Chapter 14

That departure, which he had so eagerly desired before, and the hope of which he had clung to as one lays hold of a means of safety, he could not think of without grief, when he saw it near and practicable. Undoubtedly he would leave without regret this village, where his youth was buried, where his abilities were rendered unfruitful, where his sanguine aspirations were slowly killing themselves.... But Suzanne?

That sweet name which he murmured low with love. That sweet young girl the sight of whom was as pleasant as a sun-beam, he was going to leave her for ever.

It was for his good, his honour, his quiet, his future; he knew it, he felt it, but he was full of sorrow.

Meanwhile, he overwhelmed his uncle with marks of attention and friendship; he made every effort to cope with his guest's cheerful discourse, who, after relating the flight of the Grand-Vicar, surprised in criminal conversation with the wife of the Captain of Gendarmerie, acquainted him all the little ecclesiastical scandals. But he gave only a partial attention; his thoughts were absorbed in his inmost preoccupations. Now and again only did he let fall a few observations in reply: "How horrible," or "How shocking," or again: "How abominable!"

Ridoux did not appear at first to pay attention to his nephew's gloomy thoughts. He laughed and joked all alone, but he did not miss a mouthful. Old priests are generally greedy. Good cheer is one of the joys which is left to them.

With no serious preoccupation, with no anxiety for the future, exempt from family cares, they transfer all their solicitude to themselves, and make a divinity of their belly.

But when his appetite, sharpened by his journey, was appeased, he examined Marcel with curiosity, and what he observed, combined with a few indiscreet words of Veronica, confirmed him in his suspicions, that a drama was being enacted in the young man's soul.

--Do you know, he said to him, that you are a pitiable companion. You scarcely eat, you scarcely speak, you do not drink, and you laugh still less. Why, what's the matter with you? Are you not gratified at my visit?

--Forgive me, uncle, but I am rather poorly, said Marcel; that is my excuse.

--That is what the maid-servant told me, but you declared to me that you were quite well.

--How can you suppose that I am not happy to see you? You know my feelings well.

--I know that you have excellent feelings. But I find you quite changed. It is scarcely a year since I saw you, and you bear marks of weariness. You stoop like an old man. Look at me, always the same, firm as a rock. "God smites the wicked with many plagues, but he encompasseth with his help those that hope in him." Second penitential psalm. You are not wicked: what plague consumes you? Ambition? Patience, everything will be changed, since your enemy is vanquished. Is it your conscience which is ill at ease? But conscience should be cheerful; that is its true sign. Is it anything else? Come, tell me.

--Well yes, uncle, there is something. The same complaint as before, you know, when I hesitated to enter the seminary, when I had doubts about my vocation. You ended my hesitation and silenced my doubts; you have made a priest of me; well, now more than ever, I have moments of lassitude which make me disgusted with my calling.

--Really?

--Yes, there are hours when this priest's robe devours me, like the robe of Nessus; I wish that I could tear it off, but I feel that I should tear off pieces of my flesh at the same time, for it is too late, and it has become a portion of myself. I am ashamed to make this confession to you, but you wished it, and I have opened my heart to you.

--May it not be that the heart is sick? Come. I see that I am come to take you away from here at a seasonable time.

--Do not believe that, uncle.

--So much the better, if I am mistaken. I should be delighted to be mistaken. To be in love, my son, is the greatest act of stupidity which a priest can commit. Make use of women, if you will, for your health and your satisfaction, and not for theirs. Otherwise you are a lost man.

--In truth, uncle, you have singular theories, cried Marcel. Have you not then taken your calling seriously?

--My calling? I have taken it so seriously that you will never see me handling it but in the practical way. Therefore, among those who surround me I enjoy a fine reputation for wisdom. To be wise is to be happy, and I have contrived so as to pass my existence in the most pleasant manner possible. I counsel you to make as much of it, and I am going to tell what I mean by being wise: Make use of the things of life with moderation, discretion, and prudence. Now, what constitutes life? Spirit and matter. Well, I wisely make the enjoyments of matter and spirit march abreast. I obtain the equilibrium: health of body and health of soul. As soon as the equilibrium is broken, the mental faculties are deranged, or the constitution declines. You are in one of these two cases, my dear fellow.

