For Sure Page 6
“It’s good practice for me. You can buy me a beer sometime.”
“Eh! More ’n one. I’ll be openin’ up de opposite of a tab for you at the bar.”
130.6.3
The Babar
The vowel u takes the prize when it comes to inspiring no colour: 5 of the 102 participants in the survey claimed they imagined the u without any colour. These respondents were nevertheless fewer than the 16 who saw it as red, 14 as yellow, 14 as green, 12 as purple, 12 as blue, 10 as orange, 9 as brown, 2 each as black, white, grey, and turquoise, 1 as pink, and 1 as uranium.
131.3.5
Statistics
“Tiddly-tiddly-tat yer pointy pointy hat!”
Marianne giggled. Terry did it again:
“Tiddly-tiddly-tat yer pointy pointy hat!”
Again Marianne giggled, and Terry did it again, this time modifiying the intonations:
“TIDdly-TIDdly-tAT yer pointy pointy hAT!”
He could have gone on like this forever. Marianne was not a difficult child, and easily amused. For this very reason, Terry and Carmen had to be careful not to neglect her, compared to Étienne who never let you forget him.
“Marianne, how’d you like to take a car ride with Dad? Eh, just Marianne ’n Dad in de car?”
“I wanna go too.”
“Nope, you came along yesterday, didn’t ya. Marianne’s turn today.”
Étienne, too, had to get used to the fact that Marianne occupied a place of her very own, as well.
132.134.1
Marianne
Second coincidence: in Le Nouveau Petit Robert dictionary, the definition of the word auburn refers us back to the word acajou, French for “mahogany.” In the same volume, directly above the word acajou one finds the word acadien. And stranger still, the mascot of the Acadian Games was called Acajoux. Something to think about.
133.17.2
Chance
For fun, two friends of the Babar who’d read the brief article in L’Acadie nouvelle began to interview the customers around them.
“And do you imagine the letter a any particular colour?”
“Yellow.”
“And e?”
“Naw.”
“How about i?”
“Orange like . . .”
“And o?”
“Black fer sure.”
“And u . . .”
“Purple-ish . . .”
“And y . . .”
“White.”
“White?! G’wan wid choo, now dat’s unusual.”
134.6.5
The Babar
Among other designers to have made their mark on the history of letter forms, we can include Fournier, William Caslon, John Baskerville, and Giambattista Bodoni. But this list is far from exhaustive. The history of the alphabet, like that of writing, belongs to civilizations rather than individuals.
135.10.12
Typography
“Pascal de lamb was a lamb like all de udders: he was wee an’ curly an’ innocent.”
“Wot’s innocent?”
“Means ee was nice like, not a mean bone in ’is body.”
“Wot’s a mean bone den?”
“Dat’s just an expression. Folks been saying it so long nobody knows where it comes from. Just means ee had no meanness in ’im.”
This explanation satisfied Étienne, so Terry continued:
“An’ ee was called Pascal ‘cause ee’s born on Easter.”
“Wot’s Easter, Dad?”
With this, Étienne’s third question, Terry decided the story would be a short one.
“Easter’s de weekend when Jesus was resurrected. You know, we all goes down to Grande-Digue an’ eats Easter eggs an’ Easter bunnies.”
“How come den it’s not a story ’bout Pascal de rabbit?”
Étienne had used the expression How come in English, which made Terry wince. Carmen often blamed him for the children’s use of Chiac.
“On account of dis was a lamb and ’is name was Pascal.”
“OK, Dad, go on den.”
Terry prayed for inspiration.
“Pascal the lamb was down on ’is four knees an’ bleatin’ like lambs do, when ee hears a voice tellin’ ’im to get up. Well, ee gets up, ’cause don’t ferget, ee’s innocent . . .”
. . .
“An’ de voice says not to get all anxious if de earth starts atremblin’ an’ shakin’, on account of it’s just Jesus pushin’ on dat rock in front of his tomb, so’s ee can resurrect.”
. . .
“So Pascal de lamb doesn’t worry one bit, ee just leans down an’ takes anudder moutful o’ grass.”
Terry paused a moment to pray again for inspiration.
“Well right den, de eart’ starts atremblin’. . . an’ shakin. . . an’ tremblin’ some more . . . an’ Pascal de lamb, well ee jus’ keeps on chompin’ on dat grass, not scared one bit.”
. . .
“An’ does you know why?”
Was Étienne already asleep? Terry did not dare hope.
“Well, it’s on account of ee was innocent. An’ God protects de innocent, so dey say.”
Terry decided to believe Étienne had truly fallen asleep, especially since the story had reached a good place to end. He got up slowly, turned off Babar on the dresser and moved toward the door.
“Dad?”
Terry swallowed his discouragement:
“Yah?”
“Does dat mean God protects Chico?”
That took Terry’s breath away.
“Yah, dat’s exactly wot it means.”
