* * *
I think the decision I took two weeks ago to dispense with the services of a housekeeper has been misinterpreted. What particularly complicates things is that her husband, Monsieur Pégriot, has just been hired by the count as a gamekeeper. He even took an oath yesterday at Saint-Vaast. And there was I, thinking I had done well in buying a little cask of wine from him! That was how I spent my aunt Philomène’s two hundred francs – not that it did me any good, since Monsieur Pégriot is no longer a representative for a supplier in Bordeaux, although he still passed the order on to them. I assume his successor will take every advantage of my small act of generosity. How stupid!
* * *
Yes, how stupid! I was hoping this diary would help me to clarify my thoughts, which always escape me on the rare occasions when I’m able to reflect a little. My idea was that it would be a conversation between the Lord and myself, an extension of prayer, a way of dealing with the difficulties of prayer, which still, all too often, seem to me insurmountable, due perhaps to my painful stomach cramps. But all it has shown me is the vast, excessive place held in my poor life by these thousand little daily concerns from which I have occasionally thought I was delivered. I understand perfectly well that Our Lord shares in our efforts, even the most futile, and that He despises nothing. But why put down on paper what I should rather try to forget as I go along? The worst of it is that I find such consolation in these confidences that it should suffice to put me on my guard. As I scribble by lamplight these pages that no one will ever read, I have a sense of an invisible presence which is surely not that of God – rather that of a friend made in my image, although distinct from me, of another essence … Last night, this presence suddenly became so tangible that I caught myself tilting my head towards some imaginary listener, with a sudden desire to weep that embarrassed me.
Anyway, it is better to see the experiment through to the end – I mean, a few weeks at least. I will even make an effort to write simply what goes through my head (I still sometimes hesitate over the choice of an epithet, still sometimes correct myself), then stuff my papers in the back of a drawer and read them some time later at my leisure.
II
This morning after Mass, I had a long conversation with Mademoiselle Louise. Up until now, I have rarely seen her at weekday services, because her position as governess at the chateau means we have to be very reserved with each other. The countess holds her in great esteem. She was apparently due to enter the Poor Clares, but instead devoted herself to her elderly disabled mother, who only died last year. The two little boys adore her. Unfortunately, the eldest of the children, Mademoiselle Chantal, has taken against her, and even seems to enjoy humiliating her and treating her as a servant. Childish behaviour perhaps, but it must try her patience cruelly: I have it from the countess that Mademoiselle Louise is from an excellent family and received a superior education.
I was given to understand that the chateau approved of my doing without a housekeeper. It would nevertheless be preferable if I stretched to paying for a woman to come in once or twice a week if only for the principle of it. Clearly, the principle matters. I live in a very comfortable presbytery, the finest house in the area, after the chateau, and yet I want to wash my linen myself! Anyone would think I was doing it deliberately.
And perhaps I don’t have a right to distinguish myself from fellow priests who are no more fortunate than myself but who make better use of their modest resources. I sincerely believe that it matters little to me whether I am rich or poor, I would just like our superiors to make up their minds once and for all. This bourgeois comfort in which we are forced to live is so little suited to our poverty … Extreme poverty has no difficulty in remaining dignified. Why bother with keeping up appearances? Why turn us into people who can’t do anything for themselves?
I had looked forward to obtaining some consolation from teaching elementary catechism classes, preparing pupils for private Holy Communion in line with the dictates of Pope Pius X. Even today, when I hear the hum of their voices as they walk through the graveyard, then the clatter of all those little hobnailed clogs on the threshold, my heart seems to break with tenderness. Sinite parvulos … I dreamed of saying to them, in that childlike language I so easily fall back into, all that I must keep to myself, all that it’s not possible for me to express in the pulpit, where I have so often been advised to be cautious. Not that I would have exaggerated, of course! But I felt proud that I could talk to them about something other than fractions, civic law, or else those awful object lessons, which are indeed simply lessons about objects and nothing more. Man learning from objects! In addition, I was delivered from that almost sickly fear, which every young priest feels, I think, when certain words, certain images come to his lips, sarcastic, ambiguous words and images that break our momentum and force us to cling to austere doctrinal lessons in a vocabulary so worn but so safe that it shocks nobody, having at least the merit of discouraging ironic comments by being so vague and boring. Hearing us, it would be all too easy to think that we preach the God of the spiritualists, the Supreme Being, whatever – nothing, anyway that resembles the Lord we have learned to know as a wonderful living friend, who suffers our pains, delights in our joys, will share our death agony and will receive us into His arms and His heart.
I immediately felt resistance from the boys, and fell silent. It isn’t their fault: they not only have an early experience of animals – which is unavoidable – they now also have the weekly film show.
