Читать книгу The Town Below - Roger Lemelin - Страница 11

Anselme Pritontin was walking rapidly, without noticing that from time to time he stubbed his foot against the upraised planks of the sidewalk. He was talking to himself, as if muttering a prayer, evoking in his mind the various expressions of the curé’s face in an effort to find the one that seemed to give him the most satisfaction.

“He will be sorry, right enough! To have overlooked a man of my worth! No, it is not remorse that I expect of him. After all, he’s not a sinner! It was simply forgetfulness on his part, he was so taken up with his prayers. Holy men do not understand anything about earthly things. He must have been influenced by Zépherin Lévesque, Commander of the Knights of Columbus. Monsieur le Curé will regret it, I’m sure. Oh! I’ll forgive him. What will he say to me, anyhow? I’ll help him out so that he won’t feel embarrassed. He will be horrified when he hears about those communists. The only thing is, will he be so occupied with their seditious activities that he will forget the injustice done to me? I’ll remind him of it with my well-known tact. He’s a good-hearted man; he won’t know how to apologize to me, but I’ll make it easy for him, make it seem natural; I’ll put him at his ease without his knowing it. After I’ve gone, he will think of how tactful I was and will be all the more grateful to me. The gratitude of a priest — what an honour for me!”

He fingered the big black beads of his weekday rosary in the depths of his pocket. “I’d like to see Zépherin Lévesque’s face when he hears how I’ve uncovered this nest of sedition. I can just picture it! Why, this is a terrible thing!” He shuddered.

As he reached the parish-house gate, Anselme Pritontin realized that the indignation he had felt at the club a short while ago had disappeared. Here he was, thinking of that communist affair as coolly as if it had been a routine matter! He was alarmed at this. He longed for the sacred fire of inspiration, like a young journalist who wishes his article to show the marks of genius. Anselme stood there, turning about on first one foot and then another as he eagerly sought for the word, the attitude of mind that would put him in a rage. He called up the memory of Tit-Blanc’s head, raised it to a level with his gaze (and he was quite tall), looked it in the eyes, dishevelled the hair, and added the drunkard’s puffy red face and the alcohol gurgling in his mouth. The hands of the ambitious Soyeux curled like claws about to descend upon Tit-Blanc’s cheeks. He thought of the man’s strumpet of a wife, that Barloute who in the days gone by had made a mockery of his youthful passion. But it was all in vain. The sacred fire would not come, and Anselme Pritontin was deeply grieved. He tried another method: thought of the obvious decline of the Faith; and this quickly brought him to the conclusion that he was more pious than these wicked ones. But where was his anger? Was he really angry?

There was a sudden gleam of light through the big window of the sacristy, and he caught sight of Bidonnet, who was lighting the tapers of the new candelabra. Pritontin gave a start.

“The jealous wretches! So, I defend religion because it provides me with old chandeliers, because I want to be a churchwarden! They are liars, those low-life Mulots! To be a churchwarden! To be a churchwarden! Because they have no chance of being one! As for me, it is not that I am interested merely in the honour of the thing; my wife, who is in delicate health, has her heart set upon it. That’s natural enough, seeing that she has two brothers in holy orders. And then there are the children who must be worthily prepared for the great task. But what they say does not worry me. It will be a pleasure to show that — that fellow Lévesque the stuff that I’m made of.”

He rang the bell, anxious, trembling all over for fear he would lose his mood of exaltation before someone came to open the door. He could hear footsteps.

Footsteps could also be heard in the rue Colomb. They fell at first with a regular beat, and then all of a sudden the pace quickened, only to slacken once more like the panting spurts of a motor that is out of order. There was a smell of roast beef and fried potatoes in the air. Flies knocked against the gaslights with a buzzing sound, forming a kind of accompaniment to the rhythms of the street. Tit-Blanc was endeavouring to convince himself that he was not drunk.

“If I was drunk, I wouldn’t be so brave.” He looked down at his feet and was astonished to see how straight he was walking. “I can’t back out now, they’d take me for a coward. After all I said I was going to do it, I can’t go and tell them it was just to hear myself talk. I swear to God I don’t want to do it. He never did anything to me. Nor the priests either. It’s damned silly to do a thing like that in church. Let’s get it straight. He has a lot of nerve, that swine, going around saying that my wife is a whore! Even if I am poor and take a drop now and then, I can pick a virgin as well as he can. It’s true, I always went in for the ones with good figures.”

This flattered him. He recalled his conquests of long ago. But another thought came to startle him: “That bastard can’t have any proof, can he? Could he have tried to make her before I married her? You never can tell with those pious old hypocrites! Wait till tomorrow, I’ll get him off his knees.”

Tit-Blanc felt himself to be immense, all-powerful. It seemed to him that all he had to do was give those ramshackle dwellings a blow with his fist and they would come tumbling down like a house of cards. He could feel mounting from the depths of his bosom a thunderous symphony of courage, a vortex of vengeance. He was conscious of a strange desire to hum, then drew in his lower jaw by way of containing this glorious flood of sensation. Taking the middle of the street, he had the impression that the houses with their lance-like chimneys were an imperial guard in his honour. Then a sharp pain darted through his jaw as he tried to close it. Ah! Denis Boucher’s fist. “He’ll pay for it, too; the whole family will pay.”

This was a great day for him. He had not known that he possessed such will power, such strength and determination. He cast about for those who deserved his vengeance, but his mind was not one of those that can take in a number of problems at the same time. The figures of Pritontin and Denis appeared to him as a pair of Cyclops’s eyes which he would have to gouge out before he could reign over the Mulots. He paused in front of the house to admire the way in which it stood at the corner of the street, and gave a smile of satisfaction. “I never thought of it before!”

He entered the house without closing the door, having thrown it open with too violent a gesture. “I am boss here! Jean, here is ten cents for you; go to the hardware store and get me a firecracker. And be quick about it, for I need it right away.”

Surprised and annoyed, Jean left without making any reply, for he was too busy thinking of Lise. Féda Colin told her husband he was acting like a crazy man, that everybody was looking at him.

