Sebastien Roch (Dedalus European Classics)

by Octave Mirbeau

  Sébastien realised the gravity of the situation and believed that he was lost and condemned. He felt small, wretched and crushed before this solemn, powerful Jesuit, who held so many destinies in his hands, whose unbearable gaze had plunged deep into so many souls, into so many things, and, regardless of what might happen, he immediately gave up any thought of defence or resistance. He had no reason to hope for pity from this man, nothing could move that marble brow, those incorruptible lips, those pale eyes. And ignorant as he was of the history of the Society of Jesus, he had a confused, irrational sense of the priest’s formidable, inexorable powers. What possible importance could the life of a child have in his concept of justice, his secret schemes? He resigned himself to the worst sufferings, and, sitting hunched on the chair, his shoulders bent, he waited, almost fainting, for what the Rector was about to tell him.

  The Rector placed a piece of paper on the desk, leaned his elbows on the armrests of his armchair and clasped his hands.

  ‘My dear child,’ he said, ‘I have to make a sad announcement to you, sad for you, sad, above all, for us, whose hearts are broken, believe me. We cannot keep you here at school any longer …’

  Sébastien made a gesture as if to say something and the Father added quickly, with an expression whose falsity grated on the child’s nerves like a finger sliding over wet glass:

  ‘Do not ask for mercy, do not beg. That would cause me unnecessary pain. Our decision is irrevocable. We have responsibility for the souls of children. The pious families who entrust their pure children to us demand that we return them to them still pure. We must be pitiless with the black sheep and drive them from the flock.’

  He shook his head and sighed sadly.

  ‘After your first communion, which touched us all, who would have expected such a scandal?’

  Sébastien had no idea what the Rector meant. He understood that he was being expelled, that was all. But why was he being expelled? Was it because of his conversation with Bolorec? Was it because of the violin? He was as confused as ever. He searched in vain for meaning and could find nothing plausible. In his innocence, too ignorant of evil to suspect such darkness, it did not occur to him that Father de Kern might be behind this crisis, denouncing Sébastien in order to rid himself of the embarrassment of his over-excited state, his over-zealous repentance. He was being expelled, that was the only clear thing. Since the Rector had started speaking, he felt relieved, not happy, but genuinely relieved, able to breathe freely and move about on his chair. He was being expelled. So, in a way, his and Bolorec’s wish was coming true. He was going to leave the school, the stifling walls, the hostility and indifference and Father de Kern. The reason didn’t matter. What did the future matter either? Wherever he was sent, he could never be as unhappy as he had been there, he could never feel more abandoned, more despised, more defiled. That was why it did not even occur to him to protest against the summary fate befalling him, or even to ask for an explanation.

  The Rector started to speak again.

  ‘Now, my dear child, think carefully about this. All sins are redeemable for anyone who sincerely wishes to repent and live according to the Lord’s commandments. Despite your sin, we feel love for you and will pray for you every day. We will follow your progress in your new life from afar, for however culpable they may be, we never abandon the sons we have raised, who have grown up with our protection and love. If later on, you are unhappy and you remember your childhood days spent in the peace of this house, come and knock at our door. It will open wide to you, and you will find loving hearts, familiar with suffering, with whom you may weep. For one day, you will weep. Now, off you go, my child.’

  Sébastien was scarcely listening to this voice, whose false affection and forced emotion he could sense; he was looking out of the window, through the gap in the curtains at a corner of the yard and at the spindly elms in whose shade he had sobbed so many times. He stood up without saying a word and took a few steps towards the door. The Rector called him back.

  ‘Your father cannot come for another four days. Have you any particular devotions you would like to carry out? Is there anything you would like to ask me?’

  Sébastien suddenly thought of Bolorec, who was also all alone in a locked room, and he overcame his timidity.

  ‘I would like to see Bolorec before leaving and say goodbye to him.’

  ‘That is not possible,’ said the Rector in a sharper tone. ‘And if you wish to retain a little of our sympathy, I suggest you forget that name.’

  ‘I would like to see Bolorec,’ insisted Sébastien. ‘He is the only person who has been kind to me; when I was unhappy and people were cruel, he never rejected me. I want to say goodbye to him, because I will never see him again.’

  But the Rector had returned to his desk and was not listening any more. Sébastien went out. The monk was waiting for him at the door, mumbling his rosary. He led him back to his room and ferreted about, checking if everything was in place.

  ‘Do you require anything, Monsieur Sébastien Roch?’ he asked as he was shutting the door. ‘Would you like some books? The Life of St Francis Xavier, our holy patron saint? It’s very interesting. If you wish, I can take you to confession.’

  ‘No, father.’

  ‘You are wrong, Monsieur Sébastien Roch. Mark my words, there is nothing more revitalising than a good confession. Monsieur Juste Durand confessed at least six times in four days. Oh, the dear child. And when I used to come in here, he was always on his knees, beating his breast. But what consolation he found too!’

  ‘But he was expelled all the same.’

  ‘Yes, but what consolation he found!’

  Left alone, Sébastien lay down on his bed. He was calmer, astonished not to feel pain, accepting almost as a deliverance the public shame of being expelled from school. Only one thing tormented him, and that was not to see Bolorec again, not even to know where he had been banished to. For a long while, he thought affectionately of Bolorec’s songs, his carvings, his short legs which always ached during the walks, that strange muteness which he could maintain for several days sometimes and which would end with a crisis of rebellion during which cruel laughter alternated with fierce anger. Of those three years, so long, so heavy, Sébastien would take only one sweet memory away with him, that of a few hours spent with this bizarre companion, who was still a puzzle to him. Of all the faces, only one would remain dear and faithful, Bolorec’s face, so plain, soft and round, that grimacing face, terrified and terrifying, with eyes that never betrayed what was really happening in his heart, and which could light up suddenly with a mysterious gleam. He also thought with compassion of poor Le Toulic, endlessly swotting, trying to gain forgiveness for having won a free place by dint of hard work, heroically enduring his schoolmates’ cruelty, understanding that he needed to regain for his inconsolable mother some of her wrecked hopes, a little of her lost happiness; and Sébastien smiled at the lovely, vanished vision of the two sisters down there in the square. But those sweet memories and those dear faces were rendered still sweeter and dearer by the many hateful memories and hated faces he had known there! Cruel, frivolous schoolfellows, indifferent, deceitful teachers! Deceit made master! Deceitful expressions of affection, deceitful lessons and prayers. Deceit everywhere, wearing a biretta and a black soutane. No, little children like him, poor, humble wretches, the anonymous ones with no position and no fortune, had nothing to hope for from those young, pitiless boys, corrupted from birth by all the prejudices of a hateful education; nothing to expect from those loveless, servile teachers either, kneeling before wealth as before a god. What had he learned? He had learned pain, and that was all. He had arrived, ignorant and pure; they were expelling him, ignorant and defiled. He had arrived full of naive faith; they were driving him out full of troubling doubts. The peace of mind and bodily tranquillity he had possessed on entering that accursed house were now replaced by a horrible, devouring void, a burden of remorse, disgust and constant anguish. And that had all bee
n accomplished in the name of Jess! They were twisting and suffocating the souls of children in the name of the one who had said: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’; of the one who cherished the unfortunate, the abandoned, the sinners, the one whose every word expressed love, justice and forgiveness. Oh, he knew all about their kind of love, justice and forgiveness! To earn it, you had to be rich and noble. When a person was neither rich nor noble, there was no love, no justice, no forgiveness. You were expelled and no one told you why!

