Part 17

His teeth clenched with rage and his eyes lifted toward that sky streaked with lightning: "I should deserve to be swept away if I fall asleep during the storm!" cried Julien. "Let us attempt the conquest of some other boor."

The course in sacred history given by Abbé Castanède began.

To those young peasants, so terrified of the toilsome labor and the poverty of their fathers, Abbé Castanède was teaching that day that that being so terrible in their eyes, the government, had no real and legitimate power save by virtue of the delegation of the vicar of God on earth.

"Render yourselves worthy of the pope's kindness through the holiness of your life, through your obedience; be like a staff in his hands," he added, "and you shall obtain a splendid post where you shall command in chief, free of all oversight; a post that is irremovable, of which the government pays a third of the salary, and the faithful, formed by your preachings, the other two thirds."

On leaving his lecture, M. Castanède stopped in the courtyard, amid his pupils, that day more attentive than usual.

"It is of a curate that one may say: as the man, so the post," he said to the students who formed a circle around him. "I, who speak to you, have known mountain parishes whose fees were worth more than those of many a town curate. There was as much money, not counting the fat capons, the eggs, the fresh butter, and a thousand agreeable particulars; and there the curate is first without dispute: no good meal but he is invited, feted, etc."

Scarcely had M. Castanède gone back up to his rooms than the pupils divided into groups. Julien belonged to none; he was left like a scabby sheep. In all the groups he saw a pupil toss a sou into the air, and if he guessed right at heads or tails, his comrades concluded he would soon have one of those cures with a rich income.

Then came the anecdotes. Such a young priest, ordained scarcely a year, having offered a tame rabbit to the servant of an old curate, had managed to be requested as vicar, and a few months later, for the curate died right quickly, had replaced him in the good living. Such another had succeeded in being designated successor to the cure of a very rich large town, by attending all the meals of the old paralytic curate and carving his chickens with grace.

The seminarians, like people in all walks of life, exaggerated the effect of those small means which have something extraordinary and strike the imagination.

"I must grow accustomed to these conversations," Julien told himself. When they were not speaking of sausages and good livings, they talked of the worldly side of ecclesiastical doctrines; of the disputes between bishops and prefects, mayors and curates. Julien saw appear the idea of a second God, but a God far more to be feared and far more powerful than the other; this second God was the pope. They said to one another, but in lowered voices and when quite sure of not being overheard by M. Pirard, that if the pope does not take the trouble to name all the prefects and all the mayors of France, it is because he has committed that care to the king of France, in naming him eldest son of the Church.

It was about this time that Julien thought he might turn to account, for his standing, the book *The Pope*, by M. de Maistre. To tell the truth, he astonished his comrades, but this was yet another misfortune. He displeased them by setting forth their own opinions better than they did themselves. M. Chélan had been imprudent for Julien as he was for himself. After giving him the habit of reasoning correctly and not being put off with empty words, he had neglected to tell him that, in a man of little account, this habit is a crime, for every sound argument gives offense.

Julien's clear speaking was thus a fresh crime. His comrades, by dint of thinking about him, managed to express in a single word all the horror he inspired in them: they nicknamed him Martin Luther; especially, they said, because of that infernal logic which makes him so proud.

Several young seminarians had fresher complexions and might pass for prettier fellows than Julien, but he had white hands and could not hide certain habits of delicate cleanliness. This advantage was none in the dreary house where fate had cast him. The dirty peasants among whom he lived declared he had very loose morals. We fear to weary the reader with the tale of our hero's thousand misfortunes. For example, the sturdiest of his comrades tried to take up the habit of beating him; he was obliged to arm himself with an iron compass and announce, but by signs, that he would make use of it. Signs cannot figure, in a spy's report, as advantageously as words.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A PROCESSION

All hearts were moved. The presence of God seemed descended into those narrow, Gothic streets, hung with drapery on every side and well sanded by the care of the faithful.

YOUNG.

Julien might make himself small and foolish as he would, he could not please; he was too different. And yet, he said to himself, all these professors are very shrewd men, and chosen from a thousand; how is it they do not love my humility? Only one seemed to him to abuse his complaisance in believing everything and seeming duped by everything. This was Abbé Chas-Bernard, master of ceremonies of the cathedral, where, for fifteen years, they had held out hope to him of a canonry; meanwhile he taught sacred eloquence at the seminary. In the time of his blindness, this course was one of those where Julien most habitually came first. Abbé Chas had proceeded from this to show him friendship, and, at the end of his lecture, would willingly take him under his arm to walk a few turns in the Garden.

