At Clochemerle the tocsin had not been heard since 1914. It is not hard to realize the effect of these alarming sounds on the morning of the annual fête, a morning of such lovely sunshine that all windows are wide open. Within a few seconds every living being throughout the town who is not at Mass is to be found in the main street. The most determined tipplers leave their glasses half empty. Even Tafardel tears himself away from his papers, looks around hurriedly for his panama, and goes down the hill from the town hall with all the speed he can muster, wiping his spectacles and saying over and over again: rerum cognoscere causas. For in the course of his reading he has picked up a selection of Latin maxims which he has copied into a notebook; and this assures him of superiority over the vulgar products of elementary schools.
Within a few moments a large crowd has collected in front of the church. Their eyes arc met by our two combatants, Nicolas and François Toumignon, bursting through the door, desperately locked together in a pugilist’s embrace, dragging the whole bunch of peacemakers at their heels, both of them panting, bleeding, and in an altogether lamentable condition. At last they are separated, still exchanging gross and violent insults, issuing fresh challenges, and swearing to meet again shortly and show each other no mercy. In the meantime each is congratulating himself on having given the other a damned good hiding.
The next to appear are the pious women. They are a picture of pathos, with downcast eyes, uttering no word, and rendered precious as sacred vessels with the scandalous secrets of which they have now become the repositories. Soon they will be seen mixing with the various groups, where they will sow the fruitful seed of gossip, swelling these prodigious happenings to legendary proportions and paving the way for endless discord and irrefutable slander. These forlorn women now have an exceptional opportunity for appearing important. It will make up to them for the insults which men have heaped upon them. By means of this exceptional opportunity, through Toumignon, they can hurl Judith from the pedestal she has too long occupied, that woman whose triumphs of concupiscence have brought upon them a long-drawn-out and wicked martyrdom. This opportunity these pious women will never allow to escape them, not even at the cost of a civil war. And civil war will be its outcome. These charitably minded ladies, whose spotless persons form a rampart for the protection of virtue against which no man of Clochemerle has ever dreamed of launching an attack, will assuredly have done nothing to allay its outbreak. But at this stage, with different versions still prevailing, they avoid all definite statement and are content to do no more than prophesy that the insult to Saint Roch will result in a second outbreak of plague at Clochemerle—or at the very least phylloxera, the scourge of vineyards.
Like a captain leaving his ship in distress, with his biretta tilted back and his bands in disorder, the last to come out is the Curé Ponosse, with Justine Putet at his elbow, holding in her arms the mutilated head of Saint Roch. She looks for all the world like those dauntless women who in days gone by used to go to the Place de Grève to gather up their lovers’ severed heads. Over this saintly relic, swollen by the water of the font like the corpse of a drowned man, she has just sworn an oath of vengeance. In a state of sublime exaltation. like some new Jeanne Hachette, and fully prepared for the noble task of a Charlotte Corday, for the first time in her life the old maid feels coursing through her lean flanks, which have never known a caress, intense spasmodic thrills which she has never felt before. Close alongside the Curé Ponosse, she struggles to put some determination into him, and to bring him around to a policy of violence which shall link up with the traditions of the great epochs of the Church’s history, the epochs of conquest.
But the Curé Ponosse is endowed with the obstinacy of feeble natures, capable of great efforts to prevent any disturbance of a peaceful existence. Justine Putet finds herself confronted by a listless unresponsive apathy, in face of which all her hopes are dissolved into thin air. As he walks along he listens to her with an air of concentration which appears like acquiescence. By taking advantage of a momentary silence on her part, he remarks:
“My dear lady, God will be grateful to you for your courageous conduct. But we must leave it to Him to settle difficulties which are beyond the scope of our poor human intelligence.”
This the old maid, whose fighting spirit demands active measures, regards as merely ludicrous. She is about to protest. But the Curé Ponosse adds:
“I can decide nothing until I have seen the Baroness, who is president of our congregations and benefactress of our beautiful parish of Clochemerle.”
No words could have been better chosen for stirring up bitterness and venom in Justine Putet’s heart. She feels that her path will always be blocked by that arrogant Courtebiche woman, who in her youth has followed the primrose path and is now posing as a model of virtue in order to secure an esteem which depravity of morals can no longer afford her! Here is an opportunity to score off this Baroness with her lurid past. Justine Putet has certain knowledge which is doubtless not available to the curé. The feelings of the Baroness need no longer be considered. Justine Putet decides to make a complete revelation.
They arrive at the presbytery, where the old maid wishes to gain entrance. But the Curé Ponosse waves her aside.
“Monsieur le Curé,” she insists, “I should like to speak to you confidentially.”
“Let us leave it for the moment.”
“And supposing I asked you to take my confession?”
“My dear lady, this is not the time for it. And besides, I received your confession two days ago. If the sacraments are to retain their proper solemnity, we must not be continually having recourse to them for comparatively trivial reasons.”
Once again Justine Putet has failed. With a frightful grimace she drinks the hemlock. Then a grating sound is heard, half chuckle, half sneer:
“It’s a pity I’m not one of those lewd creatures with dirty stories to tell you! They are so much more interesting to listen to!”