“I’ve had enough from you,” he shouted back at her. “The things I put up with on account of your reputation, Barloute!”

Féda, whom the milkman addressed as “Madame,” did not like to be reminded of this nickname. “My name is Féda, Tit-Blanc, and if there is anything to be said against Barloute, it’s your fault.

Tit-Blanc did not feel inclined to argue the point. “We’ll settle that later. First, I’m going to see about our shop.”

He began measuring the walls, figuring where they would put the counter. His family was disgusted with him, all except his father. Old man Pitou had taken part in the riot of 1917. He had a face like an old quarter-moon; it was almost entirely covered by a dark red splotch while the rest of it bore an inflamed look as from an excess of gaiety.

With a relapse into childhood, he applauded Tit-Blanc’s announcement: “A shop! Be sure and lay in some chewing tobacco!”

“Madame Boucher is opening a shop for her Gaston,” Féda remarked, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Well, they’re not going to have the laugh on us any longer; they’re done with taking the bread out of our mouths. That Joseph Boucher is a hog. He’s not satisfied with earning twenty-five dollars a week. Ah, little Mamaine! I’m going to buy you a pretty blue dress like the ones you see in the big grillrooms.” And with an air of good-humoured complicity, he pointed a scolding finger at Germaine.

She was indignant. “I don’t want anything from you,” she replied. “Take it away from poor Gaston — never!”

“That’s right,” cooed Féda, “you’re a girl after my own heart.”

“Oh, I know you,” said her husband. “You have no nerve; you’ll be poor all your lives.” He washed his hands of them contemptuously.

“It’s not that, Tit-Blanc. The hunchback may put a spell on us. The Good Lord will punish us for it later!”

“You can’t do anything these days without having the Lord on your heels. It wasn’t that way in our time.”

Féda was stupefied. Tit-Blanc was striding up and down the kitchen floor with uneven gait, for it was full of knobs and excrescences. Beer bottles stood guard near the sink. Jean returned and tossed the firecracker on the table. He still looked surprised.

“I’m the boss here!” cried Tit-Blanc as his eye fell on the cracker. He had to shout and assert his authority in order to stifle, to deaden the fear that was rising in him.

By way of calming him, Féda showed him a letter calling attention to the fact that a payment was overdue on the sofa they had bought. He tore it up, for at that moment his mind was on bigger things. She served him a supper of beans and bacon, but he merely drank his tea without tasting any of the food. Germaine was looking at herself in the mirror, arranging her hair like Claudette Colbert. Jean, who was shaving, was so nervous that he cut himself. He was thinking of Lise’s smile and how he would soon be seeing it.

Old man Pitou was fidgeting. “When are you going to open your shop?”

Féda shook him. “Be quiet, Grandpa,” she said. “I don’t want to be late for the bingo game.”

She was hurrying as fast as she could, for the chance of winning something always excited her.

Gaston Boucher was supporting his head like a globe in his right hand, his forehead pressed to the windowpane, between the curtains. He was watching Germaine and Féda as they left for the party at the parish house. Denis came out shortly afterward, having been detained by a recalcitrant lock of hair which would not stay in place. The invalid sighed and gazed sadly at the pile of illustrated stories he had taken from the drawer in the belief that Denis was going to read to him.

“Come along with the rest of us, Gaston,” his mother begged of him; for she too was anxious to be there in time for the bingo game.

“I don’t want to, Mama. I don’t understand what they say; they talk too fast.”

But he was thinking especially of the curious glances of the girls as he made his way to his seat. He went upstairs, to the hiding place where he kept his savings beneath the hollow image of the Sacred Heart. Slowly and thoughtfully he ran his hand over the banknotes and the silver coins, as one might smooth a fur in thinking of the weather to come. “In a car it won’t show, sitting down.” He thought of Germaine’s smile, of the girls who with their beaux went up to the monument of an evening. He could imagine how the couples conversed, with tender murmurings. Those young fellows walked straight and were not short of breath.

The sick lad stared at the plaster Christ, fancying that it heard what he said. Faith surged up in him like a jet of flame. Was he to belie the impossible? Dropping to his knees, he took his rosary and began saying his beads in an exaggerated whisper as he had seen old women do in church. His voice was hoarse with exaltation. “Don’t be mean, dear God; I want a good body; I want to breathe easy. I want to be straight, I do.” He stopped short in desperation and stared at a pencil drawing that he had made of his brother André. He had given him a harsh face with coarse features, rugged as a bit of jagged rock. And the strange part of it was that the portrait resembled André. His mother assured people that she would have sent it to Beaux-Arts if Gaston had been willing; but then, Flora Boucher was not hard to please and, to hear her tell it, her children were exceptional beings.

Gaston gave an anxious glance through the window to make certain that his hens were in the chicken house. Then, rummaging in a drawer, he took out Denis’s last-year’s suit. Slipping into the coat, he climbed upon a chair in front of a mirror to see how he would look if he were big like his brother. He found that the coat was too long and there were hollow places on the right side, under his sunken shoulder. That was on account of the hump. Realizing this, he made a wry face. The cuffs came down almost over his fingertips, but there was an air of distinction about that, he thought. He made an effort to straighten up and only succeeded in making his heart beat more rapidly. Gazing at his hair, straight as stubble, he wondered if some day it would be curly like Denis’s. He had large and beautiful eyes, but it seemed to him that they were too big and the lashes too long for one as small as he; the effect was ugly.

Suddenly, he turned pale. His hands and feet were becoming cold, and then a clammy flush came over him; his nails were blue.

He gave a raucous, choking cry: “Papa, Papa, hot, cold, hot, cold.” He had not had time to take off the coat.

His father came running, throwing his pipe from him on the way. “My God, what’s the matter with you now? What a life!”

Gaston was flapping his arms like a scarecrow, for the bird of death was hovering near. “I’m going to die, Papa, I’m going to die — I’m afraid.”

“Come, Flora, come quick!”

