The Conquest of Plassans (Classic Reprint) Page 35

  ‘Oh, it’s still perfectly all right!’ he would reply when people around him risked a few timid observations.

  And he flaunted it in the street, with his head held high, not caring about the curious looks people gave him. There was no sense of bravado in his case. It was his natural inclination. Now that he did not need to be pleasant to people, or so he thought, he scorned to take care of his person once more. His triumph was in presiding, such as he was, with his large untidy frame, his brusqueness, his clothes in rags, over a conquered Plassans.

  Madame de Condamin, offended by the pungent male odour given off by his soutane, scolded him in a maternal tone of voice:

  ‘Do you realize that these ladies are beginning to detest you?’ she said with a laugh. ‘They say you are paying no attention whatsoever to your person… Before, when you took out your handkerchief, it seemed as if a choirboy was wafting incense behind you.’

  He looked astonished. He had not changed, he thought. But she drew nearer and in amicable tones said:

  ‘My dear curé, if you will allow me to speak frankly… Well, you are wrong to neglect yourself. Your beard is scarcely trimmed, you no longer comb your hair, and it is dishevelled, as though you have just emerged from a fist fight. That creates a very bad impression, I can tell you. Madame Rastoil and Madame Delangre were only saying yesterday they wouldn’t know it was the same man. You are compromising your success.’

  He laughed defiantly, shaking his powerful, unkempt head.

  ‘But now it is over,’ was all he said in reply, ‘they must take me as I am, uncombed or not.’

  Plassans in fact had to take him with his hair uncombed. The suave priest had turned into a dark, despotic figure, bending everyone to his will. His face had become sallow once more and his eyes were sharp as an eagle’s. His large hands were raised, menacingly, ready to punish. The town was positively terrified when they saw this conqueror of their own making grow into a monster; the squalid clothes, his pungent smell, and scorched-looking hair lent him the allure of a devil. The unspoken fear of the women gave more strength still to his authority. He treated his penitents harshly but not one dared leave him. And they came to him with a certain thrill of excitement.

  ‘My dear,’ Madame de Condamin confessed to Marthe, ‘I was wrong to wish that he perfumed himself; I’m getting used to it now, I find even that I much prefer it… He’s a real man!’

  Abbé Faujas reigned supreme, especially at the bishopric. Since the election he had ensured Monsignor Rousselot led the life of an idle prelate. The bishop lived with his beloved books, in his study, where the priest, who was managing the diocese in a neighbouring room, actually kept him under lock and key, letting him see only people he trusted. The clergy trembled before this despot. Old priests with white hair bowed to him with ecclesiastical humility, abandoning all will of their own. Often Monsignor Rousselot, closeted with Abbé Surin, wept big silent tears. He missed the brief handshake of Abbé Fenil, who had at times shown him some affection; now he felt crushed beneath an implacable pressure that showed no signs of lifting. Then he smiled, resigned himself, murmuring with his amiable egotism:

  ‘Come, my boy, to work… I ought not to complain, I have a life that I always dreamed of: absolute solitude and books.’

  He sighed and added quietly:

  ‘I should be happy, if I weren’t afraid of losing you, my dear Surin… In the end he will not tolerate you being here. I thought yesterday he was looking at you suspiciously. I beseech you, make sure you always agree with him and are on his side, don’t worry about me. Alas, you are my only friend.’

  Two months after the election, Abbé Vial, one of Monsignor’s assistant bishops, moved to Rome. Abbé Faujas quite naturally took his place, although it had long been promised to Abbé Bourrette. He did not even appoint the latter to be priest-in-charge of Saint-Saturnin, which he was vacating. Instead he appointed a young and ambitious priest he had been cultivating.

  ‘Monsignor did not wish you to be considered,’ he said quickly to Abbé Bourrette when he met him.

  And as the old priest faltered that he would see Monsignor and ask him for an explanation, he added more gently:

  ‘Monsignor is too ill to receive you. Rely on me, I will plead your case.’

  As soon as he entered the Chamber, Monsieur Delangre voted with the majority. Plassans was clearly a win for the Empire. It even seemed that the priest was taking his revenge on these prudent bourgeois, in his harsh treatment of them; he nailed up the little gate of the Impasse des Chevillottes again and forced Monsieur Rastoil and his friends to enter the sub-prefecture by the official door. When he appeared at small social gatherings these gentlemen remained very deferential to him. And such was the fascination, the dumb terror inspired by his large, untidy figure that, even when he wasn’t there, no one risked the least equivocal remark about him.

  ‘He’s a man of enormous merit,’ declared Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, who was counting on a prefecture.

  ‘A most remarkable man,’ echoed Doctor Porquier.

  They all nodded. Monsieur de Condamin, who eventually became tired of this paeon of praise, took delight in causing them embarrassment from time to time.

  ‘Well, he’s not a nice character, it must be said,’ he muttered.

  This sentence made everyone go cold. All the gentlemen suspected their neighbours of being in the pay of the terrible priest.

  ‘The assistant bishop has a heart of gold,’ ventured Monsieur Rastoil prudently. ‘Only, like all great minds, he is perhaps rather forbidding until you get to know him.’

