"You know I don't care for those things. But there--there is
something--"
"Well, out with it."
"It isn't a--it isn't what you think--a present or anything like that;
but it is something I should like to have you--something that would make
me very happy."
"Then tell me what it is," said Jules, impatiently. "What are you afraid
of? Am I such an ogre?"
For a moment she did not answer. Then she said timidly: "I wish you'd go
to confession before we're married."
He burst into a laugh that rang through the apartment.
"Oh, is that all? So you're afraid to marry such a wicked person as I am
till the Church has forgiven him and made him good again."
She shook her head.
"No, it isn't that, Jules. I don't believe you are wicked. I don't
believe you ever were; but I should be so much happier if you would go
to confession, and then before we're married in church we could go to
communion together."
He threw himself beside her chair, seized her head in his hands, and
kissed her on the forehead. "I'm not fit to be your husband. You're too
good for me," he said softly.
She drew away from him with a smile.
"And will it make you very much happier if I go to confession?" he
asked.
"Yes, Jules, very much."
For an instant he hesitated, looking into her eyes.
"Then I'll go," he said.
She turned to him, and threw her arms around his neck. As he held her
closely to him, his lips pressed against her hair, he went on:--
"But it will be hard for me, Blanche. I haven't been to confession for
more than twelve years. Think of all the things I shall have to tell."
"It will be over in a few minutes," she said reassuringly. "Then you'll
be glad you've done it."
He rose to his feet and drew his chair nearer hers.
"I've even forgotten how to make a confession. I don't even remember the
_Confiteor_."
"Then I shall have to teach it to you. It's in my prayer-book, and you
can take it and learn it."
"But I sha'n't know what to do. I shall appear awkward and foolish."
"It's easy enough. You begin by examining your conscience; then you--"
"Examining my conscience! I shall have to wake it up first. It's been
sound asleep all these years. Ah, my dear Blanche, you can't imagine how
pleasant it is to have your conscience asleep."
She ignored his jesting, and went on: "Then you have to be sorry for
what you've done,--for the sins, I mean."
"But if you're not sorry. They've been very pleasant, a good many of
them."
"Of course, if you aren't sorry you can't go to confession. That's what
people go for, because they _are_ sorry, and because they intend to try
to be better."
"But all the confessions in the world wouldn't make me better. It's only
you that can do that. I'm sorry for my sins simply because, when I think
of them, they take me so far away from you. If I hadn't met you, I
shouldn't have thought they were so bad. But when I think of you,
Blanche, and when I look at you, you seem so good--well, I--I feel
ashamed, and then I want to be good too. Why can't I confess to you?" he
went on banteringly. "You'd do me more good than all the priests in
Christendom. Only I'm afraid I should shock you. I suppose the priests
hear stories like mine every day; so one or two more or less wouldn't
make any difference to them."
She turned her head away, and he saw that he had offended her. So he
patted her cheek and smiled into her face.
"What a little _devote_ she is, anyway! She's vexed even when I joke
about her religion. Don't you see that it's all fun, dear? I'm going to
do everything you say, make a clean breast of it to the priest, tell him
I'm sorry, and promise to be good for the rest of my life. It won't be
hard to promise that. How can I help being good when I shall have you
with me all the time?"
Then for an hour they talked seriously about the confession. The more he
thought of the ordeal, the more nervous Jules felt. Sins came back to
him, committed during those first few years after he left the _lycee_,
when his freedom was novel and delicious. How could he tell of those
things, how could he put them into the awful baldness of speech? He knew
that no sin could be concealed in the confessional; but he asked Blanche
if he would have to be particular, if he couldn't say in a general way
that he had broken this commandment or that. He was alarmed by her reply
that she told everything, that sometimes the priest asked probing
questions. He couldn't endure the shame of speaking out those horrors.
He was afraid, however, to acknowledge his fears to the girl; they might
make her suspect what he had done, and inspire her with a loathing for
him.
Jules had heard that some men told the women they were going to marry of
their lapses, and he had been greatly amused. It never occurred to him
that he ought to reveal the dark passages in his life to Blanche; these
would simply shock her, give her wrong ideas about him, perhaps make her
suspicious and jealous after marriage. His sins he had always regarded
as follies of youth: they did not in any way affect his character or his
honor as a gentleman. Now, however, he was looking back on himself, not
from the point of view of the man of the world, but of a good woman.
That night, on leaving Blanche at the theatre, instead of roaming in the
_Boulevards_, or reading the papers in the _cafes_, as he had of late
been doing till half-past ten, he took a _fiacre_ to the Madeleine,
where he spent one of the most disagreeable hours of his life. Vespers
were being sung, and the church was nearly full; he sought an obscure
corner, knelt there before a picture of Christ carrying the Cross of
Calvary, repeated an "Our Father," and a "Hail Mary," which came back to
him like an echo of his mother's voice, and then gave himself up to the
task of examining his conscience.
