Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The empty church was quite white that May morning. The bell-rope near
the confessional hung motionless once more. The little bracket light,
with its stained glass shade, burned like a crimson splotch against the
wall on the right of the tabernacle. Vincent, having set the cruets on
the credence, came back and knelt just below the altar step on the left,
while the priest, after rendering homage to the Holy Sacrament by a
genuflexion, went up to the altar and there spread out the corporal, on
the centre of which he placed the chalice. Then, having opened the
Missal, he came down again. Another bend of the knee followed, and,
after crossing himself and uttering aloud the formula, 'In the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,' he raised his joined hands to
his breast, and entered on the great divine drama, with his countenance
blanched by faith and love.

'_Introibo ad altare Dei_.'

'_Ad Deum qui loetificat juventutem meam_,' gabbled Vincent, who,
squatting on his heels, mumbled the responses of the antiphon and the
psalm, while watching La Teuse as she roved about the church.

The old servant was gazing at one of the candles with a troubled look.
Her anxiety seemed to increase while the priest, bowing down with hands
joined again, recited the _Confiteor_. She stood still, in her turn
struck her breast, her head bowed, but still keeping a watchful eye on
the taper. For another minute the priest's grave voice and the server's
stammers alternated:

'_Dominus vobiscum_.'

'_Et cum spiritu tuo_.'

Then the priest, spreading out his hands and afterwards again joining
them, said with devout compunction: '_Oremus_' (Let us pray).

La Teuse could now stand it no longer, but stepped behind the altar,
reached the guttering candle, and trimmed it with the points of her
scissors. Two large blobs of wax had already been wasted. When she came
back again putting the benches straight on her way, and making sure that
there was holy-water in the fonts, the priest, whose hands were resting
on the edge of the altar-cloth, was praying in subdued tones. And at
last he kissed the altar.

Behind him, the little church still looked wan in the pale light of
early morn. The sun, as yet, was only level with the tiled roof. The
_Kyrie Eleisons_ rang quiveringly through that sort of whitewashed
stable with flat ceiling and bedaubed beams. On either side three lofty
windows of plain glass, most of them cracked or smashed, let in a raw
light of chalky crudeness.

The free air poured in as it listed, emphasising the naked poverty of
the God of that forlorn village. At the far end of the church, above the
big door which was never opened and the threshold of which was green
with weeds, a boarded gallery--reached by a common miller's ladder
--stretched from wall to wall. Dire were its creakings on festival days
beneath the weight of wooden shoes. Near the ladder stood the
confessional, with warped panels, painted a lemon yellow. Facing it,
beside the little door, stood the font--a former holy-water stoup
resting on a stonework pedestal. To the right and to the left, halfway
down the church, two narrow altars stood against the wall, surrounded by
wooden balustrades. On the left-hand one, dedicated to the Blessed
Virgin, was a large gilded plaster statue of the Mother of God, wearing
a regal gold crown upon her chestnut hair; while on her left arm sat
the Divine Child, nude and smiling, whose little hand raised the
star-spangled orb of the universe. The Virgin's feet were poised on
clouds, and beneath them peeped the heads of winged cherubs. Then the
right-hand altar, used for the masses for the dead, was surmounted by a
crucifix of painted papier-mache--a pendant, as it were, to the Virgin's
effigy. The figure of Christ, as large as a child of ten years old,
showed Him in all the horror of His death-throes, with head thrown back,
ribs projecting, abdomen hollowed in, and limbs distorted and splashed
with blood. There was a pulpit, too--a square box reached by a five-step
block--near a clock with running weights, in a walnut case, whose thuds
shook the whole church like the beatings of some huge heart concealed,
it might be, under the stone flags. All along the nave the fourteen
Stations of the Cross, fourteen coarsely coloured prints in narrow black
frames, bespeckled the staring whiteness of the walls with the yellow,
blue, and scarlet of scenes from the Passion.

'_Deo Gratias_,' stuttered out Vincent at the end of the Epistle.

The mystery of love, the immolation of the Holy Victim, was about to
begin. The server took the Missal and bore it to the left, or
Gospel-side, of the altar, taking care not to touch the pages of the
book. Each time he passed before the tabernacle he made a genuflexion
slantwise, which threw him all askew. Returning to the right-hand side
once more, he stood upright with crossed arms during the reading of the
Gospel. The priest, after making the sign of the cross upon the Missal,
next crossed himself: first upon his forehead--to declare that he would
never blush for the divine word; then on his mouth--to show his
unchanging readiness to confess his faith; and finally on his heart--to
mark that it belonged to God alone.

'_Dominus vobiscum_,' said he, turning round and facing the cold white
church.

'_Et cum spirits tuo_,' answered Vincent, who once more was on his
knees.

