Clochemerle

by Gabriel Chevallier

  On reaching François Toumignon, he addressed a few sharp words to him, in which there was a suspicion of good-natured chaff despite the fact that an outrage had been committed on the sanctity of the church, the like of which no beadle in Clochemerle had ever known or heard of. It was, in fact, the very enormity of the crime which precluded Nicolas from forming a true estimate of it. The motive which had formerly prompted him to aspire to the honorable position of beadle at Clochemerle was not so much a taste for prestige of the kind associated with a post in the constabulary, as a complete physical suitability, for which he was indebted to the mysterious workings of Nature in his lower limbs. His thighs were of fine proportions and outline, fleshy, hard, and with a faultless outward curve in the upper portion, and thus perfectly adapted for molding in purple breeches which attracted all eyes to this example of anatomical perfection. As for Nicolas’ calves, finer far than those of a Claudius Brodequin, they owed nothing to artifice. All that bulge in his white stockings was due to muscle, and to muscle alone; a splendid pair they were, like heads of oxen beneath the yoke, enabling him at each step forward to make a majestic effort which swelled and shifted their noble substance. From the groin to the tips of his toes, Nicolas could have borne comparison with the Farnese Hercules. These fine physical endowments inclined him far more to displays of his legs than to disciplinary interventions. Thus it was that, taken aback by the novelty of this form of sacrilege, all he could find to say to the culprit was:

  “Shut your mouth and clear out at once, François!”

  This was indeed the language of restraint, lenient, kindly words to which François Toumignon would assuredly have yielded, had it not been a day which followed a night of carousal during which he had drunk an imprudent quantity of the best Clochemerle wine. There was another circumstance which made the matter still worse, that near the font were standing his witnesses, Torbayon, Laroudelle, Poipanel, and others, watching attentively and silently jeering at him. Nominally partisans of Toumignon, they could not believe that their man, an unkempt untidy fellow, unaccustomed to wearing a collar, unshaven, with crooked tie and rumpled hair, and a wife whose notorious infidelity was a source of amusement in the town, could offer any serious resistance to the massive Nicolas, with all his prestige as a beadle, wearing his crossbelt, his two-cornered hat with plumes, a sword at his side, and carrying his fringed halberd with its studded handle. Toumignon was conscious of this lack of confidence in him, which was giving the beadle the upper hand from the start. This had the effect of steadying him, and he continued stubbornly to grin in the direction of the Curé Ponosse, a silent figure in the pulpit. Nicolas thereupon resumed his efforts, slightly raising his voice:

  “Don’t be a fool, François! Get out, clear off, and double-quick, too!”

  His tone was threatening, and his words were followed by smiles among the spectators, somewhat half-hearted perhaps, but an indication of a firm intention on their part to side with authority. These smiles only served to increase Toumignon’s exasperation at the consciousness of his own weakness, in face of the immobility and glamour of Nicolas’ bulky form. He replied:

  “I’m not going to be turned out by you, with all your fancy dress!”

  It may well be supposed that Toumignon thought by these words to disguise his defeat and follow it up promptly by an honorable retreat. With such words as these a proud man may still preserve his self-respect. But at this moment an incident occurred which put the finishing touch to the general consternation. In the midst of the group of pious women and Children of Mary assembled near the harmonium, a salver placed there for the collection suddenly fell with a loud clatter. It spread over the floor a regular hail of two-franc pieces, every one of which had been provided by the Curé Ponosse himself, who made use of this innocent stratagem to incite his flock to greater liberality, for they were far too inclined to resort to copper coin for the purpose of their offerings. At the idea of so many good two-franc pieces becoming lost, stolen, or strayed in every corner of the church, within reach of a lot of wretched vulgar gossips whose avarice far exceeded their piety, those pure and saintly maidens, completely losing their heads, squatted down to search for the coins amid the din and clatter of chairs pushed aside or turned topsy-turvy. All the while they shouted out one to another their estimates of a total haul which was continually increasing. Drowning this tumultuous chorus of silvery voices, another voice, shrill and piercing, was heard to utter this cry, which settled the matter once and for all:

