Cashier

by Roy, Gabrielle; Blais, Marie-Claire (AFT)

• ISBN13: 9780771098550
• ISBN10: 0771098553
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1990-01-01
• Publisher: New Canadian Library

Summary

In Alexandre Chenevert, the Montreal bank teller trapped by his narrow environment and acutely aware of his loneliness, Gabrielle Roy has created a vivid and poignant portrait of an ordinary man and his attempts to transcend his circumstances and his fate. Set in 1947 amid the crumbled dreams of the post-War world, and drawing on modern themes of personal alienation and of the restorative force of nature,The Cashieris a tour de force of characterization and empathy by a literary virtuoso.

Author Biography

<b>Gabrielle Roy</b> was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, in 1909. Her parents were part of the large Quebec emigration to western Canada in the late nineteenth century. The youngest of eight children, she studied in a convent school for twelve years, then taught school herself, first in isolated Manitoba villages and later in St. Boniface.<br><br>In 1937 Roy travelled to Europe to study drama, and during two years spent in London and Paris she began her writing career. The approaching war forced her to return to Canada, and she settled in Montreal.<br><br>Roy’s first novel, <i>The Tin Flute</i>, ushered in a new era of realism in Quebec fiction with its compassionate depiction of a working-class family in Montreal’s Saint-Henri district. Her later fiction often turned for its inspiration to t

Excerpts

One

It was still dark. The bed was warm, and the room quiet. Alexandre Chenevert had been awakened by what he thought was a noise, but was really a nagging recollection. One of his overcoat buttons was dangling loose by a single black thread. And then too, it was spring. Spring reminded him of the income tax. “If I should forget to have that button sewn on . . .” he reflected, and then the notion occurred to him that perhaps there wouldn’t be any war, simply because the weapons of today have such terrific killing power.
 
He did hope, however, that he would remain master of the thoughts about to wander through his mind. In days gone by, when he could still enjoy a good night’s sleep, he had occasionally gotten up at an unusually early hour, but it had been to take a trip into the country, to catch a train, and then once – what seemed a whole lifetime ago – it had been for an expedition to climb Mount Royal in the dawn. His present cruel sleeplessness, despite everything, was linked to former joys. He felt as though he was off on a jaunt, as though he might come back a new man; he even had some feeling of self- importance. His brain tricked him into the belief that he was refreshed after so brief a rest. “Seeing I can’t get back to sleep,” Alexandre Chenevert cheerfully told himself, “I might as well turn it to good use. . . .” And he began thinking of Marshal Stalin, with his seminary education, of Tito, Yugoslav dictator, and of the brand- new silk umbrella he had mislaid yesterday, most likely on the streetcar. For a very long time he had bought himself only cotton umbrellas, the cheapest ones, the cloth of which wore out in no time. He had believed that in the long run it would be more economical to buy an umbrella which would be serviceable for years. And that was the one he had had to lose. During his life he had lost a great number of things, and almost always the best things – first his youth, and then his health, and now his sleep. But of the two of them – the Russians and the Americans – which possessed the bigger supply of atom bombs? A very important thing, superiority in atomic bombs. Because after a fashion it promised security. Gandhi had just started a new hunger strike. Alexandre Chenevert had a liking for him ever since the day when, glancing at a photograph of him, he had discovered what he considered a certain resemblance to himself; like the Indian Mahatma, he was thin, almost skeletal, and, Alexandre thought in his heart of hearts, perhaps good into the bargain. The stevedores were on strike too; food intended for starving peoples was rotting on the wharves. Then again, Alexandre told himself, if people weren’t hungry, and if food were not perishable, would the dock workers have any means to assert their rights? Justice, it seemed to him, was won only at the cost of fearful pressures. What was more, air travel was far from a safe business. Again yesterday a plane had crashed somewhere in Newfoundland. thirty- eight dead. The poor old world hadn’t stopped spinning for a trifle like that. Alexandre envisioned the globe as you see it at the movies, at the beginning of a newsreel. A lion roars; a dancer swings her hips; a tank bursts into flame; then Mussolini, hanging by the feet, his features horribly swollen; beside him swayed the stripped body of Clara Petacci; a background of skyscrapers; a faceless man talking into a microphone. He announced: The world has become one and indivisible. “Indivisible, indivisible . . .” Alexandre began repeating. He chanted the word, broke it into its parts, counted its syllables. Five syllables.
 
Now how would you spell Hyderabad? Two r’s or one? Today’s newspaper headlines certainly mentioned some weird places. And the crossword puzzles called for some stranger still. Alexandre had tried everything to make himself slee

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Excerpted from The Cashier by Gabrielle Roy
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