Gaston was suffocating. Joseph chewed the hairs of his moustache, feeling faint and at a loss what to do. Putting on her hat and scolding the invalid at the same time, Flora hastened up the stairs. She acted as if this attack were no more than a child’s whim. But while she made light of it, these chills and fevers that her son suffered were nevertheless beginning to alarm her. “Don’t be playing thermometer, silly boy,” she said. And pinching his cheek, she made him lie down. Joseph suggested calling a doctor.

“And throw a dollar out the window? I have my medicine book here. And anyway, you can see it’s only a nervous spell. I had the same thing when Denis was born.”

“But look, his hands are blue!”

“His veins are clogged; his blood doesn’t circulate well. What he needs is a physic.” She became angry. “Are you trying to find ways of keeping me from going to the bingo party? You’re hateful, that’s what you are; you’re jealous. What do you want me to do, slave my life away? You know very well, if it was anything serious, I’d be the first one to send for the doctor.”

Gaston was recovering now. Greatly disappointed, he took off the coat that was too big for him. Joseph thought that he had put it on to keep warm. With a sob, the hunchback turned his face to the wall. “I’ve had all I can stand, all I can stand!”

“Don’t be getting ideas in your head, my child. Go to sleep, will you? Mama’s going to win a dollar for you at bingo. Lucky boy, he’s going to have a business of his own, and here he’s crying!”

Gaston had his own vague thoughts concerning this state of infancy in which his parents kept him swaddled.

Denis stiffened his muscles and assured himself that his suit fitted him well. Catching sight of Jean and the two Langevins, he imagined they were talking about the way he was dressed. That was all they were good for: to concern themselves with such trifles. Impatient to realize his ambitions, Denis already, by way of showing his superiority, had clothed himself in the prestige of his future success. It was not that he saw any grandeur in being a stenographer and having gone to a private school! His vanity in this regard was a thing of the past. But his eagerness to live gloriously led him to glean from the future all the most likely sprouts and transplant them into his as yet untilled present; he would enjoy for a day their promising verdure and then on the morrow would despair at seeing them wither so quickly. In his imagination he upset all the rules and achieved the impossible; he conquered the world and claimed his destiny like a god. As for his true successes, which were those of the ordinary youth, he found them disillusioning, and would lament the mediocrity of others, whom he held responsible for the fact that the flood of light he knew his own bosom contained was only manifested by the tiniest of gleams.

If other men were so small of stature, it was because they could not come to know what it was by which they lived. It was Denis who, at Saint-Joseph, kept the shop of truth, and he would dispense his wares from time to time in return for a little admiration. As for women, they belonged to another world, and he was contemptuous of the weapons they wielded. He who demanded intelligence despised the only intellectual ones he knew among them. They crammed themselves with Delly and Bourget and would discuss a work like Divorce as one does theology after the sermon at nine o’clock mass. He found such discussions vain and empty. He would break in upon them saying: “I know some books that are really fine!” And he would stalk away.

This kept him in a manner shut in upon himself, and he would assume a haughty air to cover his inability to put into words the things that he felt so deeply. Most of the girls, like the Mulots in general, read only the cheap popular fiction, the romans-feuilletons, and were interested solely in discovering the means of snaring a suitor — “and they were married not long afterward.” He did not propose to let himself be hooked. They had become his enemies, a threat to his undefined goal. Convinced that marriage would be the prison house of his destiny, that high destiny that he had envisaged, he looked upon a woman’s face as an epitaph, displayed in the course of chance meetings with the sex. He preached freedom and, seeking to identify himself with the masterpieces that he read, ignored the fertile and spontaneous resources of his own being. It revolted him to see Jean so occupied with his toilet this evening. He felt a savage desire to go over and rumple his hair, muss him up, put knots in his necktie. He was in a cruel humour.

“Why, you have powder on your face! And that tie! Look, why don’t we go for a walk? It’s foolish to stay indoors on a night like this.”

The suggestion did not appeal to Jean. He was near to telling Denis that this sudden fancy for a stroll came from a lack of money. But he preferred to go on speaking of his toilet, even though it made him blush. “I shaved myself this evening. My beard is so stiff. Do you soften yours up first?”

He kept moving his hands restlessly in his pockets, as if obsessed with the idea that someone was trying to prevent him from looking his best for once. He did feel, it is true, that it was rather daring for him, a worm-vendor, to dress up in such a manner on a weekday evening. But his yellow polka-dot tie was pretty, wasn’t it? Lise would appreciate it later on. Would she notice the powder on his face? He blamed Denis for his uneasiness — Denis, who overwhelmed him with his air of authority, who gave him his dreams. The Langevins were remarking that they would like to see Lise again. Feigning astonishment, Denis toyed with the watch chain that hung from the pocket of Jean’s coat.

“Ah!” he said, “I understand now. Symbol of slavery!” His tone was contemptuous. “Go on, you’re a budding Pritontin. Ah! You heard about your father?”

“Leave my father out of it. He has nothing to do with it. You have to be well dressed when you sit in the reserved seats. It costs ten cents more —”

Jean had struck home and he knew it as he saw Denis turn pale. Reflecting that Lise was the cause of this meanness on his part, he hated her. Nevertheless, the happiness she had given him with her first smile was something that he preserved intact; it was something that Denis could neither divine nor lay hands on. The thing that humiliated him, rather, was his bashfulness, his undoubtedly ridiculous bearing ever since he had fallen in love.

Disgruntled because he lacked the necessary ten cents, Denis made up his mind that he would get himself a reserved seat. He said nothing, however, and Jean was relieved. Life was suddenly fair again, and it was with real animation that he threw back a stray ball from the Mulots who were playing in the street. Going over to lean against the embankment, Denis coldly eyed the girls who passed. They either smiled at him or treated him as a show-off. He was surprised to find himself flattered by such homage and resolved that he would yield only to their bodily charms, a weakness which he ascribed to those passions that a young man naturally felt. A man he assuredly was, for today he no longer blushed as he thought of a naked woman. Whereas, the year before —

Jean was playing with the coins in his pocket. He was somewhat concerned. Was it out of contempt that Denis kept silent? He went over to him.

“Will you come along? I’ll pay the difference. You needn’t be huffy about it. I’ve had a good week.”

