The Crime of Father Amaro

by José Maria De Eça de Queirós

  When Amaro saw Esguelhas come into the sacristy, he greeted him with a friendly ‘Good morning’. Esguelhas, he said, was looking the picture of health! Hardly surprising really, because, according to the holy fathers, the act of consecration gives bells a special quality, and being in the company of bells induces a sense of joy and well-being. He then jovially told Esguelhas and the two sacristans that, as a small boy living in the house of the Marquesa de Alegros, his one great wish had been to be a sexton . . .

  They all laughed heartily, enchanted by the Father’s joke.

  ‘No, don’t laugh, it’s true. And I wouldn’t have been far off. In earlier days, it used to be the clerics of the minor orders who rang the bells. Our holy fathers consider them one of the most efficient routes to piety. There’s a poem about it, in which the bell itself speaks:

  Laudo Deum, populum voco, congrego clerum,

  Defunctum ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro . . .

  Which means, as you know: I praise God, I summon the people, I bring together the clergy, I mourn for the dead, I drive away plagues, I gladden festivals.’

  He was already in his amice and alb, standing in the middle of the sacristy as he carefully recited these lines, and Esguelhas drew himself up on his crutch at these words which bestowed on him such unexpected authority and importance.

  The sacristan was standing ready with the purple chasuble. But Amaro had not quite finished his glorification of bells; he went on to explain their ability to dispel storms (despite what some presumptuous sages may say to the contrary), not just because they communicate to the air the unction they receive from the blessing, but because they scatter any demons that might be wandering about amongst the gales and the thunderbolts. The holy Council of Milan recommends that the bells be rung whenever there is a storm.

  ‘Although in such cases, Esguelhas,’ he added, smiling solicitously at the sexton, ‘I would advise you not to take the risk. After all, it does involve being high up and close to the storm itself . . . Right, come on then, Matias.’

  And as the chasuble was placed over his shoulders, he murmured gravely:

  ‘Domine, quis dixisti jugum meum . . . Tie it a bit tighter behind, Matias. Suave est, et onus meum leve . . .’

  He bowed to the cross and went into the church in the prescribed manner, eyes lowered and body erect, while Matias, scuffing one foot, bowed briefly to the crucifix in the sacristy, then hurried after Amaro with the ciborium, coughing loudly to clear his throat.

  During mass, as he turned to the nave during the Offertory at the Orate fratres, Father Amaro (with a benevolence permitted by the ritual) addressed himself always to the sexton, as if the Sacrifice had been made especially for him, and Esguelhas, with his crutch resting beside him, plunged into a more than usually respectful devotion. Even at the Benedicat, having begun the blessing facing the altar to draw from the well of God’s mercy, Amaro completed the Blessing and turned slowly back again to Esguelhas, as if to present to him alone the Graces and Gifts of Our Lord.

  ‘Esguelhas,’ he said quietly as they went back into the sacristy, ‘go and wait for me in the courtyard, will you. I need to talk to you.’

  He soon rejoined him, looking suitably grave.

  ‘Put your hat back on, Esguelhas. I have a serious matter to discuss with you. I’d actually like to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Father!’

  No, it was not a favour exactly, because when it came to serving God, we all had a duty to do our utmost to help. There was a young woman who wanted to become a nun. In fact, to show what confidence he had in him, he would tell him her name.

  ‘It’s São Joaneira’s Amélia!’

  ‘Really, Father?’

  ‘She has such a strong vocation, Esguelhas! She has clearly been marked out by the finger of God! It’s quite extraordinary . . .’

