The Grip of Desire Part 52

As _his uncle_ had foreseen, the young Cure pleased the old lady greatly.

She examined him with satisfaction and predicted that he would make his way.

--You have not deceived me, she said to Ridoux, here is a priest such as we require. We are enc.u.mbered with awkward, ridiculous, red-raced men, who bring religion into disrepute. Why not send all those peasants back to their village, and select men like Monsieur l'Abbe? It is a shame, an absolute shame to allow you to stagnate in this way. I shall reproach Monseigneur severely for it.

--It is the fault of the Grand-Vicar Gobin, said Ridoux; he had taken a dislike to my nephew.

--I have known that. He was a very harsh and a very tiresome man. Too frozen virtue which has melted, I am told. I do not want to believe it. He is the talk of the town. It is abominable, but I do not pity him. That is what comes of not making religion amiable. Although we are old, Monsieur Marcel, we are of the new school; we firmly believe that religion and agreeable gaiety ought to proceed in harmony. We want conciliatory and amiable priests. In this way the women let themselves be won over. I may confess it to you, I who am double your age; and in so far as we shall have the women, the world is ours.

While asking himself, what influence this more than middle-aged lady could exercise over the Bishop's decisions, Marcel quickly perceived that in order to be successful, he had only to be in the good graces of this estimable dowager, and, in spite of the remembrance of Suzanne, he tried to be amiable and witty.

But soon his ideas of ambition returned to him in this sumptuous drawing-room, surrounded with comfort and luxury: he thought that he had only to wish it, in order to become himself too, one of the great of the earth, and it appeared to him that the Comtesse do Montluisant ought to be the instrument of a rapid fortune.

The old lady was one of those women, very numerous in the world, who make of religion a convenient chaperone for their intrigues and their affairs of gallantry. When they are old, and can scarcely _venture_ any longer on their own account, they generously place their experience and their small talents at another's service, and willingly a.s.sist the intrigues of others.

That is called _lending the hand_, and more than once the old lady had countenanced, through perfectly Christian charity, the secret interviews of sweet sheep with their tender pastor.

The deduction must not be made from this that all the devout are courtesans when they are young and procuresses in their ripened age.

Whatever may be said, all are not hypocritical and vicious. Vice usually comes in the long run, and hypocrisy, which oozes from the old arches of the temples, and from the antique wainscoting of the sacristies, falls at length upon their shoulders like an unwholesome drizzling rain, but for the most part they begin with conviction and good faith.

They attend church frequently, not only because it is _good form_, not only through want of occupation and through habit, but from inclination.

The melodies of the organ, the odour of incense, the singing of the choir, the meditation and silence, the flowers, the wax-tapers, the gilding, the pictures, the mysterious light which filters through the stained-gla.s.s windows, the radiant face of the Virgin, the sweet and pale countenance of Christ, the statues of the saints, the niches, the old pillars, the small chapels, all this mystic poetry pleases them, everything enchants and intoxicates them, even to the sanctimonious and hypocritical face of the beadle and the sacristan.

It is their element, their centre, their world. They attach themselves to the old nave as sailors attach themselves to their ship.

They know all the little corners and recesses of the temple. They have knelt at all the chapels and burnt tapers before all the saints. But there is always one place which they have an affection for, and where they are invariably to be found. Why? Mystery! What do they do there? Mystery again.

They remain there for whole hours, motionless, dreaming, their eyes fixed on vacancy, their thoughts one knows not where, and in their hands a book of prayers which they open from time to time as if to recall themselves to reality.

A young priest pa.s.ses by. He recognizes them. He bows and smiles to them like old acquaintances. In fact, he sees them there every day at the same place. G.o.dly sheep! They look at him pa.s.sing by, and, while pretending to read their psalms, they follow him with that deep, undefinable, mysterious look, which inspires fear.

What connection is there between their prayers and reveries, and the lively behaviour of this red-faced Abbe?

How he must laugh, and how he must inwardly despise these women, who can find no better employment for the day than to mutter _Paternosters_, devoid of meaning, before an image of wood or stone, or to remain in the vague sanctimonious contemplation of a _mysterious unknown_.

Poor women! who, better led, better instructed in their duties and mission in life, would have become excellent mothers, might have been the light and joy of some hearth which now remains deserted, and who, lost and misled by a false education and a detestable system of morality, fall into wasting mysticism, hysterical ecstasies, a contemplative and useless existence, into degrading practices and shameful superst.i.tions, and instead of being the fruitful animating springs of moral and social progress, become the pa.s.sive instruments, the unfruitful _things_ of the priest, that is to say the agents of reaction.

