of us, and we should have every comfort: good clothes to wear, a pretty flat in a brick house with gas and hot water, and all sorts of contrivances you never heard of to save you labour and worry every moment of the day. And don't let the idea enter your head that all the people are English. I know many Canadian families who work as I do or even keep shops. And there is a splendid church with a Canadian priest as cure--Mr. Tremblay from St. Hyacinthe. You would never be lonesome ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I hardly know what to say ... You have always lived here and it is not possible for you to guess what life is elsewhere, nor would I be able to make you understand were I to talk forever. But I love you, Maria, I earn a good wage and I never touch a drop. If you will marry me as I ask I will take you off to a country that will open your eyes with astonishment--a fine country, not a bit like this, where we can live in a decent way and be happy for the rest of our days." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "You will not have me, Maria? You have no liking for me, or is it, perhaps, that you cannot make up your mind?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No need whatever that you should say 'Yes' at once. You have not known me very long ... But think of what I have said to you. I will come back, Maria. It is a long journey and costly, but I will come. And if only you give thought to it, you will see there is no young fellow here who could give you such a future as I can; because if you marry me we shall live like human beings, and not have to kill ourselves tending cattle and grubbing in the earth in this out-of-the-way corner of the world." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "You know very well, Maria, how I feel toward you. I said nothing before as my farm was not so forward that we could live there comfortably, and moreover I guessed that you liked François Paradis better than me. But as François is no longer here, and this young fellow from the States is courting you, I said to myself that I, too, might try my fortune ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "It is true enough that I am not rich; but I have two lots of my own, paid for out and out, and you know the soil is good. I shall work on it all spring, take the stumps out of the large field below the ridge of rock, put up some fences, and by May there will be a fine big field ready for seeding. I shall sow a hundred and thirty bushels, Maria,--a hundred and thirty bushels of wheat, barley and oats, without reckoning an acre of mixed grain for the cattle. All the seed, the best seed-grain, I am going to buy at Roberval, settling for it on the spot ... I have the money put aside; I shall pay cash, without running into debt to a soul, and if only we have an average season there will be a fine crop to harvest. Just think of it, Maria, a hundred and thirty bushels of good seed in first-rate land! And in the summer before the hay-making, and then again before the harvest, will be the best chance for building a nice tight warm little house, all of tamarack. I have the wood ready, cut and piled behind my barn; my brother will help me, perhaps Esdras and Da'Be as well, when they get home. Next winter I shall go to the shanties, taking a horse with me, and in the spring I shall bring back not less than two hundred dollars in my pocket. Then, should you be willing to wait so long for me, would be the time ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I know well enough that we shall have to work hard at first, Eutrope went on," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "My affection for you ... of that I am not able to speak ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "This young fellow from the States was ready with fine speeches, but you must not be carried away by them ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course you are quite free to choose, and I have not a word to say against him. But you would be happier here, Maria, amongst people like yourself." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I cannot answer, Eutrope, either yes or no; not just now. I have given no promise. You must wait." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Yes to this one and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I knew it well--knew that somewhere on the earth was such a thing as this ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I will marry Lorenzo Surprenant," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "There are pains through my body and I have no appetite, she said," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I must have strained myself to-day lifting a bag of flour when I was making bread. Now something catches me in the back, and I am not hungry." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I am going to bed, she said presently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A good night's sleep, and to-morrow morning I shall be all right again; have no doubt of that. You will see to the baking, Maria." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "You will give the men their food, Maria, and your father will lend you a hand at milking the cows if you wish it. I am not good for anything this morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It will be all right, mother; it will be all right. Take it quietly; we shall have no trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Don't be in the least anxious, her husband urged again and again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is hardly anything to be done in the house beyond the cooking, and Maria is quite fit to look after that--everything else too, by thunder! She is not a little child any longer, and is as capable as yourself. Lie there quietly, without stirring; and be easy in your mind, instead of tossing about all the time under the blankets and making yourself worse...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh my God! she wailed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have pains all over my body, and my head is burning. I think that I am going to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You are going to die when the good God wills it, and according to my way of thinking that will not be for a while yet. What would He be doing with you? Heaven is all cluttered with old women, and down here we have only the one, and she is able to make herself a bit useful, every now and then ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could put the horse in and go as far as La Pipe, he suggested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It may be that they have some medicine for this sickness at the store; or I might talk things over with the cure, and he would tell me what to do." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Eutrope has a remedy," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is what I have, he announced rather dubiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They are little pills. When my brother was bad with his kidneys three years ago he saw an advertisement in a paper about these pills, and it said they were the proper thing, so he sent the money for a box, and he declares it is a good medicine. Of course his trouble did not leave him at once, but he says that this did him good. It comes from the States ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is it certain that her trouble has only to do with the kidneys?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought it was just that, from what Tit'Bé told me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She strained herself lifting a bag of flour, as she says; and now she has pains everywhere. How can we tell ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The newspaper that spoke of this medicine, Eutrope Gagnon went on," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if they are not for this very sickness, said Tit'Bé deferentially," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She suffers, that is one thing certain; we cannot let her go on like this." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Eutrope has brought you a cure, Laura." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have no faith in your cures," }, { "from": "human", "value": "My brother took some of these three years ago when he had the kidney trouble so badly that he was hardly able to work at all, and he says that they cured him. It is a fine remedy, Madame Chapdelaine, there is not a question of it! His former doubts had vanished in speech and he felt wholly confident." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is going to cure you, Madame Chapdelaine, as surely as the good God is above us. It is a medicine of the very first class; my brother had it sent expressly from the States. You may be sure that you would never find a medicine like this in the store at La Pipe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It cannot make her worse? Maria asked, some doubt lingering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is not a poison, or anything of that sort?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do harm? Tiny pills no bigger than that!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My brother took nearly a box of them, and according to his account it was only good they did him." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "What ails you, mother? Are you not feeling any better?