Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Abbe Mouret spent his days at the parsonage. He shunned the long walks
which he had been wont to take before his illness. The scorched soil of
Les Artaud, the ardent heat of that valley where the vines could never
even grow straight, distressed him. On two occasions, in the morning, he
had attempted to go out and read his breviary as he strolled along the
road; but he had not gone beyond the village. He had returned home,
overcome by the perfumes, the heat, the breadth of the landscape. It was
only in the evening, in the cool twilight air, that he ventured to
saunter a little in front of the church, on the terrace which led to the
graveyard. In the afternoons, to fill up his time, and satisfy his
craving for some kind of occupation, he had imposed upon himself the
task of pasting paper over the broken panes of the church windows, This
had kept him for a week mounted on a ladder, arranging his paper panes
with great exactness, and laying on the paste with the most scrupulous
care in order to avoid any mess.

La Teuse stood at the foot of the ladder and watched him. And Desiree
urged that he must not fill up all the windows, or else the sparrows
would no longer be able to get through. To please her, the priest left a
pane or two in each window unfilled. Then, having completed these
repairs, he was seized with the ambition of decorating the church,
without summoning to his aid either mason or carpenter or painter. He
would do it all himself. This sort of handiwork would amuse him, he
said, and help to bring back his strength. Uncle Pascal encouraged him
every time he called at the parsonage, assuring him that such exercise
and fatigue were better than all the drugs in the world. And so Abbe
Mouret began to stop up the holes in the walls with plaster, to drive
fresh nails into the disjoined altars, and to crush and mix paints,
in order that he might put a new coating on the pulpit and
confessional-box. It was quite an event in the district, and folks
talked of it for a couple of leagues round. Peasants would come and
stand gazing, with their hands behind their backs, at his reverence's
work. The Abbe himself, with a blue apron tied round his waist, and his
hands all soiled with his labour, became absorbed in it, and used it as
an excuse for no longer going out. He spent his days in the midst of his
repairs, and was more tranquil than he had been before; almost cheerful,
indeed, as he forgot the outer world, the trees and the sunshine and the
warm breezes, which had formerly disturbed him so much.

'Monsieur le Cure is free to do as he pleases, since the parish hasn't
got to find the money,' said old Bambousse, who came round every evening
to see how the work was progressing.

Abbe Mouret spent all his savings on it. Some of his decorations,
indeed, were so awkward that they would have excited many people's
smiles. The replastering of the stonework soon tired him: so he
contented himself with patching up the church walls all round to a
height of some six feet from the ground. La Teuse mixed the plaster.
When she talked of repairing the parsonage as well, for she was
continually fearing that it would topple down on their heads, he told
her that he did not think he could manage it, that a regular workman
would be necessary; a reply which led to a terrible quarrel between
them. La Teuse said it was quite ridiculous to go on ornamenting the
church, where nobody slept, while their bedrooms were in such a crazy
condition, for she was quite sure they would all be found, one morning,
crushed to death by the fallen ceilings.

'I shall end by bringing my bed here, and placing it behind the altar,'
she grumbled. 'I feel quite terrified sometimes at night.'

However, when the plaster was all used up, she said no more about
repairing the parsonage. The painting which the priest executed quite
delighted her. It was the chief charm of the improvements. The Abbe, who
had repaired the woodwork everywhere with bits of boards, took
particular pleasure in spreading his big brush, dipped in bright yellow
paint, over all this woodwork. The gentle, up-and-down motion of the
brush lulled him, left him thoughtless for hours whilst he gazed on the
oily streaks of paint. When everything was quite yellow, the pulpit, the
confessional-box, the altar rails, even the clock-case itself, he
ventured to try his hand at imitation marble work by way of touching up
the high altar. Then, growing bolder, he painted it all over. Glistening
with white and yellow and blue, it was pronounced superb. People who had
not been to mass for fifty years streamed into the church to see it.