The Offertory having been recited, the priest uncovered the chalice. For
a moment he held before his breast the paten containing the host, which
he offered up to God, for himself, for those present, and for all the
faithful, living and dead. Then, slipping it on to the edge of the
corporal without touching it with his fingers, he took up the chalice
and carefully wiped it with the purificator. Vincent had in the
meanwhile fetched the cruets from the credence table, and now presented
them in turn, first the wine and then the water. The priest then offered
up on behalf of the whole world the half-filled chalice, which he next
replaced upon the corporal and covered with the pall. Then once again he
prayed, and returned to the side of the altar where the server let a
little water dribble over his thumbs and forefingers to purify him
from the slightest sinful stain. When he had dried his hands on the
finger-cloth, La Teuse--who stood there waiting--emptied the
cruet-salver into a zinc pail at the corner of the altar.

'_Orate, fratres_,' resumed the priest aloud as he faced the empty
benches, extending and reclasping his hands in a gesture of appeal to
all men of good-will. And turning again towards the altar, he continued
his prayer in a lower tone, while Vincent began to mutter a long Latin
sentence in which he eventually got lost. Now it was that the yellow
sunbeams began to dart through the windows; called, as it were, by the
priest, the sun itself had come to mass, throwing golden sheets of light
upon the left-hand wall, the confessional, the Virgin's altar, and the
big clock.

A gentle creak came from the confessional; the Mother of God, in a halo,
in the dazzlement of her golden crown and mantle smiled tenderly with
tinted lips upon the infant Jesus; and the heated clock throbbed out the
time with quickening strokes. It seemed as if the sun peopled the
benches with the dusty motes that danced in his beams, as if the little
church, that whitened stable, were filled with a glowing throng.
Without, were heard the sounds that told of the happy waking of the
countryside, the blades of grass sighed out content, the damp leaves
dried themselves in the warmth, the birds pruned their feathers and took
a first flit round. And indeed the countryside itself seemed to enter
with the sun; for beside one of the windows a large rowan tree shot up,
thrusting some of its branches through the shattered panes and
stretching out leafy buds as if to take a peep within; while through the
fissures of the great door the weeds on the threshold threatened to
encroach upon the nave. Amid all this quickening life, the big Christ,
still in shadow, alone displayed signs of death, the sufferings of
ochre-daubed and lake-bespattered flesh. A sparrow raised himself up for
a moment at the edge of a hole, took a glance, then flew away; but only
to reappear almost immediately when with noiseless wing he dropped
between the benches before the Virgin's altar. A second sparrow
followed; and soon from all the boughs of the rowan tree came others
that calmly hopped about the flags.

'_Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth_,' said the priest in
a low tone, whilst slightly stooping.

Vincent rang the little bell thrice; and the sparrows, scared by the
sudden tinkling, flew off with such a mighty buzz of wings that La
Teuse, who had just gone back into the sacristy, came out again,
grumbling; 'The little rascals! they will mess everything. I'll bet that
Mademoiselle Desiree has been here again to scatter bread-crumbs for
them.'

The dread moment was at hand. The body and the blood of a God were about
to descend upon the altar. The priest kissed the altar-cloth, clasped
his hands, and multiplied signs of the cross over host and chalice. The
prayers of the canon of the mass now fell from his lips in a very
ecstasy of humility and gratitude. His attitude, his gestures, the
inflections of his voice, all expressed his consciousness of his
littleness, his emotion at being selected for so great a task. Vincent
came and knelt beside him, lightly lifted the chasuble with his left
hand, the bell ready in his right; and the priest, his elbows resting on
the edge of the altar, holding the host with the thumbs and forefingers
of both hands, pronounced over it the words of consecration: _Hoc est
enim corpus meum_. Then having bowed the knee before it, he raised it
slowly as high as his hands could reach, following it upwards with his
eyes, while the kneeling server rang the bell thrice. Then he
consecrated the wine--_Hic est enim calix_--leaning once more upon his
elbows, bowing, raising the cup aloft, his right hand round the stem,
his left holding its base, and his eyes following it aloft. Again the
server rang the bell three times. The great mystery of the Redemption
had once more been repeated, once more had the adorable Blood flowed
forth.

'Just you wait a bit,' growled La Teuse, as she tried to scare away the
sparrows with outstretched fist.

But the sparrows were now fearless. They had come back even while the
bell was ringing, and, unabashed, were fluttering about the benches. The
repeated tinklings even roused them into liveliness, and they answered
back with little chirps which crossed amid the Latin words of prayer,
like the rippling laughs of free urchins. The sun warmed their plumage,
the sweet poverty of the church captivated them. They felt at home
there, as in some barn whose shutters had been left open, and screeched,
fought, and squabbled over the crumbs they found upon the floor. One
flew to perch himself on the smiling Virgin's golden veil; another,
whose daring put the old servant in a towering rage, made a hasty
reconnaissance of La Teuse's skirts. And at the altar, the priest, with
every faculty absorbed, his eyes fixed upon the sacred host, his thumbs
and forefingers joined, did not even hear this invasion of the warm May
morning, this rising flood of sunlight, greenery and birds, which
overflowed even to the foot of the Calvary where doomed nature was
wrestling in the death-throes.

