Abbe Mouret's Transgression: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

At first she could see nobody. Outside, the rain had again begun to fall
in fine close drops. The church looked very grey and gloomy. She passed
behind the high altar, and walked on towards the pulpit. In the middle
of the nave, there were only a number of empty benches, left there in
disorder by the urchins of the catechism class. Amidst all this void
came a low tic-tac from the swaying pendulum. She went down the church
to knock at the confessional-box, which she saw standing at the other
end. But, just as she passed the Chapel of the Dead, she caught sight of
Abbe Mouret prostrated before the great bleeding Christ. He did not
stir; he must have thought that it was only La Teuse putting the seats
in order behind him.

But Albine laid her hand upon his shoulder.

'Serge,' she said, 'I have come for you.'

The priest raised his head with a start. His face was very pale. He
remained on his knees and crossed himself, while his lips still quivered
with the words of his prayer.

'I have been waiting for you,' she continued. 'Every morning and
every evening I looked to see if you were not coming. I have counted
the days till I could keep the reckoning no longer. Ah! for weeks and
weeks---- Then, when I grew sure that you were not coming, I set out
myself, and came here. I said to myself: "I will fetch him away with
me." Give me your hand and let us go.'

She stretched out her hands, as though to help him to rise. But he only
crossed himself, afresh. He still continued his prayers as he looked at
her. He had succeeded in calming the first quiver of his flesh. From the
Divine grace which had been streaming around him since the early
morning, like a celestial bath, he derived a superhuman strength.

'It is not right for you to be here,' he said, gravely. 'Go away. You
are aggravating your sufferings.'

'I suffer no longer,' she said, with a smile. 'I am well again; I am
cured, now that I see you once more---- Listen! I made myself out worse
than I really was, to induce them to go and fetch you. I am quite
willing to confess it now. And that promise of going away, of leaving
the neighbourhood, you didn't suppose I should have kept it, did you?
No, indeed, unless I had carried you away with me on my shoulders. The
others don't know it, but you must know that I cannot now live anywhere
but at your side.'

She grew quite cheerful again, and drew close to the priest with the
caressing ways of a child of nature, never noticing his cold and rigid
demeanour. And she became impatient, clapped her hands, and exclaimed:

'Come, Serge; make up your mind and come. We are only losing time. There
is no necessity to think so much about it. It is quite simple; I am
going to take you with me. If you don't want any one to see you, we will
go along by the Mascle. It is not very easy walking, but I managed it
all by myself; and, when we are together, we can help each other. You
know the way, don't you? We cross the churchyard, we descend to the
torrent, and then we shall only have to follow its course right up to
the garden. And one is quite at home down there. Nobody can see us,
there is nothing but brambles and big round stones. The bed of the
stream is nearly dry. As I came along, I thought: "By-and-by, when he is
with me, we will walk along gently together and kiss one another." Come,
Serge, be quick; I am waiting for you.'

The priest no longer appeared to hear her. He had betaken himself to his
prayers again, and was asking Heaven to grant him the courage of the
saints. Before entering upon the supreme struggle, he was arming himself
with the flaming sword of faith. For a moment he had feared he was
wavering. He had required all a martyr's courage and endurance to remain
firmly kneeling there on the flagstones, while Albine was calling him:
his heart had leapt out towards her, all his blood had surged
passionately through his veins, filling him with an intense yearning to
clasp her in his arms and kiss her hair. Her mere breath had awakened
all the memory of their love; the vast garden, their saunters beneath
the trees, and all the joy of their companionship.

But Divine grace was poured down upon him more abundantly, and the
torturing strife, during which all his blood seemed to quit his veins,
lasted but a moment. Nothing human then remained within him. He had
become wholly God's.

Albine, however, again touched him on the shoulder. She was growing
uneasy and angry.

'Why do you not speak to me?' she asked. 'You can't refuse; you will
come with me? Remember that I shall die if you refuse. But no! you
can't; it is impossible. We lived together once; it was vowed that we
should never separate. Twenty times, at least, did you give yourself to
me. You bade me take you wholly, your limbs, your breath, your very life
itself. I did not dream it all. There is nothing of you that you have
not given to me; not a hair in your head which is not mine. Your hands
are mine. For days and days have I held them clasped in mine. Your face,
your lips, your eyes, your brow, all, all are mine, and I have lavished
my love upon them. Do you hear me, Serge?'

