The Village Rector

by Honoré de Balzac

He stopped, gave a horrible roar, and clung convulsively to the rector’s cassock.

“Go,” said Monsieur Bonnet, in a low voice, to the agitated women.

Jean heard the words; he raised his head, gazed at his mother and sister, then he stopped and kissed their feet.

“Let us say farewell now; do not come back; leave me alone with Monsieur Bonnet. You need not be uneasy about me any longer,” he said, pressing his mother and his sister to him with a strength in which he seemed to put all his life.

“How is it we do not die of this?” said Denise to her mother as they passed through the wicket.

It was nearly eight o’clock when this parting took place. At the gate of the prison the two women met the Abbe de Rastignac, who asked them news of the prisoner.

“He will no doubt be reconciled with God,” said Denise. “If repentance has not yet begun, he is very near it.”

The bishop was soon after informed that the clergy would triumph on this occasion, and that the criminal would go to the scaffold with the most edifying religious sentiments. The prelate, with whom was the attorney-general, expressed a wish to see the rector. Monsieur Bonnet did not reach the palace before midnight. The Abbe Gabriel, who made many trips between the palace and the jail, judged it necessary to fetch the rector in the episcopal coach; for the poor priest was in a state of exhaustion which almost deprived him of the use of his legs. The effect of his day, the prospect of the morrow, the sight of the secret struggle he had witnessed, and the full repentance which had at last overtaken his stubborn lamb when the great reckoning of eternity was brought home to him,—all these things had combined to break down Monsieur Bonnet, whose nervous, electrical nature entered into the sufferings of others as though they were his own. Souls that resemble that noble soul espouse so ardently the impressions, miseries, passions, sufferings of those in whom they are interested, that they actually feel them, and in a horrible manner, too; for they are able to measure their extent,—a knowledge which escapes others who are blinded by selfishness of heart or the paroxysm of grief. It is here that a priest like Monsieur Bonnet becomes an artist who feels, rather than an artist who judges.

When the rector entered the bishop’s salon and found there the two grand-vicars, the Abbe de Rastignac, Monsieur de Grandville, and the procureur-general, he felt convinced that something more was expected of him.

“Monsieur,” said the bishop, “have you obtained any facts which you can, without violating your duty, confide to the officers of the law for their guidance?”