II
Abbé Mouret, now wearing his cassock but still bareheaded, had come back to kneel at the foot of the altar. In the grey light that streamed through the window, his tonsure showed like a large livid spot amidst his hair; and a slight quiver, as if from cold, sped down his neck. With his hands tightly clasped he was praying earnestly, so absorbed in his devotions that he did not hear the heavy footsteps of La Teuse, who hovered around without daring to disturb him. She seemed to be grieved at seeing him bowed down there on his knees. For a moment, she thought that he was in tears, and thereupon she went behind the altar to watch him. Since his return, she had never liked to leave him in the church alone, for one evening she had found him lying in a dead faint upon the flagstones, with icy lips and clenched teeth, like a corpse.
‘Come in, mademoiselle!’ she said to Desirée, who was peeping through the vestry-doorway. ‘He is still here, and he will lay himself up. You know you are the only person that he will listen to.’
‘It is breakfast-time,’ she replied softly, ‘and I am very hungry.’
Then she gently sidled up to the priest, passed an arm round his neck, and kissed him.
‘Good morning, brother,’ she said. ‘Do you want to make me die of hunger this morning?’
The face he turned upon her was so intensely sad, that she kissed him again on both his cheeks. He was emerging from agony. Then, on recognising her, he tried to put her from him, but she kept hold of one of his hands and would not release it. She would scarcely allow him to cross himself, but insisted upon leading him away.
‘Come! Come! for I am very hungry. You must be hungry too.’
La Teuse had laid out the breakfast beneath two big mulberry trees, whose spreading branches formed a sheltering roof at the bottom of the little garden. The sun, which had at last succeeded in dissipating the stormy-looking vapours of early morning, was warming the beds of vegetables, while the mulberry-trees cast a broad shadow over the rickety table, on which were laid two cups of milk and some thick slices of bread.
‘You see how nice it looks,’ said Desirée, delighted at breakfasting in the fresh air.
She was already cutting some of the bread into strips, which she ate with eager appetite. And as she saw La Teuse still standing in front of them, she said, ‘Why don’t you eat something?’
‘I shall, presently,’ the old servant answered. ‘My soup is warming.’
Then, after a moment’s silence, looking with admiration at the girl’s big bites, she said to the priest: ‘It is quite a pleasure to see her. Doesn’t she make you feel hungry, Monsieur le Curé? You should force yourself.’
Abbé Mouret smiled as he glanced at his sister. ‘Yes, yes,’ he murmured; ‘she gets on famously, she grows fatter every day.’
‘That’s because I eat,’ said Desirée. ‘If you would eat you would get fat, too. Are you ill again? You look very melancholy. I don’t want to have it all over again, you know. I was so very lonely when they took you away to cure you.’
‘She is right,’ said La Teuse. ‘You don’t behave reasonably, Monsieur le Curé. You can’t expect to be strong, living, as you do, on two or three crumbs a day, as though you were a bird. You don’t make blood; and that’s why you are so pale. Don’t you feel ashamed of keeping as thin as a lath when we are so fat; we who are only women? People will begin to think that we gobble up everything and leave you nothing but the empty plates.’
Then both La Teuse and Desirée, brimful of health and strength, scolded him affectionately. His eyes seemed very large and bright, but empty, expressionless. He was still gently smiling.
‘I am not ill,’ he said; ‘I have nearly finished my milk.’ He had swallowed two mouthfuls of it, but had not touched the bread.
‘The animals, now,’ said Desirée, thoughtfully, ‘seem to get on much more comfortably than we do. The fowls never have headaches, have they? The rabbits grow as fat as ever one wants them to be. And you never saw my pig looking sad.’
Then, turning towards her brother, she went on with an air of rapture:
‘I have named it Matthew, because it is so like that fat man who brings the letters. It is growing so big and strong. It is very unkind of you to refuse to come and look at it as you always do. You will come to see it some day, won’t you?’
While she was thus talking she had laid hold of her brother’s share of bread, and was eating away at it. She had already finished one piece, and was beginning the second, when La Teuse became aware of what she was doing.
‘That doesn’t belong to you, that bread! You are actually stealing his food from him now!’
‘Let her have it,’ said Abbé Mouret, gently. ‘I shouldn’t have touched it myself. Eat it all, my dear, eat it all.’
For a moment Desirée fell into confusion, with her eyes fixed upon the bread, whilst she struggled to check her rising tears. Then she began to laugh, and finished the slice.
‘My cow,’ said she, continuing her remarks, ‘is never as sad as you are. You were not here when uncle Pascal gave her to me, on the promise that I would be a good girl, or you would have seen how pleased she was when I kissed her for the first time.’
She paused to listen. A cock crowed in the yard, and a great uproar followed, with flapping of wings and cackling, grunting, and hoarse cries as if the whole yard were in a state of commotion.
‘Ah! you know,’ resumed Desirée, clapping her hands, ‘she must be in calf now. I took her to the bull at Beage, three leagues from here. There are very few bulls hereabouts, you know.’
La Teuse shrugged her shoulders, and glanced at the priest with an expression of annoyance.
‘It would be much better, mademoiselle,’ said she, ‘if you were to go and quiet your fowls. They all seem to be murdering one another.’
Indeed, the uproar in the yard had now become so great that the girl was already hurrying off with a great rustling of her petticoats, when the priest called her back. ‘The milk, my dear; you have not finished the milk.’
