“On the other hand,” went on the secretary-in-chief, “your candidate seems learned, well read, and open-minded.”
“Well?” asked Madame Worms-Clavelin, with a delightful smile.
“It is difficult!” replied Cheiral.
Cheiral was not a very clever man. He took few things into consideration, and always acted on reasons so futile that they were difficult to unravel. And so it was thought, that, being still young, he was swayed by personal motives. At the present time he had just finished reading a book by M. Imbert de Saint-Amand on the Tuileries during the second Empire; the splendour of the brilliant court had particularly taken his fancy, and the book had fired him with the desire to live, like the Duc de Morny, a life in which politics should be combined with pleasure and power of every description. He looked at Madame Worms-Clavelin in a manner the significance of which she thoroughly comprehended as she sat there silent with lowered gaze.
“My uncle,” went on Cheiral, “gives me a free hand in this matter, which does not interest him at all. I can set about it in two ways. I can propose without further delay the four candidates accepted by the Holy Father, or I can tell the Nuncio that things will remain at a standstill until the Holy See has approved of six candidates. I have not yet made up my mind, but should be delighted to talk the matter over with you. Shall I expect you tomorrow afternoon at five o’clock, and wait for you in a closed carriage at the end of the Rue Vigny by the gates of the Park Monceau?”
“There’s not much risk in that,” thought Madame Worms-Clavelin, her only reply a slight quivering of her downcast lids.
CHAPTER XVIII
MADAME DE BONMONT had no difficulty in bringing Raoul Marcien and M. l’Abbé Guitrel together at her house. The meeting was all that could be desired, for on his part M. l’Abbé Guitrel was full of unction, and Raoul, being a society man, knew what was due to the Church.
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” he said, “I come of a family of priests and soldiers. I have been a soldier myself, and that means—”
“He did not finish his sentence, for M. Guitrel held out his hand with a smile, saying:
“We may call it the alliance of the sword and the aspersorium.” Then immediately resuming his priestly gravity: “And that is the most natural and the best of all alliances. We priests are soldiers too, and as far as I am concerned I am very fond of the army.”
Madame de Bonmont gazed with sympathetic eyes at the Abbé, who continued:
“In the diocese to which I belong we have started clubs, where the soldiers can read good books as they smoke their cigars. The work is under the patronage of Monseigneur Chariot, and is both flourishing and useful. Let us not be unjust toward the age in which we live; if it contains much evil it also holds much that is good. We are engaged in a great fight, and that is, perhaps, to be preferred to the lukewarm state of those whom a great Christian poet has described as being shut out from both Heaven and Hell.”
Raoul approved of this speech, but ventured no reply. He did not answer, by virtue of the fact that he had few ideas upon the subject, and also because his whole mind was absorbed in the thought of the three charges of cheating brought against him during the past week, which made it impossible for him to follow any abstract or general train of ideas.
Madame de Bonmont but dimly divined the real reason of his silence, and M. Guitrel did not understand it at all. With an honest desire to do the right thing, and keep the ball of conversation going, he asked M. Marcien if he knew Colonel Gandouin.
“He is an excellent man in every way,” added the priest. “A fine example of the Christian and the soldier. He is respected by every right-thinking man in our diocese.”
“Do I know Colonel Gandouin!” cried Raoul. “I know him only too well. I’ve had enough of him! I can’t bear the man!”
This outburst grieved Madame de Bonmont and startled M. Guitrel. Neither of them knew that four years before Colonel Gandouin, with six other officers, had ordered Captain Marcien to be placed on half-pay for habitual dereliction of duty, that offence, selected from many others, being the reason assigned.
From this moment the gentle Elizabeth gave up hoping that any good would come of the interview which she had arranged to calm her Raoul, to turn him away from thoughts of violence and bring him back to thoughts of love. She opened her heart, however, and in a tearful voice said to the Abbé:
“Don’t you think, M. l’Abbé, that when a man is young and has a fine future before him, he ought not to give way to discouragement and depression? Ought he not, on the contrary, to avoid all sad thoughts?”
