monotonous cry, and down there in the neighbouring ditch the toad lifts his
harsh voice. Silence!
A noise in the road, faint at first as the murmur of the wind, increases.
It comes near. It is the cautious hesitating step of someone listening. It
comes nearer and stops. Silence! The philosopher cricket continues his
song, the amorous toad his poem.
Behind the branches of honeysuckle they watch attentively, and can see
without being seen. A shadow passes slowly by, with its head turned towards
the dark arbour. Suzanne made a movement of surprise;--Your servant, she
said.
--Silence, murmured Marcel; and he seizes a hand which he keeps within his
own.
Veronica slowly walked on.
When she reached the gate, she pushed it as if to assure herself if it was
open.
--Well, there is an impertinence, said Suzanne. Who can have made her
suspect that you were here?
Marcel, for reply, pressed the hand which he was holding.
Finding the gate closed, the servant continued her road, then all at once
returned, stopped for a few seconds facing the arbour, and at length
disappeared behind the chestnut-trees.
They followed the sound of her footsteps, which was soon lost in the
silence, and found themselves alone, hearing nothing but the beatings of
their own heart.
--Let us remain, said Suzanne in a low voice, we must not go out yet.
Really, that is the most impertinent creature I have ever seen. By what
right does she spy on you thus?
--Dear child, do you not know that these old servants are on the track of
every scandal, jealous of all beauty and all virtue. She will have noticed
our frequent interviews, and has imagined a world of iniquities.
Nevertheless, I bless her, yes, I bless her, since I owe to her the joy of
finding myself in this tête-à-tête with you. See, dear child, how strange
is destiny, which is none other but the hand of God--for we must be blind
not to recognize in all these things the finger of divine Providence--it is
precisely the efforts made to put an obstacle between us, to prevent us, me
from fulfilling my duties of a pastor, you those of a Christian, which have
been the cause of our sweet intimacy. Your father forbids you to assist at
the Holy Sacrifice, and you come to me to ask for counsel. This servant
pursues us with her envious hate, and obliges us to take refuge like guilty
lovers beneath this dark arbour. Almighty God, thanks, thanks. But what a
strange situation! If anyone were to surprise us, the whole world would
accuse us, and yet what is surer than our conscience? You see plainly, dear
child, that we cannot separate thus, and that, whatever happens, we must
not remain strangers to one another.
Suzanne did not answer, and he, emboldened by this silence, pressed between
his the hand which she abandoned to him.
--I was so much accustomed to see you in our church that, when you ceased
to come there, it seemed to me that everything was in mourning. You were
the most charming and the chastest ornament of it. When I went up into the
pulpit, it was for you that I preached, and when I turned towards my flock
to bless them, it was you alone, sweet lamb, that I blessed in the name of
the Father. You understand now, why I shall go away enveloped in sorrow.
--But, sir, I do not deserve the honour which you do me, and I am unworthy
to occupy your thoughts in this way.
--Do not say that, for since I have seen you, you have become, without my
knowing how, the joy of my life, the source from which I draw my sweetest
and most holy pleasures. With the memory of you, I lull myself in the
Infinite. I see Heaven and the angels, I dream of Seraphims who resemble
you, who bear me on their diaphanous wings into the abode where all is joy
and love ... heavenly love, dear Suzanne, love like that of the angels for
the Virgin, the mother, eternally pure, of our sweet Saviour. You see, you
have no reasons to be offended with my dreams. You are not offended at
them, are you?
--Why should I be offended at them, said Suzanne softly. Can one be
offended with dreams?
--You remember that night, when, alone as we are now, I allowed myself in a
moment of pious transport, to bear to my lips your lovely hand. I have
often blushed at it.... I have blushed at it, because I thought that you
might have mistaken that respectful kiss. I kissed it as I should have
kissed the hem of a queen's robe, if that queen had been a saint, as I
should have kissed the feet of the Virgin, as Magdalena kissed those of
Christ, as I kiss it at this moment, dear, dear Suzanne.
And his lips rested on that little warm, quivering, feverish hand, and they
could no more be separated from it.
And, when at length he withdrew his mouth from it, he found that Suzanne
was so near to him that he heard the beatings of her heart.
--Leave me, said the imprudent girl, I entreat you, leave me. Oh, why are
you doing that?