He held out his cup to her, which he had scarcely touched. And she came back and drank the milk without the slightest scruple, in spite of La Teuse’s angry look. Then she again set off for the poultry-yard, where they soon heard her reducing the fowls to peace and order. She had, perhaps, sat down in the midst of them, for she could be heard gently humming as though she were trying to lull them to sleep.
III
‘Now my soup is too hot!’ grumbled La Teuse, as she returned from the kitchen with a basin, from which a wooden spoon was projecting.
She placed herself just in front of Abbé Mouret, and began to eat very cautiously from the edge of the spoon. She wanted to enliven the Abbé and to draw him out of his melancholy moodiness. Ever since he had returned from the Paradou, he had declared himself well again, and had never complained. Often, indeed, he smiled in so soft and sweet a fashion, that his fever seemed to have increased his saintliness, at least so thought the villagers. But, at intervals, he had fits of gloomy silence, and appeared to be suffering torture which he strove to bear uncomplainingly. It was a mute agony which bore down upon him, and, for hours at a time, left him stupefied, a prey to a frightful inward struggle, the violence of which could only be guessed by the sweat of anguish that streamed down his face.
At such times La Teuse refused to leave him, and overwhelmed him with a torrent of gossip, until he had gradually recovered tranquillity by crushing the rebellion of his blood. On that particular morning, the old servant foresaw a more grievous attack than usual, and poured forth an amazing flood of talk, while continuing her wary manoeuvres with the spoon, which threatened to burn her tongue.
‘Well, well,’ said she, ‘one has to live among a lot of wild beasts to see such goings-on. Would any one ever think in a decent village of being married by candlelight? It shows what a poor sort these Artauds are. When I was in Normandy, I used to see weddings that threw every one into commotion for a couple of leagues round. They would feast for three whole days. The priest would be there, and the mayor, too; and at the marriage of one of my cousins, all the firemen came as well. And didn’t they have a fine time of it! But to make a priest get up before sunrise and marry people before even the chickens have left their roost, why, there’s no sense in it! If I had been your reverence, I should have refused to do it. You haven’t had your proper sleep, and you may have caught cold in the church. It is that which has upset you. Besides which it would be better to marry brute beasts than that Rosalie and her ugly lout. That brat of theirs dirtied one of the chairs.—But you ought to tell me when you feel poorly, and I could make you something warm.—Eh! Monsieur le Curé, speak to me!’
He answered, in a feeble voice, that he was quite well, and only needed a little fresh air. He had just leant against one of the mulberry-trees, and was breathing rather quickly, as if faint.
‘Oh! all right,’ went on La Teuse, ‘do just as you like. Go on marrying people when you haven’t the strength for it, and when you know very well that it’s bound to upset you. I knew how it would be; I told you so yesterday. And if you took my advice, you wouldn’t stay where you are. The smell of the yard is bad for you. It is frightful just now. I can’t imagine what Mademoiselle Desirée can be stirring about there. She’s singing away, and doesn’t seem to mind it at all. Ah! that reminds me of something I want to tell you. You know that I did all I could to keep her from taking the cow to Beage; but she’s like you, obstinate, and will go her own way. Fortunately, however, for her, she’s none the worse for it. She delights to be amongst the animals and their young ones. But come now, your reverence, do be reasonable. Let me take you to your room. You must lie down and rest a little. What, you don’t want to! Well, then, so much the worse for you, if you suffer! Besides, it’s absurd to keep one’s worries locked up in one’s heart till they stifle one.’
Then, in her indignation, she hastily swallowed a big spoonful of soup at the risk of burning her throat. She rattled the handle of the spoon against the bowl, muttering and grumbling to herself.
‘There never was such a man,’ said she. ‘He would die rather than say a word. But it’s all very well for him to keep silent. I know quite enough, and it doesn’t require much cleverness to guess the rest. Well! well! let him keep it to himself. I dare say it is better.’
La Teuse was jealous. Dr. Pascal had had a tremendous fight with her in order to get her patient away at the time when he had come to the conclusion that the young priest’s case would be quite hopeless if he should remain at the parsonage. He had then explained to her that the sound of the bell would aggravate and intensify Serge’s fever, that the religious pictures and statuettes scattered about his room would fill his brain with hallucinations, and that entirely new surroundings were necessary if he was to be restored to health and strength and peacefulness of mind. She, however, had vigorously shaken her head, and declared that her ‘dear child’ would nowhere find a better nurse than herself. Still, she had ended by yielding. She had even resigned herself to seeing him go to the Paradou, though protesting against this selection of the doctor’s, which astonished her. But she retained a strong feeling of hatred for the Paradou; and she was hurt by the silence which Abbé Mouret maintained as to the time he had spent there. She had frequently laid all sorts of unsuccessful traps to induce him to talk of it. That morning, exasperated by his ghastly pallor, and his obstinacy in suffering in silence, she ended by waving her spoon about and crying:
‘You should go back yonder again, Monsieur le Curé, if you were so happy there—I dare say there is some one there who would nurse you better than I do.’
It was the first time she had ventured upon a direct allusion to her suspicions. The blow was so painful to the priest that he could not check a slight cry, as he raised his grief-racked countenance. At this La Teuse’s kindly heart was filled with regret.
