The Books: Chronicles of Avonlea – ‘Each In His Own Tongue’ (L.M. Montgomery)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

Next book on the shelf is Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery. Next story in the collection: “Each In His Own Tongue”.

This story is an amazing piece of work – and Lucy Maud herself, as I recall, was very proud of it. It’s well-written – but it’s also one of those stories where every single person in it is ALIVE and complex and … distinct. Abel Blair: it seems that he has a full life off the page, his life will continue after the story ends. Janet … who is she?? Naomi – I mean, there aren’t many people in this story, but each person is a three-dimensional mini-portrait of a human being. Kind of extraordinary.

I also love the story because it is Lucy Maud’s statement about the sacred-ness of art (that also shows in the title). She lived in a strict rigid Presbyterian community – where any kind of leisure-time outside of a sewing circle – was frowned upon. Not even frowned upon. OPENLY discouraged. Yet … writing was her art. There was nothing she could do but write. (This comes up in the Emily series, too (excerpt here), when Emily is forbidden to write by her rigid aunt Elizabeth who thinks “making up stories” is the first step on the way to total degradation of the soul.) That attitude is not so out of style as you might think – I’ve written about it before. This story is Lucy Maud’s protest against that kind of rigid uptight STUPID thinking.

The plot is this: Young Felix Moore lives with his grandfather, Reverend Stephen Leonard. Felix’s parents are dead. His mother married a musician – a violinist – which apparently broke her father’s heart (her father being Rev Stephen Leonard). She had married the musician completely against his wishes – and he soon was proven right: the guy she married was dissipated, drunk, irresponsible, and traveled all the time because of his music. She broke her heart over this and died. But before she died – she gave birth to Felix. Felix comes to live with his grandfather. They love each other with an intensity that is all-encompassing – Lucy Maud doesn’t take the easy way out and make the Reverend a bitter old man, with no redeeming qualities. No, she makes him a loving man, a man who truly has a CALLING to be a minister – one of those special special people. But he has a blind spot – and that is music. Felix has a gift for the violin. The whole story opens with Felix playing the fiddle for his neighbor, Abel Blair (a drunken old reprobate – who nevertheless somehow transcends all of that when listening to Felix – he sits there listening to Felix play and promises himself to be better, to stop drinking, to live a good life, to turn his eyes towards God – there is God in Felix’s music – this is Lucy Maud’s point about art.) But anyway – the Reverend has it in his head and in his heart that Felix will be a minister. This is his plan for his grandson. The thought that Felix might become a musician is … well, it just will NOT happen. He will NOT have Felix live a drunken dissipated life, traveling with a low class of people, and not living in the light of God. So he forbids Felix to have a violin, even though Felix wants one – and Felix is forced to sneak around. This is what happens when you make someone go against their nature: you make other bad things happen as well. Felix is a good little boy, and he loves his grandfather dearly. He is not malicious, or even bitter … He’s a little kid, but he knows that he must play the violin. It is not even an option to NOT play the violin. His grandfather’s ruling FORCES Felix to behave duplicitously. To lie and sneak.

So it’s kind of a tortured set-up.

The whole thing comes to a head when a local “bad woman” is lying on her death bed. Lucy Maud doesnt’ list this woman’s sins exactly – but you can guess. She was beautiful once, she played men for fools, she slept around, she used and abused men, and she wrecked lives. She probably slept with married men – she had absolutely no scruples. Her beauty, which could have been something that marked her for GREAT things, instead turned her down the path of sexual manipulation. Her sins are many. She is on her death bed – and her illness has already chipped away at her sanity. Her beauty is gone. She thrashes about in her bed, tormented. The end is near. She calls for the Reverend. She has to clear her conscience. Or … that language is so weak – clear her conscience?? No – she needs the Reverend to prepare her to meet her Maker. She has not gone to church since she was a child. She is terrified – terrified – of meeting God. Inconsolable. The Reverend goes to her bedside in the middle of the night – and prays with her – but she will have none of that. Her agony is too acute. And here’s where Lucy Maud’s title comes into play: Language, while wonderful, can be limited. You must realize that divinity, that God, does not only exist in language – words cannot describe him, contain him … and sometimes God shows up in something concrete, or in something more abstract. Oh, but this pisses some people off – literal people who feel that they must KNOW. That they do KNOW. Oh well, but those people are stupid, and I try not to worry what stupid people think about important subjects.

Now remember: Lucy Maud has already set up that Reverend Stephen Leonard is not a caricature of a rigid unloving minister. He is the opposite. He is a deeply holy man, beloved by the community. He does GOOD in the world. But his GOOD-ness is no help to Naomi. There is a long tortured scene between the two of them where he tries to tell her that all she needs to do is ask for forgiveness – and God WILL forgive. Repent!! To Naomi, these are just words. They do not take away her torment. The Reverend goes at it in many different ways – sitting with her, talking with her, telling her about the love of God … but she cannot hear it. Her agony, instead of going away, gets stronger – because she knows the end is so near. If she goes into that bright light screaming in terror – she has no idea what will happen to her afterwards. Finally – the Reverend (you just love him – even though you wish he would get that Felix ALSO has a “calling” – just as divine as the calling to serve God) kneels, puts his head in his hands, he is devastated at his failure to help Naomi – and pleads to God, “Help me, Lord. Help me speak to her in a language she understands.”

Suddenly – at the door of Naomi’s little shack – is Felix. Standing there with a lantern. He has been sent there by Janet, the maid at the manse – she has sent Felix down with a lantern for Stephen’s return home in the dark. He stands there, a little boy looking on this horrible death-struggle. His grandfather’s agonized face. Naomi’s thrashing about. She catches a glimpse of him and calls him to her. She stares at him with gleaming insane eyes and tells him to take down the fiddle she has on the wall and play for her. She has heard that he plays and she wants to hear some music. Since his grandfather has been so useless to her, and she’s going to die at any minute – she might as well enjoy some tunes.

Anyway – the excerpt I’ve chosen is what happens after that moment. And I’ve read it a bazillion times, and it still GETS me.

Excerpt from Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery- “Each In His Own Tongue”.

“Take down that fiddle on the wall and play something for me,” she said imperiously. “I’m dying — and I’m going to hell – and I don’t want to think of it. Play me something to take my thoughts off it – I don’t care what you play. I was always fond of music – there was always something in it for me I never found anywhere else.”

Felix looked at his grandfather. The old man nodded; he felt too ashamed to speak; he sat with his fine silver head in his hands, while Felix took down and tuned the old violin, on which so many godless lilts had been played in many a wild revel. Mr. Leonard felt that he had failed his religion. He could not give Naomi the help that was in it for her.

Felix drew the bow softly, perplexedly over the strings. He had no idea what he should play. Then his eyes were caught and held by Naomi’s burning, mesmeric, blue gaze as she lay on her crumpled pillow. A strange, inspired look came over the boy’s face. He began to play as if it were not he who played, but some mightier power, of which he was but the passive instrument.

Sweet and soft and wonderful was the music that stole through the room. Mr. Leonard forgot his heart-break and listened to it in puzzled amazement He had never heard anything like it before. How could the child play like that? He looked at Naomi and marvelled at the change in her face. The fear and frenzy were going out of it; she listened breathlessly, never taking her eyes from Felix. At the foot of the bed the idiot girl sat with tears on her cheeks.

In that strange music was the joy of innocent, mirthful childhood, blent with the laughter of waves and the call of glad winds. Then it held the wild, wayward dreams of youth, sweet and pure in all their wildness and waywardness. They were followed by a rapture of young love — all-surrendering, all-sacrificing love.

The music changed. It held the torture of unshed tears, the anguish of a heart deceived and desolate. Mr. Leonard almost put his hands over his ears to shut out its intolerable poignancy. But on the dying woman’s face was only a strange relief, as if some dumb, long-hidden pain had at last won to the healing of utterance.

The sullen indifference of despair came next, the bitterness of smouldering revolt and misery, the reckless casting away of all good. There was something indescribably evil in the music now — so evil that Mr. Leonard’s white souls huddered in loathing, and Maggie cowered and whined like a frightened animal.

Again the music changed. And in it now there was agony and fear – and repentance and a cry for pardon. To Mr. Leonard there was something strangely familiar in it. He struggled to recall where he had heard it before; then he suddenly knew – he had heard it before Felix came, in Naomi’s terrible words! He looked at his grandson with something like awe. Here was a power of which he knew nothing – a strange and dreadful power. Was it of God? Or of Satan?

For the last time the music changed. And now it was not music at all – it was a great, infinite forgiveness, an all-comprehending love. It was healing for a sick soul; it was light and hope and peace. A Bible text, seemingly incongruous, came into Mr. Leonard’s mind — “This is the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Felix lowered the violin and dropped wearily on a chair by the bed. The inspired light faded from his face; once more he was only a tired boy. But Stephen Leonard was on his knees, sobbing like a child; and Naomi Clark was lying still, with her hands clasped over her breast.

“I understand now,” she said very softly. “I couldn’t see it before – and now it’s so plain. I just feel it. God is a God of love. He can forgive anybody — even me — even me. He knows all about it. I ain’t skeered any more. He just loves me and forgives me as I’d have loved and forgiven my baby if she’d lived, no matter how bad she was, or what she did. The minister told me that but I couldn’t believe it. I know it now. And He sent you here to-night, boy, to tell it to me in a way that I could feel it.”

Naomi Clark died just as the dawn came up over the sea. Mr. Leonard rose from his watch at her bedside and went to the door. Before him spread the harbour, gray and austere in the faint light, but afar out the sun was rending asunder the milk-white mists in which the sea was scarfed, and under it was a virgin glow of sparkling water.

The fir trees on the point moved softly and whispered together. The whole world sang of spring and resurrection and life; and behind him Naomi Clark’s dead face took on the peace that passes understanding.

The old minister and his grandson walked home together in a silence that neither wished to break. Janet Andrews gave them a good scolding and an excellent breakfast. Then she ordered them both to bed; but Mr. Leonard, smiling at her, said,

“Presently, Janet, presently. But now, take this key, go up to the black chest in the garret, and bring me what you will find there.”

When Janet had gone, he turned to Felix.

“Felix, would you like to study music as your lifework?”

Felix looked up, with a transfiguring flush on his wan face.

“Oh, grandfather! Oh, grandfather!”

“You may do so, my child. After this night I dare not hinder you. Go with my blessing, and may God guide and keep you, and make you strong to do His work and tell His message to humanity in your own appointed way. It is not the way I desired for you – but I see that I was mistaken. Old Abel spoke truly when he said there was a Christ in your violin as well as a devil. I understand what he meant now.”

He turned to meet Janet, who came into the study with a violin. Felix’s heart throbbed; he recognized it. Mr. Leonard took it from Janet and held it out to the boy.

“This is your father’s violin, Felix. See to it that you never make your music the servant of the power of evil – never debase it to unworthy ends. For your responsiblity is as your gift, and God will exact the accounting of it from you. Speak to the world in your own tongue through it, with truth and sincerity; and all I have hoped for you will be abundantly fulfilled.”