Time flowed by, like the greenish river in front of Séraphin Poudrier's house.  People didn't look forward to the days  - they yielded to them like the earth responding to a shower of rain, and then went back to sleep. In this land of mountains and valleys, where seasons always came and went surprisingly quickly, autumn passed so quickly this year that no-one even saw it. No-one had yet noticed that the swept-up leaves were suddenly decomposing on the roads and the ditches. One morning near the beginning of November, Séraphin found an inch of ice in two forgotten pots on the doorstep and in the trough where the animals watered. What a surprise he got!  And moreover, everywhere the ground was cracked and ridged, and in places it was covered with a thin layer of black ice.

The stinging cold arrived from the north. The black firs met the North Wind head-on at the edge of the hills, and the hares coursed in the frozen savannah. It was winter! Already there was the extraordinary silence, and the cold, especially the cold, the cold which killed love and tormented men. And soon would come the snow, the ultimate shroud.

This transformation of nature happened so suddenly that the country people were filled with concern. In the Laurentides region, as far as the border of the county of Terrebonne , no-one could remember such an early  winter, heralded by a single hoar frost. How bad would it be in two months' time? But Poudrier, counting the piles of firewood at the edge of the garden, was delighted with this streak of misfortune. He thought :

"In the village people are going to be needing heating early. I have lots of wood to sell. God is good to me. As for myself, it won't cost me much. Besides, there's always Alexis.”

Alexis was Poudrier's only cousin. The father of eight children, he was a  farmer of the old breed, who worked like a horse, played just as hard, and who could spend in a single week everything that he had scratched from his  poor plot of land which had been ploughed, sown, turned over and cultivated for three generations. He was always seen with a smile on his face and a bawdy song on his lips. He lived happily, despite his debts. That was what Séraphin couldn't understand, he who slept little, ate badly, economised on tallow candles and firewood, this Séraphin who, for all his riches, was haunted by terrible torments.

Poudrier lived a mile away from his cousin. In the winter, when he was a bachelor, he had spent almost every evening there. Nowadays he brought Donalda. They went on foot, and it needed a white-out for them to miss such a good and regular opportunity to economise on light and birch logs. The Poudriers spent every Sunday too at Alexis' house. They would arrive after mass, have lunch and supper, and spend the evening without ceremony or embarrassment. It had quickly become an unbreakable habit for Séraphin. That’s what he cheekily told Alexis, who never stopped laughing because of his generous nature :

"That's right, Séraphin you pauper, come and warm yourself, feed yourself and take advantage of my light. But, you old swindler, if you don't help me to pay my debts this year I'm going to punch you in the throat!"

And with that, dancing around like Punchinello, he would pour great tumblers of whisky for everyone, perfectly content and not caring a hoot about poverty and the risks of the future.

Séraphin laughed too, but for a different reason. That anyone should mock him, he who owed not a cent. Only he knew exactly how much he saved, that he could have heat and light for only three dollars fifty per annum. He regularly chopped wood, however, with surprising stamina. He cut it and tied it up into twenty, thirty, forty loads, which he sold in the village for a dollar seventy five per load, always twenty five cents dearer than everyone else, because it was ‘good honest maple', which gave off a wonderful heat, and which had the power to make everyone happy, even the priest’s housekeeper and that’s saying something. And now, didn't the forecasts say that this winter would be the coldest ever to hit the Laurentides?

"It's going to be a hard winter, my girl," he said to Donalda, coming into the house rubbing his bony hands which were the colour of the banknotes he fondled so passionately.

His wife did not answer. Seated at the stove, she warmed her limbs that seemed unusually cold and heavy. A shiver shook her and, huddled on her chair, her teeth chattered. She had become ill so quickly it frightened her, even more so as she felt the need to be sick.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, Séraphin. I'm freezing, and I feel so ill. Maybe it would be better if I went to see the doctor."

"Went to see the doctor!" Séraphin knew perfectly well that that meant "bring him here". And to "bring him here" from the village three miles away, would cost two dollars, maybe three with medicine. He would have to think about it. He didn't remember ever needing the doctor, neither for his old father, nor himself, nor anyone. And now here, for the first time in his life, was a woman demanding help that cost money. No. Anything else, but not that. And as he watched Donalda from behind, he loathed her at this moment. He even detested her. A great bitterness filled his heart and he regretted more than anything in the world having married this extravagant woman who was so ill as to need the care of Dr. Dupras. How awful he felt, and how he cursed married life! Damn! But he found the strength to lie with the voice of an angel :

"That's right, my girl. You do seem quite ill and that worries me. But I don't think it will be necessary to see the doctor today. Let's wait until tomorrow, and we shall see. Meanwhile, you go to bed with a nice hot brick at your feet and a nice hot flannel on your stomach. I assure you it will be fine. And I'll also make you a hot drink."

"As you wish, Sérpahin, if you think it will do me good."

She waited a few more minutes in front of the stove, and went to bed.

Séraphin took care of her in his own way. He remained in the kitchen seeming to kindle the fire which was going out. Eventually he had a brilliant idea. For once in his life he would make a great sacrifice. Had he not bought at Lacour's, three years previously, a little tin of tea that had cost a good twenty five cents? What if he were to give Donalda a cup? After all, wasn't he capable of such generosity? Then maybe his wife wouldn't be such a wretched creature.

How he would have liked for the whole parish to see him as he searched in the cupboard and found at the back, in a tin box, two tablespoons of dry, dusty, yellowish tea. He put a pinch of it in a bowl and poured on some boiling water. After five minutes he quietly climbed the stairs, holding the precious liquid in both hands.

"There you go," he said to Donalda who was still shivering. "I've brought you a nice cup of tea. There, that will cure you my girl."

"You are so good," said the sick woman, turning to her husband with eyes brighter than ever, and full of gratitude.

She drank the pale but hot brew, for she was very thirsty and felt weak.

Séraphin could not respond, so overcome was he by the generosity of his actions. No-one in the world, not even the profligate Alexis could have done better than he, and with such a large heart. He felt on a par with the saints. In this house, where miserliness was the only virtue, Séraphin Poudrier felt a sensation of well-being and contentment at the thought that he had given his sick wife all the care necessary. And more beside :  a cup of tea.

Besides, he would stretch his devotion as far as to not leaving Donalda alone while she was ill. Everything was going well enough. He had no errands to do, no-one to see, no contracts to draft. The crops were all in the shed and, in the cold ground, there remained not a single carrot, beetroot, cabbage or potato.

He was in the habit of writing down in a little notebook, once a year, interest received and  due, receipts for the harvest, accumulated cash: he drew up a balance sheet.

Blessed with a prodigious memory, he never jotted down notes about facts, loans, or any aspect of business. Besides the bonds that he filed away carefully, and the contracts signed before witnesses were always there if ever his memory were to fail him. But his memory never failed him. Never. With an air of calm, he never had to ponder for long in front of his notebook. His brain became a machine which recorded all his business dealings, with every cent and date totally correct. With the greatest of ease, Séraphin could work out mentally the interest on two hundred and thirty seven dollars fifty at twelve and a half percent over ninety two days, a hundred and one days, three years and three days. With this type of calculation he never failed to astonish borrowers and to instil in them a great admiration bordering on fear.

Donalda was ill, so today was a good day to play with the numbers that represented almost literally the piles of gold and silver coins, the stacks of banknotes. How could he resist this bewitching custom, since he was compelled to stay at home? So he tiptoed over to the little notebook in the mahogany bureau, and returned to sit down at the table.

He had not eaten. He wasn't hungry for perishable nourishment that poisoned the body. He was hungry for gold, permanent, everlasting nourishment.

He began to work slowly, with remarkable precision. He determined that his memory was as reliable as ever. In the end, this is what he found. The interest on loans had brought him the sum of one thousand, six hundred and three dollars and three cents, and the produce of his smallholding three hundred dollars exactly. He was surprised however to find that the farm had raised exactly three hundred dollars. Not a cent more nor less.

"That's odd," he thought.  "That can't be right." Ten times he repeated the calculation in his head. Ten times he got the same answer: three hundred dollars.

"Let's go with three hundred dollars then. I can't have made a mistake. And so much the better! Not bad, my little farm; better than past years. It's getting more profitable, by the Devil. It's getting more profitable. But we must still economise."

After doing a sum he wrote down the grand total : $1,903.03, and the date : 17th November 1890. Then he put the notebook filled with the secrets of his sin back in the little bureau and returned, rubbing his hands with happiness and contentment. He thought :

"That's not bad, nineteen hundred and three dollars three cents for a terrible year. That's not bad."

He wasn't hungry. He had just inhaled, touched, savoured the numbers that represented his money. He was saturated, stuffed, his veins, his body and all his senses full. He wasn’t hungry. He was literally drunk on gold.

"Nineteen hundred and three dollars three cents. Add to that the capital already invested and loaned: in round numbers that's a good eighteen thousand dollars. The buildings, the land, the furniture, and the storeroom upstairs, and the three bags of oats on top of that, that makes, without any exaggeration, twenty thousand five hundred dollars."

As sure as the light of God shines on us, there was not a man in the county who was 'worth' more than he. He, Séraphin Poudrier, smallholder, minor lender of trifles, held everyone in his hand: the mayor, the doctor, the deputy, all the farmers from the largest to the smallest. Few were the men who needed food and shelter who did not owe him money. He owned them all. A deep joy overcame him, limitless and blue like the sky in spring.

But then the clock, which marks the passing of all earthly pleasure, struck one o’clock.

“Good Heavens!” muttered Poudrier, “what am I doing here? My animals are not being looked after and Donalda isn’t up and about at all.

He left  immediately, went to the stable and gave fodder to the beasts which would bring him money later on.

Returning to the house, he was surprised that Donalda hadn’t moved. Was she worse? He quietly entered the bedroom, this miserable attic filled with an air of distress, crossed diagonally by a ray of  pale light from the skylight on the north side which reached to the bed.

The sick woman appeared to be asleep, her head leaning to the right, one hand under her left breast.

“Are you better, my girl?” he said.

Donalda shook her head. Then, opening her eyes she forced herself to say :

“If you are going to the village, Séraphin, to see the doctor, would you buy me a rosary from Lacour?”

“Have you lost your wedding rosary?”

“Yes Séraphin, about a month ago I think.”

“Never mind, my girl, I have my one, my own rosary, we can say it together. You understand, I’m not rich. We must economise.”

Donalda let her feverish head fall on the pillow, and with her right hand she pressed her left side, as though to ease a great pain.

Séraphin looked at her with curiosity, and deep down he was troubled because there was nothing he could say. Finally, to reassure her, he tried :

“I’m going to look out for Alexis.”

At this name, the sick woman opened her eyes once more, and an almost imperceptible smile alighted on her dry lips. She did not speak however. The shivering had abated but she still had a terrible thirst. She offered this to Christ of Calvary for Alexis’ conversion so that “he might give up drink and women”.