. . .
“G’night, son.”
“G’night, Dad.”
136.37.9
Animal Tales
The temptation, or rather the necessity to enlarge the role of accents: for example, the acute accent on the e of English verbs ending in er — bãnkér, clãmpér, drĩvér, flũnkér, lẽakér, mãnagér – to indicate that these are English words the suffixes of which are pronounced as in French. In this way we make decisions, establish new rules, rethink our mistakes.
137.35.3
The Detail within the Detail
“Are ya scared to put yer finger in yer own bellybutton, den?”
“I wouldn’t say I’s scared. I jus’ don’t care fer it. Tickles me in a way I don’t like.”
The object of facile judgments, of cartoons depicting him with a menacing look, accused of being a sexual pervert, Freud was well aware that psychoanalysis was inflicting a third narcissistic wound on humanity, the first having been dealt by Copernicus, who denied human beings their place at the centre of the universe, and the second by Darwin, who established a direct relation between the human and the monkey. Freud, for his part, like a seismic tremor, had shaken the very foundations of reason.
138.137.9
Fears
“I’ll be goin’ downstairs an’ do a bit o’ work, catch up on some book orders, if you doesn’t mind . . .”
Terry had said Je vas for “I’ll go.” Carmen corrected him.
139.39.3
Freud Circuitously
“Je vais.”
. . .
“No, I don’ mind. I won’t be late to bed, that’s for sure.”
How long would it take Terry to correct the je vas and say it properly: je vais? Months? Years? And did he have to make the correction at all cost, at any cost? The more often he was reminded of it, the more Terry, in spite of himself, inserted proper French in his speech, but it did not always happen. Sometimes, incompatible linguistic impulses blinked in his mind when he opened his mouth, producing new errors. And so, just for peace of mind, he preferred occasionally to remain silent.
/> 140.30.8
Chiac
Babar, the elephant cartoon created in 1931 by Jean de Brunhoff, is an excellent model of socialization. His story gently introduces children aged three to seven to the values of citizenship. Babar likes to dress properly, always answers when queried at school, helps others as others have helped him, and learns that each of us has an essential role to play in society. When he becomes king, Babar makes good civil and cultural choices. Under his reign, the elephants build schools, cultivate gardens, play music and attend the theatre.
141.7.9
Useful Details
“Dey filmed lobsters underwater goin’ in an’ out of de traps . . . Turns out it don’t happen de way dey always tot it did, ha ha ha!”
142.15.8
Unidentified Monologues
In the last building to have housed the newspaper L’Évangéline, all the old printing material — lead ingots, cases, linotypes — lay there abandoned to dust, at the same time as the crafts quietly vanished, a language lost its footing, reality wavered, even memories gradually but steadily fading, fading also in the minds of the elders who now inhabit the place. On my computer I point and click “format,” I read the instruction “change font” and a corner of the veil lifts, revealing that great extinguished body that death suddenly renders fascinating.
143.54.1
Forgotten/Recalled
“Do you know how many possible colours exist in the universe?”
Le Petit Étienne gazed at the colour chart before him as though there were already far too many to count. Zablonski continued:
“With computers, now we can create sixteen million different colours.”
Étienne knew that a million was a lot. To give the number some weight, Zablonski added:
“It’s almost as many as there are stars in the heavens.”
The boy’s eyebrows arched. The teacher sensed he was on the right track:
“But our eyes can’t see all the colours. We can only distinguish around three-hundred thousand. Which is still a great many.”
Le Petit Étienne considered this.
“Sometimes de sky doesn’t have a whole lot of stars.”
“That’s true. The stars are not unlike colours: we can’t see them all. Because of clouds, or because they’re too far away, or because they’re not in our sky, because the earth is turning.”
Le Grand Étienne allowed a few moments to pass before taking up his lecture:
“What’s particular about all these colours, is that very few of them have names.”
Étienne Zablonski pointed to the colour chart:
“These here, which you can see — marjoram, ondine, melancholy, picador — they’re very lucky to have names, because most of the sixteen million colours are known only by numbers. Or letters. Or sometimes a combination of the two, numbers and letters.”
Zablonski wondered if the child made the difference between numbers and letters, but he did not linger unnecessarily over the question:
“Which means that there are still many colours left to name.”
Suddenly, Le Grand Étienne seemed struck by the idea.
“So we can very well name a colour wool green or vein green, even mother’s orange, if we so desire. Nothing can stop us doing so. Nothing and no one.”
144.2.12
Colours
Le Petit Étienne gazed at Le Grand Étienne. He felt somehow the incomplete state of the universe and how much there remained to do.
* * *
1. The phrase din’t I signifies “didn’t I tell you.”
56.142.1
Notes
2. There are two ways to pose this question: either the interrogative accent is placed on the second syllable, as in “realLY?” or, as is more usual, the emphasis is placed on the first syllable, thus: “REALly?!” which is a question combined with an exclamation, also known as the “Acadian interrogative” because of its falsely neutral tone.
