‘Thank you,’ I said. It was all I could find to say. And even then I uttered the words so coldly! ‘I beg you to bless me,’ I went on in the same tone. The truth is that for the past ten minutes I had been fighting my pain, my terrible pain, which had never been more insistent. My God, pain might still be bearable, but the nausea that goes with it now completely drains me of will.
We were in the doorway. ‘You are in a troubled state,’ he replied. ‘It is for you to bless me.’ And he took my hand in his, quickly raised it to his forehead, and left. True, the wind was starting to blow hard, but for the first time, I didn’t see him fully upright, he walked stooped over.
After he had left, I sat for a moment in my kitchen, I didn’t want to think too much. ‘If what is happening to me,’ I thought, ‘seems so important in my eyes, it’s because I believe myself innocent. There are certainly many priests capable of great incautious acts, which is all I’m being accused of. It’s quite possible the emotion hastened the countess’s death, the only thing the curé of Torcy was wrong about is the true nature of our conversation.’ As extraordinary as it may seem, this thought was a relief to me. Although I constantly deplore my inadequacy, am I so reluctant to include myself among the mediocre priests? My first successes at school were probably too much balm to the heart of the unhappy little boy I was then, and the memory stayed with me, in spite of everything. I am not very keen on the idea that after having been a ‘brilliant’ pupil – too brilliant! – I should today be sitting outside on the steps, with the dunces. I also tell myself that the curé’s last reproach is not as unfair as I had thought at first. It is true that my conscience is clear: I did not willingly choose this diet which he finds eccentric. My stomach would not support any other, that’s all. ‘Besides,’ I thought again, ‘this error, at least, won’t have shocked anyone. It was Dr Delbende who warned my old master, and the ridiculous incident of the broken bottle will simply have confirmed his already formed but quite unfounded opinion.’
In the end, I smiled at my fears. Clearly, Madame Pégriot, Sulpice Mitonnet, the count, a few others, are not unaware that I drink wine. And what of it? It would be too absurd for anyone to impute to me as a crime a sin that is at most a sin of gluttony, familiar to many of my colleagues. And God knows nobody here thinks of me as a glutton.
(I have interrupted this diary for two days, I felt great revulsion at the thought of continuing. On reflection, I fear I am obeying less a legitimate qualm than a feeling of shame. I shall try to see it through to the end.)
After the curé of Torcy had left, I went out. I had first to go and check on a sick man named Monsieur Duplouy. I found him in his death agony. All he had was fairly mild pneumonia, according to the doctor, but he is a large man and there was too much fat on his heart, which suddenly gave out. His wife was crouching by the fire, calmly warming a cup of coffee. She didn’t realize what was happening. All she said was: ‘You may be right, it’ll pass.’ Sometime later, having lifted the sheet, she said, ‘He’s letting go, it’s the end.’ By the time I arrived with the Holy Oils, he was dead.
I had been running. I made the mistake of accepting a large cup of coffee, with a splash of Dutch gin. Dutch gin makes me nauseous. What Dr Delbende used to say is true. My nausea feels like satiety, a terrible satiety. The smell is enough. I feel as if my tongue is swelling in my mouth like a sponge. I should have gone back to the presbytery. There, in my room, experience has gradually taught me certain practices that people might laugh at but which allow me to fight my sickness and soothe it. Anyone used to pain soon realizes that it has to be treated carefully, that you often deal with it through trickery. Each pain has its own personality, its preferences, but they are all malicious and stupid, and a procedure that has proved its worth once may be used indefinitely. Anyway, I sensed that the attack would be a severe one, and I made the stupid decision to try and resist it head-on. God let me do it. It was a big mistake, I think.