‘Ah!’ she murmured, ‘it is all the fault of your uncle Pascal. I told him what it would be. But those clever men cling so obstinately to their own ideas. Some of them would kill you, just for the sake of rummaging in your body afterwards—It made me so angry that I would never speak of it to any one. Yes, Monsieur le Curé, you have me to thank that nobody knew where you were; I was so angry about it. I thought it abominable! When Abbé Guyot, from Saint-Eutrope, who took your place during your absence, came to say mass here on Sundays, I told him all sorts of stories. I said you had gone to Switzerland. I don’t even know where Switzerland is.—Well! well! I surely don’t want to say anything to pain you, but it was certainly over yonder that you got your trouble. Very finely they’ve cured you indeed! It would have been very much better if they had left you with me. I shouldn’t have thought of trying to turn your head.’
Abbé Mouret, whose brow was again lowered, made no attempt to interrupt her. La Teuse had seated herself upon the ground a few yards away from him, in order if possible to catch his eye. And she went on again in her motherly way, delighted at his seeming complacency in listening to her.
‘You would never let me tell you about Abbé Caffin. As soon as I began to speak of him, you always made me stop. Well, well; Abbé Caffin had had his troubles in my part of the world, at Canteleu. And yet he was a very holy man, with an irreproachable character. But, you see, he was a man of very delicate taste, and liked soft pretty things. Well, there was a young party who was always prowling round him, the daughter of a miller, whom her parents had sent to a boarding-school. Well, to put it shortly, what was likely to happen did happen. When the story got about, all the neighbourhood was very indignant with the Abbé. But he managed to escape to Rouen, and poured out his grief to the Archbishop there. Then he was sent here. The poor man was punished quite enough by being made to live in this hole of a place. I heard of the girl afterwards. She had married a cattle-dealer, and was very happy.’
La Teuse, delighted at having been allowed to tell her story, interpreted the priest’s silence as an encouragement to continue her gossiping. So she drew a little nearer to him and said:
‘He was very friendly with me, was good Monsieur Caffin, and often spoke to me of his sin. It won’t keep him out of heaven, I’m sure. He can rest quite peacefully out there under the turf, for he never harmed any one. For my part, I can’t understand why people should get so angry with a priest when such a thing unhappily befalls him. Of course it’s wrong, and likely to anger God; but then one can confess and repent, and get absolution. Isn’t it so, your reverence, that when one truly repents, one is saved in spite of one’s sins?’
Abbé Mouret slowly raised his head. By a supreme effort he had overcome his agony, and though his face was still very pale, he exclaimed in a firm voice, ‘One should never sin; never! never!’
‘Ah! sir,’ cried the old servant, ‘you are too proud and reserved. It is not a nice thing, that pride of yours.—If I were in your place, I would not harden myself like that. I would talk of what was troubling me, and not try to rend my heart in pieces. You should reconcile yourself to the separation gradually. The worry wears off little by little. But, instead of that, you won’t even allow people’s names to be uttered. You forbid them to be mentioned. It is as though they were dead. Since you came back, I have not dared to tell you the least bit of news. Well, well, I am going to speak now, and I shall tell you all I know; because I see quite well that it is all this silence that is preying upon your heart.’
He looked at her sternly, and lifted his finger to silence her.
‘Yes, yes,’ she went on, ‘I get news from over yonder, very often indeed, and I am going to tell it to you. To begin with, there is some one there who is no happier than you are.’
‘Silence! Silence!’ said Abbé Mouret, summoning all his strength to rise and move away.
But La Teuse also rose and barred his way with her bulky figure. She was angry, and cried out:
‘There, you see, you want to be off already! But you are going to listen to me. You know quite well that I am not over fond of the people yonder, don’t you? If I talk to you about them, it is for your own good. Some people say that I am jealous. Well, one day I mean to take you over there. You would be with me, and you wouldn’t be afraid of any harm happening. Will you go?’
He motioned her away from him with his hands, and his face was calm again as he said:
‘I desire nothing. I wish to know nothing. There is high mass to-morrow. You must see that the altar is made ready.’
Then, as he walked away, he added, smiling:
‘Don’t be uneasy, my good Teuse. I am stronger than you imagine. I shall be able to cure myself without any one’s assistance.’
With these words he went off, bearing himself sturdily, with his head erect, for he had vanquished his feelings. His cassock rustled very gently against the borders of thyme. La Teuse, who for a moment had remained rooted to the spot where she was standing, sulkily picked up her basin and wooden spoon. Then, shrugging her big shoulders again and again, she mumbled between her teeth:
‘That’s all bravado of his. He imagines that he is differently made from other men, just because he is a priest. Well, as a matter of fact, he is very firm and determined. I have known some who wouldn’t have had to be wheedled so long. And he is quite capable of crushing his heart, just as one might crush a flea. It must be the Almighty who gives him his strength.’
As she returned to the kitchen she saw Abbé Mouret standing by the gate of the farmyard. Desirée had stopped him there to make him feel a capon which she had been fattening for some weeks past. He told her pleasantly that it was very heavy, and the big child chuckled with glee.
‘Ah! well,’ said La Teuse in a fury, ‘that bird has got to crush its heart too. But then it can’t help itself.’
IV
Abbé Mouret spent his days at the parsonage. He shunned the long walks which he had been wont to take before his illness. The scorched soil of Les Artaud, the ardent heat of that valley where the vines could never even grow straight, distressed him. On two occasions, in the morning, he had attempted to go out and read his breviary as he strolled along the road; but he had not gone beyond the village. He had returned home, overcome by the perfumes, the heat, the breadth of the landscape. It was only in the evening, in the cool twilight air, that he ventured to saunter a little in front of the church, on the terrace which led to the graveyard. In the afternoons, to fill up his time, and satisfy his craving for some kind of occupation, he had imposed upon himself the task of pasting paper over the broken panes of the church windows, This had kept him for a week mounted on a ladder, arranging his paper panes with great exactness, and laying on the paste with the most scrupulous care in order to avoid any mess.
La Teuse stood at the foot of the ladder and watched him. And Desirée urged that he must not fill up all the windows, or else the sparrows would no longer be able to get through. To please her, the priest left a pane or two in each window unfilled. Then, having completed these repairs, he was seized with the ambition of decorating the church, without summoning to his aid either mason or carpenter or painter. He would do it all himself. This sort of handiwork would amuse him, he said, and help to bring back his strength. Uncle Pascal encouraged him every time he called at the parsonage, assuring him that such exercise and fatigue were better than all the drugs in the world. And so Abbé Mouret began to stop up the holes in the walls with plaster, to drive fresh nails into the disjoined altars, and to crush and mix paints, in order that he might put a new coating on the pulpit and confessional-box. It was quite an event in the district, and folks talked of it for a couple of leagues round. Peasants would come and stand gazing, with their hands behind their backs, at his reverence’s work. The Abbé himself, with a blue apron tied round his waist, and his hands all soiled with his labour, became absorbed in it, and used it as an excuse for no longer going out. He spent his days in the midst of his repairs, and was more tranquil than he had been before; almost cheerful, indeed, as he forgot the outer world, the trees and the sunshine and the warm breezes, which had formerly disturbed him so much.
‘Monsieur le Curé is free to do as he pleases, since the parish hasn’t got to find the money,’ said old Bambousse, who came round every evening to see how the work was progressing.
Abbé Mouret spent all his savings on it. Some of his decorations, indeed, were so awkward that they would have excited many people’s smiles. The replastering of the stonework soon tired him: so he contented himself with patching up the church walls all round to a height of some six feet from the ground. La Teuse mixed the plaster. When she talked of repairing the parsonage as well, for she was continually fearing that it would topple down on their heads, he told her that he did not think he could manage it, that a regular workman would be necessary; a reply which led to a terrible quarrel between them. La Teuse said it was quite ridiculous to go on ornamenting the church, where nobody slept, while their bedrooms were in such a crazy condition, for she was quite sure they would all be found, one morning, crushed to death by the fallen ceilings.
‘I shall end by bringing my bed here, and placing it behind the altar,’ she grumbled. ‘I feel quite terrified sometimes at night.’
However, when the plaster was all used up, she said no more about repairing the parsonage. The painting which the priest executed quite delighted her. It was the chief charm of the improvements. The Abbé, who had repaired the woodwork everywhere with bits of boards, took particular pleasure in spreading his big brush, dipped in bright yellow paint, over all this woodwork. The gentle, up-and-down motion of the brush lulled him, left him thoughtless for hours whilst he gazed on the oily streaks of paint. When everything was quite yellow, the pulpit, the confessional-box, the altar rails, even the clock-case itself, he ventured to try his hand at imitation marble work by way of touching up the high altar. Then, growing bolder, he painted it all over. Glistening with white and yellow and blue, it was pronounced superb. People who had not been to mass for fifty years streamed into the church to see it.
And now the paint was dry. All that remained for Abbé Mouret to do was to edge the panels with brown beading. So, that afternoon, he set to work at it, wishing to get it done by evening; for on the following day, as he had reminded La Teuse, there would be high mass. She was there ready to arrange the altar. She had already placed on the credence the candlesticks and the silver cross, the porcelain vases filled with artificial roses, and the laced cloth which was only used on great festivals. The beading, however, proved so difficult of execution, that it was not completed till late in the evening. It was growing quite dark as the Abbé finished his last panel.
‘It will be really too beautiful,’ said a rough voice from amidst the greyish gloom of twilight which was filling the church.
La Teuse, who had knelt down to get a better view of the Abbé’s brush as it glided along his rule, started with alarm.
‘Ah! it’s Brother Archangias,’ she said, turning round. ‘You came in by the sacristy then? You gave me quite a turn. Your voice seemed to sound from under the floor.’
Abbé Mouret had resumed his work, after greeting the Brother with a slight nod. The Brother remained standing there in silence, with his fat hands clasped in front of his cassock. Then, shrugging his shoulders, as he observed with what scrupulous care the priest sought to make his beading perfectly straight, he repeated:
‘It will be really too beautiful.’
La Teuse, who knelt near by in ecstasy, started again.
‘Dear me!’ she said, ‘I had quite forgotten you were there. You really ought to cough before you speak. You have a voice that comes on one so suddenly that one might think it was a voice from the grave.’
She rose up and drew back a little the better to admire the Abbé’s work.
‘Why too beautiful?’ she asked. ‘Nothing can be too beautiful when it is done for the Almighty. If his reverence had only had some gold, he would have done it with gold, I’m sure.’
When the priest had finished, she hastened to change the altar-cloth, taking the greatest care not to smudge the beading. Then she arranged the cross, the candlesticks, and the vases symmetrically. Abbé Mouret had gone to lean against the wooden screen which separated the choir from the nave, by the side of Brother Archangias. Not a word passed between them. Their eyes were fixed upon the silver crucifix, which, in the increasing gloom, still cast some glimmer of light on the feet and the left side and the right temple of the big Christ. When La Teuse had finished, she came down towards them, triumphantly.
‘Doesn’t it look lovely?’ she asked. ‘Just you see what a crowd there will be at mass to-morrow! Those heathens will only come to God’s house when they think He is well-to-do. Now, Monsieur le Curé, we must do as much for the Blessed Virgin’s altar.’
‘Waste of money!’ growled Brother Archangias.
But La Teuse flew into a tantrum; and, as Abbé Mouret remained silent, she led them both before the altar of the Virgin, pushing them and dragging them by their cassocks.
‘Just look at it,’ said she; ‘it is too shabby for anything, now that the high altar is so smart. It looks as though it had never been painted at all. However much I may rub it of a morning, the dust sticks to it. It is quite black; it is filthy. Do you know what people will say about you, your reverence? They will say that you care nothing for the Blessed Virgin; that’s what they’ll say.’
‘Well, what of it?’ queried Brother Archangias.
La Teuse looked at him, half suffocated by indignation.
‘What of it? It would be sinful, of course,’ she muttered. ‘This altar is like a neglected tomb in a graveyard. If it were not for me, the spiders would spin their webs across it, and moss would soon grow over it. From time to time, when I can spare a bunch of flowers, I give it to the Virgin. All the flowers in our garden used to be for her once.’
She had mounted the altar steps, and she took up two withered bunches of flowers, which had been left there, forgotten.
‘See! it is just as it is in the graveyards,’ she said, throwing the flowers at Abbé Mouret’s feet.
He picked them up, without replying. It was quite dark now, and Brother Archangias stumbled about amongst the chairs and nearly fell. He growled and muttered some angry words, in which the names of Jesus and Mary recurred. When La Teuse, who had gone for a lamp, returned into the church, she asked the priest:
‘So I can put the brushes and pots away in the attic, then?’
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I have finished. We will see about the rest later on.’
She walked away in front of them, carrying all the things with her, and keeping silence, lest she should say too much. And as Abbé Mouret had kept the withered bunches of flowers in his hand, Brother Archangias said to him, as they passed the farmyard: ‘Throw those things away.’
The Abbé took a few steps more, with downcast head; and then over the palings he flung the flowers upon a manure-heap.
V
The Brother, who had already had his own meal, seated himself astride a chair, while the priest dined. Since Serge’s return to Les Artaud, the Brother had thus spent most of his evenings at the parsonage; but never before had he imposed his presence upon the other in so rough a fashion. He stamped on the tiled floor with his heavy boots, his voice thundered and he smote the furniture, whilst he related how he had whipped some of his pupils that morning, or expounded his moral principles in terms as stern, as uncompromising as bludgeon-blows. Then feeling bored, he suggested that he and La Teuse should have a game at cards. They had endless bouts of ‘Beggar-my-neighbour’ together, that being the only game which La Teuse had ever been able to learn. Abbé Mouret would smilingly glance at the first few cards flung on the table and would then gradually sink into reverie, remaining for hours forgetful of his self-restraint, oblivious of his surroundings, beneath the suspicious glances of Brother Archangias.
That evening La Teuse felt so cross that she had talked of going to bed as soon as the cloth was removed. The Brother, however, wanted his game of cards. So he caught hold of her shoulders and sat her down, so roughly that the chair creaked beneath her. And forthwith he began to shuffle the cards. Desirée, who hated him, had gone off carrying her dessert, which she generally took upstairs with her every evening to eat in bed.
‘I want the red cards,’ said La Teuse.
Then the struggle began. The old woman at first won some of the Brother’s best cards. But before long two aces fell together on the table.
‘Here’s a battle!’ she cried, wild with excitement.
She threw down a nine, which rather alarmed her, but as the Brother, in his turn, only put down a seven, she picked up the cards with a triumphant air. At the end of half an hour, however, she had only gained two aces, so that the chances remained fairly equal. And a quarter of an hour later she lost an ace. The knaves and kings and queens were perpetually coming and going as the battle furiously progressed.
‘It’s a splendid game, eh?’ said Brother Archangias, turning towards Abbé Mouret.
But when he saw him sitting there, so absorbed in his reverie, with such a gentle smile playing unconsciously round his lips, he roughly raised his voice:
‘Why, Monsieur le Curé, you are not paying any attention to us! It isn’t polite of you. We are only playing on your account. We were trying to amuse you. Come and watch the game. It would do you more good than dozing and dreaming away there. Where were you just now?’
The priest started. He said nothing, but with quivering eyelids tried to force himself to look at the game. The play went on vigorously. La Teuse won her ace back, and then lost it again. On some evenings they would fight in this way over the aces for quite four hours, and often they would go off to bed, angry at having failed to bring the contest to a decisive issue.
‘But, dear me! I’ve only just remembered it!’ suddenly cried La Teuse, who greatly feared that she was going to be beaten. ‘His reverence has to go out to-night. He promised Fortune and Rosalie that he would go to bless their room, according to the custom. Make haste, Monsieur le Curé! The Brother will go with you.’
Abbé Mouret had already risen from his chair, and was looking for his hat. But Brother Archangias, still holding his cards, flew into a tantrum: ‘Oh! don’t bother about it,’ said he. ‘What does it want to be blessed for that pigsty of theirs? It is a custom that you should do away with. I can’t see any sense in it. Stay here and let us finish the game. That is much the best thing to do.’
‘No,’ said the priest, ‘I promised to go. Those good people might feel hurt if I didn’t. You stay here and play your game out while you are waiting for me.’
La Teuse glanced uneasily at Brother Archangias.
‘Well, yes, I will stay here,’ cried the Brother. ‘It is really too absurd.’
But before Abbé Mouret could open the door, he flung his cards on the table and rose to follow him. Then half turning back he called to La Teuse:
‘I should have won. Leave the cards as they are, and we will play the game out to-morrow.’
‘Oh! they are all mixed now,’ answered the old servant, who had lost no time in shuffling them together. ‘Did you suppose that I was going to put your hand away under a glass case? And, besides, I might very well have won, for I still had an ace left.’
A few strides brought Brother Archangias up with Abbé Mouret, who was walking down the narrow path that led to the village. The Brother had undertaken the task of keeping watch over the Abbé’s movements. He incessantly played the spy upon him, accompanying him everywhere, or, if he could not go in person, sending some school urchin to follow him. With that terrible laugh of his, he was wont to remark that he was ‘God’s gendarme.’
And, in truth, the Abbé seemed like a culprit ever guarded by the black shadow of the Brother’s cassock; a culprit to be treated distrustfully, since in his weakness he might well lapse into fresh crime were he left free from surveillance for a single moment. Thus he was watched and guarded with all the spiteful eagerness that some jealous old maid might have displayed, the overreaching zeal of a gaoler who might carry precautions so far as to exclude even such rays of light as might creep through the chinks of the prison-house. Brother Archangias was always on the watch to keep out the sunlight, to prevent even a whiff of air from entering, to shut up his prison so completely that nothing from outside could gain access to it. He noted the Abbé’s slightest fits of weakness, and by his glance divined his tender thoughts, which with a word he pitilessly crushed, as though they were poisonous vermin. The priest’s intervals of silence, his smiles, the paling of his brow, the faint quivering of his limbs, were all noted by the Brother. But he never spoke openly of the transgression. His presence alone was a sufficient reproach. The manner in which he uttered certain words imparted to them all the sting of a whip stroke. With a mere gesture he expressed his utter disgust for the priest’s sin. Like one of those betrayed husbands who enjoy torturing their wives with cruel allusions, he contented himself with recalling the scene at the Paradou, in an indirect fashion, by some word or phrase which sufficed to annihilate the Abbé, whenever the latter’s flesh rebelled.
It was nearly ten o’clock and most of the villagers of Les Artaud had retired to rest. But from a brightly lighted house at the far end, near the mill, there still came sounds of merriment. While keeping the best rooms for his own use, old Bambousse had given a corner of his house to his daughter and son-in-law. They were all assembled there, drinking a last glass, while waiting for the priest.
‘They are drunk,’ growled Brother Archangias. ‘Don’t you hear the row they are making?’
Abbé Mouret made no reply. It was a lovely night and all looked bluish in the moonlight, which lent to the distant part of the valley the aspect of a sleeping lake. The priest slackened his pace that he might the more fully enjoy the charm of that soft radiance, and now and then he even stopped as he came upon some expanse of light, experiencing the delightful quiver which the proximity of fresh water brings one on a hot day. But the Brother continued striding along, grumbling and calling him.
‘Come along; come along! It isn’t good to loiter out of doors at this time of night. You would be much better in bed.’
All at once, however, just as they were entering the village, Archangias himself stopped short in the middle of the road. He was looking towards the heights, where the white lines of the roads vanished amidst black patches of pine-woods, and he growled to himself, like a dog that scents danger.
‘Who can be coming down so late?’ he muttered.
But the priest, who neither saw nor heard anything, was now, in his turn, anxious to press on.
‘Stay! stay! there he is,’ eagerly added Brother Archangias. ‘He has just turned the corner. See! he is in the moonlight now. One can see him plainly. It is a tall man, with a stick.’
Then, after a moment’s silence, he resumed, in a voice husky with fury: ‘It is he, that beggar! I felt sure it was!’
Thereupon, the new-comer having now reached the bottom of the hill, Abbé Mouret saw that it was Jeanbernat. In spite of his eighty years, the old man set his feet down with such force, that his heavy, nailed boots sent sparks flying from the flints on the road. And he walked along as upright as an oak, without the aid of his stick, which he carried across his shoulder like a musket.
‘Ah! the villain!’ stammered the Brother, still standing motionless. ‘May the fiend light all the blazes of hell under his feet!’
The priest, who felt greatly disturbed, and despaired of inducing his companion to come on, turned round to continue his journey, hoping that, by a quick walk to the Bambousses’ house, he might yet manage to avoid Jeanbernat. But he had not taken five strides before he heard the bantering voice of the old man close behind him.
‘Hie! Curé! wait for me. Are you afraid of me?’
And as Abbé Mouret stopped, he came up and continued: ‘Ah! those cassocks of yours are tiresome things, aren’t they? They prevent your getting along too quickly. It’s such a fine clear night, too, that one can recognise you by your gown a long way off. When I was right at the top of the hill, I said to myself, “Surely that is the little priest down yonder.” Oh! yes, I still have very good eyes.... Well, so you never come to see us now?’
‘I have had so much to do,’ murmured the priest, who had turned very pale.
‘Well, well, every one’s free to please himself. If I’ve mentioned the matter, it’s only because I want you to know that I don’t bear you any grudge for being a priest. We wouldn’t even talk about your religion, it’s all one and the same to me. But the little one thinks that it’s I who prevents your coming. I said to her, “The priest is an idiot,” and I think so, indeed. Did I try to eat you during your illness? Why, I didn’t even go upstairs to see you. Every one’s free, you know.’
He spoke on in the most unconcerned manner, pretending that he did not notice the presence of Brother Archangias; but as the latter suddenly broke into an angry grunt, he added, ‘Why, Curé, so you bring your pig out with you?’
‘Take care, you bandit!’ hissed the Brother, clenching his fists.
Jeanbernat, whose stick was still raised, then pretended to recognise him.
‘Hands off!’ he cried. ‘Ah! it’s you, you soul-saver! I ought to have known you by your smell. We have a little account to settle together, remember. I have sworn to cut off your ears in the middle of your school. It will amuse the children you are poisoning.’
The Brother fell back before the raised staff, a flood of abuse rising to his lips; but he began to stammer and went on disjointedly:
‘I will set the gendarmes after you, scoundrel! You spat on the church; I saw you. You give the plague to the poor people who merely pass your door. At Saint-Eutrope you made a girl die by forcing her to chew a consecrated wafer which you had stolen. At Beage you went and dug up the bodies of little dead children and carried them away on your back. You are an old sorcerer! Everybody knows it, you scoundrel! You are the disgrace of the district. Whoever strangles you will gain heaven for the deed.’
The old man listened with a sneer, twirling the while his staff between his fingers. And between the Brother’s successive insults he ejaculated in an undertone:
‘Go on, go on; relieve yourself, you viper. I’ll break your back for you by-and-by.’
Abbé Mouret tried to interfere, but Brother Archangias pushed him away, exclaiming: ‘You are led by him yourself! Didn’t he make you trample upon the cross? Deny it, if you dare!’ Then again, turning to Jeanbernat, he yelled: ‘Ah! Satan, you must have chuckled and no mistake when you held a priest in your grasp! May Heaven curse those who abetted you in that sacrilege! What was it you did, at night, while he slept? You came and moistened his tonsure with your saliva, eh? so that his hair might grow more quickly. And then you breathed upon his chin and his cheeks that his beard might grow a hand’s breadth in a single night. And you rubbed all your philters into his body, and breathed into his mouth the lasciviousness of a dog. You turned him into a brute-beast, Satan.’
‘He’s idiotic,’ said Jeanbernat, resting his stick on his shoulder. ‘He quite bores me.’
The Brother, however, growing bolder, thrust his fists under the old man’s nose.
‘And that drab of yours!’ he cried, ‘you can’t deny that you set her on to damn the priest.’
Then he suddenly sprang backwards, with a shriek, for the old man, swinging his stick with all his strength, had just broken it over his back. Retreating yet a little further, Archangias picked from a heap of stones beside the road a piece of flint twice the size of a man’s fist, and threw it at Jeanbernat. It would surely have split the other’s forehead open if he had not bent down. He, however, now likewise crossed over to a heap of stones, sheltered himself behind it, and provided himself with missiles; and from one heap to the other a terrible combat began, with a perfect hail of flints. The moon now shone very brightly, and their dark shadows fell distinctly on the ground.
‘Yes, yes, you set that hussy on to ruin him!’ repeated the Brother, wild with rage. ‘Ah! you are astonished that I know all about it! You hope for some monstrous result from it all. Every morning you make the thirteen signs of hell over that minx of yours! You would like her to become the mother of Antichrist. You long for Antichrist, you villain! But may this stone blind you!’
‘And may this one bung your mouth up!’ retorted Jeanbernat, who was now quite calm again. ‘Is he cracked, the silly fellow, with all those stories of his?... Shall I have to break your head for you, before I can get on my way? Is it your catechism that has turned your brain?’
‘Catechism, indeed! Do you know what catechism is taught to accursed ones like you? Ah! I will show you how to make the sign of the cross.—This stone is for the Father, and this for the Son, and this for the Holy Ghost. Ah! you are still standing. Wait a bit, wait a bit. Amen!’ Then he threw a handful of small pebbles like a volley of grape-shot. Jeanbernat, who was struck upon the shoulder, dropped the stones he was holding, and quietly stepped forwards, while Brother Archangias picked two fresh handfuls from the heap, blurting out:
I am going to exterminate you. It is God who wills it. God is acting through my arm.’
‘Will you be quiet!’ said the old man, grasping him by the nape of the neck.
Then came a short struggle amidst the dust of the road, all bluish with moonlight. The Brother, finding himself the weaker of the two, tried to bite. But Jeanbernat’s sinewy limbs were like coils of rope which pinioned him so tightly that he could almost feel them cutting into his flesh. He panted and ceased to struggle, meditating some act of treachery.
The old man, having got the other under him, scoffingly exclaimed: ‘I have a good mind to break one of your arms. You see that it isn’t you who are the stronger, but that it is I who am exterminating you.... Now I’m going to cut your ears off. You have tried my endurance too far.’
Jeanbernat calmly drew his knife from his pocket. But Abbé Mouret, who had several times attempted to part the combatants, now raised such strenuous opposition to the old man’s design that he consented to defer the operation till another time.
‘You are acting foolishly, Curé,’ said he. ‘It would do this scoundrel good to be well bled; but, since it seems to displease you, I’ll wait a little longer; I shall be meeting him again in some quiet corner.’
And as the Brother broke out into a growl, Jeanbernat cried threateningly: ‘If you don’t keep still I will cut your ears off at once!’
‘But you are sitting on his chest,’ said the priest, ‘get up and let him breathe.’
‘No, no; he would begin his tomfoolery again. I will give him his liberty when I go away, but not before.... Well, I was telling you, Curé, when this good-for-nothing interrupted us, that you would be very welcome yonder. The little one is mistress, you know; I don’t attempt to interfere with her any more than I do with my salad-plants. There are only fools like this croaker here who see any harm in it. Where did you see anything wrong, scoundrel? It was yourself who imagined it, villain that you are!’
