She had one month to love him in, and in one week they were to have the wedding. The Acadians believe that marriage must come au point, as cooks say their sauces must be served. Standing on the bayou-bank in front of the Mérionaux, one could say "Good day" with the eyes to the Zévérin Theriots—that was the name of the parents of the young bridegroom. Looking under the branches of the oaks, one could see across the prairie,—prairie and sea-marsh it was,—and clearly distinguish another little red-washed house like the Mérionaux, with a painted roof hanging over the windows, and a staircase going up outside to the garret. With the sun shining in the proper direction, one might distinguish more, and with love shining like the sun in the eyes, one might see, one might see—a heart full.
It was only the eyes, however, which could make such a quick voyage to the Zévérin Theriots; a skiff had a long day's journey to reach them. The bayou sauntered along over the country like a negro on a Sunday's pleasuring, trusting to God for time, and to the devil for means.
Oh, nothing can travel quickly over a bayou! Ask any one who has waited on a bayou-bank for a physician or a life-and-death message. Thought refuses to travel and turn and double over it; thought, like the eye, takes the shortest cut—straight over the sea-marsh; and in the spring of the year, when the lilies are in bloom, thought could not take a more heavenly way, even from beloved to beloved.
It was the week before marriage, that week when, more than one's whole life afterward, one's heart feels most longing—most—well, in fact, it was the week before marriage. From Sunday to Sunday, that was all the time to be passed. Adorine—women live through this week by the grace of God, or perhaps they would be as unreasonable as the men—Adorine could look across the prairie to the little red roof during the day, and could think across it during the night, and get up before day to look across again—longing, longing all the time. Of course one must supply all this from one's own imagination or experience.
But Adorine could sing, and she sang. One might hear, in a favorable wind, a gunshot, or the barking of a dog from one place to the other, so that singing, as to effect, was nothing more than the voicing of her looking and thinking and longing.
When one loves, it is as if everything was known of and seen by the other; not only all that passes in the head and heart, which would in all conscience be more than enough to occupy the other, but the talking, the dressing, the conduct. It was then that the back hair was braided and the front curled more and more beautifully every day, and that the calico dresses became stiffer and stiffer, and the white crochet lace collar broader and lower in the neck. At thirteen she was beautiful enough to startle one, they say, but that was nothing; she spent time and care upon these things, as if, like other women, her fate seriously depended upon them. There is no self-abnegation like that of a woman in love.
It was her singing, however, which most showed that other existence in her existence. When she sang at her spinning-wheel or her loom, or knelt battling clothes on the bank of the bayou, her lips would kiss out the words, and the tune would rise and fall and tremble, as if Zepherin were just across there, anywhere; in fact, as if every blue and white lily might hide an ear of him.
It was the time of the new moon, fortunately, when all sit up late in the country. The family would stop in their talking about the wedding to listen to her. She did not know it herself, but it—the singing—was getting louder and clearer, and, poor little thing, it told everything. And after the family went to bed they could still hear her, sitting on the bank of the bayou, or up in her window, singing and looking at the moon traveling across the lily prairie—for all its beauty and brightness no more beautiful and bright than a heart in love.
It was just past the middle of the week, a Thursday night. The moon was so bright the colors of the lilies could be seen, and the singing, so sweet, so far-reaching—it was the essence of the longing of love. Then it was that the miracle happened to her. Miracles are always happening to the Acadians. She could not sleep, she could not stay in bed. Her heart drove her to the window, and kept her there, and—among the civilized it could not take place, but here she could sing as she pleased in the middle of the night; it was nobody's affair, nobody's disturbance. "Saint Ann! Saint Joseph! Saint Mary!" She heard her song answered! She held her heart, she bent forward, she sang again. Oh, the air was full of music! It was all music! She fell on her knees; she listened, looking at the moon; and, with her face in her hands, looking at Zepherin. It was God's choir of angels, she thought, and one with a voice like Zepherin! Whenever it died away she would sing again, and again, and again—