She stood erect before him, full of proud assertion, with outstretched
arms. And, in a louder voice, she repeated:

'Do you hear me, Serge? You belong to me.'

Then Abbe Mouret slowly rose to his feet. He leant against the altar,
and replied:

'No. You are mistaken. I belong to God.'

He was full of serenity. His shorn face seemed like that of some stone
saint, whom no impulse of the flesh can disturb. His cassock fell around
him in straight folds like a black winding-sheet, concealing all the
outlines of his body. Albine dropped back at the sight of that sombre
phantom of her former love. She missed his freely flowing beard, his
freely flowing curls. And in the midst of his shorn locks she saw the
pallid circle of his tonsure, which disquieted her as if it had been
some mysterious evil, some malignant sore which had grown there, and
would eat away all memory of the happy days they had spent together. She
could recognise neither his hands, once so warm with caresses, nor his
lissom neck, once so sonorous with laughter; nor his agile feet, which
had carried her into the recesses of the woodlands. Could this, indeed,
be the strong youth with whom she had lived one whole season--the youth
with soft down gleaming on his bare breast, with skin browned by the
sun's rays, with every limb full of vibrating life? At this present hour
he seemed fleshless; his hair had fallen away from him, and all his
virility had withered within that womanish gown, which left him sexless.

'Oh! you frighten me,' she murmured. 'Did you think then that I was
dead, that you put on mourning? Take off that black thing; put on a
blouse. You can tuck up the sleeves, and we will catch crayfishes again.
Your arms used to be as white as mine.'

She laid her hand on his cassock, as though to tear it off him; but he
repulsed her with a gesture, without touching her. He looked at her now
and strengthened himself against temptation by never allowing his eyes
to leave her. She seemed to him to have grown taller. She was no longer
the playful damsel adorned with bunches of wild-flowers, and casting to
the winds gay, gipsy laughter, nor was she the amorosa in white skirts,
gracefully bending her slender form as she sauntered lingeringly beside
the hedges. Now, there was a velvety bloom upon her lips; her hips were
gracefully rounded; her bosom was in full bloom. She had become a woman,
with a long oval face that seemed expressive of fruitfulness. Life
slumbered within her. And her cheeks glowed with luscious maturity.

The priest, bathed in the voluptuous atmosphere that seemed to emanate
from all that feminine ripeness, took a bitter pleasure in defying the
caresses of her coral lips, the tempting smile of her eyes, the witching
charm of her bosom, and all the intoxication which seemed to pour from
her at every movement. He even carried his temerity so far as to search
with his gaze for the spots that he had once so hotly kissed, the
corners of her eyes and lips, her narrow temples, soft as satin, and the
ambery nape of her neck, which was like velvet. And never, even in her
embrace, had he tasted such felicity as he now felt in martyring
himself, by boldly looking in the face the love that he refused. At
last, fearing lest he might there yield to some new allurement of the
flesh, he dropped his eyes, and said, very gently:

'I cannot hear you here. Let us go out, if you, indeed, persist in
adding to the pain of both of us. Our presence in this place is a
scandal. We are in God's house.'

'God!' cried Albine, excitedly, suddenly becoming a child of nature once
more. 'God! Who is He? I know nothing of your God! I want to know
nothing of Him if He has stolen you away from me, who have never harmed
Him. My uncle Jeanbernat was right then when he said that your God was
only an invention to frighten people, and make them weep! You are lying;
you love me no longer, and that God of yours does not exist.'

'You are in His house now,' said Abbe Mouret, sternly. 'You blaspheme.
With a breath He might turn you into dust.'

She laughed with proud disdain, and raised her hands as if to defy
Heaven.

'Ah! then,' said she, 'you prefer your God to me. You think He is
stronger than I am, and you imagine that He will love you better than I
did. Oh! but you are a child, a foolish child. Come, leave all this
folly. We will return to the garden together, and love each other, and
be happy and free. That, that is life!'

This time she succeeded in throwing an arm round his waist, and she
tried to drag him away. But he, quivering all over, freed himself from
her embrace, and again took his stand against the altar.

