Abbe Mouret's Transgression

X

Desiree came up to him, full of merry chatter.

'Are you there? Are you there?' she cried. 'Why are you playing at hide-and-seek? I called out to you at the top of my voice at least a dozen times. I thought you must have gone out.'

She pried into all the gloomy corners with an inquisitive glance, and even stepped up to the confessional-box, as though she had expected to surprise some one hiding there. Then she came back to Serge, disappointed, and continued:

'So you are quite alone? Have you been asleep? What amusement do you find in shutting yourself up all alone in the dark? Come along; it is time we went to dinner.'

The Abbe drew his feverish hands across his brow to wipe away the traces of the thoughts which he feared were plain for all the world to read. He fumbled mechanically at the buttons of his cassock, which seemed to him all disarranged. Then he followed his sister with stern-set face and never a sign of emotion, stiffened by that priestly energy which throws the dignity of sacerdotalism like a veil over the agonies of the flesh. Desiree did not even suspect that there was anything the matter with him. She simply said as they entered the dining-room:

'I have had such a good sleep; but you have been talking too much, and have made yourself quite pale.'

In the evening, after dinner, Brother Archangias came in to have his game of cards with La Teuse. He was in a very merry mood that night; and, when the Brother was merry, it was his habit to prod La Teuse in the sides with his big fists, an attention which she returned by heartily boxing his ears. This skirmishing made them both laugh, with a laughter that shook the very ceiling. The Brother, too, when he was in these gay humours, would devise all kinds of pranks. He would try to smash plates with his nose, and would offer to wager that he could break through the dining-room door in battering-ram fashion. He would also empty the snuff out of his box into the old servant's coffee, or would thrust a handful of pebbles down her neck. The merest trifle would give rise to these noisy outbursts of gaiety in the very midst of his wonted surliness. Some little incident, at which nobody else laughed, often sufficed to throw him into a state of wild hilarity, make him stamp his feet, twirl himself round like a top, and hold in his splitting sides.

'What is it that makes you so gay to-night?' La Teuse inquired.

He made no reply, bestriding a chair and galloping round the table on it.

'Well! well! go on making a baby of yourself!' said the old woman; 'and, my gracious, what a big baby you are! If the Lord is looking at you, He must be very well pleased with you!'

The Brother had just slipped off the chair and was lying on the floor, with his legs in the air.

'He does see me, and is pleased to see me as I am. It is His wish that I should be gay. When He wishes me to be merry for a time, He rings a bell in my body, and then I begin to roll about; and all Paradise smiles as it watches me.'

He dragged himself on his back to the wall, and then, supporting himself on the nape of his neck, he hoisted up his body as high as he could and began drumming on the wall with his heels. His cassock slipped down and exposed to view his black breeches, which were patched at the knees with green cloth.

'Look, Monsieur le Cure,' he said, 'you see how high I can reach with my heels. I dare bet that you couldn't do as much. Come! look amused and laugh a little. It is better to drag oneself along on one's back than to think about a hussy as you are always doing. You know what I mean. For my part, when I take to scratching myself I imagine myself to be God's dog, and that's what makes me say that all Paradise looks out of the windows to smile at me. You might just as well laugh too, Monsieur le Cure. It's all done for the saints and you. See! here's a turn-over for Saint Joseph; here's another for Saint Michael, and another for Saint John, and another for Saint Mark, and another for Saint Matthew--'

So he went on, enumerating a whole string of saints, and turning somersaults all round the room.

Abbe Mouret, who had been sitting in perfect silence, with his hands resting on the edge of the table, was at last constrained to smile. As a rule, the Brother's sportiveness only disquieted him. La Teuse, as Archangias rolled within her reach, kicked at him with her foot.

'Come!' she said, 'are we to have our game to-night?'

His only reply was a grunt. Then, upon all fours, he sprang towards La Teuse as if he meant to bite her. But in lieu thereof he spat upon her petticoats.

'Let me alone! will you?' she cried. 'What are you up to now? I begin to think you have gone crazy. What it is that amuses you so much I can't conceive.'

'What makes me gay is my own affair,' he replied, rising to his feet and shaking himself. 'It is not necessary to explain it to you, La Teuse. However, as you want a game of cards, let us have it.'