“Certainly, Madame la Baronne, certainly,” replied M. l’Abbé Guitrel. “We must never give way to discouragement, or abandon ourselves to grief without cause. A good Christian never encourages gloomy thoughts, Madame la Baronne, that is quite certain.”
“Do you hear, M. Marcien?” asked Madame de Bonmont.
But Raoul did not hear, and so the conversation dropped. Then Madame de Bonmont, being a kind-hearted woman, and anxious in the midst of her own worries to give a little pleasure to M. Guitrel, turned the topic of conversation.
“And so, M. l’Abbé,” she said, “your favourite stone is the amethyst.”
Guessing the drift of her remark, the priest answered severely and even harshly:
“Do not speak of that, Madame, I beg. Do not speak of that!”
CHAPTER XIX
HAVING risen early one morning, M. Bergeret, Professor of Latin literature, went for a walk into the country with Riquet. The two loved each other dearly, and were nearly always together. They had the same tastes, and both preferred a quiet, uneventful, and simple life.
Riquet’s eyes always followed his master closely on these walks. He was afraid to let him out of his sight one instant, because he was not very sharp-scented, and, had he lost his master, could not have tracked him again. His beautiful, loving look was very engaging as he trotted by the side of M. Bergeret with an important air quite pretty to see. The Professor of Latin literature walked slowly or quickly according to the trend of his capricious fancy.
As soon as Riquet was a stone’s throw ahead of his master, he turned round and waited for him with his nose in the air, and one of his front paws lifted in an attitude of attention and watchfulness.
It did not take much to amuse either of them.
Riquet plunged into gardens and shops alike, coming out again as hastily as he had entered. On this particular day he bounded into the coal-seller’s office, to find himself confronted by a huge snow-white pigeon that flapped its wings in the darkness, to his extreme terror.
He came as usual to relate his adventure, with eyes and paws and tail, to M. Bergeret, who said jokingly:
“Yes, indeed, my poor Riquet, we have had a terrible encounter, and have escaped the claws and beak of a winged monster. That pigeon was an awe-inspiring creature!”
And M. Bergeret smiled. Riquet knew that smile, and knew that his master was making fun of him. This was a thing he could not bear. He stopped wagging his tail, and walked with hanging head, hunched-up back, and legs wide apart, as a sign of annoyance.
“My poor Riquet,” said M. Bergeret to him again, “that bird, which your ancestors would have eaten alive, alarms you. You are not hungry, as they would have been, and you are not as brave as they were; the refinement of culture has made a coward of you. It is questionable whether civilisation does not tend to make men less courageous as well as less fierce. But civilised man, out of respect for his species, affects courage and makes of it an artificial virtue far more beautiful than the natural one. While, as for you, you shamelessly display your fear.”
Riquet’s annoyance, to tell the truth, was but slight, and only lasted a few minutes. All was forgiven and forgotten when the man and the dog entered the Josde woods just at the hour when the grass is wet with dew and light mists rise from the hills.
M. Bergeret loved the woods, and at sight of a blade of grass would lose himself in boundless reveries.
Riquet, too, loved the woods. As he sniffed at the dead leaves his soul was filled with strange delight. In deep meditation, therefore, they followed the pathway leading to the Carrefour des Demoiselles, when they met a horseman returning to the town. It was M. de Terremondre, the county councillor.
“Good day, M. Bergeret,” he cried, reining in his horse. “Well! Have you thought over my arguments of yesterday?”
He had explained the evening before at Paillot’s the reason why he was against the Jews.
When in the country, especially during the hunting season, M. de Terremondre’s proclivities were anti-Jewish. When in Paris he dined with rich Jews, whom he tolerated to the extent of inducing them to buy pictures at a profit to himself. At County Council meetings, with due consideration to the feelings that were paramount in his county town, he was a Nationalist and an Anti-Semite. But as there were no Jews in that town the anti-Jewish crusade consisted principally in attacks upon the Protestants, who formed a small, austere, and exclusive community of their own.