78.142.2
Notes
3. As though to accentuate the sourness, Acadians add a strongly aspirated h to the word for bitter. Furthermore, many do not pronounce the r, which makes aigre sound like haigue.
116.142.3
Notes
CHAPTER 2
The stone is the friend of numerals and numbers. Nothing expresses a mathematical elegance better than a stone to which we have given well-balanced measurements.
145.144.2
Epigraphs
Jean Giono,
“La pierre” (“The Stone”) in Le Déserteur et autres récits (The Deserter and Other Stories), Gallimard, 1973
Terry called out to the customer as she was about to open the door to leave.
“An’ do you know dis book over here?”
Terry grabbed hold of the large volume under the counter and moved toward the woman.
“Gaston Miron’s de only Canadian dat’s listed as one of de forty-nine best books of poetry in French in La Bibliothèque idéale.”
The woman glanced at the cover of La Bibliothèque idéale, a work that claimed to list all the books that ought to be included in a francophone’s ideal library. She did not seem to have seen it before. Terry showed her the table on pages 124 and 125.
“Eh? I don’t see any udder, anyhow . . .”
The woman quickly scanned down the list.
“No, nor do I. But I don’t know them all.”
“And as doh dat weren’t enuff . . . turns out dat was the feller’s only book.”
The woman nodded, going down the list again more closely.
“Maybe you’d like to borrow it? ’Tis right interestin’ just to look at. A body doesn’t have to read it all.”
Aware that he’d switched to the less formal tu in addressing her, Terry offered the customer La Bibliothèque idéale.
“You can haul it back when yer books come in.”
It was really a sales trick of his. He actually owned several copies of La Bibliothèque idéale, which he would lend out from time to time. When they returned it, people also tended to order a few of the books listed within. A few even ordered a copy of the reference work itself.
“Yes, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Like I say, it’s interestin’ readin’ bits of it now an’ den . . .”
146.8.9
Didot Books
In her novel 1953: Chronicle of a Birth Foretold, Acadian author France Daigle does not mention the creation that year of the publishing house Hachette’s paperback division, Livre de Poche. Henri Filipacchi, then Secretary General of Messageries Hachette, launched three books in paperback: Koenigsmark by Pierre Benoît, Les Clés du royaume (The Keys to the Kingdom) by A. J. Cronin, and Vol de nuit (Night Flight) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Legend has it that the idea came to Filipacchi to publish books in a smaller, cheaper format when he saw an American GI, standing in front of a Paris bookstore, tear a book in two and stuff it into his pockets. The paperback had already existed for some time in England and the United States.
147.45.2
Useless Details
“Gaw?”
“Gone?”
“Gaw?”
“Yup, de lady’s gone.”
Standing by the big glass door, her Tatou in her arms, Marianne looked from side to side without spotting the departing customer.
148.103.1
Disappearances
If the u seems to be the vowel that evokes the least colour, the y is the one that’s most often forgotten. In fact, 8 of the 102 participants in the survey simply did not mention it. Although this absence is notable, it should not eclipse the fact that 39 respondants said the y appeared to them in yellow. For 15 others, it suggested purple. Then c
omes oblivion — third place, after all. Oblivion is followed by green, which was mentioned seven times; black six times; no colour four times; blue, green, and red each named three times; brown, purple, and white twice each; and cyan, maroon, orange, gold, turquoise, sky blue, beige, and pink.
149.3.6
Statistics
“Only, I has de feeling she don’t talk much fer her age, I mean. Like today, when she said dat, it hit me dat she don’t often say real words. Don’t you tink?”
“Well, might be she doesn’t have a whole lot to say. There’s plenty folks like that.”
“I know kids don’t all come up de same way, there’s dem dat starts walkin’ later, udders get to talkin’ later, or wears nappies longer . . .”
“Well, sure, but ’tisn’t like she doesn’t understand us, is it. I don’t think she’s deaf or anythin’.”
The ads were coming to an end, and the TV show was about to start up again. Terry made haste to get his question in:
“Do doctors check dat sort of ting?”
“Well, I hope so . . .”
150.94.10
Terry and Carmen
In Petites difficultés d’existence by France Daigle (Les Éditions du Boréal, 2002), translated by Robert Majzels as Life’s Little Difficulties (House of Anansi Press, 2004), readers learn that an arsonist completely destroyed the home of Étienne and Ludmilla Zablonski in Baltimore, which explains why the painter possesses so few objects from his past.
151.54.9
Forgotten/Recalled
PRÉCIS
de
L’HISTOIRE MODERNE
par M. MICHELET,
Membre de l’Institut,
professeur d’histoire au Collège de France,
chef de la section historique aux Archives nationales
OUVRAGE ADOPTÉ
par le Conseil de l’Université,