--I!

--Yes, you. And, in spite of all your denials, I wager that you are in love. Ah, ah, ah. It is a good story. He keeps his countenance like a thrashed donkey. Come, drink, cheer up; honour the Lord in his benefits. Your glass is always full. Enjoy yourself, you don't entertain your uncle every day.

Marcel emptied his glass.

--Is she possessed of a husband?

--But uncle, I don't know, what you want to talk about.

--Oh, how well dissimulation is grafted in this young man's heart. I congratulate you on it: it is good for strangers, for the profane.... But I, Marcel, I, am I a stranger?

"Brought up in the Seraglio, I know its windings."

Come, another drop of this wine which could make the dead laugh.

--Listen, uncle, you are my second father, my master, my first director, my only true friend. Yes, I want to ask your advice. I am afraid of soiling one day the robe which I wear, I am afraid of becoming an object of shame and compassion. Ah, I am unhappy.

--Here we are, cried Ridoux. Speak. The only point is to understand one another.

LXVI.

GOOD COUNSEL.

"Ah, my friend, have not all young people ridiculous passions? My son is enamoured of virtue!... The customs of the word, the need of pleasure, and the facilities of satisfying himself will bring him insensibly to a moderate state of feeling, and at thirty he will be just like any other man; he will enjoy life, and shut his eyes to many things which shock him to-day."

PIGAULT-LEBRUN (_Le Blanc et le Noir_).

At that moment Veronica came in to serve coffee.

In honour of her master's guest, she had put on her black dress of Associate and her silver medal; and on her head she wore coquettishly an embroidered cap, trimmed with tulle of dazzling whiteness.

The old Curé threw himself into his arm-chair with his head back, in order to contemplate her with admiration. She went and came, clearing the table, and he followed her movements with the eye of a connoisseur, estimating the value of an article.

He smiled sanctimoniously, and the smile and attention, which the bashful Veronica noticed, made her blush and cast her eyes modestly down.

-Eh! Eh! he seemed to say, here is a girl who is still fit to adorn a bed.

When the servant had left the room, he rose, drew the screen between the table and the door, and then came and sat down again facing Marcel.

--I don't understand, he said, why a man should go and search away from home, amid perils and obstacles, for a pleasure which he can obtain comfortably, quietly, with no fear or disquietude, at his own fire-side.

--To what are you pleased to allude?

--There is a girl, Ridoux continued, who certainly has merit, and I am convinced that many younger ones are not worth as much as she. She is there, in your hands, at your door, in your home; ready, I am sure, to satisfy all your requirements. Avail yourself of her willingness? No? Make use of this blessing which you possess? Again, no. You throw it aside to run after phantoms. Alas, all the men of your age are the same: like the dog in the fable, they let go their prey to seize the shadow. You are like the fool, who spends his life in vainly following fortune to the four quarters of the world, and who, when he returns to his hearth wearied, worn-out and aged, finds it sitting at his door. But he is too late to be able to enjoy it.

That girl is really very well: handsome, fresh, very well-preserved, with a decent and respectable appearance. Why then do you disdain her? Why? Tell me. Because she is a few years older than you? But that is just what you young priests require. You require women of that age: matrons with more sense than yourselves. She is staid, she is ripe, she is experienced, a mistress of love's science, and above all, she has a great quality, an inestimable quality, she is cautious and will never compromise you.

--Uncle, I implore you.

--Let me finish.

Another thing which is very valuable. She is full of little attentions for her master. Ah, you are not aware with what tender solicitude, with what kindness, with what jealous affection an old mistress surrounds you. She fears more for your health than for her own, she is acquainted with your tastes and knows how to anticipate them, she satisfies all your desires, and lends herself to all your fancies.

--What a conversation! If anyone heard us....

--Be easy. I have drawn the screen.

