The Grip of Desire | Page 4

faults, plunge into ecstasy the ruttish
confessor.
[Footnote 1: In the confessionals of the Church of St. Gudule at

Brussels and in those of the majority of Belgian churches an opening
may be seen contrived in the screen, through which it is easy for
mouths to meet.]

III.
THE PARSONAGE.
"The pretty parsonage encircled with verdure, With its white pigeons
cooing on the roof, Assumes to the sun a saucy air of sanctity And
permits a smell of cooking to go forth."
CAMILLE DELTHIL (Les Rustiques).
The parsonage is seated on the summit of the hill and overlooks a part
of the village and of the plain. The traveller perceives from far its white
outline in the midst of a nest of verdure, and feels delighted at the view.
Nothing more simple than this peaceful house. A single story above the
ground-floor, with four windows from which the panes shine cheerfully
in the first rays of the sun, and upon the red-tiled roof two attics with
pointed gable. The door, which one reaches by a broad stone stair, is
framed by two vines, their vigorous branches stretching up to the side
of the windows, yielding to the hand, when September is come, their
velvety, ruby bunches. Behind the house, a little garden surrounded by
a hedge of green, at once an orchard, flower and kitchen garden.
In front, two hundred paces away, the old church with its stained walls
on which the ivy clings, and its pointed belfry. The distance between is
partly filled by several rows of lime-trees, which, seen from a distance,
give to the parsonage the calm and cheerful look of those peaceful
retreats where we sometimes dream of burying our existence. "Is not
this the harbour!" says the tempest-beaten way-farer. "Oh! how happy
must be the dweller in this calm abode!"
He might enter; he was welcome. The door was open to all, and this
house, like that of the wise man, seemed to be of glass.

And all the women, young or old, knew hour by hour how their Curé
spent his time, and in spite of all the perseverance which, according to
principle, they had applied to discover some mystery in his life or the
knot of a secret intrigue, they acknowledged unanimously that no one
could give less hold for scandal than he.
Every day, when he had said mass, pruned his trees, watered his
flowers, visited some poor or sick person, he shut himself up with his
books and lived with them till the evening, until his servant came and
said to him, "It is time for supper." Then he rose, ate his supper in
silence, after putting aside the portion for the poor, and then returned to
his books. That was all his life.
On Sunday, if the weather was fine, he took his breviary, and walked
with slow steps along the high-road.
The children would stop their games and run forward to meet him in
order to receive a caress from him, while the young girls whispered
together and seemed to avoid him. The bolder ones met his gaze with a
blush: perhaps they too would have liked, just as the little children, to
receive a caress from the handsome Curé of Althausen. But he passed
on without ever stopping, answering their timid salutations with an
almost frigid gravity.
He acted wisely. He was full of distrust of himself, and kept himself in
prudent reserve in face of the enemy. For he knew full well that the
enemy was there, in these sweet woman's eyes and those smiles which
wished him welcome.
Then the pagan intoxications of the Catholic rites were no more
surrounding him to over-excite him and betray the trouble of his heart
and the straying of his thoughts, and if he felt affected before the smiles
of these marriageable girls, he armed himself with force sufficient to
thrust back carefully to his inmost being his boldness and his desires.
It was no more the ardent passionate man who disclosed himself
sometimes in rapid moments of forgetfulness, it was the priest austere
and calm, the functionary salaried by the State to teach the religion of

the State.

IV.
EXPECTATION.
"And the days and the hours glided on, and withdrawn within itself,
affected by sorrows and joys unknown, the soul stretched its
mysterious wing over a new life soon to dawn."
LAMENNAIS (Une voix de prison).
One of his greatest pleasures was to plunge into the woods which
surround the village. He sought silence and solitude there, and when he
heard the steps of a keeper or of some pedestrian, or even the happy
voices of young couples calling one another, he concealed himself
behind the masses of foliage, and hid himself with a kind of shame like
a criminal.