Night fell very quickly. To make matters worse, I had some visits to make in the area of the Galbat estate, where the roads are treacherous. It wasn’t raining, but the soil is clayey, and it stuck to my heels: it only dries in August. Each time, the occupants made room for me by the fire, near a stove filled to the brim with thick Bruays coal, and my temples throbbed so hard I could barely hear, and my answers were somewhat haphazard: I must have seemed quite strange! Nevertheless I held on: a trip to the Galbat estate is always laborious because of the distances between the houses, which are scattered across the meadows, and I didn’t want to risk wasting another evening there. From time to time, I furtively consulted my little notebook and crossed out names as I went along, but the list seemed endless. Whenever I found myself outside, my task over, I felt so ill that I didn’t have the heart to get back onto the main road, and I followed the edge of the wood. This path led me very close to the Dumouchel house, which I had been planning to visit. For the past two weeks, Séraphita hadn’t put in an appearance at the catechism class, and I had made up my mind to question her father. I walked confidently enough at first, the pain in my stomach seemed less violent, all I felt now was a slight dizziness and nausea. I have a clear memory of passing the corner of the Auchy wood. The first fainting fit must have happened just beyond that. I thought I could still stay upright with a little effort, but soon felt the icy clay against my cheek. I finally managed to get back on my feet. I even searched for my rosary in the brambles. My poor head couldn’t take it any more. The image of the Virgin-Child, which the curé of Torcy had proposed, kept coming back to me, and even though I was making an effort to become fully conscious again, every time I started to pray I’d end up drifting into daydreams, becoming aware at times of how absurd they were. How long I walked in this way, I couldn’t say. Pleasant or otherwise, the ghosts did not lessen the intolerable pain that was making me bend double. I think it was only the pain that stopped me from sinking into madness, it was like a fixed point in the futile progress of my dreams. They still pursue me now as I write and, thank heaven, leave me with no remorse, for my will did not accept them at all, it condemned their boldness. How powerful are the words of a man of God! Of course, I can solemnly state it here, I never believed in a vision, in the sense people give that word: the memory of my unworthiness, my unhappiness, is still with me. It’s true all the same that the image forming inside me was not the kind that the mind can welcome or reject as it wishes. Do I dare confess it? …
(Here ten lines have been crossed out.)
The sublime creature whose little hands formed the lightning, her hands full of mercies … I was looking at her hands. Now I saw them, now I didn’t, and as my pain became too much to bear and I felt myself slip again, I took one of hers in mine. It was a child’s hand, the hand of a poor child, already worn down by too much washing. How to express this? I didn’t want it to be a dream, and yet I remember closing my eyes. I feared that when I opened them again I would see the face before which all knees bend. I saw it. It was also a child’s face, the face of a very young girl, without any sparkle. It was the very face of sadness, but a sadness I didn’t know, of which I could have no part, so close to my own heart, my wretched man’s heart, and yet inaccessible. There is no human sadness without bitterness, and yet this sadness was sweet and pliant and nothing else, it was accepting and nothing else. It was like some great, gentle, infinite night. Our sadness, when it comes down to it, is born out of the experience of our miseries, an experience that is always pure, and this one was innocent. It was innocence. Now I understood the meaning of some of the words the curé of Torcy had spoken, words that had seemed obscure. In the old days, God needed to conceal that virginal sadness in some miracle or other, for however blind and hard men are, they would have recognized from that sign their precious daughter, the last born of their ancient race, the celestial hostage around whom demons were roaring, and they would have risen all together, they would have made for her a rampart with their mortal bodies.
I think I walked a little mor
e, but I had moved away from the path, I was stumbling in the thick grass, which was soaked with rain and sank beneath my feet. By the time I realized my mistake, I was in front of a hedge that seemed too high and too thick for me to hope to get over it. I walked alongside it. Water was streaming from the branches, flooding my neck and arms. My pain was gradually fading, but I kept spitting out lukewarm water that tasted like tears. The effort of getting my handkerchief from my pocket struck me as completely impossible. It wasn’t that I had lost consciousness, I simply felt in thrall to a pain that was too keen, or rather to the memory of that pain – for the certainty of its return was more fearsome than the pain itself – and I followed it as a dog follows its master. I also told myself that I would soon fall, that I would be found there, half dead, that it would be one more scandal. I think I called out. All at once, my arm, which had been leaning on the hedge, found itself flailing in empty air, and the earth gave way beneath me. I had come, without suspecting it, to the edge of the embankment. My two knees and my forehead hit the stony surface of the road. For another minute, I thought I was still on my feet, still walking. Then I realized it was only in my dream. The darkness seemed suddenly blacker, more compact. I think I fell again, but this time it was into silence. I slipped into it all at once. It closed over me.
