The Housemistress Read Online Free

voice makes her jump.
    “I’m sorry.” She snaps the book shut, startled to find her Housemistress sneaking up on her. “I wasn’t snooping. Honest.”
    “Don’t be silly.” Carriveau makes her hold up the book, revealing the subject of her fascination. “Books long to be read as we humans long to be loved. It is their raison d’être, non ?”
    “I suppose so.” Rylie looks down at the book in her hands, curious to know what kind of language this is and why she’s never heard of it. “What is Occitan?”
    “It’s a very old language from southern France. One of the Romance languages.”
    “A Romance language?” Rylie’s never heard the term before.
    “ Oui .” Carriveau smiles, her eagerness to teach impossible to conceal. “Same as French, or Spanish, or Italian, which all derived from Vulgar Latin a long, long time ago. Unfortunately, Occitan is now rather endangered.”
    “Endangered?” Rylie imagines people stabbing dictionaries with tiny spears. “Like snow leopards and black rhinos?”
    “In essence.” Carriveau accepts the comparison. “Many of the people who speak it are advancing in their years, and if they don’t pass on the language to the next generation—as my grandmother did with me—it will slowly become extinguished, like a candle’s dying flame.”
    “That’s so sad.” Rylie slips the book back onto the shelf. “Are you fluent?” She realizes the stupidity of the question as soon as it leaves her lips. “I guess you must be.” She reddens with embarrassment. “Can you say something to me in Occitan? I’d like to hear it.”
    “ Mais bien sûr !” Carriveau beams, thrilled to be asked. “Of course! How about a poem?” She offers that rhetorically, locking on to Rylie’s blues as she begins. “ Las! Qu’ieu d’Amor non ai conquis, mas cant lo trebalh e l’afan, ni res tant greu no·s covertis com fai so qu’ieu vau deziran. Ni tal enveja no·m fai res cum fai so qu’ieu non posc aver. Per una joja m’esbaudis fina, qu’anc re non amiey tan .”
    She pauses briefly to gauge Rylie’s response, then continues.
    “ Quan suy ab lieys si m’esbahis qu’ieu no·ill sai dire mon talan, e quan m’en vauc, vejaire m’es que tot perda·l sen e·l saber. Tota la genser qu’anc hom vis encontra lieys no pretz un guan. Quan totz lo segles brunezis, delai on ylh es si resplan .”
    Reciting select verses from memory, she never once breaks eye contact.
    “ Dieu prejarai qu’ancar l’ades o que le vej’anar jazer. Totz trassalh e bran et fremis per s’Amor, durmen o velhan. Bel m’es quant ilh m’enfolhetis e·m fai badar e·n vau muzan! Qu’apres lo mal me venra bes be leu, s’a lieys ven a plazer .” She stops and smiles. “Would you like to know what it means?”
    Entranced, Rylie nods.
    “Alas! I haven’t gained, of love, but the torment and pain, for nothing is as hard to gain as that which I am seeking, nor any longing affects me as that for what I cannot have. I rejoice because of a pearl so fine that I never loved anything as much.” Carriveau’s heavy accent injects an extra layer of sensuality into words that are already brimming with feeling.
    “When I am with her,” she goes on, “I am so astonished that I don’t dare vouch my desire, and when I part, it seems to me that I lose all my sense and my learning. The fairest woman one has ever seen, compared to her, isn’t worth a glove. When the entire world turns to darkness, light shines from the place she rests.”
    She takes a deep breath, ostensibly affected by the beauty of the words even as they spill from her own lips, and when she moves into the last verse, a little heat rises into her cheeks.
    “I shall pray God that I may touch her one day, or that I may see her go to bed. Awake or asleep, I quiver and am startled and shaken because of my love for her. It pleases me when she drives me insane, and makes me gape in stupor. For after the ill, the good will come. Soon, if such is her