Truth [Vérité]

Then, as a hasty gesture escaped the schoolmaster, he broke off in order to interpolate a brief explanation. 'I name him,' he said, 'because I know him well. He is a penitent of mine—a friend. A loftier soul, a more upright and loyal heart could be found nowhere. You are aware of the frightful position in which he finds himself—that charge of prevarication,[2] which means the collapse of his entire judicial career. He no longer sleeps; you would pity him if you were to witness his sufferings.'

At last Marc understood everything. They wished to save Gragnon, who only yesterday had been an all-powerful son of the Church, which felt it would be grievously maimed if he should be struck down.

'I can understand his torment,' Marc finally answered, 'but he is paying the penalty of his transgression. A judge must know the laws, and the illegal communication of which he was guilty had frightful consequences.'

'No, no, I assure you, he acted in all simplicity,' the Jesuit exclaimed. 'That letter which he received at the last moment seemed to him without importance. He still had it in his hand when he was summoned to the jurymen's retiring room, and he no longer remembers how it happened that he showed it to them.'

Marc gave a little shrug of the shoulders. 'Well,' he responded, 'he will only have to tell that to the new judges, if there should be a new trial.... In any case I hardly understand your intervention with me. I can do nothing.'

'Oh! do not say that, monsieur! We know how great your power is, however modest your position may seem to be. And that is why I thought of applying to you. Throughout this affair all thought and action and willpower have been centred in you. You are the friend of the Simon family, which will do whatever you advise. So, come, will you not spare an unfortunate man, whose ruin is by no means indispensable for your cause?'

Father Crabot joined his hands and entreated his adversary so fervently that the latter, again all astonishment, wondered what could be the real reason of such a desperate appeal, such clumsy and impolitic insistence. Did the Jesuit feel that the cause he defended was lost? Did he possess private information which made him regard revision as a certainty? In any case, matters had come to such a pass, that he was now ready to leave something to the fire in order to save the rest. He abandoned his former creatures, who were now too deeply compromised. That poor Brother Fulgence had a befogged, unbalanced mind, spoilt by excessive pride; disastrous consequences had attended his actions. That unfortunate Father Philibin had always been full of faith, no doubt; but then there were many gaps in his nature. He was deplorably deficient in moral sense. As for the disastrous Brother Gorgias, Father Crabot cast him off entirely; he was one of those adventurous, erring sons of the Church, who become its curse. And if the Jesuit did not go so far as to admit the possible innocence of Simon, he was, at least, not far from believing Brother Gorgias capable of every crime.

'You see, my dear sir,' he said, 'I do not deceive myself; but there are other men whom it would be really cruel to visit too severely for mere errors. Help us to save them, and we will requite the service by ceasing to contend with you in other matters.'

Never had Marc so plainly realised his strength, the very strength of truth. He answered, engaging in quite a long discussion, desirous as he was of forming a final opinion with respect to the merits of Father Crabot. And his stupefaction increased as he fathomed the extraordinary poverty of argument, the arrant clumsiness too, which accompanied the vanity of this man, accustomed never to be contradicted. Was this, then, the profound diplomatist whose crafty genius was feared by everybody, and the presence of whose hand was suspected in every incident, as if, indeed, he ruled the world? In this interview, which had been prepared so clumsily, he showed himself a poor bewildered individual, committing himself far more than was necessary, even incompetent to defend his faith against one who was merely possessed of sense and logic. A mediocrity—that was what he was—a mediocrity, with a façade of social gifts, which imposed on the man in the street. His real strength lay in the stupidity of his flock, the submissiveness with which the faithful bent low before his statements, which they regarded as being beyond discussion. And Marc ended by understanding that he was confronted by a mere show Jesuit, one of those who for decorative purposes were allowed by their Order to thrust themselves forward, shine, and charm, while, in the rear, other Jesuits—such, for instance, as Father Poirier, the Provincial installed at Rozan, whose name was never mentioned—directed everything like unknown sovereign rulers hidden away in distant places of retreat.

Father Crabot, however, was shrewd enough to understand at last that he was taking the wrong course with Marc, and he thereupon did what he could to recover his lost ground. The whole ended by an exchange of frigid courtesies. Then Baron Nathan, who must have remained listening outside the door, reappeared, looking also very discomfited, with only one remaining anxiety, which was to rid La Désirade as soon as possible of the presence of that petty schoolmaster, who was such a fool that he could not even understand his own interests. He escorted him to the terrace and watched his departure. And Marc, as he went his way among the parterres, the plashing waters, and the marble nymphs, again caught a glimpse of the Marchioness de Boise, laughing affectionately with her good friends Hector and Léa, as all three strolled slowly under the far-spreading foliage.

On the evening of that same day Marc repaired to the Rue du Trou, having given David an appointment at the Lehmanns'. He found them all in a state of delirious joy, for a telegram from a friend in Paris had just informed them that the Court of Cassation had at last pronounced an unanimous judgment, quashing the proceedings of Beaumont, and sending Simon before the Assize Court of Rozan. For Marc this news was like a flash of light, and what he had regarded as Father Crabot's folly seemed to him more excusable than before. The Jesuit had evidently been well informed; that judgment had been known to him; and, revision becoming a certainty, he had simply wished to save those whom he thought might still be saved. And now, at the Lehmanns', all were weeping with joy, for the long calamity was over. Wildly did Joseph and Sarah kiss Rachel, their poor, aged, and exhausted mother. Both children and wife were intoxicated by the thought of the return of the father, the husband, for whom they had mourned and longed so much. Outrage and torture were all forgotten, for acquittal was now certain; nobody doubted it either at Maillebois or at Beaumont. And David and Marc, those two brave workers in the cause of justice, also embraced each other, drawn together by a great impulse of affection and hope.

