Part 1 Chapter 28
A ProcessionAll hearts were moved. God's presence seemed to have come down intothese narrow, gothic streets, decked on every side, and strewn with sandthrough the good offices of the faithful. YOUNG 5In vain might Julien make himself small and foolish, he could not givesatisfaction, he was too different. 'And yet,' he said to himself, 'all theseProfessors are men of great discernment, and picked men, each of themone in a thousand; how is it they do not like my humility?' One aloneseemed to him to be taking advantage of his readiness to believe anything and to appear taken in by everything. This was the abbe Chas-Bernard, Master of Ceremonies at the Cathedral, where, for the last fifteen years, he had been kept in hopes of a Canonry; in the meantime, hetaught sacred eloquence at the Seminary. In the period of his blindness,this class was one of those in which Julien most regularly came out at thetop. The abbe Chas had been led by this to show a partiality for him,and, at the end of his class, would gladly take his arm for a turn in thegarden.
'What can his object be?' Julien asked himself. He found withamazement that, for hours on end, the abbe talked to him of the ornaments which the Cathedral possessed. It had seventeen apparelled chasubles, apart from the vestments worn at requiems. They had great hopesof President de Rubempre's widow; this lady, who was ninety years old,had preserved for at least seventy of those years her wedding garmentsof superb Lyons stuffs, figured in gold. 'Just imagine, my friend,' said theabbe Chas coming to a standstill and opening his eyes wide, 'these stuffsstand by themselves, there is so much gold in them. It is common opinion in Besancon that, under the Presidente's will, the treasury of theCathedral will be enriched with more than ten chasubles, not to mention5.As in Chapter 26 I have left this motto in French. It seems, however, to be taken fromArthur Young rather and Edward. C. K. S. M.
four or five copes for the greater feasts. I will go farther,' the abbe Chasadded, lowering his voice. 'I have good reason to think that the Presidente will bequeath to us eight magnificent silver-gilt candlesticks, whichare supposed to have been bought in Italy, by the Duke of Burgundy,Charles the Bold, whose favourite minister was an ancestor of hers.'
'But what is this man really aiming at behind all this frippery?' Julienwondered. 'This careful preparation has been going on for an age, andnothing comes of it. He must have singularly little faith in me! He iscleverer than any of the others, whose secret purposes one can see soplainly after a fortnight. I understand, this man's ambition has been intorment for fifteen years.'
One evening, in the middle of the armed drill, Julien was sent for bythe abbe Pirard, who said to him:
'Tomorrow is the feast of Corpus Christi. M. l'abbe Chas-Bernard requires you to help him to decorate the Cathedral; go and obey.'
The abbe Pirard called him back, and added, in a tone of compassion:
'It is for you to decide whether you wish to seize the opportunity oftaking a stroll through the town.'
'Incedo per ignes,' replied Julien: which is to say, I am treading on dangerous ground.
Next morning at daybreak, Julien made his way to the Cathedral,walking with lowered eyes. The sight of the streets and the activitywhich was beginning to pervade the town did him good. On every sidepeople were draping the fronts of their houses for the procession. All thetime that he had spent in the Seminary seemed to him no more than aninstant. His thoughts were at Vergy, and with that charming AmandaBinet, whom he might meet, for her cafe was but little out of his way. Hesaw in the distance the abbe Chas-Bernard, standing by the door of hisbeloved Cathedral; he was a large man with a joyful countenance and anopen air. This morning he was triumphant: 'I have been waiting for you,my dear son,' he called out, as soon as he caught sight of Julien, 'you arewelcome. Our labours this day will be long and hard, let us fortifyourselves with an early breakfast; the other we shall take at ten o'clockduring high mass.'
'I desire, Sir,' Julien said to him with an air of gravity, 'not to be leftalone for a moment; kindly observe,' he added, pointing to the clockabove their heads, 'that I have arrived at one minute before five.'
'Ah! So you are afraid of those young rascals at the Seminary! It is tookind of you to give them a thought,' said the abbe Chas; 'is a road anythe worse, because there are thorns in the hedges on either side of it? Thetraveller goes his way and leaves the wicked thorns to wither where theyare. However, we must to work, my dear friend, to work.'
