Sebastien Roch (Dedalus European Classics)

by Octave Mirbeau

  ‘And since then, my dear child, I live in love, true love, the immense love of Jesus. Ah, people are mad who go to other human creatures for brief intoxications, brief ecstasies, when those which the divine possession of the body of Jesus confers on us are infinite, inexpressible. Forgetting oneself in him, becoming one with him. Tracing the line of that adorable body with one’s repentant lips, pressing one’s mouth to the gaping wounds on that suffering flank, kissing the broken limbs, feeling against one’s mortal flesh the searing heat of that celestial flesh. Where might one find comparable delights? Where might one dream of finding similar, limitless joys, which death itself cannot end?’

  Gradually, Sébastien became engulfed by an enervating, sensual atmosphere in which, beneath the veil of divine love that masked all the carnal excitement, physical arousal and base depravity that rise from virgin sex organs to an already tainted mind, day by day, hour by hour, without him even realising or suspecting it, he was losing his moral equilibrium, his spiritual health, his instinctive honesty. He did not resist, he could not resist the corruption of his little soul, which had been skilfully saturated in poetry, chloroformed by ideas, overcome by the corrosive, emasculating morphine of ungraspable desires. For this secret, continual, invasive work, Father de Kern enlisted the aid of the sun, the mist, the sea, the languid evenings, the starry nights, the whole of nature, which submitted like an old whore to the monstrous concupiscence of one man. Neither nature nor priest addressed themselves directly to the child’s lower organs, nor did they attempt to excite the vulgar appetites which lie deep in the purest of hearts. It was through his finest and most noble qualities, through the generosity of his intelligence, by gaining the confidence of his mind that they instilled in him, drop by drop, the mortal poison. They chose their moment well for the rape of a delicate, passionate, excessively sensitive soul surrounded by tempting traps, attacked at the very roots of his intellectual life. Those obsessive conversations, those tormenting, corrupting dreams, provoked in Sébastien troubling, physical symptoms of an abnormal nature, like the symptoms of a serious illness. A surge of hot blood swelled and burned in his veins; his distended muscles stimulated his tormented flesh; he felt dizzy and had blackouts, nocturnal emissions, the erotic excretions by which, in precocious temperaments, the first upheavals of puberty announce themselves.

  That evening, the pupils had all gone to confession. The following day, they were to take communion at daybreak and then set off immediately on a pilgrimage to Sainte-Anne-d’Auray; this was an annual pilgrimage looked forward to with great impatience as a pleasurable day out. The clock was striking nine when Sébastien and a few tardy companions came back from the chapel and went into the dormitory. Father de Kern was seated near the open window, one elbow casually resting on the sill, apparently deep in his own thoughts. The day had been scorching hot; storm-charged breezes stirred the stifling air. Huge clouds gathered, veiling the moon; the wind had got up, shaking the trees in the garden, eliciting dull groans, like the sound of a distant sea breaking on the shore. Father de Kern stopped Sébastien as he was about to take up his usual place.

  ‘I was just thinking about you, my dear child,’ he said, when the other pupils had gone to their beds. ‘Are you taking communion tomorrow? It’s such a wonderful occasion. I still remember your first communion. It was so moving. It was from that moment that I first began to take an interest in you, to love you. You are so different from all the others here. Every second I discover in you exceptional qualities which I strive to develop and direct. I talk to you as I would never talk to anyone else, because you understand, you feel things which not one of your fellows feels or understands. If I could be your sole teacher, I think I could make something of you, something great, I have often thought about it. Ah, yes, I would like that …’

  He sighed and looked out at the stormy night, the turbulent sky, across which rode enormous, gloomy waves lit by the moon that edged the clouds with a dazzling, metallic glow. After musing for a few minutes, he spoke again in a sad voice.

  ‘The only problem is that you do not trust me. You look upon me as a teacher, when, my dear child, I am your friend, the friend of your heart, of your mind, the friend of all you dream of and of all that is in you, unknown to you, but known to me. Ah, how it torments me.’

