The Grip of Desire by Hector France (page 4)

MATER SAEVA CUPIDINUM.

“Well, you have found it, this ephemeral happiness.”

BABILLOT (_La Mascarade humaine_).

Sadness succeeds to joy, deception to illusion, the awakening to the dream, the head-ache to the debauch.

When the crime is perpetrated, remorse, the avenging lash of virtue, comes and scourges the conscience. “Come, up, vile thing! thou hast slept over long.”

And it exposes to the wretch the emptiness of pleasures, purchased at the price of honour.

The dawn found the Cure of Althausen groaning secretly to himself on his couch.

He had made himself guilty of an abominable wickedness, he had just committed an inexcusable crime, he had succumbed cowardly, ignominiously; he had betrayed his faith, abjured his priestly oaths, forgotten his duties, prostituted his dignity on the withered breast of an old corrupted maid-servant.

Suzanne, the adorable young girl, who in the first place had insensibly and involuntarily drawn him on the road of perjury, for whom he would have sacrificed honour, reputation, the universe and his God, he had abjured her also in the arms of this drab.

And that was the wound which consumed his heart the most.

For as soon as we have yielded to the infernal temptation, the lying prism vanishes, the halo disappears, and there only remains vice in all its hideousness and repulsive nudity. It is then that we hear a threatening voice mutter secretly in the depths of our being.

Happy is he who, already slipping on the fatal descent, listens to that voice: “Stop, stop; there is still time, raise thyself up.”

But most frequently we remain deaf to that importunate cry. And, weary of crying in vain, conscience is silent. It no more casts its solemn serious note into the intoxicating music of facile love.

And the wretch, devoured by insatiable desire, pursues his coarse and looks not back. He goes on, he ever goes on, leaving right and left, like the trees on the way-side, his vigour and his youth which he scatters behind him. He set forth young, robust and strong, and he arrives at the halting-place, worn-out, soiled and blemished. There is the ditch, and he tumbles headlong into it. He falls into the common grave of cowardice and infamy. The lowest depths receive him and restore him not again.

Seek no more, for there is no more; the worms which consume him to his gums have already consumed his brain, and his heart is but gangrened. Disturb not this corpse, it is only putrefaction.

The poet has said:

“Evil to him who has permitted lewdness Beneath his breast its foremost nail to delve! The pure man’s heart is like a goblet deep: Whe the first water poured therin is foul, The sea itself could not wash out the spot, So deep the chasm where the stain doth lie.”

Marcel had not reached that point, but he felt that he was on a rapid descent, and made these tardy reflections to himself:

“Shall I ever be able to see the light of day? Shall I ever dare to raise my eyes after this filthy crime? Oh Heaven, Heaven, overwhelm me. Avenging thunderbolt of omnipotent God, reduce me to ashes, restore me again to the nothingness, from which I ought never to have come forth.”

But Heaven did not overwhelm him that day, nor was there the slightest rumbling of thunder. Nature continued her work peacefully, just as if no minister of God had sinned. The sun, a glorious sun of Spring, came and danced on his window, and he heard as usual the happy cries of the pillaging sparrows as they fluttered in his garden.

There was a movement by his side, and he felt, close to his flesh, the burning flesh of Veronica; she was awake and looking at him with a smile. She felt no remorse; she was proud and happy, and her eyes burning with pleasure and want of sleep were fixed on her new lover with restless curiosity.

[PLATE IV: MATER SAEVA CUPIDINUM. …he sprang out of bed, surfeited with disgust…. And she rose also, and ran off to her room, laughing like a madcap, and carrying her dress and petticoats under her arm.]

[Illustration]

Doubtless she was saying to herself: “Is it really possible? Am I then in bed with this handsome priest? Is my dream then realised?”

And to assure herself that she was not dreaming, that she was really in the Cure of Althausen’s bed, she spoke to him in mincing tones:

–You say nothing, my handsome master. You seem to be dejected. What! you are not tired out already?

And she put out her hand to give him a caress. But he sprang out of bed, surfeited with disgust.

–Ah, true, she said, happiness makes us forgetful. I was forgetting your Mass.

And she rose also, and ran off to her room, laughing like a madcap, and carrying her dress and petticoats under her arm.

LV.

IN THE FOOT-PATH.

“‘Tis the comer blest where God’s creatures dwell, The wild birds’ haunt and the dragon-fly’s home, Where the queen-bee flies when she leaves her cell, Where Spring in the verdant glades doth roam.”

CAMILLE DELTHIL (_Les Rustiques_).

“Abomination of abomination!” murmured Marcel, and he went out in haste; he would not remain another minute in that cursed house. It seemed to him that the walls of his room reeked of debauchery, and that everything there was impregnated with the odour of foul orgies.

He went out of the village, unconscious of his road, like a hunted criminal; he tried to escape from himself, for that harsh officer, remorse, had laid vigorous hold of his conscience. Be followed at random the foot-paths, lined by gardens by which he had passed so many times with placid brow and a clean heart; he walked on, he walked on, with bare head, and blank and haggard eyes, thinking of nothing but his crime, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, not oven the bell which summoned him to his morning Mass, as it cheerfully filled the air with its silver notes.

The morning was as bright as the face of a bride. May was shedding its perfumes and flowers on the paths, and displaying everywhere its marvellous adornments of universal life,–labour and love. The children were already tumbling about in the foot-paths, the birds were warbling in the hawthorn hedges, and in the moist grass the grasshopper was saluting the rising sun.

And he, in the midst of all this joy and all this life, was walking on with his head filled with vague ideas of suicide. A few peasants passed near him and sainted him: he saw them not; he saw not the children who stopped still and gazed in bewilderment at his strange appearance: he saw not Suzanne who was approaching at the end of the path.

She was only a few paces away when he raised his head, and all his blood rushed to his heart. Vision blessed and cursed at the same time. She, she there, at the vary moment of the consummation of his shame. She before him when he had just dug an abyss between them. What should he say? Would she not read on his troubled face the shameful secret of the drama within? Was not his crime written on his sullied brow in indelible soars? He would have wished the earth to open under his feet.

Meanwhile she advanced blushing, perhaps as greatly agitated as himself.

And from the smile on her rosy lips, from the brightness of her dark eyes, from the gram of her carriage, from the chaste swelling of her bosom, from the folds of her dress which, blown by the morning breeze, revealed the harmonious outlines of her fairy leg, from all those inexpressible maiden charms, there breathed forth that _something_, for which there is no name in the language of men, but which accelerates the beating of the heart, which pours into the veins an unknown fluid, and bids us murmur low to the stranger who passes by, and whom perhaps we may never see again: “My life is thine, is thine!”

Mysterious sensation, which, in the golden days of youth, we have all experienced once at least with ravishing delight.

And everything seemed to say to Marcel: “Fool! If thou hadst wished it, we were thine. The delights of paradise were thine, and thou hast preferred the impurities of hell!”

Oh, if he had been able, if he had dared, he would have cast himself at this maiden’s feet, he would have kissed her knees, he would have grovelled on the ground and cried with tears: “Pardon! pardon! Fate has caused it all. Almighty God will never pardon me, but it is thou whom I implore, and what matters it, if thou, thou dost pardon me.”

The feeling of the reality recalled him to himself. Who was aware of his fault, and what was there, besides, in common between this young girl and himself? One evening when alone with her, he had acted imprudently, that was all, and it was now long ago. Then, through desperation and also to show that he attached no importance to that act of imprudence which he had almost forgotten, he assumed an icy demeanour.

She advanced with a smile, but she felt it congeal on her lips before this insolent coldness, while he, gravely bowing to her as before, a stranger, passed on.

LVI.

DOUBLE REMORSE.

“Ah, how much better are the love-tales which we spelt in our eyes with
our hearts.”

CAMILLE LEMONNIER (_Croquis d’automne_).

His Mass said, Marcel did not want to return to the parsonage. He made his way slowly to the wood, absorbed by a world of thoughts. All was quite changed since the day before, and what a revolution had been wrought in his soul in one day.

The day before there was still time to stop, there was time to cast far away temptations and impure desires, to avoid the infernal snares and ambushes, to take refuge, according to the Apostle’s advice, in the bosom of God; now it was too late, it was no longer in his power; he found himself hemmed in within the circle of abominations, and he did not see how he could get forth.

A double remorse tormented him, and wrung his conscience with fierce fingers.

On the one hand, there was his servant, become his accomplice and his mistress, an odious thing; his servant defiling his couch, hitherto immaculate; his couch of a virtuous priest.

Then, on the other, there was the fair pale face of Suzanne, full of reproaches, surprised and sad. Why had he not stopped? What fury had urged him forward, cold and scornful, when he burned to hear once again the sound of that voice which stirred his heart!

And the memory of that meeting, at the very moment of the consummation of his infamy, was the blow of the lash which laid bare the open wound of his remorse. He did not curse his crime more than the inopportuneness and the awkwardness of that crime.

What! be had given himself up to a despicable old woman, he had slaked the thirst of that ghoul with his generous blood, he had abandoned to that hell-hag the promises of his young body and his virgin soul, while a young girl whose like he had never seen but in fairy tales and dreams, came to him and seemed to say to him: “You may love me.”

