Abbe Mouret's Transgression. Emile Zola

The dear innocent was so childish, such a very little girl, that she recalled to him the poor in spirit to whom the Gospel promises the kingdom of heaven. Of late, however, she had somewhat disturbed him; she was growing too lusty, too full of health and life. But his discomfort was yet of the slightest. His days were spent in that inner life he had created for himself, for which he had relinquished all else. He closed the portals of his senses, and sought to free himself from all bodily needs, so that he might be but a soul enrapt in contemplation. To him nature offered only snares and abominations; he gloried in maltreating her, in despising her, in releasing himself from his human slime. And as the just man must be a fool according to the world, he considered himself an exile on this earth; his thoughts were solely fixed upon the favours of Heaven, incapable as he was of understanding how an eternity of bliss could be weighed against a few hours of perishable enjoyment. His reason duped him and his senses lied; and if he advanced in virtue it was particularly by humility and obedience. His wish was to be the last of all, one subject to all, in order that the divine dew might fall upon his heart as upon arid sand; he considered himself overwhelmed with reproach and with confusion, unworthy of ever being saved from sin. He no longer belonged to himself – blind, deaf, dead to the world as he was. He was God’s thing. And from the depth of the abjectness to which he sought to plunge, Hosannahs suddenly bore him aloft, above the happy and the mighty into the splendour of never-ending bliss.

      Thus, at Les Artaud, Abbe Mouret had once more experienced, each time he read the ‘Imitation,’ the raptures of the cloistered life which he had longed for at one time so ardently. As yet he had not had to fight any battle. From the moment that he knelt down, he became perfect, absolutely oblivious of the flesh, unresisting, undisturbed, as if overpowered by the Divine grace. Such ecstasy at God’s approach is well known to some young priests: it is a blissful moment when all is hushed, and the only desire is but a boundless craving for purity. From no human creature had he sought his consolations. He who believes a certain thing to be all in all cannot be troubled: and he did believe that God was all in all, and that humility, obedience, and chastity were everything. He could remember having heard temptation spoken of as an abominable torture that tries the holiest. But he would only smile: God had never left him. He bore his faith about him thus like a breast-plate protecting him from the slightest breath of evil. He could recall how he had hidden himself and wept for very love; he knew not whom he loved, but he wept for love, for love of some one afar off. The recollection never failed to move him. Later on he had decided on becoming a priest in order to satisfy that craving for a superhuman affection which was his sole torment. He could not see where greater love could be. In that state of life he satisfied his being, his inherited predisposition, his youthful dreams, his first virile desires. If temptation must come, he awaited it with the calmness of the seminarist ignorant of the world. He felt that his manhood had been killed in him: it gladdened him to feel himself a creature set apart, unsexed, turned from the usual paths of life, and, as became a lamb of the Lord, marked with the tonsure.

      V

      While the priest pondered the sun was heating the big church-door. Gilded flies buzzed round a large flower that was blooming between two of the church-door steps. Abbe Mouret, feeling slightly dazed, was at last about to move away, when the big black dog sprang, barking violently, towards the iron gate of the little graveyard on the left of the church. At the same time a harsh voice called out: ‘Ah! you young rascal! So you stop away from school, and I find you in the graveyard! Oh, don’t say no: I have been watching you this quarter of an hour.’

      As the priest stepped forward he saw Vincent, whom a Brother of the Christian Schools was clutching tightly by the ear. The lad was suspended, as it were, over a ravine skirting the graveyard, at the bottom of which flowed the Mascle, a mountain torrent whose crystal waters plunged into the Viorne, six miles away.

      ‘Brother Archangias!’ softly called the priest, as if to appease the fearful man.

      The Brother, however, did not release the boy’s ear.

      ‘Oh, it’s you, Monsieur le Cure?’ he growled. ‘Just fancy, this rascal is always poking his nose into the graveyard. I don’t know what he can be up to here. I ought to let go of him and let him smash his skull down there. It would be what he deserves.’

      The lad remained dumb, with his cunning eyes tight shut as he clung to the bushes.

      ‘Take care, Brother Archangias,’ continued the priest, ‘he might slip.’

      And he himself helped Vincent to scramble up again.

      ‘Come, my young friend, what were you doing there?’ he asked. ‘You must not go playing in graveyards.’

      The lad had opened his eyes, and crept away, fearfully, from the Brother, to place himself under the priest’s protection.

      ‘I’ll tell you,’ he said in a low voice, as he raised his bushy head. ‘There is a tomtit’s nest in the brambles there, under that rock. For over ten days I’ve been watching it, and now the little ones are hatched, so I came this morning after serving your mass.’

      ‘A tomtit’s nest!’ exclaimed Brother Archangias. ‘Wait a bit! wait a bit!’

      Thereupon he stepped aside, picked a clod of earth off a grave and flung it into the brambles. But he missed the nest. Another clod, however, more skilfully thrown upset the frail cradle, and precipitated the fledglings into the torrent below.

      ‘Now, perhaps,’ he continued, clapping his hands to shake off the earth that soiled them, ‘you won’t come roaming here any more, like a heathen; the dead will pull your feet at night if you go walking over them again.’

      Vincent, who had laughed at seeing the nest dive into the stream, looked round him and shrugged his shoulders like one of strong mind.

      ‘Oh, I’m not afraid,’ he said. ‘Dead folk don’t stir.’

      The graveyard, in truth, was not a place to inspire fear. It was a barren piece of ground whose narrow paths were smothered by rank weeds. Here and there the soil was bossy with mounds. A single tombstone, that of Abbe Caffin, brand-new and upright, could be perceived in the centre of the ground. Save this, all around there were only broken fragments of crosses, withered tufts of box, and old slabs split and moss-eaten. There were not two burials a year. Death seemed to make no dwelling in that waste spot, whither La Teuse came every evening to fill her apron with grass for Desiree’s rabbits. A gigantic cypress tree, standing near the gate, alone cast shadow upon the desert field. This cypress, a landmark visible for nine miles around, was known to the whole countryside as the Solitaire.

      ‘It’s full of lizards,’ added Vincent, looking at the cracks of the church-wall. ‘One could have a fine lark – ’

      But he sprang out with a bound on seeing the Brother lift his foot. The latter proceeded to call the priest’s attention to the dilapidated state of the gate, which was not only eaten up with rust, but had one hinge off, and the lock broken.

      ‘It ought to be repaired,’ said he.

      Abbe Mouret smiled, but made no reply. Addressing Vincent, who was romping with the dog: ‘I say, my boy,’ he asked, ‘do you know where old Bambousse is at work this morning?’

      The lad glanced towards the horizon. ‘He must be at his Olivettes field now,’ he answered, pointing towards the left. ‘But Voriau will show your reverence the way. He’s sure to know where his master is.’ And he clapped his hands and called: ‘Hie! Voriau! hie!’

      The big black dog paused a moment, wagging his tail, and seeking to read the urchin’s eyes. Then, barking joyfully, he set off down the slope to the village. Abbe Mouret and Brother Archangias followed him, chatting. A hundred yards further Vincent surreptitiously bolted, and again glided up towards the church, keeping a watchful eye upon them, and ready to dart behind a bush if they should look round. With adder-like suppleness, he once more glided into the graveyard, that paradise full of lizards, nests, and flowers.

      Meantime, while Voriau led the way before them along the dusty road, Brother Archangias was angrily saying to the priest: ‘Let be! Monsieur le Cure, they’re spawn of damnation, those toads are! They ought to have their backs broken, to make them pleasing to God. They grow up in irreligion,