En Route

by J.-K. Huysmans

"And yet," cried Durtal, "the world asks what is the good of the contemplative Orders."

"They are the lightning conductors of society," said the abbé, with great energy. "They draw on themselves the demoniacal fluid, they absorb temptations to vice, preserve by their prayers those who live, like ourselves, in sin; they appease, in fact, the wrath of the Most High that He may not place the earth under an interdict. Ah! while the sisters who devote themselves to nursing the sick and infirm are indeed admirable, their task is easy in comparison with that undertaken by the cloistered Orders, the Orders where penance never ceases, and the very nights spent in bed are broken by sobs."

"This priest is far more interesting than his brethren," said Durtal to himself as they parted; and, as the abbé invited his visits, he had often called on him.

He had always been cordially welcomed. On several occasions he had warily sounded the old man on several questions. He had answered evasively in regard to other priests. But he did not seem to think much of them, if Durtal might judge by what he said one day in regard to Lidwine, that magnet of sorrows.

"Notice," he said, "that a weak and honest soul has every advantage in choosing a confessor, not from the clergy who have lost the sense of Mysticism, but from the monks. They alone know the effects of the law of substitution, and if they see that in spite of their efforts the penitent succumbs, they end by freeing him by taking his trials on themselves, or by sending them off to some convent in the country where resolute people can use them."

Another time the question of nationalities was discussed in a newspaper which Durtal showed him. The abbé shrugged his shoulders, putting aside the patriotic twaddle. "For me," he said calmly, "for me my country is that where I can best pray."

Durtal could not make out what this priest was. He understood from the bookseller, that the Abbé Gévresin on account of his great age and infirmity was incapacitated for the regular duties of the priesthood. "I know that, when he can, he still says his mass each morning in a convent; I believe also he receives a few of his brethren for confession in his own house;" and Tocane added with disdain, "He has barely enough to live on, and they do not look on him with favour at the archbishop's because of his mystical notions."

There ended all he knew about him. "He is evidently a very good priest," repeated Durtal; "his physiognomy declares it, and his mouth and eyes contradict each other; his eyes certainly declare his entire goodness, his lips, somewhat thick, purple and always moist, have on them an affectionate but somewhat sad smile, and to this his blue eyes give the lie—blue, childlike eyes which laugh out astonished under white eyebrows in a rather red face, touched on the cheeks like a ripe apricot, with little points of blood.

"In any case," said Durtal, waking from his meditations, "I am very wrong not to continue the relations into which I have entered with him.

"Yes, but then nothing is so difficult as to become really intimate with a priest; first by the very education he receives at the seminary the ecclesiastic thinks himself obliged to disperse his affections and not concentrate himself on particular friendships; then, like a doctor, he is a man harassed with business, who is never to be found. You can catch them now and then between two confessions or two sick calls. Nor even then are you quite certain that the eager welcome of the priest rings true, for he is just the same to all who come to him, and indeed, since I do not call on the Abbé Gévresin for his help or advice, I am afraid of being in his way, and of taking up his time, hence I am acting with discretion in not going to see him.