Sebastien Roch (Dedalus European Classics)

by Octave Mirbeau

  From these heights where his soul had soared for an instant, he plunged more heavily than ever into the odious routine of his daily duties. His books horrified him all the more; he understood all the better how terrifyingly empty they were, how barbarously dishonest and depressingly alien. As soon as he opened them there was instant darkness, a black, opaque night that enveloped him and where there lurked sticky grubs with priests’ faces. Ah, how he wished he had a voice like the boys who sang in the church. How intoxicating to be able to draw from a wooden instrument or a sheet of metal those harmonies that pour forth ecstasy. How wonderful to be able to produce that magical, blessed language which expresses everything, even what remains inexplicable. He begged his father to allow him to learn music. But it would mean paying for extra lessons and Monsieur Roch was quite scandalised by such a request, which he felt was not what he expected from a ‘serious, well-brought-up boy’. Monsieur Roch wrote back to him that music was a mere pastime, unworthy of a man and good only for women who have nothing to do, or the blind who have to beg for their bread. After all, he had never learned music. Did his son intend to become a tramp or an accordionist, like François Martin, whom everyone mocked? A band of German musicians had recently come to Pervenchères. They were dirty, ragged, with long hair and looked like rogues. They were strongly suspected of having set fire to the local grocer’s shop. All the musicians he had ever known were just the same: ragamuffins! Drawing was the same. Should drawing be part of a masculine education? Did Napoleon draw? He won battles and drew up the Code Civil, that incomparable monument, that pillar of modern civilisation. No, no, a hundred times no! He expected his son to learn solid subjects and nothing but. He was not being bled dry so that his son – his only son, the last hope of the Roch family – might later end up tramping the roads, a clarinet under his arm. Music! Drawing! Had he made up his mind to be the despair of his family?

  Sébastien resigned himself. Perhaps his father was right. There was no doubt that he was lazy, a bad child, and that he did misbehave. His distaste for homework, his desire for forbidden things were wrong, of course, but out of his control. He obeyed invincible forces against which he had no power. He realised that since his arrival in the school he had changed greatly. He lived in brief snatches, in a state of continual anxiety, going from one decision to another, without keeping to any, going from enthusiasm to boredom, one day repelled by his situation, the next resigned, his head and heart full of contradictions, different aspirations, which seethed, unable to break free; what was he waiting for? For someone’s encouraging, benevolent gaze to rest upon him? For a guiding hand to lead him through the cluttered avenues of his intellect? He did not know. Despite his father’s letter, he continued to loiter near the music rooms, in the vague hope of discovering the secret of that wonderful, forbidden science, which seemed to him like a great doorway of light opening onto nature and mystery, which is to say, onto beauty and love.

  ‘Sing me that pretty song,’ Sébastien would ask Bolorec.

  Without raising his eyes from the piece of wood he was carving with the tip of his knife, Bolorec would sing, sometimes interrupting himself to explain something.

  ‘You see, it all takes place on the moorland there. All the women hold hands, and they set off and they turn and come back. Their headdresses are white and sway about. They have velvet on their red skirts. And Laumic sits on a barrel and plays the Breton bagpipes. It’s lovely.’

  But Father Dumont often chased them away.

  ‘What are you two doing there again?’ he would say sternly. ‘It’s not respectable for you to spend all your time together. Go out into the yard.’

  So, reluctantly, they would leave, walk the length of the fences, stop at the fountain where they would play around, turning the tap on and off for a few minutes; and then they went back to the archways, as soon as the priest had moved away to read his breviary under the trees or play a game of real tennis with the privileged pupils.

  ‘Why does he say it’s not respectable for us to be together?’ asked Sébastien, troubled by the priest’s objection, which he did not understand at all.

  ‘Because,’ replied Bolorec, ‘last year, in the middle school, they found two boys, Juste Durand and Emile Carade, doing dirty things in the music rooms.’

  ‘What dirty things?’

  ‘You know, dirty things …’

  And with an grimace of disgust he added:

  ‘Dirty things, like when you make children.’