“All right, give it to me; I’ll pay you back fifteen.” He had a vision of a multitude of empty milk jars as a source of independence. He gave Jean a furious look. “Well, are you through patting that money of yours?”

“Look! There he goes!” cried the Langevins. Denis did not turn and Jean appeared to be more interested in Méo Nolin’s daughter as Zépherin Lévesque went by at the wheel of his automobile, the newest in the parish. A man who was fond of show, he drove slowly, and the lads had a good opportunity to gaze at Lise, but she seemed unaware of their presence. Jean made excuses for her to himself. She would prefer to see him alone, he felt sure. He was fortifying himself against the sarcastic remarks that Denis would probably make. The latter now proposed a business arrangement, thinking thereby to kill the thought of love.

“She should be able to get her father to buy his worms from you. He’s a great fisherman. That would mean one customer the less for Chaton.” Denis’s mind, however, was not on what he was saying, for the glimpse he had had of Lise’s eyes had brought him a feeling of tender melancholy, of the sort that one experiences in the silence of open spaces, beneath a tranquil sky.

Jean was insulted. He had rather expected Denis to adopt a scoffing, unceremonious attitude toward Lise. But such a suggestion as this! He was astonished that he had never before been ashamed of the traffic in worms. He had never thought that a woman would be able to disgust him with it. Carried away by the new and ardent song in his heart, he had already broken with his past. Embarked in a strange boat, he had shoved off from the familiar bank that was the Jean Colin of yesterday: the Jean Colin who dreamed of exercising in his muscles, of obtaining a monopoly of the trade of angleworms, and of achieving victories over the Mulots while Denis applauded.

The happiness of first love, a happiness he was only beginning to know, had come to disturb all this. It was senseless to speak to Lise of the great and lofty things of which he dreamed and at the same time to tell her, in the intervals of lovemaking, how he dealt in these curious little animals, so fat and shiny, that served as bait for fishes. Was he to explain to her how they slipped through your fingers, fled up your sleeve, and came out at your neck?

Was he in love with Lise? Since when? Was it, then, an accomplished fact, something that had already taken place inside himself? As he looked at Denis, he realized that his friend’s rage, his gibes, had put the girl in his heart as no smile of hers could have done. Ah, to be able to rid himself of this Boucher, who was like a cover to his life, holding him down to earth when he wished to soar.

“Why, Monsieur Pritontin!” exclaimed Denis. “How comes it you’re on foot? That’s not in the least like a churchwarden. Just look at Monsieur Lévesque. He’s somebody, he is!”

Anselme Pritontin pretended to be indifferent and ducked in time to miss the ball the Mulots threw at him. He smiled craftily, for his was a joy above all the automobiles in this world. He was dreaming of how surprised these wretches would be, tomorrow at high mass and next week, when they learned that he has purchased the Abbé Trinchu’s big Buick. He would arrive before Zépherin and would park in front of the main entrance. He would take the priests out riding….

The young men now fell into step with their elders. The Langevins, who had never sat in the reserved seats, could not wait to beard the Gonzagues, those pious ones who constituted the élite among the Soyeux. They could be seen upon the stage, congratulating Lise upon the part she was to take in the program. Would she tell them of her adventure that afternoon? At the moment, she was preoccupied with her curls, her lace ruffles, and the impression she would make upon Monsieur le Curé.

People were walking briskly toward the parish hall, the women gesticulating excitedly as they spoke of their luck at the last bingo party. The dignified Soyeuses, with mincing steps, took the sidewalk across the way. The meeting never began until they were there, since they occupied the front rows. They would hesitate for some little while before entering, with a show of reluctance, for there was a law against bingo games. The Mulotes on the other hand, were delighted with the prospect of a wholesale raid by the police. They could picture themselves up at the city hall, chattering noisily and stabbing the gendarmes in the back with their hatpins. And the Abbé Bongrain would be there, too! What a picnic and what a babel of tongues! Although the game was forbidden all over town, Saint-Joseph’s parish hall continued to hold parties and the Mulots encouraged the Curé to defy the authorities. They expected that the law would swoop down upon them, but the police avoided this corner as they would the plague.

Bingo was especially popular with young married couples, concerned with furnishing their homes, and many of them had here laid in a supply of bedspreads, flatirons, pillows, and other accessories. The majority of the men who came merely smoked their pipes and discussed the church debt. For most of them it was an opportunity to look at other men’s wives in a way that would not “start something.” There were not so many of these skirt chasers, after all, but there were always some who waited at the rear of the hall for the evening to start so that they might pick out the group of women that appeared to offer the most diversion. There was Bidonnet, the sacristan, who possessed an Adam’s apple so enormous that when he took out his handkerchief one wondered what it was he was going to wipe. A frank, good-natured chap, always ready to unburden himself, he went about picking up bits of gossip here and there with a sacerdotal ardour. The elderly Mulots, who cared neither for parish parties nor for bingo, had gone to discuss politics and play cards at Bédarovitch’s place.

Many young women from other parishes were present this evening, for in addition to bingo there was a special attraction: the “Theatre of the Air” company was putting on a performance of La Buveuse de Larmes, and those who felt sentimentally inclined and were anxious to glut their appetite for passionate melodrama had turned out in considerable numbers to witness a piece which less emotional temperaments might find a little ridiculous. Denis had said that he was not interested in girls, but he had taken up a position at the edge of the sidewalk so that they could see him to full advantage — his greatest advantage being that they did not matter to him. Occasionally one of them would give him a wink, whereupon he would turn to his friends and say: “Did you see that?”

Then they all went upstairs for the parish hall was on the second floor, above the church. The edifice as a whole had the appearance of a warehouse to which a belfry had been added. The parish was a poor one, and they had not as yet been able to complete the building of this temple, which had nothing substantial about it except its foundations. At the door a group of urchins were waiting for a chance to slip in without paying. A little later, after the performance had started, they would be raining kicks upon the thin doors, which must have been made of special wood, since they had been withstanding this assault for some ten years now and still were capable of a vigorous resonance. These shameful carryings-on had given the Saint-Joseph parishioners a reputation for being badly brought up. The Soyeux, horrified by it all, blamed the Mulots. Finally, as a last resort, they had stationed a gendarme at the door; but he was a symbolic gendarme and an art lover. Passionately fond of the drama, he always sympathized with the villains and became so interested that he forgot his duties. At that point, Pritontin would come trotting out, and in winter time the small lads would throw snowballs at him.

