Complete Works of Emile Zola (1753 page)

On the following Thursday Marc repaired to Maillebois, and a fancy which had been haunting him for some time past was then suddenly changed into certainty. While crossing the little Place des Capuoins, his attention was attracted by a wretched-looking man, who stood in front of the Brothers’ school gazing fixedly at the dilapidated walls. And Marc immediately recognised this man to be the one whom he had perceived with Polydor, in the avenue leading to the railway station, a month previously. This time he had no cause for hesitation. He was able to examine the man at his ease, in the broad sunlight, and he saw that he was, indeed, Brother Gorgias — Gorgias, in old and greasy clothing, with hollow cheeks and bent limbs, but still easily recognisable by the large fierce beak which jutted out from between his projecting cheek-bones. Thus Delbos had not been mistaken; Gorgias had really returned, and, doubtless, had been prowling about the region for a good many months already.

The Ignorantine, amid the reverie into which he had sunk as he stood in that sleepy and almost invariably deserted little square, must have become conscious of the scrutinising gaze which was being directed upon him. He slowly turned round, and his eyes then met those of the man who stood only a few steps away. And he, on his side, assuredly recognised Marc. Instead, however, of evincing any alarm, instead of taking to his heels as he had done on the first occasion, he lingered there, and his old sneer, that involuntary twitching of the lips which disclosed some of his wolfish teeth in a manner suggesting both contempt and cruelty, appeared upon his face. Then, pointing to the tumble-down walls of the Brothers’ school, he said quietly: ‘That sight must please you every time you pass this way — eh, Monsieur Froment?... It angers me; I’d like to set fire to the shanty, and burn the last of those cowards in it!’

Then, as Marc shuddered without replying, thunderstruck as he was by the bandit’s audacity in addressing him, Gorgias again grinned in his silent, evil way, and added: ‘Are you astonished that I should confess myself to you? You, no doubt, were my worst enemy. But, after all, why should I bear you malice? You owed me nothing, you were fighting for your own opinions.... The men I hate and whom I mean to pursue until my last breath are my superiors, my brothers in Jesus Christ, all those whose duty it was to cover and save me, but who flung me into the streets, hoping I should die of shame and starvation.... I myself, it may be allowed, am but a poor and erring creature, but it was God whom those wretched cowards betrayed and sold, for it is their fault, the fault of their imbecile weakness if the Church is now near to defeat, and if that poor school yonder is already falling to pieces.... Oh!  when one remembers what a position it held in my time! We were the victors then; we had reduced your secular schools to next to nothing. But now they are triumphing, and will soon be the only ones left. The thought of it fills me with regret and anger!’

Then, as two old women crossed the square and a Capuchin came out of the neighbouring chapel, Gorgias, after glancing anxiously about him, added swiftly in an undertone: ‘Listen to me, Monsieur Froment; for a long time past I have wished to have a chat with you. If you are willing I will call on you at Jonville some day, after nightfall.’

Then he hurried off, disappearing before Marc could say a word. The schoolmaster, who was quite upset by that meeting, spoke of it to nobody excepting his wife, who felt alarmed when she heard of it. They agreed that they would not admit that man if he should venture to call on them, for the visit he announced might well prove to be some machination of treachery and falsehood. Gorgias had always lied, and he would lie again; so it was absurd to expect from him any useful new fact such as had been sought so long. However, some months elapsed and the other made no sign; in such wise that Marc who, at the outset, had remained watchful, with the view of keeping his door shut, gradually grew astonished and impatient. He wondered what might be the things which Gorgias had wished to toll him; and a desire to know them worried him more and more. After all, why should he not receive the scamp? Even if he learnt nothing useful from him, he would have an opportunity of fathoming his nature. And having come to that conclusion, Marc lived on in suspense, waiting for the visit which was so long deferred.

At last, one winter evening, when the rain was pouring in torrents, Brother Gorgias presented himself, clad in an old cloak, streaming with mud and water. As soon as he had rid himself of that rag, Marc showed him into his classroom, which was still warm, for the fire in the faïence stove was only just dying out. A little oil lamp alone cast some light over a portion of that large and silent room around which big shadows had gathered. And Geneviève, trembling slightly with a vague fear of some possible attempt upon her husband, remained listening behind a door.

