JEAN tried hard to be interested in his daily work. The day after Henri
left him he went to the Bank with the greatest punctuality, and had in
consequence to walk up and down the pavement for half an hour outside,
before the door opened. It was a chastening experience and Jean did
not repeat it. He worked with diligence and industry at the tasks the
head clerk assigned him, and found that by so doing he had hours on his
hands with nothing to do at all; he also annoyed his fellow clerks,
and they told him so. Jean was an extremely good-natured person upon
all indifferent subjects (and like all artists, most subjects were
indifferent to him). His pride was far too deep-seated an affair ever
to appear in the presence of his inferiors, so that he gave up any
inordinate desire to distinguish himself among columns of figures and
bundles of cheques, and wrote bars of music on all available scraps
of paper instead. This amused Jean and appeased the clerks, and the
business of the Bank, not being entirely in the hands of these young
gentlemen, went on in much the same manner as before.
After a fortnight the clerks decided that as Jean had shown no nonsense
about him, had borne ridicule with indifference and accepted tips of
the trade with a clear desire to show himself amenable, he might, if he
responded favourably, be introduced into their real life.
Jean was intensely anxious to see real life and without the remotest
notion of what it meant, so he responded with enthusiasm. He was
invited to dine with three men at a café and go on to a few little
things afterwards.
It was then that Jean made a most shocking discovery--he did not like
life!
No! there was no doubt about it whatever; he was twenty-one, and in
full possession of his faculties, and this presentment of existence
so handsomely offered him by these junior clerks of the Banque de
Paris et des Pays-Bas did not amuse him at all. It even appeared to
him ugly, meaningless and vulgar. This then was what the Curé meant by
temptation, and what the doctor meant by “life,” and what his Aunt Anne
would doubtless mean--a little sweepingly perhaps--by “sin.” And it was
this kind of thing which destroyed his father?
It could not help surprising Jean; and it did not occur to him that
there are as many forms of one particular kind of temptation as there
are shapes of one particular feature, and because you do not admire a
snub nose there is still the possibility of submission to the shape of
a perfect Greek. At first Jean thought that perhaps the world was right
and he was wrong (this is a great admission for any youth to make) and
that the only difficulty lay in amusement being an acquired taste.
So without confiding to his fellow clerks how extremely he disliked
their little parties (which were for the most part harmless enough and
not more vulgar than the extremely small salaries at their disposal
warranted) Jean set himself to acquire the missing flavour. He was
very much in earnest about it, and he spent an awful evening trying to
entertain a little lady, who sang at a café, and to whom he had been
introduced as a great and enormous privilege the evening before. The
little lady had one idea of amusement and poor Jean had quite another.
She wanted to attract attention, and it appeared that Jean did not.
When at the end of the evening she got up on a table and danced, Jean
would have liked to get under it and be no more seen.
It was then that he made his second decision. He saw that he was meant
to be a hermit. It was quite probable that the lady would have agreed
with him.
Jean set about altering his life as fast as possible; at twenty-one
there is never any time to lose. So far his religion had been as
natural as the air he breathed, but it had not been, so he owned
himself, very practical. He had been born a good Catholic, as he had
been born a gentleman, and he had considered his faith in the light of
spiritual good manners. One fasted on Fridays and vigils and went to
Mass on Sunday; it would have been extremely bad form and regrettably
republican not to do so; still Jean felt that there were depths he had
never plumbed. He told his Confessor this, and he pointed out to him
that he was drawn to a higher life; he also added that he could not for
a moment understand a taste for any other. The Confessor was an old
man, he knew a good deal about life, and he listened very humbly to
Jean. He saw that Jean was suffering from a feeling that the Church had
hardly done its duty in permitting sin at this time of day to exist,
and that something ought to be done about it at once. Jean explained
to the Confessor that he thought the world, the flesh and the devil
overrated as temptations, and if only the Church would show people how
dull and vulgar all life that was not a direct spiritual vocation was,
hermits would increase from that moment. The Confessor did not say that
this, to him, would hardly be a desirable termination. He was not at
all a sarcastic Confessor, and he was very fond of young men.
“I think, perhaps,” he said rather cautiously, “you do not know all
about it yet. There are”--he hesitated again; he seemed a painfully
slow old man to Jean--“so many different kinds of things.” He finished
very lamely, Jean thought.
“To me there are only two kinds of things,” said Jean firmly--“what is
beautiful and what is not. I have chosen.” He expected the priest to
say something more, something a little appreciative perhaps, but he
only sighed. “Of course, other people may be different,” added Jean,
who was afraid he might have sounded intolerant.
“But I do not think they are,” said his Confessor gently. “My dear son,
I think we are all very much alike. I have lived a long while, and
I have seen very few different people, and those who have sometimes
thought themselves so have not always proved very wise.”
Jean let this pass, it did not sound to him very probable.
“But you approve of my desire, do you not, father?” he added with
impatience; he was beginning to think he had not made a good choice of
a Confessor.
“I do not think I know quite what it is,” said the priest, after a
pause.
“I mean to join the Third Order of St. Francis, and, while
endeavouring, for a year at least, to stay in the world, to be
preparing myself possibly for a sterner vocation.” How proud and
pleased the good Curé at home would have been if he could have heard
Jean, and how disgusted the doctor! But Jean’s present auditor was
neither pleased nor disgusted, nor even very much surprised.
“I should not join any Order yet if I were you,” he answered. “You have
told me that you are twenty-one--no, I should not join any Order; but
for the rest I approve, my son, only----” The Confessor paused again.
“Yes, my father?” said Jean. He felt that every moment was wasted in
which he was not leading the higher life, and he was impatient for the
Confessor to give him some rules.
“Only,” said the father at last, “I think we should all beware of
spiritual pride, it is apt to weaken the mind. I fancy we cannot see
very clearly what is right if we are too sure about what is wrong. I
fear I express myself very badly.”
Jean privately thought he did, but he could not very well say so;
besides, he knew that he was in no danger from spiritual pride, he
meant to be very humble and absolutely obedient, even to this rather
foolish old man. It was a great sacrifice to Jean not to join the Third
Order, but he never dreamed of doing so after his Confessor had advised
him not to.
“If you can help it,” added his Confessor, “do not make up your mind
very much about anything else, just now.”
“But do not you think it well to be definite, my father?” Jean asked,
in great astonishment.
The old priest spoke quite firmly this time, it was the end of the
interview.
“No, my son,” he said. “I do not think it well to be very definite; I
think it better to be obedient. We all know a great deal--that is our
danger; let us see that we do a little of it--this is our security.”
And he dismissed Jean, to whom he had not given a single rule, at least
Jean could not remember that he had.