  ‘Exactly like me,’ cried Monsieur de Bourdeu. ‘I am very easy to get along with but people always say I am difficult.’ He had been reconciled with his friends ever since having a long and private conversation with Abbé Faujas.

  And, wanting to put everyone at their ease, the president went on:

  ‘Do you know that they are talking about a bishopric for the assistant bishop?’

  Then the conversation ignited. Monsieur Maffre very much hoped it would be in Plassans itself that Abbé Faujas became bishop, after the departure of Monsignor Rousselot, whose health was precarious.

  ‘We should all be the beneficiaries,’ Abbé Bourrette said naïvely. ‘Illness has soured Monsignor and I am sure our excellent Faujas is making the greatest possible effort to destroy certain unjust prejudices he holds.’

  ‘He is very fond of you,’ Judge Paloque assured him, having just received his honour. ‘My wife heard him complaining that you had been forgotten.’

  When Abbé Surin was present he agreed with everything they said. But although he had the mitre in his pocket, as the diocesan priests said, he was worried by Abbé Faujas’s success. He eyed him with his girlish air, wounded by his callous attitude, remembering what Monsignor had predicted, seeking the crack in the colossus that might cause him to crumble into dust.

  In the meantime these gentlemen were satisfied, except for Monsieur de Bourdeu and Monsieur Péqueur des Saulaies, who were still waiting for their honours to be bestowed by the government. So these two were the warmest supporters of Abbé Faujas. The rest, if truth be told, would willingly have revolted had they dared. They were tired of kowtowing all the time to this master, and ardently wished for some brave soul to deliver them. So they exchanged strange looks, which were immediately deflected, the day that Madame Paloque asked, affecting a total indifference:

  ‘And what of Abbé Fenil? I haven’t heard anything about him for an age.’

  Deep silence fell. Monsieur de Condamin was the only one capable of venturing on to such uncomfortable territory. They looked to him.

  ‘I believe he is holed up in his property at Les Tulettes.’

  And Madame de Condamin added with an ironic laugh:

  ‘We can sleep in peace. He’s finished. He won’t get mixed up in the affairs of Plassans any more.’

  Marthe remained the only obstacle. Abbé Faujas felt her slipping away from him more with every da
y that passed. He became more forceful still, summoning his priestly and masculine powers to make her obey him, but he failed to temper the ardent flame he had breathed into her. She carried every passion to its logical limits, demanding that she should enter deeper into peace every hour, into ecstasy, into the perfect nothingness of divine bliss. And in her it was a mortal anxiety that, trapped in her earthly body, she could not reach up to that threshold of light she imagined she could see, always higher, always further off. Now she trembled in the chilly shadows in Saint-Saturnin, where once she had come so near to that abundance of passionate delights. The organ thundered above her bowed head, but the fine hairs on the nape of her neck no longer prickled with excitement. The white spirals of incense no longer wafted her to sleep in the midst of a mystical dream. The candlelit chapels, the holy ciboriums shining like stars, the gold and silver of the chasubles faded and drowned in her eyes, misty with tears. So, like a soul in hell burning in the fires of Paradise, she raised her arms in desperation, imploring the lover who refused to give himself, stammering out, crying out:

  ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’

  Full of shame and cut to the quick by the icy silence of the vaults, Marthe went out of the church in the fury of a woman spurned. She dreamed of forms of torture in which she might offer up her blood. She wrestled furiously with her inability to go beyond prayer and leap straight into the arms of God. Then, when she had got home again, her only hope resided in Abbé Faujas. He alone could deliver her to God. He had initiated her into the joys of religion; now he must tear the veil completely. And she imagined a whole series of practices which would achieve the total satisfaction of her body and soul. But the priest got angry and forgot himself to the point of rudeness, refusing to hear her prayers unless she was on her knees, humble, inert, like a corpse. She stood and listened to him, her whole body raised in rebellion, turning the bitterness of her disappointed desire against him, accusing him of the cowardly betrayal which was tormenting her.

  Often Madame Rougon felt it necessary to intervene between the priest and her daughter, as she had used to do between her and Mouret. Since Marthe had confided her problems to her, she spoke to the priest like a mother-in-law who desires her children’s happiness, spending time bringing about peace in the home.

  ‘My goodness,’ she said, with a smile, ‘can you two not get on better? Marthe is always complaining and you seem to be in a bad mood with her all the time… I know women are demanding, but you must admit you are not particularly nice to her either… I am truly sorry for what is happening; it would be so easy to get on well together! I beg you, my dear abbé, be more gentle with her.’

  She also scolded him in a kindly fashion about the way he dressed. She felt, with her womanly instinct, that he was abusing his victory. And she made excuses for her daughter. The dear child had suffered a great deal, her nervous sensitivity required a great deal of managing. Moreover, she had an excellent character and a loving nature, and a clever man might do as he pleased with her. But one day while she was instructing him on how to cope with Marthe, Abbé Faujas tired of her everlasting advice.

  ‘Why, no!’ he shouted with sudden violence. ‘Your daughter is mad! She bores me to death—I don’t want anything to do with her any more… I’d give a great deal to any man who would rid me of her.’

