she is like this.... You will always be good, will you not?"
"Yes, uncle."
"How pretty you are when you are good. You will always be so? You promise?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Oh, I want to kiss you for that kind promise."
--I held out my cheek to him without resistance, but it was my mouth which
received the kiss. It was followed by a thousand others. One is not of
iron, Monsieur le Curé, and that was how ... I ... lost my innocence.
--What, Veronica, you fell so easily! They say that it is only the first
step which is painful, but it seems hardly to have been painful to you.
--Oh, Monsieur le Curé, we women are full of faults, and we deserve only
eternal damnation.
--I do not say that, Veronica. Certainly in this circumstance all the fault
lies on your seducer, but I should have preferred more struggle on your
part.
--You men are very good with your struggle. To hear you, we never make
enough resistance. Would one not say that the poor women are made of
another paste than you, and that they ought to be harder?
--No, but it is necessary to know how to govern one's passions. That is the
noble, the lofty, the meritorious thing. Resist temptation, everything lies
in that.
[PLATE III: THE LEG. "Oh, the lovely little lass, how pretty she is like
this..."]
[Illustration]
--Everything lies in that, I know it well; but what would you? I had lost
my head entirely like Monsieur Braqueminet. And I did not know what he
wanted, or what he was going to do. I only understood when it was too late.
--Ah, Veronica, you singular woman, you have made me quite beside myself
with your stories.
--It was you who wished it.
--The Abbé Fortin! the Abbé Braqueminet! God of heaven! and who besides?
--The Abbé Marcel!
--Yes, it is true, I also ... I have been on the point of transgressing.
Ah! temptation is sometimes very strong, Veronica, my good Veronica; the
noble thing is to resist.
The greatest saints have succumbed. St. Origen was obliged to employ a
grand means, you know what, my daughter?
--Monsieur Fortin has told me. But you must not act like that saint; that
would be a pity, it would be better to succumb, dear Monsieur Marcel. How I
like your name, Marcel, Marcel, it is so soft to the mouth.
--To resist temptation like Jesus on the mountain....
--There was but one Jesus.
--Like St. Antony in the desert....
--That is rubbish; in the desert no one could tempt him.
--Leave the room, Veronica; since you have talked to me, I understand the
fault of your former masters; leave the room.
--Are you afraid of me then? Angels of heaven, a woman like me. Is it
possible? Ah, I should have been very proud of it.
--Proud to make me sin?
--Sin! Sin! Monsieur le Curé: why do we call that a sin?
She came nearer to him. He wished to rise from his chair, but his hand went
astray, he never knew how, on his servant's waist.
Oh vow of chastity, sentiments of modesty, manly dignity and priestly
virtue, where were you, where were you?
LIV.
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 Curé 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
Curé 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 Curé 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 Curé! Monsieur le Curé. 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 Curés; 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 Curé? 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 Curé, 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 Curé, 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 Curé, 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: