Chapter XIII: Book III: I (2)

‘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.

VI

The next day was Sunday. As the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross fell on a high mass day, Abbé Mouret desired to celebrate the festival with especial solemnity. He was now full of extraordinary devotion for the Cross, and had replaced the image of the Immaculate Conception in his bedroom by a large crucifix of black wood, before which he spent long hours in worship. To exalt the Cross, to plant it before him, above all else, in a halo of glory, as the one object of his life, gave him the strength he needed to suffer and to struggle. He sometimes dreamed of hanging there himself, in Jesus’s place, his head crowned with thorns, nails driven through his hands and feet, and his side rent by spears. What a coward he must be to complain of an imaginary wound, when God bled there from His whole body, and yet preserved on His lips the blessed smile of the Redemption! And however unworthy it might be, he offered up his wound as a sacrifice, ended by falling into ecstasy, and believing that blood did really stream from his brow and side and limbs. Those were hours of relief, for he fancied that all the impurity within him flowed forth from his wounds. And he then usually drew himself up with the heroism of a martyr, and longed to be called upon to suffer the most frightful tortures, in order that he might bear them without a quiver of the flesh.

At early dawn that day he knelt before the crucifix, and grace came upon him abundantly as dew. He made no effort, he simply fell upon his knees, to receive it in his heart, to be permeated with it to the marrow of his bones in sweetest and most refreshing fulness. On the previous day he had prayed for grace in agony, and it had not come. At times it long remained deaf to his entreaties, and then, when he simply clasped his hands, in quite childlike fashion, it flowed down to succour him. It came upon him that morning like a benediction, bringing perfect serenity, absolute trusting faith. He forgot his anguish of the previous days, and surrendered himself wholly to the triumphant joy of the Cross. He seemed to be cased in such impenetrable armour that the world’s most deadly blows would glide off from it harmlessly. When he came down from his bedroom, he stepped along with an air of serenity and victory. La Teuse was astonished, and went to find Desirée, that he might kiss her; and both of them clapped their hands, and said that they had not seen him looking so well for the last six months.

But it was in the church, at high mass, that the priest felt that he had really recovered divine grace. It was a long time since he had approached the altar with such loving emotion; and he had to make a great effort to restrain himself from weeping whilst he remained with his lips pressed to the altar-cloth. It was a solemn high mass. The local rural guard, an uncle of Rosalie, chanted in a deep bass voice which rumbled through the low nave like a hoarse organ. Vincent, robed in a surplice much too large for him, which had formerly belonged to Abbé Caffin, carried an old silver censer, and was vastly amused by the tinkling of its chains; he swung it to a great height, so as to produce copious clouds of smoke, and glanced behind him every now and then to see if he had succeeded in making any one cough. The church was almost full, for everybody wanted to see his reverence’s painting. Peasant women laughed with pleasure because the place smelt so nice, while the men, standing under the gallery, jerked their heads approvingly at each deeper and deeper note that came from the rural guard. Filtering through the paper window panes the full morning sun lighted up the brightly painted walls, on which the women’s caps cast shadows resembling huge butterflies. The artificial flowers, with which the altar was decorated, almost seemed to possess the moist freshness of natural ones newly gathered; and when the priest turned round to bless the congregation, he felt even stronger emotion than before, as he saw his church so clean, so full, and so steeped in music and incense and light.

After the offertory, however, a buzzing murmur sped through the peasant women. Vincent inquisitively turned his head, and in doing so, almost let the charcoal in his censer fall upon the priest’s chasuble. And, wishing to excuse himself, as he saw the Abbé looking at him with an expression of reproof, he murmured: ‘It is your reverence’s uncle, who has just come in.’

At the end of the church, standing beside one of the slender wooden pillars that supported the gallery, Abbé Mouret then perceived Doctor Pascal. The doctor was not wearing his usual cheerful and slightly scoffing expression. Hat in hand, he stood there looking very grave, and followed the service with evident impatience. The sight of the priest at the altar, his solemn demeanour, his slow gestures, and the perfect serenity of his countenance, appeared to gradually increase his irritation. He could not stay there till the end of the mass, but left the church, and walked up and down beside his horse and gig, which he had secured to one of the parsonage shutters.