But, as the days went by, anxiety arose once more. At the penal settlement yonder Simon had fallen so dangerously ill that for a long time yet it would be impossible to bring him back to France. Months and months might elapse before the new trial would begin at Rozan. And thus all necessary time was given to the spirit of injustice to revive and spread once more in the midst of mendacity and the multitude's cowardly ignorance.

III

During the year which followed, a year full of anxiety, uneasiness, and contention, the Church made a supreme effort to regain her power. Never had her position been more critical, more threatened, than during that desperate battle, by which the duration of her empire might be prolonged for a century, or perhaps two centuries, should she win it. In order to do so it was necessary she should continue to educate and train the youth of France, retain her sway over children and women, and avail herself of the ignorance of the humble in such wise as to mould them and make them all error, credulity, and submissiveness, even as she needed them to be in order to reign. The day when she might be forbidden to teach, when her schools would be closed, and disappear, would prove for her the beginning of the end, when she would be annihilated amidst a new and free people, which would have grown up outside the pale of her falsehoods, cultivating an ideal of reason and humanity. And the hour was a grave one. That Simon affair, with the expected return and triumph of the innocent prisoner, might deal a most terrible blow to the Congregational schools by glorifying the secular ones. Meantime Father Crabot, who wished to save Judge Gragnon, was so compromised himself that he had disappeared from society and hidden himself, pale and trembling, in his lonely cell. Father Philibin, who had been consigned to an Italian convent, was spending the remainder of his days in penitence, unless indeed he were already dead. Brother Fulgence, removed by his superiors in punishment for the discredit which had fallen on his school, a third of whose pupils had already quitted it, was said to have fallen dangerously ill in the distant department whither he had been sent. Finally, Brother Gorgias had fled, fearing that he might be arrested, and feeling that his principals were forsaking him, willing to sacrifice him as an expiatory victim. And this flight had increased the anxiety of the defenders of the Church, who lived only with the thought of fighting a last and merciless battle when the Simon affair should come before the Rozan Assize Court.

Marc also, while lamenting Simon's ill health, which delayed his return to France, was preparing for that same battle, fully realising its decisive importance. Almost every Thursday, sometimes with David, sometimes alone, he repaired to Beaumont, calling first on Delbos, to whom he made suggestions, and whom he questioned about the slightest incidents of the week. And afterwards he went to see Salvan, who kept him informed of the state of public opinion, every fluctuation of which set all classes in the town agog. In this wise, then, one Thursday, Marc paid a visit to the Training College, and on quitting it went down the Avenue des Jaffres, where, close to the cathedral of St. Maxence, he was upset by a most unexpected meeting.

On one of the deserted sidewalks of the avenue, at a spot where scarcely anybody was ever seen after four o'clock, he perceived Geneviève seated on a bench, and looking very downcast, weary, and lonely in the cold shadow falling from the cathedral, whose proximity encouraged the moss to grow on the trunks of the old elms.

For a moment Marc remained motionless, quite thunderstruck. He had met his wife in Maillebois at long intervals, but invariably in the company of Madame Duparque; and on those occasions she had passed through the streets with absent-minded eyes, on her way, no doubt, to some devotional exercise. This time, however, they found themselves face to face, in perfect solitude, parted by none. Geneviève had seen him, and was looking at him with an expression in which he fancied he could detect great suffering, and an unacknowledged craving for help. Thus he went forward, and even ventured to seat himself on the same bench, though at some little distance from her, for fear lest he should frighten her and drive her away.

Deep silence reigned. It was June, and the sun, descending towards the horizon in a vast stretch of limpid sky, transpierced the surrounding foliage with slender golden darts; while little wandering zephyrs already began to cool the warm afternoon atmosphere. And Marc still looked at his wife, saying nothing, but feeling deeply moved as he noticed that she had grown thinner and paler, as if after a serious illness. Her face, crowned by splendid fair hair, and with large eyes which once had been all passion and gaiety, had not only become emaciated, but had acquired an expression of ardent anxiety, the torment of a parching thirst, which nothing could assuage. Her eyelids quivered, and two tears, which she vainly tried to force back, coursed down her cheeks. Then Marc began to speak—in such a way that it seemed as if he had quitted her only the previous day, such indeed was his desire to reassure her.

'Is our little Clément well?' he asked.

She did not answer immediately, for she feared, no doubt, that she might reveal the emotion which was choking her. The little boy, who had lately completed his fourth year, was no longer at Dherbecourt. Having removed him from his nurse, Geneviève now kept him with her in spite of all her grandmother's scoldings.

'He is quite well,' she said at last in a slightly tremulous voice, though on her side also she strove to affect a kind of indifferent quietude.

'And our Louise,' Marc resumed, 'are you satisfied with her?'

'Yes: she does not comply with my desires; you have remained the master of her mind; but she is well behaved, she studies, and I do not complain of her.'

Silence fell again, embarrassment once more stayed their tongues. That allusion to their daughter's first Communion, and the terrible quarrel which had parted them, had been sufficient. Yet the virulence of that quarrel was necessarily abating day by day, the girl herself having assumed all responsibility by her quiet resolve to await her twentieth year before making any formal confession of religious faith. In her gentle way she had exhausted her mother's resolution; and indeed a gesture of lassitude had escaped the latter when speaking of her, as if she had referred to some long-desired happiness, all hope of which had fled. A few moments went by, and then Marc gently ventured to put another question to her: 'And you, my friend, you have been so ill: how are you now?'