And she tried with vain efforts to loosen herself from the embrace.
But he murmured softly:
--Leave you, oh, never; you shall be my companion in life as you are my
betrothed before the Eternal. Leave you, dear Suzanne, sweet mystic rose,
chosen vessel. See, there is something stronger than all the laws and all
the proprieties; it is a look from you. Why do you repulse me? I speak to
you as to the Virgin, and I kiss your knees. Chaste betrothed of the
Levite, let me espouse you before God.
She struggled with all her might, excited and maddened. But what can the
dove do in the talons of the hawk! Pressed to his breast by his vigorous
arms, it was in vain that she asked for pity. Hell might have opened, ere
he would have dropped his prey.
The struggle lasted several minutes, passionate, silent, ardent. Woman is
weak. Soon nothing was heard ... a sob ... and all died away in the dense
shade.
The startled cricket was silent, and it alone might have counted the sighs,
while in the neighbouring ditch the toad unwearied continued its love-song.
LXXIII.
AUDACES FORTUNA JUVAT.
"If you have done wrong, rebuke yourself sharply:
If you have done well, have satisfaction."
SAINT FRANÇOIS DE SALLES (_Traité de l'Amour Divin_).
Marcel reached the parsonage without hindrance. Veronica had not yet
returned. He congratulated himself on that, and went up the stair-case
which led to his room with the light step of a happy man, locked his door,
and began to laugh like a madman.
Everything was safe; only there was down there in a corner of the village,
an honour lost.
--Is it really you, Marcel, is it really you, he said, who have just played
so great a game, and won the trick?
And he laughed, and he rubbed his hands, and he would willingly have danced
a wild saraband, if he had not been afraid of making a noise.
He listened in the next room where his uncle was in bed, and heard his loud
breathing.
--And the hag who is watching still beneath the limes! And the father who
is at Vic, and who, I doubt not, is snoring too. Come, all goes well! all
goes well!
But he stopped, ashamed of himself.
--Decidedly, he said to himself, I have become in a few days utterly bad. I
did not believe that it was possible to make such rapid progress in evil.
But nonsense. Is it evil? Has not God made wine to be drunk, flowers to be
plucked, and women to be loved? As to that weather-beaten old soldier, why
should I feel any pity on his account? He has been insolent, he has
detested me without my ever having done anything to him; I have loved his
daughter, his daughter has loved me, we are quits. I do not see why I
should distress myself about an adventure which would make so many people
happy, and for which all my brethren would have very quickly sold the
sacred Host and the holy Pyx besides. Ah, my dear uncle, good father
Ridoux, sleep, sleep in peace. How greatly am I your debtor for what you
have done for me, unwittingly and in spite of yourself; for, have you not,
by urging me to drink more than is my custom, in order to draw my secret
from me, given me the courage to undertake what I should never have dared
to dream of? _Audaces fortuna juvat_. Oh, Providence! Providence! She is
mine, the girl with the dark eyes is mine!
He heard a slight noise in the corridor.
--Good never comes alone, he continued, it always has evil for an escort.
Behind the sweet form of the angel, the grinning face of Satan. He is
coming upstairs and knocks at the door.
He had not lighted his lamp again, and he carefully refrained from
answering. He heard Veronica, trying to open the door and calling him in a
low voice. But he pretended to be deaf, and quietly got into bed, all the
while cursing his accomplice, and thinking of the clumsy trap into which he
had fallen like a fool, and of that thick and filthy spider's web where,
like an unwary and silly fly, he had daubed his wings.
What a difference between the chaste resistance of Suzanne, her tears and
her defeat, and the hideous advances of that old courtesan of the sacristy!
In place of that unclean creature, accomplished in crime, oozing hypocrisy
from every pore, he had an adorable, loving, charming mistress, such as he
had never dared to dream of. And all this alteration in a few hours!
because he had faced it out, because, excited by intoxication, he had taken
his courage in both hands, and because he had dared.
Oh, why had he not dared ere this? He would not be under the infamous yoke
of his servant. And how many priests, he said to himself, for want of a
little boldness, are devoted to a degrading concubinage with faded old
spinsters!
