The Quebec Anthology: 1830-1990

"The Ferryman" 1920

Jean-Aubert Loranger Translated by Sheila Fischman THE FERRYMAM Jean-Aubert Loranger, a descendant of Philippe-Aubert de Gaspe, was born in Montreal in 1896. Orphaned at the age of four, he was raised by foster parents and, at the age of 22, became one of the founding members of the literary group that published the avant-garde art and poetry journalLe Nigog. In 1924, he began working as an insurance agent for Metropolitan Life, a position he held until his untimely death in 1942. Loranger was perhaps better known in Quebec asa poet than as a fiction writer, and he is generally considered the first poet in Canada to abandon poetical classicism in favour of free verse. In fact, he published more short stories than poetry: his first book, LesAtmospheres. Le Passeur. Poemes et autres choses, published in Montreal in 1920, contained both poetry and short stories, and his subsequent short-story collections include A la recherchedu regionalisme. Le Village. Contes et nouvelles de terroir (In Search of Regionalism. The Village. Tales and Stories of the Homestead, 1925) and the two-volume edition Contes, published in 1978, which runs to 655 pages. "Le Passeur," the tide story included here— translated as "The Ferryman" by Sheila Fischman—is the title story from Loranger's first book. "The Ferryman" is a translation of "Le Passeur" published in Les Atmospheres. Le Passeur. Poemes et autres proses (Montreal: L. Ad. Morissette, 1920). THE FERRYMAN 89 Prologue: The River On the left bank, the lower of the two, sits a village. A single street runs through it, connecting it with the life of the world outside. Small houses line the street, facing each other like guests at a table. At the very end of the street, in the place of honour, stands the church that presides over the brotherhood of small houses. On the right bank, the steeper one, a broad rolling plain covered with crops stretches towards the horizon, which is covered in the distance by a dense forest. Through the forest runs a little road that crosses the plain to the shore and the ferryman'scabin. The road is flanked by telegraph poles that look like big rakes standing on end. Finally, there is the ferry, an extension of the road that floats on the water. The Ferryman Now, one day the man became curious to know his age, and when he was shown the register of his life, it contained the sum of his days, which numbered eighty years, and at first he was not so apprehensive at the fact that he soon would die as at the unexpected knowledge of his great age. He did not: know that he had come so far. He had travelled through his life without looking ahead of him, like an oarsman who knows his route so well he can concentrate all his attention upon the movement of his arms without turning to look in the direction he is going. But now, feeling throughout his body the shudder of old age and of the imminent end of his life, he was suddenly faced with the fact that his time was indeed running out. The man had never plied any trade but that of ferryman ; for his home, a shack as old as he himself that stood on the opposite shore at the water's edge, facing the village. It was an orderly life, with a ferry and a rowboat at its centre: the road was his very reason for existing, and he was charged with ensuring that it continued across the river. He 90 JEAN-AUBERT LORANGER O was in a sense a boatman of the road. Foot-passengers he took across in a small white rowboat, while for vehicles and heavy loads there was a large red ferry that moved along a guide-wire from shore to shore. He spoke little, and this had cost him the friendship of his neighbours. The fellow was slow at his task, but diligent. If he heard a team of horses on the road he would slowly rouse himself from his nap in the doorway of his cabin and go to his post in the bow of the ferry, his back bent, his hands gripping the wire, ready to pull. Once the vehicle was unloaded he would accept his payment, then set out on the return journey without a word. Slowly, as the swirling water beneath...