When I opened my eyes again, my memory immediately returned. I had the sense that day was breaking, but it was only the glow of a lantern on the embankment, ahead of me. I saw another gleam of light, on the left, amid the trees, and immediately recognized the Dumouchel house from its ridiculous veranda. My soaked cassock was stuck to my back, and I was alone.
The lantern had been put down very close to my head – one of those oil lanterns used in stables that give out more smoke than light. A fat insect was buzzing around it. I tried to get up, but couldn’t. I felt a little stronger, though, I was no longer in pain. At last, I managed to sit up. From the other side of the hedge I could hear the cattle moaning and breathing. I was perfectly well aware that even if I managed to get back on my feet, it was too late to run away, that all I could do now was patiently bear the curiosity of the man who had discovered me, who would soon be back for his lantern. Alas, I thought, the Dumouchel house is the very last one near which I would have liked to be found. I was able to get onto my knees, and we found ourselves abruptly face to face. Standing, she was no taller than me. Her thin little face was not much slyer than usual, but what I noticed in it at first was an air of gentle, slightly solemn, almost comic gravity. I had recognized Séraphita. I smiled at her. She probably thought I was making fun of her, and the wicked gleam appeared in her grey eyes – so little like a child’s – that gleam that has more than once made me lower my own. I noticed then that she was holding an earthenware basin filled with water, in which a not very clean cloth was floating. She took the basin between her knees. ‘I’ve been to fill it from the pond,’ she said, ‘it was safer. They’re all over there in the house, because of cousin Victor’s wedding. I came out to get the animals back inside.’
‘Careful they don’t punish you.’
‘Punish me? They’ve never punished me. My father once lifted his hand to me, and I said, “Don’t you dare touch me, or I’ll get Red to eat weeds, and she’ll swell up and die!” Red is our best cow.’
‘You shouldn’t talk like that, it’s bad.’
‘What’s bad,’ she retorted, shrugging mischievously, ‘is getting in a state like you are now.’ I felt myself turn pale, and she looked at me curiously. ‘It’s a good thing I found you. I was running after the animals, and my clog rolled off the path, I came down and thought you were dead.’
‘I feel better now, I’m going to get up.’
‘I wouldn’t go back looking the way you look if I were you!’
‘The way I look?’
‘You’ve thrown up, and your face is all smudged like you’ve been eating blackberries.’
I tried to take the basin, and it almost fell from my hands.
‘You’re too shaky,’ she said. ‘Let me do it, I’m used to it! It was quite different with my brother Narcisse’s wedding. What’s that you say?’
My teeth were chattering. She finally understood that I was asking her to come to the presbytery the next day, when I would explain everything to her.
‘Oh no, I’ve told people bad things about you, terrible things. You should beat me. I’m jealous, really jealous, I’m like an animal. And beware of the others. They’re cockroaches, hypocrites.’
As she talked, she passed her cloth over my brow and cheeks. The cold water was refreshing. I stood up, but I was still shaking just as much. At last the shivering stopped. My little Samaritan raised her lantern to the height of my chin, the better to judge her work, I suppose.
‘If you like, I’ll go with you to the end of the path. Watch out for the holes. Once outside the pastures, it’ll be much easier.’
She set off ahead of me, then the path grew wider and she fell into step with me, and a few paces further on calmly put her hand in mine. Neither of us spoke. The cows were lowing mournfully. We heard the slamming of a door in the distance.
‘I have to get back,’ she said. But she planted herself in front of me and raised herself on her little legs. ‘Don’t forget to go to bed when you get home, that’s the best thing there is. Only, you have nobody to heat up your coffee for you. A man without a woman – I think that’s really awful, really difficult.’
I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. Everything in it is faded, almost old, except the forehead, which has remained so pure. I wouldn’t have believed that forehead could be so pure!
‘Listen, what I said, don’t go believing it. I know perfectly well you didn’t do it deliberately. They must have put a powder in your glass, it’s something that amuses them, a practical joke. But thanks to me, they won’t notice a thing, they’ll all be caught out …’
Diary of a Country Priest Page 20
