The Conquest of Plassans (Classic Reprint) Page 19

  And he carried on complaining, talking about all the sacrifices he had made for his son, and the clients he was afraid of losing. Abbé Faujas, who had stopped halfway up the path, raised his head and listened gravely.

  ‘I ask nothing better than to be of service,’ he said obligingly. ‘I’ll see Monsieur Maffre and make him realize that his righteous indignation has run away with him. I’ll even ask him if he can meet me tomorrow. He’s there in the next-door garden.’

  He crossed the garden. Monsieur Maffre was indeed still there with Madame Rastoil. But when the judge realized the priest wished to speak to him, he would not put him to that trouble, he said; he was at his disposal, and would be delighted to pay him a visit the next day.

  ‘Oh, Monsieur le Curé,’ added Madame Rastoil, ‘congratulations on your Sunday homily. All the ladies were extremely moved, I do assure you.’

  He took his leave and crossed the garden again, to go and set Doctor Porquier’s mind at rest. Then he walked slowly up and down the paths until nightfall, without taking any further part in the conversations, listening to the laughter that wafted over from the two parties to right and left.

  When Monsieur Maffre arrived the next day Abbé Faujas was watching two workmen repairing the pond. He had expressed a wish to see the fountain working; this pond without any water was gloomy, he said. Mouret wasn’t in favour, claiming there could be an accident; but Marthe had gone ahead with the idea, deciding that they would put a fence around the pond.

  ‘Monsieur le Curé,’ shouted Rose, ‘Monsieur le Juge is here waiting.’

  Abbé Faujas hurried inside. He intended to receive Monsieur Maffre on the top floor in his rooms, but Rose had already opened the sitting-room door.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘This is your house, isn’t it? There’s no point making Monsieur le Juge walk up two flights of stairs… Only if you had warned me this morning I would have dusted the sitting room.’

  When she had opened the shutters and was closing the door after them, Mouret called her into the dining room.

  ‘That’s fine, Rose,’ he said, ‘you can give your priest my supper tonight, and if he hasn’t got enough blankets up there, you will bring him into my bed, won’t you?’

  The cook exchanged a meaningful glance with Marthe, working in front of the window until the sun left the terrace. Then, shrugging her shoulders, she muttered:

  ‘Well, you never were kind-hearted, sir.’

  And she left. Marthe went on sewing without looking up. For the last few days she had been applying herself to her work again in a sort of fever. She was embroidering an altar cloth. It was a gift for the cathedral. The ladies wished to donate a whole altar. Mesdames Rastoil and Delangre had taken responsibility for the candelabra, Madame de Condamin had sent for a splendid silver Christ from Paris.

  Meanwhile in the sitting room, Abbé Faujas was reproving Monsieur Maffre in his mild manner, saying that Doctor Porquier was a religious man and extremely honourable, and was the first to suffer from his son’s deplorable conduct. The judge listened in admiration. His broad face, big eyes popping out of his head, assumed a look of ecstasy at some of the pious pronouncements of the priest. He agreed that he had been a little hasty, he said he was ready to make a full apology if Monsieur le Curé considered he had committed a sin.

  ‘And what about your sons?’ the priest asked. ‘You should send them to me and I’ll talk to them.’

  Monsieur Maffre shook his head and gave a little laugh.

  ‘You needn’t fear, Monsieur le Curé: the rascals won’t do that again. They’ve been locked up in their room with bread and water for the last three days. When I learned of it, if I’d had a stick, I’d have broken it on their backs.’

  The priest looked at him, remembering that Mouret had accused him of killing his wife with his harsh treatment of her and his greed; then, with a gesture of protest, he said:

  ‘No no, you mustn’t treat young people like that. Your eldest, Ambroise, is twenty, and the younger one will soon be eighteen, won’t he? You have to remember they aren’t children any more; you have to be tolerant of some of the things they do to amuse themselves.’

  The judge was dumbstruck.

  ‘So would you let them smoke and allow them to go to cafés?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied the priest with a smile. ‘I tell you that young people need to get together and chat, smoke cigarettes, even play the odd game of billiards or chess… If you don’t allow them to do anything they will permit themselves everything… Only, as you must know, I wouldn’t let them go to every café. I should like to see them in a special establishment, a club, like those I’ve seen in several towns.’

