ON PARLOUR CHRISTIANITY
Parlour Christianity is divided into two classes: the first, pretentious
and grotesque, and the second, respectable, because its members have at
least an exterior, a language and manners that are not in too ridiculous
a contrast with their specialty.
These mundane apostles can also be divided into two sorts,--the young
Christian who dances, and one who does not. This classification will be
sufficient to enable one to recognise them at a glance.
The first, the dancing Christians, are more or less plump and rosy,
curled, frizzled, cravated, stiffened, starched, and perfumed. They are
the beaux, the cavaliers, the lions of parlour Christianity, of
tea-table Catholicism; they eat, drink, talk, laugh, sing, shout, dance,
waltz, galop, dance the cotillon and mazurka, and make love (when they
get a chance) as enthusiastically as the most austere Lutheran or the
most hardened sinner. Some of them, remembering that David danced before
the ark, have even gone so far as to study the cachucha, no doubt with a
view of rendering Christian homage to that adorable dance, which is so
popular in Spain, the most Catholic of countries. Some of them, however,
more strict than these, before consenting to rival the most agile of the
"Majos," have demanded that cachucha shall be rebaptised "the
inquisition." The question is now under consideration.
However this may be, when we see these young apostles in kid gloves and
high pompadours arrive, all panting, from a galop, and abandon
themselves to a delirious waltz, devouring their partners with their
eyes; when we see them afterwards trying to forget or remembering their
charming partners in the exciting intimacy of the Pierettes of the Bal
Musard, we can hardly believe that they are very much more Christian
than Abd-el-Kadir.
But thanks to certain indiscreet revelations on the topography of divine
religions, to certain compromising confessions as to the duration of
eternal punishment, and more than all, by their triumphant fatuity, we
divine, we almost can see the supernumerary angel under the terrestrial
veil of these young Christians.
The only thing I can reproach them with is that they do not take more
pains to conceal the fact of their intimacy with Jehovah, their
hand-in-glove acquaintance with a kind Providence, that they have lots
of influential friends up there, and that the seraphim are their most
humble servants.
But, while waiting orders to return to the King of kings, who, in a
moment of generosity, kindly loaned us these plump cherubs to lighten
our sorrows, these young Christian dancers practise our profane joys
faithfully, without, however, neglecting their sacred pleasures. In
fact, the young Christian dancer should possess his chronicle of church
and sacristy, as an habitué of the Opéra keeps his record of all that
goes on behind the scenes. The dancing Christian should know all the
fashionable preachers, their manners, their habits, anecdotes of their
private life; should be able to tell how the Abbé ---- does not write
his own sermons; how Abbé ---- has ousted the Abbé ----; how Abbé
---- is very graceful or very awkward when he preaches; how rudely one
of the vicars of St. Thomas of Aquinas squabbled with his curé; how
some pious soul discovered, on the hat of a lady who is no longer young,
but youthful looking and well preserved, several yards of splendid old
lace that she herself had offered to the jovial curé of S----, to make
an altar cloth for his church. The dancing Christian should, in a word,
know which are the best places in church to see and hear the preacher;
he must never lose the first hearing of a sermon or a conference, and
must always be on hand afterwards, to report as to its success or
failure, exactly as though it were a new opera that was under
discussion.
Thanks to this perpetual haunting of the pulpit and the sacristy, and to
the vigour of his calves, the young Christian dancer, who is recognised
as such, enjoys all the privileges that are attached to his eccentric
position.
Always a Christian, everywhere a Christian, at a ball, at the theatre,
at the table, in the country, in town, standing, sitting down, in bed,
dreaming or awake, he is intolerant, inquisitorial, indignant; he
assigns you at once your place, either in heaven or hell; he fulminates
fearful anathemas on the new Gomorrah while he drinks his punch, or
cries "Babylon! Babylon!" as he sups like an ogre. Finally, with a
terrible cry of desolation, he announces the near and threatening
probability of the last judgment, and then goes off to dance the
cotillon.
After which, worn out, overcome by the fatigues of the sermon and the
ball, he goes to bed, and is very soon oppressed by a frightful
nightmare. He dreams he is a father confessor, and that his last
partner, with whom he discussed the honest modesty of Joseph fleeing
from Potiphar's wife, comes to confess to him that she committed all
sorts of ravishing sins with a Jansenist, two Calvinists, eleven deists,
and she does not know how many atheists.
Far from the dancing Christians who flourish under the brilliant
chandeliers, blooms the young Christian who does not dance. If the
former are the Cavaliers of this parlour religion, the latter are its
Puritans,--grave, pale, austere, thin, dismal, negligent, more bashful
than St. Joseph, it would give them real pleasure to cover themselves
with ashes, but they go about dragging here and there their melancholy
and their religiously pure and transparent lives. Taking no interest in
our profane joys, which they witness but do not associate in, they are
entirely taken up by their divine aspirations, their celestial visions;
they are tolerant, kind, and full of pity for human error; these are the
tender Fénélons of this mundane church, while the dancing Christians
are the merciless Bossuets, for the dancing Christian is implacable,
unapproachable, impossible. As soon as there is any question of human
weakness, not in himself, but in another, there is no compromise, no
mean term, it is the devil and hell, the devil with his horns and tail;
it is perfectly clear, there is no escape.
The Christian who does not dance is extremely fond of purgatory.
Extremes disgust his pious soul. He is scrupulous and charitable, he
would hesitate a long, long time, he would need the proof of many
dreadful iniquities, before he could bring himself to say positively,
"Alas, my poor, dear brother, it appears to me that, unless you amend
your ways, you will one of these days be claimed by the great devil of
hell."
The dancing Christian, on the contrary, sends you off there at once and
for ever, for the smallest little sin, with frightful assurance.
As for the future of the human race, the Christian who does not dance
seems still to have some hopes that the world will be saved in spite of
the crimes and errors of mankind. He presumes, though he will not assert
it positively, that at the last judgment, there may be a general amnesty
which will remit the sins of the damned. The Christian who does not
dance seems to count on the inexhaustible mercy of God, who is as kind
as he is powerful, he says, and one might think that he was very well
informed as to celestial politics; but the dancing Christian, who comes
to take part in the conversation while eating an ice, overturns with a
single word all these pleasant and comforting thoughts. Then he holds
forth only threats and menaces. There is no more hope,--nothing but the
smell of sulphur and bitumen which give you a foretaste of a future of
eternal flames, eternal pitchforks, and everlasting gridirons. There is
nothing left for poor human beings but to weep with despair and to moan
over their fatal destiny, and so, while awaiting the terrible
predictions of the young Christian dancer, they give themselves up to an
endless galop, or an orgy in the two worlds of society, worthy of
Belshazzar's feast.