Wanderings of French EdRené, J. Adelard (Joseph Adelard)
History
Wanderings of French Ed
René, J. Adelard (Joseph Adelard)
French Canadians -- Fiction; United States -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction
There were all sorts of faces. Some told of happiness and health,
others spoke plainly of sadness and misfortune; others still were
enigmas--they told of nothing, and if they had known of stormy days,
and drank of some of life's bitter cup, there were no traces left. A
few seats ahead of him Edward noticed a tall chap with his arms
around the waist of a woman with golden hair. Her face told of new
matrimonial bliss and he seemed to be so happy that he was satisfied
to look at his bride without speaking. Edward thought how he would
like to have Marie Louise as his bride and going West also, when he
heard something falling and turning around in the direction where the
noise came from he saw a beautiful young girl who was vainly trying
to pull off part of her sleeve from under the window-shade, which had
just fallen, causing the noise. Edward hesitatingly got up, and
succeeded in releasing the young lady from her awkward position. She
thanked him, and when he looked into her large brown eyes he felt
that they were the most beautiful he had seen in all his life. He
went back to his seat, and felt sorry at once for not having spoken
to her. The more he thought, the more he wanted to speak to her,
until at last, he got up and boldly walked up to her seat, but
imagine his surprise there--he found himself unable to say a word.
She looked up, and seeing his embarrassment, said something that he
failed to understand, but her kind smile brought back his courage and
his power of speech. Picking up her things, she made room on her seat
and he sat down and began the conversation in broken English.
A woman of twenty, with a mass of auburn hair-that color that is
three in one, golden in the sun, brown in the shade, and dark in the
evening. Her eyes were large and soft, shaded by long eyelashes. It
was difficult to tell their color, but they possessed a magnetic
power that Edward felt at once, and every time he looked in her eyes
he felt dazed. His whole being seemed to become involved in a spell
of strange happiness, and listening to her, he felt that she could
make him her slave. When he told her of his going to St. Paul,
Minnesota, she said that she had often been in that city, and had
many friends living there. Her conversation was easy and fascinating,
and Edward did not dare to make any comparison between her and Marie
Louise, whose name came to his mind more than once. After an hour or
so of conversation she told him that she could speak French, and
immediately proceeded to talk that language, to his astonishment, and
he mildly reproached her for not having spoken that language before.
"I just love to hear any one speak English the way you do," she said.
While talking French she held Edward spellbound. She spoke of Daudet,
Zola, George Ohnet, Chartrand, and many other modern novelists of the
French school, and it developed that her favorite authors were also
his.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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