The young mistress is fickle, egotistical, capricious; she exacts adoration, and most frequently loves you for a whim and for want of occupation.

The old one devotes herself entirely to you and does not ask you (sublime self-denial!), that you should love her, but only that you should let her love you. Balzac extolled the women of thirty; that was because he had not tasted those of forty. Ah! the women of forty!

They are the only women who are of value to the priest, my friend. You have had the good fortune to meet one here, and instead of profiting by it, of thinking yourself fortunate, of thanking heaven and piously and devoutly enjoying the good which God grants you, you cast it away, you disdain, you despise it; and why? For some giddy little thing who will bring upon you every kind of vexation and unpleasantness. _Dixi_. You can speak now.

Marcel made no reply. With his elbows resting on the table and his head in his hands, he stared at his uncle.

He asked himself if he was really awake, if it was really his adopted father, the mentor of his childhood, the wise and virtuous Curé of St. Nicholas, who was talking to him so.

He knew the worthy man's somewhat eccentric character, his coarse witticisms in bad taste, but he never could have believed that he would have stated such theories before him with a cynisism like that. He quite understood that a man might commit faults, he even excused _in petto_ certain crimes, and he excused them the more willingly because he himself had been guilty of them; but he did not understand how a man could dare to talk about them.

He was rather of that class of persons who are modest in words, but not in deeds, who are offended at the talk, while they delight in the acts. We hear them utter cries of horror and indignation at the slightest equivocal word, we see them stop their ears at the recital of a racy tale, chastely cover their face before the figure of the Callipygean Venus, treating Molière as obscene and Rabelais as debauched; yet, out of sight, sheltered by the curtains of the alcove, they love to strip in silence some lascivious Maritorne, and cautiously abandon themselves to disgusting orgies with Phrynes whom they chance to encounter.

Therefore the Curé of Althausen was offended and indignant at his uncle's cynicism, who had so crudely broached the chapter about the love of middle-aged women to him, who the evening before had abandoned himself to all the furies of a long-repressed passion, in the arms of a debauched old maid-servant.

At the same he felt that his brain was confused and that he was gradually losing the exact idea of things. The wine he had drunk was more than he was accustomed to; it was rising to his head and he was becoming intoxicated.

--Well, said Ridoux, you give me no answer and you stare at me like an earthen-ware dog.

--What answer do you wish me to give you? except that I believe I am dreaming; in truth, I believe I am dreaming.

--Be more sincere. I do not like hypocrisy.

--You talk of a giddy little thing; I know no giddy thing. As to the rest, I have not quite made out what it is you wanted to tell me. I think that you have intended to make a joke about your old women.

--Ah, you, you never understand anything. Where did you come from?

--Why, from your school, from the seminary, and neither you nor my masters taught me that there.

--To me! to me! to me! you speak in such a manner to me? Oh clever fox! _Alopex, alopex_. Well, you are sharper than I am, cried the old Curé, striking the table and looking at Marcel with astonishment mingled with admiration. Why should I concern myself about your future? You will succeed, my dear fellow, you will succeed. Oh, oh, you are a master. A gray-beard like I cannot teach you anything. Jesus, Mary, Joseph! That is my nephew! My dear old Ridoux, Curé of St. Nicholas, allow me to congratulate you. Monsieur le Curé of Althausen, I swear you will become a bishop. Monseigneur, I drink your health!

LXVII.

IN A GLASS.

"The fumes of the wine were working in my veins; it was one of those moments of intoxication when everything one sees, everything one hears, speaks to us of the beloved."

A. DE MUSSET (_Confession d'un enfant du Siècle_).

They conversed for a long time still, and they drank too, so much so that Marcel went to his room with his brain charged with the fumes of the wine. He opened his window and breathed with delight the fresh air of night. While he gazed on the stars which were rising slowly in the sky, he tried to analyze the new sensation which he experienced. "How a few mouthfuls of liquor alter a man," he said to himself.