  As Sébastien moved in his mind from the general to the particular, he encountered only images of pettiness around him, pettiness of feeling and of intellect, which now he could not help but smile at. He remembered once how he had been punished with eight days’ worth of detentions for having written in an essay the phrase: ‘the child emerging from her lacerated loins’. Oh, the blushing astonishment of the pupils and the indignation of the teacher when he read the phrase out loud: ‘the child emerging from her lacerated loins’! What a scandal in class! His neighbour had shrunk away from him; a murmur went up and down the rows of seats. He was asked: ‘Where did you learn such indecencies, such filth? It is shameful! You describe things of which you should know nothing. I enjoin you to keep yourself under stricter control.’ He had imagined something! So it was a crime to imagine things? He had sought beautiful, expressive, living words. Was that forbidden, then? Besides which, that was the only occasion on which his teacher had ever addressed him directly. The rest of the time he took no notice of him, leaving him hunched at the end of the table, and reserving his benevolence and patience for the others. He had been judged a dangerous, rebellious spirit from whom no good would come. Father Dumont would say, using an abundance of bold metaphors: ‘He is a little serpent we are warming in our bosoms. He is only a grass snake at the moment, but just you wait and see.’ Whenever there was some favour to be bestowed, he was excluded. He had never been allowed to be part of any special society or favoured group. Even at mealtimes things were organised so that he was served last and so only ate what the others had rejected. ‘And their lottery?’ he thought. ‘I never win anything. Guy de Kerdaniel always wins the large prizes.’ He considered all these minor resentments, these little deceits and vexations and exaggerated them, enlarged them, whipping up his own jealousy towards other pupils and hatred towards the teachers, so as to give himself courage. But he did not succeed. As the minutes flew by, his uncertainties were reborn; apprehension regarding the future reared up, pregnant with menace and difficulty. The interview with his father, the journey home, his entombment in the house in Pervenchères, the shame that awaited him there, the shame that he would leave behind him here, all of this undermined his false sense of security, overcame his rancour. Besides, it was all very well telling himself that it would be impossible to live here from now on in this hostile environment, where everything would remind him of his mistake, but he felt powerfully rooted there, he felt the attachment that animals feel for the place where they have suffered. He was only counting the pain; but had he not tasted joys as well, precious joys which he could not regret? Would he ever find the equal of the sea, the walks back from Pen-Boc’h, the music in the chapel, Bolorec, and even, though he hated to admit it to himself, the delicious evenings at the dormitory window, when Father de Kern would recite poetry and speak to him of immortal works of art.

  He carried on thinking like this until evening, feeling sometimes resigned, sometimes rebellious; one moment determined to demand an explanation from the Rector, the next, saying to himself: ‘What’s the point? It’s best that I go. There are just eight bad days to get through and I will probably be very happy far from here.’ When the monk came to bring him his food, he found Sébastien lying on his bed, his eyes vague, lost in a distant dream.

  ‘Now, now, Monsieur Sébastien Roch!’ he exclaimed. ‘And there was I hoping to surprise you at prayer. Oh, you wouldn’t have caught Monsieur Juste Durand, the dear child, just lying on his bed. And I bet you don’t even have a rosary.’

  ‘No, Father, I don’t.’

  ‘No rosary! No rosary! And here I am bringing you a pear, Monsieur Sébastien Roch, a pear culled from the tree of the Reverend Fathers. No rosary. Oh, blessed St Labre! How do you expect to have a peaceful heart? I’m going to lend you mine. I have twelve of them.’

  ‘Thank you, Father, but couldn’t you just tell me where Bolorec is?’

  ‘Monsieur Bolorec? I don’t know! Monsieur Bolorec is where he is, you are where you are, I am where I am, and the good Lord is everywhere. That’s about all I know, Monsieur Sébastien Roch.’

  Sébastien leaped up from his bed and asked sharply:

  ‘Now then, Father, tell me why I am being expelled.’

  ‘Why?’ cried the monk, putting his hands together. ‘Oh, great St Francis Xavier! I don’t know whether they are going to expel you! I don’t know anything! How do you expect a monk, that is to say, a creature of less importance than a rat, than a maggot, than a slug, to know anything? Monsieur Juste Durand, the dear child, would never have asked me such questions.’