'Go away!' he faltered. 'If you still love me, go away. . . . O Lord,
pardon her, and pardon me too, for thus defiling this Thy house. Should
I go with her beyond the door, I might, perhaps, follow her. Here, in
Thy presence, I am strong. Suffer that I may remain here, to protect
Thee from insult.'

Albine remained silent for a moment. Then, in a calm voice, she said:

'Well, let us stay here, then. I wish to speak to you. You cannot,
surely, be cruel. You will understand me. You will not let me go away
alone. Oh! do not begin to excuse yourself. I will not lay my hands upon
you again, since it distresses you. I am quite calm now as you can see.
We will talk quietly, as we used to do in the old days when we lost our
way, and did not hurry to find it again, that we might have the more
time to talk together.'

She smiled at that memory, and continued:

'I don't know about these things myself. My uncle Jeanbernat used to
forbid me to go to church. "Silly girl," he'd say to me, "why do you
want to go to a stuffy building when you have got a garden to run about
in?" I grew up quite happy and contented. I used to look in the birds'
nests without even taking the eggs. I did not even pluck the flowers,
for fear of hurting the plants; and you know that I could never torture
an insect. Why, then, should God be angry with me?'

'You should learn to know Him, pray to Him, and render Him the constant
worship which is His due,' answered the priest.

'Ah! it would please you if I did, would it not?' she said. 'You would
forgive me, and love me again? Well, I will do all that you wish me.
Tell me about God, and I will believe in Him, and worship Him. All that
you tell me shall be a truth to which I will listen on my knees. Have I
ever had a thought that was not your own? We will begin our long walks
again; and you shall teach me, and make of me whatever you will. Say
"yes," I beg of you.'

Abbe Mouret pointed to his cassock.

'I cannot,' he simply said. 'I am a priest.'

'A priest!' she repeated after him, the smile dying out of her eyes. 'My
uncle says that priests have neither wife, nor sister, nor mother. So
that is true, then. But why did you ever come? It was you who took me
for your sister, for your wife. Were you then lying?'

The priest raised his pale face, moist with the sweat of agony. 'I have
sinned,' he murmured.

'When I saw you so free,' the girl went on, 'I thought that you were no
longer a priest. I believed that all that was over, that you would
always remain there with me, and for my sake.---- And now, what would
you have me do, if you rob me of my whole life?'

'What I do,' he answered; 'kneel down, suffer on your knees, and never
rise until God pardons you.'

'Are you a coward, then?' she exclaimed, her anger roused once more, her
lips curving scornfully.

He staggered, and kept silence. Agony held him by the throat; but he
proved stronger than pain. He held his head erect, and a smile almost
played about his trembling lips. Albine for a moment defied him with her
fixed glance; then, carried away by a fresh burst of passion, she
exclaimed:

'Well, answer me. Accuse me! Say it was I who came to tempt you! That
will be the climax! Speak, and say what you can for yourself. Strike me
if you like. I should prefer your blows to that corpse-like stiffness
you put on. Is there no blood left in your veins? Have you no spirit?
Don't you hear me calling you a coward? Yes, indeed, you are a coward.
You should never have loved me, since you may not be a man. Is it that
black robe of yours which holds you back? Tear it off! When you are
naked, perhaps you will remember yourself again.'

The priest slowly repeated his former words:

'I have sinned. I had no excuse for my sin. I do penitence for my sin
without hope of pardon. If I tore off my cassock, I should tear away my
very flesh, for I have given myself wholly to God, soul and body. I am a
priest.'

'And I! what is to become of me?' cried Albine.

He looked unflinchingly at her.

'May your sufferings be reckoned against me as so many crimes! May I be
eternally punished for the desertion in which I am forced to leave you!
That will be only just. All unworthy though I be, I pray for you each
night.'

She shrugged her shoulders with an air of great discouragement. Her
anger was subsiding. She almost felt inclined to pity him.

'You are mad,' she murmured. 'Keep your prayers. It is you yourself that
I want. But you will never understand me. There were so many things I
wanted to tell you! Yet you stand there and irritate me with your
chatter of another world. Come, let us try to talk sensibly. Let us wait
for a moment till we are calmer. You cannot dismiss me in this way, I
cannot leave you here. It is because you are here that you are so
corpse-like, so cold that I dare not touch you. We won't talk any more
just now. We will wait a little.'

