by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER IV.
WORKS RESEMBLING WORDS.
The Bishop's conversation was affable and lively. He condescended tothe level of the two old females who spent their life near him, andwhen he laughed it was a schoolboy's laugh. Madame Magloire was fondof calling him "Your Grandeur." One day he rose from his easy chairand went to fetch a book from his library: as it was on one of the topshelves, and as the Bishop was short, he could not reach it "MadameMagloire," he said, "bring me a chair, for my Grandeur does not rise tothat shelf."
One of his distant relatives, the Countess de L?, rarely let anopportunity slip to enumerate in his presence what she called the"hopes" of her three sons. She had several very old relatives close todeath's door, of whom her sons were the natural heirs. The youngestof the three would inherit from a great-aunt 100,000 francs a year;the second would succeed to his uncle's dukedom, the third to hisgrandfather's peerage. The Bishop generally listened in silence to thisinnocent and pardonable maternal display. Once, however, he seemed moredreamy than usual, while Madame de L? was repeating all the detailsof their successions and "hopes." She broke off somewhat impatiently."Good gracious, cousin," she said, "what are you thinking, about?" "Iam thinking," said the Bishop, "of something singular, which, if mymemory is right, is in St. Augustine. Place your hopes in the man towhom it is impossible to succeed."
On another occasion, receiving a letter announcing the death of acountry gentleman, in which, in addition to the dignities of thedefunct, all the feudal and noble titles of all his relatives wererecorded,--"What a back death has! what an admirable burthen of titleshe is made lightly to bear," he exclaimed, "and what sense men mustpossess thus to employ the tomb in satisfying their vanity."
He displayed at times a gentle raillery, which nearly always containeda serious meaning. During one Lent a young vicar came to D---- andpreached at the cathedral. He was rather eloquent, and the subject ofhis sermon was charity. He invited the rich to give to the needy inorder to escape hell, which he painted in the most frightful way hecould, and reach paradise, which he made desirable and charming. Therewas among the congregation a rich, retired merchant, somewhat of ausurer, who had acquired two million francs by manufacturing coarsecloths, serges, and caddis. In his whole life-time M. G?borand hadnever given alms to a beggar, but after this sermon it was remarkedthat he gave every Sunday a sou to the old women begging at thecathedral gate. There were six of them to share it. One day the Bishopsaw him bestowing his charity, and said to his sister, with a smile,"Look at M. G?borand buying heaven for a sou."
When it was a question of charity he would not let himself be rebuffedeven by a refusal, and at such times made remarks which caused peopleto reflect. Once he was collecting for the poor in a drawing-roomof the town. The Marquis de Champtercier was present, a rich oldavaricious man, who contrived to be at once ultra-Royalist andultra-Voltairian. This variety has existed. The Bishop on reaching himtouched his arm, "Monsieur le Marquis, you must give me something." TheMarquis turned and answered dryly: "I have my own poor, Monseigneur.""Give them to me," said the Bishop. One day he delivered the followingsermon at the cathedral:--
"My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are in France thirteenhundred and twenty thousand peasants' houses which have only threeopenings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand which have only twoopenings, the door and the window; and, lastly, three hundred andforty-six thousand cabins which have only one opening, the door, andthis is because of a thing called the door and window tax. Just placepoor families, aged women and little children, in these houses, andthen see the fevers and maladies! Alas! God gives men fresh air, andthe law sells it to them. I do not accuse the law, but I bless God. Inthe Is?re, in the Var, in the two Alps, Upper and Lower, the peasantshave not even trucks, but carry manure on their backs: they have nocandles, and burn resinous logs and pieces of rope steeped in pitch. Itis the same through all the high parts of Dauphin?. They make bread forsix months, and bake it with dried cow-dung. In winter they break thisbread with axes and steep it in water for four-and-twenty hours beforethey can eat it. Brethren, have pity, see how people suffer around you!"