‘Will that nephew of mine never have finished censing himself?’ he asked of La Teuse, who was just coming out of the vestry.

‘It is all over,’ she replied. ‘Won’t you come into the drawing-room? His reverence is unrobing. He knows you are here.’

‘Well, unless he were blind, he couldn’t very well help it,’ growled the doctor, as he followed La Teuse into the cold-looking, stiffly furnished chamber, which she pompously called the drawing-room. Here for a few minutes he paced up and down. The gloomy coldness of his surroundings seemed to increase his irritation. As he strode about, flourishing a stick he carried, he kept on striking the well-worn chair-seats of horsehair which sounded hard and dead as stone. Then, tired of walking, he took his stand in front of the mantelpiece, in the centre of which a gaudily painted image of Saint Joseph occupied the place of a clock.

‘Ah! here he comes at last,’ he said, as he heard the door opening. And stepping towards the Abbé he went on: ‘Do you know that you made me listen to half a mass? It is a very long time since that happened to me. But I was bent on seeing you to-day. I have something to say to you.’

Then he stopped, and looked at the priest with an expression of surprise. Silence fell. ‘You at all events are quite well,’ he resumed, in a different voice.

‘Yes, I am very much better than I was,’ replied Abbé Mouret, with a smile. ‘I did not expect you before Thursday. Sunday isn’t your day for coming. Is there something you want to tell me?’

Uncle Pascal did not give an immediate answer. He went on looking at the Abbé. The latter was still fresh from the influence of the church and the mass. His hair was fragrant with the perfume of the incense, and in his eyes shone all the joy of the Cross. His uncle jogged his head, as he noticed that expression of triumphant peace.

‘I have come from the Paradou,’ he said, abruptly. ‘Jeanbernat came to fetch me there. I have seen Albine, and she disquiets me. She needs much careful treatment.’

He kept his eyes fixed upon the priest as he spoke, but he did not detect so much as a quiver of Serge’s eyelids.

‘She took great care of you, you know,’ he added, more roughly. ‘Without her, my boy, you might now be in one of the cells at Les Tulettes, with a strait waistcoat on.... Well, I promised that you would go to see her. I will take you with me. It will be a farewell meeting. She is anxious to go away.’

‘I can do nothing more than pray for the person of whom you speak,’ said Abbé Mouret, softly.

And as the doctor, losing his temper, brought his stick down heavily upon the couch, he added calmly, but in a firm voice:

‘I am a priest, and can only help with prayers.’

‘Ah, well! Yes, you are right,’ said Uncle Pascal, dropping down into an armchair, ‘it is I who am an old fool. Yes, I wept like a child, as I came here alone in my gig. That is what comes of living amongst books. One learns a lot from them, but one makes a fool of oneself in the world. How could I guess that it would all turn out so badly?’

He rose from his chair and began to walk about again, looking exceedingly troubled.

‘But yes, but yes, I ought to have guessed. It was all quite natural. Though with one in your position, it was bound to be abominable! You are not as other men. But listen to me, I assure you that otherwise you would never have recovered. It was she alone, with the atmosphere she set round you, who saved you from madness. There is no need for me to tell you what a state you were in. It is one of my most wonderful cures. But I can’t take any pride, any pleasure in it, for now the poor girl is dying of it!’

Abbé Mouret remained there erect, perfectly calm, his face reflecting all the quiet serenity of a martyr whom nothing that man might do could disturb.

‘God will take mercy upon her,’ he said.

‘God! God!’ muttered the doctor below his breath. ‘Ah! He would do better not to interfere. We might manage matters if we were left to ourselves.’ Then, raising his voice, he added: ‘I thought I had considered everything carefully, that is the most wonderful part of it. Oh! what a fool I was! You would stay there, I thought, for a month to recover your strength. The shade of the trees, the cheerful chatter of the girl, all the youthfulness about you would quickly bring you round. And then you, on your side, it seemed to me, would do something to reclaim the poor child from her wild ways; you would civilise her, and, between us, we should turn her into a young lady, for whom we should, by-and-by, find a suitable husband. It seemed such a perfect scheme. And then how was I to guess that old philosophising Jeanbernat would never stir an inch from his lettuce-beds? Well! well! I myself never left my own laboratory. I had such pressing work there.... And it is all my fault! Ah! I am a stupid bungler!’