She ceased speaking, and took a few steps, examining the little church.
The rain was still gently pattering against the windows; and the cold
damp light seemed to moisten the walls. Not a sound came from outside
save the monotonous plashing of the rain. The sparrows were doubtless
crouching for shelter under the tiles, and the rowan-tree's deserted
branches showed but indistinctly in the veiling, drenching downpour.
Five o'clock struck, grated out, stroke by stroke, from the wheezy chest
of the old clock; and then the silence fell again, seeming to grow yet
deeper, dimmer, and more despairing. The priest's painting work, as yet
scarcely dry, gave to the high altar and the wainscoting an appearance
of gloomy cleanliness, like that of some convent chapel where the sun
never shines. Grievous anguish seemed to fill the nave, splashed with
the blood that flowed from the limbs of the huge Christ; while, along
the walls, the fourteen scenes of the Passion displayed their awful
story in red and yellow daubs, reeking with horror. It was life that was
suffering the last agonies there, amidst that deathlike quiver of the
atmosphere, upon those altars which resembled tombs, in that bare vault
which looked like a sepulchre. The surroundings all spoke of slaughter
and gloom, terror and anguish and nothingness. A faint scent of incense
still lingered there, like the last expiring breath of some dead girl,
who had been hurriedly stifled beneath the flagstones.

'Ah,' said Albine at last, 'how sweet it used to be in the sunshine!
Don't you remember? One morning we walked past a hedge of tall rose
bushes, to the left of the flower-garden. I recollect the very colour of
the grass; it was almost blue, shot with green. When we reached the end
of the hedge we turned and walked back again, so sweet was the perfume
of the sunny air. And we did nothing else, that morning; we took just
twenty paces forward and then twenty paces back. It was so sweet a spot
you would not leave it. The bees buzzed all around; and there was a
tomtit that never left us, but skipped along by our side from branch to
branch. You whispered to me, "How delightful is life!" Ah! life! it was
the green grass, the trees, the running waters, the sky, and the sun,
amongst which we seemed all fair and golden.'

She mused for another moment and then continued: 'Life 'twas the
Paradou. How vast it used to seem to us! Never were we able to find the
end of it. The sea of foliage rolled freely with rustling waves as far
as the eye could reach. And all that glorious blue overhead! we were
free to grow, and soar, and roam, like the clouds without meeting more
obstacles than they. The very air was ours!'

She stopped and pointed to the low walls of the church.

'But, here, you are in a grave. You cannot stretch out your hand without
hurting it against the stones. The roof hides the sky from you and blots
out the sun. It is all so small and confined that your limbs grow stiff
and cramped as though you were buried alive.'

'No,' answered the priest. 'The church is wide as the world.'

But she waved her hands towards the crosses, and the dying Christ, and
the pictures of the Passion.

'And you live in the very midst of death. The grass, the trees, the
springs, the sun, the sky, all are in the death throes around you.'

'No, no; all revives, all grows purified and reascends to the source of
light.'

He had now drawn himself quite erect, with flashing eyes. And feeling
that he was now invincible, so permeated with faith as to disdain
temptation, he quitted the altar, took Albine's hand, and led her, as
though she had been his sister, to the ghastly pictures of the Stations
of the Cross.

'See,' he said, 'this is what God suffered! Jesus is cruelly scourged.
Look! His shoulders are naked; His flesh is torn; His blood flows down
His back. . . . And Jesus is crowned with thorns. Tears of blood trickle
down His gashed brow. On His temple is a jagged wound. . . . Again Jesus
is insulted by the soldiers. His murderers have scoffingly thrown a
purple robe around His shoulders, and they spit upon His face and strike
Him, and press the thorny crown deep into His flesh.'

Albine turned away her head, that she might not see the crudely painted
pictures, in which the ochreous flesh of Christ had been plentifully
bedaubed with carmine wounds. The purple robe round His shoulders seemed
like a shred of His skin torn away.