"Where does he mean to arrive?" Julien asked himself. He saw with astonishment that, for whole hours, Abbé Chas spoke to him of the ornaments possessed by the cathedral. It had seventeen gallooned chasubles, besides the mourning ornaments. Great hopes were placed in the old president of Rubempré, a lady of ninety, who had kept, for at least seventy years, her wedding dresses in superb Lyons fabrics, brocaded with gold.

"Picture to yourself, my friend," said Abbé Chas, stopping short and opening wide his eyes, "that these fabrics stand upright, so much gold is there. It is the common opinion of all honest folk of Besançon that, by the president's will, the cathedral treasury will be increased by more than ten chasubles, not counting four or five copes for the great feasts. I go further," added Abbé Chas, lowering his voice, "I have reasons to think the president will leave us eight magnificent gilt silver candelabra, supposed to have been bought in Italy by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, one of whose ancestors was his favored minister."

But where does this man mean to arrive with all this old trumpery? thought Julien. This adroit preparation has lasted a century, and nothing appears. He must mistrust me greatly! He is shrewder than all the others, whose secret aim one guesses in a fortnight. I understand: this one's ambition has suffered for fifteen years!

One evening, in the middle of the fencing lesson, Julien was called to Abbé Pirard, who said to him:

"Tomorrow is the feast of *Corpus Domini* (the feast of God). M. l'abbé Chas-Bernard has need of you to help him ornament the cathedral; go and obey."

Abbé Pirard called him back, and, with an air of commiseration, added:

"It is for you to see whether you will profit by the occasion to stray into the town."

"*Incedo per ignes*," answered Julien (I have hidden enemies).

The next day, at early morn, Julien went to the cathedral, his eyes lowered. The sight of the streets and of the activity beginning to reign in the town did him good. On every side they were hanging the fronts of the houses for the procession. All the time he had spent at the seminary seemed no more than an instant. His thoughts were at Vergy and with that pretty Amanda Binet, whom he might meet, for her café was not far off. He caught sight from afar of Abbé Chas-Bernard at the door of his beloved cathedral; he was a stout man with a cheerful face and open air. That day he was triumphant:

"I was expecting you, my dear son," he cried, as far off as he saw Julien, "welcome. The work of this day will be long and hard; let us fortify ourselves with a first breakfast; the second will come at ten o'clock during high mass."

"I desire, Sir," Julien said to him with a grave air, "not to be alone an instant; deign to observe," he added, showing him the clock above their heads, "that I arrive at five minutes to five."

"Ah! those little wicked ones of the seminary frighten you! You are very good to think of them," said Abbé Chas. "Is a road less fair because there are thorns in the hedges that border it? Travelers go their way and leave the wicked thorns to shrivel in their place. Besides, to work, my dear friend, to work!"

Abbé Chas was right to say the work would be hard. There had been a great funeral ceremony at the cathedral the day before; nothing could be prepared, so in a single morning they had to clothe all the Gothic pillars forming the three naves in a sort of red damask covering rising to thirty feet in height. M. the bishop had sent by mail-coach four upholsterers from Paris, but these gentlemen could not do everything, and far from encouraging the clumsiness of their Besançon comrades, they redoubled it by mocking them.

Julien saw he must mount the ladder himself; his agility served him well. He undertook to direct the town upholsterers. Abbé Chas, enchanted, watched him flit from ladder to ladder. When all the pillars were clad in damask, it was a question of placing five enormous plumes of feathers on the great canopy, above the high altar. A rich gilded wooden crown is supported by eight great twisted columns of Italian marble. But to reach the center of the canopy, above the tabernacle, one had to walk on an old wooden cornice, perhaps worm-eaten and forty feet high.

The sight of this arduous path had extinguished the gaiety, so brilliant until then, of the Parisian upholsterers; they looked up from below, argued much, and did not mount. Julien seized the plumes, and ran up the ladder. He placed them very well on the crown-shaped ornament, at the center of the canopy. As he came down the ladder, Abbé Chas-Bernard clasped him in his arms.

"*Optime*," cried the good priest, "I shall tell that to Monseigneur."

The ten o'clock breakfast was very merry. Never had Abbé Chas seen his church so beautiful.

"Dear disciple," he said to Julien, "my mother was a chair-rental woman in this venerable basilica, so that I was nourished in this great edifice. Robespierre's Terror ruined us; but, at the eight years I then had, I already served masses in private rooms, and was fed on mass days. No one knew how to fold a chasuble better than I; never were the galloons cut. Since the re-establishment of worship by Napoleon, I have the happiness of directing everything in this venerable metropolis. Five times a year my eyes see it adorned with these so beautiful ornaments. But never has it been so resplendent, never have the damask hangings been as well fastened as today, as clinging to the pillars."