As for Brother Gorgias, he, without any ado, resumed the conversation interrupted on the Place des Capucins, as if it had taken place that very afternoon.

‘You know, Monsieur Froment,’ he began, ‘the Church is dying because she no longer possesses any priests resolute enough to support her by fire and steel, if need be. Not one of the poor fools, the whimpering clowns of the present day, loves or even knows the real God — He who at once exterminated the nations that dared to disobey Him, and who reigned over the bodies and souls of men like an absolute master, ever armed with resistless thunderbolts.... How can you expect the world to be different from what it is, if the Deity now merely has poltroons and fools to speak in His name?’

Then Gorgias enumerated his superiors, his brothers in Christ, as he called them, one by one, and a perfect massacre ensued. Monseigneur Bergerot, who had lately died at the advanced age of eighty-seven, had never been aught than a poor, timid, incoherent creature, lacking the necessary courage to secede from Rome and establish that famous liberal and rationalist Church of France which he had dreamt of, and which would have been little else than a new Protestant sect. Those lettered Bishops, gifted with inquiring minds, but destitute of all sturdiness of faith, suffered the incredulous masses to desert the altars instead of flagellating them mercilessly with the dread of hell. But Gorgias’s most intense hatred was directed against Abbé Quandieu, who still survived though his eightieth year was past. For the Ignorantine the ex-priest of St. Martin’s was a perjurer, an apostate, a bad priest who bad spat upon his own religion by openly upholding God’s enemies at the time of the Simon case. Moreover, he had abandoned his ministry, and gone to dwell in a little house in a lonely neighbourhood, impudently saying that he was disgusted with the base superstition of the last believers, and carrying his audacity so far as to pretend that the monks, whom he called the traders of the Temple, were demolishers who unconsciously hastened the downfall of the Church. But if there was a demolisher it was he himself, for his desertion had served as an argument to the enemies of Catholicism. Surely indeed it was an abominable example that he had set — forswearing all his past life, breaking his vows, and preferring a sleek and shameful old age to martyrdom. As for that big, lean, stem Abbé Coquard, his successor at St. Martin’s, however imposing the new-comer might look, he was in reality only a fool.

Marc had, for a while, listened in silence, determined to offer no interruption. But his feelings rebelled when he heard Gorgias’s violent attack upon Abbé Quandieu. ‘You do not know that priest,’ he said quietly. ‘Your judgment is that of an enemy, blinded by spite.... As a matter of fact, Abbé Quandieu was the only priest of this region who, at the outset, understood what frightful harm the Church would do herself by openly and passionately defying truth and justice. She claims to represent a Deity of certainty and equity, kindness and innocence; she was founded to exalt the suffering and the meek, and yet, all at once, in order to retain temporal authority, she makes common cause with oppressors and liars and forgers! It was certain that the consequences would be terrible for her as soon as Simon’s innocence should become manifest. Such conduct was suicide on the Church’s part. “With her own hands she prepared her condemnation, showing the world that she was no longer the abode of the true and the just, of everlasting purity and goodness! And her expiation is only just beginning; she will slowly die of that denial of justice which she took upon herself and which has become a devouring sore.... Abbé Quandieu foresaw it and said it. It is not true that he fled from the Church in any spirit of cowardice; he quitted his ministry bleeding and weeping, and it is in grief that he is ending a life of misery and bitternesses.’

By a rough gesture Gorgias signified that he did not intend to argue. With his glowing eyes gazing far away into the galling memories of his personal experiences, he scarcely listened to Marc, impatient as he was to continue his own rageful diatribe.

Good, good, I say what I think,’ he resumed, ‘but I don’t prevent you from thinking whatever you please.... There are, at all events, other imbeciles and cowards whom you won’t defend; for instance, that rascal Father Théodose, the mirror of the devotees, the thieving cashier of heaven!’

