Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 11

Chapter 11

About six o'clock there came a sudden wakening. A noise of doors opening
and closing, accompanied by bursts of laughter, shook the whole house.
Desiree appeared, her hair all down and her arms still half bare.

'Serge! Serge!' she called.

And catching sight of her brother in the garden, she ran up to him and
sat down for a minute on the ground at his feet, begging him to follow
her:

'Do come and see the animals! You haven't seen the animals yet, have
you? If you only knew how beautiful they are now!'

She had to beg very hard, for the yard rather scared him. But when he
saw tears in Desiree's eyes, he yielded. She threw herself on his neck
in a sudden puppy-like burst of glee, laughing more than ever, without
attempting to dry her cheeks.

'Oh! how nice you are!' she stammered, as she dragged him off. 'You
shall see the hens, the rabbits, the pigeons, and my ducks which have
got fresh water, and my goat, whose room is as clean as mine now. I have
three geese and two turkeys, you know. Come quick. You shall see all.'

Desiree was then twenty-two years old. Reared in the country by her
nurse, a peasant woman of Saint-Eutrope, she had grown up anyhow. Her
brain void of all serious thoughts, she had thriven on the fat soil and
open air of the country, developing physically but never mentally,
growing into a lovely animal--white, with rosy blood and firm skin. She
was not unlike a high-bred donkey endowed with the power of laughter.
Although she dabbled about from morning till night, her delicate hands
and feet, the supple outlines of her hips, the bourgeois refinement of
her maiden form remained unimpaired; so that she was in truth a creature
apart--neither lady nor peasant--but a girl nourished by the soil, with
the broad shoulders and narrow brow of a youthful goddess.

Doubtless it was by reason of her weak intellect that she was drawn
towards animals. She was never happy save with them; she understood
their language far better than that of mankind, and looked after them
with motherly affection. Her reasoning powers were deficient, but in
lieu thereof she had an instinct which put her on a footing of
intelligence with them. At their very first cry of pain she knew what
ailed them; she would choose dainties upon which they would pounce
greedily. A single gesture from her quelled their squabbles. She seemed
to know their good or their evil character at a glance; and related such
long tales about the tiniest chick, with such an abundance and
minuteness of detail, as to astound those to whom one chicken was
exactly like any other. Her farmyard had thus become a country, as it
were, over which she reigned; a country complex in its organisation,
disturbed by rebellions, peopled by the most diverse creatures whose
records were known to her alone. So accurate was her instinct that she
detected the unfertile eggs in a sitting, and foretold the number of a
litter of rabbits.

When, at sixteen, Desiree became a young woman, she retained all her
wonted health; and rapidly developed, with round, free-swaying bust,
broad hips like those of an antique statue, the full growth indeed of a
vigorous animal. One might have thought that she had sprung from the
rich soil of her poultry-yard, that she absorbed the sap with her sturdy
legs, which were as firm as young trees. And nought disturbed her amidst
all this plenitude. She found continuous satisfaction in being
surrounded by birds and animals which ever increased and multiplied,
their fruitfulness filling her with delight. Nothing could have been
healthier. She innocently feasted on the odour and warmth of life,
knowing no depraved curiosity, but retaining all the tranquillity of a
beautiful animal, simply happy at seeing her little world thus multiply,
feeling as if she thereby became a mother, the common natural mother of
one and all.

Since she had been living at Les Artaud, she had spent her days in
complete beatitude. At last she was satisfying the dream of her life,
the only desire which had worried her amidst her weak-minded puerility.
She had a poultry-yard, a nook all to herself, where she could breed
animals to her heart's content. And she almost lived there, building
rabbit-hutches with her own hands, digging out a pond for the ducks,
knocking in nails, fetching straw, allowing no one to assist her. All
that La Teuse had to do was to wash her afterwards. The poultry-yard was
situated behind the cemetery; and Desiree often had to jump the wall,
and run hither and thither among the graves after some fowl whom
curiosity had led astray. Right at the end was a shed giving
accommodation to the fowls and the rabbits; to the right was a little
stable for the goat. Moreover, all the animals lived together; the
rabbits ran about with the fowls, the nanny-goat would take a footbath
in the midst of the ducks; the geese, the turkeys, the guinea-fowls, and
the pigeons all fraternised in the company of three cats. Whenever
Desiree appeared at the wooden fence which prevented her charges from
making their way into the church, a deafening uproar greeted her.

'Eh! can't you hear them?' she said to her brother, as they reached the
dining-room door.