He was choking, and wished to go off. And he began to look about him for his hat, though, all the while, he had it on his head.

‘Good-bye!’ he stammered; ‘I am going. So you won’t come? Do, now--for my sake! You see how miserable, how upset I am. I swear to you that she shall go away immediately afterwards. That is all settled. My gig is here; you might be back in an hour. Come, do come, I beg you.’

The priest made a sweeping gesture; such a gesture as the doctor had seen him make before the altar.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I cannot.’

Then, as he accompanied his uncle out of the room, he added:

‘Tell her to fall on her knees and pray to God. God will hear her as He heard me, and He will comfort her as He has comforted me. There is no other means of salvation.’

The doctor looked him full in the face, and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Good-bye, then,’ he repeated. ‘You are quite well now, and have no further need of me.’

But, as he was unfastening his horse, Desirée, who had heard his voice, came running up. She was extremely attached to her uncle. When she had been younger he had been wont to listen to her childish prattle for hours without showing the least sign of weariness. And, even now, he did his best to spoil her, and manifested the greatest interest in her farmyard, often spending a whole afternoon with her amongst her fowls and ducks, and smiling at her with his bright eyes. He seemed to consider her superior to other girls. And so she now flung herself round his neck, in an impulse of affection, and cried:

‘Aren’t you going to stay and have some lunch with us?’

But having kissed her, he said he could not remain, and unfastened her arms from his neck with a somewhat pettish air. She laughed however, and again clasped her arms round him.

‘Oh! but you must,’ she persisted. ‘I have some eggs that have only just been laid. I have been looking in the nests, and there are fourteen eggs this morning. And, if you will stay, we can have a fowl, the white one, that is always quarrelling with the others. When you were here on Thursday, you know, it pecked the big spotted hen’s eye out.’

But her uncle persisted in his refusal. He was irritated to find that he could not unfasten the knot in which he had tied his reins. And then she began to skip round him, clapping her hands and repeating in a sing-song voice: ‘Yes! yes! you’ll stay, and we will eat it up, we’ll eat it up!’

Her uncle could no longer resist her blandishments; he raised his head and smiled at her. She seemed so full of life and health and sincerity; her gaiety was as frank and natural as the sheet of sunlight which was gilding her bare arms.

‘You big silly!’ he said; and clasping her by the wrists as she continued skipping gleefully about him, he went on: ‘No, dear; not to-day. I have to go to see a poor girl who is ill. But I will come some other morning. I promise you faithfully.’

‘When? when?’ she persisted. ‘On Thursday? The cow is in calf, you know, and she hasn’t seemed at all well these last two days. You are a doctor, and you ought to be able to give her something to do her good.’

Abbé Mouret, who had calmly remained there, could not restrain a slight laugh.

The doctor gaily got into his gig and exclaimed: ‘All right, my dear, I will attend to your cow. Come and let me kiss you. Ah! how nice and healthy you are! And you are worth more than all the others put together. Ah! if every one was like my big silly, this earth would be too beautiful!’

He set his horse off with a cluck of his tongue, and continued talking to himself as the gig rattled down the hill.

‘Yes, yes! there should be nothing but animals. Ah! if they were mere animals, how happy and gay and strong they would all be! It has gone well with the girl, who is as happy as her cow; but it has gone badly with the lad, who is in torture beneath his cassock. A drop too much blood, a little too much nerve, and one’s whole life is wrecked! ... They are true Rougons and true Macquarts those children there! The tail-end of the stock--its final degeneracy.’

Then, urging on his horse, he drove at a trot up the hill that led to the Paradou.