By the time their mouths were first able to articulate it, the word ‘love’ was already a ridiculous word, a tarnished word that they would gladly have chased after, laughing and throwing stones at it, as they do with toads. But the girls gave me some hope at first, especially Séraphita Dumouchel. She was the best pupil in the catechism class, neat and cheerful, with a slightly bold, though pure look in her eyes. I had gradually got into the habit of singling her out from her less attentive classmates, I often asked her questions, I seemed at times to be speaking only for her. Last week, as I was giving her her weekly prize in the sacristy – a beautiful picture – I unthinkingly placed both hands on her shoulders and said, ‘Are you impatient to receive Our Lord Jesus? Does the time seem long to you?’
‘No,’ she replied, ‘why? It will come when it comes.’
I was taken aback, although not too shocked, for I know how mischievous children can be. ‘You do understand, though?’ I went on. ‘You’re such a good listener!’
Her little face stiffened, and she looked straight at me and said, ‘That’s because you have beautiful eyes.’
Naturally, I didn’t respond. We left the sacristy together, and all the girls in her class who had been whispering fell abruptly silent then burst out laughing. Obviously, they had planned the whole thing among themselves.
Since then, I have made an effort not to behave any differently: I didn’t want it to look as if I was joining in with their game. But the poor girl, no doubt encouraged by the others, still hounds me, pulling sly, annoying faces, mincing like a grown woman, even lifting her skirt in a particular way to tie the lace that serves as a garter. My God, children are children, but why are these girls so hostile? What have I done to them?
Monks suffer for other people. We suffer through them. This thought, which came to me yesterday evening, watched over me all night long, like an angel.
* * *
The anniversary of my appointment to the post at Ambricourt. Three months already! I prayed this morning for my parish, my poor parish – my first and last parish perhaps, because I’d like to die here. My parish! Words that can’t be uttered without emotion, or even without a surge of love. And yet I have only a confused image of it. It know it really exists, and that we are together for ever, since it is a living cell of the Church, not an administrative fiction. But I wish the Lord would open my eyes and ears and let me see its face and hear its voice. Is that too much to ask? The face of my parish! Its gaze! It ought to be a gentle, sad,
patient gaze – rather like mine, I imagine, when I stop struggling and let myself be swept along by that great invisible river that carries all of us, willy-nilly, the living and the dead, towards the end of Eternity. And would this gaze be that of Christendom, of all parishes, or even … perhaps that of the human race? The gaze that God saw when He looked down from the Cross. Forgive them for they know not what they do …
(I decided to use that passage, with some modification, in my Sunday sermon. The image of the parish’s gaze made people smile, and I stopped for a second right in the middle of the phrase, with the unfortunate, distinct impression that I was playing a role – even though, God knows, I was sincere! There is always something disturbing about images that have touched our hearts too deeply. I am sure that the curé of Torcy would have reprimanded me. After Mass, the count said to me, in his strange, slightly nasal voice, ‘Quite a flight of fancy!’ and I wished that the earth would swallow me up.)
* * *
Mademoiselle Louise brought me an invitation to lunch at the chateau next Tuesday. The presence of Mademoiselle Chantal embarrassed me a little, but I was nevertheless going to answer with a refusal when Mademoiselle Louise made a discreet sign that I should accept.
Starting on Tuesday, I will get my housekeeper back at the presbytery, at least for one day a week. The countess has kindly agreed to reimburse me for what she costs. I was so ashamed of the state of my linen that I ran all the way to Saint-Vaast this morning to purchase three shirts, some pants and some handkerchiefs: the curé of Torcy’s hundred francs barely sufficed to cover this major expense. In addition, I must provide a midday meal: a woman who works needs decent food. Fortunately, my Bordeaux will do me service. I bottled it yesterday. It struck me as a little murky, but it smells all right.
The days keep passing … How empty they are! I still get to the end of my daily tasks, but constantly put off carrying out the small programme I have set myself. Clearly, I’m not methodical. And how much time I spend on the roads! The nearer of my two subsidiary parishes is a good three kilometres away, the other one five. My bicycle is not much use, because I can’t climb the slopes, especially on an empty stomach, without terrible stomach pains. And yet my parish is so small on the map! … When I think that a class of twenty or thirty pupils, similar in age and condition, subject to the same discipline, trained in the same studies, does not become familiar to the teacher until the second term – and even then! … I have the feeling that my life, all the forces of my life, will be lost in the sand.
Mademoiselle Louise comes to Mass every day now. But she appears and disappears so quickly that sometimes I don’t even notice she’s there. Without her, the church would have been empty.
Met Séraphita yesterday, in the company of Monsieur Dumouchel. The girl’s face seems to me to have been transformed overnight: once so unpredictable, so mobile, I now find in it a kind of fixity, a hardness well beyond her years. As I was talking to her, she watched me so intently that it became embarrassing, and I was unable to stop myself from blushing. Perhaps I should warn her parents … But of what?
