In and out of Three Normandy Inns

by Anna Bowman Dodd

The grunt of disgust the cobbler gave filled the room like a thunder-clap. He was peering over his last, across the open counter, at a little house adjoining the church green, with a great hatred in his face. From one of the windows of the house there was leaning forth a group of three heads; there was the tonsured head of a priest, round, pink-tinted, and the figures of two women, one youthful, with a long, sad-featured face, and the other ruddy and vigorous in outline. They were watching the priest as he scattered corn to the hens and geese in the garden below the window.

The cobbler was still eying them fiercely, as he continued to give vent to his disgust.

"Méchant homme—lui," he here whipped his thread, venomously, through the leather he was sewing. "Figure to yourselves, mesdames, that besides being wicked, our curé is a very shrewd man; it is not for the pure good of the parish he works, not he."

"Not he," the echo repeated, coming forth again from the wall. This time the whisper passed unnoticed; her master's hatred of the curé was greater than his passion for showing his own power.

"Religion—religion is a very good way of making money, better than most, if one knows how to work the machine. The soul, it is a fine instrument on which to play, if one is skilful. Our curé has a grand touch on this instrument. You should see the good man take up a collection, it is better than a comedy."

Here the cobbler turned actor; he rose, scattering his utensils right and left; he assumed a grand air and a mincing, softly tread, the tread of a priest. His flexible voice imitated admirably the rounded, unctuous, autocratic tone peculiar to the graduates of St. Sulpice.

"You should hear him, when the collection does not suit him: 'Mes frères et mes soeurs, I see that le bon Dieu isn't in your minds and your hearts to-day; you are not listening to his voice; the Saviour is then speaking in vain?' Then he prays—" the cobbler folded his hands with a great parade of reference, lifting his eyes as he rolled his lids heavenward hypocritically—"yes, he prays—and then he passes the plate himself! He holds it before your very nose, there is no pushing it aside; he would hold it there till you dropped—till Doomsday. Ah, he's a hard crust, he is! There's a tyrant for you—la monarchie absolue—that's what he believes in. He must have this, he must have that. Now it is a new altar-cloth, or a fresh Virgin of the modern make, from Paris, with a robe of real lace; the old one was black and faded, too black to pray to. Now it is a huissier, forsooth, that we must have, we, a parish of a few hundred souls, who know our seats in the church as well as we know our own noses. One would think a 'suisse' would have done; but we are swells now—avec ce gaillard-là, only the tiptop is good enough. So, if you grace our poor old church with your presence you will be shown to your bench by a very splendid gentleman in black, in knee-breeches, with silver chains, with a three-cornered hat, who strikes with his stick three times as he seats you. Bah! ridiculous!"

"Ridiculous!" the woman repeated, softly.

"They had the curé once, though. One day in church he announced a subscription to be taken up for restorations, from fifty centimes to—to anything; he will take all you give him, avaricious that he is! He believes in the greasing of the palm, he does. Well, think you the subscription was for restorations, mesdames? It was for demolition—that's what it was for—to make the church level with the ground. To do this would cost a little matter of twenty thousand francs, which would pass through his hands, you understand. Well, that staggered the parish. Our mayor—a man pas trop fin, was terribly upset. He went about saying the curé claimed the church as his; he could do as he liked with it, he said, and he proposed to make it a fine modern one. All the village was weeping. The church was the oldest friend of the village, except for such as I, whom these things have turned pagan. Well, one of our good citizens reminds the mayor that the church, under the new laws, belongs to the commune. The mayor tells this timidly to the curé. And the curé retorts, 'Ah, bien, at least one-half belongs to me.' And the good citizen answers—he has gone with the mayor to prop him up—'Which half will you take? The cemetery, doubtless, since your charge is over the souls of the parish.' Ah! ah! he pricked him well then! he pricked him well!"

The low room rang with the great shout of the cobbler's laughter. The dog barked furiously in concert. Our own laughter was drowned in the thunder of our host's loud guffaws. The poor old wife shook herself with a laugh so much too vigorous for her frail frame, one feared its after-effects.