The Grip of Desire Part 7

--Good heavens, I cried, my dear Captain, what has this poor man done to you?

--To me! nothing at all. I don't know him. He is part of the holy priesthood; that is enough for me. He is a scoundrel like the rest.

--But it is not enough to call a man scoundrel, you must prove that he is.

--Don't trouble me about your proofs. Do you suppose I am going to rummage into this gentleman's private life and see what pa.s.ses in his alcove? No, indeed, I have no desire to do so, and I leave that care to my cook.

--Come, Captain, you admit that this is to vilify a man on rather slender grounds. There are f.a.gots and f.a.gots, and so there are Cures and Cures.

This one, I a.s.sure you, is an excellent fellow.

--It may be so, but as I have no desire to make his acquaintance, I laugh at his good qualities.

--Everybody is not of your opinion, and it appears that all the women are distracted about him.

--Another reason why I detest him; women usually place their affections very badly.

--And he turns the heads of all the girls.

--That is good! Oh, the good Cure. He reminds me of the one at Djidjelly when I was a non-commissioned officer, the greatest girl-hunter that I have ever known. The Kabyles used to call him _Bou-Zeb_, which means capable of the thirteenth labour of Hercules, and they held him in high esteem, but when he went near their tents they used to make all the women go inside.

Ah! that was a famous Cure! I wish that ours resembled him, and that he would get a child out of all the girls, and that he would make cuckolds of all the husbands.

--Why so?

--To teach these idiots to let their wives and their daughters be idle and dance attendance at the churches, and relate all the details of their household and their little sins to these bullies, as to their grand-dad.

--I grant there is some danger when the confidant is a handsome bachelor.

--There is no need to be handsome, sir. With the women, the ca.s.sock gives charms to the ugliest. I have known a sweet and lovely creature become mad after one of these rogues who had a head like a pitchfork. He did with her what he wished. He made her devout, shrewish, and the worst of wh.o.r.es. Yes, yes, they say that the red breeches get over the women, but the black gown bewitches them. Explain that if you can. They want to know what is underneath that wicked ca.s.sock. Something strange, mysterious, monstrous attracts them. Women love enormities, and besides it must be said, especially and above all, forbidden fruit.

The Captain had mounted his favourite hobby, I could only let him go on.

--They are vice incarnate, and know how to employ every means to seduce.

Religion, the confessional, the bible, the Ma.s.s, Vespers, the New Testament, all the holy business is an auxiliary for them. For instance, conceive anything more disgusting than that pardon promised beforehand to guilty women. Play the wh.o.r.e all your life, deceive your husband, have fifty lovers, provided that at the end you lament your faults, G.o.d will have only tenderness for you, and will receive you with open arms. I should like to know if by chance their Jesus had taken a wife, what would have been his opinion then of the woman taken in adultery; but he remained single and consequently incompetent to decide upon that delicate matter.

All that, you see, is an encouragement to debauchery and a stimulant to lewdness. A devout woman, when she is young and pretty, is on a slope which leads quite straight to Monsieur le Cure's bed.

XVIII.

THE VISIT.

"Stupefied, the pedant closed his mouth, and opened his eyes."

LeON CLADEL (t.i.ti Foyssac IV).

If there are any beings as blind as the husbands, they are certainly the fathers; with the latter, as with the former, blindness reaches its utmost limits. Since Moliere no one laughs at them any more, and I don't know why, for they always deserve to be laughed at, while all the sarcasms have fallen on the head of the unhappy husbands.

Folly and injustice! Conjugal love is as respectable as paternal affection.

Love is as good as affection, and what the heart chooses is quite as good as what the blood gives you.

Why then do they complain if it is papa who is deceived, and laugh if it is a husband. Exactly the contrary ought to occur. Paternal love is egotistic.

It is for the most part vanity and self-love. The father looks for his own likeness in his offspring, and if he believes himself to be an eagle, his son naturally must be an eaglet. Most frequently he is only a foolish gosling, but the father insists on finding on him an eagle's plumes. If then he is deceived in his hopes, which are only a deduction from his own infatuation, it is certainly permissible to laugh at it.

While the husband....

This is what I observed to Durand, which put him in a great pa.s.sion.

--Because my daughter has gone to Ma.s.s? And you say: "fathers are blind."

Here is a self-contradictory individual. One can see plainly that you are not a father, or you would alter your theories. Hang it! You can't say I am enchanted at it, but you must put yourself in a man's place. She is a child, who leaves school, mark that well, where she was obliged, compelled to perform her religious duties, and one does not break off in a couple of days the habits of ten years like that. Give her time to reach it. I reason with her; hang it, I can't do everything in a day. When she goes from time to time to Ma.s.s, on Sunday, it does not follow that she is becoming religious. I am a free-thinker, but I am a father also, and what would you have a father do when two pretty arms take hold of your neck and a sweet little coaxing voice whispers to you, "Let me go there, my darling papa."

Hang it, one is not made of wood, after all!

--Neither is the Cure made of wood.

--You make one shiver. Can my daughter have anything in common with your peasants' Cure? I say again that it is purely for diversion that she goes to Ma.s.s. And I understand it. Where can she show her new dress? And what place is more favourable for this little display than going into and coming out of church?

--Then the Church is a spectacle like another. There are chants, music, tapers, perfumes, flowers, the half-light which comes through the coloured windows.

--Without speaking of the fellows covered with gold-tinsel who repeat in unknown language the pater-nosters to which no one listens. It is enough to make one burst with laughing, and, if I had not my cabbages to plant, I would go myself now and again and entertain myself at these masquerades which are as good as the theatres at the fair, and to complete the resemblance, it only costs a couple of sous.

--But the princ.i.p.al person of the troop attracts the looks, and the danger is there.

--Your priestling is young then?

--And vigorous. Strong appet.i.tes. When I see him rambling in the village, I begin to say: "Good people, the c.o.c.k is loose, take care of your hens." It is like your Cure of Djidjelly.

--I am easy on that ground. The black c.o.c.k will not come and rub his wings here. He knows now that he has mistaken the door; they have informed him regarding me, and he will not be so rude as to come again.

But just at that moment the servant came into the room quite scared, and said:

--Here is Monsieur le Cure.

--Who? what? said Durand; and turning towards me, Shall I receive him?

Well, we shall have a laugh!

He was still undecided, when Marcel glided into the room.

XIX.

HARD WORDS.

"I will speak, Madame, with the liberty of a soldier who knows but ill how to varnish the truth."