“This disorder is deplorable in that it may involve the most serious
misconduct.”
He asked for the register of the rhetoric class. But when M. Perruque
had handed it to him, he looked away from it. His heart swelled at
the idea that sacred rhetoric was taught by this Guitrel, a man with
neither morals nor learning. He sighed within himself:
“When will the scales fall from the Cardinal-Archbishop’s eyes, that he
may see the unworthiness of this priest?”
Then, tearing himself from this bitter thought only to plunge into the
bitterness of another:
“And Piédagnel?” he asked.
For two years Firmin Piédagnel had caused incessant anxiety to the head
of the seminary. The only son of a cobbler who kept his stall between
two buttresses of Saint-Exupère, he was, through the brightness of
his intelligence, the most brilliant pupil in the house. Of placid
temperament, he had a very fair report for conduct. The timidity of his
character and the weakness of his constitution seemed a good safeguard
for his moral purity. But he had neither the instinct for theology nor
the vocation for the priesthood. His very faith was unstable. With his
great spiritual knowledge, M. Lantaigne had no inordinate fear of those
violent crises among his young Levites, which, often salutary, are to
be allayed by grace. He dreaded, on the contrary, the indifference of
a placidly intractable mind. He almost despaired of a soul to whom
doubt was light and bearable and whose thoughts flowed to irreligion
by a natural inclination. Such a one the shoemaker’s clever son showed
himself to be. M. Lantaigne had one day unexpectedly chanced, by one
of those brusque wiles which were natural to him, to plumb the depths
of this nature, double-faced through its courtesy. He perceived with
consternation that from the teaching at the seminary Firmin had only
acquired an elegant Latin style, skill in sophistry, and a kind of
sentimental mysticism. From that time Firmin had appeared to him as a
being weak and formidable, pitiable and noxious. Yet he loved this lad,
loved him tenderly, to infatuation. In spite of his disappointment it
pleased him that he should be the honour, the glory of the seminary.
He loved in Firmin the charm of his mind, the subtle harmony of his
style, and even the tenderness of those pale, short-sighted eyes,
like bruises under the quivering eyelids. He sometimes took pleasure
in seeing in him one of the victims of this Abbé Guitrel, whose
intellectual and moral poverty must (so he firmly believed) injure and
depress an intelligent and quick-sighted pupil. He flattered himself
that, if better trained in the future, Firmin, although too weak ever
to give to the Church one of those powerful leaders whom she so much
needs, would at least produce for religion, perhaps, a Péreyve or a
Gerbet, one of those priests who carry into the priesthood the heart
of a young mother. But, incapable of long self-flattery, M. Lantaigne
speedily rejected this unlikely hope and saw in this lad a Guéroult,
a Renan. And the sweat of anguish chilled his forehead. His fear was
lest, in rearing such pupils, he might be training formidable enemies
of the truth.
He knew that it was in the temple itself that the hammers were
forged which overthrew it. He very often said: “Such is the power
of theological discipline that it alone is capable of rearing great
reprobates; an unbeliever who has not passed through our hands is
powerless and without weapons for evil. It is within our walls that
they imbibe all knowledge, even that of blasphemy.” From the mass of
the students he only demanded industry and integrity, feeling certain
that these would make good parish priests of them. But in his finest
students he feared curiosity, pride, the impious boldness of the
intellect, and even the qualities that brought the angels to perdition.
“Monsieur Perruque,” said he brusquely, “let us see the notes on
Piédagnel.”
The master of method, with his thumb moistened at his lips, turned
over the leaves of the register, and then pointed out with his great
dirt-encircled forefinger the lines traced on the margin of the book:
_M. Piédagnel holds thoughtless conversations._
_M. Piédagnel gives way to depression._
_M. Piédagnel refuses to take any physical exercise._
The director read and shook his head. He turned the leaf and continued
reading:
_M. Piédagnel has written a poor essay on the unity of the faith._
At this Abbé Lantaigne burst out:
“Unity—that is just what he will never grasp! And yet it is the idea
above all others which ought to be impressed on the priest’s mind. For
I do not fear to affirm that this conception is entirely of God, and,
as it were, His most vivid manifestation among men.”
He turned his hollow, gloomy gaze towards Abbé Perruque.
“This subject of the unity of the faith, Monsieur Perruque, is my
touchstone by which I try the spirits. The simplest minds, if they do
not fail in sincerity, draw logical conclusions from the idea of unity;
and the most able derive an admirable philosophy from this principle.
In the pulpit, Monsieur Perruque, I have three times handled the unity
of the faith, and the wealth of the subject still amazes me.”
He resumed his reading:
_M. Piédagnel has compiled a note-book, which has been found in his
desk, and which contains, written in M. Piédagnel’s own hand, extracts
from different love-poems, composed by Leconte de Lisle and Paul
Verlaine, as well as by several other loose writers, and the choice
of the extracts betrays excessive profligacy both of the mind and the
senses._
He shut the register and pushed it away roughly. “What we lack
nowadays,” sighed he, “is neither learning nor intelligence; it is the
theological mind.”
“Monsieur,” said Abbé Perruque, “the steward wants to know if you can
receive him at once. The contract with Lafolie for butcher’s meat
expires on the fifteenth of this month, and they are waiting for your
decision before renewing an arrangement upon which the house can
scarcely plume itself. For you cannot fail to have remarked the bad
quality of the beef supplied by Lafolie.”
“Tell the steward to come in,” said M. Lantaigne.
And, left alone, he put his head in his hands and sighed:
“_O quando finieris et quando cessabis, universa vanitas mundi?_[A] Far
from Thee, O God, we are but wandering shadows. There are no greater
crimes than those committed against the unity of the faith. Vouchsafe
to lead the world back to this blessed unity!”
[A] “When wilt thou end, when wilt thou cease to be, oh,
ever-present vanity of this world?”
When, during the recreation hour after the midday meal, the principal
crossed the courtyard, the seminarists were playing a game of football.
On the gravelled playground there was a great commotion of ruddy
heads poised on stalks like black knife-handles, the jerky gestures
of puppets, and shouts and cries in all the rustic dialects of the
diocese. The master of method, Abbé Perruque, his cassock tucked up,
was joining in the game with the zest of a cloistered peasant, drunk
with air and exercise, and in athletic style was kicking from the toe
of his buckled shoe the huge ball covered with its leather quarters. At
sight of the principal the players stopped. M. Lantaigne made a sign to
them to continue. He followed the grove of stunted acacia trees that
fringes the courtyard on the side towards the ramparts and the country.
Half-way along he met three pupils who, arm in arm, were walking up
and down as they talked. Since they usually spent the recreation hours
in this way, they were called the peripatetics. M. Lantaigne called
one of them, the shortest, a pale-faced lad, with slightly stooping
shoulders, a refined and mocking mouth, and timid eyes. He did not hear
at first, and his neighbour had to nudge him with an elbow and say to
him:
“Piédagnel, the principal is calling you.”
At this Piédagnel approached Abbé Lantaigne and bowed to him with a
half-graceful clumsiness.
“My child,” said the principal to him, “you will be so good as to be my
server at mass to-morrow.”
The young man blushed. It was a coveted honour to serve the principal’s
mass.
Abbé Lantaigne, his breviary under his arm, went out by the little door
that opens on the fields and took the customary road in his walks, a
dusty track edged with nettles and thistles that follows the ramparts.
He was thinking:
“What will become of this poor child, if he is suddenly expelled,
ignorant of any sort of manual labour, weak, delicate, and timid? And
what grief there will be in his infirm father’s shop!”
He walked along over the flints of the barren road. Having reached the
mission cross, he took off his hat, wiped the perspiration from his
forehead with his silk handkerchief, and said in a low voice:
“Oh God, inspire me to act according to Thy interests, whatever it may
cost my paternal heart!”
At half-past six next morning Abbé Lantaigne was saying the concluding
words of the mass in the bare, deserted chapel.
In front of a side-altar a solitary old sacristan was setting paper
flowers in porcelain vases, beneath the gilt statue of Saint Joseph. A
grey, rainy daylight poured sadly through the blurred window-panes. The
celebrant, upright at the left of the high altar, was reading the last
Gospel.
“_Et Verbum caro factum est_,” said he, bending his knees.
Firmin Piédagnel, who was serving the mass, knelt at the same time
on the step where stood the bell; then he rose and, after the last
responses, preceded the priest into the sacristy. Abbé Lantaigne set
down the chalice with the corporal and waited for the server to help
him remove his priestly vestments. Firmin Piédagnel, being sensitive
to the mysterious influences of things, felt the charm of this scene,
so simple and yet so sacred. His soul, suffused with tender unction,
tasted with a kind of joy the familiar grandeur of the priesthood.
Never had he felt so deeply the desire to be a priest and in his turn
to celebrate the holy sacrifice. Having kissed and carefully folded up
the alb and chasuble, he bowed before Abbé Lantaigne ere retiring. The
head of the seminary, who had resumed his great-coat, made a sign to
him to stay, and looked at him with such nobility and kindness that the
young man received the look as a favour and a blessing. After a long
silence:
“My child,” said M. Lantaigne, “whilst celebrating this mass which I
asked you to serve, I prayed God to give me the strength to send you
away. My prayer has been granted. You are no longer a member of this
household.”
As he took in these words, Firmin was stupefied. It seemed to him that
the flooring was giving way beneath his feet. Through eyes big with
tears, he vaguely saw the lonely road, the rain, a life darkened with
misery and toil, the fate of a lost child terrified by its own weakness
and timidity. He looked at M. Lantaigne. The resolute gentleness,
the quiet strength, the calmness of this man revolted him. Suddenly
a feeling was born and grew in him, a feeling that sustained and
strengthened him, a hatred of the priest, a deathless and fruitful
hatred, a hatred to fill a whole life. Without uttering a word, he went
with great strides out of the sacristy.