by Emile Zola
‘You see, they’re telling you to come over!’ Jeanne said again triumphantly.
‘It’s not necessary, we’re very well here.’
‘Oh, Maman, let’s go and join them... They have two chairs.’
‘No, get down, sit on your chair.’
But as these ladies insisted smilingly, without troubling in the least about the little scandal they had caused — quite the opposite, they were pleased to see people turning round to look at them — Hélène had to give in. She gave the delighted Jeanne a little push, tried to make a way through, her hands trembling with suppressed anger. It was not an easy job. The pious singers did not want be disturbed and, still in full throttle, looked at them in much annoyance. For five whole minutes in the midst of the storm of voices, roaring louder than ever, she tried to get through. When she couldn’t move forward, Jeanne squeezed closer to her mother, looking at all those cavernous mouths. Finally they reached the space left free in front of the choir, and had only a few steps to go.
‘Over here,’ whispered Madame Deberle, ‘the abbé said you were coming, I’ve kept you two chairs.’
Hélène thanked her and, to cut the conversation short, immediately started to rustle the leaves in her missal. But Juliette behaved exactly as she did in polite society. She was as charming and chatty there as she was in her drawing room, very much at ease. So she leaned over, and carried on chatting:
‘We don’t see you any more. I was intending to come and visit tomorrow. You haven’t been poorly, have you?’
‘Thank you, no I haven’t. I’ve had so much to do...’
‘Listen, you must come and dine with us tomorrow. Just us, nobody else.’
‘It’s very nice of you, we’ll see.’
And she seemed to draw away and follow the hymn, determined not to reply. Pauline had put Jeanne next to her to let her share the heating vent, and she was slowly getting warmer and warmer, in the blissful happiness of someone who usually feels the cold. In the warm rising air, both sat up on their seats, full of curiosity, studying everything, the low ceiling divided by wooden panels, the pillars with their capitals connected by the full arches from which lamps were hanging, the carved oak pulpit, and over the mass of heads moving in rhythm to the strains of the hymn, they could see right into the dark corners of the side aisles which led to the hidden chapels, gleaming with gold, to the baptistry closed by a grill near the main door. But they constantly returned to the splendour of the chancel painted in bright colours, sparkling with gold. A lighted crystal lamp hung there from the high arch. Gigantic candelabra strung together tiers of candles which pierced the shadowy depths of the church in a shower of symmetrical stars, illuminating the high altar like an enormous bouquet of greenery and flowers. Above it in a harvest of roses a Virgin dressed in satin and lace, crowned with pearls, held Jesus clothed in a long robe, in her arms.
‘Now are you warm?’ asked Pauline. ‘This is really nice.’
But Jeanne was in ecstasy contemplating the Virgin in the midst of all the flowers. She shivered. She was afraid she might not be good any longer and she lowered her eyes, staring hard at the black and white tiles on the floor, to stop herself bursting into tears. The thin voices of the choirboys wafted gently through her hair.
Meanwhile Hélène, her eyes on her missal, drew away each time she felt Juliette brush against her with her lace. She was not at all prepared for this encounter. In spite of the vow she had made to herself to love Henri in a holy way without ever belonging to him, she felt uneasy to think she was betraying this gay, confident woman sitting beside her. One thought preoccupied her. She would not go to the dinner. And she wondered how she might gradually break off relations that affronted that loyalty. But the droning voices of the cantors a few steps away from her prevented her from thinking clearly. Unable to formulate a thought, she gave herself up to the rhythms of the canticle, enjoying a spiritual well-being which she had never experienced in a church until that moment.
‘Have you heard about Madame de Chermette?’ asked Juliette, again indulging her burning desire to talk.
‘No, I know nothing about her.’
‘Well, just imagine... You’ve seen her daughter, who is so tall for fifteen? They are thinking about marrying her next year, and to the little dark-haired boy you always see clinging to his mother. Everybody’s talking about it.’
‘Oh,’ said Hélène, who wasn’t listening.
Madame Deberle provided more details. But suddenly the hymn ended, the organ ground to a halt. Then she stopped talking, surprised by her loud voice in the silence which had fallen. A priest had just appeared in the pulpit. There was a thrill of expectation. Then he started to speak. No indeed, Hélène wouldn’t attend this dinner. Her eyes fixed on the priest, she imagined the first meeting with Henri she had been dreading so much for the last three days. She had visions of him pale with anger, telling her off for shutting herself away in her house. And she feared she would not be able to show enough self-composure. Deep in her thoughts, she did not see the priest; she caught only a few phrases, a booming voice from somewhere above her saying:
‘It was an ineffable moment when the Virgin Mary, bowing her head, replied: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord...” ’
Oh, she would be brave, all her common sense had returned. She would enjoy being loved, but she would never admit her love, for that would be certainly at the cost of her peace of mind. And she would love him from the bottom of her heart, without ever admitting it, contenting herself with a word from Henri, with the occasional glance exchanged when chance brought them together! It was a dream that filled her with thoughts of eternity. She felt the church around her to be friendly and pleasing. The priest intoned:
‘The angel departed. Mary was lost in the contemplation of the divine mystery working within her, flooding her with light and love.’