A Proven?al by birth, he easily accustomed himself to all the dialectsof the South: this greatly pleased the people, and had done no littlein securing him admission to all minds. He was, as it were, at homein the hut and on the mountain. He could say the grandest things inthe most vulgar idioms, and as he spoke all languages he entered allhearts. However, he was the same to people of fashion as to the lowerclasses.
He never condemned anything hastily or without taking the circumstancesinto calculation. He would say, Let us look at the road by which thefault has come. Being, as he called himself with a smile, an ex-sinner,he had none of the intrenchments of rigorism, and, careless of thefrowns of the unco' good, professed loudly a doctrine which might besummed up nearly as follows,--
"Man has upon him the flesh which is at once his burden and histemptation. He carries it with him and yields to it. He must watch,restrain, and repress it, and only obey it in the last extremity. Inthis obedience there may still be a fault: but the fault thus committedis venial. It is a fall, but a fall on the knees, which may end inprayer. To be a saint is the exception, to be a just man is the rule.Err, fail, sin, but be just. The least possible amount of sin is thelaw of man: no sin at all is the dream of angels. All that is earthlyis subjected to sin, for sin is a gravitation."
When he saw everybody cry out and grow indignant, all of a sudden, hewould say with a smile, "Oh! oh, it seems as if this is a great crimewhich all the world is committing. Look at the startled hypocrites,hastening to protest and place themselves under cover."
He was indulgent to the women and the poor on whom the weight ofhuman society presses. He would say, "The faults of women, children,servants, the weak, the indigent, and the ignorant are the fault ofhusbands, fathers, masters, the strong, the rich, and the learned." Healso said, "Teach the ignorant as much as you possibly can: society isculpable for not giving instruction gratis, and is responsible for thenight it produces. This soul is full of darkness, and sin is committed,but the guilty person is not the man who commits the sin, but he whoproduces the darkness."
As we see, he had a strange manner, peculiarly his own, of judgingthings. I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospels. He one dayheard in a drawing-room the story of a trial which was shortly to takeplace. A wretched man, through love of a woman and a child he had byher, having exhausted his resources, coined false money, which atthat period was an offence punished by death. The woman was arrestedwhile issuing the first false piece manufactured by the man. She wasdetained, but there was no proof against her. She alone could accuseher lover and ruin him by confessing. She denied. They pressed her, butshe adhered to her denial. Upon this, the attorney for the crown hadan idea: he feigned infidelity on the lover's part, and contrived, bycleverly presenting the woman with fragments of letters, to persuadeher that she had a rival, and that the man was deceiving her. Then,exasperated by jealousy, she denounced her lover, confessed everything,proved everything. The man was ruined, and would shortly be tried withhis accomplice at Aix. The story was told, and everybody was delightedat the magistrate's cleverness. By bringing jealousy into play hebrought out the truth through passion, and obtained justice throughrevenge. The Bishop listened to all this in silence, and when it wasended he asked: "Where will this man and woman be tried?" "At theassizes." Then he continued, "And where will the attorney for the crownbe tried?"
A tragical event occurred at D----. A man was condemned to death formurder. He was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactlyignorant, who had been a mountebank at fairs and a public writer. Thetrial attracted the attention of the towns-people. On the eve of theday fixed for the execution the prison chaplain was taken ill, anda priest was wanted to assist the sufferer in his last moments. TheCur? was sent for, and it seems that he refused, saying, "It is nobusiness of mine, I have nothing to do with the mountebank, I am illtoo, and besides, that
is not my place." This answer was carried tothe Bishop, who said, "The Cur? is right, it is not his place, it ismine." He went straight to the prison, entered the mountebank's cell,called him by name, took his hand, and spoke to him. He spent the wholeday with him, forgetting sleep and food while praying to God for thesoul of the condemned man. He told him the best truths, which are themost simple. He was father, brother, friend--bishop only to bless.He taught him everything, while reassuring and consoling him. Thisman was about to die in desperation: death was to him like an abyss,and he shuddered as he stood on its gloomy brink. He was not ignorantenough to be completely indifferent, and his condemnation, which was aprofound shock, had here and there broken through that partition whichseparates us from the mystery of things, and which we call life. Hepeered incessantly out of this world through these crevices, and onlysaw darkness; but the Bishop showed him a light.
