Sebastien Roch (Dedalus European Classics)

by Octave Mirbeau

  ‘No, no, we mustn’t.’

  When the holidays were over, he left with no regrets. On the contrary, it was a relief to find himself in the carriage again with Father Dumont and a few fellow pupils, carrying with them the smell of school. He breathed in that smell almost gladly, the way a prisoner on release gulps down the air of the life restored to him. In the brief kiss which his father and he exchanged just before leaving, he had felt that something had been damaged, that something was now irretrievably lost. He was not upset by this and felt real pleasure at the prospect of seeing Bolorec again and thinking how he would probably have a new round to sing to him. He even recalled with satisfaction Bolorec’s face as he said:

  ‘It’s all takes place on the moorland there … they set of and they turn and come back …’

  He dreamed at length of landscapes alive with singing voices.

  Springtime was delightful. Green leaves burst forth on the trees in the yard and the school garden was clothed in tender colours. Sébastien also experienced the effects in himself of the rising sap; he felt a surge of strength and confidence and all his ability for thought and action blossomed. He was less pre-occupied, more adept at small deceptions, adapting himself to the minor pains of his existence, and his distaste for work diminished. He even enjoyed moments of healthy gaiety and tried with his brio, though without success, to whip Bolorec out of his incorrigible indolence.

  The Jesuits owned a sort of large villa, called Pen-Boc’h, on the gulf of Morbihan, a few kilometres from Vannes. In fine weather, the pupils went there twice a week. They bathed, ate a meal and then came back in high spirits through the pine woods and along by the sleeping waters of the estuaries. Sébastien took infinite pleasure in these outings. He never tired of admiring the spectacle of that little inland sea, enclosed on the right by the Arradon coast and on the left by the Arzon and Sarzeau hills, and which opens out into the ocean through a narrow gully, between the sharp point of Loqmariaquer and the square promontories of the Rhuis peninsula. It is crisscrossed by breezes from all directions, which leave white trails, milky, translucent pathways on its blue surface; it is scattered with a multitude of islets, some cultivated like the Ile aux Moines, some wild like Gavrinis, where the Druid temples stand, blocks of primitive granite. They all look different and strange; some are like fabulous fish, their dorsal fins showing above the waves; others look like huge crosses lying on their sides and drifting with the current; there are some which seem to be moving forwards like a troop of seals, in a boiling cauldron of foam; still others, rocks gleaming, now covered, now exposed by the tides, emerge from the slapping water and suddenly sprout clumps of firs in capricious black fan shapes against the radiant brightness of the water. Dark earth and bright waves alternate among an infinity of light blue lakes, mauve creeks, purplish rivers, pale maelstroms, cut off randomly by outcrops of rocky land or edged by orange beaches; through the meteoric confusion of reflections, flickering lights and flaring rainbow colours, pass flocks of boats with sails that glow blood-red in the sun and turn iridescent in the mist. But what Sébastien loved most, even more than the changing shapes and the shifting colours of this maritime setting, was the sound, the rhythmic music, the divine melody of the waves and the breezes. He grasped all the notes, felt all the vibrations, from the dull, plaintive, despairing rumble uttered by the broad, mysterious depths, to the soothing song of the rosy creeks and the gay, youthful, tripping harmonica note that rippled up from the water as it spread out on the shingled beach. He was amazed and charmed by that prodigious ensemble of voices, from near and far, sweet voices, harsh voices: he loved this incomparable accord of super-human brass and celestial strings; compared to the scattered, molten harmonies of these airy orchestras and invisible choirs beneath the swirling waters, the music in the chapel on Sundays seemed to him the babblings of a child. He always returned from those trips as if slightly drunk, bumping into trees, colliding with rocks, his head thudding against the back of the pupil in front, his ears vibrating with the musical resonances of the sea. However, in that stunned state, greedily and as if to grow drunker still, he opened his nostrils as wide as possible to the wind laden with the iodine smell of the seaweed and the vanilla scent of the moorland in bloom. On those evenings, he went to bed with aching limbs, his head throbbing with a pain that was sweeter to him than balm, softer than a caress.

  Father de Marel kept his word. He came to collect him every Thursday in the evening study hour and taught him music. Sébastien showed immense keenness, impatient to get over the first hurdles of musical notation.

  ‘When will I be able to sing in church?’ he kept asking.

  His teacher was obliged to calm him down. He was even cautious about the idea of revealing an art which might perhaps intensify the tendency to dreaminess in an already dreamy soul, and increase the sensitivity of nerves already far too easily excited.