And he had repulsed her in order to give himself up to the former: that horrible creature, that hypocrite, that sorceress.

And now that his judgment was calm, he could not understand how he had allowed himself to be carried away by such clumsy manoeuvres, that he had fallen in so cowardly a way, and for such an object.

If, at least, it had been in the arms of the lovely school-girl! If his virtue had melted under the kisses of her charming lips! But no, none of all that: none of those unparalleled joys, of those ineffable delights, of those divine and sweet pleasures.

Unclean touches, a withered body, an impure mouth. Lewdness instead of love.

And his servant’s caresses recurred to him and froze him like the infernal spectres of a hideous nightmare.

He saw again her face, lighted up by amorous fever, her fiery lecherous look, fastening on him with all the wild fury of her forty-five years, with the cynicism of the sham saint who has thrown away her mask, and who, after long fasting, continence and privation, finds at length the means of glutting herself, and wallows more than any other in the sewer of obscenities and Saturnalia.

He saw her again like the old courtesan of Horace,

…._Mulier nigris dignissima barris_

soliciting horribly her too avaricious caresses, and employing all the arsenal of her filthy seduction to excite him.

Meanwhile the hours were passing away. The spirit travels in vain into the land of phantoms; nature performs her modest functions without caring for the wanderings of the spirit.

He felt by the pangs of his stomach that he had as yet only breakfasted on the body of Christ, a meagre repast after a night consecrated to Venus. In short, he was hungry, and he decided to return to the parsonage.

LVII.

THE EXPLOSION.

“What dost thou want with me, old
vixen, worthy to have black elephants for thy lovers…. With what passion
dost thou reproach me for my disgust.”

HORACE (_Epodes_).

Veronica was waiting for him with a puckered smile. At another time she would have made a great uproar, for the hour for the meal had struck long ago; but she did not wish to abuse her freshly conquered rights, and she contended herself with asking in accents of soft reproach.

–How late you are. Where have you come from? I was beginning to be anxious.

Marcel made no reply.

–You don’t answer me. Why this silence? Are you vexed already? Where have you come from?

–I have just been reading my breviary, replied Marcel sharply.

The servant smiled, and pointed out to him his breviary, lying on the table.

–Why tell a lie? she said, I don’t bear you any ill-will, because you went towards the wood, although I should have preferred to see you return here quickly. Ah, you are not like me, you have not my impatience. But men are all like that; they do all they can to have a woman, and afterwards they scorn her.

This sentence struck the Cure to the heart like a pin prick. It opened his wounds, already bleeding overmuch, it recalled the shameful memory which he wished to drive away, and which rose up obstinately before him.

–You are changing our parts in a strange manner, he cried indignantly.

–There you are vexed. Why are you vexed? What have I done to you? Have I said anything wrong to you? Do you then regret? Ah, doubtless I am not young enough or pretty enough for you.

–I pray; enough upon that shameful subject. You are revolting.

–What do you say? replied the woman, wounded to the quick.

–I have no need to repeat it, you heard me, I think.

–I heard you, it is true, but I thought I was mistaken. Ah! I am revolting! revolting! Well, I am content to learn it from your mouth. But it is not to-day that you ought to tell me that, sir, it was yesterday, yesterday, she cried insolently.

–Yesterday! yesterday! Oh! let us forget yesterday, I implore you. I would that there were between yesterday and to-day, the night and the oblivion of the tomb.

–Yes? is that your thought? Well, for my part, I will forget nothing. Oh! you are pleased to wish to forget, are you? Therefore, you give yourself up to all your passions, you make use of a poor girl in order to satiate them, and the next day, when you are tired and weary from your debauchery, with no pity for the unhappy one who has trusted you, you say: “Let us forget.” Ah! I know you all well, you virtuous gentlemen, you fine priests who preach continency and morality, you are all just the same, all of you, do you hear?

–Veronica, be silent, in the name of Heaven.

–I will not be silent, I will not. So much the worse if they hear me. What does that matter to me, poor unhappy creature that I am? It is not I who am guilty, it is you. It is not I who am charged to teach morality, it is you. It is not I who preach fine sermons on Sunday about chastity and purity and morals, and who hide myself behind the shutters to watch half-naked tumblers dancing in the market-place, who entice little girls at night under some pretest or other, and who kiss them when the servant has turned her back. Yes, yes, you have done that. I blush for you. And you are Monsieur le Cure! Monsieur le Cure. If that wouldn’t make the hens laugh. Ah, what does it matter to me that they hear me telling you the truth, it is not I who will be despised by everybody, it will be you. Have I gone and sought for you, have I? You have made me tell you a lot of stories which ought not to be told except in confession, you have made me sit down beside you, drink brandy,… and then afterwards you have taken advantage of me. Yes, you have taken advantage of your maid-servant, a poor girl who has been all her life the victim of priests like you. No, I will not be silent, I will cry it upon the house-tops, if I must. Ah! you have taken me like a thing which one makes use of when convenient, and which one throws away, when one has no more need of it: I understand you; but I have more self-respect than that, although I am only a poor servant.

You want to forget. Very good. But I do not want to forget, and I shall not forget. Oh, I well know what it is your want, Messieurs les Cures; you want young girls, quite young girls, green fruit, which you pick like that at the Confessional, or in some corner, without appearing to touch it, and all the while praying to God. I am aware of that, you know. You cannot teach any tricks to me. You did not get up early enough, my good master. Your Suzanne! there is what would please you. You would not tell her that she is revolting. Affected thing! But they will give you them, wait a little. _Go and see if they are coming, Jean_. The little girls come like that and throw themselves at your neck! You would allow it perhaps. That is what would be revolting. But the mammas are watching, and the papas are opening their eyes. You hear, Monsieur le Cure? The papas; that is what annoys you. Papa Durand.

–Here! cried a voice of thunder from the bottom of the stair-case, and it resounded in Marcel’s ears like the trumpet of the last judgment.

Pale and terrified, he questioned Veronica with his eyes.

–It is he, she said, hurrying to the landing-place.

LVIII.

PROVOCATION.

“For her, for her I will drink the cup to the dregs.”

A. DE VIGNY (_Chatterton_).

–A thousand pardons, said the Captain, but the door was open and I have knocked twice. Monsieur le Cure, I have the honour to salute you. I am not disturbing you?

–Not at all, Monsieur le Capitaine, quite the contrary, I am happy to see you; please come in, stammered Marcel, trying to conceal his confusion, and to look pleasantly at the old soldier. He eagerly brought forward an arm-chair for him, the one on which Suzanne had sat.

“Ah,” he thought, “if he knew that his daughter was there, at this same place!”

The Captain sat down, and, tapping his cane on the floor, seemed to be seeking for a way of entering on his subject; he appeared anxious, and Marcel noticed that he no longer had his decisive scoffing manner.

–Monsieur le Cure, he said after a moment’s silence, you must be a little surprised to see me … although, after what I believe I heard, I may not be altogether a stranger here.

–My parishioners are no strangers, Captain.

–Parishioner! oh, I am hardly that. I was not making allusion to that title, but to my name, which was uttered at the very moment when I was at your door.

–Your name, Captain, said Marcel growing red; but there are several persons of your name.

–That is what I said to myself. There is more than one donkey which is called Neddy, and more than one _Papa_ Durand in the world. _Papa_! that recalls to me my position as father, sir, and the purpose of my presence here.

Marcel trembled.

–For you may guess that independently of the pleasure of paying you a call, I have moreover another object in view.

–Proceed, Captain.

–Yes, sir. I wish to talk to you about my daughter.

–About your daughter! cried Marcel.

–About my daughter, if you allow me.

–Do so, I beg of you.

–Monsieur le Cure, you have been in this neighbourhood some six or eight months. People have certainly spoken to you about me; they have told you who I am; a miscreant, a man without religion, who regards neither law or Gospel: that is to say, only worth hanging. In spite of that, you came to see me. Very good. You know that I do not pick and choose my words, that I do not seek a lot of little twisting ways to express my meaning. You have had a proof of it. I am blunt, and even brutal, that is well known; but I am open and true.

–I do not doubt it, Captain.

–After our little conversation the other day, you must have decided on my sentiments with regard to those of your profession. Are those sentiments right or wrong? That is my business. I am not come to begin a controversy, I am come to ask for an explanation.

–Please go on, said Marcel alarmed.

–Not liking the priests, I should have wished to bring up my daughter in these principles. You see I am straightforward. Unfortunately, like many other things, her education has slipped out of my hands. We soldiers do not accumulate property, and those who have the best share, if they have no private fortune, remain as poor as Job. We are not able therefore to bring up our children as we intend. The State, in its solicitude, is willing to undertake this care: we are glad of it, and we are thankful to the State; but our children slip out of our hands; they become what the State wishes them to be, that is to say, its humble servants, and, if they are daughters, anything but what their father has ever dreamed.

Marcel breathed again:

–The vocation of children, he said softly, is often in contradiction to the wishes of parents, and that is precisely the sign of the real vocation … to shatter obstacles. Where is the great artist, the great man, the hero, the saint, the martyr, who has not had to struggle with his own family?

