Truth [Vérité]

by Émile Zola

Then, in the bitterest language, he declared that all his superiors, Father Crabot at the head of them, were but degenerate Catholics, poltroons, and enjoyers of life. The Church was dying by reason of their cowardice, their compromises with the weaknesses and the vanities of the world. It was, indeed, his favourite theory that all true religious spirit had departed from those monks, those priests, and those bishops, who ought to have ensured the reign of Jesus by fire and sword. Earth and mankind belonged to God alone, and God had given them to His Church, the sovereign delegate of His power. The Church therefore possessed everything, and held absolute dominion over everybody and everything. To her belonged the disposal of wealth; none could be wealthy save by her permission. To her belonged even the disposal of life, for every living man was her subject, whom she allowed to live or suppressed according to the interests of Heaven. Such was the doctrine from which the true saints had never departed. He, a mere humble Ignorantine, had always practised and exalted that doctrine, and his superiors, though they had wronged him in other respects, had always recognised in him the rare merit of possessing the true, absolute religious spirit; whereas they themselves—the Crabots, the Philibins, and the Fulgences—had ruined religion by their compromises, their trickery with the Freethinkers, the Jews, the Protestants, and the Freemasons. Like opportunists, anxious to please, they had gradually abandoned dogmas and concealed the asperity of doctrines, whereas they ought to have fought openly against impiety, and have slaughtered and burnt all heretics. He himself dreamt of seeing a huge sacrificial pyre set up in the midst of Paris, on which he would have cast the whole guilty nation, in order that the flames and the stench from all those millions of bodies might have ascended to the glowing skies to rejoice and appease the Deity.

And he next exclaimed: 'As soon as a sinner confesses and does penance, he is no longer guilty, he again recovers the grace of his Sovereign Master. What man is there who never sins? All who are made of flesh are liable to err. Even like the layman, he who is in holy orders and whom the beast, which is in all men, precipitates into crime has but one obligation cast upon him—that of confession; and if he receives absolution, if he expiates his sin with firm repentance, he redeems himself, he becomes again as white as snow, worthy to enter into Heaven, among the roses and lilies of Mary.... I confessed my sin to Father Théodose, who absolved me, and I owed nothing more to anybody, since God, who ordains and knows all things, had pardoned me by the sacrament of one of His ministers. And in the same way, from that day forward, each time that I lied, each time that my superiors compelled me to lie, I went back to the confessional, and I washed my soul clean of all the impurities with which human fragility had soiled it. Alas! I have often and I have greatly sinned, for God, in order no doubt to try me, has allowed the devil to assail me with all the fires of hell. But I have battered my chest with my fists, I have made my knees bleed by dragging them over the flagstones of chapels—I have paid, and I repeat that I owe nothing whatever. A flight of archangels would bear me straight to Paradise if I should die by-and-by, ere lapsing again into the original mire, whence in common with all men I have sprung. And in particular I owe nothing to men; I have never owed them anything; my crime lies between God and me, His servant. But He has forgiven me, and so, if I speak here to-day, it is because I choose to do so, because I desire to couple with the Divine mercy the martyrdom of a last humiliation, in order that I may enter Paradise in triumph—a celestial joy which, whatever my abjection, I shall assuredly taste, thanks to my penitence; whereas you will never taste it—race of unbelievers and blasphemers that you are, destined, one and all, to the flames of hell!'

Amid his sombre fury, that transport of savage faith which had raised him there, alone and impudent, face to face with the multitude, Gorgias again began to jeer. And there came to him that habitual twitching of the lips, which disclosed some of his teeth in a grimace suggestive of both scorn and cruelty. Polydor, who for a moment had seemed quite scared, and had gazed at him with dilated eyes, blurred by his drunkenness, had now fallen beside the railing, overcome by sleepiness and already snoring. The crowd, in horrified expectancy of the promised confession, had hitherto preserved death-like silence. But it was now growing weary of that long oration, in which it found all the unconquerable pride and insolence of the Churchman who deems himself all-powerful and inviolate. What did the scamp mean by that speech? Why did he not content himself with stating the facts? What was the use of such a long preamble when a dozen words would have sufficed? Thus a growl arose, and a rush would have swept Gorgias away if Marc, now very attentive and fully master of himself, had not stepped forward and with a gesture calmed the growing impatience and anger. Moreover, Gorgias remained imperturbable. Despite all interruptions, he went on repeating in the same shrill voice that he alone was brave, that he alone was really upon God's side, and that the other sinners, the cowards, would after all have to pay for their transgressions, since God had set him there to make public confession on their behalf as well as his own, this being a supreme expiation, whence the Church, compromised by her unworthy leaders, would emerge rejuvenated and for ever victorious.

