The Grip of Desire Part 45

--You ought to humble yourself before G.o.d. If you wanted a young girl, if your immoderate appet.i.tes were not satisfied with what you had under your nose, is there no cautious person in the village who would have been proud and happy to be of service to you, and whom you could have married to some clodhopper or to some Chrysostom ready for the opportunity; whilst that one, whom will you give her to? There will be an uproar, I tell you, and that will be abomination.

--Really, uncle, said Marcel pale with anger, if anyone heard us, would they believe that they were listening to the conversation of two ecclesiastics? you talk of these shameful things as if you were talking of the Gospel. In fact, I do not know which to be the more astonished at, the freedom of your talk or the sad opinion which you have of me. But I see whence all this emanates. Do you take me then for a bad priest?

--What is that? Do you take me for a simpleton? for one of Moliere's uncles?... Enough of playing a farce. You do not take me in, my good fellow. I told you yesterday that you were cleverer than I; you did not see then that I was joking? Your mask is still too transparent. One sees the tears behind the grinning face. No tragic aim. Come down from this stage on which you strut in such a ridiculous manner, and let us talk seriously like plain citizens.

--Or bad priests!

--Be silent. The bad priests, that is to say the clumsy priests, which is all the same, are in your ca.s.sock; and the clumsy ones are those who allow themselves to be caught. You have been caught, my son; and caught by whom?

by your cook. Ha! Ha!

--Are you not ashamed to listen to the tale-bearing and calumny of that horrible woman?

--Horrible! Be quiet, you are blind. It is your conduct which is horrible.

To concoct such intrigues!

--I concoct no intrigue. And when that does occur; when my feelings of respect, of esteem, of friendship for a young person endowed with virtues and graces, change into a sweeter feeling: at all events, if my position compels me to conceal my inclinations from the world, I shall have no need to blush for them when face to face with myself, that is to say: with my dignity as a man. While your allusions, your instigation to certain intimacies, which in order to be more closely hidden are only the more abominable and degrading, inspire me only with disgust.

--Oh, Holy Spirit, enlighten him. He is wandering, he is a triple fool.

When I suspected, when I discovered, when I saw that you were entering on a perilous path, I gave you yesterday the advice which a priest of my age has the right to give to one of yours, especially when he is, as I am, regardful of his future.

--I am as regardful of it as you.

--Cease your idle words. Have you decided to go?

--No, uncle, I am well off here, and I stay here.

--Well off! Mouldy in your vices and obscurity. Wallowing, like Job, on your dung-heap. Roll yourself in your filth: for my part I know what course remains for me to take.

--You will do what you think proper.

--I am sure of it. But you, instead of having the excellent cure which was destined for you, you shall have one lower still than this where you can wallow at your ease in your idleness, your nothingness and your vices, for, I swear to you by my blessed patron, that if I go away without you, you shall not remain here for forty-eight hours. I will have you recalled by the Bishop. You laugh. You know me all the same; you know when I say _yes_ it is _yes_. A word is enough for Monseigneur, you know. _Magister dixit_.

Marcel knew the character of the old Cure well enough to know that he was capable of keeping his word. Fearing to irritate him more by his obstinacy, he thought it better to appear to yield.

--It is time for Ma.s.s, he said. We will talk about that again.

--Go, my son, and pray to the Holy Spirit.

LXXV.

DURING Ma.s.s.

"I have my rights of love and portion of the sun; Let us together flee ..."

A. DE VIGNY (_La Prison_).

It will easily be credited that Marcel's thoughts had little in common with the Holy Eucharist. He would have been a very ungrateful lover, if his whole soul had not flown towards Suzanne. This was then his chief preoccupation, while he murmured the long _Credo_, partook of Christ, and recited his prayers.

What should he decide? that was his second. Should he go away? That meant fortune, reconciliation with the Bishop, putting his foot in the stirrup of honours. Young, intelligent, learned, what was there to stop him?

But that meant separation from Suzanne: saying farewell to all those divine delights which he had just tasted. He had hardly time to moisten his parched lips in the cup, before the cup was shattered. He was truly in love, for he should have said to himself: "There are other cups." But for him there was but one. Uncle Ridoux, the Bishop and greatness might go to the devil. The promised cure and the episcopal mitre might go to the devil too. Did he not possess the most precious of treasures, the most enviable blessing, the supplement and complement of everything, the ambition of every young man, the desire of every old man, of every man who has a heart: a young, lovely, modest, loving, intelligent and adored mistress. But what might not be the result of that love? What drama, what tragedy, and perhaps what ludicrous comedy, in which he, the priest, would play the odious and ridiculous character?

This love, which plunged him into an ocean of delights, would it not plunge him also into an abyss of misfortunes?

Could it proceed for long without being known and remarked?

Scandal, shame, and death perhaps, a terrible trinity, were they waiting not at his door?

For the viper which harboured at his hearth, had its piercing gla.s.sy eye fixed unweariedly on him; and how could he crush the viper?

What could he do? What could he venture? He remembered hearing of priests who had fled away with young girls whom they had seduced, and he thought for an instant that he would carry off Suzanne and fly.

Willingly would he have left behind him his honour and his reputation, willingly would he have torn his priestly robe on the sharp points of infamy and scandal, willingly would he have quitted for ever that cursed parsonage where shame and humiliation, vice and remorse were henceforth installed; but Suzanne, would she follow him?

Then, had he well weighed the mortifications which await the apostate priest!

To be nameless in society, with no future, repulsed, despised, scoffed at by all!

Should he, like the Pere Hyacinth, go and found a free church in some corner of the republic, and rove through Europe, like him, to confer about morality, the rights of women and virtue?

Would not poverty come and knock at his door? Poverty with a beloved wife!

It would appear a hideous and terrifying spectre, chilling in its livid approach and in its kisses of love.

To struggle against these obstacles he would need high energy and high courage, and he felt that courage and energy were lacking in him, the miserable coward, who had shamefully succ.u.mbed to the clumsy artifices of a lascivious woman, who had allowed the first fruits of his virginity and his youth to be lost in shameful debauch; while close by there was an adorable maiden whose heart was beating in unison with his own.

Thus did his reflection lead him till the end of the Gospel, and when he said the _Deo gratias_ he had as yet decided nothing.

LXXVI.

AWAKENING.

"We never permit with impunity the mind to a.n.a.lyze the liberty to indulge in certain loves; once begin to reflect on those deep and troublesome matters which are called _pa.s.sion_ and _duty_, the soul which naturally delights in the investigation of every truth, is unable to stop in its exploration."

ERNEST FRYDEAU (_La Comtesse de Chalis_).

When Marcel had gone away, Suzanne, when she had quietly shut the street-door, by which she had gone out, went upstairs to her room and sat down on the side of her bed.

She asked herself if she had not just been the sport of an hallucination, if it was really true that a man had gone out of the house, who had held her in his arms, to whom she had yielded herself.

Everything had happened so rapidly, that she had had no time to think, to reflect, to say to herself: "What does he want with me?" no time even to recover herself.