–I am not speaking of a vocation, sir, but of prejudices, of fatal habits, of disheartening nonsense, which children, and especially young girls, imbibe in certain surroundings. The education which my daughter has received, has inoculated her with ideas which I am far from blaming in a woman–I have my religion myself too–but the abuse of which I resent. I am not then at war with my daughter because she has her own, and her own is more receptive, but what I blame with all my power, and what I am determined to oppose with all my power is the excessive attendance at church and on the priest … on the priest, above all. You are a man, sir, and you understand me, do you not?

–I understand, Captain, that you do not wish your daughter to go to church.

–As little as possible, sir.

–Nevertheless, as a Christian and as a Catholic, she has duties to perform.

–What do you mean by duties?

–Why, the first elements which the Catechism prescribes.

–I do not remember exactly what your catechism prescribes, but if you mean by that the little box where they tell their sins, that is exactly what I absolutely forbid.

–Nevertheless a young person has need of counsel.

–Undoubtedly; but that counsel I intend to give myself.

–There is also the priest’s part, Captain.

–Allow me to have another opinion. Besides, the adviser is too young; that is why, Monsieur le Cure, I ask you to abstain in the future from all advice, and undertake to abandon any intention you may have with regard to the direction of this young soul. Such is the purport of my visit.

–Monsieur le Capitaine, answered Marcel, relieved from a great weight, I am an honourable man. Another perhaps might be offended at this proceeding. I will take no offence at it. Another perhaps might answer: “It is a soul to contend for with Satan; it is the struggle between the Church and the family; an old struggle, sir, an eternal struggle. You are master to impose your will among your own, just as among us, we are masters to act according to our conscience. As a father of a family, your rights are sacred, but they stop at the entrance to the holy place. You desire the struggle. It lies between us.” For myself I simply reply: “Let it be done according to your wish, and may the will of God equally be done!”

–And what does that mean?

–That your daughter is and shall be in my eyes like all the souls which Heaven has willed to entrust to my care. If she does not come to church, I will not go to seek her; but if she comes there, I cannot ask her to depart.

–You are really too good. And if she comes and kneels in the little box?

–Then the will of God will be stronger than the paternal will.

–That is no answer.

–Well! what can I do? humbly replied Marcel.

–Allow me, sir; I ask you what you would do in such a case.

–I make you the judge of it; can I treat your daughter differently to the other ladies of the parish?

–That is to say that you will receive her confession?

–That will be my duty, Captain. I am frank also, you see.

–But, Monsieur le Cure, the first of your duties is not to encourage the disobedience of children, and not to place yourself between a father and his daughter.

–I place myself on no side, Captain. I confine myself, as far as I can, to the very obscure and modest character of a poor priest. I am charged with an office; is it possible, I ask you yourself, for me to repel those who address themselves to that office?

–Very good, sir, said the Captain rising; I know henceforth what to rely on.

–Pardon me, Captain, but allow me to say that your proceedings and apprehensions appear to me a trifle superfluous; for indeed, if you have a reproach to make your daughter, it is not that of excessive devotion, for it is a long time since she has come to church.

–I have forbidden it to her, sir. But my daughter is grieved, and that pains me. I came to address myself to you, man to man, and as you see, I am disappointed.

–Believe me, Captain, let the thing alone. Do nothing in a hurry. Young people are irritated by obstacles. They need freedom and diversion. Think of this young lady’s position, dropped from her school into the midst of this solitude, having neither friends or companions any longer; at that age, the family is not everything; books, walks, music are not sufficient, What harm is there in her coming sometimes on Sunday, to hear Divine Service? We do not conceal it from ourselves, sir, that many women whom we see at service, come there for relaxation.

–And it is precisely that relaxation which ruins them.

–Not in the church, sir.

–Not there, no. But behind, in the sacristy, or at the back of some well-closed room. Adieu, sir.

–I do not want to criticize your language, Captain But one word more, I ask. Is your daughter acquainted with your proceeding?

–Why that question?

–Because then my task will be all traced out.

–What task?

–To avoid every sort….

–Of intercourse. Do what honour counsels you, and trust to me for the rest. I will act with my daughter as it will be suitable for me to act. As for you, you have asserted that any other priest _less honourable_ would have said to me: “We are going to engage in the struggle, it lies between us.” I see now that in your mouth the word _honourable_ signifies _polite_, for you have been polite, but the other alone would have been frank and honourable. “Between us” is better, “between us” pleases me. It is plainer and shorter. Again, I have the honour to salute you.

LIX.

ACTS AND WORDS.

“Intrigues of heavy dreams! We go
to the right; darkness: we go to the left; darkness: in front; darkness …
the thread which you think you hold, escapes out of your hand, and, triumphant for a moment, you set yourself
again to grope your way to the catastrophe, which is a denseness of shadows.”

CAMILLE LEMONNIERE (_Croquis d’automne_).

When the Captain had gone away, Marcel perceived the triumphant face of his servant. Mad with shame and rage he shut himself up in his room, and asked himself what was going to become of him. “What am I to do?” he said to himself; “here is the punishment already.”

Nevertheless, on serious reflection, he saw a way all traced out before him; it was the ancient, the good, the old way which he had followed until then, and into which the Captain had just brutally driven him back:

The way of his duty.

To forget Suzanne! He had that very morning, without wishing it, almost unknowingly, commenced the rapture; the father’s visit had just completed the work.

To forget Suzanne! Yes, he would forget her, he must; not only his honour, his reputation, but his very existence were involved in it. Material impossibilities rose up before him in every direction where he tried to deviate from the straight path. His servant! The father! He was compelled to be an honourable man anyhow, not lost sight of, watched and spied upon by these two enemies.

To forget Suzanne! How, after what had passed the previous day, would he dream for a moment of remembering her? He was almost thankful to his servant for having stopped him in time on a descent, at the end of which was scandal and dishonour.

In any other circumstances his pride would have revolted at the menaces of the foolish father, he would have been stung in his self-esteem, and he would have disputed with him for his treasure. But where was his pride? Where was his dignity? He had left all that on the lap of a cook.

Reputation was safe; that was henceforth the only good which he must keep at any price.

“Come,” said he, “keep it, have courage. Stand up, son of saints and martyrs. Yield not, hesitate not, march forward, without being anxious for what is on the right or left. Do thy duty in one direction, since in the other thou hast failed. Is a man then lost because he has for one moment deviated from his way? Is he dead for one false step? Peter denied his master three times, thou hast done so but once!”[1]

The postman’s ring drew him from his reverie. He ran to receive the letter, recognized the writing, hastily put it into his pocket, took up his hat and his breviary, and went out without saying a word.

When he was in the little hollow road which is at the bottom of the hill, he turned round, and, certain that he was not being followed, only then did he open the letter which follows:

“MONSIEUR LE CURE,

“Why are you vexed with me? If you have not seen me any more at Mass, it is that I have had to contend with my father, and that I have been obliged to yield. Nevertheless, I am unhappy, and more than ever have I need of your counsel. You have said: ‘We cannot serve two masters,’ and ‘it is very difficult to render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s.’ One word, if you please, through the medium of Marianne to

“Your very devoted

“S.D.”

He tore up the letter into the smallest fragments and returned home in all haste.

A few hours after, Marianne received the following notice:

_”To-morrow evening at 7 o’clock, in honour of the Holy Virgin, there will be Salutation and Benediction at the Chapel of St. Anne. The faithful are besought to attend.”_

[Footnote 1: Thou art man and not God, says the holy book of Consolation, thou art flesh and not an angel. How canst thou always continue in very virtue?]

LX.

TALKS.

“When from the hills fell balmy night, ‘Neith the dark foliage of the lofty trees, Starred by the moon-beams’ placid light, Often we wandered by the water’s side.”

CAMILLE DELTHIL (_Poesie inedite_).

As he expected, she did not fail to be at the meeting-place. She was unaware of her father’s proceedings; it was Marcel who informed her of them. She was quite terrified; but he reassured her, and knew how to soothe her young conscience; and meeting followed meeting. Dear and innocent meetings. The most prudish old woman would have found nothing to find fault with. The mystery, and their being forbidden, formed all their charm.

The Chapel of St. Anne, half-a-league distant from the village, was a charming object for a walk. You cross the meadow as far as the little river, bordered with willows, then the chapel is reached by a hollow lane hedged with quicksets. The sweet month of May had begun. Three evenings a week the little nave was in festal dress, and filled with light, and perfumes and flowers.

Suzanne went no more to Mass, but she had said to her father:

–Will you not let me go instead and take a walk sometimes beside Saint Anne’s, to hear the music and the singing of the congregation?

–Marianne shall accompany you, replied Durand.

They were always the last to leave the chapel, and Marcel soon rejoined them. It was at some winding of the path that he used to meet them _by chance_, and every time he showed great surprise. They walked slowly along, talking of one thing and another. The Spring, the latest books, the _good_ Captain’s rheumatism, were themes of inexhaustible variety. The future sometimes attracted their thoughts, her own future; and the priest tried to cause a few fresh rays to shine into the young unquiet soul.