The whole panorama of his manhood passed before him, the life of the
young Parisian at the close of the century,--selfish, cynical,
pleasure-loving, sense-gratifying, animal. He buried his face in his
hands. Oh, what an existence! Yet he dared to take a pure young girl for
his wife, to make her the mother of his children! He could not think of
himself or of his sins without reference to her, and the more he thought
of her and of them, the deeper his shame became, and this shame he
mistook for contrition. This then was what Blanche had meant by saying
that he must be sorry for what he had done, and must promise to fight
against temptation. From the depth of his heart he believed he was
sorry.
Then he took from his pocket the prayer-book that she had given him, and
read several times the act of contrition and the _Confiteor_. The
repetition recalled them to his memory, and he was ready for his
confession to the priest the next day. With a sigh he rose from his
seat, feeling as if he had thrown off the burden of his past life and
received a benediction.
The next afternoon, when Jules entered with Blanche the church of _St.
Philippe de Roule_, he found groups of people kneeling around the
confessional boxes and in front of the altars. He had resolved to
confess to Father Labiche, who, Blanche had told him, was the most
lenient of all the fathers. The names of the priests were printed on the
boxes, and the largest crowd was gathered around the box assigned to
Jules' choice.
"I'm afraid you'll have to wait a long time," Blanche whispered.
"Never mind," Jules replied nervously.
He felt almost glad that he was to have a respite. The sight of the
confessional boxes and of the people whispering prayers, together with
the atmosphere of devotion that pervaded the place, had filled him with
terror. Blanche made a sign to him to go forward and join the group
awaiting Father Labiche, and she herself stopped near the group beside
it, knelt and made the sign of the cross. Jules, too, knelt before one
of the hard-wood benches, and prayed that he might have the courage and
grace to make a good confession. Then he went over again the sins that
he had to confess, and he repeated the _Confiteor_ and the act of
contrition.
All day long these prayers, and the items of his confession, had been
surging in his mind, and now, as he sat up and waited for his turn to
come in the procession that passed in and out on either side of the
confessional, they kept repeating themselves. He looked at the wrinkled
women around him, and wondered if their feelings were like his; he could
see no nervousness, no fear in their faces; they seemed to be absorbed,
almost exalted in their devotion. Then he began to grow impatient, and
wished that the people who entered the confessional would not take so
much time. He could catch glimpses of the dark figure of the priest,
bending his head from one side to the other, and glancing out at the
people. In his line at least fifteen persons were waiting their turn
before him; it would take Father Labiche more than two hours, Jules
feared, to hear them and the fifteen others in the opposite line. His
thoughts turned to Blanche, and he wondered if she had been heard yet.
He looked around, and saw her in the crowd behind him, reading her
prayer-book; she kept apart from the others, and had evidently finished
her confession and was waiting for him.
How gentle and good she looked; how different from her appearance in the
ring! Once again he saw her tumbling through the air in her silk tights.
He tried to drive this thought from his mind, but again and again he saw
her, climbing hand over hand to the top of the Circus, hurling herself
backward, spinning through the air, striking the padded net with a thud,
bouncing up again, and landing, with the pretty gesture of both hands,
on her feet. And in two days she would be his wife! They would go away
together, and whenever she performed in public, he would appear with
her, hold the rope while she climbed to the top of the building, make
the dramatic announcement that would awe the audience into silence, and
then scamper across the net to the platform before she fell.
For more than an hour Jules thought of this brilliant future; then he
suddenly realized where he was, and he saw that he had moved up within
three places of the confessional. In a few moments it would be his turn
to go into that dark box, where so many ghastly secrets were told, where
he would be obliged to reveal all the vileness and the weakness of his
human nature. His nerves vibrated; he felt as if something within him
were sinking, as if his courage were leaving him. Then his lips began
again to repeat the _Confiteor_, and his mind ran nervously over his
self-accusations.
The woman before him remained so long in the confessional that he
wondered if she would ever come out; but when she did appear he had a
sudden access of terror. He rose mechanically, however, made his way
into the box, and knelt beside the little closed slide, through which
the priest conferred with the penitents. He could hear the low murmur of
Father Labiche's voice, and the more faint responses of a woman
confessing on the other side. He tried not to listen, but he could not
help catching a few words. Suddenly the slide was opened, and he
confronted the kindly face of the old priest whose right hand was raised
in blessing.
Blanche had seen Jules enter the confessional, and she waited for him to
appear again. The woman who had entered before him on the other side
soon came out; so Jules was now making his peace with God. She lowered
her head, and breathed a simple prayer of thankfulness. Ten, fifteen
minutes passed; still he did not come. She wondered why Father Labiche
kept him there so long. When at last he did appear, his face was white.
Poor Jules! she thought. How hard it must have been for him, and how
good he was to have gone through it so heroically. He walked forward to
the main altar, and there he knelt for several moments. When he came
back, he found her waiting.
"Come," he said, touching her on the arm.
They did not speak till they were in the street.
"It was pretty tough," he said doggedly. "I thought he'd never let me
out."