Complete Works of Emile Zola (1718 page)

But, although this version of the affair was at the first moment given by the newspaper, which declared that it emanated from a most reliable source, it was on the morrow contradicted energetically, even by Brother Gorgias himself, who repaired expressly to the newspaper office to enter his protest. He then swore on the gospel that he had gone straight home on the evening of the crime, and that the initialling on the copy-slip was a forgery in Simon’s handwriting, even as the experts had demonstrated. As a matter of fact he was compelled to accept the concoction of his superiors in order that he might be backed up and saved by them. He grumbled over it, and shrugged his shoulders impatiently, for it seemed to him an extremely stupid version; but at the same time he bowed to the decision of the others, even though he foresaw that their system of defence must eventually crumble to pieces.

At this moment Brother Gorgias, with his scoffing impudence and his heroic mendacity, was really superb. But, then, was not the Deity behind him? Was he not lying in order to save Holy Church, knowing too that absolution would wash away his sin? He even dreamt of the palms of martyrdom; each pious act of infamy that he perpetrated would entitle him to another joy in heaven! From that moment, then, he became merely a docile instrument in the hands of Brother Fulgence, behind whom Father Philibin was secretly acting under the discreet orders of Father Crabot. Their tactics were to deny everything, even what was self-evident, for fear lest the smallest breach in the sacred wall of the Congregations should prove the beginning of inevitable ruin; and although their absurd version of the affair might seem idiotic to people possessed of logical minds, it would none the less long remain the only truth accepted by the mass of the faithful, with whom they could presume to do anything, knowing as they did their boundless, fathomless credulity.

The clericals, then, having assumed the offensive without waiting for Gorgias to be denounced, Brother Fulgence in particular displayed the most intemperate zeal. At times of great emotion, his father, the mad doctor who had died in an asylum, seemed to revive in him. With his brain all fogged, unhinged by vanity and ambition, he yielded to the first impulse that came to him, ever dreaming of doing some mighty service to the Church, which would raise him to the head of his Order. Thus, in the earlier stages of the Simon affair, he had lost the little common-sense which he had previously shown, for he had hoped that the case would yield him the glory he coveted; and now that it was revived he once more became delirious. He was constantly to be seen hurrying along the streets of Maillebois, little, dark, and lean, with the folds of his gown flying about him as if a gale were carrying him away. Whenever he entered into conversation he defended his school with passionate eagerness, calling on heaven to witness the angelic purity of his assistants. As for the abominable rumours which had been circulated long ago respecting some Brothers who had been so horribly compromised that it had been necessary to conjure them away with the greatest speed — all those infamous tales were inventions of the devil.

In this respect, perhaps, however contrary to the truth his vehement declarations might be, Brother Fulgence, in the first instance, made them in all good faith, for he lived very much in another world, far from mere reason. But he soon found himself caught beneath the millstone of falsehood; it became necessary that he should lie knowingly and deliberately, and he did so at last with a kind of devout rage, for the very love of God. Was he not, himself, chaste? Had he not always wrestled against temptation? That was so; and he therefore made it his duty to guarantee the absolute chastity of his entire Order; he answered for the Brothers who stumbled by the way, he denied to laymen the right of judging them, for the laymen belonged merely to the flock, they knew nought of the temple. If, then, Brother Gorgias had sinned, he owed account of it to God only, not to man. As a member of a religious Order he had ceased to be liable to human justice. In this way, consumed by his craving to thrust himself forward, Brother Fulgence went on and on, impelled by skilful and discreet hands which piled all responsibilities upon his shoulders.

