Sometimes Jean wondered whether his mother, who had died of consumption when he was very young, would have loved him. M. Jêrome was devoted to this suffering projection of himself; Jean seemed to him like his own tenuous shadow, following his slippered tread through life or waiting at his side when he lay upon his bed, enveloped by the smell of valerian and ether. M. Jêrome's eldest sister might have loathed her nephew were it not that her adoration for her son, Fernand Cazenave (with whom she lived at B——, and who was president of the Town Council) almost prevented her from noticing him. She was scarcely aware of the existence of anyone but her son. From time to time, however, she drew Jean into her consciousness with a word or a smile, for she calculated that this son of a delicate father, this poor wretch defined to celibacy and a premature death, would contribute in some part to Fernand's acquisition of the Péloueyre fortune. Jean looked back over the desert of his life; his three years at school had been a succession of carefully concealed friendships. Neither Daniel Trasis nor the priest who taught him rhetoric had ever understood the hopeless beseeching expression in his eyes.
Jean opened the Nietzsche book at another page and devoured Aphorism 260 from "Beyond Good and Evil" which refers to master-morality and slave-morality. He looked at his face in the mirror again; it would always be yellow in spite of his efforts to acquire a coat of sunburn. He repeated Nietzsche's words over and over again, saturated himself with their meaning until it rushed through his thoughts like an October gale. For a moment his faith seemed shattered, lying at his feet like an uprooted oak tree. But no, no; the tree was still upright; its countless roots had saved it, and, after the storm was spent, Jean felt within him the mysterious calm that he loved—the thick foliage once more hung motionless. He was suddenly conscious of the fact that religion was, for him, before all else, a refuge. It had saved him from his own wretched thoughts through many a sleepless night. Hovering above the altar was Someone who filled the gap left by the friends he had never had, and the Virgin received the devotion that would have gone to his mother. His confidences, never uttered to a fellow being, were poured into the confessional, or they went into silent prayers towards evening in the shadowy coolness of the church. At times like these his heart opened to the pale figures of his imagination that thronged about him. If he had had Daniel's curly hair—his friend had been from birth the object of feminine caresses—would he too have had a following of spinsters and maid-servants? He was one of the class denounced by Nietzsche; he knew that with his abject appearance he was inevitably sentenced to slavery; his personality was made for failure and defeat. His father was like that, after all; very devout too, but better versed in theology than Jean, and lately become a patient reader of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. Jean, who cared little for doctrine and professed a religion of ecstasy, approved of his father's for its rational quality. He remembered his father's pet phrase: "Without Faith what would have happened to me?" This Faith, however, did not permit him to hear mass at the risk of catching a cold, and at Festivals he was installed, muffled to the eyes, in the overheated sacristy, so that he could follow the ceremony.
Jean went out and passed again between the high walls under the protecting foliage of the trees; he gesticulated as he went, and for a moment he pretended that he had lost his belief, that its support had suddenly been withdrawn. Nothing remained, nothing! School-day memories came to his lips: Mon malheur passe mon espérance.... Oui, je te loue, O Ciel, de ta persévérance. A little farther on, he addressed himself to the trees, the walls, and the piles of pebbles, protesting that Masters could exist among Christians, and that the Saints, the great Orders, in fact, the whole Church, offered a splendid example of the Will to Power.
The sound of his own footsteps in the hall brought Jean back to earth and cleared his mind of agitating thoughts; on the first floor his arrival occasioned a groaning complaint, and a sleepy voice called out pitifully for Cadette. There followed rapidly a shuffling noise in the kitchen, the barking of a dog, and the sound of shutters being opened. The awakening of M. Jêrome lifted the bonds of silence; for him it was a period of puffy eyes and a bad-tasting mouth, and life seemed at its blackest. Jean took refuge in the drawing-room with its cellar-like atmosphere, its mouldy torn paper that revealed the powdery walls, and a clock that chimed the passing hours where no one could hear it. He sank into a soft armchair and gave way to the anguish of an unsettled faith. A fly buzzed for a moment and then settled. A cock crowed,—then a bird trilled its brief song, and another cock crowed. The clock struck the half hour,—another cock, then others.... He slept until the time when he usually set forth through a roundabout series of little alleys to the smallest door of the church, and glided in amongst the scented shadows. Would he continue to keep this rendezvous,—the only one that had ever been given him?
He went out into the garden to find the sun sinking towards the horizon; the heat would soon be bearable. White butterflies hovered low over the flowers, and Cadette's grandson was watering the lettuces in the kitchen garden,—a fine-looking lad with wooden shoes on his bare feet. He was adored by all the girls, and Jean always avoided him, ashamed of the fact that he was the master and this young god of a gardener the slave. Jean hadn't the courage to smile at him even from across the garden; he was frightened almost to the point of paralysis when in the company of peasants. He had tried many a time to help the priest with his work among them, but always failed miserably and returned to his solitude, overcome by shame at the peals of laughter he evoked.
In the meantime M. Jêrome was strolling up and down the little avenue of pyramid-shaped pear trees; heliotrope, mignonette, and geraniums bloomed under them, but their perfumes were lost in the overpowering breath of an enormous blossoming lime tree. M. Jêrome shuffled his feet. The ends of his trousers were tucked into his slippers and he wore a shapeless straw hat with a ribbon round it. Hanging from his shoulders was an old knitted cloak that had once belonged to his sister. Jean saw that he was carrying a volume of Montaigne. Doubtless The Essays, like his religion, provided subterfuges enabling him to dignify his evasion of the problems of life with the name of wisdom. Yes, thought Jean, it was quite true that his poor father believed the stupendous failure of his existence to be stoicism or Christian resignation. How clearly Jean felt he saw these things. At this moment he loved and pitied his father, but his usual feeling for him was one of scorn.
The sick man complained of twinges in his neck, suffocation, and a desire to vomit. One of his farmers, Duberne d'Hourtinat, had forced his way in and wanted M. Jêrome to enlarge his cottage so that it would house his married daughter's effects. Where could he suffer to his heart's content? Why couldn't he be allowed to die in peace? And, to cap the climax, to-morrow was Thursday; the market would be held in the square and the house would be invaded by his sister Félicité Cazenave and her son. He would be awakened at dawn by the cattle in the square, and the roaring of the Cazenave motor at his door would announce the advent of this weekly plague. Félicité would force her way into the kitchen to trouble her brother's clock-like arrangement with the needs of her son, and when evening at last came, the couple would take themselves off, leaving Cadette in tears and her master speechless.
M. Jêrome kept his malice alive secretly; in the presence of the enemy it was a weak and cringing thing. He had so often mumbled about having his revenge upon the Cazenaves that Jean paid no attention this time when his father said: "We'll get the best of them, Jean, if only you'll help. Will you?" Jean, a thousand miles away from the Cazenaves and their affairs, smiled vaguely. His father watched him and continued: "At your age you ought to be more of a flirt; 'pon my word, you are badly turned out." This was the first evidence of care on the part of his father for Jean's appearance, but the boy made no comment and was far from imagining what the next turning in his career might be. He took the Montaigne from his father's hands and read this phrase: "To my mind life should be dull, silent, and unruffled...." How exactly like this their life was!
Father and son stopped to look at the garden tank; a puff of wind ruffled its surface where a dead mole was being nibbled at by tadpoles. M. Jêrome imagined the damp evening air was bad for him, and he shuffled off towards the house, leaving his son to idle in the garden. At the bottom, a door leading into an alley stood half open. Jean poked his head out, and Cadette's grandson who was holding one of the village girls pressed tightly against him dropped her like a piece of fruit.