He was not without uneasiness. How could he see Suzanne again, situated as
he was between the jealous watching of the servant and the vigilance of the
father? And above all, how could he discard his uncle's entreaties, and
refuse an unexpected promotion, without arousing suspicion in high
quarters? For, more than ever, he wished to remain at Althausen and keep
the treasure which had just caused him so much anxiety. Yes, he saw them
accumulating on his head, swooping from all parts and under all aspects:
Veronica, Durand, Ridoux, the Bishop, the gossips, scandal, dishonour.
But, after all, what did it matter to him? The essential is that he was in
possession of Suzanne, that Suzanne was his, that he had the most charming
of mistresses, and he was indifferent to all the rest.
To see her again readily and without danger, to contrive other interviews,
and above all to act prudently, was what he must think of. The chief step
was taken, the rest would come of its own accord.
With Suzanne's consent all obstacles could be smoothed away, and clever is
he who succeeds in barring the way to two lovers who are determined to see
one another again.
The old counsellor Lamblin, who in his capacity of magistrate was aware of
that, said long ago:
"To safely guard a certain fleece,
In vain is all the watchman's care;
'Tis labour lost, if Beauty chance
To feel a strange sensation there."
It was on this indeed that Marcel calculated; and, smiling, he slept the
sleep of the just and dreamed the most rosy dreams.
LXXIV.
BEFORE MASS.
"You think that we ought not to
break in two this puppet which is
called Public Opinion, and sit upon it."
EUG. VERMEESCH (_L'Infamie humaine_).
A loud and well-known voice roused him unpleasantly from his dreams.
--Well, well, lazy-bones, still in bed when the sun is risen! You are not
thinking then of going away? You go to bed the first, and you get up the
last. I, a poor old invalid, am giving you an example of activity. Ah,
young people! young people! you are not equal to us. Come, come you can rub
your eyes to-morrow. Get up! Get up!
--How early you are, my dear uncle; my Mass has not yet rang.
--Have you no preparations to make for departure?
--For departure. Is it for to-day then?
--Do you wish to put it off to the Greek Kalends?
--To-day! repeated Marcel. I did not think really that it was so soon.
He dressed with the prudent delays of a man who says to himself: Let us
see, let us consider carefully what we must do.
--You don't look satisfied, resumed Ridoux; I bring you honour, fortune and
success, and you look sulky.
--Honour, fortune and success. Those are very fine words!
--It is with fine words that we do fine things, and one of them is, it
appears, to unmoor you from this place.
--The fact is, replied Marcel, that I have reflected to-night; and, after
well considering everything, I am perfectly well off, and have no desire to
go away to be worse off elsewhere.
--Hey! what do you say?
--My parish, humble as it is, is not so bad as you think. The people are
simple, kind and affable. I love peace and tranquillity, and I tell you,
between ourselves, that to be Curé in a large town has no attractions for
me.
--What stuff are you telling me now?
--Your town Curés are full of meanness and intrigues. The little I have
seen of them has disgusted me for ever. They spy one upon another. It is
who shall prejudice a fellow-priest in order to supplant him, or play the
zealot in Monseigneur's presence. When I was the Bishop's secretary, hardly
a day passed without my being witness to some shameful piece of tale
bearing. You must weigh all your words, cover your looks and have a care
even of your gestures. The slightest imprudence is immediately commented
on, exaggerated, embellished and retailed at head-quarters. The Vicar
General is the spy in general.
Marcel uttered the truth.
The position of the priest is a difficult one; he is surrounded with the
malevolence of enemies. But the priest's chief enemy, is the priest. As a
body, they march together, close, compact, disciplined, defending their
rights and the honour of the flag, resenting individually the insults
offered to all, and all rejoicing at the success of each. As individuals,
they spy on one another, are jealous of one another, fight, accuse and
judge one another; and they do all this hypocritically and by occult ways.
These hatreds and intrigues do not go outside the sanctuary domains. It is
a strange world which stirs within our world, a society within a society, a
state within the State. It is the behind-the-scenes of the temple, and it
stretches from the sacristy to the parsonage, from the parsonage to the
Palace. The profane world suspects nothing; it passes unconcernedly by
without dreaming that tempests are rumbling by its side. But, like the
revolutions raised by the eunuchs of the Seraglio, the intrigues of the
sacristy have been known to change the face of nations.
The priest is the spy upon the priest.
Misfortune to the cassock which unbuttons itself before another cassock.
The old priests are aware of this, and when they are among themselves, they
draw the folds of their black robe close, carefully hiding the least
tell-tale opening. But the young ones, simple and unreserved, often let
themselves be taken. They sound them and turn them up, and soon know what
they have underneath. In order to please Monseigneur and to deserve the
good graces of the Palace, there are few priests who resist the temptation
to sell their brother-priest, and are not ready to deny Jesus like Peter
the good apostle, the first and the model of the Roman pontiffs, three
times before cock-crow, that is to say before Monseigneur gets up.
--No, that will not do for me, added Marcel; if I am poor here, at least I
am free.
--Pshaw! You did not raise all those objections to me yesterday.
--I have reflected, my dear uncle, as I have had the honour of telling you.
--Your reflections are fine. Well, whether you have reflected or not, is
all the same to me. I have taken it into my head that you should go, and
you shall go. I will make you happy in spite of yourself, for I have
reflected also, and more than ever I said to myself that you most go. Do
you want me to enumerate the reasons?
--The same as yesterday I have no doubt.
--No, there is one more, and that is worth all the rest.
--I know what you are going to say to me, but I have my answer all ready.
Speak.
--What! at your age! in your position! Are you not ashamed to fall into
errors which would scarcely be pardonable in a seminarist? Ah! you want the
dots on the i's, well I am going to place them.
--Place them, uncle, place them.
--Had you not enough girls then in the village without going to lay a claim
on the one yonder? On a well-educated young lady, whose fall will cause a
scandal, the daughter of an enemy, of a Voltairian, almost a radical, a
gaol-bird in fine who will be happy to seize the occasion to raise a
terrible outcry, and to proclaim your conduct to the four quarters of the
horizon. You see I know all.
--And who has informed you so correctly?
--I know all, I tell you. You can therefore keep your temper. Will you act
like the Curé of Larriques?
--What is there in common between the Curé of Larriques and me?
--You ought to humble yourself before God. If you wanted a young girl, if
your immoderate appetites were not satisfied with what you had under your
nose, is there no cautious person in the village who would have been proud
and happy to be of service to you, and whom you could have married to some
clodhopper or to some Chrysostom ready for the opportunity; whilst that
one, whom will you give her to? There will be an uproar, I tell you, and
that will be abomination.
--Really, uncle, said Marcel pale with anger, if anyone heard us, would
they believe that they were listening to the conversation of two
ecclesiastics? you talk of these shameful things as if you were talking of
the Gospel. In fact, I do not know which to be the more astonished at, the
freedom of your talk or the sad opinion which you have of me. But I see
whence all this emanates. Do you take me then for a bad priest?
--What is that? Do you take me for a simpleton? for one of Molière's
uncles?... Enough of playing a farce. You do not take me in, my good
fellow. I told you yesterday that you were cleverer than I; you did not see
then that I was joking? Your mask is still too transparent. One sees the
tears behind the grinning face. No tragic aim. Come down from this stage on
which you strut in such a ridiculous manner, and let us talk seriously like
plain citizens.
--Or bad priests!
--Be silent. The bad priests, that is to say the clumsy priests, which is
all the same, are in your cassock; and the clumsy ones are those who allow
themselves to be caught. You have been caught, my son; and caught by whom?
by your cook. Ha! Ha!
--Are you not ashamed to listen to the tale-bearing and calumny of that
horrible woman?
--Horrible! Be quiet, you are blind. It is your conduct which is horrible.
To concoct such intrigues!
--I concoct no intrigue. And when that does occur; when my feelings of
respect, of esteem, of friendship for a young person endowed with virtues
and graces, change into a sweeter feeling: at all events, if my position
compels me to conceal my inclinations from the world, I shall have no need
to blush for them when face to face with myself, that is to say: with my
dignity as a man. While your allusions, your instigation to certain
intimacies, which in order to be more closely hidden are only the more
abominable and degrading, inspire me only with disgust.
--Oh, Holy Spirit, enlighten him. He is wandering, he is a triple fool.
When I suspected, when I discovered, when I saw that you were entering on a
perilous path, I gave you yesterday the advice which a priest of my age has
the right to give to one of yours, especially when he is, as I am,
regardful of his future.
--I am as regardful of it as you.
--Cease your idle words. Have you decided to go?
