Louis-Honoré Fréchette (1839–1908) was a French Canadian poet, playwright, journalist, and writer of short fiction. He was also a politician for the Liberal Party of Montreal, although he only served in the Canadian Parliament for four years. Louis Fréchette was one of the most accomplished French Canadian writers of his time. He wrote both original stories and folktales, along with poetry and plays. His tales from the logging camps in Quebec are written in a vernacular typical of that time period but still today have a universal appeal. This story, “Marionettes,” is part of a sequence of stories featuring his raconteur, Jos Violon, a man he knew in real life in his youth. Fréchette’s stories rely heavily on the raconteur voice and the traditional folk model. In “Marionettes,” Fréchette demonstrates a very traditional logging folktale of that time. Unlike the tall tales of Paul Bunyan in the United States that exaggerated accomplishments and boasted of all things (always bigger!), these French Canadian tales are focused on the religious fantastic, with a strong moralistic ending.
CRICK-CRACK, CHILDREN! Tawkie, tawkoe, let’s tawk! Ta cut a thick yarn thin, yield the stage ta Jos Violon. Ouch-ouch, tobacco pouch, if they don’t listen theya off the couch. I know you’ve been dancin til père Jean Bilodeau’s floor got worn down ta the slabs, so maybe ’tis time ta take a breather! Anyway you can see that our violliner is on his knees…No offense ta the chum. Obvious, he ain’t gotten our Fifi Labranche’s stamina! Fifi Labranche? Methinks, you children haven’t known Fifi Labranche, the violin player.
Yer too young ta have known him, and that’s normal ’cause he died at Pointe-aux-Trembles, the year of the great cholera. What a rydah! He had some twist in his wrist ta make the youth dance. As they say, he was unreal! And when he had a bow at the end of his hand, one could run down the south coast from Baie-du-Fenvre ta Cap-Saint-Ignace and never meet, among old and young, one single fella ta match him.
Everyuns knew ’bout Fifi Labranche and his violin. Well, children, I was just sayin all this ’cause, one fall, I got ta be his partner. Not ta play music, mind you, because, even tho’ they call me Jos Violon—a good name I’ve always borne as honorably as I could, thank God—nobody has ever wanted me ta play any instrument, not even a shawm with no holes.
Nope, Fifi Labranche and me, we’d become partners just ta cut some square timber. He was a swell lumberjack, our Fifi Labranche, and, as fer me, I’ve been known fer swingin da great axe at em oak, elm, red pine and white spruce, I was as good at loggin as him at playin reels and gigues. Honest, you could have hiked wicked far before someone could prove me wrong. That’s what I’m sayin.
So, that winter the both of us set up our loggin camp somewhere near da Gatineau River, by the Baptist River, as they call it, with a gang of crooks a foreman of Master Wright’s had pranced about through a parish called the Cedars, upstairs in da North. Eh, children, em travelers that tramp across the Cedars, they don’t swear like the guys from Sorel, nope! They don’t scurrilate the Good Lord and all the Saints of the calendar either, like em thugs from Trois-Rivières do. They don’t stop ta squabble at any fencin picket they come by, like those hard fighters from Lanoraie.
But when it comes ta doin unearthly deeds, fer example, not many guys ’round here can hold up a candle ta em. Every night that God brings, on a raft of timber or in the woods, em scapegallows have one brewitchery or three at the ready.
Ah, those children of perdition!
I’ve seen some of em balance a quarter pork on the tips of their fingers, as if it was a pillow, all the way jabbin through prayers backwards, that no way could a Chrissian twig a damn word. I’ve seen ’un of those Barabbas chewin on firebrands, with all respect, like a plug of tobacco.
Anuther fella, one Pierre Cadoret, nicknamed “Rope Sheepskin,” or, “The Rope,” carried around a black hen. Whaddideedo with that? God only knows; or maybe the devil, because, every mornin at the break of dawn, that impious black hen crowed like a rooster, as if rulin over a whole chicken coop. You have my word as yer truthful Jos Violon, children! I heard that with my own two eyes, more than twenty times!
Some bunch of serious miscreants, I am tellin you, that’s what they were. It rubbed my temper the wrong way, havin ta put up with that kind of scoundrels. I ain’t no sacristy mouse, nope, sir! But black hens and me is like chalk and cheese, patticularly with hens that crow like roosters.