  “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

  It was the voice of Justine Putet—always to the fore when there was a good fight on hand—who was stepping into the breach which the Curé Ponosse had failed to hold. The latter, as we have seen, was a feeble orator who, on an occasion when he was precluded from preaching an ordinary sermon in which there was no need for inventiveness, hadn’t an idea in his head. Utterly overwhelmed by the scandalous outbreak, he besought Heaven for some kind of inspiration which would enable him to restore peace and order and secure a victory for the cause of right and justice. Alas, at that hour no angel of light was hovering over the region of Clochemerle. The Curé Ponosse was at his wit’s end; he had grown too accustomed to count upon the indulgence of Heaven for the unraveling of human entanglements.

  But Justine Putet’s cry had made the beadle’s duty plain. Going up threateningly to Toumignon, he apostrophized him in a vigorous outburst heard all over the church:

  “Once again I’m telling you to get out of that door immediately, or I’ll kick your behind for you, François!”

  At this point, from confused and beclouded brains, a whirlwind of pent-up passions broke loose, with such violence that each and all forgot themselves, forgot the majesty of that holy place, and cared not how loud they spoke. Words came rushing to the tongue, recklessly and at random, and were hurled from the mouth with diabolical violence, propelled by the awful forces of mental agitation and tumult. The situation should be clearly understood. Stirred by two hostile enthusiasms, religious and Republican, Nicolas and Toumignon were preparing to raise their voices to such an extent that the whole church could follow the details of their quarrel; and these would inevitably be repeated by those there assembled to the whole of Clochemerle. Their vanity was too deeply involved, their principles too much endangered, for either adversary to be able to give way. There would be insults from both men, blows given and received. The same insults, the same blows would be placed at the service of the good cause as of the bad; and indeed neither cause would be distinguishable from the other, so confused would be the conflict, so deplorable the abuse on either side.

  Nicolas’ insulting threat is parried by Toumignon, who has taken up a safe position behind a barrier of chairs:

  “Come on and do it, then, you good-for-nothing idle dog!”

  “I’ll do it before you know where you are, you wretched little pygmy!” Nicolas replies.

  Any reference to his unfortunate physique drives Toumignon into a frenzy. He shouts out:

  “You damned coward!”

  You may be a beadle in full dress and, as such, in a position to disregard insinuations of any kind. But there are nevertheless certain words which constitute an irreparable outrage on your manly self-respect. Nicolas completely loses all self-control.

  “Coward yourself, you wretched cuckold!”

  At this direct hit Toumignon turns pale, takes two steps forward, and plants himself aggressively under the beadle’s very nose:

  “Say that again, you curé’s lap dog!”

  “Cuckold, then, for the second time! And let me add, a woman’s good-for-nothing!”

  “Some men’s wives couldn’t go wrong if they wanted to, you lousy swine! That yellow hide of hers won’t get your wife many customers. You’ve been hanging round Judith, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been hanging round her? I have? Don’t you dare say such a thing to me!”

  “Yes, you swine, you have. But what did she do? She just kicked you out. S
he sent you away with a flea in your ear, she did, you church dummy!”

  It will be seen from the foregoing that no power on earth can now restrain these two men, whose honor, with the subject of their wives dragged into the dispute, has been publicly assailed. It so happens that Mme. Nicolas is seated in the nave. She is a woman of faded appearance, regarded by none other as a rival, but Nicolas’ calves have brought her many secret enemies. Many eyes are turned in her direction. It is true she has a yellow skin! But more than all else the quarrel has brought to mind a picture of Judith Toumignon, in all her splendor, with the rich abundance of her lovely milk-white flesh, her bold sweeping contours, her magnificent projections of poop and prow. A mental image of the lovely Judith invades and fills the holy place and reigns supreme, a frightful incarnation of lewdness, a satanic vision, convulsed and writhing in the shameful pleasures of guilty love. It makes the chorus of pious women shudder in terror and disgust. From this forlorn group there mounts upwards a sound of wailing and lamentation, muffled and long-drawn-out, like that of Holy Week. One woman, shocked and revolted, falls in a swoon on the harmonium, which gives out a sound as of distant thunder as though a herald of the wrath to come. The Curé Ponosse is bathed in perspiration. Disorder and confusion have reached their utmost limit. Shouts and cries, now uttered in fury, are still resounding everywhere, bursting like bombs beneath the low-vaulted roof, whence they rebound and strike the figures of horror-stricken saints.

