The Thibaults (24 page)

“Luckily, my friend, I’ve a harder head than yours!”

He crossed the hall, followed by the Abbé, who made no reply.

On the landing he turned. “Well, well, goodbye for the present.”

As he was proffering his hand, suddenly the priest began speaking in a low voice, almost to himself:

“ ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are. … I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.’ ”

M. Thibault’s eyelids lifted and he saw his confessor standing in the shadowy hall, with a finger on his lip.

“ ‘I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.’ ”

Without flinching the burly “Pharisee” heard him out; his eyes were closed now and he made no movement. Presently, as the silence continued, he ventured to look up again. Without a sound the priest had closed the door on him. Left to himself, he stared for a moment at the closed door; then, shrugging his shoulders, he turned on his heel and started down the stairs. Half-way down he halted, his hand clutching the balustrade; his breath was coming in short gasps and he was jerking his jaw forward, like a horse chafing at the bit.

“No,” he-murmured to himself. “No.”

Without more hesitation he went on his way downstairs.

All that day he did his best to forget the interview. But in the course of the afternoon, when M. Chasle was slow in handing him a file he wanted, he had an access of rage that he had difficulty in repressing. Antoine was on duty at the hospital. Dinner that night was a silent meal. Without waiting for Gisèle to finish her dessert, M. Thibault folded his napkin and returned to his study.

Eight o’clock struck. “I might go back to him,” he thought as he sat down. “It’s not too late yet.” But he was quite determined to do nothing of the kind. “He’ll start talking to me again about Jacques. I have said no, and no it is.

“But what did he mean with the parable of the Pharisee and the publican?” he asked himself for the hundredth time. Suddenly his underlip began quivering. He had always been afraid of death. He stood up and, over the bronzes crowding the mantelpiece, scanned his face in the mirror. His features had lost the look of self-complacency that had stamped itself, indelibly as it had seemed, upon them, the look that never left them even when he was alone, even in prayer. A shudder ran through his body. His shoulders sagged and he dropped back into his chair. He was picturing himself on his deathbed, and a dread came over him that he might have to face his last hour empty-handed. He tried to reassure himself by recalling the high esteem in which the world held him.

“Still, am I not an upright man?” he kept on asking himself, but always with a rankling doubt. Words were not enough to quell his anxiety, for he was in one of those rare moods when a man delves down into himself, letting light into the dark places of his heart. With his hands clenched on the arms of his chair, he looked back on his life and found in it not one act that was wholly pure. In the twilight of his mind harrowing memories flickered into consciousness. One of them, crueller than all the rest, stung him so bitterly that he bowed his head and hid it with his hands. For the first time in his life perhaps, M. Thibault was ashamed. He knew at last that supreme self-disgust, so intolerable that no sacrifice seems too great, if only it sets a man right with his own conscience, buying divine forgiveness and restoring to the stricken heart a feeling of peace and hope of eternal salvation. Ah, to find God again! But first of all he must regain the good opinion of the priest, God’s mandatory. No, he could not live an hour longer with this sense of damnable estrangement, under such obloquy.

Once he was in the open air, he felt calmer. To save time he took a cab, The Abbé opened the door; his face, under the lamp held high to see his visitor, betrayed no emotion of any kind.

“It’s I,” M. Thibault said mechanically, holding out his hand; then in silence he walked to the priest’s study. “No, I’ve not come to talk to-you about Jacques,” he declared, the moment he was seated. The priest’s hands made a vague, conciliatory movement. “There’s nothing more to be said on that subject, I assure you; you’re on a false scent. But, of course, if you feel you’d like to do so, why not go to Crouy and see for yourself?” With a rather naive abruptness he continued: “Forgive me for my bad temper this morning. You know how easily roused I am. But really, well, at bottom I’m … Look here, you were too hard on me, you know. Much too hard on the ‘Pharisee’ you take me for! I’m perfectly justified in protesting—perfectly! Why, for thirty years haven’t I been giving all my time, all my energies, to good works—not to mention the greater part of my income? And all the thanks I get is to be told by a priest, who is my personal friend, that I’m … Come now, own up, it’s not fair!”