They talked also of the school and of friends who had gone out into the world. One of them, a fair child with blue eyes, was her best-beloved and the fairest of the fair, and Marcel sometimes felt jealous of these warm, young-girl friendships.

He did not disdain to talk of fashions; it is one way of pleasing, and he admired aloud the elegant cut of the waist, the twig of lilac fastened to the body of her dress, and the graceful art which had twined her long jetty plaits. She smiled and said: “What, you too; you too; you pay attention to these woman’s trifles!”

But what matters the topic of their conversations, all they could say was not worth the joyous note which sang at the bottom of their hearts.

When they drew near the village he bowed to her respectfully, and each one returned by a different way.

Marianne was then profuse in her praises:

-What a fine Cure! she said, so kind and civil. If your father only knew him better!

And Suzanne, who returned very thoughtful, said once: “The Cure! can it be? It is the Cure then.”

LXI.

LE PERE HYACINTHE.

“She still preserved for herself that little scene; thus, little by little, we accumulate within ourselves all the
elements of the inner life.”

EMILE LECLERCQ (_Une fille du peuple_).

She had shown Marcel the portrait of her beloved Rose. “Yes, she is very pretty,” he had replied, “but I prefer dark girls …” Suzanne blushed. He opened his breviary and drew out a card.

–Are you going to show me a dark girl? she said.

He handed it to her without answering.

It was the photograph of a man of about forty, with strongly-marked and characteristic features. The eyes, prominent and slightly veiled, were surrounded with a dark ring, a token of struggle, fatigue and deception. A profile out of a picture of Holbein in every-day dress.

–It is a priest, she cried.

–It is a priest, indeed, answered Marcel. We are recognized in any costume. We cannot conceal our identity. Do you know who that is?

–Is it not that monk who has made such a noise? That Dominican who has married, and broken with the Church?

–Yes, Mademoiselle.

The young girl regarded it with curiosity.

–It must have been a violent passion to come to that, she said.

–No, it was an idea well resolved upon and matured. No transport of youth carried him away. See, he is no longer young, and the companion he has chosen is very nearly his own age, and he had for her only a tender and holy feeling.

–Why then this uproar and scandal?

–In order to protest aloud against a rule which he did not approve. In our days there are so many cowardly and degenerate characters, that we cannot too greatly admire those who have the courage to proclaim their opinion in the presence of the mob, especially when those opinions shock the brutalized mob; for my part I admire this man; but what I admire still more is the woman who has dared to put her hand in his, and brave the derision of the vulgar, and the calumnies of hypocrites.

–But his vows?

–What is a vow when it is a question of the duty which your conscience dictates? I heard him say one day: “If, after reaching middle age, I have decided after long reflection to choose a companion, it is not in response to the cry of the senses, but in order to sanctify my life.” He has taken back the word which he had given, as we all do, at an age when we are ignorant of the import, and the consequence of that word. Be assured that his conscience does not reproach him, for you can see on this fine countenance that his conscience is at rest. Besides, is it the case that God enjoins celibacy? The celibacy of priests dates only from the year 1010: Christ never speaks about it.

–And so he has broken with all his past, his relations, his world; he has ruined what you men call his future. He must begin his life again.

–And he begins it again in accordance with his inclinations, his needs and his heart: It is never too late to change the road when we discover that we have taken the wrong way. It takes longer time, there is more hardship, but what matters it, provided we attain happiness, the end which we all have in view. Ah, Mademoiselle, how many, like he, would wish to begin their life again, if they found a courageous soul who was willing to accompany them? The future, do you say? But the future, the present, the past, the whole life lies in the sweet union of hearts. To devote oneself, to renounce everything, to give up everything, even one’s illusions, one’s beliefs, one’s dreams for the loved object, is not a sacrifice: it is the sweetest of joys and the noblest of duties.

He stopped, fearing that he had gone too far, and did not dare to look at Suzanne.

She answered coldly. “Ah, Monsieur le Cure, you approve of that! I did not think you would have approved of Pere Hyacinth; truly, I am astonished.”

_Monsieur le Cure_! It was the first time Suzanne had called him _Monsieur le Cure_. That name wounded him like an affront. He remembered what he was, and what he must not cease to be in the eyes of the young girl: the Cure! nothing but the Cure.

And he was sick at heart for several days.

But one fine morning, on coming out from Mass, his countenance lit up, he uttered a cry of joy and fell into the arms of Abbe Ridoux.

LXII.

THE HAPPY CURE

“Such was Socrates said to have
been, because the outside beholders, and those estimating him by his external appearance, would not have given the
slice of an onion, so plain was he in his person, and ridiculous in his bearing … simple in habits, poor in fortune,
unfortunate with women, unfit
for all the offices of the republic, always laughing, always drinking with
one or another, always sporting, always concealing his divine wisdom.”

RABELAIS (_Gargantua_).

Monsieur Ridoux was a very good fellow, but he was not handsome. A big nose, a big belly, blinking eyes, an enormous mouth, hair on end, the arm of a chimpanzee, and the legs of a Greenlander. At first sight, he gave me the impression of a monkey with young.

But what is a man’s outward form? The vessel, more or less regular, filled with a baneful or beneficent liquid, and you all know that the shape of the flagon has no influence on the quality of the wine.

The outward form is the wrapper of the goods: very often that wrapper is brilliant and gilded, of satin or watered silk, and the goods are adulterated and spoiled. At other times the wrapper is rough and coarse, but it enfolds precious commodities.

The stamp of genius is usually found only on countenances with fantastic features. Have you ever seen on the fair insipid faces of our _young swells_ the imprint of a powerful and fertile intelligence?

The body nearly always is adorned at the expense of the mind.

Of all the deformities of nature, the hunchbacks are intellectual in proportion as the handsome men are not.

Enquire of the army its opinion on its pre-eminently _fine man_, the drum-major.

Vincent Voiture, who had, as he confessed himself, the silly face of a dreaming sheep, used to say that nature usually likes to place the most precious souls in ill-favoured, puny bodies, as jewellers set the richest diamonds in a small quantity of gold.

Accordingly, the pitiful wrapper of the Abbe Ridoux covered an excellent soul. With his ugly face and his old stained cassock, he reminded me of those dirty bottles, coated with spider-webs and dust, which we place daintily on the table on days of rejoicing, and which lord it majestically among the glittering decanters, soon to be despised, when their dusty sides appear.

Thus Monsieur Ridoux lorded it amongst his curates, younger, handsomer, fresher, more tasty than himself, and eclipsed them by all the brilliancy of his good-sense, his tact, and his experience.

He had certainly his little failings!… Who can say that he is exempt from them? But his mind was sound. A good companion, besides, and of a cheerful disposition. “We have reached a period,” he used to say, “when the priest must lay aside the stern front and the anathema. There is already much to obtain pardon for in the colour of his robe. Let us be cheerful, let us be insinuating, let us be compassionate to human weaknesses. Let us sin, if need be, with discretion and propriety; but, in heaven’s name, let us not terrify. Let us promise paradise to all. There are always plenty enough whose life is a hell.”

In that he was not of Veuillot’s opinion, that rigid saint, who wished to see all the world damned for the love of God.

Therefore, on seeing this cheerful countenance, this openness of manner, this freedom of speech, this unrestrained good-nature, even those who had been warned, could not help saying: “Well indeed! this Cure has a pleasant phiz!”

Slanderous tongues, Voltairians–who is sheltered from the stings of that race of vipers?–slanderous tongues affirmed that beneath this Rabelaisian exterior, he was profoundly vicious, artful, and hypocritical. Marcel, who had been brought up by him, and was acquainted with the most secret details of his inmost life, has always assured me that he was nothing of the kind, and that his uncle Ridoux, endowed with the ugliness of Socrates, had also his wisdom.

Nevertheless, I would not dare to assert that he did not like to pinch the young girls’ chins, especially of those who had made their first communion and were near to the marriageable age; a familiarity which, thanks to his gray hairs, and the development of his abdomen, he thought was permitted him, but which, however, is not always without danger.

Cazotte, a wise man, used to say to his daughters: “When you are alone with young people, distrust yourselves; but if you find yourselves with old men, distrust them, and avoid allowing them to take hold of your chin.”

Cazotte was right, for old men begin with that. I would not dare either to assert that the charms of his cook were safe from his indiscreet curiosity, for it is there too that old men finish; and we must swear not at all. Everybody knows the wise man’s precept: “When in doubt, abstain.”

At the period of which I am speaking to you, he reigned in a good parish, well frequented by devout ladies, both young and middle-aged, where from the height of his pulpit he laid down his laws to his kneeling people, without hindrance or control.

He was happy, as all wise men ought to be. Happy to be in the world, satisfied to be a Cure. “It is the first of professions,” he often used to say, and there is not one of them which can be compared to it.

“I am a village Cure,
Where I live most modestly;
I’m no important person,
But I’m happy and content
No, I do not envy aught,
For my wants they are but small.
How I love to pass my days
Within the house of God!”

