Abbe Marignan's
martial name suited him well. He was a tall, thin priest, fanatic,
excitable, yet upright. All his beliefs were fixed, never varying. He
believed sincerely that he knew his God, understood His plans, desires
and intentions.
When he walked with
long strides along the garden walk of his little country parsonage, he
would sometimes ask himself the question: “Why has God done this?” And
he would dwell on this continually, putting himself in the place of God,
and he almost invariably found an answer. He would never have cried out
in an outburst of pious humility: “Thy ways, O Lord, are past finding
out.”
He said to himself:
“I am the servant of God; it is right for me to know the reason of His
deeds, or to guess it if I do not know it.”
Everything in nature
seemed to him to have been created in accordance with an admirable and
absolute logic. The “whys” and “becauses” always balanced. Dawn was
given to make our awakening pleasant, the days to ripen the harvest, the
rains to moisten it, the evenings for preparation for slumber, and the
dark nights for sleep.
The four seasons
corresponded perfectly to the needs of agriculture, and no suspicion had
ever come to the priest of the fact that nature has no intentions;
that, on the contrary, everything which exists must conform to the hard
demands of seasons, climates and matter.
But he hated woman -
hated her unconsciously, and despised her by instinct. He often
repeated the words of Christ: “Woman, what have I to do with thee ?” and
he would add: “It seems as though God, Himself, were dissatisfied with
this work of His.” She was the tempter who led the first man astray, and
who since then had ever been busy with her work of damnation, the
feeble creature, dangerous and mysteriously affecting one. And even more
than their sinful bodies, he hated their loving hearts.
He had often felt
their tenderness directed toward himself, and though he knew that he was
invulnerable, he grew angry at this need of love that is always
vibrating in them.
According to his
belief, God had created woman for the sole purpose of tempting and
testing man. One must not approach her without defensive precautions and
fear of possible snares. She was, indeed, just like a snare, with her
lips open and her arms stretched out to man.
He had no indulgence
except for nuns, whom their vows had rendered inoffensive; but he was
stern with them, nevertheless, because he felt that at the bottom of
their fettered and humble hearts the everlasting tenderness was burning
brightly, that tenderness which was shown even to him, a priest.
He felt this cursed
tenderness, even in their docility, in the low tones of their voices
when speaking to him, in their lowered eyes, and in their resigned tears
when he reproved them roughly. And he would shake his cassock on
leaving the convent doors, and walk off, lengthening his stride as
though flying from danger.
He had a niece who lived with her mother in a little house near him. He was bent upon making a sister of charity of her.
She was a pretty,
brainless madcap. When the abbe preached she laughed, and when he was
angry with her she would give him a hug, drawing him to her heart, while
he sought unconsciously to release himself from this embrace which
nevertheless filled him with a sweet pleasure, awakening in his depths
the sensation of paternity which slumbers in every man.
Often, when walking
by her side, along the country road, he would speak to her of God, of
his God. She never listened to him, but looked about her at the sky, the
grass and flowers, and one could see the joy of life sparkling in her
eyes. Sometimes she would dart forward to catch some flying creature,
crying out as she brought it back: “Look, uncle, how pretty it is! I
want to hug it!” And this desire to “hug” flies or lilac blossoms
disquieted, angered, and roused the priest, who saw, even in this, the
ineradicable tenderness that is always budding in women's hearts.
Then there came a
day when the sexton's wife, who kept house for Abbe Marignan, told him,
with caution, that his niece had a lover.
Almost suffocated by
the fearful emotion this news roused in him, he stood there, his face
covered with soap, for he was in the act of shaving.
When he had sufficiently recovered to think and speak he cried: “It is not true; you lie, Melanie !”
But the peasant
woman put her hand on her heart, saying: “May our Lord judge me if I
lie, Monsieur le Cure ! I tell you, she goes there every night when your
sister has gone to bed. They meet by the river side; you have only to
go there and see, between ten o'clock and midnight.”
He ceased scraping
his chin, and began to walk up and down impetuously, as he always did
when he was in deep thought. When he began shaving again he cut himself
three times from his nose to his ear.