He felt himself to be totally different, and he allowed his thoughts to wander in an ocean of delights. His ardent and ecstatic imagination launched itself into space. Bright unknown worlds rose before him with their atmosphere saturated with warmth, with caresses, and with perfumes. He saw the future, and it appeared to him radiant. There were sons without number and feasts without end; the entire universe belonged to him. He flew from planet to planet without effort or fatigue, borne by a mysterious wing into the fields of the Infinite.

He discovered an unknown audacity, and all obstacles subsided before his powerful will. No more barriers, no more bolts, no more doors, no more pretences, no more social chains, no more terrible father, no more servant-mistress; Suzanne alone remained in all her youthful grace and her chaste nudity. For, after having wandered in boundless space, it was towards her that his hopes, his desires, his aspirations inclined. There was the soul and the body; happiness and life, sacred symbolical wedlock, the chosen vessel, the nubile maid ready for the husband. And he murmured the Song of Songs:

"Let her kiss me with kisses of her mouth, For her teats are better than wine."

And it was at the very moment when he was about perhaps to be able to taste this exquisite cup, that he must go away. Go away! that is to say, leave her, she who had just cast a ray into his life. Go away, to obey a culpable ambition; to lose for ever this ravishing young girl! And the promises which he had made to himself; and the unsatisfied desires, and the boundless joys, the delicious troubles, the sweet evening talks, the hand sometimes squeezed in a moment of audacity; of all that but the memory would remain. Of all the intoxications of soul, of heart, of sense; of all those joys which should repay him for his wasted youth, for his fair years lost, he would preserve but remorse ... remorse for having so senselessly let them go.

And all at once in the whirlwind of his ideas, he seized one as it passed by. He noticed during the day the Captain entering the _diligence_ for Vic. It was, in fact, the time at which he drew his pay. He could not return till the following day. Suzanne then was alone with the old maid-servant. She went to bed late, he knew; perhaps she was still awake. He looked at his watch, it was not yet eleven o'clock; he still had a chance of seeing her. He cherished this idea; it pleased him and he was surprised that he had not thought of it before. Yes, certainly, he must see her, in order that she might keep the remembrance of him, as he was bearing away the memory of her.

What would be more delightful than to say to himself: "I hold the thoughts of a beautiful young girl, I hold her simple confidences; I possess the treasure of her sweet secrets."

And although there would never be between her and him but the pure and chaste sympathy of two souls, was not that enough, was not that a compensation, sufficient for the step which he was venturing?

And with the audacity of conception and the temerity of conduct of a man on the border of intoxication, he determined to put his fine project into execution immediately. His sense became inflamed the more he thought of it, and what had at first presented itself to him as a vague desire, soon became firmly fixed in his brain, and, in less than ten seconds, he had conceived the plan and weighed all the chances.

He decided that nothing was more simple, and that the only serious difficulty was to get out of the house without being heard. He still felt a few scruples; he poured himself out a glass of brandy.

--Let me swallow some courage, he said. What a singular piece of machinery is man, who imbibes in a few drops of liquid the dose of bravery which he lacks, and spirit which he needs.

And, in fact, he soon felt a generous warmth which ascended to his head; and his heart became anew surrounded little by little with that triple breast plate of brass, _robur triplex_, without which there is no hero.

He listened inside and out. All sounds were hushed; in the parsonage as in the village, everybody was asleep. He heard only the croaking of a legion of frogs which were sporting in the neighbouring marsh, and, far away, the bark of some farm-dog.

The night was splendid. The moon was rising behind the woods. That was a serious obstacle; but are there any serious obstacles for a man over-excited by drink? He did not even think of it; his mind was cheerful and content. If anyone encountered him in the night, wandering along the roads, what could they say? Had he not a perfect right like anybody else to take, the fresh air of evening? And, besides, might he not have been summoned by a sick person?

On the other hand, no more favourable moment would ever present itself for talking with Suzanne. His uncle was snoring in the next room, and his servant, supposing she was still awake, would she dare, while there was a guest at the parsonage, to come and assure herself if he was in his bed?