  He then told him a long story which he laboriously made up as he went along, depending on the feelings he imagined he could see on the sexton’s astonished face. The girl had lost interest in life after the disagreement she had had with her fiancé. But her mother, who was getting on in years and who needed her to look after the house, was withholding her consent, assuming this interest to be just a passing fancy. But it was no fancy, it was her true vocation. He was sure of it. Unfortunately, when there was any kind of opposition, a priest had to tread very carefully. Every day, the heretical newspapers (which were, alas, the majority) inveighed against the influence of the clergy. The authorities, even more heretical than the newspapers, put obstacles in their way. There were some truly draconian laws . . . If they knew that he was instructing the girl so that she could take the veil, they would lock him up! What could one expect? We were living in heretical, atheistic times! He needed to have many long conversations with the girl, to test her, to understand her temperament, to see if she was best suited to Solitude and Penance or to helping the sick, to Perpetual Adoration or to teaching. In short, he must know her inside and out.

  ‘But where can I do this?’ he exclaimed, opening wide his arms as if distraught to find himself frustrated in his saintly duty. ‘Where? It couldn’t be in her mother’s house, because they were already suspicious. Meeting in the church would be tantamount to meeting in the street. She’s still only a young girl, and so we couldn’t possibly meet at my house . . .’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘And so, Esguelhas . . . and I’m sure you’ll thank me for this . . . I thought of your house.’

  ‘Oh, Father,’ said the sexton, ‘I, my house and everything in it are at your disposal.’

  ‘It’s to help a soul and will be a source of great joy to Our Lord . . .’

  ‘And to me, Father, and to me!’

  Esguelhas’ only concern was that the house was not worthy and not comfortable enough . . .

  ‘Really!’ said Amaro, smiling, as if renouncing all human comforts. ‘As long as there are two chairs and a table on which to place the prayer book . . .’

  On the other hand, said the sexton, if they wanted a quiet, private house, it was perfect. He and his daughter lived there like two monks in the desert. On the days when Father Amaro was there, he would go off for his walk. They couldn’t use the kitchen, of course, because poor Totó’s room was next to it, but there was always his bedroom upstairs.

  Father Amaro struck his head with his hand. He had forgotten about Totó.

  ‘That spoils our little plan, Esguelhas!’ he exclaimed.

  But the sexton was quick to reassure him. He was now caught up in this conquest of a bride for Our Lord; he wanted his roof to provide shelter for the holy preparation of that young girl’s soul . . . Perhaps it would draw down God’s pity on him. He warmly recommended the house’s many advantages and facilities. Totó wouldn’t be in the way. She never left her bed. Father Amaro would come in through the kitchen from the sacristy and Amélia through the street door; they could then go upstairs and shut themselves in his room.

  ‘And what does Totó do?’ asked Father Amaro, still hesitant.

  The poor thing spent all her time in bed . . . She went through phases: sometimes she would make dolls and lavish such love on them that she gave herself a fever; at others she lay in terrible silence, staring at the wall. But then again she could be cheerful and chatty . . . It really was a great misfortune.

  ‘She should entertain herself, she should read,’ said Father Amaro, just to show interest.

  The sexton sighed. She did not know how to read, she had never learned. That was exactly what he said to her: if she could read, life would weigh less heavily on her. But she had a horror of applying herself to anything. Perhaps Father Amaro would be so kind as to try and persuade her when he came to the house.

  But Amaro was not listening, absorbed in an idea that had lit up his face with a smile. He had stumbled upon a natural pretext to give to São Joaneira and her friends for Amélia’s visits to the sexton’s house: she was teaching the paralysed girl to read. She was educating her! Opening her soul to
the beauties of holy books, to the stories of the martyrs and to prayer!

  ‘It’s decided then, Esguelhas,’ he declared, gleefully rubbing his hands. ‘Your house will be the place where we will make the girl a saint. But,’ and he lowered his voice, ‘this is our secret.’

  ‘Please, Father!’ said the sexton, almost offended.

  ‘I’m counting on you,’ said Amaro.

  He went straight back to the sacristy to write a note that he would pass secretly to Amélia and in which he would explain in detail the arrangements he had made ‘to enable them to enjoy new and divine joys’. He warned her that the pretext for her to visit the sexton’s house every week would be the education of Esguelhas’ paralysed daughter; he would put forward the idea that night when he came to the house. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘there is a grain of truth in it, for it would indeed be pleasing to God if the darkness of that soul could be illuminated with some religious instruction. And thus, my dear, we would kill two birds with one stone.’

