The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de MaupassantЧитать онлайн книгу.
faithful ones, and that is all the good it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather stout, I say to myself: ‘She is bringing me a new parishioner,’ and I try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes; but you can go and look for the man, and prevent him from deserting the mother. Get them married, abbé, get them married, and do not trouble yourself about anything else.”
“We think differently,” said the young priest rudely; “it is useless to insist.” And Abbé Picot once more began to regret his village, the sea which he saw from his parsonage, the little valleys where he walked while repeating his breviary, glancing up at the boats as they passed.
As the two priests took their leave, the old man kissed Jeanne, who was on the verge of tears.
A week later Abbé Tolbiac called again. He spoke of reforms which he intended to accomplish, as a prince might have done on taking possession of a kingdom. Then he requested the vicomtesse not to miss the service on Sunday, and to communicate a all the festivals. “You and I,” he said, “we are at the head of the district; we must rule it and always set them an example to follow. We must be of one accord so that we may be powerful and respected. The church and the château in joining forces will make the peasants obey and fear us.”
Jeanne’s religion was all sentiment; she had all a woman’s dream faith, and if she attended at all to her religious duties, it was from a habit acquired at the convent, the baron’s advanced ideas having long since overthrown her convictions. Abbé Picot contented himself with what observances she gave him, and never blamed her. But his successor, not seeing her at mass the preceding Sunday, had come to call, uneasy and stern.
She did not wish to break with the parsonage, and promised, making up her mind to be assiduous in attendance the first few weeks, out of politeness.
Little by little, however, she got into the habit of going to church, and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial abbé. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human interests, his love of God, his youthful and untutored inexperience, his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the stuff martyrs were made of; and she let herself be carried away, all disillusioned as she was, by the fanaticism of this child, the minister of God.
He led her to Christ, the consoler, showing her how the joy of religion will calm all sorrow; and she knelt at the confessional, humbling herself, feeling herself small and weak in presence of this priest, who appeared to be about fifteen.
He was, however, very soon detested in all the countryside. Inflexibly severe toward himself, he was implacably intolerant toward others, and the one thing that especially roused his wrath and indignation was love. The young men and girls looked at each other slyly across the church, and the old peasants who liked to joke about such things disapproved his severity. All the parish was in a ferment. Soon the young men all stopped going to church.
The curé dined at the château every Thursday, and often came during the week to chat with his penitent. She became enthusiastic like himself, talked about spiritual matters, handling all the antique and complicated arsenal of religious controversy.
They walked together along the baroness’ avenue, talking of Christ and the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Fathers of the Church as though they were personally acquainted with them.
Julien treated the new priest with great respect, saying constantly: “That priest suits me, he does not back down.” And he went to confession and communion, setting a fine example. He now went to the Fourvilles’ nearly every day, gunning with the husband, who was never happy without him, and riding with the comtesse, in spite of rain and storm. The comte said: “They are crazy about riding, but it does my wife good.”
The baron returned to the château about the middle of November. He was changed, aged, faded, filled with a deep sadness. And his love for his daughter seemed to have gained in strength, as if these few months of dreary solitude had aggravated his need of affection, confidence and tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her friendship for the Abbé Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that evening how he liked him, he replied: “That man is an inquisitor! He must be very dangerous.”
When he learned from the peasants, whose friend he was, of the harshness and violence of the young priest, of the kind of persecution which he carried on against all human and natural instincts, he developed a hatred toward him. He, himself, was one of the old race of natural philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a God with bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant priest, the persecutor of life.
Jeanne, very much worried, prayed to the Lord, entreated her father; but he always replied: “We must fight such men as that, it is our duty and our right. They are not human.”
And he repeated, shaking his long white locks: “They are not human; they understand nothing, nothing, nothing. They are moving in a morbid dream; they are anti-physical.” And he pronounced the word “anti-physical” as though it were a malediction.
The priest knew who his enemy was, but as he wished to remain ruler of the château and of Jeanne, he temporized, sure of final victory. He was also haunted by a fixed idea. He had discovered by chance the amours of Julien and Gilberte, and he desired to put a stop to them at all costs.
He came to see Jeanne one day and, after a long conversation on spiritual matters, he asked her to give her aid in helping him to fight, to put an end to the evil in her own family, in order to save two souls that were in danger.
She did not understand, and did not wish to know. He replied: “The hour has not arrived. I shall see you some other time.” And he left abruptly.
The winter was coming to a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the country, damp and mild. The abbé called again some days later and hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring it to an end. He took Jeanne’s hand and adjured her to open her eyes and understand and lend him her aid.
This time she understood, but she was silent, terrified at the thought of all that might result in the house that was now peaceful, and she pretended not to understand. Then he spoke out clearly.
She faltered: “What do you wish me to do, Monsieur l’Abbé?”
“Anything, rather than permit this infamy. Anything, I say. Leave him. Flee from this impure house!”
“But I have no money; and then I have no longer any courage; and, besides, how can I go without any proof? I have not the right to do so.”
The priest arose trembling: “That is cowardice, madame; I am mistaken in you. You are unworthy of God’s mercy!”
She fell on her knees: “Oh, I pray you not to leave me, tell me what to do!”
“Open M. de Fourville’s eyes,” he said abruptly. “It is his place to break up this intrigue.”
This idea filled her with terror. “Why, he would kill them, Monsieur l’Abbé! And I should be guilty of denouncing them! Oh, never that, never!”
He raised his hand as if to curse her in his fury: “Remain in your shame and your crime; for you are more guilty than they are. You are the complaisant wife! There is nothing more for me to do here.” And he went off so furious that he trembled all over.
She followed him, distracted and ready to do as he suggested. But he strode along rapidly, shaking his large blue umbrella in his rage. He perceived Julien standing outside the gate superintending the lopping of the trees, so he turned to the left to go across the Couillard farm,