The Elf of Saint-Esprit

She welcomes you with a beautiful kindness at the church door and climbs sharply in front of you to the organ perched very high, at the second rood chamber. She sits in front of the Casavant, rummages through his many papers, makes jokes, adjusts his flowery scarf.

She looks like an elf who forgot to go back to her forest, and settled in the attic of a church to pass the time.

"This charming organist is 90 years old," I am whispered with admiration. It is a real pleasure to see her go, she makes us hope to live like this. She often talks to the director, but we don’t hear anything she says. Yvan, on familiar terms, leans towards her to better understand her. She takes her time, especially, which disturbs one of the choristers. I smile at her, retorting that she is certainly in no hurry to grow old.

It was a pleasant evening. I don’t really like priests, so here I am preparing a Christmas mass. I go there, like my mother, for singing. We’ll sing nice things.

And with an elf at the organ of the Saint-Esprit-de-Rosemont church, an oboist at his side, and some good soloists, the evening of the 24th can only be magical.

PS: Well no, this lady is only 78 years old. Clarifcation was made two days after. My mistake comes from a misunderstanding on the part of the woman who said she wanted to play the organ until she was 90 and that, two or three sentences later, announced that she had a year or two left to play. As a result, the people around her made the wrong calculation.