Mouret

“ Voriau! hie!’
The big black dog paused a moment, wagging his tail, and seeking to read the urchin’s eyes. Then, barking joyfully, he set off down the slope to the village. Abbé Mouret and Brother Archangias followed him, chatting. A hundred yards further Vincent surreptitiously bolted, and again glided up towards the church, keeping a watchful eye upon them, and ready to dart behind a bush if they should look round. With adder-like suppleness, he once more glided into the graveyard, that paradise full of lizards, nests, and flowers. ”

“ Abbé Mouret rose. He made that sweeping gesture of Jeanbernat’s, that wide gesture of negation, that took in everything as far as the horizon.
‘There is nothing, nothing, nothing!’ he said. ‘God does not exist.’
A mighty shudder seemed to sweep through the church. The terrified priest turned deadly pale and listened. Who had spoken? Who was it that had blasphemed? Suddenly the velvety caress, whose gentle pressure he had felt upon his shoulder, turned fierce and savage: sharp talons seemed to be rending his flesh, and once more he felt his blood streaming forth. ”

“ However, beneath this coldness, so unusual with him, Mouret concealed a frightful crisis of indecision and suffering. Fits of anger brought the blood to his head: he saw red, he dreamed of taking Denise in a close embrace, keeping her, and stifling her cries. Then he tried to reason with himself, to find some practical means of preventing her going away; but he constantly ran up against his powerlessness, the uselessness of his power and money. ”

“ He read his breviary as he slowly walked with bent head up and down the green arbour at the far end. Sometimes he would close his book, still further slacken his steps, and seem to be buried in deep reverie. Mouret, who used to watch him, at last became impatient and irritated at seeing that black figure walking to and fro for hours together behind his fruit-trees.
'One has no privacy left,' he muttered. 'I can't lift my eyes now without catching sight of that cassock. He is like a crow, that fellow there, with his round eyes that always seem to be on the look-out for something. ”

“ Mouret had never conceived anything more vast; it was the master stroke of his genius for display. Beneath the flow of all this whiteness, amidst the seeming disorder of the tissues, fallen as if by chance from the open drawers, there was so to say a harmonious phrase,—white followed and developed in all its tones: springing into existence, growing, and blossoming with the complicated orchestration of some master's fugue, the continuous development of which carries the mind away in an ever-soaring flight. ”

“ A thousand lighted candles would not have filled the church with such splendour. Curtains of cloth-of-gold seemed to hang behind the high altar; treasures of the goldsmith’s art covered all the ledges; candle-holders arose in dazzling sheaves; censers glowed full of burning gems; sacred vases gleamed like fiery comets; and around all there seemed to be a rain of luminous flowers amidst waving lacework—beds, bouquets, and garlands of roses, from whose expanding petals dropped showers of stars.
Never had Abbé Mouret desired such magnificence for his poor church. ”

“ Mouret, who still happened to be there, with Vallagnosc and Monsieur de Boves, listened to her with a smile. She observed it, and complained gaily, though with an undercurrent of real irritation, of these traps laid for a mother's affection; the idea that she had just yielded to the force of puffery raised her indignation, and he, still smiling, bowed, fully enjoying his triumph. ”

“ The truth is that in ‘La Faute de l’Abbé Mouret,’ betwixt lifelike glimpses of French rural life, the author transports us to a realm of poesy and imagination. This is, indeed, so true that he has introduced into his work all the ideas on which he had based an early unfinished poem called ‘Genesis.’ He carries us to an enchanted garden, the Paradou—a name which one need hardly say is Provencal for Paradise*—and there Serge Mouret, on recovering from brain fever, becomes, as it were, a new Adam by the side of a new Eve, the fair and winsome Albine. ”

“ At present La Teuse was willing to make way for Abbé Mouret, who ascended the altar steps, and, again lightly clapping his hands, exclaimed: ‘Young ladies, to-morrow we will continue the devotions of the month of Mary. Those who may be unable to come ought at least to say their Rosary at home.’
He knelt, and the peasant girls, with a mighty rustle of skirts, sank down and settled themselves on their heels. ”

“ And since his departure from the seminary, Abbé Mouret had grown to love the Virgin still more. He gave to her that impassioned cult which to Brother Archangias savoured of heresy. In his opinion it was she who would save the Church by some matchless prodigy whose near appearance would entrance the world. She was the only miracle of our impious age—the blue-robed lady that showed herself to little shepherdesses, the whiteness that gleamed at night between two clouds, her veil trailing over the low thatched roofs of peasant homes. ”

“ Marry! you’ll find you’ve got some one who can talk, Monsieur le Curé.’
He had risen, slowly waving his hand towards the surrounding horizon, to the earth and to the sky, and repeating solemnly: ‘There’s nothing, nothing, nothing. When the sun is snuffed out, all will be at an end.’
Doctor Pascal nudged Abbé Mouret with his elbow. With blinking eyes he was curiously observing the old man and nodding approvingly in order to induce him to talk. ‘So you are a materialist, Jeanbernat?’ he said. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In spite of Marthe's unruffled tranquillity and Rose's angry glances, Mouret still often indulged in bursts of anger.
'What can the young scamp be after up there?' he would growl. 'Whole days pass without my catching more than a glimpse of him. He never seems to stir from the Abbé; they are always talking together in some corner or other. He shall be off to Paris at once. He's as strong as a Turk. ”