At last he will tell me his secret, thought Julien; here he is speaking to me of himself; there is an outpouring. But nothing indiscreet was said by this evidently exalted man. And yet he has worked much, he is happy, said Julien to himself; the good wine was not spared. What a man! what an example for me! to him the palm. (It was a bad word he had from the old surgeon.)

As the Sanctus of the high mass sounded, Julien wished to take a surplice to follow the bishop in the superb procession.

"And the thieves, my friend, and the thieves!" cried Abbé Chas. "You are not thinking of it. The procession will go out; the church will remain deserted; we shall keep watch, you and I. We shall be well happy if we lack but a couple of ells of this fine galloon that surrounds the base of the pillars. It is yet another gift of Mme de Rubempré; it comes from the famous count her great-grandfather, it is pure gold, my dear friend," added the abbé, speaking in his ear, with an evidently exalted air, "nothing false! I charge you with the inspection of the north wing; do not leave it. I keep for myself the south wing and the great nave. Attention to the confessionals; it is from there that the thieves' spies watch for the moment when we have our backs turned."

As he finished speaking, a quarter to twelve struck, and at once the great bell made itself heard. It rang at full peal; these sounds so full and so solemn moved Julien. His imagination was no longer on earth.

The smell of incense and of rose leaves thrown before the Blessed Sacrament by the little children disguised as Saint John completed his exaltation.

The so grave sounds of this bell ought to have awakened in Julien only the idea of the labor of twenty men paid at fifty centimes, and perhaps aided by fifteen or twenty of the faithful. He ought to have thought of the wear of the ropes, of that of the timberwork, of the danger of the bell itself, which falls every two centuries, and reflected on the means of diminishing the ringers' wages or of paying them by some indulgence or other grace drawn from the treasures of the church, and which does not flatten one's purse.

Instead of these wise reflections, Julien's soul, exalted by these so manly and full sounds, wandered in imaginary spaces. Never will he make either a good priest or a great administrator. Souls that are moved thus are good, at best, only to produce an artist. Here is displayed in full light the presumption of Julien. Fifty, perhaps, of the seminarian comrades, made attentive to the reality of life by public hatred and the Jacobinism shown them lying in ambush behind every hedge, on hearing the great bell of the cathedral, would have thought only of the ringers' wages. They would have examined, with the genius of Barrême, whether the degree of emotion of the public was worth the money given to the ringers. If Julien had wished to think of the material interests of the cathedral his imagination, leaping beyond the goal, would have thought to economize forty francs for the fabric and let slip the occasion of avoiding an expense of twenty-five centimes.

While, in the finest day in the world, the procession slowly traversed Besançon, and stopped at the brilliant altars raised in emulation by all the authorities, the church remained in profound silence. A half-obscurity, an agreeable coolness reigned there; it was still perfumed by the scent of flowers and incense.

Silence, deep solitude, the coolness of the long naves rendered Julien's reverie sweeter. He did not fear to be disturbed by the abbé, much occupied in another part of the building. His soul had almost abandoned its mortal envelope, which walked with slow steps in the north wing committed to its surveillance. He was the calmer in that he had assured himself there was in the confessionals but a few pious women his eye looked without seeing.

However, his distraction was half vanquished by the sight of two well-dressed women who were on their knees, one in a confessional, and the other close by the first, on a chair. He looked without seeing; yet, whether by a vague sense of his duties or by admiration for the noble and simple dress of these ladies, he noticed there was no priest in that confessional. "It is singular," he thought, "that these fine ladies are not on their knees before some altar, if they are devout; or placed advantageously in the front row of some balcony, if they are of the world." How well that gown is fitted! what grace! He slowed his pace to try to see them.

She who was on her knees in the confessional turned her head a little on hearing Julien's steps in the great silence. Suddenly she gave a little cry, and fainted.

In losing her strength, the lady on her knees fell backward; her friend, who was near her, sprang to help her. At the same time, Julien saw the shoulders of the lady falling backward. A necklace of large fine pearls in a twist, well known to him, struck his gaze. What became of him on recognizing Mme de Rênal's hair! It was she. The lady who sought to support her head, and keep her from quite falling, was Mme Derville. Julien, beside himself, sprang forward; Mme de Rênal's fall would perhaps have dragged her friend down had not Julien supported them. He saw Mme de Rênal's head, pale, wholly without sense, floating on her shoulder. He helped Mme Derville place that charming head on the edge of a straw chair; he was on his knees.

Mme Derville turned and recognized him:

"Fly, sir, fly," she said to him with the accent of the liveliest anger. "Above all, let her not see you again. Your sight must indeed fill her with horror; she was so happy before you! Your conduct is atrocious. Fly; be gone, if any shame remains in you."

This word was spoken with such authority, and Julien was so weak at that moment, that he withdrew. "She has always hated me," he said to himself, thinking of Mme Derville.