The abbe Chas had been right in saying that their labours would behard. There had been a great funeral service in the Cathedral the day before; it had been impossible to make any preparations; they were obliged, therefore, in the course of the morning, to drape each of the gothicpillars which separate the nave from the aisles in a sort of jacket of reddamask which rose to a height of thirty feet. The Bishop had orderedfour decorators from Paris by mail coach, but these gentlemen could notdo everything themselves, and so far from encouraging the awkward efforts of their Bisontine colleagues they increased their awkwardness bylaughing at it.
Julien saw that he would have to go up the ladders himself, his agilitystood him in good stead. He undertook to direct the local decorators inperson. The abbe Chas was in ecstasies as he watched him spring fromone ladder to another. When all the pillars were hung with damask, thenext thing was to go and place five enormous bunches of plumes on topof the great baldachino, over the high altar. A richly gilded woodencrown was supported on eight great twisted columns of Italian marble.
But, in order to reach the centre of the baldachino, over the tabernacle,one had to step across an old wooden cornice, possibly worm-eaten, andforty feet from the ground.
The sight of this perilous ascent had extinguished the gaiety, so brilliant until then, of the Parisian decorators; they looked at it from beneath,discussed it volubly, and did not go up. Julien took possession of thebunches of plumes, and ran up the ladder. He arranged them admirablyupon the ornament in the form of a crown in the centre of the baldachino. As he stepped down from the ladder, the abbe Chas-Bernardtook him in his arms.
'Optime!' exclaimed the worthy priest, 'I shall tell Monseigneur of this.'
Their ten o'clock breakfast was a merry feast. Never had the abbe Chasseen his church looking so well.
'My dear disciple,' he said to Julien, 'my mother used to hire out chairsin this venerable fane, so that I was brought up in this great edifice.
Robespierre's Terror ruined us; but, at eight years old, as I then was, Iwas already serving masses in private houses, and their owners gave me my dinner on mass days. No one could fold a chasuble better than I, thegold braid was never broken. Since the restoration of the Faith by Napoleon, it has been my happy lot to take charge of everything in this venerable mother church. On five days in the year, my eyes behold it deckedout with these beautiful ornaments. But never has it been so resplendent,never have the damask strips been so well hung as they are today, havethey clung so to the pillars.'
'At last, he is going to tell me his secret,' thought Julien, 'here he is talking to me of himself; he is beginning to expand.' But nothing imprudentwas said by this man, evidently in an excited state. 'And yet he hasworked hard, he is happy,' Julien said to himself, 'the good wine has notbeen spared. What a man! What an example for me! He takes the prize.'
(This was a low expression which he had picked up from the oldsurgeon.)When the Sanctus bell rang during high mass, Julien wished to put ona surplice so as to follow the Bishop in the superb procession.
'And the robbers, my friend, the robbers!' cried the abbe Chas, 'youforget them. The procession is going out; the church will be left empty;we must keep watch, you and I. We shall be fortunate if we lose only acouple of ells of that fine braid which goes round the base of the pillars.
That is another gift from Madame de Rubempre; it comes from the famous Count, her great-grandfather; it is pure gold, my friend,' the abbewent on, whispering in his ear, and with an air of evident exaltation,'nothing false about it! I entrust to you the inspection of the north aisle,do not stir from it. I keep for myself the south aisle and nave. Keep aneye on the confessionals; it is there that the robbers' women spies watchfor the moment when our backs are turned.'
As he finished speaking, the quarter before twelve struck, at once thebig bell began to toll. It was being pulled with all the ringers' might; therich and solemn sound stirred Julien deeply. His imagination rose fromthe ground.
The odour of the incense and of the rose leaves strewn before theBlessed Sacrament by children dressed as little Saint Johns, intensifiedhis excitement.
The sober note of the bell ought to have suggested to Julien only thethought of the work of a score of men earning fifty centimes, and assisted perhaps by fifteen or twenty of the faithful. He ought to havethought of the wear and tear of the ropes, of the timber, of the dangerfrom the bell itself which fell every two hundred years, and to have planned some way of diminishing the wage of the ringers, or of payingthem with some indulgence or other favour drawn from the spiritualtreasury of the Church, with no strain upon her purse.