“So we are enemies,” went on M. de Terremondre. “I am sorry for that, because you are a clever man, but you live quite outside the social movement, and are not mixed up in public life. If you did as I do, and entered into it, your sympathies would be anti-Jewish.”
“You flatter me,” said M. Bergeret. “The Jewish race which peopled Chaldea, Assyria, and Phoenicia in former times, and which founded cities all along the Mediterranean coast, is composed today of Jews scattered the world over, and also of the countless Arab populations of Asia and Africa. My heart is not great enough to contain so many hatreds. Old Cadmus was a Jew, but I really couldn’t be the enemy of old Cadmus!”
“You are joking,” replied M. de Terremondre, holding in his horse, who was nibbling at the bushes. “You know as well as I do that the anti-Jewish movement is directed solely against the Jews who have settled in France.”
“Therefore I must hate 80,000 persons,” said M. Bergeret. “That is still too many; I have not the strength for it!”
“No one asks you to hate them,” said M. de Terremondre. “But Jews and Frenchmen cannot live together. The antagonism is ineradicable, it is in the blood.”
“I believe, on the contrary,” said M. Bergeret, “that the Jews are particularly assimilable, and have the most plastic and malleable natures in the world. With the same readiness that the niece of Mardocheus entered the harem of Ahasuerus in bygone days, so the daughters of our Jewish financiers marry nowadays the heirs to the greatest names in Christian France. After marriages such as these it is rather late in the day to speak of incompatibility of race. Then, I think it is a bad thing to make a distinction of race in any country; it is not the race that makes the nation, and there is not a single country in Europe that has not been founded on a multitude of mixed and different races. When Caesar entered Gaul it was peopled by Celts, Gauls, Iberians, all differing in origin and religion. The tribes that set up the cromlechs were not of the same blood as those who honoured bards and druids. Into this human mixture the different invasions poured Germans, Romans, Saracens, and out of the whole à nation arose, the brave and lovable people of France, who, not so very long ago, were the teachers of justice, liberty, and philosophy to the entire world. Think of the beautiful words of Renan; I wish I could remember them exactly: ‘What makes a nation is the memory of the great things its people have done together, and the will they have to accomplish others.’”
“Excellent!” said M. de Terremondre. “But as I have not the will to accomplish great things with the Jews, I remain an Anti-Semite.”
“Are you quite sure that it is possible for your feelings to be wholly anti-Jewish?” asked M. Bergeret.
“I do not understand you,” replied M. de Terremondre.
“Then I will explain myself,” said M. Bergeret. “There is one fact that never varies: each time there is an attack on the Jews, a goodly number of them side with the enemy. That is just what happened to Titus.”
At this point in the conversation Riquet sat down in the middle of the road and looked resignedly at his master.
“You will agree,” went on M. Bergeret, “that between the years 67 and 70 A.D. Titus was a strong Anti-Semite. He took Jotapate, and exterminated its inhabitants. He conquered Jerusalem, burned the Temple, and reduced to ashes and ruins the city which afterwards received the name of Œlia Capitolina. The seven-branched candlestick was carried in his triumphal procession to Rome, and, I think, without doing you an injustice, I may say that that was Anti-Semitism carried to a degree which you people can never hope to attain. Well! Titus, the destroyer of Jerusalem, had many friends among the Jews. Berenice was deeply attached to him, and you know as well as I do that it was against his will and against hers that he left her. Flavius Josephus was his friend, and Flavius was not one of the least of his nation. He was descended from the Asmonean kings, lived the life of a strict Pharisee, and wrote Greek correctly enough. After the demolition of the temple and holy city he followed Titus to Rome, and became the intimate friend of the Emperor. He received the freedom of the city, the title of Roman Knight, and a pension. And do not imagine, monsieur, that in so doing he was betraying his race. On the contrary, he remained faithful to the law, and applied himself to the collection of national antiquities. In short, he was a good Jew in his own way and a friend of Titus. Now there have always been men like Flavius in Israel. As you pointed out, I live a secluded life and know nothing of what goes on in the world, but it would be a great surprise to me if at the present crisis the Jews were not divided amongst themselves, and if a great number of them were not on your side.”