“ But it was all to no purpose that Mouret kept on the watch, he could never catch sight of the hand which opened or closed them, and he never even heard the grating of the window fastening. Never did a sound of human life come down from the second floor.
The first week was at an end and Mouret had not yet had another glimpse of Abbé Faujas. That man who was living in his house, without he ever being able to catch sight even of his shadow, began to affect him with a kind of nervous uneasiness. ”

“ Guide them with the stick, Monsieur le Curé, yes, the stick!’
Then, after drawing breath, he added with a terrific wave of his hands:
‘Those Artauds, look you, are like the brambles over-running these rocks. One stem has been enough to poison the whole district. They cling on, they multiply, they live in spite of everything. Nothing short of fire from heaven, as at Gomorrha, will clear it all away.’
‘We should never despair of sinners,’ said Abbé Mouret, all inward peacefulness, as he leisurely walked on. ”

“ So, whenever I met him, I defied him to do it; and he sloped off crestfallen, I can tell you.’
‘What, God does not exist!’ cried Abbé Mouret, roused from his silence.
‘Oh! just as you please,’ mockingly replied Jeanbernat. ‘We’ll begin together all over again, if it’s any pleasure to you. But I warn you that I’m a tough hand at it. There are some thousands of books in one of the rooms upstairs, which were rescued from the fire at the Paradou: all the philosophers of the eighteenth century, a whole heap of old books on religion. I’ve learned some fine things from them. ”

“ Abbé Mouret was still smiling. ‘Jesus does not need so much linen, my good Teuse,’ he cheerfully replied. ‘He is always warm, always royally received by those who love Him well.’
Then stepping towards a small tap, he asked: ‘Is my sister up yet? I have not seen her.’
‘Oh, Mademoiselle Desirée has been down a long time,’ answered the servant, who was kneeling before an old kitchen sideboard in which the sacred vestments were kept. ‘She is already with her fowls and rabbits. She was expecting some chicks to be hatched yesterday, and it didn’t come off. ”

“ She had raised her voice, and was talking so loudly that Mouret thought it would be more prudent to retire, and he did so, closing the kitchen door after him, in order to prevent his wife from hearing the servant. But Rose immediately pulled it open again, and cried after him down the passage:
'I shall bother myself about it no longer; do you hear? You may get somebody else to do your underhand business for you!'
Mouret was quite vanquished. He showed some irritation at his defeat, and tried to console himself by saying that those second-floor tenants of his were mere nobodies. ”

“ La Teuse, who well knew his habits, cried out to him, amidst the bellowing with which he shook the room:
‘Make a little less noise, do! It is quite distracting. You are much too lively to-night.’
But he set to work on the ‘Complines.’ Abbé Mouret had now seated himself by the window. He appeared to pay no attention to what went on around him, apparently neither hearing nor seeing anything of it. At dinner he had eaten with his ordinary appetite and had even managed to reply to Desirée’s everlasting rattle of questions. ”

“ He had watched the duel between Henriette and Mouret with the curiosity of one who still felt greatly interested in other people's love battles; and he felt that the crisis had arrived, he guessed the drama, well acquainted with the story of this Denise, whom he had seen in the ante-room.
“Oh! as for suffering, that's not in my line,” said Mouret, in a tone of bravado. “It's quite enough to pay.”
The baron looked at him for a moment without speaking. Without wishing to insist on his discreet allusion he added, slowly—“Don't make yourself worse than you are! ”

“ He struck the table with his fist, and suddenly raised his voice to call out to Abbé Mouret: ‘Come, just another glass, your reverence. The old gentleman isn’t at the bottom of the bottle, you know.’
The priest felt ill at ease. To lead back to God that singular old man, whose reason seemed to him to be strangely disordered, appeared a task beyond his powers. He now remembered certain bits of gossip he had heard from La Teuse about the Philosopher, as the peasants of Les Artaud dubbed Jeanbernat. ”

“ Her great grief was that she was getting stout, and she now squeezed herself into the tightest fitting black silk dresses, in order to conceal her increasing corpulency. Yet her pretty head, with its dark hair, preserved its pleasing shapeliness. And Mouret could familiarly tell her, as he enveloped her with a look: "It's useless to ask after your health. You are as fresh as a rose."
"Oh! I'm almost too well," she replied. "Besides, I might have died; you would have known nothing about it." ”

“ She often disappears all day long—still, she may be in the upstair rooms.’
He raised his head and called: ‘Albine! Albine!’ Then with a shrug of his shoulders, he added: ‘Yes, my word, she is a nice hussy.... Well, till next time, Monsieur le Curé. I’m always at your disposal.’
Abbé Mouret, however, had no time to accept the Philosopher’s challenge. A door suddenly opened at the end of the vestibule; a dazzling breach was made in the black darkness of the wall, and through the breach came a vision of a virgin forest, a great depth of woodland, beneath a flood of sunbeams. ”

“ Mouret had resumed his habitual [Pg 23] life. He prowled about the house, lectured his children, and spent his afternoons away from home, amusing himself by transacting various bits of business, of which he never spoke; and he ate and slept like a man for whom life is an easy downhill journey, without any jolts or surprises of any kind. The whole place sank back into all its old monotony. Marthe occupied her accustomed seat on the terrace, with her little work-table in front of her. Désirée played by her side. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”