But if he had complained, it would have been very hard, and everybody in the diocese, from Monseigneur the Bishop to his sexton, would have risen with indignation and called him, “Ungrateful wretch.” For Ridoux was favoured above all his colleagues; above all his colleagues Divine Providence bad overwhelmed him with its favours. He possessed in his parish, in his very church, at his door, beneath his eyes, beneath his hand, a real blessing from Heaven, a grace of God, a Pactolus always rolling down a mine of Peru, a secret of an alchemist, the veritable philosopher’s stone caught sight of by Nicolas Flamel, and vainly sought for till the time of Cagliostro, a marvel which made him at once honoured and envied, which made his name celebrated, which gave him a preponderant voice in the Chapter and a place in the episcopal Council, which swelled his heart with pride and his money-bag with crowns; he had in the choir of his church behind the mother altar, in a splendid glass-case, laid on a bed of blue velvet … an old yellow skeleton! The relics of a saint.

But there are saints and saints; those which do miracles, and those which do them not, those which work and those which rest.

Monsieur Ridoux’s saint worked.

LXIII.

THE MIRACLES.

“Miracles have served for the foundation, and will serve for the continuation
of the Church until Antichrist,
until the end.”

(_Pensees de PASCAL_).

The miserable herd of free-thinkers, people who have no faith, those who are still plunged in the rut of unbelief, are ignorant perhaps that all the saints have done miracles, that they have all begun in that way, that that is the condition _sine qua non_, for entrance into the blessed confraternity.

No money, no Swiss; no miracles, no saint. It is in vain that during all your life you shall have been a model of candour and virtue; it is in vain that you shall edify the universe by your piety and your good works, that you shall have resisted like St. Antony the temptations of the flesh, that you shall have covered yourself with hair-cloth like St. Theresa, with venom like St. Veuillot, with filth like St. Alacoque or with lice like St. Labre: it is in vain that you shall have been beaten with rods like St. Roche, been scourged by your Confessor like St. Elizabeth, that finally you shall have sinned only six instead of seven times a day; if at your death you should not succeed in performing some fine miracle, you will never be admitted into the Calendar.

The Pope causes your shade to appear before his sacred tribunal, and according as the number of the dead whom you have raised to life is judged sufficient or not, as the touch of your tibia or coccyx has cured the itch or scrofula or not, you are admitted or excluded.

It is a difficult profession to be a saint, and is not for anyone who wishes it.

Therefore, the candidates who die in the odour of sanctity hasten to accomplish their regular total of prodigies, in order that our father the Pope may be pleased to assign them a place in the highest heaven.

They have hardly closed their eyes before they begin to _operate_. Allured by the hope of being crowned with a glorious halo, they display infinite zeal, and we have seen them, from their tooth-stumps to their prepuce, effecting the most marvellous miracles.

That of Jesus Christ–I speak of the prepuce–is preserved thus in several churches; all of which contend for the honour of possessing the veritable one. It is not yet exactly known which is the best; but all without distinction work wonders, and at certain seasons of the year, are kissed by pious young women.[1]

But this noble zeal of the saints lasts but for a time, and this is a proof of the imperfection of human kind, that our faults and whims follow us even beyond the tomb.

The saints, themselves, fall into all the little meannesses so common with the most ordinary sinners. Like candidates who solicit the votes of the mob in order to gain power, and make the most brilliant promises which they hasten to forget as soon as they have climbed the stairs, so the candidates for canonization perform marvels at first, but once admitted into the seventh heaven, they appear to trouble themselves no more concerning lowly mortals.

Or perhaps miraculous properties are like all other faculties, as they grow old they become worn-out, and an _elect_ who has stoutly brought the dead to life when he was only an aspirant for honours, is now only capable of curing the ringworm.

But, as I have said, it was a zealous candidate that the Abbe Ridoux had in his church. His bones had been there for fifty years, and as the longed-for time for his canonization had not yet arrived, and he had as yet only the rank of _blessed_, his zeal had not grown cold.

Each saint, we all know, has his medical speciality, like Ricord, for instance, or Dr. Ollivier.

Suppose you are suffering from ophthalmia, and instead of consulting a physician, you pray to God, in hopes that God will cure you.

You are wrong, that does not concern God. It is the business of St. Claire, who has the principal management of the sight of the faithful.

You are paralyzed, and you commend yourself to your patron saint. “You must not address yourself to me, that one answers. Go to the other office. See St. Marcel (or _Marchel_), to make the impotent walk is entrusted to him.”

And so one after another:

St. Cloud cures the boils; St. Cornet, the deaf; St. Denis, anemia; St. Marcou, diseases in the neck; St. Eutropus, the dropsy; St. Aignan, the ringworm, and it is generally admitted that we ought to pray on All Saints Day to be preserved from a cough.[2]

And observe how the good people of France are always the most enlightened and intelligent people in the universe!

The speciality of Monsieur Ridoux’s candidate was broken legs, girls in complaints of childhood, and fluxes of the womb. That was what he healed, but he must not be asked for anything else; besides fluxes of the womb, sprains, and girls in complaints of childhood, he did not attend to anything.

That is conceivable; one cannot do everything.

It is quite unnecessary to state that he did not give all his consultations free, and that he did not work for fame alone. No one was constrained to pay, it is true; but it would have been a very unhandsome thing not to make a preliminary contribution to Monsieur le Cure’s poor-box.

Little presents have always maintained friendship, and there is nothing like sterling silver to predispose the benevolence of the saints and the love of heaven in our favour.

While on the contrary:

A poorly furnished niche affronts the saint: The God deserts, and when we enter, shows His anger from the door of his poor shrine.

He no longer worked every-day, but on fete-days.

All the cripples came from twenty leagues round, and there were miracles then for crutches.

As in the time of Paris the deacon, when Cardinal de Noailles kept a register of the wonders of St. Medard’s Cemetery, a churchwarden of the place, assisted by two secretaries and the corporal of Gendarmes, religiously inscribed the miraculous cures of the saint on a magnificent volume.

_Credible_ witnesses attested these prodigies and, if necessary, gave details to the incredulous.

If all were not cured, they had the hope of being so, which was a consolation.

“And then,” whispered Monsieur Ridoux in the ear of sceptics, “if the touching of these blessed bones produces no benefit, you are sure it will do no harm, and you cannot say the same of your doctor’s drugs.”

[Footnote 1: The Holy Prepuce is at Rome in the Church of St. John Lateran; it is also at St. James of Compostelia in Spain; at Anvers; in the Abbey of St. Corneille at Compiegne; at Our Lady of the Dove, in the diocese of Chartres, in the Cathedral of Puy-en-Velay; and in several other places (Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique).

The Able X…., author of _Maudit_ also places the holy fragment in the church of Chanoux (Vienne) and asserts that a Bishop of Chalone in the 18th century threw a pattern of it into the river.]

[Footnote 2: Ainsi parchait a Sinay un caphar, qui Sainct Antoine mettoit le feu es jambes; Sainct Eutrope faisait les hydropiques; Sainct Gildas les fols; Sainct Genou les gouttes. Mais je le punis en tel exemple, quoi qu’il m’appelast heretique, que depuis ce temps caphar quiconque n’est ause entrer en mes terres.

Et m’esbahi si vostre roi les laisse perscher par son royaulme tels scandales. Car plus sont a punir que ceulx qui par art magique ou sultre engin auraient mis la peste par le pays. La peste ne tue que le corps, mais tels imposteurs empoisennent les ames. (Rabelais).]

LXIV.

THE TWO AUGURS.

“I am surprised that two augurs
can look at one another without laughing.”

CATO.

–Ave Marcellus! said the old Cure, giving his nephew a paternal embrace; how are you, my poor boy?

–I am very well, replied Marcel.

–No! your servant has told me that you have been unwell for some time.

–She is really too kind. You have been talking to her then?

–Yes, while waiting for you. She seems to me a worthy and intelligent person, but a little irritated with you. Do you live badly together?

Marcel coloured.

–Come, the blush of holy modesty is covering your face. Don’t do so, child, don’t we all know what it is, my dear fellow?

–Indeed, much you ought to know what these women are. They are cross-grained and stubborn, and claim to be the mistresses of the house, especially with priests younger than themselves.

–That is the inconvenience of our condition, Monsieur le Cure. What will you? We must pass it over. But, tell me, she is not so _old_ as that. Ah, come, the maiden’s blush again! I do not want to offend your virtuous feelings any longer, and I am going to talk to you about something else. You know I have centred all my ambition on you, that I occupy myself about you only, and that together with my saint and my salvation, you are the sole object of my care. Therefore, you can explain my indignation and wrath at seeing my pupil buried in this frightful village, at seeing you extinguishing your brilliant qualities, having no other stimulant for your intellect than your Sunday sermons and your stupid peasants, no other emotion than your disputes with your cook. I have therefore asked of the Lord one thing only, only one. _Unam petii a Domino, hanc requiram_. You know what it is–your promotion. Well, Monsieur le Cure. I come to tell you that everything is going as it were on wheels.

–Really? said Marcel indifferently.

–Just think. The day before yesterday a letter reached me from the Palace. It was Monseigneur’s secretary, little Gaudinet, who wrote to me. You know Gaudinet?

–No, uncle.

He is not a bad fellow, but a devil to intrigue. Well, as he knows the interest I take in you, and as he wants to creep up my sleeve, because he hopes soon to take the place of one of my curates, he wrote to me that Monseigneur had spoken of you with interest, and that he proposed to put an end to your exile. I recognize there the Comtesse de Montluisant’s good offices. You see that she has lost no time, and so we will do the same; we most strike the iron while it is hot; you are going to get your bag and baggage, and take yourself off to Nancy.

–Already?

–Why already? Have you any business here which detains you then?

–Nothing … absolutely nothing; but what shall I do at Nancy?

–That is just why I have come, you impatient young man, to point out to you what line of conduct to follow, and, as I know, you are rather more scrupulous than there is any need for in our profession, to assist you in removing certain scruples which might stand in the way of your promotion.

–Heavens! What scruples?

–We will talk about them at table. Meanwhile, this is the question. I have told you that I will move heaven and earth for you; you, however, must help me a little on your side, for whatever I may do, I can effect nothing without you. In his letter, Gaudinet informs me that the parish of St. Mary, Nancy, is deprived of its pastor. It came into my head directly that you must take the place of the defunct. It is an excellent parish, very prominent, splendid surplice fees, devout ladies, sisters, elderly spinsters to plunge into saintly jubilation, a host of Capuchins, everything indeed which constitutes a _blessing from heaven_ for a poor priest. You are young, you are handsome, you are intelligent, you are energetic; while you are waiting for something better, I promise you an existence there, of which the most ambitions of village Cures has never dared to dream. But we most hasten, time presses; Gaudinet tells me that there are already at least a dozen candidates in earnest; and although old Collard’s intentions (and he intends to atone for his former injustice) regarding you are favourable, you are well aware that he allows himself to be led by the nose, and generally the last one who talks to him is right. You must be then both the first and the last, and you must not let him slip; not you, but your second, your aide-de-camp, your _fideicommissum_, or rather your protectress, the Comtesse de Montluisant.

–But I do not know this lady.

–It is precisely for that reason that it is indispensable for you to hasten to go and see her, in order to make her acquaintance. You have only to present yourself, and I assure you even if you were not sent by me, she would receive you with the greatest pleasure. For, between ourselves be it said, she is an elderly coquette, but she is good-natured and knows how to remember her old friends. You will have therefore to be amiable, insinuating, respectful, assiduous. You might even tell her that she is charming, and that one sees she has been very pretty; which is true. Old ladies dote on young people, and devout old ladies on young priests, especially on those with a figure and face like yours. “The face is everywhere the first letter of introduction,” said Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and I assure that with Madame de Montluisant, you will not require another. Ah, the Comtesse de Montluisant, my friend, there is a precious soul! What a misfortune that she is a little over-ripe! It is all the same to you, and if you are wise, you will pass over that defect, which she amply atones for by her amiable qualities. She has the complete mastery of Monseigneur. She is the Maintenon of that old Louis XIV. Be to her what she is to him, and have the mastery of her in your turn. I was talking to you a little while ago about scruples; for once you must leave them at home or put them in the bottom of your cassock. _Dixi_! You have understood me I hope.

–No, uncle, I don’t understand you.

–Are you talking seriously?

–I declare, uncle, that I don’t understand you.

–_O rara avis in terris_, oh phoenix! oh pearl! you don’t understand me!!! Well, I am come expressly, however, to make myself understood. Must I put the dots on the i’s for you? You don’t understand me, you say? Surely, you are making fun of me. Come, look me straight in the face; in the white of my eyes … yes, like that, and dare to tell me that you have not understood me, and keep serious. Ah, ah, you are laughing, you are laughing. You see you cannot look at me without laughing.

LXV.

TABLE TALK.

“I allow that it is necessary to be
virtuous in order to be happy, but I assert that it is necessary to be happy in order to be virtuous.”

CH. LEMESLES (_Tablettes d’un sceptique_).

They sat down to table. It was an excellent meal, and the worthy Ridoux tried to make it cheerful, but a vague feeling of sorrow oppressed Marcel.

That departure, which he had so eagerly desired before, and the hope of which he had clung to as one lays hold of a means of safety, he could not think of without grief, when he saw it near and practicable. Undoubtedly he would leave without regret this village, where his youth was buried, where his abilities were rendered unfruitful, where his sanguine aspirations were slowly killing themselves…. But Suzanne?

That sweet name which he murmured low with love. That sweet young girl the sight of whom was as pleasant as a sun-beam, he was going to leave her for ever.

It was for his good, his honour, his quiet, his future; he knew it, he felt it, but he was full of sorrow.

Meanwhile, he overwhelmed his uncle with marks of attention and friendship; he made every effort to cope with his guest’s cheerful discourse, who, after relating the flight of the Grand-Vicar, surprised in criminal conversation with the wife of the Captain of Gendarmerie, acquainted him all the little ecclesiastical scandals. But he gave only a partial attention; his thoughts were absorbed in his inmost preoccupations. Now and again only did he let fall a few observations in reply: “How horrible,” or “How shocking,” or again: “How abominable!”

Ridoux did not appear at first to pay attention to his nephew’s gloomy thoughts. He laughed and joked all alone, but he did not miss a mouthful. Old priests are generally greedy. Good cheer is one of the joys which is left to them.

With no serious preoccupation, with no anxiety for the future, exempt from family cares, they transfer all their solicitude to themselves, and make a divinity of their belly.

But when his appetite, sharpened by his journey, was appeased, he examined Marcel with curiosity, and what he observed, combined with a few indiscreet words of Veronica, confirmed him in his suspicions, that a drama was being enacted in the young man’s soul.

–Do you know, he said to him, that you are a pitiable companion. You scarcely eat, you scarcely speak, you do not drink, and you laugh still less. Why, what’s the matter with you? Are you not gratified at my visit?

–Forgive me, uncle, but I am rather poorly, said Marcel; that is my excuse.

–That is what the maid-servant told me, but you declared to me that you were quite well.

–How can you suppose that I am not happy to see you? You know my feelings well.

–I know that you have excellent feelings. But I find you quite changed. It is scarcely a year since I saw you, and you bear marks of weariness. You stoop like an old man. Look at me, always the same, firm as a rock. “God smites the wicked with many plagues, but he encompasseth with his help those that hope in him.” Second penitential psalm. You are not wicked: what plague consumes you? Ambition? Patience, everything will be changed, since your enemy is vanquished. Is it your conscience which is ill at ease? But conscience should be cheerful; that is its true sign. Is it anything else? Come, tell me.

–Well yes, uncle, there is something. The same complaint as before, you know, when I hesitated to enter the seminary, when I had doubts about my vocation. You ended my hesitation and silenced my doubts; you have made a priest of me; well, now more than ever, I have moments of lassitude which make me disgusted with my calling.

–Really?

–Yes, there are hours when this priest’s robe devours me, like the robe of Nessus; I wish that I could tear it off, but I feel that I should tear off pieces of my flesh at the same time, for it is too late, and it has become a portion of myself. I am ashamed to make this confession to you, but you wished it, and I have opened my heart to you.

–May it not be that the heart is sick? Come. I see that I am come to take you away from here at a seasonable time.

–Do not believe that, uncle.

–So much the better, if I am mistaken. I should be delighted to be mistaken. To be in love, my son, is the greatest act of stupidity which a priest can commit. Make use of women, if you will, for your health and your satisfaction, and not for theirs. Otherwise you are a lost man.

–In truth, uncle, you have singular theories, cried Marcel. Have you not then taken your calling seriously?

–My calling? I have taken it so seriously that you will never see me handling it but in the practical way. Therefore, among those who surround me I enjoy a fine reputation for wisdom. To be wise is to be happy, and I have contrived so as to pass my existence in the most pleasant manner possible. I counsel you to make as much of it, and I am going to tell what I mean by being wise: Make use of the things of life with moderation, discretion, and prudence. Now, what constitutes life? Spirit and matter. Well, I wisely make the enjoyments of matter and spirit march abreast. I obtain the equilibrium: health of body and health of soul. As soon as the equilibrium is broken, the mental faculties are deranged, or the constitution declines. You are in one of these two cases, my dear fellow.

–I!

–Yes, you. And, in spite of all your denials, I wager that you are in love. Ah, ah, ah. It is a good story. He keeps his countenance like a thrashed donkey. Come, drink, cheer up; honour the Lord in his benefits. Your glass is always full. Enjoy yourself, you don’t entertain your uncle every day.

Marcel emptied his glass.

–Is she possessed of a husband?

–But uncle, I don’t know, what you want to talk about.

–Oh, how well dissimulation is grafted in this young man’s heart. I congratulate you on it: it is good for strangers, for the profane…. But I, Marcel, I, am I a stranger?

“Brought up in the Seraglio, I know its windings.”

Come, another drop of this wine which could make the dead laugh.

–Listen, uncle, you are my second father, my master, my first director, my only true friend. Yes, I want to ask your advice. I am afraid of soiling one day the robe which I wear, I am afraid of becoming an object of shame and compassion. Ah, I am unhappy.

–Here we are, cried Ridoux. Speak. The only point is to understand one another.

LXVI.

GOOD COUNSEL.