VII

Sunday was a busy day for Abbé Mouret. He had to think of vespers, which he generally said to empty seats, for even mother Brichet did not carry her piety so far as to go back to church in the afternoon. Then, at four o’clock, Brother Archangias brought the little rogues from his school to repeat their catechism to his reverence. This lesson sometimes lasted until late. When the children showed themselves quite intractable, La Teuse was summoned to frighten them with her broom.

On that particular Sunday, about four o’clock, Desirée found herself quite alone in the parsonage. As she felt a little bored, she went to gather some food for her rabbits in the churchyard, where there were some magnificent poppies, of which rabbits are extremely fond. Dragging herself about on her knees between the grave-stones, she gathered apronfuls of juicy verdure on which her pets fell greedily.

‘Oh! what lovely plantains!’ she muttered, stooping before Abbé Caffin’s tombstone, and delighted with the discovery she had made.

There were, indeed, some magnificent plantains spreading out their broad leaves beside the stone. Desirée had just finished filling her apron with them when she fancied she heard a strange noise behind her. A rustling of branches and a rolling of small pebbles came from the ravine which skirted one side of the graveyard, and at the bottom of which flowed the Mascle, a stream which descended from the high lands of the Paradou. But the ascent here was so rough, so impracticable, that Desirée imagined that the noise could only have been made by some lost dog or straying goat. She stepped quickly to the edge, and, as she looked over, she was amazed to see amidst the brambles a girl who was climbing up the rocks with extraordinary agility.

‘I will give you a hand,’ she said. ‘You might easily break your neck there.’

The girl, directly she saw she was discovered, started back, as though she would rather go down again, but after a moment’s hesitation she ventured to take the hand that was held out to her.

‘Oh! I know who you are,’ said Desirée, with a beaming smile, and letting her apron fall that she might grasp the girl by the waist. ‘You once gave me some blackbirds, but they all died, poor little dears. I was so sorry about it.--Wait a bit, I know your name, I have heard it before. La Teuse often mentions it when Serge isn’t there; but she told me that I was not to repeat it. Wait a moment, I shall remember it directly!’

She tried to recall the name, and grew quite grave in the attempt. Then, having succeeded in remembering it, she became gay again, and seemingly found great pleasure in dwelling upon its musical sound.

‘Albine! Albine!---- What a sweet name it is! At first I used to think you must be a tomtit, because I once had a tomtit with a name very like yours, though I don’t remember exactly what it was.’

Albine did not smile. Her face was very pale, and there was a feverish gleam in her eyes. A few drops of blood trickled from her hands. When she had recovered her breath, she hastily exclaimed:

No! no! leave it alone. You will only stain your handkerchief. It is nothing but a scratch. I didn’t want to come by the road, as I should have been seen--so I preferred coming along the bed of the torrent---- Is Serge there?’

Desirée did not feel at all shocked at hearing the girl pronounce her brother’s name thus familiarly and with an expression of subdued passion. She simply replied that he was in the church hearing the children say their catechism.

‘You must not speak at all loudly,’ she added, raising her finger to her lips. ‘Serge forbade me to talk loudly when he is catechising the children, and we shall get into trouble if we don’t keep quiet. Let us go into the stable--shall we? We can talk better there.’

‘I want to see Serge,’ said Albine, simply.

Desirée cast a hasty glance at the church, and then whispered, ‘Yes, yes; Serge will be finely caught. Come with me. We will hide ourselves, and keep quite quiet. We shall have some fine fun!’

She had picked up the herbage which had fallen from her apron, and quitting the graveyard she stole back to the parsonage, telling Albine to hide herself behind her and make herself as little as possible. As they stealthily glided through the farmyard, they caught sight of La Teuse, who was crossing over to the vestry, but she did not appear to notice them.

‘There! There!’ said Desirée, quite delighted, as they stowed themselves away in the stable; ‘keep quiet, and no one will know that we are here. There is some straw there for you to lie down upon.’

Albine seated herself on a truss of straw.

‘And Serge?’ she asked, persisting in her one fixed idea.

‘Listen! You can hear his voice. When he claps his hands, it will be all over, and the children will go away--Listen! he is telling them a tale.’

