If Charley had been less engaged with his own thoughts, he would have
noticed the curious baleful look in the eyes of the tailor; but he was
deeply absorbed in a struggle that had nothing to do with Louis Trudel.
The old fever of thirst and desire was upon him. All morning the door of
Jolicoeur’s saloon was opening and shutting before his mind’s eye, and
there was a smell of liquor everywhere. It was in his nostrils when the
hot steam rose from the clothes he was pressing, in the thick odour of
the fulled cloth, in the melting snow outside the door.
Time and again he felt that he must run out of the shop and away to the
little tavern where white whiskey was sold to unwise habitants. But he
fought on. Here was the heritage of his past, the lengthening chain
of slavery to his old self--was it his real self? Here was what would
prevent him from forgetting all that he had been and not been, all
the happiness he might have had, all that he had lost--the ceaseless
reminder. He was still the victim to a poison which gave not only a
struggle of body, but a struggle of soul--if he had a soul.
“If he had a soul!” The phrase kept repeating itself to him even as he
fought the fever in his throat, resisting the temptation to take that
medicine which the Curb’s brother had sent him.
“If he had a soul!” The thinking served as an antidote, for by the
ceaseless iteration his mind was lulled into a kind of drowse. Again and
again he went to the pail of water that stood on the window-sill, and
lifting it to his lips, drank deep and full, to quench the wearing
thirst.
“If he had a soul!” He looked at Louis Trudel, silent and morose, the
clammy yellow of a great sickness in his face and hands, but his mind
only intent on making a waistcoat--and the end of all things very near!
The words he had written the night before came to him: “Therefore,
wherefore, tailor-man? Therefore, wherefore, God?... Show me a sign from
Heaven, tailor-man!” As if in reply to his thoughts there came the sound
of singing, and of bells ringing in the parish church.
A procession with banners was coming near. It was a holy day, and
Chaudiere was mindful of its duties. The wanderers of the parish had
come home for Easter. All who belonged to Chaudiere and worked in the
woods or shanties, or lived in big cities far away, were returned--those
who could return--to take the holy communion in the parish church.
Yesterday the parish had been alive with a pious hilarity. The great
church had been crowded beyond the doors, the streets had been full of
cheerily dressed habitants. There had, however, come a sudden chill to
the seemly rejoicings--the little iron cross blessed by the Pope had
been stolen from the door of the church!
The fact had been told to the Cure as he said the Mass, and from the
altar steps, before going to the pulpit, he referred to the robbery with
poignant feeling; for the relic had belonged to a martyr of the Church,
who, two centuries before, had laid down his life for the Master on the
coast of Africa.
Louis Trudel had heard the Cure’s words, and in his place at the rear
of the church he smiled sourly to himself. In due time the little cross
should be returned, but it had work to do first. He did not take the
holy communion this Easter day, or go to confession as was his wont.
Not, however, until a certain day later did the Cure realise this,
though for thirty years the tailor had never omitted his Easter-time
duties.
The people guessed and guessed, but they knew not on whom to cast
suspicion at first. No sane Catholic of Chaudiere could possibly have
taken the holy thing. Presently a murmur crept about that M’sieu’ might
have been the thief. He was not a Catholic, and--who could tell?
Who knew where he came from? Who knew what he had been? Perhaps a
jail-bird-robber-murderer! Charley, however, stitched on, intent upon
his own struggle.
The procession passed the doorway: men bearing banners with sacred
texts, acolytes swinging censers, a figure of the Saviour carved in wood
borne aloft, the Cure under a silk canopy, and a long line of habitants
following with sacred song. People fell upon their knees in the street
as the procession passed, and the Cure’s face was bent here and there,
his hand raised in blessing.
Old Louis got up from his bench, and, putting on a coat over his wool
jacket, hastened to the doorway, knelt down, made the sign of the cross,
and said a prayer. Then he turned quickly towards Charley, who,
looking at the procession, then at the tailor, then back again at the
procession, smiled.
Charley was hardly conscious of what he did. His mind had ranged far
beyond this scene to the large issues which these symbols represented.
Was it one universal self-deception? Was this “religion” the pathetic,
the soul-breaking make-believe of mortality? So he smiled--at himself,
at his own soul, which seemed alone in this play, the skeleton in
armour, the thing that did not belong. His own words written that
fateful day before he died at the Cote Dorion came to him:
“Sacristan, acolyte, player, or preacher, Each to his office, but who
holds the key? Death, only Death, thou, the ultimate teacher, Wilt show
it to me!”