She shrugged her shoulders in a hopeless way, and was again obliged to force back her tears. 'I? Oh, I have long ceased to know how I am! But no matter, I resign myself to live since God gives me the strength to do so.'

So great was Marc's distress, so deeply was his whole being stirred by a quiver of loving compassion at the sight of such great suffering, that a cry of intense anxiety sprang from his lips: 'Geneviève, my Geneviève, what ails you? what is your torment? Tell me! Ah, if I could only console you, and cure you!'

Thus speaking, he came nearer to her on the bench, near enough indeed to touch the folds of her gown, but she hastily drew back. 'No, no, we have nothing more in common,' she exclaimed. 'You can no longer do anything for me, my friend, for we belong to different worlds.... Ah! if I were to tell you! But of what use would it be? You would not understand me!'

Nevertheless, she went on speaking; and in short and feverish sentences, never noticing that she was confessing herself, she told him of her torture, her daily increasing anguish, for she had reached one of those distressful hours when the heart instinctively opens and overflows. She related how, unknown to Madame Duparque, she had escaped that afternoon from Maillebois, in order to speak with a famous missionary, Father Athanase, whose pious counsels were at that time revolutionising the pious folk of Beaumont. The missionary was merely sojourning there for a short time, but it was said that he had already worked some marvellous cures—a blessing, a prayer, from his lips having restored angelic calmness to the unappeasable souls of women who were racked by their yearning for Jesus. And Geneviève had just left the neighbouring cathedral, where for two hours she had remained in prayer, after confessing to that holy man her unquenchable thirst for divine happiness. But he had merely absolved her for what he called excess of pride and human passion, and by way of penitence had told her to occupy her mind with humble duties, such as the care of the poor and the sick. In vain afterwards had she striven to humble, annihilate herself, in the darkest, the loneliest chapel of St. Maxence; she had not found peace, she had not satisfied her hunger; she still glowed with the same craving—a return for the gift of her whole being to the Deity, that gift which she had tendered again and again, though never once had it brought real peace and happiness to her flesh and her heart.

As Marc listened to what she said, he began to suspect the truth, and whatever might be his sadness at seeing his Geneviève so wretched, a quiver of hope arose within him. Plainly enough, neither Abbé Quandieu nor even Father Théodose had satisfied the intense need of love that existed in her nature. She had known love, and she must still love the man, the husband, whom she had quitted, and who adored her. Mere mystical delights had left her unsatisfied and irritated. She was now but the proud, stubborn daughter of Catholicism, who turns desperately to harsher and more frantic religious practices, as to stronger stupefacients, in order to numb the bitterness and rebellion induced by increasing disillusion. Everything pointed to it: the revival of motherliness in her nature, for she had taken little Clément back, and busied herself with him, and she even found some consolation in Louise, who exercised a gentle healing influence over her, leading her back a little more each day towards the father, the husband. Then, also, there were her dissensions with her terrible grandmother, and her dawning dislike for the little house on the Place des Capucins, where she at last felt she could no longer live, for its coldness, silence, and gloom were deathly. And, after failing with Abbé Quandieu and Father Théodose, her sufferings had led her to make a supreme attempt with that powerful missionary, to whom she had transferred her faith, that miracle-working confessor, whom she had hastened to consult in secret for fear lest she might be prevented, and who, by way of relief, had only been able to prescribe practices which, in the circumstances, were childish.

'But, my Geneviève,' Marc cried again, carried away, losing all thought of prudence, 'if you are thus beset, thus tortured, it is because you lack our home! You are too unhappy: come back, come back, I entreat you!'

Her pride bristled up, however, and she answered: 'No, no, I shall never go back to you. I am not unhappy: it is untrue. I am punished for having loved you, for having been part of you, for having had a share in your crime. Grandmother does right to remind me of it when I am so weak as to complain. I expiate your sin, God strikes me to punish you, and it is your poison which burns me beyond hope of relief.'

'But, my poor wife, all that is monstrous. They are driving you mad! If it is true that I set a new harvest in you, it is precisely on that harvest that I rely to ensure our happiness some day. Yes, we became so blended one with the other that we can never be wholly parted. And you will end by returning to me: our children will bring you back. The pretended poison which your foolish grandmother talks about is our love itself; it is working in your heart, and it will bring you back.'

'Never!... God would strike us down, both of us,' she retorted. 'You drove me from our home by your blasphemy. If you had really loved me, you would not have taken my daughter from me, by refusing to let her make her first Communion. How can I return to a home of impiety where it would not even be allowable for me to pray? Ah! how wretched I am; nobody, nobody loves me, and heaven itself will not open!'

She burst into sobs. Filled with despair by that frightful cry of distress Marc felt that it would be useless and cruel to torture her further. The hour for reunion had not yet come. Silence fell between them once more, while in the distance, on the Avenue des Jaffres, the cries of some children at play rose into the limpid evening atmosphere.

During their impassioned converse they had at last drawn nearer to each other on the lonely bench; and now, seated side by side, they seemed to be reflecting, their glances wandering away amid the golden dust of the sunset. At last Marc spoke again, as if finishing his thoughts aloud: 'I do not think, my friend, that you gave for a moment any credit to the abominable charges with which certain people wished to besmirch me à propos of my brotherly intercourse with Mademoiselle Mazeline.'

'Oh! no,' Geneviève answered quickly, 'I know you, and I know her. Do not imagine that I have become so foolish as to believe all that has been said to me.'