  “Coward!”

  “Cuckold!”

  There is now pandemonium, utter and complete, blasphemous, infernal. Which of the two moved first, which struck the first blow, none can tell. But Nicolas has raised his halberd like a bludgeon. He brings it down with full force on Toumignon’s head. The halberd is a weapon intended rather for ornamental purposes than for active use, and the staff has gradually become worm-eaten as the result of prolonged sojourn in a cupboard in the vestry. This staff breaks, and the best portion of it, that which bears the spearhead, rolls on the ground. Toumignon hurls himself upon the shaft, which Nicolas is still holding, seizes it with both hands, and, with this fragment of wood between himself and the beadle, aims a series of treacherous kicks at the base of his stomach. This attack being concentrated upon attributes of his ecclesiastical functions, that is, his thighs and purple breeches, Nicolas thereupon gives a display of crushing and destructive vigor, by which Toumignon is hurled backwards, thereby throwing a whole row of chairs into confusion. Feeling that victory is already within his grasp, the beadle dashes forward. Thereupon a chair, held by the back, is brandished aloft by someone, with the intention of hurling it through the air in a devastating flight which would doubtless be brought to a full stop with shattering force on someone’s head—Nicolas’ for choicer But that flight never takes place. The chair has come into violent contact with the beautiful colored plaster statue of Saint Roch, the patron saint of Clochemerle, the gift of no less a person that Baroness Alphonsine de Courtebiche. Saint Roch receives the blow on his side, he reels, sways a little on the edge of his pedestal, and finally collapses into the font which stands just beneath him, where, alas, he is guillotined on the sharp edge of the stone. His haloed head rolls away to join Nicolas’ halberd on the flagstones, and his nose is broken, which straightway deprives the saint of all appearance of a personage rejoicing in eternal bliss and a protector from plague. The catastrophe is followed by inexpressible confusion.

  In their consternation and dismay, a long-drawn-out groan of horror escapes from the group of pious women. Timidly they make the sign of the Cross in face of these first fruits of the Apocalypse which are being unveiled before their eyes at the back of the church. There is now a ceaseless booming roar of sound arising from the abominable sorceries of the Evil One, embodied in the sallow unwholesome figure of Toumignon, known for a drunken dissolute person, who in addition has just revealed himself as a savage iconoclast, a man who would trample on anything, a man ready to defy Heaven and earth. These pious women, gripped by the fear of divine wrath, are awaiting the thunderous sound of an elemental clash of the stars in Heaven. They expect a rain of ashes to fall over Clochemerle, singled out like some new Gomorrah by the powers of vengeance because of the shameless use which Judith Toumignon, the Scarlet Woman, has made of her evil beauty. Moments of unspeakable terror are these. The pious women utter bleating cries of fear, while they press to their insignificant bosoms scapularies shriveled by their sweat. The Children of Mary are transformed into swooning maidens convinced of pursuit by hordes of demons with monstrous attributes, whose obscene and burning tracks they feel upon the trembling flesh of their virgin bodies. An overwhelming sense of the approaching end of all things, mingled with odors of death and of carnal love, sweeps through the church of Clochemerle. It was at this moment that Justine Putet, with undaunted heart and stirred by the hatred of men with which an enforced virginity has filled her, gives indication of her strength. This skinny form, the color of an old quince, has dreadful growths of superfluous hair, and its withered skin falls into creases at points where, in other women, it is a covering for a gentle rich abundance beneath. This scraggy form, this unremitting Fury, is hoisted on to a prie-dieu and from there, with a look of defiance at the incompetent Ponosse, points out to him, in a blaze of warlike passion, the road to martyrdom by intoning an ecstatic miserere of exorcism.