  Madame Rougon stared at him, tight-lipped.

  ‘Listen my dear abbé,’ she answered after a silence. ‘You have no tact and that will be your downfall. You go to perdition if you like. I am washing my hands of the whole thing. I helped you, not because you wanted me to, but to please our friends in Paris. They wrote to ask me to be your guide, and I have guided you… Only I shall not allow you to come and lord it over people in my house, believe you me. That little Péqueur and that good old Rastoil may quake at the sight of your soutane. Let them! But we are not afraid; we shall remain the rulers in Plassans. My husband conquered the town before you did, and I warn you, we shall hold on to it.’

  From that day on, relations between the Rougons and Abbé Faujas were very frosty. When Marthe arrived with fresh complaints, her mother spoke to her frankly:

  ‘Your priest is making a fool of you. You will never have the smallest satisfaction with that man… If I were you I wouldn’t hesitate to tell him a few home truths. For a start he has been dirty as a pig for some time now; I don’t know how you can eat at the same table as him.’

  The truth was that Madame Rougon had secretly communicated a most ingenious plan to her husband. They must oust the priest, but benefit from his success. Now that the town was voting properly, Rougon, who had not wished to risk an open campaign, would be able to do what was necessary to keep them on the right track. It would make the green drawing room even more powerful. From then on Félicité waited with that patient cunning to which she owed her fortune.

  The day her mother swore that the priest was ‘making a fool of her’, Marthe went to Saint-Saturnin with a bleeding heart, resolved to make one last appeal. She remained there for two hours in the empty church, exhausting her litany of prayers, yearning for the ecstasy, torturing herself with the effort of seeking relief. Her humility prostrated her on the stone floor, then her revolt would haul her up again, her teeth clenched, her whole being wildly distended and breaking apart in the failure to seize and embrace anything but the emptiness of her passion. When she got to her feet and left, the sky seemed black. She could not feel the paving stones beneath her feet, and the narrow streets left her with the sensation of immense loneliness. She threw her hat and shawl on the table in the dining room, and went straight up to Abbé Faujas’s room.

  The priest sat at his little table deep in thought; his quill had dropped from his fingers. He opened the door to her, preoccupied; but when he saw her pale face before him and the burning resolution in her eyes, he made an angry gesture.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘Why have you come up here?… Go back down and wait if you have something to say to me.’

  She pushed him away and went in without a word.

  He hesitated for a second, fighting the brutal instinct which was already making him raise his hand. He remained standing, facing her, leaving the door wide open.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘I’m busy.’

  She went and closed the door. Then, alone with him, she drew nearer. Finally she spoke:

  ‘I have to talk to you.’

  She had sat down, looking round the room, at the narrow bed, the humble chest of drawers, the large Christ in black wood, whose sudden appearance against the bareness of the wall made her give a little shiver. An icy stillness descended from the ceiling. The hearth under the mantelpiece was empty, with not even a pinch of ashes.

  ‘You will take cold,’ said the priest, in a calmer voice. ‘Please let us go downstairs.’

  ‘No, I have to talk to you,’ she repeated.

  And, putting her hands together in the manner of a penitent confessing, she said:

  ‘I owe you a great deal… Before you arrived, I had no soul. You were the one who wished for my salvation. It’s through you that I have known the only joys in my life. You are my saviour and my father. For the last five years I have lived only through you and by you.’

  Her voice broke, she fell to her knees. He stopped her with a gesture.

  ‘Well,’ she cried, ‘today I am suffering. I need your help… Listen, Father. Do not leave me. You cannot abandon me in this way… I am telling you that God does not hear me any more. I cannot feel him any more… Have pity on me, I beg you. Counsel me, take me to that divine grace whose first blessings you introduced me to. Teach me what I must do to get better, to reach further into the love of God.’

  ‘You must pray,’ said the priest seriously.

  ‘I have prayed, I have prayed for hours, with my head in my hands, seeking to dissolve in the depths of each word of adoration, and I have not found comfort, I have not felt the presence of God.’

  ‘You must pray, pr
ay again, keep praying until God hears you and comes to dwell in you.’

  She looked at him in anguish.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘is prayer all there is? Can you do nothing for me?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he declared harshly.

  She raised her trembling hands in a desperate impulse, her throat swollen with anger. But she contained herself. She faltered:

  ‘Your heaven is closed to me. You have led me to this point and I have met a blank wall… I was at peace, I was contented, you remember, when you arrived. I lived in my little house without any desire, without any curiosity. And you, you awoke me with words which made my heart turn over. You, you let me enter again into my lost youth… Oh, you don’t know what joy you gave me at the beginning! It was a warmth in me, a sweet warmth which spread through my body and soul. I listened to my heart. My hope was immense. At forty, that seemed to me ridiculous sometimes, and I smiled; then I forgave myself because I was so happy. But now I want the rest of that promised happiness. This can’t be all there is. There is something else, isn’t there? Please believe me, this constant yearning that is burning me and putting me in agony is exhausting me. I have to make haste now that my health is failing; I don’t want to be duped… That’s not all there is, tell me that’s not all there is.’