Then with some slight embarrassment she continued: 'It is the same with me. Some people, I know it, have set me among the flock which Father Théodose is said to have turned into a kind of cour galante. In the first place I do not admit that anything of the kind exists. Father Théodose is, perhaps, rather too proud of his person, but I believe his faith to be sincere. Besides, I should have known how to defend myself—you do not doubt it, I hope?'

In spite of his sorrow Marc could not help smiling slightly. Geneviève's evident embarrassment indicated that there had been some audacity on the part of the Capuchin, and that she had checked it. Assuming this to be the case Marc felt the better able to understand why she was so perturbed and embittered.

'I certainly do not doubt it,' he responded. 'I know you, as you know me, and I am aware that you are incapable of wrong-doing. I have no anxiety respecting Father Théodose on your account, whatever another husband of my acquaintance may have to say.... Yet all the same I regret that you were so badly advised as to quit worthy Abbé Quandieu for that handsome monk.'

A fugitive blush which appeared on Geneviève's cheeks while her husband was speaking told him that he had guessed aright. It was not without a profound knowledge of woman in her earlier years, when an amorosa may exist within the penitent, that Father Crabot had advised Madame Duparque to remove her daughter from the charge of old Abbé Quandieu and place her in that of handsome Father Théodose. The Catholic doctors are well aware that love alone can kill love, and that a woman who loves apart from Christ never wholly belongs to Christ. The return of Geneviève to her husband and her sin was fatal unless she should cease to love, or rather unless she should love elsewhere. But, as it happened, Father Théodose was not expert in analysing human nature, he had blundered with respect to the passionate yet loyal penitent confided to his hands, and had thus precipitated the crisis, provoking repugnance and rebellion in that distracted, suffering woman, who, without as yet returning to sober reason, saw the glorious, mystical stage-scenery of the religion of her childhood collapse around her.

Well pleased with the symptoms which he fancied he could detect, Marc asked somewhat maliciously: 'And so Father Théodose is no longer your confessor?'

Geneviève turned her clear eyes upon him, and answered plainly: 'No, Father Théodose does not suit me, and I have gone back to Abbé Quandieu, who, as grandmother rightly says, lacks warmth, but who quiets me at times, for he is very kind.'

For a moment she seemed to ponder. Then, in an undertone, she allowed another avowal to cross her lips: 'All the same, the dear man does not know how greatly he has increased the torment in which I live by what he said to me about that abominable affair——'

She stopped short, and Marc, guessing the truth, becoming quite impassioned now that this subject was broached, continued: 'The Simon affair, eh? Abbé Quandieu believes Simon to be innocent, does he not?'

Geneviève had cast her eyes towards the ground. For a moment she remained silent; then said, very faintly: 'Yes, he believes in his innocence; he told me so with great mystery in the choir of his church, at the foot of the altar, before our Lord who heard him.'

'And you yourself, Geneviève, tell me, do you now believe in Simon's innocence?'

'No, I do not, I cannot. You must remember that I should never have left you had I believed him innocent, for his innocence would have meant the guilt of the defenders of God. You, by defending him, charged God with error and falsehood.'

Marc well remembered the circumstances. He again saw his wife bring him the news of the revision, growing exasperated at the sight of his delight, exclaiming that there was no truth or justice outside heaven, and at last fleeing from the house where her faith was outraged. And now that she seemed to him to be shaken he desired more ardently than ever to convince her of the truth, for he felt that he would win her back as soon as with the triumph of truth her mind should awaken to the necessity of justice.

'But once more, Geneviève, my Geneviève, it is impossible that you, who are so upright and so sincere, whose mind is so clear when the superstitions of your childhood do not cloud it—it is impossible that you should believe such gross falsehoods. Inform yourself, read the documents.'

'But I am fully informed, I assure you, my friend; I have read everything.'

'You have read all the documents which have been published? All the inquiry of the Court of Cassation?'

'Why, yes! I have read everything that has appeared in Le Petit Beaumontais. You know very well that grandmother takes that paper every morning.'

With a violent gesture Marc gave expression to his disgust and indignation. 'Ah well, my darling, you are, indeed, fully informed! The vile print you speak of is a sewer of poison, which disseminates only filth and falsehood. Documents are falsified in it, texts are mutilated, and the poor credulous minds of the poor and the lowly are gorged with stupid fables.[1]... You are simply poisoned like many other worthy folk.'

She herself, no doubt, was conscious that the folly and impudence of Le Petit Beaumontais were excessive, for again she cast down her eyes, and looked distressed.

'Listen!' Marc resumed. 'Let me send you the complete verbatim report of the Court's inquiry, with the documents annexed to it; and promise me that you will read everything attentively and straightforwardly.'

But at this suggestion she vivaciously raised her head: 'No, no; send me nothing. I do not wish it.'

'Why?'

'Because it is useless. There is no need for me to read anything.'

He looked at her, again feeling discouraged and grieved.

'Say rather that you won't read.'

'Well, yes, if you prefer it that way, I won't read anything. As grandmother says: "What is the use of it?" Ought one not always to distrust one's reason?'

'You won't read anything because you fear you might be convinced, because you already doubt the things which, only yesterday, you regarded as certainties.'

She interrupted him with a gesture of fatigue and unconcern, but he continued: 'And the words of Abbé Quandieu pursue you; you ask yourself with terror how a holy priest can believe in an innocence which, if recognised, would compel you to curse all the years of error with which you have tortured our poor home.'

