The Grip of Desire | Page 2

During Mass LXXVI.
Awakening LXXVII. Consolations LXXVIII. False Alarms LXXIX. In
the Diligence LXXX. An Old Acquaintance LXXXI. A Little
Confession LXXXII. The Church-Woman LXXXIII. Conventicle
LXXXIV. At the Palace LXXXV. Little Pastimes LXXXVI. Serious
Talk LXXXVII. The Seminary LXXXVIII. The Fair One LXXXIX.
Love Again XC. Le Cygne de la Croix XCI. The Calves XCII. The
Scapular XCIII. From the Dark to the Fair XCIV. The Change XCV.
The Curé of St. Marie XCVI. Finis Coronet Opus

[Illustration]

I.
THE CURÉ.
"I will sing thy praises on the harp, oh Lord. But, my soul, whence
cometh thy sadness, and wherefore art thou troubled."
(The Introito of the Mass).
The Curé of Althausen was reputed to be chaste. Was he so really? To
tell the truth, I never believed him so; at thirty men are not chaste; they
may try to be so; they rarely succeed. However that might be, he was a
singular man.
He had a profound reverence for common sense, and it was said that he
taught a strange doctrine to his flock; for example, that a day of work
was more pleasing to God than a day of prayer; that the temples were
for those who labour not, and that a good action was well worth a mass.

He maintained too that we purchase nothing with money in the other
world, and that the coins, so appreciated among ourselves, have no
currency beyond the grave, and a hundred other oddities of this kind,
which in the good old times would have brought him to the stake. The
Bishop had severely reprimanded him for all these heresies; but he
seemed to pay no attention to it. Every Sunday, from the height of his
pulpit, he continued to brave shamelessly the thunders of his Bishop
and the thunders of heaven.
I went one day to hear him. His voice was sweet, persuasive, with a
clear and harmonious tone. He said simply: "Love one another. That is
the true religion of Christ. Love one another! everything is there:
religion, philosophy and morality. Charity, properly understood, that
which comes from the heart, is more pleasing to God than all the
prayers. There are people who in order to pray neglect their home
duties, their duties as wife and as mother. To them, I say of a truth, God
remains deaf. He wills, before aught else, that you should fulfil your
duties to your own. Every prayer which causes another to suffer is an
impiety." Such was pretty near the essence of his sermons: they were
short and simple. No great sonorous words, no pompous digressions,
no Latin quotations which no one would have understood, no
declamations on Our Lady of Lourdes or of La Salotte, on the miracle
of Roses or the Immaculate Conception.
Thus he placed himself on a level with the simple souls who heard him,
addressed himself only to their good sense and to their heart, and did
not waste their time. He thought that after having worked hard
throughout the week, it was well to spend the Sunday in rest and not in
fresh fatigue.
But that which struck me most in him was his intelligent and expressive
countenance, and I was astonished that a man hall-marked with such
originality, should consent to vegetate, obscure and future-less, in the
care of a poor village.
They said he was chaste. In truth that must be a task more arduous for
him than for any other, for he bore on his face the impress of ardent
passions. A disciple of Lavater would doubtless have sought for and

found the secret of hidden dramas in the fine pale face. From his looks,
now full of feverish ardour, now laden with sweet caresses, like the
limpid eyes of a bride, the desires of the flesh in rebellion against
deadly duty, seemed to burst forth with bold prolific thoughts.
One saw at times that his thoughts escaped in moments of forgetfulness
from the clerical fetter.
Wild, wandering and licentious, they plunged with delight into the
ocean of reverie. They left far behind them on the misty shore our
conventions, our prejudices and our follies, and all those toils of
spider-web which beset and catch and destroy so well the silly crowd,
and which we call social rules, opinion and propriety.
Then the priest was gone; the man alone remained, the man of thirty,
robust and full of life and yearning for all the joys of life. And beneath
his gold-embroidered chasuble, near that altar laden with lustres and
with flowers, amidst the floods of light and the floods of perfume, in
that atmosphere saturated with the intoxicating waves of incense and
the breath of maidens; surrounded by all those women, by all these
girls on their knees before him or hanging