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ah God, how I suffer! How I do suffer! I cannot stir myself, not the least bit, and even so the pain is as bad as ever. Give me some cold water, Maria; I have the most terrible thirst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe it is not good for you to drink so much. Try to bear the thirst for a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I cannot bear it, I tell you-the thirst and the pain all through my body, and my head that bums like fire ... My God! It is certain that I am to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am going to harness the horse to go to Mistook for the doctor, and on the way through La Pipe I shall also speak to the cure. It is heart-breaking to hear her moan like this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hold up, there! Back ... Back up! Whoa!" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Anyway it is far, and the roads will be heavy." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is she no better?" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "My father should not be far from St. Coeur de Marie ... If the doctor is there they will rest the horse for a couple of hours and come back together. But the roads must be very bad; at this time, in the spring, they are sometimes hardly passable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They should have left; perhaps in going through La Pipe they will stop to speak to the cure; perhaps again he may have started as soon as he heard, without waiting for them. In that case he might be here at any moment." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "With the roads in this condition, said he," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, good mother, so we have taken the notion to be sick, just like people who have money to spend on such things!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She really is sick, I do believe." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Presently we shall know what is the matter, and the doctor will give her the right medicines." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "If it is just a wrench that she has given herself, at length he announced," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Internal lesions are serious things, and often one cannot detect them. The wisest man in the world could tell you no more than I. We shall have to wait ... But perhaps it is not that we have to deal with. After some further investigation he shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course I can give something that will keep her from suffering like this." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Illnesses like these, said he," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I shall sleep at Honfleur, said he," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suppose your horse is fit to take me so far? There is no need for you to come, I know the road. I shall stay with Ephrem, Surprenant, and come back in the morning." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Anyway the medicine he has given her is a good one; she groans no longer." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "O Samuel, I am dying, there can be no doubt of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No! No! You must not think that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, I know that I am dying. I feel it. The doctor is only an old fool, and he cannot tell what to do. He is not even able to say what the trouble is, and the medicine he gave me is useless; it has done me no good. I tell you I am dying." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "And I who was thinking to find her almost well. This doctor, now ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This doctor is not a bit of use, and I shall tell him so plainly, myself. He came here, he gave her a drop of some miserable stuff worth nothing at all in the bottom of a cup, and he is off to sleep in the village as if his pay was earned! Not a thing has he done but tire out my horse, but he shall not have a copper from me, not a single copper..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Neither have I any faith in doctors. Now if we had only thought of fetching a bone-setter--such a man as Tit'Sebe of St. Felicien ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tit'Sebe! exclaimed Maria." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And you think he could help in a case like this?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is no doubt whatever that Tit'Sebe can make people well. He was never through the schools, but he knows how to cure. You heard of Nazaire Gaudreau who fell from the top of a barn and broke his back. The doctors came to see him, and the best they could do was to give the Latin name for his hurt and say that he was going to die. Then they went and fetched Tit'Sebe, and Tit'Sebe cured him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tit'Sebe is a first-rate man, and a man who knows how to make sick people well. Moreover he is not greedy for money. You go and you fetch him, you pay him for his time, and he cures you. It was he who put little Romeo Boilly on his legs again after being run over by a wagon loaded with planks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will go and get him if you like," }, { "from": "human", "value": "But what will you do for a horse? asked Maria." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doctor has Charles Eugene at Honfleur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old rascal!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It makes no difference. I will go just the same. If I walk to Honfleur, I shall easily find someone there who will lend me a horse and sleigh--Racicot, or perhaps old Neron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is thirty-five miles from here to St. Felicien and the roads are heavy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will go just the same." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "It was impossible for me to come sooner, the cure explained," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sat at the bedside and talked in low tones. The doctor made a fresh examination, but it was the cure who told the result of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is little one can say. She does not seem any worse, but this is not an ordinary sickness. It is best that I should confess her and give her absolution; then we shall both go away and be back again the day after to-morrow." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Only if she should suffer greatly, so that she cries out, and never more than fifteen drops at a time. And do not let her have any cold water to drink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doctors do what they can, said he in a simple unaffected way," } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Have you sent for the cure? ... He has been here. And will he return? To-morrow; that is well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is nothing I can do for her. Something has gone wrong within, about which I know nothing; were there broken bones I could have healed them. I should only have had to feel them with my hands, and then the good God would have told me what to do and I should have cured her. But in this sickness of hers I have no skill. I might indeed put a blister on her back, and perhaps that would draw away-the blood and relieve her for a time. Or I could give her a draught made from beaver kidneys; it is useful when the kidneys are affected, as is well known. But I think that neither the blister nor the draught would work a cure." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "She will die if that be God's pleasure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thou hast bestowed upon me the gift of healing bones that are broken, and I have healed them; but Thou hast denied me power over such ills as these; so must I let this poor woman die." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "You do not think she will die before the cure comes back?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I cannot tell ... If your horse is able you would do well to seek him with the daylight." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I am going to put the horse in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That is well; you had better harness; it is near day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes. I am going to put the horse in, Chapdelaine repeated. But at the moment of his departure it swept over him suddenly that in going to bring the Blessed Sacrament he would be upon a solemn and a final errand, significant of death. The thought held him still irresolute." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am going to put the horse in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is from the nor'west; there will be a blow," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only two days ago snow fell, and now it will be raised and drift. The roads were heavy enough before; father and the cure are going to have trouble getting through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They may have a little difficulty on the road, but they will get here all the same. A priest who brings the Blessed Sacrament has more than the strength of a man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, power beyond the strength of a man has a priest bearing the Blessed Sacrament. It was three years ago that they summoned me to care for a sick man on the lower Mistassini; at once I saw that I could do nothing for him, and I bade them go fetch a priest. It was night-time and there was not a man in the house, the father himself being sick and his boys quite young. And so at the last it was I that went. On the way back we had to cross the river; the ice had just gone out--it was in the spring--and as yet not a boat had been put into the water. We found a great heavy tub that had been lying in the sand all winter, and when we tried to run her down to the water she was buried so deep in the sand and was so heavy that the four of us could not so much as make her budge. Simon Martel was there, big Lalancette of St. Methode, a third I cannot call to mind, and myself; and we four, hauling and shoving to break our hearts as we thought of this poor fellow on the other side of the river who was in the way of dying like a heathen, could not stir that boat a single inch. Well, the cure came forward; he laid his hand on the gunwale--just laid his hand on the gunwale, like that--'Give one more shove,' said he; and the boat seemed to start of herself and slipped down to the water as though she were alive. The sick man received the sacrament all right, and died like a Christian just as day was breaking. Yes, a priest has strength beyond the strength of men." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "A good house you have here; tightly made and warm. Your father and the boys built it, did they not? Moreover, you must have a good bit of land cleared by this time ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I have come." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "It is a heavy loss. You were fortunate in your wife, Samuel; no one may question that. Truly you were fortunate in your wife." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weather is quite mild this evening; we soon shall have rain. Everyone is saying that it is to be an early spring." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Father! Do not sleep!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No! No! He sat up straight on his chair and squared his shoulders but since his eyes were closing in spite of him, he stood up hastily, saying:--" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Let us recite another chaplet." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Ephrem. Surprenant said no more than the truth. Your mother was a good woman, Maria; you will not find her like." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Full of courage and good counsel, that she has been throughout her life; but it was chiefly in the early days after we were married, and then again when Esdras and yourself were little, that she showed herself the woman she was. The wife of a small farmer looks for no easy life, but women who take to their work as well and as cheerfully as she did in those days, Maria, are hard to find." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I know, father; I know it well;" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Well, I caught up my ax and was off to the woods; and I laid into the birches so lustily that chips flew as thick as your wrist, all the time saying to myself that the wife I had was like no other, and that if the good God only kept me in health I would make her the best farm in the countryside." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "I took one side and she the other, as the sheep used to scatter among the alders. It was growing dark, and suddenly I heard Laura cry out: 'Oh, the scoundrels!' Some animals were moving in the bushes, and it was plain to see they were not sheep, because in the woods toward evening sheep are white patches. So, ax in hand, I started off running as hard as I could. Later on, when we were on the way back to the house, your mother told me all about it. She had come across a sheep lying dead, and two bears that were just going to eat it. Now it takes a pretty good man, one not easily frightened and with a gun in his hand, to face a bear in September; as for a woman empty-handed, the best thing she can do is to run for it and not a soul will blame her. But your mother snatched a stick from the ground and made straight for the bears, screaming at them:--'Our beautiful fat sheep! Be off with you, you ugly thieves, or I will do for you!' I got there at my best speed, leaping over the stumps; but by that time the bears had cleared off into the woods without showing fight, scared as could be, because she had put the fear of death into them." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "At Normandin, at Mistassini and the other places we have lived I always worked hard; no one can say nay to that. Many an acre of forest have I cleared and I have built houses and barns, always saying to myself that one day we should have a comfortable farm where your mother would live as do the women in the old parishes, with fine smooth fields all about the house as far as the eye could see, a kitchen garden, handsome well-fed cattle in the farm-yard ... And, after it all, here is she dead in this half-savage spot, leagues from other houses and churches, and so near the bush that some nights one can hear the foxes bark. And it is my fault that she has died so ... My fault ... My fault." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "And then your mother would come quietly up behind me. She also would look out across our place, and I knew that she was pleased with it to the bottom of her heart because it was beginning to look like the old parish where she had grown up, and where she would so gladly have spent her days. But instead of telling me that I was no better than a silly old fool for wishing to leave--as most women would have done-and finding hard things to say about my folly, she only sighed a little as she thought of the drudgery that was to begin all over again somewhere back in the woods, and kindly and softly she would say to me:--'Well, Samuel! Are we soon to be on the move once more?' When she said that I could not answer, for I was speechless with very shame at thinking of the wretched life I had given her; but I knew well enough that it would end in our moving again and pushing on to the north, deeper into the woods, and that she would be with me and take her share in this hard business of beginning anew--as cheerful and capable and good-humoured as ever, without one single word of reproach or spitefulness." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "How little do we know people!" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Why stay here, to toil and suffer thus? Why? ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "And yet they must be beautiful!" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "Throughout all this land we are at home ... at home ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "And yet it is a harsh land, this land of ours ... Why should I linger here?" } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "For this is it that we must abide in that Province where our fathers dwelt, living as they have lived, so to obey the unwritten command that once shaped itself in their hearts, that passed to ours, which we in turn must hand on to descendants innumerable:--In this land of Quebec naught shall die and naught shall suffer change ..." } ]
4383	Unknown Title	Unknown Author	[ { "from": "human", "value": "So I shall stay--shall. stay here after all!" } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The pump is not frozen? he asks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Is there plenty of wood in the house?" } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "It must be a bad day in the woods!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the woods they are better off than we are here, answers her father." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Up there where the trees stand close together one does not feel the wind. You can be sure that Esdras and Da'Be are all right." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes?" } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I am wondering whether we shall have any callers on New Year's Day, said Madame Chapdelaine one evening. She went over the list of all relatives and friends able to make the venture." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Azalma Larouche does not live so far away, but she--she is not very energetic. The people at St. Prime would not care to take the journey. Possibly Wilfrid or Ferdinand might drive from St. Gedeon if the ice on the lake were in good condition." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "If the roads are as bad as they were last year, said she," } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is it true, mother, she asked as evening was falling," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Quite true, her mother reverently answered." }, { "from": "human", "value": "One desiring a favour who says her thousand Aves properly before midnight on Christmas Eve, very seldom fails to receive what she asks." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hail Mary, full of grace ..." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Blessed art Thou amongst women..." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Blessed art Thou amongst women ..." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The Lord is with Thee ..." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "With the roads as they are we will not be the only ones who have to stay at home this evening, said Madame Chapdelaine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But is there anything more lovely than the midnight mass at Saint Coeur de Marie, with Yvonne Boilly playing the harmonium, and Pacifique Simard who sings the Latin so beautifully!" } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "It is true enough, Laura, that you would have had a happier life with some other man than me, who lived on a comfortable farm, near the settlements." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, Samuel; what the good God does is always right. I grumble ... Of course I grumble. Is there anyone who hasn't something to grumble about? But we have never been unhappy, we two; we have managed to live without faring over-badly; the boys are fine boys, hard-working, who bring us nearly all they earn; Maria too is a good girl..." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I have been a good girl too, haven't I, father?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Certainly ... Certainly. A black sin indeed if one were naughty on the day when the little Jesus was born." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Would you like me to rock you?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And are we going to sing too?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Very well; now sing with me:" } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Once more? Very well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hail Mary, full of grace ..." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "And now? Another song: which? Without waiting for a reply he struck in ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No? not that one ... Claire Fontaine? Ah! That's a beautiful one, that is! We shall all sing it together." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hail Mary, full of grace ..." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You won't forget to put out the lamp?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No, father." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The thousand Aves have been said, murmured Maria to herself," } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Even if no one comes, said she," } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Eutrope Gagnon, at once declared Chapdelaine." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was just saying to myself that it would be an odd thing if he did not come and spend the evening with us." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You are the only visitor who has come our way to-day, said Chapdelaine," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Naturally ... I would not let New Year's Day go by without paying you a visit. But, besides that, I have news to tell." }, { "from": "human", "value": "News?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "By your face I am afraid you have bad news." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not about the boys?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, Madame Chapdelaine. Esdras and Da'Be are well, if that be God's pleasure. The word I bring is not of them-not of your own kin. It concerns a young man you know. Pausing a moment he spoke a name under his breath:--" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "François Paradis." } ]

4383

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "This is what happened. You knew perhaps that he was foreman in a shanty above La Tuque, on the Vermilion River. About the middle of December he suddenly told the boss that he was going off to spend Christmas and New Year at Lake St. John-up here. The boss objected, naturally enough; for if the men take ten or fifteen days' leave right in the middle of the winter you might as well stop the work altogether. The boss did not wish him to go and said so plainly; but you know François-a man not be thwarted when a notion entered his head. He answered that he was set on going to the lake for the holidays, and that go he would. Then the boss let him have his way, afraid to lose a man useful beyond the common, and of such experience in the bush." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "François wished to come here ... to me," }, { "from": "human", "value": "The shanty was not very far in the woods, only two days' journey from the Transcontinental which passes La Tuque. But as the luck was, something had happened to the line and the trains were not running. I heard all this through Johnny Niquette of St. Henri, who arrived from La Tuque two days ago." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When François found that he could not take the train he burst into a laugh, and in that sort of a humour said that as it was a case of walking he would walk all the way-reaching the lake by following the rivers, first the Croche and then the Ouatchouan which falls in near Roberval." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That is so, said Chapdelaine." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It can be done. I have gone that way." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not at this time of year, Mr. Chapdelaine, certainly not just at this time. Everyone there told François that it would be foolhardy to attempt such a trip in midwinter, about Christmas, with the cold as great as it was, some four feet of snow lying in the woods, and alone. But he only laughed and told them that he was used to the woods and that a little difficulty was not going to frighten him, because he was bound to get to the upper side of the lake for the holidays, and that where the Indians were able to cross he could make the crossing too. Only--you know it very well, Mr. Chapdelaine--when the Indians take that journey it is in company, and with their dogs. François set of alone, on snow-shoes, pulling his blankets and provisions on a toboggan." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You will remember the weather a week before Christmas-the heavy snow that fell, and after it the nor'west gale. It happened that François was then in the great burnt lands, where the fine snow drives and drifts so terribly. In such a place the best of men have little chance when it is very cold and the storm lasts. And, if you recall it, the nor'wester was blowing for three days on end, stiff enough-to flay you." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, and then?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "He went astray ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "He went astray ... The storm caught him in the burnt country and he halted for a day. So much we know, for the Indians found a shelter of fir branches he had made for himself, and they saw his tracks. He set out again because his provisions were low and he was in haste to reach the end of his journey, as I suppose; but the weather did not mend, snow was falling, the nor'west wind never eased, and it is likely he caught no glimpse of the sun to guide him, for the Indians said that his tracks turned off from the river Croche which he had been following and wandered away, straight to the north." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "When they heard this, men from Ouatchouan set forth after the weather was a little better. But all his footsteps were covered, and they returned saying that they had found no trace; that was three days ago... He is lost ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "It shows we are but little children in the hand of the good God. François was one of the best men of these parts in the woods, and at finding his way; people who came here used to take him as guide, and always did he bring them back without mishap. And now he himself is lost. 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:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "We are but little children." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Indeed that is true. I am not saying that the good God had cause to send him to his death-him more than another. He was a fine fellow, hard-working, and I loved him well. But it shows you ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No one ever had a thing against him. Eutrope's generous insistence carried him on." }, { "from": "human", "value": "A man hard to match for work, afraid of nothing and obliging withal. Everyone who knew him was fond of him. You will not find his like." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "He was a good man, you will not find his like." }, { "from": "human", "value": "When we were at Mistassini, began Madame Chapdelaine," } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "François Paradis was almost alone in the world; now, as we all had an affection for him, we perhaps might have a mass or two said. What do you think, Laura?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes indeed. Three high masses with music, and when the boys return from the woods--in health, if such be the will of the good God-three more for the repose of his soul, poor lad! And every Sunday we shall, say a prayer for him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "He was like the rest of us, Chapdelaine continued," } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Come, Maria." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Yet five Paters and five Aves for the souls of those who have suffered misfortune in the forest." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "O Christ Jesus, who didst stretch forth Thine arm to those in need, why didst Thou not disperse the snows with those pale hands of Thine? Holy Virgin, why didst Thou not sustain him by Thy power when, for the last time, his feet were stumbling? In all the legions of heaven why was there found no angel to show him the way?" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Hail Mary, full of grace..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The roads are passable; if you wish it, Maria, we shall go to La Pipe on Sunday for the mass." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Very well, father;" }, { "from": "human", "value": "rather than" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "rather than" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "We shall have dinner first. What say you, my good friends? You must have found an appetite on the road. As for myself, singing mass makes me hungry beyond anything you could believe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes! Yes!" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "So it appears that you are distressing yourself beyond what is reasonable and right?" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Be seated there," } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "If there was affection between you it is very proper that you should know regret. But you were not pledged to one another, because neither you nor he had spoken to your parents; therefore it is not befitting or right that you should sorrow thus, nor feel so deep a grief for a young man who, after all is said, was nothing to you..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That masses should be sung, that you should pray for him, such things are useful and good, you could do no better. Three high masses with music, and three more when the boys return from the woods, as your father has asked me, most assuredly these will help him, and also you may be certain they will delight him more than your lamentations, since they will shorten by so much his time of expiation. But to grieve like this, and to go about casting gloom over the household is not well, nor is it pleasing in the sight of God." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The duty of a girl like you--good-looking, healthy, active withal and a clever housewife--is in the first place to help her old parents, and in good time to marry and bring up a Christian family of her own. You have no call to the religious life? No. Then you must give up torturing yourself in this fashion, because it is a sacrilegious thing and unseemly, seeing that the young man was nothing whatever to you. The good God knows what is best for us; we should neither rebel nor complain ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "So you have come here to till the land. How do you like Canada?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is a beautiful country, new and so vast ... In the summer-time there are many flies, and the winters are trying; but I suppose that one gets used to these things in time." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Before coming to these parts were you farmers in your own country?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No." }, { "from": "human", "value": "What trade then did you follow?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I was a tuner myself, a piano-tuner; my two sons here were clerks, Edmond in an office, Pierre in a shop." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Piano-tuner; that was it, just so! And his glance at Conrad Neron his neighbour was a trifle superior and challenging, as though intimating.--" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You would not believe me, and maybe you don't know what it means, but now you see ..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Piano-tuner, Samuel Chapdelaine echoed in turn, slowly grasping the meaning of the words." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "And is that a good trade? Do you earn handsome wages? Not too handsome, eh! ... At any rate you are well educated, you and your sons; you can read and write and cipher? And here am I, not able even to read!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nor I! struck in Ephrem Surprenant, and Conrad Neron and Egide Racicot added:" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Nor I!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Nor I!" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You were not able to make a decent living out of your trades over there. That is so, is it not? And therefore you came here?" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "People are not always happy in the cities, said the father." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everything is dear, and one is confined." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Did you picture it to yourselves as you have found it, Chapdelaine persisted," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not exactly, replied the Frenchman in a low voice." }, { "from": "human", "value": "No, not exactly ... And a shadow crossed his face which brought from Ephrem. Surprenant:--" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is rough here, rough and hard!" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Lorenzo sold his place for more than it was worth; they have but little money left and are in hard case; men like these are not built for living on the land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is something of a struggle at the beginning-if you are not used to it; but when your land is in better order you will see that life becomes easier." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is a queer thing, said Conrad Neron," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Everyone to his own notion," }, { "from": "human", "value": "And your notion is not to stick in Hon-fleur sweating over the stumps," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You are quite right there, and I make no bones about it; that sort of thing would never have suited me. These men here bought my land-a good farm, and no one can gainsay it. They wanted to buy a farm and I sold them mine. But as for myself, I am well enough where I am, and have no wish to return." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is no better life than the life of a farmer who has good health and owes no debts. He is a free man, has no boss, owns his beasts, works for his own profit ... The finest life there is!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I hear them all say that, Lorenzo retorted," }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is no man in the world less free than a farmer ... When you tell of those who have succeeded, who are well provided with everything needful on a farm, who have had better luck than others, you say.--'Ah, what a fine life they lead! 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; then it is a cow, however good-tempered, that won't keep still to be milked and tramples on your toes when the flies annoy her. And even if by good fortune they don't harm you, they are forever finding a way to destroy your comfort and to vex you..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I know how it is; I was brought up on a farm. And you, most of you farmers, know how it is too. All the morning you have worked hard, and go to your house for dinner and a little rest. Then, before you are well seated at table, a child is yelling:--'The cows are over the fence;' or 'The sheep are in the crop,' and everyone jumps up and runs, thinking of the oats or the barley it has been such a trouble to raise, that these miserable fools are ruining. The men dash about brandishing sticks till they are out of breath; the women stand screaming in the farm-yard. And when you have managed to drive the cows or the sheep into their paddock and put up the rails, you get back to the house nicely 'rested' to find the pea-soup cold and full of flies, the pork under the table gnawed by dogs and cats, and you eat what you can lay your hands on, watching for the next trick the wretched animals are getting ready to play on you." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You are their slaves; that's what you are. You tend them, you clean them, you gather up their dung as the poor do the rich man's crumbs. It is you who must keep them alive by hard work, because the earth is miserly and the summer so short. That is the way of it, and there is no help, as you cannot get on without them; but for cattle there would be no living on the land. But even if you could ... even if you could ... still would you have other masters: the summer, beginning too late and ending too soon; the winter, eating up seven long months of the year and bringing in nothing; drought and rain which always come just at the wrong moment..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In the towns these things do not matter; but here you have no defence against them and they do you hurt; and I have not taken into account the extreme cold, the badness of the roads, the loneliness of being far away from everything, with no amusements. Life is one kind of hardship on top of another from beginning to end. It is often said that only those make a real success who are born and brought up on the land, and of course that is true; as for the people in the cities, small danger that they would ever be foolish enough to put up with such a way of living." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Do not say such things as that; there is no happier life in the world than the life of a farmer who owns good land." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Not in these parts, Madame Chapdelaine. You are too far north; the summer is too short; the grain is hardly up before the frosts come. Each time that I return from the States, and see the tiny wooden houses lost in this wilderness-so far from one another that they seem frightened at being alone-and the woods hemming you in on every side ... By Heaven! I lose heart for you, I who live here no longer, and I ask myself how it comes about that all you folk did not long ago seek a kinder climate where you would find everything that makes for comfort, where you could go out for a walk in the winter-time without being in fear of death ..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do you remember, my sister, the men, brave and well-beloved, whom we have slain and hidden in the woods? Their souls have known how to escape us; but their bodies, their-bodies, their bodies, none shall ever snatch them from our hands ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "To-morrow is Sunday; I shall be over to see you in the afternoon." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Maria, he began," } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "The first day I saw you, Maria, the very first day ... that is only the truth! For a long time I had not been back in this country, and I was thinking what a miserable place it was to live in, that the men were a lot of simpletons who had never seen anything and the girls not nearly so quick and clever as they are in the States ... And then, the moment I set eyes on you, there was I saying to myself that I was the simpleton, for neither at Lowell nor Boston had I ever met a girl like yourself. When I returned I used to be thinking a dozen times a day that some wretched farmer would make love to you and carry you off, and every time my heart sank. It was on your account that I came back, Maria, came up here from near Boston, three days' journey! The business I had, I could have done it all by letter; it was you I wished to see, to tell you what was in my heart to say and to hear the answer you would give me." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "This ... this is no place for you, Maria. The country is too rough, the work too hard; barely earning one's bread is killing toil. In a factory over there, clever and strong as you are, soon you would be in the way of making nearly as much as I do; but no need of that if you were my wife. I earn enough for both of us, and we should have every comfort: good clothes to wear, a pretty flat in a brick house with gas and hot water, and all sorts of contrivances you never heard of to save you labour and worry every moment of the day. And don't let the idea enter your head that all the people are English. I know many Canadian families who work as I do or even keep shops. And there is a splendid church with a Canadian priest as cure--Mr. Tremblay from St. Hyacinthe. You would never be lonesome ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I hardly know what to say ... You have always lived here and it is not possible for you to guess what life is elsewhere, nor would I be able to make you understand were I to talk forever. But I love you, Maria, I earn a good wage and I never touch a drop. If you will marry me as I ask I will take you off to a country that will open your eyes with astonishment--a fine country, not a bit like this, where we can live in a decent way and be happy for the rest of our days." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You will not have me, Maria? You have no liking for me, or is it, perhaps, that you cannot make up your mind?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No need whatever that you should say 'Yes' at once. You have not known me very long ... But think of what I have said to you. I will come back, Maria. It is a long journey and costly, but I will come. And if only you give thought to it, you will see there is no young fellow here who could give you such a future as I can; because if you marry me we shall live like human beings, and not have to kill ourselves tending cattle and grubbing in the earth in this out-of-the-way corner of the world." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You know very well, Maria, how I feel toward you. I said nothing before as my farm was not so forward that we could live there comfortably, and moreover I guessed that you liked François Paradis better than me. But as François is no longer here, and this young fellow from the States is courting you, I said to myself that I, too, might try my fortune ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "It is true enough that I am not rich; but I have two lots of my own, paid for out and out, and you know the soil is good. I shall work on it all spring, take the stumps out of the large field below the ridge of rock, put up some fences, and by May there will be a fine big field ready for seeding. I shall sow a hundred and thirty bushels, Maria,--a hundred and thirty bushels of wheat, barley and oats, without reckoning an acre of mixed grain for the cattle. All the seed, the best seed-grain, I am going to buy at Roberval, settling for it on the spot ... I have the money put aside; I shall pay cash, without running into debt to a soul, and if only we have an average season there will be a fine crop to harvest. Just think of it, Maria, a hundred and thirty bushels of good seed in first-rate land! And in the summer before the hay-making, and then again before the harvest, will be the best chance for building a nice tight warm little house, all of tamarack. I have the wood ready, cut and piled behind my barn; my brother will help me, perhaps Esdras and Da'Be as well, when they get home. Next winter I shall go to the shanties, taking a horse with me, and in the spring I shall bring back not less than two hundred dollars in my pocket. Then, should you be willing to wait so long for me, would be the time ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I know well enough that we shall have to work hard at first, Eutrope went on," } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "My affection for you ... of that I am not able to speak ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "This young fellow from the States was ready with fine speeches, but you must not be carried away by them ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Of course you are quite free to choose, and I have not a word to say against him. But you would be happier here, Maria, amongst people like yourself." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I cannot answer, Eutrope, either yes or no; not just now. I have given no promise. You must wait." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Yes to this one and" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I knew it well--knew that somewhere on the earth was such a thing as this ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I will marry Lorenzo Surprenant," } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "There are pains through my body and I have no appetite, she said," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I must have strained myself to-day lifting a bag of flour when I was making bread. Now something catches me in the back, and I am not hungry." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I am going to bed, she said presently." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A good night's sleep, and to-morrow morning I shall be all right again; have no doubt of that. You will see to the baking, Maria." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You will give the men their food, Maria, and your father will lend you a hand at milking the cows if you wish it. I am not good for anything this morning." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It will be all right, mother; it will be all right. Take it quietly; we shall have no trouble." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Don't be in the least anxious, her husband urged again and again." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is hardly anything to be done in the house beyond the cooking, and Maria is quite fit to look after that--everything else too, by thunder! She is not a little child any longer, and is as capable as yourself. Lie there quietly, without stirring; and be easy in your mind, instead of tossing about all the time under the blankets and making yourself worse...." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Oh my God! she wailed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have pains all over my body, and my head is burning. I think that I am going to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "You are going to die when the good God wills it, and according to my way of thinking that will not be for a while yet. What would He be doing with you? Heaven is all cluttered with old women, and down here we have only the one, and she is able to make herself a bit useful, every now and then ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I could put the horse in and go as far as La Pipe, he suggested." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It may be that they have some medicine for this sickness at the store; or I might talk things over with the cure, and he would tell me what to do." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Eutrope has a remedy," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is what I have, he announced rather dubiously." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They are little pills. When my brother was bad with his kidneys three years ago he saw an advertisement in a paper about these pills, and it said they were the proper thing, so he sent the money for a box, and he declares it is a good medicine. Of course his trouble did not leave him at once, but he says that this did him good. It comes from the States ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is it certain that her trouble has only to do with the kidneys?