Now their best was a sorry effort to evade the question, as they groped for any of the illusions that remained to them.
"People are not always happy in the cities," said the father.
"Everything is dear, and one is confined." In their narrow Parisian lodging it had seemed so wonderful a thing to them, the notion that in Canada they would spend their days out of doors, breathing the taintless air of a new country, close beside the mighty forest.

The black-flies they had not foreseen, nor comprehended the depth of the winter's cold; the countless ill turns of a land that has no pity were undivined.
"Did you picture it to yourselves as you have found it," Chapdelaine persisted, "the country here, the life ?" "Not exactly," replied the Frenchman in a low voice.

"No, not exactly ..." And a shadow crossed his face which brought from Ephrem.

Surprenant:--"It is rough here, rough and hard!" Their heads assented, and their eyes fell: three narrow-shouldered men, their faces with the pallor of the town still upon them after six months on the land; three men whom a fancy had torn from counter, office, piano-stool-from the only lives for which they were bred.

For it is not the peasant alone who suffers by uprooting from his native soil.