  And he outlined a whole plan. Monsieur Maffre gradually understood, and nodded his head, saying:

  ‘Yes, yes, it would be a worthy opposite number to the Work of the Virgin. Oh, Monsieur le Curé, we must put this fine plan into practice.’

  ‘Well then,’ the priest concluded, going out on to the street with him, ‘since you approve of the idea, tell your friends about it. I’ll see Monsieur Delangre and I’ll tell him about it too… Sunday after vespers we could all meet at the cathedral and come to a decision.’

  On Sunday, Monsieur Maffre brought Monsieur Rastoil with him. They found Abbé Faujas and Monsieur Delangre in a room adjoining the sacristy. These gentlemen proved very enthusiastic. It was decided in principle to form a club for young people, except that they debated for some time what name the club should have. Monsieur Maffre was determined they should call it the Jesus Club.

  ‘Definitely not!’ cried the priest, finally losing patience. ‘You won’t get anyone, and they will make fun of the few who do go. You must understand that we don’t want to bring religion into this project. Quite the opposite, I am hoping to leave religion to one side. We want to entertain young people decently and win them over to our cause, nothing more.’

  The judge looked at the president in such astonishment, and with such a worried expression, that Monsieur Delangre had to bow his face to hide a smile. He gave a surreptitious little tug at the priest’s soutane. The priest, calming down, went on more quietly:

  ‘I suppose you trust me, gentlemen. I beg you to leave the conduct of this affair to me. I propose choosing a very simple name, for example this one: “The Youth Club”, that says just what it is.’

  Monsieur Rastoil and Monsieur Maffre bowed to this opinion, although it seemed a bit feeble to them. They went on to discuss the appointment of Monsieur le Curé to be president of a provisional committee.

  ‘I believe’, muttered Monsieur Delangre with a glance at Abbé Faujas, ‘that Monsieur le Curé will not be receptive to that idea.’

  ‘Of course not, I refuse,’ said the priest, shrugging his shoulders slightly. ‘My soutane would frighten off the shy ones, the unenthusiastic. We would only have the religious ones, and it’s not for them that we are setting up the club. We want to bring in the ones who have gone astray. To make disciples, in a word, don’t we?’

  ‘Obviously,’ replied the president.

  ‘Well then, it’s better that we keep ourselves in the shade, especially me. This is what I suggest. Your son, Monsieur Rastoil, and yours, Monsieur Delangre, will be the only ones to put themselves forward. They will be the ones who have had the idea for the club. Send them to me tomorrow, I will have a long chat with them. I already have somewhere in mind, and a draft of the statutes in my head… As for your two sons, Monsieur Maffre, they will of course be the first to join.’

  The president appeared flattered at the role destined for his son. So things were settled, in spite of the opposition of the judge, who had hoped to obtain some glory for himself in setting up the club. The very next day Séverin Rastoil and Lucien Delangre arranged to meet Abbé Faujas. Séverin was a tall young man of twenty-five, an obtuse numbskull of a fellow, who had just passed his law exams, thanks to his father’s influential position. The latter hoped against hope to make him a deputy prosecutor, since he di
d not see him attracting any clients of his own. Lucien, on the other hand, was small in stature, with a keen eye and had his head screwed on; though a year Séverin’s junior, he pleaded his cases with the aplomb of an experienced practitioner. The Gazette de Plassans proclaimed him a future luminary at the Bar. It was especially to the latter that the priest gave the most detailed instructions. The president’s son did the errands, bursting with importance. Within three weeks the Youth Club was up and running.