‘He speaks very well,’ Madame Deberle whispered, leaning over to her. ‘And he’s so young — scarcely thirty, wouldn’t you say?’
Madame Deberle was moved. She approved of religion as an emotion that was in good taste. Giving flowers to the church, having to do with priests, people who were polite, discreet and smelled nice, dressing up to go to church, where, as she liked to think, she extended the protection of her class to the God of the poor. All this made her especially happy; and the more so because her husband was not a practising Christian and so her devotions had acquired the taste of forbidden fruit. Hélène looked at her and replied only with a nod. Both faces were ecstatic and smiling. There was a loud scraping of chairs and blowing of handkerchiefs, the priest had just left the pulpit with this last exhortation:
‘O pious Christian souls, go and may your love be increased. God gave himself to you, your hearts are full of His presence, your souls are overflowing with His grace!’
The organ promptly thundered in response. There followed the litanies of the Virgin with their passionate appeals of love. From the shadows of the hidden chapels in the side aisles came a distant faint chanting, as though the earth was answering the angelic voices of the choirboys. A breath of air wafted over the heads of the congregation, lengthening the tall flames of the candles, while the Holy Mother, with her bouquet of roses in the midst of the flowers, bruising as they exhaled the last of their scent, looked as if she had bowed her head to smile at her Jesus.
Suddenly Hélène turned, with an instinctive concern.
‘You are not ill, are you, Jeanne?’ she enquired.
The child was very pale, her eyes damp, as if carried away by the torrent of love in the litanies, gazing at the altar, seeing the roses multiply and fall like rain. She whispered:
‘Oh no, Maman... I’m happy, really happy.’
Then she asked:
‘But where’s my friend?’
She meant the abbé. Pauline spied him. He was in one of the choirstalls. But she had to lift Jeanne up to see.
‘Oh, I can see him. He’s looking at us, he’s winking at us.’
‘It’s over, let’s go.’
There was a scraping of chairs and tread of feet beneath the vault. Pauline took Jeanne’s hand. Walking in front with the child, she questioned her.
‘You’ve never been to the theatre before?’
‘No, is it better than this?’
The little girl, sighing with an excess of passion, poked her chin out as much as to say that nothing could be more beautiful. But Pauline did not answer. She had just stopped stock-still in front of a priest, who was passing, dressed in his surplice; and scarcely had he gone by than she said aloud:
‘Oh, how handsome he is!’ with such conviction that two members of the congregation turned round and stared at her.
In the meantime Hélène had risen. She was shuffling along next to Juliette in the middle of the crowd which was working its way forward. Weak and weary, and with her whole being suffused with love, she no longer felt troubled by the proximity of Juliette. At one moment their bare wrists touched and they smiled at one another. They could hardly breathe. Hélène tried to make Juliette go first, to protect her. All their previous intimacy seemed to have returned.
‘It’s agreed, then?’ Madame Deberle asked. ‘We’ll expect you tomorrow night.’
Hélène no longer had the strength to say no. She would think about it when they were out in the street. Finally they left, among the last to do so. Pauline and Jeanne were waiting for them on the opposite side of the road. But a whining voice brought them up short.
‘Oh my dear lady, what good fortune! Such a long time since I saw you last!’
It was Mother Fétu. She was begging outside the church door. Blocking Hélène’s way, as though she had been lying in wait for her, she went on:
‘Oh, I’ve been very poorly, it’s always there in my belly, you know... Now it’s like hammer blows... And nothing I can do about it. I didn’t dare ask you to tell him... God bless you!’
Hélène had just slipped a coin into her hand, promising to keep her in mind.
‘Gracious!’ said Madame Deberle still standing under the porch, ‘someone’s chatting to Pauline and Jeanne... Oh, look, it’s Henri!’
‘Yes, yes,’ Mother Fétu went on, looking slyly from one lady to the other. ‘It’s the kind doctor. I watched him all the time during the service. He stood on the pavement waiting for you, I’ll be bound. And what a saintly man! I say it because it’s the truth, in front of God, who hears us... Oh, I know you, Madame. You’ve got a husband there who deserves to be happy... May Heaven fulfil your desires, and all blessings be upon you! In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen!’
And in the thousand wrinkles on her face, which was lined like an old apple, her little eyes kept darting around, worried and mischievous, going from Juliette to Hélène without it being certain which of the two she was addressing when she spoke of the kind doctor. She kept up her continual babbling, shreds of whining phrases interspersed with pious exclamations.
Hélène was surprised and touched by Henri’s reserve. He hardly dared raised his eyes to look at her. When his wife teased him about his opinions which prevented him entering a church, he said simply that he had come to meet the ladies and smoke his cigar. And Hélène realized that he had wanted to see her again to show her how wrong she was to fear some new offensiveness on his part. No doubt he had sworn, as she had, to be sensible. She did not study him to see if he really meant what he said, since it saddened her to see him unhappy. So, as she left the Deberles in the Rue Vineuse, she said cheerily:
‘All right, I’ll come, tomorrow at seven.’
