Complete Works of Emile Zola (326 page)

‘Just a word, your reverence, I beg.’

Then he asked him at what time he could see him the following day. This was the first occasion on which any one of the two sets of guests had spoken to the priest from one garden to the other. The doctor was in great trouble however. His scamp of a son had been caught in a gambling den behind the gaol in company with other worthless characters. The most distressing part of the matter was that Guillaume was accused of being the leader of the band, and of having led Monsieur Maffre’s sons, much younger than himself, astray.

‘Pooh!’ said Monsieur de Condamin with his sceptical laugh; ‘young men must sow their wild oats. What a fuss about nothing! Here’s the whole town in a state of perturbation because some young fellows have been caught playing baccarat and there happened to be a lady with them!’

The doctor seemed very much shocked at this.

‘I want to ask your advice,’ he said, addressing himself to the priest. ‘Monsieur Maffre came to my house boiling over with anger, and assailed me with the bitterest reproaches, crying out that it was all my fault, as I had brought my son up badly. I am extremely distressed and troubled about it. Monsieur Maffre ought to know me better. I have sixty years of stainless life behind me.’

He went on wailing, dwelling upon the sacrifices that he had made for his son and expressing his fears that he would lose his practice in consequence of the young man’s miscon­duct. Abbé Faujas, standing in the middle of the path, raised his head and gravely listened.

‘I shall be only too glad if I can be of any service to you,’ he said kindly. ‘I will see Monsieur Maffre and will let him understand that his natural indignation has carried him too far. I will go at once and ask him to appoint a meeting with me for to-morrow. He is over there, on the other side.’

The Abbé crossed the garden and went towards Monsieur Maffre, who was still there with Madame Rastoil. When the justice of the peace found that the priest desired an interview with him, he would not hear of his taking any trouble about it, but put himself at his disposition, saying that he would do himself the honour of calling upon him the next day.

‘Ah! Monsieur le Curé,’ Madame Rastoil then remarked, ‘let me compliment you upon your sermon last Sunday. All the ladies were much affected by it, I assure you.’

The Abbé bowed and crossed the garden again in order to reassure Doctor Porquier. Then he continued slowly pacing about the walks till nightfall, without taking part in any further conversations, but ever hearing the merriment of the groups of guests on his right hand and his left.

When Monsieur Maffre appeared the next day, Abbé Faujas was watching a couple of men who were at work repairing the fountain in the garden. He had expressed a desire to see the fountain play again, for the empty basin, said he, had such a melancholy appearance. At first Mouret had not seemed very willing to have anything done, alleging the probability of accidents with Désirée, but Marthe had prevailed upon him to let the repairs be executed upon the understanding that the basin should be protected by a railing.

‘Monsieur le Curé,’ said Rose,
’
the justice of the peace wishes to see you.’

Abbé Faujas hastened indoors. He wanted to take Mon­sieur Maffre up to his own room on the second floor, but Rose had already opened the drawing-room door.

‘Go in,’ she said; ‘aren’t you at home here? It is use­less to make the justice go up two flights of stairs. If you had only told me this morning, I would have given the room a dusting.’

As she closed the door upon the Abbé and the magistrate, after opening the shutters, Mouret called her into the dining-room.

‘That’s right, Rose,’ he cried, ‘you had better give my dinner to your priest this evening, and if he hasn’t got suffi­cient blankets of his own upstairs you can take mine off my bed.’

The cook exchanged a meaning glance with Marthe, who was working by the window, waiting till the sunshine should leave the terrace. Then, shrugging her shoulders, she said:

‘Ah! sir, you have never had a charitable heart!’

She took herself off, while Marthe continued sewing with­out raising her head. For the last few days she had, with feverish energy, again applied herself to her needlework. She was embroidering an altar-frontal as a gift for the cathedral. The ladies were desirous of giving a complete set of altar furni­ture. Madame Rastoil and Madame Delangre had undertaken to present the candlesticks, and Madame de Condamin had ordered a magnificent silver crucifix from Paris.