  He fell silent. The dormitory was quiet again. A sudden gust of wind, more violent than before, shook the roof above them. Dislodged slates flew and fell into the yard. Father de Kern closed the window.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  He walked past the row of cubicles, went out of the dormitory, down the stairs, along corridors dimly lit by the beam of a dying lamp, along dark corridors where the moonlight fell on the flagstones and traced in dingy white the rectangles of the windows and the shadows cast by the mullions. Sébastien followed him without thinking. Where were they going in this murky, flickering light, in this monastic gloom, so full of silence, in this solitude, where their steps could scarcely be heard? He did not think to ask himself.

  ‘Walk more quietly!’ hissed the priest, who, very cautiously, eyes darting, ears pricked, advanced on tiptoe, keeping close to the walls.

  Sébastien tried to emulate the movements of his guide. He felt no doubt, no fear. He felt only surprise, a not unpleasant surprise, to be walking through entirely unfamiliar areas of the school at that hour of the night, down tortuous staircases, sharply twisting corridors, across lugubrious landings where the shadows were thickest, and where smoky lanterns glowed in the shifting, dissolute dark. At last, they stopped outside a door, which the priest opened soundlessly.

  ‘Go in,’ he said.

  Sébastien, who was shivering a little now, hesitated, so Father de Kern took him by the hand, drew him into the darkness and closed the door, bolting it carefully behind him. Sébastien had felt that damp hand in his and it was trembling. He shuddered. At that moment, he felt fear – a terrible, racking fear – the fear of all those steps he had gone down, of all those corridors he had walked along, all those dim lights, all those unfamiliar shadows, and, above all, of the blackness where he stood alone with that man. At first, he could see nothing but a wan film of light, sinisterly projected onto the ceiling and the floor through the closed shutters of the window. It was a funereal light, it had an opaque pallor, the dead whiteness of linen. All around this pool of light, where the shadow of Father de Kern passed back and forth, was darkness, a nightmare darkness; it was not impenetrable, however, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he could make out vague objects, the blurred outlines of furniture, incomplete shapes and, in the background, against what looked like a wall, something horizontal, rigid and long, like a tomb. Why was he there? What diabolical force had driven him to come there, to follow the priest, all unknowing, unquestioning, unsuspecting? Why, if the priest’s intentions were honourable, had he been so obviously afraid of meeting anyone? Why had he behaved with all the care and caution of a burglar fearing apprehension or of a criminal on his way to commit a crime? What was he going to do that was so terrifying? Tragic tales of murders and throat-cuttings assailed him. He panicked. He thought he could make out terrifying, murderous faces, strangling hands, raised knives. On the floor, in the square of light, the shadow of the priest swayed like that of a hanged man. The wind had dropped. He could hear nothing now but a dull, distant sobbing, the indescribable sound of stifled moans. The priest did not speak. He came and went, barely visible. But his presence filled the night with a supernatural terror. His presence was revealed only by a series of thuds, bumps and rustlings, which left behind them strange echoes. Sébastien heard the click of locks, the chink of glass, a multitude of sounds the cause of which, in that place, terrified him. What was he preparing? What torture? What torment? What death? He thought of walks at Pen-Boc’h, of the sea, of Bolorec; he clung desperately to calm, cheerful thoughts, to thoughts of all those who might care for and protect him: his father, Madame Lecautel, Marguerite. But these evocations quickly fled, disappea
red one by one, like frightened birds that rise up from thick hedges and fly off, shrieking. He was suffocating. He broke out in a cold sweat; his legs buckled.

  ‘Father! Father!’ he begged.

  ‘Quiet, my child. Someone might hear us.’

  That voice, in the shadows, sounded so odd, so abrupt, so strained, that it only intensified Sébastien’s terror. Someone might hear? But he wanted to be heard. Oh, if only someone would hear him! He cried out louder.

  ‘Father! Please, I beg you, please take me back to the dormitory. Take me back …’

  ‘Shut up, you little idiot. What are you afraid of?’

  The priest was next to him, groping for his hand. He murmured:

  ‘Calm down, my dear child, and don’t be afraid. Why must you always be afraid of me? What have I done to deserve that? Come along now, come along …’

  He drew him gently further into the room and sat him on the edge of the bed.

  ‘You’re trembling, poor thing. Come, drink a little of this. It will do you good.’