But, when she had admitted him and closed the gate behind them, she was
assailed so violently that she almost disappeared. The ducks and the
geese, opening and shutting their beaks, tugged at her skirts; the
greedy hens sprang up and pecked her hands; the rabbits squatted on her
feet and then bounded up to her knees; whilst the three cats leapt upon
her shoulders, and the goat bleated in its stable at being unable to
reach her.

'Leave me alone, do! all you creatures!' she cried with a hearty
sonorous laugh, feeling tickled by all the feathers, claws, and beaks
and paws rubbing against her.

However, she did not attempt to free herself. As she often said, she
would have let herself be devoured; it seemed so sweet to feel all this
life cling to her and encompass her with the warmth of eider-down. At
last only one cat persisted in remaining on her back.

'It's Moumou,' she said. 'His paws are like velvet.' Then, calling her
brother's attention to the yard, she proudly added: 'See, how clean it
is!'

The yard had indeed been swept out, washed, and raked over. But the
disturbed water and the forked-up litter exhaled so fetid and powerful
an odour that Abbe Mouret half choked. The dung was heaped against the
graveyard wall in a huge smoking mound.

'What a pile, eh?' continued Desiree, leading her brother into the
pungent vapour, 'I put it all there myself, nobody helped me. Go on, it
isn't dirty. It cleans. Look at my arms.'

As she spoke she held out her arms, which she had merely dipped into a
pail of water--regal arms they were, superbly rounded, blooming like
full white roses amidst the manure.

'Yes, yes,' gently said the priest, 'you have worked hard. It's very
nice now.'

Then he turned towards the wicket, but she stopped him.

'Do wait a bit. You shall see them all. You have no idea--' And so
saying, she dragged him to the rabbit house under the shed.

'There are young ones in all the hutches,' she said, clapping her hands
in glee.

Then at great length she proceeded to explain to him all about the
litters. He had to crouch down and come close to the wire netting,
whilst she gave him minute details. The mother does, with big restless
ears, eyed him askance, panting and motionless with fear. Then, in one
hutch, he saw a hairy cavity wherein crawled a living heap, an
indistinct dusky mass heaving like a single body. Close by some young
ones, with enormous heads, ventured to the edge of the hole. A little
farther were yet stronger ones, who looked like young rats, ferreting
and leaping about with their raised rumps showing their white scuts.
Others, white ones with pale ruby eyes, and black ones with jet eyes,
galloped round their hutches with playful grace. Now a scare would make
them bolt off swiftly, revealing at every leap their slender reddened
paws. Next they would squat down all in a heap, so closely packed that
their heads could no longer be seen.

'It is you they are frightened at,' Desiree kept on saying. 'They know
me well.'

She called them and drew some bread-crust from her pocket. The little
rabbits then became more confident, and, with puckered noses, kept
sidling up, and rearing against the netting one by one. She kept them
like that for a minute to show her brother the rosy down upon their
bellies, and then gave her crust to the boldest one. Upon this the whole
of them flocked up, sliding forward and squeezing one another, but never
quarreling. At one moment three little ones were all nibbling the same
piece of crust, but others darted away, turning to the wall so as to eat
in peace, while their mothers in the rear remained snuffing
distrustfully and refused the crusts.

'Oh! the greedy little things!' exclaimed Desiree. 'They would eat like
that till to-morrow morning! At night, even, you can bear them crunching
the leaves they have overlooked in the day-time.'

The priest had risen as if to depart, but she never wearied of smiling
on her dear little ones.

'You see the big one there, that's all white, with black ears--Well! he
dotes on poppies. He is very clever at picking them out from the other
weeds. The other day he got the colic. So I took him and kept him warm
in my pocket. Since then he has been quite frisky.'

She poked her fingers through the wire netting and stroked the rabbits'
backs.

'Wouldn't you say it was satin?' she continued. 'They are dressed like
princes. And ain't they coquettish! Look, there's one who is always
cleaning himself. He wears the fur off his paws. . . . If only you knew
how funny they are! I say nothing, but I see all their little games.
That grey one looking at us, for instance, used to hate a little doe,
which I had to put somewhere else. There were terrible scenes between
them. It would take too long to tell you all, but the last time he gave
her a drubbing, when I came up in a rage, what do you think I saw? Why
that rascal huddled up at the back there as if he was just at his last
gasp. He wanted to make me believe that it was he who had to complain of
her.'

Then Desiree paused to apostrophise the rabbit. 'Yes, you may listen to
me; you're a rogue!' And turning towards her brother, 'He understands
all I say,' she added softly, with a wink.

But Abbe Mouret could stand it no longer. He was perturbed by the heat
that emanated from the litters, the life that crawled under the hair
plucked from the does' bellies, exhaling powerful emanations. On the
other hand, Desiree, as if slowly intoxicated, was growing brighter and
pinker.

'But there's nothing to take you away!' she cried; 'you always seem
anxious to go off. You must see my little chicks! They were born last
night.'

She took some rice and threw a handful before her. The hen gravely drew
near, clucking to the little band of chickens that followed her chirping
and scampering as if in bewilderment. When they were fairly in the
middle of the scattered rice the hen eagerly pecked at it, and threw
down the grains she cracked, while her little ones hastily began to
feed. All the charm of infancy was theirs. Half-naked as it were, with
round heads, eyes sparkling like steel needles, beaks so queerly set,
and down so quaintly ruffled up, they looked like penny toys. Desiree
laughed with enjoyment at sight of them.

'What little loves they are!' she stammered.

She took up two of them, one in each hand, and smothered them with eager
kisses. And then the priest had to inspect them all over, while she
coolly said to him:

'It isn't easy to tell the cocks. But I never make a mistake. This one
is a hen, and this one is a hen too.'

Then she set them on the ground again. Other hens were now coming up to
eat the rice. A large ruddy cock with flaming plumage followed them,
lifting his large feet with majestic caution.

'Alexander is getting splendid,' said the Abbe, to please his sister.

Alexander was the cock's name. He looked up at the young girl with his
fiery eye, his head turned round, his tail outspread, and then installed
himself close by her skirts.

'He is very fond of me,' she said. 'Only I can touch him. He is a good
bird. There are fourteen hens, and never do I find a bad egg in the
nests. Do I, Alexander?'

She stooped; the bird did not fly from her caress. A rush of blood
seemed to set his comb aflame; flapping his wings, and stretching out
his neck, he burst into a long crow which rang out like a blast from a
brazen throat. Four times did he repeat his crow while all the cocks of
Les Artaud answered in the distance. Desiree was greatly amused by her
brother's startled looks.

'He deafens one, eh?' she said. 'He has a splendid voice. But he's not
vicious, I assure you, though the hens are--You remember the big
speckled one, that used to lay yellow eggs? Well, the day before
yesterday she hurt her foot. When the others saw the blood they went
quite mad. They all followed her, pecking at her and drinking her blood,
so that by the evening they had eaten up her foot. I found her with her
head behind a stone, like an idiot, saying nothing, and letting herself
be devoured.'

The remembrance of the fowls' voracity made her laugh. She calmly
related other cruelties of theirs: young chickens devoured, of which she
had only found the necks and wings, and a litter of kittens eaten up in
the stable in a few hours.

'You might give them a human being,' she continued, 'they'd finish him.
And aren't they tough livers! They get on with a broken limb even. They
may have wounds, big holes in their bodies, and still they'll gobble
their victuals. That's what I like them for; their flesh grows again in
two days; they are always as warm as if they had a store of sunshine
under their feathers. When I want to give them a treat, I cut them up
some raw meat. And worms too! Wait, you'll see how they love them.'

She ran to the dungheap, and unhesitatingly picked up a worm she found
there. The fowls darted at her hands; but to amuse herself with the
sight of their greediness she held the worm high above them. At last she
opened her fingers, and forthwith the fowls hustled one another and
pounced upon the worm. One of them fled with it in her beak, pursued by
the others; it was thus taken, snatched away, and retaken many times
until one hen, with a mighty gulp, swallowed it altogether. At that they
all stopped short with heads thrown back, and eyes on the alert for
another worm. Desiree called them by their names, and talked pettingly
to them; while Abbe Mouret retreated a few steps from this display of
voracious life.

'No, I am not at all comfortable,' he said to his sister, when she tried
to make him feel the weight of a fowl she was fattening. 'It always
makes me uneasy to touch live animals.'

He tried to smile, but Desiree taxed him with cowardice.

'Ah well, what about my ducks, and geese, and turkeys?' said she. 'What
would you do if you had all those to look after? Ducks are dirty, if you
like. Do you hear them shaking their bills in the water? And when they
dive, you can only see their tails sticking straight up like ninepins.
Geese and turkeys, too, are not easy to manage. Isn't it fun to see them
walking along with their long necks, some quite white and others quite
black? They look like ladies and gentlemen. And I wouldn't advise you to
trust your finger to them. They would swallow it at a gulp. But my
fingers, they only kiss--see!'

Her words were cut short by a joyous bleat from the goat, which had at
last forced the door of the stable open. Two bounds and the animal was
close to her, bending its forelegs, and affectionately rubbing its horns
against her. To the priest, with its pointed beard and obliquely set
eyes, it seemed to wear a diabolical grin. But Desiree caught it round
the neck, kissed its head, played and ran with it, and talked about how
she liked to drink its milk. She often did so, she said, when she was
thirsty in the stable.

'See, it has plenty of milk,' she added, pointing to the animal's udder.

The priest lowered his eyes. He could remember having once seen in the
cloister of Saint-Saturnin at Plassans a horrible stone gargoyle,
representing a goat and a monk; and ever since he had always looked on
goats as dissolute creatures of hell. His sister had only been allowed
to get one after weeks of begging. For his part, whenever he came to the
yard, he shunned all contact with the animal's long silky coat, and
carefully guarded his cassock from the touch of its horns.

'All right, I'll let you go now,' said Desiree, becoming aware of his
growing discomfort. 'But you must just let me show you something else
first. Promise not to scold me, won't you? I have not said anything to
you about it, because you wouldn't have allowed it. . . . But if you
only knew how pleased I am!'

As she spoke she put on an entreating expression, clasped her hands, and
laid her head upon her brother's shoulder.

'Another piece of folly, no doubt,' he murmured, unable to refrain from
smiling.

'You won't mind, will you?' she continued, her eyes glistening with
delight. 'You won't be angry?--He is so pretty!'

Thereupon she ran to open the low door under the shed, and forthwith a
little pig bounded into the middle of the yard.

'Oh! isn't he a cherub?' she exclaimed with a look of profound rapture
as she saw him leap out.

The little pig was indeed charming, quite pink, his snout washed clean
by the greasy slops placed before him, though incessant routing in his
trough had left a ring of dirt about his eyes. He trotted about, hustled
the fowls, rushing to gobble up whatever was thrown them, and upsetting
the little yard with his sudden turns and twists. His ears flapped over
his eyes, his snout went snorting over the ground, and with his slender
feet he resembled a toy animal on wheels. From behind, his tail looked
like a bit of string that served to hang him up by.

'I won't have this beast here!' exclaimed the priest, terribly put out.

'Oh, Serge, dear old Serge,' begged Desiree again, 'don't be so unkind.
See, what a harmless little thing he is! I'll wash him, I'll keep him
very clean. La Teuse went and had him given her for me. We can't send
him back now. See, he is looking at you; he wants to smell you. Don't be
afraid, he won't eat you.'

But she broke off, seized with irresistible laughter. The little pig had
blundered in a dazed fashion between the goat's legs, and tripped her
up. And he was now madly careering round, squeaking, rolling, scaring
all the denizens of the poultry-yard. To quiet him Desiree had to get
him an earthen pan full of dish-water. In this he wallowed up to his
ears, splashing and grunting, while quick quivers of delight coursed
over his rosy skin. And now his uncurled tail hung limply down.

The stirring of this foul water put a crowning touch to Abbe Mouret's
disgust. Ever since he had been there, he had choked more and more; his
hands and chest and face were afire, and he felt quite giddy. The odour
of the fowls and rabbits, the goat, and the pig, all mingled in one
pestilential stench. The atmosphere, laden with the ferments of life,
was too heavy for his maiden shoulders. And it seemed to him that
Desiree had grown taller, expanding at the hips, waving huge arms,
sweeping the ground with her skirts, and stirring up all that powerful
odour which overpowered him. He had only just time to open the wicket.
His feet clung to the stone flags still dank with manure, in such wise
that it seemed as if he were held there by some clasp of the soil. And
suddenly, despite himself, there came back to him a memory of the
Paradou, with its huge trees, its black shadows, its penetrating
perfumes.

'There, you are quite red now,' Desiree said to him as she joined him
outside the wicket. 'Aren't you pleased to have seen everything? Do you
hear the noise they are making?'

On seeing her depart, the birds and animals had thrown themselves
against the trellis work emitting piteous cries. The little pig,
especially, gave vent to prolonged whines that suggested the sharpening
of a saw. Desiree, however, curtsied to them and kissed her finger-tips
to them, laughing at seeing them all huddled together there, like so
many lovers of hers. Then, hugging her brother, as she accompanied him
to the garden, she whispered into his ear with a blush: 'I should so
like a cow.'

He looked at her, with a ready gesture of disapproval.

'No, no, not now,' she hurriedly went on. 'We'll talk about it again
later on---- But there would be room in the stable. A lovely white cow
with red spots. You'd soon see what nice milk we should have. A goat
becomes too little in the end. And when the cow has a calf!'

At the mere thought of this she skipped and clapped her hands with glee;
and to the priest she seemed to have brought the poultry-yard away with
her in her skirts. So he left her at the end of the garden, sitting in
the sunlight on the ground before a hive, whence the bees buzzed like
golden berries round her neck, along her bare arms and in her hair,
without thought of stinging her.

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