The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
surplice fees were worth more than that of many town livings. There was
quite as much money, without counting the fat capons, the eggs, fresh
butter, and a thousand and one pleasant details, and there the curé is
indisputably the first man. There is not a good meal to which he is not
invited, fêted, etc."
Castanède had scarcely gone back to his room before the pupils split up
into knots. Julien did not form part of any of them; he was left out
like a black sheep. He saw in every knot a pupil tossing a coin in the
air, and if he managed to guess right in this game of heads or tails,
his comrades would decide that he would soon have one of those fat
livings.
Anecdotes ensued. A certain young priest, who had scarcely been
ordained a year, had given a tame rabbit to the maidservant of an old
curé, and had succeeded in being asked to be his curate. In a few
months afterwards, for the curé had quickly died, he had replaced him
in that excellent living. Another had succeeded in getting himself
designated as a successor to a very rich town living, by being present
at all the meals of an old, paralytic curé, and by dexterously carving
his poultry. The seminarists, like all young people, exaggerated the
effect of those little devices, which have an element of originality,
and which strike the imagination.
"I must take part in these conversations," said Julien to himself. When
they did not talk about sausages and good livings, the conversation ran
on the worldly aspect of ecclesiastical doctrine, on the differences of
bishops and prefects, of mayors and curés. Julien caught sight of the
conception of a second god, but of a god who was much more formidable
and much more powerful than the other one. That second god was the
Pope. They said among themselves, in a low voice, however, and when
they were quite sure that they would not be heard by Pirard, that
the reason for the Pope not taking the trouble of nominating all the
prefects and mayors of France, was that he had entrusted that duty to
the King of France by entitling him a senior son of the Church.
It was about this time that Julien thought he could exploit, for the
benefit of his own reputation, his knowledge of De Maistre's book
on the Pope. In point of fact, he did astonish his comrades, but it
was only another misfortune. He displeased them by expounding their
own opinions better than they could themselves. Chélan had acted as
imprudently for Julien as he had for himself. He had given him the
habit of reasoning correctly, and of not being put off by empty words,
but he had neglected to tell him that this habit was a crime in the
person of no importance, since every piece of logical reasoning is
offensive.
Julien's command of language added consequently a new crime to his
score. By dint of thinking about him, his colleagues succeeded in
expressing the horror with which he would inspire them by a single
expression; they nicknamed him Martin Luther, "particularly," they
said, "because of that infernal logic which makes him so proud."
Several young seminarists had a fresher complexion than Julien, and
could pass as better-looking, but he had white hands, and was unable to
conceal certain refined habits of personal cleanliness. This advantage
proved a disadvantage in the gloomy house in which chance had cast
him. The dirty peasants among whom he lived asserted that he had very
abandoned morals. We fear that we may weary our reader by a narration
of the thousand and one misfortunes of our hero. The most vigorous of
his comrades, for example, wanted to start the custom of beating him.
He was obliged to arm himself with an iron compass, and to indicate,
though by signs, that he would make use of it. Signs cannot figure in a
spy's report to such good advantage as words.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A PROCESSION
All hearts were moved. The presence of God seemed to
have descended into these narrow Gothic streets that
stretched in every direction, and were sanded by the
care of the faithful.--_Young_.
It was in vain that Julien pretended to be petty and stupid. He could
not please; he was too different. Yet all these professors, he said to
himself, are very clever people, men in a thousand. Why do they not
like my humility? Only one seemed to take advantage of his readiness
to believe everything, and apparently to swallow everything. This was
the abbé Chas-Bernard, the director of the ceremonies of the cathedral,
where, for the last fifteen years, he had been given occasion to hope
for a canonry. While waiting, he taught homiletics at the seminary.
During the period of Julien's blindness, this class was one of those in
which he most frequently came out top. The abbé Chas had used this as
an opportunity to manifest some friendship to him, and when the class
broke up, he would be glad to take him by the arm for some turns in the
garden.
"What is he getting at," Julien would say to himself. He noticed
with astonishment that, for hours on end, the abbé would talk to him
about the ornaments possessed by the cathedral. It had seventeen lace
chasubles, besides the mourning vestments. A lot was hoped from the old
wife of the judge de Rubempré. This lady, who was ninety years of age,
had kept for at least seventy years her wedding dress of superb Lyons
material, embroidered with gold.
"Imagine, my friend," the abbé Chas would say, stopping abruptly, and
staring with amazement, "that this material keeps quite stiff. There
is so much gold in it. It is generally thought in Besançon that the
will of the judge's wife will result in the cathedral treasure being
increased by more than ten chasubles, without counting four or five
capes for the great feast. I will go further," said the abbé Chas,
lowering his voice, "I have reasons for thinking the judge's wife will
leave us her magnificent silver gilt candlesticks, supposed to have
been bought in Italy by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, whose
favourite minister was one of the good lady's ancestors."