In place of these sage reflections, Julien's soul, excited by these richand virile sounds, was straying through imaginary space. Never will hemake either a good priest or a great administrator. Souls that are movedthus are capable at most of producing an artist. Here Julien's presumption breaks out in the full light of day. Fifty, perhaps, of his fellow seminarists, made attentive to the realities of life by the public hatred and Jacobinism which, they are told, is lurking behind every hedge, on hearingthe big bell of the Cathedral, would have thought only of the wages paidto the ringers. They would have applied the genius of a Bareme to determine the question whether the degree of emotion aroused in the public was worth the money given to the ringers. Had Julien chosen to givehis mind to the material interests of the Cathedral, his imagination flyingbeyond its goal would have thought of saving forty francs for theChapter, and would have let slip the opportunity of avoiding an outlayof twenty-five centimes.
While, in the most perfect weather ever seen, the procession wound itsway slowly through Besancon, and halted at the glittering stations whichall the local authorities had vied with one another in erecting, the churchremained wrapped in a profound silence. A suffused light, an agreeablecoolness reigned in it; it was still balmy with the fragrance of flowers andincense.
The silence, the profound solitude, the coolness of the long aisles,made Julien's musings all the sweeter. He had no fear of being disturbedby the abbe Chas, who was occupied in another part of the building. Hissoul had almost quitted its mortal envelope, which was strolling at aslow pace along the north aisle committed to his charge. He was all themore at rest, since he was certain that there was nobody in the confessionals save a few devout women; he saw without observing.
His distraction was nevertheless half conquered by the sight of twowomen extremely well dressed who were kneeling, one of them in a confessional, the other, close beside her, upon a chair. He saw without observing them; at the same time, whether from a vague sense of his duty,or from admiration of the plain but noble attire of these ladies, he remarked that there was no priest in that confessional. 'It is strange,' hethought, 'that these beautiful ladies are not kneeling before some station,if they are religious; or placed in good seats in the front of some balcony, if they are fashionable. How well cut that gown is! What grace!' Heslackened his pace in order to see their faces.
The one who was kneeling in the confessional turned her head slightlyon hearing the sound of Julien's step amid the prevailing silence. All atonce she gave a little cry, and fainted.
As her strength left her, this kneeling lady fell back; her friend, whowas close at hand, hastened to the rescue. At the same time Julien caughtsight of the shoulders of the lady who had fallen back. A rope of largeseed pearls, well known to him, caught his eye. What was his state whenhe recognised the hair of Madame de Renal! It was she. The lady whowas trying to hold up her head, and to arrest her fall, was MadameDerville. Julien, beside himself with emotion, sprang forward; Madamede Renal's fall would perhaps have brought down her friend if he hadnot supported them. He saw Madame de Renal's head, pale, absolutelydevoid of consciousness, drooping upon her shoulder. He helped Madame Derville to prop that charming head against the back of a strawchair; he was on his knees.
Madame Derville turned and recognised him.
'Fly, Sir, fly!' she said to him in accents of the most burning anger. 'Onno account must she see you again. The sight of you must indeed fill herwith horror, she was so happy before you came! Your behaviour is atrocious. Fly; be off with you, if you have any shame left.'
This speech was uttered with such authority, and Julien felt so weak atthe moment, that he withdrew. 'She always hated me,' he said to himself,thinking of Madame Derville.
At that moment, the nasal chant of the leading priests in the procession rang through the church; the procession was returning. The abbeChas-Bernard called repeatedly to Julien, who at first did not hear him:
finally he came and led him by the arm from behind a pillar where Julienhad taken refuge more dead than alive. He wished to present him to theBishop.
'You are feeling unwell, my child,' said the abbe, seeing him so paleand almost unable to walk; 'you have been working too hard.' The abbegave him his arm. 'Come, sit down here, on the sacristan's little stool, behind me; I shall screen you.' They were now by the side of the main door.
'Calm yourself, we have still a good twenty minutes before Monseigneurappears. Try to recover yourself; when he passes, I shall hold you up, forI am strong and vigorous, in spite of my age.'
But when the Bishop passed, Julien was so tremulous that the abbeChas abandoned the idea of presenting him.
'Do not worry yourself about it,' he told him, 'I shall find anotheropportunity.'
That evening, he sent down to the chapel of the Seminary ten poundsof candles, saved, he said, by Julien's efforts and the rapidity with whichhe extinguished them. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
The poor boy was himself extinguished; he had not had a thought in hishead after seeing Madame de Renal.