  Sébastien blushed, not attempting to go any deeper into what Bolorec said, though he guessed at culpable analogies and shameful correspondences with the questions with which Father Monsal assailed him at confession.

  The weeks went by in this way until the Easter holidays, relieved only by the jolly carnival celebrations, which involved lavish meals, plays and lotteries, in which the losers won plates of gruel which they had to eat there and then while everyone else laughed and clapped. There was an academic joust, in which philosophy students argued eloquently about Descartes and came up with witty, spiteful taunts about Pascal. There were concerts, fencing matches, a whole series of entertainments in historical costume, in which Sébastien, despite the novelty of these spectacles, took meagre pleasure, a pleasure which consisted in enjoying the opportunity of being more alone with Bolorec and having discipline relax a little and classes interrupted. They acted out a play by Sophocles, translated into Latin verse by Father de Marel, with interjections by the chorus sung to the William Tell music, also adapted by the same Father de Marel, whose role in the house was to write poetry, in various languages and moods, sad or happy, sacred or profane, and adapt them to the ceremonies being celebrated. He was a plump fellow, round and pleasant-looking, always laughing, and much loved because he represented pure pleasure. He was only ever seen at feast times, when he was unstinting in inventing all sorts of amusing and exciting entertainments. The rest of the time, so it was said, he travelled.

  For the three days that Carnival lasted at school, Father de Marel spent a great deal of time with the pupils and he had noticed how subdued Sébastien was, keeping apart from everyone else, and he recognised him as the little boy he had seen under the chestnut trees, near the meadow, on the day that school started, and who had clung to his soutane. Sébastien had recognised the priest too. He wished he could speak to him, but he did not dare, since he now felt ashamed of his folly, and the Jesuit’s presence only intensified his embarrassment. One day, Father de Marel approached him, followed by Father Dumont.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said in a friendly voice. ‘Aren’t you having fun? What are you doing moping over here, when there’s a party going on? You should be laughing. This is the time for laughter.’

  And turning towards Father Dumont:

  ‘He’s a fine boy, that child there. He has very intelligent eyes.’

  Father Dumont shook his head.

  ‘But so lazy, so lazy! He’s thoughtless and incorrigible and very cruel to his fellows. But, above all, he’s lazy!’

  ‘Tut, tut, tut! And with eyes like that. It’s because people don’t know how to handle him. I know him, this little Sébastien Roch. I bet you he would work for me. Come along, Master Sébastien, let me hear your confession.’

  His words were full of gentleness and gaiety. They were made to touch the heart and to make people laugh. Sébastien listened to them as if they were music. A great sense of peace entered him, just being there with this Jesuit who was not like the others and who refreshed his spirits gave him new confidence. Father de Marel questioned him with a tender, winning, perceptive benevolence, with an almost maternal skill that invited warmth and confidences, and Sébastien abandoned himself to the compelling joy of answering him, to the soothing balm of opening his savage, solitary heart. Gradually, in charming, childish phrases, at first slow and timid, then rushed and precipitate, he poured out his sorrows, his enthusiasms, his disappointments.

  ‘Let’s see now, let’s see,’ interrupted the priest, t
ouched by the grave naivety of a passion expressed with such unusual force. ‘Let’s see. What would you like to the learn the most? Tell me.’

  ‘Music! It’s so beautiful. It’s the most beautiful thing there is. It …’

  He sought the words to express what he had felt, and not finding them, he indicated his heart:

  ‘That’s where I feel it. Sometimes not knowing makes me feel as if I were suffocating … because … but I would really work hard, because, when I hear music, then I understand things better, I …’

  ‘In that case, I will teach you music myself,’ promised the priest. ‘I will teach you the cornet. It’s a lovely instrument. Are you happy now?’

  ‘I would like to sing in church too.’

  ‘Well, you shall sing in church … and elsewhere. I shall make it my business. And now, my young friend, let’s not think about all that any more. Today you must laugh, frolic, play the fool. Come on now, off with you.’

  Sébastien stood there without moving, staring at him, his eyes full of a kind of grave intoxication.

  ‘Come on now, off with you,’ Father de Marel said again.