And thereupon he gave the Brother another shaking. ‘Let him get up,’ begged Abbé Mouret.
‘By-and-by. The little one has not been well for a long time. I did not notice anything myself, but she told me; and now I am on my way to tell your uncle Pascal, at Plassans. I like the night for walking; it is quiet, and, as a rule, one isn’t delayed by meeting people.... Yes, yes, the little one is quite ailing.’
The priest could not find a word to say. He staggered, and his head sank.
‘It made her so happy to look after you,’ continued the old man. ‘While I smoked my pipe I used to hear her laugh. That was quite sufficient for me. Girls are like the hawthorns; when they break out into blossom, they do all they can. Well, now, you will come, if your heart prompts you to it. I am sure it would please the little one. Good night, Curé.’
He got up slowly, keeping a firm grasp of the Brother’s wrists, to guard against any treacherous attack. Then he proceeded on his way, with swinging strides, without once turning his head. The Brother silently crept to the heap of stones, and waited till the old man was some distance off. Then, with both hands, and with mad violence, he again began flinging stones, but they fell harmlessly upon the dusty road. Jeanbernat did not condescend to notice them, but went his way, upright like a tree, through the clear night.
‘The accursed one!—Satan carries him on!’ shrieked Brother Archangias, as he hurled his last stone. ‘An old scoundrel, that the least touch ought to upset! But he is baked in hell’s fire. I smelt his claws.’
The Brother stamped with impotent rage on the scattered flints. Then he suddenly attacked Abbé Mouret. ‘It was all your fault,’ he cried; ‘you ought to have helped me, and, between us, we could have strangled him.’
Meantime, at the other end of the village, the uproar in the Bambousses’ house had become greater than ever. The rhythmic tapping of glasses on a table could be distinctly heard. The priest resumed his walk without raising his head, making his way towards the flood of bright light that streamed out of the window like the flare of a fire of vine-cuttings. The Brother followed him gloomily; his cassock soiled with dust, and one of his cheeks bleeding from a stone-cut. And, after a short interval of silence, he asked, in his harsh voice: ‘Shall you go?’
Then as Abbé Mouret did not answer, he went on: ‘Take care! You are lapsing into sin again. It was sufficient for that man to pass by to send a thrill through your whole body. I saw you by the light of the moon looking as pale as a girl. Take care! take care! Do you hear me? Another time God will not pardon you—you will sink into the lowest abyss! Ah! wretched piece of clay that you are, filth is mastering you!’
Thereupon, the priest at last raised his head. Big tears were streaming from his eyes, and it was in gentle heartbroken accents that he spoke: ‘Why do you speak to me like that?—You are always with me, and you know my ceaseless struggles. Do not doubt me, leave me strength to master myself.’
Those simple words, bathed with silent tears, fell on the night air with such an expression of superhuman suffering, that even Brother Archangias, in spite of all his harshness, felt touched. He made no reply, but shook his dusty cassock, and wiped his bleeding cheek. When they reached the Bambousses’ house, he refused to go inside. He seated himself, a few yards away, on the body of an overturned cart, where he waited for the Abbé with dog-like patience.
‘Ah! here is Monsieur le Curé!’ cried all the company of Bambousses and Brichets as Serge entered.
They filled their glasses once more. Abbé Mouret was compelled to take one, too. There had been no regular wedding-feast; but, in the evening, after dinner, a ten-gallon ‘Dame Jane’ had been placed upon the table, and they were making it their business to empty it before going to bed. There were ten of them, and old Bambousse was already with one hand tilting over the jar whence only a thread of red liquor now flowed. Rosalie, in a very sportive frame of mind, was dipping her baby’s chin into her glass, while big Fortune showed off his strength by lifting up the chairs with his teeth. All the company passed into the bedroom. Custom required that the priest should there drink the glass of wine which had been poured out for him. It brought good luck, and prevented quarrels in the household. In Monsieur Caffin’s time, it had always been a very merry ceremony, for the old priest loved a joke. He had even gained a reputation for the skilful way in which he could drain his glass, without leaving a single drop at the bottom of it; and the Artaud women pretended that every drop undrunk meant a year’s less love for the newly married pair. But with Abbé Mouret they dare not joke so freely. However, he drank his wine at one gulp, which seemed to greatly please old Bambousse. Mother Brichet looked at the bottom of the glass and saw but a drop or two of the liquid remaining there. Then, after a few jokes, they all returned to the living room, where Vincent and Catherine had remained by themselves. Vincent, standing upon a chair, was clasping the huge jar in his arms, and draining the last drops of wine into Catherine’s open mouth.
‘We are much obliged to you, Monsieur le Curé,’ said old Bambousse, as he escorted the priest to the door. ‘Well, they’re married now, so I suppose you are satisfied. And they are not likely to complain, I’m sure.... Good night, sleep well, your reverence.’
Brother Archangias had slowly risen from his seat on the old cart.
‘May the devil pile hot coals over them, and roast them!’ he murmured.
Then without again opening his lips he accompanied Abbé Mouret to the parsonage. And he waited outside till the door was closed. Even then he did not go off without twice looking round to make sure that the Abbé was not coming out again. As for the priest, when he reached his bedroom, he threw himself in his clothes upon his bed, clasping his hands to his ears, and pressing his face to the pillow, in order that he might shut out all sound and sight. And thus stilling his senses he fell into death-like slumber.