The Abbé looked at his penitent, and the look implied: “Pride is showing through again, for all you try to mask it, in every word you say.”

There was a long silence, broken at last by M. Thibault.

“My dear Abbé,” he said in an uneasy tone, “I admit I’m not altogether … Well, yes, I admit it; only too often I … But that’s the way I’m built, if you see what I mean. You know that well enough, don’t you?” He seemed to be pleading for the priest’s indulgence. “Ah, it’s a strait and narrow path indeed—and you’re the only one who can guide me, keep me from stumbling… .”

Suddenly he murmured in a broken voice: “I’m getting old, I’m afraid… .”

The Abbé was touched by the change in his tone. Feeling he had been silent overlong, he drew his chair nearer to M. Thibault’s and began to speak.

“It’s I who now feel unsure of myself, and, indeed, my dear friend, what should I add, now that the holy words have sunk so deep into your heart?” He mused for a while before continuing. “I know well that God has placed you in a difficult position; the work you do for Him gives you authority over other men, and honours—and that is as it should be. Yet it may possibly incline you sometimes to confound His glory with your own. And might not this lead you, little by little, even to prefer yours to His?”

M. Thibault’s eyes were for once wide open, and showed no sign of closing; there was consternation in their pale intensity, and a gleam of almost childish awe.

“And yet remember!” the Abbé went on. “
Ad majorem Dei gloriam
. That alone counts, and nothing else should weigh with us. You, my friend, are one of the strong ones of the earth, and the strong are usually proud. Oh, I know how hard it is to control the driving force of pride, to direct it into its proper channel. How hard it is not to live for onself, not to forget God, even when all one’s life is taken up with acts of piety! Not to be amongst those of whom Our Lord once spoke so sadly: ‘This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.’ ”

“Ah, yes,” M. Thibault cried excitedly, without lowering his eyes, “indeed it’s hard! No one on earth knows as well as I do how terribly hard it is.”

In self-humiliation he was finding a delightful anodyne, and he was vaguely conscious, too, that by this attitude he might regain the priest’s esteem, without having to make concessions in the matter of Jacques’s detention. And a secret force within him urged him to go still further, to prove the depth of his faith by an astounding declaration and the display of an unlooked-for nobility. No price would be too high if he could force the respect of his friend the priest.

“Listen, Abbé!” he exclaimed; for a moment his face had the same resolute expression that was often Antoine’s. “Listen! If until now my pride has made of me a miserable sinner, has not God offered me this very day an opportunity to make—to make atonement?” He hesitated, as though engaged in an inner struggle. And indeed at that moment he was struggling against himself. The Abbé saw him trace the sign of the cross rapidly with his thumb across his waistcoat, above his heart. “I am thinking about this election, you understand. That would be a genuine sacrifice, a sacrifice of my pride, since you told me this morning that my election was assured. Well, then, I … But wait! There’s vanity even in this. Shouldn’t I keep silent and do it without telling anyone, even you? But … let it be! Very well, then, Abbé, I make a vow to withdraw tomorrow, and for ever, my candidature for the Institute.”

The Abbé made a gesture that M. Thibault did not see; he had turned his eyes towards the crucifix hanging on the wall.

“O Lord,” he prayed, “have mercy on me, a sinner!”

He put into the prayer a residue of self-satisfaction that he himself did not suspect, for pride is so deep-rooted that, at the very moment of his most fervent repentance, he was savouring his humility with a passionate thrill of pride. The priest gazed at him intently; he could not help wondering how far the man before him was sincere. And yet at that moment there shone on M. Thibault’s face the illumination of a mystic who has made the great renunciation; it seemed to obliterate the puffiness and wrinkles, giving the time-worn features the innocence of a child’s face. The priest could hardly believe his eyes. He was ashamed of the rather despicable satisfaction he had felt that morning at confounding this gross Pharisee. Their roles were being reversed. He turned his mind’s eye on his own life. Was it really for the sole glory of God that he had been so ready to abandon his pupils and canvass his present exalted post, with its pomp and prestige? And was there not something sinful in the pleasure he felt, day after day, in the exercise of that diplomatic adroitness which was his specialty—even if it was exercised in the service of his Church?

