Diary of a Country Priest

by Georges Bernanos

  ‘Where are you, you little bitch?’ yelled a voice I recognized as her father’s.

  She bounded up the embankment, making no more noise than a cat, her two clogs in one hand, her lantern in the other. ‘Shh! Go home quickly! I had a dream about you last night. You looked sad, the way you do now, I woke up in tears.’

  When I got home, I had to wash my cassock. The material was stiff, and the water turned red. I realized I had lost a lot of blood.

  By the time I got to bed, I had almost made up my mind to take a train for Lille at dawn. I’d had such a shock – the fear of death came later – that if old Dr Delbende had been alive, I would probably have run to Desvres in the middle of the night. And what I wasn’t expecting actually happened, as always. I fell asleep immediately and woke up when the cocks crowed, feeling quite refreshed. I even had a fit of the giggles looking at my sad face in the mirror while I moved the razor back and forth over a beard that even a scraper wouldn’t get the better of, a real vagrant’s beard, a carter’s beard … Could the blood staining my cassock have come from nothing more than a nosebleed? How come I hadn’t thought of such a plausible hypothesis before? But the loss of blood must have taken place during my short blackout, and before losing consciousness I had felt extremely nauseous.

  All the same, I shall go to Lille this week without fail and see a doctor.

  After Mass, a visit to my counterpart in Haucolte, to ask him to replace me when I’m away. He’s a priest I don’t know very well, but almost the same age as me, and I trust him. In spite of all the washing, the front of my cassock is a horrible sight. I told him a bottle of red ink had spilled in the wardrobe, and he obligingly lent me an old douillette. What did he think of me? I couldn’t read anything in his eyes.

  The curé of Torcy was taken to a clinic in Amiens yesterday. He had a very mild heart attack, they say, but he requires treatment, the assistance of a nurse. He left me a note scribbled in pencil as he was taking his place in the ambulance: ‘My little fool, pray well to the Lord, and come and see me in Amiens next week.’

  As I left the church, I found myself face to face with Mademoiselle Louise. I had assumed she was a long way away. She had come from Arches on foot, her shoes were muddy, her face looked dirty and dishevelled, and one of her woollen gloves had holes in it through which the fingers poked. She had always been so well groomed, so correct, and it really hurt me to see her like this. And yet, from the first word, I understood that her suffering was the kind that cannot be admitted.

  She told me that her wages hadn’t been paid for six months, that the count’s notary was suggesting an unacceptable settlement, and that she didn’t dare leave Arches, where she was living in the hotel. ‘Monsieur will be all alone, he’s a weak, selfish man, a creature of habit, his daughter will eat him alive.’ I realized that she was still hoping, I daren’t say what. She was making an effort to tone down her words, as before, and at times her voice resembled the countess’s, from whom she has also taken the habit of knitting her brows above her myopic eyes … Voluntary humiliation is admirable, but broken-down vanity is not a pretty sight!

  ‘Even Madame,’ she said, ‘used to treat me as a person of standing. In fact, my great-uncle, Major Heudenert, married a Noisel girl, and the Noisels are relatives of theirs. The ordeal that God has inflicted on me—’

  I couldn’t help interrupting her: ‘Don’t invoke God so lightly.’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy for you to condemn me, to despise me. You don’t know what solitude is!’

  ‘Nobody ever knows,’ I said. ‘We never see all the way to the depths of our solitude.’

  ‘Well, you have plenty to attend to, so your days must pass quickly.’

  That made me smile despite myself. ‘You should get away now,’ I said, ‘leave the region. I promise I’ll get you what’s due to you. I’ll have it sent to you, just tell me where.’

  ‘Thanks to mademoiselle, no doubt? I don’t think badly of the child, I forgive her. She has a violent but generous nature. I sometimes imagine that if we’d spoken frankly to one another …’

  She had taken off one of her gloves and was squeezing it nervously in the palm of her hand. I felt sorry for her, of course – but she also made my skin crawl.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ I said, ‘for want of anything better, pride should forbid you from doing certain things, which in any case are futile. And the extraordinary thing is that you should want to involve me in them.’

  ‘Pride? Leaving a place where I’ve lived happy and respected, almost on a footing of equality with my masters, to go off like a beggar – is that what you call pride? Yesterday, in the market, peasants who would once have doffed their caps to me already pretended not to recognize me.’

  ‘Then don’t recognize them either. Be proud!’

  ‘Pride, always pride! What is pride anyway? I never thought pride was one of the theological virtues. I’m quite surprised to hear you using the word.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘if it’s a priest you want to talk to, he’ll ask you to confess your sins before he can absolve you.’

  ‘I don’t want anything like that.’

  ‘Then allow me to address you in a language you can understand.’

  ‘A human language?’

  ‘Why not? It’s good to rise above pride. You’d still have to attain it. I have no right to speak freely about honour as the world understands it – it’s no topic of conversation for a poor priest like me – but I do sometimes think we treat honour too cheaply. Alas, we are all capable of lying down in the mud, mud can seem cool to a weary heart. And shame, you see, is a sleep like any other, a heavy, drunken sleep without dreams. If a last vestige of pride is needed to put a wretch back on his feet, why should we examine it too closely?’

  ‘Am I that wretch?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And the only reason I allow myself to humiliate you is that I hope to spare you a more painful, irreparable humiliation, which would degrade you in your own eyes for ever. Abandon the plan to see Mademoiselle Chantal again, you would debase yourself in vain, you would be crushed, stamped on …’

  I fell silent. I could see she was forcing herself to revolt, to anger. I would have liked to find words of pity, but those that came to mind would only have served, I sensed, to make her feel sorry for herself and open the floodgates to shameful tears. Never before had I understood so well how powerless I was to deal with certain kinds of unhappiness I could never share, however hard I tried.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘between Chantal and me, you don’t hesitate. I’m the one who’s not strong enough. She has broken me.’

  The word ‘broken’ reminded me of something I had said in my last conversation with the countess. ‘God will break you!’ I had cried. At that moment, the memory made me feel ill.

  ‘There is nothing in you to break!’ I said, and regretted the words. I no longer regret them, they came from the heart.

  ‘You’ve been taken in by her!’ Mademoiselle Louise retorted, with a sad grimace. She didn’t raise her voice, only spoke more quickly, very quickly, I can’t report everything she said anyway, it flowed inexhaustibly from her cracked lips. ‘She hates you. She’s hated you since the first day. She has a kind of devilish clear-sightedness. And what a schemer! Nothing escapes her. As soon as she shows her face outside, the children run after her, she stuffs them with sweets, and they love her. She talks to them about you, they tell her all kinds of stories about the catechism class, she imitates your demeanour, your voice. She’s obsessed with you, that much is clear. And whoever she’s obsessed with she makes into her whipping boy, she pursues him to his death, she’s ruthless. Just the day before yesterday—’

  I felt a kind of blow in my chest. ‘Be quiet!’ I said.

  ‘But you must know what she is.’

  ‘I do know,’ I cried. ‘It’s impossible for you to understand her.’

  She raised her humiliated face to me. On her ashen, almost grey cheeks, the wind must have dried her tears,
they made a kind of gleaming trail that lost itself in the shadowy hollows under her cheekbones. ‘I spoke to Famechon, the assistant gardener, who’s serving at table while François is away. Chantal was telling her father the whole story and they were writhing with laughter. She’d found a little book, near the Dumouchels’ house, and she’d seen your name on the first page. That was when it occurred to her to question Séraphita, and the girl as usual was happy to spill the beans …’

  I looked at her stupidly, unable to utter a word. Even at that moment, when she should have been savouring her revenge, the only expression that her anger gave her sad eyes was that of a resigned domestic beast, and her face was only a little less pale.

  ‘Apparently the girl found you fast asleep on the road to …’

  I turned my back on her. She ran after me, and when I saw her hand on my sleeve, I couldn’t help recoiling in disgust. It cost me a great effort to take that hand and move it gently away. ‘Go away!’ I said. ‘I will pray for you.’ I finally felt sorry for her. ‘It’ll all work out, I promise. I’ll go and see the count.’