  Imprisoned in that silence, amid such ugliness, Sébastien found the next four days very painful. In the morning, he heard mass alone in a small chapel. In the afternoon, at the time when classes were held, he had an hour’s walk in the garden or the grounds, led by the monk, who was kindly and talkative, but unbending in his mission. Sébastien did not attempt to question him any further, realising it was pointless, and instead remained silent, walking beside that fat fellow who soon got out of breath and had to stop every hundred paces to gather his strength.

  ‘Look, Monsieur Sébastien Roch,’ he might say. ‘Look at this lovely pear tree and what fine pears! This year no one has any fruit … only here … The good Lord protects our trees. God is good, ah, God is good.’

  In the grounds, in front of the statues of the Virgin, the rustic altars or the grottoes decorated with pious images, the monk, gasping, would command:

  ‘Stop here! A little prayer, I think, Monsieur Sébastien Roch …’

  And they would kneel down, the monk making broad signs of the cross, Sébastien, his gaze lost in the distance, breathing in the scent of the foliage and listening to the sounds. Between the trunks, between the leaves, beyond the terraces, in the distance, he could just make out the school façade, mute and grey, with its treacherous cross on top. They never met another living soul. If they so much as glimpsed a priest as they turned a corner, they immediately retraced their steps or changed direction. Once, Sébastien thought he recognised Father de Marel; another time he imagined he saw Bolorec passing by, accompanied, like himself, by a monk.

  ‘No, no, it’s not him,’ protested the monk. ‘It’s nothing at all. What are you thinking of, Monsieur Sébastien Roch?’

  The rest of the day, locked in his room, he spent the interminable hours daydreaming or worrying; or watching the clouds scudding by above the rooftops. Too anxious and troubled to immerse himself in some quiet task, he read none of the books brought to him and did not attempt to distract himself with any work. At recreation times, he leaned on his elbows at the open window and listened to the distant noises coming from the yards, a familiar, confused buzzing which alone proved to him that there was life and movement somewhere nearby. His spirit returned there. Through the walls he saw once more the yards bright with a thousand games and with animated faces, the supple movements of his schoolfellows, the priests under the elms, the fights, the laughter. There was Le Toulic, leaning against the fence, with his bent back and his consumptive pallor, his forehead already lined like an old man’s, learning his lessons, stubborn, dogged, struggling with all his will against the slowness of his intelligence and his obstinate memory. There was Guy de Kerdaniel, insolent and cruel, surrounded by his gang; there was Kerral, skipping about, in search of someone unhappy to console. There was also the now empty place, their place, his and Bolorec’s, on the steps of the cloisters, where the sparrows fretted not to see them any more and not
to hear their songs; all those things, all those faces were about to fade and disappear for ever. What did they think of him? What were they saying about him and this sudden, unforeseen separation? Probably nothing. A child arrives: everyone throws stones at him and insults him. A child leaves, and it’s all over. On to the next. What astonished him was that Father de Kern had never come to visit him. It seemed to him that he ought to have done, or at least to have enquired about his state of mind, to prove to him that not all compassion was dead in his heart.

  ‘Has Father de Kern not spoken to you about me?’ he asked the monk every time he came into the room.

  ‘And why should the Reverend Father speak to me about you? I am nothing. A lion, Monsieur Sébastien Roch, does not speak to an earthworm.’

  This caused Sébastien real pain, mingled with frustration, frustration that he meant nothing in the life of that man, not even a moment’s remorse.

  Left to his own devices for most of the time, seated or lying on his bed, his body inactive, he was also scarcely able to defend himself against the temptations which assailed him, more numerous and more precise each day, against the unbridled madness of the impure images inflaming his brain, scourging his flesh, driving him to shameful relapses, immediately followed by self-disgust and bouts of prostration during which his soul sank down as if into death. Afterwards, he would fall into an agitated, painful sleep, interspersed width nightmares and a feeling of suffocation; his dreams were terrible, as if he were emerging from the heavy, terrifying darkness of a would-be suicide.