Then the game began. It was a terrible struggle. The Brother hurled his cards upon the table. Whenever he cried out the windows shook sonorously. La Teuse at last seemed to be winning. She had secured three aces for some time already, and was casting longing eyes at the fourth. But Brother Archangias began to indulge in fresh outbursts of gaiety. He pushed up the table, at the risk of breaking the lamp. He cheated outrageously, and defended himself by means of the most abominable lies, 'Just for a joke,' said he. Then he suddenly began to sing the 'Vespers,' beating time on the palm of his left hand with his cards. When his gaiety reached a climax, and he could find no adequate means of expressing it, he always took to chanting the 'Vespers,' which he repeated for hours at a time. 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.' Abbe 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 Desiree's everlasting rattle of questions. But now he had given up the struggle, his strength at an end, racked, exhausted as he was by the internal tempest that still raged within him. He even lacked the courage to rise from his seat and go upstairs to his own room. Moreover, he was afraid that if he turned his face towards the lamplight, the tears, which he could no longer keep from his eyes, would be noticed. So he pressed his face close to the window and gazed out into the darkness, growing gradually more drowsy, sinking into a kind of nightmare stupor.

Brother Archangias, still busy at his psalm-singing, winked and nodded in the direction of the dozing priest.

'What's the matter?' asked La Teuse.

The Brother replied by a yet more significant wink.

'Well, what do you mean? Can't you speak? Ah! there's a king. That's capital!-so I take your queen.'

The Brother laid down his cards, bent over the table, and whispered close to La Teuse's face: 'That hussy has been here.'

'I know that well enough,' answered La Teuse. 'I saw her go with mademoiselle into the poultry-yard.'

At this he gave her a terrible look, and shook his fist in her face.

'You saw her, and you let her come in! You ought to have called me, and we would have hung her up by the feet to a nail in your kitchen.'

But at this the old woman lost her temper, and, lowering her voice solely in order that she might not awaken Abbe Mouret, she replied: 'Don't you go talking about hanging people up in my kitchen! I certainly saw her, and I even kept my back turned when she went to join his reverence in the church when the catechising was over. But all that was no business of mine. I had my cooking to attend to! As for the girl herself, I detest her. But if his reverence wishes to see her-why, she is welcome to come whenever she pleases. I'd let her in myself!'

'If you were to do that, La Teuse,' retorted the Brother ragefully, 'I would strangle you, that I would.'

But she laughed at him.

'Don't talk any of your nonsense to me, my man! Don't you know that it is forbidden you to lay your hands upon a woman, just as it's forbidden for a donkey to have anything to do with the Pater Noster ? Just you try to strangle me and you'll see what I'll do! But do be quiet now, and let us finish the game. See, here's another king.'

But the Brother, holding up a card, went on growling:

'She must have come by some road that the devil alone knows for me to have missed her to-day. Every afternoon I go and keep guard up yonder by the Paradou. If ever I find them together again, I will acquaint the hussy with a stout dogwood stick which I have cut expressly for her benefit. And I shall keep a watch in the church as well now.'

He played his card, which La Teuse took with a knave. Then he threw himself back in his chair and again burst into one of his loud laughs. He did not seem to be able to work himself up into a genuine rage that evening.

'Well, well,' he grumbled, 'never mind, even if she did see him, she had a smacking fall on her nose. I'll tell you all about it, La Teuse. It was raining, you know. I was standing by the school-door when I caught sight of her coming down from the church. She was walking along quite straight and upright, in her stuck-up fashion, in spite of the pouring rain. But when she got into the road, she tumbled down full length, no doubt because the ground was so slippery. Oh! how I did laugh! How I did laugh! I clapped my hands, too. When she picked herself up again, I saw she was bleeding at the wrist. I shall feel happy over it for a week. I cannot think of her lying there on the ground without feeling the greatest delight.'

Then, turning his attention to the game, he puffed out his cheeks and began to chant the De profundis. When he had got to the end of it, he began it all over again. The game came to a conclusion in the midst of this dirge. It was he who was beaten, but his defeat did not seem to vex him in the least.

When La Teuse had locked the door behind him, after first awakening Abbe Mouret, his voice could still be heard, as he went his way through the black night, singing the last verse of the psalm, Et ipse redimet Israel ex omnibus iniquitatibus ejus, with extraordinary jubilation.