It is they who have caused thinkers to doubt the n.o.ble part which woman is called to fulfil; who have compelled Proudhon to say: "Woman is the desolation of the just," and that other apostle of socialism, Bebel, that she is incapable of helping in the reconst.i.tution of Society:

"_Slave of every prejudice, affected by every moral and physical malady, she will be the stumbling-block of progress. With her must be used, morally certainly, perhaps physically, the peremptory reason to the slaves of the old race: The Stick_!" We are far from the divine book of Michelet, _Love_.

No, do not let us beat woman, even with a rose, as the Arab proverb says.

She is a sick child, foolishly spoiled, who requires only to be cured and reformed by another education. The Comtesse was not like this. Skilful and intelligent, she knew _what talking meant_, and how to read in wise men's eyes and between the lines of letters. Therefore, she had learnt in good time, how to bring together two things which the profane suppose to be so opposed to one another, and which form the secret of the Temple: _Religion and pleasure_.

"And she was quite right," Veronica would have said, "for how can pleasure hurt G.o.d."

Lx.x.xIII.

CONVENTICLE.

"Je, dist Panurge, me trouve bien du conseil des femmes, et mesmement de vieilles."

RABELAIS (_Panurge_).

They took a light repast, and it was decided that Marcel should repair to the Palace that very day.

--There is no time to lose, said the Comtesse. The Cure of St. Marie is much coveted, and we have compet.i.tors in earnest. There is firstly the Abbe Matou, who is supported by all the fraternity of the Sacred Heart; he is young, active, wheedling and honey-tongued. He is the man I should choose myself, if I did not know you. He has had certainly a funny little story formerly with some communicants, but that is pa.s.sed and gone, and as, after all, he is an intelligent priest and very Ultramontane, Monseigneur would he desirous of nominating him in order to rehabilitate him in public esteem. He is dangerous.

Now we have little k.o.c.k. He has rendered important services. But he is the son of an inn-keeper, and he has common manners. Let us pa.s.s him by. There is yet the _Sweet Jesus_. Do you know the sweet Jesus, Abbe Ridoux?

--Yes, it is the Abbe Simonet.

--The Abbe Simonet, said Marcel, I know him; we were together at the Seminary. Do they call him the sweet Jesus? He was a terrible lazy fellow.

--Well, he is not so among the ladies, I a.s.sure you They all are madly in love with him. He confesses the wives of the large and small shop-keepers, and he has enough to do. The gentry used to go to the Abbe Gobin. Now he has gone away, what will become of all the sinners of the Old-Town?

Supposing they were all to fall upon that poor Simonet! It is enough to make one shudder. Dear _Sweet Jesus_! When I see him wandering in the Cathedral with his long fair hair, and his down-cast eyes, I understand the infatuation of the women. He is nice enough to eat; yes, gentlemen, to eat.

Ah, you do not know as well as we do, how religion gains by young and handsome pastors for its interpreters, and with what rapidity the holy flock increases. It is an astonishing thing. I fear that we must strive very hard against the _Sweet Jesus_.

--We will strive, said Ridoux.

--And we will employ every means. Go, dear Abbe, hasten to Monseigneur's, he is warned of your visit, and before entering on the struggle, it is well to reconnoitre the ground. Go, I have good hopes that we shall have St.

Marie.

Thus Marcel found himself enlisted, in spite of himself. The Cure of St.

Marie was, to tell the truth, perfectly indifferent to him. That one or another mattered to him but little. He had considered that it was perhaps indispensable that he should quit Althausen for the sake of his reputation and the tranquillity of his heart. His heart? Was it then no longer Suzanne's? More than ever: but he thought by this time that if there are reconciliations with heaven, there were none such with his maid-servant, and that to rid himself of her, he must first quit Althausen. Suzanne from time to time could come to Nancy, and it was much more easy and less perilous for him to contrive interviews with her there, than in that village where they were spied upon by all. Afterwards they would see....

Lx.x.xIV.

AT THE PALACE.

"This world is a great ball where fools, disguised Under the laughable names of Eminence and Highness Think to swell out their being and exalt their baseness In vain does the equipage of vanity amaze us; Mortals are equal: 'tis but their mark is different."

VOLTAIRE (_Discourse sur l'Homme_).

Marcel felt oppressed at heart, when he put his foot again, for the first time after five years, within the episcopal Palace.

It was there formerly--five years ago, quite an abyss--he had dreamed of a future embroidered with gold and silk, but it was there also that he had seen his first illusions and his inmost beliefs flee away.

Nothing had changed; the Palace was always the same; there were the same faces, the same porter with the wan complexion, the same attendants, at once haughty and servile. Nevertheless, n.o.body recognized him. This priest, browned by the sun, old before his years through disappointment, almost bent beneath the load of his secret troubles, was different from the young and brilliant curate, who, full of hope had launched himself formerly into the illimitable future.

The lacqueys of the episcopal palace saluted him respectfully for his good looks; but when he gave his name, they eyed from head to foot with disdain and insolence this obscure country Cure, of whose disgrace they were aware.