Monseigneur Prat was given a grandiose funeral. All the powers that be were there, singing the praises of that great political and religious figure: a bishop and a deputy, he had above all been a great patriot. The people mourned his passing as well, blocking the streets where the lamps, lit and swathed in crepe, evoked golden hearts, birds of light come down from heaven and in mourning as well. And the outburst of emotion when the body passed, still on the high dais from the bishop’s palace! He sat there, his face uncovered, looking up at the sky from which the sound of the bells poured down. An impassive face, suffused less with the beauty of death than with the calm of eternity. It was Monseigneur Prat himself, become a marble statue. How moving to see their dead bishop, his face uncovered, proceed from the palace to the cathedral. It was the custom in that region, still attached to the old traditions. The funeral mass was celebrated with great pomp. The organ deployed its black velvet, a thousand candles sparkled, their wax showing the pallor of death; and at the absolution the aspergillum sprinkled cold drops over the congregation in a last scattering of tears.
After that the cathedral was cleared and the heavy doors locked. The sextons brought the bishop’s coffin and placed it in front of the dais which, during the mass, had served as a catafalque. And, as was also traditional, the canons prepared for the deposition of the body of his lordship.
It was they and they alone who were to perform this final office. They lifted up the body and transferred it to the coffin, then withdrew the cushions it was resting on in order to lay it out flat. At that moment there was a remarkable sight. The bishop remained upright, unsupported and yet steady, in a sitting position. His body had stiffened in the posture in which it had been quickly placed at the moment of death. Now there was no way of straightening it out, of flattening the angle, of opening out the terrifying compasses he made. He stayed sitting up in his coffin. They tried to lower him, to lay him flat. He resisted them. The canons stared at each other, dumbfounded. Soon they were furious, he still seemed to be mocking them, defying them…
Then the youngest of the canons plucked up his courage, pressed his hands against the dead bishop’s chest, grasped him by the shoulders and forced him back until his shoulder blades were touching the floor of the coffin, as a wrestler does with a defeated opponent. A sinister cracking sound could be heard. At that all the canons joined in. They attacked the corpse, stretching it, bumping it, flattening it on the floor of the lead coffin, forcing back its clasped hands. Without bending down, the archdeacon dropped the gold crozier, which hit the dead man in the face. Finally they lowered the lid with a great crash, but since it refused to close properly, since the torso and head still stuck up because the body had been in a vertical position for so long, the canons, with stifled laughs, their rancour appeased, making one great, concerted effort to weigh down the coffin, sat on it.
Copyright
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First published in France in 1895/1901
First published by Dedalus in 2011
First e-book edition in 2012
Translation copyright © Mike Mitchell 2011
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Hans Cadzand's Vocation & Other Stories Page 14
