I was the youngest of those priests. Only a few months before, I was in the Seminary of Nicolet, learning from my grave old superior, lessons of priestly life, very different from what I had there under my eyes. I had not yet forgotten the austere preaching of self-denial, mortification, austerity and crucifixion of the flesh, which were to fill up the days of a priest!
Though, at first, I was pleased with all I saw, heard and tasted; though I heartily laughed with the rest of the guests, at their bon mots, their spicy stories about their fair penitents, or at the funny caricatures they drew of each other, as well as of absent ones, I felt, by turns, uneasy. Now and then the lessons of priestly life, received from the lips of my venerable and dear Mr. Leprohon, were knocking hard at the door of my conscience. Some words of the Holy Scriptures which, more than others, had adhered to my memory, were also making a strange noise in my soul. My own common sense was telling me that this was not quite the way Christ taught his disciples to live.
I made a great effort to stifle those troublesome voices. Sometimes I succeeded, and then I became cheerful; but a moment after I was overpowered by them, and I felt chilled, as if I had perceived on the walls of the festive room, the finger of my angry God, writing, “MENE, MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN.” Then all my cheerfulness vanished, and I felt so miserable that, in spite of all my efforts to look happy, the Rev. Mr. Paquette, curate of St. Gervais, observed it on my face. That priest was probably the one who most enjoyed everything of that feast. Under the snowy mantle of sixty-five years, he had kept the warm heart and the joviality of youth. He was considered one of our most wealthy curates, and he richly deserved the reputation of being the most epicurean of them all. He was a perfect cook, and with his chaplet or his breviarium in hand, he used to pass a great part of the day in his kitchen, giving orders about broiling this beefstake, or preparing this fricassee, and that gravy a la Francais. He was loved by all his confreres, but particularly by the young priests, who were the objects of his constant attentions. He had always been exceedingly kind to me, and when in his neighborhood, I dare say that my most pleasant hours were those passed in his parsonage.
Looking at me in the very moment when my whole intellectual being was, in spite of myself, under the darkest cloud, he said: “My dear little Father Chiniquy, are you falling into the hands of some blue devils, when we are all so happy? You were so cheerful half an hour ago! What is the matter with you now? Are you sick? You look as grave and anxious as Jonah, when in the big whale’s stomach! What is the matter with you? Has any of your fair penitents left you, to go to confess to another, lately?”
At these funny questions, the dining-room was shaken with the convulsive laughter of the priests. I wished I could join in with the rest of my confreres; for it seemed to me very clear that I was making a fool of myself by this singularity of demeanor. But there was no help for it; for a moment before I had seen that the servant girls had blushed; they had been scandalized by a very improper word from the lips of a young priest, about one of his young female penitents; a word which he would, surely, never have uttered, had he not drank too much wine. I answered: “I am much obliged to you for your kind interest. I find myself much honored to be here in your midst; but as the brightest days are not without clouds, so it is with us all sometimes. I am young, and without experience; I have not yet learned to look at certain things in their proper light. When older, I hope I shall be wiser, and not make an ass of myself as I do to-day.”
“Tah! Tah! Tah!” said old Mr. Paquette, “this is not the hour of dark clouds and blue devils. Be cheerful, as it behooves your age. There will be hours enough in the rest of your life for sadness and sombre thoughts. This is the hour for laughing and being merry. Sad thoughts for to-morrow.” And appealing to all, he asked, “Is not this correct, gentlemen?”
“Yes, yes,” unanimously rejoined all the guests.
“Now,” said the old priest, “you see that the verdict of the jury is unanimously in my favor and against you. Give up those airs of sadness, which do not answer in the presence of those bottles of champagne. Your gravity is an anachronism when we have such good wines before us. Tell me the reason of your grief, and I pledge myself to console you, and make you happy as you were at the beginning of the dinner.”
“I would have liked better that you should have continued to enjoy this pleasant hour without noticing me,” I answered. “Please excuse me if I do not trouble you with the causes of my personal folly.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Paquette, “I see it; the cause of your trouble is that we have not yet drank together a single glass of sherry. Fill your glass with that wine, and it will surely drown the blue devil, which I see at its bottom.”