"Merci," he said. She nodded.
When the next tune ended, Franзois Berlinguet, who was a few years older than Madeleine, pointed toward Lucien. "And here we have the most eligible bachelor in all of the county of Temiscouata, Monsieur Lucien Galtier!" His red face and raucous voice said he'd been drinking a lot of that potent cider.
The drunker the people were, the louder they cheered and clapped their hands. "God knows what a liar you are, Franзois, and so do I," Lucien said. Berlinguet bowed, as if at a compliment. Galtier got a laugh. His host got a bigger one.
Trouble was, it hadn't been altogether a lie. Ever since he'd lost Marie, widows had been throwing themselves at Galtier. So had the daughters and granddaughters of friends, acquaintances, and optimistic strangers. He felt no urgent need for a second wife. He'd done his best to make that plain. No one seemed to want to listen to him.
Even though the phonograph was quiet, the fiddlers struck up a tune. People began to dance again. What Lucien noticed was how harsh and ragged the music seemed. When he was young, people had enjoyed whatever music their neighbors made. Some was better, some not quite so good, but what difference did it make?
It made a difference now. People measured neighbors' music not by the standards of other neighbors' music, but against the professionals who made records. What would have been fine a couple of generations before was anything but now. We're spoiled, Lucien thought. That hadn't occurred to him before, which made it no less true.
Berlinguet came over to him. "Will you be a wallflower?" he teased.
"If I want to," Galtier answered. "I can do just about anything I want to, it seems to me. I have the years for it."
"But you will break the hearts of all the pretty girls here," his host said. "How can they dance with you if you will not dance?"
"Now that, my friend, that is a truly interesting question," Lucien said. "And now I have another question for you as welclass="underline" is it that they wish to dance with me, or is it that they wish to dance with my farm and my electricity and my Chevrolet?"
Franзois Berlinguet did him the courtesy of taking him seriously. "It could be that some of them do wish to dance with the farm and the other things. But, you know, it could also be that some of them wish to dance with you. Will you take away their chance along with that of the others?"
"I do not know." Galtier shrugged a Gallic shrug. "Truly, I do not. The trouble is, how do I tell with a certainty the ones from the others?"
Before Berlinguet could answer, Dr. Leonard O'Doull and Galtier's daughter, Nicole, walked into the barn. With his long, angular body and fair, Irish-looking face, O'Doull always looked like a stranger in a crowd of Quebecois. But he wasn't a stranger here. He must have treated at least half the people in the barn. Men and women swarmed up to him. Some wanted to talk about their aches and pains. More, though, wanted to talk politics or gossip. Even if he did still sound a little-and only a little-like the American he was, he'd made a place for himself in and around Riviиre-du-Loup.
Eventually, he and Nicole came over to Galtier. As Franзois Berlinguet had, O'Doull said, "You're not dancing, mon beau-pиre. Do you think you will wear out all the sweet young things?"
"It could be," Lucien answered. "It could also be that I think they will wear me out. When I want to dance, I will dance. And if I do not care to… well, who will make me?"
Nicole grabbed his left hand. When she did, her husband plucked the mug of cider out of his right hand. "I will make you," she said, and dragged him out toward the middle of the floor. "You don't need to wonder why I want to dance with you, either." She understood him very well.
He wagged a finger at her. "Yes, I know why you want to dance with me. You want to make me look like a fool in front of the entire neighborhood. How is it that you have come down here from town?"
"I talked with Madeleine Berlinguet when she came up to sell some chickens, and she invited us," Nicole answered. "Before too long, you know, little Lucien will want to start coming to dances, too."
The idea that his grandson would soon be old enough to want to dance with girls rocked Galtier back on his heels. Had it really been so many years since little Lucien was born? It had, sure enough.
When the music started-fiddlers playing along with the phonograph-he had to remember where his feet went. Nicole didn't lead too obviously, for which he was grateful. And, once he'd been dancing a little while, he discovered he was having a good time. He didn't intend to admit that, but it was true.
After the song (an import from the USA, with lyrics translated into French) ended, Leonard O'Doull came out and tapped Galtier on the shoulder. "Excuse me, mon beau-pиre, but I am going to dance this next dance with my wife."
"You think so, do you?" Galtier asked in mock anger. "Then what am I to do? Return to wallflowerdom?"
"Is that a word?" His son-in-law looked dubious. "You can go back if you like, or you can find some other lady and dance with her."
"Such choices you give me. I am not worthy," Galtier said, and Leonard O'Doull snorted. Now Lucien did feel like dancing. He touched a woman on the shoulder. He smiled. "Hello, Йloise. May I have this dance?"
"Mais certainement, Lucien." Йloise Granche was a widow of about Nicole's age. She'd lost her husband in a train wreck a little before Lucien lost Marie. If he hadn't known her before, he would have thought that was what gave her an air of calm perhaps too firmly held. In fact, she'd always been like that. Philippe Granche had drunk like a fish; maybe that had more to do with it.
The music started again. Galtier took her in his arms. She was two or three inches shorter than Marie had been, and plumper, too, but not so much that she didn't make a pleasant armful. She danced well. Lucien had to remind himself he needed to say such things.
"And you," she told him when he did. After a moment, she asked, "Is this your first time since…?"
She let that hang, but Galtier understood perfectly well what she meant. "No, not quite," he answered, "but it still seems very strange. How long have you been dancing now?"
"A couple of years," Йloise said. "Yes, it is strange, isn't it? With Philippe, I always knew just what he would do. Other people are surprises, one after another."
"Yes!" He nodded. "They certainly seem to be. And not only on the dance floor, either. The world is a different place now."
"It certainly is for me," she said. "I wasn't so sure it would be for a man."
"Oh, yes. For this man, anyhow." Galtier didn't think he'd ever spoken of his love for Marie outside the bosom of his family. He didn't intend to start now. Even saying so much was more than he'd thought he would do.
Йloise Granche seemed to know what he meant even when he didn't say it. She said, "You have to go on. It's very hard at first, but you have to."
He nodded again. "So I've seen. It was hard at first." He hadn't spoken of that even with his family. There had been weeks-months-when he hadn't wanted to get out of bed, let alone get on with his life.
The music stopped. "Thank you for asking me," Йloise said. "That was very pleasant."
"I thought so, too." Lucien hesitated. He hadn't talked with anyone who knew what he was talking about before. She'd traveled down the same road as he. After the hesitation, he plunged: "Shall we also dance the next one?"
"I'd like to," she said briskly. "We've both made the same journey, haven't we?"