'_Per omnia soecula soeculorum_,' he said.

'Amen,' answered Vincent.

The _Pater_ ended, the priest, holding the host over the chalice, broke
it in the centre. Detaching a particle from one of the halves, he
dropped it into the precious blood, to symbolise the intimate union into
which he was about to enter with God. He said the _Agnus Dei_ aloud,
softly recited the three prescribed prayers, and made his act of
unworthiness, and then with his elbows resting on the altar, and with
the paten beneath his chin, he partook of both portions of the host at
once. After a fervent meditation, with his hands clasped before his
face, he took the paten and gathered from the corporal the sacred
particles of the host that had fallen, and dropped them into the
chalice. One particle which had adhered to his thumb he removed with his
forefinger. And, crossing himself, chalice in hand, with the paten once
again below his chin, he drank all the precious blood in three draughts,
never taking his lips from the cup's rim, but imbibing the divine
Sacrifice to the last drop.

Vincent had risen to fetch the cruets from the credence table. But
suddenly the door of the passage leading to the parsonage flew open and
swung back against the wall, to admit a handsome child-like girl of
twenty-two, who carried something hidden in her apron.

'Thirteen of them,' she called out. 'All the eggs were good.' And she
opened out her apron and revealed a brood of little shivering chicks,
with sprouting down and beady black eyes. 'Do just look,' said she;
'aren't they sweet little pets, the darlings! Oh, look at the little
white one climbing on the others' backs! and the spotted one already
flapping his tiny wings! The eggs were a splendid lot; not one of them
unfertile.'

La Teuse, who was helping to serve the mass in spite of all
prohibitions, and was at that very moment handing the cruets to Vincent
for the ablutions, thereupon turned round and loudly exclaimed: 'Do be
quiet, Mademoiselle Desiree! Don't you see we haven't finished yet?'

Through the open doorway now came the strong smell of a farmyard,
blowing like some generative ferment into the church amidst the warm
sunlight that was creeping over the altar. Desiree stood there for a
moment delighted with the little ones she carried, watching Vincent
pour, and her brother drink, the purifying wine, in order that nought of
the sacred elements should be left within his mouth. And she stood there
still when he came back to the side of the altar, holding the chalice in
both hands, so that Vincent might pour over his forefingers and thumbs
the wine and water of ablution, which he likewise drank. But when the
mother hen ran up clucking with alarm to seek her little ones, and
threatened to force her way into the church, Desiree went off, talking
maternally to her chicks, while the priest, after pressing the
purificator to his lips, wiped first the rim and next the interior of
the chalice.

Then came the end, the act of thanksgiving to God. For the last time the
server removed the Missal, and brought it back to the right-hand side.
The priest replaced the purificator, paten, and pall upon the chalice;
once more pinched the two large folds of the veil together, and laid
upon it the burse containing the corporal. His whole being was now one
act of ardent thanksgiving. He besought from Heaven the forgiveness of
his sins, the grace of a holy life, and the reward of everlasting
life. He remained as if overwhelmed by this miracle of love, the
ever-recurring immolation, which sustained him day by day with the blood
and flesh of his Savior.

Having read the final prayers, he turned and said: '_Ite, missa est_.'

'_Deo gratias_,' answered Vincent.

And having turned back to kiss the altar, the priest faced round anew,
his left hand just below his breast, his right outstretched whilst
blessing the church, which the gladsome sunbeams and noisy sparrows
filled.

'_Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus_.'

'_Amen_,' said the server, as he crossed himself.

The sun had risen higher, and the sparrows were growing bolder. While
the priest read from the left-hand altar-card the passage of the Gospel
of St. John, announcing the eternity of the Word, the sunrays set the
altar ablaze, whitened the panels of imitation marble, and dimmed the
flame of the two candles, whose short wicks were now merely two dull
spots. The victorious orb enveloped with his glory the crucifix, the
candlesticks, the chasuble, the veil of the chalice--all the gold work
that paled beneath his beams. And when at last the priest, after taking
the chalice in his hands and making a genuflexion, covered his head and
turned from the altar to follow the server, laden with the cruets and
finger-cloth, to the sacristy, the planet remained sole master of the
church. Its rays in turn now rested on the altar-cloth, irradiating the
tabernacle-door with splendour, and celebrating the fertile powers of
May. Warmth rose from the stone flags. The daubed walls, the tall
Virgin, the huge Christ, too, all seemed to quiver as with shooting sap,
as if death had been conquered by the earth's eternal youth.

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