“Tell me honestly, do you believe that God will pardon me?”

The tremor of anxiety in M. Thibault’s voice recalled the Abbé to his function of spiritual director. Clasping his hands beneath his chin, he bent his head, and forced a smile onto his lips.

“I have not tried to stop you,” he said, “and I have let you drain the cup of bitterness to its dregs. And I am very sure that the divine compassion will take into account this moment of your life. But”— he raised his forefinger—”the intention is enough, and your true duty is not to carry out the sacrifice to the end. Do not protest. It is I, your confessor, who free you from your vow. Indeed God’s glory will be better served by your election than by this gesture of renunciation. Your family and your wealth impose obligations which you must not ignore. That title ‘Member of the Institute’ will confer on you, amongst the great republicans of the conservative group, who are the backbone of our country, an added authority, and one which we consider necessary for the advancement of the highest interests of our faith. You have at all times submitted your life to our guidance. That being so, let the Church, speaking through my lips, show you once more the course to take. God declines your sacrifice, my dear friend; hard as it may be, you must bow to His will.
Gloria in excelsis!
”

As he spoke, the priest had been watching M. Thibault’s face and had noticed how its traits had gradually changed, readjusting themselves and settling back to their normal composure. At the last words he had lowered his eyelids, and it was impossible to guess what was passing in his mind. The priest, in giving him back his seat in the Institute, an ambition of twenty years’ standing, had given him back life. But the effects of the tremendous struggle he had gone through had not yet worn off; he was still in an emotional mood, thrilled with a sense of infinite gratitude. At the same moment both men had the same impulse. Bowing his head, the priest began to offer humble thanks to God, and when he looked up again he saw M. Thibault already on his knees, gazing heavenwards with unseeing eyes, his face lit up with joy. His moist lips were quivering, his hairy hands—so bloated that they looked as if the fingers had been stung by wasps—were locked in an ecstasy of fervour. Why did this edifying spectacle suddenly strike the priest as unbearable to see—so much so that he could not help stretching out his arm till it all but touched the penitent?

He checked the gesture at once, and laid his hand affectionately on the shoulder of M. Thibault. The latter rose with an effort from his knees.

“Everything has not been settled yet,” the priest reminded him, with the inflexible gentleness that was his characteristic. “You must come to a decision about Jacques.”

M. Thibault seemed to stiffen up, suddenly, violently.

The Abbé sat down.

“Do not follow the example of those who think they have done all they need do because they have faced some arduous duty, while neglecting the one that is immediate, close at hand. Even if the ordeal you have made this child undergo has. not been so injurious as I fear, do not prolong it. Think of the servant who buried the talent his master entrusted to him. Come now, my friend, do not leave this room till you have dealt faithfully by all your responsibilities.”

M. Thibault remained standing, shaking his head, but much of the obstinacy had gone out of his expression. The Abbé rose.

“The difficult problem,” he murmured, “is how to avoid producing an impression of having given way to Antoine.” He saw that he had hit the mark, took a few steps, and suddenly began to speak in a cool, business-like tone. “Do you know what I’d do, my friend, if I were in your place? I’d say to him: ‘So you want your brother to leave the reformatory, do you? Yes? And you’re still of the same opinion? Very well, then, I take you at your word, go and fetch him—and keep him with you; you want him back, and it’s for you to take charge of him.’ ”

M. Thibault made no response. The priest went on speaking:

“I’d go even further. This is what I’d tell him: ‘I don’t want Jacques at home at all; arrange things as you please. You always look as if you thought we didn’t know how to deal with him. Very well, have a try yourself!’ And I’d saddle him with the full responsibility for Jacques. I’d give them a place where they could live together—near you, of course, so that they could have their meals at home. But I’d give Antoine entire charge of his brother. Don’t say no, my dear friend,” he added, though M. Thibault had made no movement of any kind. “Wait, let me finish; my idea is not so fantastic as it may seem.”