Meantime, in the drawing-room, Abbé Faujas was gently remonstrating with Monsieur Maffre, telling him that Doctor Porquier was a religious man and a person of the highest integrity, and that no one could be more pained than he by his son’s deplorable conduct. The magistrate listened with a sanctimonious air, and his heavy features and big prominent eyes assumed quite an ecstatic expression at certain pious remarks which the priest uttered in a very moving manner. He allowed that he had been rather too hasty, and declared that he was willing to make every apology as his reverence thought he had been in the wrong.

‘You must send your own sons to me,’ said the priest, ‘and I will talk to them.’

Monsieur Maffre shook his head with a slight sneering laugh.

‘Oh! you needn’t be afraid about them, Monsieur le Curé. The young scamps won’t play any more tricks. They have been locked up in their rooms for the last three days with nothing but bread and water. If I had had a stick in my hand when I found out what they had been doing, I should have broken it across their backs.’

The Abbé looked at him and recollected how Mouret had accused him of having killed his wife by harshness and avarice; then, with a gesture of protest, he added:

‘No, no; that is not the way to treat young men. Your elder son, Ambroise, is twenty years old and the younger is nearly eighteen, isn’t he? They are no longer children, remember. You must allow them some amusements.’

The magistrate remained silent with surprise. ‘Then you would let them go on smoking and allow them to frequent cafés?’ he said, presently.

‘Well,’ replied the priest, with a smile. ‘I think that young men should be allowed to meet together to talk and smoke their cigarettes and even to play a game of billiards or chess. They will give themselves every license if you show no tolerance. Only remember that it is not to every café that I should be willing for them to go. I should like to see a special one provided for them, a sort of club, as I have seen done in several towns.’

Then he unfolded a complete scheme for such a club. Monsieur Maffre gradually seemed to appreciate it. He nodded his head as he said:

‘Capital, capital! It would be a worthy pendant to the Home of the Virgin. Really, Monsieur le Curé, we must put such a splendid idea as this into execution.’

‘Well, then,’ the priest concluded, as he accompanied Mon­sieur Maffre to the door, ‘since you approve of the plan, just advocate it among your friends. I will see Monsieur Delangre, and speak to him about it. We might meet in the cathedral on Sunday after vespers and come to some decision.’

On the Sunday, Monsieur Maffre brought Monsieur Rastoil with him. They found Abbé Faujas and Monsieur Delangre in a little room adjoining the sacristy. The gentlemen dis­played great enthusiasm in favour of the priest’s idea, and the institution of a young men’s club was agreed upon in prin­ciple. There was considerable discussion, however, as to what it should be called. Monsieur Maffre was strongly desirous that it should be known as the Guild of Jesus.

‘Oh, no! no!’ the priest impatiently cried at last. ‘You would get scarcely anyone to join, and the few members would only be jeered at. There must be no attempt to tack religion on to the business; indeed, I intend that we should leave religion outside its doors altogether. All we want to do is to win the young people over to our side by providing them with some innocent recreation; that is all.’

The justice of the peace gazed at the priest with such an expression of astonishment and anxiety that Monsieur Delangre was obliged to bend his head to conceal a smile, while he slyly pulled the Abbé’s cassock. Then the priest went on in a calmer voice:

‘I am sure, gentlemen, that you do not feel any distrust of me, and I ask you to leave the management of the matter in my hands. I propose to adopt some very simple name, such a one, for instance, as the Young Men’s Club, which fully expresses all that is required.’

Monsieur Rastoil and Monsieur Maffre bowed, although this title seemed to them a little weak. They next spoke of nominating the Curé as president of a provisional committee.

‘I fancy,’ said Monsieur Delangre, glancing at the priest, ‘that this suggestion will scarcely meet with his reverence’s approbation.’

‘Oh dear, no!’ the Abbé exclaimed, slightly shrugging his shoulders. ‘My cassock would frighten the timid and luke­warm away. We should only get the pious young people, and it is not for them that we are going to found our club. What we want is to gather in the wanderers; to win converts, in a word; isn’t that so?’

‘Clearly,’ replied the presiding judge.

‘Very well, then, it will be better for us to keep ourselves in the background, myself especially. What I propose is this: your son, Monsieur Rastoil, and yours, Monsieur Delangre, will alone come forward. It must appear as if they them­selves had formed the idea of this club. Send them to me in the morning, and I will talk the matter over at length with them. I already have a suitable building in my mind and a code of rules quite prepared. Your two sons, Monsieur Maffre, will naturally be enrolled at the head of the list of members.’