  Then he went home. He sat down at the breakfast table feeling very pleased with himself, with life and with the sweet facilities with which life furnished him. The jealousy, the torments of desire, the solitude of the flesh, everything that had consumed him for months and months, first in Rua da Misericórdia and then in Rua das Sousas, had passed. He was at last comfortably installed in happiness! And in a state of dumb enchantment, his fork forgotten in his hand, he remembered the previous night and the whole of that half hour, pleasure by pleasure, mentally savouring them, one by one, gorging himself on the certainty of possession – the way a farmer walks the small newly acquired field that his eyes have coveted for years. He would no longer cast bitter sideways glances at the gentlemen out strolling by the river with their ladies on their arm! He now had his own lovely lady, all his, body and soul, who adored him, who wore good linen, and whose breasts smelled of eau-de-cologne! He was, it is true, a priest . . . but he had an argument for that too: as long as a priest’s behaviour was not a cause for scandal amongst the faithful, then it in no way damaged the efficacy, usefulness and grandeur of religion. All the theologians teach that the order of priests was instituted to administer the sacraments; what mattered was that the people should receive the inner, supernatural sanctity contained in the sacraments, and provided that these were dispensed according to the consecrated formulae, what did it matter whether the priest was a saint or a sinner? The sacrament still carried within it the same beneficial qualities. It did so not through the merits of the priest, but through the merits of Jesus Christ. If someone was baptized or anointed, it mattered not if it was by pure hands or soiled, they would still be washed clean of original sin or well prepared for eternal life. This is clear in the writings of all the holy fathers, and was established by the lofty Council of Trent itself. As regards their soul or their salvation, the faithful lose nothing through the unworthiness of the parish priest. And if that priest repents at the final hour, the gates of Heaven will not be closed to him. In short, all’s well that ends well. These were Father Amaro’s thoughts as he happily sipped his coffee.

  After lunch, Dionísia came in, all smiles, to find out if he had spoken to Esguelhas.

  ‘Yes I did mention it, just in passing,’ he said ambiguously. ‘But nothing’s decided yet. Rome wasn’t built in a day you know.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said.

  And she withdrew to the kitchen, thinking that the parish priest lied like a heretic. Not that she cared. She had never liked working with ecclesiastical gentlemen – they paid badly and were always so mistrustful . . .

  And when she heard Amaro going out, she ran to the stairs and reminded him that she did, in fact, have her own house to look after, and so when he found another maid . . .

  ‘Dona Josefa Dias is sorting that out for me, Dionísia. I hope to have someone tomorrow. But drop round now and then . . . now that we’re friends.’

  ‘If you ever need me, you just have to call down to me in the yard,’ she said from the top of the stairs. ‘Anything at all . . . I know a little about a lot of things, even removing any problems, shall we say, or helping with a birth . . . Indeed, while we’re on the subject . . .’

  But Amaro was not listening: he slammed the door and fled, incensed by that clumsy, immodest offer of help.

  He first brought up the matter of the sexton’s daughter in São Joaneira’s house a few days later.

  He had given the note to Amélia the previous evening and, now, while the others were chatting loudly in the living room, he went over to the piano where Amélia was lazily running her fingers up and down the scales. Bending down to light his cigarette on the candle, he murmured:

  ‘Did you read it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s an excellent idea!’

  Amaro immediately rejoined the circle of ladies, where Dona Joaquina Gansoso was describing the disaster that had taken place in England and which she had read about in the newspaper: a coal mine had collapsed, burying 120 workers. The old ladies shuddered in horror. Pleased at the effect her words had had, Dona Joaquina Gansoso piled on more details: the people outside had struggled to free the unfortunate miners; they could hear their moans beneath the earth; it all took place in the encroaching darkness in the middle of a snow storm . . .