  Sébastien said in an imploring voice:

  ‘Father, don’t be angry, don’t tell me off, but I would like to embrace you, because, well, because no one has ever spoken to me like you … because …’

  But the priest, half-smiling, half-sad, gave him a friendly tap on the cheek and moved away, stirred by a great sense of pity, saying to himself:

  ‘Poor little devil. He’s too affectionate, too intelligent, too everything. He will be very unhappy one day.’

  The Easter holidays were an unexpected disappointment for Sébastien. He had dreamed of effusive greetings, endless embraces, inexpressible expectations of happiness. From his corner of the carriage that bore him homewards, he watched anxiously for familiar scenery to come into view. As the train approached the longed-for landmarks, emotion gripped his heart so tightly he thought it would break. Already he could recognise the sky he knew, a lighter colour, but more intense; he recognised the contours of the fields, the trees, the farms high up on the slopes, the river gleaming in the meadows, the winding roads along which he had run countless times. Nothing had changed. A bright sun illuminated this charmingly resurrected vision. All of a sudden, between the crisscross pink of the poplars, there was Pervenchères, a pile of stacked-up houses clambering up a hill, and it had never before seemed so brilliant, so pretty, as it did at that moment, like gay scraps of silk and velvet shimmering in the air; and the church dominated everything, splashed with sun, with a great shadow falling upon it from the side, like a blue shawl. Beyond the wooden fencing alongside the track, he glimpsed Father Vincent in his garden; he wished he could shout out to him: ‘It’s me, Sébastien!’ He was home; he was going to see again everything that he loved. His father was waiting for him at the station. Then it was all over.

  ‘The omnibus will take your trunk. We are going back on foot,’ said Monsieur Roch severely.

  As soon as they were out of the station:

  ‘Listen to me,’ commanded the ironmonger. ‘What I have to say to you is very serious. I hesitated a long time before agreeing to let you come home. My intention was to leave you at school, as a kind of punishment. Perhaps I should have done so. In the present circumstances, and for a mere ten days, it’s not easy having to spend money on a journey like that, on top of all the money you’re costing me already! I’m not a millionaire, for heaven’s sake. The only reason you’re here now is because I wanted to speak to you myself, to reason with you. I said to myself that doubtless I would have more authority over you than your teachers, and, after all, a father is a father. And furthermore, I flatter myself that I am not just any father.’

  People passing by on the road recognised Sébastien.

  ‘Ah! It’s Monsieur Sébastien! Good morning, Monsieur Sébastien. How thin you’ve grown, how pale!’

  ‘He hasn’t got any thinner,’ protested Monsieur Roch. ‘On the contrary, he’s fat, much too fat.’

  His son get thinner with the Jesuits! He could not admit of such an idea: it would seem like an insult to that excellent order, an indirect reproach towards himself.

  ‘It’s just the journey,’ he explained.

  And rather brusquely tearing Sébastien from the compliments that are the returning hero’s due, he again assumed his dignified voice, which trembled with an unusual note of irritation.

  ‘I am outraged, outraged! You cause me nothing but trouble. You see, it is because you are lazy that Monsieur de Kerral did not want to have anything to do with you. He feared setting a bad example to his own son. Good grief, it’s obvious. First of all, I forbid you to tell our friends about this misfortune, because I have been careful to tell everyone that you visit this great family regularly. That gave you a degree of prestige with people round here. Anyway, I cannot contradict myself now. If the priest asks you for details, you must give him some, lots. You must say that you saw dungeons in the chateau, you must speak of portraits of ancestors, suits of armour. In short, you will make sure that you do not make me look ridiculous, do you understand? After all, I do have some self-respect. And I am outraged, mortified, I tell you.’

  And he shook the boy’s arm roughly, to communicate his bitter feelings all the more forcefully and eloquently. Sébastien was stunned by this welcome. From the first words of this conversation, all the charm of his return home had vanished. He was overcome with weariness. As he made his way up the Rue de Paris, he realised how small Pervenchères was, how dirty and dismal, its inhabitants rough and vulgar. Scarcely had he returned the greetings offered him by everyone he met than he missed Vannes with its intriguing maze of streets, its houses with Gothic gables and overhanging storeys, the port, the schooner.