Thereupon Gorgias assailed the superior of the Capuchins with murderous fury. He did not blame the worship of St. Antony of Padua. On the contrary he praised it; he set all his hopes in miracles, he would have liked to have seen the whole world bringing money to the shrine of the Saint in order that the latter might persuade the Deity to hurl his thunderbolts upon the cities of sin. Bat Father Théodose was a mere conscienceless mountebank, who amassed money for himself alone, and gave no assistance whatever to the afflicted servants of God. Though hundreds of thousands of francs had formerly overflowed from his collection boxes, he had not devoted even an occasional five-franc piece to render life a little less hard than it was to the poor Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, his neighbours. And now that the gifts he received were dwindling year by year his avarice was even greater. He had refused the smallest alms to him, Brother Gorgias, at a time when he was in the mo3t desperate circumstances, when, indeed, a ten-franc piece might have saved his life.

They all abandoned him, yes, all — not only that lecherous money-mongering Father Théodose, but even the other, the great chief, the great culprit, who was as big a fool as he was a rascal. Then Gorgias blurted out the name of Father Crabot which had been burning his lips. Ah! Father Crabot, Father Crabot, he had worshipped him in former times, he had served him on his knees in respectful silence, ready to carry his devotion to the point of crime. He had then regarded him as an all powerful, able and valiant master, favoured by Jesus, who had promised him eternal victory in this world. By Father Crabot’s side he, Gorgias, had thought himself protected from the wicked, assured of success in every enterprise, even the most dangerous. And yet that venerated master to whom he had dedicated his life, that glorious Father Crabot, now denied him and left him without shelter and without a crust. He did worse indeed; he cast him upon the waters as if he were a troublesome accomplice, whose disappearance was desired. Besides, had he not always displayed the most monstrous egotism? Had he not previously sacrificed poor Father Philibin, who had lately died in the Italian convent where he had lingered, virtually dead, for many years already? Father Philibin had been a hero, a victim, who had invariably obeyed his superior, who had carried devotion so far as to take upon his shoulders all the punishment for the deeds which had been commanded of him and which he had done in silence. Yet another victim was that hallucinated Brother Fulgence, a perfect nincompoop with his excitable sparrow’s brain, but who, none the less, had not deserved to be swept away into the nothingness in which, somewhere or other, he was dying. What good purpose had been served by all that villainy and ingratitude? Had it not been as stupid as it was cruel on Father Crabot’s part to abandon in that fashion all his old friends, all the instruments of his fortune? Had not his own position been shaken by his conduct in allowing the others to be struck down? And had he never thought that one of them might at last grow weary of it all, and rise up and cast terrible truths in his face?

‘Beneath all Crabot’s grand manners,’ cried Brother Gorgias excitedly, ‘beneath all his reputation for cleverness and diplomatic skill, there is rank stupidity. He must be quite a fool to treat me in the way he does. But let him take care, let him take care, or else one of these days, before long, I shall speak out!’

At this, Marc, who had been listening with passionate interest, made an effort to hasten the other’s revelations: ‘Speak out? What have you to say then?’ he inquired.

‘Nothing, nothing, there are only some matters between him and me — I shall tell them to God alone, in a confession.’ Then, reverting to his bitter catalogue of accusations, Gorgias exclaimed: ‘And, to finish, there’s that Brother Joachim, whom they have set at the head of our school at Maillebois in Brother Fulgence’s place. Joachim is another of Father Crabot’s creatures, a hypocrite, chosen on account of his supposed skill and artfulness — one who imagines himself to be a great man because he does not pull the ears of the little vermin entrusted to him. You know the result — the school will soon have to be closed for lack of pupils! If the wretched offspring of men are to grow up fairly well, they must be trained by kicks and blows, as God requires.... And — if you want my opinion — there is only one priest imbued with the right spirit in the whole region, and that is your Abbé Cognasse. He, too, went to seek advice at Valmarie, and they nearly corrupted him as they corrupted the others, by advising him to be supple and crafty. But he fortunately regained possession of himself; it is with stones that he now pursues the enemies of the Church! That is the right course for the real saints to follow, that is the way in which God, when He chooses to interfere, will end by reconquering the world!’

Thus speaking, Gorgias raised his clenched fists and brandished them wildly, vehemently, in that usually quiet classroom where the little lamp shed but a faint glimmer of light. Then, for a moment, there came deep silence, amid which one only heard the pouring rain lashing the window-panes.