On the morrow, when they came to fetch the condemned man, the Bishopwas with him. He followed him, and showed himself to the mob in hispurple cassock, and with the episcopal cross round his neck, side byside with this rope-bound wretch. He entered the cart with him, hemounted the scaffold with him. The sufferer, so gloomy and crushed onthe previous day, was radiant; he felt that his soul was reconciled,and he hoped for heaven. The Bishop embraced him, and at the momentwhen the knife was about to fall, said: "The man whom his fellow-menkill, God resuscitates. He whom his brothers expel finds the Fatheragain. Pray, believe, enter into life! The Father is there!" When hedescended from the scaffold there was something in his glance whichmade the people open a path for him; it was impossible to say whetherhis pallor or his serenity were the more admirable. On returning tothe humble abode, which he called smilingly his palace, he said to hissister: "I have just been officiating pontifically."
As the most sublime things are often those least understood, there werepersons in the town who said, in commenting on the Bishop's conduct,"It is affectation." This, however, was only the talk of drawing-rooms;the people who do not regard holy actions with suspicion were affected,and admired. As for the Bishop, the sight of the guillotine was a shockto him, and it was long ere he recovered from it.
The scaffold, in fact, when it stands erect before you, has somethingabout it that hallucinates. We may feel a certain amount ofindifference about the punishment of death, not express an opinion,and say yes or no, so long as we have never seen a guillotine; butwhen we have come across one the shock is violent, and we must decideeither for or against. Some admire it, like De Maistre, others execrateit, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law, itcalls itself _vindicta_; it is not neutral, and does not allow you toremain neutral. The person who perceives it shudders with the mostmysterious of shudders. All the social questions raise their notes ofinterrogation round this cutter. The scaffold is a vision, it is notcarpenter's work, it is not a machine, it is not a lifeless mechanismmade of wood, steel, and ropes. It seems to be a species of beingpossessing a gloomy intuition; you might say that the wood-work lives,that the machine hears, that the mechanism understands, that the wood,the steel, and the ropes, have a volition. In the frightful reverieinto which its presence casts the mind the scaffold appears terrible,and mixed up with what it does. The scaffold is the accomplice of theexecutioner; it devours, it eats flesh and drinks blood. The scaffoldis a species of monster, manufactured by the judge and the carpenter,a spectre that seems to live a sort of horrible life made up of allthe death it has produced. Hence the impression was terrible anddeep; on the day after the execution, and for many days beyond, theBishop appeared crushed. The almost violent serenity of the mournfulmoment had departed; the phantom of social justice haunted him. He whousually returned from all his duties with such radiant satisfactionseemed to be reproaching himself. At times he soliloquized, andstammered unconnected sentences in a low voice. Here is one which hissister overheard and treasured up: "I did not believe that it was somonstrous. It is wrong to absorb oneself in the divine law so greatlyas no longer to perceive the human law. Death belongs to God alone. Bywhat right do men touch that unknown thing?"
With time these impressions were attenuated, and perhaps effaced. Stillit was noticed that from this period the Bishop avoided crossing theexecution square.
M. Myriel might be called at any hour to the bedside of the sick andthe dying. He was not ignorant that his greatest duty and greatestlabor lay there. Widowed or orphaned families had no occasion to sendfor him, for he came of himself. He had the art of sitting down andholding his tongue for hours by the side of a man who had lost the wifehe loved, or of a mother bereaved of her child. As he knew the time tobe silent, he also knew the time to speak. What an admirable consolerhe was! he did not try to efface grief by oblivion, but to aggrandizeand dignify it by hope. He would say: "Take care of the way in whichyou turn to the dead. Do not think of that which perishes. Lookfixedly, and you will perceive the living light of your beloved dead inheaven." He knew that belief is healthy, and he sought to counsel andcalm the desperate man by pointing out to him the resigned man, and totransform the grief that gazes at a grave by showing it the grief thatlooks at a star.