  ‘Yes, I fear,’ persisted Monsieur Roch, ‘that you are to be the shame of my latter years. What sort of situation would I be in if the Jesuits decided they had had enough of you and wanted to send you back? Each morning I tremble to receive that catastrophic news. People ask: “How’s Sébastien? Are you pleased with his progress? Is he doing well?” I don’t want to look a fool, so I reply: “Yes.” But what can you be thinking of? Why don’t you say something? Are you listening? You’re standing there like a lump of wood. You don’t seem to understand that you are a burden to me, a very heavy burden. Do you think I am rich? But you don’t care about anything. If I didn’t have you, this year I could have bought the Priory field, which was sold for a pittance, a pittance. See what you cost me. And I could have retired from the business. Instead I have to slave away for you, for a heartless child. I have been stupid. My God, I have been stupid. I should have kept you here and taught you the trade of an ironmonger. But a father is a father, I had ambitions and I have been thoroughly punished for it. And there’s your Aunt Rosalie … she’s not at all well. Her paralysis is getting worse. There’s another inheritance we can’t count on. And all this time, what have you been thinking of? Music! Here I am working myself to death, living in penury, and it’s all your fault. And what do you do? Monsieur wishes to take up music. I am outraged, outraged, outraged!’

  At that point, they had reached the shop. Sébastien noticed with astonishment, above the sign, a new banner in garish green and zinc. On the unfurling metallic folds was written in red, Gothic script, the Jesuits’ motto: Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Monsieur Roch, ‘the paint is peeling. Is that right? Well, because of you I couldn’t afford to have the shopfront painted for Easter. Music, I ask you! Right, in you go. Straight up to your room. I’ll wait for the trunk. And try to put on a better face than that. We don’t want the neigbours knowing all our dismal secrets.’

  The ten days of holiday were unbearable. To Sébastien it felt like centuries. From the moment he got up to the moment he went to bed, he had to endure the same unending attacks made up of the same mad complaints and the same grotesque exhortations. He had to put up with the most unreasonable reproaches a
nd the most extravagant accusations, whose rank injustice bordered on the farcical. Once launched along this path, there was no stopping Monsieur Roch. If anything happened to him that was annoying or out of the ordinary, he would blame his son. Bitterly, he flung in his face the plummeting price of iron, the recurrence of his rheumatism, a drop in sales, the bankruptcy of a local blacksmith which meant a loss to him of fifty francs. Confined to the house, immured in that room at the back of the shop, so cold and dark, looking out on the sweating walls and the morose spectacle of the yard, littered with rubbish, the child’s only moments of respite were when visitors came. Even then he had to endure a no less cruel torture; he heard his father boasting of his academic successes, his aristocratic associations, going on and on about nobility, describing the magnificent Chateau de Kerral; he was obliged to rely on his extravagant imagination, encouraged to lie by his own father, whose base audacity and low effrontery filled him with disgust and made him blush with shame.

  With great difficulty, he obtained permission to go and visit Madame Lecautel just twice. There, his pleasure at seeing Marguerite again was spoiled by the troubling memory of his confessions. The ugly, violating image of Father Monsal insinuated itself between his friend and himself. Marguerite had been ill and her illness had made her even prettier, strangely pretty; there was something disturbingly wild and morbid about her: the subjection of her entire body, the obedience of all her movements to an implacable and devouring sexuality. That passionate, ardent blood flowing in her little girl’s veins was the legacy of her father’s alcoholism, but it seemed also to have left in her overly-dilated eyes, with their green-flecked irises, and beneath her lids, already bruised with painful shadows, the marks of a precocious and melancholy decadence. Sébastien did not dare to look at her; he did not want her to kiss him as she had before. Every time she came near him, he recoiled, frightened: ‘No, no, we mustn’t.’ At the same time, Father Monsal’s words incited him to obscure temptations, despite himself; in his mind he undressed that supple, sickly body, as it brushed against him, looking for the place of impure mysteries, unveiling that forbidden and accursed flesh. Marguerite was astonished when he could only respond to her caresses with: