Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Abbe Mouret felt more at ease when he found himself again alone, walking
along the dusty road. The stony fields brought him back to his dream of
austerity, of an inner life spent in a desert. From the trees all along
the sunken road disturbing moisture had fallen on his neck, which now
the burning sun was drying. The sight of the lean almond trees, the
scanty corn crops, the weak vines, on either side of the way, soothed
him, delivered him from the perturbation into which the lusty atmosphere
of the Paradou had thrown him. Amid the blinding glare that flowed from
heaven over the bare land, Jeanbernat's blasphemies no longer cast even
a shadow. A thrill of pleasure ran through the priest as he raised his
head and caught sight of the solitaire's motionless bar-like silhouette
and the pink patch of tiles on the church.

But, as he walked on, fresh anxiety beset the Abbe. La Teuse would give
him a fine reception; for his luncheon must have been waiting nearly two
hours for him. He pictured her terrible face, the flood of words with
which she would greet him, the angry clatter of kitchen ware which he
would hear the whole afternoon. When he had got through Les Artaud, his
fear became so lively that he hesitated, full of trepidation, and
wondered if it would not be better to go round and reach the parsonage
by way of the church. But, while he deliberated, La Teuse herself
appeared on the doorstep of the parsonage, her cap all awry, and her
hands on her hips. With drooping head he had perforce to climb the slope
under her storm-laden gaze, which he could feel weighing upon his
shoulders.

'I believe I am rather late, my good Teuse,' he stammered, as he turned
the path's last bend.

La Teuse waited till he stood quite close before her. She then gave him
a furious glance, and, without a word, turned and stalked before him
into the dining-room, banging her big heels upon the floor-tiles and so
rigid with ire that she hardly limped at all.

'I have had so many things to do,' began the priest, scared by this dumb
reception. 'I have been running about all the morning.'

But she cut him short with another look, so fixed, so full of anger,
that he felt his legs give way under him. He sat down, and began to eat.
She waited on him in the sharp, mechanical manner of an automaton, all
but breaking the plates with the violence with which she set them down.
The silence became so awful that, choking with emotion, he was unable to
swallow his third mouthful.

'My sister has had her luncheon?' he asked. 'Quite right of her.
Luncheon should always be served whenever I am kept out.'

No answer came. La Teuse stood there waiting to remove his plate as soon
as he should have emptied it. Thereupon, feeling that he could not
possibly eat with those implacable eyes crushing him, he pushed his
plate away. This angry gesture acted on La Teuse like a whip stroke,
rousing her from her obstinate stiffness. She fairly jumped.

'Ah! that's how it is!' she exclaimed. 'There you are again, losing your
temper! Very well, I am off; you can pay my fare, so that I may go back
home. I have had enough of Les Artaud, and your church, and everything
else!'

She took off her apron with trembling hands.

'You must have seen that I didn't wish to say anything to you. A nice
life, indeed! Only mountebanks do such things, Monsieur le Cure! This is
eleven o'clock, ain't it! Aren't you ashamed of sitting at table when
it's almost two o'clock? It's not like a Christian, no, it is not like a
Christian!'

And, taking her stand before him, she went on: 'Well, where do you come
from? whom have you seen? what business can have kept you? If only you
were a child you would have the whip. It isn't the place for a priest to
be, on the roads in the blazing sun like a tramp without a roof to put
over his head. A fine state you are in, with your shoes all white and
your cassock smothered in dust! Who will brush your cassock for you? Who
will buy you another one? Speak out, will you; tell me what you have
been doing! My word! if everybody didn't know you, they would end by
thinking queer things about you. And shall I tell you? Why, I won't say
but what you may have been up to something wrong. When folks lunch at
such hours they are capable of anything!'

Abbe Mouret let the storm blow over him. At the old servant's wrathful
words he experienced a kind of relief.

'Come, my good Teuse,' he said, 'you will first put your apron on
again.'

'No, no,' she cried, 'it's all over, I am going.'

But he got up and, laughing, tied her apron round her waist. She
struggled against him and stuttered: 'I tell you no! You are a wheedler.
I can see through your game, I see you want to come it over me with your
honeyed words. Where did you go? We'll see afterwards.'

He gaily sat down to table again like a man who has gained a victory.

'First, I must be allowed to eat. I am dying with hunger,' said he.

'No doubt,' she murmured, her pity moved. 'Is there any common sense in
it? Would you like me to fry you a couple of eggs? It would not take
long. Well, if you have enough. But everything is cold! And I had taken
such pains with your aubergines! Nice they are now! They look like old
shoe-leather. Luckily you haven't got a tender tooth like poor Monsieur
Caffin. Yes, you have some good points, I don't deny it.'

Thus chattering, she waited on him with all a mother's care. After he
had finished she ran to the kitchen to see if the coffee was still warm.
She frisked about and limped most outrageously in her delight at having
made things up with him. As a rule Abbe Mouret fought shy of coffee,
which always upset his nervous system; but on this occasion, to ratify
the conclusion of peace, he took the cup she brought him. And as he
lingered at table she sat down opposite him and repeated gently, like a
woman tortured by curiosity:

'Where have you been, Monsieur le Cure?'

'Well,' he answered with a smile, 'I have seen the Brichets, I have
spoken to Bambousse.'

Thereupon he had to relate to her what the Brichets had said, what
Bambousse had decided, and how they looked, and where they were at work.
When he repeated to her the answer of Rosalie's father, 'Of course!' she
exclaimed, 'if the child should die her mishap would go for nothing.'
And clasping her hands with a look of envious admiration she added, 'How
you must have chattered, your reverence! More than half the day spent to
obtain such a fine result! You took it easy coming home? It must have
been very hot on the road?'

The Abbe, who by this time had risen, made no answer. He had been on the
point of speaking about the Paradou, and asking for some information
concerning it. But a fear of being flooded with eager questions, and a
kind of vague unavowed shame, made him keep silence respecting his visit
to Jeanbernat. He cut all further questions short by asking:

'Where is my sister? I don't hear her.'

'Come along, sir,' said La Teuse, beginning to laugh, and raising her
finger to her lips.

They went into the next room, a country drawing-room, hung with faded
wall-paper showing large grey flowers, and furnished with four armchairs
and a sofa, covered with horse-hair. On the sofa now slept Desiree,
stretched out at full length, with her head resting on her clenched
hands. The pronounced curve of her bosom was raised somewhat by her
upstretched arms, bare to the elbows. She was breathing somewhat
heavily, her red lips parted, and thus showing her teeth.

'Lord! isn't she sleeping sound!' whispered La Teuse. 'She didn't even
hear you pitching into me just now. Well, she must be precious tired.
Just fancy, she was cleaning up her yard till nearly noon. And when she
had eaten something, she came and dropped down there like a shot. She
has not stirred since.'

For a moment the priest gazed lovingly at her. 'We must let her have as
much rest as she wants,' he said.

'Of course. Isn't it a pity she's such an innocent? Just look at those
big arms! Whenever I dress her I always think what a fine woman she
would have made. Ay, she would have brought you some splendid nephews,
sir. Don't you think she is like that stone lady in Plassans
corn-market?'

She spoke thus of a Cybele stretched upon sheaves of wheat, the work of
one of Puget's pupils, which was carved on the frontal of the market
building. Without replying, however, Abbe Mouret gently pushed her out
of the room, and begged her to make as little noise as possible. Till
evening, therefore, perfect silence settled on the parsonage. La Teuse
finished her washing in the shed. The priest, seated at the bottom of
the little garden, his breviary fallen on his lap, remained absorbed in
pious thoughts, while all around him rosy petals rained from the
blossoming peach-trees.

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