“Let us beware of judging others,” the Curé Ponosse replies, in a smooth dispassionate tone of voice. “The seats at God’s right hand are few in number, and they are reserved for those who have shown charity towards their neighbor. I give you temporary absolution. Go in peace, dear lady.”
And the Curé of Clochemerle closes the door in her face.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
First Consequences
IN THE MAIN street of Clochemerle, on the stroke of midday, the crowd was slowly dispersing. Little groups whose faces bore expressions of a dismay they did not really feel, and who in subdued voices proffered comments that were still outwardly cautious, were secretly flooded by feelings of huge delight. For this splendid affair in the church had made Saint Roch’s Day, 1923, the most memorable fête that anyone throughout the countryside could call to mind. Garnished with bloodcurdling details on the subject of the fight, each and all were impatient to regain their own homes, where they would be able to indulge in unrestrained personal comment.
The reader should here be reminded that at Clochemerle the people are apt to suffer from boredom. At ordinary times they are unconscious of this. It is only when an event such as this occurs, an event of a kind that they could hardly have dared to hope for, that they are enabled to make a comparison between a life of monotony and one in which something really does happen. The scandal in the church was an affair appertaining exclusively to Clochemerle, a family affair so to speak. In this type of event, the attention of those interested may be so intensely concentrated upon it that not an atom of its precious inner significance need be lost. This is what was felt by the whole of Clochemerle, and the people’s hearts were bursting with hope and pride.
The time at which it occurred was an immense factor in the blossoming and subsequent developments of the scandal. Had it broken out while the harvesting of the grapes was in full swing it would have been doomed to failure. “The wine comes first,” the people of Clochemerle would have said, and left Toumignon, Nicolas, Justine Putet, the curé, and
all the others to disentangle themselves as best they could. But the scandal arrived providentially during an off season, when the whole population was at leisure, at the very moment when they were sitting down to a meal, on a day when they had killed the fatted calf and brought up the oldest wine from the cellars. It was a splendid thing to have happened. And it was not just a trifling discussion which would quickly come to an end, a mere insignificant squabble between families or groups of people. On the contrary, it was a fine well-constructed story with a strong background, one about which every person throughout the countryside had formed some opinion. More, it was a damned fine thundering good story, and the Devil and all his minions couldn’t have produced a better. But everyone felt that there was more to come.
The inhabitants of Clochemerle sat down with a good appetite, assured of ample entertainment for months ahead, and justly proud of being able to give their guests from the neighboring villages the first account of a story which would go the rounds of the whole Department. They regarded it as a happy chance that strangers should be with them. Seeing how jealous people are, it would never have been believed in the surrounding districts that Nicolas and Toumignon had really fought in the church and that Saint Roch had received a fatal blow in the general scuffle. A saint hurled down into a font as the result of the combined efforts of a beadle and a heretic—that is something you don’t see every day. It was lucky that strangers would now be able to testify to this.
No sooner were the inhabitants seated at table in their own homes than the whole of Clochemerle became enwrapped in the overwhelming torpor of the scorching midday heat. Not a breath of air was stirring. The town was pervaded by odors of warm bread, cooked pastry, and savory stews. The brightness of the blue sky was positively dazzling, and the heat would have fallen like a blow from a club on heads congested from excessive eating and drinking. The flies buzzing on the manure heaps had taken possession of the town which, without them, would have appeared destitute of life.
Let us take advantage of this lull, during which the process of digestion is advancing with difficulty, and draw up a balance sheet of the events of this fatal morning, destined to have dramatic consequences.
If we are to take incidents in the order of their importance, we must speak first of the sad adventure of Saint Roch. Saint Roch received his blow (which was merely accidental) in the form of a plaster effigy only, and it was in holy water that his image came to its untimely end, which is at least a consoling end for the image of a saint. But this splendid statue was a gift which had been made by the Baroness Courtebiche in 1917, when she took up permanent residence in the district. The Baroness had ordered this statue at Lyons from some specialists in ecclesiastical statuary, who were the exclusive purveyors to the diocese. She had paid two thousand five hundred and fifty francs for it, an impressive sum to spend as an act of piety. Such expenditure as this conferred on her the right to regard herself as having finally discharged every obligation to the Church and won an assured position in public esteem. This was universally understood.
Since 1917, the cost of living had so much increased that in 1923 a statue of those dimensions would probably cost somewhere about three thousand francs, a sum to make Clochemerle gasp. Further, to pay a mint of money for a saint and then see him massacred by drunken men (some people declared that Nicolas had been imbibing also) is hardly encouraging. So there is this question to consider: is Clochemerle to be deprived of its Saint Roch? If so, it would be the first time for five hundred years. This eventuality has to be borne in mind.
And suppose that they were to put back the old statue?
The ancient Saint Roch must surely be still in existence in some lumber room. But this old image was shabby and moth-eaten, and had lost all his former standing and influence over the minds of the faithful; and this long sojourn in damp and dust was hardly calculated to give him back his beautiful coloring. Then what about a cheaper saint? This was a poor solution of the difficulty. Whatever you may say, piety accustoms itself to sumptuous display, and the earnestness of prayer is often in direct proportion to the dimensions of the image. In this remote corner of the French countryside, where money is held in great respect, they cannot feel the same regard for a shoddy little saint costing from five to six hundred francs as for a magnificent one at three thousand. The whole question thus remains in doubt.