'Why suffer? why die?' she said. 'O Serge, if you would only
remember! . . . You told me, that morning, that you were tired. But
I knew that you were only pretending, for the air was quite cool and we
had only been walking for a quarter of an hour. But you wanted to sit
down that you might hold me in your arms. Right down in the orchard, by
the edge of a stream, there was a cherry tree--you remember it, don't
you?--which you never could pass without wishing to kiss my hands. And
your kisses ran all up my arms and shoulders to my lips. Cherry time was
over, and so you devoured my lips. . . . It used to make us feel so sad
to see the flowers fading, and one day, when you found a dead bird in
the grass, you turned quite pale, and caught me to your breast, as if to
forbid the earth to take me.'

But the priest drew her towards the other Stations of the Cross.

'Hush! hush!' he cried, 'look here, and here! Bow down in grief and
pity---- Jesus falls beneath the weight of His cross. The ascent of
Calvary is very tiring. He has dropped down on His knees. But He does
not stay to wipe even the sweat from His brow, He rises up again and
continues His journey. . . . And again Jesus falls beneath the weight of
His cross. At each step He staggers. This time He has fallen on His
side, so heavily that for a moment He lies there quite breathless. His
lacerated hands have relaxed their hold upon the cross. His bruised and
aching feet leave blood-stained prints behind them. Agonising weariness
overwhelms Him, for He carries upon His shoulders the sins of the whole
world.'

Albine gazed at the pictured Jesus, lying in a blue shirt prostrate
beneath the cross, the blackness of which bedimmed the gold of His
aureole. Then, with her glance wandering far away, she said:

'Oh! those meadow-paths! Have you no memory left, Serge? Have you
forgotten those soft grassy walks through the meadows, amidst very seas
of greenery? On the afternoon I am telling you of, we had only meant to
stay out of doors an hour; but we went wandering on and were still
wandering when the stars came out above us. Ah! how velvety it was, that
endless carpet, soft as finest silk! It was just like a green sea whose
gentle waters lapped us round. And well we knew whither those beguiling
paths that led nowhere, were taking us! They were taking us to our love,
to the joy of living together, to the certainty of happiness.'

With his hands trembling with anguish, Abbe Mouret pointed to the
remaining pictures.

'Jesus,' he stammered, 'Jesus is nailed to the cross. The nails are
hammered through His outspread hands. A single nail suffices for his
feet, whose bones split asunder. He, Himself, while His flesh quivers
with pain, fixes His eyes upon heaven and smiles. . . . Jesus is
crucified between two thieves. The weight of His body terribly
aggravates His wounds. From His brow, from His limbs, does a bloody
sweat stream down. The two thieves insult Him, the passers-by mock at
Him, the soldiers cast lots for His raiment. And the shadowy darkness
grows deeper and the sun hides himself. . . . Jesus dies upon the cross.
He utters a piercing cry and gives up the ghost. Oh! most terrible of
deaths! The veil of the temple is rent in twain from top to bottom. The
earth quakes, the stones are broken, and the very graves open.'

The priest had fallen on his knees, his voice choked by sobs, his eyes
fixed upon the three crosses of Calvary, where writhed the gaunt pallid
bodies of the crucified. Albine placed herself in front of the paintings
in order that he might no longer see them.

'One evening,' she said, 'I lay through the long gloaming with my head
upon your lap. It was in the forest, at the end of that great avenue of
chestnut-trees, through which the setting sun shot a parting ray. Ah!
what a caressing farewell He bade us! He lingered awhile by our feet
with a kindly smile, as if saying "Till to-morrow." The sky slowly grew
paler. I told you merrily that it was taking off its blue gown, and
donning its gold-flowered robe of black to go out for the evening. And
it was not night that fell, but a soft dimness, a veil of love and
mystery, reminding us of those dusky paths, where the foliage arches
overhead, one of those paths in which one hides for a moment with the
certainty of finding the joyousness of daylight at the other end.

'That evening the calm clearness of the twilight gave promise of a
splendid morrow. When I saw that it did not grow dark as quickly as you
wished, I pretended to fall asleep. I may confess it to you now, but I
was not really sleeping while you kissed me on the eyes. I felt your
kisses and tried to keep from laughing. And then, when the darkness
really came, it was like one long caress. The trees slept no more than I
did. At night, don't you remember, the flowers always breathed a
stronger perfume.'