The presiding judge seemed flattered at the part assigned to his son; and so matters were arranged in this way, not­withstanding the resistance of the justice of the peace, who had hoped to win some personal distinction from the founding of the club. The next day Séverin Rastoil and Lucien Delangre put themselves in communication with Abbé Faujas. Séverin was a tall young man of five-and-twenty, with a badly shaped skull and a dull brain, who had just been called to the bar, thanks to the position which his father held. The latter was anxiously dreaming of making him a public prosecutor’s assessor, despairing of his ever succeeding in winning any practice for himself. Lucien, on the other hand, was short and sharp-eyed, had a crafty mind, and pleaded with all the coolness of an old practitioner, although he was a year younger than Séverin. The ‘Plassans Gazette’ spoke of him as a future light of the bar. It was more particularly to him that the Abbé gave the minutest instructions as to his scheme. As for young Rastoil he simply went fussing about, bursting with importance. In three weeks the Young Men’s Club was founded and opened.

There was at that time beneath the church of the Minimes, situated at the end of the Cours Sauvaire, a number of very large rooms and an old monastery refectory, which were no longer put to any use. This was the place that Abbé Faujas had thought of for the club, and the clergy of the parish very willingly allowed him to use the rooms. One morning, when the provisional committee of the Young Men’s Club had set workmen going in this cellar-like place, the citizens of Plassans were quite astounded to see what appeared to be a café being fitted up under the church. Five days afterwards there was no longer any room for doubt on the point. The place was certainly going to be a café. Divans were being brought thither, with marble-topped tables, chairs, two billiard-tables, and even three crates of crockery and glass. An entrance was contrived at the end of the building, as far as possible from the doorway of the church, and great crimson curtains, genuine restaurant-curtains, were hung behind the glass panes. You descended five stone steps, and on opening the door found yourself in a large hall; to the right of which there was a smaller one and a reading-room, while in a square room at the far end were placed the two billiard-tables. They were exactly beneath the high altar.

‘Well, my poor boys,’ said Guillaume Porquier one day to Monsieur Maffre’s two sons, whom he had met on the Cours, ‘so they are going to make you serve at mass between your games at bézique,’

However, Ambroise and Alphonse besought him not to speak to them in public, as their father had threatened to send them to sea if they continued to associate with him.

When the first astonishment was over, the Young Men’s Club proved a great success. Monseigneur Rousselot accepted the honorary presidency, and even visited it in person one evening, attended by his secretary, Abbé Surin. Each of them drank a glass of currant-syrup in the smaller room, and the glass which his lordship used was preserved with great respect upon a sideboard. The Bishop’s visit is still talked of with much emotion at Plassans, and it brought about the adherence of all the fashionable young men of the town. It was soon considered very bad style not to belong to the Young Men’s Club.

Guillaume Porquier, however, used to prowl about the entrance, sniggering like a young wolf who dreams of making his way into a sheep-fold. Notwithstanding all the fear they had of their father, Monsieur Maffre’s sons quite worshipped this shameless young man who regaled them with stories of Paris, and entertained them at secret little parties in the suburbs. They had got into the habit of meeting him regu­larly every Saturday evening at nine o’clock near a certain seat on the Mall. They slipped away from the club and sat gossiping till eleven, concealed beneath the dark shade of the plane-trees. On these occasions Guillaume always twitted them about the evenings they spent underneath the church of the Minimes.

‘It is very kind of you,’ he would say, ‘to let yourselves be led by the nose. The verger gives you glasses of sugar and water as though he were administering the communion to you, doesn’t he?’

‘Nothing of the sort! you are quite mistaken, I assure you,’ Ambroise exclaimed. ‘You might fancy you were in the Café du Cours, or the Café de France, or the Café des Voyageurs. We drink beer, or punch, or madeira, whatever we like, whatever is drunk in other places.’

Guillaume continued jeering however.

‘Well, I shouldn’t like to go drinking their dirty stuff,’ he said. ‘I should be afraid that they had mixed some drug with it to make me go to confession. I suppose you amuse yourselves by playing at hot-cockles and puss-in-the-corner!’