At the same instant, the nasal chant of the first priests of the procession rang in the church; it was re-entering. Abbé Chas-Bernard called Julien several times, who at first did not hear him: he came at last to take him by the arm behind a pillar where Julien had taken refuge, half dead. He wished to present him to the bishop.

"You are unwell, my child," said the abbé, seeing him so pale and almost unable to walk; "you have worked too much."

The abbé gave him his arm.

"Come, sit on this little bench of the holy-water font, behind me; I shall hide you." They were then beside the great door. "Compose yourself; we still have a good twenty minutes before Monseigneur appears. Try to recover; when he passes, I shall lift you, for I am strong and vigorous despite my age."

But when the bishop passed, Julien was so trembling that Abbé Chas gave up the idea of presenting him.

"Do not afflict yourself too much," he said; "I shall find another occasion."

That evening he had carried to the seminary chapel ten pounds of candles saved, he said, by Julien's care, and the rapidity with which he had had them extinguished. Nothing was less true. The poor lad was extinguished himself; he had not had a thought since the sight of Mme de Rênal.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE FIRST PROMOTION

He has known his century, he has known his department, and he is rich.

THE PRECURSOR.

Julien was not yet recovered from the deep reverie into which the cathedral event had plunged him, when one morning the severe Abbé Pirard had him called.

"Here is M. l'abbé Chas-Bernard who writes in your favor. I am tolerably content with the whole of your conduct. You are extremely imprudent and even scatterbrained without its showing; however, hitherto the heart is good and even generous, the mind superior. On the whole, I see in you a spark that must not be neglected.

"After fifteen years of labor, I am on the point of leaving this house: my crime is to have left the seminarians to their free will, and to have neither protected nor disparaged that secret society of which you spoke to me at the tribunal of penitence. Before departing, I wish to do something for you; I should have acted two months earlier, for you deserve it, but for the denunciation founded on the address of Amanda Binet, found in your possession. I make you tutor for the New and Old Testament."

Julien, transported with gratitude, did indeed think of throwing himself on his knees and thanking God, but he yielded to a truer impulse. He approached Abbé Pirard, and took his hand, which he carried to his lips.

"What is this?" cried the director, with an angry air—but Julien's eyes said even more than his action.

Abbé Pirard looked at him with astonishment, as a man who, for long years, has lost the habit of meeting delicate emotions. This attention betrayed the director; his voice altered.

"Well! yes, my child, I am attached to you. Heaven knows it is much against my will. I ought to be just, and to have neither hatred nor love for anyone. Your career will be painful. I see in you something that offends the common sort. Jealousy and calumny will pursue you. In whatever place Providence places you, your companions will never see you without hating you, and if they feign to love you, it will be to betray you more surely. For this there is but one remedy: have recourse only to God, who has given you, to punish you for your presumption, this necessity of being hated; let your conduct be pure; it is the only resource I see in you. If you hold to truth with an invincible grasp, sooner or later your enemies will be confounded."

It was so long since Julien had heard a friendly voice that he must be pardoned a weakness: he melted into tears. Abbé Pirard opened his arms to him; this moment was very sweet for them both.

Julien was wild with joy; this promotion was the first he had obtained; the advantages were immense. To conceive them, one must have been condemned to pass whole months without an instant of solitude, and in immediate contact with comrades at least importunate, and mostly intolerable. Their very cries would have sufficed to throw into disorder a delicate organization. The noisy joy of these well-fed and well-clothed peasants knew not how to enjoy itself, believed itself complete only when they shouted at the full force of their lungs.

Now, Julien dined alone, or nearly, an hour later than the other seminarians. He had a key to the garden, and could walk there at hours when it is deserted.

To his great astonishment, Julien perceived he was less hated; he expected, on the contrary, a redoubling of hatred. That secret desire that no one speak to him, which was too evident and won him so many enemies, was no longer a mark of ridiculous pride. In the eyes of the coarse beings around him, it was a just sense of his dignity. Hatred diminished sensibly, especially among the youngest of his comrades, become his pupils, and whom he treated with much politeness. Little by little he even had partisans; it became bad form to call him Martin Luther.

But what use to name his friends, his enemies? All that is ugly, and the uglier in that the design is truer. Yet these are the only teachers of morality the people have, and without them what would become of it? Can the newspaper ever replace the curate?

Since Julien's new dignity, the director of the seminary affected never to speak to him without witnesses. There was in this conduct prudence for the master as for the disciple; but there was above all trial. The invariable principle of the severe Jansenist Pirard was: Does a man have merit in your eyes? throw obstacle in the way of all he desires, of all he undertakes. If the merit is real, he will well know how to overturn or turn the obstacles.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”