The Cruelest Month

To nearly every character, the Hadley house is a symbol of evil. Even Beauvoir, who prides himself on his skepticism, is tested by it; when Gamache asks, “You think the house is to blame?” Beauvoir replies, “Don’t you?” (56). The other characters seem to agree, except for Gilles Sandon, who believes the house needs their help. Many people, including Gamache, have experienced trauma in connection with the house, and as a result, it has become a repository for negative emotions in Three Pines.

Jeanne claims that the Hadley house balances Three Pines—further, that the happiness of the village would not be possible without it: “Three Pines is a happy place because you let your sorrow go. But it doesn’t go far. Just up the hill [...] To the old Hadley house” (29). As an outsider, Jeanne has a perspective that forces the villagers to reconsider their perspective on the Hadley house.

At the end of the novel, when the villagers decide to renovate the house, Gamache realizes that rather than being evil itself, it may have just been burdened by their negativity. His perspective shifts as he scrapes paint from its walls: “Years of decay, years of neglect, of sorrow, were being scraped away.