Fer all these reasons, I wasn’t likin that society at all. But I was paired up with Fifi Labranche, right? So I let the rest of the gang knock up their sacrileges between emselves; and after dinner the two of us played a little game of checkers, puffin on our pipes, ta kill time without throwin our souls inta Old Harry’s clutches.
But it didn’t count: you know, a bad clique is a bad clique. As Monsieur le Curé says, tell me what you peddle and I’ll tell you what’s killin you.
On Christmas Eve, the boss came ta see us:
“Listen up, ya two,” he tells us. “ ’Tis ’cause you are two whitebacks from Pont-Lévis that you don’t want ta have fun with da oders? You’ve got yer violin, right, Fifi? How come I can’t hear it? Oh! Pull da tool out da coffer and play us a reel à quatre, a simple gigue, a voleuse, anythin you wish, provided it makes us waggle about. Listen, guys, we’re goint have some music. Those who suffer from itchy toes have my permission ta get a remedy.”
Fifi Labranche wasn’t obstinate:
“Am not copin out,” he says.
He gets his violin, rubs some rosin on da bow, sits on da corner of da table, chops off a bit of plug, spits inta his hands, and then, deed-a-reedle, forward ho, boys!
The stove glowed in the middle of the place; after half an hour, you could—I rib you not—wring out our shirts like dishcloths.
“Dis is what I call violin playin,” the boss says, re-lightin his pipe: “Fifi, yer not reasonable not ta play more often.”
“Agreed!” everyone else says, “Ya should play more often.”
“Playin da fiddle when no ’uns dancin, dat’s not a great job,” goes Fifi.
“So what are we doin here?” asks one of our travelin chums, namely, the man with the black hen, a thin scrag-guy, so tall he’d duck ta pass under a door—The Rope, he was nicknamed. “This ain’t dancin by ya? Whaddahwedeein then? We ain’t shellin fava beans, I reckon.”
“Ay, ya dance in da evenin ’cause tomorrow ’tis a holiday. If ya had ta chop wood tomorrow before dawn, ya’d not be flexin yer legs so easily. Wadd’ya think, Jos Violon?”
“Dabber Knack! I’d say, as fer as Am concerned, I’ll spare my stems fer when Am goint turn in.”
“Know what, hey?” says the Rope. “When men don’t dance, ya got somethin else dancin.”
“Who den? Cookin pots, surely? Tables, benches?”
“Da marionettes, that’s what I mean.”
“Marionettes?”
“Ay, da marionettes…”
Maybe you don’t know what the marionettes are, children; oh, well, those are sorts of antichrist lights that show up in the North, when ’tis goint get freezzin. They crackle, so ta speak, like when you rub yer hands on a cat’s back in the evenin. They stretch out, shrink, sprawl, spread like butter across da sky, you’ll see nothin like that, as if the devil scrambled the stars like eggs ta make himself an omelet. That’s what it is, the marionettes.
As fer Monsieur le Curé, he calls em des horreurs de Morréal, then he adds that they don’t dance. Oh, well, dunno if they really are des horreurs de Morréal or from Trois-Rivières, but I did see some in Québec is all; and I can tell you that they do dance, oh, yeah, me, Jos Violon, am tellin you! ’Tis the devil that gets in the way, I believe, but they dance! I saw em dance, and I wasn’t seein things. Fifi Labranche saw em, too, ’tis a fact ’cause ’tis him who made em dance, the proof bein that his violin was hexed fer three months long. Why, I muss tell you that, hearin the folks talk about the marionettes, the poor Fifi, who was a true believer, like mesel, started ta kick against the idea. “What den if there’s no marionettes ’round here?” he says.
“When dey ain’t here, ya make em come,” says the Rope, “Easy-peasy.”
“How d’ya make em come?”
“Why, when you know em words.”
“What words?”
“Em words ta make da marionettes come.”
“Ya know words ta make em come?”
“Ay, and ta make em dance, too. I learnt da words when I was little, from my gran-gran, who was a famous violliner, Ay, oh, that he was, back in da days.”
“Can you get da marionettes ta come here tonight?”
“Sure! Da sky is clear. If ya play yer violin, I’ll say da words, and ya’ll see em comin.”
“I’d like ta see that,” says Fifi Labranche.
“Fifi,” I say, “Beware, these ain’t games fer good Chrissians.”
