The Grip of Desire Part 55

You will succeed therefore, if you intend it seriously. Our misfortune is, that we are enc.u.mbered with dull and stupid peasants, whom the Seminary has been able only partly to refine, and who render us ridiculous. You must certainly have gone to sleep in your village?

--No, Monseigneur, I have worked.

--We shall see that. And what sort of people are they? Do they perform their religious duties?

--A good and hard-working population.

--Do they perform their religious duties?

--Yes. Monseigneur, I was satisfied with them.

--What society?

--Very little. The lawyer, the doctor....

--Right-thinking?

--Tolerably so.

--And the women?

--Much the same as all country-folk, ignorant and narrow-minded.

--No, you were not the man needed there. You would lose your time and your powers. I will send one of those brutes of whom I have just been speaking.

Well, go; you can tell the Abbe Ridoux that you will have the cure. Come again to-morrow. I even think it will be useless for you to return to Althausen.

Lx.x.xVII.

THE SEMINARY.

"I turned my head and I saw a number of the dead in living bodies.

These are the worst spectres, because they must be subdued: you touch them, they touch you, and, in order to drag you away to their tomb, they seize you with an arm of flesh which is no better than the marble hand of the Commendatore."

EUGENE PELLETAN (eLISeE, _Voyage d'un homme a la recherche de lui-meme_).

Marcel went away disconsolate. So it was done. He was changed, another put in his place at Althausen. He had hoped for opposition, he had counted on objections from the Bishop, he thought, in short, that he would remain in suspense for some weeks, perhaps for some months, during which he would have the time to look before him and reflect; but no, all at once: "Go and tell the Abbe Ridoux that you have the cure." Well, and Suzanne? Could he leave Suzanne in this way? He had, it is true, informed her of his departure the day before; but had not everything changed since the day before? Could be abandon thus his heart which he had left behind there?

More than his heart, his whole soul, his life, the maiden who had yielded herself.

Strange contradictions. When he had believed his change far distant and still but slightly probable, he had thought he could leave Suzanne easily, arrange far away from her for secret interviews, and await events; now that this change was certain and had just become an accomplished fact, he looked upon it as a catastrophe. Instead of hastening to announce _the good news_ to Ridoux, he proceeded to roam through the streets, a.s.sailed by his thoughts.

"And I shall be obliged to live in this world which I have just caught a glimpse of, to elbow these men at every hour, to mingle in their intrigues, to blend myself in their life. That unscrupulous old Comtesse, that insolent prelate, Gaudinet, Matou, Simonet and the rest, all oozing forth hypocrisy, intrigue and vice; dreaming of one thing alone, to satisfy their ambition, their pa.s.sions, and their appet.i.tes. And these are the ministers of G.o.d! Veronica was quite right:

"'All the same, we are all the same, all.' And I am one of the least bad. I was blind and idiotic not to have cast my gaze earlier into this filthy sewer.--Blind, idiotic and deaf."

He pa.s.sed near a lofty, gloomy building. It was the Seminary. The desire came upon him to go in. Some of his old fellow-pupils had remained there, as masters or professors. But he altered his mind. What was the good? What would he do? What would he say to them? There was henceforth an abyss between him and these men who remained encrusted in the vessel of clericalism, the most uncrossable of all abysses, that which divides the thoughts. They were perhaps happy. He recalled to mind the long hours he had pa.s.sed beneath the Sacred Heart in the little chapel of an evening, amidst the wax-lights, the incense and the flowers, mingling his voice in exaltation with the voices of the young Levites, and singing senseless hymns, with his heart melting with love of G.o.d.

And he began to envy those young fanatics whose blind and unintelligent faith killed every rising thought, and who were ready to suffer martyrdom to support the ridiculous beliefs which they had been taught and which they were called upon to teach. Blind, idiotic and deaf.

"Why am I not so still!" he said; "I should believe myself the only guilty one, the only wicked and perverse one among all those apostles; I should curse my weaknesses and myself; but at least I should have faith, I should walk onward with a star upon my brow, the star of sublime follies which gives light and life, whereas I see nought around me but desolation and death. I should humble myself before the Almighty, and I should cry to him like the poet:

"'Oh Lord, oh Lord my G.o.d, thou art our Father: Pity, for thou art kind! pity for thou art great!'

"And instead of that, I am obliged to humble myself before that Bishop whom I despise, to endure the scorn of his lacqueys, and the offensive patronage of his secretary, to have the opportunity of saying:

"'A little place in your good graces, Monseigneur!' No, a thousand times no. My village, my poor belfry, my humble parsonage, my liberty, and my Suzanne!"

By his dejected look, his uncle and the Comtesse believed he had not succeeded.

--Too late! they cried. The cure is given away.

--Yes, he answered.

--To whom? To the _Sweet Jesus_, I wager. Ah, the Tartuffe.

--To me.

--And that is why you have a funereal expression?

--Yes, uncle, for I am burying for ever my tranquillity and my happiness.

--Is it only that? Madame la Comtesse, I present to you the oddest and the most extraordinary man you have ever met. Judge him yourself. He has just carried off at the first onset what he was eagerly desiring, and there he is as cheerful as a flogged donkey. Ah, my dear Madame, how difficult it is to benefit people in spite of themselves.

--That is my opinion also, said the Comtesse, looking tenderly with her little eyes, still brilliant in spite of their long service, at the young priest, for whom she felt that vague unfruitful pa.s.sion which old courtesans have for every young and handsome man; and she made him relate minutely all the details of the interview.

--Bravo! bravo, she cried. It is more than I hoped. But do not alarm yourself at the difficulties of the task. Monseigneur wishes to prove you.

I am acquainted with the parish. The Radicals have no influence there. One of them the other day took it into his head to die _civilly_ and, in spite of the protestations of some low scoundrels, he has been buried in the early morning without drum or trumpet in the criminals' hole. Two primary schools are in our hands, and with a little skill we shall have the third.

--How?

--By taking away all the means of work from the workmen who send their children there. It is a task, Monsieur le Cure, which is inc.u.mbent upon you.

--And so, said Marcel bitterly, I must try to take away their bread from the fathers.

--I suppose, said Ridoux severely, that when the interest of religion is in question, there is no reason to hesitate. Madame la Comtesse, pardon this young priest, he comes out from his village and he is still imbued with certain prejudices.

--Which we will root out, said the old lady smiling; that shall be the task for us women.

Lx.x.xVIII.

THE FAIR ONE.