  At that time under the church of Les Minimes at the end of the Cours Sauvaire there were some large offices and a former convent refectory which was no longer used. That was the site that Abbé Faujas had in mind. The parish clergy were very happy to make it over to them. One morning when the provisional committee of the Youth Club had assigned workmen to these cellar-like premises, the good people of Plassans were flabbergasted to see a café being installed under the church. After the fifth day, no one could doubt it any longer. It was a café right enough. Seating was brought in, marble tables, chairs, two billiard tables, three cases of crockery and glasses. A door was knocked through at the end of the building, as far away as possible from the door of the church. Large red curtains, restaurant curtains, were hung behind the glass door, which you opened after going down five stone steps. There, in front of you, was a large room; this one opened out to a narrower room and a reading room on the right; finally in a square room at the back they had placed the two billiard tables. They were exactly underneath the main altar.

  ‘Oh, you poor things,’ said Guillaume Porquier to the Maffre boys, when he met them on the Cours, ‘next you’ll be taking Mass between two games of bezique.’

  Ambroise and Alphonse begged him not to talk to them by day because their father had threatened to sign them up for the Navy if they kept company with him. The truth was, that after people’s initial astonishment, the Youth Club was enjoying great success. Monsignor Rousselot had accepted the honorary presidency. He even arrived one evening together with his secretary, Abbé Surin. They each drank a glass of blackcurrant syrup in the small reception room and the glass Monsignor had drunk from was kept on a dresser as a mark of respect. This tale is told with emotion in Plassans to this day. That decided all the youngsters in town to join. It was very bad form not to belong to the Youth Club.

  However, Guillaume Porquier prowled around on the periphery of the club, teasing them like a young wolf who dreams of entering the sheepfold. The Maffre boys, in spite of living in mortal fear of their father, adored this great shameless lout who told them tales of life in Paris and organized exciting excursions into the surrounding countryside for them. So they ended up meeting him every Saturday at nine on a bench in the Mail. They slipped away from the club and chatted until eleven, hidden in the black shadows of the plane trees. Guillaume repeatedly brought up the subject of the evenings they were spending under the church of Les Minimes.

  ‘You lot are so gullible, letting yourselves be led by the nose like that…’ he said. ‘The beadle gives you glasses of sweetened water, doesn’t he? Just as if he were giving communion?’

  ‘No no, you are mistaken, I assure you,’ Ambroise stated. ‘You would think you are definitely in one of the cafés on the Cours, the Café de France or the Café des Voyageurs… You drink beer, punch, madeira, well whatever you like—anything you’d drink anywhere else.’

  But Guillaume carried on jeering.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he growled, ‘I shouldn’t want to drink their disgusting stuff. I should be too scared they’d spiked it with some drug to make me go to confession. I bet you play “I spy” or “Forfeits” to decide who pays?’

  The Maffre boys laughed a lot at his jokes. But they put him right and told him that even cards were allowed. That it didn’t have anything churchy about it. And it was very comfortable, the sofas were good, and there were windows everywhere.

  ‘Come now,’ Guillaume persisted. ‘You don’t mean to say you don’t hear the organ when there’s something going on in the evening in the Minimes?… I should choke on my coffee knowing that there are baptisms, weddings, and funerals going on just above my little cup of weak coffee.’

  ‘You’re not completely wrong,’ said Alphonse. ‘The other day while I was playing billiards with Séverin, during the day, we could very clearly hear they were having a funeral for someone. It was the butcher’s little girl, the one at the end of the Rue de la Banne… That Séverin is as stupid as anything, he thought he would scare me by telling me the whole lot was going to fall on my head.’

  ‘So—what a place your club is!’ cried Guillaume. ‘I wouldn’t set foot in it for a fortune. You might as well drink your coffee in a sacristy.’

  It hurt Guillaume deeply not to belong to the Youth Club. His father had forbidden him to apply, fearing he might not be admitted. But his annoyance became too much for him. He put in a request, without telling anyone. There was a terrible fuss. The committee charged with deciding on admissions counted the Maffre boys among its members at the time. Lucien Delangre was president, and Séverin Rastoil secretary. The embarrassment of these young men was dreadful. While not daring to support his application they did not wish to offend the worthy and respectable Doctor Porquier, who had the absolute confidence of the ladies in the town. Ambroise and Alphonse begged Guillaume not to go any further with it, giving him to understand he didn’t have a chance.

