After
“My dears, you must go to bed,” the Countess said. The three children, two girls and one boy, got up and kissed their grandmother, then went to say good night to the priest, who dined at the château every Thursday.
Abbé Mauduit took two of them on his knees, putting his long black-covered arms round their necks, and, bringing the two heads close together with a paternal gesture, he kissed them tenderly on the brow. Then he put them down. The youngsters went off, the boy leading the way.
“You love children, your Reverence,” the Countess remarked.
“Very much, Madame.”
The old lady raised her clear eyes to the priest and said: “And—has solitude never weighed upon you?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
He was silent, hesitated, then continued: “But I was never meant for an ordinary life.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Oh! I know that very well. I was meant to be a priest. I have followed my vocation.”
The Countess, still looking at him, said: “Come, your Reverence, tell me, tell me how you came to renounce all that makes the rest of us love life, all that brings us support and consolation. Who induced you, what made you decide to turn aside from the broad path natural to man: from marriage, from family life? You are neither fanatical, exalted, gloomy nor sad. Was it some event in your life, some sorrow, which decided you to take the vows?”
Abbé Mauduit rose and, crossing the room, held up his heavy country shoes to the fire. He seemed to be still hesitating. He was a tall, white-haired old man who had officiated in the commune of Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher for twenty years. The peasants all said: “There’s a good man for you!”
He was indeed a good man, benevolent, friendly, gentle and, above all, generous. Like St. Martin, he would have divided his coat in two. He laughed readily and it took little to make him cry like a woman; this rather prejudiced the hardheaded villagers against him. The old Countess de Saville, who had retired to her château du Rocher to educate her grandchildren after the death of her son and daughter-in-law, was very fond of her priest, and said: “He’s a great heart.”
Every Thursday he spent the evening with the Lady of the Manor. They had become fast friends in their old age. With half a word they understood each other on almost every subject, being both of them good in a simple, natural way.
She insisted: “Come, your Reverence, it is your turn to confess.”
He repeated: “I was not meant for an ordinary life. I realised that in time, fortunately, and I have often made the remark that I was right.
“My parents, who were rather wealthy drapers at Verdiers, were very ambitious on my account. I was sent to a boarding-school very young. No one knows what a child suffers at school, lonely and separated from his own people. That monotonous life, bereft of all affection, is good for some, but hateful for others. The young are often much more sensitive than they are thought to be, and by cooping them up too early away from those they love, an excess of sensitiveness may be developed and may become abnormal and full of danger.
“I rarely played: I had no companions and spent my time in longing for home. I cried in bed at night, and racked my brains for memories of my home life, unimportant memories of trifling things. I was always thinking of all I had left behind me, and gradually I turned into a visionary to whom the slightest disappointment was a terrible grief.
“Moreover, I remained taciturn, reserved, shrinking and friendless. The ferment of exaltation was working within me obscurely but surely—children’s nerves are easily excited; care should be taken that they live in really peaceful surroundings until their characters are nearly formed. But who ever considers that an unjust imposition may be as great a grief to some schoolboys as the death of a friend will be later on? How many realise that some youngsters suffer terribly for a mere trifle, and become sick, miserable souls in a very short time? Such was the case with me; this faculty for grieving developed to such a degree that my whole life became a martyrdom. I told no one about it. I said nothing, but gradually I became so acutely sensitive that my whole being was like a running sore. Everything that touched upon it produced twinges of pain, horrible reactions, and consequently caused permanent injury. Happy the man whom nature has girt with indifference and armed with stoicism!
“I reached my sixteenth year; owing to this aptitude for unlimited suffering, I was extremely timid. Feeling open to every attack of chance or fate, I shrank from all contact with others, every friendly advance, and from participation in any event. I was on the alert, as if constantly menaced by some unknown but anticipated misfortune. I dared neither to speak nor to act in public. I felt that life was a battle, a terrific struggle in which one receives tremendous blows, painful, deadly wounds. Unlike human beings who indulge in hopes for a happy future, I felt nothing but vague dread and wanted to hide myself away to avoid the conflict in which I would surely be overcome and killed.
“As soon as I had finished school, I was given six months’ holiday in which to choose a career. A very simple event made me suddenly see myself quite clearly, showed me how ill I was mentally, made me realise the danger I was in, and decide to escape from it.
“Verdiers is a small town surrounded by plains and woods. Our house was in the principal street, and I spent my days far from the home I had so much regretted, so longed for, when at school. All kinds of dreams stirred within me, and I tramped the fields alone to allow them to escape, to find their wings.