  She walked quickly away, her head down and tilted slightly to one side, like a wounded animal.

  The canon of La Motte-Beuvron has just left Ambricourt. I didn’t see him again.

  Caught a glimpse of Séraphita today. She was sitting on the edge of the embankment, guarding her cow. I went closer, but not too close. She ran away.

  * * *

  Obviously, my shyness has for some time now taken on the quality of a genuine obsession. It is not easy to get over the irrational, childish fear that makes me turn abruptly whenever I feel a passer-by’s eyes on me. My heart leaps in my chest, and I only start breathing again once I’ve heard the hello that responds to mine. By the time it arrives, I’ve lost all hope of hearing it.

  I have stopped being an object of curiosity, though. I have been judged, so what more is there to ask about? They have a plausible, familiar, reassuring explanation for my conduct, and now they can turn away from me and go back to serious matters. They know that ‘I drink’ – all by myself, on the sly. That should be enough. There is still, alas, that grim look of mine, that funereal look that I cannot naturally get rid of, and which doesn’t really go together with a liking for alcohol. They won’t forgive me for that.

  * * *

  I was really dreading Thursday’s catechism class. Not that I was expecting what is known in school slang as a rumpus (peasant children seldom raise a rumpus), just whispers and smiles. But nothing happened.

  Séraphita arrived late, out of breath and very red in the face. I got the impression she was limping a little. At the end of the lesson, as I was reciting the Sub tuum, I saw her slip behind her classmates, and the amen had no sooner been said than I heard the impatient clickety-clack of her clogs on the flagstones.

  Once the church was empty, I found beneath the rostrum a big blue handkerchief with white stripes, too wide for the pocket of her apron, which she often forgets. I told myself she wouldn’t dare go back home without that precious object, because Madame Dumouchel is well known for being attached to her property.

  And return she did. She ran immediately to her bench, without making any noise (she had taken off her clogs). She was limping much more than before, but when I called her from the back of the church she again walked quite straight.

  ‘Here’s your handkerchief. Don’t forget it again!’

  She was very pale (I have rarely seen her like that, the slightest emotion makes her turn scarlet). She took the handkerchief from my hands, aggressively, without a thank you. Then she stood there motionless, her bad leg bent.

  ‘Go now,’ I said to her gently.

  She took one step towards the door, then came straight back to me, her little shoulders swaying impressively. ‘At first Mademoiselle Chantal made me do it’ – she was on tiptoe and looking me straight in the face – ‘and then … then …’

  ‘Then you were happy to talk? I’m not surprised. Girls are chatterboxes.’

  ‘I’m not a chatterbox, I’m wicked.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As God is my witness!’ With her ink-blackened thumb she made the sign of the cross on her forehead and lips. ‘I remember what you said to the others – nice words, congratulations, you even call Zélida “my dear”. “My dear” – that big one-eyed mare! Only you could think of that!’

  ‘You’re jealous.’

  She heaved a great sigh and blinked as if trying to see deep down into her thoughts. ‘It’s not that you’re handsome,’ she said between her teeth, with unimaginable gravity. ‘It’s only because you’re sad. Even when you smile, you’re sad. If only I understood why you’re sad, I don’t think I’d be bad any more.’

  ‘I’m sad,’ I said, ‘because God isn’t loved.’

  She shook her head. The grimy blue ribbon that holds her meagre hair on the top of her skull had come undone and was floating oddly around her chin. Obviously, my words seemed obscure, very obscure to her. But she didn’t search for long. ‘I’m sad too. It’s good to be sad. It makes up for my sins, I tell myself sometimes.’

  ‘Do you commit many sins?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ She threw me a glance of reproach, of humble complicity. ‘You know I do. It’s not that I like boys that much! They’re no good really. They’re so stupid! Real mad dogs.’

  ‘Aren’t you ashamed?’