  ‘Heavens, my little friend,’ he would say to him, shaking his head. ‘I’d rather teach you gymnastics … you’re much better suited to the trapeze.’

  So he punctuated his lessons with cheerful chatter, funny stories, comic recitations, walks in the park, judging that such a temperament, predisposed as it was to deep melancholy, needed wholesome cheerfulness and physical exercise. However, the day came when, faced with certain worrying phenomena, he felt that it was too much of a responsibility. Besides, goodhearted though he was, he only really appreciated people of a cheerful disposition, prone to loud and healthy laughter. So, he started to make his lessons less frequent and shorter, and, taking advantage of the retreat to which all pupils preparing for their first communion were obliged to go, he eventually stopped them altogether.

  Sébastien’s first communion was marked by an episode which caused a great stir in the school and which is spoken of every year still, as a miracle of grace. The retreat had lasted nine days; nine days of prayer, examinations of conscience, religious instruction, all so terrifying that they had spoiled the mystical poetry of the sacrament and marred the sweetness of spending time with his fellow students when everyone was completely relaxed, and more sociable and affectionate as a result of meditation and piety. The act in which he was about to participate was described to him as something terrifying. There were plenty of dramatic examples of exalted happiness and horrible punishments to back up the claims of the catechism. They quoted the story of the impious child eaten alive by dogs; another notorious example had smashed his skull falling from a cliff-top, dashed into the sea by the hand of divine vengeance. And how many others burned in hell! On the other hand, another had felt so intoxicated by happiness and holiness as he came out of the church, that he went to meet his parents in the parlour, presented them with a knife and begged them to kill him, saying: ‘Kill me, kill me, I beg you, for I am sure to go straight to heaven.’ This troubled Sébastien greatly. He lived in a trance-like state, obsessed by thoughts of the demons of hell toasting children’s souls at the ends of their forks in flames that never died. Every day, following frantic examinations of conscience, everyone took confession, for which it was necessary to resort to special manuals which contained, in alphabetical order, a gloomy, terrifying list of sins, vices, crimes, such an extraordinary collection of infamies, of inexcusably shameful acts, that the panic-stricken children immediately felt that they had suddenly become sacrilegious lepers, filthy, mud-spattered animals, whom no pardon could ever purify or heal. Some would suddenly go completely white, shuddering with terror, beating their breast and shouting: ‘I have sinned, I have sinned! My God, save me from damnation. My God, spare me your torments!’ Some broke down and had to be carried out and put to bed and taken care of. Joseph Le Guadec died of an attack of meningitis.

  It was in this particular state of heightened nervous tension that Sébastien approached the holy table. He was trembling; his throat was dry. His chin resting on the cloth, he waited, gripped by an almost deathly emotion, and out of the corner of his eye he watched the priest approaching, mumbling prayers and carry
ing the golden chalice, his long, white fingers lightly and rapidly placing the host into each waiting mouth. When Sébastien received the host, he was initially astonished. Instead of experiencing the essential heat and obligatory ecstasy he had been told about, he felt on his tongue an icy cold that spread to his mouth, his chest and through his whole body, making his limbs shake and his teeth chatter, as if in the grip of fever. At the same time, this shock of surprise was compounded by acute embarrassment. He did not know how he could possibly swallow this host which was the flesh and the blood of God. His clumsy tongue disrespectfully shifted it from one corner of his palate to the other. One bit stuck to the roof of his mouth, the rest broke up and shrank to a sticky lump, but still he could not manage to force it past the narrow gorge of his throat. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead, dampening his hair, wetting his temples. He believed himself damned. God did not want him. God did not want to enter into him! ‘My God, my God!’ he prayed, ‘Forgive me, forgive me!’ A vain prayer. God remained hidden. A contraction of the throat pushed the host forward to his lips, that sacred host which was now no more than a small ball of paste soaked in bitter saliva. Then the certainty of sacrilege, the impossibility of avoiding punishment seemed to him so clear that he felt dazzled, dizzy. Everything around him was spinning: the chapel, the priests, the choirboys, the candles and the tabernacle, gaping before him like the red maw of a monster. And he saw darkness, a fearful, heavy, black night, where cliffs, precipices, furious dogs, huge, fierce devils, great devouring flames, performed a terrifying dance. However, he did not lose consciousness completely but staggered forward, grasping the pews with his hands, and was able to reach his stall, where he sank down, bent double, in a prostration of agony. All of a sudden, above the voices singing in the gallery, above the ecstatic joy of the violins and the triumphant sonorous chords of the organ, came a cry, immediately followed by a sob. The cry was so loud, the sob so anguished, that the disturbance nearly brought the service to a halt. At the altar, the priest, surprised in his genuflections, turned round, afraid; everyone craned their necks and looked in the direction of the cry. It was Sébastien who had uttered this cry and who was now sobbing his heart out, as he crouched over the prayer stool, his head hidden, lolling in his hands, his shoulder-blades shuddering as if shaken by a violent inner storm. A louder sob than all the others had shot the host out of his mouth in a jet of saliva and the unfortunate boy had been unable to retrieve it for a few moments, his face wet with the saliva in which Jesus’ body was dissolving. He sobbed like this throughout the rest of the service and during the sermon, given by the Rector. Whilst the strains of the Te Deum rose exultantly towards the vaulted ceiling, he could be seen crazily beating his breast. Prayers, ardent invocations, terrified supplications jostled on his lips. He was still sobbing on the way back to the priests’ refectory where a banquet had been prepared for the first communicants. It seemed as if his tears would never dry. His lids pricked like raw wounds; he walked blindly, his legs so unsteady that, in order not to fall over, he had to lean against the walls. And he kept saying: ‘My God, spare me. Don’t let me die. I am a small child and it’s not my fault. I promise to expiate my sins. I will work hard, I will love my schoolmates and my teachers, and I will wear hairshirts and I will beat my breast like the great saints who were once great sinners but are now in heaven.’