  ‘Most unpleasant!’ grunted the Canon, snug in his armchair, enjoying the warmth of the room and the safety of a roof.

  Dona Maria da Assunção declared that all those mines and those foreign machines filled her with fear. She had seen a factory near Alcobaçã and it had seemed to her to be an image of Hell. She was sure that Our Lord did not view them kindly . . .

  ‘It’s like railways,’ said Dona Josefa. ‘I’m convinced they’re the Devil’s work. I’m not joking. The howls, the flames, the noise! It sends shivers down my spine!’

  Father Amaro laughed out loud, assuring Dona Josefa that they were a wonderfully comfortable way to travel at speed. Then he immediately grew serious and added:

  ‘There’s no question, though, that these inventions of modern science do have a touch of the Devil about them. That is why our Holy Church blesses them, first with prayers and then with holy water. Surely you know about this custom. The holy water exorcises them and drives out the Enemy Spirit, and the prayers redeem them from the original sin which exists not only in man, but also in everything he makes. That is why locomotives are always blessed and purified . . . So that the Devil cannot use them for his own ends.’

  Dona Maria da Assunção immediately demanded an explanation. How exactly did the Enemy use railways for his own ends?

  Father Amaro kindly enlightened her. The Enemy had many ways of doing so, but what he usually did was to derail the train, thus killing the passengers, and since those souls had not received the last rites, the Devil took immediate possession of them, right there and then.

  ‘The villain!’ snorted the Canon, feeling a secret admiration for the Enemy’s wiles.

  Dona Maria da Assunção fanned herself languorously, her face bathed in a beatific smile.

  ‘Ah, ladies,’ she said slowly to those around her, ‘that won’t ever happen to us. We won’t be caught unprepared.’

  It was true, and they all savoured for a moment the delicious certainty that they would be prepared and would thus thwart the Tempter’s malicious intentions.

  Father Amaro coughed as if about to say something, and then, resting both hands on the table, he said in a very practical tone:

  ‘One must be constantly vigilant if one is to keep the Devil at bay. I was thinking about this only today (indeed it was the subject of my meditation) in respect of a most unfortunate case almost on the Cathedral’s doorstep. The sexton’s little daughter . . .’

  The ladies had drawn their chairs closer, drinking in his words, their curiosity suddenly aroused, hoping to hear some piquant story about the Devil’s misdeeds. Amaro continued speaking in a voice made more solemn by the surrounding silence.

  ‘The girl spends the whole day in bed. She cannot r
ead, she performs no religious devotions, she is not in the habit of meditating, and, as a consequence, she is, to use St Clement’s phrase, “a defenceless soul”. So what happens? The Devil, who is always on the watch and never misses a trick, makes himself at home there. That is the origin, as poor Esguelhas was telling me today, of her fits of fury and despair, of her motiveless rages . . . The poor man has a truly wretched life.’

  ‘And just two steps away from the Lord’s church!’ exclaimed Dona Maria da Assunção, enraged by Satan’s impudence in installing himself in a body and in a bed that were separated from the Cathedral walls by only a narrow courtyard.

  Amaro said:

  ‘You’re quite right. It’s an absolute scandal. But if the girl cannot read, if she knows no prayers, if she has no one to instruct her or to bring the word of God to her, no one to give her strength and teach her how to frustrate the Enemy . . .’

  He got resolutely to his feet and paced about the room, shoulders bowed, like a shepherd grieving over the fact that a force greater than him has snatched away a beloved sheep. Exalted by his own words, he was filled by genuine pity and compassion for that poor child for whom the agony of immobility must be made even worse by the lack of any consolation.

  The ladies looked at him, saddened by that unfortunate example of a neglected soul, especially since it was clearly a source of pain to Father Amaro.

  Dona Maria da Assunção rapidly ran through her abundant arsenal of devotional objects and suggested placing a few saints at her bedhead, St Vincent, for example, or Our Lady of the Seven Wounds . . . But her friends’ silence eloquently expressed the inadequacy of that devout gallery.