It was not difficult to divine that Father Philibin stood behind him in the gloom — Father Philibin, who, in his turn, was the instrument of Father Crabot. But how supple and how powerful a one, retaining his personality even amidst his obedience! He willingly exaggerated the characteristics of his peasant origin, affecting the heavy
bonhomie
of some rough-hewed son of the soil; yet he was full of the shrewdest craft, endowed with the patience needed for long enterprises, which he conducted with wonderful dexterity. He was always striving to attain some mysterious object, but he made no stir, he showed no personal ambition; the only joy he coveted was that of seeing his work prosper. Supposing him to be possessed of faith, it must have been a desire to serve his superiors and the Church that impelled him to fight on like an unknown unscrupulous soldier. As Prefect of the Studies at Valmarie he there kept a watch over everything, busied himself with everything; for, however massive his build, he was very active. Mingling with the pupils of the college, playing with them, watching them, studying them, diving to the very depths of their souls, ascertaining everything he could about their relatives and their friends, he possessed the master’s all-seeing eye, the mind which stripped the brains and hearts of others.

At times, it was said, he shut himself up with Father Crabot, the Rector, who affected to direct the establishment from on high, never attending personally to the education of the boys; and to him Father Philibin communicated his notes, his reports, his many documents containing the most complete and secret particulars about each pupil. It was asserted that Father Crabot, who prudently made it a principle to keep no papers whatever, did not approve of Philibin’s practice of collecting and cataloguing documents.

Yet, in recognition of his great services, he let him do so, regarding himself meantime as the directing hand, the superior mind which made use of the other. Indeed, did he not reign from his austere little cell over all the fine folk of the department? Did not the ladies whom he confessed, the families whose children were educated at Valmarie, belong to him by virtue of the might of his sacred ministry? He flattered himself that it was he who wove and disposed the huge net in which he hoped to capture one and all, when in reality it was more frequently Father Philibin who covertly prepared the various campaigns and ensured victory. In the Simon case, in particular, the latter seemed to have been the hidden artisan who recoiled from no task, however dark and base it might be, the politic man whom nothing could disgust, who had remained the friend of that vicious but well-informed youth, Georges Plumet, — nowadays the terrible Brother Gorgias, — following him through life, protecting him because he was as dangerous as useful, and doing all that could be done to extricate him from that frightful affair, the murder of little Zéphirin, in order no doubt that he, Philibin himself, might not come to grief in it, in the company of his superior, Father Crabot, that glory of the Church.

Now, once again, Maillebois became impassioned, though as yet there were only rumours of the criminal devices which the Jews were preparing in order to set the devoted Brother Gorgias, that holy man, revered by the entire district, in the place of that infamous scoundrel Simon. Extraordinary efforts were made to induce the school children’s parents — even those whose children attended the secular school — to condemn the revival of the affair. People talked as if the streets had been mined by some hidden band of scoundrels, the enemies of God and France, who had resolved to blow up the town as soon as a certain signal should reach them from abroad. At a sitting of the Municipal Council, Mayor Philis ventured to allude to a vague danger threatening the locality, and denounced the Jews who were secretly piling up millions for the diabolical work. Then, becoming more precise, he condemned the impious doings of the schoolmaster, that Marc Froment, of whom he had hitherto failed to rid the town. But he was still watching him, and this time he hoped that he would compel the Academy Inspector to show exemplary severity.

The successive versions which
Le Petit Beaumontais
had given of Marc’s share in the revival of the affair had cast confusion into the minds of many folk. There was certainly a question of a document found at the house of Mesdames Milhomme, the stationers; but some people spoke also of another abominable forgery perpetrated by Simon and others of a crushing document which proved the complicity of Father Crabot. The only certain thing was that General Jarousse had paid another visit to his cousin, Madame Edouard, that poor relation whose existence he so willingly forgot. One morning he had been seen arriving and rushing into the little shop, whence he had emerged half an hour later, looking extremely red. And the result of his tempestuous intervention was that Madame Alexandre, and her son Sébastien, now convalescent, started on the morrow for the South of France, while Madame Edouard continued to manage the shop to the complete satisfaction of the clerical customers. She ascribed the absence of her sister-in-law to the latter’s maternal anxiety, for only a sojourn in a warm climate would restore Sébastien to health; but as a matter of fact she was quite ready to recall Madame Alexandre in the interests of their business, should the secular school prove victorious in the coming contest.