“Ah, my friend, have not all young
people ridiculous passions? My son is enamoured of virtue!… The customs
of the word, the need of pleasure, and the facilities of satisfying himself will bring him insensibly to a moderate state of feeling, and at thirty he will be just like any other man; he will
enjoy life, and shut his eyes to many things which shock him to-day.”

PIGAULT-LEBRUN (_Le Blanc et le Noir_).

At that moment Veronica came in to serve coffee.

In honour of her master’s guest, she had put on her black dress of Associate and her silver medal; and on her head she wore coquettishly an embroidered cap, trimmed with tulle of dazzling whiteness.

The old Cure threw himself into his arm-chair with his head back, in order to contemplate her with admiration. She went and came, clearing the table, and he followed her movements with the eye of a connoisseur, estimating the value of an article.

He smiled sanctimoniously, and the smile and attention, which the bashful Veronica noticed, made her blush and cast her eyes modestly down.

-Eh! Eh! he seemed to say, here is a girl who is still fit to adorn a bed.

When the servant had left the room, he rose, drew the screen between the table and the door, and then came and sat down again facing Marcel.

–I don’t understand, he said, why a man should go and search away from home, amid perils and obstacles, for a pleasure which he can obtain comfortably, quietly, with no fear or disquietude, at his own fire-side.

–To what are you pleased to allude?

–There is a girl, Ridoux continued, who certainly has merit, and I am convinced that many younger ones are not worth as much as she. She is there, in your hands, at your door, in your home; ready, I am sure, to satisfy all your requirements. Avail yourself of her willingness? No? Make use of this blessing which you possess? Again, no. You throw it aside to run after phantoms. Alas, all the men of your age are the same: like the dog in the fable, they let go their prey to seize the shadow. You are like the fool, who spends his life in vainly following fortune to the four quarters of the world, and who, when he returns to his hearth wearied, worn-out and aged, finds it sitting at his door. But he is too late to be able to enjoy it.

That girl is really very well: handsome, fresh, very well-preserved, with a decent and respectable appearance. Why then do you disdain her? Why? Tell me. Because she is a few years older than you? But that is just what you young priests require. You require women of that age: matrons with more sense than yourselves. She is staid, she is ripe, she is experienced, a mistress of love’s science, and above all, she has a great quality, an inestimable quality, she is cautious and will never compromise you.

–Uncle, I implore you.

–Let me finish.

Another thing which is very valuable. She is full of little attentions for her master. Ah, you are not aware with what tender solicitude, with what kindness, with what jealous affection an old mistress surrounds you. She fears more for your health than for her own, she is acquainted with your tastes and knows how to anticipate them, she satisfies all your desires, and lends herself to all your fancies.

–What a conversation! If anyone heard us….

–Be easy. I have drawn the screen.

The young mistress is fickle, egotistical, capricious; she exacts adoration, and most frequently loves you for a whim and for want of occupation.

The old one devotes herself entirely to you and does not ask you (sublime self-denial!), that you should love her, but only that you should let her love you. Balzac extolled the women of thirty; that was because he had not tasted those of forty. Ah! the women of forty!

They are the only women who are of value to the priest, my friend. You have had the good fortune to meet one here, and instead of profiting by it, of thinking yourself fortunate, of thanking heaven and piously and devoutly enjoying the good which God grants you, you cast it away, you disdain, you despise it; and why? For some giddy little thing who will bring upon you every kind of vexation and unpleasantness. _Dixi_. You can speak now.

Marcel made no reply. With his elbows resting on the table and his head in his hands, he stared at his uncle.

He asked himself if he was really awake, if it was really his adopted father, the mentor of his childhood, the wise and virtuous Cure of St. Nicholas, who was talking to him so.

He knew the worthy man’s somewhat eccentric character, his coarse witticisms in bad taste, but he never could have believed that he would have stated such theories before him with a cynisism like that. He quite understood that a man might commit faults, he even excused _in petto_ certain crimes, and he excused them the more willingly because he himself had been guilty of them; but he did not understand how a man could dare to talk about them.

He was rather of that class of persons who are modest in words, but not in deeds, who are offended at the talk, while they delight in the acts. We hear them utter cries of horror and indignation at the slightest equivocal word, we see them stop their ears at the recital of a racy tale, chastely cover their face before the figure of the Callipygean Venus, treating Moliere as obscene and Rabelais as debauched; yet, out of sight, sheltered by the curtains of the alcove, they love to strip in silence some lascivious Maritorne, and cautiously abandon themselves to disgusting orgies with Phrynes whom they chance to encounter.

Therefore the Cure of Althausen was offended and indignant at his uncle’s cynicism, who had so crudely broached the chapter about the love of middle-aged women to him, who the evening before had abandoned himself to all the furies of a long-repressed passion, in the arms of a debauched old maid-servant.

At the same he felt that his brain was confused and that he was gradually losing the exact idea of things. The wine he had drunk was more than he was accustomed to; it was rising to his head and he was becoming intoxicated.

–Well, said Ridoux, you give me no answer and you stare at me like an earthen-ware dog.

–What answer do you wish me to give you? except that I believe I am dreaming; in truth, I believe I am dreaming.

–Be more sincere. I do not like hypocrisy.

–You talk of a giddy little thing; I know no giddy thing. As to the rest, I have not quite made out what it is you wanted to tell me. I think that you have intended to make a joke about your old women.

–Ah, you, you never understand anything. Where did you come from?

–Why, from your school, from the seminary, and neither you nor my masters taught me that there.

–To me! to me! to me! you speak in such a manner to me? Oh clever fox! _Alopex, alopex_. Well, you are sharper than I am, cried the old Cure, striking the table and looking at Marcel with astonishment mingled with admiration. Why should I concern myself about your future? You will succeed, my dear fellow, you will succeed. Oh, oh, you are a master. A gray-beard like I cannot teach you anything. Jesus, Mary, Joseph! That is my nephew! My dear old Ridoux, Cure of St. Nicholas, allow me to congratulate you. Monsieur le Cure of Althausen, I swear you will become a bishop. Monseigneur, I drink your health!

LXVII.

IN A GLASS.

“The fumes of the wine were working
in my veins; it was one of those
moments of intoxication when everything one sees, everything one hears,
speaks to us of the beloved.”

A. DE MUSSET (_Confession d’un enfant du Siecle_).

They conversed for a long time still, and they drank too, so much so that Marcel went to his room with his brain charged with the fumes of the wine. He opened his window and breathed with delight the fresh air of night. While he gazed on the stars which were rising slowly in the sky, he tried to analyze the new sensation which he experienced. “How a few mouthfuls of liquor alter a man,” he said to himself.

He felt himself to be totally different, and he allowed his thoughts to wander in an ocean of delights. His ardent and ecstatic imagination launched itself into space. Bright unknown worlds rose before him with their atmosphere saturated with warmth, with caresses, and with perfumes. He saw the future, and it appeared to him radiant. There were sons without number and feasts without end; the entire universe belonged to him. He flew from planet to planet without effort or fatigue, borne by a mysterious wing into the fields of the Infinite.

He discovered an unknown audacity, and all obstacles subsided before his powerful will. No more barriers, no more bolts, no more doors, no more pretences, no more social chains, no more terrible father, no more servant-mistress; Suzanne alone remained in all her youthful grace and her chaste nudity. For, after having wandered in boundless space, it was towards her that his hopes, his desires, his aspirations inclined. There was the soul and the body; happiness and life, sacred symbolical wedlock, the chosen vessel, the nubile maid ready for the husband. And he murmured the Song of Songs:

“Let her kiss me with kisses of her mouth, For her teats are better than wine.”

And it was at the very moment when he was about perhaps to be able to taste this exquisite cup, that he must go away. Go away! that is to say, leave her, she who had just cast a ray into his life. Go away, to obey a culpable ambition; to lose for ever this ravishing young girl! And the promises which he had made to himself; and the unsatisfied desires, and the boundless joys, the delicious troubles, the sweet evening talks, the hand sometimes squeezed in a moment of audacity; of all that but the memory would remain. Of all the intoxications of soul, of heart, of sense; of all those joys which should repay him for his wasted youth, for his fair years lost, he would preserve but remorse … remorse for having so senselessly let them go.

And all at once in the whirlwind of his ideas, he seized one as it passed by. He noticed during the day the Captain entering the _diligence_ for Vic. It was, in fact, the time at which he drew his pay. He could not return till the following day. Suzanne then was alone with the old maid-servant. She went to bed late, he knew; perhaps she was still awake. He looked at his watch, it was not yet eleven o’clock; he still had a chance of seeing her. He cherished this idea; it pleased him and he was surprised that he had not thought of it before. Yes, certainly, he must see her, in order that she might keep the remembrance of him, as he was bearing away the memory of her.

What would be more delightful than to say to himself: “I hold the thoughts of a beautiful young girl, I hold her simple confidences; I possess the treasure of her sweet secrets.”

And although there would never be between her and him but the pure and chaste sympathy of two souls, was not that enough, was not that a compensation, sufficient for the step which he was venturing?

And with the audacity of conception and the temerity of conduct of a man on the border of intoxication, he determined to put his fine project into execution immediately. His sense became inflamed the more he thought of it, and what had at first presented itself to him as a vague desire, soon became firmly fixed in his brain, and, in less than ten seconds, he had conceived the plan and weighed all the chances.