This time she did not even make a gesture, but it was apparent that she had resolved to listen no further. For a moment her glance remained fixed on the ground. Then she slowly said: 'Do not amuse yourself by increasing my sorrow. Our life has been shattered. It is all over. I should deem myself still more guilty than now if I were to go back to you. And what personal relief could it give you to imagine that I made a mistake, and that I have not found my grandmother's house to be the home of peace and faith in which I thought I was taking refuge? My sufferings would not cure yours.'

This, as Marc felt, was almost a confession—an acknowledgment of her secret regret at having quitted him, and of the anxious doubts into which she had sunk. Once more, therefore, he exclaimed: 'But if you are unhappy, say it! And come back; bring the children with you; the house still awaits you! It would be great joy, great happiness.'

But she stood up and repeated, like one who obstinately remains blind and deaf: 'I am not unhappy. I am being punished, and I will endure my punishment to the end. And if you have any pity for me, remain here; do not try to follow me. Should you meet me again, too, turn your head away, for all is ended, all must be ended, between us.'

Then she went off along the deserted avenue, amid the paling gold of the sunset, her figure quite sombre, tall, and slim; and all that Marc could still see of her beauty was her splendid fair hair, which a last sunbeam irradiated. He obediently refrained from moving, but, hoping for a last glance of farewell, he watched her as she walked away. She did not turn, however; she disappeared from view among the trees, while the evening wind, now rising, passed with a chilling quiver beneath the foliage.

When Marc painfully rose to his feet, he was amazed to see his good friend Salvan standing before him, with a happy smile on his lips. 'Ah! my fine lover, so this is how I catch you giving assignations in lonely corners! I saw you already some time ago, but remained watching, for I did not wish to disturb you.... So this is why you remained with me such a short time when you called at the college this afternoon, Master Slyboots!'

Sadly shaking his head, Marc walked away beside his old friend. 'No, no,' he said, 'we merely met by chance, and my heart is quite lacerated.'

Then he recounted the meeting, and the long conversation from which he had just emerged feeling more convinced than ever that the rupture was definitive. Salvan, who had never consoled himself for having promoted a marriage which, however happy at the outset, was ending so badly, and who recognised that he had acted with great imprudence in wedding free thought to the Church, listened attentively, ceasing to smile, yet looking fairly satisfied.

'But that is not so bad,' he said at last. 'You surely did not expect that our poor Geneviève would throw herself at your head, and entreat you to take her back? When a woman leaves her husband to give herself to God, as your wife did, her pride prevents her from acknowledging in that way the distress she now feels at having failed to find the contentment she anticipated. None the less, in my opinion, Geneviève is passing through a frightful crisis, which may bring her back to you at any moment.... If truth should enlighten her, she will act at once. She has retained too much sense to be unjust.'

And again becoming gay and animated, Salvan went on: 'I never told you, my friend, of the attempts I made with Madame Duparque of recent years. As they resulted in nothing, there was no occasion for me to vaunt them to you. However, when your wife acted so inconsiderately, when she left you, I thought of giving her a little lecture, for I was an old friend of her father's, and, besides, I had been her own guardian. That circumstance naturally gave me admittance to the dismal little house on the Place des Capucins. But you can have no idea of the ferocious manner in which the terrible old grandmother received me. She would not leave me alone with Geneviève for a moment, and she interrupted every conciliatory phrase of mine with imprecations intended to fall on you. Nevertheless, I think I managed to say what I wished to say. True, the poor child was in no fit state to listen to me. When Catholic training revives, the ravages which religious exaltation may cause in a woman's brain are frightful. Geneviève, for her part, appeared well-balanced and healthy when you married her; but that unfortunate Simon affair sufficed to shatter all equilibrium. She would not even listen to me; her answers were so wild and foolish as to make one's reason stagger. Briefly, I was beaten. I was not exactly turned out of doors, but, after two subsequent attempts made at long intervals, I lost all hope of introducing a little reasonableness into that abode of insanity, where poor Madame Berthereau, in spite of her sufferings, seemed the only person who retained a little good sense.'

'You see very well that there is no hope,' responded Marc, who remained very gloomy. 'One cannot reclaim people when they so stubbornly persist in refusing to make themselves acquainted with the truth.'

'Why not?' asked Salvan. 'I'm done for, that's true. It would be useless for me to make any fresh attempt; they would stop up their eyes and ears beforehand in order to see and hear nothing. But remember that you have the most powerful of helpers, the best of advocates, the shrewdest of diplomatists, the most skilful of captains, and in fact the most triumphant of conquerors at work in that house!'

He laughed, and, growing quite excited, resumed: 'Yes, yes, your charming Louise, whom I'm very fond of, and whom I regard as a prodigy of good sense and grace. The firm and yet gentle behaviour of that young girl, ever since her twelfth year, has been that of a heroine. I know of no loftier or more touching example. Seldom does one meet with such precocious sense and courage. And she is all deference and affection, even when she refuses to do what her mother desires, by reason of her promise to you respecting her first Communion. Now that she has acquired the right to keep that promise, you should see how prettily, how sedately, she manœuvres to effect the conquest of that house where everybody is against her. Even her grandmother becomes tired of scolding. But her dexterity is most marvellous with her mother, whom she encompasses with an active worship, with all sorts of attentions, as if dealing with some convalescent patient whose physical and moral strength must first of all be restored, in order that she may afterwards return to ordinary life. She seldom speaks to her mother of you, but she accustoms her to live in an atmosphere which is full of you, full of your thoughts and your love. She is there like your other self, never pausing in her endeavours to bring about the return of the wife and mother, by reconnecting the severed bond with her own caressing hands. And if your wife returns to you, my friend, it will be the child who will bring her back, the all-powerful child, whose presence ensures health and peace in one's home.'

