The Grip of Desire | Page 9

for they all had that provoking beauty which
pleases the devil so much: exuberant youth.
And he could not grow weary of contemplating all these fresh faces; his
look, more than once, encountered sweet looks, and then he
experienced a delicious shock which stirred his heart.
It was not only the faces which excited his longings. In spite of himself,
the opulent breast of the fair player entered his imagination and his
thoughts seemed to search each one's neckerchief, seeking this
powerful nourishment for his appetite. He bad tried to drive away these
abominable desires, but it was in vain: the forbidden fruit was there and
something seemed to tell him that he had only to stretch out his hand to
seize it.
As he tried to escape from this diabolical hallucination, he remarked all
at once in the gallery set apart for the wives of the principal inhabitants,
a young girl, a stranger, whose beauty struck him.
She was pale and dark, and her full lips, of a brilliant red, were lightly
pencilled with a black down.

Her deep, burning eyes darted flames, and were fixed on the priest with
a persistency which made him blush.
The erotic fever which had possessed him disappeared at once. He was
ashamed of himself and of his secret thoughts, for it seemed to him that
this stranger read to the bottom of his soul.
This flaming look which he had caught sight of, weighed upon him like
remorse.
In the evening, at the Salut he saw again the same face and the same
burning eyes, fastened on his own; but be thought he discovered that
there was nothing terrible about them, and that what in his trouble he
had taken for inquisition and wrath, might in reality be nothing but
tenderness and sweetness.
He made skilful enquiries regarding the stranger; she was
Mademoiselle Suzanne Durand, who had just completed her education
at Saint-Denis, the daughter of Captain Durand, "a bad parishioner," his
servant told him, "who paid little regard to the service and treated the
priests as humbugs."

X.
IN PARENTHESIS.
"Is it meet for you to be among such vicious people? Envy, anger and
avarice reign among some; modesty is banished among others; these
abandon themselves to intemperance and sloth, and the pride of these
rises to insolence. It is all over; I will dwell no longer among the seven
deadly sins."
LE SAGE (Gil-Blas).
I must take my courage with both hands to continue to unfold before
you the events however simple of this simple tale. Already I hear the
eternal flock of hypocrites and fools protesting and crying out at

outraged morality. I know them, these indignant voices of the defenders
of morality. They arise every time that we unveil the vilenesses, that we
expose the gangrenes of our institutions; corrupt magistracy, vicious
clergy, rotten army; tottering tripod which holds up that worm-eaten
scaffolding which is called social order.
But the sages of the present day and a great number of those of former
times have always made me laugh, particularly where beneath the mask
of the venerable philosopher or the hood of the austere monk, I
discovered the grin of the rogue.
I shall stop my ears then to their clamours and I shall continue the task
I have undertaken.
Nevertheless, some sincere persons may object: "What sort then is this
cynical priest which you display to us? Is there nothing then remaining
to him, and in default of modesty and morality, in default of his energy,
which has foundered thus all at once, could he not still lay hold of the
wrecks of faith?"
Faith? It had fled away long ago, since the day when he had laid aside
his dress of catechumen, and, initiated in the secrets of the sanctuary,
he had laid hand on the priestly jugglings.
Then he had been filled with an infinite sorrow. But he had prudently
repressed it deep within, and in this centre of devout hypocrisy and
holy intrigue, he had covered himself again, like all the rest, with a
varnish of sanctity.
Faith! What priest is he who, amidst the religious pageants, the public
falsehoods and the private apostacies, the burlesque scenes behind the
stage preceding the solemn performance, what priest is he who has
preserved his faith?
What priest is he, upright and wishing to remain upright--there are such
lost in obscure positions--who has not said quietly to himself, in his
inmost being, all alone with his conscience, what the Curé of Althausen
often repeated to himself:

"Faith, bitter mockery! to believe by order, without examination and
without reply!
"Annihilation of the individual, murder of the thought, criminal denial
of the intelligence, the most sublime of man's gifts!
"Oh miseries of the soul! filth of the body! vileness of the