Truth [Vérité]

by Émile Zola

Then, as two old women crossed the square and a Capuchin came out of the neighbouring chapel, Gorgias, after glancing anxiously about him, added swiftly in an undertone: 'Listen to me, Monsieur Froment; for a long time past I have wished to have a chat with you. If you are willing I will call on you at Jonville some day, after nightfall.'

Then he hurried off, disappearing before Marc could say a word. The schoolmaster, who was quite upset by that meeting, spoke of it to nobody excepting his wife, who felt alarmed when she heard of it. They agreed that they would not admit that man if he should venture to call on them, for the visit he announced might well prove to be some machination of treachery and falsehood. Gorgias had always lied, and he would lie again; so it was absurd to expect from him any useful new fact such as had been sought so long. However, some months elapsed and the other made no sign; in such wise that Marc who, at the outset, had remained watchful with a view of keeping his door shut, gradually grew astonished and impatient. He wondered what might be the things which Gorgias had wished to tell him; and a desire to know them worried him more and more. After all, why should he not receive the scamp? Even if he learnt nothing useful from him, he would have an opportunity of fathoming his nature. And having come to that conclusion, Marc lived on in suspense, waiting for the visit which was so long deferred.

At last, one winter evening, when the rain was pouring in torrents, Brother Gorgias presented himself, clad in an old cloak, streaming with mud and water. As soon as he had rid himself of that rag, Marc showed him into his classroom, which was still warm, for the fire in the faïence stove was only just dying out. A little oil lamp alone cast some light over a portion of that large and silent room around which big shadows had gathered. And Geneviève, trembling slightly with a vague fear of some possible attempt upon her husband, remained listening behind a door.

As for Brother Gorgias, he, without any ado, resumed the conversation interrupted on the Place des Capucins, as if it had taken place that very afternoon.

'You know, Monsieur Froment,' he began, 'the Church is dying because she no longer possesses any priests resolute enough to support her by fire and steel, if need be. Not one of the poor fools, the whimpering clowns of the present day, loves or even knows the real God—He who at once exterminated the nations that dared to disobey Him, and who reigned over the bodies and souls of men like an absolute master, ever armed with resistless thunderbolts.... How can you expect the world to be different from what it is, if the Deity now merely has poltroons and fools to speak in His name?'

Then Gorgias enumerated his superiors, his brothers in Christ, as he called them, one by one, and a perfect massacre ensued. Monseigneur Bergerot, who had lately died at the advanced age of eighty-seven, had never been aught than a poor, timid, incoherent creature, lacking the necessary courage to secede from Rome and establish that famous liberal and rationalist Church of France which he had dreamt of, and which would have been little else than a new Protestant sect. Those lettered Bishops gifted with inquiring minds, but destitute of all sturdiness of faith, suffered the incredulous masses to desert the altars instead of flagellating them mercilessly with the dread of hell. But Gorgias's most intense hatred was directed against Abbé Quandieu, who still survived though his eightieth year was past. For the Ignorantine the ex-priest of St. Martin's was a perjurer, an apostate, a bad priest who had spat upon his own religion by openly upholding God's enemies at the time of the Simon case. Moreover, he had abandoned his ministry, and gone to dwell in a little house in a lonely neighbourhood, impudently saying that he was disgusted with the base superstition of the last believers, and carrying his audacity so far as to pretend that the monks, whom he called the traders of the Temple, were demolishers who unconsciously hastened the downfall of the Church. But if there was a demolisher it was he himself, for his desertion had served as an argument to the enemies of Catholicism. Surely indeed it was an abominable example that he had set—forswearing all his past life, breaking his vows, and preferring a sleek and shameful old age to martyrdom. As for that big, lean, stern Abbé Coquart, his successor at St. Martin's, however imposing the newcomer might look he was in reality only a fool.

Marc had, for a while, listened in silence, determined to offer no interruption. But his feelings rebelled when he heard Gorgias's violent attack upon Abbé Quandieu. 'You do not know that priest,' he said quietly. 'Your judgment is that of an enemy, blinded by spite.... As a matter of fact, Abbé Quandieu was the only priest of this region who, at the outset, understood what frightful harm the Church would do herself by openly and passionately defying truth and justice. She claims to represent a Deity of certainty and equity, kindness and innocence; she was founded to exalt the suffering and the meek, and yet, all at once, in order to retain temporal authority, she makes common cause with oppressors and liars and forgers! It was certain that the consequences would be terrible for her as soon as Simon's innocence should become manifest. Such conduct was suicide on the Church's part. With her own hands she prepared her condemnation, showing the world that she was no longer the abode of the true and the just, of everlasting purity and goodness! And her expiation is only just beginning; she will slowly die of that denial of justice which she took upon herself and which has become a devouring sore.... Abbé Quandieu foresaw it and said it. It is not true that he fled from the Church in any spirit of cowardice; he quitted his ministry bleeding and weeping, and it is in grief that he is ending a life of misery and bitterness.'

By a rough gesture Gorgias signified that he did not intend to argue. With his glowing eyes gazing far away into the galling memories of his personal experiences, he scarcely listened to Marc, impatient as he was to continue his own rageful diatribe.

'Good, good, I say what I think,' he resumed, 'but I don't prevent you from thinking whatever you please.... There are, at all events, other imbeciles and cowards whom you won't defend, for instance, that rascal Father Théodose, the mirror of the devotees, the thieving cashier of heaven!'

Thereupon Gorgias assailed the superior of the Capuchins with murderous fury. He did not blame the worship of St. Antony of Padua. On the contrary he praised it; he set all his hopes in miracles, he would have liked to have seen the whole world bringing money to the shrine of the Saint in order that the latter might persuade the Deity to hurl His thunderbolts upon the cities of sin. But Father Théodose was a mere conscienceless mountebank, who amassed money for himself alone, and gave no assistance whatever to the afflicted servants of God. Though hundreds of thousands of francs had formerly overflowed from his collection boxes, he had not devoted even an occasional five-franc piece to render life a little less hard than it was to the poor Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, his neighbours. And now that the gifts he received were dwindling year by year his avarice was even greater. He had refused the smallest alms to him, Brother Gorgias, at a time when he was in the most desperate circumstances, when, indeed, a ten-franc piece might have saved his life.