Then all at once, as if he were a prey to the wildest remorse, he beat his chest violently with both fists, and cried in distressful, tearful accents: 'I have sinned, O God! O God, do Thou forgive me! Release me from the claws of the devil, O God, that I may yet bless Thy holy name!... Yes, God wills it! Listen to me, listen to me; I will tell you everything!'

Then he laid himself bare, as it were, before the assembled throng. He spoke plainly of his gross appetites; he set forth that he had been a big eater, a deep drinker, and that vice had dogged him from his childhood. In spite of all his intelligence he had then refused to study; he had preferred to play the truant, to roam the fields, and hide in the woods with little hussies. His father, Jean Plumet, after being a poacher, had been turned into a gamekeeper by the Countess de Quédeville. His mother, a hussy, had disappeared after giving him birth. He could still picture his father as he had appeared to him lying on a stretcher in the courtyard at Valmarie, whither he had been brought dead, after two bullets had been lodged in his chest by one of his former companions, a poacher. And subsequently he, Gorgias, had been brought up with the Countess's grandson, Gaston, an unmanageable lad, who also refused to study, preferring to hide himself away with little hussies, climb poplar trees for magpies' nests, and wade the rivers in search of crawfish. At that time he, Gorgias, had become acquainted with Father Philibin, Gaston's tutor, and Father Crabot, who was then in all his manly prime, adored by the old Countess, and already the real master of Valmarie. Then, with sudden abruptness, plainly and brutally, Gorgias related how Gaston, the grandson and heir, had come by his death—a death which he had witnessed from a distance, and of which he had kept the terrible secret for so many years. The boy had been deliberately pushed into the river and drowned there, the misfortune being attributed to an accident, in such wise that a few months later the old Countess finally bestowed her property upon Father Crabot.

Striking his breast with increasing fury, beside himself with contrition, Gorgias continued amid his sobs: 'I have sinned, I have sinned, O God! And my superiors have sinned still more frightfully than I, for it was they, O God! who ever set me an evil example!... But since I am here to expiate their sins as well as mine by confessing everything, O God, perchance Thou wilt pardon them in Thine infinite mercy, even as Thou wilt assuredly pardon me also!'

But a quiver of indignant revolt now sped through the crowd. Fists were raised and voices demanded vengeance; while Gorgias, resuming his narrative, related that from that time forward Fathers Crabot and Philibin had never abandoned him, linked to him as they were by a bond of blood, relying on him as he relied on them. This was the old pact which Marc had long suspected—Gorgias being admitted to the Church and becoming an Ignorantine, an enfant terrible of the Deity, one who both alarmed and enraptured his superiors by the wonderful religious spirit which glowed in his guilty flesh. Again the wretched man sobbed aloud, and all at once he passed to the horrid crime of which Simon had been accused.

'The little angel was there, O God!... It is the truth. I had just taken the other boy home, and I was passing across the dark square, when I saw the little angel in his room, which was lighted up.... Thou God knowest that I approached him without evil intention, simply out of curiosity, and in a fatherly spirit, in order to scold him for leaving his window open. And Thou knowest also that for a while I talked to him as a friend, asking him to show me the pictures on his table, sweet and pious pictures, which were still perfumed by the incense of the first Communion. But why, O God, why didst Thou then allow the devil to tempt me? Why didst Thou abandon me to the tempter, who impelled me to spring over the window-bar under the pretence of taking a closer look at the pictures, though, alas! the flames of hell were already burning within me? Ah! why didst Thou suffer it, O God? Ah! verily, my God, Thy ways are mysterious and terrible!'

The throng had now again relapsed into deathly silence amid the frightful anguish which wrung every breast as the ignoble confession at last took its course. Not a breath was heard; horror spread over all those motionless folk, terrified by the thought of what was coming. And Marc, who was very white, quite scared at seeing the truth rise before him at last, after so many lies, gazed fixedly at the wretched culprit, who was gesticulating frantically amid the sobs which choked him.

'The little child—he was so pretty. Thou hadst given him, O God! the fair and curly head of a little angel. Like the cherubs of pious paintings, he seemed, indeed, to have but that angelic head with two wings.... Kill him, O God! Did I have any such horrible thought? Speak! Thou canst read my heart! I was so fond of him, I would not have plucked a hair from his head.... But it is true the fire of hell had come upon me; Satan transported me, blinded me, and the boy became alarmed; he began to call out, to call out, to call out.... O God, those calls, those calls! I hear them always, always, and they madden me!'