This morning I found a piece of paper in one of the catechism books, no doubt left there on purpose, with a clumsy drawing of a tiny woman and the words ‘the curé’s pet’. As I always hand out the books at random, there’s no point looking for the author of this joke.
However much I tell myself that these kinds of problems are an everyday occurrence, even in the best-kept schools, it is not much of a comfort. A schoolmaster can always confide in his superior, make an appointment. Whereas here …
‘Suffer through other people’, I kept repeating that consoling phrase to myself all night long. But the angel did not return.
* * *
Madame Pégriot came yesterday. She seemed so upset about the fee fixed by the countess that I thought it best to add five francs out of my own pocket. It appears that the wine was bottled much too early, without the necessary precautions, with the result that I’ve spoiled it. I found the bottle in the kitchen, barely started.
Obviously the woman has a difficult character and an unfortunate manner. But we must be fair: I become ridiculously awkward when I have to give, which can be quite disconcerting to people. I rarely have the feeling I’m pleasing them, probably because I try too hard to please. They think I give grudgingly.
On Tuesday, we gathered at the house of the curé of Hébuterne for the monthly lecture. The lecturer was Father Thomas, a history graduate, and his subject was The Reformation, Its Origins and Causes. Truly, the state of the Church in the sixteenth century is enough to make one shudder. As the lecturer continued his presentation, which was inevitably a little dull, I observed the faces of the listeners and saw no expression in them other than one of polite curiosity, exactly as if we had gathered to hear a reading of some chapter from the history of the pharaohs. This apparent indifference would once have exasperated me. I think now that it is the mark of a great faith, perhaps also of a great, unconscious pride. None of these men could possibly think the Church was in danger, for whatever reason. And of course my confidence is no less than theirs, but probably of another kind. Their sense of security horrifies me.
(I somewhat regret having written the word pride, and yet I can’t erase it, for want of finding one that better suits such a human, such a concrete feeling. After all, the Church is not an ideal to be realized, she exists and they are part of her.)
At the end of the lecture, I allowed myself to make a shy allusion to the programme I have set myself. And even then I omitted half the items. They didn’t have much difficulty in demonstrating to me that bringing this plan to fruition, even partially, would require forty-eight-hour days and a personal influence that I am far from having, that I may never have. Fortunately, they then turned their attention away from me, and the curé of Lumbres, a specialist in such things, spoke with a superior air about rural savings banks and agricultural cooperatives.
I felt quite sad as I walked home in the rain. The small amount of wine I had taken was causing me terrible stomach pains. I have definitely got a lot thinner since autumn and I must be looking worse than ever, because I am now being spared all reflection on my health. What if my strength were to fail me? However hard I try, it is difficult for me to believe that God will really employ me to the maximum, use me as He uses the others. I am struck more every day by my ignorance of the most basic details of practical life, which everyone seems to know without having learned them, by a kind of intuition. Obviously, I’m no more stupid than the next man, and provided I keep to formulas I can easily remember, I may give the illusion of having understood. But these words which have specific meanings for everyone else seem to me on the contrary to be barely distinguishable among themselves, to the point that I sometimes use them at random, like a bad gambler risking a card. During that discussion about rural savings banks, I felt like a child who had strayed into an adult conversation.
I doubt my fellow priests were any more highly educated than me, in spite of the pamphlets with which we are inundated. But I am astonished to see them so quickly at their ease as soon as such questions are raised. Almost all of them are poor, and they are bravely resigned to the fact. And yet money matters seem to have a kind of fascination for them. Their faces immediately take on an air of gravity, of self-confidence, which discourages me and compels me to silence – almost to respect.
I genuinely fear that I will never be practical, that I will never learn from experience. To a superficial observer, there is nothing to distinguish me from my fellow priests. Like them, I am a peasant. But I come from a line of very poor people – pieceworkers, unskilled labourers, farm girls – and we lack a sense of property, or if we ever had it we must have lost it over the centuries. On this point, my father was like my grandfather, who himself was like his father, who died of starvation in the terrible winter of 1854. A twenty-sou coin was enough to burn a hole in their pockets, and they would rush to find a friend with whom to make merry. My fellow pupils at
the junior seminary were not mistaken: even when mother put on her best skirt and best hat, she had that humble, furtive air, that weak smile common to the poor wretches who bring up other people’s children. If only all that was lacking was the sense of property! But I fear I am no more able to command than I am to possess, and that’s more serious.
No matter! Mediocre pupils with no gifts do sometimes reach the top rank. They never shine there, of course. I have no ambition to reform my nature, I will overcome my revulsion, that’s all. If my main obligation is to other people, then I cannot remain ignorant of the anxieties, perfectly legitimate ones, that play such a large role in the lives of my parishioners. Our schoolmaster – even though a Parisian – gives lots of lectures on crop rotation and fertilizers. I need to swot up on all these questions.
Diary of a Country Priest Page 3