They could indeed just hear Abbé Mouret’s voice, which was wafted to them through the vestry doorway which La Teuse had doubtless left open. It came to them like a solemn murmur, in which they could distinguish the name of Jesus thrice repeated. Albine trembled. She sprang up as though to hasten to that beloved voice whose caressing accents she knew so well, but all sound of it suddenly died away, shut off by the closing of the door. Then she sat down again, to wait, her hands tightly clasped, and her clear eyes gleaming with the intensity of her thoughts. Desirée, who was lying at her feet, gazed up at her with innocent admiration.

‘How beautiful you are!’ she whispered. ‘You are like an image that Serge used to have in his bedroom. It was quite white like you are, with great curls floating about the neck; and the heart was quite bare and uncovered, just in the place where I can feel yours beating---- But you are not listening to me. You are looking quite sad. Let us play at something? Will you?’

Then she stopped short, holding her breath and saying between her teeth: ‘Ah! the wretches! they will get us caught!’ She still had her apron full of herbage with her, and her pets were taking it by assault. A troop of fowls had surrounded her, clucking and calling each other, and pecking at the hanging green stuff. The goat pushed its head slyly under her arm, and began to eat the longer leaves. Even the cow, which was tethered to the wall, strained at its cord and poked out its nose, kissing her with its warm breath.

‘Oh! you thieves!’ cried Desirée. ‘But this is for the rabbits, not for you! Leave me alone, won’t you! You, there, will get your ears boxed, if you don’t go away! And you too will have your tail pulled if I catch you at it again. The wretches! they will be eating my hands soon!’

She drove the goat off, dispersed the fowls with her feet, and tapped the cow’s nose with her fists. But the creatures just shook themselves, and then came back more greedily than ever, surrounding her, jumping on her, and tearing open her apron. At this she whispered to Albine, as though she were afraid the animals might hear her.

‘Aren’t they amusing, the dears? Watch them eat.’

Albine looked on with a grave expression.

‘Now, now, be good,’ resumed Desirée; ‘you shall all have some, but you must wait your turns. Now, big Lisa, you first. Eh! how fond you are of plantain, aren’t you?’

Big Lisa was the cow. She slowly munched a handful of the juicy leaves which had grown beside Abbé Caffin’s tomb. A thread of saliva hung down from her mouth, and her great brown eyes shone with quiet enjoyment.

‘There! now it’s your turn,’ continued Desirée, turning towards the goat. ‘You are fond of poppies, I know; and you like the flowers best, don’t you? The buds that shine in your teeth like red-hot butterflies! See, here are some splendid ones; they came from the left-hand corner, where there was a burial last year.’

As she spoke, she gave the goat a bunch of scarlet flowers, which the animal ate from her hand. When there was nothing left in her grasp but the stalks, she pushed these between its teeth. Behind her, in the meanwhile, the fowls were desperately pecking away at her petticoats. She threw them some wild chicory and dandelions which she had gathered amongst the old slabs that were ranged alongside the church walls. It was particularly over the dandelions that the fowls quarrelled, so voraciously indeed, with such scratchings and flapping of wings, that the other fowls in the yard heard them. And then came a general invasion. The big yellow cock, Alexander, was the first to appear; having seized a dandelion and torn it in halves, without attempting to eat it, he called to the hens who were still outside to come and peck. Then a white hen strutted in, then a black one, and then a whole crowd of hens, who hustled one another, and trod on one another’s tails, and ended by forming a wild flood of feathers. Behind the fowls came the pigeons, and the ducks, and the geese, and, last of all, the turkeys. Desirée laughed at seeing herself thus surrounded by this noisy, squabbling mob.

‘This is what always happens,’ said she, ‘every time that I bring any green stuff from the graveyard. They nearly kill each other to get at it; they must find it very nice.’

Then she made a fight to keep a few handfuls of the leaves from the greedy beaks which rose all round her, saying that something must really be saved for the rabbits. She would surely get angry with them if they went on like that, and give them nothing but dry bread in future. However, she was obliged to give way. The geese tugged at her apron so violently that she was almost pulled down upon her knees; the ducks gobbled away at her ankles; two of the pigeons flew upon her head, and some of the fowls fluttered about her shoulders. It was the ferocity of creatures who smell flesh: the fat plantains, the crimson poppies, the milky dandelions, in which remained some of the life of the dead. Desirée laughed loudly, and felt that she was on the point of slipping down, and letting go of her last two handfuls, when the fowls were panic-stricken by a terrible grunting.

‘Ah! it’s you, my fatty,’ she exclaimed, quite delighted; ‘eat them up, and set me at liberty.’

The pig waddled in; he was no longer the little pig of former days--pink as a newly painted toy, with a tiny little tail, like a bit of string; but a fat wobbling creature, fit to be killed, with a belly as round as a monk’s, and a back all bristling with rough hairs, that reeked of fatness. His stomach had grown quite yellow from his habit of sleeping on the manure heap. Waddling along on his shaky feet, he charged with lowered snout at the scared fowls, and so left Desirée at liberty to escape, and take the rabbits the few scraps of green stuff which she had so strenuously defended. When she came back, all was peace again. The stupid, ecstatic-looking geese were lazily swaying their long necks about, the ducks and turkeys were waddling in ungainly fashion alongside the wall; the fowls were quietly clucking and peaking at invisible grains on the hard ground of the stable; while the pig, the goat, and the big cow, were drowsily blinking their eyes, as though they were falling asleep. Outside it had just begun to rain.

‘Ah! well, there’s a shower coming on!’ cried Desirée, throwing herself down on the straw. ‘You had better stay where you are, my dears, if you don’t want to get soaked.’

Then she turned to Albine and added: ‘How stupid they all look, don’t they? They only wake up just to eat!’

Albine still remained silent. The merry laughter of that buxom girl as she struggled amidst those greedy necks and gluttonous beaks, which tickled and kissed her, and seemed bent on devouring her very flesh, had rendered the unhappy daughter of the Paradou yet paler than she had been before. So much gaiety, so much vitality, so much boisterous health made her despair. She strained her feverish arms to her desolate bosom, which desertion had parched.

‘And Serge?’ she asked again, in the same clear, stubborn voice.

‘Hush!’ said Desirée. ‘I heard him just now. He hasn’t finished yet---- We have been making a pretty disturbance; La Teuse must surely have grown deaf this afternoon---- Let us keep quiet now. I like to hear the rain fall.’

The shower beat in at the open doorway, casting big drops upon the threshold. The restless fowls, after venturing out for a moment, had quickly retreated to the far end of the stable; where, indeed, with the exception of three ducks who remained quietly walking in the rain, all the pets had now taken refuge, clustering round the girl’s skirts. It was growing very warm amongst the straw. Desirée pulled two big trusses together, made a bed of them, and lay down at full length. She felt extremely comfortable there.

‘It is so nice,’ she murmured. ‘Come and lie down like me. It is so springy and soft, all this straw; and it tickles one so funnily in the neck. Do you roll about in the straw at home? There is nothing I am fonder of---- Sometimes I tickle the soles of my feet with it. That is very funny, too----’

But at that moment, the big yellow cock, who had been gravely stalking towards her, jumped upon her breast.

‘Get away with you, Alexander! get away!’ she cried. ‘What a tiresome creature he is! The idea of his perching himself on me---- You are too rough, sir, and you scratch me with your claws. Do you hear me? I don’t want you to go away, but you must be good, and mustn’t peck at my hair.’

Then she troubled herself no further about him. The cock still maintained his position, every now and then glancing inquisitively at the girl’s chin with his gleaming eye. The other birds all began to cluster round her. After rolling amongst the straw, she was now lying lazily on her back with her arms stretched out.

‘Ah! how pleasant it is,’ she said; ‘but then it makes me feel so sleepy. Straw always makes one drowsy, doesn’t it? Serge doesn’t like it. Perhaps you don’t either. What do you like? Tell me, so that I may know.’

She was gradually dozing off. For a moment she opened her eyes widely, as though she were looking for something, and then her eyelids fell with a tranquil smile of content. She seemed to be asleep, but after a few minutes she opened her eyes again, and said:

‘The cow is going to have a calf---- That will be so nice, and will please me more than anything.’