  ‘Forget it!’ he replied. ‘You are a couple of cowards. Do you suppose I really want to join your association? I’m having you on. I want to see if you’ve got the nerve to vote against me… I’ll laugh like anything the day those loathsome creatures close the door on me. As for you, my friends, you can go and find your entertainment wherever you like; I shan’t speak to you again, ever.’

  The Maffre boys were distressed and begged Lucien Delangre to manage things so as to avoid any fuss. Lucien consulted his usual counsellor, Abbé Faujas, about the problem, for he had become a devoted admirer of the latter. The priest came to the Youth Club every afternoon, from five to six. He crossed the hall with a kindly expression, greeting people, stopping from time to time, standing in front of a table, chatting for a few minutes with a group of youngsters. He never took anything to drink, not even a glass of pure water. Then he went into the reading room, sat at the large table covered with a green tablecloth, read all the newspapers the club took, the Legitimist papers from Paris and the neighbouring departments. Occasionally he would make a rapid note in a little notebook. After that he retired discreetly with another smile at the members, shaking hands with them. Some days, however, he stayed longer, became absorbed by a game of chess, spoke cheerfully about all manner of things. The young people, who were very fond of him, said of him:

  ‘You’d never think he was a priest, to hear him talk.’

  When the mayor’s son told him about the embarrassment Guillaume’s request had caused the committee, Abbé Faujas promised to intervene. And keeping his word, the next day he went to see Doctor Porquier to give him the news. The doctor was appalled. Did his son then want to make him die of sorrow and bring shame and dishonour on his old head? And what could be done about it now? If his application was withdrawn, the shame would be just as great. The priest’s advice was to send him away for two or three months to a property the doctor owned a few miles off, and Faujas would take responsibility for what ensued. The story ended quite simply. As soon as Guillaume had gone, the committee put the request to one side, declaring that there was no hurry and that the decision could be deferred for the time being.

  Doctor Porquier learned of this solution through Lucien Delangre one afternoon in the garden of the sub-prefecture. He hurried on to the terrace. It was Abbé Faujas’s time for reading his breviary. He was there under the Mourets’ arbour.

  ‘Oh, Monsieur le Curé, how grateful I am!’ said the doctor, leaning over the terrace. ‘May I shake your hand?’

  ‘It’s rather high,’ smiled the priest, looking at the wall.

  But the effusive Doct
or Porquier was undaunted by these obstacles.

  ‘Wait!’ he cried. ‘If you allow, Monsieur le Curé, I’ll come round.’

  And he vanished. The priest, still smiling, made his way slowly to the little gate that opened on to the Impasse des Chevillottes. The doctor was there already, knocking timidly.

  ‘This gate’s been nailed up,’ murmured the priest, ‘and one of the nails has come out… If we had a tool of some sort it wouldn’t be too difficult to take out the other one.’

  Looking about him he saw a spade. Then he drew back the bolts and with a slight heave, opened the gate. He went out into the Impasse des Chevillottes, where Doctor Porquier overwhelmed him with gratitude. As they were walking along the Impasse and chatting, Monsieur Maffre, who happened to be in the Rastoils’ garden, opened the little gate hidden behind the fountain on his side. And these gentlemen laughed mightily at finding themselves all three together in the deserted lane.

  They remained there for a short while. When they took their leave of the priest, the judge and the doctor looked around in curiosity at the Mourets’ garden.

  In the meantime Mouret, who was staking his tomatoes, looked up and saw them. He was dumbstruck.

  ‘Well, well,’ he muttered. ‘So they’re in! Now all we need is for the priest to bring the whole gang in here!’

  CHAPTER 13

  AT that time Serge was nineteen. He had a little room on the second floor opposite the priest’s rooms, and there he led a monk-like existence, reading a lot.

  ‘I ought to chuck your books on the fire,’ said Mouret angrily. ‘You’ll end up bedridden.’

  And it was true, the young man was of such a nervous disposition that if he wasn’t very careful, he fell prey to every minor illness, like a girl, and had to keep to his room for two or three days at a time. Then Rose would drown him in herbal tea and when Mouret went along to ‘liven him up a bit’, as he put it, if the cook was there she made her master leave the room, saying: