THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль ЗоляЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CHAPTER III

      THERE ARE MENIALS IN THE CHURCH

      ON reaching Marseille, Marius directed his steps to the church of Saint Victor, to which Abbé Chastanier was attached. It is one of the oldest churches in Marseille; its dark, high, and crenelated walls give it the appearance of a fortress. The rough people of the port hold it in particular veneration.

      The young fellow found the priest in the sacristy. He was a tall old man, with a long emaciated face, pale as wax; his sad eyes had a fixed look of suffering and misery. He had just returned from a funeral, and was slowly taking off his surplice.

      His history was a short and sad one. Born of peasant parents, and as gentle and innocent as a child, he had taken orders to satisfy the pious wish of his mother. In becoming a priest he had desired to perform an act of humility, of absolute devotion. He believed, in his simplicity, that a minister of God should bury himself in the infiniteness of divine love, renounce the ambitions and intrigues of the world, and live in the heart of the sanctuary, absolving sins with one hand and dispensing charity with the other.

      Ah! poor abbé! how they let him see that the simpleminded are only fit to suffer and remain in obscurity! He was soon to learn that ambition is a sacerdotal virtue, and that young priests often love God for the sake of the worldly favours that His church distributes. He beheld all his comrades of the seminary struggling tooth and nail. He assisted at these internal battles, those secret intrigues which turn a diocese into a turbulent little kingdom. And, as he remained humbly on his knees, as he did not seek to please the feminine portion of the congregation, as he asked for nothing and appeared piously stupid, he was endowed with a miserable living, thrown to him as one casts a bone to a dog.

      He remained thus, for forty years, in a little village situated between Aubagne and Cassis. His church was a kind of barn, lime-washed and icily bare; in winter, when the wind blew in one of the windowpanes, the interior was chilled for weeks together, for the poor priest did not always possess the few coppers necessary to replace the broken glass. Yet he never complained, he lived peacefully amidst his wretchedness and solitude. He even experienced great joy in suffering, in feeling himself kin to the beggars of his parish.

      He was sixty years old, when one of his sisters, a workwoman at Marseille, became an invalid. She wrote to him, beseeching him to come to her. The old priest therefore begged his bishop to find him a small place in one of the city churches. He was kept waiting the fulfilment of his modest request for several months, when at length he received a call to Saint Victor. There he had to undertake, so to say, all the roughest work, all the labour that brought least renown and least profit. He prayed over the coffins of the poor and led them to the cemetery; he even at times fulfilled the duties of sacristan.

      It was at this period that he began really to suffer. So long as he had remained in his desert, he had been able to be simple, poor, and old at his ease. Now, he felt that his poverty and old age, his gentleness and simplicity were looked upon as a crime. And his heart was rent when he understood that there could be menials in the Church. He saw well enough that he was looked upon with derision and scorn. He bowed his head still more, becoming yet more humble, weeping over his faith, shaken by the words and deeds of the worldly priests about him.

      Fortunately of an evening, he had some happy moments. He nursed his sister, consoling himself in his own way by devoting himself to another. He surrounded the poor invalid with a thousand little joys. Then another pleasure had been vouchsafed him: M. de Cazalis, who had no faith in young abbés, had selected him to be his niece’s spiritual adviser. The old priest seldom attracted a lady penitent and scarcely ever heard a confession. He was moved to tears on the receipt of the deputy’s proposal, and he questioned, he loved Blanche as though she had been his own child.

      Marius handed him the young girl’s letter and watched his face for a trace of the emotions the reading of it was about to cause him. He beheld the signs of acute grief. Yet the priest did not appear to experience that surprise which results from unexpected news, and Marius concluded that Blanche had mentioned in confession her growing affection for Philippe.

      “You did well to count upon me, sir,” said Abbé Chastanier to Marius. “But I am very weak and not at all skilful. I should have displayed more energy.”

      The poor man’s head and hands shook with that sad gentle trembling peculiar to old people.

      “I am at your disposal,” he continued. “How can I assist the unhappy child?”

      “Sir,” replied Marius, “I am the brother of the young madman who has eloped with Mademoiselle de Cazalis, and I have sworn to right the wrong, to stifle the scandal. Will you join with me. The young lady’s honour is gone if her uncle has already denounced the affair to the authorities. Go, therefore, and find him, endeavour to calm his anger, and tell him his niece shall promptly be restored to him.”

      “Why did you not bring her with you? I know how passionate M. de Cazalis can be. Nothing but certainty will satisfy him.”

      “It is just that anger which has frightened my brother. Besides, this is no time for reasoning. We are overwhelmed with accomplished facts. Believe me, I feel as indignant as you, and fully understand how disgraceful my brother’s behaviour has been. But, for pity’s sake, let us do something.”

      “Very well,” said the abbé simply, “I will go wherever you wish.”

      They went along the Boulevard de la Corderie and reached the Cours Bonaparte where the deputy’s town house was situated. M. de Cazalis, a prey to terrible anger and despair, had returned to Marseille early in the morning following the elopement. Abbé Chastanier stopped Marius at the door of the house.

      “Do not come in,” said he. “Your visit might be considered an insult. Let me manage, and wait for me here.”

      Marius walked feverishly up and down the pavement for a good hour. He would have preferred to have gone in, to have explained matters himself and have asked for pardon in Philippe’s name. Whilst the fate of his family was under discussion in that house, he had to remain there, outside, inactive, and a prey to all the agony of waiting. At length Abbé Chastanier came out. He had been weeping; his eyes were red, his lips quivering.

      “M. de Cazalis will listen to nothing,” he said, in a troubled voice. “I found him in a blind rage. He has already been to the crown-attorney.”

      The poor priest did not mention that M. de Cazalis had received him with the bitterest reproaches, venting his anger upon him, and accusing him, in his rage, of having given evil counsel to his niece. The abbé bent beneath the storm; he almost fell on his knees, not seeking to defend himself, but imploring the deputy to take pity on the others.

      “Tell me all!” exclaimed Marius, in despair.

      “It appears,” the priest replied, “that the man with whom your brother left his horse, assisted M. de Cazalis in his search. A complaint was lodged at an early hour this morning, and the police have been to ransack your lodging in the Rue Sainte, and your mother’s house at Saint Just.”

      “Good heavens! good heavens!” sighed Marius.

      “M. de Cazalis swears that he will crush the whole of your family. I vainly endeavoured to bring him to a kindlier frame of mind. He talks of having your mother arrested.”

      “My mother! Whatever for?”

      “He makes out that she is an accomplice, that she assisted your brother in carrying off Mademoiselle Blanche.”

      “What can we do, how prove the falsity of such an accusation? Ah! wretched Philippe! It will be the death of our mother.”

      And Marius sobbed aloud, his face buried in his hands. Abbé Chastanier beheld his fit of despair with tender pity. He understood the goodness