  He pressed a glass full of some strong, scented beverage to the boy’s lips and said again:

  ‘You’re trembling.’

  When Sébastien had swallowed a few mouthfuls of the liqueur, the priest struck a match on his soutane and lit a cigarette. In the brief, bright glow, the boy glimpsed a light, clean, austere room, with white-wood furniture and, in the middle of the whitewashed wall facing him, a crucifix and, here and there, some holy pictures. The cleanliness of the room, simple as a monk’s cell, the reassuring presence of religious objects, lessened his fears. But the cigarette, whose perfumed smoke filled the room, astonished him and replaced all his terrors of a few moments ago with an almost amused, puzzled curiosity.

  The priest sat down next to him and remained silent for a few moments. Feeling less worried now, Sébastien breathed in the smell of the tobacco, flaring his nostrils, and followed the glowing tip of the cigarette, which flitted through the renewed darkness, capricious as a lustrous fly.

  ‘Have you calmed down now?’ asked Father de Kern, in such a gentle whisper that it barely broke the silence in the room.

  Sighing, he added in a tone of affectionate reproach:

  ‘Why do you not trust me? Have I not shown to you a thousand times and in a thousand different ways that I love you? What is it that you’re afraid of, my child? Tell me. Is it the darkness? Of course, it must have upset that sensitive imagination of yours. Dear little heart that I love so much, even in its weaknesses. But don’t you, on the contrary, find this darkness quite delightful? And the words spoken in it, are they not more beautiful, murmured so low that they seem to come from far off, from the beyond …? You will grow to love this retreat, so peaceful, so far from everyone else, so far from all noise … I will recite poetry to you, I will tell you beautiful tales from history. You will see how exquisite the night can be, in this chapel-like solitude, this untroubled, forest-like peace, where everything comes to life, where everything lives again, and takes on the glorious colours of mystery and dreams. How often, when I was sad and despairing, when it seemed to me that Jesus’ heart was closed to me, how often have I taken refuge in this room. If you knew, my dear child, how I have prayed here, what happy tears I have shed here. It is here that Jesus appears most clearly to me, where I touch his real flesh, so beloved of pain and sorrow … here where the ecstasy of loving him is boundless. Oh, my dear child, if you only knew!’

  He had come closer to Sébastien, his hand gripping the boy’s hand. His voice had started to falter. His words were guttural explosions, broken by nervous tremors. He said again:

  ‘Oh … yes … how I have … prayed here …’

  Despite his fear, Sébastien could not help noting mischievously that such exalted piety, such ardent, religious ecstasies, accorded ill with the more worldly pleasures of smoking cigarettes and drinking glasses of liqueur. Nevertheless, he was troubled by the priest’s unusual agitation, by his legs rubbing against his own legs, and, above all, by that hand. That hand was stroking his body, at first, light and timid, then impatient and bold. It was groping, clasping, gripping.

  Now Sébastien was sitting, legs dangling, on the edge of the bed, half-clothed, exhausted, alone. Alone? Yes. He stretched out his hand and felt about him: nothing. He stretched out his hand and felt the rumpled blankets. He was alone. His limbs felt limp, his face burned painfully. His brain felt bruised and heavy, terribly heavy, so heavy that he felt he could not lift his head. In his recollection of events there was a gap, a gap filled by a brusque, violent, terrible caress. Was he dreaming? No, he wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t dreaming because the priest was there too. He was there, ferreting about in the darkness. His silhouette walked back and forth, black, agile, infernal, in the rectangle of pale light that had lengthened obliquely across the floor until it divided the whole room in two with its swathe of grubby whiteness, like a shroud. He heard the same bumps and thuds, the same rustlings as when he had first come in … how long ago? In the far, far distance, muffled by the intervening walls, the wind groaned and moaned, sombre, monotonous.

  ‘Drink a little of this my child, it will do you good.’

  The sound of the priest’s voice made him jump. However, he drank avidly from the glass offered him. He had a burning thirst, an unquenchable thirst. He drank a few mouthfuls.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said mechanically.