  ‘Yes, I’m ashamed. Isabelle and Noémie and I often meet them up there, on the big Malicorne hill, the sand quarry. We have fun sliding down, first of all … I’m the worst of them, that’s for sure! But when they’ve all gone, I play dead …’

  ‘You play dead?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I’ve made myself a hole in the sand, I lie down there on my back, lying all proper like, with my hands folded, closing my eyes. When I move, even just a little, the sand runs into my neck and ears and even my mouth. I wish it wasn’t just a game, I wish I was dead. After talking to Mademoiselle Chantal, I stayed up there for hours. When I got back, Dad beat me. I even cried, which doesn’t happen often …’

  ‘So you never cry?’

  ‘No. I think it’s disgusting, dirty. When you cry, the sadness goes out of you, and your heart melts like butter, yuk! Or else …’ She blinked again. ‘We should find another … another way to cry! You think that’s stupid?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I hesitated to continue, thinking the slightest incautious remark would alienate that ferocious little creature for ever. ‘One day, you’ll understand that prayer is that way of crying, the only tears that are not cowardly.’

  The word ‘prayer’ made her frown, and she screwed up her face like a cat’s. She turned her back on me and walked away, limping a lot.

  ‘Why are you limping?’

  She stopped dead, her whole body ready to flee, only her head turned towards me. Then she gave the same movement of her shoulders. I approached gently, and she desperately pulled her grey woollen skirt up towards her knees. Through a tear in the stocking, I saw her purple leg.

  ‘That’s why you’re limping,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  She jumped back, and I caught her hand in mid-air. In struggling, she uncovered, just above her calf, a big piece of string tied so tightly that the flesh made two big aubergine-coloured bulges. She leaped away and hopped between the benches, I didn’t catch up with her until she was almost at the door. At first, her grave air reduced me to silence.

  ‘It’s to punish me for talking to Mademoiselle Chantal. I promised to keep the string on until this evening.’

  ‘Cut it off!’ I said.

  I handed her my knife, and she obeyed without a word. But the sudden rush of blood must have been horribly painful, because she made a terrible grimace. If I hadn’t held her up, she would surely have fallen.

  ‘Promise me you won’t do that again.’

  She bowed her head, still gravely, and left, supporting herself on the wall with her hand. May God keep her!

  * * *

&
nbsp; I must have lost blood during the night: not much, it’s true, but I can’t really confuse it with a nosebleed.

  As it isn’t sensible to keep putting off my journey to Lille, I wrote to the doctor suggesting the 15th. That’s six days from now …

  I’ve kept the promise I made to Mademoiselle Louise. I had to force myself to set off for the chateau. Fortunately, I came across the count in the avenue. He didn’t seem at all surprised by my request, it was almost as if he’d been expecting it. I went about it much more skilfully than I had hoped.

  * * *

  The doctor’s reply came by return of post. He agrees to the date I suggested. I can be back by the following morning.

  I have replaced wine with very strong black coffee. It seems to do me good. But this diet keeps me awake at night, which wouldn’t be too bad, even sometimes quite pleasant, if it weren’t for these palpitations of the heart, which are quite worrying when it comes down to it. The deliverance of dawn is still as sweet to me. It is like a favour from God, a smile. God bless mornings!

  My strength is returning, and so is a kind of appetite. In addition, the weather is fine, dry and cold. The meadows are covered in white frost. The village appears to me quite different from how it was in autumn, it is almost as if the clearness of the air is gradually removing all heaviness from it, and when the sun begins to go down, it seems to hang in the air, it no longer touches the earth, it escapes me and flies away. It is I who feel heavy, I who weigh greatly on the ground. Sometimes, the illusion is such that I look with a sort of terror, an inexplicable revulsion, at my big shoes. What are they doing there, in this light? I seem to see them sinking.

  Obviously, I am praying better. But I do not recognize my prayer. It used to have a character of stubborn entreaty, and even when the lesson in the breviary, for example, retained my attention, I felt this dialogue with God continuing within me, now supplicatory, now urgent and imperious – yes, I’d have liked to tear His mercies from him, do violence to His tenderness. Now I find it difficult to want anything. Like the village, my prayer has no more weight, is flying away … Is that a good or a bad thing? I don’t know.