Then, as he still remained on his knees, while tears streamed down his
face, she caught him by the wrists, and pulled him to his feet, resuming
passionately:

'Oh! if you knew you would bid me carry you off; you would fasten your
arms about my neck, lest I should go away without you. . . . Yesterday I
had a longing to see the garden once more. It seems larger, deeper, more
unfathomable than ever. I discovered there new scents, so sweetly
aromatic that they brought tears into my eyes. In the avenues I found a
rain of sunbeams that thrilled me with desire. The roses spoke to me of
you. The bullfinches were amazed at seeing me alone. All the garden
broke out into sighs. Oh! come! Never has the grass spread itself out
more softly. I have marked with a flower the hidden nook whither I long
to take you. It is a nest of greenery in the midst of a tangle of
brushwood. And there one can hear all the teeming life of the garden, of
the trees and the streams and the sky. The earth's very breathing will
softly lull us to rest there. Oh! come! come! and let us love one
another amidst that universal loving!'

But he pushed her from him. He had returned to the Chapel of the
Dead and stood in front of the painted papier-mache Christ, big as a
ten-year-old boy, that writhed in such horridly realistic agony. There
were real iron nails driven into the figure's limbs, and the wounds
gaped in the torn and bleeding flesh.

'O Jesus, Who hast died for us!' cried the priest, 'convince her of our
nothingness! Tell her that we are but dust, rottenness, and damnation!
Ah! suffer that I may hide my head in a hair-cloth and rest it against
Thy feet and stay there, motionless, until I rot away in death. The
earth will no longer exist for me. The sun will no longer shine. I shall
see nothing more, feel nothing, hear nothing. Nought of all this
wretched world will come to turn my soul from its adoration of Thee.'

He was gradually becoming more and more excited, and he stepped towards
Albine with upraised hands.

'You said rightly. It is Death that is present here; Death that is
before my eyes; Death that delivers and saves one from all rottenness.
Hear me! I renounce, I deny life, I wholly refuse it, I spit upon it.
Those flowers of yours stink; your sun dazzles and blinds; your grass
makes lepers of those that lie upon it; your garden is but a
charnel-place where all rots and putrefies. The earth reeks with
abomination. You lie when you talk of love and light and gladsome life
in the depths of your palace of greenery. There is nought but darkness
there. Those trees of yours exhale a poison which transforms men into
beasts; your thickets are charged with the venom of vipers; your streams
carry pestilence in their blue waters. If I could snatch away from that
world of nature, which you extol, its kirtle of sunshine and its girdle
of greenery, you would see it hideous like a very fury, a skeleton,
rotting away with disease and vice.

'And even if you spoke the truth, even if your hands were really filled
with pleasures, even if you should carry me to a couch of roses and
offer me the dreams of Paradise, I would defend myself yet the more
desperately from your embraces. There is war between us; war eternal and
implacable. See! the church is very small; it is poverty-stricken; it is
ugly; its confessional-box and pulpit are made of common deal, its font
is merely of plaster, its altars are formed of four boards which I have
painted myself. But what of that? It is yet vaster than your garden,
greater than the valley, greater, even, than the whole earth. It is an
impregnable fortress which nothing can ever break down. The winds, the
sun, the forests, the ocean, all that is, may combine to assault it; yet
it will stand erect and unshaken for ever!

'Yes, let all the jungles tower aloft and assail the walls with their
thorny arms, let all the legions of insects swarm out of their holes in
the ground and gnaw at the walls; the church, ruinous though it may
seem, will never fall before the invasion of life. It is Death, Death
the inexpugnable! . . . And do you know what will one day happen? The
tiny church will grow and spread to such a colossal size, and will cast
around such a mighty shadow, that all that nature, you speak of, will
give up the ghost. Ah! Death, the Death of everything, with the skies
gaping to receive our souls, above the curse-stricken ruins of the
world!'

As he shouted those last words, he pushed Albine forcibly towards the
door. She, extremely pale, retreated step by step. When he had finished
in a gasping voice she very gravely answered:

'It is all over, then? You drive me away? Yet, I am your wife. It is you
who made me so. And God, since He permitted it, cannot punish us to such
a point as this.'

She was now on the threshold, and she added:

'Listen! Every day, at sunset, I go to the end of the garden, to the
spot where the wall has fallen in. I shall wait for you there.'

And then she disappeared. The vestry door fell back with a sound like a
deep sigh.

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