He smiled, bearing out his easy-going character of a country priest, and tapping Jeanne lightly on the hand, he said: "That is permissible, very permissible indeed, according to the commandments. You are married, are you not? Well, then, what is the harm?"

She, in her turn, had not understood his hidden meaning; but as soon as she saw through it, she blushed scarlet, shocked, and with tears in her eyes exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur le Cure, what are you saying? What are you thinking of? I swear to you--I swear to you----" And sobs choked her words.

He was surprised and sought to console her: "Come, I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I was only joking a little; there is no harm in that when one is decent. But you may rely on me, you may rely on me. I will see M. Julien."

She did not know what to say. She now wished to decline this intervention, which she thought clumsy and dangerous, but she did not dare to do so, and she went away hurriedly, faltering: "I am grateful to you, Monsieur le Cure."

A week pa.s.sed. One day at dinner Julien looked at her with a peculiar expression, a certain smiling curve of the lips that she had noticed when he was teasing her. He was even almost ironically gallant toward her, and as they were walking after dinner in little mother's avenue, he said in a low tone: "We seem to have made up again."

She did not reply, but continued to look on the ground at a sort of track that was almost effaced now that the gra.s.s was sprouting anew.

They were the footprints of the baroness, which were vanishing as does a memory. And Jeanne was plunged in sadness; she felt herself lost in life, far away from everyone.

"As for me, I ask nothing better. I was afraid of displeasing you,"

continued Julien.

The sun was going down, the air was mild. A longing to weep came over Jeanne, one of those needs of unbosoming oneself to a kindred spirit, of unbending and telling one's griefs. A sob rose in her throat; she opened her arms and fell on Julien's breast, and wept. He glanced down in surprise at her head, for he could not see her face which was hidden on his shoulder. He supposed that she still loved him, and placed a condescending kiss on the back of her head.

They entered the house and he followed her to her room. And thus they resumed their former relations, he, as a not unpleasant duty, and she, merely tolerating him.

She soon noticed, however, that his manner had changed, and one day with her lips to his, she murmured: "Why are you not the same as you used to be?"

"Because I do not want any more children," he said jokingly.

She started. "Why not?"

He appeared greatly surprised. "Eh, what's that you say? Are you crazy? No, indeed! One is enough, always crying and bothering everyone. Another baby! No, thank you!"

At the end of a month she told the news to everyone, far and wide, with the exception of Comtesse Gilberte, from reasons of modesty and delicacy.

What the priest had foreseen finally came to pa.s.s. She became enceinte. Then, filled with an unspeakable happiness, she locked her door every night when she retired, vowing herself from henceforth to eternal chast.i.ty, in grat.i.tude to the vague divinity she adored.

She was now almost quite happy again. Her children would grow up and love her; she would grow old quietly, happy and contented, without troubling herself about her husband.

Toward the end of September, Abbe Picot called on a visit of ceremony to introduce his successor, a young priest, very thin, very short, with an emphatic way of talking, and with dark circles round his sunken eyes.

The old abbe had been appointed Dean of G.o.derville.

Jeanne was really sorry to lose the old man, who had been a.s.sociated with all her recollections as a young woman. He had married her, baptized Paul, and buried the baroness. She could not imagine etouvent without Abbe Picot and his paunch pa.s.sing along by the farms, and she loved him because he was cheerful and natural.

But he did not seem very cheerful at the thought of his promotion. "It is a wrench, it is a wrench, madame la comtesse. I have been here for eighteen years. Oh, the place does not bring in much, and is not wealthy. The men have no more religion than they need, and the women, look you, the women have no morals. But nevertheless, I loved it."

The new cure appeared impatient, and said abruptly: "When I am here all that will have to be changed." He looked like an angry boy, thin and frail in his somewhat worn, though clean ca.s.sock.

Abbe Picot looked at him sideways, as he did when he was in a joking mood, and said: "You see, abbe, in order to prevent those happenings, you will have to chain up your parishioners; and even that would not be of much use." The little priest replied sharply: "We shall see."

And the older man smiled as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age will calm you down, abbe, and experience also. You will drive away from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from making mistakes; but you can go and look for the man, and prevent him from deserting the mother. Get them married, abbe, get them married, and do not trouble yourself about anything else."

"We think differently," said the young priest rudely; "it is useless to insist." And Abbe Picot once more began to regret his village, the sea which he saw from his parsonage, the little valleys where he walked while repeating his breviary, glancing up at the boats as they pa.s.sed.

As the two priests took their leave, the old man kissed Jeanne, who was on the verge of tears.

A week later Abbe Tolbiac called again. He spoke of reforms which he intended to accomplish, as a prince might have done on taking possession of a kingdom. Then he requested the vicomtesse not to miss the service on Sunday, and to communicate a all the festivals. "You and I," he said, "we are at the head of the district; we must rule it and always set them an example to follow. We must be of one accord so that we may be powerful and respected. The church and the chateau in joining forces will make the peasants obey and fear us."