Denis and the others now entered the hall. The ceilings were dirty and cobwebs hung from the corners of the room.

“Be quiet, you!” Pritontin warned them. He knew them well, for ever since they were children they had been misbehaving in the parish hall.

They gave him a haughty stare. “An usher!” The vendor of chandeliers opened his eyes at this. “Here are our tickets; look at them!”

“What’s back of all this?” muttered Pritontin, suspiciously. “Gonzague!” he called, “find them some seats.”

One of the Gonzagues came up, with a gesture of repugnance. There were a dozen of his kind there. They were known as “Gonzagues,” or “the curé’s pets,” and it was looked upon as a natural thing that they should have for their pastor a pious attachment that amounted to a kind of adoration. For the most part they were solemn-faced, serious-minded young men who no longer attended the seminary. People never said of them “They’ve finished the seminary,” but “They don’t go to the seminary anymore.” Denis insisted that they were too flabby to withstand the system of education. And Monsieur le Curé, who paid certain bills-rendered to cover their scholastic expenses, had made it plain to them that they were wasting his money, since they did not have it in them to become priests like Monsieur Bongrain nor colonizers like the famous curé Monsieur Labelle. This passion for the seminary, however, was soon extinguished in the young Soyeux. It was certain rumours going the rounds concerning the probable canonization of a young Saint-Joseph seminarist who had died under peculiar circumstances that had been responsible for the vogue.

The Gonzagues did not care for Boucher and his friends who, each in his own way, represented all that they had spoiled their lives by giving up. Denis and his kind were supremely clever at getting out of scrapes, whereas the spirit of submission, stigma of the schools, was spread all over the faces of these pious young men, like a rotten fruit.

When Jean indicated that they wished to be seated in the row behind the one reserved for the guests of honour where Lise sat, the usher glared at them but restrained himself. “Take those seats; they are just as good.”

“Come on! We’re sitting here,” announced Denis.

They made a great deal of noise as they sat down and the scandalized Soyeux began whispering among themselves. Flora Boucher was proud and Barloute Colin could see in the situation possibilities of getting herself talked about. The Gonzagues, who had decided that Lise was one of them, had gathered at the rear of the room and were talking matters over, nervously, as if they had discovered a plot. Hearing the commotion, Lise, like the little girls of the quarter, yielded to her curiosity and looked back to see what was going on. She had been well-reared; but her instruction in good manners had been purely theoretical, and so she instinctively followed the fashion of Saint-Sauveur before she had time to think what the manuals of etiquette had to say on the subject.

Then it was she caught sight of Denis. He did not take his seat at once but stood there arrogantly looking the crowd over. This, as Lise saw it, gave him an air of distinction; for she had acquired a false conception of what constituted greatness and expected it to be accompanied by a certain amount of disdain. From then on, she vainly sought an excuse for turning her head once more. Besides, there was that ribbon on her shoulder that would not stay in place and kept tickling her ear.

“Nervous?” her mother inquired fussily. Madame Lévesque was enjoying the jealousy of Eugénie Clichoteux, former queen of the young Soyeuses, for Lise —

Denis, who always became nervous when he felt a crowd behind him, was talking in a loud voice. “I don’t like your being so familiar with her,” he was saying.

“Sh-sh-sh! Not so loud!” Jean begged him. “She’s not going to give us away. You can see for yourself she’s not that kind.”

“We’re not so interesting when we have our faces washed,” observed Robert, who was a sensible lad.

Lise had recognized them, but it was Denis with his haughty air who fascinated her. The others, now that they were neat and well combed, lacked that originality she had at first discovered in them. To her romantic mind, heroes who felt the need of improving their appearance when they knew someone was watching them lost much of their worth. Jean may have believed that his handsome brown suit, the close-shaven down of his face, and his yellow tie with the green dots gave him an advantage, but for her all this merely stifled the true character she had found in his oil-streaked face; it conferred upon him a mediocre appearance, that of a vagabond in Sunday clothes. He was envious because she looked at Denis, but thought that she was trying to steal a glance at him out of the corner of her eye as women have a way of doing.

Upon the stage, the image of the future church, painted upon the wrinkled curtain, appeared about to fall in ruins before that edifice had been erected. There were a number of peepholes through which the actors’ noses could be seen protruding beneath the ravelled threads. The Deputy now arrived, followed by Gus Perrault, and the audience rose and applauded as Monsieur le Curé smilingly seated them at his side. The worthy priest then let his gaze wander over the room and bit his lip with satisfaction as he noted that it was filled to overflowing. In his eyes, it took on the aspect of a purse stuffed with money to the bursting point.

A few Soyeuses were still coming in. It was eight-thirty, and Jean-Paul Labrie, the stage manager, rapped three times with a hammer that belonged to his father, the carpenter. The sacristan’s eldest son, Jacques, being a privileged character, was in charge of the curtain. The noise died down with the lights and the Buveuse de Larmes made her appearance. In the first act, there were two dead and one wounded. Monsieur Pritontin, who was a great lover of dramatic art, deplored the fact that the blank cartridge, being too damp, had failed to go off. Those who prided themselves on being critics studied the moustaches to see how lifelike they were. Denis wished that he could have Messalina’s red mane, to set fire to. He liked to give the impression of being a violent lad, violence to him being a semblance of power.

“I’d wring her neck!” he said, in a voice that all could hear.

Madame Langevin, a big woman who sympathized with the “innocent” ones in the play, agreed with him and went him one better: “I’d do worse than that to her, so I would! I’d scratch her eyes out!”

By the time the first act drew to a close, all the terrifying words that had been spoken, the shrieks of vengeance, the scenes of sublime and tender affection, and the cry of “wicked adulteress!” had made as deep an impression upon the audience as a river upon a bed of clay. Handkerchiefs fluttered like distress signals, profound sighs came forth from tightened throats, eyes filled with tears, and hearts that life had hardened took their humid revenge.

“It’s too bad!” whimpered Barloute, mingling remorse with her tears. She thanked God she had been spared any suicides in her family.

“It’s a good thing we know it’s not true,” remarked Flora, reassuringly.

“Don’t all cry at once or you’ll drown that ‘drinker of tears,’” was Denis’s ironic comment.

“Such impudence!” cried Madame Langevin. She was indignant. “He can’t appreciate it, it’s too beautiful!”

The Deputy, who had a big belly, kept tapping it with his program as he surveyed Lise with a friendly gaze. “It would be very easy to find a place for her at Parliament House, Monsieur Lévesque.”

“I have no doubt of that, with your influence. But I prefer to keep her at home.”

“Oh,” said the Deputy, “I don’t have so much influence as people think. I like them to tell me that I do; but you can imagine what it is, with everyone expecting me to use it in his behalf. The influence is not equal to the affluence.”

They both laughed loudly at this witticism. Pinasse Charcot, commander of the parish guard and an enemy of Zépherin Lévesque, the honorary commandant, was watching the latter’s manoeuvres with a spiteful look in his eye. He was a Conservative and was anxious for the next elections to come around so that he could give his Deputy the boot. Grondin, a tavern keeper and a timid Liberal, was endeavouring to find out if he would be able to obtain a licence for the coming year. The Deputy reassured him.

“I have slain my last two lovers!” screamed Messalina on the stage.

With this terrible announcement the act ended, and a wave of indignation rolled up toward the curtain as it fell. Monsieur le Curé made a wry mouth. To his mind the piece was not an illustration of the divine grace of mercy. The author of the adaptation was an elderly ham who, after having had his fling at acting, had gone in for the manufacture of explosives. He now came forward to speak in humble terms of all the sleepless nights which he had spent upon his task. He had been in Hollywood ten years ago, following a dramatic debauch at the popular theatre of Saint-Sauveur where he had set four hundred and fifty good housewives to bawling, and he let it be inferred that he would be leaving for Paris the following week to receive his laurels from the French Academy. Denis pricked up his ears at this, for the mention of literature awakened an instinct within him. In his opinion, the fellow was a mediocre hack, and he shuddered at the thought of the honours that were coming to him.

Lise was nervously rolling a sheet of music in her hand. For her it was a great occasion. She had sung in the convent, but there had been no deputy to feast his eyes upon her and no lads like Denis Boucher to listen to her. She was vaguely yet distinctly conscious of the difference. The commandant Pinasse, a jolly fellow, was master of ceremonies. As Lise saw him going up on the stage, she had a clammy feeling.

“It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the daughter of our churchwarden and honorary commandant. She is going to warble for us ‘Les Figues —’” He bent over toward Lise: “What’s the name of it?”

“‘Les Filles de Cadiz.’”

“‘Les Figues de Cadice,’ ladies and gentlemen. And I may tell you that she is no Bolduc.”

The speaker’s stentorian voice filled Zépherin Lévesque with rage. He himself suffered from chronic laryngitis, which was a great handicap in competing with Pinasse for command of the guard. He made a grimace. How vulgar the fellow was! He could see a kind of vengeance in this inept announcement.

Eugénie Clichoteux, in the midst of other young Soyeuses, was chattering away. The group laughed discreetly at Pinasse’s little jest.

Very pale despite the fact that her face was burning, Lise came near stumbling as she mounted the steps to the stage. Her mother, wishing to make herself conspicuous, held her back for a moment and adjusted a fold of her dress. Then all was silence. Jean was listening to his own heart as it beat an accompaniment; it seemed to him that it rivalled in tempo the fingers of the guest organist at high mass. As for the Langevin twins, they would have liked to take this girl upon their shoulders and bear her in triumph. Had she not provided them with a hiding place? Her voice was one made for telling falsehoods to gendarmes.

That voice now rose crystal-clear, like a spring bubbling up in the sunlight. It was in turn coquettish, light and playful, sad, and then of a sudden, violent, detaching itself from the piano like water playing over moss-covered stones. It would run off in trills, only to dissolve in a charming musical lament. Like the swallow’s flight, it was now capricious, gently palpitating, and again would hover in the form of a sigh that seemed to be the echo of some magic song the angels sang. Denis’s face was frozen with surprise. He had come forward and taken Lise’s vacant chair. For him her beauty was lifted like a flag above this exhibition of the ridiculous. Jean noted the effect upon his friend and was proud that Denis was so interested; but when he saw him applauding frantically, he became uneasy, fearing he had already been dispossessed. It reminded him of the apples they stole that were just beginning to ripen.

“Whoopee!” Robert burst out, “what do you think of a girl like that hiding us from the cops?”

Jean’s mouth was dry. What would Denis have to say? He would not say anything, for he was planning to steal her, Jean was sure of it.

Barloute Colin thought it was all very beautiful, quite “classic,” for her Jean was in a reserved seat tonight and she must live up to him. Flora Boucher played the sophisticate. “You can tell she’s been well trained. Ah, the opera! Joseph used to take me often when I was a girl.”

“She seems to me a little stuck-up,” said Germaine Colin doubtfully. At family gatherings she sang the love songs she had heard on the radio, and the walls of her bedroom were covered with the photographs of popular singers. “If they don’t call her back for an encore, we can start the bingo game. Oh, momsy, I didn’t tell you, did I? That’s Jean’s girlfriend.” And she went on to relate the little adventure of that afternoon.

“Well,” replied Barloute proudly, “I always did say Jean would never marry a girl without a stitch to her back. But one so high up in the world as that!”

“Denis surely couldn’t have been there,” said Flora, with a note of assurance in her voice. She too, as a young mother (she regarded herself as young), was proud of her son and of his appeal to women, so long as he did not make use of it. The thought of such a thing was sufficient to make her heart beat faster, as if he had in reality made a masculine conquest.

“How are your lad’s hens coming along?” Bidonnet, with the usual expansive look on his face, wanted to know.

“They’re laying very well. Did you hear that Gus Perrault won the last lottery?”