“Some of them are with us, as you say,” replied M. de Terremondre. “All the more credit to them.”
“I thought as much,” said M. Bergeret. “And what is more, I am sure that there are some clever ones among them who will make their mark in this crusade against themselves. About thirty years ago a senator, a very clever man, who admired the Jewish faculty for getting on, and who cited as an example a certain court chaplain of Jewish origin, used the following words, which have since been much quoted. ‘See,’ said he, ‘here is a Jew who has gone into the Church, and now he is a Monseigneur. Let us not revive the prejudices of barbaric times. Let us not ask if a man is a Jew or Christian, but only if he is an honest man and capable of serving his country.’”
M. de Terremondre’s horse began to plunge, and Riquet, coming up to his master, begged him, with gentle, loving look, to continue the interrupted walk.
“Do not run away with the idea,” went on M. de Terremondre, “that I include all Jews in the same blind feeling of dislike. I have many excellent friends among them, but my love for my country makes an Anti-Semite of me.”
He held out his hand to M. Bergeret, and turned his horse around. He was quietly proceeding on his way when the professor called him back.
“Hi! A word in your ear, dear M. de Terremondre. Now that the die is cast, and that you and your friends have quarrelled with the Jews, be very careful that you owe them nothing, and give them back the God you have taken from them — for you have taken their God.”
“Jehovah?” asked M. de Terremondre.
“Yes, Jehovah! If I were in your place, I would beware of Him. He was a Jew at heart, and who knows whether He has not always remained a Jew? Who knows whether at this moment He is not avenging His people? All that we have seen lately, the confessions that burst forth like thunderclaps, the plain speaking, the revelations proceeding from all parts, the assembly of red-robed judges which you were not able to hinder even when you seemed all-powerful, who can tell whether Jehovah has not dealt these crushing blows? They savour of His old biblical style, and I seem to recognise His handiwork.”
M. de Terremondre’s horse was already disappearing behind the bushes round the bend of the path, and Riquet trotted along contentedly through the grass.
“Beware!” repeated M. Bergeret. “Do not keep their God.”
CHAPTER XX
M
ADAME WORMS-CLAVELIN came along through the rainy darkness, holding up her umbrella, and walking with the brisk, decided step which, for a wonder, had not grown heavy from long years spent in provincial towns. The door of the carriage that was waiting for her in front of the gates of the Park Monceau, opened a little, and then stood wide, and Madame Worms-Clavelin slipped calmly in and took a seat beside the young secretary, who immediately inquired as to her health.
“I am always well,” she replied, adding, “What awful weather!”
Streams of rain were running down the carriage windows; the street noises were drowned in the damp air, and all that could be heard was the gentle drip of the raindrops.
When the carriage began to roll with a muffled sound over the paved road, she asked:
“Where are we going?”
“Where you like.”
“I don’t mind — Neuilly way, I should think.”
Having given instructions to the driver, Maurice Cheiral turned to the préfet’s wife and said:
“I have much pleasure in informing you that the appointment of Abbé Guitrel (Joachim) to the See of Tourcoing will be announced in to-morrow’s Officiel. I do not want to boast, but I can assure you that it has not been a very easy matter to arrange. The Nuncio is great at procrastination. People of that description make use of a prodigious amount of inactivity — Well, anyhow, everything is settled.”
“That’s good,” replied Madame Worms-Clavelin. “I am sure you have rendered a service to the progressive republican party, and that the Moderates will have every reason to be pleased with their new bishop.”
“At any rate,” went on Maurice Cheiral, “you are satisfied.”
After a long silence he continued:
“Just think, I never slept all night. I was thinking of you, and longing to see you again.”
The strange thing was that he was speaking the truth, and that the expectation of this rendezvous had excited him. But he spoke in a joking tone and drawling voice that made his words appear false, besides which he was wanting both in assurance and decision.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 161