Let us now speak of individuals. The prestige of the Curé of Clochemerle has received a setback. There can be no doubt of this. Anselme Lamolire, who is accustomed to think before he speaks and is always inclined to side with curés because curés represent law and order—and that means property, and he is the largest landed proprietor in Clochemerle after Barthélemy Piéchut, his immediate rival—Anselme Lamolire has said, without mincing matters:
“Ponosse had made a fool of himself—that’s a certainty!”
This does not make the Curé of Clochemerle any less efficacious where his professional duties are concerned—absolution, extreme unction, and the rest. But in the economic sphere, it is bound to do him damage; his income is certain to decrease. Had it been ten years earlier, he would have repaired his clumsiness by making more frequent appearances at the Torbayon Inn and hobnobbing freely with the men there. But his liver and his stomach are no longer equal to missionary work in this form. If there were not dying people anxious to make sure of receiving full custom-house facilities at the frontier, the curé would be in a bad way. Happily, there are always people feeling pretty small at such times. So long as humanity is afraid of the next world, the position of a man who hands out passports for the hereafter is really unassailable. The Curé Ponosse may therefore rest assured of continuing to exercise a dictatorship based on sheer fright. Humble and patient, he makes no attempt to restrain the blasphemies of men still in the full vigor of life. But he waits for them at the corner where the great Reaper will appear, with his deep eye sockets and his sneering chuckle freezing the blood, while he stands and rattles his skeleton at the foot of your bed. Ponosse is the servant of a Master who has said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” His influence begins when illness begins, and it is this that is continually bringing him within Dr. Mouraille’s spheres of operation, to the latter’s exasperation:
“Ah, there you are, you old gravedigger! Smelt a corpse, I take it!”
“Dear me, no, Doctor,” the Curé Ponosse modestly replies, having a ready wit when he is not in the pulpit, “I have merely come to finish off the job that you started so well. I give the whole credit to you.”
Dr. Mouraille is furious.
“You’ll go through my hands one day yourself, you old dodderer!”
“I am quite resigned to that, doctor. But you will also go through mine, without a word of protest, that is equally certain,” the Curé Ponosse replies with an air of confidence and sly gentleness.
Dr. Mouraille shows fight.
“Good God, Curé, you’ll never get hold of me as long as I’m alive!”
But Ponosse answers placidly:
“Life is nothing, doctor. The strength of the Church lies in the graveyard, where she makes no distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous. Twenty years after your death no one will know whether you were a good Catholic when you were alive. The Church will have you in her grasp in vitam aeternam, Doctor!”
Let us now consider the two combatants. In addition to the bleeding lobe of his left ear, the beadle has received an injury to the tenderest portion of his anatomy. It was noticed outside the church that he was limping, and Dr. Mouraille will confirm the matter. This proves that Toumignon struck at the only soft bit of Nicolas that he could find. This contradiction between his remarks and his methods of fighting affords a striking proof of his treacherous nature. Otherwise, the more impartial of the inhabitants support Toumignon, saying that he was fully justified in aiming at the spot where Nicolas had struck him first when he called him a cuckold. But the thing which the inhabitants are unanimous in deploring, from feelings of economy, is the dest
ruction of Nicolas’ beautiful uniform, the broken halberd, the two-cornered hat trampled upon, the sword twisted like a child’s toy saber, and his full-dress frock coat torn at the back from collar to waist. The beadle will require a new outfit.
Toumignon bears traces of the fight that are no less conspicuous. Nicolas’ fist has given his right eye a monstrous appearance. It sticks out like the eye of a toad, but it is shut and there is a violet circle about it. Three of the teeth in his lower jaw are missing. To this we must add a broken kneecap, and traces on Toumignon’s neck of the beginnings of strangulation. His new suit of clothes is also much damaged. He will have to wear it out on weekdays after it has been repaired. But at the Beaujolais Stores there is a department for ready-made clothes where Toumignon buys them cheap at wholesale prices. So he will not feel his loss so much.
At Clochemerle, opinions are divided, some people throwing all the blame on Toumignon, others on Nicolas. Generally speaking, however, the former is admired for having made such a good job of an unequal contest, with his ten stone pitted against Nicolas’ thirteen. People are surprised at such strength in his small frame. But their judgment is superficial, as it always is in such cases; they leave the moral factor out of account. In the fight Nicolas had nothing to defend except his own vanity, Mme. Nicolas never having been a great topic of conversation on the score of her beauty. She was one of those women who are usually referred to in the past tense, of whom one says: “She had a certain freshness and bloom about her,” and whose freshness and bloom passed unnoticed even when she still had them. When they disappeared, Mme. Nicolas was irrevocably placed in the category of the plain Janes, those good women whose blameless life is never held in doubt and who, being themselves beyond the reach of criticism, spend the greater part of their time in keeping an eye on those who have incurred it, and in denouncing their lapses, sometimes prematurely.
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