Marc listened, feeling deeply moved, and reviving to hope. 'Ah! may it be true,' said he; 'nevertheless my poor Geneviève is still very ill.'

'Let your little healer do her work,' Salvan responded: 'the kiss she gives her mother every morning brings life with it.... If Geneviève suffers such torture it is because life is struggling within her, and wresting her a little more each day from the deadly crisis in which you nearly lost her. As soon as good Mother Nature triumphs over mystical imbecility, she and your children will be in your arms.... Come, my friend, be brave. It would be hard indeed if, after restoring poor Simon to his family, your own domestic happiness should not be assured by the triumph of truth and justice.'

They shook hands in brotherly fashion, and Marc, who returned to Maillebois somewhat comforted, found himself on the morrow in the thick of the fight again. The flight of Brother Gorgias had had a disastrous effect in the little town, and the great days of the affair were now beginning afresh. There was not a house whose inmates did not quarrel and fight over the possible guilt of that terrible Christian Brother, who, in disappearing from the scene, had impudently written to Le Petit Beaumontais to explain that, as his cowardly superiors had decided to abandon him to his enemies, he was about to place himself in safety, in order that he might be free to defend himself when and how he pleased.

A much more important feature of this letter was, however, a revised statement which Gorgias made in it to account for the presence of the famous copy-slip in the paper gag found near Zéphirin's body. No doubt the complicated story of a forgery, invented by his leaders, who were unwilling even to admit that the copy-slip had come from the Brothers' school, had always been regarded by Gorgias as idiotic. He must have thought it stupid to deny the origin of the slip and the authenticity of the initialling. Although every expert in the world might ascribe that initialling to Simon, it would remain his, Gorgias's, handiwork in the estimation of all honest and sensible folk. However, as his superiors had threatened to abandon him to his own resources if he did not accept their version of the affair, he had resigned himself and relinquished his own. It was to the latter that he now reverted, for since the missing corner bearing the school stamp had been found at Father Philibin's, he regarded his superiors' version as utterly ridiculous. It seemed to him absurd to pretend, as the Congregations did, that Simon had procured a stamp, or had caused one to be made, with the deliberate intention of ruining the Brothers' school. Now, therefore, realising that his supporters were on the point of forsaking and sacrificing him, Gorgias left them of his own accord, and by way of intimidation revealed a part of the truth. His new version, which upset all the credulous readers of Le Petit Beaumontais, was that the copy-slip had really come from the Brothers', and had been initialled by himself, but that Zéphirin had assuredly taken it home with him from the school, even as Victor Milhomme had taken a similar slip, in spite of all prohibitions; and that Simon had thus found it on the table in his victim's room on the night of the abominable crime.

A fortnight after the appearance of this version the newspaper published a fresh letter from Brother Gorgias. He had taken refuge in Italy, he said; but he abstained from supplying his exact address, though he offered to return and give evidence at the approaching trial at Rozan if he received a formal guarantee that his liberty would not be interfered with. In this second letter he still called Simon a loathsome Jew, and declared that he possessed overwhelming proof of his guilt, which proof, however, he would only divulge to the jury at the Assize Court. At the same time this did not prevent him from referring to his superiors, notably Father Crabot, in aggressive and outrageous terms fraught with all the bitter violence of an accomplice once willingly accepted but now cast off and sacrificed. How idiotic, said he, was their story of a forged school stamp! What a wretched falsehood, when the truth might well be told! They were fools and cowards, cowards especially, for had they not acted with the vilest cowardice in abandoning him, Gorgias, the faithful servant of God, after sacrificing both the heroic Father Philibin and the unhappy Brother Fulgence? Of the latter he only spoke in terms of indulgent contempt; Fulgence, said he, had been a sorry individual, unhinged, and full of vanity; and the others, after allowing him all freedom to compromise himself, had got rid of him by sending him to some distant spot under the pretext that he was ill. As for Father Philibin, Gorgias set him on a pinnacle, called him his friend, a hero of dutifulness, one who displayed passive obedience to his chiefs, who on their side employed him for the dirtiest work, and struck him down as soon as it was to their interest to close his mouth. And this hero, who was now suffering untold agony in a convent among the Apennines, was depicted by Gorgias as a martyr of the faith, even as he had been depicted in print, with a palm and a halo, by some of the ardent anti-Simonists.

From this point Gorgias proceeded to glorify himself with extraordinary vehemence, wild and splendid impudence. He became superb; he displayed such a mixture of frankness and falsehood, energy and duplicity, that, if the fates had been propitious, this base rascal might assuredly have become a great man. Even as his superiors were still pleased to admit, he remained a model cleric, full of admirable, exclusive, militant faith, one who assigned to the Church the royalty both of heaven and of earth, and who regarded himself as the Church's soldier, privileged to do everything in her defence. At the head of the Church was the Deity, then came his superiors and himself, and when he had given an account of his actions to his superiors and the Deity, the only thing left for the rest of the world was submission. Moreover, his superiors were of no account when he deemed them to be unworthy. In that case he remained alone in the presence of heaven. Thus, on days of confession, when God had absolved him, he regarded himself as the unique, the one pure man, who owed no account of his actions to anybody, and who was above all human laws. Was not this indeed the essential Catholic doctrine, according to which the ministers of the faith are rightly amenable to the divine authority alone? And was it not only a Father Crabot, full of social cowardice, who could trouble himself about imbecile human justice, and the stupid opinions of the multitude?