All day long he was
silent, full of anger and indignation. To his priestly hatred of this
invincible love was added the exasperation of her spiritual father, of
her guardian and pastor, deceived and tricked by a child, and the
selfish emotion shown by parents when their daughter announces that she
has chosen a husband without them, and in spite of them.
After dinner he
tried to read a little, but could not, growing more and, more angry.
When ten o'clock struck he seized his cane, a formidable oak stick,
which he was accustomed to carry in his nocturnal walks when visiting
the sick. And he smiled at the enormous club which he twirled in a
threatening manner in his strong, country fist. Then he raised it
suddenly and, gritting his teeth, brought it down on a chair, the broken
back of which fell over on the floor.
He opened the door
to go out, but stopped on the sill, surprised by the splendid moonlight,
of such brilliance as is seldom seen.
And, as he was
gifted with an emotional nature, one such as had all those poetic
dreamers, the Fathers of the Church, he felt suddenly distracted and
moved by all the grand and serene beauty of this pale night.
In his little
garden, all bathed in soft light, his fruit trees in a row cast on the
ground the shadow of their slender branches, scarcely in full leaf,
while the giant honeysuckle, clinging to the wall of his house, exhaled a
delicious sweetness, filling the warm moonlit atmosphere with a kind of
perfumed soul.
He began to take
long breaths, drinking in the air as drunkards drink wine, and he walked
along slowly, delighted, marveling, almost forgetting his niece.
As soon as he was
outside of the garden, he stopped to gaze upon the plain all flooded
with the caressing light, bathed in that tender, languishing charm of
serene nights. At each moment was heard the short, metallic note of the
cricket, and distant nightingales shook out their scattered notes, their
light, vibrant music that sets one dreaming, without thinking, a music
made for kisses, for the seduction of moonlight.
The abbe walked on
again, his heart failing, though he knew not why. He seemed weakened,
suddenly exhausted; he wanted to sit down, to rest there, to think, to
admire God in His works.
Down yonder,
following the undulations of the little river, a great line of poplars
wound in and out. A fine mist, a white haze through which the moonbeams
passed, silvering it and making it gleam, hung around and above the
mountains, covering all the tortuous course of the water with a kind of
light and transparent cotton.
The priest stopped once again, his soul filled with a growing and irresistible tenderness.
And a doubt, a vague feeling of disquiet came over him; he was asking one of those questions that he sometimes put to himself.
“Why did God make
this ? Since the night is destined for sleep, unconsciousness, repose,
forgetfulness of everything, why make it more charming than day, softer
than dawn or evening ? And why does this seductive planet, more poetic
than the sun, that seems destined, so discreet is it, to illuminate
things too delicate and mysterious for the light of day, make the
darkness so transparent ?
“Why does not the
greatest of feathered songsters sleep like the others ? Why does it pour
forth its voice in the mysterious night ?
“Why this half-veil
cast over the world ? Why these tremblings of the heart, this emotion of
the spirit, this enervation of the body ? Why this display of
enchantments that human beings do not see, since they are lying in their
beds ? For whom is destined this sublime spectacle, this abundance of
poetry cast from heaven to earth ?”
And the abbe could not understand.
But see, out there,
on the edge of the meadow, under the arch of trees bathed in a shining
mist, two figures are walking side by side.
The man was the
taller, and held his arm about his sweetheart's neck and kissed her brow
every little while. They imparted life, all at once, to the placid
landscape in which they were framed as by a heavenly hand. The two
seemed but a single being, the being for whom was destined this calm and
silent night, and they came toward the priest as a living answer, the
response his Master sent to his questionings.
He stood still, his
heart beating, all upset; and it seemed to him that he saw before him
some biblical scene, like the loves of Ruth and Boaz, the accomplishment
of the will of the Lord, in some of those glorious stories of which the
sacred books tell. The verses of the Song of Songs began to ring in his
ears, the appeal of passion, all the poetry of this poem replete with
tenderness.
And he said unto himself: “Perhaps God has made such nights as these to idealize the love of men.”
He shrank back from
this couple that still advanced with arms intertwined. Yet it was his
niece. But he asked himself now if he would not be disobeying God. And
does not God permit love, since He surrounds it with such visible
splendor ?
And he went back musing, almost ashamed, as if he had intruded into a temple where he had, no right to enter.