"But what is the fellow getting at with all this old clothes business,"
thought Julien. "These adroit preliminaries have been going on for
centuries, and nothing comes of them. He must be very suspicious of me.
He is cleverer than all the others, whose secret aim can be guessed so
easily in a fortnight. I understand. He must have been suffering for
fifteen years from mortified ambition."
Julien was summoned one evening in the middle of the fencing lesson to
the abbé Pirard, who said to him.
"To-morrow is the feast of Corpus Domini (the Fête Dieu) the abbé
Chas-Bernard needs you to help him to decorate the cathedral. Go and
obey." The abbé Pirard called him back and added sympathetically. "It
depends on you whether you will utilise the occasion to go into the
town."
"Incedo per ignes," answered Julien. (I have secret enemies).
Julien went to the cathedral next morning with downcast eyes. The sight
of the streets and the activity which was beginning to prevail in the
town did him good. In all quarters they were extending the fronts of
the houses for the procession.
All the time that he had passed in the seminary seemed to him no more
than a moment. His thoughts were of Vergy, and of the pretty Amanda
whom he might perhaps meet, for her café was not very far off. He saw
in the distance the abbé Chas-Bernard on the threshold of his beloved
cathedral. He was a big man with a jovial face and a frank air. To-day
he looked triumphant. "I was expecting you, my dear son," he cried as
soon as he saw Julien in the distance. "Be welcome. This day's duty
will be protracted and arduous. Let us fortify ourselves by a first
breakfast. We will have the second at ten o'clock during high mass."
"I do not wish, sir," said Julien to him gravely, "to be alone for a
single instant. Deign to observe," he added, showing him the clock over
their heads, "that I have arrived at one minute to five."
"So those little rascals at the seminary frightened you. It is very
good of you to think of them," said the abbé. "But is the road less
beautiful because there are thorns in the hedges which border it.
Travellers go on their way, and leave the wicked thorns to wait in vain
where they are. And now to work my dear friend, to work."
The abbé Chas was right in saying that the task would be arduous. There
had been a great funeral ceremony at the cathedral the previous day.
They had not been able to make any preparations. They had consequently
only one morning for dressing all the Gothic pillars which constitute
the three naves with a kind of red damask cloth ascending to a height
of thirty feet. The Bishop had fetched by mail four decorators from
Paris, but these gentry were not able to do everything, and far from
giving any encouragement to the clumsiness of the Besançon colleagues,
they made it twice as great by making fun of them.
Julien saw that he would have to climb the ladder himself. His agility
served him in good stead. He undertook the direction of the decorators
from town. The Abbé Chas was delighted as he watched him flit from
ladder to ladder. When all the pillars were dressed in damask, five
enormous bouquets of feathers had to be placed on the great baldachin
above the grand altar. A rich coping of gilded wood was supported by
eight big straight columns of Italian marble, but to reach the centre
of the baldachin above the tabernacle involved walking over an old
wooden cornice which was forty feet high and possibly worm-eaten.
The sight of this difficult crossing had extinguished the gaiety of the
Parisian decorators, which up till then had been so brilliant. They
looked at it from down below, argued a great deal, but did not go up.
Julien seized hold of the bouquets of feathers and climbed the ladder
at a run. He placed it neatly on the crown-shaped ornament in the
centre of the baldachin. When he came down the ladder again, the abbé
Chas-Bernard embraced him in his arms.
"Optime" exclaimed the good priest, "I will tell this to Monseigneur."
Breakfast at ten o'clock was very gay. The abbé Chas had never seen his
church look so beautiful.
"Dear disciple," he said to Julien. "My mother used to let out chairs
in this venerable building, so I have been brought up in this great
edifice. The Terror of Robespierre ruined us, but when I was eight
years old, that was my age then, I used to serve masses in private
houses, so you see I got my meals on mass-days. Nobody could fold a
chasuble better than I could, and I never cut the fringes. After the
re-establishment of public worship by Napoleon, I had the good fortune
to direct everything in this venerable metropolis. Five times a year do
my eyes see it adorned with these fine ornaments. But it has never been
so resplendent, and the damask breadths have never been so well tied or
so close to the pillars as they are to-day."
"So he is going to tell me his secret at last," said Julien. "Now he is
going to talk about himself. He is expanding." But nothing imprudent
was said by the man in spite of his evident exaltation.
"All the same he has worked a great deal," said Julien to himself.
"He is happy. What a man! What an example for me! He really takes the
cake." (This was a vulgar phrase which he had learned from the old
surgeon).
As the sanctus of high mass sounded, Julien wanted to take a surplice
to follow the bishop in the superb procession. "And the thieves, my
friend! And the thieves," exclaimed the abbé Chas. "Have you forgotten
them? The procession will go out, but we will watch, will you and I.
We shall be very lucky if we get off with the loss of a couple of ells
of this fine lace which surrounds the base of the pillars. It is a
gift of Madame de Rubempré. It comes from her great-grandfather the