Then relations became closer than ever, a wonderful sort of life began. For Hélène it was as if Henri had never given in to that moment of folly. This was what she had dreamed of; they loved each other but they just would not say it any more, they would be happy just to know it. Delightful hours during which, without speaking of their affection, they continually communicated it to each other by a gesture, an inflexion in the voice, or just silence. Everything revolved around their love. They were constantly bathed in a passion that they carried with them, around them, as though it were the only air they could breathe. And under the cover of their close friendship, they knowingly acted out this comedy of the heart, for they did not allow themselves to shake hands, which imparted a peerless voluptuousness to the simple greeting they exchanged when they met.
Each evening the ladies insisted on going to church. Madame Deberle, enchanted, took pleasure in it again, it was a change from going dancing, going to concerts, to premieres. She adored these new feelings, she was seen constantly in the company of nuns and priests. The basic religious instruction that she had received from boarding school entered her empty head once more, and was translated into little practices which she enjoyed, as if she was remembering her childhood games. Hélène, who had grown up without any religious education, allowed herself to enjoy these practices in the Month of Mary, happy to see the pleasure that Jeanne seemed to be taking in them. They dined earlier, they hustled Rosalie so that they wouldn’t arrive late and get a bad seat. Then they called for Juliette on the way. One day they took Lucien, but he behaved so badly that now they left him at home. And as they went into the warm church all glowing with the candles, they experienced a feeling of quietness and peace, which was gradually becoming a necessity for Hélène. When she had had doubts during the day, or a vague anxiety had taken hold of her at the thought of Henri, the church soothed her spirits again in the evening. The psalms rose and overflowed with holy passion. The fresh-cut flowers, heavy with perfume, were overpowering under the vault. She breathed in the first intoxication of spring, the adoration of womanhood elevated to a religion, and she let herself be carried away by this mystery of love and purity as she contemplated Mary, Virgin and mother, crowned with her white roses. She remained kneeling longer and longer every day. She was surprised to find she sometimes had her hands joined. Then after the service, going home was delightful. Henri would be waiting at the church door, the evenings were getting warmer, they went back through the dark silent streets of Passy, exchanging the odd word.
‘You are becoming very religious, my dear!’ Madame Deberle said with a laugh one evening.
It was true. Hélène had opened her heart wide and embraced the life of devotion. She would never have thought loving would make her feel so good. She returned to the church as to a place of love, where she was allowed to weep, not to think, to lose herself completely in silent adoration. Each evening for an hour she lowered her defences; the flowering of her love, contained within her during the day, was able to rise up in her heart, grow in her prayers, there in front of everyone, in the midst of the religious fervour of the congregation. The stammered prayers, the kneelings, the salutations, these words and vague gestures repeated over and over again lulled her and seemed to her the one true language, always the same passion, translated by the same word or the same sign. She needed to believe it, she was transported up into the love of God.
And it was not only Hélène that Juliette teased, she claimed that Henri himself was turning to the church. Did he not go into the church now to wait for them! An atheist, a pagan, who declared that he had looked for the soul on the end of his scalpel and not found it yet! As soon as she caught sight of him behind the pulpit standing in front of a pillar, Juliette nudged Hélène’s elbow.
‘Look, he’s there already. Do you know, he wouldn’t go to confession before we got married... No, his expression is priceles
s, he is watching us in such a funny way! Just look at him!’
Hélène did not raise her eyes straight away. The service was about to finish, the incense was burning, the joyous notes of the organ rang out. But as her friend wasn’t the kind of woman to leave her be, she had to answer her.
‘Yes, yes, I can see him,’ she mumbled, not turning her head.
She had guessed he was there when she heard the hosanna rise from the whole church. Henri’s breathing seemed to wing its way on the words of the hymns to the nape of her neck, and, as she knelt, she felt as though his eyes were behind her lighting up the nave and enveloping them in a golden light. Then she prayed with such fervour that words failed her. He, very serious, had the proper expression of a husband coming to fetch the ladies from the house of God, just as he would have gone to fetch them in the foyer of a theatre. But when they met as the congregation filed slowly out, they both felt as though they were more tightly bound together, united by the flowers and the hymns; and, hearts in their mouths, they avoided speaking to each other.
After a fortnight Madame Deberle grew tired of it. She leaped from one passion to the next, tormented with the need to do what everyone else was doing. So now she was involved in charity sales, climbing sixty different floors in an afternoon to go and beg canvases from well-known painters, and spending her evenings presiding, with a bell, over the meetings of lady patrons. So one Thursday evening Hélène and her daughter were on their own in the church. After the sermon when the cantors were attacking the Magnificat, the young woman felt her heart leap and she turned her head: Henri was there in his usual place. So she stayed with her eyes cast down till the end of the service, waiting for the return home.
‘Oh, how nice of you to come!’ cried Jeanne on their way out, with her childish familiarity. ‘I should have been scared in these dark streets.’