“Yeah,” he says, “it won’t kill us for once.”
“That’s right, Fifi,” everyone else said. “Let Jos Violon be a wimp, if he wants ta, but you hang out with da bon vivants.”
“Fifi, Am tellin ya again, beware! You should not mingle with em spells. ’Tis the Devil’s tricks ta ensnare you. You know the Rope…And on Christmas, too!…” But I’d just finished speakin that everyone had already gathered on the snow bank, gazin up, eyes ta the North, while Fifi Labranche tuned his violin. My my, never mind! I ended up doin what all the others were doin, sayin ta mesel: “So long as I’m just lookin on, nothin too bad is goin ta happen ta me.”
We were havin fine, dry weather; not a whisper of wind, the smoke from our chimbly soared straight up like a paschal candle, and the stars blinked like critters threadin needles. We could hear twigs snappin in the woods, I kid you not, worse than em carters’ whiplashes.
“Are ya ready, Fifi?” says the Rope.
“Ay,” says my partner. “Whaddya want me ta play?”
“Play whatever ya want, just make it bouncy.”
“Da Money Musk?”
“Da Money Musk it is!”
It sounded like the whistle of a spinnin top. The bow quivered in Fifi’s hand like an eel at the tip of a boathook. And zin! zin! zin!…Our heels swiveled of their own accord on the packed snow. I believe the rascal had never played like that in his whole life. The Rope, eyes rolled backward, mumbled dunno what kind of sorcerer’s litany, while gesticulatin with his thumb, makin signs in the air, in front, behind, ta the left, ta the right—ta the four corners of da world, as the sayin goes. And the Money Musk was still on. Fifi zin-zigged like a fiend.
All of a sudden, I sense a kinda icy frisson scratchin me between the shoulders: I’d just heard four or five of those cracklin, poppin noises like a cat’s hide rubbed the wrong way. “Here em come!” da chums begin ta scream. “Here em come! Hurrah fer Da Rope! Keep it up, Fifi!”
At the same time one could make out some sorts of little greyish glimmers that spread out ta the North, as if someone had smudged the firmament with sulfur matches.
“Keep it up, Fifi, here em come!” continued the gang of the possessed. And indeed, the goddamned gleams were comin in, from here, from there, quite slow, creepin, slinkin, scatterin, twistin like threads of white smoke intertwined after dashes of heat.
“Keep it up Fifi!” screamed the gang of energumens.
The Rope, on his end, was keepin it up, too, cos here they were, little blazes then sparks then embers risin, fallin, crisscrossin, chasin one another like a saraband of wills-o’-the-wisp that played hide and seek, wreckin their own buddies with sticks of rotten timber. At times the glowin dimmed, and one could see almost nothin, and then, crack! the things flared up into streaks of blood-red lashes.
“Keep it up, Fifi, up!”
Fifi couldn’t do any better, I’m tellin you. The arm was spinnin like a crank handle, and I noticed he’d started ta blanch. As fer me, my hair stood on end under my hard hat, like an angry tomcat’s tail.
“Fifi, come away,” I tell him, “come away! The devil’s goint take someone, that’s fer sure!”
But the sad wretch couldn’t hear me anymore. He looked as possessed as the others and the Money Musk bounced off his bow like the screeches of feral cats flayed by a pack of lynxes. Ya’ve never heard anythin like that, children.
But it wasn’t the finest of it yet, yer goint see soon.
While all my imps screamed their heads off, oh, I couldn’t believe it! em damned marionettes kick off pirouettin.
By da sacredest word, children! Jos Violon is no liar, you know that—now the evil spawns start ta dance—by all my wide-eyed conscience of the Good Lord—like grown-up people, they didn’t miss one step, thank you very much!
And then they packed up, shoved one another and passed and fought and jumped one over the other, sometimes they fell back, and then brusquely stepped forward…
By-da-Jessum, children, those hussies called horreurs de Morréal, as Monsieur le Curé would say, came forth in rhythm with Fifi’s Money Musk, and now they were comin right at us.
I told you already, methinks, that I was no chicken, and I’ll give evidence of that; oh, well, seein all the circus—I won’t hide it from you—without thinkin about it twice, I get da hell outa’ there, hair standin on end, and I run wild ta hide inta the hut.
Five minutes later, four men carried in our poor Fifi, unconscious.
