“My mother!” cried Benjamin, surprised. He jumped into Catherine’s arms and she pressed him to her breast with almost savage force. But the boy escaped her and ran off crying out: “I’ll go and fetch him.”
Madame Graslin made Catherine, who was almost fainting, sit down. At this moment she saw Monsieur Bonnet and could not help blushing as she met a piercing look from her confessor, which read her heart.
“I hope,” she said, trembling, “that you will consent to marry Farrabesche and Catherine at once. Don’t you recognize Monsieur Bonnet, my dear? He will tell you that Farrabesche, since his liberation has behaved as an honest man; the whole neighborhood thinks well of him, and if there is a place in the world where you may live happy and respected it is at Montegnac. You can make, by God’s help, a good living as my farmers; for Farrabesche has recovered citizenship.”
“That is all true, my dear child,” said the rector.
Just then Farrabesche appeared, pulled along by his son. He was pale and speechless in presence of Catherine and Madame Graslin. His heart told him actively benevolent the one had been, and how deeply the other had suffered in his absence. Veronique led away the rector, who, on his side, was anxious to talk with her alone.
As soon as they were far enough away not to be overheard, Monsieur Bonnet looked fixedly at Veronique; she colored and dropped her eyes like a guilty person.
“You degrade well-doing,” he said, sternly.
“How?” she asked, raising her head.
“Well-doing,” he replied, “is a passion as superior to that of love as humanity is superior to the individual creature. Now, you have not done this thing from the sole impulse and simplicity of virtue. You have fallen from the heights of humanity to the indulgence of the individual creature. Your benevolence to Farrabesche and Catherine carries with it so many memories and forbidden thoughts that it has lost all merit in the eyes of God. Tear from your heart the remains of the javelin evil planted there. Do not take from your actions their true value. Come at last to that saintly ignorance of the good you do which is the grace supreme of human actions.”
Madame Graslin had turned away to wipe the tears that told the rector his words had touched the bleeding wound that was still unhealed in her heart.