  ‘Your first communion was very inspiring, my dear child,’ the Rector told him in the refectory. ‘We are very pleased with it. Later in life, it will be your safeguard, today it is your pardon.’

  Uncomprehending, Sébastien looked at the priest; he had such pure features, such noble gestures, a face of such calm and marmoreal beauty; his voice was as soothing as balm, whilst his eyes behind their pale globes were somehow cold and impenetrable, slyer and more unpredictable than fate itself.

  For a few weeks Sébastien displayed a wild, exemplary piety and a fierce dedication to work that was unusual in him. To his classmates he was a saint and a hero. Then, when he saw that not only did nothing disastrous happen to him after this terrifying adventure, but that on the contrary he derived from it unforeseen honours, flattering friendships and enthusiastic admiration, he began to reflect and doubt the host, the Rector, his fellow students and his own self. And, though still only in confused form, he had an inkling of life’s irony, that enormous, all-powerful irony which rules everything, even human love, even God’s justice. Unconsciously, he relaxed his pious exercises and duties. He went back to sitting with Bolorec beneath the archways near the music rooms.

  ‘When you made your first communion, what did you feel?’ he asked him one day.

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Bolorec.

  ‘I see. And the host? What exactly is the host?’

  ‘I don’t know. Papa gives it to the sick and it purges them …’

  Sébastien sat thinking for a moment, then said abruptly:

  ‘Sing me that pretty round of yours, you know, the one where you say “It all takes place on the moorland there … and they set off and they turn and come back.” ’

  At the end of the year, he won two prizes and surprised everyone, including himself.

  CHAPTER IV

  Two years went by.

  Sébastien had progressed from the juniors’ yard to the middle school yard, where life was more or less the same. Nothing of any importance had happened at school, except for the simultaneous expulsion of four pupils, attributed to improper behaviour about which there was much whispering behind hands, in low, scandalised voices. Then there was the sudden disappearance of the Le Toulic girls. Sébastien was slightly sad not to see them any more in the evening in the square with their mother, on the way back from walks. That twin presence had been a source of sweetness for him, giving tangible, charming substance to his still vague dreams and providing an emotional focus for his young flesh awakening to the chaste brightness of love. One, sadly, had died of a chest infection, the other had run away with an officer. These successive dramas gave rise to a great deal of gossip, and poor Le Toulic, shammed and distraught, kept his schoolmates at an even greater distance, his forehead more deeply furrowed, his fingers even inkier; the poor little wretch had grown almost hunchbacked from bending over his books. Some, cowardly and cruel, were jealous of his scholastic success and made fun of him. No one, apart from Sébastien, felt sorry for him, because he was not very rich, nor good at real tennis, nor much fun. Besides, everyone knew that the Jesuits had taken him on as a non-paying pupil. But he paid no attention to the cruelty and insults; silent and solitary, he merely intensified his fierce devotion to work.

  Sébastien therefore transferred his habits, his interests and his dislikes from one yard to the other and that was that. He continued his singular friendship with Bolorec, whose skill as a carver was increasing and who still dreamed of setting fire to the school and slaughtering the Jesuits. There were the same walks to the same places, along the shores, or beneath the crumbling rocks of the Roi Jean grotto, the same periodic feast days, the same oppressive, boring homework, to which he could never adjust.

  However, in the three years spent living in this little world, he had been trained in intrigue and hypocrisy and had learned not to show his feelings and thoughts openly; he learned how to conceal both his pleasures and his suffering with a miserly, jealous prudery, and learned not to throw in everyone’s face the bleeding pieces of his own heart. Without becoming suspicious or devious, he was more careful of his words and actions, particularly as far as his teachers were concerned, for the few moments of glorious release he had granted them had only afforded him momentary relief, and promises made to him were soon transformed into treachery. He resented Father de Marel for having half-opened the door to the dreamed-of Paradise and then, for no reason, shutting it brutally on his awakened hopes. Impossible as it now was for him to continue with his music lessons, and dominated and driven by an inner impulse to grasp, express and make material, so to speak, his vague, but also absolutely irresistible aspirations
towards the ideal conquest of harmony and form, he discovered a source of nourishment for his ambitions in drawing and became passionately fond of art. On the sly, a day boy brought him examples from his own home: heads with clear, fine features, Spanish muleteers with bulging calves, profiles of mythological gods, laurel-crowned busts of emperors, virgins draped in veils with symmetrical folds, Biblical figures bearing amphoras, classically branching trees. Protected from the questioning gaze of the master on duty by a pile of books, a rampart of dictionaries, he made naive copies of the drawings, seduced largely by the most accessible forms of beauty, rather empty and pretty, regular and pleasant, preferring conventionally religious facial expressions, wide, round eyes, full of meaningless ecstasy, flat coils of hair, smooth contours, elongated ovals, stiff folds. Often his examples and clumsy sketches were confiscated. So he tried to reproduce them from memory, for he had a truly amazing memory for shapes. This shortage of examples and the difficulty in getting new ones did not discourage him. He was ingenious at reproducing whatever had most struck him on his walks, preferably things evoking vigour and joy, not yet understanding the poetry of what is old, bent and frail, of what is half-hidden, veiled, nor the beauty of the sadness of stones or vast, bare spaces, or of the sallow, bony hollows carved by poverty in the faces of those who suffer. He did not experience the inspiring, lofty poignancy and sublime beauty of the ugly. At the same time, books of forbidden poetry and other proscribed books which he loved were circulating in the recreation yards. He learned by heart lines and phrases that intoxicated him and he recited them to Bolorec during recess and on walks. Pour les Pauvres, by Victor Hugo, seemed to him to be a song from heaven, divine music, a ray of pure charity, bursting from the very heart of Jesus; a few lines from Barbier’s Iambes inflamed him with furious, suppressed battle fever. This was like the revelation of a new world for him, the dazzling world towards which his instincts had always led him and which he thought was a chimera, out of reach of the clumsy grasp of man. But it existed; that world really existed. The truth lay there alone; there alone could be found the sovereign life. His spirit basked in those flashes of light. What a difference between that warm, colourful, vibrant language, which left in the air resonances of harp music and trumpet fanfares, whose every word lived, breathed and sprouted beating wings, whose every idea corresponded to a human cry, a cry of love or a cry of hate, compared with the cold, creeping, grudging language of his school books, whose enslaved words and dull ideas seemed deliberately positioned in order to block his desire to know, to feel, to be inspired, like surly park-keepers, forbidding entry to a garden full of sound and blossom, full of splendid flowers and subtle birds, where the radiant sky can be glimpsed through swaying branches. This discovery, this sudden illumination of the Word, made his schoolwork even more painful for him. To forget it more easily and to help him to endure it, he copied out the poems and worked harder on his drawing, surprised sometimes to discover mysterious analogies and similar laws between the order of the lines in art and the cadences of poetry. He was undeterred by repeated confiscations of his sketches and his notebooks, by detentions and a few days on bread and water; on the contrary, the stimulus of persecution added to his enjoyment. However, one day, something very surprising happened. As recess was finishing, Father de Kern, his director of studies, came to him and handed him back his notebooks. He was an attractive priest, with slanting, languorous eyes, a slow walk, and softly nonchalant, almost voluptuous gestures. He leaned over Sébastien, so that his breath caressed the young pupil’s face, and said in a gentle voice: