Summary
A porcelain-skinned schoolmistress flees Montreal’s gaslit salons for the hushed spruces of Montrouge, only to be waylaid by a satyr in corduroy; from the undergrowth explodes Bateese Latour—half ogre, half guardian—whose fists drum a pagan tattoo on the predator’s ribs. What follows is a woodland nuptial soaked in spruce sap and contraband gin: Kathleen, still scented of city lilac, weds the giant who reeks of pine pitch and penitence. Yet the past arrives in polished boots—Martin Stuart, urbane as a crystal decanter—stirring Bateese’s jealousy until it froths like spring runoff. In a birch-bark coffin he seeks the waterfall’s absolution, while two abandoned women—one in yellowed lace, one in fresh grief—trade delusions beside the river’s roar. The cataract rejects his sacrifice; bruised, water-beaten, he crawls back to the woman who now carries both his name and the memory of every man who never stayed.
Synopsis
After her romance with Martin Stuart shatters, Kathleen St. John leaves Montreal for the little village of Montrouge, where she plans to teach school. Kathleen loses her way between the station and the village and is attacked in the woods by the town bully, Louis Courteau. Seeing a pretty woman in distress, Bateese Latour, a warmhearted lumberjack whose drunken temper tantrums have earned him the sobriquet "That devil, Bateese," beats off her attacker. A short time later, Bateese falls in love with Kathleen, and promising to abandon his drinking, he carries her off and marries her. When Martin comes to Montrouge, however, Bateese becomes convinced that Kathleen still loves her former sweetheart and paddles away in his canoe, intending to let the falls carry him to his death. Louis's sister, a pathetic creature who is still clad in the wedding dress she wore when her groom deserted her, recognizes Martin as her long-lost lover, whereupon Kathleen rushes out to find Bateese. Hurt, but still alive on the bank below the waterfall, Bateese returns home with his wife.
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