He remained one day without speakin, then three days without bein able ta lift his axe. He had, accordin ta the foreman, a wring in da tongue, then a torticollis in da arm. That’s what the foreman said, but I knew better than that, c’m on!
All week long he was out of sorts: no way ta get him ta play a checkers match. He grumbled all alone in his corner, like a man who’d had, with all due respect, his bag of nether sentiments knocked upside down.
So, on New Year’s Eve, the chums felt like dancin again.
“Hurrah, Fifi! Pull out da catgut, then brew us a little caper, ’tis time!” says the boss.
“You oughta move, else you congeal like curds, hey! Are ya ready, chummies?”
“Ay, here we go,” the whole gang say, kickin off their shoes and spittin inta their hands. “Ho! loosen up our adzes!”
I was expecting some arm-twistin ta get the poor cripple ta play again, but nope. He takes out his violin, greases his bow, spits inta his hands in turn, and starts playin da Money Musk.
“Ah, well,” say da dancers, “Enough with da Money Musk! We’re no marionettes.”
“ ’Tis strange.” Fifi scratches his forehead. “I didn’t want ta play this one. So, whadd’ya want? A simple gigue? A hornpipe?”
“A square dance, goodreel me! We need ta shake it tonight!”
“All right!” says Fifi. Then he resumes playin…the Money Musk…
“Listen, Fifi, are ya goin crazy? Or are ya mockin us with yer Money Musk? We’re fed up with da Money Musk, d’ya catch?”
“Scoundrel’s word! Dunno what’s gotten inta me fingers,” says Fifi. “I wanna play a square dance and it turns inta da Money Musk anyway.”
“Ah you feelin like messin with us?”
“Am blowed if Am jokin.”
“Oh, well, then start again—Dammit!—and pay attention, this time.”
C’m on, here’s Fifi stickin it out, bow in one hand and violin in the other, chin pressed against da tailpiece, and both eyes riveted on the E string, he resumes playin.
Everybody yelled, children:
“Whoa!…”
followed by a salvo of swear words. And fer good reason, the confounded Fifi was still playin da Money Musk.
“Sacrebent!” he says. “There’s somethin criminal inside the ding; I swear Am doin all I can ta play a square dance, and then da godditched violin wants ta play da Money Musk only. ’Tis hexed, da piece of crime! Dis is a violin I’ve been playin wi’ fer da last fifteen years. Here’s what gives when you have da devil dance with his spawns…Ya beastly fiddle, yer done insultin me! Go play fer em hussies marionettes!”
And with these words, he grabs the mutinous instrument by the neck and mightily hurls it into da fireplace, where it’d have dissmashed into a thousand shards, fer sure, had we not been there ta snatch it, as the sayin goes, in midair.
Twice, durin that winter, did the poor Fifi Labranche take out his bow ta try playin a scatter of dances, but no way he could scratch that violin and produce anythin except fer the Money Musk.
One last time he set forth ta play some of those good old canticles meant for the white-haired guys among us who amble wicked slow, but nothin doin! The violin got goin of its own accord and played the Money Musk! One can’t be more hexed than that, right?
Finally, it keeped on like that until springtime, when we were floatin down the Ottawa River with our raft of timber, Fifi Labranche had the opportunity ta have his violin blessed by the parish priest from Perrot Island, on one condition: that he would not make them marionettes dance ever again.
It wasn’t that hard ta have him make such a promise, I can tell you that!
Anyways, after the exorcism, everythin worked like in the good ol’ days. Fifi Labranche was able ta play any rigodon, either fashionable or played in the old style.
Here’s what Jos Violon has seen, children, with his own ears!
Oh, well, believe me if you wish, but that depraved Fifi, ta make me look like a damn liar, invariably, never admitted right until the day he died that his violin had be hexed. He said it was a fib he’d come up with ta get rid of those who wanted him ta play at every turn, while he preferred ta play a good checkers game. Now, that is unbelievable! Rest assured nobody could make me believe such nonsense. Because I was there. I’ve seen everything, and if I can’t say that of mesel, everyone will tell you that Jos Violon knows what he’s talkin about.
After all this, the violin, the one Fifi Labranche owned, is still full of life, just like me; ’tis George Boutin, who inherited it. He can show it ta you, if you don’t believe me.
And, ouch-ouch, tobacco-pouch! Far, for, fir, my story ends here!