  Alas, not a soul will follow her example! The other women, creatures with no backbone, who can only stand and moan, good enough for housework or nursing children but mere ninnies and simpletons for the most part, congenitally disposed to give way on every occasion in accordance with the tradition of woman in subjection—all these women stand gaping open-mouthed. With their hearts melting within them, a sinking in the pits of their stomachs, and their legs giving way beneath them, they wait for the heavens to rain fire or the angels of extermination to come rushing upon them like squads of rural constables.

  In the meantime, the fight has begun again at the back of the church with renewed intensity. No one knows whether the beadle is now attempting to avenge Saint Roch, martyred in effigy, or the insults to Mme. Nicolas and the Curé Ponosse. Probably no distinction is made between either duty in the unsubtle beadle’s mind, for his head is better adapted for wearing ceremonial plumes than for carrying ideas. However that may be, Nicolas charges down like a bull in blind rage upon Toumignon, who is crouching back against a pillar with a face that shows a crafty expression and a greenish pallor, like that of a hunted criminal waiting for an opportunity to plunge his knife. Nicolas’ broad hairy hands swoop down on the little man and clasp him with the strength of a gorilla. But in Toumignon’s puny frame there is stored up a reserve of power, born of rage and fury, that is quite beyond the ordinary. He has an ingenuity for causing pain; which enormously increases the effectiveness of the weapons he uses, his nails, his teeth, his elbows, and his knees. Giving up all hope of being able to tackle a massive frame encased in gilt ornaments and buttons, Toumignon makes a treacherous and violent attack with his feet, aimed at the most vulnerable portions of Nicolas’ anatomy. Then, taking advantage of a momentary lack of concentration on his adversary’s part, with a violent tug he loosens the lobe of his left ear. Blood makes its appearance. The bystanders think that the time has come to intervene.

  “Oh, but you don’t want to fight!” So say these good hypocrites, rejoicing at the bottom of their hearts over this incident, which will make a priceless subject for discussion during the long winter evenings.

  They throw their arms tightly around the combatants’ shoulders, trying to reconcile them. But, in so doing, they themselves become involved with the distorted limbs of two men mad with rage and fury. Several of these half-hearted peacemakers, their balance upset by shoves and pushes which spin them around like tops, are sent flying and collapse onto piles of chairs which are dispersed in all directions with a resounding clatter. On this confused heap, studded with a few treacherous nails and numerous projecting wooden pegs, Jules Laroudelle impales h
imself with a cry of pain, while Benoît Ploquin tears his Sunday trousers with a despairing “Good God!”

  So violent is the uproar at this moment that it has just aroused the sexton Coiffenave from the semisomnolent state into which his deafness habitually plunges him. This individual spends his time in a small dark side chapel where, thanks to his dull colorless skin, he stays unnoticed, while with secret enjoyment, he occupies himself in spying on people in the church. With his hearing miraculously restored by a confused uproar, excessively unusual in a building normally devoted to prayer and silence, he cannot believe his ears. He has long ceased to call upon them for the empty purpose of enabling him to participate in the vain unrest and fruitless tumult of his fellow men. See him, then, stealing to the edge of the main aisle, where he throws a glance of amazement at this gathering of the faithful, all of whom have turned their backs to the altar and are now facing the door. Towards them he now makes his way, jogging along in a pair of floppy loosely fitting slippers. He emerges in the thick of the fray, and at a moment so ill chosen that Nicolas’ big hobnailed boot crushes several of his toes. The sharp pain of this gives the sexton a sense of unaccustomed pressing danger, constituting a grave threat to the interests of religion, a source from which he derives certain small remunerations. In this lonely man’s mind there is one thought which stands out above all others—his bell, which is his pride and also his friend, the only friend whose voice he can clearly hear. Without a moment’s further thought he springs to the big rope and hangs upon it with a fierce energy which gives the old monastery bell, the “blackbirds’ bell,” such momentum that he is dragged aloft to truly impressive heights. To see him thus, swinging to and fro and rushing skywards, creates an illusion of some heavenly being, spending his leisure in playing a practical joke, holding suspended in mid-air, at the end of an india-rubber band, a grinning goblin chiefly noteworthy for the large patch on the seat of his ample breeches. Coiffenave launches a formidable tocsin which makes the beams of the belfry creak and groan.