“Don’t imagine ... dismiss this notion that ...”
M. Le Génil shrugged his shoulders, exclaiming, “You old
mystery-monger!”
Then, conducting his friend to his bedroom, he sat down once more
beneath the light of his lamp and resumed his interrupted task, which
was that of mending his breeches.
M. Le Génil, popular preacher as he was both in Paris and Versailles,
did his own mending, partly to save his old servant the trouble and
partly because he was fond of handling a needle, a taste he had
acquired during the years of grinding poverty that he had endured when
he first entered the Church. And now this giant with lungs of brass,
who fulminated against atheists from the elevation of a pulpit, was
meekly sitting on a rush-bottomed chair, occupied in drawing a needle
in and out with his huge red hands. In the midst of his task he raised
his head and glancing shyly towards Guitrel with his big, kindly eyes,
exclaimed:
“We’ll have a game of manille to-night, you old trickster.”
But Guitrel, hesitating, yet firm, stammered out that he would be
obliged to go out after dinner. He was full of plans, and after pushing
on the preparations for a meal, he gobbled down his food, to the great
disgust of his host, who was not only a great eater, but a great
talker. He refused to wait for dessert, but, retiring to another room,
shut himself in, drew a layman’s suit from his portmanteau and put it
on.
When he appeared again, his friend saw that he was dressed in a long,
severe, black frock-coat, which seemed to have the drollery of a
disguise. With his head crowned by a rusty opera-hat of prodigious
height, he hastily gulped down his coffee, mumbled a grace and slipped
out. Leaning over the stair-rail, Abbé Le Génil shouted to him:
“Don’t ring when you come in, or you’ll wake Nanette. You’ll find the
key under the mat. One moment, Guitrel, I know where you’re going. You
old Quintilian, you, you’re just going to take an elocution lesson.”
Through the damp fog, Abbé Guitrel followed the quays along by
the river, passed the bridge of Saint-Pères, crossed the Place du
Carrousel, unnoticed by the indifferent passers-by, who scarcely took
the trouble even to glance at his huge hat. Finally he halted under the
Tuscan porch of the Comédie-Française. He carefully read the playbill
in order to make sure that the arrangements had not been changed, and
that _Andromaque_ and the _Malade Imaginaire_ would be presented. Then
he asked at the second pay-box for a pit ticket.
The narrow seats behind the empty stalls were already almost filled
when he sat down and opened an old newspaper, not to read, but to keep
himself in countenance, while he listened to the talk going on around
him. He had a quick ear, and it was always by the ear that he observed,
just as M. Worms-Clavelin listened with his mouth. His neighbours were
shop-hands and artists’ assistants who had obtained seats through
friendship with a scene-shifter or a dresser. It is a little world of
simple-minded folk, keenly bent on sight-seeing, very well satisfied
with themselves, and busied with bets and bicycles. The younger members
are peaceful enough in reality, although they assume a jaunty military
air, being automatically democratic and republican, but conservative
in their jokes about the President of the Republic. As Abbé Guitrel
caught the words that flew hither and thither all round him, words
which revealed this frame of mind, he thought of the fancies cherished
by Abbé Lantaigne, who still dreamt, in his hermit-like seclusion,
of bringing such a class as this back to obedience to monarchy and
priestcraft. Behind his paper Abbé Guitrel chuckled at the idea.
“These Parisians,” thought he, “are the most adaptable people in the
world. To the provincial mind they are quite incomprehensible, but
would to God that the republicans and freethinkers of the diocese of
Tourcoing were cut out on the same model! But the spirit of Northern
France is as bitter as the wild hops of its plains. And in my diocese
I shall find myself placed with violent Socialists on one side and
fervid Catholics on the other.”
He foresaw the trials that awaited him in the see once held by the
blessed Loup, and so far was he from shrinking at the contemplation of
them, that he invoked them on himself, with an accompaniment of such
loud sighs that his neighbour looked at him to see if he were ill.
Thus Abbé Guitrel’s head seethed with fancies of his bishopric amid
the murmur of frivolous chatter, the banging of doors and the restless
movements of the work-girls.
But when at the signal the curtain slowly rose, he instantly became
absorbed in the play. It was the delivery and the gestures of the
actors on which his attention was riveted. He studied the notes of
their voices, their gait, the play of their features, with all the
intent interest of an experienced preacher who would fain learn the
secret of noble gesture and pathetic intonation. Whenever a long speech
echoed through the theatre, he redoubled his attention and only longed
to be listening to Corneille, whose speeches are longer, who is more
fond of oratorical effects and more skilful in emphasising the separate
points of a speech.
At the moment when the actor who played Orestes was reciting the great
classic harangue “_Avant que tous les Grecs ..._” the professor of
sacred elocution set himself to store up in his mind every attitude and
intonation. Abbé Le Génil knew his old friend well; he was perfectly
aware that the crafty preacher was in the habit of going to the theatre
to learn the tricks of oratory.
To the actresses M. Guitrel paid far less attention. He held women
in contempt, which fact by no means implies that his thoughts had
always been chaste. Priest as he was, he had in his time known the
promptings of the flesh. Heaven only knows how often he had dodged,
evaded or transgressed the seventh commandment! And one had better ask
no questions as to the kind of women who also knew this about him. _Si
iniquitates observaveris, Domine, Domine quis sustinebit?_ But he was
a priest, and had the priestly horror of the woman’s body. Even the
perfume of long hair was abhorrent to him, and when his neighbour, a
young shop-assistant, began to extol the beautiful arms of a famous
actress, he replied by a contemptuous sneer that was by no means
hypocritical.
However, he remained full of interest right up to the final fall of
the curtain, as he saw himself in fancy transferring the passion of
Orestes, as rendered by an expert interpreter, into some sermon on
the torments of the damned or the miserable end of the sinner. He was
troubled by a provincial accent which spoilt his delivery, and between
the acts he sat busily trying to correct it in his mind, modelling
his correction on what he had just heard. “The voice of a bishop of
Tourcoing,” thought he, “ought not to savour of the roughness of the
cheap wines of our hills of the Midlands.”
He was immensely tickled by the play of Molière with which the
performance concluded. Incapable of seeing the humorous side of things
for himself, he was very pleased when anyone else pointed them out to
him. An absurd physical mishap filled him with infinite joy and he
laughed heartily at the grosser scenes.
In the middle of the last act he drew a roll of bread from his pocket
and swallowed it morsel by morsel, keeping his hand over his mouth as
he ate, and watching carefully lest he should be caught in this light
repast by the stroke of midnight; for next morning he was to say Mass
in the chapel of the Convent of the Seven Wounds.
He returned home after the play by way of the deserted quays, which he
crossed with his short, tapping steps. The hollow moan of the river
alone filled the silence, as M. Guitrel walked along through the midst
of a reddish fog which doubled the size of everything and made his hat
look an absurd height in the dimness. As he stole by, close to the
dripping walls of the ancient Hôtel-Dieu, a bare-headed woman came
limping forward to meet him. She was a fat, ugly creature, no longer
young, and her white chemise barely covered her bosom. Coming abreast
of him, she seized the tail of his coat and made proposals to him. Then
suddenly, even before he had time to free himself, she rushed away,
crying:
“A priest! What ill luck! Plague take it! What misfortune is coming to
me?”
M. Guitrel was aware that some ignorant women still cherish the
superstition that it is unlucky to meet a priest; but he was surprised
that this woman should have recognised his profession even in the dress
of a layman.
“That’s the penalty of the unfrocked,” thought he. “The priest, which
still lives in him, will always peep out. _Tu es sacerdos in æternum_,
Guitrel.”