Jeanne's religion was all sentiment; she had all a woman's dream faith, and if she attended at all to her religious duties, it was from a habit acquired at the convent, the baron's advanced ideas having long since overthrown her convictions. Abbe Picot contented himself with what observances she gave him, and never blamed her. But his successor, not seeing her at ma.s.s the preceding Sunday, had come to call, uneasy and stern.

She did not wish to break with the parsonage, and promised, making up her mind to be a.s.siduous in attendance the first few weeks, out of politeness.

Little by little, however, she got into the habit of going to church, and came under the influence of this delicate, upright and dictatorial abbe. A mystic, he appealed to her in his enthusiasm and zeal. He set in vibration in her soul the chord of religious poetry that all women possess. His unyielding austerity, his disgust for ordinary human interests, his love of G.o.d, his youthful and untutored inexperience, his harsh words, and his inflexible will, gave Jeanne an idea of the stuff martyrs were made of; and she let herself be carried away, all disillusioned as she was, by the fanaticism of this child, the minister of G.o.d.

He led her to Christ, the consoler, showing her how the joy of religion will calm all sorrow; and she knelt at the confessional, humbling herself, feeling herself small and weak in presence of this priest, who appeared to be about fifteen.

He was, however, very soon detested in all the countryside. Inflexibly severe toward himself, he was implacably intolerant toward others, and the one thing that especially roused his wrath and indignation was love. The young men and girls looked at each other slyly across the church, and the old peasants who liked to joke about such things disapproved his severity. All the parish was in a ferment. Soon the young men all stopped going to church.

The cure dined at the chateau every Thursday, and often came during the week to chat with his penitent. She became enthusiastic like himself, talked about spiritual matters, handling all the antique and complicated a.r.s.enal of religious controversy.

They walked together along the baroness' avenue, talking of Christ and the apostles, the Virgin Mary and the Fathers of the Church as though they were personally acquainted with them.

Julien treated the new priest with great respect, saying constantly: "That priest suits me, he does not back down." And he went to confession and communion, setting a fine example. He now went to the Fourvilles' nearly every day, gunning with the husband, who was never happy without him, and riding with the comtesse, in spite of rain and storm. The comte said: "They are crazy about riding, but it does my wife good."

The baron returned to the chateau about the middle of November. He was changed, aged, faded, filled with a deep sadness. And his love for his daughter seemed to have gained in strength, as if these few months of dreary solitude had aggravated his need of affection, confidence and tenderness. Jeanne did not tell him about her new ideas, and her friendship for the Abbe Tolbiac. The first time he saw the priest he conceived a great aversion to him. And when Jeanne asked him that evening how he liked him, he replied: "That man is an inquisitor! He must be very dangerous."

When he learned from the peasants, whose friend he was, of the harshness and violence of the young priest, of the kind of persecution which he carried on against all human and natural instincts, he developed a hatred toward him. He, himself, was one of the old race of natural philosophers who bowed the knee to a sort of pantheistic Divinity, and shrank from the catholic conception of a G.o.d with bourgeois instincts, Jesuitical wrath, and tyrannical revenge. To him reproduction was the great law of nature, and he began from farm to farm an ardent campaign against this intolerant priest, the persecutor of life.

Jeanne, very much worried, prayed to the Lord, entreated her father; but he always replied: "We must fight such men as that, it is our duty and our right. They are not human."

And he repeated, shaking his long white locks: "They are not human; they understand nothing, nothing, nothing. They are moving in a morbid dream; they are anti-physical." And he p.r.o.nounced the word "anti-physical" as though it were a malediction.

The priest knew who his enemy was, but as he wished to remain ruler of the chateau and of Jeanne, he temporized, sure of final victory. He was also haunted by a fixed idea. He had discovered by chance the amours of Julien and Gilberte, and he desired to put a stop to them at all costs.

He came to see Jeanne one day and, after a long conversation on spiritual matters, he asked her to give her aid in helping him to fight, to put an end to the evil in her own family, in order to save two souls that were in danger.

She did not understand, and did not wish to know. He replied: "The hour has not arrived. I shall see you some other time." And he left abruptly.

The winter was coming to a close, a rotten winter, as they say in the country, damp and mild. The abbe called again some days later and hinted mysteriously at one of those shameless intrigues between persons whose conduct should be irreproachable. It was the duty, he said, of those who were aware of the facts to use every means to bring it to an end. He took Jeanne's hand and adjured her to open her eyes and understand and lend him her aid.

This time she understood, but she was silent, terrified at the thought of all that might result in the house that was now peaceful, and she pretended not to understand. Then he spoke out clearly.

She faltered: "What do you wish me to do, Monsieur l'Abbe?"

"Anything, rather than permit this infamy. Anything, I say. Leave him.

Flee from this impure house!"

"But I have no money; and then I have no longer any courage; and, besides, how can I go without any proof? I have not the right to do so."

The priest arose trembling: "That is cowardice, madame; I am mistaken in you. You are unworthy of G.o.d's mercy!"

She fell on her knees: "Oh, I pray you not to leave me, tell me what to do!"

"Open M. de Fourville's eyes," he said abruptly. "It is his place to break up this intrigue."