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I thought it was just that, from what Tit'Bé told me." }, { "from": "human", "value": "She strained herself lifting a bag of flour, as she says; and now she has pains everywhere. How can we tell ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The newspaper that spoke of this medicine, Eutrope Gagnon went on," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Even if they are not for this very sickness, said Tit'Bé deferentially," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "She suffers, that is one thing certain; we cannot let her go on like this." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Eutrope has brought you a cure, Laura." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I have no faith in your cures," }, { "from": "human", "value": "My brother took some of these three years ago when he had the kidney trouble so badly that he was hardly able to work at all, and he says that they cured him. It is a fine remedy, Madame Chapdelaine, there is not a question of it! His former doubts had vanished in speech and he felt wholly confident." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This is going to cure you, Madame Chapdelaine, as surely as the good God is above us. It is a medicine of the very first class; my brother had it sent expressly from the States. You may be sure that you would never find a medicine like this in the store at La Pipe." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It cannot make her worse? Maria asked, some doubt lingering." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It is not a poison, or anything of that sort?" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Do harm? Tiny pills no bigger than that!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "My brother took nearly a box of them, and according to his account it was only good they did him." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "What ails you, mother? Are you not feeling any better?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ah God, how I suffer! How I do suffer! I cannot stir myself, not the least bit, and even so the pain is as bad as ever. Give me some cold water, Maria; I have the most terrible thirst." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Maybe it is not good for you to drink so much. Try to bear the thirst for a little." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "But I cannot bear it, I tell you-the thirst and the pain all through my body, and my head that bums like fire ... My God! It is certain that I am to die." }, { "from": "human", "value": "I am going to harness the horse to go to Mistook for the doctor, and on the way through La Pipe I shall also speak to the cure. It is heart-breaking to hear her moan like this." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hold up, there! Back ... Back up! Whoa!" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Anyway it is far, and the roads will be heavy." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Is she no better?" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "My father should not be far from St. Coeur de Marie ... If the doctor is there they will rest the horse for a couple of hours and come back together. But the roads must be very bad; at this time, in the spring, they are sometimes hardly passable." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They should have left; perhaps in going through La Pipe they will stop to speak to the cure; perhaps again he may have started as soon as he heard, without waiting for them. In that case he might be here at any moment." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "With the roads in this condition, said he," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Well, good mother, so we have taken the notion to be sick, just like people who have money to spend on such things!" }, { "from": "human", "value": "She really is sick, I do believe." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Presently we shall know what is the matter, and the doctor will give her the right medicines." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "If it is just a wrench that she has given herself, at length he announced," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Internal lesions are serious things, and often one cannot detect them. The wisest man in the world could tell you no more than I. We shall have to wait ... But perhaps it is not that we have to deal with. After some further investigation he shook his head." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Of course I can give something that will keep her from suffering like this." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Illnesses like these, said he," } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I shall sleep at Honfleur, said he," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I suppose your horse is fit to take me so far? There is no need for you to come, I know the road. I shall stay with Ephrem, Surprenant, and come back in the morning." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Anyway the medicine he has given her is a good one; she groans no longer." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "O Samuel, I am dying, there can be no doubt of it." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No! No! You must not think that." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes, I know that I am dying. I feel it. The doctor is only an old fool, and he cannot tell what to do. He is not even able to say what the trouble is, and the medicine he gave me is useless; it has done me no good. I tell you I am dying." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "And I who was thinking to find her almost well. This doctor, now ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "This doctor is not a bit of use, and I shall tell him so plainly, myself. He came here, he gave her a drop of some miserable stuff worth nothing at all in the bottom of a cup, and he is off to sleep in the village as if his pay was earned! Not a thing has he done but tire out my horse, but he shall not have a copper from me, not a single copper..." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Neither have I any faith in doctors. Now if we had only thought of fetching a bone-setter--such a man as Tit'Sebe of St. Felicien ..." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tit'Sebe! exclaimed Maria." }, { "from": "human", "value": "And you think he could help in a case like this?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is no doubt whatever that Tit'Sebe can make people well. He was never through the schools, but he knows how to cure. You heard of Nazaire Gaudreau who fell from the top of a barn and broke his back. The doctors came to see him, and the best they could do was to give the Latin name for his hurt and say that he was going to die. Then they went and fetched Tit'Sebe, and Tit'Sebe cured him." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Tit'Sebe is a first-rate man, and a man who knows how to make sick people well. Moreover he is not greedy for money. You go and you fetch him, you pay him for his time, and he cures you. It was he who put little Romeo Boilly on his legs again after being run over by a wagon loaded with planks." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will go and get him if you like," }, { "from": "human", "value": "But what will you do for a horse? asked Maria." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The doctor has Charles Eugene at Honfleur." }, { "from": "human", "value": "The old rascal!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "It makes no difference. I will go just the same. If I walk to Honfleur, I shall easily find someone there who will lend me a horse and sleigh--Racicot, or perhaps old Neron." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is thirty-five miles from here to St. Felicien and the roads are heavy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I will go just the same." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "It was impossible for me to come sooner, the cure explained," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "They sat at the bedside and talked in low tones. The doctor made a fresh examination, but it was the cure who told the result of it." }, { "from": "human", "value": "There is little one can say. She does not seem any worse, but this is not an ordinary sickness. It is best that I should confess her and give her absolution; then we shall both go away and be back again the day after to-morrow." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Only if she should suffer greatly, so that she cries out, and never more than fifteen drops at a time. And do not let her have any cold water to drink." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Doctors do what they can, said he in a simple unaffected way," } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Have you sent for the cure? ... He has been here. And will he return? To-morrow; that is well." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "There is nothing I can do for her. Something has gone wrong within, about which I know nothing; were there broken bones I could have healed them. I should only have had to feel them with my hands, and then the good God would have told me what to do and I should have cured her. But in this sickness of hers I have no skill. I might indeed put a blister on her back, and perhaps that would draw away-the blood and relieve her for a time. Or I could give her a draught made from beaver kidneys; it is useful when the kidneys are affected, as is well known. But I think that neither the blister nor the draught would work a cure." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "She will die if that be God's pleasure." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thou hast bestowed upon me the gift of healing bones that are broken, and I have healed them; but Thou hast denied me power over such ills as these; so must I let this poor woman die." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "You do not think she will die before the cure comes back?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I cannot tell ... If your horse is able you would do well to seek him with the daylight." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I am going to put the horse in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "That is well; you had better harness; it is near day." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Yes. I am going to put the horse in, Chapdelaine repeated. But at the moment of his departure it swept over him suddenly that in going to bring the Blessed Sacrament he would be upon a solemn and a final errand, significant of death. The thought held him still irresolute." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I am going to put the horse in." }, { "from": "human", "value": "It is from the nor'west; there will be a blow," }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Only two days ago snow fell, and now it will be raised and drift. The roads were heavy enough before; father and the cure are going to have trouble getting through." }, { "from": "human", "value": "They may have a little difficulty on the road, but they will get here all the same. A priest who brings the Blessed Sacrament has more than the strength of a man." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes, power beyond the strength of a man has a priest bearing the Blessed Sacrament. It was three years ago that they summoned me to care for a sick man on the lower Mistassini; at once I saw that I could do nothing for him, and I bade them go fetch a priest. It was night-time and there was not a man in the house, the father himself being sick and his boys quite young. And so at the last it was I that went. On the way back we had to cross the river; the ice had just gone out--it was in the spring--and as yet not a boat had been put into the water. We found a great heavy tub that had been lying in the sand all winter, and when we tried to run her down to the water she was buried so deep in the sand and was so heavy that the four of us could not so much as make her budge. Simon Martel was there, big Lalancette of St. Methode, a third I cannot call to mind, and myself; and we four, hauling and shoving to break our hearts as we thought of this poor fellow on the other side of the river who was in the way of dying like a heathen, could not stir that boat a single inch. Well, the cure came forward; he laid his hand on the gunwale--just laid his hand on the gunwale, like that--'Give one more shove,' said he; and the boat seemed to start of herself and slipped down to the water as though she were alive. The sick man received the sacrament all right, and died like a Christian just as day was breaking. Yes, a priest has strength beyond the strength of men." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "A good house you have here; tightly made and warm. Your father and the boys built it, did they not? Moreover, you must have a good bit of land cleared by this time ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I have come." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "It is a heavy loss. You were fortunate in your wife, Samuel; no one may question that. Truly you were fortunate in your wife." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The weather is quite mild this evening; we soon shall have rain. Everyone is saying that it is to be an early spring." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Father! Do not sleep!" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "No! No! He sat up straight on his chair and squared his shoulders but since his eyes were closing in spite of him, he stood up hastily, saying:--" }, { "from": "human", "value": "Let us recite another chaplet." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Ephrem. Surprenant said no more than the truth. Your mother was a good woman, Maria; you will not find her like." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Yes," }, { "from": "human", "value": "Full of courage and good counsel, that she has been throughout her life; but it was chiefly in the early days after we were married, and then again when Esdras and yourself were little, that she showed herself the woman she was. The wife of a small farmer looks for no easy life, but women who take to their work as well and as cheerfully as she did in those days, Maria, are hard to find." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "I know, father; I know it well;" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Well, I caught up my ax and was off to the woods; and I laid into the birches so lustily that chips flew as thick as your wrist, all the time saying to myself that the wife I had was like no other, and that if the good God only kept me in health I would make her the best farm in the countryside." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "I took one side and she the other, as the sheep used to scatter among the alders. It was growing dark, and suddenly I heard Laura cry out: 'Oh, the scoundrels!' Some animals were moving in the bushes, and it was plain to see they were not sheep, because in the woods toward evening sheep are white patches. So, ax in hand, I started off running as hard as I could. Later on, when we were on the way back to the house, your mother told me all about it. She had come across a sheep lying dead, and two bears that were just going to eat it. Now it takes a pretty good man, one not easily frightened and with a gun in his hand, to face a bear in September; as for a woman empty-handed, the best thing she can do is to run for it and not a soul will blame her. But your mother snatched a stick from the ground and made straight for the bears, screaming at them:--'Our beautiful fat sheep! Be off with you, you ugly thieves, or I will do for you!' I got there at my best speed, leaping over the stumps; but by that time the bears had cleared off into the woods without showing fight, scared as could be, because she had put the fear of death into them." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "At Normandin, at Mistassini and the other places we have lived I always worked hard; no one can say nay to that. Many an acre of forest have I cleared and I have built houses and barns, always saying to myself that one day we should have a comfortable farm where your mother would live as do the women in the old parishes, with fine smooth fields all about the house as far as the eye could see, a kitchen garden, handsome well-fed cattle in the farm-yard ... And, after it all, here is she dead in this half-savage spot, leagues from other houses and churches, and so near the bush that some nights one can hear the foxes bark. And it is my fault that she has died so ... My fault ... My fault." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "And then your mother would come quietly up behind me. She also would look out across our place, and I knew that she was pleased with it to the bottom of her heart because it was beginning to look like the old parish where she had grown up, and where she would so gladly have spent her days. But instead of telling me that I was no better than a silly old fool for wishing to leave--as most women would have done-and finding hard things to say about my folly, she only sighed a little as she thought of the drudgery that was to begin all over again somewhere back in the woods, and kindly and softly she would say to me:--'Well, Samuel! Are we soon to be on the move once more?' When she said that I could not answer, for I was speechless with very shame at thinking of the wretched life I had given her; but I knew well enough that it would end in our moving again and pushing on to the north, deeper into the woods, and that she would be with me and take her share in this hard business of beginning anew--as cheerful and capable and good-humoured as ever, without one single word of reproach or spitefulness." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "How little do we know people!" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Why stay here, to toil and suffer thus? Why? ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "And yet they must be beautiful!" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "Throughout all this land we are at home ... at home ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "And yet it is a harsh land, this land of ours ... Why should I linger here?" } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "For this is it that we must abide in that Province where our fathers dwelt, living as they have lived, so to obey the unwritten command that once shaped itself in their hearts, that passed to ours, which we in turn must hand on to descendants innumerable:--In this land of Quebec naught shall die and naught shall suffer change ..." } ]

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[ { "from": "human", "value": "So I shall stay--shall. stay here after all!" } ]