He decided that nothing was more simple, and that the only serious difficulty was to get out of the house without being heard. He still felt a few scruples; he poured himself out a glass of brandy.

–Let me swallow some courage, he said. What a singular piece of machinery is man, who imbibes in a few drops of liquid the dose of bravery which he lacks, and spirit which he needs.

And, in fact, he soon felt a generous warmth which ascended to his head; and his heart became anew surrounded little by little with that triple breast plate of brass, _robur triplex_, without which there is no hero.

He listened inside and out. All sounds were hushed; in the parsonage as in the village, everybody was asleep. He heard only the croaking of a legion of frogs which were sporting in the neighbouring marsh, and, far away, the bark of some farm-dog.

The night was splendid. The moon was rising behind the woods. That was a serious obstacle; but are there any serious obstacles for a man over-excited by drink? He did not even think of it; his mind was cheerful and content. If anyone encountered him in the night, wandering along the roads, what could they say? Had he not a perfect right like anybody else to take, the fresh air of evening? And, besides, might he not have been summoned by a sick person?

On the other hand, no more favourable moment would ever present itself for talking with Suzanne. His uncle was snoring in the next room, and his servant, supposing she was still awake, would she dare, while there was a guest at the parsonage, to come and assure herself if he was in his bed?

He took off his shoes, opened the door noiselessly and glided into the street.

He rapidly went round the parsonage, and he put on his shoes again only when he was at some distance, under the discreet shade of the limes.

Then he walked boldly on, keeping to the middle of the road, on the side, however, where the houses cast their shadow, and advanced with the step of a man who is going to accomplish a duty.

He arrived without any hindrance at the Captain’s house. It was fully lighted up by the pale moon-light, and all the shutters were closed. Consequently, the side looking upon the garden was in the shadow, and there was Suzanne’s room, the room hung with rose.

So he pursued his way at a rapid pace, entered the little path, bordered with hawthorn, and soon reached the clump of old chestnut-trees.

LXVIII.

THE ROSE CHAMBER.

“They are women already, they were
so when they were born, but one
guesses them so still, one reads it in their little thought, one comes
across an end of thread here and
there, which is like a revelation … They are … But forgive me, young
ladies, I am afraid of going too far.”

G. DROZ (_Entre nous_).

What man is there who has not experienced a delicious emotion on entering for the first time a young girl’s room? Who has not breathed with voluptuous delight its sweet and chaste perfumes, and felt his heart soften in its fresh and fragrant atmosphere?

How pretty, neat, and harmonious is everything there. The most insignificant objects, the most common articles of furniture, have a mysterious and secret aspect there which makes one dream; one contemplates with transport all those nothings, all those little trifles, all those trinkets which young girls delight in, and because they have been touched by a white hand, they appear clothed in enchanting colours.

The fairy who lodges in this place has left a _something_ of herself on all which surrounds her, and _that something_ transforms all into jewels, even the least pin.

But that which above all else arrests the gaze, that which drives the blood to the head and causes the heart to beat, is the bed.

The young girl’s bed, the sanctuary, the delicious nest of love.

There is the pillow on which her head reposes … And then the question comes: What passes in the young head when, softly leaning on the warm down, she lets her thoughts travel into the land of dreams?

When slumber soft on all
Around thee is outpoured;
Oh Pepita, charming maid,
My love, of what think’st thou?

Here is the place of her body. Yes, it is there, beneath the discreet eider-down, that she hides her naked charms. And we begin to dream as well, and we say to ourselves that we would give much to be able to penetrate into this sanctuary at the hour when the divinity is going to bed.

Happy Gyges, lend me your ring that I may assist mutely and invisibly at the sweet mysteries of the night toilette.

She is here! She has given and received the evening kiss. “Sleep well,” her father and mother have said, and the child replies: “Oh, yes, I am very sleepy.”

Then she quickly shuts the door and breathes a sigh of satisfaction. She is in her own room, she is alone!

Alone! do you believe it? If so, you would be greatly mistaken, for this is the time when she receives her own visitors, and often there is a numerous company.

Oh, be reassured: these guests will not be able to compromise her; they are secret, silent and invisible for all else but her; she alone sees them, talks to them and listens to them.

It is at the summons of her thought that they hasten there, passive and obedient. Then she passes them in review one by one; she examines them from head to foot, she clothes and unclothes them at her will; never has a Captain of infantry, under orders for parade, made a more minute inspection of his conscripts.

Sometimes they come all in a crowd, giving themselves up with her, in the mysterious comers of her imagination, to the wildest frolics. Young people with a stiff collar, beardless sublieutenants, coxcombs with red hands, swells with white cuffs, little heads of wax and little souls of cardboard, run up, ran up, ye pretty puppets.

Dance my loves
You are but dolls.

And she makes them dance on every cord and every tune.

But soon the figures are effaced and blend into one. The pomatumed band disappear into space, whence there rises clearly the image of the chosen one.

He is young, he is dark or fair: she has seen him to-day; she looked at him, he smiled at her, he thinks her pretty.

Is she then always pretty? And quickly she goes to her mirror. Heavens! how badly her hair is done. How badly that ribbon sets! If she had put it in another place? And that little wandering lock; decidedly it must set off that. “Perhaps he would like me better if, instead of plaits, I had curls, and if instead of the brown dress, I put on the blue?”

He. Who is he? He is the imaginary lover, the handsome young man whom she has met in the street, he who turned round to look at her, or the one who was so charming at the last ball, or again the one who has just passed the window.

Who is he? Does she know? It is the one she is waiting for. The first who presents himself who is _handsome, young, intelligent and rich_. What does the rest matter provided he possesses all these qualities, and all these qualities he must possess.

Often she has never even seen him, but he is charming, and she feels that she loves him already.

And there are the brilliant displays of the future appearing, the enchanted palaces which are built out of the chapters of novels which never will be finished.

And thus every evening–wild adventures in the young brain, intrigues in embryo, meetings full of mystery, delightful terrors with phantom lovers, until at length a very palpable one presents himself, and comes and knocks at the door of reality.

Sometimes he is very far from the cherished dream. He is neither young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor intelligent. She rather makes a face, but she ends by taking him. It is a man.

And meanwhile mamma has said as she kisses her daughter’s forehead, “Sleep well, my daughter,” and she murmurs to papa, “What an angel of candour!”

LXIX.

THE GUST OF WIND.

“I turned my eyes instinctively towards the lighted window, and through
the curtains which were drawn, I
distinctly caught sight of a woman, dressed in white, with her hair undone, and moving like one who knows that
she is alone.”

G. DROZ (_Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe_).

Suzanne’s room … but why should I describe the room?… let me describe Suzanne to you at this secret hour: I am sure that you would prefer me to do so.

The young people who read this, will do well to skip this chapter, it interests the men alone. Like the preacher who one day turned the women out of church, as he wanted to keep the men only, I warn over-chaste young ladies that these lines may shock….

Suzanne was preparing to go to bed.

To go to bed! That is not done quickly. You have, Mesdames, so many little things to do before going to bed. So Suzanne was going to and fro in her small room, attending to all these little details.

She was in a short petticoat, with her legs and arms bare and her little feet in slippers. I warned you that I had borrowed the ring of Gyges and I can tell you that I saw her calf and right above the knee, and all was like a sculptor’s model. Beneath the thin, partly-open cambric her budding bosom rose and fell, marking a voluptuous valley on which, like the Shulamite’s lover, one would never be weary to let one’s kisses wander.

But on seeing the white plump shoulders, the graceful throat, and the neck on which was twisted a mass of little brown curls, and the back of velvet which had no other covering than the thick rolls of half-loosed hair, and the delicate hips which the little half-revealing petticoat closely pressed, one asked oneself where the kisses would run on for the longest time.

She was delicious like this and under every aspect, and undoubtedly she knew it, for every time she passed before the large glass of her wardrobe, she looked at herself in it and smiled. And she was quite right, for it was indeed the sweetest of sights.

A pretty woman is never insensible to the sight of her own charms. See therefore, what a love they have for mirrors. Habit, which palls in so many things, never palls in this; for her it is a sight always charming and always fresh. Very different to the forgetful lover or the sated husband, whose eyes and senses are so quickly habituated, she never grows weary of finding out that she is pretty, and making herself so; in truth a constant homage, earnest and conscientious.

Suzanne then examined herself full face, in profile, in three-quarters view, and behind, attentively and conscientiously, like an amateur judging a work of art, who cries at length, “Yes, it is all good, it is all perfect, there is nothing amiss.” One could have believed that she saw herself again for the first time after many years.

At length, when the survey was completed, and the toilette finished, she let her petticoat slip down, opened her bed, put one knee upon it, and, the upper part of her body leaning forward on her hands, prepared to get in.

The lamp on the night-table, close beside her, threw its light no longer on her face.

But at the same instant a little zephyr taking her astern, caused the white tissue which English-women never mention, to gently undulate.

She noticed then that she had forgotten to shut her window.

“Heavens,” cried Marcel to himself, for it was he, who perched on the rise of the road and armed with his good opera-glass, had just been witness of what I have narrated.

LXX.