And now the paint was dry. All that remained for Abbe Mouret to do was
to edge the panels with brown beading. So, that afternoon, he set to
work at it, wishing to get it done by evening; for on the following day,
as he had reminded La Teuse, there would be high mass. She was there
ready to arrange the altar. She had already placed on the credence the
candlesticks and the silver cross, the porcelain vases filled with
artificial roses, and the laced cloth which was only used on great
festivals. The beading, however, proved so difficult of execution, that
it was not completed till late in the evening. It was growing quite dark
as the Abbe finished his last panel.

'It will be really too beautiful,' said a rough voice from amidst the
greyish gloom of twilight which was filling the church.

La Teuse, who had knelt down to get a better view of the Abbe's brush as
it glided along his rule, started with alarm.

'Ah! it's Brother Archangias,' she said, turning round. 'You came in by
the sacristy then? You gave me quite a turn. Your voice seemed to sound
from under the floor.'

Abbe Mouret had resumed his work, after greeting the Brother with a
slight nod. The Brother remained standing there in silence, with his fat
hands clasped in front of his cassock. Then, shrugging his shoulders, as
he observed with what scrupulous care the priest sought to make his
beading perfectly straight, he repeated:

'It will be really too beautiful.'

La Teuse, who knelt near by in ecstasy, started again.

'Dear me!' she said, 'I had quite forgotten you were there. You really
ought to cough before you speak. You have a voice that comes on one so
suddenly that one might think it was a voice from the grave.'

She rose up and drew back a little the better to admire the Abbe's work.

'Why too beautiful?' she asked. 'Nothing can be too beautiful when it is
done for the Almighty. If his reverence had only had some gold, he would
have done it with gold, I'm sure.'

When the priest had finished, she hastened to change the altar-cloth,
taking the greatest care not to smudge the beading. Then she arranged
the cross, the candlesticks, and the vases symmetrically. Abbe Mouret
had gone to lean against the wooden screen which separated the choir
from the nave, by the side of Brother Archangias. Not a word passed
between them. Their eyes were fixed upon the silver crucifix, which, in
the increasing gloom, still cast some glimmer of light on the feet and
the left side and the right temple of the big Christ. When La Teuse had
finished, she came down towards them, triumphantly.

'Doesn't it look lovely?' she asked. 'Just you see what a crowd there
will be at mass to-morrow! Those heathens will only come to God's house
when they think He is well-to-do. Now, Monsieur le Cure, we must do as
much for the Blessed Virgin's altar.'

'Waste of money!' growled Brother Archangias.

But La Teuse flew into a tantrum; and, as Abbe Mouret remained silent,
she led them both before the altar of the Virgin, pushing them and
dragging them by their cassocks.

'Just look at it,' said she; 'it is too shabby for anything, now that
the high altar is so smart. It looks as though it had never been painted
at all. However much I may rub it of a morning, the dust sticks to it.
It is quite black; it is filthy. Do you know what people will say about
you, your reverence? They will say that you care nothing for the Blessed
Virgin; that's what they'll say.'

'Well, what of it?' queried Brother Archangias.

La Teuse looked at him, half suffocated by indignation.

'What of it? It would be sinful, of course,' she muttered. 'This altar
is like a neglected tomb in a graveyard. If it were not for me, the
spiders would spin their webs across it, and moss would soon grow over
it. From time to time, when I can spare a bunch of flowers, I give it to
the Virgin. All the flowers in our garden used to be for her once.'

She had mounted the altar steps, and she took up two withered bunches of
flowers, which had been left there, forgotten.

'See! it is just as it is in the graveyards,' she said, throwing the
flowers at Abbe Mouret's feet.

He picked them up, without replying. It was quite dark now, and Brother
Archangias stumbled about amongst the chairs and nearly fell. He growled
and muttered some angry words, in which the names of Jesus and Mary
recurred. When La Teuse, who had gone for a lamp, returned into the
church, she asked the priest:

'So I can put the brushes and pots away in the attic, then?'

'Yes,' he answered. 'I have finished. We will see about the rest later
on.'

She walked away in front of them, carrying all the things with her, and
keeping silence, lest she should say too much. And as Abbe Mouret had
kept the withered bunches of flowers in his hand, Brother Archangias
said to him, as they passed the farmyard: 'Throw those things away.'

The Abbe took a few steps more, with downcast head; and then over the
palings he flung the flowers upon a manure-heap.

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