  Then he heard the same clicking of locks, the same chinking of glass. Then he saw the room lit up in the glow of a match, he saw the priest lighting a cigarette, the little red brand burning and dancing in the shadows. He felt no hatred, because his head was empty of all thought. No moral impression remained in his mind of the abominable thing that had just taken place, the crime – the most cowardly and hateful of all crimes – the murder of the soul of a child. He felt a great lassitude in his spine, a thirst that parched his throat, a general weariness in his limbs and all his flesh, which left no room for any other sensation, but he felt no mental pain. Noticing that he was partly undressed, he adjusted his clothing and then remained motionless. He would have liked a drink. The sound of water sang in his ears, fountains of clear water appeared in cool landscapes beneath hanging branches and flowering creepers; he breathed in the scent of damp grass, leaned over the edge of a well. He wished he could lie down on the bed as if on a bed of moss and sleep for a long time; he wished, above all, not to see the pale light of the moon cutting the room in two, but to stay in the shadows for ever. He was troubled by the idea of going back along those corridors, of climbing those stairs, of the murky light, of the dormitory.

  The priest came and sat down next to him. Sébastien felt the weight of his body against his own. He did not pull away.

  ‘Leave me alone, Father,’ he said. ‘Leave me alone.’

  There was sadness in his voice, but no terror or disgust. The priest grew bolder.

  ‘Leave me alone. Please, leave me alone.’

  He dared to speak out because of the shadows enveloping them both, hiding that face, those eyes. He realised that, in the light, he would have been incapable of speech, that the sight of the man would henceforth be unbearable, that he would never again be able to meet his eye and that he would die of shame. He was weighed down by the thought of being haunted from then on by that continuous presence, by the tormenting, unremittingly vivid image of that stain, recalled at every moment, the certainty that he would never be able to escape that obsession, not during classes or during recess or on walks or in the dormitory, where the shadow of the priest on the curtains of the cell would come each evening to remind him of the indelible horror of that night. Oh, why had he not listened to his instinct! Why, despite his sense of foreboding, had he allowed himself to be ensnared by the man’s soothing words, by his poisoned counsel, his poetry and his affection, which all only masked the crime? And what annoyed him was that he felt no hatred towards this criminal. He was not angry with him; he was angry with himself for his own absurd, conniving trust.
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br />   ‘Now then, my child,’ said the priest, ‘You must go back.’

  And cynically, groping with his hand to reassure himself that Sébastien’s clothes were all in place, he asked:

  ‘Have you done your trousers up?’

  ‘No, no, leave me be. I don’t want to go back. Don’t touch me. Yes, I’ve done my trousers up.’

  ‘We can’t stay here any longer, it’s already late.’

  ‘No, no, leave me be.’

  ‘Sébastien, my child, my dear child, please understand that it’s impossible …’

  ‘I know, I know! But I want to stay here. Let me be.’

  There was a silence. The priest got up and paced the room, worried. He had not foreseen this stubborn, childish resistance, this implacable obstinacy that could be his undoing. He had a swift, clear vision of the problems, the disgust, the scandal which would be the inevitable consequence: disciplinary action, exile to some far-off place or else abandoning the priesthood altogether and being cast into the grubby margins of society. What could he do, though, if Sébastien refused to leave? Reason no longer reached this mind so shaken and concussed that the most resilient of human instincts, self-preservation had been shattered. Should he use force? That did not bear thinking about. The shouting and the struggle would have been even worse than this exasperating inertia. Then he reproached himself bitterly for this adventure in which he had failed to taste the promised pleasures. ‘I thought he was better prepared,’ he said to himself. ‘I should have waited.’ The future worried him too. ‘I hope I can get him to go back. But what about tomorrow? The little fool is quite capable of giving me away by giving himself away.’ He had lured many others into that room and they had come, some already corrupt, others still innocent, but none had made these deplorable scenes. For a moment, in the obscene darkness, where, transfixed and gripped by shame, Sébastien sat on the sullied bed, the priest savoured the memory of the procession of little martyrs, little deflowered creatures, his startled prey, docile or anguished, either instantly overcome by fear or made submissive by pleasure. But what if the morning found them both there, cutting off their retreat. He thought how sweet murder would be, if it were not impossible in the circumstances and in that place, and what a relief he would feel if he no longer had to take account of this miserable, obscure, little existence, this human larva in which the flower of the vice he loved refused to bloom.