Читать книгу The Grip of Desire - Hector France - Страница 39

"Stupefied, the pedant closed his mouth, and opened his eyes."

LÉON CLADEL (Titi Foyssac IV).

If there are any beings as blind as the husbands, they are certainly the fathers; with the latter, as with the former, blindness reaches its utmost limits. Since Molière no one laughs at them any more, and I don't know why, for they always deserve to be laughed at, while all the sarcasms have fallen on the head of the unhappy husbands.

Folly and injustice! Conjugal love is as respectable as paternal affection. Love is as good as affection, and what the heart chooses is quite as good as what the blood gives you.

Why then do they complain if it is papa who is deceived, and laugh if it is a husband. Exactly the contrary ought to occur. Paternal love is egotistic. It is for the most part vanity and self-love. The father looks for his own likeness in his offspring, and if he believes himself to be an eagle, his son naturally must be an eaglet. Most frequently he is only a foolish gosling, but the father insists on finding on him an eagle's plumes. If then he is deceived in his hopes, which are only a deduction from his own infatuation, it is certainly permissible to laugh at it.

While the husband. …

This is what I observed to Durand, which put him in a great passion.

—Because my daughter has gone to Mass? And you say: "fathers are blind." Here is a self-contradictory individual. One can see plainly that you are not a father, or you would alter your theories. Hang it! You can't say I am enchanted at it, but you must put yourself in a man's place. She is a child, who leaves school, mark that well, where she was obliged, compelled to perform her religious duties, and one does not break off in a couple of days the habits of ten years like that. Give her time to reach it. I reason with her; hang it, I can't do everything in a day. When she goes from time to time to Mass, on Sunday, it does not follow that she is becoming religious. I am a free-thinker, but I am a father also, and what would you have a father do when two pretty arms take hold of your neck and a sweet little coaxing voice whispers to you, "Let me go there, my darling papa." Hang it, one is not made of wood, after all!

—Neither is the Curé made of wood.

—You make one shiver. Can my daughter have anything in common with your peasants' Curé? I say again that it is purely for diversion that she goes to Mass. And I understand it. Where can she show her new dress? And what place is more favourable for this little display than going into and coming out of church?

—Then the Church is a spectacle like another. There are chants, music, tapers, perfumes, flowers, the half-light which comes through the coloured windows.

—Without speaking of the fellows covered with gold-tinsel who repeat in unknown language the pater-nosters to which no one listens. It is enough to make one burst with laughing, and, if I had not my cabbages to plant, I would go myself now and again and entertain myself at these masquerades which are as good as the theatres at the fair, and to complete the resemblance, it only costs a couple of sous.

—But the principal person of the troop attracts the looks, and the danger is there.

—Your priestling is young then?

—And vigorous. Strong appetites. When I see him rambling in the village, I begin to say: "Good people, the cock is loose, take care of your hens." It is like your Curé of Djidjelly.

—I am easy on that ground. The black cock will not come and rub his wings here. He knows now that he has mistaken the door; they have informed him regarding me, and he will not be so rude as to come again.

But just at that moment the servant came into the room quite scared, and said:

—Here is Monsieur le Curé.

—Who? what? said Durand; and turning towards me, Shall I receive him?

Well, we shall have a laugh!

He was still undecided, when Marcel glided into the room.