“It’s always those that don’t need it,” complained Madame Langevin. Concerned with placing her sons in the Parliament Buildings, she was convinced that Flora had gone out of her way to flatter Perrault in order to prepare the ground for Denis, who was trained for office work.

“They tell me you’re going to open Gaston’s shop very soon?” inquired Barloute anxiously.

“Monday night we’re buying the lumber for the partition. Our place is so conveniently located and I know everybody. We’ll serve ice cream, soft drinks, and cigarettes — just light refreshments, you understand. He gave me such a fright again tonight. If I can only win!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the bingo game is starting! Have your tickets ready, and please don’t throw your beans on the floor!”

“Let’s go on back,” said Denis, who did not care for games of chance.

“We’d better stay here,” Jean protested uncertainly. “We’ll disturb people.”

“You’re becoming very polite all of a sudden,” said Robert with a smile. “Don’t worry, your seat’s reserved.”

Stationing themselves near the entrance, they began talking of Tit-Blanc’s scheme. Jean now understood why it was he had been sent to purchase a firecracker. He thought his father was doing a rash thing but excused him on the ground that Tit-Blanc was youthful in spirit. Moreover, his attention was somewhere else.

“Look,” he said, “the Gonzagues are going over to sit in our seats!”

“Shall we throw them out?” asked Jacques, who wished to show Lise what a fighter he was.

“No,” replied Denis, “let’s watch them. I have an idea that you’ll get further with her than they will.”

Colin looked at his friend closely to see if he was joking. Denis had an ironic smile, but he was laughing at the Gonzagues. Jean felt himself a man, one who could have all the women in the world if he liked. The truth was, these pious young men, in their efforts to make an impression upon a girl as well educated as Lise and one who sang so well, were comical enough with their mincing little gestures and mannerisms. Simperingly they passed their cigarettes, exchanged their bingo tickets, and indulged in all sorts of affectations, accompanied by cluckings of the tongue that ended in small bursts of laughter. Nearly all of them were haberdashery clerks and extremely conscious of the clothes they wore. The tallest and palest of the lot was bending over Madame Lévesque’s shoulder to inquire about the result of her last euchre party.

“Just look at that big lummox; he wants to have her!” Jean was indignant. He had a vision of himself giving the Gonzague a terrible thrashing, one that would take all the hide off him.

“Bingo, ladies and gentlemen. All tickets are sold.”

With forefinger and thumb raised, the women waited eagerly for their numbers to be called as they darted keen, threatening glances at the figures that were not upon their tickets. Flora Boucher, Madame Langevin, Féda, Germaine, some of the other housewives, and the sacristan — all hovered over the first row of five digits like beasts ready to pounce upon their prey. Those who had heart trouble or were more excitable had a hand to their bosom. The only sound was that made by their rapid breathing and the snapping of the beans used in indicating their numbers.

“Thirty-six, thirty-six,” called the announcer in his matter-of-fact voice.

It was an English circus that had brought bingo into fashion, at the last provincial fair. The womenfolk were always blaming the announcer for their bad luck and having him changed every week. The passion for gambling aroused the primitive in them, and toward the end of the game half-stifled exclamations were to be heard from some of them while others expressed themselves in animated and colourful language.

“Stir them up a bit, will you?” called out Chaton’s wife, who could tell a dirty story better than anybody in the parish. “It’s always the same numbers!”

“There are only seventy-five of them,” was the announcer’s tart reply.

“I don’t seem to have any luck,” remarked Madame Langevin, becoming discouraged.

“My numbers are all shot,’” said Germaine, resentfully.

“I had a good card three weeks ago,” Féda informed them.

Flora said nothing.

The sacristan was depressed. “I haven’t had a single number that came out. It’s disgusting!”

“Quiet! You can’t hear what he’s calling.”

“What luck!” Flora suddenly exclaimed. “Mon Dieu, I’ve got one! Seventy-two! O Saint-Anthony and Saint-Gaston, make it come out!”

“Did you get a good one, lady?” asked Bidonnet. “Is she a lucky woman! She always wins. But then, she follows my way of playing it.”

“Soixante-et-douze, seventy-two!” sang out the announcer.

“Bingo! Bingo!” shouted Madame Boucher triumphantly.

There was a great hubbub, with Flora insisting that she would take a hall lamp. Above the exclamations of chagrin on the part of those who saw their chances vanishing, the announcer’s voice was audible: “Spread them out! We’re going to check.”

“It would have to be her again!” said the jealous mother of the Langevin twins.

The Latruche sisters, who disliked Flora because her raffling of Gaston’s hens offered them competition in the sale of tickets from house to house, now came up to examine her numbers and make sure that she really was the winner. Flora herself was all smiles. She felt so kind and charitable at that moment. Then Féda, who was near-sighted, chanced to look down at her own number. Her eyes and mouth grew round with surprise.

“Stop!” she cried. “I have it, too! I had it before she did. I never noticed.”

“Bingo! Bingo!” screamed Germaine and Féda in concert.

“It’s a little late, Madame,” said the man who was doing the checking.

“What do you mean, a little late? Just because we’re not educated like some other people, do you think you can make fun of us? That prize belongs to me!”

“It’s no use, Madame Colin. It will do you no good to shout. The prize is mine and I’m going to keep it.” And Flora aggressively pressed the lamp to her bosom and at the same time thought of Gaston, to whom she had promised a dollar.

“It’s the first time I’ve won. Do you think I’m going to let you rob me of it? Never!”

“Will you take a necktie, Madame?”

“One worth thirty sous,” said Germaine disdainfully; for she had a sense of values.

The Latruche spinsters encouraged Féda with a glance. She now recalled Tit-Blanc’s insult and blew her nose, tearfully. “You’ll pay for that, Boucher,” she said.

“You can call me Madame. Yes, Madame. We didn’t get married in a hurry, Barloute.”

“I noticed you had them fast enough!” screamed Germaine.

Féda felt her fingers curling. “Policemen,” she said, “don’t come around talking to me for hours at a time.”

Pinasse Charcot with his commandant’s voice broke upon them.

“Quiet! Second round.”