He took off his shoes, opened the door noiselessly and glided into the street.

He rapidly went round the parsonage, and he put on his shoes again only when he was at some distance, under the discreet shade of the limes.

Then he walked boldly on, keeping to the middle of the road, on the side, however, where the houses cast their shadow, and advanced with the step of a man who is going to accomplish a duty.

He arrived without any hindrance at the Captain's house. It was fully lighted up by the pale moon-light, and all the shutters were closed. Consequently, the side looking upon the garden was in the shadow, and there was Suzanne's room, the room hung with rose.

So he pursued his way at a rapid pace, entered the little path, bordered with hawthorn, and soon reached the clump of old chestnut-trees.

LXVIII.

THE ROSE CHAMBER.

"They are women already, they were so when they were born, but one guesses them so still, one reads it in their little thought, one comes across an end of thread here and there, which is like a revelation ... They are ... But forgive me, young ladies, I am afraid of going too far."

G. DROZ (_Entre nous_).

What man is there who has not experienced a delicious emotion on entering for the first time a young girl's room? Who has not breathed with voluptuous delight its sweet and chaste perfumes, and felt his heart soften in its fresh and fragrant atmosphere?

How pretty, neat, and harmonious is everything there. The most insignificant objects, the most common articles of furniture, have a mysterious and secret aspect there which makes one dream; one contemplates with transport all those nothings, all those little trifles, all those trinkets which young girls delight in, and because they have been touched by a white hand, they appear clothed in enchanting colours.

The fairy who lodges in this place has left a _something_ of herself on all which surrounds her, and _that something_ transforms all into jewels, even the least pin.

But that which above all else arrests the gaze, that which drives the blood to the head and causes the heart to beat, is the bed.

The young girl's bed, the sanctuary, the delicious nest of love.

There is the pillow on which her head reposes ... And then the question comes: What passes in the young head when, softly leaning on the warm down, she lets her thoughts travel into the land of dreams?

When slumber soft on all Around thee is outpoured; Oh Pepita, charming maid, My love, of what think'st thou?

Here is the place of her body. Yes, it is there, beneath the discreet eider-down, that she hides her naked charms. And we begin to dream as well, and we say to ourselves that we would give much to be able to penetrate into this sanctuary at the hour when the divinity is going to bed.

Happy Gyges, lend me your ring that I may assist mutely and invisibly at the sweet mysteries of the night toilette.

She is here! She has given and received the evening kiss. "Sleep well," her father and mother have said, and the child replies: "Oh, yes, I am very sleepy."

Then she quickly shuts the door and breathes a sigh of satisfaction. She is in her own room, she is alone!

Alone! do you believe it? If so, you would be greatly mistaken, for this is the time when she receives her own visitors, and often there is a numerous company.

Oh, be reassured: these guests will not be able to compromise her; they are secret, silent and invisible for all else but her; she alone sees them, talks to them and listens to them.

It is at the summons of her thought that they hasten there, passive and obedient. Then she passes them in review one by one; she examines them from head to foot, she clothes and unclothes them at her will; never has a Captain of infantry, under orders for parade, made a more minute inspection of his conscripts.

Sometimes they come all in a crowd, giving themselves up with her, in the mysterious comers of her imagination, to the wildest frolics. Young people with a stiff collar, beardless sublieutenants, coxcombs with red hands, swells with white cuffs, little heads of wax and little souls of cardboard, run up, ran up, ye pretty puppets.

Dance my loves You are but dolls.

And she makes them dance on every cord and every tune.

But soon the figures are effaced and blend into one. The pomatumed band disappear into space, whence there rises clearly the image of the chosen one.

He is young, he is dark or fair: she has seen him to-day; she looked at him, he smiled at her, he thinks her pretty.

Is she then always pretty? And quickly she goes to her mirror. Heavens! how badly her hair is done. How badly that ribbon sets! If she had put it in another place? And that little wandering lock; decidedly it must set off that. "Perhaps he would like me better if, instead of plaits, I had curls, and if instead of the brown dress, I put on the blue?"