In this second letter, moreover, Brother Gorgias admitted, with a serene lack of shame, that he himself occasionally sinned. He then beat his breast, cried aloud that he was but a wolf and a hog, and humbly cast himself in the dust at the feet of God. Having thus made atonement, he became tranquil and continued to serve the Church in all holiness until the clay of creation cast him into sin again, whereupon fresh absolution became necessary. But in any case he was at least a loyal Catholic, he had the courage to confess, and the strength to endure penitence, whereas all those dignitaries of the Church, those Superiors of the Religious Orders, of whom he complained so bitterly, were liars and poltroons, who trembled before the consequences of their transgressions—who, like base hypocrites, concealed them or else cast them upon others in their terror of the judgment of men.

At the outset Brother Gorgias's passionate recriminations had seemed to be prompted merely by his anger at being so brutally abandoned after serving as a docile instrument; but at present veiled threats began to mingle with his reproaches. If he himself had always paid for his transgressions like a good Christian, there were others, he said, who had not done so. Yet some day assuredly they would be forced to make atonement, should they continue to try the patience of heaven, which would well know how to set up an avenger, a justiciary to proclaim the unconfessed, unpunished crimes. In saying this Gorgias was evidently alluding to Father Crabot and the mysterious story of the acquisition of the Countess de Quédeville's immense fortune—that splendid domain of Valmarie, where the Jesuit College had been subsequently established.

Several confused versions of that story had been current, and certain particulars were now recalled: The old but still beautiful Countess becoming extremely pious, and engaging Father Philibin, then a young man, as tutor to her grandson, Gaston, the last of the Quédevilles, who was barely nine years old. Next, Father Crabot arriving at the château and becoming the confessor, the friend, and some even said the lover, of the still beautiful Countess. Finally, the accident, the death of little Gaston, who had been drowned while walking out with his tutor, his death allowing his grandmother to bequeath the family estate and fortune to Father Crabot, through the medium of a clerical banker of Beaumont. And it was also remembered that among little Gaston's playmates there had been a gamekeeper's son, a lad named Georges Plumet, whom the Jesuits of Valmarie subsequently protected and assisted, and who was none other than the present Brother Gorgias.

The latter's violent language and threatening manner recalled all those half-forgotten incidents, and revived the old suspicion that some dark deed might link the gamekeeper's humble son to the powerful clerics who ruled the region. Would that not explain the protection which they had so long given him, the audacious manner in which they had shielded him, and at last even made his cause their own? Doubtless their first impulse had been to save the Church, but a little later they had done their utmost to make that terrible Ignorantine appear innocent; and if they had now sacrificed him, it must be because they deemed it impossible to defend him any longer. Perhaps, too, Brother Gorgias only wished to alarm them in order to wring from them as much money as possible. That he did alarm them was certain; one could detect that they were greatly disturbed by the letters and articles of that dreadful chatterer, who was ever ready to beat his breast and cry his sinfulness and that of others aloud. Moreover, in spite of the seeming abandonment in which he was left, one could divine that he was still protected, powerfully even if secretly; while his sudden intervals of silence, which lasted at times for weeks, plainly indicated that friendly messages and money had been sent to him.

His admissions and his threats quite upset the rank and file of the clerical faction. It was horrible! He profaned the temple, he exposed the secrets of the tabernacle to the unhealthy curiosity of unbelievers! Nevertheless, a good many devout folk remained attached to him, impressed by the uncompromising faith with which he bowed to God alone, and refused to recognise any of the so-called rights of human society. Besides, why should one not accept his version of the affair, his admission that he had really initialled the copy-slip, that it had been carried away by Zéphirin, and utilised by Simon for a diabolical purpose? This version was less ridiculous than that of his superiors: it even supplied an excuse for what Father Philibin had done, for one could picture the latter losing his head, and tearing off the stamped corner of the slip, in a moment of blind zeal for the safety of his holy mother, the Church.

To tell the truth, however, a far greater number of laymen, those who were faithful to Father Crabot, as well as nearly all the priests and other clerics clung stubbornly to the Jesuits' revised version of the incident—that of Simon forging the paraph, and using a false stamp. It was an absurd idea, but the readers of Le Petit Beaumontais became all the more impassioned over it, for the invention of a false stamp added yet another glaring improbability to the affair. Every morning the newspaper repeated imperturbably that material proofs existed of the making of that false stamp, and that the recondemnation of Simon by the Rozan Assize Court could no longer be a matter of doubt for anybody.

The rallying word had been passed round, and all 'right-minded' people made a show of believing that the Brothers' school would triumph as soon as the impious adversaries of the unfortunate Brother Gorgias should be confounded. The school greatly needed such a victory, for, discredited as it was by the semi-confessions and unpleasant discoveries of recent times, it had just lost two more of its pupils. Only the final overthrow of Simon and his return to the galleys could restore its lustre. Until then it was fit that Brother Fulgence's successor should remain patiently in the background, while Father Théodose, the Superior of the Capuchins,—who also triumphed, even when others were being ruined,—skilfully exploited the situation by urging his devotees to make little periodical offerings, such for instance as two francs a month, to St. Antony of Padua, in order that the saint might exert his influence to keep the good Brothers' school at Maillebois.

However, the most serious incident of the turmoil in the town was supplied by Abbé Quandieu, who had long been regarded as a prudent Simonist. At that time it had been said that Monseigneur Bergerot, the Bishop, was behind him, even as Father Crabot was behind the Capuchins and the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. As usual, indeed, the Seculars and the Regulars confronted each other, the priests resenting the efforts which were made by the monks to divert all worship and revenue to their own profit. And in this instance, as in fact in all others, the better cause was that of the priests, whose conception of the religion of Christ was more equitable and human than that of the monks. Nevertheless, Monseigneur Bergerot had been defeated, and by his advice Abbé Quandieu had submitted and had done penance by attending an idolatrous ceremony at the Capuchin Chapel.