The silence was unbroken. Asking Madame Langevin to watch her number for her, Flora hastened to Bédarovitch’s place to sell him the lamp before he closed. He would, as usual, offer a dollar for the grand prize and later resell it to the parish committee for $1.25, the regular price being $1.50. On the other hand, a number of housewives who frequented bingo parties and kept their prizes as trophies had parlours that resembled a lamp manufacturer’s warehouse. These lamps were never lighted but were displayed to visiting relatives from Montreal. The result was an epidemic of lamps consigned to perpetual darkness, amounting to a sort of strike against the light company.

The second act was about to begin, and the Gonzagues still occupied the seats they had usurped. The friends now came forward with Denis in the lead. He gave a resounding kick to the first chair in the row, and Lise, turning, caught sight of him and was at once thrilled and flustered. Pretending to be astonished, the Gonzagues hastily decamped. Then it was that Jean realized he was no longer a vendor of worms. His gestures were expressive of a new and delightful sense of power; he felt that he could sweep everything before him if he chose.

“Will you smoke, Denis?”

“No, thanks; I don’t use tobacco.”

The curtain went up. The Buveuse de Larmes was now to receive her punishment. Denis had a feeling of lassitude. Was he the jeering lad of a short while ago? How did the world really look to him, anyhow? He wished he were somewhere else, in some Eden where he knew no one and where there would be nothing to do but feel sorry for himself, or rather for his past. Nonchalantly, he contemplated the back of Lise’s white neck — how white it was! — As revealed in gleams and flashes between her dark, wavy curls. He imagined her as being a stranger to her sex, a woman in body only. The two of them would flee this filthy suburb, would go soaring up to the magnificent clouds above, where there would be no question of rising any higher. And then, in turn, he felt a great desire to have her fall in love with Jean and to render Jean wholly his debtor in this regard.

There are certain egoists whose need of approbation finds its first expression in the temptation to give all. Men excuse themselves for their meanness on the ground that it begins, often, as an act of tenderness, an emotion that grips them and, for a moment, takes them far from all the pettiness of life. It was this impulse to give generously what he looked upon as better than himself that Denis was experiencing. He was not thinking of Jean. The latter’s frank, submissive nature and instinctive good-heartedness along with a certain weakness of will had led Denis to adopt him as a friend. What he did not realize was that Jean was for him a sort of intellectual prop, strengthening the edifice of self-pride that he had built up. The Langevins were no more than spectators. He was indifferent to them. He did not even want their admiration any longer, did not care to astonish them. Of little worth in themselves, they served at best as listeners, and it was for this reason alone that he bestowed a little friendship upon them, holding them in reserve until his crowning success should be achieved.

“Are you coming?” he said, rising abruptly from his seat. “I’ve had enough of this stupidity!”

Jean was stunned. “Are you crazy? I’m staying till the end. You don’t pay twenty-five cents for nothing!”

“I understand!” said Denis contemptuously. Colin had a feeling that he was not equal to his newfound love.

“You die, atrocious Messalina!” cried the avenger as he plunged his dagger. “You who have left a trail of broken hearts and ruined lives!”

The audience applauded enthusiastically, deliriously. Denis noisily kicked over his chair and shook his fist at the crowd. “Imbeciles! Imbeciles, all of you” he shouted.

“What insolence! Quiet! Sit down!”

“Denis, listen to me!” his mother begged him.

The Gonzagues who were tiptoeing about the side of the room now gathered in a little group and ceased talking, appearing to be very intent upon the play as they saw Denis coming toward them threateningly. Almost running, he went down the aisle that led to the entrance. The silence of the outdoors, in which he hoped to find a refuge, was calling to him, and in his eyes was the feverish flame that one associates with heroic fugitives. A fierce joy welled up in him as he ran on — for he was running now — without looking back at the rows of faces foundering in mediocrity on either side of him. He all but knocked over the Abbé Trinchu and a couple of fawning churchwardens who were hanging around the priest. The doors banged behind him and, out of breath, he found himself alone with the sleeping city. Clenching his fists, he took a long, deep breath. The ramshackle houses, spangled with light, appeared to stretch away into the infinite, all the way to the mountains. Only the plaintive sound of automobile horns moaning in the distance came to disturb the retreat of the worker who had no car.

“How happy I am!” he exclaimed, running his hand through his hair.

He dropped down, a satisfied smile on his lips. His youth! What strength lay in that! The mediocrity he had just blotted out by his flight, these shanties stretched out at his feet and less ugly than usual in the darkness — they were but an unpleasant memory, the life of everyday in all its littleness. His restive, stubborn youth had suddenly given a thrust like a battering ram. Laying low the stupidity of men, it had plunged forward into silence, had become aerial, the master of its superior fate. Was not this the moment for him to be going away across the damp fields, taking the trees for ghosts and being afraid of them as when he was a child? A shadow came drifting over his shoulder. Lise? Yes, he would take her along. He would embrace her madly. But he would make sport of her — How then? What kind of madness was this, anyway?

He rose, as if to shake himself free. Was it, then, a woman who was at the bottom of this splendid mood of exaltation? No, no, he was not going to flounder there as the others did! Nervously, he walked through the deserted streets, telling himself over and over that this vision was but the accidental result of his overheated imagination. But those dark red lips of hers defied all bravado on his part; they made their way into his virgin thoughts, overthrowing all his pride, all his rancour, transforming them into a strange, unwonted thirst.

Deeply distressed, he wandered about on the sidewalks. There was the school where he had finished in the eighth year. He had been unwilling to continue his studies, believing that he had nothing more to learn. What remained was superfluous, the property of a caste of clever idlers. The sight of the school building depressed him, as did everything but the image of Lise. He made an inventory of his intellectual equipment and found nothing but cause for hope, a brilliant promise. Entering the house, he turned on the radio. He was trying to bring himself to love symphonic music. Slowly, his thoughts went back to Lise, and he was engaged in making all sorts of decisions, concessions, and compromises by way of deceiving himself when his reverie was interrupted by his father’s sharp-toned voice:

“Shut that off, I have to get up at six tomorrow morning!”