“My father and mother, entirely preoccupied with the business and my future, only talked to me about sales and my plans for the future. They loved me in their positive and practical way; they loved me much more with their head than with their heart. I lived shut up within my thoughts, trembling at my eternal apprehensiveness. Then one evening, after a long walk, as I was returning in a great hurry so as not to be late, I caught sight of a dog running towards me. It was a kind of red spaniel, very thin, with long, wavy ears. When it was about ten yards away it stopped, so did I. Then it started to wag its tail and creep slowly towards me with a frightened wriggling of its body, bending its legs as if in supplication, gently moving its head from side to side. I called it. Then it pretended to crawl along so humbly, so sadly, so entreatingly, that I felt my eyes fill with tears. I went nearer, it ran away, then came back, and I put one knee on the ground, speaking to it very gently so as to attract it. At last it came within arm’s length and I patted it very gently, taking care not to frighten it away.
“Getting bolder, it gradually raised itself, put its paws on my shoulders and began to lick my face, and followed me home.
“It was the first live thing that I loved with passion, because it loved me in return. My affection for the animal was certainly exaggerated and ridiculous, I felt vaguely that we were brothers who had strayed into the world, both of us lonely and defenceless. It never left me, slept at the foot of my bed, ate at table in spite of my parents’ disapproval, and accompanied me on my solitary walks.
“I would often stop by the hedge-side and sit down on the grass; Sam would come running up to me, lie down by my side or on my knee, and raise my hand with his muzzle to make me pat him.
“One day towards the end of June I saw the Ravereau coach coming along the road from Saint-Pierre-de-Chavrol. The yellow box with its black leather top over the outside seats was being hurried along by the four galloping horses; the driver was cracking his whip, and a cloud of dust rose from the wheels of the heavy carriage, floating behind it like a cloud.
“As the coach was passing me, Sam suddenly dashed in front of it; frightened, perhaps, by the noise, he was trying to join me. He was knocked down by one of the horses and I saw him roll over, then get up and fall down flat; the coach gave two big jerks, I caught sight of something stirring in the dust where it had passed. He was nearly cut in two: his torn entrails were hanging out of his body in a torrent of blood. He tried to get up, to walk, but could only move his two front legs, which were scratching the ground as if trying to make a hole, the hind legs were already dead. Mad with pain, the dog was howling terribly.
“In a few minutes he was dead. I cannot express what I felt nor how I suffered; for a whole month I never left my room. Then, one evening, my father, furious at the state I was in for such a trifle, exclaimed:
“ ‘What will you do when real sorrow befalls you, when you lose your wife, your children? It’s impossible to be so stupid!’
“These words haunted me: ‘What will you do when real sorrow befalls you, when you lose your wife, your children?’ I began to see myself clearly. I saw how it was that an ordinary occurrence seemed as important to me as a great calamity; I realised that I was ordained to suffer horribly, and, aggravated by my sick sensitiveness, to be alive to every painful impression; and a panic fear of life seized me.
“I had no ambition, no desires; I decided to sacrifice all the possible joys of life in order to avoid the certain suffering. I said to myself: ‘Life is short, I will spend it in serving others, in easing their burdens and rejoicing in their happiness. As neither joy nor sorrow can touch me personally, any emotion I may feel will be weakened.’
“And yet if you knew how I am tormented, scarred by the misery of the world! But what would have been unbearable anguish has been converted into commiseration, pity.
“I could never have borne the suffering I see all round me had it been my own; I should have died in seeing my own child die, and, in spite of myself, I have still such an obscure, penetrating dread of life, that every time the postman comes to the presbytery I tremble with apprehension, although I have now nothing to fear.”
Abbé Mauduit ceased talking, he was gazing at the fire in the big, open hearth as if looking for mysterious signs, those hidden secrets of life which he might have experienced had he been less afraid of suffering. He continued in a low voice:
“I was right. I was not made for this life.”
The Countess said nothing; then, after a long silence, she exclaimed:
“I should not have the courage to go on living if it were not for my grandchildren!”
The priest got up to go without another word.
The servants were dozing in the kitchen, so the Countess accompanied him to the door leading into the garden, and watched his big, slow shadow, reflected in the gleam from a lamp, disappear into the night.
Then she returned to her seat by the fire and thought of many things that one never thinks of in one’s youth.