Amid the rumbling of the great storm which was rising, Marc endeavoured to discharge his duties as schoolmaster with all correctitude. ‘The affair was now in David’s hands, and in that respect he, Marc, merely had to wait until he could assist him with his evidence. Thus never had he devoted himself more entirely to his pupils, striving to inspire them with reason and kindliness, for his active share in the reparation of one of the most monstrous iniquities of the age had filled him with greater fervour than ever for the cause of human solidarity. With Geneviève he showed himself ver
y
affectionate, endeavouring to avoid all subjects on which they disagreed, attentive only, it seemed, to those little trifles which are yet of great importance in one’s daily life. But whenever his wife returned from a visit to her relations he divined that she was nervous, impatient, more and more exasperated with him, her mind being full of stories which she had heard from his enemies. Thus he could not always avoid quarrels, which gradually became more and more venomous and deadly.

One evening hostilities broke out on the subject of that unhappy man Férou. Tragic tidings had reached Marc during the day: a sergeant, to whom Férou had behaved rebelliously, had shot him dead with a revolver. Marc, on going to see the widow, had found her in her wretched home, weeping and begging death to take her also, together with her younger daughters, even as it had compassionately taken the eldest one already. Marc felt that Férou’s frightful fate was the logical
dénouement
of his career: the poor schoolmaster, scorned, embittered to the point of rebellion, driven from his post, deserting in order that he might not have to pay to the barracks the debt which he had already paid in part to the school, then conquered by hunger, forcibly incorporated in the army when he returned to succour his despairing wife and children, and ending like a mad dog, yonder, under the flaming sky, amid the torturing life of a disciplinary company. At the same time, in presence of the sobbing wife and her stupefied daughters, in presence of those poor ragged waifs whom the iniquity of the social system cast into the last agony, Marc’s brotherly and humane nature was stirred to furious protest. Even in the evening he had not calmed down, and forgot himself so far as to speak of the affair to Geneviève, while she was still moving about their bedroom before withdrawing to a small adjoining chamber, where, of recent times, she had slept by herself.

‘Do you know the news?’ said he. ‘A sergeant has blown poor Férou’s brains out, in some mutiny, in Algeria.’

‘Ah!’

‘Yes, I saw Madame Férou this afternoon; she is quite out of her mind.... It was really deliberate, premeditated murder. I don’t know if General Jarousse, who showed himself so harsh in Férou’s case, will sleep at ease to-night. In any case some of the blood of that poor madman, who was turned into a wild beast, will cling to his hands.’

‘It would be very foolish of the general not to sleep!’ Geneviève quickly retorted, interpreting Marc’s words as an attack on her principles.

He made a gesture of mingled sorrow and indignation. But, recollecting the position, he regretted that he had named the general, for the latter was one of Father Crabot’s dearest penitents, and at one moment there had been some thought of using him for a military
coup d’état.
A Bonapartist by repute, with a decorative, corpulent figure, he was very severe with his men, though jovial at bottom, and fond of the table and wenches. Of course there was no harm in that; but, after some negotiations, the clericals found that he was decidedly too big a fool for their purpose; and so he remained a mere possible makeshift for their party, though they still treated him with some consideration.

‘When we first knew the Férou family at Le Moreux,’ Marc gently resumed, ‘they were already so poor, so burdened with work and worries in their wretched school, that I cannot think of that unhappy man, that master, tracked and destroyed like a wolf, without a feeling of anguish and compassion.’

At this Geneviève, thoroughly upset, her earlier displeasure turning into a kind of nervous exasperation, burst into tears. ‘Yes, yes! I understand you perfectly — I am a heartless creature, eh? You began by thinking me a fool, and now you believe I have an evil heart. How is it possible for us. to continue loving one another if you treat me as though I were a stupid and malicious woman?’

Astonished and grieved at having provoked such an outburst Marc wished to pacify his wife. But she became quite wild. ‘No, no! it is all over between us. As you hate me more and more each day, it is best that we should separate at once, without waiting till unworthy things happen!’