He was suddenly startled from his reverie, through which the procession
was moving--a cloud of witnesses. It was the voice of Louis Trudel,
sharp and piercing:
“Don’t you believe in God and the Son of God?”
“God knows!” answered Charley slowly in reply--an involuntary
exclamation of helplessness, an automatic phrase deflected from its
first significance to meet a casual need of the mind. Yet it seemed like
satire, like a sardonic, even vulgar, humour. So it struck Louis Trudel,
who snatched up a hot iron from the fire and rushed forward with
a snarl. So astounded was Charley that he did not stir. He was not
prepared for the sudden onslaught. He did not put up his hand even, but
stared at the tailor, who, within a foot of him, stopped short with the
iron poised.
Louis Trudel repented in time. With the cunning of the monomaniac he
realised that an attack now might frustrate his great stroke. It would
bring the village to his shop door, precipitate the crisis upon the
wrong incident.
As it chanced, only one person in Chaudiere saw the act. That was
Rosalie Evanturel across the way. She saw the iron raised, and looked
for M’sieu’ to knock the tailor down; but, instead, she beheld the
tailor go back and put the iron on the fire again. She saw also that
M’sieu’ was speaking, though she could hear no words.
Charley’s words were simple enough. “I beg your pardon, Monsieur,” he
said across the room to old Louis; “I meant no offence at all. I was
trying to think it out in a human sort of way. I suppose I wanted a sign
from Heaven--wanted too much, no doubt.”
The tailor’s lips twitched, and his hand convulsively clutched the
shears at his side.
“It is no matter now,” he answered shortly. “I have had signs from
Heaven; perhaps you will have one too!”
“It would be worth while,” rejoined Charley musingly. Charley wondered
bitterly if he had made an irreparable error in saying those ill-chosen
words. This might mean a breach between them, and so make his position
in the parish untenable. He had no wish to go elsewhere--where could he
go? It mattered little what he was, tinker or tailor. He had now only
to work his way back to the mind of the peasant; to be an animal with
intelligence; to get close to mother earth, and move down the declivity
of life with what natural wisdom were possible. It was his duty to adapt
himself to the mind of such as this tailor; to acquire what the
tailor and his like had found--an intolerant belief and an inexpensive
security, to be got through yielding his nature to the great religious
dream. And what perfect tranquillity, what smooth travelling found
therein.
Gazing across the street towards the little post-office, he saw Rosalie
Evanturel at the window. He fell to thinking about her. Rosalie, on her
part, kept wondering what old Louis’ violence meant.
Presently she saw a half-dozen men come quickly down the street, and,
before they reached the tailorshop, stand in a group talking excitedly.
Afterwards one came forward from the others quickly--Filion Lacasse the
saddler. He stopped short at the tailor’s door. Looking at Charley, he
exclaimed roughly:
“If you don’t hand out the cross you stole from the church door, we’ll
tar and feather you, M’sieu’.” Charley looked up, surprised. It had
never occurred to him that they could associate him with the theft. “I
know nothing of the cross,” he said quietly. “You’re the only heretic
in the place. You’ve done it. Who are you? What are you doing here in
Chaudiere?”
“Working at my trade,” was Charley’s quiet answer. He looked towards
Louis Trudel, as though to see how he took this ugly charge.
Old Louis responded at once. “Get away with you, Filion Lacasse,” he
croaked. “Don’t come here with your twaddle. M’sieu’ hasn’t stole the
cross. What does he want with a cross? He’s not a Catholic.”
“If he didn’t steal the cross, why, he didn’t,” answered the saddler;
“but if he did, what’ll you say for yourself, Louis? You call yourself a
good Catholic--bah!--when you’ve got a heretic living with you.”
“What’s that to you?” growled the tailor, and reached out a nervous hand
towards the iron. “I served at the altar before you were born. Sacre!
I’ll make your grave-clothes yet, and be a good Catholic when you’re in
the churchyard. Be off with you. Ach,” he sharply added, when Filion did
not move, “I’ll cut your hair for you!” He scrambled off the bench with
his shears.
Filion Lacasse disappeared with his friends, and the old man settled
back on his bench.
Charley, looking up quietly from his work, said “Thank you, Monsieur.”
He did not notice what an evil look was in Louis Trudel’s face as it
turned towards him, but Rosalie Evanturel, standing outside, saw it; and
she stole back to the post-office ill at ease and wondering.
All that day she watched the tailor’s shop, and even when the door was
shut in the evening, her eyes were fastened on the windows.