--No, uncle, I am well off here, and I stay here.
--Well off! Mouldy in your vices and obscurity. Wallowing, like Job, on
your dung-heap. Roll yourself in your filth: for my part I know what course
remains for me to take.
--You will do what you think proper.
--I am sure of it. But you, instead of having the excellent cure which was
destined for you, you shall have one lower still than this where you can
wallow at your ease in your idleness, your nothingness and your vices, for,
I swear to you by my blessed patron, that if I go away without you, you
shall not remain here for forty-eight hours. I will have you recalled by
the Bishop. You laugh. You know me all the same; you know when I say _yes_
it is _yes_. A word is enough for Monseigneur, you know. _Magister dixit_.
Marcel knew the character of the old Curé well enough to know that he was
capable of keeping his word. Fearing to irritate him more by his obstinacy,
he thought it better to appear to yield.
--It is time for Mass, he said. We will talk about that again.
--Go, my son, and pray to the Holy Spirit.
LXXV.
DURING MASS.
"I have my rights of love and portion of the sun;
Let us together flee ..."
A. DE VIGNY (_La Prison_).
It will easily be credited that Marcel's thoughts had little in common with
the Holy Eucharist. He would have been a very ungrateful lover, if his
whole soul had not flown towards Suzanne. This was then his chief
preoccupation, while he murmured the long _Credo_, partook of Christ, and
recited his prayers.
What should he decide? that was his second. Should he go away? That meant
fortune, reconciliation with the Bishop, putting his foot in the stirrup of
honours. Young, intelligent, learned, what was there to stop him?
But that meant separation from Suzanne: saying farewell to all those divine
delights which he had just tasted. He had hardly time to moisten his
parched lips in the cup, before the cup was shattered. He was truly in
love, for he should have said to himself: "There are other cups." But for
him there was but one. Uncle Ridoux, the Bishop and greatness might go to
the devil. The promised cure and the episcopal mitre might go to the devil
too. Did he not possess the most precious of treasures, the most enviable
blessing, the supplement and complement of everything, the ambition of
every young man, the desire of every old man, of every man who has a heart:
a young, lovely, modest, loving, intelligent and adored mistress. But what
might not be the result of that love? What drama, what tragedy, and perhaps
what ludicrous comedy, in which he, the priest, would play the odious and
ridiculous character?
This love, which plunged him into an ocean of delights, would it not plunge
him also into an abyss of misfortunes?
Could it proceed for long without being known and remarked?
Scandal, shame, and death perhaps, a terrible trinity, were they waiting
not at his door?
For the viper which harboured at his hearth, had its piercing glassy eye
fixed unweariedly on him; and how could he crush the viper?
What could he do? What could he venture? He remembered hearing of priests
who had fled away with young girls whom they had seduced, and he thought
for an instant that he would carry off Suzanne and fly.
Willingly would he have left behind him his honour and his reputation,
willingly would he have torn his priestly robe on the sharp points of
infamy and scandal, willingly would he have quitted for ever that cursed
parsonage where shame and humiliation, vice and remorse were henceforth
installed; but Suzanne, would she follow him?
Then, had he well weighed the mortifications which await the apostate
priest!
To be nameless in society, with no future, repulsed, despised, scoffed at
by all!
Should he, like the Père Hyacinth, go and found a free church in some
corner of the republic, and rove through Europe, like him, to confer about
morality, the rights of women and virtue?
Would not poverty come and knock at his door? Poverty with a beloved wife!
It would appear a hideous and terrifying spectre, chilling in its livid
approach and in its kisses of love.
To struggle against these obstacles he would need high energy and high
courage, and he felt that courage and energy were lacking in him, the
miserable coward, who had shamefully succumbed to the clumsy artifices of a
lascivious woman, who had allowed the first fruits of his virginity and his
youth to be lost in shameful debauch; while close by there was an adorable
maiden whose heart was beating in unison with his own.
Thus did his reflection lead him till the end of the Gospel, and when he
said the _Deo gratias_ he had as yet decided nothing.
LXXVI.
AWAKENING.
"We never permit with impunity
the mind to analyze the liberty to
indulge in certain loves; once begin
to reflect on those deep and troublesome
matters which are called _passion_ and
_duty_, the soul which naturally delights
in the investigation of every truth, is
unable to stop in its exploration."