But all the disastrous disclosures and occurrences of recent times—first Father Philibin shown guilty of perjury and forgery, then Brother Fulgence spirited away after compromising himself, then, too, Brother Gorgias absconding and almost confessing his guilt—had stirred the parish priest of Maillebois to rebellion, and revived his former belief in Simon's innocence. Nevertheless he would probably have remained silent, in a spirit of discipline, if Abbé Cognasse, the priest of Jonville, had not gone out of his way to allude to him in a sermon, saying that an apostate priest, a hireling of the Jews, a traitor to his God and his country, was unhappily at the head of a neighbouring parish. On hearing this, Abbé Quandieu's Christian ardour asserted itself; he could no longer control the grief he felt at seeing 'the dealers of the Temple,' as he called them, betraying the Saviour who was all truth and justice. Thus, in his sermon on the following Sunday, he spoke of certain baleful men who were slaying the Church by their abominable complicity with the perpetrators of the vilest crimes. One may picture the scandal, the agitation, that ensued in the clerical world, particularly as it was asserted that Monseigneur Bergerot was again behind Abbé Quandieu, and was determined this time that fanatical and malignant sectarians should not be allowed to compromise religion any further.

At last, while passion was thus running riot, the new trial began before the Rozan Assize Court. It had been possible to bring Simon back to France, though he was still ailing, imperfectly cured as yet of the exhausting fevers which had delayed his return for nearly a year. During the voyage it had been feared that he would not be put ashore alive. Moreover, for fear of disorder, violence, and outrage, it had been necessary to practise dissimulation with respect to the spot where he would land, and bring him to Rozan at night time by roundabout ways which none suspected. At present he was in prison near the Palace of Justice, having only a street to cross in order to appear before his judges. And pending that event he was closely watched and guarded, defended also, like the important and disquieting personage he had become, one with whose fate that of the whole nation was bound up.

The first person privileged to see him was Rachel his wife, whom that reunion, after so many frightful years, cast into wild emotion. Ah! what an embrace they exchanged! And how great was the grief she displayed after that visit, so thin, so weak had she found him, so aged, too, with his white hair! And he had showed himself so strange, ignorant as he still was of the facts, for the brief communication by which the Court of Cassation had informed him of the approaching revision of his case had given no particulars. It had not surprised him to hear of the revision, he had always felt that it would some day take place; and this conviction, in spite of all his tortures, had lent him the strength to live in order that he might once more see his children and give them back a spotless name. But how dark was the anguish in which he had remained plunged, his mind ever dwelling on the frightful enigma of his condemnation, which he could not unravel! His brother David and Advocate Delbos, who hastened to the prison, ended by acquainting him with the whole monstrous affair, the terrible war which had been waged for years respecting his case, between those perpetual foes, the men of authoritarian views who defended the rotten edifice of the past, and the men of free thought who went towards the future. Then only did Simon understand the truth and come to regard his personal sufferings as mere incidents, whose only importance arose from the fact that they had led to a splendid uprising in the name of justice, which would benefit all mankind. Moreover, he did not willingly speak of his torments; he had suffered less from his companions, the thieves and murderers around him, than from his keepers, those ferocious brutes who were left free to act as they pleased, and who, like disciples of the Marquis de Sade, took a voluptuous delight in torturing and killing with impunity. Had it not been for the strength of resistance which Simon owed to racial heredity, and his cold logical temperament, he would twenty times have provoked his custodians to shoot him dead. And at present he talked of all those things in a quiet way, and evinced a naïve astonishment on being told of the extraordinary complications of the drama of which he was the victim.

Having secured a citation as a witness, Marc obtained leave of absence, and, a few days before the trial began, he took up his abode at Rozan, where he found David and Delbos already in the thick of the supreme battle. He was surprised by the nervousness and anxious thoughtfulness of David, who was usually so brave and calm. And it seemed to him that Delbos, as a rule so gaily valiant, was likewise uneasy. As a matter of fact it was for the latter a very big affair, in which he risked both his position as an advocate and his increasing popularity as a Socialist leader. If he should win the case he would doubtless end by beating Lemarrois at Beaumont; but unfortunately all sorts of disquieting symptoms were becoming manifest. Indeed Marc himself, after reaching Rozan full of hope, soon began to feel alarmed amid his new surroundings.

Elsewhere, even at Maillebois, the acquittal of Simon appeared certain to everybody possessed of any sense. Father Crabot's clients, in their private converse, did not conceal the fact that they felt their cause to be greatly endangered. The best news also came from Paris, where the Ministers regarded a just dénouement as certain, lulled into confidence as they were by their agents' reports respecting the Court and the jury. But the atmosphere was very different at Rozan, where an odour of falsehood and treachery pervaded the streets, and found its way into the depths of men's souls. This town, once the capital of a province, and now greatly fallen from its former importance, had retained all its monarchical and religious faith, all the antiquated fanaticism of a past age, which elsewhere had disappeared.[2] Thus it supplied an excellent battle-ground for the Congregations, which absolutely needed a decisive victory if they were to retain their teaching privileges and control the future. And never had Marc more fully realised how deeply Rome was interested in winning that battle; never had he more plainly detected that behind the slightest incidents of that interminable and monstrous affair there was papal Rome, clinging stubbornly to its dream of universal domination—Rome which, at every step over the paving-stones of Rozan, he found at work there, whispering, striving, and conquering.